random

what is random? isn't the term relative in the extreme?

we tend to use this word 'random' for many aspects of our lives, whereas in reality they are not random at all.

Let's look at some examples. One glaring instance is all over the most popular social networking sites, and we see it every day - one may have friends or friends of friends who post photo albums of them and their friends in varying states of intoxication and then proceed to name the album 'random'. Now if you look carefully, all these albums are essentially the same - there are people, and alcohol, inane smiles and various face-pulling grimaces, all the same fashion, clothes and hairstyles ad infinitum, ad nauseum...

So what's random about large percentages of humans doing the same thing night after night and year after year? What makes us think this is random enough for us to be baffled into believing our lives are unique? There's nothing unique about sameness and repetition.

Another example is the trend in philosophical fields to expound upon the randomness of existence, of the whole great universe coming into existence randomly and by chance. How many have deluded themselves into looking beyond the glaringly obvious order to be found everywhere and somehow attributing it to randomness?

If we look up and out, towards the stars we are amazed by it's order, and when we look down and in and in and in, without end, and the more we look, the more we are amazed at the order - so where's the randomness?

There has been talk of a 'chaos' which produces order (according to one of the Howard Johnsons of 'Blazing Saddles' Nietzche was the one who said that). We have Mr Hawking, our well-known robotic-voiced physics supremo talk about the history of time, and how it all comes from nothing and this Big Bang came suddenly without purpose and then the whole universe we inhabit worked itself into what it is today.

How can a sane person attribute this to chaos and randomness? Don't we remember those old philosophy lectures where the hairy proffessor puts forth the example of someone walking in the desert and finds a watch. Does he not assume it has a maker? Could a mind accept that the atoms and parts etc. made themselves come together? No.

So it is for our universe. It is the watch. Use that mind, folks, and see that it doesnt just come out of nowhere.

Randomness? It's merely our excuse for not wanting to recognise the majesty and the King of kings (of course it's not Jesus :))

imbalances

Getting embroiled in the intricacies of everyday living often leads to imbalance. A person will struggle to survive, to pay rent, to put food on the table, and that's fine - we all have to live, however our energies can become depleted if we mismanage our time and priorities.

How many times has it happened that we make such efforts on these financial matters that our attention to equally important facets of life such as family time, non-work-related reading and maintaining a connection with God is aversely effected? It is a very frequently occurring phenomena.

Look, for example at post-World War II Japan's 'economic miracle'. When the Japanese had finally succumbed to the insanity of the Allied forces after they rained the new atomic terror upon Nagasaki and Hiroshima, their leaders decided that to really compete with this Western giant, the nation would have to surpass them in technological advance and capitalist enterprise (with a little funding from the conquering nation of course).

This meant that the importance of education and the work ethic were hyper-intensified. Children in Japan have suffered for decades the need to succeed - even to the extent of having after school classes to boost their school work. Parents (usually fathers) work so hard that they barely see their children.

Thus, the society has become severely individualised. The traditional family system (ie) has all but collapsed due to the magnified focus on work and financial advancement. The tendancy towards individualism leads to such psychological diseases as Hikikomori, an extreme condition whereby an individual isolates themselves totally from the society.

Looking at our japanese example serves to warn us of what can happen if we do not balance our time between work, family and spiritual endeavour. So how can we avoid that in our lives?

The answer comes again from the words of the blessed messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him), in his words, 'Indeed actions are by their intentions...' If we make all our endeavours sincerely for the sake of Allah, then they will be accepted as such. He is the best disposer of affairs. Hasbunallah wa ni'm-al-wakil...

machinations

we've heard it all before - how we're all part of a system and subjugated under the control of nasties in the shadows. What are we to do?

the common man has to struggle to survive in a world with a diseased economic climate, corrupt politicians, dead superstars and far-away disasters too distant to tug the heartstrings, when 'we've got our own problems to deal with, haven't we?'

then we have our protecting government, producing their 'white papaers' and making targets so far removed from reality that they successfully keep the working man's head down. there's nothing else he can do. he can't fight the system that's so established in its own spiral that it's very difficult to see a way out. so he soldiers on in that English way - chin up, freedom's just around the next corner and everlasting peace...

so bow down to your targets and self-congratulation - you're so pleased to have met this month's targets that you've forgotten you're alive. so you smile that smile of 'here we go again' and lose yourself in the endless drive for promotion possibilities and another rung in the corporate ladder.

educators, medical practioners, lawyers and all the rest - white, blue and all the colours of the rainbow collared robotic, systematised drones, programmed to repeat all we've been taught as the gospel truth, as the 'status quo', as it has always been. don't question, because that's just not cricket - what's wrong with you, why don't you just do as everyone else does? ad infinitum, it'll be better some day, we'll come out of it ion the end. all of our interests are the same after all...

if only.

what are our interests? where should our efforts lead us? to a grave lined with plastic five-pound notes, monarchical IOUs not worth the matter they're printed on, or even the real 24 karat stuff, gleaming on into ever-after while our corpses rot and wait for that trumpet blast...

what will our targets have availed us by then? can't we get these things into perspective? all your sweat in your trivial pursuits won't diminish the sweat of that day. unless your efforts have had another intention behind. what we need to do is simply reflect. for what do we live? to what end is our existence?

as we ponder our efforts may be turned to good, and be of use. we can survive and make the changes needed to exist in this temporal dimension. until the meeting dear friends and readers.

live and don't get too distracted