Shaikh Ashraf's Blog: Shaikh Ashraf Writes, page 10

Burning Lava

The burning lava boils up and comes out,

It swallows everything on it’s way,

The burning lava boils up and comes out,

Burning the whole world away.

The burning lava boils up and withers down

Every forest in the way,

The burning lava boils up and kills everything,

Everything we held on till today.

The burning lava comes once a year,

Takes everything away,

Then the burning lava sits in silence all day everyday,

It awakes once and scares off everyone he once knew.

For once he’ll boil up and burn everyone and everything he knew,

I have the burning lava inside me,

You have your lava burning inside you.

For once our lava boils up and comes out,

It’s burns the world we knew,

It burns the past memories filled with passion,

It burns the desires away.

The burning lava sits quiet,

After burning the forest called, “Life” away.

© Ashraf Shaikh

One Love

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My heart thumped as I looked into her eyes,

My soul shook as I held her in my arms,

My lips met hers and there we were kissing,

Embracing the love we felt, we tasted each other.

Her lips were like that drink I never tasted,

Her hair smelled of that smell I never knew,

Her hands held mine, our cheeks red with shyness,

We sat smiling close to each other, I didn’t say anything nor did she.

We sat looking into each other eyes,

Staring into our deep ruins of past,

Staring into our deep well of emotions,

We lost ourselves and become one.

I wasn’t me, she wasn’t her,

We both became one, one heart, one soul,

One story, one love.

© Ashraf Shaikh

Blood, Night & Dark Sky

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Blood dribbled it’s way by my face,

In little droplets it fell on the road,

One eye closed another opened, I stared at the open dark night sky, struggling to breathe and stand up,

For the first time in my life, I thanked God.

The car shattered, the shards of little glasses stuck inside my body,

I was shivering and shocked, in the dark night of the city, I looked at myself in the broken glass and felt happy being alive,

Only my parents and sister came to my mind, no friends, no acquaintances nor any old crushes,

For the first time in all these years I felt presence of God.

I never believed in God, but something saved me from a something that day,

Might be god, higher spirit or what, I didn’t know,

Whatever it was, it guided me in the most fearful scenarios to stay calm and collected,

There was something that day with me, and because of that presence I am alive.

Ever since that incident, everyday I am thankful to god,

Ever since that day, everyday I am thankful to you,

Ever since that day, everyday I am happy to be alive.

© Ashraf Shaikh

Miles Apart

When we talked, the only good thing we did is we made this relationship that of friendship,

When we met we met as a friend meets other friend, not how lovers met,

Lovers fight, they quarell on each other, but friends seldom do that,

But, we didn’t dare to say what we had in our hearts for each other, and our friendship only existed on an upper surface.

We still met, but I was with someone and you were with someone,

We still spent time together, but discussing about our relationships,

Still deep into our minds and hearts, we know we were made for each other,

But we never made it into a relationship.

The only good thing that happened to us was our friendship,

The only bad thing was our friendship,

Our souls were together but our hearts were far away,

Our lives we intertwined but our fates miles apart.

© Ashraf Shaikh

Buried Somewhere In Time

You never existed, you were just a thought that held on to me a little longer,

You never existed, you were just a concept that I fell in love with a little crazier,

You never existed, you were just a beautiful face for whom I fell in love, a little foolish,

You never existed, you were just a presence that sat in one corner of the room, seeing you made me feel a lot of feelings.

From the deepest of souls flows deepest of passions,

From the deepest passions flows deepest of love,

From the deepest of love flowed you and your beautiful stories,

And from those beautiful stories I found a way to keep my deepest desires happy.

You never existed, but my love, my deepest yearning for you did exist somewhere in time,

You never existed, but my passions and desires spoke a story about you somewhere in time,

You never existed, but somewhere in time, I buried my love buried somewhere in time,

Buried deep into the earth, rotting, ceasing to exist.

No matter how much I dig deep,

No matter how much I search for the buried love,

I couldn’t find it, cause it got buried, somewhere in time.

© Ashraf Shaikh

Shortest Love Story

I know we’ll never meet again, but the fact that we met once makes me happy.

I know we’ll never have each other again, but the fact that we had once makes me happy.

I know we weren’t made for each other but somehow our souls sewn together and made us one.

[image error]I know our story wasn’t made to be completed with a happy ending, but the story ended on a good note makes me happy.

I know I’ll never find anyone like you,

I know I’ll never have the courage to love someone like I loved you,

I know I’ll never be that happy with someone as I was with you,

But I know for sure, our story, will be the shortest love story ever told.

© Ashraf Shaikh

I won’t Give Up

Even if the world collapses under my feet, I won’t stop,

Even if my body takes a toll on me, I won’t stop,

Even if the people I love go against me, I won’t stop,

Even if I fail a thousand times, I will do it again, but I won’t stop.

I’ll keep going no matter how hard life hits me,

I’ll keep going no matter how hard temptations and desires arrive,

I’ll keep thriving no matter how fucked up my circumstances become,

I’ll keep going, I’ll keep thriving, like there’s no tomorrow.

I won’t give in to my temptations,

I won’t give in to my older self,

I won’t give up to my character,

I’ll rebuild myself over and over again, day in and day out,

But, I won’t stop.

Just like an army man practicing his routine everyday,

Like a comedian performing everyday,

A priest having faith in god and doing prayers everyday,

I’ll keep going on, with faith, belief and utmost character everyday.

For the dreams that haunt me by the night,

For the lack of discipline I face,

For the hurdles and rock bottom I hit,

I’ll promise myself to get back again.

I’ll get back again, like a fighter, like a warrior,

I’ll get back again in a form to fight, hit hard this painful life,

I’ll form myself, I’ll make up my mind, I’ll hit harder, this time, every time I fall down.

I’ll fight the fight,

I’ll live the struggle,

I’ll hit hard the hurdles,

Come to me, I am ready with my guard, I am ready for the fight.

I’ll keep fighting for my dreams,

I’ll keep going against myself and everyone who holds me back,

I’ll keep hitting and getting hit day in and out,

But, I won’t give up.

© Ashraf Shaikh

Enjoy the process of creation

Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity ~Marina Abramovic

Hey kings and queens.

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I have always imagined myself as a writer who sits by the beach with a laptop and writes novels and earns money. Who sits by the beach and read great works of great writers, but I couldn’t be more wrong that it is just a faraway romantic dream.

No artist ever sits by the sea or a beach to write or create, they might but I don’t think it’s an easy thing to do; it involves a lot of distractions.

Leaving away all that romantic dreams aside from being an artist of a writer. I got a job, in a good company and willing to explore myself further.

The only thing I always hated most, the creativity destructor, a job.

As a creative person, I always hated jobs, that typical 9-5 jobs, day in and day out you grind sitting at your desk, but I have one right now and I don’t know what to do about it.

But I don’t feel bad about it; you have to go through things you don’t want in life to get what you want.

I feel good to have something to do, as a writer I had nothing but reading books and writing them, but more than that.

Someone in India said to have passions more than writing itself, to have a job that pays you when writing doesn’t pay you.

Anyway without wasting your time lets jump into the conversation.

I want to talk about how important it is to enjoy the process of creation in art.

Art flows freely from the heart of the artist to the heart of the audience.

There is a reason that creative ideas come to those who are less stressed out, outgoing and enthusiastic, they’re open to criticism.

Art should be performed or created like that, with enthusiasm and open-mindedness.

An artist gets lost in proving the world his/her talents.

He creates art which might appeal to the world, might earn him some penny, might make him successful, but, as an artist, you should focus on creating quality art.

I have always seen myself more as an artist than as a writer. I am that person who creates art in my minds of readers. My brush is my pen and my canvas is my reader’s imagination.

I have always done that and felt happy about it.

But last year a lot changed. I had a few quarrels with my friends over something and I wanted to prove myself as a good novelist.

I had this drive to prove myself, my art to the world and make everyone feel wrong about me, but that only hindered my growth as an artist.

I have written 2-3 unpublished projects these two years and I have also written erotica purely for the sole purpose of earning money.

I am still ashamed of myself.

I wrote this novel, called, “Leila” “Leila was that project which was close to my heart, my soul.

I gave everything I had inside me when writing it, and unfortunately, I had only negativity, rage and a lot of anger to unleash, and I had Leila to transmute all of my energies to.

Leila happened to be a good story to read, but something lacked in it, something that was there in my previous two novels, my previous two novels weren’t perfect but they had a good touch to it.

With that lacking feeling, I began chasing perfection, I made every character, scenes, paragraph perfect, and wrote the entire novel 3-4 times and I only ruined it.

My voice as a writer seemed to fade away, my grit as an artist stopped and lost somewhere. I took a long break from writing and I used my time into other aspects of my personal development. I was not creating anything, I was lost.

After a lot of time, I came too realized that the only thing I lacked in Leila was, Grit, passion, and love. Whatever I wrote before had that grit, had that passion and love inside it.

I enjoyed the process of creating when I was writing my previous novels, but with Leila, my chase for perfection ruined my art and this artist. It ruined my own belief as a writer.

After taking a break and reading good novels, reading great works and refocusing, after 6 months of struggle and writing something, I found the story I wanted to tell and I found the art I wanted to create.

Right now I am working on a novel and I am 22k words done with it.

I started enjoying the process of writing. The process of conjuring up words afterwards.

I enjoy my characters stories and I get deep into their souls and rip their stories apart.

While writing their stories, I cry, laugh, I get stricken with grief, but I write a great page every day and I love it.

I am not taking my writing seriously as I used to take it before, that’ll only make my writing come off as structured and not free-flowing.

I am giving it time to finish within three months, it’s a crime genre based in Mumbai and explores Mumbai’s gangsters and the crime.

I am writing with grit, passion, and love, I am ripping my soul apart and delivering what I had to deliver when Leila was due.

Leila didn’t realize and thank god, but I am making this one release.

An artist has a soul and chasing money, perfection, ego satisfactions will kill that soul and you won’t be able to create good art.

What I wanted to say is that, as artists, no matter what the world says, always believe in you and create art.

Don’t chase money, perfection, that’ll only ruin you as an artist.

Create great art. That challenges society and the status quo.

Never try to prove yourself as an artist, only try to love what you do, be passionate about it, have grit.

Open up your heart and souls, and create.

In creation lies the greatest joy.

Enjoy the process of creation. Open up your hearts and souls.

What do you think about this article? Feel free to comment below because I am curious.

Also, if you liked this post, please share, subscribe because people like you will like it too.

NoFap, Semen Retention, Discipline & Unleashing the artist within.

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Hey kings and queens, you must be thinking who is this person?

Did I follow him?

That might have happened once in a blue moon, when I was posting regularly last year then I stopped.

Every year I do this, I pop out of nowhere and write and posts then I disappear only to come back again and post, ONCE IN A YEAR. Every year I promise that I’ll post every week, or every two-three days, but I don’t do that I make this promise with me every year that I’ll write consistently on blog but I fail to put up the content, but last year something happened.

To speak about my last year’s journey and how much I have changed from last years. How I have built a newer me and I love it.

The journey of NoFap and semen retention is always been hardest for me, I am still struggling but I have had a few days of streaks 20 days mostly thrice. I have done semen retention and I have changed, but that is not only the case I have done a lot more.

Last year I went from being a couch potato, slouching all day, watching Netflix, porn, what not, to reading nonfiction books every day, writing my novel and building good habits. I have started meditating everyday for 10 minutes, I read 50 pages of nonfiction everyday and I have also started to read fiction 50 pages every day, I have started writing 2000 words everyday with inspiration from Stephen King, and I have started going on runs every day for 5 kms. I have gone through a lot in building this habits within  me, I almost burned the manuscript of my last novel, I got my heart broken and recovered and then broke my heart again by chasing perfectionism and stoicism. Not to be against stoicism but I wanted to become an emotionless person, but I didn’t, that only ruined me and my creativity.

But ever since I have started building this streak a great change has started happening in me, I am more positive, I am more active, I fall less sick, and I am more creative, and I love every part of it. I love the process of waking up every day, going for runs coming back, meditating, reading non friction and fiction and writing 2000 words every day, I love doing that. But I’m still far from achieving my goals, goals that I have set in my mind. I am pushing myself harder to go for 90 days straight, that’ll finish my novel, I’ll be finishing more reading and I will run more distances in 90 days.

The way I have changed I have learnt a great deal of insight. That change happens slowly, it’s like a chemical reaction, two chemicals react slowly and steadily then the reaction happens and the chemicals change their form. Habits are just like that, habits take time to engraved in your mind, it takes 21 days, 60 days, 90 days for a few people, but one by one habit by another keeps forming and then you become that person, you become a person who wakes up early to run and write and blog and read and take care of yourself. Your habits slowly and steadily become a part of you.

Nowadays when I don’t follow my routine, I just slack and fall into the world of over simulation I feel lost, and I don’t feel like myself. Habits must be built to a fuller extent.

NoFap and Semen Retention have helped a lot, but I am still a bit backwards to fully change my approach to porn and masturbation. But stopping it and going on long streaks have given a kind of motivation and determination that no other routine has given. Meditation is strong it gives you a sense of clarity and great for creative ideas , but semen retention when combined with powers of meditation, you are bound to generate great results in your life.

That’s my goal from now on, to have a long streak of retention and build my routine and strengthen them. So that I don’t go back to my older self and I stay strong and keep on writing, blogging and creating. This creative energy cultivates and keeps cultivating and when you give it an artistic expression, it just spurts out of you magically, and gives power to your every thought and every word.

We are creatures of habit; everything we do from waking up to going to sleep is a result of habit.

Being lazy and masturbating is a habit, watching porn or movies or series back to back is a habit.

Getting lost in over simulation is a habit. We decide what and which habit to build, but we humans aren’t that conscious enough of ourselves.

We live life on autopilot and build habits automatically, but we have to stop being on an autopilot. We have to be conscious how a certain habit can affect our life and our state of being.

The point of this post is to keep going, no matter how much you fail, or how much you succeed.

No matter how much you end up your older self, if you want to re invent yourself every day is a new opportunity and you got to start fresh. Little by little changes come to you like a chemical reaction.

Breaking bad comes to my mind when I talk about change, Walter White didn’t become Heisenberg in one episode, it took 5 seasons, 64 episodes to become Heisenberg the change happened slowly and built up little by little, like a chemical reaction.

That’s how change happens, everything or every routine you practice it builds slowly steadily and engraves inside your mind and it becomes a second nature to you.

Then all the habits, from waking up to going to sleep, they cumulatively react and change happens like a chemical reaction after a lot of years, after a lot of hard work, determination and persistence.

I am saying all this because I haven’t achieved my goals yet, I haven’t built habits, but I have built a few weaker good ones, and building it day by day.

I am feeling a great change in myself, and I am proud of the journey I have gone through this year.

Maybe it’s just a part of growing up or being mature.

Maybe this is real change inside me, whatever it is, I am going further with my goals, I am willing to persist no matter how much I fail, I like this newer me.

Stay strong.

Bye.

Memories

Memories of our conversations are still there,

Memories of our late night discussion are still there,

Memories of our playfulness are still there,

Memories of our thoughts are still there.

But, I don’t want those memories,

I don’t want those conversations,

I don’t want that playfulness, to play in my head.

You came in my life uninvited,

You made me happy,

You made me feel loved,

You made me feel peace.

Then You left,

You left without saying anything,

You left without “bye’s and see you’s”

I still waited, I still thought you’d come back.

But, You left without leaving anything,

Only what is left of you is, Memories,

I don’t want those memories.

© ASHRAF SHAIKH

©ashrafwriter