A Myth in Creation

In the next 6 days, i will be busy as a participant in Young Leader's Conference being held in Lahore. First three days in PC, and the next three in Chand Bagh school. So, as a result, i will not be able to write anything on the blog. And since the comments are first moderated, so until i return, your comments will also not be published on the blog. I will approve the comments made during these days when i come back. Thank you. I am looking forward to an enriching experience. :)

I was thinking today that if i were another person, and i became a close friend to myself, i would wonder, "How can a person be so mentally clumsy and intelligent at the same time?"

Once i encountered a person on internet; some complete stranger. He had been roaming around on net, and had seen my website, got my email address and added me in msn. Usually i am not very enthusiastic about talking with strangers, but i could sense that he was different. And as we started conversing, it became apparent to me that he was deeply and mentally troubled. There was a strong conflict going on in that person's mind; he was in psychological turmoil and wanted to talk about his problem with someone (I being the available to him at that time), and yet, he did not want to reveal the actual problem to me as well. As a result, he talked but talked in a very vague, ambiguous manner. Things like "I'm STUCK! I'm helplessly STUCK!" and "I want to cry!", often interspersing his tale with the statement, "I have no idea why i'm even talking to you!". I listened to him with patience, saw him tentatively trying to trust me, and then immediately

"Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly." Voltaire (1694 - 1778) It takes courage to love... or perhaps, recklessness.

Yestereve I saw philosophers in the market-place carrying their heads in baskets, and crying aloud, "Wisdom! Wisdom for sale!" Poor philosophers! They must needs sell their heads to feed their hearts. Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, "I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task." And the street sweeper said, "Thank you, sir. But tell me what is your task?" And the philosopher answered saying, "I study man's mind, his deeds and his desires." Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, "I pity you too." Kahlil Gibran , Sand and Foam

Here are ten Visions. I call them Visions, because this how they occured to me. They hover on the border of prose and poetry, and I dare not classify them in either. 1) Trapped She drew me close In a wild frantic manner And whispered Like a bird in a cage ‘Why is it that, my love When I stare in your eyes I feel scared, alone, Trapped?’ 2) Reality In her embrace All realities melted away And when she asked ‘Do you love me?’ He kissed her and said ‘I no longer know what that means.’ 3) Judgment Day ‘Next case!’ shouted the angel of justice Angels brought an old man Broken. Shattered. Chained. Sobbing. ‘He loved her enough to kill her’ one explained The angel paused, then Thumped a stamp on the paper With the yell ‘Take him to hell!’ 4) Rain Through the open window I saw her standing With arms wide open In the rain Her eyes closed Bliss on her face ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted ‘I don’t know… I feel as if I were in love.’ 5) Broken Glass It is the soul And not sole Which bleeds When yo

"It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative." John Burroughs (1837 - 1921) True, indeed. And that is why it takes greater intellect and courage to be a skeptic, to question things, rather than passively believe.

It was in 1837 that I was appointed as a doctor and naturalist on the ship The Marine Maiden , which was bound on a journey along the Western shore of Africa. I was more interested in the biological diversity I would get to witness during this journey than in the living aboard a ship. However, since it was a necessary component of my job, I had to endure it. Most of the sailors and the crew struck me as superstitious, vulgar, and to the say the best about them, plain and ordinary. Not the sort of people in whose company I would find pleasure. Their knowledge extended only to some tales from the Bible and to the preposterous yarns they were so fond of telling. Nevertheless, they were a hardworking lot and that is what mattered to the Captain. The Captain was a relatively cultured man, and though he wasn’t very social, I found him a dedicated and affectionate person, who conveniently became strict and stern when the conditions demanded it, and such conditions were not so uncommon in a li

"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls." George Carlin

This post is in response to a comment made by one of the readers: ' ...you Do give the impression that you're sadness can overcome the facade of your humour. And you Do, of course, feel unfortunate to have lost your love... ' When i look back at what happened, there is a sense of nostalgia, a little bit of sadness, but simultaneously i am distinctly glad that the relationship came to an end, because we were not the right match. And also, i do not regret what happened. To the contrary, i feel a sense of delight and gratitude that nature allowed me to experience such beautiful moments, finite though they were in their duration. If there is any sense of being unfortunate, it is only a feeling of wonder whether i'll ever experience such a thing again in my life.

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." Nathaniel Hawthorne [ Disclaimer : I am not responsible for any symbolic interpretation of this quote made by any of my readers. :)]

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. A. A. Milne And social outcasts and eccentrics are persons too, once you get to know them. :) I believe that the best way for people who hold unconventional doctrines and eccentric beliefs to develop social interaction is they should not reveal their untraditional thoughts right in the beginning of a relationship. They should allow the other individual to first judge them on the basis of what they are as a person. If the other individual grows fond of their persona, then it is safe for them to reveal their unconventional beliefs, because then there is a high chance that the relationship would continue on the momentum of the previously gained fondness. Such people, i believe, have earned the right to be eccentric.

It is not the genius alone who suffers. His true friends suffer with him.

"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." Robert McCloskey , State Department spokesman (attributed)

'I am no longer alone, Monsieur. And I shall never be alone again.' 'Ah, so you know a lot of people?' I say. He smiles and I promptly realize my mistake. 'I mean that I no longer feel alone...' Jean-Paul Sartre , Nausea Loneliness is primarily a subjective feeling, no doubt being triggered by objective elements. But the threshold value differs from person to person. There are people who feel lonely even in the company of many friends, while there are people who don't feel lonely even they are alone. Of course, the opposite also exists: there are people who feel lonely when they are alone, and there are people who don't feel lonely when in the company of many friends. In every person there is a 'social impulse', which differs not only in its intensity but also in quality. The people who have a very low intensity of social impulse feel more comfortable when they are alone, or with a few individuals. People with a high intensity of social impulse

Nietzsche said to his sister, during an illness which brought him near to death: "Promise me that when I die only my friends shall stand about my coffin, and no inquisitive crowd. See that no priest or anyone else utter falsehoods at my graveside, when I can no longer protect myself; and let me descend into my tomb as an honest pagan."

When you go Would you have the guts to say "I don't love you Like I loved you Yesterday"? My Chemical Romance , I Don't Love You

Sometimes i feel that break-ups are nature's way of telling us that two persons just aren't made for each other. [Disclaimer: Applicable only within a certain limit. ]

"Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, demanding to know why Russell had not believed in him. ' Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence ,' was Russell's (I almost said immortal) reply. Mightn't God respect Russell for his courageous scepticism... far more than he would respect Pascal for his cowardly bet-hedging?" Richard Dawkins , The God Delusion

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship." Oscar Wilde I think it depends a lot on social context. Friendship between men and women is possible, but only in certain social scenarios, which are liberal enough to conceive of such a thing... in many others, it is quite inconceivable. Our social interaction depends a lot on 'symbols' and 'signs'. Actions have a symbolic value... which is different in different contexts. That is to say, it is the social context which imparts a particular interpretation to a particular act. An action which might be considered as 'flirting' in a semi-traditional society might well be considered a 'friendly gesture' in a more liberal one. When everyone interprets a particular symbol in a particular way, then it becomes somewhat meaningless what the original intentions are. And perhaps the person who is doing that action himself becomes confused a

" The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion. " John Stuart Mill [Quoted in The God Delusion , by Richard Dawkins, Page 4] Nothing to say of the Western scholars, where, of course, atheism and agnosticisim reigns supreme, but people are little aware of the great scholars of Islam itself. Oft mentioned names like Averroes (Ibn Rushd), Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Omar Khayyam, Ibn Khuldoon were all religious heretics, and were seen with scorn by the general public... but it is these very names which have survived the vicissitudes of history. Russell writes about the Islamic free thinkers: "They were looked upon with suspicion by the populace, which was fanatical and bigoted; they owed their safety (when they were safe) to the protection of comparatively free-thinking princes." [ History of Western Philosophy

Recent research in congnitive sciences indicates that our free will might be an illusion after all, that our actions are being determined by physiological laws, like all other animals, as if we are a complex biological machine. Since, as i have written in a previous post, it is a problem itself to define free will, so perhaps i am not being accurate when i say that we are not free... we might be called 'free' in a Spinozoistic sense. Nevertheless, the simple fact is that the working of our mind is completely based upon scientific and physiological laws, and there is no supernatural phenomenon, like soul, in work which might be above the scientific laws. However, the interesting thing, which i wish to point out, is that even if we are not free, free will is such a strong and powerful illusion that we cannot escape from it. Even if a scientist knows that he is not free, he will nevertheless continue to feel as if he is free, and responsible for his own actions. And well, in a s

"Women often believe they are in love when in reality they are not. The business of an intrigue, the emotions inspired by gallantry, the natural inclination for the pleasure of being loved, and the difficulty of refusal -- all these persuade women that they feel real passion, when in fact it is nothing but coquetry." La Rochefoucauld , Maxim 277 I wonder how much of it is really so. I think one of the factors which we must consider in this regard that women don't usually initiate courtship (at least, in the society in which i live.) Mostly it is the boy who makes the first move; the girl has the option of either accepting it or rejecting it. How much validity can there be in a love which is initiated by the opposite side? I don't deny the existence of sincere emotions in such scenario, but in how many cases would it be sincere?

"A king isn't born, Alexander, he is made. By steel and by suffering. A king must know how to hurt those he loves. It's lonely. Ask anyone. Ask Heracles. Ask any of them. Fate is cruel. No man or woman can be too powerful or too beautiful without disaster befalling. They laugh when you rise too high. And they crush everything you've built with a whim. What glory they give in the end, they take away. They... They make of us slaves." King Philip, in the movie Alexander

Once upon a time... Me: "What would we talk about, jab dunya main saree batein khatam ho jaen gee ?"

I had previously been writing on my blog on TIG. If you are interested, you can access the previous posts through this link: http://awais.tigblog.org/ I have transferred some of the posts which i thought to be important from that blog to this one, which you can see below.

A person's confidence is often more convincing than the rationale of his arguments.

Sometimes, before you can embark on the path of friendship, you have to stroll through the garden of romance.

There are some people who by virtue of their superb psychological sense can judge what a person expects/wants to hear, and they say exactly that. And by doing so, they manage to earn the trust of that person. The ability to say right things at the right time is a huge advantage. And these people make the best liars, because their lies conform to your psychology and unless you possess a psychological insight equal to theirs, it becomes very difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. People are so frail against such people, it's unimaginable... their ability to exploit the human tendency of trust is horrifying... the very idea of encountering such people terrifies me!

" Free will is essentially an oxymoron — we would not consider it 'will' if it were completely random and we would not consider it 'free' if it were entirely determined ," Brembs said. In other words, nobody would ascribe responsibility to one's actions if they were entirely the result of random coincidence. On the other hand, if one's actions were completely determined by outside factors such that no alternative existed, no one would hold that person responsible for them." [From the article 'Study hints that fruit flies have free will' by Charles Q. Choi] So what is free will? Can an action be partially determined ?

It's the day of Judgement... the court of God... He sits on his throne, people arrive one by one, and their fates are being decided... should he be sent to an eternal blazing fire in which he will roast forever for the finite amount of sins he has committed in the finite existence of a finite world... or should he be sent to an oasis of medieval pleasure, in which he can spend his life in the boredom of utter eternity? And Lo! The Philosopher is brought forth before Him by the angels. This is a complicated case... the decision is difficult... the scales of balance fluctuate between his virtues and heresies. He deliberates and finally decides, "Take him to paradise!" The angels move but he stays at his spot... firm, confident... he looks up and says, "I don't want your paradise. If you want to reward me, give me annihilation. Bless me nothingness. Purge me of this existence. I only desire Death." I don't know what happens after this.

It has been my experience that most people when asked this question, "Are you happy?" tend to answer it in positive... and the huge prevalence of 'happiness' tends to make me quite skeptical of its validity. :) Personally, i have classified the happy attitude into two types: Negative Happiness : This consists of a relative psychological indifference to the problems of your life, such that they cease to bother you. You fail in an exam... you just shrug your shoulders and say, "So what? Its not the end of the world." This is negative happiness. Positive Happiness : This consists of the feeling of pleasure derived from a variety of actions; success, romance, physical pleasures such as having a good tasty meal, aesthetic pleasures such as listening to music or appreciating art, having some sort of an adventure or a thrilling moment. Of course, in real life, these two types exist in conjunction, though the percentage of their contribution is different in lives o

Crucify a madman and you risk turning his insanity into a crusade.