We build our homes on sunlight, then spend a lifetime searching for shade. Life is full of moments like this—where each desire, once attained, bears the seed of a further, opposing longing. It is not the word “contradiction” itself that haunts us, but its endless, silent drama in our days and souls. We reach out for cities made of promise and bright dreams, only to miss the earthy smell and easy kinship of our native villages. We chase progress, then mourn lost simplicity. We yearn to escape, only to ache for return. This is not merely a feature of the human condition. It is its rhythm.
In our youth, cities glitter with possibility. We run toward their towers, hearts racing on the tracks of ambition, thinking only of what we will build. Yet, in those very buildings—brimming with light and sound—a sudden hush can settle as we remember a distant lane, a forgotten window, the taste of afternoon rest, a festival in the village square. Our souls become split—a part busy with conquering new worlds, a part longing for remembered fields and faces. How strange that we leave in search of freedom, and yet find ourselves bound by memory.
Even when we stand firm in the life we have chosen, we often sense we are atop uncertain ground. Like standing on marshes, we wonder where the edge is, whether it will hold—or whether one day, beneath the weight of disappointment or exhaustion, we might sink. We search not only for stability, but for our own feet—an identity that anchors amidst the restlessness.
We are always selling and buying, trading dreams for security, security for adventure, love for independence, independence for the warmth of togetherness. Sometimes we forsake convictions for convenience, and sometimes we give away what is dearest for something that sparkles in the moment. The world asks us to prove ourselves, yet often the proof required has nothing to do with who we truly are.
And so, we live among paradoxes. In the rush for betterment, we surrender pieces of ourselves—quiet rituals, old allegiances, the flicker of lamps lit with hope or memory. Progress shines like a new sun, but in its rays, our old lamps are put up for sale. The roads we travel in pursuit of dreams are mapped with sacrifice, and every step forward carries echoes of what we have left behind.
Yet, it is precisely in this double movement—toward and away, holding and letting go—that the human soul finds its poetry. Our desires form the music of longing: each fulfilled wish giving birth to a newer, subtler yearning. The city dweller’s heart fills with nostalgia for winding footpaths; the villager gazes at city lights, imagining a different destiny. We mourn the things sold away—and sometimes we realize too late what they meant, how quietly they sustained us.
Why do we love what we leave behind? Perhaps because every act of leaving is a reminder of what was precious. Dreams gained—houses built on sunlight—show their truest value only in the shade they cast, in the coolness sought when the world grows too bright, too hard, too unfamiliar.
There is no solution to this inner trembling. Contradiction is not a flaw in our design, but the sign of life’s richness, its refusal to settle for one color, one note, one world. The ache we carry is ancient but ever-renewed—a bridge between the future we build and the past that built us, between the hope for new dawns and the yearning for old lamps, between belonging and becoming.
The truest wisdom is not in eliminating these opposites, but in making peace with the tension and beauty they bring. To live fully is to stand in both the city tower and the village street, to treasure what is left behind even as you reach for tomorrow. To know that stability may not last, but footsteps found in soft earth are never wholly lost.
At dusk, as lights blink on in distant cities and the village horizon glows faintly with memory, we understand: our longings are our guides. They lead us forward, yes, but also home. And as we build homes on sunlight, may we always remember to seek the shelter of shade. In the end, it is this restless, luminous desire that makes our lives truly human.
Ahmad Suhaib Nadvi
Al-Emam Gazette
Email: al.emam.education@gmail.com
Al-Emam Al-Nadwi Education & Awakening Center
New Delhi, India
