Life's A Journey

We traverse through this life we are living as a gift from Allah. It is a journey for each of us - a unique and very personal journey; one that touches upon the paths our lives travel. No two paths are the same and each one of us is living a personal experience with our life. 

This year has had me and those that I love and care for shuttling back and forth between East and West, moving between time and cultural zones in order to bridge gaps, leaving a trail of experience behind us. Last week I was in Yorkshire, this week I am in Abu Dhabi.

I have sensed change for some time now, and whilst I have often thought it wiser to allow myself time to explore my innermost thoughts within the safe sphere of myself, invariably there comes a time when we begin to outwardly express our apprehensions and hopes. 

I know that in this journey of life, we press on. Much more I will not say now, except to return to that very first post that I made here in which I considered life to be a journey and myself to be a traveller on that journey. With every step may I be guided by Allah. Ameen. That is my deepest desire.

"To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours is wisdom." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thou Art An Eagle

"Thou art an eagle, thou doest belong to the sky and not to the earth, stretch forth thy wings and fly." — Paul H Dunn

The months leading up to what would be a traditional summer break presented a series of minor challenges, a test of my ability to cope with change, disappointment, expectation and balancing family needs. In life many things change, and right now, I find myself, having side-stepped from the education advisory role that I'd had for the past couple of years, back into the classroom as the deliverer of excellence - once again, metaphorically speaking, at the chalk-face. Long term, I look in many different directions and seek the inevitable pursuit of my dreams and ambitions; the desire to complete my MA and to be like an eagle.

... Deep within, I wish to fly ... for now I roll ahead solo, but change awaits ...

A Short History ...

... of Nearly Everything

There's a page dedicated to the errata, so not everything you will read in Bill Bryson's book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything, is accurate, but the book is otherwise a very interesting document that charts the journey from the Big Bang to the Rise of Civilization.

Consider this quote taken from the book:

The Big Bang theory isn't about the bang itself but about what happened after the bang. Not long after, mind you. By doing a lot of maths and watching carefully what goes on in particle accelerators, scientists believe they can look back to 10^-43 seconds after the moment of creation when the universe was still so small that you would have needed a microscope to find it.

Scientists, thus can go back in time as far as one ten million trillion trillion trillionths of a second after the Big Bang took place (that is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds) after time began, before which there was nothing - no time, no universe, no matter. The rest of the book is an interesting story of numbers, figures, scientific biographies charting major discoveries, hurdles and theories of the rise of life on earth. One major consideration is how life is said to have appeared on Earth around 3.85 billion years ago.

Considering the Earth is generally considered to be 4.54 billion years old (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%) and the surface is said to have cooled around 3.9 billion years back, life appeared early.

I feel that I must mention that as a Muslim I strongly believe that ultimately Allah is all knowing and that what we put together as knowledge here is ever-changing and only a fraction of the truth. Bill Bryson himself notes that 99.9% of life that ever crossed the surface of this planet did not leave behind fossil evidence and whilst I think this is completely possible, how does anyone know, for example that this figure is 99.9%?

The book however got me thinking about a number of things, some of which I will return to in future posts, InshAllah.

Listen to the Bill Bryon interview here.