I have now transfered my blog to blogspot:

http://awaisaftab.blogspot.com/

From now on, i'll writing there. You are all welcome to visit and comment. Thank you.
TIG has been a great place, and the people i have met, and the love i have received has been enormous. I'll never forget it.

A person's confidence is often more convincing than the rationale of his arguments.

* "He wept when he gave my father the news, that I am a leper. The Saracens say that this disease is God's vengeance against the vanity of our kingdom. As wretched as I am, these Arabs believe that the chastisement that awaits me in hell is far more severe and lasting. If that's true, I call it unfair."

King Baldwin IV

* "If we do not burn these bodies, we will all be dead of disease in three days. God will understand, my lord. And if he doesn't, then he is not God and we need not worry."

Balian

Kingdom of Heaven

Sometimes, before you can embark on the path of friendship, you have to stroll through the garden of romance.

Joyce describes the infatuation of a young boy:

"Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether i would ever speak to her or not or, if i spoke to her, how i could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires."

James Joyce, Araby

There are some people who by virtue of their superb psychological sense can judge what a person expects/wants to hear, and they say exactly that. And by doing so, they manage to earn the trust of that person. The ability to say right things at the right time is a huge advantage. And these people make the best liars, because their lies conform to your psychology and unless you possess a psychological insight equal to theirs, it becomes very difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. People are so frail against such people, it's unimaginable... their ability to exploit the human tendency of trust is horrifying... the very idea of encountering such people terrifies me!

"Free will is essentially an oxymoron — we would not consider it 'will' if it were completely random and we would not consider it 'free' if it were entirely determined," Brembs said. In other words, nobody would ascribe responsibility to one's actions if they were entirely the result of random coincidence. On the other hand, if one's actions were completely determined by outside factors such that no alternative existed, no one would hold that person responsible for them."

[From the article 'Study hints that fruit flies have free will' by Charles Q. Choi]

So what is free will? Can an action be partially determined?

SCULLY: Mulder, that is still a fantasy.

MULDER: Scully, after all you've seen... after all you've told me you've seen. The tunnel with medical files, the, the beings moving past you, the... the implant in your neck, why do you refuse to believe?

SCULLY: Believing's the easy part, Mulder. I just need more than you, I need proof.

MULDER: You think that believing is easy?

(They stare at each other. She sighs. The fax machine beeps.)

X Files, Nisei

It's the day of Judgement... the court of God... He sits on his throne, people arrive one by one, and their fates are being decided... should he be sent to an eternal blazing fire in which he will roast forever for the finite amount of sins he has committed in the finite existence of a finite world... or should he be sent to an oasis of medieval pleasure, in which he can spend his life in the boredom of utter eternity?
And Lo! The Philosopher is brought forth before Him by the angels. This is a complicated case... the decision is difficult... the scales of balance fluctuate between his virtues and heresies. He deliberates and finally decides, "Take him to paradise!" The angels move but he stays at his spot... firm, confident... he looks up and says, "I don't want your paradise. If you want to reward me, give me annihilation. Bless me nothingness. Purge me of this existence. I only desire Death."

I don't know what happens after this.

Oh, the hypocrisy of the so-called religious moderates so pisses me off! These people believe that people should be flogged in public for fornication, that the hands of the theives should be cut off, that the testimony of women is half that of man, that apostates should be killed... and then these people have the nerve to call their religion a religion of peace! They live, they eat, they drink, they enjoy in a world of 21st century technology, but they believe in a superstition that is centuries old! They believe and propagate a medieval dogma and then they insist on being recognized as modern, progressive people! God, i am so pissed off!

This is something quite dark and disturbing, and i am not sure whether it is really worth sharing, but anyway, here it is, from the pen of Russia's great novelist Dostoyevsky:

"In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden- the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on.

"This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

It has been my experience that most people when asked this question, "Are you happy?" tend to answer it in positive... and the huge prevalence of 'happiness' tends to make me quite skeptical of its validity. :)

Personally, i have classified the happy attitude into two types:

Negative Happiness: This consists of a relative psychological indifference to the problems of your life, such that they cease to bother you. You fail in an exam... you just shrug your shoulders and say, "So what? Its not the end of the world." This is negative happiness.

Positive Happiness: This consists of the feeling of pleasure derived from a variety of actions; success, romance, physical pleasures such as having a good tasty meal, aesthetic pleasures such as listening to music or appreciating art, having some sort of an adventure or a thrilling moment.

Of course, in real life, these two types exist in conjunction, though the percentage of their contribution is different in lives of different people.

I would define happy life as one in which happiness dominates over sadness [no life is absolutely happy, ever]. However, i believe, that to lead such a life, the attitude of negative happiness is of greater importance... although it doesn't increase your pleasure, it acts to decrease your feelings of grief, and hence, contribute to an over-all positive balance of happiness over sadness.

Crucify a madman and you risk turning his insanity into a crusade.

"I'm not a fan of classification. It's very difficult to come up with a classification scheme that's useful when what you're most interested in is things that don't fit in, things that you didn't expect."

Ward Cunningham

"Remembrance is a form of meeting."
Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

Oh, how i wish it was so! How i wish! But sadly, memory can never be a substitute for the actual meeting.

Making the time
Find the right lines
What do I have to tell you

I'm just trying to hold on to something
(Trying to hold on to something good)
Give us a chance to make it.

Don't wanna hold on to never
I'm not that strong
I'm not that strong.

I, I don't wanna say it
I don't wanna find another way
Make it through the day without you
I, I can't resist
Trying to find exactly what I miss
It's just another day without you.

Why can't you stay forever
Just give me a reason
Give me a reason.

[From the lyrics of 'Just Another Day' by Jon Secada.]

"A week ago she was just another pretty face in the class. Now she is a presence in his life, a breathing presence."

J.M.Coetzee, Disgrace

It was upto Saad to discover the 'mean streak' in me. :)

'There is a mean streak in anyone who will destroy another's faith.'
[Quoted in a letter to Einstein]

Crooks said gently, "Maybe you can see now. You got George. You know he's goin' to come back. S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody-- to be near him." He whined, "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

Drawn by Saad Javed

Is my love life really so complicated? Hmm... that's not so complicated! :D

“The alienation is so thick you can cut it with a knife,” writes Peter Gorden, describing the atmosphere of Mohsin Hamid’s debut novel, Moth Smoke. With the richness of historical symbolism, the novel describes the decline of Darashikoh, a person on the fringes of upper-class elite in a Pakistan suffering from economic crises after the 1998 nuclear explosions. Daru’s deterioration is best described by Hamid’s own metaphor: a moth spiraling around the candle, seduced by its flame, revolving, falling, until it makes contact with the fire… the moment of union, and… the moth has been reduced to smoke and ash. The novel explores Daru’s obsession with drugs after losing his job in a bank, his affair with his best friend’s wife and finally his entry into the world of crime. "The book explores the idea of how you arrive at truth with conflicting narratives, which is what you do in law," said Hamid in an interview, and these multiple narratives are one of the best features of this novel. Hamid talks of arriving at truth, but me, I didn’t find a single truth anywhere… I just uncovered different versions of the truth. Is truth just the totality of these versions? The novel begins with a trial, and you are the judge, and the novel ends without a sentence, because it is you who has to decide whether Daru is guilty or not. And unless you are a 'fundo' (a word oft employed in the novel), you would not be able to answer this question of innocence. The life which Hamid describes is dark and gloomy, but his style, with which he does so, is charming and gripping. A highly recommended novel.

My friend H, to his mother: "Agar main koi larki na phansa saka tu main saree zindagi apnay aap ko maaf nahi ker sakoon ga!"

* The blank page
Reminds me so much of—
The void within me

* In his silence—
Is the love, he can not
Show in his talk

Awais and Saad

'... one tall and slender, the other short and fat. The reflections of the same soul in the cosmic house of mirrors, or uncanny coincidence?'

Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Christopher Morley

I tend to agree with it and accept it as a provisional definition of success. But the question arises: what if the way you want to spend your life is 'wrong'... say, if a gangster wants to spend his life killing people, and manages to do that, would we still call it 'success'? In other words: Is success independent of moral considerations? If it is, then shouldn't such 'success' be discouraged.
The biggest problem with this line of thought is that there are no absolute ethical values... everything is relative. When you can't even decide properly what is ethically 'wrong' and what is 'right', the whole issue crumbles.

Looking at all the dissected bodies and faces in medical college, as well as in Atlases of Anatomy, it just makes me think, "Beauty really is skin deep."

"When love is for the highest bidder, there can be no trust. Without trust there is no love."
Moulin Rouge

And this bidding is not just monetary; it could be any form... when you love beauty alone, it means you'll abandon your lover the moment you find someone more beautiful? Or if you value intelligence, you'll ditch your partner when you encounter someone more intelligent? Someone more resourceful? Powerful? Richer? Think about it.

The Lamp

Written by Muhammad Awais Aftab

Blink!
The lights are out
The world is plunged
Into an inky darkness
In which solitary lanterns
Shine weakly like stars
There is another spark
That you see in this negritude
But mistake it not for a lamp
It is my heart
That flickers…

Published in today's Us Magazine.

"In a world of alienation the individual conqueror does not recognise himself in his victory and becomes its slave."
Jean-Paul Sartre, Marxism and Existentialism

I have certainly felt this alienation in a lot of my achievements and victories... as if they don't belong to me... that i didn't have either the ability or the right to conquer, but somehow, i managed to committ that act... it is almost something of a guilt... but people don't understand what is going on behind the superficial events; they are so eager to attribute success or failure to people, they don't even wait to analyse the factors governing that achievement. Even now, if i achieve something great enough, and people praise me, i don't really feel pride... i feel a certain hollowness, a nausea... i am so much aware of my own weaknesses and limitations... these victories don't belong to me; they have been imposed on me by some quirk of fate.

I was thinking about Memory today... the way events are stored in our mind, especially with reference to the sensory data. It seems to me that most of my memory of past consists merely of words and images. The lingual and the visual are the only components that i can discover in my mind. All other sensations are lost, as they have been transformed into words.
For example, if i try to remember the touch of a particular thing, say a piece of cloth, all i can remember is the words "The cloth was soft"... but the actual sensation of texture is absent from my mind. Or say, when i try to remember the taste of a dish i ate some while back, all i can remember is the description of the taste in words, "It was too spicy!" but i am unable to recall the actual sensation of taste itself. Visual data seems to undergo a better fate, but even then the motion seems to be reduced to almost static images. Smell, Taste, Touch, Sound... all have been transformed into words... have been lost!!!

* "This was what we Japanese called the 'onion life' -- peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while."

Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

* And some days back, Saad smsed me, "Sigh. This is an Onion era. Layers upon layers of selfishness and stupidity. And very unpleasant to see it."

"We are never as happy nor as unhappy as we imagine."
La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 49

And we are never as much in love or hatred as we imagine ourselves to be. :)

If you are unable to refute an argument, does it automatically mean that that argument is true? No, of course, it doesn't. It might be that one is not that intellectually capable of seeing through the flaws of that argument, and that a person with a sharper mind might be able to refute it.

And in fact, this is precisely what an average person thinks like when he confronts an argument challenging his religious or otherwise cherished beliefs. Normally, no person changes his views just because he can't refute a logical argument. At least, i have never witnessed people doing so. And this reveals that we don't lead our lives on the basis of reason, but on the basis of our emotions. We believe in something because it satisfies our emotional needs... and we change our views only when our emotional needs demand a new paradigm for proper functioning.

In a sense, we are all like Rousseau, saying to ourselves, "Shall I allow myself to be tossed eternally to and fro by the sophistries of the eloquent?" whenever we face an argument we cannot refute.

Once upon a time...

X: Did you miss me?
Y: I am not sure what 'missing' means, but yeah, i did think a lot about you.

"Every work of art is an uncommitted crime."
Theodor Adorno

And every love poem is an uncommitted affair... a poet's fantasy... the poem is like a spectre reaching out towards the reality, arms and fingers extended, but the tips don't make it by just a few millimetres... the whisper failing to crystallize into an audible voice.

I had a glass of 7up in my hand and i was staring at the bubbles popping up on the surface, and it occured to me that:

Some relationships are like carbonated drinks (7up, Pepsi etc). After a while, the gas escapes and the relationship loses its "tingle" and excitement.

Some relationships are like wine. The older it is, the more intoxicating it gets.

And some relationships are like water. Nothing fancy like 7up/wine, but it is something you can drink anytime and it's the best thing for thirst. :)

There often come in life certain moments which i call 'moments of transcendence', in which an event or a person gives you a jolt that sends you on a short flight above the normal plane of your existence, and you get to have a view of your own life from an altitude, and many things about your ownself which you had previously thought that you perfectly understood, you see them in a new light... after a while, you fall back down to the your everyday plane of existence, but the memory of that brief transcendental view of life lingers and gives you an added insight. And you realize that something has now changed in you... something has shattered, but something new has also emerged.

"Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them," i hear the wise Nietzsche say, and my gaze falls down; i don't have any answer. "What are you trying to prove?" someone asks me, and the question echoes and re-echoes in my mind. Indeed, what am i trying to prove with my blatant poems? Trying to prove how skillfully i can transform my capricious emotions into poetic expressions? That i am daring enough to speak the unspeakable? That i am subtle enough to leak out secrets in unsuspecting, innocent words? That the guise of a poet has rendered me insensitive to the limitations of other people? There she stands in the corner of my mind, her finger pointed at me, and the word 'Shameless' resonates mercilessly and endlessly in my soul, until it becomes the stinging salt in my eyes, and trickles down on my cheek...

Please forgive me
I know not what I do
Please forgive me
I can't stop lovin' you
Don't deny me
This pain I'm going through
Please forgive me
If I need ya like I do
Please believe me
Every word I say is true
Please forgive me
I can't stop loving you

Bryan Adams

I don't know why i am used to making these stupid impulsive mistakes that throw a completely stable situation out of balance! Ah, what a clumsy person i am!
I am grateful to Saad for his kind words in this regard:

"Ahahahaha. Yaar, things like these remind me that you are still mundane/mortal/normal enough!"

Yeah, as if i am in danger of becoming an all-too-perfect demi-god, if i don't make these blunders. :P

Sigh. What a life, man, what a life!

"My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them."
Mitch Hedberg

How many fake social identities have we constructed, that stay alive just because we never cease to water them?

I practice every day to find some clever lines to say
To make the meaning come true
But then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late
And I'm alone with you

The time is right
Your perfume fills my head
The stars get red
And, oh, the night's so blue
And then I go and spoil it all
By saying something stupid
Like I love you
I love you...

[Lyrics from the song Something stupid]

* Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

* Where no gods are, spectres rule.

Happy birthday to Novalis!

Characters:

X-- Mr. Perfect
Y-- Miss Philosopher, Not-so-Perfect

Part 1:

X: Will you marry me?
Y: No, i am sorry. I cannot do that.
X: Why not! What is wrong with me! Don't you love me?
Y: You have only one fault, and that is that you have no fault at all. Your perfection is your only imperfection. You are so perfect, you make me feel sick and irritated. I can't possibly love a person who has no flaws in character whatsoever.

Part 2:

X: Ok. Fine. Then tell me how to become imperfect! I'll develop whatever flaws you want me to develop in me!
Y: It doesn't work that way. People don't love in this fashion. Your perfection has rendered you incapable of appreciating such every day psychology.
X: So, it means there is nothing i can do?
Y: Yes, no one can help you in this regard. Imperfection cannot be taught.

Part 3:

X: Hey, hey, wait a sec!
Y: What is it?
X: I do have an imperfection! I have finally discovered one! My love for you? Is that not an imperfection on my part? I am loving an imperfect person like you... that is an imperfection!
Y: I must admit that you have come up a logical paradox. But i must do as the philosophers do.
X: And what do philosophers do in case of paradoxes?
Y: They ignore them. :P Good bye.

All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
Helen Keller

Including all the people that we love, or have loved...

A good poem is capable of expressing a lot more than the poet had intended. A bad poem, on the other hand, is not even capable of conveying what the poet had in mind.

The song 'Laree Chooti' is the rage these days, and the charm of the song lies in it's catchy tune and it's reflective lyrics... making it a treat not just for an average teenager, but also to a thoughtful mind, because of it's philosophical implications. Here i'll mention some of them which i felt... obviously, this is an instance of 'creative interpretation', arising from the interaction of the song and my subjectivity, and does not in any way claim objectivity of analysis.

Kya huwa jo laree chooti
Jeevan ki gaadi luuti
Khwab hai to mujhko na jaga
Zindagi ek pal mein saali
Yun palat gayi hamaari
Jhuth hai to mujhko na bata

Translation:
[I translated it as i felt appropriate.]

So what if i missed the bus?
Or if the train of my life is robbed?
If i am living a dream, do not wake me up
It took just a moment…
For my damned life to become topsy-turvy
If this is a lie, don't bother to tell me

The most obvious thing is, of course, the attitude of indifference to the apparent loses of life... the song sees life as unpredictable and transitory... there is also mention of fate in the next stanza... if this life is to last for a finite period, and the end result is annihilation for all of us, then what do these loses matter?

I also see this song as one of the responses to the existential dilemmas... the question of authenticity and inauthenticity raised by Heidegger and of 'bad faith' (self-deception) raised by Sartre. Authenticity and Inauthenticity are two modes of Dasein ('Being there'). Authenticity represents the choice of self, when you yourself decide what you want to be. Inauthenticity is its opposite, when you let others define who you are or when you work to fit in the definitions prepared by other people.
'Bad faith' involves not being true to oneself and attempting to elude responsibilty by making different excuses. For example, a person may believe in an unalterable fate decreed by an omnipotent God and that his life is already determined. This is an attempt to escape from the sense of responsibilty. Sartre calls it 'bad faith' or 'self-deception'.

This song, however, boldly confronts these philosophers, and says, "So what if i am deceiving myself? So what if i am living an inauthentic life? So what if i am guilty of self-deception? If i am living a happy and satisfied life in the state of 'bad faith', what does it matters to you? If i am living my life as a dream, then let it be, let me live in this dream... i do not want a reality which will only bring me anguish, despair and nausea! If my life is a lie, it makes no difference to me!"

I don't think this is a response which Sartre can morally condemn... an existentialist may disapprove of it, but he cannot show this attitude to be ethically wrong... this is one of the biggest limitations of existentialism... it cannot prove the superiority of an enlightened life to an ignorant one. Sartre indicated in his philosophical masterpiece 'Being and Nothingness' that he will write a book on existential ethics, but he never did... perhaps because existential ethics is not possible at all.

And it