I can write about regrets, and by God do I have my fair share of them!
Or, I can ponder over the labour of faith, how from our point of view almost all the hardship of life does not seem to make much sense, God must be judging people distinctively based on their unique sets of circumstances (which He created) and their individual merit (which He choses to bestow) - yet what I find extremely annoying is people trying to explain the ways of the Divine by passing on moronic comments like " This happened to make you stronger, God choses only those people with burden who are dearest to Him" well, tell that to the person who committed suicide because that bloke could not handle it anymore! So is that a fallacy or do we just continue to blame satan conveniently for things we cant fathom?
Or perhaps consider the God fearing people who ended up getting gassed/ shot to death during the world wars, will they also go to hell because they weren't practicing the same rites as you? If this world is a test for us but a place of frolicking for them, why does cancer and other assorted terminal diseases and perils seem to be so democratic?
I am aware that these are naive questions, but nobody really has clear answers or explanation of the human condition, it is the called faith because we Believe, especially without having seen beyond the veil, we dont need watsapp videos of bodies of water of different colours not mixing to "hence prove" it.
All we can do is try to be sane by having a purpose which engages and drives us when life becomes intolerable, which it invariably does! Blessing someone by saying "humesha khush raho" is stupid. We should instead say, "bardasht karlo" ;)
Also, notice that the one almost universal law is irony, irony surrounds and engulfs us, if one logs in to instagram or facebook, I can guarantee that you find almost exclusively, that the folks who were the biggest losers back then seem to be doing the best now in their lives whereas the brighest students are often not as successful now. The chances that one is successful in their careers are almost directly proportion to how big a moron they were in their formative years and vice versa. Another example is the generational irony, mostly it manifests itself in way of successful fathers having kids who spectacularly fail in their life. Sometimes it seems that the law of irony exists just so people can cite them as examples! If above holds water, one can ponder over the entire point of existence of individuals who were born just to be made prey to the law of irony. Obviously there are exceptions but the law of irony seems to be ever encompassing.
How about the actual make up of human beings? People with high level of agreeableness trait tend to follow the rules more often than people with high level of disagreeability, combined that if the individual with high level of agreeableness are also towards the higher end of the trait conscientious and are low on trait openness, you can argue that individuals with these "configuration" might find it more easier to pray the prayers on time, fast as prescribed. Now if people from the opposite ends of this spectrum are able to be on par with observing the rites, they would have to go almost against their nature to do so, in this scenario, are the two deeds equal in virtue?
But, as I said, we can't live life in hindsight and I am obviously no authority on the realm of the unknown or almost any other topic, hence, enough about that, additionally, I wont talk about regrets (as that song goes, "regrets, I have a few") but instead I will continue to write about the banalities and minutiae of life itself.
Like how minimalism seems to be draining the personality of everything, ever notice that things made a couple of decades ago had such flavour and character, yet now, we see things, malls, buildings even cities starting to look just about identical, bereft of any detail, just hollow, mass produced, simplistic chunks of stuff all looking and feeling like each other. I think even corporates behave this way, everything is getting dumbed down and made homogenous, having been working in that space, I feel I have met the same person embodied by a plethora of people. Grey suits, Tumi bags and fake accents. Lets not boil the ocean and taking this offline is all we seem to be doing.
Language itself has been censored so much that words seem to be losing their meaning, you can find kids using the terms racist, bigot, woke without actually knowing what they mean. It is similar to people harping on about how say alcohol is haram or how doing rafaden as a hanafi is wrong when they dont bat an eyelid about basically robbing their sister's inheritance share. Alcohol consumption is a matter of the individual and his God, albeit being haram it continues to be between him and Him, but because the misappropriation of inheritance equals monetary gains, that is somehow not spoken of as much as say marrying twice! (not advocating alcohol and polygamy separately or together ^_^)
Also, I cant seem to comprehend the sheer stamina of the people from my generation who continue to post pictures and reels on social media on an hourly basis, yes, we get it that you ordered a pina colada and a steak, good for you! I understand the urge to get validation on instagram but I dont seem to relate to the stamina it takes, especially for people my age who would have been doing this for the last 20 years now. Like what are we trying to do here? Does it not dawn on people the need to stop overcompensating for being ugly and unpopular in school? Yes you married rich, congratulations! Again, I understand it but cannot believe the stamina of these people.
But stamina is what makes a career IMHO, oftentimes you find people having all the energy in the world the first 3-5 years into the workforce but they end up settling into a gradual inertia and subsequently decaying; yet the truly successful people seem to have this perpetual source of vigour in their output. A career is not a relay race, it is a marathon sprinkled with constant phases of reinventing oneself. To be successful one needs prolonged engagement, dedication and a good amount of being in the right place at the right time. This has become one of my key obsessions lately, to figure out why some people tick and others dont, is it all nature or perhaps some nurture as well? Where does predetermination and conscious effort meet?
Conversely, are we, as an ummah in decline because it is scripted? Or because we were say, busy writing urdu poetry whilst losing battles due to being ill prepared? Will the people who invented life saving vaccines and medicines by devoting their entire lives toward these goals get to be in heaven or will the aforementioned people who know nothing about anything but were following protocol while not contributing anything to society at large or their own families get the rewards?
Dont think we know these answers but we seem very quick to pass judgements on entire nations and peoples.
Anyway, I digress, so instead of boiling the ocean with this post, I shall take this offline in my head and watch another episode of that series I have been binging on to fill the void in this sinner's heart!
