So just over 2 weeks ago, the world didn't end as predicted. I have to say it was actually slightly disappointing.
Although, there was supposed to be a thing where if the world DID end, then there would be about 159 days of hell on earth. I have to say, sometimes when I am in work it actually does feel like the world did end and that I am in hell. Oh well, another 143 days of that to go.
It did make me laugh to read that thousands of people gave away their possesions in an act of goodwill hoping to be part of the 2% of people that the preacher Harold Camping who gave us this prediction said would get into heaven. These people would be "eternally alive" though I am sure that a lot of people would argue that this would be hell in itself. Some people quit their jobs to become "ambassadors" to go driving around to declare to everyone that "The end of the world is nigh"
Now before this prediction was made, I even asked the question itself whether the world was going to end soon but I didn't do anything different and wasn't worried that it might actually happen. It seems like these kind of predictions happen when there are times of uncertainty and when there is a lot of crisis in the world. Though major occurrences have happened, these kind of things seem to happen all the time.
I saw an amazing episode of The Simpsons (strangely, I've only ever seen this episode once) where after watching a film, Homer Simpson believes that the rapture is coming. He then starts to gather books to get more information (one book being "The rapture for dummies") and then goes on TV to spread the word. He quotes a message from the bible. A message saying that before the rapture happens "the stars will fall to the earth". Later, a blimp that is filled with celebrities, has an accident and causes the "stars" on board to fall to the earth. So of course, people believe him and he gets on a bus with them all and goes to Springfield Mesa. Is the rapture going to happen??.....................No. Everyone in town then gets annoyed and go back home, a few taking the mickey out of Homer who goes home himself and then realises that he miscalculated and that the rapture is in 30 minutes. Nobody believes him so he ends up going alone to Springfield Mesa and then the rapture actually does occur. After entering heaven and getting a personal tour, he asks what happened to his family and sees that there is hell on earth and his family are burning. So after having a natter with God who denies Homers' request to save his family, Homer ironically starts to raise hell in heaven. God then decides to make a deal with him and telle him that He will turn back time and put off the rapture. So Homer gets sent back to earth and then you see him rushing to find his favourite place to see if it is still there. It is. He goes into his local tavern and quotes "this is Heaven".
So the world not ending has given me the chance to do a list that I thought of just after my birthday over 2 months ago. I'm hoping to do a list that I wrote of "30 things to do before I am 30" in a bid to improve my life and also to make me feel better about myself. I am going to start another blog that will be me doing the things on the list-like a diary or something along those lines. I will post the link at the end of this post soon when I have started it.
It'll be just my luck that I'll be halfway through the list and then the rapture will occur.
Friday, 3 June 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
Purifying the soul
When you are young, you have dreams of what you want to be when you grow up. Be it a rock star, an actor, a doctor, an astronaut, a footballer or a plumber (money is supposed to be good in plumbing). But as we grow up, things tend to happen where you just kind of lose your direction and end up doing something that isn't even related to what you wanted to do in the first place. Not to everyone-just most people. Why would this be? Probably because you slowly start realising how difficult it is to achieve those dreams and then that's when life can start getting to you.
There is always someone-at least someone who will always tell you that what you're doing is wrong. In my case, it was most of my family, the careers teacher in school and random strangers that couldn't care less about their own lives nevermind someone elses'.
When I left school, all I wanted to do was play my guitar. I applied for the music course at the closest college there was to me. They rejected me as I was so bad on the guitar-I didn't even know what I was doing when I auditioned, I just thought, "I have a guitar, I'll get through". I ended up doing a BTEC 1st course in which I did Drama, Music and Dance-I couldn't dance to save my life and ended up avoiding as many of those classes as I could. Drama wise, I realised that I happened to be very good at it and later chose it as my main course figuring that I could always play my guitar at home and also hated the theory side of music. I stayed in college for 5 years, knowing that once I left, I would get a "normal" job and didn't want my ambitions of becoming an actor/musician fade. Also, as much as the people doing Performing Arts annoyed me, I still had a little respect for most them in some ways. The fact that they were performing artists-not just regular working stiffs that were just doing any jobs they could get-yet. Even though it is really difficult to get a job these days with the way the current economy is, when you do get a job, it is really easy to get used to it and go from one job to the next, plodding along. They had ambitions like me too and I suppose that is one thing I could connect with at the time-but in every other way, I really disliked most of them. They were all so needlessly loud and annoying. I suppose the majority of Performing Arts students would be wouldn't they??
Anyway, it seems the older most people get, the less enthusiastic about life they also get. You can almost physically see the soul being drained from some people as the days go by. I am going to try and tell you that this shouldn't be the case.
First of all, I don't agree with the saying "Life begins at 40". It really doesn't. It begins the second you were born. You're not in control of it at first of course, but as you grow up, you begin to make decisions in your life. A lot of them will be wrong and this is a good thing as it is all part of a learning experience. The only thing I find people (including myself) doing is making the same mistakes.
Also, I find that people end up getting into relationships. Whether they really like the person or not, it is something to do with their lives. Sometimes people just kid themselves that the person they are with is the one. Forgetting that they haven't even met 99.9 % of the population. There is a whole world out there to explore.
I suppose that every decision you make is related to how you have lived your life, your upbringing and the way you are currently feeling. For example, some people don't know why they are racist. They will just hate others and not know why. But I think that it must be deeper than that and that maybe they had a bad experience or read/heard that somebody else had a bad experience of that particular race/colour/creed and maybe subconsciously they keep that stored for the rest of their lives. Might sound a bit crazy but it could be a possibility but this can all change.
A lot of people seem to spend their lives moaning about how they want to change certain aspect of their lives or moaning about their partners, jobs etc but not many people actually do something about it to change it all. So why moan?
Do things to make your life better. Your life is in your hands, the decisions you make now don't have to be related to the past in any way.
Inspire people. Be inspired yourself.
There is always someone-at least someone who will always tell you that what you're doing is wrong. In my case, it was most of my family, the careers teacher in school and random strangers that couldn't care less about their own lives nevermind someone elses'.
When I left school, all I wanted to do was play my guitar. I applied for the music course at the closest college there was to me. They rejected me as I was so bad on the guitar-I didn't even know what I was doing when I auditioned, I just thought, "I have a guitar, I'll get through". I ended up doing a BTEC 1st course in which I did Drama, Music and Dance-I couldn't dance to save my life and ended up avoiding as many of those classes as I could. Drama wise, I realised that I happened to be very good at it and later chose it as my main course figuring that I could always play my guitar at home and also hated the theory side of music. I stayed in college for 5 years, knowing that once I left, I would get a "normal" job and didn't want my ambitions of becoming an actor/musician fade. Also, as much as the people doing Performing Arts annoyed me, I still had a little respect for most them in some ways. The fact that they were performing artists-not just regular working stiffs that were just doing any jobs they could get-yet. Even though it is really difficult to get a job these days with the way the current economy is, when you do get a job, it is really easy to get used to it and go from one job to the next, plodding along. They had ambitions like me too and I suppose that is one thing I could connect with at the time-but in every other way, I really disliked most of them. They were all so needlessly loud and annoying. I suppose the majority of Performing Arts students would be wouldn't they??
Anyway, it seems the older most people get, the less enthusiastic about life they also get. You can almost physically see the soul being drained from some people as the days go by. I am going to try and tell you that this shouldn't be the case.
First of all, I don't agree with the saying "Life begins at 40". It really doesn't. It begins the second you were born. You're not in control of it at first of course, but as you grow up, you begin to make decisions in your life. A lot of them will be wrong and this is a good thing as it is all part of a learning experience. The only thing I find people (including myself) doing is making the same mistakes.
Also, I find that people end up getting into relationships. Whether they really like the person or not, it is something to do with their lives. Sometimes people just kid themselves that the person they are with is the one. Forgetting that they haven't even met 99.9 % of the population. There is a whole world out there to explore.
I suppose that every decision you make is related to how you have lived your life, your upbringing and the way you are currently feeling. For example, some people don't know why they are racist. They will just hate others and not know why. But I think that it must be deeper than that and that maybe they had a bad experience or read/heard that somebody else had a bad experience of that particular race/colour/creed and maybe subconsciously they keep that stored for the rest of their lives. Might sound a bit crazy but it could be a possibility but this can all change.
A lot of people seem to spend their lives moaning about how they want to change certain aspect of their lives or moaning about their partners, jobs etc but not many people actually do something about it to change it all. So why moan?
Do things to make your life better. Your life is in your hands, the decisions you make now don't have to be related to the past in any way.
Inspire people. Be inspired yourself.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Sluts, Pimps and Music
It's common knowledge to the people that are close to me that on most days, I really can't stand getting the bus to work. A lot of the times they are dirty and messy and while I can put up with this, it is mostly the people that are on it that annoy the hell out of me. The people who have their ipods, mp3 players and once someone actually bought a full blown stereo on the bus and had it on VERY loud. Bus drivers don't care and as much as I believe in self expression, it is not the way to go with certain music.
I was sat towards the back of the but the other day and a couple of girls were singing along to a song by Jesse J. It's called "Do it like a dude" and some of the lyrics these girls (they were about 14 years of age) were singing were "Rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin' money like a pimp, My B I T C H's on my dick like this, Dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty sucker, You think I can't get her like you, you motherfucker."
What on Earth??
It reminded me a few years ago when a pop group called "The black eyed peas" had a song out called "My humps" and I remember then too that 2 girls were singing to this with some of the lyrics being "My humps, my humps (repeated a few times), my lovely lady lumps." These girls were also about 14 years old at the time-if that. Their humps weren't even fully grown as of yet.
I see a countless number of newspapers and magazines with pictures of whores like Rhianna and Katy Perry along with the ones mentioned above as well as others sexualising music and totally degrading the word "music". Everybody, even these musical "artists" know that the record companies are mostly targeting young audiences with pornographic lyrics, images and videos to simply make money. Rhianna made it onto the cover of Vogue magazine. Why?? Because of money. She wrote a song with lyrics saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me". This is coming from a woman who was beat up by her ex boyfriend.
I really wish music was just music and not people whoring themselves.
A lot of the children and very young adults that get drawn into this know very little about sex (or music) as much as they might pretend to know. To some, all they know is that the song is rude and they get their jollies by singing it aloud because they know the words are prohibited. Girls will dress up as their idols whilst still at a very vunerable age and this kind of thing can just be plain dangerous. Girls will act like sex objects and then guys will treat them like sex objects. I have seen girls wear tops that say "Slut" and "Whore" on them. Do they really want to be known as these words??
So who is to blame for all this?? Parents, the music industry, the artists themselves or just society in general?? Kids aren't even kids anymore now. They are growing up too fast with younger and younger people having sex and making babies. Young girls worrying about being overweight and impressing the boys by wearing make up from primary school age. Boys themselves not really caring about anything but bragging about how many girls they have slept with.
Why? What has actually happened?
I was sat towards the back of the but the other day and a couple of girls were singing along to a song by Jesse J. It's called "Do it like a dude" and some of the lyrics these girls (they were about 14 years of age) were singing were "Rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin' money like a pimp, My B I T C H's on my dick like this, Dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty sucker, You think I can't get her like you, you motherfucker."
What on Earth??
It reminded me a few years ago when a pop group called "The black eyed peas" had a song out called "My humps" and I remember then too that 2 girls were singing to this with some of the lyrics being "My humps, my humps (repeated a few times), my lovely lady lumps." These girls were also about 14 years old at the time-if that. Their humps weren't even fully grown as of yet.
I see a countless number of newspapers and magazines with pictures of whores like Rhianna and Katy Perry along with the ones mentioned above as well as others sexualising music and totally degrading the word "music". Everybody, even these musical "artists" know that the record companies are mostly targeting young audiences with pornographic lyrics, images and videos to simply make money. Rhianna made it onto the cover of Vogue magazine. Why?? Because of money. She wrote a song with lyrics saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me". This is coming from a woman who was beat up by her ex boyfriend.
I really wish music was just music and not people whoring themselves.
A lot of the children and very young adults that get drawn into this know very little about sex (or music) as much as they might pretend to know. To some, all they know is that the song is rude and they get their jollies by singing it aloud because they know the words are prohibited. Girls will dress up as their idols whilst still at a very vunerable age and this kind of thing can just be plain dangerous. Girls will act like sex objects and then guys will treat them like sex objects. I have seen girls wear tops that say "Slut" and "Whore" on them. Do they really want to be known as these words??
So who is to blame for all this?? Parents, the music industry, the artists themselves or just society in general?? Kids aren't even kids anymore now. They are growing up too fast with younger and younger people having sex and making babies. Young girls worrying about being overweight and impressing the boys by wearing make up from primary school age. Boys themselves not really caring about anything but bragging about how many girls they have slept with.
Why? What has actually happened?
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Congratulations India
The 2nd of April 2011 was probably the greatest sporting day in the history of my life. It was the cricket world cup final (the tournament being held in India), along with a list of premier league matches.
The final was between India and Sri Lanka, both deservedly in the final. On the way, India beat the world champions Australia in the quarter finals, they then went on to beat arch-enemies Pakistan who I don't think should have even been allowed to enter the competition in the first place after 3 of their players were involved in a huge betting scam a few months ago. But it was brilliant when the captain of Pakistan had tears in his eyes when they lost. Brilliant. Even though the manager of the Pakistan team had said prior to the game "We have come here to play cricket. This is not a war field or anything". Who was he kidding?? It's amazing that people can settle scores through the spirit of competition, but this game was more than just a competition. Ask any Indian.
And then India beat Sri Lanka in an amazing final which could've swung both ways. The semi final and the final each had over billion people watching! There was no 100th century for Sachin Tendulkar. He only made 18 runs before he got caught out, I have never seen absolute silence in a stadium before like that. India were 0 runs for 1 wicket and then 31 for 2 wickets and were chasing a total of 270 and it looked a lost cause. At the same time Manchester United were down at half-time 2-0 to West Ham and that also looked a lost cause. Then in an amazing few hours, everything changed. United ended up winning 4-2 taking one more step closer to a record 19th league title and India won the world cup!
The scenes after the game were unbelievable. Some newspapers even said that "it was the biggest party on the planet". The captain of India, Mahendra Singh Dhoni put himself up in the batting order and scored 91 runs in an amazing innings, Yuvraj Singh got the man of the tournament for some amazing batting, bowling and fielding. The final was supposed to be all about Tendulkar in his home town, winning the world cup in front of his people. Although he didn't play too well, he was carried around the stadium in a lap of honour by his teammates with batsman Virat Kohli summing up the feelings of a billion Indians saying "He's carried the burden of the nation for 21 years so it's about time that we carried him on our shoulders"
What a fitting ending.
The final was between India and Sri Lanka, both deservedly in the final. On the way, India beat the world champions Australia in the quarter finals, they then went on to beat arch-enemies Pakistan who I don't think should have even been allowed to enter the competition in the first place after 3 of their players were involved in a huge betting scam a few months ago. But it was brilliant when the captain of Pakistan had tears in his eyes when they lost. Brilliant. Even though the manager of the Pakistan team had said prior to the game "We have come here to play cricket. This is not a war field or anything". Who was he kidding?? It's amazing that people can settle scores through the spirit of competition, but this game was more than just a competition. Ask any Indian.
And then India beat Sri Lanka in an amazing final which could've swung both ways. The semi final and the final each had over billion people watching! There was no 100th century for Sachin Tendulkar. He only made 18 runs before he got caught out, I have never seen absolute silence in a stadium before like that. India were 0 runs for 1 wicket and then 31 for 2 wickets and were chasing a total of 270 and it looked a lost cause. At the same time Manchester United were down at half-time 2-0 to West Ham and that also looked a lost cause. Then in an amazing few hours, everything changed. United ended up winning 4-2 taking one more step closer to a record 19th league title and India won the world cup!
The scenes after the game were unbelievable. Some newspapers even said that "it was the biggest party on the planet". The captain of India, Mahendra Singh Dhoni put himself up in the batting order and scored 91 runs in an amazing innings, Yuvraj Singh got the man of the tournament for some amazing batting, bowling and fielding. The final was supposed to be all about Tendulkar in his home town, winning the world cup in front of his people. Although he didn't play too well, he was carried around the stadium in a lap of honour by his teammates with batsman Virat Kohli summing up the feelings of a billion Indians saying "He's carried the burden of the nation for 21 years so it's about time that we carried him on our shoulders"
What a fitting ending.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Is the end of the world nigh?
Too many things have happened recently where this question has to be asked. A few weeks ago I was actually saying this to people.
After the devastation that had just happened in Japan. A town just completely wiped out by a tsunami. About 10,000 people missing at least, all presumed dead. It came from out of nowhere. The buildings were turned to rubble and were being washed away like nothing. Like is was the deck of a ship. There have been too many natural disasters recently-as well as people constantly fighting each other. It does make you wonder.
In recent times, prior to the tsunami in Japan, there was the cyclone, floods and bush fires in Australia, the earthquake in Haiti, the heatwave in Russia, the floods and mudslides in Brazil, the Sichuan earthquake in China and the earthquake that happened in Pakistan.
All these have happened within the last 2 years.
Along with all these, all the recent rioting that has happened in Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen as well as other places too, the Tunisian revolution included . People are just fighting each other over crazy reasons. Instead of helping the less fortunate, people choose to waste their time and energy fighting. Unfortunately this has always been the case, not just now. But still-people could choose to change. I read somewhere that if everyone who worked in the world gave 10% of their monthly wage to charity then it could wipe out world hunger. Just 10%. It makes it sound so easy to do. Will people ever do it?? Of course they won't.
A lot of people are also saying that it could be the end of the world soon. A lot of people are turning to prayer in the hope that something will happen. So if there is a God-why is he/she letting all this bad stuff happen??
I read an amazing comic book/graphic novel called Fallen Angel. I won't go into the full story of it (I recommend that you should read it from the beginning for yourself), but there was one bit I read which was about God and it said that God wants to die. That humanity was intended to be Gods' crowning achievement and that He was prepared to move on after it's creation. But constant prayers from people on Earth prevent him from being able to do this as they keep on hounding him. So throughout time God keeps on sending natural disasters to Earth in the hope that the people will stop believing in Him and then He can pass.-I bet nobody that hasn't read this comic would have had this take on God. Depending on what you believe-it is either blasphemous or it makes a lot of sense.
I don't know if there is a God or there isn't. I don't know if the end of the world is coming soon or not. What I do know is that to a lot of people, tragedies such like the tsunami in Japan won't matter. People will still go on fighting wars, killing people, logging onto facebook to talk to their "friends" and carry on living their lives with their pathetic priorities when there are less fortunate people out there who are in desperate need of help.
After the devastation that had just happened in Japan. A town just completely wiped out by a tsunami. About 10,000 people missing at least, all presumed dead. It came from out of nowhere. The buildings were turned to rubble and were being washed away like nothing. Like is was the deck of a ship. There have been too many natural disasters recently-as well as people constantly fighting each other. It does make you wonder.
In recent times, prior to the tsunami in Japan, there was the cyclone, floods and bush fires in Australia, the earthquake in Haiti, the heatwave in Russia, the floods and mudslides in Brazil, the Sichuan earthquake in China and the earthquake that happened in Pakistan.
All these have happened within the last 2 years.
Along with all these, all the recent rioting that has happened in Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen as well as other places too, the Tunisian revolution included . People are just fighting each other over crazy reasons. Instead of helping the less fortunate, people choose to waste their time and energy fighting. Unfortunately this has always been the case, not just now. But still-people could choose to change. I read somewhere that if everyone who worked in the world gave 10% of their monthly wage to charity then it could wipe out world hunger. Just 10%. It makes it sound so easy to do. Will people ever do it?? Of course they won't.
A lot of people are also saying that it could be the end of the world soon. A lot of people are turning to prayer in the hope that something will happen. So if there is a God-why is he/she letting all this bad stuff happen??
I read an amazing comic book/graphic novel called Fallen Angel. I won't go into the full story of it (I recommend that you should read it from the beginning for yourself), but there was one bit I read which was about God and it said that God wants to die. That humanity was intended to be Gods' crowning achievement and that He was prepared to move on after it's creation. But constant prayers from people on Earth prevent him from being able to do this as they keep on hounding him. So throughout time God keeps on sending natural disasters to Earth in the hope that the people will stop believing in Him and then He can pass.-I bet nobody that hasn't read this comic would have had this take on God. Depending on what you believe-it is either blasphemous or it makes a lot of sense.
I don't know if there is a God or there isn't. I don't know if the end of the world is coming soon or not. What I do know is that to a lot of people, tragedies such like the tsunami in Japan won't matter. People will still go on fighting wars, killing people, logging onto facebook to talk to their "friends" and carry on living their lives with their pathetic priorities when there are less fortunate people out there who are in desperate need of help.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
30* of the stupidest things people have said to me
*Originally, it was going to be 10, but too many people are stupid and ignorant.
The following in no particular order, is a list of 30 of the stupidest things (you probably guessed from the title) that people have said to me. A lot of them have been said to me from different people on more than one occasion and most of them are questions:-
The following in no particular order, is a list of 30 of the stupidest things (you probably guessed from the title) that people have said to me. A lot of them have been said to me from different people on more than one occasion and most of them are questions:-
- Are you going to have an arranged marriage?
- Isn't it against your religion to eat meat?
- It's not like I'm racist, I've been out with a coloured guy before.
- You're Pakistani/Muslim aren't you?
- Being Indian and Pakistani are the same thing aren't they?
- Isn't it against your religion to work in a pub?
- Is your surname poppadom? (My reply to this was "Is your surname 'dirty Ashton slag'?")
- Does your beard grow like that or do you use a razor?
- If you got married to a white girl and had kids, what would your kids be?
- Do you always eat Indian food or do you sometimes eat normal food?
- You could play as Batman-The Bitter Black Man.
- Do you celebrate Eid?
- Hello M-M-..Mark (Someone whose brain capicity was so low that they couldn't take in new words)
- Why aren't you fasting?
- Do you speak Indian?
- You're weird because you don't have a facebook.
- You're weird because you don't like big brother.
- You're weird because you don't like Katy Perry.
- If your name isn't Mustapha, then what is it?
- Where do you come from?
- I wouldn't treat you differently just because you're Asian. You're just like all of us.
- You must like Bollywood films.
- You're a Goth.
- How many Gods do you have?
- Do you believe in Allah?
- So, do you eat Halal meat?
- Do your parents let you drink?
- It must be great being you-you get to eat curry all the time.
- Why are you here? This is a pub.
- I love you.
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