Faith and doubt go hand in hand

Poked around my very dead Facebook profile and found a note draft from 2011, titled "Favorite line from favorite book". Had to look it up to find out what book it was, turns out it's from the Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

"There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual". But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. 

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush."

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One of the things I really appreciate about the internet is how it's allowed me to look back on my past self to see both how much and how little I've changed. It's also given me a way to look back on my life and almost pinpoint a moment in time where I developed a principle to live by.

If I remember correctly, the first time I read Life of Pi was when I was around 16 or 17. Young enough to be a blank-ish slate, old enough to start understanding real principles and reflecting on how they apply to my life. The fact that I felt compelled enough by this excerpt to immortalize it online shows just how much I resonated with it 10 years ago. 

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"For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart."

I've held onto this for a long time, but it turns out that the small clearing of the heart is pretty difficult to keep clear. You tend to forget to clear it, and it gets crowded by doubts and temptations. You get distracted, your head is occupied with things that don't matter but those things take up space. You start prioritizing things like money, careers, possessions, achievements until the space in your heart gets crowded and God gets pushed aside sometimes. 

I often catch myself when my heart or head gets too crowded and I wonder whether I still have space left. I get scared that I've gone too far, I've crammed so many things in that space that I don't have any more to give which then leads to guilt. Am I worthy? Am I now that hopeless, evil creature I never wanted to become who doesn't have space for God any more? Have I gone too far? Is it too late? 

The thing is, this catching myself when I feel too crowded - this has happened so often that it has become a cycle. A constant ebb and flow between faith and doubt. It's happened so often that I'm inclined to believe that this is just how it is. Doubt and faith go hand in hand but faith needs to be nurtured, developed and grown over time. Every cycle, something different happens but the same principles and faith bring me back up, although in different ways. I can only hope that as time goes by, I'll keep proving to myself that faith is what picks me back up again and again, and each time it'll come back stronger until one day, it'll squash the doubts and I'll be able to live the rest of my life in that faith. The clearing in my heart will grow so vast, wide and powerful that all the distractions that have crowded my head won't get the chance to take up space again. 

Halted time

It's 2020 and the world is in the middle of a pandemic with no vaccine available, leaving something called 'social distancing' as the best combative measure for now. The entire globe has been at a standstill for about a month now including Malaysia.

With social distancing, public events are cancelled indefinitely, public spaces are closed, businesses and schools are shut down, restaurants and bars are not allowing customers to dine in, roads are empty. Everyone is shut into their homes until further notice to prevent the virus from spreading from person to person.

I've been at home since March 18th, not leaving unless it's to buy groceries which is on average once every fortnight.

Since being shut in, time has sort of blurred. I wake up late in the day and only fall asleep deep in the night. Weekdays and weekends have almost no distinction between themselves. Most of my work is accomplished after sundown.

Earlier in the year, I wrote about the tangibility of time - of having meaning assigned to days, dates, months, years, and being able to count the passage of time. How hopeless and exhausted I would be if I truly felt that every day were the same, with no end or beginning in sight. How strange it is that the world has given me exactly that.

With everything at a standstill, my days are almost always the same. Time feels frozen when nothing in your environment changes. The calendar says the world has been in this state for around a month and yet, I feel like I have been living the same day over and over again with no foreseeable end or beginning. I could close my eyes right this instant and I will see these same walls when I open them, right up until I close them again. When I glance at the date and time, there is a sense of disbelief.

"It's only Tuesday?"
"It's already Tuesday?"

My perception of time no longer matches its passage. I am not moving with time, I am stuck with time.