My Skeptical Thoughts

MY SKEPTICAL THOUGHTS

MY SKEPTICAL THOUGHTS

SULEMAN NASIR

Also by Suleman Nasir

Ecstasy- A Montage of Poems and Short Stories

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and the author.

International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 9798607266196

Kindle is the trademark of Amazon and its affiliates Copyright © Amazon, 2020 Seattle Washington, USA

Contents Author‟s Note

10

1. What‟s in the Name

13

2. Light Shines Best Through a Cracked Heart

17

3. Age is Just a Number

22

4. The Past is Not Your Enemy

26

5. A Lecherous Drug

32

6. The Opium of the Masses

38

7. The Weapon of Mass Instruction

43

8. A Rainbow Nation

46

9. Men Do Not Cry

53

10. A Hymn for The Daughter of Eve

58

11. Hail The Son of Adam

64

12. A Movement for „Movement‟

70

13. Why Am I Here?

74

14. Till Death Do Us Part

79

15. Salvaging the Fall of Love Marriages

84

16. Begetting Love in Arranged Marriages 92 17. Snakes in the Grass

96

18. A Water Thicker Than Blood

101

19. An Enslaved Generation

106

20. The Home to Our Souls

111

21. Do What You Love; Love What You Do

115

22. No One Is Your Than You

119

23. A Wine for the Eyes

127

24. New World „Disorder‟

133

25. The Clothes Our Thoughts Wear

139

26. Kill Them with Kindness

144

27. Assumption is the Mother of All Screw-ups

149

28. The Sea of Solitude

154

29. The Lord is Thy Light

160

30. Speak, for Your Lips are Free

166

31. A Nation‟s Achilles Heel

172

32. Desperate Eyes, Empty Bellies, and Bare Pockets

177

33. The Anatomy of an Emotional Fool

183

34. The Soothing Magic of Letting Go

189

35. What Shall People Say?

194

36. The Thieves of Joy

201

37. Who Am I?

209

38. The World is Your Oyster

213

10

In our day to

day lives, we light upon a

drove of experiences and escapades, some pleasant and some utterly unwanted; manifold thoughts germane to them permeate through our minds, but we often do not harken to them. It mostly occurs that we silently lock swords with our problems and troubles and do not zoom in on the causes that give life to most of our problems, in the first place. Whenever we are visited upon by any tribulations, we either ascribe them to the whims of fate or meekly moan and groan over them, in place of finding answers to our vexed questions. “There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.”-William Thackeray This book is a humble endeavor to address some subjects that often go unaddressed. I, through this book, do not assert to shed light on any out of the box and unheard-of matters; but this book does avow to devote 11

itself to run-of-the-mill affairs from out of the common vantage points. It draws on the issues that not only haunt our lives as an individual but also as a society and as a nation. Most of the subjects discussed are overarching, but some are particularly circumscribed to the Eastern culture. Each chapter sheds light on a different subject and bears no link with previous or incoming chapters. Given the questioning and doubtful nature of essays included in this book, „My Skeptical thoughts‟ revealed itself upon me as a becoming title for this book. I wrap up my message with confident anticipation that this book will live up to the hopes of the readers, and will leave them in contemplation over its contents. Suleman Nasir Dera Ismail Khan Pakistan

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Chapter 1

?

“A man‟s name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one per chance may safely twitch and pull; but a perfectly fitting garment, which like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.” –J.W Goethe

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As soon as we conclude our allotted time in the womb and are admitted to the outside world, some syllables, as a name, are fastened upon us. Akin to something carved in stone, a name, like an indelible mark, lingers with us till the moment our soul escapes its vessel. A name is like a face that paints a distinguished identity of its possessors and tells them apart from their fellow beings. Despite being indiscernible, a name invisibly encompasses us and makes us visible to the world. A name is something we leave for the world to remember us by, when we shuffle off our mortal coils. Without a name, our lot must have been deplorable; living a faceless life and dying an invisible death. All the goodness and conveniences that a name ushers in are laudable, but what does it receive in return for all the services it renders? Apart from its literal meaning, 14

My Skeptical Thoughts

what meaning and connotation do we afford it? It is one‟s deeds and doings that impute an actual value to his/her name. If someone‟s life is abundant with charitable work and acts of altruism, his conduct is devoid of duplicity and deceit, and his words are only weaved to please others rather than hurting or disconcerting anyone, then his name will inevitably morph into a token of hope and reverence. But conversely, if an individual spends his days treading on wicked paths, his name falls into ill-repute and resembles a curse for him and the social setting he resides in. It is binding upon us to serve the hallowed gift of name, in the fashion it serves us. It behooves us to keep it immaculate and not to smear it with amoral and demonic misdoings of any sort. Only our actions determine that our name, when taken, whether leaves a bad taste in the mouth of

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its utterers or leaves their heart in a transport of delight and pride.

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Chapter 2

“The little troubles and worries of life, so many of which we meet, may be as stumbling blocks in our ways, or we may make them stepping stones to a noble character and to heaven.” -Mme. De Maintenon

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We, the Homo sapiens, possess a bred-inbone desire, hankering for life abound with peace, tranquility, and happiness. The Chief shares of our actions are merely aimed at procuring these ends; we adopt vocations to bask in the satisfaction of stability, we forge friendships, we engage in romantic love, and we share our lives with our partners solely for the purpose of relishing in the warmth of companionship. Everything that we do is driven by our self-serving ulterior aims. Fulfillment of our dreams and satiation of our desires and longings is our definition of happiness. As long as our needs are being met, we inveigle ourselves into believing that we are happy and living a fulfilled life. But when some misfortunes visit us, we immure ourselves in a prison of disappointment, forlorn and suffocated without the air of hope. When some of our deeply-held dreams shatter before our eyes, it is not only those dreams but our heart too, that is splintered to pieces. But it is not 18

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always the case with everyone; it (heart) breaks for some and for some, in the moments of despair, it opens. We may experience the loss of a career, stings of failure, pangs of a failed relationship, or throes of betrayal from a loved one. Some may deem these devastating experiences as a fatal end to their happiness and may embroil themselves in an inescapable whirlpool of mourning. Life, for such ones, hits a dead end. They not only lose hold of hope and purpose of life but also lose the motivation to find it. It is our own idiocy that we unreasonably hold ourselves entitled to an idyllic life, and when things do not pan out in the anticipated manner, disappointments await us. Life has its own machinations; it does not bestow us with the things that we wish for, but only those that it deems fit for us. If we behold life as a piano, with white keys reflecting the jubilant periods of life and black keys as sorrows, we shall find out that the black 19

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keys also make music as melodious as the white ones. It is in the times of war that we come to know the value of peace; sorrows indoctrinate us with the preciousness of happiness, and it is upon failure that worth of success is dawned upon us. However, there also reside some valiant beings in our midst, who when life knocks them down, pick themselves up again, no matter how daunting it may be for them. They, like a phoenix, resurrect from their own ashes. They, too, go through the same ordeals as others, but in lieu of winging and whining about it, they extract salutary lessons from them and install their focus on surmounting them. They are mindful of the fact that maturity and wisdom comes, not with age but with experience, especially undesirable experiences. People of such extraordinary state of mind grow with every trial that life pelts towards them, and eventually the hardships and travails of life cave in before the unbending will of such 20

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people. In the face of any physical torment or any emotional calamity, heart, for such individuals does not bear resemblance to a broken element, but becomes a passage through which the light of wisdom discovers its way and illuminates them.

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Chapter 3

“We do not count a man‟s years, until he has nothing else to count.” -Emerson

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During

the course of our pilgrimage on

earth, our body inexorably evolves into many forms, with each one ensuing its own prerogatives and disbenefits. First, we mature from an infant to an adolescent, and then our adolescence transitions to adulthood. During the time of adolescence and adulthood, we are in high spirits; our passions, vigor, and enthusiasm are at the zenith. Thereafter, follows the undesirable state of senility, wherein our faces, once brimming with youthful beauty, are marred with wrinkles; old age accompanied by diseases and joint pains feast on our energy, and feebleness overshadows our energetic youth. As soon as one begins to cross the threshold of old age, [s]he commences feeling herself/himself closer to the grave, with every passing day. There linger many misconceived notions among us germane to the process of aging. It is a prevalent idea that youth and adulthood are the sole appropriate stages to slake one‟s 23

My Skeptical Thoughts

desires, realize dreams, and bring goals to fruition; while, old age is considered a time, wherein wisdom reveals its face to us. Both these assertions are spurious to the hilt. It is an unimpeachable truth, that in the times of youth, our bodies are at high nodes of energy, but a plunge in energy with growing age should not be the excuse to curb us from doing what we cherish. It is another false apprehension that prudence comes with age. Nay; wisdom is the consequence of experiences. It is not contingent upon age. An individual in his adulthood, if goes through a myriad of experiences and escapades, will exude more maturity and well-calculated opinion of life as compared to an elderly who never had taste of different slices of life. Aging is merely a natural process. It does not imply an end to our dreams, avocations, pleasures, and joys. If a man in his forties deems himself to be old, then old is he; if one in his sixties reckons himself young, he 24

My Skeptical Thoughts

is young without an iota of doubt. Thus, aging is naught but a contrivance of our mind. We do not stop relishing in the joys of life because we get old; we get old because we stop doing so. We are living on borrowed time and it is ending one minute at a time, thus regardless of age, every moment of the present should be savored with such jubilance, like there is no tomorrow. This chapter cannot be justly concluded without the eloquently articulated words of the bard of Avon that with mirth and laughter let the old wrinkles come.

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Chapter 4

“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that once it was all that was humanly possible.” -George Santayana

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We are escapists by nature. We hold our past as the sole culprit for our unhappiness, our somber and sorrowful existence. Volumes of people are immured within their self-made prison of the past; whether it was a toxic relationship, a failure pertaining to career, or any other horrible tragedy that had enrolled in the past, it leaves a deep impress, and it becomes a hellacious quest for us to evade the snares of the past. When we fall prey to a perpetual low-spirited retrospection, we waste chief of our precious time contemplating about our grief-stricken past, and consequently let slip the opportunities offered by our present, to go down the drain. However, it would be illadvised to utterly shy away from our past; a vigilant and conscious trip down the memory lane can be of immense service to us. We can chart out the course of our future by standing on the shoulders of our past. It is a bitter truth that whatever we had weathered in the past was wrought by our 27

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own hands, rather than being a vagary of fate; instead of moaning about our sufferings, we ought to highlight our faults that caused all the mishaps and rectify them. Prudence lies in unblushingly admitting and owning our erroneous past, in lieu of shunning it. Crying hoarse from the rooftops about our aches and tormenting lot would dispense nothing, but a temporary and hollow sympathy from our fellow beings. A wise modus operandi would be to pore over our past and extract valuable lessons from it; no mentor breathing on the face of the earth can instill lessons in us in the manner our past experiences do. We are undoubtedly in a grave error if we reckon cursing our past or people, who had hurt us, as an outlet of satisfaction and peace; it is not less than throwing seeds on a fallow land. There is a similitude between life and a benignly strict mother, who withholds something from her child, not because she 28

My Skeptical Thoughts

detests him, but she subjects him to a momentary displeasure to preserve him from a colossal insufferable harm, which may unfold later; life does the same to us. It is a sour truth that we cannot erase our unwanted memories and keep only palatable recollections, for science and technology has not excelled to that degree yet. So, the question floats that what would be the apt way to stave off our haunting past and set our earnest gaze on present and future only? Incessantly being indulged in self-pity and self-loathing will open a can of worms, and this predicament of ours would evolve into an incurable malady. The effective panacea to ills of our past is not being too hard on our self. When a child commits a mistake, a sage father would employ a calm procedure to entrench in his child the consciousness of his fallacy; on the contrary, if the child is beaten and abused every time he goes amiss, it would scar him for life. No matter how old we grow, we harbor a child in ourselves, and 29

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if we subject this child to incessant loathing and abuse, it will negatively imprint him for eternity. Be your own kind parent; calmly talk sense into your own self. Admonish yourself that whatever manifested in the past, it doesn‟t matter and it doesn‟t exist anymore. This procedure of affectionate and friendly self-talk will slowly liberate us from the yoke of our traumatic past. We will not have any time left at our disposal to reminisce about our past, if we wrap up ourselves in work. Staying busy and investing in our present is an effective remedy to channelize our focus away from past. It is beyond the bounds of possibility to tread in the future with leaving ajar the doors to our past, for we will keep revisiting it. Shut those wretched doors wholly and advance forward. So, if we find ourselves standing baffled on the crossroads, where one road leads to the whirlpool of bad memories from the days gone by, and the other one is brimming with the toils and 30

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struggles for a desirable tomorrow, sanity ordains us to opt the latter path. Thus, stretch your arms open, and embrace your past happily. Your past is not your enemy, but a stepping stone. Yes, the past teaches us hard lessons, but it is a gift to make us ready for the approaching days. Metamorphosis of an unpleasant past to a delightful and magnificent future does not unfold promptly, but rather its foundation is laid down piece by piece by the actions we execute in our present; to have a fruitful future, prolific seeds ought to be sown in the present.

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Chapter 5

“A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction.” -J.G.Ballard

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The

world of today has progressed at

unprecedented levels. Our life and day to day routine are dictated by the technology of the cutting edge. But, it is a naked truth that the advancement of such sort also stirred up a hornet‟s nest. With the easy availability of smartphones at a paltry price, access to pornography has become effortless. With the click of a button or with few touches on the screens, a whole raft of pornographic sites will be at our disposal. Today, porn has evolved into an addiction of the most ruinous ilk, since it is easily available, unlike any other drug. Pornography hijacks the reward pathway in the brain and can become a compulsive behavior with addictive qualities. Gruesome graphics projected on pornographic sites have brought the young generation on the cusp of destruction. The dearth of sex education and over-exposure of sexual content is leaving an apocalyptical impinge on the underdeveloped minds of the 33

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youngsters.

In

apt

words

of

Andrea

Dworkin: “Any violation of a woman‟s body can become sex for men; this is the essential truth of pornography.” These movies are cast and edited time and again to render them more luscious to the audience. Female protagonists go through a plethora of cosmetic surgeries to appear as eye candies and more voluptuous in pornographic movies, so to augment the view count on their videos. Not knowing these veiled truths, minds of youngsters sprout nefarious and lustful expectations and desires, which they tend to slake by unfair means, that are calamitous to their health, psychological state, and repute in the society. Orgasms when acquired through unnatural means subject one to unreasonable feelings of sadness, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts.

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Pornography tells lies about women; it violates the sacred nature of women and portrays them as merely objects of quenching sexual desires. Ascendance of rapes, sexual harassment and incidents of eve teasing can be chalked up to endemic spread of pornography. Pornography has also cast a dark and horrendous shadow on marriages and relationships. Individuals, specifically men, after absorbing these immoral, yet seductive graphics, expect their partners to recast these in reality. Fantasies of such nature, when left unfulfilled pave way for sexual dissatisfaction. The fabric of marriage/relationship begins to unweave slowly and eventually, is torn to shreds. Statistics have evinced that about 71% of men and 38% of women are addicted to the scourge of pornography. These are only minor examples of how porn addiction is wreaking havoc in our societal milieu.

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“Pornography is to sex what McDonalds is to food; a plasticized, generic version of the real thing.” -Gail Dines

Sexual Intimacy, as a key to procreation, is an unavoidable reality; after all life is a product of this institution. In some cultures, over conservatism puts a lid on the prospect of sex education, which is of dire need. As teenager hit puberty, curiosities about the inner workings of their bodies begin to bloom in their formative minds, and often these curiosities set the wheel of unethical wonts and idiosyncrasies in motion. Curiosities are like a spring; if we keep suppressing them, they will rebound with much more force; with the aid of sex education, curiosities should be provided with a spillway. Sexual education should not be seen as taboo and should be inculcated to attune the minds of youngsters in line with real facts rather than fantasies. 36

My Skeptical Thoughts

It

is

critical

that

we

start

deeming

pornography as a drug with deleterious aftermaths, just like other drugs. Just as we campaign against smoking, we should also educate people about the destructive impacts of pornography. There is no royal road to put an addiction to bed, as it demands unflagging perseverance and unwavering determination. The panacea to this scourge is to refrain from immoral and lustful media and to keep those people at arm‟s length who stimulate you to indulge in these unchaste activities. This menace needs to be eradicated, lest it will unleash the destruction of an ineffable size.

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Chapter 6

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” –Karl Marx

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The

institution of religion was brought

down upon mankind enabling them to sail through life in a frictionless fashion. Raison d‟être for the existence of religion is to instill morality, ethics, and virtue in its votaries, thereby dictating them towards a life bathed in purity. Today, the world witnesses a handful of confident religions that converge with each other in many ways, and diverge in others. But the underlying articles of faith of almost all the religions are akin to each other to some scale. No religion sanctions false speech, deceit, corruption, extortion, greed, bribery, and spilling the blood of fellow humans and animals, or any other vices of any stripe. Religion, apart from shedding light on the rights and the wrongs, also serves as an oasis of hope and inspiration. Though atheists may not see it eye to eye, but every devotee of a religion is mindful that he is being lorded over by a deity (or many deities 39

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according to some polytheistic religions) who perches on His throne above heaven, observing him, poised to help and answer whenever called upon. This belief not only purges one‟s chest of every fear and disappointment but also hinders him from indulging in any malefactions, for he knows that he is being watched over by his Lord. Every religion celebrates its prophets, messengers, and saints who serve as a conduit between God and His subjects. Individuals take inspiration from the immaculate and divine lives of such heavensent souls. The angelic lives of such prophets and saints act as a guiding beacon for their followers, and as a standard according to which they can sculpt their lives. Traversing on their footsteps can lead one to a life of purity and satisfaction. A religion accompanied with all its elements grants purpose and solace to its observer, from the menaces of life. By the virtue of this, religion is branded as “opium of the

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masses”, as it desensitizes one to troubles of life.

The contemporary world is oscillating like a pendulum, between secularism and extremism. Where excessive modernity and secularism have rendered religion irrelevant, on the other hand, some fanatics have molded religion to a war-horn; little do they know that without humanity and spirituality, religion is naught but only a set of rituals. By failing to adopt a well-balanced approach regarding religion or by employing warped and distorted versions of religion, we have failed badly in turning the institution of religion to our advantage. Owing to the torn and shredded standing of religion in the present-day world, the days of it being the opium of the masses are consigned to the past, unfortunately. The wolfish lust for power and affluence, dearth of morality and empathy, selfishness, and unkindliness are the aftermaths of casting off religion. 41

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Without religion, man is like a weed growing wildly. It is still not late; the sands of time have not slipped from our hands entirely. By resorting to a fair, unprejudiced approach and reviving the deserving prominence of religion in our individual, as well as societal lives, we not only triumph in this life but can also earn a lofty place in the afterworld.

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Chapter 7

“Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules, without words of anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you. ” –Richard de Bury

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By any reckoning, a book is something that envelops magic from cover to cover. A book encompasses a whole new world, wherein one is ensnared in its beautifully woven web of words and refuses to return. A book not only indoctrinates us, strengthens our perspectives but also provides us with a congenial company. Hours or minutes spent engrossed in the pages of a book whisks its reader away from the worries of day to day life. A book is no less intoxicated than any other intoxicant; those who get drunk on it derive catharsis from it. Books are also an effective theriac for sadness, as they absorb our somber thoughts and prompt our cognitive activities. A book enables its readers to experience thousands of lives by simply sitting in the comforts of their homes and libraries. An author inscribes adventures, escapades, triumphs, failures, and other experiences of his entire life in black and white, that a reader imbibes within a small amount of 44

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time and procures advantageous instructions from it, thereby equipping him to live his life in a much more fulfilled manner. With the augmenting sway of technology, the vogue of reading has taken a back seat. Libraries and bookshops lay barren, while internet cafes and gaming hubs burst at the seams. This is not an emblem of a developing nation. By eschewing books, our society is weathering an intellectual famine. It is an acrid reality that our generation is the last one to have a semblance of affinity for books. We must give a kiss of life to the trend of reading, so that our young ones may relish in all the intellect and pleasure that a book offers. A book is a faithful companion that speaks to us in its subtle ways. All we have to do is to pay heed to it and save this treasure from being thrown to the wind.

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Chapter 8

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Wherever

on God‟s green earth, we

inhabit ourselves, we may end up with a populace whose culture, religious rituals, customs, and traditions might contrast with that of ours. It is often witnessed that rituals that may be sacred for the believers of one religion may turn out to be blasphemous for the votaries of another religion. Eid-ul-Adha and Christmas are conspicuous cases in point. Slaughtering of cows and other domestic bovidae is hallowed for Muslims, as by doing so they commemorate Abraham‟s sacrifice sprouting from his unwavering love for God; contrariwise, cows are creatures of unassailable reverence and enjoy the status of a god in Hinduism. For Hindus, slaughtering cows is tantamount to an egregious violation. In the same vein, at the twilight of every year, Christians all around the globe observe Christmas as the day of birth of Jesus; in Christianity, Jesus is reckoned to be the son of God and the second person of the trinity. On the other 47

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hand, Muslims hold Jesus as a penultimate prophet and strictly negate the notion of him being a progeny of God; as per the fundamental tenets of Islam, attributing anyone or anything with God is a flagrant and unpardonable sin. Though Muslims and Christians both concur with the prophesy of second coming of Jesus, but their views on how he departed from the world vary; it is a Christian belief that Jesus was crucified on a cross by the Romans, while Muslims are of the view that he was called back to heaven alive. These are only a few examples out of many innumerable ones. If religion is held akin to a flower then its sects are the petals that amount to it. Islam is polarized into two predominant camps: Shiites and Sunnis; Christianity into the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism; Judaism into Orthodox Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Humanistic Judaism, and Messianic Judaism; and 48

My Skeptical Thoughts

Hinduism into Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism There also exist some intra-cultural divergences like language, region, caste, creed, color, race and sex that bring people at loggerheads. All these differences and variations have made adhesiveness of humanity a prospect as inexistent as gold dust. The reason why there is a surge of intolerance among us is that we are being exposed to an absurd idea of tolerance. We reckon that tolerance alludes to explicit acceptance of all those rituals, customs, and traditions of other religions and cultures, that are antithetical to that of ours. This is preposterous. The word tolerance is selfexplanatory; it means to tolerate something unacceptable to us. We need not accept or concur with anything that is incongruent with our religious views or our societal norms, but it is incumbent upon us to be respectful and exude kindliness in our conduct with devotees of other religions or 49

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cultures. Every man must be confident of his religion, but he should be tolerant towards other religions, for every man has his own way of reaching out to God. Religious beliefs are a matter of personal choice; every man has been awarded with the freedom and right to enroll himself in the religion he deems apt for himself. Tolerance is the true assessment of a civilization. It is by the virtue of intolerance that the earth is coughing blood. Sectarianism, extremism/radicalism, racial discrimination, and terrorism are child of the intolerant behavior of individuals. An effectual panacea to these ills is to erect a rainbow nation. „Rainbow nation‟ points to a peaceful and harmonious co-existence of all ethnicities, religions, and races. The beauteous nature of a rainbow lies not in a single shade, but in the montage of all seven colors that are entirely diverse from each other, yet remain side by side. In the same line, our beauty lies 50

My Skeptical Thoughts

in our diversities and our strength is enshrined in our unity. Regardless of every distinction, whole humanity is the family of God. Thus, unity is the only port in the storm of intolerance; we ought to erect bridges not walls, for before everything else, we are all the equal citizens of the world, and thereby only suit in togetherness. It is a truth universally acknowledged that differences exist among us, and there is nothing despicable about that; the only thing that welcomes upheaval and disorder is when we refuse to accept our differences and try to edit others according to our own frames of mind and beliefs. Before oppugning other‟s religious or cultural preference we must ask ourselves that who has afforded us the right and authority to do so? Judging is only God‟s domain; we are not authorized to do so. Our creator has limned the sketch of this world with a multitude of colors, if He were to dye it with a single color, our world 51

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would have been an insipid and dull creation, contrary to as it is today. No artist appreciates his artistry to be met with ridicule or contempt, so how will the great artist, who painted the whole universe with beauteous and distinct colors, allow his creations to be met with derision and disdain.

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Chapter 9

“Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.”

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From cradle to grave, members of the male sex are being indoctrinated to reflect strength, valor, and masculinity in every act of theirs. Traits, like being athletic, rationality in decision making, being hardnosed or not being touchy-feely, are imputed to masculinity and are widely encouraged for men. While, characteristics like being emotional or sentimental, sensitivity, and passiveness are deemed effeminate and are depreciated for men to opt. various standards are set for both males and females by societies they reside in. People do not bat an eyelash to an aggressive, garrulous, and vitriolic nature of man, but if a female were to exude such traits, she will surely bring about a hornet‟s nest to her ears, for she is expected to be meek, modest, passive, and laconic. The sum and substance of the matter is that all the aforementioned standards and criteria are merely social constructions, and do not pivot on the sex of an individual. Sex and gender are different 54

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as apples and oranges; an individual can be born a male in reference to his sex, but whether he is masculine in his attitude or not rests solely upon his own volition. Whether a boy of ten or a man of forty when sheds tears or shows sentiments, he is branded as weak and feminine. Aggressive, athletic and adventurous nature of men is by the dint of raging levels of testosterone in their body. But it is not a logical ground to curb him from being sentimental. Sorrows and predicaments of life are blind to sex and gender. Both male and female weather myriad of emotional tempests throughout the time of their life, and everyone, regardless of sex, has the prerogative to allow the tears to trickle down when the pain turns ungovernable. Being too hard on oneself will only aggravate the suffering. There is no shame in crying. It is a natural mechanism that ameliorates the emotional burden to some degree.

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We all, regardless of our sexes and genders, have permission to grieve. It is true that crying does not solve our troubles, but it triggers a placebo effect which grants consolation to us to some scale. Tears speak and advocate for us when our words fail to do so. Tears of a bereaved man depict how beloved the departed soul was to him. Tears of a man being jilted in love reflect how pure and true his love was, notwithstanding the unexpected ending. Tears flowing out of the failure of some sort show one‟s desperation and helplessness. Tears of a man, who has been wronged, are so powerful that they summon the king of heaven to his help. It is time that we redress and recast the standards that we have set for both men and woman, for everyone is a sovereign of the kingdom of their own being. Let us spurn the falsely spread notion that men do not cry, for they do and they rightly can. How beautifully Ahmed Faraz has put it: 56

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Compulsion is necessary, but grief is the burden of the hour, If the cold-hearted does not cry now, he will die.

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Chapter 10

“Earth‟s noblest thing, a woman perfected.” –Lowell

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A

woman, throughout her life, passes

through legions of stages and carries out a myriad of roles. Each role invites a set of trials and codes of conduct that are expected of her. Firstly, she opts for the role of a daughter and a sibling; she has to remain vigilant in her actions, for she knows that even a shadow of her misdeed can cause the name of her family to fall in disrepute. Then, after being tied in wedlock she takes on the role of a spouse; she becomes an engine, without which the household remains in a state of inertia. Eventually, she mothers children and endeavors with all her might to pander to their every whim. A woman‟s life is synonymous to a perpetual struggle. Owing to her biological makeup and fragile build, a woman is labeled as „fragile sex‟, but it is a bare truth that the amount of physical ordeals and emotional storms a woman goes through, is far beyond the endurance of men. Though women are more sentimental than men, men are emotionally 59

My Skeptical Thoughts

feeble than women; men fragment more easily under women do.

emotional exertions than

In many patriarchal societies, men enjoy a regal station and treat women as commoners. It is women who invariably fall prey to honor killings, domestic abuse and forced marriages. It is women who are divested of education and the right to earn. Realization of dreams and aspirations of women to secure a lofty and note-worthy status in society has become far-fetched in wake of male dominance. Women are the primary quarries of sexism; it is evident from the paltry number of women in power positions. Some religions allow more freedom than other, offering women positions of power and scriptural equality with men. The world absurdly misinterprets Islam as rather conservative and patriarchal religion; Islam royally acknowledges the esteemed stature of women in the society and stands as a bulwark against injustices 60

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aimed at them. Two chapters of the glorious Quran are particularly dedicated to rights of the women. As per the canons of Islam, women merit the right to attain education and to earn the bread for themselves. As an acknowledgement of women‟s role in the governance of household, Islam awards them the title of „Rabait-ul-Bait‟, „The Queen of the House‟. Constitution of every democratic state enshrines the rights of women, and holds every citizen equal regardless of sex. Neither religion nor law withholds the rights of women; most of the patriarchal norms in some social settings spring from the men‟s fear of losing dominance over women. Just like men, women have the right to choose the husbands they desire; no religion, law or custom deprives women of this inalienable right. In line with the Article 16 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They 61

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are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. But it is easier said than done; in some social domains women do not enjoy the choice of husband, and if they divulge their desire for someone, they are branded as unchaste. Those nations that have shied away from giving women their deserving worth are yet dreaming of prosperity and development. While those where women enjoy a spot under the sun are embarked on a path paved with prosperity and unparalleled development. The underlying reason is that the great measure of almost every state‟s population comprises of women. How can a nation proceed forward, if half of its population is deserted behind? Equality in every aspect is an inalienable right of both men and women. By thrusting women to the margins, a nation digs its own grave. Women, in no way, are less proficient than men. They are creatures of immense eminence and splendor; how can women be 62

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of less strength and inferior stature than men, when it is they who give birth to men in the first place.

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Chapter 11

“We (men) are the miracle of miracles, the great inscrutable mystery of God.” –Carlyle

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Since the inception of mankind, male sex has relished in an esteemed status. It is owing to their emotional strength and physical hardiness that has kept them dominant over women, or at times women have pivoted on men for their survival and well-being. In almost every corner of the globe, in every religion, and in every social environ men have been granted the role of sustainer and bread-winner. It is because of such roles that a male child is nurtured with assiduous attention and care, whereas, a female one falls into the shade. However, this should be depreciated, for this serves as a breeding ground for inequality. A man, whether he is a son, a husband or a father, is encumbered with innumerous obligations. As a son, all eyes anchor upon him to bring honor and fame to the name of his family by securing an elated place in the society. As a spouse and a father, he has to engage in toils to earn bread and butter for

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his household and to keep the wolf away from the door. Overabundance of even the good things sometimes yields unwanted results; when a society partials exaggeratedly towards one gender, it automatically looks down upon the other. Awareness of gender equality has proved to be a breath of fresh air, but misuse of feminism in some social climates has devolved men to a forgotten gender. Those female individuals who use “woman card” to get their way done are those who are ruining the essence of women empowerment. Feminism and women empowerment are vitally important elements in every social climate, but sadly, the modern definition of feminism has narrowed down to male bashing in the name of women empowerment. Presently, in some social settings, men when demand their legitimate rights or exercise their rightful authorities, it is irrationally held proportional to misogyny.

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Our society paints men as invincible and invulnerable beings and does not expound their problems, for it might amount to disparaging male sex‟s mighty image. But in truth, men do tacitly shoulder many problems. Men are also susceptible to domestic violence akin to women, but it mostly manifests as psychological abuse. Many cases that have unfolded recently are enough to corroborate this claim. Though some vile men are often culpable, but in many instances, when faultless men come at the crosshairs of false incriminations of sexual harassment, they have to bear the brunt of humiliation, since in such scenarios, men are not paid much heed and not provided with a ground to vocalize their innocence, on account of which they either fall prey to mental disorders or resort to suicide out of desperation. Men, in many cases, are objects of legal and illegal discrimination. It is men, who make up of most war-deaths; men are more subjected to combat fatalities; men lose custody in 67

My Skeptical Thoughts

almost majority of the divorce cases; men often fall prey to work fatalities; most of the homicide victims are men. Men suffer harsh penalties for the same crimes than women. Media, in many ways has put forward a vicious image of male sex. There is always a hue and cry about the rights of women, while discussions on male rights are often condoned. Media, whether social media or broadcast media, commends men less for their services and zeroes in more on the stereotypes that project them as sexobsessed womanizers, misogynistic, incompetent, and savage beings. Men are crucial cogs in the machinery of a nation. From managing the affairs of the household to the governance of the state, from an employee working in his cubicle to a soldier manuring the ground with his blood, all men merit accolade for the nonpareil services they dispense. I may sound like a broken record, but the omnipresence of equality is the sole remedy 68

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to

checkmate

gender-related

problems.

Rather than being party to the battle of the sexes, both men and women ought to acknowledge each other on equal footings; men and women are complimentary to each other‟s existence; with each other they are rendered whole, and without, they are nothing more than a body without soul.

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Chapter 12

“It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor.” -Cicero

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As the world is advancing with leaps and bounds with every passing day, simultaneously, the life of an individual of today‟s age has become colossally laborious. Given a burgeoning competition in every context, the survival of the fittest has become the order of the day. This lifestyle doubtlessly brought advancement and progress in one‟s life, but on the other hand, it also took a heavy toll on the health of individuals. The chief portion of today‟s population spends the entire day engrossed in computers, smartphones and other gadgets of the same ilk. As one‟s day, from dusk till dawn, is spent perching behind desks, no room for physical activity is left. Contemporarily, every other person is facing the chill winds of mental health problems. Anxiety, stress, and depression have mushroomed into ubiquitous epidemics. Many people among us silently suffer psychological issues that are not even diagnosable. Almost all stripes of mental 71

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health issues emanate from stress and unending cycles of overthinking. We spend too much time in our heads and less in our bodies. Physical activities, like a magic wand, can do wonders for those braving the excruciating torments of depression. In scientific lingo, when we engage in physical movements, our nervous system promptly releases a protein, namely „Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor‟ or „BDNF‟, which protects the brain and forms new neurons in the hippocampus area. In addition to BDNF, torrents of Endorphins are also let loose by the brain which extricates one from the feelings of discomfort and catapults them to a zone of ease. If one cannot afford to indulge in exercise or protracted physical activity, short and brisk walks can contribute to palliating the stress levels to some scale. Being abreast of the advancing world is dire need of the hour, but doing so at the expense of one‟s health is sheer imbecility. Health, 72

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especially

mental

health,

is

of great

preciousness that cannot be bartered with the treasures of the world. Wisdom is in being cautious of one‟s health and timely catering to health-related needs, for the joys of life can only be truly savored, if one is hale and hearty.

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Chapter 13

?

“Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace.” –Farley Mowat

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Man, like other inhabitants of the planet, is an animal; but a superior one nonetheless. It is not his upright and evolved posture that grants him superiority but his intellect. It is a man‟s faculty of thinking and distinguishing rights from wrongs that lets him eclipse other beasts. In line with many religions, man overshadows heavenly entities/angels by standing on the shoulders of his unmitigated powers and faculties endowed upon him by the author of all existence: God. God singled out man as His vicegerent on the earth. Man, being the flagship of God‟s all creation enjoys uncountable entitlements. As man has a freedom of choice, he is inclined to go astray; to preserve him, God has employed many methods to guide him. A series of apostles were sent as exemplars; scriptures were revealed to instruct him to wade through life. God did not create man in jest without any purpose; if man is bestowed with such 75

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unprecedented powers, it is palpable that he certainly has some obligations to bring into fruition. A man‟s purpose, other than an unwavering obedience to Divine will, is to make the world a place, much better than the state he had found it in. Man must be cognizant of the reality that he is the product of millions of his ancestors, thus living a meaningless life would not only be a disservice to his self, but also the entire chain of his ancestors. One must be on the hunt for his purpose of life, and he must configure his goals and his abilities in such a manner that it contributes a fair share in the betterment of lives of his fellow beings. A man, by utilizing the time allotted to him and by his proficiencies, must toil towards a better life graced with virtue and morality. If a man sets his mind and heart into achieving something he turns unstoppable. Living a life devoid of endeavor is squandering one‟s efficacies, and ungratefulness.

is

76

tantamount

to

My Skeptical Thoughts

Find your Qualities

Share your Qualities

The Purpose of Life

A man has entities inimical to him both within and without. A man not only has to jostle with other beings of his kind, but he also has to quell his irrational desires, temptations, fears and vexing insecurities that tend to weigh him down. He who conquers the foe within, the enemy outside can deal him no blow. It is often the enemy within, that steers a man from his path and makes him oblivious to his purpose or duties. What stops man from acquiring his purposes and goals is often he himself.

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The Human mind is a double-edged dagger; it empowers man beyond recognition as long as it is wielded by him, but the movement a man loses the levers of his mind, it becomes his tyrannical master and dictates his life at its own accord. The only thing that draws distinction between humans and wild beasts is that humans do not act on whims and caprices. Their actions are actuated after proper contemplation over rights and wrongs and deep deliberation over the aftereffects of their doings. We, as the appointed deputies of God, must commence realizing the duties that have been fastened upon us. We must get immersed in a tight-laced struggle to expedite ourselves towards a splendid life. Not having a purpose in life or not fully utilizing the brain as well as brawn in the actualization of life‟s purpose is similar to going into a gold mine and coming out empty-handed.

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Chapter 14

“Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.” –Samuel Johnson

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Life

is a long drawn out journey, and

venturing into it on one‟s own is unimaginable and inconceivable. After a certain age, feelings of loneliness bring us on pins and needles. We feel a void inside of us that cannot be filled with materialistic things. Being privy to man‟s yearning for companionship, God devised the institution of marriage. Marriage, like a skillful tailor, stitches two souls together. The practice of marriage does not imply setting out on the hunt for a perfect and flawless partner, who, like a knight in a shining armor or a miraculous fairy, will disembarrass us of all troubles and sculpt our life into a fairy tale. Perfection is a myth. The essence of marriage is in receiving with arms open one another‟s imperfections and concertedly staring tribulations of life in the eye. Matrimony is a bond of sanctity and mammoth purity; a husband and wife when behold each other with love-coated gaze and exchange vows of love, God‟s mercy 80

My Skeptical Thoughts

twinkles upon them. Sexual relations in marriage are doubtlessly an expression of love and a mean for procreation, but it should not be an impetus to bring about marriage. Marriages forged solely and wholly on the premise of carnal bliss are bound to fail; once such luscious motives are attained, marriage will be reduced to an inconsequential entity and the partner, to a burden. It does not take much time for such marriages to fall. Marriage should also not trigger an end to our freedom and liberty, but it should be the beginning of it; one should not hide parts of himself/herself to make room for someone else to shine. A successful marriage is a kaleidoscope of love, care, trust, empathy, and chemistry between two individuals. Men want from their wives affection, unflinching belief in their capabilities, understanding, appreciation and affirmation, respect, and undaunted trust. In the same vein, women cherish to be reminded by their spouse day 81

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in and day out that they are being loved; she wants to be understood and listened to. Being complimented on looks and attires and appreciated for her day to day work is like music to a woman‟s ears. For a wife, quality time spent in the company of her husband is far more treasured than anything else. Both men and women should tend to look attractive for their spouses so that they remain consumed with desire for each other and do not get disenchanted. Humans are fallible beings; propensity for inadvertent mistakes and errors is something they suck in with mother‟s milk. Thus, both men and women should recourse to a lenient approach towards each other‟s faults. A couple ought not to circumscribe their relation to that of a husband and wife, but also let feelings of friendship and bonhomie sprout between them. Women are emotional beings, hence men should, like a sponge, absorb and listen calmly what they say rather than inciting arguments.

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It is a household precept that a husband and wife are like two indispensable wheels of a single carriage; both partners should take stabs at fulfilling their share of duties; without sufficient investment from both sides, a marriage sails aimlessly like a sheep without a shepherd. It takes two to make the marriage a success and one to make it a failure. Marriage is a boon but it is the transgressions and abandonment of obligations by one or both partners that transmute it into a bane. Marriage is the sole remedy for overcoming pangs of loneliness, but there is also no greater loneliness like that of a failed marriage. A man and wife are the architects of the world encompassed inside the four walls of their abode; they shape the lives of each other and their progeny. Spouses, by their conscientious conduct or by shirking their responsibilities, turn their home to an island of bliss or a pit of agony.

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Chapter 15

“Sometimes love is the dawn of marriage, and marriage is the sunset of love.” –De Finod

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Matrimony

brought

into

existence,

whether out of love or arranged by kith and kin, is destined to face the trials and tests of time. But the statistics have evinced the fragility of a love marriage, as it breaks more often than an arranged one. It should be spelled out that it is not the marriage that is culpable of failure but the behavior of those tied in it that lead it on the path of ruination or make it a success story. The heart of the matter is not to shed light on whether to love first and marry or to marry first and love, but rather to direct attention towards the agents that cause the miscarriage of a marriage. The predominant cause of the collapse of love marriage is embroidered and inflated expectations. Unlike love marriages, those entering arranged marriages tread into uncharted territories and are strangers to each other‟s behaviors, moods, likes, and dislikes. Given all this, they are empty of any exaggerated expectations. Conversely, 85

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as love marriages are predicated on a long romantic relationship, couples are comparatively conversant with each other, thus they expect their partner to act in rhythm with their turn-ons and turn-offs. After marriage, most of such expectations turn out to be all sizzle and no steak. Being in a romantic relationship and living together as spouses are as dissimilar experiences as night and day. Two individuals, when tryst or convoke a meet up, are donned in the garb of decorum and decency that appeals to the other one, but when the same two individuals begin to live together, they are peeved by even the slightest improprieties of each other. Expectations when unfulfilled lead to disappointment; blessed are those who do not allow any expectations to seep into them. A marriage spoils into a toxic one when spouses try to change or edit each other. It is a peculiarity exhibited by men when they marry women with the hope that they will never change, and women‟s 86

My Skeptical Thoughts

unfounded anticipation that their potential husbands will change. Invariably, both are disappointed in the end. Another factor that sounds the death-knell for both love and arranged marriages is an incompatibility. Compatibility is more crucial than chemistry. It is obvious that we all vary with each other in one way or another, but the marriage of two individuals who are utterly poles apart, leads to only one thing: Compromise. It is our folly that before buying trivial gadgets we spend days in debating its pros and cons, we deliberate over it days and nights, But when it comes to choosing partners, with whom we vow to spend our whole life, we do no such thing because of our haste for companionship and fear of being left alone. There is more to a marriage than love; no matter what the movies tell us, love is not enough. Love does not automatically translate into compatibility; some people may feel love very deeply, yet lack every ounce of 87

My Skeptical Thoughts

compatibility.

We

lure

ourselves

into

believing that as long as we love each other, it will all work out. It is a toxic mindset. In relationships of this sort, we are tethered to use love as an excuse for other‟s inexcusable behavior. Before entering into a marriage, it must be scrutinized that one‟s mode of life, nature, behavior, ambitions, and hopes do not contrast with those of the other, lest it will turn out to be recipe for a tasteless marriage. Intimacy, passion, and commitment are essential elements to push a relationship or a marriage up to the mark. Intimacy involves feelings of closeness, connectedness, and affection; passion involves feelings and desires that lead to physical attraction, romance, and sexual consummation; commitment involves feelings that lead a person to remain with someone and move toward shared goals. Even if a single one of these elements is missing, it is quite likely that the bond will unweave. 88

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Intimacy Only Liking

Romantic Love

Companionate Love

Intimacy + Passion

Intimacy + Commitment

Consummate love Intimacy + Passion + Commitment Passion Only

Fatuous Love

Commitment Only

Infatuation

Passion + Commitment

Empty Love

Dr. Sternberg‟s Triangular Theory of Love

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Arranged marriages prove to be more longlasting because they are often weaved between individuals of the same family, religion, culture, society, school of thought, or belief system. Thus, like two peas in a pod, couples knotted together by arranged marriages converge in many ways. Furthermore, arranged marriages remain under the duress of family and society. On account of this, they are sustained willingly or unwillingly to avoid being at the receiving end of shame and ignominy. The power to make a relationship or marriage yield favorable outcome rests in the hands of those enlaced together by this bond. A marriage, regardless of its type, is a seed that reaps desirable fruit only when it is incessantly nurtured by love, care, understanding, sensibility, and acceptance coupled with like-mindedness and compatibility to some scale; these are the glues that hold a couple together. A marriage blossoms only, when both halves 90

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refuse to give up on each other and earnestly push the envelope to keep it on its toes.

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Chapter 16

“Arranged marriage turned into a love marriage when the space between them got replaced by tiny adorable smile.” -The Scribbled Stories

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Arranged marriages are quite archaic and still in practice with all its might. For hundreds of years, in every civilization and dynasty, arranged marriages had been a prevalent norm. Princes and princesses of different kingdoms were bound in arranged marriages to foster amicable relations with other nations. To this day, the practice of arranged marriages is rampant in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Despite its omnipresence, there are a handful of misconceived ideas in regard to an arranged marriage. Many deem it as a relic of the past and misinterpret it as forced marriage. There is a fine line between an arranged marriage and a forced marriage; arranged marriages are orchestrated by cordial consent of both the male and the female, whereas this is not the case in forced marriages. If a marriage is consensual it will, by force of circumstance, bring the right people together; when right people cluster together, mutual affection 93

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unavoidably follows. It is plain cause and effect. In an arranged marriage, two individuals set out on a new lane together as „known strangers‟, but as time elapses they either grow fonder or become wary of being together; it is the astounding power of care, respect, and solicitude that brings them together; and the lack thereof that splits them apart. A marriage does not demand any wondrous tasks or impractical sacrifices, but it is the tiny and insignificant actions that reflect love and affection. Lending a hand in day to day chores, assisting in the upkeep of children, respecting each other‟s needs and closely-held wishes, being wide awake to one another‟s worries, and celebrating every small moment whole-heartedly proves to be a well-spring of affection and love. In an arranged marriage, love is the last port of call followed by a maze of paths; it is the path of concern,

respect, solicitude, empathy, compassion, kindness and 94

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tenderness that pave way for love to sprout. To tell the truth, those who employ these paths do not find love; love finds them.

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Chapter 17

“A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly.” –Marcus Julius Cicero

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A nation, like a gigantic tree, is anchored by its masses, who serve to be its roots and undergird it with their blood, toil, and sweat. Every individual or community as a whole when abide by their commitments, it is only then that a nation flourishes exponentially. A nation‟s roots, that grant life and vigor to it, for one thing, regress into parasites when its citizenry begins to renege on their obligations and promises. To bring destruction or to bring about peace unlike any we have known, it all depends on the commitment of each person. The word „Nation‟ is merely a construct and possesses no independent identity, it is the assemblage of its people that constitute it. A nation banks not only on its institutions but also hinges on every one of its dwellers to thrive. Every trivial or significant measure that its pupil takes alters the course of a nation‟s fate.

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The word „traitor/treason‟ is of a lurid and flagrant aura, but lamentably, every nation, without knowing it, harbors traitors in its folds. Such people ostensibly masquerade as responsible and reverend citizens but wreak havoc insidiously and subtly. He, who shirks his duties, commits treason; the one who adulterates edibles rendering them unfit for consumption is disloyal to his soil. He emits infidelity, who usurps the rights of others, and he who carries out vandalism destroying public and private properties is a back-stabber. Such individuals inflict harm upon their nation from within and are far more hazardous than an enemy who scars only from the outside. A man who litters the streets and defaces the walls with impermissible graffiti is as guilty of treason as the man who embezzles money from the treasury, for both are robbing their nation of its splendor. A teacher or a mentor, who fails to indoctrinate his mentee with morality, ethics, etiquette, and the becoming 98

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ways of life, does a disfavor to his nation since he mars its most prized asset. A doctor, to whom affluence of wealth is foremost interest than the service to his fellow beings is like a wolf in a sheep‟s clothing, as he by the dint of his callous ways, prolongs the sufferings of his patients, rather than pacifying them. A politician, who by his beguiling and highfalutin monologues lures people into voting him and after being elected runs amok intoxicated by power, is a thorn in a nation‟s flesh. It is all these hideous actions that are overlooked often, yet deal a fatal blow to a nation‟s health, and the people who indulge in these heinous acts are the ones called „the snakes in the grass‟, poisoning the same bosom that nourished them. Foundation of a nation is laid down brick by brick by its settlers. It is not only those at the helm but every single one of its populace that ushers it towards prosperity, and it is also their ill-considered ways that derail it 99

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from such path. Setting aside the facades we curate, it is our frequent and day to day doings that determine whether we are true, loyal heirs of our nation or merely green snakes in the grass.

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Chapter 18

“A friend is someone who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” -Anonymous

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Almost every one of us has stumbled upon the celebrated proverb of 12th Century, “Blood is thicker than water”, that awards preference to familial and blood relations over those that we forge at our own accord. It is reckoned that it is only blood relations that harbor unadulterated concern for us and only they can be relied upon when tribulations loom. Blood relations are put on a pedestal on account of their direct contribution to our upkeep and for rendering us on our feet; we are indebted to our kith and kin for nurturing us and catering to essentials required for our survival. Disregarding the indispensable role of blood relations will be sheer injustice; they should be raised a toast to, for their irreplaceable services. We are born into a family by chance, but there are some relations that we weave by choice, namely friendships. Man is a social being; he at all times remains in search of peers who share the same frame of mind, interests, dispositions, temperament, 102

My Skeptical Thoughts

ambitions,

and

perspective

as

his.

Friendship, though a bond formed on impalpable grounds, is as crucial as familial relations. There are innumerous matters that one can not divulge before parents or siblings given the unbridgeable communication gap or insurmountable age barriers; this is where a friend comes into play. Our emotional baggage is disembarrassed to some degree when we are girdled by our friends, who pay heed to the griefs that vex us; burden shared is a burden halved. Friends, like a wall, are entities on whom we can lean on when life topples us down. It will not be false to say that friendship is an ointment for the pangs of life. Prolonged solitude is unnatural and insufferable for us; friendship tends to be an outlet to bring our need for social intimacy to fulfillment. Quality interaction with our friends, bartering personal and private thoughts and feelings, a satisfaction of being 103

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listened to, understood and cared for results in rendering our hearts well up with tranquility and satisfaction. It also shows promise to our psychological prosperousness. Often some quality time with friends turns out to be an effective therapy for one‟s worries. Friendship also lends a fair share in our progression. Those we deem as our bosomfriends possess the power to fill the air in our sails by means of their words of motivation and appreciation. Friends who have the same set of goals and dreams, like a tribe, grow together; they push each other to key their efforts to higher pitches. Being in the herd of friends who talk only of obscenity, indulge in profane and immoral activities, and mercilessly waste time leads only to ruination; in the same vein, being in the company of those friends who talk only of growth, self-betterment, deliberate on new ideas will doubtlessly lead to one‟s intellectual evolution. 104

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“Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” Friendship is a bond of immense splendor. God‟s proclamation that the righteous ones are His friends added a divine touch to the institution of friendship. It was in return for Abraham‟s unmatched sacrifices and unflinching love for God that brought him the precious title of “The friend of God.” Friendship is a treasured gift conferred upon man, but it is contingent on man‟s own choice that makes it a blessing or a curse. A friend of bad character and conduct will only summon catastrophe, but when a friend is chosen wisely, the blood of that union is not less sacred than the water of the womb.

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Chapter 19

“The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.” -Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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As

we took the chequered flag of 20th

Century, we effected an entrance into an aeon of technological clout. Presently, we not only bank on technology for our work and leisure, but it is also dictating our lives. In the days of the yore, machines were merely tools in the hands of man, but today, it has gained the upper hand in both the potential and dominance. The life of an individual of today is directed by the tin god that dwells in his pocket: the smartphone. In the present moment, two out of every three people would be riveted to their smartphones. We are addicted to our phones to such scale that giving up on them, even for a day, has become a hellacious and unthinkable task for us. The meteoric ascendance of social media has changed the lives of people for better or for worse. Social media has contributed a great chunk in instilling insecurities in the masses. Every user curates a charade of living a perfect and fulfilled life by churning out and posting 107

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meticulously and artistically filtered photos and other content that brews insecurities in the audience making them convinced by the false notion of them left behind and missing out on life. The core thrust of social media is to enlace people together, but in contrast, it has drifted them asunder. It has surely cemented people together in many ways, but it is barren of emotions, expressions, and intimacy that are the quintessence of human interactions. People, today, are more partial towards social media and texting rather than real socializing and interactions, which lead to misinterpreted and misconstrued conversations, eventually causing fissures and rifts in relationships and friendships. The surge of social media has brewed a farrago of our private and public lives dealing a fatal blow to our right to privacy; our locations, data, information pertaining to our interests and orientations rest in the hands of those holding the levers of these enterprises.

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Generation of today, which I myself am a part of, is an enslaved generation as it is servile to social media and other paraphernalia to achieve happiness. We are abnormally enthralled by social media, for it grants a false and temporal feeling of approval. Getting complimented and positive feedbacks on photos and content dispenses a Dopamine hit, precipitating the feelings of pleasure, confidence, and selfesteem. Simultaneously, if one fails to get expected responses on social media, it causes a plunge in Serotonin levels, paving way for anxiety, depression, and stings of self-doubt. This is the sort of pleasure-pain seesaw that the generation of today bestrides on. The rising tide of technology has, in many ways, browbeaten our survival. Agriculture, farming, industries, and firms once administered by human potential, is now under the sway of robust machinery and technology. This has made man irrelevant 109

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and has bereaved him of his employment and means of earning. The inculcation of Androids embedded with AI (Artificial Intelligence) has obviated the need for manpower. Technology is naught but our own brainchild and a contrivance of our own hand. It is solely our over-dependence on technology that has transcended it over human prowess. As long as we hold the wheel of technology, we can leverage its unmatched might. But if we let it tower over us, then that day is not far when we will vanish like a dream upon waking.

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Chapter 20

“Our body is a well-set clock which keeps good time, but if it be too much or indiscreetly tampered with, the alarm runs out before the hour.” –Joseph Hall

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Our bodies are the record of our bearing towards them; they register how we minister to them. Similar to our homes, wherein we reside, our souls are the tenants of our bodies. Human body is the paragon of God‟s entire array of creations, to which there is no equal. This formidable gift also entails the obligation of nursing and fostering it. Any food that we partake of or any drink that we imbibe leaves a positive or unpalatable touch on our bodies; to put it differently, we are what we eat. Food is to man, what fuel is to a vehicle. Nutrients lent by food serve as a man‟s driving force. It is the energy acquired through food that keeps a man alive and kicking. But if one satisfies his belly with the food that is deleterious and ill-suited to him, it will not only bring his health to ruin but will also unleash a hurricane on his psychological well-being. Many fatal maladies not only sprout from single gene mutation, but also spring from a network of 112

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biological dysfunction; the foods empty of necessary balance of nutrients are a noteworthy factor in that dysfunction. Undernutrition and over-nutrition are both menacing to our health. Today, more people die of gluttony than of starvation. Foods that we intake also leaves an impact on our mood and mental health. It can be labeled as foodmood connection. Foods, namely refined carbohydrates, junk foods, and soda et cetera, tamper with blood sugar levels and are culpable for inducing anxiety, depression and insomnia. Our thoughts and emotions also exert an influence on our body. Negative attitudes, feelings of sorrow, hopelessness, and overthinking can foment stress, which upsets the body‟s hormonal balance, depletes the brain‟s chemicals, and puts our immune system into disorder. To take delight in a healthy mind and a body bursting with health, we must do away with negativity bias. Negativity bias alludes to the fact that 113

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we spend the better part of our lives ruminating over the minor frustrations, and disregard the many chances we are provided with to experience wonder, awe, and gratitude. We should not let our mind oppress over bodies. How we value fitness, healthy eating, stress reduction, and sleeping all impact how much happiness we feel. Emotions are linked to many physical properties in our body. Just in the manner we cater to our homes and embellish it, we should maintain an eye on our bodies to keep them in the picture of health, for as long as we are alive, our body is the only home our soul is going to live in.

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Chapter 21

;

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” -Rumi

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To us, a stable and sustained career is a holy grail, and it should be. When it comes to singling out a career, one might stumble upon manifold qualms. So, the question blooms that what sort of line of work should we employ for ourselves? The answer is what the title suggests, that is, do what you love. What you do is an asinine and frivolous debate; how you do it is what really matters. To Quote Martin Luther King Jr., “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” One should resort to the vocation he himself takes delight in, not the one that is suggested forth by his kinsfolk. No profession or domain of work is debased or futile; every 116

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line of employment is an important cog which keeps our social and economic machinery running. One should pore over the lives of those individuals who pursued their passion and interests that transitioned them into virtuosos in their spheres of work. Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and a wide panorama of examples are out there to reckon with. Thus, Crux of the matter is that no matter what you do, success will be inevitable if your work is drenched in a fiery passion. The reason why those who tread on the heels of their interests and passion are more prone to success and better performance is because they take work as entertainment and leisure, thus resultantly, they shed a laser-like focus on their work. We as an entity exert influence on our surrounding environ, be it directly or indirectly. I find the idea palatable that each one of us is tailored for a motive and is destined to carry out a specific purpose. We 117

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are saddled with the task to pinpoint and devote our allotted span diligently, from dusk till dawn, from cradle to grave to bring the purpose of our being to materialization.

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Chapter 22

“Today you are you, that is truer than true, There is no one alive, who is your than you.” -Dr. Suess.

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If we were to ask people whether they are living the life they had dreamt about themselves or not, chief portion of the answers would be in negation. Everyone would have a whole raft of excuses and reasons why their goals remained unachievable, and obstacles they stumbled upon, impregnable. The only reason that separates wheat from the chaff and that demarcates a fine line between ordinary and extraordinary is self-investment and selfreliance. Today, as we have advanced in every ambit; we have made other planets our second homes, dived deeper into the bowels of the oceans, landed on mountain-tops, learned to control the inclemencies of weather, and so on, yet our mental and psychological growth and evolution is progressing at a snail‟s pace. In a world moving forward at a blistering speed, our personal lives are in a state of stagnation. We, surely, have learned to invest in the betterment of our lifestyles, but we have still 120

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not grown cognizant to the idea of selfbetterment. Most of the people nowadays, have delved in depression because their idea of a happy and satisfactory life pivots on exogenous and materialistic factors. I see happiness and progress as an endogenous entity; it springs from within us. By selfinvestment, one means grooming one‟s personality. Personality is to man, what fragrance is to flower. It will be erroneous to think personality to be only linked with physical appearance; Personality is something we exude, by how we act, communicate and behave. It is something that draws a difference between us and animals. It is what makes us an “Intellectual Animal”. To focus on one‟s own life should be at the top rung of one‟s priorities‟ ladder. I see this world as an arena and everyone dwelling in it as a player taking stabs at outshining others. Would you come to a battle unarmed? To emerge unscathed from the 121

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arena of 21st Century, it is obligatory to stand out from the crowd; to make oneself a treasure trove of knowledge and a wellspring of skills. Instead of homing in on who did what and who said what, one should focus on how he/she can key his/her life to a higher pitch. Books should be read, skills should be learned, and no stone should be left unturned in contributing to our growth. Our education is reduced to merely awarding of useless degrees and certificates. Bags of students might be filled with heavy books, but their mental inventory remains hollow and empty. When it comes to survival, one is on his own and cannot hinge on others. So, for a frictionless life, one should be competent enough to smoothly sail through thins and lows of life, and it can only be achieved through self-reliance. Without these substance qualities, we are no less than mannequins who are attired in beautiful dresses, merely for a show, having no will of their own. Invest in yourself, it pays the best interest. 122

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Another factor that thrust us to unhappiness is that our happiness is conditional and reliant on others; we chase others to make us feel happy, admired, and special. Romantic movies and literature, which were orchestrated for merely entertainment, have unexpectedly left a deep impress on the lives of people and have exposed them to a wrong and spurious definition of love. Romanticism has destroyed the concept of love. To find love and companionship is only part of the journey, but it is portrayed as the whole journey itself. Today, every person, be it male or female, adult or teenager, is bearing the throes and pangs of disappointed love. All those individuals who claim to be in love, inexplicably at some point curse their life, either owing to an intolerable partner, or having no partner at all, and all this manifests because we have been subjected to wrong love stories. Real concept of love is not finding a perfect soulmate; it is to take them to one‟s heart as they are and being embraced by them as we are. 123

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A Start of relationships is not a high point, which romantic culture assumes, it is only the first step of a far longer and arduous journey. These projected love stories are so different from our actual lives. We have learned to judge ourselves by the hopes and expectations fostered by the misleading concept of love; by its standards our own relationships are damaged and unsatisfactory. No wonder separation or divorce appears to be inevitable. Teenagers, predominantly, have fell prey to this façade of love. It is entrenched so deeply in our social milieu that the one who doesn‟t have a fling or a romantic liaison with anyone is considered anomalous. Relationships that halt your personal growth are toxic. Evade them as soon as you can. How is it love, if it is only rendering you heartbreak, stress, depression, false expectations, and suicidal tendencies? It all boils down to one this that we should not let ourselves get lost in someone else‟s life. Instead of being consumed by the idea of becoming one with 124

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one‟s significant other, one must prioritize mutual partnership. Making someone else your everything in a relationship is not only unromantic, but also unhealthy for everyone involved. Others should be a part of your life, not your entire life. In saying that someone else is your everything is equal to saying that you and your life in itself is nothing. One ought to be independent, meaning that one must not depend on others for fulfillment; one must not live through others. We are awarded with the precious gift of life only for once, why let it go down the drain owing to some toxic illusions shoved down our throats. Purport of all the aforementioned points is not to antagonize the idea of love and companionship. It is one of our basic needs and desires and is obligatory for our life. The main thrust of this chapter is to prioritize oneself, and one‟s own happiness should not be butchered only to seek approval of others. All I want to 125

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impart is to stop chasing people, because when you stop chasing the wrong people, you give right people a chance to catch you. We should learn to love ourselves. We know everything about everyone, but know so less about our own selves. It is a good thing to live for others; but isn‟t it a bad thing to not live for ourselves?

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Chapter 23

“Beauty is more intoxicating than wine; it intoxicates both the holder and the beholder.” -Zimmerman

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Our

eyes are always hungry, and the

delicacy they feed on is beauty. Our eyes also serve as a bridleway to our hearts; any entity, be it a person or any materialistic article, that charms our eyes becomes a tenant of our hearts. In contrast, anything that fails to attract our eyes eventually fails to seep into our hearts and soul. Many philosophical giants have spelled out the beauty in their own ways. Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Aristotle, that it was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that it was a glorious gift of nature, and Ovid, that it was a fever bestowed by the gods. Beauty is a cosmic, marvelous, and unmerited gift given randomly and arbitrarily that accrues perks and privileges for its holder. Beauty and Wine are of a piece; both bring pleasure to its consumers, but the addiction of both 128

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can numb one‟s senses to surroundings. As we have a fable for the beauty that meets only the eye, we often fail to harrow below the skin of unattractive people, and to exhume the treasure that rests therein. We, masquerading as nobles often asseverate that looks do not matter and that beauty is something only skin deep, but our attitudes as a society suggest otherwise. It is most of the time females that bear the brunt of society‟s beauty bias; they often do not find desirable suitors and their rejections are predominantly predicated on either their dark skin tone or unattractive appearance. Our affinity for white skin is evident of our anglophilia; it is the footprints left by our former masters-the English- that we are strolling on. We surely have gained deliverance from British colonialism as a nation, but our frame of mind is yet under the yoke of colonialism. As we have once remained the subject of the whites-the British crown- thereby we have given 129

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currency to the white and fair color as a superior one. In true light, a society‟s obsession with fair skin is not a beauty bias, but a borderline racism. Our over-obsession with beauty has left us in the snares of insecurity and our insecurities have made us a cash cow of the cosmetic enterprises. We spend money in spades on consuming myriad of products with untenable hopes of gaining social approval. It is on account of our groundless insecurities and senseless standards that have turned us into a guinea pig of cosmetic science; people, who are not at peace with their bodies go through a panorama of surgeries and infuse their bodies with unhealthy chemicals like Botulinum toxin merely to become feast for the eyes of others. Our lives are spent in embellishing our faces and bodies that are mere mortal vessels and are bound to decay once we die; we ought to 130

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work for the nobility of our souls, that even after demise, will live on and will stand before God. “If virtue accompanies beauty, it is the heart‟s paradise; if vice be associated with it, it is the soul‟s purgatory. It is the wise man‟s bonfire, and the fool‟s furnace.” -Quarles In the wake of our appetency for carnal beauty, we tend to others in accordance with their appearances. Candidates being bestowed with beauty and sex appeal may land an offer; attractive students are considered smarter; nice looking teachers get better reviews; appealing workers make more money, and good looking politicians get more votes. “There is evidence that attractive people are seen as more compelling”, says Matthew Kohut, “A person‟s looks can have a blinding effect on our perception of them.”

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God is an artist without any other parallel, and there is artistry dripping from every single one of His creations. He gifted some with gorgeous and flawless faces and bestowed some with voices more melodious than a mynah‟s chant. He blessed some with a kind and beautiful heart and chose some for an immaculate and divine character. There are some flowers, such as Manfreda virginica, that are not as beautiful as roses and lilies, but their fragrance outshines that of lilies and roses. There are particular beauties for the gratification of our particular senses, but we choose to make only our eyes content. Most often an element of beauty is right in front of us but it goes unnoticed; we need to change our perspectives. Every element of the universe is bathed in different colors of beauty, but if they are not visible to us, then it is we who are colorblind.

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Chapter 24

“War crushes, with bloody heel, all justice, all happiness, all that is God-like in man.” -Charles Sumner

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History of mankind is a history of war. The world, as we know it, has always been smeared with conflicts; it has been hemorrhaging blood on account of the wars and conflicts incited over land, power, dominance, expansion, and many other stimulants. Our hapless world has been visited upon by many cruelties and has been brutally raped by the two raging world wars, the likes of which had never been witnessed before. There has always been a passage of arms at one or another corner of the world, and the manifestation of peace has been ephemeral. Political Realists impute the disheveled order of the world to the selfish and greedy nature of man, whereas proponents of Neo-realism (a theory of international relations that says power is the most important factor in international relations) put forth the claim that it is the surrounding environment of man that makes wars and conflicts unavoidable. Both the assertions appear palatable. 134

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“For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites and dissemblers, avoiders of dangers, greedy for gain; and while you benefit them, they are entirely yours, offering you their blood, their goods, their life, their children,...when need is far away, but when you actually become needy, they turn away.” -Niccolo Machiavell, the Prince After the First World War, the wake of liberalism paved way for an amiable environment and erection of institutions like the League of Nations. But this era of peace faded away when the horns of the Second World War began to blow. The establishment of the United Nations put a temporal end to the bloodlust fomented by the war, but in the fullness of time, it also materialized as impotent as its predecessorthe League of Nations. All this begs the question that why all the efforts towards peace and formation of a world, wherein states are enlaced together in the web of 135

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cooperation, do not reap any fruit? The answer is Self-centered interests. Every state dotted on the map of the world worships its own interests and takes every possible step, no matter how repugnant, to secure her objectives. When it comes to world politics, morality and ethics are merely a mirage. To dominate the region and to become a sole hegemon is the wet dream of every state. To get possession of her ends, every state is engaged in overpowering others by augmenting her military might; it begets security dilemma and ignites an arms race. Peace and cooperation in such milieu of competitiveness, skepticism, and cynicism, are beyond the bounds of possibility. States do indeed forge alliances with each other today, but they are merely smokescreens that conceal their real motives of balancing and checkmating the emerging power of other states. This brings to mind a befitting dialogue from an American T.V show that

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the road to power is paved with hypocrisy and casualties. States‟ wolfish lust for power and greed for supremacy over the world has brought us to the cusp of a third world war. Massacres and carnages unfolding in the world today are symptomatic of a looming world war; the herald of peace: the United Nations basks in slumber as we reel towards the nuclear conflagration. To bring about peace, the world looks upon Uncle Sam, rather than the United Nations, for the United States as a sole hegemon wields the power to bring stabilization. If the rat race of the states for personal gains continued any longer, we will be shoved to our extinction. “I do not know with what weapon world war III will be fought, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” -Albert Einstein

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The air that we are breathing in is saturated with fear; this terror emanates from the beasts of catastrophe that every other state has in her possession: The nuclear weapons. Fear serves as a breeding ground for hatred and hatred mushrooms aggression. To make room for peace, it is imperative to dissipate the mists of uncertainty and distrust by ridding the world of the instruments of destruction. There is no denial in the imbecility of those who do not glean lessons from the past. By altering the course of our actions we can steer history from repeating itself. We need to comb through the new world order that we have brought into being and rid it of all the selfish and self-centric elements, or else it will only invite disorder.

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Chapter 25

“As a vessel is known by the sound, whether it is cracked or not, so men are proved by their speeches, whether they are wise or foolish.” -Demosthenes

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Words are the

clothes that our thoughts

wear. Man has been provided with the faculty of speech, which accompanied by the institution of language serves as a vehicle to convey thoughts, emotions, and feelings. It is by speech that a man channels his thoughts to the outside world; it is the art of speech that secures for him the title of an intellectual, and the absence of this skill that has him labeled as a dim-wit. Our mouths can either be a barrack forging words sharp and deleterious enough to wound others, or it can be a patisserie baking savory words with sweetness enough to win over the hearts of its listeners; it is upon our own picking. Speaking is an art, and similar to other arts, it demands incessant exercise and practice to gain mastery over it. There are few errors that one commits in his speech, that not only defile and stain the words but also leave his sickening image in the eyes of others. These are the cardinal sins of speech. 140

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Gossiping and mudslinging aimed at others is a vile deed; it portrays the hideousness of our mind. Even listening to someone‟s character assassination and slander is beyond the pale; the one who gossips about others before us will surely gossip about us in our absence. The second error that soils our words is dogmatism: confusion of facts with opinions. We, in our efforts to appear omniscient and highbrows, often pontificate our opinions as the last word; such holierthan-thou attitude may land us in the bad books of others. “A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool speaks because he has to say something.” -Plato Misjudging and jumping to wrong conclusions about others may butcher the appeal of our words. It becomes an evidence of our gloom-ridden and negative frame of

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mind. Perpetual despondence and pessimism paints us as prophets of doom. Excessive complaining and grumbling about our sufferings may prove to be a coup de grace for our attraction in the hearts of others, for everyone has their own set of troubles and travails, thus they do not want to be laden by the burden of sorrows that does not even belong to them. It is a truth beyond doubt that when we laugh the world laughs with us, but when we cry, we cry alone. Extravagant complaining and whining bespeak one‟s emotional weakness and instability. Exaggeration and embroidery in speech are virtually the same as lying and mendaciousness. It not only scars our reputation but also evinces untrustworthy and undependable.

us

as

There are some ways that if we inculcate, can grace our words. The jewels that adorn

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our

speech

are

honesty,

truthfulness,

integrity, and compassion. We, the humans, are blue-blooded of all those who draw breath on the face of the earth, thus it is expected of us to be a picture of nobility and uprightness, for it is a man‟s virtuous and moral standing that brings him at a cut above the angels, and his evil, ungodly doings that lands him in the ranks of the devils.

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Chapter 26

“The true and noble way to kill a foe is not to kill him; you, with kindness, may so change him that he shall cease to be a foe.” -Aleyxn

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In the trajectory of our lives, some people form a ring around us who have inflicted or wish to inflict harm upon us, overtly or covertly, intentionally or inadvertently; who see us with glasses tinted with the color of hatred; who are peeved by our existence. These are the ones who take on the roles of villains in our stories. For the most part, our responses to such people conform to their bearing towards us; we reciprocate hatred with hatred and the vicious cycle of hatred perpetuates for eternity since we make futile attempts to put out the fire with fire. The true test of our character is not in dealing with people who are kind and magnanimous to us but is in the effusive and heartfelt reception of those who find it hard to tolerate us. Humility and tenderheartedness are the powers employing which we can wind the hearts of others; kindliness and goodwill are the forces that can extinguish any inferno of hatred, but these qualities come at a cost. Ego and self145

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conceit are when sacrificed, these qualities are born at that altar. We tend to others in the manner they do to us, for we hold a preposterous faith that they must reap the harvest they have sown, but we forget that our hearts are the soil where these vile seeds shall be plowed into. The human heart is a vessel tailored only to be filled with love; hatred is a poison alien to it. “Revenge is a poisoned blade that saves the most fatal cut for the man who wields it.” -Masashi Kishimoto We see those, who in some ways have illtreated us or meted out injustice of some sort upon us, as objects of our vendetta. We lure ourselves into believing that by exacting revenge will we attain true peace and satisfaction, but in the end, it turns out to be anticlimactic. Continuous loathing and fostering ill-feelings for those who had made us suffer brings us on a road that leads to more suffering, for it keeps our wounds 146

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green. It makes us bitter and unmindful of those who love us and all the joys that life has to offer. By the virtue of hate and yearning for vengeance, we let our illwishers and despisers occupy our minds and hearts. True peace lies in harboring no grudge and abomination against anyone; by kindling the sparks of forgiveness, we can melt the ice in the veins of those who detest us. A kind heart is a stockpile of joyfulness, stimulating everything in its proximity to smile. We are imperfect and liable to err; sometimes our error-prone instinct gets the better of us. Just in the manner we want and expect to be pardoned for our faults, we must learn to sprinkle the holy water of forgiveness on others too. Forgiveness does not mean an end to our self-respect or selfesteem; neither does it portray us as weaklings, but rather it is a Godlike streak that calls for immense strength and courage to have it at one‟s disposal. It is more 147

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meritorious to gracefully occupy the throne of someone‟s heart than to be ungracefully exiled from it. By letting go of hatred from our end and by not stooping to the lows of malevolence and spite, we mark our eminence and loftiness. We must learn to accept the apologies that we never received. Believe me when I say that we cannot mend ourselves by breaking someone else; it is only the inner healing that gives us a true sense of tranquility. There is no ointment to rid this world of malevolent hatred, except for one that can be administered by us: love. Those who are averse and hateful towards us, the hard crust of their loathing can only be corroded with the scalpel of love, and the demons of hatred dwelling in their hearts can solely be hacked and slashed with a dagger sheathed in kindness.

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Chapter 27

-

“Your assumptions and the truth dine at totally separate tables.” -J. Michael Straczynski

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We

are

all

conditioned

to

make

assumptions; we make assumptions repeatedly and without exception, some trivial and some consequential. Our mind adjudicates others‟ courses of action and pontificates its conjectures as utter and absolute facts. We judge others not on the grounds of reality, but on the premise of our imaginations, past experiences, or wishful thinking. We do not deign to ruminate over the assumptions put forth by our mind, and by deeming our inaccurate assumptions as downright truth we become the judge, jury, and executioner of others. Our assumptions, time and time again, turn out to be unfounded and incorrect, but when we find out, we have already brought about an irreparable damage. In place of reality and factual observations, our judgments are spawned on the grounds of emotions, beliefs, anticipations, and desires. We muddle up these psychological machinations with truth, and thrust them forward as our 150

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brand of reality. This is how our inside world colors the lens with which we see and interpret our outside world. Blind assumptions devour our relationships, friendships, careers, and reputation just like termites gobble up wood. It is a dime a dozen event that unfolds nowadays where one partner stages allegations of infidelity and unfaithfulness aimed at other actuated by mere assumptions; and the dearth of communication hammers the last nail in the coffin of such relationships. Assumptions impel us to impeach and oppugn others‟ verity and integrity; it butchers not only our social relations but also prompts our fall from grace. It is often our assumptions that bring us in the clutches of overthinking and anxiety; more often than not, our problems and worries are minor trinkets, but our treacherous mind postulates it as a dire strait and paints our souls blue with distress and panic. Making room for excessive and baseless assumptions must be a forbidden 151

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fruit for politicians and world leaders, since it can bring long-held and mutually advantageous alliances between countries to ruins. An individual at the helm of an enterprise or an office may defenestrate his employees on the premise of his assumptions about them, thus turning the axed person‟s life topsy-turvy. On account of one‟s false assumptions, he not only fouls the nests of others, but he falls prey to it too; when the truth unveils upon a person and the curtain is drawn from his wrong assumptions, he has to live his life buried under the burden of guilt and shame. The lone stratagem to avoid such mishaps from transpiring is that we must be inquisitive, not to others but our selves. The moment an irrational and unreasonable assumption pops up in our mind, we ought to bring it under the microscope and validate it with the lenses of truth and evidence. There is no better way to overpower a

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shadow of doubt than with luminance of truth. Our mind is a mighty tool, but to our dismay, it did not come with an instruction manual. As long as its reins remain in our holding, it will be of great avail, but if unleashed from our grasp, it will sink us into its havoc. There is a delicate line that uncouples sanity from insanity, and that is the line of self-restraint and self-mastery. A man, in himself, is a whole realm; if he successfully quells the seditions and rebellions surging in the republic of his mind, he shall rule until kingdom come, but if he fails to do so, he shall be toppled by his own hands.

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Chapter 28

“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” -Mother Teresa

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We are dwelling in a world that is more connected than ever; regardless of any corner of the earth we lodge ourselves in, we are knitted together through the yarn of telecommunication and social media. Globalization has compressed our panoramic world into a global village. In a connected world like ours, loneliness would have been a phenomenon unbeknownst to us, but in the true light, that is not it. It is unaccountable that more the people are twined together through various means, the more they are subjected to the torments of loneliness. It is crucial to elucidate that loneliness and being alone are conceptions that are entirely poles apart, but the thread that separates them is thin and blurry. Just like hunger that directs our attention towards our bodily needs, loneliness is like a famished stomach craving for social attention and interaction. For some, loneliness is a fear worse than death; it hatches a yawning void in their hearts. Many 155

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among us merely out of the fright of loneliness sign up for toxic relationships and friendships that are ruinous for them. There are a handful of causations of loneliness, but the one that takes the cake is our overreliance on others. We see others as lenders of happiness and ourselves as its desperate recipients, thereby when we do not incur anticipated attention from others, we begin questioning our worth and are laid open to the stings of loneliness. It also takes place that sometimes even surrounded by hordes of people does not rid us from feeling lonely and isolated; these are the aftereffects of plummeted self-esteem and self-love. When we are not content with ourselves, when our inside world is gloomy and dull, despite all the delectations and pleasures the outside world will appear arid and colorless. If we commence taking delight in our own company, adore ourselves, and engage in activities that beckon joy and contribute in our betterment, we can be the victor in our crusade against loneliness. When we love 156

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ourselves enough, it is then when it dawns upon us that to attain happiness we need not hinge on others but our own divine selves. Such solitude wherein one does not feel lonely and isolated is not loneliness but is an indication of deliberately and merrily being alone. It is a Buddhist belief that happiness and sadness are fictitious concepts and are our own brainchild. The way we interpret our condition defines our feelings. If we are at peace being with ourselves then the prospect of loneliness will scatter like fog upon sunshine. And if we do not put a leash on our yearning for social attention, we will never get it to our heart‟s content and will inescapably feel worthless and lonely. Our generation is more exposed to loneliness because our connections are not as intimate and wholehearted as our predecessors. We boast thousands of virtual friends on social media but the vitality of such friendships is often unsound. It is not 157

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the number of acquaintances but the quality that is of great moment. Sole rose can be our whole garden; one good companion, friend can be enough to dispense us felicities and joys that a thousand cannot. We often fall prey to the pangs of loneliness when we put our work and career above our family and relations in our bucket list. By making work our prime concern we often close our ears to our social longings; sometimes loneliness is our soul shouting for the warmth of companionship and social interactions. If the whole world abandons us, and we are not left with anyone to stand shoulder to shoulder, even then we shall not be alone, for we have our selves. By acknowledging ourselves as enough, by assigning more value to ourselves than others, by learning to partake of compassionate self-talk, and by throwing ourselves in productive and beneficial activities we can coat our time with ecstasy. It demands immense strength to sit with our self, to quell our storms, and 158

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heal our wounds on our own. It is how we behold and treat ourselves that gives meaning to our patches of solitude, and settles whether it is loneliness or a solitary yet joyous existence.

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Chapter 29

“God the Great Giver can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single lane.” -Anonymous

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Each

thing that our eyes behold, each

article that our hands hold is brought into being by someone; every book has its author, every monument and edifice has its architect, and every fabric has its weaver. If frivolous objects like these cannot be brought into existence on their own, then how can an intricate and convoluted being like man not have an originator? Our intelligence emanates from a higher and superior intelligence; it is imprinted in our consciousness that there is someone who designed and fashioned our template from dust; there is someone who is the lone mastermind behind this vast and enormous universe. Anyone in his right mind will not give the red light to the idea of the existence of God, Who not only engineered this whole universe but also keeps it in order. The man by nature is impetuous, and inclines towards immediate gratification; as religion speaks in mysteries and science is grounded on observations plain to see, masses are 161

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altogether reeling towards the realm of science without taking religion in any concern. And on odd occasions, puritanical religious beliefs barricade the road to scientific knowledge. Religion and science complement each other, where science elucidates the processes of nature, and religion glorifies the One who initiated those processes. Every sphere of knowledge comes to the conclusion that it is God who is the sole author of all that exists. Man might conquer all the thrones of the world, yet he will remain at the mercy of the One whose throne excels all others. Man may surmount many impregnable quandaries and obstructions, but he is not omnipotent, and sooner or later will fall on his knees; these are the times when his heart cries out for divine intervention. To vanquish the troubles of life, utmost trust and faith in God can be an effective arrow in the quiver of a perturbed man.

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Not for a moment, our creator shifts his concerned gaze away from us; He perches disposed and willing to dispatch His angels to our aid, but how often do we turn towards Him? To salvage us from wandering astray, He converses with us in His subtle methods through signs, scriptures, and the blessed lips of His apostles, but we in our arrogance fancy that we are better off on our own devices and do not pay heed, which in the end only causes dismay. Our bodies and fates are not ours, and are at disposal of our maker; they can rebel anytime against us if He ordains, but He out of His love for us overlooks our transgressions and wrongdoings. The Lord created everything in the universe for man, but He created man for Himself; to serve His will. If a mother, who is merely a vehicle to bring us into this world, loves us beyond bounds, then the love of the One who created us with His own hands would be inestimable. If we are cherished by our Lord, we too should not be reluctant to talk to Him, to unbosom before 163

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Him our feelings and emotions, to cry before Him in the somber times, and praise Him in the days of bliss. We are fortunate to have an adoring Lord preside over us, yet unfortunate that we do not strive to earn His love. “Surely, Allah loves those who put their faith in Him.” -The Glorious Quran 3:159

“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.” -The Holy Bible: Psalm 36:7

To pay gratitude for the provisions our Master showers upon us, a thousand lifetimes will not suffice. It is His grace that He confers us with the endowments that we do not even deserve; it is His mercy that He 164

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spares us despite our unacceptable errors. Truly, we can never run out of reasons to thank Him. He is our sustainer and we ought to solely rely on Him for our upkeep. In the face of worries and pains, we should vest it into our minds that the one who smoothly and orderly sustains and nurtures the whole universe, will He not have a plan for our lives? He is a magnificent author who will beautifully and artistically weave the stories of our lives. To have a blissful life, we must engender an undaunted faith in God, and in order to walk unharmed in the boulevards of life we must unquestionably follow all that He decrees. Our lives should revolve in an orbit with solely God at its center. We should bind our wandering hearts to our Maker, for it is His light that shepherds us away from the dark alleys of life; and if we veered away from Him, we shall be like sheep lost in the wilderness of wolves.

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Chapter 30

,

“Speak, for your lips are yet free; Speak, for your tongue is still your own.” -Faiz Ahmed Faiz

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Man glories in prestige over every other earthborn, thanks to his intellectual prowess; it is the sinew of the squishy object dwelling between his ears that winnows him from every other being in the cosmos. It perceives the world from its own vantage points; it is the brain‟s inherent instinct to interrogate the truth and validity of everything it processes. Our brain is constantly visited upon by queries and peculiar thoughts like unbidden guests. It is a man‟s inquisitiveness and his soul burning with curiosity that incentivizes him to explore and bring about discoveries. The only outlet to quell a man‟s curiosities is untrammeled liberty of expression. Unbridled freedom of speech is a man‟s inalienable right; if one is barred from it, he will keep bottling up his thoughts and queries which, eventually, will erect a labyrinth in his mind. In order to have peace, we must give voice to all the restive thoughts boiling inside of us.

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Uncurbed

freedom

of

expression

is

indispensable to orchestrate change in society and the world at large. In lieu of silently suffering the insufferable, a community and a society by freedom of expression can bring their predicaments into the limelight. Freedom of speech and prosperity go hand in hand; prosperity springs from ideas and new ideas can flourish only in a backdrop where they are untouched by any kind of suppression. Any society, community, or government that strives to silence the notions that are unpopular, bizarre, and uncommon, become an architect of its misfortune, for it inevitably beckons dissent and rouses the ire of the masses. Rather than squelching the expressions of the people, those holding the reins of power ought to embrace and appease them by rational debates and discussions. Every so often, religion and prospect of free speech bare fangs at each other. If truth be 168

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told, no religion prohibits freedom of expression. In actuality, every religion and school of thought effusively receive the utterances and queries aimed at getting acquainted with God and unraveling the mysteries of His enormous universe. But some self-endorsed and pretentious exponents of religion with their orthodox beliefs dyed in the wool not only harshly spurn such statements but also brand the questioners as apostates and heterodox thinkers. This intolerance not only disconcerts people from religion, but also impels them to see it with disdain. If God had wanted man to uncritically follow everything that is fastened upon him, He wouldn‟t have blessed him with intellectual and critical acumen. God encourages man to contemplate and inquire about Him and His creations to his heart‟s fill, and hold Him as his Lord at his own cordial will, not under the duress of anyone. Ambassadors of religion ought to employ forbearance, openmindedness, and patience when met with 169

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any out of the grain expressions; if they find anyone in the wrong, he should be counseled with humility and kindness, rather than being shunned as a heretic. These are the only tools in their toolshed that they can ply to gravitate people towards the arena of religion without denting their right to express. Only good character begets a good character; it cannot be achieved by mere preach. Speech that borders on racism, sexism, blasphemy, profanity, and sedition does not fall under the ambit of freedom of expression, and should not be given free rein. A boundary should be demarcated to tell apart free speech from hate speech. Any articulation that is targeted at disparaging or pouring scorn on others should be contained, for it will only bring disaster to pass. It is the narrow valleys of our minds with their little view that ceases the rampancy of freedom of expression. Time is ripe to address all those questions we have locked in the chests of 170

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our mind out of fright of disapproval of people; so Speak, a little time suffices, Before the tongue, the body dies.

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Chapter 31

‟

“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” -Khalil Gibran

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Did

you ever happen to play a game of chess? If yes, then you would be cognizant of the most crucial piece on a chessboard, that if checkmated heralds defeat: the king. Now, if a nation were to be a chessboard, what would be its paramount piece that needs protection and preservation at all cost? The king on a nation‟s chessboard is its budding generation. It is the fledgling generation that promises the durability of a nation. A nation furthers its shelf-life by making betterment and advancement of younger generation a meeting point of its efforts; and if it hides from such obligation, it will raze to the ground like a house of cards. It is the youth that is the flesh and blood of a nation; if it is not primed in a fitting manner, its harboring nation shall descend. To be a land of milk and honey, a nation must equip its younger generation with modern and newfangled education. Providing education does not imply to churn out a swarm of degree holders; they should not only be well-educated, but well173

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informed too. It is knowledge that brings the process of education to completion. If a degree does not make one knowledgeable about one‟s covenants made to the nation, does not enlighten one about dictates of conscience and moral codes, does not open the door to a productive life, then it is nothing more than an unworthy fragment of paper with our name scribbled on it. Another note-worthy aspect that needs to be brought under the spotlight is skill development. In chief of second world and first world countries, the youth is indeed provided with a right set of circumstances to attain education, but they fail to shine in the job market, reason being the inadequacy of skills. Education without the inculcation of skill development is as vain as a barren land. Youth is wasted on the young when they let slip the purpose of their being and fritter away the opportunities they are provided with; they let their youthful energy to go down the drain by their engagement in 174

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frivolous activities. The latter-day youth has a yen for immediate pleasure. They procrastinate out of fright of getting out of their comfort zones, and give a wide berth to endeavors that industrious. Minds canvases and can fictitious contents

are demanding and of the young are blank be dyed to any color; of the media have

redefined the sum and substances of lives of the young ones, and have oriented them towards fruitless pursuits and chases. When compared to previous generations, our youth is more work-shy, and is consumed by escapism. In place of confronting the challenges and surmounting the hardships that life dispatches towards them, they seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities through entertainment or engaging in fantasy. The fads and vogues of today‟s youth, the people they idolize and follow, and their indifferent outlook on life is doing more disservice than any favor, for it is impelling them to a meaningless existence. To every nation, it is an absolute imperative 175

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to take up the gauntlet of ridding its youth from all those tendencies that only spell doom. Youth, to its nation is a mother lode of puissance and power. History is a witness that all the revolutions and metamorphosis of the world is made possible by the youthquake; many episodes that shook the core of the world were fomented by young activists. A nation may pride itself on its military potency and economic stability, but an ineffective and inept youth may prove to be a chink in its armor and an ample reason to cause its tear down.

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Chapter 32 , ,

“The child was diseased at birth, stricken with a hereditary ill that only the most vital men are able to shake off. I mean povertythe most deadly and prevalent of all diseases.” -Eugene O‟ Neile

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The most painful and despairing feeling of all is the sense of deprivation. There is nothing sourer than witnessing the niceties withheld from one and bestowed upon others. Without a doubt, poverty is an aching infliction in any social context. A man who is incapable of catering to his household‟s fundamental necessities, unable to keep his children aligned with the fast pace of the world through schooling, lives an existence soaked in agony. The poverty of an individual is most often chalked up to the strokes of fate; a man afflicted with the misery of poverty is lamented upon and then left to bear the heavy cross of his suffering on his own. The only things that such people incur in their bowls oft-times are pitiful glances and sympathetic lip-services. Desperation manipulates and rouses the evil within a man‟s soul. Poverty is indeed not an offense or something despicable worthy of abomination, but it does serve as a breeding ground for crimes like larceny and 178

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burglaries, and menaces like child labour, malnutrition, violence, lack of education, and maladies of all kind. A man whose mind is occupied only by the thoughts of his child moaning out of hunger, whose eyes envision his little ones laboring in the hot sun and chilly winters, is impervious to everything; he will go to any extent to fill the empty bellies of his ménage. When hunger goes beyond the bounds of endurance, one turns blind to religion, caste, creed, and honor; any food that is fed to such man is like manna from heaven for him. He does not bat an eyelash to whether such food came from the house of a Muslim, a Christian, an idol worshipper, or a Jew. To every man, honor is his treasured possession, but it is his armtwisting lot that coerces his soliciting hands to spread before others. In the discriminating eyes of society, the ugliness of a man lies not in his appearance, but his empty pocket. A man who has nothing to offer is most often kept at an arm‟s length. Poverty is an illegitimate child nourished in the womb of 179

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a nation; regardless of how much it is despised and shunned, the naked truth cannot be concealed that it is the recklessness of a nation and its societies that deliver poverty. It is too obvious to ignore that poverty brings forth unevenness; where the rich feast, the poor shoulder famines; opportunities warranting a better life are confiscated from the poor and thrown in the laps of the rich. Inequality among the masses is ominous of governance failure. When poverty inexorably commences unfurling, a state begins to teeter between prosperity and failure. Poverty is not analogous to an incurable disease or a destiny inevitable. It is the consequence of prudent policy choices that aid in poverty alleviation and the rise of the lower and the middle classes. When a nation ploughs money in the creation of more avenues of employment and policies to augment worker‟s wage and families‟ 180

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economic stability, improved outcomes in both the short terms and the long terms are bound to appear. Investment in free and quality schooling for all is the prophecy of a nation‟s prosperity. We too, as individuals, are culpable, if an impoverished child somewhere sleeps with an empty belly. When we as penny pinchers do not pay taxes, we cripple our nation to its core to alleviate poverty. We must sink money in charities to help the cause of poverty reduction. Most of our problems linger unsolved since we love to lay blames on others, instead of directing attention towards the solutions. As an alternative to holding the government or its big fishes guilty, we must brood over what we can do in order to gain riddance from poverty that encircles us. Merely praying for others, hollow sympathies, or hopes devoid of action will not suffice, for neither miracles nor a messiah are needed to liberate this world of its wretchedness; what 181

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really is required is compassion and warmhearted actions aimed at enhancing the lives of others. Even if one poverty-stricken child smiles, by your altruism, then for you my friend, praises shall be sung on heaven‟s gate.

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Chapter 33

“This is the greatest paradox: the emotions cannot be trusted, yet it is they that tell us the greatest truths.” -Don Herold

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Emotions

are inveterate features that we

receive sewn to the fabric of our being. It is not amiss to call emotions a breath of life. Emotions are our responses to circumstances, moods, and relations with others. Our growth is two-fold; we grow physically, and second is our emotional growth and maturity. Emotions are inextricable halves of us, and cannot be plucked out. After all, emotions married with a conscience are what make us human. Emotions are the drivers of the chief proportion of our actions; national fervor, religious staunchness, fidelity in romantic love and marriage are founded on our strong emotions; romantic and platonic relationships, friendships, and matrimony are emotional agreements forged between those involved. But when one does not hold a dominating control over his emotions and is directed by his impulses is like an animal trying to be human. This treatise does not point to being emotionless, for a person 184

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without emotions is not dissimilar to a dead body, but rather it suggests gaining power over one‟s emotions. The one who begins to conquer his feelings and emotions becomes a force unconquerable. A wild stream of emotions perverts one‟s judgments. A man whose emotions call all the shots for him is quite gullible, and is most often manipulated, used and abused by others; he trusts others blindly since he is blindfolded by his feelings and sentiments. A man, who is lorded over by his emotions, unwarily holds people as they appear to be; he makes his first impression of others a last and lasting impression. If the people were as saintly and honest as they appear to be, the world would have been free of all the evil and wicked people; there would not have been any crime, oppression, and carnage. People, including ourselves, wear masks to conceal our true selves. When it comes to trusting others, one must not pay heed to the stupidities of his heart, but rather be all ears 185

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to his conscience and judgmental prowess. We should be courteous towards others, but simultaneously, in place of putting blind faith in them, we must give them space to prove themselves whether they are worthy of being cascaded with our trust or not. We must be vigilant of who we trust, for even the Lucifer was once a reputable angel. Emotions are the forces of nature dwelling inside us and are of great service to us. But if they go unhampered, they have the potential to wreak disasters. A man, whose emotions hold his strings, oscillates between ecstasy and melancholy. He remains mounted on an emotional rollercoaster, where fiddling events take him to the high nodes of excitement, and an insignificant and puny occurring plunges him into despair; emotional precariousness, to be more specific. Often in the stupor of our emotions and our feelings, we make commitments, resolves, and promises, that later leave us in an inescapable tangle of 186

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remorse, self-accusation, self-loathing, and woe. If my opinion serves me right, in many scenarios emotional instability and fragility ooze out from low self-esteem and low selfworth. When our emotions are unreasonably hinged at others, it depicts that we think of ourselves as incomplete and are of the view that others will complete us. So, in an attempt to make ourselves complete, we assign value to others in spades; as long as we relish in the attention bestowed by others we are content, but the moment its supply ceases, it manifests as a beginning of an end of our emotional stability. It is our folly when we see our emotions as a reliable guide and look the world through a Panglossian pane of glass. The great many of our solid-seeming first impressions turn out to be all bluff and bluster. Everything that we see and encounter must be submitted to a process of judicious unraveling; one must not be cynical, but rationally skeptical. Our emotions are not clear transparent glass, 187

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but

full of blemishes, scratches, and

distortions, thus we have a proclivity for misinterpreting facts by blindly trusting our emotions and feelings. Emotions are like weathers advancing on our mental horizons that can have a conclusive impact on our thoughts and actions; we must not be a weather vane to the vagaries of our feelings. We would have gone a long way to prevail over our troubles if we sometimes do ourselves the good of not paying heed to our feelings. In crucial moments, we must let our emotions settle down, and accept that we are massive viscous bags of sentiments who glimpse at the world through a blemished glass that is tinted with illusions and misinterpretations. Prudence lies in exuding judgment and not being reliant on our caprices and impulses.

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Chapter 34

“Learn to let go of the things that you are afraid to lose.” –Yoda

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Verily,

Man is the captain of the ship

called “fate”. He, by his iron-clad determination, unbending conviction, and sedulous efforts scouts his ship in any direction he wills. But, sometimes the boat of fate begins to float on uncharted waters. Humans, owing to their sense of superiority, like to assert control over themselves and their circumstances, as it gives them an air of power and virility. We like to pull the strings of everything that transpires in our life thereby when some episodes do not pan out in the manner we had envisaged we do not let them take their fore-ordained course and stick to making futile attempts to sculpt them according to our own will. Fully aware of the fact that some unwished-for events that unfold are not under our command, yet we hold on to them, for letting go or inaction is seen as an emblem of passivity and weakness. Most of the time some of our problems and sufferings heal themselves gradually with every trickling grain of sand 190

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in the hourglass, and do not need our intervention; but we, by our meddling, often make matters worse. When holding on gives more pain than letting go, one should go for the latter. In every dilemma and predicament, we should learn to see our lives with rose-tinted glasses; in the face of every misfortune, we should fish for opportunities and comforting outcomes. If people have betrayed you, it is fine. Let them go; it is a blessing that they have shown their true dark color at the right time and will not damage you anymore. If you love someone, but do not incur the same love in return, that is all right. Let them go; do not lower your standards to find someone, for you will only end up losing yourself. You deserve to be with someone who finds you worthy of love, so do not settle for someone just because you have a false thought that you will not find anyone better than them. If you have lost or failed at a career, do not fret; the last chapter of your 191

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life has not been written yet. The pages lay blank to be scribbled with wonderful experiences. It is never too late to start over, to find a new passion and to be a prodigy in it. Many undesirable events that unfold may leave us devastated, but they also disillusion us and open our eyes to realities of the world. When you let go of the things that weigh you down, it is unveiled upon you that you need not be attached with anything or anyone to be happy or safe except for your own self. When you slacken your grip of the things that cease to be in your life, you vacate a slot for the good and fruitful portents to seep into your life. Sometimes you have to give up on some things in order to go up. A great many times our minor problems snowball into colossal ones because of a dearth of acceptance. By trusting the universe and plainly accepting that all that we have lost was simply not meant for us, 192

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we can save ourselves from a stretched span of suffering. If one door is shut on us, we must take heart that a hundred more shall open; it is upon us whether we mourn over the one that is closed or rejoice over the ones that are about to open. We should be grateful for all the closed doors, blocked paths, and the things that fell apart, for all this conserved us from the roads that we were not meant to walk on. Often in some matters, not doing anything does the favorable bidding for us. In the mire of every upsetting scenario, we are left with only two choices; either we don the gloomy cloak of victimhood and keep whinging and whining about our lot, or display the attitude of a warrior and keep forging ahead. To have a blissful life we ought to be like an autumn tree shedding the shriveled leaves of negativity and unresolved nonsense. Sometimes the fate that appears unshakeable is in fact the hand of God disentangling our tangled muddles. 193

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Chapter 35

? “Don‟t let the noise of others‟ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” -Steve jobs

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Our

existence royally swirls around four

horrendous words that are, “What would people say”. The possibility of every one of our actions, decisions, and actualization of every dream is decided after percolating through the filter of these words. As we live in the form of communities and societies, we make ourselves believe that only through the approval of those surrounding us we can gain currency as true units of society or community. We think that we matter to others, but we are at the center of the galaxy only in our own mind. But in truth, we are negligible elements in a wide scheme; we are tiny specks in the vastly spread universe. The world and its denizens are indifferent to us and all that we do, but we find this notion unpalatable; we have not accepted the indifference of others at all. We shroud our less impressive and imperfect sides because we falsely believe that they will be noted and dwelt upon by others; we think that we will be judged on the stage of our 195

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imperfections. We let go of our dreams and ambitions solely on the grounds of our idiotic fear that what will others think of us if we failed. In our fruitless attempts to please others, we forget to please ourselves. We are smitten with our image before others, and to burnish that image we surrender our freedom to the verdict of those who surround us since we align our behaviors and actions in compliance with the will of others. The things that are in the interests of others might be detrimental for us, but ignorant of this we recklessly gamble on our lives by moulding ourselves to the expectations of others. Sociologist Erving Goffman developed the concept of Dramaturgy, the idea that life is like a never-ending play wherein individuals are actors. Goffman believed that when we are born, we are thrust onto a stage called everyday life, and that our socialization consists of learning how to play our assigned roles from other people. We enact 196

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our roles in the company of others, who are in turn enacting their roles in interaction with us. He believed that whatever we do, we are playing out some role on the stage of life. Goffman distinguished between front stages and back stages. During our everyday life, we spend most of our lives on the front stage, where we get to deliver our lines and perform. A wedding is a front stage. A classroom lectern is a front stage. A dinner table can be a front stage. Almost any place where we act in front of others is a front stage. Sometimes we are allowed to retreat to the back stages of life. In these private areas, we don‟t have to act. We can be our real selves. We can also practice and prepare for our return to the front stage.

We don only those clothes that we think might appeal to others; sometimes we feel reluctant to openly divulge our hobbies or tastes in music, movies or any other art because we think others may hold us as 197

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uninteresting or dull. Many among us live a colorless life fettered in a tedious job, just because they choose careers counseled by others rather than the one they would have wanted for themselves. The world does not care a hang about our welfare; our wellbeing, comfort, prosperity, and success are not its concern. On many odd occasions, people around us do not want us to change for good. Humans have competitive instincts; people only prefer themselves to climb up the success ladder, not others. If we leave ourselves at the mercy of others, we will be trampled by them. Hence, regardless of all the prying eyes and scornful taunts we should pursue all that we deem fit for us, not that which is administered to us by others, for it is our journey and others shall not walk in our shoes. The minds of everyone around us are brimming to the rim with the thoughts germane to their own lives, hence there will be no vacancy left for us. Being someone 198

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who pleases people sounds, on the face of it, like a very good idea, but it‟s a pattern of behavior riddled with problems. Life is a beauteous gift endowed upon man by his bounteous Lord; to live it solely for the purpose of pleasing others is a travesty of the grand gift of life. Making everyone happy is beyond the bounds of possibility, and doing so will only sap us of our mental and physical energy. Forging a facade of what we are not is a colossal betrayal to one‟s own self. We must accept that we are not special to the world but merely a number, similar to our 7.7 billion fellow humans. Our names will be lost in the mists of time. But we can be special to ourselves by living our lives to the fullest, oblivious to the world. We must live an autonomous existence pursuing all that which grants us bliss and satisfaction, turning a blind eye towards the meddlesome world. We should live in such a manner so that when we lay on our deathbed about to depart from the world, we do not suffer from the stings of regrets. 199

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The world shall perpetuate with all its grandeur with or without us, as the proverb no plough stops for the dying man depicts. In order to live a fulfilled life, we must develop a thick skin, invulnerable to what others think or say about us, for the only thing people are going to say in the end is “Rest in peace”.

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Chapter 36

“Beautiful things happen when you distance yourself from negativity.”

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It occurs quite often that we possess all the perks and privileges that are under the sun, but the thing that is mislaid is happiness; our inner world appears like a dark gloomy ghost-town sans any sign of life. Being sorrowful owing to some miserable mishap is not unheard of, but being unhappy and despondent without any palpable reason is one of the worst forms of torment and suffering. It is to be understood that we are not dispossessed of happiness; it is some guilty parties that we let into our lives which despoil our happiness. These factors, in essence, are the actual thieves of joy and are to blame for our woebegone lot. I, in this discourse, will shed light on a few robbers of happiness. Bliss does not permeate into our lives, for it is blocked by our worrisome attitudes. Excessive worrying dishevels our inside world; worrying and overthinking does not fix anything but rather freeze us from taking any action. Intemperate distress is like 202

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moving back and forth on a rocking chair, that leads nowhere. We shoulder disappointments when we assert exaggerated control on our surroundings; we believe that we hold the levers of everything that unfolds in our life, hence when events do not pan out in the envisaged manner, dispiritedness follows. Disappointment is the twin sibling of unhappiness. Joy is an emotion that springs from within our soul; there will be no room left for happiness if our inner self is riddled with the bitterness of hatred and grudges. Anger is a fatal weapon that harms its perpetrator more than its victims. To make way for bliss, it is crucial to dissolve hatred, grudges, anger, and vindictive intentions. Comparing ourselves with others is a pattern bound to create frustration. This habit will only spawn discontent. In place of observing

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others, one must delve into his soul and strive for the improvement of his own self. When we dwell invariably on our future, we miss the enjoyable moments offered by the present. Having goals in life is praiseworthy, but when we hinge on our future successes that may or may not transpire, we never find true joy in the present moments. In the same vein, dwelling too much on past events is also inimical to happiness. Being over-optimistic and over-pessimistic is foolhardy, for excessive optimism beckons disappointments and over pessimism breeds negativity and cynicism. To attain happiness we must focus on the good in people, joyous moments, and the blessings we are blessed with. The more we think of light, the less darkness will assail our perspectives. Immoderate greed for material gains is a parent of unhappiness; money and opulence of wealth are essential but cannot be entirely 204

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relied upon to allay social needs. It is the bonds of friendship, family, and love that grant us true peace. The one who has only money is the worst kind of poor. Unhappy, despondent, and ungrateful people are ringed by a peculiar aura that casts a melancholic shadow on all those in their company. Idleness is a means of ensuring unhappiness. Everything in the universe follows its patterns; the sun and the moon set and rise as per their ordained manner; birds and animals leave as the sky sheds the morning light to prowl through the vast canvas of the earth in search of nourishments and hark back to their abodes as the sun sets. In the same manner, man has a set of purposes to bring to actualization; if he procrastinates and engages in idleness he swerves from his determined pattern, and by the force of circumstance, plunges into dissatisfaction.

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Another reason why we are invaded by unhappiness is that we do not keep a concerned eye on our health; the mind-body connection is the key to a good life. A body bursting with health paves way for a healthy and happy mind. Being a perfectionist is an unrealistic goal, the pursuit of which strangles happiness; whether it is self-perfection (expecting perfection from oneself) or social-perfection (expecting perfection from others) both are extremely implausible. Most of the times we are unhappy because we seek validation from others; instead of loving ourselves, we are in love with the idea of others loving us. Insecurities cause unhappiness as they halt us from chasing our dreams out of the fear of failure; we will not truly triumph in the battlefield of life unless we conquer our fear; I am not sure about Redbull, but fear definitely gives men wings. An insecure 206

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individual is like a bird with wounded wings. Neglecting family, friends and other relationships for the pursuit of a career is a misguided step that people regret at the twilight of their lives. Lion‟s shares of people on their deathbed regret not spending enough time with their kith and kin. Learning and discovering new things is not only a sign of growth but also a wellspring of joy. Learning new skills and taking on hobbies brings one into an idyllic setting since it puts an end to boredom and most of the time it unhappiness.

is

boredom that

invites

To put an end to the span of unhappiness, spirituality is just what the doctor ordered. Worship, praying, reading Holy Scriptures, helping others through charities or any other means brings peace and emotional wellbeing.

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The burglars that rob us of our material possessions are regarded with disgust and contempt, but we inadvertently allow the aforementioned thieves to strip us of our joys. Happiness is not a privilege given randomly; it is a consequence of our actions. It is in our own hands to create worlds where our souls feel at home. Anything that steals our joys and happiness is our foe; if we rashly keep engaging in such enterprises, then we are colluding with our foes against our own self.

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Chapter 37

?

“Don‟t pretend to be someone, Heavens never created you to be.”

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There is a wide array of elements that serve as pointers of our individualism; the language we articulate, appearances we curate, customs and traditions, social settings we inhabit serve as insignia of our individual and collective identity and are called sign vehicles. Every individual, culture, society, and nation boasts its own indicators of identity; these entities tell the difference between them and others. When an individual or a society as a whole emulates its peers abandoning its own distinctive identity, it proceeds towards a faceless existence having no fixed identity of their own. In the latter-day world, victims of an identity crisis are not hard to find. We all, in one way or another, suffer from periods of uncertainty and confusion pertaining to our sense of identity. Not being awake to our true identity, we foolishly sink our lives in pretending to be what we are not. It occurs only when we are disinclined towards the 210

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identity bequeathed to us, and begin to take others‟ as models of perfection and superiority. Language is a door to the edifice of culture; we are seduced by the languages, English to reckon with, that are not ours, for we are persuaded by the false notion that it will land us in favor with society; we slip into the attires that are antithetical to our culture and often to our liking, solely to portray ourselves as up to the minute individuals. We, the generation of today, are living in a deplorable state, as we have thrown our cultural indoctrination to the wind and have adhered to the unethical lifestyles of drugs, sex, and addictions. In doing so, we are rendered similar to lost travelers wandering in the desert, and the pursuits we are engaged in are naught but merely beautiful illusions. The jack of all trades is master of none; when we attempt to mimic others‟ culture, traditions, and customs, we not only fail at it, but we also lose our selfhood and uniqueness. We

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become a graceless mess; anonymous nobodies of the world. Language, culture, custom, castes, traditions are orchestrated to only to civilize and recognize man, and making it a standard to gauge superiority is utter idiocy. The one who does not acknowledge and appreciate his culture, if demands respect then he undoubtedly is living in a fool‟s paradise. When it comes to personal identity or collective identity, one must be at home with the milieu he is allocated in and embrace and ingrain in himself the elements it envelops. For if we abandoned our hereditary identity, we shall never find an apt answer to the question “who am I?”

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Chapter 38

“Your life is your story. Write well; edit often.”

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As long as we are drawing breath, the tale of our life continues; we are both its author and protagonist. With the dawn of every new day, a new chapter ushers in. Our story, just like other stories, has its set of amiable characters, foes, crises, tests and trials, treasures and rewards. The conclusion of our story is yet undisclosed, and how it ends pivots on each chapter that we scribble on a daily period. The quotidian ascending sun is a call to an adventure and to alter our status quo for better. To have an adventurous story to be written, we will have to jump out of our comfort zones. An unexceptional life devoid of endeavors and challenges is not worth living. We, the heroes of our stories, have been equipped with heaps of superpowers that are yet to be discovered. The moment we clap eyes on our powers and abilities, everything is confined within the limits of possibility. To have our chapters brimming

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with thrill and excitement, we must yearn for the impossible. Every one of us possesses distinctive and treasured qualities. It is upon us to bring them into the light. It is by the virtue of these qualities that we smoothly sail through the tempestuous tests and trials of life. Our approaches determine the genre of our stories; if we knuckle under the afflictions of life our story will be a tragedy, but if we stand tall before life‟s tribulations, our story will be recounted as a hero‟s legend. Waking up every day is like a new birth; a resurrection. It is a privilege to wash away the errors that we had committed in the days gone by; it is a chance to evolve. A splendid life is not a perk to be thrown in our laps. It is a reward that the tests and trials of life ensue. Whatever we want can be wrested from life through diligent and earnest struggle. Pluck out all the pearls that the world shrouds in her chest, for she is your oyster. 215

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