Good, honest writing is like ripping open your heart and sewing it back up; one raw emotion, one meaningful word at a time.
Like shedding your old skin for something newer and more refined.
Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly; over and over again.
*Nida S.*
Pity. sympathy. Empathy.
A difference as frail as a dandelion, as sturdy as a mountain.
A difference that if understood, can change the world.
Don’t pity the downtrodden
But pity the anarchists
For they are headed for a senseless abyss
Don’t pity the mentally challenged,
But sympathize with the humanely challenged,
For they have an illness beyond cure
Don’t sympathize with people on the loss of their riches,
But pity their enslaved lives
Empathize with the fallen, walk a second in their shoes
Feel their blisters on the soles of your feet
And weep their tears through your eyes
Then you will stand up for them, shout for them
Then you will change their worlds
Don’t sympathize when you can empathize
Don’t pity when you can show sympathy
Don’t trample on feelings because you can’t tell the simple difference
Pity. Sympathy. Empathy.
A difference as frail as a dandelion, as sturdy as a mountain.
A difference that if understood, can change the world.
*Nida S.*
The internet has become a gossip hub where our twisted priorities are born. A tangled web where it’s more cool to raise petitions against the atrocities of a nineteen year old wildlife hunter than to talk about the Gaza massacre.
*Nida S.*
(conversation with my son- ‘R’ – This was originally in Urdu)
R: Mama, I want to be three things when I grow up!
Me: Really?
R: Yes, I want to be an architect, an astronaut and a police officer.
Me: Wow! And how will you be all three?
R: Oh I’ll just take the day off from one thing and go do the other.
My after thoughts: Anything is possible. For all I know, in the next twenty-five years, my son will inaugurate his newest space-scraper while he’s out exploring Mars. And in between, catch a few bad guys here and there using a futuristic predictive software (I am thinking a crazier version of ‘The Machine’ in the series Person of Interest.)
Nida Khan Writes 