Reset

Hi :)

A lovely new friend pointed out something pretty funny recently which made me eat a smile and blush shyly. I'm embarrassed to not have realized I had a track record going of starting each blogpost with a "oh it's been so long since the last post.... oh, silly me... oh no!" Yea. Well at least 'twas nice to know someone found these blogs and liked what they read. Encouraging me to write more frequently? Now that's crazy talk, kidding. I promise to try harder, seriously! I know, I know, I sound like the boy who cried wolf with these mighty leaps of time between each blogpost not doing me any favors. Batting their eyes at me with raised eyebrows, tooootally not convinced. I get it, they have trust issues now, you all have trust issues on this now 26-year-old :P But this time.... hahaha hang on, stay with me. THIS TIME, something changed? Again? No seriously tho... Some batshit crazy stuff went down this last year which has like... Imagine you lived in a cozy hourglass since years, you have this huge desert full of shiny white sand, a nice sand house, a lovely sand wife, and sand children... and out of nowhere, BOOM! someone decided to flip the hourglass upside-down T_T No, I don't have a wife or child, nor do I live in an hourglass (since the H is silent, you use an instead of A, English is pretty cool and tricky right?), but you get the point.

A mental reset took place. I won't plunge into what went down this year, it's simply going to take forever, and I know some of you are dying for the tea on my little life but hold your horses. I'm not going to let this blogpost be about what happened, geez I can sense all the boo-ing from the future already. Shake it off Adeeb! This blogpost must only be about the outcome of [REDACTED]. Tots didn't write ten whole paragraphs explaining everything ;)

So, let's jump into it? Some super quick context for those of you I can still hear grumbling about in the back yammering "hOw dO wE uNdErStAnD cOnTeXt iF wE dOn'T kNoW wHaT cAuSeD iT? oOoH aHh..." Okay! Super TLDR: I had an amazing start to my master's program at DePaul. Fall Quarter? PERFECTO 4.0 GPA! I got comfortable ANIMATING and turns out I have a mad eye for timing??!! Such huge wins. I skilled up a bunch, made awesome new friends, survived winter in Chicago, beautiful snowstorms and what not. lots of magical stuff, lot of joy, and a whole lot of memories. Winter and Spring Quarter? welp gulp.... The skill-based developments and achievements never stopped, buuuut I... maaaybe might've made some decisions that taught me powerful lessons, unfortunately through a lot of pain, and that kinda sucked. The kinda pain that gets people depressed and this (Inset foul language) uninvited guest decided to stay with me for the first time in my life for a lovely short span of three weeks. Don't worry, I beat the shit out of it and kicked it out thanks to my optimism coming back online to save the day soon after the fallout. Yea, you probably guessed the stupid decisions I must've made. But I think, they were some of the dumbest yet best decisions I could've made. Those who know me well, know that I have had for some reason really low self-esteem and that I place my sense of worth in others. As someone who readily sacrifices himself trying to make everyone happy, I had to accept that I was also a people pleaser. NO MORE I TELL YOU! Well, almost. I am still testing this new me.

This world forced me to shed my old wings and grow new ones. This change was necessary, otherwise my spark, my light would've been snuffed out. This ain't some sob story, it's powerful real stuff! I allowed people to so unapologetically walk over me since years. Feeding me breadcrumbs, I kept trying to prove myself to people committed to misunderstanding me. "Oh, stab my innocent naive little heart and... Sigh." People who chose to judge me didn't really care about the truth; didn't want to fix anything... Then why did I bank so much faith and trust in them? I kept ramming my head against the problem believing "Good communication solves 99% of problems! I must be screwing up somewhere, where?" Mind you, I'm someone who's probably one of the best in the communication department, yet I kept failing? That hurt my ego at first. Being misunderstood despite taking every step in the right direction. Hurt (the pain in my voice as I read this again is bitter). I shed away ALL of my ego, ALL of my stubbornness, I became hyperaware and burnt myself trying not to mess up. My mind running on 100x sensitivity, all my empathy engines were fired up and catching fire. I had like ten firefighter squads running amok in the winding passageways of my brain praying an explosion doesn't stop them from returning home safe. I was miserable, beating myself over people who could not meet me at the level I operate at. Sounds harsh and egotistical? Well, I'm not sorry.

This world tried to turn my heart bitter and cold multiple times this year. I REFUSE! Never dull your light to seem less "intimidating" own your own fire without putting yourself on fire for others. I don't mean to upset anyone reading any of this, but some people in this world we live in today? I won't say anything, I've every reason to be so SO angry >:( and disappointed but... No! All this pain and misunderstanding was needed. Growth almost always lives on the other side of discomfort. At first, I ran away from it, scared, hating the hurt. I did go to therapy, not for therapy's sake but to figure out how to build walls to protect my inner child but believe me or not. After 2 months of meeting twice a month, my therapist laughs and tells me "Do you even want to schedule another appointment? It seems like you're someone who doesn't really need therapy." And she was right. I won't self-praise even tho I totally should. Sigh, after the therapy stuff I thought I figured out how to approach situations and people. But alas, there was yet one more painful and frustrating lesson waiting :) Straight to the point? The last piece of the puzzle unveiled itself. How to let go of my attachment to people and things in this world. Yuhhhh this guy just said some meta stuff?! Smack him. Seriously tho, hear me out. By this point I was so frustrated plus hurt from being misunderstood again of course, especially from someone I convinced myself wouldn't be so (insert mean stuff), sorry. I don't feel bad for trusting people the way I do, nor is it fair of me to be mad or abandon such people. Everybody is learning, everybody makes mistakes, hell half of the time the truth is that people really just don't know better or what to do in a situation. I made so many mistakes too! And that is where you're supposed to show up instead of running away! Acknowledge the faults, work on them because you care, that is how you build trust, right? Maturing was realizing that not everyone is capable of this yet, and that's okay. I'll never stop holding space for people even if they have growing to do. Too harsh >_<? But I did need to learn to pay attention and be ruthless about how I deserved to be treated. Establishing these boundaries, I thought I figured out how but clearly, I was wrong. Life tested me again; this time I knew what I needed to do and saw the telltale signs too but lacked the backbone to actually be brave enough to walk alone? Was I afraid to abandon another person who was mistreating me? I'm staring at this silly poster of the DePaul Blue Demon mascot pointing a finger at me. "Yeaaaahh! You know the truth man, you know what's up then what are you doing?" Sigh. By now I learnt how to sit with my pain and really pay attention. This is where the magic happened. I finally managed to build that iron fortress I was talking about, gleaming under the sun, and what's funny is that my inner child is the appointed general in command. "Whuhoho, wait what?" Yea, you read right.

Still with me? I know this post has become really looooooong, but here comes the fun part but also the part that'll make you think "Daymn, this guys really got some ego complex". If that's you, PLEASE go away, shooooo, I no longer wish to hold space for people like you. It's about damn time I started loving myself and stopped dying for others. Correction, stop dying for the ones who choose to continue misunderstanding me despite receiving some of the best comms in the whole wide world. Especially the ones who lack accountability and don't care to fix things. Especially the ones who desire perfection yet are so flawed themselves. Stop chasing unicorns in a world where they don't exist. Seriously, GROW UP (I find it so funny that today it is me who is screaming these words). There's so much beauty in imperfection, why are so many people blind to it? ISorry for the rant but know that this anger was alchemized into something brilliant.

Anyway, this the part which feels like that moment in films which forces that smile and evokes that tummy tingling sensation when the protagonist during his or her or their all-time low "ALL HOPE IS LOST" moment randomly finds that magical super sword capable of dicing up that ugly, towering hunk of stinky, rotting, ARGHHHH I so badly want to punch, monster responsible for destroying their - whatever was precious to them that made you root for the character in the first place. Ready? Turns out I had locked myself up and thrown the keys at some random strangers. Of course it got lost! How irresponsible of me. Ahhh so now I had this hard task of breaking my own chains without a key. And the only way I do that is by fully embracing and acknowledging my full potential because turns out... Taa-ta-ta-tata lottery machine sounds... People who operate on the level I do, people who have high levels of EQ, Metacognition, Creative Intelligence, Philosophical Depth, and Design Systems Thinking patterns etc. Yea, PHEW! A mouthful of fancy smanshy words, right? Well, people like me are very veryyyy rare apparently (like 1 - 0.3% of the population, crazy right?). Not saying that I have high IQ or anything I actually don't know plus I recently discovered that I might have some ADHD? I'm probably average but the combination of these specific ways my brain works is... different. So however annoying this is, maybe that's why it's been so hard for me to fit in without being misunderstood by so many people throughout my life, including family at times. And that's okay, maybe they are still figuring out how to operate at the level I previously assumed was normal? Maybe I am just processing life on hard mode with zero chill? Yes, my brain often gets fried, but I like it tho, I've a much greater sense of appreciation for the little things, the nuances. Err, this again sounds like I'm boasting, some of you are probably screaming "eLiTiSm!?!" I really don't wish to rub you this way. I am just finally embracing these gifts Allah has given me (I know, the next blog is going to be about how I found my way back to Islam this year) and stop being afraid of my own power, I guess? I mean hey, there's a lot of self-doubt still in the works here, still a work in progress, but I need to trust who I am and am becoming without fear of judgment. Sadly, this also means that I need to be brave enough to be okay walking alone since there's a very small percentage of people who appreciate or understand someone like me. Learning the hard way that I'm not for everyone SUCKS. Still with me?

Don't dwell on things you can't change, please focus on what you can. Ugh I'm in such a weird spot in life right now. On one hand, I'm grateful to have learnt and discovered so much but at the same time the weight of all that unraveling is finally sinking in as I write this post. You've ever felt that sigh after finally scaling that huge mountain you thought never had a peak? But after finally making it to the top, you turn your tired broken back around, only to sigh again, but this one is mixed with some different kind of magic "Did this guy just learn the definition of pride?". The journey I experienced this year sure was something. All this inner work, mentality shifting, and healing I have been doing over the last few months has been.... Monumental and quite exhausting. I think what I'm experiencing right now is emotional whiplash.

Listen, I've been very happy lately, like the kind of happiness which tingles from within. I'm excited to dream ahead of me again now that I am slowly trying to not be so afraid anymore. Slowly starting to trust myself more than what others think of me. The realization of my full potential if I remove the weights is making the corners of my mouth poise upwards hahaha. I chuckle as I type this too with something powerful resonating deep within in my heart... I am trembling. I can't accurately explain this feeling but whatever it is, it's powerful and heavy. I am learning to give up the final bit of resistance and let this take over fully as was meant to be. A sigh of relief the part of me that didn't know better is feeling from passing the torch to this far more matured version of me that maybe might be just a little too powerful xD

It's almost like I need to hella update my hardware to handle all this crazy new software. A new system which works hand in hand with all this learning. Embracing this kind of change is harder than most people give it credit for y'know. I finally understand and have a greater sense of appreciation for the word, healing. It's definitely not easy and if someone ever asks me to define what strength is. This just might be something I end up blurting about on some philosophical level. How do I explain this? I feel so alive yet so tired, scared and almost shell shocked all at once? Of course, grateful in many ways. I guess I just need to step aside and let whatever this is administer these changes in me.

But I wonder, is it normal to still be a little afraid? Can stuff like this press the pause button on your life for some time? I'm convinced I'm not yet fully realizing the value of what all is happening to me. It's beyond my understanding, beyond what my current system is capable of handling. I think taking deep breaths and allowing all this to unfold is probably the right thing to do. Feeling strangely humbled and in awe. I need to be responsible and allow all of this change to take root. No more running away, no more hiding. I finally learnt to embrace pain. Not like a masochist btw.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RESET.

And for those of you wondering what I've been up to this last year, don't worry, I plan to responsibly document and share everything notable (Concept art, animation, stories, gyming, Rocket League Esports yada yada) over the next few weeks or maybe... days? O.o Who am I kidding? I just hope what I think is going to happen, doesn't happen again lol. But there has been some pretty cool stuff that I can't wait to tell you all about!

Also, one last thing before this blog post meets its painfully long-awaited end. I'm taking a bold step to push myself out there through content creation in my own way. No, I don't want fame. I just hope to attract the right people into my life who don't want to misunderstand me. Who appreciate me without any filters. I'm done proving my worth, I finally trust who I am and have realized what I'm capable of. I'm someone capable of healing this world someday. Insha'Allah.

Thank you for reading :)

P.S. Here's a tiny invisible badge for reading this far. Wear it with pride :3