Ustad says!! (Qamar Jalalvi)

 بے وجہ خَم نہیں ہے کمر میں میری قمر

میں جُھک کے ڈُھونڈتا ہُوں جوانی گئی کِدھر 

wow - never thought of it

What a metaphor!

 

 

Rumi says

 

Happiness from work

 

A bus driver

(Shared by a friend)

I was stuck on a crosstown bus some years ago in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving, and the bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated with one another and with the world itself. 

Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom.

"Folks," he said, "I know you have had a rough day and are frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here is what I can do. 

As each of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? 

Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight; just leave them with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I will open the window and throw your troubles in the water."

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People pretending not to notice each other’s existence for the past hour were suddenly grinning at each other. Is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious!

At the next stop, just as promised, the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. 

Some people laughed, some teared up, but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual all the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. 

Sometimes, being a human being is extra difficult. You sometimes have a bad day, and sometimes, it lasts for several years. 

You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news and become fearful and withdrawn. 

But what if you are the light? What if you are the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?.

 This bus driver taught me that anyone can be the light at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy influencer. 

He was a bus driver, one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power and used it beautifully for our benefit.

"No matter who you are, where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, you can illuminate your world. In fact, this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated, one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.

Munir Niazi's wisdom

 

Pseudo-happiness

 

Cassie

Cassie was my patient. Cassie died after a year in hospice.

I was holding her hands when she breathed last. This is the moment I crave to have but pray not to have!! - as it is incredibly overwhelming.

I have been to such moments when my Nana, dadi, and father died.

But Cassie was young.

As I held Cassie's hand, she opened her eyes and looked at me but decided not to say a word. I neither had the courage nor knew what to say.

I have always wondered about the last few words in Tolostoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich."

He wanted to say that but was unable to bring it out. 

"Anyhow, why speak? I must act," he thought.

I guess it's better to avoid talking to have a peaceful death.

Evolution

 

Lahore vs Karachi

 On ongoing teasing between Lahore and Karachi

گو لہور میں ولادت اپنی جگہہ اہم ہے

 مگر کراچی میں زندگی “جینے” کا اپنا لطف ہے

Elites, Poor and sharing

(Shared by a professor of pharmacology in one of the Grand Rounds)

"One life lesson I learned from the pharma industry is that the proportion of price drop is independently associated with anything's use in life among the elite and poor.  Elites try to control things but fear sharing, and keep things at a high value so low-income people can't reach them. They are even afraid of sharing things among themselves. As soon as anything in life, like a drug, becomes generic, its price drops quickly. I found that people experiencing poverty are more intent to share and crave less material things. It's the most bizarre paradox of life. I don't mean that a person should stay poor, but there is a line where the human mind loses its tendency to connect with other humans and seek the welfare of other humans - and that's the biggest curve ball of life."

Historians

 The biggest tragedy of humanity is that all of its historians turned out to be lousy futurists. 

~anonymous

On "Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel"

 Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel has been a riveting yet hefty read.

 It may not be the best text on West vs. the Rest, but at least I did not see racist undertones while trying to understand his problematization of the oversimplified history.

He claims that he was looking for the answers to why history evolved differently on different continents over the last 13 thousand years. He apparently shunned the common racist response of some people/races to be superior to others. His thesis was that the answer had little to do with people and everything to do with their surroundings.

He/his argument/books did become quite controversial. He has been accused of having masked his biological determinism or historical racism in the garb of natural disposition and distribution of resources. However, biology has been used to explain a lot of other world dynamics: gender relations, patriarchy/matriarchy, sexuality, success, wealth, and cognition.

The "Jared Diamond is a racist" argument suggests that environmental, ecological, and geographical factors led to the West's colonization of the rest, ignoring the determinants of this. Diamond's argument is seen as racist, as it overlooks the terrible actions of Europeans and their unfavorable ideologies.

European descendants can find comfort in the thought that those before them weren't so bad after all while the Whites may find comfort in the thought of no longer having to deal with the horrors of invasion, slavery, and genocide.

But JD (though sometimes extends it too far) does not say any of that. He says that the different historical paths of different countries are not due to racial superiority but to environmental factors. He thinks geographical traits and the availability of plants and animals that can be tamed are two of the most important factors that determine how societies grow. He challenges the idea that racial differences alone are to blame for past events and stresses how important it is to understand these factors to fix world problems of inequality.

Listening