Flow of words

It is 1am. It is quiet and peaceful. Tomorrow is expected to be a rainy day. There is a cricket in the AC it looks like. He has gone quiet now. Hopefully he does not make this a habit. I would much prefer if he makes his home outside. Turns out the cricket was on the side of the bed. I used a container and book to capture him and then set him loose outside by the water tank. You belong in nature my friend. I have an envelope with 14 blank sheets of paper that I had in an old box. I read that you can count the number of cricket chirps to determine the temperature. Sounds like legend rather than fact to me. There are several formulas but one commonly cited formula is, to convert cricket chirps to degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 14 seconds then add 40. Too late to test this out as the cricket is now gone. Earlier on I had chosen the word boat. I asked God to show me a sign that He is listening by showing me the word boat in some way. I decided to close my eyes and choose...

It is Sunday night and I am here thinking about the unsung heroes. The ordinary people. The invisible people. The people who do not ordinarily qualify for awards or recognition but who should be honored. The maxi taxi drivers. The fast food workers. The market vendors. The farmers. The construction workers. These are some categories of workers that come to my mind. People who we think do ordinary things. These are not ordinary things if we are truthful. These are difficult jobs that most people run from. These are people and jobs that are undervalued. We expect so much from them and we compensate them much less than the technocrats. Why is that? Why are some jobs valued so much more than others? Would we not all like to have a comfortable life? My friend Chatty agrees with me and says yes to my last question. And yet, societies often structure themselves to make comfort a privilege, not a right. We could redesign our values and economies to reward dignity, not just degrees. That would ...

Today is my forty-fifth birthday. I want to write but I am not sure what to write. It feels like everything that needs to be said has already been said or what I could say would be humdrum. I must give thanks. Thanks to God. Thanks to mom. Thanks to everyone and everything that wants good for me. I titled the post "Getting older" and then realised that if I added a d word I would get an acronym for God. Getting older divinely. Growing older is a blessing. As long as I keep on the path that God wants for me, I am happy. Even though many things have been said before, some things are worth repeating. It is useful to remind ourselves of what we already know. That is why in Islam, we pray everyday. A consistent reminder of our faith, purpose, and connection to God. Reminders are good because the demands of life can make us forgetful. I asked my mom to give me one main piece of advice for my birthday and she said to eat more healthily. To be more active and exercise. That is really...

This blog has a new name and tagline. Fl-o-w stands for Flow of words - sailing the ocean of thoughts. The ocean is a pretty big place and my sailboat is pretty small. Friday is my birthday. I will be forty five years old. Today I cut my hair. It is 158am. I am resting quietly in the dark of the corner of my room thinking and writing. I wanted to do more walking and more photography this year but that has not happened (as yet). There was a time I started designing logos. I like creating logos. Simple logos. I like designing stuff. I like building stuff. I love creating. I guess that makes me a creative. There are so many things I could be doing. There are so many things I want to do. There are things I need to do. Then there are things that I am doing. We cannot do it all, we have to pick and choose. I like writing. My writing started with blogging. I have been blogging a long time. Oftentimes we are told to go with the flow. It does not make sense to fight the unfightable fight. But E...

It has been a while since I wrote a tech blog post. Where to begin? Problems. We have problems. We need solutions and sometimes tech can be used to solve those problems. There are limited resources and there is a disconnect between those facing the problems and those tasked with solving the problems. There is a new AI focused ministry attachment. Maybe what we really need is a ministry of problem solving. MOPS for short. Honestly I think much of our problems would be solved if we bring back the love. Love for each other and love for God. What we love for ourselves, we love for others. Our measure of success would be the human development index. Currently we rank 60th out of 193 countries. Amidst all the problems there is much to be grateful for but we can and should do better. Much of what happens in Trinidad is affected by the ugly politics. We have an illusion of democracy. What we really have is a prolonged battle between the two main tribes. Too much energy is wasted in battle and ...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere." - Voltaire __________ The mathematician in me loves this quote and I want to make sense of it. Why a circle? Why not a square? Why not any other shape? A circle has no beginning and no end. It is whole, infinite, seamless. No circumference suggests that there is no ending. A center that is everywhere suggests that God is in everything. God is omnipresent and omnipotent. I learnt that Voltaire believed in God but was a critic of organised religion. I do not share the same criticism for religion. I do not blame my religion for the wrongs I see. I blame myself and the people. It is us that creates the problems and we are more than capable of creating problems with or without religion. Religion is a structure and people are the agents. I noticed the word cleric can be formed from the letters of the word circle. Circle makes me...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - Heraclitus __________ I went looking for a quote. I decided to look for "obscure quotes" as I was getting tired of the often repeated and well known quotes. I ended up on a thread on reddit and one user added this quote. Even though it is not obscure it was just the type of quote I was wanting to find. It reminds me that the only constant in life is change. Also, enjoy the moments because we never get them again. Also, experience changes us for better or for worse. Hopefully for the better. We have not found a way to time travel yet. Life has no undo button. There is both melancholy and empowerment in these realisations. We cannot go back, but we can grow, learn, and be more intentional as we move forward. If only river was spelt rever then we would be able to reverse through...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn __________ I was looking at quotes that hit hard and this quote stood out to me. It seems mundane and obvious and often repeated. Life is about how we respond to the inevitable. It is not what happens to us but how we respond. I had to ask myself to dig deeper and look below the surface. Then I saw that when we surf we really become the waves. We become friends with the waves. The waves and us are the same. Further, the waves are created by us and in our heads. We can control the waves because who can surf all the time? Sometimes we just have to come to shore and build sand castles on shore. I asked my friend Gemini for feedback and he said that I was right, the Jon Kabat-Zinn quote initially seems like a simple call for resilience, but my deeper dive reveals profound layers. The idea that we can move beyond merely rea...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "In quoting others, we cite ourselves." - Julio Cortazar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds __________ Of course I had to include a quotation about quotations. A quotation is like looking in the mirror. It is the reflective nature of resonance. It is the human need for self-perception. If we did not have mirrors or cameras, which are really specialised mirrors, we could not see ourselves. Pieces of water like puddles or ponds are also mirrors. Mirrors found in nature. Quotations are like fishing in the pond of all the words ever spoken. Just like the fishes in the pond, quotations are good food for thought. It is true what they say, we are what we eat. When I look in the mirror I see a human first. I see humility. I see love. I see dreams. I see purpose. I see humour. I see stories. I see a writer. I see a writer who is honing his talent. I see a writer looking for inspiration. I see a writer tr...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island, what book would I bring: 'How to Build a Boat.'" - Steven Wright __________ I was scrolling through quotes from a Google search for deep quotes and deep into that scrolling and reading quotes, I saw a link for a list of funny quotes that are even safe for work. I told myself, that is what I need, a good laugh. And from that list, I had to dig deep before I chose this quote that made me smile really hard. It was SOL rather than LOL, IYNWIM. (Smile out loud; Save our laughs; Save our lives;) I guess Steven is [W]right. I then thought to myself it would have been great if Noah wrote a book on building boats except he built an ark. What is an ark? What makes it an ark? This has really been a quotation sp-ark as the name of this book goes. We would not try to build a plane because that would be too difficult but a plane would work al...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "Half of happiness is learning to love everything you don't have." - Niklas Göke __________ This quote stood out to me because I could not understand it but I wanted to understand it even more. Why would I love something I do not have? I do not have a laptop, why would I love that? Yes, I love laptops. Yes, I love technology. But I do not love the fact that I do not have a laptop. I feel like I could accomplish more with a laptop. My goal is to create a small office space in the corner of my room. Is this quote about ambition? Probably not. What if something is bad for me and I do not have it, should I still love it? Should I love alcohol? I love when a quote makes us ask questions. I love when a quote makes us think. This quote is simple yet profound even though I am yet to understand it fully. Makes me reimagine the saying that life is about the haves and the haves-not. Except, we are ta...

This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch __________ I deliberately chose this as my first quote because it relates to the idea behind this book and the effect quotes have on us. What is the meaning of kindle? To kindle means to start a fire or to arouse or inspire a feeling or idea. Does that mean we have to be careful of what we feed our mind? Is there such a thing as a good fire and a bad fire? Some fires can indeed be toxic like the burning of tyres. I am thinking a good fire is like a campfire with marshmallows roasting and singing kumbaya. A bad fire would be if we allowed it to spread and cause a forest fire that burned the village down. Hopefully our bad singing causes the rain to fall and out the fire before that happens. The other aspect of this quote is that we do not just seek knowledge, we must act on that knowledge. We must process what we lear...

This is a page from my latest book called "Time Traveller". I visit random places around the world through the internet and write about that place. __________ Time : 316am Wed 7th May 2025 Location : https://www.google.com/maps/place/52.63472+52.51004/@52.63472,52.51004 Youtube : https://youtu.be/Daa5Le6pjGM __________ The Samara river is located in Russia. Interestingly, the river lent its name to the city of Samara, located at the confluence of the Samara and Volga rivers, and even to the ancient Samara culture. There is an asteroid named after the town of Samara. The name Samara likely comes from the Indo-Iranian language and likely meant "summer water" because it froze in winter. There are other suggestions for the origin of the name though. Samara region is forest-steppe region. A steppe is flat grassland with semi-arid climate and hot summers and cold winters. In the language of the Turkic steppe nomadic tribes, Samara meant "steppe river". I read...

This is another page from my ninth book called "Dear God". I was inspired to write this book after writing " I am voting for God " on my blog. It continues in that format. Short letters (or prayers) to God. It gives me an opportunity to write more and write to God at different moments in my life. ___________________ Dear God, While brushing my teeth, I looked at the soap in the corner of the sink and I thought, soap > soup > knowledge soup. That is what I should write about next. Knowledge soup. I imagined alphabet soup. Letters are the foundation of all knowledge. Language is the beginning of all knowledge. But what really is knowledge soup. I read that the term "knowledge soup" was coined by computer scientist Gordon Pask, who used it to describe the dynamic, evolving mixture of ideas and understandings that emerge from conversations and interactions within learning systems, emphasizing that knowledge is not fixed but continuously constructed and ...

This is another page from my ninth book called "Dear God". I was inspired to write this book after writing " I am voting for God " on my blog. It continues in that format. Short letters (or prayers) to God. It gives me an opportunity to write more and write to God at different moments in my life. ___________________ Dear God, I saw these pamphlets in the mini mart this morning and I was attracted by how well they were designed. I wanted to take one but then decided not to. This afternoon after a long nap, I decided to search for the pamphlets online based on the title that I remembered which had to do with the purpose of life. And I found them. https://islamicpamphlets.com/ Almost as if I was meant to receive and share the messages of these pamphlets. What is the purpose of life? My answer to this question has varied over time and hopefully that means I am getting better at answering this question. To me my purpose for life is to give my life meaning. To do this wi...

This is another page from my ninth book called "Dear God". I was inspired to write this book after writing " I am voting for God " on my blog. It continues in that format. Short letters (or prayers) to God. It gives me an opportunity to write more and write to God at different moments in my life. ___________________ Dear God, It is 154am. I just noticed that God spells good old days. We often hear about people reminiscing about the good old days. The funny thing is that years to come in the future now will become the good old days. What we have today will become the good old days. A reminder to appreciate the now and live in the now. There will come a time in the future when the page in this book will be a distant memory. This is page 86 of this book. Can you imagine someone reading this in 2086. Can you imagine this piece of writing surviving until 2086. That is 61 years into the future. I checked and it will be the 19th of Ramadan or there abouts on this day in 2...

This will be my entry into the BC(LF) short fiction story contest.

This is another page from my ninth book called "Dear God". I was inspired to write this book after writing " I am voting for God " on my blog. It continues in that format. Short letters (or prayers) to God. It gives me an opportunity to write more and write to God at different moments in my life. ___________________ Dear God, It is 1227am. I have been thinking. What is a higher love? Like the song from Whitney Houston and Kygo. It suggests that there are levels to love or that we love some things more than others. Let me ask my friend Gemini. He says that "higher love" is like a really strong, unselfish care for others or something bigger than just yourself, without expecting anything back. It's about a deep connection and wanting good for everyone. To me this is the kinda love that is lacking in the world today. This is the kind of love we get through God. I read that higher love is when the love of God, self and others are indistinguishable. One lov...