My Name Is

Bismillahirrahmannirrahim,

This is an introductory blog post, mainly to let you know what you can expect from this blog. Bear with me, it's quite lengthy 🤪.

Why Light and River?

Let me introduce myself. My name is Nur Sabrina Nahar. Hello!!

Nur, is an Arabic word which means light. Nahar can be both Arabic and Hebrew word which means daylight or, as you can expect, river. 

There you go, I got my blog title: Light and River.

"Where's Sabrina? Why is it not in your blog title?" you might ask.

Sabrina is also an Arabic word. It means patience. Now, you cannot expect me to name my blog "Patience". It would be as if you need the patience to read my posts, or that whatever I've to write shows that I'm very patient. The former would not be so reader-friendly and the latter would sound too narcissistic. Hence, I dropped "Sabrina" in the blog title, and adopt it as my preferred name instead. Call me Sabrina 😊.

I really want to name my blog with a string of fancy words which are not really straightforward for you to figure out the meaning behind them. At the same time, I can't think of anything fancier than my own name 😂. Plus, Light and River sound like a title to a collection of poems. Somehow like Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur.

Fancy enough.

But really, I don't want to stop there. I want a blog title which may also portray what I wish to convey via blogging. Therefore, I came with a tagline (which is asked with the blog title when you're about to create a blog).

"A life reflection, a flow of thoughts"

A pat on my shoulder for the tagline. *Feeling slightly proud*

Here on the nerdy part, explaining the tagline and the blog title in-depth:

More on Light

We'll go with the first bit of the tagline:

A life reflection. 

Obviously, these bits are connected to the word "Light" in my blog title as light is reflected on an opaque surface. We could see various objects because these objects reflect light, although they're unable to project light of their own.

Light, is for us to see.

Light, is to be reflected by these many objects around us to allow sight.

Allowing sight is the purpose of light. 

Sight is the way we understand the world around us and subsequently navigate our daily routine. We invented all forms of lamps to illuminate objects around us with its light, for this purpose (I don't know about disco lights🧐).

Light is of no use if it couldn't help us to see.

Light is of no use to the blind as it couldn't help them see.

It couldn't help them navigate.

Knowledge works the same way. It is for us, to observe every single "object".

Objects, in the context of what knowledge may illuminate, include every single incident, accident, memory, event. In short, every form of experience (you name it!). From what you've gone through, to the books you've read (/reading) and the stories you've listened to.

Each of these "objects", reflect knowledge which then allows life navigation on:

What is right?

What is wrong?

What is neither?

What could be right on a certain occasion, but not the other?

What should be done?

What should be avoided?

What should be done in certain occasion, but avoided in the other? 

What should be said?

What shouldn't be said?

What I should say, but could not say?

What I shouldn't say, but it would be good if it's said?

And a lot more "whats".

Every form of experience reflects knowledge which assists us in navigating through our own "whats" and find the answers to each of them as we live our life. However, neither of these experiences nor the knowledge they reflect, are of any use to those whose heart and mind are blindfolded.

Hence, this blog intends to work towards releasing the blindfolds. 

Perhaps, my own blindfold.

Mainly, my own blindfold.

This blog aims to be a collection of life reflections. Reading them would be a form of experience to you, too inshaAllah. I hope that every single post may inspire us to never navigate through our "whats" blindly.

More on River

The last bits of the blog's tagline:

A flow of thoughts. 

Being able to flow is a characteristic of the rivers, as being able to be reflected is the characteristic of light.

Not that light cannot flow (e.g. flows of photons) and water in the river cannot be reflected. Too much science is hijacking my creative writing that I feel an intense urge to clarify. Nonetheless, we'll stick to what's obvious, okay?

So,

I speak to myself a lot. In other words, I enjoy making up scenarios inside my head or simply having monologues, especially when I walk home from campus or doing chores. You know, the kind of motor activities which don't really require thinking skills?

I think and generate thoughts continuously. Just like a river which flows continuously. I have this random intuition that, maybe, everyone does generate thoughts in a continuous manner. It's just a matter of whether you realize it or not, and what kind of thoughts you've been generating. Mine usually revolve around the "whats" I've mentioned earlier (and a lot more "whats" I've not mentioned due to its redundancy). These thoughts would flow and subsequently be washed away, as I neither speak nor write about it.

As my so-called continuously flowing thoughts mainly revolve around my day-to-day life encounters, I interpret the phrase "thoughts been washed away" as being not productive as it is from a single thought that we can develop great ideas with and subsequently work on them.

Every thought matters.

Every thought stands a chance to be life-changing; either in a positive way or in a negative way.

Of course, we're aiming for a positive change, even from the most negative of situations.

This blog, therefore, intends to record my flow of thoughts. I refer to it as "my" flow of thoughts simply because I'm the one writing, but it doesn't mean I own the thoughts. Surely, these thoughts and inspirations belong to Allah alone and might be channelled to me through people around me. Regardless, I believe that as long as there are no copyrights marked on these thoughts, sharing them in this blog would do no harm😉.

Till then, pray for my consistency in writing.

Sabrina