How can we miss someone before we miss them?

It’s a question we fear facing not because we don’t want to experience, we just don’t truly acknowledge it’s coming to be.

Maybe it’s not the absence of someone but a slow thread of goodbyes until they are missed. Through the little details, like how I come to know that this phone call will soon be a recollection of your voice, how your smile will exist in memory and not in presence.

I think you come to realize through the attention of these details. I know you’re still here; I can still hear your voice, see your face, talk to you and make memories.

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It’s like a bridge over troubled water, battling the turbulence of thought, feeling and reality. Through all love, memory, sound and touch, I feel like I am losing you thread by thread even though you’re still here.

But I will be the keeper of our history, present and future. While I know we are all temporary beings flying through time. I will continue to love you in a different light as I ache over the predestined. My fate is intertwined to yours as you are to mine.

Yes, you will be an experience rather than a body to embrace, a journal entry, a Polaroid of moments, and it pains me that the train of memories will come racing through the present before my heart can comprehend.

The goodbye thread that flows through life and time. It’s like a slow burning yearn calling before the longing even through love, memory, sound and touch, we lose someone thread by thread even though nothing happened.

That kind of bittersweet tenderness to attention to details we don’t acknowledge until we are in it. One day, your touch will become memory; your presence will become story and what is now you will become something I carry.

A fear amidst the game of anticipation, maybe it’s grief before grief.

The quiet ache of knowing that everything is a temporary.

I am writing this to echo out a feeling that I was scared to encounter, because we are not programmed to feel a feeling we fear, we feel a feeling we know.

Isn’t it wonderful to have two realizations at once? I know you’re here, but I know you won’t be.

Life is poetry in motion, I guess. What do you think?

A random thought on an early morning of last week while I always thought about this topic, I have never quite known this answer to this question, do you know the answer?

Where does it all begin?

With an invisible touch?

With a feeling?

With an unknown disguised subconscious desire made to avoid self-reflection?

Maybe it begins in a quiet moment between self and soul, trying to listen to one and another and make sense of why we were drawn to someone. Perhaps it’s a moment where your eyes see someone as a mirror of self that is living through the quiet whispers of comfort to your soul. I don’t know but what I know is that it comes unexpectedly.

A little dance with perception probably comes first.

We see someone not as they are, but as what we want to be.

We see them through a certain memory that resurfaces, expectation and desire. We pay attention to the way they handle themselves, the way they speak, listen and see the world. We see a soul different than ours but is that true? Not really. I am not suggesting that perception is deceiving but it’s the start of something that happens within us. We hold onto it for some time before “making a move” because it’s a quiet little safe space to travel in.

We wander through different layers later on, built through perception, like curiosity, fascination, limerence and longing. Then our body begins to speak for us before we say anything.

Perception then evolves once the other’s existence begins to change our internal psyche.

We say things like that person provides us safety or embody a trait I always wanted to have or remind us of something we lost or represent something we want to become and that’s where attraction becomes psychologically complicated.

Jung talks about projection as a possibility that we unconsciously project onto the other person what they can do for us instead of finding it within us. The other person becomes our safety net for our interior world.

Our curiosity in a person flare something within us we didn’t even consider ourselves to own or be like; whether it’s the way they dress, talk or have a certain routine or interest. Sometimes it’s something deeper like remembering a past self that you once were or even a future self you thought was not attainable.

This parade of curiosity beings to slow down as our unconscious becomes conscious. We carefully begin to realize some hard truths like we realize that we don’t really desire that person. We actually desire to be seen maybe by someone even more so by ourselves. Our soul recognizes something before the self takes it in; a conversation between the soul and self happens to cloud the reality of something we choose not to accept it within ourselves.

We don’t like to confront our shadow self so we counsel through another self but that doesn’t dismiss our appeal for the other person it just highlights that we need to look within while admiring the other. Upon that realization, we dive into more introspective questions of who we are when we are around the other person so that we can get more clarity around what is real and what is performative.

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We ask ourselves, which self (selves) emerge through their presence?

is it a courageous self, a mysterious self, a sensible self or even a vulnerable self?

It’s a self or selves that already exist(s) but surface(s) only through the other and here is where it gets even more interesting. We shift more and more towards self-introspection to understand what we are to the other person and that is one of attraction’s deepest paradoxes.

It’s a fine line between want and desire.

Where I can desire someone because they reveal something in me, while using them to avoid confronting that very thing in me. By “using”, I mean channeling them or orbiting them as a way to avoid shadow work. But then again, I feel like there is something more.

Because if I limit the origin of attraction to just threads of perception, feeling, projection, and self-recognition, etc., I’ll just address the other person as a psychological event that happens inside me. But they are not, they are a person that exist beyond that. So, maybe attraction exists somewhere in that thread. A place or space in between.

Maybe attraction is the soul’s call for a possibility, while the self seeks to be seen and heard, while the body recognizes and responds to another’s presence. A full circle movement that doesn’t happen because of one thing but a combination of things working together in parallel. I think it’s an amalgamation of perception, feeling, memory, projection, desire, and everything that happens beneath our conscious lens and self-awareness. That’s what makes attraction so difficult to explain.

And maybe that’s the paradox of attraction in a nutshell:

It’s not just an individual experience for you or them. It’s a beautiful mystery that unfolds unexpectedly (by chance, by fate, who knows?) without either one belonging to the other.

The definition of intimacy has evolved over time as we all viewed intimacy in the realm of sexual liberation and desire, but we don’t talk enough about sensual intimacy.

Sensual Intimacy

Sensual intimacy has been looked over any relationship and friendship dynamic because we associate sensual with sexual, where it doesn’t necessarily mean that. We all crave attention within friendships, relationships, etc. That silent attention of presence and care through the simple doses of affection.

A lingering wait on the phone with one another, a cuddle, wearing a certain scent on that makes you remember them, etc. Quiet attention to the senses of affection is what we yearn for as humans. The feeling of being seen, heard and cared for. We need a love that whispers through touch, sense and presence.

I think we all want that kind of intimacy, one that is not translated or transcended into solely on the basis of sex. Evolving through and with our partner and our friendships into a new level of connection. The rawest form of connection that has lingering impact on what our belief of love really is. It’s all in the silence of language, the pauses between sentences, the care that isn’t loud but deeply felt. Maybe that’s what are here for. Maybe that’s what we are craving truly but name it wrong.

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The dynamic of your platonic desires will shape your sexual ones.

Through our senses we can unlock a new language of devotion and admiration and tap into loving creatively and sincerely without thinking that sex is the only resolution to anything. So, search through your platonic desire soulfully because the way we observe care through nurture and not only through action is the whole point. It’s an equation, it’s a philosophy that I think we need to be attentive to.

It’s an invitation to be vulnerable without pressure or expectation, the kind of pressure that we make out of ourselves towards other people. Love isn’t transactional, it’s intentional. An invitation to curiosity and to be fully yourself without attaching a name to it. It’s exploration within the barriers of comfort. I can still be myself and still be yours.

Sensual intimacy is both a surrender and awakening, it’s quiet poetry between souls and minds. I think we need more of that to secure our sexual relations; we need to be present in more one than one.

I have experienced the Holy Month of Ramadan quite differently this year. For the first time I have tasted the presence of my religion.

I have always considered myself not a religious person more so quite spiritual. While may that still be true, I see it in a different light now. In a way from which I had so much rage entering the Holy Month to uncontrollably sobbing during last 30 minutes before sunset of the last day of the month. I had so much rage towards a month filled with holiness, presence, clarity and containment. Containment of desires you might that are true to you but in reality, they were never yours. We all get attracted to the noise surrounding us whether its your favorite artist’s music on the radio, your favorite film on tv, your social media mania, your sacred scrolls and reads before bed, etc. and forget to say thank you to Him or actively bring Him to consciousness during the day. The last time I have ever truly thanked Him (Allah/God/ Our Creator), I can’t truly recall. The parasocial euphoria blinded me and coasted me away for so long.

Whatever noise you latch on to defines you, that’s what I have learnt.

I have observed and paid attention to the words and beauty of our religion and it opened a new portal of divine curiosity one that I have avoided for years because I was not ready for it. Through what I know which is still subjectively small, I have come to know God in pieces, in the small acts I do every day. Yes, our moral compass drifts from time to time swaying from left to right till it reaches the center. The center to consciously alive Allah in your heart, mind and soul.

I am still that perfectly imperfect Muslim swaying in waves but reminded of this beautiful recitation. Having divine curiosity can open portals to the self you were scared to be, the self you were meant to be and are. While we sway in tides of wonder and wordily ecstasy of the world we see on your screen, it’s time to take time wonder within divinely.

whatever you practice or not, it’s beautiful to know and see the divines of the beauty of spirituality and being immersed in the presence of something bigger than us. Make time to wonder. Pay attention and you be free.

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It was an addiction to love myself, the yearning of accepting who I am. I never truly loved myself (even though I am learning to be fully now). It was an addiction to love all aspects of mind and how it thinks. It was addiction to be seen and heard by myself.

All that time of introspection made me realize that I still didn’t love myself and so I sought out versions of myself in other people to love because I couldn’t admit it at the time. I was infatuated with the idea of love through its endurance, depth, etc. that projected to someone else other than my own. I have tried self-love affirmations every now and then to convince myself to love me, but it had little effect because I said it without believing it. So, I kept searching for “love” again but that didn’t work either.

I realized that it will be an endless loop of self-ignorance and disservice that if I continue to dishonor loving myself, I will never know what love is.

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So, I started loving myself through the smallest things (Muses, writings, friendships and music, etc.) flowing that love inward to that soul of mine that craves an abundant capacity of love that was extended to others instead of to me. It has become apparent to me that I do love myself that what I explore myself to. That self-awareness consciously realizing and admitting that I lacked love for myself was so deeply rooted and glazed with shame and fear. A trauma I didn’t unpack.

It’s safe to say, confidently, that I was naive to think I knew what love was but knowing what I knew through relationships I’ve seen and what I have come to realize through my own experience is that love is a prism. The intersection between self-love, conscious love towards your partner and the love you project in other relationships. It’s an interconnected dynamic that will show you how you view love and how you love.

The addiction towards self-love and appreciation guided me to my truth and while I still have not experienced love, I have experienced it in the most raw, honest tone through everything I have.

I have been pondering on the notion of desire, what makes us desire the things we want. As an introspective person by nature, I tend to analyze why we want the things that we want and its relation to the subconscious mind as to awaken it to the conscious mind.

I never really understood my desires, but I think I shouldn't have to. We as humans have need to understand where the desires are rooted from societal norms, unresolved trauma, lack of authenticity, etc. But i think in truth to unpeel that layer of truth is quite overwhelming but also so beautiful.

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Amongst the many intricacies that the human holds, desire is the most wholly, vulnerable space one can hold. Whether we desire what we see in movie, in a dream, in a realm or form of our subconscious, we never really paid attention to them.

I was always taught to tame desires because in our society it's not permissible to be woke of your desires. Desires are taught to be kept a secret, as if it's a shameful act to have it.

Since I took it as a part of tradition and society to tame my desires, I never actually quite knew them at all and here I am in my 30s discovering the self I was taught to keep hidden.

I didn't know how to differentiate between a true desire or a fabricated one.

As much as I have come to realize that desires are not meant to be understood, I sometimes still struggle with knowing what they mean. I have found this quote by Federico Loca that resonated with me.

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“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”

This quote captures the essence of what desire actually is that it is in itself the key to your authentic self, free of shame and judgement. To be woke within your desires is to embrace the wholeness of your truth.

It's not easy revealing layers of you that you kept so private but to live with ease we must embrace those desires as to make the unconscious conscious and live fully and transparently. By bringing your desires out of your unconscious and into the conscious, you live more freely, vulnerable and unmasked.

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I have created this newsletter to inspire writers, dreamers and anyone who wants to get lost in their dream of consciousness in the craft of writing.

I have always been drawn to stories and experiences of people and the beauty of our emotions. I have lived in my mind for years, but I feel now,32, I’m ready to share my thoughts and craft with you.

This newsletter Mind Untethered calls for thought daughters, poets, writers and anyone who wishes to speak their mind shamelessly and authentically.

Being authentic is never easy as we counterintuitively have the notion that societal norms will not accept us for being who we truly as (as if we were an abomination to traditional life) but the truth is if we can speak with no shame then we are mirrored affirmations nested consciously since birth. Being constructed since birth to hold values before we actually know if we truly value them.

Through Expressionism and Art, you will find revelation.

Through various channels for expressionism and art we find revelations within ourselves and who we are meant to be. To deconstruct what our mind holds, process it and move through it or towards it.

Mind Untethered will be a safe haven for us to explore our unspoken desires and thoughts paving way towards healing and better understanding of ourselves. Posts will be done on a bi-monthly basis by yours truly.

Stay Tuned!

Love,

Jaz