A Myth in Creation

'I am far more concerned about whether someone is pluralistic in their worldview-- if they oppose totalitarianism and believe people of different religious and nonreligious identities should be free to live as they choose and cooperate around shared values-- than I am about whether someone believes in God or not.' Chris Stedman , The Problem With 'Atheist Activism' My sentiments exactly.

A Myth in Creation won the Merit Award in the Best Diarist category in Pakistan Blog Awards 2011 . My gratitude to all the readers, especially the regulars who have been a source of encouragement over the years, and to all those who voted and commented in my favor. And like last year , a special note of thanks to Aati , without whom this blog would not be what it is.

3:AM: You use a striking phrase in one of your essays, “the hermeneutics of suspicion”, to discuss three of your intellectual heroes, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. Could you say a little about what you were getting at in that phrase and how it is really relevant for the intellectual left today? BL: The phrase itself derives from the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, though I take strong issue with how he understands what such a “hermeneutics” - or method of interpretation - involves. But what Ricoeur correctly notices is that Marx, Nietzsche and Freud represent ways of thinking about and analyzing human societies and human behavior that share certain structural similarities. First, they typically suspect that people’s own self-understanding and self-presentation are misleading as to what really explains why they say what they say and do what they do. Second, these thinkers try to show that the real explanation is one that would undermine the credibility of the beliefs and values peop

#TS97 prompts: an empress, a poem and sand * the empress banished the poets from her court and forbade all poesy; she knew well there are verses that sting like sand in the eyes #TS97 #TS98 prompts are - frankincense; wandering star, farce * Even tho death renders everything a farce & time burns past away like incense,the aroma is there to stay in the wandering minds of men #TS98

Men take on the burden of patriarchy often when they love a woman and set out to free her... only to realize that patriarchy is more than a system; it is a mindset, and the only one who can free you is yourself.

‘It is so,’ says religion. ‘It could not be so,’ says humanity. Eventually, religion yields. When it doesn't, it produces monstrosities.

"The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not." Philip K. Dick ,  How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

#TS86 prompts: Non sequitur, Surreal, Quantum. Every quantum of love received planted a cactus in the surreal landscape of his life; he was a strawman struck wd a non-sequitur amour #TS86 #TS87 prompts: Seven sins, housework, a bond She had 9 lives; 7 of them she spent in sin, 8th in virtue as a housewife, & 9th beyond good & evil, seeking the ethereal bond of love #TS87

"When I have promised my patients help or improvement by means of cathartic treatment I have often been faced by this objection: 'Why, you tell me yourself that my illness is probably connected with my circumstances and the events of my life. You cannot alter these in any way. How do you propose to help me then?' And I have been able to make this reply: 'No doubt your fate would find it easier than I do to relieve you of your illness. But you will be able to convince yourself that much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. With a mental life that has been restored to health you will be better armed against the unhappiness." Sigmund Freud , Studies on Hysteria

Set to a Mexican ballad, it is the love story of Chronos and a mortal girl, depicting the joy and agitation of an unresolved romance through the vicissitudes of time and the actions of destiny. Two lovers in an ever-changing dreamlike landscape, filled with the rich, intriguing and often incomprehensible surrealistic imagery of Salvador Dali. It has many of his well-familiar symbols, such as the soft melting watches, indicating the fluidity and relativity of time; ants that signifiy death, decay and also sexual desire; crutches that denote the inadequacy of mankind and their constant need for support etc. The meaning of Dali's symbol's springs from his life and his subconscious associations, which makes them difficult to make sense of; nonetheless, even when the symbols are incomprehensible, they do not fail to evoke distinct impressions, forcing the viewers to make sense of it from their own subconscious projections. In the words of the creators: Dali says that “It is

Six years ago, sitting in the Dissection Hall, a realization struck me with disquieting intensity: there is not much choice in love. Who you fall in love with, how you fall in love, it's all very circumstantial. It felt, at that time, so arbitrary. It appeared as if the decision to find a partner could either be left to parents (arranged marriage) or to circumstances (love). Suddenly the whole grand idea of loving and marrying  by choice  seemed to crumble in front of me. Love became contingent. I must say, these thoughts were, and are, not the final word on the topic. Much more can be said about it. The reason I am bringing them up is that I found those ruminations beautifully echoed by Milan Kundera. It's one of those moments when you read a writer or a philosopher, and discover your own thoughts in them, refined and polished: "...her words had left Tomas in a strange state of melancholy, and now he realized it was only a matter of chance that Tereza had love

X: You place your happiness in my shaky hands... what kind of a burden is that?

Source We are fortunate that even those who believe that everything is permitted in theory are in majority of cases not capable of everything in practice.  

The Day of Ashura is a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn in the Battle of Karbala for the Shia Muslims. A rich tradition of beliefs and rituals surrounds the commemoration of this day: there are intense, poetic recitations, there are beating drums and chants, narrations of the history of the event, public processions, ceremonial chest beatings, ritual flagellations, and even re-enactments of the battle of Karbala. There is a deeper significance to all of this, which I became aware of only after I had read Karen Armstrong's work on mythology. Armstrong does not limit herself to the narrow definition of a myth as a 'purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions or events...' something that is mutually exclusive with an actual historical event. Her conception of a myth is deeper and meaningful. A myth, she says "is an event that - in some sense - happened once, but which also happens all the time." To my mind, it is d

The research of Kiley Hamlin from the University of British Columbia demonstrates how infants possess almost adult-like moral understanding, developed somewhere between fifth and eighth months of life. This is yet another bit of evidence in favor of universal moral grammar. (See my previous post: Universal Moral Grammar and Implications )

Midway during a conversation: Me: So you take names when you orgasm? :) Aati: Usually. It just happens. You make it sound so interrogational waise. 'take names' -- 'name names', like I'd make a bad spy; someone could sex names out of me. :P Me: Hahaha!

Envy is unsettling because it projects from one's own insecurities and fears. The subject of our envy is merely a canvas on which we paint with our splashed emotions of anger, resentment, inferiority and disgust. This is precisely why envy is so hard to over-come, because what we are trying to over-come are our own demons. It is the Hydra of all inner monsters, no matter how many heads you chop off, many more emerge. Envy can prove to be one of the strongest chains binding you to your past. It prevents you from moving on, dragging you back again and again to an imaginary arena in which the chanting crowd is constantly cheering to the death-match between you and your opponent, even though in reality, no one is comparing. Even if they are, what matters is whether you are comparing.