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There is a hope for Pakistan
Like many in Pakistan, I also look for any sign of hope that one day Pakistan will be a country that was dreamed by its founding father – Muhammad Ali Jinnah & Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Here are six signs of hope.
1. No military coup d’etat
Despite a weak coalition civilian government, there has been no coup d’état. Shujah Nawaz of the Atlantic Council notes the military has “held back over the last four years, [and is] now gradually stepping back” from the day-to-day political arena.
2. Resurgent judiciary
A resurgent judiciary in Pakistan has emerged as a potent force. In 2007, 2008, and 2009 it played a critical role in driving Gen Musharraf, the military dictator, from office. In a country where millions are serfs and villeins and humans are occasionally sold like chattel, the Supreme Court increasingly offers a venue for redress of grievances.
3. A more moderate Islam
There is even a budding moderating trend on Pakistan’s religious landscape. Hassan Abbas, another Pakistani analyst, recently commented that “there is a renewed effort across Pakistan among … [Muslim] clerics to challenge Al Qaida and the Taliban.” It manifests itself in a reassertion of a more moderate Islam that preaches that suicide bombings are un-Islamic.
4. Normalization with India
Pakistan’s generals, who have thrived for decades by promoting a perceived threat from India, now seem to realize the greater threat is internal terrorism, not to mention the violent secessionist movement in the province of Baluchistan Professor Abbas observed, “Even the military has signed on to the reality of normalization with India because [if] you normalize with India then the Army can deal with the internal militancy.”
5. Growth of news and social media outlets
The proliferation of broadcast media outlets coupled with an explosion of social media like Facebook are further reshaping the landscape. Now everyone is becoming part of the political process, challenging politicians and government institutions, including the Army.
6. A push for ‘good governance’
The entry of Imran Khan, the national cricket hero, into the political election melee could well meet a genuine public craving for change. Ultimately Mr. Khan’s new political movement could even challenge the stagnant two-party system.
Choosing Between Making Money and Doing What You Love – Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B. Brown – Harvard Business Review
The authors of above blog post say, don’t compromise on your economic life. There is uncertainty that passion may not bring in enough money to meet the minimum needs as pointed out by Maslow. But what if one is not interested in making money rather is passionate doing things that make him/her happy? There is also uncertainty that money will bring happiness.
Then the question is why one needs money?
“The evil you do remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!”
A woman baked bread for members of her family and an extra one for a hungry passerby. She kept the extra bread on the Window-sill, for whosoever would take it away. Every day, a hunch-back came and took away the bread. Instead of expressing gratitude, he muttered the following words as he went his way:
“The evil you do remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!”
This went on, day after day. Every day, the hunch-back came, picked up the bread and uttered the words: “The evil you do, remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!”
The woman felt irritated. “Not a word of gratitude,” she said to herself…
“Everyday this hunch-back utters this jingle! What does he mean?
“One day, out of despiration, she decided to do away with him. “I shall get rid of this hunch-back,” she said. And what did she do? She added poison to the bread she prepared for him! As she was about to place it on the window sill, her hands trembled. “What is this I am doing?” she said.
Immediately she threw the bread into the fire, prepared another one and kept it on the window-sill.
As usual, the hunch-back came, picked up the bread and muttered the words:
“The evil you do, remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!”
The hunch-back proceeded on his way, blissfully unaware of the war raging in the mind of the woman. Everyday, as the woman placed the bread on the window-sill, she offered a prayer for her son who had gone to a distant place to seek his fortune. For many months, she had no news of him.. She prayed for his safe return.
That evening, there was a knock on the door. As she opened it, she was surprised to find her son standing in the doorway.. He had grown thin and lean. His garments were tattered and torn. He was hungry, starved and weak. As he saw his mother, he said, “Mom, it’s a miracle I’m here. While I was but a mile away, I was so hungry that I collapsed. I would have died, but just then an old hunch-back passed by. I begged of him for a small part of his food, and he was kind enough to give me a whole bread. “As he gave it to me, he said, “This is what I eat everyday: today, I shall give it to you, for your need is greater than mine!”
“As the mother heard those words, her face turned pale and red. She leaned against the door for support. She remembered the poisoned bread that she had made that morning. Had she not burnt it in the fire, it would have been eaten by her own son, and he would have lost his life!
It was then that she realized the significance of the words: “The evil you do remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!”
Do good and; Don’t ever stop doing good, even if it’s not appreciated at that time.
Come, let us speak our souls
Sometimes it happens. When you meet with someone who knows you deeply then you don’t talk but still you hears. In silence, both speak to one another hidden from prying eyes and ears.
Here is a description of the state by Maulana Rum.
come let’s speak
of our souls
let’s even hide from
our ears and eyes
like a rose garden
always keep a smile
like imagination
talk without a sound
like the spirit
reigning the world
telling the secrets
uttering no word
let’s get away from
all the clever humans
who put words in our mouth
let’s only say what our hearts desire
even our hands and feet
sense every inner move
let’s keep silence
but make our hearts move
the mystery of destiny
knows the life of
speck after speck of dust
let’s tell our story as a particle of dust
– Translation by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1995
Europe is poor so should live within its means
I have strong intuition that real cause of financial crisis of 2008 and now European collapse is the banking system in vogue. My view has been seconded by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Here is the story.
By Justin Rowlatt Presenter, Business Daily, BBC World Service
For decades the West has lectured the East on how to manage its economies. Not anymore.
Now the emerging economies of Asia look like models of steady, consistent policy and sustained growth while Europe, America and Japan are mired in debt and are growing achingly slowly, if at all.
So what can the West learn from the East?
According to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the message is simple but devastating: Europe must face up to the new economic reality.
"Europe… has lost a lot of money and therefore you must be poor now relative to the past," he reasons in an interview with BBC World Service’s Business Daily. "And in Asia we live within our means. So when we are poor, we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson that Europe can learn from Asia."
State of denial
Dr Mahathir is well qualified to pass judgment. If any Asian leader can make claim to having laid the groundwork for his country’s economic expansion, it is he. During his two decades in power, Dr Mahathir helped transform Malaysia from a sleepy former colony into an economic tiger. But his advice will not make happy reading in the capitals of Europe. Dr Mahathir believes European leaders are in a state of denial.
"You refuse to acknowledge you have lost money and therefore you are poor," he says. "And you can’t remedy that by printing money. Money is not something you just print. It must be backed by something, either good economy or gold."
Dr Mahathir may be 86 years old, but he still holds very strong views.
In particular, he believes Europe and the West must begin the long slow process of restructuring their economies to reduce their dependence on the financial sector.
"I think you should go back to doing what I call real business – producing goods, providing services, trading – not just moving figures in bank books, which is what you are doing."
His big bugbear is still currency trading, which he believes did huge damage to the Malaysian economy during the financial crisis that hit Asia in the late 1990s.
"Currency is not a commodity", he says.
"You sell coffee. Coffee… can be ground and made into a cup of coffee. But currency, you cannot grind it and make it into anything. It is just figures in the books of the banks and you can trade with figures in the books of banks only. There must be something solid to trade, then you can legitimately make money."
Tough message
But even if Europe takes his advice, Dr Mahathir believes there will be no quick return to economic health.
"To recover your wealth you have to work over many years to rebuild your capacities, to produce goods and services to sell to the world, to compete with the eastern countries," he says.
European workers are overpaid and unproductive, Dr Mahathir believes.
"I think you have paid your workers far too much money for much less work," he says. "So you cannot expect to live at this level of wealth when you are not producing anything that is marketable."
His message is tough, he acknowledges, before adding with a laugh: "We used to get tough messages from you before, remember?"
"And now, what is the result? Sometimes you undermined our currency and we became very poor. Well, we learn from each other. We were Euro-centric before. I think it should be a little bit Asia-centric now."
A tough message indeed.
Artificial Intelligence goes to writing
Artificial Intelligence popularly known as AI is not only confined to Robotics. It is being used to write stories. Here is an excerpt from an article.
“Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.”
The Narrative Science technology could potentially impact many corners of the writing trade. The company has a long list of stories they can computerize: sports stories, financial reports, real estate analyses, local community content, polling & elections, advertising campaign summaries sales & operations reports and market research.
The program was the result of a collaboration between McCormick and Medill School of Journalism. To create the software, Hammond and Birnbaum and students working in McCormick’s Intelligent Information Lab created algorithms that use statistics from a game to write text that captures the overall dynamic of the game and highlights the key plays and players. Along with the text is an appropriate headline and a photo of what the program deems as the most important player in the game.”
The Mayonnaise Jar
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day is not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and two cups of coffee.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and fills it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured it into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “YES”. The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things – God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions. Things, that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car. The sand is everything else — the small stuff.” he said. “If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “There is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you…” he told them.
“So… pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Worship with your family. Play with your children. Take your partner out to dinner. Spend time with good friends. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping tap. Take care of the golf balls first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled and said, “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”
The Sanctuary of Love
Who is in the house of my heart,
I cried in the middle of the night.
Love said,
"It is I, but what are all these images that fill your house?"
I said, they are the reflection of your beautiful face.
She asked,
"But what is this image full of pain?"
I said, it is me lost in the sorrows of life
and showed her my soul full of wounds.
She offered me one end of a thread and said:
"Take it so I can pull you back
but do not break the delicate string."
I reached towards her but she struck my hand.
I asked, why the harshness?
She said,
"To remind you that whoever comes to love’s holy space,
proud and full of himself will be sent away.
Look at love with the eyes of your heart."
– Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
Humans can learn not to be myopic
In Davos, a discussion was facilitated by Nobel winner economist on the topic that "What do you see as the world’s biggest challenges?" Everyone agreed that these are overpopulation, unemployment, the environment, and inequality. The common denominator among all of them is that they are problems created by humans. So why can’t we humans solve them?
The simple answer is that we don’t make a connection between our current behavior and its future consequences. As Muhammad Yunus, the Bagladeshi economist, put it, "Leaders don’t have time for the future because they’re too busy with the present."
According to neuroscience, the more primitive parts of our brain conspire against our thinking about the future. Our amygdala is designed to be hyper alert to signs of threat, but only immediate threat. At the same time, we’re powerfully pulled to immediate gratification, even if it’s undermining our own long-term well-being. Saul Perlmutter put it, "We’re limited by being human. We want results fast, and we discount the future."
When we’re run by the more primitive parts of our brain — and we are far more often than we recognize — we become myopically short-term in our perspective.
So what’s the antidote? It’s to rely more on our pre-frontal cortex, which allows humans alone to imagine the future consequences of our actions. Too often, instead, we use our pre-frontal cortex after the fact, to rationalize and minimize our short-term and ultimately self-defeating behaviors.
We don’t lack for potential solutions to our problems so much as we do the willingness to intelligently sacrifice in the short term, in the service of generating more value in the long term.
To do that, we need to learn to better regulate our emotions, which begins with gaining more control of our attention. That’s the next great evolutionary leap, and it’s on the horizon.
Quran offers solution to the problem of myopic thinking in times of threat.
Nay seek (Allah’s) help with patient perseverance and prayer: it is indeed hard except to those who bring a lowly spirit. (Aya 45 of Sura Al-Baqarah)
Commentary on the above Aya
The Arabic word Sabr implies many shades of meaning, which it is impossible to comprehend in one English word.
It implies;
- patience in the sense of being thorough, not hasty;
- patient perseverance, constancy, steadfastness, firmness of purpose;
- systematic as opposed to spasmodic or chance action;
- a cheerful attitude of resignation and understanding in sorrow, defeat, or suffering, as opposed to murmuring or rebellion, but saved from mere passivity or listlessness, by the element of constancy or steadfastness. (Translation &Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali)
From reading the above Aya, one gets the impression that humans can train themselves not to be myopic. Latest research by two neuroscientists have proved exactly that.
Through their research, both Davidson and Singer have demonstrated that our brains have extraordinary plasticity. It’s possible, they’ve found, for human beings to systematically train the regulation of negative emotion and to increase our capacity for calm reflectiveness in the face of high stress.
We can learn to be far more conscious and intentional in our behavior, and less self-centered and short-term in our perspective. Doing so requires deliberate practice.