East and west: humanistic vs materialistic meaning of life

East and west always have been opposites through out history. East has always been the place of mysticism and closed communities and west the seat of rationality and open societies, at least in the general sense of the spirit. East do have contribution in science but ironically its not very philosophical, it has been more technological and mathematical.

But why we see the west in an existential crisis and why does east keeps an air of ignorance about it?
The forces of materialism caused this philosophical West's society to fragment, the individual got alone.So this individual devoid of humans to give his life meaning moved towards philosophy and materialistic achievements to fill this void of meaning. And so they  excelled in these fields like no other.

But the east still dwells in close knit societies.And an individual is a part of a family, a caste, a tribe and this identity gives his life an inherited meaning.So his mind is not bothered much about the philosophical meanings and materialistic achievements.

Obviously this is an oversimplification of a complex phenomenon.But what I basically mean to say is that human beings are social animals and true peace giving meaning  in their lives comes from the presence and connection with other human beings, otherwise the reality starts to break and loose meaning.

This realization stems from my personal experience when I woke up one night in a state of panic, derealization and a deep feeling of meaninglessness and as I saw a friend sitting on the other bed, this feeling started to dissolve with the shear force of his presence.

Understanding Power through Cricket

Come on life ! Let me hit a six!

Let me at least once feel that I can hit at will, when and where I want.
Let me feel my emotions directly altering the course of reality merely with the force of their existence, making every resistance burn away with their fire.

Like Mcculum axing the South Africa like a wood cutter in the semifinals.Making a world class bowling look like a fool
Like Einstein focused on a problem not leaving unless he compels  the nature to reveal its beauty.
Like a revolutionary jumping into the sea of improbabilities ,swimming against the tide, convincing the tide to change its direction.

"The high was not the fear. The high was that I can hit people at will. I can get people out at will. I can fool around with them at will."

- Shoaib Akhtar

Power is very attractive and the basis of every yearning. The power to win the heart of a woman, the power to pass the hurdles that come in wining the pleasure of God, the power to master an area of knowledge, the power to write so to change the hearts of people, the power to defeat disease. The power to control nature.


"Speaking more generally, one may say that some kind of power forms the normal and legitimate aim of every person whose natural desires are not atrophied. The kind of power that a man desires depends upon his predominant passions; one man desires power over the actions of men, another desires power over their thoughts, a third power over their emotions. One man desires to change the material environment, another desires the sense of power that comes from intellectual mastery. Every kind of public work involves desire for some kind of power, unless it is undertaken solely with a view to the wealth obtainable by corruption. The man who is actuated by purely altruistic suffering caused by the spectacle of human misery will, if his suffering is genuine, desire power to alleviate misery"

Bertrand Russel ---A conquest of happiness

"I want to look you in the eyes, come running fast, burning with focus and conviction,  throw a reverse swinging yorker at your feet , turnig in air and landing determined to make you fall without giving you even as much as a chance to block, causing all the stumps of your heart to fly , making you feel  the intensity of life inside me and  the intensity of my want."

Assessment of character

Among the best and easy measures of character of a person is his/her attitude towards a person or a group who can offer him nothing in return. It shows true empathy. When someones pain makes you transcend every difference, ideology, and not just makes you feel but actually moves you to help.

The second one is the length of relationships. A person maintaining long relationships shows reliability.

A person whose motivations are sympathetic rather than judgmental and condescending.

hot-cold empathy gap

Your "cold" contained self can't fully recall the feelings of your "hot" emotional self and inaccurately predicts how quickly you'll cave to temptation

Obaidullah Aleem -The spring that I pined for

Telling you the truth: It was not only love for which I threw away my life.There were some compulsions, some needs, you were also a kind of necessity.

What a lively, independent spirit I used to be. I exuded life and beauty and charm, I lived in a world that was built around my dreams, my own aspirations. It was an expression of my own identity

But I threw away  that life for the promise of a spring that never came, I gave away every aspiration and dream that a normal person has for life. But it never came. It was a false promise, a false hope, a mirage.

You see me happy and well settled but that's only a pretense.It is an instinct, I smile no matter what whenever  somebody looks. I have nothing to do with this happy go lucky person

 I wish you could see the injured self beneath all this felicity.

Extraordinary Times

 I had one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.It made me realize to what lengths have I allowed my self to fall.But I knew it all the way back and felt myself so helpless in the situation .I knew I have to do more and knew that I can do more but i was simply unable to pull my self up and together to work for the goal I want to achieve.But certain moments have what even long stretches of time cannot provide us
It was the dark era of "Laila Tul Qadar" that led to Quran being sent down from the heavens to herald the dawn of a new era in the history man kind which would take humans to such spiritual heights as never witnessed before.
Religious persecution, the perpetrators don't understand blow such a spirit in the life of a community who suffers that even a century of struggle cannot create.The mind becomes clear , the path of achieving a goal is selected with ease and the community comes together to strive in such a way that is other wise impossible.
During exams students come to have such studying capacity and focus of mind that easily lets them cover in days what normally would  take months.
I am talking about a similar extraordinary moment , a moment that unleashes powers that earlier were present but remained hidden in an unusable manner.Our God calls Himself "RAAB" the one who nourishes from a simple and unsignifcant small stages to higher complex and useful states.
I believe that moments of hardships in this world are to take us out of our lower states to higher ones.Its for us to choose that we act proactively and let that moment be our prize or don't give any heed and bring about destruction on ourselves.
For me Hell would be a similar place,the people who didn't utilize the opportunities of self development in this world would be forced through hardships to come out of those pit holes and build themselves for those favors that their creator wants them to have,a place called AL-Jannah where their efforts will flow like rivulets  unhindered and give them a  potential of limitless growth similar to a lush green garden with springs flowing underneath and a place whose prizes would never fade.
A day before I felt so powerless over my condition  that I wanted to quit and now I vow to fight and not let myself be steered away mindlessly in the abysses of self pity.My perspective on life has refreshened and I feel much more clear and controlled and determined.I don't know weather I would achieve what I want to but now I will try with a new vigour.I know one single moment is never enough ,I need a fuel for a life time ,this is one of the main differences between reality and fiction.There one scene changes into another without the uncertainty that the life disposes us to and here we have to live through each single moment.

Fate ,free will,Quran and Freud

I share it as Food for thought: I don't necessarily agree with all of the excerpt.