Deliverance

I finally arrived, in the most unlikely circumstances.

Flirting with the daemons within freed me from them.

Imaginaria which decorated my cradle seem distant thunders now.

Sun shines a little brighter today.

My heart still feels heavy, after all the beating it is taken.

And my soul feels bruised, after carrying burdens of my obsessions.

But I hope there will be healing.

And small things in time will be forgiven, and forgotten.

I have arrived at the shore.

Blabbering

I am one of those people who want answers and refuse to accept that we have to live in an inoptimal or dysfunctional way. Since my childhood, I have fantasized about justice, peace and equilibrium and tried to find the elements of truth in all walks of life. I had a lot of exposure to people belonging to different schools of thought including religion, atheism, socialism, liberals, conservatives and so on. Unfortunately, they did not have the answers that I needed and therefore I developed a habit to rationalise and think through every experience that I had. While stressful, it was also enlightening and ultimately lead to truth and tranquillity.

When I was a child, I wanted to build wireless electricity transmission and weapons and fight the monsters of the real world with them. Technology always attracted me and over the years I have experimented with several technology domains and platforms. Combined with my quest for the answers, interest in the social and psychological aspects such as strategic analysis and human experience also flourished. Professionally, I call myself an architect of digital ecosystems.

The Medicine

He is the answer to everything…
Even when the question is His own way…

And no good can be achieved without His way…
Devil may try to tell us otherwise…
But it is always a sham.
There is no good without His way.

Therefore, for peace, we need to trust Him.
And stay away from what He prohibits.
And reinforce trust on Him when any kind of doubt or trouble arrives.
And be patient as the devil feeds on impatient souls.

The Diagnosis

What is it?

Uncontrollable state of mind
which triggers questions
which are not always relevent to the present condition

Confusion.
Linking irrelevent things with each other
making them binding upon myself

Urge to go back to calmness through thinking it through
hasn’t worked historically

Diverting attention to other things
just forgetting about the matter totally
brings some peace

What does God say?

That there will be tests
designed to check our ability to stay calm
despite the pain and confusion

I must

accept that there are problems
which are disturbing
feeling uneasy is natural

I must

utilize methods to keep myself calm
there is nothing wrong with logical methods

I must

know that I don’t need to remind myself of whats right all the time.

I want to resolve it right away.
I know I cannot.
The problem will may be resolve faster if I just leave it alone.

A new problem comes up.
What would I think about if I am not thinking about it?

I know I have the option to just stop being bothered about this problem.
Just forgetting about it.
I know it will bring peace.
I know that I wouldn’t loose control by doing so.
I just need to assure myself that.

But that is for now.
What could I do around 30 minutes ago when I was very disturbed and couldn’t sleep?
May be I am bound to have some sleepless nights before the problem is resolved.
I should be okay with that.
Still, theoratically, what could I do?

May I was trying too hard to sleep.
Therefore ended up thinking a lot.
Part of letting yourself go is to let happen whatever is happening.
Why is it so necessary that things go accoridng to plan?
That I am able to do what I thought should happen?

May be bracing myself like that is part of my fears.
There are a lots of fears, going on 24×7.

I overthink because a lot of thoughts come to my mind and I am unable to link them all together.

But then there is the problem of incorrect linking which leads to incorrect expectations from myself.
How do I stop that?
The incorrect linking is also result of being confused and not at peace.
Such theories and concepts are supposed to be a last resort in resolving problems.
While striving to end the problem ASAP, I jump to conclusions and try to implement such solutions.
I will always build up such concepts as long as I am not thinking clearly and not willing to let go.
This cannot be stopped.

This is endless.
Cannot be ended throgh logical reasoning.
No matter how bad that makes you feel.
Chacking for loopholes wouldn’t help.
Again, nothing wrong with unlinked methods which help.
It is difficult, but that is where the solution is.
And the much needed freedom is.
Whatever religion or any other concept says is not to be implemented on 24×7 basis.
It is supposed to become a part of the personality.
And yet there would be more mistakes.

You cannot implement a conclusion drawn now on the past.
There is no use in re-analyzing events and checking the what-if scenarios with new conclusions.
That is simply against the much needed fluidity.
People evolve, not necessarily look back all the time.

I have to embrace confusion.
And stop trying to eliminate it.
Choose not to answer questions.
I know confusion is not the optimal way to live.
But I don’t have a choice right now.
Because all of this might just be a temporary feeling as well.
And no, it is not easy.

Things will keep coming up.
And its okay.

We try to resolve stuff as much as we can.
When we cannot anymore, we should just be okay with it, not fight indefintely.

A conclusion like this, which is basically correct, cannot be implemented as is in reality.
It means a certain behavior to be adopted in reality. (In this case, embracing confusion. Most cases actually.)
Not taken as an input to a further argument.

I am afraid to let go because in the past, it has made me do stuff I don’t like.
Can be changed I suppose.

The confusion and the overall problem has its origins in the biology. (Probably)
And may be it is better off manifesting as a biological symptoms only.

I try to learn stuff from past events.
I only draw useless conclusions by doing that.
I cannot recall how it has ever helped me.
I only like to go over the past events again and again.
Going over them is enough for me.

Entitlement Syndrome

I never knew that the term “entitlement syndrome” – which I use to describe my fellow countrymen – is actually a real syndrome until a few moments ago when I googled it. In my search, I came across many different types of entitlement syndrome such as that children have with respect to their parents, graduates have with respect to employers and so on. But trust me everyone, this syndrome cannot be observed as frequently as in Pakistan!

I mean each and every person in this country thinks that the world revolves around him and that every rule can be bent in his favor. I will start from the one I hate the most: Everyone thinks he can drive at any speed, in any direction and anywhere he wants. He can take a turn as he please, he can put others in danger and nah, no problem at all. People in this country are so utterly unconcerned with others on the road that I sometimes cannot even believe it. If I ever leave this country, this will be my reason # 1. Whenever the idea to leave the country comes to my head, its normally when I am on the road.

Then, there are the corporate managers. Yes, these managers think that by becoming a manager, they have control over their team members’ lives. I mean for God’s sake, management is a service and a job description only. It just means that the person will look at how a bigger chunk of work will be performed with help of a team and that’s it! It does not mean authority over anyone or entitlement to behave in any way you want. I know that this is a problem in other parts of the world as well but how rude and abusive Pakistani managers can become is only known to people who are stuck with one such one. And yes, this is my reason # 1 for not leaving my current job. (Its because my current manager doesn’t behave that way, in case you didn’t get it before.)

Another case are the VIP convoys. They block the roads and make tens of thousands of people suffer at their will. People actually die in the traffic jams, women give birth to children in vehicles. But these assholes seem to have no bounds to their entitlement to other people’s lives. Being in Lahore, things which much worse during the time Pervez Ilahi was the chief joker. If I ever support Shehbaz Sharif, the reason # 1 for it would be because he doesn’t do this bullshit thing.

These are just a few examples. If you look around you will find more. Politicians take people hostage more frequently than anyone else. There will be some guys (actually a lot of them) who will go to the front of the queue with utmost stubbornness. Its the best when everyone is that stubborn and the queue disappears completely. Another very interesting case is that when you need a very tiny bit of favor (or even something simply according to process) from somebody and suddenly that person starts to feel like a king. He will make you feel like shit and will entitle himself to feeling like your boss. Something which is best described with the Punjabi proverb: “Gidder de goon di lor pe gai, hun o pahar te ja ke haggay ga.” which means “If you need Jackal’s shit, he will go and take a dump on the mountain top.” 

Contextual Reflections

When somebody says or expresses something about anyone else, he is doing nothing but creating a contextual reflection of himself.  There are two psychological facts which can further explain this.

First, nobody knows nothing about anyone else. There are only perceptions which exist nowhere but inside our head. When someone says that he or she knows somebody, all they are saying is that they can predict how that person will behave in a certain context. Is the judgement always correct? I don’t think so.

Second, nobody knows anything about himself. There is only what you think about yourself or how you image yourself to be. Who you really are is a question mark. This is exactly why you keep trying to change a habit and never succeed. It is because you think you have the ability to do something when you don’t. The story continues in all aspects of our lives.

So when somebody talks about anyone else, he is doing nothing but providing a contextual reflection of where he stands himself in terms of his real character. It reveals the war between his conscious and unconscious; and it reveals what he perceives in context of another person’s character. Normally what we hate most about ourselves unconsciously is what we hate most in another person.

The reality of a person is unknown in his own conscious and in other people’s conscious. But when the both interact, it reveals.

On Being Relaxed

There are no such things as “relaxing” or “to relax”. There is only “being relaxed”, the mental state.

By saying that one can relax himself, we tend to precieve that relaxing is a verb, an action. And right there, the contradiction starts. If it is an action, how can it bring relaxation to one? So humans tend to try out different things which they call relaxing. But they are just what they are: partying, sleeping etc. When they are over, we are stressed again.

Humans need to adopt a certain way of doing things to actually stay relaxed. That way of life needs to cover all aspects of his life, not bound to a certain time. But before that, they need to figure out what that way is.

Goals We Set

Humans tend to set the most impossible goals for themselves. Its not the stuff in the world which is difficult to get, nor its the love or affection from other people. It is a particular state of mind or a feeling which we want but we can’t get to.

We do tend to be perverted and associate material things as a symbol of achieving a particular feeling. Mostly we are only fooling ourselves by doing so. I’ll give an example: I want a super car because it is something really really cool. Do I want the car or do I want the feeling of possessing something really cool and different?

Most of the time of our lives is spent discovering that things don’t ultimately bring those feelings to us. We associate even bigger things to that feeling, just to return to where we started. Its when we stop wishing for things that we are able to achieve that feeling. And its when we stop chasing that feeling that we are able to do the right things in our lives.

What Education Has Become

We live in a system of exploitation and slavery. Education systems of today aim to produce better slaves and nothing else.

What education was actually supposed to do was to enable children to differentiate right and wrong; and develop the moral courage to choose the right way even if it means material losses. Education of today doesn’t do that anymore.

As a result, education has become a business, teacher has become an employee and students and their parents have become customers.

Faqr

Love and Inability: that is what I am made of. I am unable to get to what I love the most. I am unable to do what I love doing the most. I am not what I would love to be the most.

Having to settle with what I have now and keeping myself content is for me the new definition of all that is right. There is a pleasure in being connected when it would seem by all means that I am disconnected. Being connected with something you cannot see, cannot feel seems to be the ultimate a human can achieve. Refusal to connect in a way which is even remotely definable in a physical or metaphysical and still being connected by the virtue of just a belief: that is love.

Distance with what you love while being happy is the ultimate means for reaching the nirvana.

Real Value

It had been a tradition of the East that no money was demanded in return of three things: water, knowledge and direction. Today, money is demanded for all three. In today’s era of capitalism, you can’t do anything without money. Everything bought has a curse of being of only limited use and comfort.

In such time of despair, when one looks for true happiness which cannot be bought or taken away, he needs to look inside. Symbols of the past which denoted peace and value, like water and love are no more. Our only hope is inner peace and strength.

Soul Killer

Internet has become incredibly boring. There are so many intriguing and beautiful things shared at all different sorts of social websites. But there is a limit to how much interesting things you want to see. At the end of the day, I end up feeling hollow and empty again.

We really have no time for ourselves. We keep ourselves busy with stuff that has little to do with us. What we think we like betrays us, we end up stressed and unsatisfied.

We should learn to really and truly relax our minds, not kill time by engaging our minds in endless stream of content. Inability to do so is simply sorry. We no longer have those morning walks in the park, we have cardio. We no longer have food we love, we simply eat a burger because a guy at TV told us to. We no longer have remedies to our distress, we have drugs.

We should learn to live the moment, slow down the pace of our lives and learn to be happy with stuff we already have. And then, our minds will flow and they will create amazing things. Without effort and without borders.

Bias

Taking a turn into the Beadon Road, I cursed all the guys walking in front of the car and all around forcing me to move an inch at a time. I wondered why wouldn’t they make fences on the sidewalks or something like that to prevent the morons from disturbing the cars. Anyway, I found a parking spot pretty close and I was out of the pain for a while.

I started strolling towards Chaman Ice-cream, enjoying all the bright lights. Yes, typical Lahori enjoying lights! Until of course I had stretch myself to avoid a bike which swung past me. I wondered why wouldn’t they make a crowded street like that a no vehicle zone. They should make another parking plaza and make sure no car came near the walking people.

And then I remarked upon our inability to think objectively about ourselves and subjectively about others.

The (Hopeless) Pursuit of Intellectual Satisfaction

It was Open House at the university and the outgoing batch was displaying their final year projects to the visiting companies and corporate representatives. A hiring manager from one of the mobile service provider walked up to me and asked if I have filled in the application forms for his company already. I said, “I am not interested in working in your company.” He asked why, and I told him that the kind of work they do is not for “engineers”. He walked away.

A few months down the road and I found myself applying at the mobile service providers and vendors. The sudden realization that there were no opportunities for innovation and real engineering was disturbing. Telecom was a booming industry at the time in Pakistan and seemed to be the obvious choice for “consumption” a fresh Electronics Engineering grad. Obviously, this was not a priority but a compromise. After I found a job I found out that even in a conventional industry, opportunities to do interesting work could be found. So I was happy for quite some time.

Another few years down the road and I realized that no matter what innovative work you do, the organization doesn’t really absorb it completely. Sometimes the fault is your own and stuff you do no matter how innovative is not really in line with the corporate vision or method of doing things. At other times, it is simply the company’s lack of fluidity. So I found a new interesting challenge for myself: how should a service oriented organization work, and I went out to figure out what should be the different functional domains and how they should work together to bring excellence and a culture of innovation while benefiting all people involved.

And then, another few years down the path and I realized that this was even a bigger challenge. People wouldn’t accept change even if it is for their own good. Even the management doesn’t accept new stuff, may be because they are not confident enough of your abilities or may be because they don’t see that the change can actually bring any value. Part of it was my own fault: the typical geek attitude, the RTFM attitude, the expectation that others will be as interested as you are and will be willing to bother as much as you do and therefore the resulting lack of communication. At other times, it is because people don’t see a value for their own selves and simply rule out new stuff.  Yet another aspect of all this was the realization that humans are not configurable resources and my geeky self didn’t take that into account.

As long as I am able to do interesting work, I can go with the difficulties. But a dead end is where you have no other option but to stop doing just what keeps you alive. Intellectual satisfaction is what I thrived on. But wait, its not as simple as that. All this time, a part of me kept telling me not to look for intellectual satisfaction in work. Bertrand Russel says that people are happy when they work only on things which bring them value. He was a strong proponent of people working little and only on stuff which brought value. At the same time, he also said that people shouldn’t take work as inherently virtuous. Somehow, I find a paradox in his philosophy. How can the same thing be not virtuous and contain value at the same time?

I would rather take another approach, that you should only work as per your terms of employment, keep it confined to just that. While doing that, you should not look for any intellectual satisfaction in it, only the agreed money. One should find intellectual satisfaction in peace of life, rather than indulgence. May be a part of this comes from the Tao philosophy and the “dao”, the way of life that cannot be told.

But what about your survival, the competitive workplace and the challenge to keep up your lifestyle? Aren’t these real challenges in today’s world? How can one live on an undefined path in such a demanding world? And that is where our real saviors come in. We do have THE path, the well-defined one and the strong one. And we have that rope and that strong handle and we believe that He who is our creator is our best caretaker. We confuse ourselves, in pursuit of our personal goals, we keep ourselves disturbed and unsettled. All this when peace is right here, right now.

So here is to being happy and not looking for satisfaction and prosperity where it simply can’t be found.

The Century of Nonsense

Siraj Munir writes that the nineteenth century was the time when the humans saw themselves as evolved creatures in history of humanity. They perceived everything from a historic standpoint.

In twentieth century humans saw everything from standpoint of society and civilization and clashes between them.
This made me think about the current century and how people see themselves now. And I realized that this is the century when human race with try to rationalize the obvious and try to interpret common sense. Something fundamentally stupid and retarded. Want a proof? Go to Forbes and have a look at the headlines.

Problem With Being An Introvert

Anyone who has observed or known me for some time is of opinion that I am an introvert, and I agree: I am an introvert. I somehow always considered this to be a good thing and always thought of how this was superior or more morally correct than being an extrovert.

However, I have come to realize now that being an introvert or an extrovert has nothing to do with moral correctness. Every human being has inherent flaws and a default way of feeling things. Some of our feelings do correspond with what should be from a moral and nature’s standpoint. However, some of our feelings are simply diseased and don’t always represent the reality or follow the nature’s way. In other words, some times we feel things which are simply not right. What we should do at such times is to convince ourselves to act otherwise and subside our feelings.

While one does that, he may feel superfluous, for he is going down a new path, a path which deviates from his default pattern. The problem with me was that I had to really feel something while doing it, feeling deep and profound. This came from me being an introvert.

Now I realize that doing the right thing is more important than being an introvert or an extrovert. The fact is that we quickly adopt our new ways given we overcome the initial resistance. But that is something difficult for an introvert, and that is exactly the problem.

How to be Extraordinary

We are somehow taught to think that people who get brilliant stuff done are extraordinary and cool. “Superheros are extraordinary and they can save us all.” We believe that such awesomeness is something very inherent to the person which enables him to do or achieve excellent stuff.

I am not going to deny the possibility of such abilities. After all, we do find truly awesome people all the time. What I want to say is that children should not be taught to look at someone’s magical achievements alone. They should rather focus on their actions and stuff they did in real life; and the fact that their inherent abilities were none of their choosing. If such abilities were not their own choice, you simply cannot adopt such abilities either. You need to do all the dirty work as well.

Glorification of great people somehow hides all the hard work and very inglorious stuff that was done which lead them to achieve what they did. What did founders of Google do to make the best search engine around? As boring as it sounds, what they did was programming and writing code. What did Einstein do to make the arguably biggest breakthrough in history of science – the theory of relativity? It was done by solving mathematical problems which lasted him many years.

What children should be taught is the fact that these extraordinary people were not necessarily looking for glorification. What they did was their passion, and they continued doing it even when people made fun of them. They probably just let themselves free from the need to self-projection and focused on small, unpopular stuff at hand which just came naturally to them.

We are a generation of people who want to be different, want to stand out big time and be extraordinary. I am afraid that this is something which cannot really be achieved with conscious effort, or by simply wanting it. Desire to be extraordinary keeps us away from regular stuff, and we end up locking ourselves in denial, only to make a joke out of ourselves.

The only way to be extraordinary is to set yourself free, focus on small things at hand, doing them well, and then keeping your fingers crossed. (Or in my case, trusting in God to make the best decisions for me.)

Research & Creativity

The standards of research are there to assure that all conclusion drawn have a solid ground and result in addition to knowledge base of mankind. The barrier to enter the research community and qualifying to be called a researcher is quite high. One needs to be accustomed to research terminology and practices, and then prove that he is good at it.
This barrier makes many people steer away from research and implement their ideas elsewhere, for good or for worse. The research community deprives herself of the biggest brains due to lack of fluidity in research methods.

The number of people who do their PhD’s on works of unschooled scientists, poets and entrepreneurs is simply astounding. Yet, scholarly breakthroughs and landmarks once considered very authentic are challenged and proved wrong very often.

We are intuitive beings with common sense holding our lives together. Governments, courts and corporates don’t usually employ research-like due diligence to make their decisions. Simple human thought has done wonders. Just because working of human mind has still not been fully understood, such high barriers to research should not be created.
Research should be more open to simple human creativity and logic, and that is all I am saying.

Socioeconomics of Languages

How did humans start giving meanings to sounds or combination of sounds? How did a scream convert into a word? How did people in different places developed different languages? In today’s world, now that we are moving towards more universal expressions and languages, what will this change do to our feelings and emotions?

In Urdu, we have several words for making reference to second person singular: tu, tum, aap; differentiated according to level of respect you have for the person. In English, we have only one: you. Small differences such as these reflect centuries of cultural growth and sentiments important to a certain society.

We can also very easily judge a society just by the aesthetics of sounds which make up their language. Soft and yet well defined sounds of Persian, upright and lengthy monotonous German sounds, separate and resounding words of Wolof. African Americans still retain their ancestral touch, with their unique attitudes and emotions.

How did we get here? Lets try to theorize how languages and such differences developed. An imaginary person in ancient times, living in a hot desert, has obvious troubles in life. He needs water, protection from heat and sand storms, and food which he collects from few herbs and plants found in the desert. Most of things he need to communicate with his peers are about these necessities. He will create words for his dress, his house, his food and plants where he finds it. Challenged by harsh atmosphere, he will develop certain attitude, insecurities and priorities in life. A person living in an agriculture friendly, mild weather place will develop a different set of feelings, languages and a way of life.

Languages come as a packaged deal: they bring a set of feelings and a way of life. Modify a man’s language and you modify his aspirations. These new found desires and feelings may not be suitable for his situation in reality.

I sell popcorn on my small kiosk, and get several requests for customization. Some want cheese mixed in, some want it with some salsa and some with spicy powder. The list goes on. So many people don’t want popcorn at all. I want to sell more popcorn, want to spend less time customizing for different tastes and want everyone in the world to buy it. I will somehow need to tell these guys that plain popcorn with a hint of salt is the best one found in the whole world. Its cheap, good for health and makes them look good. My salty popcorn needs to become answer to their aspirations. So I will launch a marketing campaign for salty popcorn and setup my optimized manufacturing lines with high profit margins. I could control everyone with only one type of popcorn, I couldn’t do it if I had to make different popcorn for everyone.

We are witnessing globalization and diminishing of cultures. Language simplification and non-customized education is playing a huge part in this commercialization. Programmed with one language?

Everyone should be aware and not lose their uniqueness by giving into thoughtless desires.