Talib Hussain 4/23/25 Talib Hussain 4/23/25

The Dark Never Travels Alone

Getting off track or maybe it's on track. Who fucking knows.

The stress of doomsday lives in my heart. I know it's a possibility but I also know that I can look out another window and sunshine is waiting to receive the gaze of my eyes. It's all perspective.

**MANASIAH AKPALIAIPIK - Screaming Faces, 1991**

Ask yourself, is it really gray outside? Is the future bleak? What data are you assessing that justifies a narrative that causes commotion in your heart? What's first, the emotions or the narrative? The feeling or the thought? It's hard to tell at times. It's that whole chicken and egg thing. What came first. It's so swift and fast, difficult to decipher the order of operations.

Sunshine is there. Darkness never travels alone. But it requires effort and awareness to change the direction of our lens, pointing the binoculars towards another horizon and suddenly you see the rainbow above.

This makes me reflect on the miracle of this moment. The sun. The sun shining down on this planet. I mean, how do we make sense of such a grand gesture from the divine? Names don't do it justice. It cannot be named, it can only be experienced with awareness, yet we will never experience the whole, simply bits and pieces when we take a moment to pause and remember.

Oof, what a trip of a fucking world we live in and I'm not talking about the world as in this planet, I'm referring to the little worlds we create within our minds and hold onto a pseudo truth, then we kill for this truth, we die for this truth.

Illusory certainty will be the death of humanity.

This brings a smile to my face. Fills my body with joy to remember. To look through another window.

Light. I can dwell in the dark.

She reminds me, we remind each other, there are other windows.

Talib Hussain 9/25/24 Talib Hussain 9/25/24

I AM

I AM, I AM, I AM.

This is what's in my mind, but I still don't know exactly what it means. There are many meditations around I AM. I'm open to understanding, but if somebody asked me about it, I wouldn't know what to say. Maybe when I say I AM, I'm saying that I am everything, or maybe it's just that I AM as you see me in this present moment. I'm simply just AM. There is nothing more, there is nothing less. I’m nothing more and nothing less than what you see right now.

I simply AM.

This brings me to presence. To be present. A part of my mind is wondering what we are going to do after this, even though it knows the routine. It knows we’ll use the washroom, shower, get ready, eat some food, and head to a cafe.

But it wonders and wanders.

It's focused on the next instead of the present. It’s always tugging at the mind, sometimes gently, sometimes more aggressively. It’s hope, hope that if we go out there, we will find her. We certainly won't find her in this 594-square-foot condo. Here, it is just me being. Just me I AMing.

Her.

Who is this mysterious her? Is it one person, or am I—this part that tugs at my mind—seeking an idea of her? Ideas are fleeting. Ideas are always changing. Ideas are the opposite of stable. Even if you catch an idea, it is just an idea, like a seed is just a seed.

Now, I am someone who has many ideas, but maybe I need to focus on the idea of one. Like I’m focused on the idea of one project. Focusing on one idea is opening up multiple paths within my heart and mind. Focusing on one idea is generating energy that flows in many directions while I’m just I AM'ing.

The energy that accompanies focus is the water that nurtures the seeds.

I know it's confusing. Which I am, am I? The little or the big? It’s hard to tell. I’m still figuring it out myself. But I’ll let you know as soon as I know exactly who I am.