Apps for a Better Year

Smart devices get a bad rap these days. Naturally, since we blame them for everything, from our lack of focus and friends, to our low self-esteem and unrealized goals. But I think it is safer to say that our smart devices are like knives– their benefit depends on how we utilize them. (We can either chop up vegetables for a healthy meal or stab someone.)

As such, I try to use my devices as tools for productivity, gratitude, and awareness and prevent them from becoming influences of harm and waste in my life. I do this with the help of certain apps and I am bringing this list to you after a long period of trial and error, (just in time for your new year’s resolutions).

Daily Flow

Pillow – This is what I use to make sure I get enough sleep and wake up rested. It functions as an alarm and a sleep coach. Also has different kinds of naps and lots of useful information about sleep patterns.  

Elevate – This is a brain-training app that I do for 5-7 minutes every morning. There are a variety of activities to do and it helps improve memory, comprehension, lexicon, and quick-thinking.

Swipes – This is my daily to-do list app. It has a very minimal, clean design. But it’s also super functional and can be quite detailed if you like. (Online & Mac companions supported).

Productive – Beautifully designed and minimalistic habit tracker. It keeps me on top of things and has visualizations for what I am keeping up with and what I am behind on.

Lifesum – A good way to track my vegetable, water, and fruit intake and make sure I am actually feeding myself with all the stress of college life. Has good nutritional information and coaching as well!

Gratitude! – This is my gratitude journaling app. I set it so that it gives me a reminder in the morning and evening, and it takes only a minute or two to reflect on my blessings and write them down. It’s a nicely designed app that lets you attach photos and share things online as well.

Duolingo – I am sure you know what Duolingo is but I will include it here just to highlight how useful it is in keeping language skills fresh in your mind with a few minutes of practice every day.

Forest – The best app to reduce distractions. You choose a time and plant a tree and you can’t use your phone during that time or your tree dies. There are different types of trees and your minutes all add up so that you can even choose to plant real trees if you’d like.

Feedly – This is my RSS feed compiler. I have all the blogs that my friends author and blogs that I think are interesting. I check it once every few days to see if anyone has posted anything new.

Long-Term Use

Wunderlist – This is an extensive to-do list application that I use for long-term lists like blog ideas, shopping lists, gift lists, miscellaneous tasks with indefinite timelines… You can add notes and subtasks and it’s a good place to go to throughout the day. (Mac companion available).

Counter+ – This is for my daily remembrances. I have the pro version of this app so it lets me make as many counters as I want and I have them for different things I want to remember. (Usually Divine names I’d like to focus on, or prayers I would like to memorize or repeat). You can use it if you’d like to memorize anything of course. 

Really Bad Chess – This is an outside-the-box chess game that I found over the summer. Your pieces are 95% randomized – you might get 5 queens or 10 pawns. There are daily challenge boards and as you move up the ranks by winning games, your pieces get weaker and weaker as the AI gets stronger.

Mint – Budgeting is important, and Mint lets you do that in a clean and well-designed app. Also helps with bank and money reminders and gives pointers on building credit and other personal finance issues.

Citymapper – Must-have if you are living in a big city and don’t drive.

Apple Apps

iBooks – Always good to have an easy read when on transit or when you’re waiting for someone/something. It really adds up, and you get to read things for fun, that you enjoy. (Pair this with Goodreads and daily eBook deals so that you can get the books you have always wanted for 1 or 2 dollars)

Podcasts – A nother good way to spend transit time productively or long walks to class. I don’t like having too many subscriptions though so I usually subscribe to one thing, catch up or finish it, and then start another one.

A Daily Decision: Beyond Political Statements

Originally published in the 2017 HijabFest Magazine

Nowadays, it seems that my “Muslim-ness” is just another slice in my minority pie chart. I am a woman. I am a Muslim woman. I am an immigrant Muslim woman -- all that I appear as in the eyes of secular politics. Nothing more, nothing less. Similar to how my being is reduced to my political status, the most visible marker of my faith, my hijab, is also reduced to a political statement and stripped of its inner content.

Yet, wearing the hijab to make a political statement, or to broadcast some sort of identity defies how I can perceive the wisdom in the hijab and connect with my Creator. Seeking empowerment in my own victimization goes against who I am. Yet both acts are prevalent and embraced in the current socio-political climate despite their detrimental attitude and misunderstanding of the essence of the hijab.

The language presented for consumption through different media outlets feeds further into misplaced ideas of how the hijab ought to be treated by Muslim women. For example, in USA Today, Waseem Abbasi writes, “But like many young Muslim women across the U.S., the very independence that drove her to cast off the traditional head covering has since drawn her to don one.”

Just in one sentence, with words like  “independence” “cast off” and “traditional”, the author has implied that in America (the land of the free), the independent and valorous Muslim women (as opposed to the oppressed and choiceless outside of the western world)  have made the decision to cast off (to discard, abandon, or reject [usually something unwanted]) the traditional (common, taken-for-granted, and ancestral) garment from their heads. But not to worry! They can also decide to wear it! Just as freely!

Contemporary understandings and interpretations of the hijab and the practice of wearing it have failed Muslim women, for decades, maybe centuries at this point. It was first made into a custom, a cultural head-covering (thus “traditional”). My mother wore it and so did my grandmother and great-grandmother and so will I, because it’s just what we do. Then the hijab was brought into the political sphere and was transformed further from its prior, unlabeled practice. It became a symbol of political oppression, and then in response, a sign of resistance, and now simply a covering women wear to react or to comply.

However, we must reflect on the original command; it doesn’t come from the shah or the president, or the dictator in power. It comes from my Maker. It comes from the Creator of every cell in my body and every planet in the universe and every thought that has crossed my mind and every star that has sped past the earth. It comes from my Lord, the Creator, Commander, and Administrator of everything in this universe, in every dimension, in every space, in every time period.

Any human force (be it a dictator or a democratic government) is essentially inconsequential in determining my reasons to wear the hijab or not. It does not matter if it is banned or if it is made mandatory because, ultimately, my duty is to obey my Maker and fulfill a duty towards Him before bowing my head or showing off to anybody else. My duty, as a believer, is to read the verse, and ask, how does this verse, that was revealed 1400 years ago, relate to me, here and now?

If I claim to believe in the Maker of this universe, and in His Messenger, and in His Book, and if I believe that my Maker is infinitely wise and all-knowing, and if I believe that His book transcends the constraints of time and space and was a guide to the believers in Medina hundreds of years ago as much as it is a guide to me, now, then, how does this verse fit into my life? What is it teaching me? What is my Creator telling me? Why has He made this book the miracle of the Messenger, and preserved it through a millennium of time for it to reach me and for me to read this verse and connect with Him?

The spiritual value of the hijab cannot be depreciated into something as simple and subjective as a political statement. I make political statements through tweets and t-shirts and offhanded comments in late-night conversations. That cannot be the purpose of a physical embodiment of the guidance given to me by my Creator.

Many political tides have come and gone with the established presence of Muslim women. The believing women have worn their scarves all through those times.Yet, the reason the hijab has stayed is not because of changing cultural and political movements, it is because the command comes from the Source of my existence. I do not wake up in the morning and think to myself, how will I oppose the establishments that are against me today? It is not related to my existential purpose in the world. My responsibility, as a created being, is to read the book of the universe and try to know and understand its Author.

I am here for a limited number of years, and I am not interested in jeopardizing my eternity for the sake of politics in this transient world. I do not wear the hijab so that it shouts out at people, like a neon sign on my head saying, “Look here! I am a Muslim! Despite you and your oppressive policies!” and I do not wear it so that my great-aunt twice removed will not tsk at me when I go to visit her house and kiss her hands.

Can other people think that those are my reasons? Sure. But I do not have agency over what other people think, so it doesn’t matter. That is on their account with their Maker, and my intentions are on mine. And “Verily actions are by intentions.”

On a final note, to equate my entire “identity” to one physically visible material is nothing but reductionist. Beards and hijabs do not make people believers. Identities are not stagnant – I did not become a believer at a certain point in my past and now I just remain as one -- lifetime guarantee. Being a believer, for me, means that I need to continually affirm my own convictions, about my own Maker, about my Maker’s commands and expectations, and about how I can get closer to Him and know and love Him more. Just because I made a declaration ten years ago and now call myself a “Muslim” does not make me a “Muslim.” Especially if I do not carry out what it means to be someone who is in the act of submitting to her Creator all her life.

Sociopolitical symbolism that is attached to the mainstream understanding and interpretation of the hijab is a byproduct of contemporary events and cultures. It can not define the hijab’s purpose or existence. Nor can it become a reason in my choosing to wear the hijab. I choose, every day, to wear it and have it be meaningful for me in my connection to my Creator. Every day is a renewal of obedience to my Maker, and a constant reminder to reaffirm my own convictions about God and His commands.

2017 HijabFest Cover

Thanking the Mailman & Other Positivist Eccentricities

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a loyal Apple customer. Too loyal, some might add, as I use even the built-in calendar app and my iCloud email account. The hype right now is around the iPhone X, and yes, I want one. Whatever, I am not ashamed.

If, one day, out of the blue, I received one in the mail, what would I do?

I would thank the mailman of course, he just delivered me a material good that I had been thirsting for. Thank you, mailman.

Clearly, he is the explanation, justification, and conclusion for this iPhone X.

After signing the papers, thanking the mailman, and maybe giving him a hug, I’d throw the box away (not look for a return address), and enjoy my iPhone X. And if anyone asked me where/how I’d gotten it or who kept paying for my data (and other logistics), I would just shrug and say, look, all I know is that I wanted this thing and a mailman brought it to me. And you know what? As any other normal human being with rational faculties would do, I asked no questions about it, attributed it all to the mailman, thanked him, and my business ended there. Good day my sir.

Are you tired of this long-winded metaphor yet (I hope you know it’s a metaphor)? Because I am. And not because it’s boring, but because it’s absurd to even write it out. Because it’s so unnatural. We don’t act like this – at least, not in our immediate daily lives. If we get mail, we look for who sent it, why they sent it. We reach out to them if we can, we thank them.

But at the same time, we do act like this, subconsciously. Every second of our lives, we are getting things that we don’t question. Or we question, but not wholly. We explain some things, but leave a host of questions unanswered.

It's as if you ask about my iPhone X, and I tell you how the mail delivery system works in the United States. And you keep asking, but who’s it from? Why did they send it to you? And I keep telling you – look, that doesn’t matter! What matters is that the system works, and I got the iPhone. Why are you asking so many [useless] questions?

And of course, you’re simply befuddled at this situation. Right? (You better be.)

Some examples of things we take for granted and partially understand are: being able to breathe, abundance of water, perfect gravitational constant, enjoying diversity of life in every way possible, colors, flavors, people who love you, etc.

We kind of understand the HOW – oxygen, the water cycle, rocks bumping into each other in space for thousands of years, evolution, light rays and reflections, taste buds and saliva, serotonin and oxytocin blah blah blah…

But where from? WHY?

To survive? That’s a low-quality argument and you know it. It’s circular. It’s always one-step behind. Where did the original singularity come from? Why do these things work? 

This what our current scientific enterprise does. JUST FYI. I promise I am not an anti-science conspiracy theorist that lives in an underground cave. I am just tired of repeating the same thing – science doesn’t answer our why questions. It answers our how questions. 

So no, science can’t answer questions about ethics. (I will fight Sam Harris on this but that’s another post waiting to be written). No, science can’t tell me where I can find meaning in my life. The "why?" is where all the juicy answers about meaningful living are! And I think more of us need to be digging there.

Without further ado, I present you Exhibit A.I, II, III of this blogpost:

Exhibit A shows three screencaps from the recent Doctor Strange movie. I watched it about a month ago and loved it because despite the alien elements, in its core, it is so quintessentially human.

The movie follows Dr. Stephen Strange, an extremely successful neurosurgeon, who gets into a terrible car crash that severely damages his hands and thus prevents him from performing any more surgeries. Early in the movie, he claims, “My work is at least going to save thousands for years to come.”

Of course, all that work is cut short once he loses the precision he had in his hands. After some experimental studies and hopeless physical therapy, he eventually finds his way to Nepal. He meets with the Ancient One who asks him, “When you reattach a severed nerve, is it you who heals it back together or the body?”

Your cells are not aware of you. Your atoms, your electrons – they don’t know they are a part of you. We say they are “programmed” to work a certain way – but we skip the part where there is no guarantee that they will follow through with their programming.

Against this backdrop, let me pull up Exhibit B.

It doesn’t matter if the doctor had 30+ years of training, and the most advanced technological tools available to him. There is no guarantee that a patient will heal or survive after his operation. Sometimes, doctors do all that they can, and there is still no luck. And sometimes, they think there is no chance of recovery but a miracle (!) happens.

Concurrence and causality are not the same thing. Problem of induction, remember? Just like there is no assurance that when you plant a seed and water it, it will bloom – there is no guarantee that a doctor performing an operation will help you.

These exhibits aren’t connected simply because they are both about doctors by the way, they are part of the same gallery because of bigger implications about where human ambition and lack of insight fits into the bigger picture.

What the doctor case shows me is that we want to take credit for things that don’t really belong to us. Whether it be healing someone or writing a poem, we have to admit that there is an element that’s beyond us. You do your part (as a doctor, a writer, a farmer) but the rest is outside of your domain of control.

I survive open-heart surgery and thank the doctor. The doctor thinks they (alone) saved me. When in reality, the doctor is the mailman (who likes taking credit for my iPhone X despite not knowing or wondering where it came from), and me? – I am the short-sighted receiver who asks no questions.

I hope we escape these trivialities soon. I am leaving you with a beautiful Rumi poem. 

“Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry, I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.”

Indeed, these are the questions of the century – Who is saying words with my mouth? Who is looking out with my eyes?

Who keeps sending me these packages? And why? What am I supposed to learn from them?

Lots of stamps,

Belle