Living abroad let you discover many things other than wealth, which means it opens up opportunity for develop better understanding of human psychology, structures of societies and human motives behind actions and overall behavior. I am blessed that I have got this opportunity that help me broader my perspective.
Our thinking are like fishing nets, so broader the net means more fishes. Fishes are always there and they are infinitely many. It is the net that restrict us and local context of people around us that make us think that it is the maximum that we can have.
Yesterday I was reading pamphlet in Arabic that is about customer feedback, it hardly makes any sense to me, though I can read and may recognize few words in it. One of the words that I found was “Maqbool”. Maqbool is a word in Urdu being used in context of describing something which is very famous, popular and may be prestigious, it used in quite positive manner. This word was lend from Arabic as Urdu is comprised of words belong to different origins and languages.
Surprisingly in Arabic, “Maqbool” means the same however it application is totally different; it is used in terms to describing something which is average and known and accepted by population which barely satisfies them. It is no way means it is popular or famous or anyway near prestigious.
Just amazed, how a word taken from different language with it literal meaning almost the same, means totally different in two different societies and trigger different reactions. May the meanings of words are inside our minds, not in the words.
I just wonder reading books; history, literature, religion are suffice to deliver the message from one generation to another. I hardly think so. Without creating the context in mind about the people and the understanding of society they lived, it would be very difficult to get across the right message and intention behind it, and must impose great responsibility on us to understand it let alone make any inference based on the reconstructed thoughts and apply to current societies.
Rabi zidni ilma - My Lord increase my knowledge
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Speed Bumps
Today, I found a new speed bump built on the road that I use daily to go to my office, that speed bump was built in front of the school so understandably it is designed for the safety of the students of the school, a good thing that municipality people thought of. However when I was going back to home at evening, the speed bump was there as well, so I need to slow the car to dead speed to get over it, although school was closed. Quite understandably once speed bumps are build they don't go anywhere they remain there.
This let my mind to get into something fancy to drive analogies out of it. Speed bumps are negative instrument that work against the very purpose of road to facilitate the traffic but sometime we decided to have it to avoid bigger loss and compromise on the speed. We do consider them as safety checks to rein and control the speed menace and avoid any problem which may happen but not surely, when and how, but anyway we better think to have them installed.
We humans built our personality as we grow up facing different experiences, culture and custom. Such experiences allows us to build such road network of thoughts in our mind, and every "no" that we learn in our life is like a speed bump that restrict our capability to free flow our thoughts and innovation or at-least slow down our ability for adoption and something even think rationally.
However a "No" at some point of time doesn't means the same for your current situation, but since speed bumps built that they stay there even the school was closed, it keep slowing down everything and kill your speed, creativity.
So keep review your speed bumps (internal beliefs) , I usually prefer no speed hump but you need to have some. The worst of all that, sometime people are known for their speed bumps, as basic ingredients of their personality. A personality full of "No", I can't eat this, I can't watch this, I can't go there, I can't wear this, I can't do this.
I think a continuous thinking to review our internal speed bumps are required, but you need a motivation to do, a motivation is a vision that lead your way out and act as compass what you should do and what you shouldn't and what is the right way to go about.
A motivation should be a positive statement for you, for your family and for the people around you. A statement that let you know what is the better for you and all the people around. I again stress people around you, because your speed bump not only affects you but all the people that are connected to you.
So this statement let you know which speed bumps should remain be there and which should be removed.
Best of luck with your speed bumps, Live your life to fullest and use your brain rather let it use you.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Death a reality
Death is the ultimate reality of life. However, I still need to find the definition for it and develop its understanding: The very fact of this reality that one day I will be dead, which means I will be no more in this world. But why do I have to die anyway? After spending so many years fighting for my existence and working hard to get the control of life, eventually I will be retired from this world. The moment I reach the heights of my achievements, I will be told that Mr. Zahoor, thanks a lot for your services and the efforts that you have put in. But we no longer require your services. Would that be fair? Am I just a part of the machinery which will eventually be replaced and thrown out once its job is done and it's no longer able to serve the system?
I have no issues with death nor am I afraid of it. However, I am not willing to accept it. I can’t accept that one day I will be destroyed. My ego and self-esteem don't allow me to accept it. I just can?t accept that all my efforts and struggle that I am putting in will one day be nullified.
I am very much sure that this question of ?Why I will be dead? is not only in my mind but also remains somewhere in your mind too - maybe at some corner. Some of you ignore it and some accept it and some might have trouble dealing with it like I have. However, I must salute all of you. Despite knowing the fact, all of us continue in struggle to make our world more beautiful, making our life more luxurious and relaxed, creating events of happiness and ignoring and dealing with the sad part of it. It really requires great courage.
I know lots of philosophers passed away dealing with the issue of whether we exist or not. My question is related to the other extreme. I am very sure that I do exist, however, a reality also exists about transition from my existence to non-existence. Is there something that exists as non-existence of myself?
April 20, 2005
- Zahoor ul Islam
I have no issues with death nor am I afraid of it. However, I am not willing to accept it. I can’t accept that one day I will be destroyed. My ego and self-esteem don't allow me to accept it. I just can?t accept that all my efforts and struggle that I am putting in will one day be nullified.
I am very much sure that this question of ?Why I will be dead? is not only in my mind but also remains somewhere in your mind too - maybe at some corner. Some of you ignore it and some accept it and some might have trouble dealing with it like I have. However, I must salute all of you. Despite knowing the fact, all of us continue in struggle to make our world more beautiful, making our life more luxurious and relaxed, creating events of happiness and ignoring and dealing with the sad part of it. It really requires great courage.
I know lots of philosophers passed away dealing with the issue of whether we exist or not. My question is related to the other extreme. I am very sure that I do exist, however, a reality also exists about transition from my existence to non-existence. Is there something that exists as non-existence of myself?
April 20, 2005
- Zahoor ul Islam
Dumb Cat or Kat or you whatsoever
Dumb Cat
Aug 2nd 2005
You know cats are cute, they are indeed and as the same time they are smart too. Though at our home we are not used to keep pets and as I believe to let them free in nature is a good option.
One good evening my family found a cat sitting next to my door, it was quite unusual especially for the kids. They had tried every way to poke her out that could had made her to runaway but that cat seems to quite stable in her intention and kept sitting with a innocent look on her face. She seems to be hungry, we guessed, so we gave some left over food which she quickly ate and run away.
Next evening she was again there at the same place, this time we didn’t fed her, some suggested this way she will be used to come daily, some agreed but some soft hearted people in our family never mind feeding her and she used to come every day at the same time event twice afterwards.
Soon after few weeks she becomes the familiar to our family, now she can roam into the house and people can touch and play with her and she had tried everything to get the attention by every family members especially those who feed her.
I also sometime fed her, as I said we don’t keep pets, we just tried to feed her as we felt she always come hungry for food.
One fine evening, she was again at the doorstep, sitting there with the innocent look on her face, by the way she was not that innocent as she is very selective in eating food what we presented to her, she seems to found to good food, no Khachra, please J. She communicated us in one or another way.
That evening, I also saw another cat with her, may be the other cat was uninvited guest and didn’t seem to be there with the consent of the old cat. I was having dinner at the time, so I saved few chicken pieces for the cat and after the dinner throw it towards the cats, the quantity was good so I felt probably that will feed both the cats, however I observed something that quite strike me, the new cat was hesitant to go for the chicken piece and she looked first toward me with the disbelieve in her eyes whether the pieces was for her or my old cat, and then she looked towards the other cat who was very much confident in grabbing pieces and branding herself as the favorite cats of the house and then I saw all the pieces was collected by the old cat and she didn’t offer anything to that new kitty and she finally runway without eating anything.
It was bit strange and at the same time familiar to me, that very much happen in our human world too. We human are not less than these two characters, we often found cat number 1 in our life who seems to promoting herself as the best person in town having access to all the resources and opportunity in his hand and marketing her personality as the person having power and access to the resources while the cat number 2 often found in our society having lack of confidence, lack of information and knowledge about where the opportunity exist and how to grab them and understand and know the real person distributing and managing resources, approach them and finally fell dependent to the smart cats and comprised for the whole life following the smart cats.
They never tried to understand that there is nothing exceptional in the smart cats except their confidence and perseverance.
What if that cat had attempted for the chicken piece for the first time, would I mind that O! Poor kitty this is for my old favorite cat and you are not allowed to have that, well this was not in my mind but was there in that kitty mind. How often just the perception change the whole picture, how often just looking at the positive side and being confident let you get to the new opportunities rather falling prey to circumstances and comprising rather inventing opportunities for ourselves.
Just think it out for 5 minutes in silent when last time you felt like cat number 2 and cat number 1 has taken the major share of your efforts and grabbed out your opportunity and leaving aside few bits and pieces for you. Just think when you last time gave up without even giving a try to solve your problems by yourself.
The choice is yours, what do you want, it up to you , Cat number 1 or Cat number 2, you can have your life being the Cat number 1 or Cat number 2, the choice is yours, it is just the matter of perception in your mind and getting more confidence. Would you now give a try, here see there is chicken piece for you :)
Ctrl+Alt+Del of Life
(Written long time back in 2004)
It was late; as usual I reached home late. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. However, as I am used to watching TV late at night and playing around TV channels, counting them ensuring whether they are all working or not, I switched on the TV and my finger kept pressing the next button on the TV remote. Suddenly, I hit something that looked familiar to me. It took me back in time. It was some movie - an Indian movie - on show. The movie was quite old and this struck me then that I had seen it before! Finally, I remembered that it was ages ago. It was the time when I was hardly 10 years old. A time when there was no concept of cable ordish. Even the VCRs were not that common. You usually rented them and in order to rent the cassette, some shopkeepers used to ask for your national ID cards. Good old days:. Anyway, that is not important. The important point was the story line of that movie. Yeah, I remember I watched it at some neighbor's house whose antenna received Doordarshan after installing number of boosters.
The story revolved around a teenager who was convicted for the murder of his father and the jury was asked to decide about the conviction. There were around 11 members in the jury. Apparently, 10 were in favor of declaring the person guilty while one young lawyer was against it. If you are good at watching movies, you must have got the name of the movie by now. Anyway, as the movie went on it showed the young lawyer carefully looking at all the evidences and convincing people that the evidences were not correct or was faulty. One by one, he turned the opinion of other jury members, eventually convincing all of them to declare that the boy was not guilty.
I was quite impressed with that young lawyer and about his confidence, his perseverance and the ability to look into fine details, his observation of the different evidences in the movie and how he carefully looked into them to logically prove the entire jury wrong. This was the spirit that made me stick to this movie. Since almost 18 years have passed by, the story was not fresh in my mind. So I started watching it and kept clearing the dust from my memory cells where this story was saved. For every move of that young lawyer, I was trying to refresh the impression that I had when I was 10 years old. After 2 hours, the movie ended. It was around 3 a.m. However, instead of having a feeling of enjoyment, I regretted watching that movie! I was not happy as lots of evidences presented in the movie could have been sorted out by anyone - anyone possessing some logical sense, which lawyers especially have - before reaching the jury. So, I thought what the bet of watching 2 hours, which I could have enjoyed by having a good sound sleep.
I was not happy about how this movie had impressed me 18 years back. Obviously, back then I was not that smart and at that time little things and statements with some intelligence could have easily impressed me. Anyhow, I was not happy. Then, I worked on it trying to find why I was not happy. Finally, I found the reason. Getting impressed with ordinary things as a child wasn't the real cause of my unhappiness. It was me current inclination toward thinking that the things that have inspired me in the past will inspire me in the present as well.
I was living in the past, extracting happiness, smartness, intelligence from it and not doing justice to the things around me in the present. Things in my present could be much smarter, much beautiful, much better than the past. But I was continuously ignoring them. This is not a healthy attitude at all. In fact, this may go up to the extreme which might make me think that I have no solution for present problems unless I get the old system back into my life. I might be ignoring very good people around me who might be giving very good workable ideas and the ones who are sincere with me. I might've be ignoring them, not only disappointing them but also missing some good friends for my future.
Most of the people might feel that this story looks like their story. The ones who think it is not their case can stop reading this article as there is not much information for them in the lines below.
Past is good, sometime quite soothing to remember. But it should not be the blueprint for your life. We continuously learn throughout our lives and most of our learning remains dormant in our minds as we never touch it. W never use it and are not even aware of it. Present always has presents for us. We need to identify them, look into them, respect them and use them. We should not set a line in our mind that we have now matured. That our personalities are now complete and we can't change them. If you think like this, I can only pray for you as I see lots of problems for you in the future - not just for you but also for the people around you.
The things you learn today, know today, will not be as good in the future as they are for the present. To deal with the future, God gives you new tools. You only need to identify them.
Future is something that will come and you have some power to change it as per your dreams. Never compromise on it. Don't lock yourself in the past. Start appreciating things around you and work on building your dreams to make them true.
One thing you also need to note down - don't stay locked into your dreams of past. Dreams should be the realization of your personality and will, not the other way around. Also, entertain and appreciate new dreams and, if required, scrap the old dreams. No one will ask you why you did that.
April 6, 2004
- Zahoor ul Islam
It was late; as usual I reached home late. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. However, as I am used to watching TV late at night and playing around TV channels, counting them ensuring whether they are all working or not, I switched on the TV and my finger kept pressing the next button on the TV remote. Suddenly, I hit something that looked familiar to me. It took me back in time. It was some movie - an Indian movie - on show. The movie was quite old and this struck me then that I had seen it before! Finally, I remembered that it was ages ago. It was the time when I was hardly 10 years old. A time when there was no concept of cable ordish. Even the VCRs were not that common. You usually rented them and in order to rent the cassette, some shopkeepers used to ask for your national ID cards. Good old days:. Anyway, that is not important. The important point was the story line of that movie. Yeah, I remember I watched it at some neighbor's house whose antenna received Doordarshan after installing number of boosters.
The story revolved around a teenager who was convicted for the murder of his father and the jury was asked to decide about the conviction. There were around 11 members in the jury. Apparently, 10 were in favor of declaring the person guilty while one young lawyer was against it. If you are good at watching movies, you must have got the name of the movie by now. Anyway, as the movie went on it showed the young lawyer carefully looking at all the evidences and convincing people that the evidences were not correct or was faulty. One by one, he turned the opinion of other jury members, eventually convincing all of them to declare that the boy was not guilty.
I was quite impressed with that young lawyer and about his confidence, his perseverance and the ability to look into fine details, his observation of the different evidences in the movie and how he carefully looked into them to logically prove the entire jury wrong. This was the spirit that made me stick to this movie. Since almost 18 years have passed by, the story was not fresh in my mind. So I started watching it and kept clearing the dust from my memory cells where this story was saved. For every move of that young lawyer, I was trying to refresh the impression that I had when I was 10 years old. After 2 hours, the movie ended. It was around 3 a.m. However, instead of having a feeling of enjoyment, I regretted watching that movie! I was not happy as lots of evidences presented in the movie could have been sorted out by anyone - anyone possessing some logical sense, which lawyers especially have - before reaching the jury. So, I thought what the bet of watching 2 hours, which I could have enjoyed by having a good sound sleep.
I was not happy about how this movie had impressed me 18 years back. Obviously, back then I was not that smart and at that time little things and statements with some intelligence could have easily impressed me. Anyhow, I was not happy. Then, I worked on it trying to find why I was not happy. Finally, I found the reason. Getting impressed with ordinary things as a child wasn't the real cause of my unhappiness. It was me current inclination toward thinking that the things that have inspired me in the past will inspire me in the present as well.
I was living in the past, extracting happiness, smartness, intelligence from it and not doing justice to the things around me in the present. Things in my present could be much smarter, much beautiful, much better than the past. But I was continuously ignoring them. This is not a healthy attitude at all. In fact, this may go up to the extreme which might make me think that I have no solution for present problems unless I get the old system back into my life. I might be ignoring very good people around me who might be giving very good workable ideas and the ones who are sincere with me. I might've be ignoring them, not only disappointing them but also missing some good friends for my future.
Most of the people might feel that this story looks like their story. The ones who think it is not their case can stop reading this article as there is not much information for them in the lines below.
Past is good, sometime quite soothing to remember. But it should not be the blueprint for your life. We continuously learn throughout our lives and most of our learning remains dormant in our minds as we never touch it. W never use it and are not even aware of it. Present always has presents for us. We need to identify them, look into them, respect them and use them. We should not set a line in our mind that we have now matured. That our personalities are now complete and we can't change them. If you think like this, I can only pray for you as I see lots of problems for you in the future - not just for you but also for the people around you.
The things you learn today, know today, will not be as good in the future as they are for the present. To deal with the future, God gives you new tools. You only need to identify them.
Future is something that will come and you have some power to change it as per your dreams. Never compromise on it. Don't lock yourself in the past. Start appreciating things around you and work on building your dreams to make them true.
One thing you also need to note down - don't stay locked into your dreams of past. Dreams should be the realization of your personality and will, not the other way around. Also, entertain and appreciate new dreams and, if required, scrap the old dreams. No one will ask you why you did that.
April 6, 2004
- Zahoor ul Islam
Welcome to the world of blogging
I have joined the blogging world, this was my 2010 resolution. i have to accept that despite on top of technology and working on and for technology i am pretty lazy in adopting it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)