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Showing posts with label Human Beings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Beings. Show all posts

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Goodbye to good old days of Daydreaming!

Monday morning took me to a Park with renewed energy. It felt good to see lively kids and unexpected students this early to a Park. I got there by chance, as I said Monday Morning energy brought me 40 minutes early to office and I had to wait in this small but beautiful park. As I watched the kids hanging and laughing and the students making final minute revision before exam, a strong energy beamed from each of them. Probably they were living that moment and each moment of life. Or may be I had returned from a lazy week to find other people so lively.

Human beings find ways to love nature

While I was watching those people, I started getting visualization. The kids were playing when I joined them as their contemporary age mate. I then turned to my right and found myself studying with the students. I got back in time, I started preparing anew for my intermediate exams. Then I came back to life. The rail of daydreaming had already gained speed. I had abandoned this engine many times but it kicks-in on getting fuel. Today lets talk about daydreaming. Daydreaming not as a phenomenon but a state of mind. It usually crawls in to our mind, gradually but steadily eats up human energy and leaves no room for creativity. It is destructive creativity.

Guess what? I would have touched the highest echelon of being a writer by now had I not given this creature free hand to trade inside my mind. That's true. Oh, you doubt it! Please don't tell me that... Okay fine, I would have been a widely read blogger of my country had I not given up to combat daydreaming . I hope that sounds logical. Or, for that matter I would have developed a brilliant writing style. Happy now?

Daydreaming was my favorite activity of  academic life. I sat in solitude for hours, literally hours, as long as 6 hours a day. During those uncontrolled contemplation I came up with ideas, stories, what-if scenarios and most of the time I emerged as a hero from those stories in the world of my own. There were moments of happiness, success, sadness, pain, suspense, failure, romance and love.

Once there lived this most amazing person on earth. He was so humble, caring and handsome. He took every pain to be part of all the social activities in his village. In a single day he got involved with a group of people digging out channel through a hilly terrain to irrigate the village's field, and the next hour he went to the school for teaching kids from his region. He would then return home for completing some ongoing chores there. It did not stop here, he offered his prayers regularly, and in the night he embarked on academic growth. This gave him a strange privilege and made a content life. Along with the activities what changed was his attire. He wore an old jeans with heavy joggers and full sleeves shirt with its color raised when he was at work with villagers. In school he put on decent dress.

During these activities he became part of the sweet chatters among elders, he listened to them and laughed with them. There were innumerable incidents on the way to work or home. Like, a stone slipping his feet and missing someone below the slope, or a stone rolling down a hill and missing him by scratch. Or, the amazing questions from some of his students about God, Science etc., and his own interesting findings during his study hours.

If you sit with your friends to tell and compile all these activities mentioned, with their minute details, it is going to extend to at least 2-3hours discussion or theater. And, for the above drama the stage was no other place than my brain in idle and busy hours of the day. The person was none but myself in the world of adventures. I went up to the extent of killing myself and I visualized my funeral many times. I saw people gathering; friends, family members and strangers, at my funeral. I listened people talk about me and my life. So strong was the appearance of my family and friends in the visualization of my daydream that their reaction left me weeping for minutes.

Why did I indulge in daydreaming? What was the benefit to me? Well, in the early days once our physical instructor at school (Jahageer) talked about daydreaming and the disease it leads us to, after finding many absent minded students among us.  I asked out of fear, "Sir what if it has become a habit of ours? How can we counter it?" His response was a warning not to let it become a disease to kill our creative brains. He instructed us to remain attentive and keep ourselves busy with activities. So to me the benefit was zero and there was consistent waste of precious time.

Why did I daydream? Because, I kept thinking about doing activities, instead of starting on the ones I wished to do. I have always yearned for keeping a journal in life since school days. But, every time I opened a diary or thought of starting on the first page of my diary, the thinking process kicked-in in a matter of seconds. This led me to imagine many beautiful and memorable passages in my journal 50 years from then. And made me look at numerous decorated stories of my life as a retired old man. When I would be back, a full hour or two had passed with the journal still blank in my lap.

Chase your dreams, it curbs the seeds of laziness

These kids in the park were chasing the idea of having fun early in the morning. A small wish of few friends to be together in the final minutes before their exams led some students to this serenity to embrace nature. They gave each other company before their educational combat. All of the above characters could have easily excused themselves for not coming here. The best possible option for the kids was to remain in slumber and kill the thought of early morning walk. Or they could have delayed it for the next time hence missing the opportunity for a lifetime. Or each student could have excused himself for self-preparation and thus missed a cheerful company. But, they said yes to their inner voice, thus eradicating the seed of laziness. At the same time they did not allow to stock "I wish/want" items in their brain. This ultimately stopped them from seeding daydream. They had the experience of what they imagined and now they won't sit imagining other possible outcomes of the idea which they had already accomplished.

Once we have an idea we should start following its action plan rather than deploying too much energy on thinking how and when to make follow up action. This thinking process once started finds ways to make the idea better but, only inside the human mind. Hence, it spreads the germs of delay; a thought that we might do it later, or next time or when we have proper time at our disposal so that we meet the best criteria set by our mind to complete the generated idea. This is the foundation of daydream. A sea of unlimited thoughts that engulf our mind, seeking possible outcomes for the ideas we wished to do in life but haven't dared to start it practically.




Morning Park and Bliss



The kids were embracing nature and nature was embracing them. They found happiness today, and they will aim for more blissful day next time which will lead them to experience nature in different ways. No matter how trivial idea you possess, keep chasing it and act to materialize it. If you want to write a poem scribble it, if you want to draw create some shapes, if you want to play go out in the field, if you want to walk get out of your room and if you want to smile do it before anything else worries you. They are your inner voices which directs you towards a destiny more aligned with your 'being'. Locking the voices inside your mind will only cause damage to your existence, your creativity and your life. Laziness is the only natural compliment of daydreaming. The opportunity cost for daydreaming is a human life itself. And daydreaming is not worth any human life on earth.

Do before you get lazy enough to destroy your God gifted resources; your life, creativity and future. Act, do not give life any chance to regret.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

1988 & 2012: an equidistance journey to and from millennium 2K


In 1988, when I was born, I was 12 years away from the new millennium and in 2012 I am again merely 12 years away from the new millennium.

The difference off course is nothing but the morphological changes.

Today I ponder over an amazing topic, a question and the most romantic idea: “I want to become a (profession) when I grow up.”

It’s amazing when you hear from children about the future profession they want to choose. It feels as good to hear as to imagine the child one day achieving that professional career that s/he utters. I never knew (neither did I inquire) about my future ideal as a child. May be my school teachers would remind me. I do remember that by grade 8th I would reluctantly respond to the question “what is your future plan?” with “doctor”.

Time slipped and so did matriculation. Perplex with the option of deciding between Pre-Engineering and Pre Medical, I consult few of the best career counsellor and professionals and somehow cling to pre-engineering. Well, to their question “what is your future goal?” I respond, “I guess I want to study management sciences... or maybe I want to become a doctor... no I feel like becoming an engineer...”

Finally, I am in Lahore and in the first day of the college our Urdu professor sir Tahir Masood asks a million dollar question during an introductory dialogue. “Please one by one introduce yourself: your name, your region, your school and what do you want to become?” Why would the teacher ask us our future plan? Doesn’t he know that we are pre engineering students and we will become engineers? My heartbeat has already raced off, as I for the first time in my life hear the words “Electrical engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Civil Engineer, Electronics Engineer, and Computer Engineer” while students in the front row respond and Tahir scribbles every detail on his file paper.

It’s my turn and I haven’t yet decided my specialization in engineering, I speak “...I don’t want to be an engineer (50 students and the teacher startled at my statement fix their eyes on me) but, I want be academician and I plan to do PhD in Physics” This was brilliant; it not only surprised the audience but myself. Now the biggest joke to share with you all, the same year I drop physics in examination.
 
Well, this is 2012 and I stand here with a degree in my hand. I am not a doctor, neither an engineer. It is as if I have done everything and yet nothing. While I travelled the first half of the equidistance to the year 2000 with my parents and teachers, I wandered in the next equidistance journey from 2000 to 2012 on my romantic ideas. That made the 24 years of my life. I do not regret for not having a clear goal all these years, I wish to start anew, with clear and defined path for the rest of my life.

Happy New Year- Happy 2012


Towards a destiny with clear road map

(P.S. I loved art and Architecture)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Respecting Diversity for Loving Biodiversity


While closing the chapter of Baccalaureate program of my life, ‘Life on Earth’ became miserable.  Partially due to the knowledge relating to biodiversity, ecosystem, all sorts of pollution and their impact on people, and mainly because of the assignments, 8:00 am lectures and Friday dummy laboratory works. And, because of my coincidences with the major presentation this course ‘Life on Earth’ with Professor Dr. Hamid Saeed turned into a thriller. The first lesson started with Biodiversity, and I would later know that 22nd May is celebrated worldwide as a Biodiversity day.

 











Photo Courtesy:ifoam

“Biodiversity is the variation in the life forms within a given eco system, biome or on the surface of earth”.[1] Discussing biodiversity, therefore, would have required us to firstly understand variation in only one form of life, living in a particular biome and, there could be no other interesting specie in comparison to human beings. Because our habitat is Pakistan, it would be easy to discuss and comprehend diversity in the homo-sapiens of Pakistan.  Now I guess that is what at least our professor had in mind while giving us opportunity to write on ‘diversity related to social and cultural lifestyles in Pakistan’.




Photo Courtesy: cultural classics


Diversity related to social and cultural lifestyles in Pakistan refers to the notable heterogeneity in the country’s environment, scratched my pen on the blank paper. Therefore, to speak of diversity would mean to discuss every aspect of the diverse ethnic, language and religion, I thought.  As I wrote, a pattern emerged in the deep corner of my mind that led me to expose the diverse aspects from the lens my experience, ranging from variation in ethnicity, lifestyles, cultures and their interaction. And, my pen didn’t stop…

Photo Courtesy: Mango Grove

Imagine a small town in the extreme north of Pakistan, adjacent to China border. Let’s name it Gojal, with population of 25000 people, scattered over a vast area in tiny villages, and let’s name their language Wakhi. Would you be appalled to know that these Wakhi people share their language with other clusters living in China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan? Will it seem interesting to see them celebrate their wedding in unique way lasting 5 to 7 days, and the many rituals based on seasons, for e.g  Kithdheet (Welcoming spring),Taghm (marking the start of harvest), Chineer (marking the time to collect harvest)?   But, that was how my childhood world appeared. All I knew was that people either have to grow small scale agriculture or run small enterprise or become teacher to earn and educate their children
.
Soon life started changing when I learned Urdu and English at school with our teachers.  It was at school that I came to know about English speaking people via our foreigner teachers. All I knew at this stage was that Pakistanis are like us the Wakhi people and Pashtuuns (who came there for business) and the rest of the world is like English speaking people I met in school.

Hunza hat salesman


PhotoCourtesy: concordiaexpeditions

Then at the age of 15 years I got exposed to a world beyond the homogeneous society of Gojal, to experience the more challenging diversity of Gilgit town. Interaction of five different languages of Gilgit-Baltistan namely, Wakhi, Shina, Balti, Brushaski, and Khwar was the uniqueness in this diversity. Another aspect of the diversity was the exposure of different faith group students and people, who gave a rich insight of the various beliefs. But, it was here in Gilgit that I could see the same diversity translating into sectarian clashes and thus alarming us of the sensitive aspect of diversity.

“Ethnicity of Pakistan is generally described in terms of the geographic and administratively defined areas of Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns and Balochis.[2] Upon my arrival in Lahore in 2005, I sank into the stream of the language of people spoken by “44.15% of the countries population”: the Punjabi language. The experience was enthralling as I came across people with flexible behavior and attitude who loved fun and entertainment and had acceptance for other people. The language itself was easy as it resembled Urdu. I found Punjabis to be staunch consumer of sucrose, their unique breakfast either is ‘Halwaa Puri” or “Naan Chanay”, and they love spicy food.

The other two ethnic groups whom I met here were Pahtuns and Balochis. Both had their own unparallel and different characteristics, like athletic activities, cohesiveness and friendly nature. In terms of celebration, while Punjabis made “Bhangra” at every music beat, Attan of the Pshtuns rocked the parties, and occasional Hareep from Gilgit-Baltistan took them to the dance floor.

Surprisingly, in Lahore the class difference could be seen clearly. While I was only aware of the term poverty, but now I could see it with my own eyes. While I had seen rich people in films and fiction novels, but it was here that I saw this faction of our society. Therefore, an evident “high culture” and “Low culture” became practical knowledge for me.


Photo Courtesy: Hindukush Trails

Turning to the most unique diverse experience in the cultural and social lifestyle of Pakistan, non other than the Kalash people have imprinted their lifestyle on my mind. Situated on a high valley of Chitral called Bambureth, the town constitute of people known to be the offsprings of Alexander the Great. Their colorful ornamental dress, rituals for marriage and for death at their temple and their unique living style is one of its kind in the whole world.

In conclusion, like the very variety found in all sort of organisms on earth, human beings themselves have unique diversity among each other. While diversity is strength in reality, but due to its sensitivity it could also be fatal. Being humans it is therefore our responsibility to protect our own specie along with the whole biodiversity. The unrest that we see in today’s Pakistan or any other human society is not the real face of the individuals living there. They carry with them a whole beautiful and diverse pattern of life, which we need to respect and protect. Only then can we make the ecosystem suitable and safe for the biodiversity.


[1] Wikipedia
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/biological_diversity
[2] Curtin University of Technology
Representation of Cultural diversity in Urdu Newspapers of Pakistan. Jawad Saeed.
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