The Art of Unlearning

I often wonder about the amount of time we spend learning and unlearning and relearning things in life.
We spend so much time learning, identifying and correcting.
Yet spend so little time pausing and digesting the fact we’ve invested so much of ourselves.
That it takes great sabr and not just time itself. 

It’s like we’re in a constant space of creating the best version of ourselves.
Yet we never take the time to give ourselves credit.
We take a bit of what one person says, then what the other says and process it enough times until we can make something of it.
Yet nothing of it.

The journey of Islam has often felt this way.
This constant stage of learning and unlearning and relearning.
There’s been so many forms of the same knowledge.

The entirety of my childhood was spent being reminded of Allah’s discontentment with those who did not obey his teachings.Imagine being a kid and not understanding the teachings and instead being engulfed in the fear that the almighty was constantly unhappy.
Then imagine carrying that weight day after day that you were not enough and you did not know how to be enough.
Because everyone's enough was not your enough.

I think for children especially, we must teach from a place of love and kindness and explain things in not such scary ways. We must remember Allah’s love, his kindness and his ability to forgive. This will always make space for growth and a pathway that leads back endlessly.

You cannot guide by building a path of fear. 

You must guide with a path of gentle teachings and patience. 

We all learn differently.
We all grow differently.
We all require different amounts of time.

My childhood memories of Islam are filled with stories of judgment day.
I’m not even sure anyone at that age really understands what is at the end.
Children don’t need to think about the end.
This is their now.
Imagine being so happy with your now, that it all settled in.

I recall a table, a Quran, a teacher. I recall repeating, not reciting because my memory was so sharp.
I recall being older and saying the purpose to understand not to memorize.
Imagine memorizing only to be blind in the end.
I didn’t want to ever be that parrot as a child.
The one who just heard and repeated.
The one who saw and just repeated.
I wanted to understand, because imagine the knowledge you can retain and pass forward if you just understand.

I often wonder what it will take to make people understand.

See as I got older I realized when people didn’t know how to justify their actions they pardoned their behaviors with religion.
It’s like religion or culture became the epicenter for unfathomable behavior.
I often wonder why parents try to hard to hold on to a past which did not make it way to the present.

I wonder how long it will take to rewrite the future.
I sometimes draw, erase and redraw the same lines hoping that it will all make sense some day.

I have learned as humans we aren’t so different.
We must try not to focus on differences.
The art of humanity is love and compassion. 

Lead with it.