Hassan Zayour's Blog

While contemplating on the nature of belief, the ideological web which governs it becomes extremely complex at an alarmingly accelerating rate. Prima facie, belief, in essence, appears to be simple and straightforward for our minds; however, once its dimensions begin unraveling themselves, meditating on the whole notion begins to feel like a trip down the absurd alleyway. It gets even worse once the manifestation of ideology begins evincing itself on people adopting it, and the whole process gets more complex when the dialectical loop becomes obvious: ideology evinces actions, actions fix ideology, an endless loop cultivating certain traits in people and so on. I recall this Kierkegaardian notion of belief: believing in Christ because one has reasons to do so is rather obnoxious and abhorrent; counter-intuitively, one should believe in Christ because he/she believes in Christ, and the sound reasoning only arrives as a mere (disposable) supplement. This is the heart of the leap of faith, a zone where things become so absurd that the only way out is by diving deeper into the abyss. One finds reasons to support belief, but one does not establish belief based on reason alone; there is a necessity of practice. Again, the striking similarity between Kierkegaard and Abu-Hamed Al-Ghazali becomes manifest, in which the latter describes something very similar when it comes to the mystical practice of Sufism. According to him, it is futile to rationally discuss Sufism or study it the same way one would study law and so on. No, to truly comprehend it, one has to temporarily forgo that faculty or employ it as a supplementary factor; then, the absurd would become clearer, you would unlock unimaginable realms, have coffee chats with angels and sages of old, etc... It begins to appear that belief is established because it is belief and for no other reason whatsoever, a notion that is exotically simple yet profoundly complex. Venturing on founding a homology of ideology in general quickly starts becoming a fool’s errand, an action that consumes one’s rational processing unit and throws the seeker into this loop of unjustified actions that only reflect insanity. “Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity? It is doing the same thing over and over, expecting to have different results.” Here I am, the same idealist, strikingly realizing that our mental faculties fail at quantizing everything, laughing at the younger version of myself: a person who wants to mathematically model the universe. Truly, the mark of human stupidity is its infiniteness, one which is only comparable to that of the universe. This previously mentioned simplicity appears to be a prevalent characteristic universally present across all ideologies, and I cannot help but discern it within the three premises upon which I establish my ideological construction from the Quran. Employing pure reason would not grant one belief; however, it would support it in an unbiased manner. Here, it is very tricky to be unbiased, for one could employ that same faculty in favor of either preferable side; that is why the whole process of establishing the foundations of belief must be regarded in the most fundamental and simplistic points of view. After that point, more leaps follow and more profound complexities start to arise; ideology becomes an unimaginable sea of entangled ideas that float around in what seems to be a random system of interactions. In that chaotic realm, we seek a uniform and systematic approach, an endeavor I am willing to do over and over for the mere fun of it. At this point, the whole discussion serves as a filter: only those who experience it can relate. One no longer finds the necessity of having theological dialectical discussions at this level, nor is it of importance to support belief with decisive reasoning. From afar, it is all melancholically amusing: even the most fundamental human experiences are disputable.

I am slowly discovering the importance of writing in my life, and I have found a profound passion within me to composing books. Much joy do I find in the process of planning the main idea and slowly backing it up to eventually implement it in the form of a manuscript; I am slowly finding myself to be more efficient in this process. I have a copybook where I write down ideas for future implementation, but they all somehow depend on finishing the Meditations on The Holy Book series, a process that is estimated to take me a decade, at least. The rationale behind that stands on two focal points: having time to enhance my writing skills, and gathering the necessary per-requisites ere delving into the world of philosophical writing. My distaste with my writing abilities is manifest, and I sense within me a profound form of anxiety upon reading or sharing anything I compose, especially if it’s in English (which is the language I use for non-fictional writing). Accordingly, I need to read more to enhance my writing communication skills. In addition to that, and although I have some ideas regarding the ultimate ideological construction and the metaphysical study of the higher realm of knowledge, ideas I yearn to discuss still require a lot of maturity. I cannot bring myself to write anything else related to this field of study before discovering the lessons I document in my meditations. But what is my goal from that? What is it that would make me look back 10 years from now and accept that I have done a fair job in my career path related to non-fiction writing? Is it success with the volumes? No, it is rather the mere completion of my meditations. That is my goal in the world of non-fiction writing for the upcoming decade (if God willed for me to live): to complete all volumes of my meditations. This will require persistence (a trait I am discovering within myself), and patience (another trait I am trying to cultivate); but I will do everything within my power to make that possible. I receive emails sometimes that critique my work (something I truly value), as I receive occasional praising too. However, the following realization dawned upon me: I am writing the meditations for selfish reasons. At one point, I began writing like no one was watching, and that was the exact moment I accepted the nature of genuine triumph in this goal: ‘the success of the meditations is of irrelevance, their existence exclusively is’. That’s the worst thing a writer could do, namely being selfish; but here, however, I am selfish to the absolute extreme of selfishness. At this point, an audience of one reader (myself) reading the meditations is equivalent to that of a million, for the lessons I discover there govern my motivation to write; they are the reason behind investing my time in those volumes, and nothing else. As long as I finish those volumes while gathering the experience from that process, I shall be satisfied with this part of my career. After it, I claim, I would possess the required foundations upon which my philosophy shall stand. 10 years is nothing compared to that.

Recently, I have been trying to contemplate thoroughly about myself. I am investing a serious amount of time to understand what goes on in my mind. Alas, it is quite unfortunate for many to live and die without even getting the chance of experiencing a fraction of that. We want to understand others the same way we would want others to understand us, but isn't it of more importance for us to commence with learning about ourselves? Our sadness, happiness, virtues, failings, goals, aspirations? Shouldn't we figure those things out? I mean, this should have been a priority at an early age, and those who were guiding us should have highlighted those things out. Why didn't anyone teach us about this?
I first encountered the self-authoring program in a video I watched for Dr. Jordan Peterson, and I think it is of great relevance. If a person suffers from a traumatic experience or if one is merely uncertain about his/her path in life, just taking the time to think, organize ideas, and then articulate them could make a very realizable difference.
I am taking my time to do that, and I'm just finding it to be extremely challenging to freely write about the past; I always tend to censor things out on purpose.
As for the future, at least when it comes to my writing career, I began asking the following questions: what do I want from this path? What is my goal? Slowly, things started getting complicated in an exponential manner, and I thought of sharing the part related to the writing path, considering that it is of relevance.
It is not the smoothest journey to write about such things, especially sensitive matters. If something becomes annoying while you're writing about it, then I recommend you'd dissect it into very small pieces; otherwise, it's going to resurface. Write about the past and how you'd like your future to look like. Be objective and illustrate your virtues and failings.
Trust me, that will make a whole lot of a difference. In case you need help in this process, or in case you'd like for us to share our experiences on this, I'd be more than happy to be in touch.

I just can't, especially if it's in English. If it is in Arabic, then maybe, just maybe, I can read it again and judge it to be adequate; yet I am rarely satisfied with what I write. I have discovered that I am better at writing fiction in Arabic, but better at writing non-fiction in English.
If I write something, a terror from reading it after a while encompasses my heart; by a while, I mean a week, a month, a year after, etc... I just find it to be an obnoxious mixture of words, one of the worst things I could ever read in my life. I cannot not write, but I also cannot bring myself to read what I write; I just prefer throwing it into an endless abyss where I would never encounter it again. It is only when I write that I do not feel an enormously unbearable melancholy of existence; it is only when I write and learn; it is only when I look forward to something beyond this realm of existence; it is only then that I do not feel melancholic, it is my only addictive escape. But at the same time, I despise it, I cannot bring myself to look at it even one day later. I am trying to get rid of that by exposing my work more often, for I have always been fond of writing and then immediately deleting my words (O, how often it has been that I decided to say or write nothing when I had much to talk about). I fight this urge every time I write anything, I fight this unbelievable desire to destroy what I just wrote. Even now, I am forcing myself not to delete these words, and it is in this painful dialectical process that I find joy the most. It is within the internal conflict, the perpetual state of war I exist in, it is there where I find the distraction I need until I am free of this realm of existence. My gaze is set elsewhere, and had it not been for that, I would have never endured. My sight is set on the higher realm of knowledge, but I just have to get through this one first and acquire as much as possible before the arrival of that unmistakable moment. How much I long to see with the eyes of my consciousness, free of what I have here...
I cannot read what I write, but writing is all what I posses. I cannot talk and communicate adequately, nor can I paint adequately, nor do I find the willingness to engage with others that often. Words are all I have, and learning is all I want. Writing is how I train the rational processing unit, and knowledge is what I yearn to feed that system which builds my ideological construction that is essentially established on a self-enhancing feedback loop. Writing helps me there, but I do not wish to read what I write; I cannot, as a matter of fact. This is good from one side, yet bad from another. From one perspective, it means that who I am today (and thus, what I write today) will not be who I shall be in a week, a month, a year, etc... (thus, what I write and deem to be adequate in a week, a month, a year...). That would mean that I have changed, and an alternation would mean that I am not intellectually stagnant. Thus, I am acquiring and learning, and consequently thinking, and accordingly alive. Thinking, writing, and reading, that is when I am not depressed, because that is when I am acquiring, and that is when I am alive. The moments I do not think in, the times where everything I stand for is not challenged, and the instances where I am not in a state of intellectual (even psychological) conflict are the exact times when I am not existent, and that is when I am melancholic.
Thus, what I enjoy today I might not in a week.
What I write today I will not in a week.
What I am today will die tomorrow and become something else...

Since we have ascertained our intention previously, which is venturing to turn group mindfulness in the imaginative realm into a figure that could be employed for an interesting story, we recollect that the only two main elements to fulfill that goal are: patience and accepting one's self.
Since this essence eventually captures and bestows your deepest fears and memories, your consciousness in the imaginative realm would project itself on him/her as a potential threat. The reason behind that, I suppose, is how much of a ruling impact one could have on these characters. They somehow are tamed into subjects that are left alone to roam the abyss of your memory once they are finished with, and trust me, they will always haunt you. For that, one must know how to approach them, and the best way for me to do that has always been by intriguing their curiosity.
The way to do that is by questioning them, challenging them about what they could share, and making them get suited to your ubiquity.
I recall my first encounter with John The Sufferer:
" I entered the room, John immediately felt my presence and was repelled from it. As I foresaw, he bolted to leave.
"Leaving so soon Mr.John?" I asked with a smirk on my face. Mentioning his name would surely fascinate him enough.
Signs of surprise painted themselves on his face as he stared at me, subliminally asking me about how I knew his name.
I stared back at the ceiling and grinned. "Oh, it's not only your name I know, my friend. It's much more. Only if you would come and have a cup of coffee with me."
I knew he would leave, that was the plan in the first place. However, on the third encounter, it was he who came to me.
"How did you know my name?" Asked the man angrily.
"John, look into yourself and tell me, what have you got to share?" I replied coldly.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked in curiosity. Aha, I've got him right there. He has no escape now.
"I mean, who are you? What do you stand for? Look at yourself and meet me here when you have answers for me. Maybe then, I could give you answers myself, dear John." So he left, but this time slowly, in meditation, and the tales he had for me were enough for me to write a book."

That is somehow a brief outline of how one should approach characters in the imaginative realm. You must always know that it is not regularly the case where characters are of use. Sometimes, we don't really understand them, and that's just about fine. However, on many other occasions, they turn out to be very interesting, just like John.
In the next posts, I will try to discuss more deeply the way of interpreting and writing about your characters, but on a psychological level. Carl Jung will help us here.

We have previously explained that our sentiments and experiences manifest themselves in the structure of hierarchical organizations of characters in the imaginative realm. These sets then get evinced in their common core, what we know as "The Persona" of the group. This character, usually, is the most prolific when it comes to bestowing wisdom and formulating stories.
As an author, it is of the utmost significance to address such a character with extreme diligence. The rationale behind that is this: Usually, our consciousness tends to avoid past experiences and emotions for purposes that are still ambiguous for me. Such entities are tricky and hard to handle. They would always come around your perception in an attempt of avoiding your processing unit. Ideally, they tend to be thrown into the abyss, or back into the state of psychological non-existence. If these articles behave this way, then normally, their display, or the "Persona", would be very hard to tame, let alone converse with. They hold our most mysterious enigmas, and usually, they fundamentally define who we are.
The ultimate goal of approaching a persona is to convert it into a character that behaves under certain preassumed restraints in the desired realm. This warrants further intercommunication with other entities, which produces even a greater number of stories to be shared. Your conscious interactions with a tamed Persona implants the seeds of many stories in your literal mind, allowing you to lucidly reconstruct experiences in form of attractive writings.
Now, after realizing that, it would be useful to comprehend how to tame a persona. The only two main elements to do that are patience and accepting one's self.
An author who lacks perseverance would never be capable of approaching a resolute character. And one who denies one's self would never embrace his/her inner psychological displays, creating a loop of endless conflict between these societies without having the opportunity to blend in.
After having these components, the way to favorably tame personas is to tentatively trick them into accepting you as a part of their whole existence. The aim of doing that is to learn the underlying governing dynamics and then establishing psychological dominance, showing the character that they are merely a reflection of part of your "self" ( In a Jungian sense). To convince them of that, the author must successfully grasp the main significant attribute of a character and temporarily adopt it. This, my dear reader, allows you to connect with the character, making them believe that you are a reflection of them, while in reality, they are a reflection of you.
In the next post, I will hopefully give an example of how I usually corner characters. This will be demonstrated with an example of a previous figure: John The Sufferer.

As affirmed earlier, the terminal purpose of writing is to express one's self, despite the quality of the outcome. What's unique about the writing process is that it gives you a chance to investigate deeper into your psyche, manifest in the form of social characters that abide by a certain hierarchy in the imaginative realm.
After establishing this notion in the previous post, it is now of preeminent concern to discuss the methods of blending in with what you confront. The more imaginative you are, the easier it is to materialize these events in your mind to be as empirically interactive as possible.
When I first came across these practices, I was around 15, and my creative abilities were somehow limited to the visual sensibilities. Even those were blurry, so my interactions with the fictional world were minimal. With time, one learns to visualize more events and to even add other senses, such as touching, smelling, tasting, and hearing. This way, when you encounter a character, you could lucidly represent him/her, in addition to describing the existing settings. Remember: It's all in the small details. These features give feelings to what you're saying, but be careful not to overdo it.
Usually, when you are out on a hunt for an interesting story to write about in the imaginative realm, you will most probably come across a group of characters that will, later on, turn out to be evinced in one persona. You will identify this group by a certain sign they give off, which usually is the tricky part. Signs are usually present in the forms of absurd and repetitive behaviors. They could also be a common collective feeling, such as common signs of distress.
Once you identify that, the collection would then dismiss itself and reappear as a single unit that manifests this collective psyche the most. It's somehow a natural selective method that yields a character that mirrors the group.
After speculating on that, it becomes obvious that these models symbolize events you have been through, but experiences that have a common side to them. The way your memory surfaces them out for you to examine in your imagination is in the appearance of characters that have things in joint, just like the previous events.
For example, all events of suffering that I might have been through are stored in my memory. The way I saw them in the imaginative realm is in the form of a group of depressed people. They were expression-less, distressed, gloomy, and aggressive when approached. It took me a long time to blend in with them and try to understand what's the common thing they retain.
The moment I discovered they all shared some form of suffering, the affliction I have experienced, my psyche combined them all into the character "John". This figure becomes the embodiment of their collective consciousness, which is ultimately the group of incidents I underwent and that had a notable impact on my personality. He's the character I chose to be the main focus in my recent book: "On Suffering: The Nine Rules of a Night Crawler."
Hopefully, in the next post, I will be discussing my way of approaching this manifestation in an attempt of evoking the best experience out of it.

Some of the greatest pieces of literary work are those that lucidly demonstrate the state of the imaginative realm. This realm, which is fundamentally a reflection of the author's psyche, is homogenously isomorphic to the actual experiences the composer lives. It is similarly shaped into a society that reflects a very interesting hierarchy in its basic form.
When the writer experiences certain events, an automatic reaction takes place in the subconscious, which is manifest as a character or a group of personas in the inventive realm of the author. These figures then arrange themselves accordingly in a natural hierarchy, very comparable to that of which we find in our daily lives, and it comes as the role of the author to experiment with this mini-society in his/her mind.
However, unlike the communities we know in the real world, there are less socially constructed limits in the artistic realms. This means that characters could interact more freely and in an unreasonable manner. Indeed, one could expect anything when it comes to the interaction of these individuals, and here comes the fun part.
The more you could understand the underlying dynamics there, the more you could lucidly write about it, and the more you'll enjoy the process.
As an intelligence that is naturally more aware of the nature of the present realm, the writer would be faced with some aggressiveness from roaming characters put under the test. This hostility is nothing but an exhibition of some restrained thoughts or emotions the writer stored in the conscious memory, which had to appear later on as a common trait in the collective cognizance in the hierarchical state of the societies formulating in the imaginative realm.
Interplay with them is key to discovering stories that might come of great interest to many people, and that could be shaped to send a certain message. Remember, there always has to be a message, for writing eventually is the sacred art of expression. And the most beautiful form of expression is that which could be lucidly transmitted from the imaginative realm to the literary field.
Later on, I will explain with details the ways of accessing such societies, how do I study their hierarchical dynamics and my method of employing what I learn to place the foundations of some interesting stories.

For me, it has forever been the case where writing served as a means of expression. In my earlier years, I first used writing to display some of the ghastliest dreams I had, particularly when I was around thirteen. In an attempt to further improving my descriptive abilities, I sought to develop my writing abilities. This ultimately paid off as I started reading more books and so on.
With time, I managed to somehow successfully articulate a notable portion of what I felt throughout my daily life, in addition to my dream life.
However, I eventually realized, by analyzing certain dream patterns, the great influence dreams have had on the stories I composed. Somehow, they served as a subliminal source of inspiration for many events I wrote about.
It was as if I was attempting to translate some of the messages my unconscious mind has been venturing to broadcast via my dreams. For that, dreams have always played a significant role in my writing endavours, and I currently employ them for future projects.
Let me explain it this way: Writing, fundamentally speaking, is a tool that reveals the author's compounds of feelings, experiences, and incidents. Dreams, on the other hand, could arguably be an attempt of the subconscious mind to manifest some certain subliminal occurrences and events jostled down deep into our subconsciousness. Thus, if a writer successfully combines the two modes of expression, one would be left in awe by the outcome. It's like a strange globe.
For that reason, I always write down my dreams and study their patterns in an attempt to discover a character worth writing about. They also serve as an inspiration for where some stories should take place, and what mood should be present in it.

Before writing any story, it is of extreme importance to assign a general plotline. Here, the author might not grasp how things would turn out. Quite the contrary, the writer will be as bewildered as the reader with how things could go on in the imaginary world. For that, one must not assume to comprehend how every detail will be sorted. It kind of just flows.
However, there is one point that is crucial, and which could be overlooked by many aspiring writers: Character Dynamics.
What's that? One might ask.
Character dynamics are the ways your characters interact in the imaginary realm. Before writing the actual story, what I usually do is that I stumble upon fitting characters that are evaluated for the position I want. After that, I place them in a separate experimental realm to observe their behavior and to pin down whether they are suitable or not. It would then be interesting to discover their backstories and anything that might have led them into who they are as a lovely addition to the whole plot. This job, as one might expect, is notably enjoyable.
After that, I place more than one character with them to witness their dynamics. "Is this what I want to see in my novel? Is this what I want to portray to the reader?" I question myself. If yes, then I would go along with it. If not, then I would dismiss the character and hunt for someone else in the archive.
One might be impressed with what the characters could give out in these fields, and this points to the importance of such a deep study of character dynamics.
On various occasions, I would attempt to place myself with a premeditated character in my mind. Countless times, the way they react is agressive. I do know however that fundamentally speaking, evinced characters are nothing but a manifestation of a thought or emotion I happen to have deep in my unconscious mind.
The ability to exhibit these thoughts in this style, and to properly convey what they feel like accurately, marks the talent of the designer.
The more you could make your reader "feel" with what these subjects are going through, the better you are doing your job. This, in itself, is one remarkable beauty of writing. It is enough for me to touch that as a reward for my work, and I would want nothing more.