This night a friend was talking about an uncle, and how he boasts so much. And i said, "Sometimes i wonder whether such people are aware of these faults that they have in their personality. Do they realize how their boasts are being ridiculed by the listener? And such thoughts then lead me to wonder, how many faults do i have in me which no one has ever told me about, but which they nevertheless notice, like i notice those of other people?"

* Don't forget to love yourself.
Soren Kierkegaard

Ah, surely something that we often forget. We love so many people, so many things around us, but do we love ourselves? Have we ever learned to love ourselves? And is loving oneself something different from the egoistic, selfish attitude? Think over it.

* Love is a great beautifier.
Louisa May Alcott

And it certainly is. As i once wrote before, fall in love, and you'll never see the beautiful sun-set and the starry sky the same way ever again. Trust me! :)

"To him she seemed to beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
Winston Churchill

Indeed. For my part, i think the majority of the people will always remain dogmatic, ignorant, and will easily be swayed by propaganda.

I was having a discussion with my friend George on purpose of philosophy, whether it was all a futile banter or had something to contribute. He wrote:

"My only point being this....every thing i have thought all my philosophical rambling is worth NOTHING if i cannot in some way create from it something BEAUTIFUL,GOOD and TRUE (these are transcendtal qualities...u know em when u see em.....)..something which has UTILITY......and that is the reason why v exist..........to CREATE VALUE......."

And i said:

"Thats a very nice thought, and i agree with it greatly. And its something i look forward to myself. I think if i had to describe my view of life in a sentence, i'll quote Russell: "A good life is one that is inspired by love and guided by knowledge." and i'll add to it, "A good life is one that is inspired by love and guided by knowledge, and that seeks beauty."

Although i don't believe beauty, goodness and truth to be transcendental... i think they are to a great extent subjective value, but it is true that most people share a somewhat similar standard of judgement. [For example, most boys would agree on who is the most beautiful girl in the class. ;) but there would be exceptions.]

So, lets summarise: The aim of philosophy is to create value in human life the form of truth, virtue and beauty. It seems we have arrived at an agreement; a very rare thing indeed among philosophers! ;)

The cold winter got to me finally, and i am now down with flu, a sore throat and a spinning head. Feeling very tired as well, and my mood has also become a bit pessimistic. I hope i get better soon. :(

* We are all pencils in the hand of God.
Mother Teresa

Ah, and what a drawing has God made! If there is light and beauty, there is also darkness and ugliness. The twin threads of good and evil, happiness and suffering. Some people say that to claim 'God is good' is to limit Him... they say God is neither Good nor Bad... God is just God, above these man-made distinctions.

* To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
William Makepeace Thackeray

This apparently humorous statement should not be taken non-seriously. There is a point in to ponder about... why do we assume unquestioningly that love is for the whole life span? What if love does decay with time, so that after a while all thats left in a relationship is mere commitment and no love? What if it is good that a love affair comes to an end, and doesn't have to rot? Please note, i am not giving an answer here. I am merely raising the question.

Just rambling. :)

"The story they tell is beautiful yet sad, a tale drenched in centuries of stagnant, holy water that cleanses the body but putrefies the soul." says Marjorie Baumgarten about the splendid movie, Water, the last of Deepa Mehta's Elemental Trilogy.

Set in colonial India of 1938, the movie depicts the painful conditions of women in a widow ashram. How they are forced to live a terrible, pitiful life. And more heart-wrenching is the fact that small girl are married to old men, and when they are died, those poor children become widows, and have to lead a life of self-denial. The movie begins when an 8 year old girl, Chuyia's father wakes her up to say: "Child. Do you remember getting married? Your husband is dead. You're a widow now." And then she is led to the widow ashram, where we meet other widows, like the silent, sombre Shakuntala and the beautiful Kalyani. And there arrives Narayana, a liberal young man, a follower of Gandhi, and he falls in love with Kalyani. Rest, you should watch the movie. Not as controversial as Fire, but the beauty of the location and the awesome music makes up for it.

Now i am looking forward to watching Earth, the 2nd part of the Elemental Trilogy!

It rained tonight, and the weather was brilliant and beautiful. Even though it was cold, i loved it. And the song that sprang to my lips was:

"Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten"

[Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield]

And in contrast, as it was raining i was watching Deepa Mehta's deeply controversial movie Fire... a beautiful movie on the sensitive issue of a Lesbian relationship in India. The acting was awesome, the music superb... i loved the movie. Very thought provoking. Puts the issue of sexual taboos in a totally new light for me. Unfortunately, the Hindu fundamentalists attacked the theatres, and the movie was ultimately banned. A few dialogues from the movie:

* Sita: Isn't it amazing? We're so bound by customs and rituals. Somebody just has to press my button, this button marked Tradition, and I start responding like a trained monkey. Do I shock you?
Radha: Yes.
Sita: You're lovely.

* Sita: There is no word in our language that can describe us. How we feel for each other.

* Swamiji: What I saw in the bedroom was a sin in the eyes of God and men.

A very happy birthday to Voltaire, the great French writer, satirist and philosopher from me and all his lovers!! A tribute to him in the form of his quotes:

* A witty saying proves nothing.

* All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

* As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

* Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

* He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

* If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

* If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

* It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

* Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

This goes out to my friend Muneeb:

"The Lord heareth the prayers of those who ask to put aside hatred. But He is deaf to those who would flee from love."

[Paulo Coelho - The Fifth Mountain]

I really love this statement. Its so true, and full of wisdom. I'll talk about The Fifth Mountain in detail later.

Today i was in Faisalabad, and there was a gathering of relatives, and i was sitting idly, getting bored to hell. And i saw this tissue paper in front of me, and i had a ball pen in my pocket, so i started scribbling on that tissue paper. Here is what i wrote:

"I am abhorred by the society around me. Their superficiality, hypocrisy and 'noisiness' fills me with disgust and horror. I become markedly aware of such sentiments when i am sitting idly, without the company of a friend, in some social gathering, whose very purpose is to fulfill some custom, which appears a mere formality, a social 'show off' to me. As i write these words, people find it necessary to poke me with the question, "What are you writing?" Hah- What am i writing indeed? Honestly, i don't know. I am just driven by a dreadful sense of ennui. And it is with a heavy sadness that i realise i am alone. Mu quasi-anarchic thoughts have rendered me an alien to the people around me. As long as they are a part of this system, their eyes are closed to their own absurd situation. It is only individuals like me who have transcended the social system around them [at least, thats what they think] who become aware of the deadly lack of meaning."

Signed
19-11-2006

[Thanks to Mehreen for the pictures.]

P.S. This is my 100th Blog post. I had never thought i'd make it to this number when i started writing! :)

Often it happens that the traveller sets out to discover the ultimate reality, the stable truth that holds sway over the transient flux of existence... and he travels, and journeys to distant exotic lands, and after much toil it is revealed to him that truth does not exist, and if it does exist, it is beyond the grasp of mortal souls... but this discovery is not the end of the journey, for by then, travel has become an addiction, a habit for the traveller... and though disillusioned and hopeless about truth, he still carries on his journey, moving around here and there without a purpose... in full consciousness of its absurdity.

Atleast, this is what happened to me. :)

She said to him, "Forget me for i will never be your's."
And he said, "That's precisely why i can't; a love unfulfilled aches forever in the heart."

I read 'A Happy Death' today by Albert Camus... it was a post-thumously published novel, thought to be a precursor to his more famous novel 'The Outsider'. The book was okay, dragged a bit at many places, and got interesting rarely. Camus wasted too much words on description of things. However, Camus's thoughts were quite brilliant. The theme of the novel revolved around the question 'How to die a happy man?' and Mersault, the main character, through a chain of experiences finds financial independence, organisation of time and a peace of mind, and dies happily.
Some of the extracts i wished to share:

"But a man's beauty represents inner functional truths: his face shows what he can do. And what is that compared to the magnificent uselessness of a woman's face?"

"All the misery and cruelty of our civilization can be measured by this stupid axiom: happy nations have no history."

"He desired her vaguely but without conviction."

"There must be a minimum of ignorance in order to perfect a life in happiness. Those who lack such a thing must set about acquiring it: unintelligence must be earned."

"You make the mistake of thinking that you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters- all that matters, really- is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest- women, art, success- is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries."

I asked my friend Azeem today, "In your opinion, what is the difference between crush and love?" and after delibration, he came up with a brilliant answer: "Love can kill you. And you can kill the crush."
Well said, my friend, well said.

I love to walk in the rain because nobody can see my tears.

I heard this quote of Charlie Chaplin on the radio a few days back, and loved it immensely.

"The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love."
Margaret Atwood

Russell's life has always been a source of inspiration for me, and i greatly admire his vision, doing my best to incorporate those golden principles in my life as well.

"I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken."

—Bertrand Russell, "Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday"

Today is Iqbal Day in Pakistan... the date of birth of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, our national poet. Here are some of his quotations:

* But to rationalize faith is not to admit the superiority of philosophy over religion.

* Conviction: Conviction enabled Abraham to wade into the fire; Conviction is an intoxicant which makes men self sacrificing; Know you, Oh victims of modern civilization!

* God is not a dead equation!

* I tell you the sign of a believer; When Death comes, there is a smile on his lips.

* It is time that I reopen the tavern of Rumi: the shaikhs of the Kaaba are lying drunk in the courtyard of the church..

* Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians.

* When truth has no burning, then it is philosophy, when it gets burning from the heart, it becomes poetry.

I saw the movie 'The Village' today. The movie itself was not very extra-ordinary, but what i liked about it were the metaphorical implications of the plot... that many times in our own lives we create myths to sustain a state of stability and peace, and that we stick to these myths, even though we know them to be untrue... many of the religious myths people create can come under this category.

The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may cast on her character.
George Santayana

I saw the movie Gattaca today. It was a thought provoking movie, making you wonder about the horrors of a society that is dominated by a Eugenics... a discrimination not based on language or class or colour, but that on your genes. A scientific discrimination. It sends a chill down my spine seeing that Human society is moving towards this direction. We just need to realise that there just is no gene for human spirit... that being a human means something more than just a sequence of nucleotides in your DNA.
Here are some dialogues from the movie, i found interesting:

* "We have to ensure that people are meeting their potential."
"And exceeding it."
"No one exceeds his potential."
"If he did?"
"It would simply mean we did not accurately gauge his abilities in the first place."

* They have you got you looking so hard for flaws that after a while that's all that you see.

* For someone who was never meant for this world, i must confess i'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Ofcourse, they say every atom in our bodies was once a part of a star. Maybe i'm not leaving. Maybe i'm just going home."

"At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fates. That's the world's greatest lie. Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Today on FM 89 i heard the interview of Canadian based Indian film maker Deepa Mehta, most famous for her 'controversial' [a label which she hates and denies!] elemental trilogy of movies: Fire, Earth and Water. Fire is about female sexual politics, Earth is about partition from the perspective of a Parsi girl, and Water is about religious exploitation of women. Hindu fundamentalists burn her effigies and condemn her as 'Anti-Hindu', and Pakistani government had also denied her permission to shoot for her film in Lahore. But despite all opposition this great lady is doing her job. It was great listening to her on the radio.

Ah, life, ending every second, ticking away like a time bomb, waiting to explode any minute...

My poem published in Us Magazine today:

On The Cross
By Muhammad Awais Aftab

Ah, the insensitive world around me

So hostile to love

So envious of lovers

The bird of love

Flaps around in the cage

Trapped, since ages

For ages

But like a prophet on the cross

Its death will give life to millions

How many would they cage?

How many would they kill?

And love would live on.

[http://jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2006-weekly/us-03-11-2006/p25.htm]

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell

Spoken like a true agnostic! :) Reminds me of a statement by Albert Camus "Something that is worth living for is also worth dying for."

"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Andy Warhol made this statement in 1968, and we are already witnessing the truth of this prediction. How many people achieve glorious fame in a very short time, and then are forgotten as well in a fortnight? How many singers, how many writers?

Some time back i had written about love occuring in three. I read a similar thought in the novel 'The Rule of Four', which i'd like to share:

"In the geometry of love, everything is triangular... the tongue of desire is forked, kissing two but loving one."

My friend Muneeb compared me to Dumbledore today, saying that he found similarity in the Dumbledore's manner and the way i talked to him during chats... i found this amusing, lol, i mean, no one has ever made this comparison before. Maybe its becausing i give a lot of advice to him regarding his different problems. :)

'I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.'
Bertrand Russell