It’s my birthday, I don’t know how to feel about birthdays anymore, nowadays they are just another disappearing thought, remembered then stored away, waiting for another year to be added to the number file. As I lay in bed after spending the day fasting and praying, I might have also done a bit of crying, a few small cockroaches crawled across the blue, pattered bedsheet, a subtle reminder of where we are all going to end up, the grave, thinking to myself if the insects in the grave will be any nicer to me than the people in this world have been? 

Upon reflection I have come to the conclusion that this has been both the best, and the worst Ramadan I’ve had thus far; it is the most I’ve ever prayed, however, it has been the most isolated I’ve ever felt. This world can feel all too encapsulating, blinding our eyes and minds into thinking that this will last forever, Ramadan, a reminder that everything is temporary; hunger, pain, fear, anger, heartache, happiness, joy, all are but a fleeting neuronal connection that passes after due time, and if not, eventually through death, death, the only thing in life that’s guaranteed.

So how do we let go of the temporary? Peace? Something I’ve been searching for for quite some time now; I tried finding it in work, in people, through travel, I even journeyed to Mecca, however, I soon came to the realisation that peace isn’t meant to be found, but to be embodied, learned, emulated, lived through the meaning of it, be peace itself, that’s how you find it.