I’m not sure if men will agree, or women for that matter, but I really think it must be very hard being a woman. Of course I love women and the final product (already I’m pissing off the feminists) is wonderful, but being a woman itself is a lot of work. I mean women are in a tough spot from birth. Even though it’s better now, I can’t imagine how women lived a long time ago.. deprived of any education, they had to claw their way into the world. They had to deal with far more educated men and conquer them. They had to bear abuse and they had to bear shame.
Even today, when a woman is born, especially in the Middle East, she brings less joy to her family (not to me but to some others), she is surrounded by a fence of rules that she should not dare to cross. She’s not expected to play sports, she’s expected to act in a certain manner, she’s not even expected to hear cuss words and she’s expected to be home at a certain time. The community has built a cage around her that imprisons her even with her constitutional freedom. I don’t know if women see that, but I do.. and I don’t know what I’d do as a woman. I would rather be a woman with a bad reputation than be locked in such a case.
Like I said I think it’s very tough to be a woman, and men don’t give them a break. They just ask more and more and women bear more and more. They demand so much more of women and yet almost everywhere they call themselves the superior race. I’m not a feminist out to defend women or say that they’re superior, I just understand what they go through. It’s such a horrible quality to be able to put yourself in one’s shoes, it always causes me trouble .. This is the trouble I’m talking about, as a man, I’m very happy, rebellious against my own society and it’s easy for me to retaliate. Women have much more calculations and I don’t know if I would have been able to rebel had I been a woman.
Where do women get all their strength, with all odds against them.. with child labor, responsibilities and pressures by men. I really don’t know and that’s why I’m impressed with strong women. I’m impressed with how they fought all that was naturally against them and have risen to fight those battles that I do. I think it’s very difficult not to admire women. I also can see how to sympathize with them, but the trouble is that I don’t sympathize much with those who do not choose to help themselves.
Women are about sacrifice, even those who don’t. They always sacrifice something because they’re born at a social disadvantage. I know that there’s this talk of equality, but I’m saying that they’re born at a disadvantage. There’s equality of opportunity but not equality of people. If they were so equal, why didn’t women take over the world? I think it’s very concerning whenever I see an evil woman. Not that women can’t be evil, they can be and very much so in fact, but I mean the idea of a woman has been tampered with so much in my head that she needs to be kind, loving and obedient. Now I’m thankful that this is not how I view women really.. but it’s due to that damn trait of putting myself in their shoes.
Women need to be seductive; they need to watch their weight and what they eat. They need to wax and put on make up and just basically invest so much time on how they look. To top it off it has been customary to see women as in charge of the household and cleanliness. She has to keep the house in great shape, do all the dirty work and yet maintain her feminine beautiful and sexy image. She must be everything it seems, do the tough jobs and yet remain graceful. Be responsible and yet submissive.
Another thing about women that I appreciate is their biological nature. I mean after they mature they have so much to maintain. And it’s not just that… women are normal 25 % of the time. In a cycle of four weeks, they’re normal for one week, they get their emotionally exhausting PMT for the next, then get their physically exhausting period for a week and then ovulate for a week. A woman has something out of the ordinary to deal with 3 weeks out of 4, so much so, that I’m not sure I can label any one week ‘normal’.
I don’t understand how men can just ignore this, I mean even the tough guys out there not just those with a feminine side. It’s really tough and to think that putting yourself in these shoes might be mushy is just pure cowardice I believe. I think courageous and tough men have to appreciate certain tough situations, and like I’ve been babbling all this time being a woman is theeeee ultimate tough situation.
How can one chromosome mean this world of difference? I really don’t know.. but I do know that it’s tough being a woman even with all those rights. Those women’s rights are there but they also put pressure on her. They’re a sort of freedom but a lot of women I know have less ambitious priorities by nature. I mean they can do certain jobs as good as men and some even better but a lot of them need the emotional side fulfilled too.
What started all this anyway? Well I was watching part of a show ‘Qasim Ameen’ and he was talking about giving women a right to education. I realized that we’re depriving women of all the tools they need to get ahead and that it must be very tough.. But on second thought, they’re doing very well without a lot of tools and getting ahead, imagine what would happen if we make all those tools available.. Lord have mercy on men..
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Wrong Approach
The problem with people nowadays in relation to God and religion is the way they work it out; more often than not people start the wrong way around. People have the habit of first looking around them at things they comprehend and see and then trying to work out what they cannot see. Let me explain, people always look at the world around them and from it try to deduce the spiritual world beyond, so they look at the earth and try to deduce if heaven exists. This method usually does not provide good results, because whatever the deductions seem to be, they’re always incomplete. Starting out with what you see can lead you anywhere. The better approach would be to assume that there is God and see what the results will be, or assume there is no God and deduce how things should be, then perhaps match it with what you have and from it determine what you’ve assumed wrong.
Of course some people claim they have made the assumptions I stated above, but have failed to work in that direction. Let’s take for example how people approach religion, first they take the words of any religious book as the absolute truth, and from it they work what God is like. This is a very dangerous approach because when assuming there is God, there can be no absolute guarantee that the book they’re reading is His word, and so the word of God gives a wrong impression about God to those assuming he does exist, and totally disproves the existence of God (in some cases) to those assuming he doesn’t exist.
(A very good example of people saying unreasonable things can be found here)
All this might be getting boring and a bit complicated.. I think it’s a bit too dense but here’s what I mean, it would be much simpler to assume that God doesn’t exist and then reason as to how the world will be like. It would be much simpler to assume that God does exist and reason what the world would be like in his existence and what His words will be like. If we try to imagine what God would do if he did exist it will save us a lot of trouble, and perhaps then we can reason His words.
A debate struck up between me and a friend of mine in which I asked him about something. So the first thing he answered me was “God said so”. Now I don’t know about you, but this word infuriates me a bit, because at a time when people are claiming God said so many things, you can’t base this as a source of your argument. I mean with so many books and so many theories, let’s use that brain God gave us, he must have given it to us for a reason. Perhaps not to understand everything but just enough to understand whether what we’re being told can be true. So I told my friend, don’t explain to me by telling me God said so, explain to me why God said so or would say so, let us reason why God would say this and let us reach through the little logic we have why God told us this. So we sat down and examined the issue from a social point of view, psychological point of view, scientific point of view and we reasoned that God has a reason for saying this and that.
You see that’s the problem I’m talking about, people keep telling you because God said so.. and while I know God must have said some things, I know that there are some means of understanding part of God’s wisdom. It’s all about working the right way, sometimes working backwards can give you an illogical god or even a contradicting god.
I’m not going to get to detailed examples of what I mean but let me try to show something. Let’s assume there was God, and there was a devil. Now what would God do to help humans and what would the devil do to counter that plan assuming as well that we had free will. I suppose that God would probably give people instructions on how to live and what would be good for them, but the devil’s technique would be to cast doubt on those words, and the best way for people to get lost is to be confused and not know what’s right from what’s wrong. It’s like psychological warfare I suppose, each country releasing a set of press releases and you can choose which to believe. Of course there are signs that tell you which is true and which is not.
I remember the war in Iraq, there were many statements made by the States regarding the battles and there were statements made by Information minister Saeed Al Sahaaf of Iraq regarding the same war. They were both conflicting and yet one was true and one was not so true. I guess at some point people choose which they want to believe, what they wish to be true, or what they were raised to believe.
So the point is simple, it’s all about the approach. Whenever people reason as to what God might say, someone comes in and just says: No you infidels, God said so and so and so and so as if it were definitive.
To top this all off, I must add these excellent links for both believers and non believers. It’s just a few things to show that theology is not that trivial.
If you think believers are naive click here.
If you think non believers are idiots click here.
Many people approach God and religion in what I view as a wrong way, but hey.. it’s my blog and the only opinion that really matters is my own.
Of course some people claim they have made the assumptions I stated above, but have failed to work in that direction. Let’s take for example how people approach religion, first they take the words of any religious book as the absolute truth, and from it they work what God is like. This is a very dangerous approach because when assuming there is God, there can be no absolute guarantee that the book they’re reading is His word, and so the word of God gives a wrong impression about God to those assuming he does exist, and totally disproves the existence of God (in some cases) to those assuming he doesn’t exist.
(A very good example of people saying unreasonable things can be found here)
All this might be getting boring and a bit complicated.. I think it’s a bit too dense but here’s what I mean, it would be much simpler to assume that God doesn’t exist and then reason as to how the world will be like. It would be much simpler to assume that God does exist and reason what the world would be like in his existence and what His words will be like. If we try to imagine what God would do if he did exist it will save us a lot of trouble, and perhaps then we can reason His words.
A debate struck up between me and a friend of mine in which I asked him about something. So the first thing he answered me was “God said so”. Now I don’t know about you, but this word infuriates me a bit, because at a time when people are claiming God said so many things, you can’t base this as a source of your argument. I mean with so many books and so many theories, let’s use that brain God gave us, he must have given it to us for a reason. Perhaps not to understand everything but just enough to understand whether what we’re being told can be true. So I told my friend, don’t explain to me by telling me God said so, explain to me why God said so or would say so, let us reason why God would say this and let us reach through the little logic we have why God told us this. So we sat down and examined the issue from a social point of view, psychological point of view, scientific point of view and we reasoned that God has a reason for saying this and that.
You see that’s the problem I’m talking about, people keep telling you because God said so.. and while I know God must have said some things, I know that there are some means of understanding part of God’s wisdom. It’s all about working the right way, sometimes working backwards can give you an illogical god or even a contradicting god.
I’m not going to get to detailed examples of what I mean but let me try to show something. Let’s assume there was God, and there was a devil. Now what would God do to help humans and what would the devil do to counter that plan assuming as well that we had free will. I suppose that God would probably give people instructions on how to live and what would be good for them, but the devil’s technique would be to cast doubt on those words, and the best way for people to get lost is to be confused and not know what’s right from what’s wrong. It’s like psychological warfare I suppose, each country releasing a set of press releases and you can choose which to believe. Of course there are signs that tell you which is true and which is not.
I remember the war in Iraq, there were many statements made by the States regarding the battles and there were statements made by Information minister Saeed Al Sahaaf of Iraq regarding the same war. They were both conflicting and yet one was true and one was not so true. I guess at some point people choose which they want to believe, what they wish to be true, or what they were raised to believe.
So the point is simple, it’s all about the approach. Whenever people reason as to what God might say, someone comes in and just says: No you infidels, God said so and so and so and so as if it were definitive.
To top this all off, I must add these excellent links for both believers and non believers. It’s just a few things to show that theology is not that trivial.
If you think believers are naive click here.
If you think non believers are idiots click here.
Many people approach God and religion in what I view as a wrong way, but hey.. it’s my blog and the only opinion that really matters is my own.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Psychopath Test
So a recent comment on one of my posts reminded me of a test I heard once that determines how much of a psychopath you are. It's very interesting, so to anyone who comes here (talking to myself) if you haven't heard this before, give it a shot.. with reasoning.. if you've read this before, enjoy the different answers.. and if you want to know the answer.. just google it.. or I can give it away some time anyway if you're lazy.
"This is a story about a girl.
While at the funeral of her own mother, she met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much the dream guy that she was searching for that she fell in love with him immediately.
However, she never asked for his name or number and afterward could not find anyone who knew who he was.
A few days later the girl killed her own sister.
Question: Why did she kill her sister?"
"This is a story about a girl.
While at the funeral of her own mother, she met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much the dream guy that she was searching for that she fell in love with him immediately.
However, she never asked for his name or number and afterward could not find anyone who knew who he was.
A few days later the girl killed her own sister.
Question: Why did she kill her sister?"
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Shattered Glass
There’s something about shattered glass that’s unsettling. The shattered glass itself and the process of glass shattering is intricately linked to irreparable damage. What worries me most about a broken piece of glass is how much it can hurt. The problem with shattered glass is that it has many broken pieces and each on its own dangerous and hurtful.
The odd thing about it is that the single piece that consisted of all those smaller pieces was in all likelihood very safe, smooth and probably even beautiful. When broken, all those pieces lose their form, beauty and meaning. They may be laid out in a beautiful manner but that isn’t always the case and even then they remain dangerous pieces of glass that may cause damage.
Even the sound of glass breaking against a hard substance is very disturbing. It violently disturbs the relative peace preceding it. The sound of glass breaking announces an event that must be dealt with in an urgent manner. It’s very distracting, imposing and intrudes on all activities happening around it.
Another thing that bothers me about shattered glass is the amount of small pieces it has broken into. So many pieces suddenly exist and some of them are so tiny that they can’t be seen. Some of them fly away so far from where the glass broke that their position cannot be anticipated. These small pieces are still dangerous and invasive, for even after a shattered glass is swept off and cleared away, no one can ever be too sure that all the pieces have been picked up. The once safe area is transformed to a ore dangerous upon which one must tread cautiously lest he be hurt. Those small pieces can hide well and unsettle a once peaceful and quiet place.
There’s also a sense of waste when glass breaks as well. This sense of waste is all the more magnified when big pieces remain intact and have sharp edges that render them useless. It strikes me even more with colored glass whose shattered pieces look beautiful and reflect light in so many ways yet nothing can be done with it but throw it away. The glass once shaped to server a purpose now serves none and in fractions of a second morphs to an inadequate state making it worthy only of disposal.
It’s a waste of glass and a waste of something good when glass shatters. There’s something unsettling about it, about the irreversibility of the process and the randomness of the result. I certainly prefer glass before it has been shattered.
The odd thing about it is that the single piece that consisted of all those smaller pieces was in all likelihood very safe, smooth and probably even beautiful. When broken, all those pieces lose their form, beauty and meaning. They may be laid out in a beautiful manner but that isn’t always the case and even then they remain dangerous pieces of glass that may cause damage.
Even the sound of glass breaking against a hard substance is very disturbing. It violently disturbs the relative peace preceding it. The sound of glass breaking announces an event that must be dealt with in an urgent manner. It’s very distracting, imposing and intrudes on all activities happening around it.
Another thing that bothers me about shattered glass is the amount of small pieces it has broken into. So many pieces suddenly exist and some of them are so tiny that they can’t be seen. Some of them fly away so far from where the glass broke that their position cannot be anticipated. These small pieces are still dangerous and invasive, for even after a shattered glass is swept off and cleared away, no one can ever be too sure that all the pieces have been picked up. The once safe area is transformed to a ore dangerous upon which one must tread cautiously lest he be hurt. Those small pieces can hide well and unsettle a once peaceful and quiet place.
There’s also a sense of waste when glass breaks as well. This sense of waste is all the more magnified when big pieces remain intact and have sharp edges that render them useless. It strikes me even more with colored glass whose shattered pieces look beautiful and reflect light in so many ways yet nothing can be done with it but throw it away. The glass once shaped to server a purpose now serves none and in fractions of a second morphs to an inadequate state making it worthy only of disposal.
It’s a waste of glass and a waste of something good when glass shatters. There’s something unsettling about it, about the irreversibility of the process and the randomness of the result. I certainly prefer glass before it has been shattered.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Remedies and solutions are not mine to behold,
in this desert of time, where one too quickly grows old,
As to a passing wind is a motionless scene,
so am I to time, nothing do I mean.
And who am I to ask the whens or whys of this world,
I'd neither add nor take if I was ever told,
we're all shooting stars and sometimes we're not even seen.
we're neither earth nor air we're something in between
do we exist? for certain yes we do,
but how or why, I haven't got a clue,
I'm not gonna answer life's questions anymore,
survival is more impending and knocking at my door.
As a bystander I was born and a bystander I stay,
Seeing of life's movie a single still portrait,
not enough to understand the way things come in play,
but not little enough so as to look the other way.
in this desert of time, where one too quickly grows old,
As to a passing wind is a motionless scene,
so am I to time, nothing do I mean.
And who am I to ask the whens or whys of this world,
I'd neither add nor take if I was ever told,
we're all shooting stars and sometimes we're not even seen.
we're neither earth nor air we're something in between
do we exist? for certain yes we do,
but how or why, I haven't got a clue,
I'm not gonna answer life's questions anymore,
survival is more impending and knocking at my door.
As a bystander I was born and a bystander I stay,
Seeing of life's movie a single still portrait,
not enough to understand the way things come in play,
but not little enough so as to look the other way.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Gates Of Despair
Lurking about me continuously are gates of despair, entreating me to walk right through them to a land where all has gone wrong. The gates are wide open and inviting and there seems to be much comfort in the act of slipping through past their entrance, but I know that the other side is full of darkness. I know that the only easy thing is passing through those gates because once I’m in, these gates will shrink and they will no longer be inviting they will be distant, and they will no longer lurk about me they will be evasive. I will be in a dark hole and all the while given the chance from one spiral of despair to yet another.
The dark gates call on to me continuously. When my day is rough, when the going gets tough, when I’m tired and lost with so much left to do and think about. Why must I wrestle so much with these invitations, they seem to ask me to let go of all I have. But I can see no future in accepting this invitation; nothing but the momentary comfort of accepting it and the temporary relief of these battles.
Must life be so hard? Is it the same with everyone around? Or is it just me? It’s becoming harder for me to survive, harder for me to do the things I should, harder for me to finish the tasks I have. In the past things were easier, my tasks would be clear and my path would be vivid. But now… why has everything easy been replaced with struggle and where is that young man who found everything easy to do?
That young man would comfort friends and glide through troubled paths with confidence and grace. Those gates of despair were always behind him, trying to catch up but failing and he in turn never looked back. Maybe he slowed down and became me, and now those gates have caught up with me. I fight their invitations but every now and then I think of what it would be to accept their invitation and fall into one comfortable spiral of despair.
What other gates await? What other gates are fast on my track I wonder. I must keep going forward and though the climb is steep, but surely there will come a time that I will be able to travel downhill. I know that one fights off what he can in order to become all that he could…
The dark gates call on to me continuously. When my day is rough, when the going gets tough, when I’m tired and lost with so much left to do and think about. Why must I wrestle so much with these invitations, they seem to ask me to let go of all I have. But I can see no future in accepting this invitation; nothing but the momentary comfort of accepting it and the temporary relief of these battles.
Must life be so hard? Is it the same with everyone around? Or is it just me? It’s becoming harder for me to survive, harder for me to do the things I should, harder for me to finish the tasks I have. In the past things were easier, my tasks would be clear and my path would be vivid. But now… why has everything easy been replaced with struggle and where is that young man who found everything easy to do?
That young man would comfort friends and glide through troubled paths with confidence and grace. Those gates of despair were always behind him, trying to catch up but failing and he in turn never looked back. Maybe he slowed down and became me, and now those gates have caught up with me. I fight their invitations but every now and then I think of what it would be to accept their invitation and fall into one comfortable spiral of despair.
What other gates await? What other gates are fast on my track I wonder. I must keep going forward and though the climb is steep, but surely there will come a time that I will be able to travel downhill. I know that one fights off what he can in order to become all that he could…
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