…is Prophet Ya’qoub a.s. responsible for the huge sin of his 10 sons trying to kill someone?

Remember, they didn’t just try to kill anyone! They tried to kill their own sibling!

But wait a second, before you give me your answer, let me tell you of a saying, a rumour really, that I heard.

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children

Wait, what???!!

That’s right. That’s what they said.

There’s this belief that parents are also responsible for the actions of their children, and that husbands are also responsible for the wrongdoings of their wives.

If the wife doesn’t wear the hijab, the husband gets a sin. If the wife doesn’t fast, he gets another sin. If the wife doesn’t pray, then the husband will get a sin along with her.

Hmmm….

We know that a few prophets had wives who didn’t obey the commandments of God such as Nabi Nuh a.s. (a.k.a. Noah). If the previous concept is true, then would he also have to take on the sins of his wife? If his wife deserved hellfire, would he deserve it too?

There are prophets whose sons and daughters committed grievous acts such as Nabi Ya’qoub a.s. Is he responsible for their sins too?

Justice in Islam

That belief we were discussing just now? The concept is flawed. It breaks away from the concept of justice in Islam where you can only be responsible for your own sins. Such a belief directly conflicts with what is written in the holy Qur’an:

And no soul earns (sins) but against itself, and no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another;

[Qur'an 6:164]

So where is this idea coming from? And what do you do when you hear this idea from someone? And what if that person is someone who you trust completely?

You can’t contradict the Qur’an

Here’s your answer:

It doesn’t matter how credible they are, they cannot contradict the Qur’an.

Even if you found a hadith that supported this belief, throw it away, because that hadith has to be weak. Otherwise, it would never contradict Al-Qur’an. Nothing can or should contradict the Qur’an, not even a hadith. Not even a hadith, and not anyone else, no matter what his credentials.

Remember this well, because the Qur’an is the highest source of authority in Islam. And anything that contradicts it can’t be accepted.

So… do you get off scot-free?

No, the husband/father does have a duty. But his duty is simply to educate and advise those who are under his care. But this isn’t something that’s special to his role as husband or father. You have a role to educate and advise anybody that is under your care.

If the husband/father has done his duty to educate and advise his wife and children, he is then free of blame for any actions they might take.

What kind of justice would it be if you had to carry the blame and sins for what someone else had done?

I’m sad to hear that people actually believe in something that so clearly contradicts the Qur’an. I would be sadder if I found out that people are actually spreading it to others.

If this concept was correct, then wouldn’t it be wajib (compulsory) to disown your son or divorce your wife in order to free yourself from their sins? This concept is illogical and flawed and we should not (and cannot!) believe it.

So, let’s fix that sentence. Before:

Fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children.

After:

Fathers and husbands are responsible to educate their wives and their children. If they (the wives and children) still do not obey Allah, that is their sin and their sin alone.

It is a different story if you are the one who tells them to commit a sin. Then of course, you are to blame. Again, this isn’t something special to the role of husband/father. You would be to blame if you told anyone to commit a sin.

When you say that someone else also “bears your burdens” and bears your sins, you are saying something more as well. You’re saying that Islam doesn’t understand that a person should only be punished for his own misdeeds. You’re saying that Islam is a religion that is unfair to its followers and can place sins on someone for something they haven’t done! You’re saying…

…you’re saying that Islam doesn’t understand justice.

Back to the question

So the question was, “would Prophet Ya’qoub be responsible?”

And the answer would be NO. He already educated them and taught them what was right. After all, what are you going to do if your wife or daughter doesn’t wear hijab? Or if your son drinks? Divorce and disown them? Ridiculous.

If they fail to follow you, you must remember that it is only Allah that gives guidance, and we can only spread His message.

It is true you will not be able to guide every one who you love; but Allah guides those who He will and He knows best those who receive guidance.

[Qur'an 28:56]

Postscript

Please do your research before spreading gossip. Because gossip is what this is. Unfounded rumors without any evidence to support it. It’s bad enough for you to believe in something that’s false. It’s many times worse when you try to drag others down with you. It is worst of all when you take down the image of Islam with you, and say that Islam is unjust.

So, from now on, when you hear that “fathers and husbands carry the sins of their wives and children”, you know what to do! Tell them that the principle of justice, whether based on Islam or any instinctive universal value, will not place the mistakes of one person onto another.

Note: I only fully understood this after a very interesting discussion with my dad.

Let me first tell you about my experience in teaching classes, then explore how not making mistakes affects us even after school is over.

Whenever I teach a class or teach a student one-on-one, my biggest obstacle is always to get them to start answering questions. And I know why. Normal school has taught us that if we can’t answer a question correctly, we shouldn’t answer at all!

Every once in a while, I’ll even have a student who has it so bad that I’m forced to reveal to them an amazing truth (it’s actually not that amazing):

You’re coming to this class because you don’t know the answer

It’s fairly obvious but it seems to have been forgotten by the students (and teachers alike). We come to the class and for some reason expect the students to give the correct answer straight away. Ridiculous. They should be expected to get it wrong at first.

However, it’s not entirely the teacher’s fault. If you’re a teacher, you’ll start off loving the job. It’s rewarding, it gives you freedom to choose the way you teach, you get feedback almost instantly… basically it has almost all the characteristics of an excellent job (except for the pay). What’s not to love?

Then after a year of having students who never put in any effort to study, you start to lose interest in trying to teach people who don’t want to learn. After 2 years, you start getting frustrated. As the years go on, you lose patience with those students who keep on giving wrong answers. That’s when you just start lumping them all together with the students who never want to study.

But there’s a fundamental truth about school. School is where you go to learn. Which, by definition, means that you don’t know yet. You can’t be angry at someone for answering a question wrong about something he’s not supposed to know yet.

Obviously, I’m talking about classes here, and not exams. Be as wrong as you like in class, and quizzes, and homework. At that point, the more important fact should be that you’re putting in the effort and learning to do things. You should be angry at someone for not putting in effort, not for getting an answer wrong.

But over the past few years, I’ve heard more and more people saying:

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

That’s all fine and well, but it starts giving people an excuse to make mistakes and screw up their life. Hey there! Wait a second… am I supporting mistakes or saying that they can screw up your life?

It turns out that there are 3 different kinds of mistakes that we can do (oh, did the title imply only 2? Oops). We should only really be allowing ourselves to make mistakes in 2. The last mistake is the one that leads us to regret.

The honest mistake

This mistake is the most basic. It’s the kind of mistake you do for trivial things, often because you simply forgot.

Mistakes like forgetting to buy the milk, or being late for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic.

These mistakes aren’t a big deal. They should be worked on though. Notice these mistakes and keep track of them. If you start noticing that you’re doing some of these mistakes over and over again, you’ll have to find a workaround that will fix it.

If you’re always forgetting appointments, get a calendar. If you’re always forgetting where you put your keys, have a designated place to put them and never put them anywhere else. If you’re always 15 minutes late to appointments, go out 15 minutes early.

But the honest mistake is the least of your worries. These mistakes aren’t usually the reason that you start to sit around with your friends wondering what you’re doing with your life.

The mistake that you can learn from

One mistake is the variety of a mistake that happens because you don’t have the skills, or you haven’t learned enough yet. These are fine and this is what is meant when they say,

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

OR my favourite way of saying it:

Fail fast and fail often

Failing in this way is an important part of learning. You don’t learn anything from the field until you get into the field. To put it another way, you don’t know what’s important to your project until you actually start the project. If  you do know, it’s because you’ve done it before (and failed and learned from your mistakes before) or you’re smart enough to learn from someone else, whether it be a person or books.

It’s linked very strongly with perfectionist paralysis and making a fast decision. Whenever I notice myself researching too long before making a decision, I know that part of it is the fear of making a mistake. The fear of failure.

To avoid making a mistake, we spend waaayyyy too much time researching and gathering enough information rather than acting and gaining feedback about the choice on the way. Whenever I do this, it’s because I want to do the thing right. And for some reason, that means to me that if I can’t do it right, I shouldn’t do it at all.

And so I go on this endless search for more and more information. Does this sound familiar to you?

But this search can only really be satisfied once I’ve found someone who’s gone through the exact same experience that I can learn from. So what’s actually happening here is that i’m learning from their feedback from the project. Sometimes this is feasible.

At other times, the project is just too new or there’s no one that I know who’s gone through the same thing. What do you do then?

This is when you start the project anyway and learn about the project as it’s going on. Because the truth is that the only way you’ll learn about what is important in a project and what’s needed to make it successful is to go through it, whether through someone else’s experience or your own.

This is when you should make mistakes. And this is when you should learn from them.

The mistake you should never do

So what is this other mistake that you can’t learn from? This other mistake that you should never do?

The mistake that I mean here is the mistake that you make with your life choices. I lied a little. You might actually learn from a mistake made with your life choices, but more often than not, it results in regret that eats away at the soul.

In the skills mistake, no matter how many times you fail, you won’t regret it because it’s all effort being put in the right direction. You’re trying to learn a new skill and failing while learning that is fine, because the goal you have is worth it. Failing in the right direction is a good thing.

But this mistake, this mistake about your life choices, it makes you look back on it, trying to see if you could have done something about it, blaming yourself that your current life is like this due to that ONE mistake.

Here’s the thing, it’s not actually true. People like imagining that if only they were rich, or thinner, or had a job, their life would be perfect just like those people they admire (and envy and hate) because their life is oh-so-perfect. It’s not actually true since having just that one thing probably WON’T solve all their problems. But our human minds will still obsess over that one thing, that one mistake, again and again and again.

So what kind of mistake do I mean when I say mistakes about life choices?

It’s the mistakes you make when you forget your principles and go against them.

It’s the mistakes you make when you go against your core values. If you felt strongly about the environment, how would you feel if you threw trash by the side of the road because you couldn’t find a trash can nearby? I know I know, you wouldn’t. But if you did, you would remember it, the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Or if you thought you were a gentleman, but you made a girl cry. That would pretty much haunt you forever. What if you wanted to be a great parent, but you missed your daughter’s school show?

These are the kinds of mistakes that can go against your core values, whatever they are, and cause regret for a long long time to come.

But the truth is that this 3rd mistake is easy to avoid. You can either set a goal and know what you want or set your parameters and know how to guide your life. Have core values. Avoid regret.

Knowing what you regret BEFORE you regret it

At this point, my words might not seem feasible. To not have regret, you have to avoid the things that would make you regret. To do that, you would first have to make a “mistake” and experience it first. That’s the only way to know what you would regret. Right?

If you’re guessing that I said wrong, then congratulations. You’re starting to figure me out.

You can figure out what you’ll regret in the same way that you can figure out what will make you passionate. Notice what you feel strongly about. When you do something, or when you hear about somebody else doing something, notice what you feel strongly about.

For example, if you feel strongly about children, then it might be best to stay away from abortions. And if you feel strongly about your religion, perhaps it’s best to stay away from the sins your religion has. Do you feel strongly about honesty? Don’t lie to friends and family (lying on surveys is usually considered ok. I’ll forgive you for that).

Here are some ways to figure out what you feel strongly about:

1. Go out and experience life. Notice how you feel about things.
2. Talk to friends. Hear their stories. Notice what you feel as you hear them.
3. When meeting people, ask them their stories. People love to tell you their stories. Most of the time they’re quite interesting.  Ask why they did what they did. Ask them if they ever regretted doing [fill in the blanks here]. Again, notice if you felt strongly about any part of their stories.
4. Read books.

I’ve honestly learnt the most about myself from listening to stories of others. It doesn’t hurt that I love stories and that I love learning about people. Especially when a senior speaks, they have so much to tell from their lives that it’s always a joy to sit and listen to what they have to say. You can’t just let them talk though.

I’ve learnt to ask the questions I want so that they tell me about what their life was like, and why they chose what they chose. I don’t know why friends of my age (25-ish) are bored listening to their elders. I love it.

By listening to them tell their tales, I can then notice the times when I have the urge to stop them and say,“No! You should have done this instead.” But you see, that was their life. That was how they wanted to live it. And now I know that if the same situation ever happened to me, I’d know which choice would feel right to me. Which choice would fit in with my core values.

Over time the picture of your core values, of your principles, becomes clearer and clearer.

Once you figure it out, making a choice becomes much easier. If a decision ever goes against any of your core values, reject that decision immediately. It’s that simple. No more thought required. The moment you go against your core values is the moment you start to regret your choices.

And when you regret that choice, you’ll learn a little something about yourself, but it’ll just be too little too late.

Don’t screw up your life. Don’t make mistakes that you’ll have no time to learn from (and even if you did, would be useless because it’s too late). Learn what would make you regret.

Then…

…DON’T make that mistake.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

– Walt Whitman

I spoke in my previous post about how I tried to be consistent and changed myself to be so. It’s not the full story.

The thing is that we have, in each of us, a multitude of selves. Psychology refers to this as multiple selves. It’s easier to understand that there are different sides to ourselves. There are many sides to us,  and it’s impossible for me to document them all, especially because each of us is unique.

Combinations of self

And this is where I believe we are unique. It’s the combination of these selves that are different for each and every one of us. Perhaps in you, your shy side is stronger. Perhaps in another, their assertive side is stronger.

Rather than having a single part of us define who we are, I believe we need to embrace the fact that there are multiple sides to us. Multiple selves.

Have you ever felt like you were the person who didn’t belong to any single group, that instead, you were part of many groups? And that you couldn’t define yourself or feel that you truly belonged to either group? At least, not the way other people did?

Guess what? We all feel that way.

This realization was mind-blowing for me.

It opened doors that I didn’t think possible before. It meant that I wasn’t an outcast and that I wasn’t weird for not feeling like I didn’t belong. It was normal. It meant that it was ok for me to be a multitude.

The network that makes the “self”

So who am I? Who is my “self”?

I was watching the latest episode of Castle recently (because crime-fighting writers are just an awesome fantasy to have) and the lead female Kate Beckett said some really powerful words.

I’ve let my mother’s death define me for too long. And it’s not that I want to stop that. I don’t want to stop being me. It’s just that… I want to be more than who I am.

Sometimes we let only one part of us define who we are. Often, I see this in people defining themselves through just their job, or just their hobby, or even just their relationship. By defining ourselves through a single lens, we set ourselves up for trouble.

First, it unbalances your life. Defining yourself through one thing means that you naturally pay a lot more attention to it. This results in you paying less attention to the other sides of your life. Think of those people who obsess over their careers and imagine how they are. You see what I mean, right? It therefore makes the other parts of your life slowly rot away, until one day, when you finally notice, it’s too late.

Second, it means you have no other parts of yourself to rely on. The moment you lose that thing that defines you, you’re gone. Your whole psyche has a nervous breakdown because when you lose that thing, you lose your “self”. You are no one! It’s a horrible feeling to have.

Third, you can never be the best. When looking at only a single skill, you’ll always find someone else out there who’s better than you. Always.  You are never the best. Defining yourself by that one skill, you’ll never feel that you’re ever truly worth something. How can you when you’re number 2? Or number 2000?

So I think that we should embrace all the different roles and people that we can be, and understand that each of these define only a small part of us, and that your “self” is a total sum of all these parts. In my “about me” page, I wrote that I’m a brother, son, student, teacher, engineer, debater, basketballer, geek, reader, writer, recluse, public speaker, and so on.

I wrote all that before this concept of the networked self was ever in my mind. Or at least, before it was ever this clear in my mind. This idea that we are a network of our inner selves. So, I think that I had a subconscious idea of it even since then. When one of these parts is abruptly taken away, it doesn’t phase me.

I stopped playing basketball? Oh well. Who I am is much more than that.

I stopped debating (because, well, I graduated)? No big. I’m more than just this. I still had other parts of myself to rely on.

Imagine a person defined by his career who was fired? They could (and they have) committed suicide over it. They are just their job and nothing more. Which is extremely sad to me.

Imagine a person who breaks up with their boyfriend/girlfriend ? They could (and they have) committed suicide over it. They are just their relationship and nothing more. Which is again, extremely sad to me.

So we embrace our different, multiple sides. We embrace all these different people who we can be. We embrace all these different people who we ARE. And thus is born, a network of selves. Thus is born, the networked self.

This self isn’t just a combination of different personalities in one body. I’m pretty sure that’s a recognized mental disease (Multiple Personality Disorder). It’s about having all these different selves networking between them, arguing, compromising, negotiating with each of your other selves and finally coming to a conclusion on how all your selves can work together to do the best for your total “self”.

This network of your different selves is what makes you unique. Even if someone else had some of your “selves”, the combination they had would be different. Even if they had  the same “selves” that you had, the way you networked it would be different.

This network of selves is who I am.

But more, I believe we can take the idea of the unique network even higher. Mind you, what comes after this is a little abstract.

The network that makes “new ideas”

There is nothing new under the sun

It’s true. There are no truly new ideas. But then what of all these new ideas that we keep getting all the time? I believe that it’s merely a result of applying old concepts in new situations.

We now have student-centred learning? It just means that the student says and does stuff and applies skills instead of just listening to the teacher all the time. Guess what? A long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, students had to apply skills to learn things such as fishing, farming, blacksmithing, etcetera. Doesn’t sound so new anymore, does it?

But this doesn’t reduce the usefulness and strength of the idea. It’s still worth it, because not everyone can make that connection. It needs you to fully understand that idea, and to apply it in that new situation that is unique to you. Therefore, a “new idea” comes about only as a result of this network of ideas that exist in your mind. When your mind connects and analyzes these different concepts, it becomes a completely “new idea” that works for you in your situation.

Law students would get me I think. Judges make new laws all the time. The situation surrounding every case is always different, so a judge always has to make new rulings based on old laws and fits them into the present situation. It’s not a new law, but it is.

It’s not a new idea, but it is; because you’ve applied it in a new way.

The network that makes “society”

In the same vein, society is not just a bunch of individuals standing around in the same place, just like who you are isn’t just a bunch of personalities in the same body. It’s rather about how those parts interact with each other.

The Western concept of  society is that to make a good society, you make sure that every single individual is good. Guess what? It’s not enough. It’s not enough in the same way that it’s not enough in martial arts to improve single aspects to perfection. Improving just your kick, just your punch and just your balance doesn’t give you anything unless you learn to make it all work together. It’s the networking and interaction of all those skills that make your art better.

This means to me that society isn’t just made up of individuals, but rather of the ties and interactions between those individuals. A society truly begins to grow once you allow those connections to take place and evolve it.

The network that makes “uniquely marketable workers”

If you go into the market looking for a job and you’re only advertising one skill, it’ll be tough for you. You’ll have competition. There are 60,000 engineers in the market. If I define myself only using my Engineering degree, I’ll have to battle 60,000 engineers for a job. But what if I throw in my experience in debating? Perhaps even my interest in codes and programming? All of a sudden, the field gets a lot narrower. What about my interest in poetry? And all that time I’ve spent teaching?

An intersection of all these skills that make me unique, also make me unique in the job market.

Example? Randall made xkcd (an awesome webcomic) because he linked his interest in geeky things with his interest in drawing and expression through art. He now gets to draw geeky things. Awesome right? Did I mention I love stick figures?

Another example? The last I heard, there were like maybe 2 biotechnology lawyers in the whole of Malaysia. Only TWO! Maybe only one. I forget. That person took their degree in biotech, then did a second degree in law. Guess who’s earning big bucks now? This person can’t be replaced because of that unique spot they made for themselves using a networked skill-set.

So to recap, build skills so that you’re unique in the job market. There’s actually a name to this strategy, even though it’s such an obvious strategy. (Refer “There is nothing new under the sun”). Business type people call it the “Blue Ocean” Strategy. Look it up. Buy the book if you’d like. Then tell me about it. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.

Your inner networks make you unique

I’m sure you’ve caught on to the theme here now. You are unique not because of a particular part of you, but because of you as a whole. Therefore, it’s fine to add more to yourself as you grow. In fact, becoming “more than who you are” makes you even more unique.

Do you feel that temptation?

I feel it too. That temptation to define myself using only a single side of me. After all, it’s soooo much more simple and gives much less headaches than having to be a well-rounded person.

But I won’t. Not anymore. Nowadays, I give myself permission:

1. to be a multitude
2. to change parts of me without having to feel that I’m betraying me
3. to feel ok when I’m not the best in any single thing, because I don’t need to be the best to feel I’m worthwhile
4. or to feel I’m worthy
5. to add more and become more than who I currently am

So a quick recap. Your “self” isn’t just a single side of you. Be careful when you limit the way you define yourself. Then you’re limiting yourself too.

Ideas are never completely new. But take the great ideas that you’ve heard and try to apply them around you. You might be surprised what you come up with.

Society and groups of people are defined not just by how they individually are, but are rather defined by the connections and networks they form.

If you’re looking for a job, don’t chase the same job everyone else is. “Blue Ocean” yourself and put together your specialized different skills.

Who am I?

I am large, I contain multitudes.

‘Desire’ is to want. The purest meaning there is. It is what you want and it is blind to the idea of whether it is good or bad for you. Desire for wealth, desire for success, desire for happiness, desire to kill, desire to be respected, desire to take what others have. They are all desires, and can be good or bad for you. Following your desire is for the purpose of making your ego and self feel more fulfilled.

But love! ‘Love’ is to want what is good for another, to want to please them. “Ah!“, you say. “Isn’t that a want as well?“. It is, but here is where love differs from desire. First, it is only to want something good for another. If you loved someone, you would want their life to be good, you would want to please them and make them happy. If you loved yourself, you would want what is good for yourself (believe me, there are people who want the worst for themselves. Those people DON’T love themselves). If you loved Allah, you would want to please Him. Do you see a theme here? The purpose of love isn’t to fulfill your own self, but to fulfill another’s. It is for them, not for yourself.

What’s ‘good’?

If you look back above, the word ‘good’ is mentioned a thousand times (ok, I might be exaggerating… a little). But what does good mean? Because there are probably a thousand ways to define what is good and bad, depending on situation and context. Again, I’d like to take the simplest meaning, because I don’t like complicated words. Good here, is defined by Islam. It’s defined by what Allah passed down to us, it’s defined by what the prophet said to us, it’s defined by what the Qur’an has shown us. ‘Good’ is what Allah says is good.

So then, to love someone, is to want to bring them closer to God, because we want what is best for them.

The story of man

All the above is especially troubling for man, because we have a nature in ourselves, a nature to want to sacrifice and give and give to make another person’s life better. We want to love. We need to love. We need to love. When we don’t look further than ourselves, and only care about our inner desires, something dies within us. We become smaller beings for it. It’s only when we look further out that we can become part of something bigger than ourselves, and this is where we grow.

And it’s troubling because when we love, we care. We care about something other than ourselves now. And we have no way of knowing what the other is thinking, what the other really wants (which is different when it’s only about yourself. At least we think we know what we want). And it stays like that unless the other party tells us what they want.

//The following is stolen from my dad (the purpose of prophets):

So what happens when man, in his nature, looks for God? We always have. We want and need something to worship. From idols to nature (pagan religions) to science, these are all gods that man has had to fulfill his need to believe in a higher power. What? Science is a god? Yes it is, the god of the atheists. *gets sidetracked* Just because science is a god of the atheists doesn’t mean that Islam doesn’t accept science. Rather, science is still the creation of Allah. In the same way that the sun and moon are creations too that other people have worshipped before. *end sidetrack*

When we find God, the ultimate being, we are… lost. Lost! After following the signs in nature, and understanding that there is an ultimate being that created everything, we then decide to worship him and do what He asks of us. But we don’t know what He is asking of us now, do we?

Well, we wouldn’t unless Allah told us how to worship him. And that’s why the prophets were sent down, to be the link to humanity. To bring the message of how to worship Him and do what He asks. He tells us, explicitly!, what is good and bad, what He wants and doesn’t want, what we need to do to worship and give thanks to Him. Without this conduit, the prophets, we wouldn’t know what He wants. Even if we loved Him, we wouldn’t know how to love Him.

//End stolen from dad.

And that’s part of the beauty of Islam, to me. That by giving us prophets, we are given all these ways to worship him. Those rules aren’t to restrict, they are to give opportunity to repay His love and mercy.

Love and desire can come together

When you love someone, you also desire them. That desire has a selfish component. Even when that desire is to make them happy, by making them happy you feed your ‘self’ by thinking, “I’m good at making this person happy“. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Desire is an integral part of humans and should be there. But as Khair says, when the desire overpowers the love, that’s when the problems creep up slowly, unnoticed. Whatever you do then becomes a process of me, me, me. I’m good at making you feel better, I’m good at doing this for you, I’m good at sacrificing for you.

This shift of focus makes you more and more detached. You forget to check for feedback from that very same person. You forget to ask if she/he really is happier with what you are doing more of. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. But as the mentality becomes about yourself, you forget reality. You focus on those few things and your whole world then revolves around your few desires. Those are the only things you desire, and therefore they’re the only things important to you.

So it’s important to check back once in a while. The other person might like what you’re doing, but are you doing this for them? Or are you actually doing it for yourself? Be honest. The answer might surprise you. I know it’s surprised me sometimes.

Not just for mere mortals

It’s not just for mortal relationships. It’s also true for your relationship with God. When your desires overpower your love for Allah, you start doing things for your own sake. Praying to feel more religious, wearing a kopiah (kufi) to feel more pious. It’s to make you feel better. I’m not saying that everyone is like this, but some of us are, and sometimes, I’m afraid I might be too.

When you do it for your own sake, instead of for Allah, then you start to pick and choose. You don’t do everything that He tells you to. You do the ones that you feel are worthwhile, because the story is all about you now, isn’t it? When the focus is truly Allah, then you do everything He tells you to. He’s already told you which ones are worthwhile (wajib), why are you overruling Him?

Listen closely

And that’s what I mean for human relationships. When the focus is yourself, you stop listening to the other side. And you mess it up. If you really love the other person, listen to them. Listen closely. Perhaps they love you back.

P.S. Thanks to @syazwinasaw, @khairhamzah,  @lubnaaa for the info in this post. And of course, my dad.

In a time where we get a lot of our news online, we also have search giants trying to tailor their results to our liking. Why is this happening? And an even better question, could it actually be bad?

The growth of content

It’s happening as a response to the fantastic growth of online content. With millions of pages appearing every day, it’s impossible to find what we’re looking for. We turn to google and yahoo and bing (who users bing? Seriously?), and they say ok ok, I want you to keep using my services so I’ll help you out. The reason why people started liking google so much was that it worked! It filtered out the crap and gave you what you wanted.

Then they started personalizing searches as well as ads. This was where the internet started to work for us. And against us. It worked for us because now we could get to the content that we WANTED. The content that was relevant to us. All the irrelevant content was being filtered out by google or blocked by our ever-present adblockers. And that in itself is the inherent problem in filtering results. We are removing information that we don’t want.

We are slowly (and successfully) blocking ads, filtering and personalizing search results & blocking friends and twitter feeds that annoy us. What’s worse is we don’t just block out what annoys us, we block out things that we don’t already have an interest in. And our excuse (and it’s a good excuse) is “information overload”. With hundreds of updates on our news feed every day, we don’t bother with them all and block links on topics that we aren’t already obsessed in.

No more discovery?

Yes, we still discover new things online every day, thanks to news sites and blogs and facebook shared links. But it’s limited to the circle of friends we choose (and whether we block their links from showing up on our news feed). We are consciously limiting our own horizons. And ideas don’t come from empty brains. They come from brains exposed to and stimulated by (inspired by?) a multitude of ideas. To create a rich soil from which ideas can grow, we can’t simply limit ourselves to only ideas or blogs or circles of friends that we are comfortable with. How can you think about solutions on “the shortage of clean water” when you don’t even know it’s a fast growing problem that is already affecting the developing world and will affect the developed world soon as well.

A future of 12 year-olds

If the internet starts getting any better in “personalizing the web” or “predicting relevant search results”, our online information exposure will be limited to things that interest you when you first came online. Imagine the kids nowadays who come online at a young age. Imagine a 12-year-old. Now, what if his main source of information isn’t TV or the newspaper, but rather the internet? Not so hard to imagine is it?

That 12-year-old will have an internet that only ever feeds him what he is interested in. If that happens for a year, at 13 he will still only know about the topics that interested him at 12. If it happens for another 3 years, at 15 he will still only know those topics. He won’t get exposure to politics, or extreme ironing, or coding. Fast forward 20 years, you’ll have a person whose age is 35 but has not much more world exposure than that 12-year-old. Simple because the internet was waayyyy too good in “personalizing search results”.

Real Life

That was obviously an extreme example. But that’s where the internet collective is headed unless we introduce a way to get new (and possibly disruptive) ideas to come into our line of sight. Currently, that purpose is served by “real life”. By having friends and family, we are often forced to expose ourselves to their ideas and viewpoints as well and this can serve as a trigger for us to learn about a new topic.

But the internet has given us access to millions like us. In our own geographical area, we might find 1 or 2 people who think the same. You make friends with them and make a clique. On the internet, there are millions like us. There is no end to people who have the same viewpoint. Under those conditions, why would you hang out with someone who is completely different from you? We already pick our friends in real life. This is easily magnified in our virtual lives.

So what should we do about this? Is it even a real problem in the first place?

For example, when location services like foursquare came out, I was (and still am) paranoid about letting people know where I am. My privacy is gold to me and I was ready to Alt+F4 the whole thing if I could. I couldn’t stand the way all these online companies know so much about me. Many others in the online community felt that way too. There was a backlash. This backlash was fast and more of a reflex.

But I think there’s a weird version of backlash that has come at a much slower pace. So slow that we didn’t even notice it. We had a backlash against owning too much.

Should I have more stuff?

I’m thinking, actually, of how 50 years ago we had very little stuff. Then the Industrial Revolution came along and now we have a lot of stuff. But we’re slowly starting to realize that a lot of this stuff is holding us down and making us unhappy. We now have to care for and maintain a lot.

I see many who rent apartments, order food, cater at parties, hire tax people, and generally outsource as many things as they can. Heck we even keep our photos online and videos on youtube instead of in our own computer. We’ve found that owning something (which is something we are instinctively proud of) also means caring for it (which is not so much fun).

The thing is that, 30 years ago, you would care for what you had at the time. But that same Industrial Revolution made everything so cheap that it wasn’t worth it to repair your old stuff no more. It was cheaper to throw it away and buy a new shirt instead. And so we keep getting new things and having backlogs of old things.

Predicting the future

Two generations from now, we’ll probably have societies who only rent apartments so that they don’t have to worry about maintaining their gardens or hiring security or having to clean out the pool. Oh wait! That’s already happening. I meant that 2 generations later we’ll have societies that don’t use a kitchen but instead eat out all the time. Oops too late. I meant societies that would put all their information and photos and videos online on computers they don’t own so th—

Hmm…. I guess I’m a bit too late.

What about this: some won’t even own furniture but will rent it instead. *sees the ad: Furnished Apartment for rent* Darn it!

But what is true is that these trends will become even more pronounced over the next few decades. As much as possible, people will want to own less so that they have to care for less. We’ll want to use public services if we can, or rent if we can’t. We’ll outsource as much as possible so that we have more free time (that will be used to finish up more work).

“Please sir…”

If Oliver Twist were here in this day and age, we’d probably hear:

Please sir, I don’t want some more.

It’s a lifestyle, it’s a philosophy, it’s a way of thought. I didn’t always have this mindset. I actually learned it through magic.

“You need to practice more”

As a kid, I loved magic. Who doesn’t? And I loved it even more when I found out that it was all about tricking the mind, and focusing the attention of the audience away from where the magic was really happening. OMG! Magic was about psychology!

And neuroscientists are discovering that now and paying more attention to it. They’re inviting magicians to conferences and seminars to explain to neuroscientists how the mind works, and how attention has it’s own weird quirks.

So when I was in college, I delved into it for a while, reading it and trying it. The skill needed to pull off a simple magic trick is incredible. I honestly practiced day in and day out for about 6 months before I could even pull off a simple trick (and even then not very well).

But they said I had to practice more!

Only show a trick when you’ve mastered it

You can’t show a magic trick when you can (only) do it. You can’t even show it when you can do it well. You can only show it when you’ve mastered it. When you can handle any kind of interruption. When you can handle that idiot at the back of the crowd who keeps pestering you and trying to explain your magic trick (even though he’s wrong). When you can handle your audience wanting to look at the coin after the trick because they think it’s a fake coin (when it isn’t).

When you can handle all that, then (and only then) can you show it to your audience.

And what if something unexpected happens? Say… that the wind starts blowing and knocks your cards over? Your fault. Make sure you work behind some cover.

You forgot what the audience’s card was even after you figured it out! Your fault. Don’t forget.

There’s no one else to blame

It’s actually a refreshing feeling. You just can’t blame anyone else anymore. Even when it’s someone else’s fault, you’re supposed to take into account that he might make that mistake and already have a contingency (a plan B) in place.

That’s right; have a plan B for everything.

You don’t have time to make every mistake possible, even if you wanted to

You’ll soon find that even though there are technically a million ways to fail at something, only a few ways keep repeating themselves. These are all that you really have to prepare for. And how would you find out what these few ways are that keep repeating themselves?

Either make your own mistakes and learn through that or ask someone who’s been through it before. Learn from their experience. That’s what other people are there for.

Conflict is often necessary

Conflict is necessary because humans will never see eye to eye with each other perfectly. It is crazy to assume that we will all want the same thing. Agreed? Therefore, we’ve got to come together and negotiate something that would be acceptable to all parties. The dictionary term for this negotiation where each party wants different things is “conflict”.

If you don’t want conflict you can avoid it, but it generally means that you’re letting the other person have his way. That’s fine when the matter is a small one, like when someone takes your pen without asking you. It’s not fine when it’s something bigger like trying to hurt you or humiliate you. This would be a situation where I would advise for you to engage in conflict, and not to shy away.

Levels of conflict

Conflict has many levels. It can mean verbal conflict which includes calm discussions at a negotiation table or shouting matches between the bedroom and the kitchen. It can also mean physical conflict where you punch the lights out of someone (or he punches your lights out).

Either way, conflict is good. It settles disagreements. And humans will always have disagreements. The only real problem I see in conflict is the problem of calibration.

Calibrating your response

Any disagreement should see the appropriate response of conflict from you. Borrowing your pen without asking might just require a few soft words of warning. A person trying to rip off you might require a little yelling. A person trying to hurt you would probably require a bit of hurting back.

A group of people trying to jump you in a dark alley would probably best be responded with a baseball bat and the willingness to beat them half to death. Although some people would just say to me, “Violence breeds violence. Just respond with peace.”

Respond to conflict with peace?

I feel that this is complete bullshit. You can sit there while someone is pounding your face in. Or hurting your family. Or insulting your faith. I believe in having a bit of conflict. Even in marriage you’ll have conflict with your spouse. It’s impossible to agree 100% with each other. Ideally you’d engage in a little conflict and work things out. Or you could say “OK, honey” and grow a seed of anger deep inside.

Embracing conflict

If conflict comes to you, don’t avoid it, embrace it. Use it to ensure that your side is heard. Don’t run away from it. If someone is pissed off at you, don’t avoid them, go and meet them (unless you pissed of a Jedi. Don’t mess with Jedi).

However, all things said, conflict is still unpleasant for you and the other party. So do yourself a favour. If conflict comes to you, embrace it. But don’t go looking for it. After all, why would you WANT to make your wife/family/friends pissed off at you?

So he says, my friend says, that since it’s not halal, just don’t spend it on food and use it to buy a house or books or something. This really perplexes me. However, I think I know the origin of this weird myth.

When Rasulullah s.a.w said in a hadith narrated by Imam Tirmizi which means: “There is no benefit for flesh that grew from Haram sources, except that Hell is a better place for that flesh.”

So their logic (and this is a mindset that many in my society take) goes that you shouldn’t spend that haram money on food because it will become part of your flesh and burn you in the hereafter. But somehow (and this is the part I don’t get) if you earn that money in a sinful way and use it for something other than food, then it’s ok and your flesh won’t be burnt, even if you are still using haram money.

If it’s a sin, it’s a sin. Why would spending it in a different way reduce that sin or change the punishment in any way? If you earn the money in a haram way and spend it for ANYTHING then the same flesh burning should happen to you anyway.

Can someone please tell me their logic here? Because right now, I just don’t get it.

But recently, I’ve been unable to focus properly. I even had a whole hour when I just sat and stared at trees. Not because I was enjoying the scenery (which I do once in a while), but simply because for the life of me I couldn’t decide what to do next!

I’m one of those people who firmly believe that you should plan out your life, especially the big things. The little things sometimes aren’t worth bothering about. If things don’t flow according to plan, then it’s not your fault, but you still need to plan anyway.

So when I feel unfocused like that, it feels to me like I’m floating with nothing to hold on to. I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing what to do next and not feeling sure of my life. It’s a bit alien to me.

It’s not like I’ve always planned every second of my life. Most of the time I don’t know what the best thing to do is. But I promised myself a long time ago that I’d try to live a life without regrets. So I thought a long long time before deciding on a few principles that I would always hold firm to. As long as I stuck to those, I could never regret whatever I did.

Yes, quite a few of those principles are based on religion. Quite a few more are based on family bonds. And the rest are pretty much based on common sense. And so far I haven’t yet regretted any decision I made using them. The very few that I do regret are all the times I forgot my principles.

But right now I’m in a quandary (always wanted to use that word!). Because sticking to my principles still leaves me more than one option.

So should it be another of those times when I just randomly pick? I’m pretty sure I won’t regret it, but I’m pretty sure that there’s a best choice here.

It needs more research, more questions. But I don’t know who to ask. Why can’t life be like a game, where you can google strategy guides?