Between Superficial and Artificial

I am a member of cohorts who can recall past to overrule this "Between Superficial and Artificial" to "Between Truth and Lies". Unfortunately a lot has changed during two decades. Truth has changed to Superficial and Lies are totally Artificial (meaning lying refer to total innovation, not touching reality from far). Before I go further, I should define a "Lie" more. Lie can be a total new creation, but it can have some element of reality. A gossip for example, can have roots from reality but with passage of information from person to person, it can be corrupted.  The time has come where Truth is analyzed and located only Superficially and Lies have no roots from genuineness and it is created from total falsehood - the time which was predicted by Abrahamic religions has come: "All the truth will be seen as lies and all the lies will be seen as truth" which refers to spread out of total falsehood in humanity. All kinds of vulgarity is now seen as "Freedom of Expression" and all kind of practices attached to one's belief is seen as "Extremism" and calling the names of each other's ancestors has become a common practice. 

One good example of such falsehood or misinterpretation of information is the attack on Iraq on the basis of a totally fabricated news regarding WMD resulting the loss of thousands of lives, needless to mention the loss of other related things. Who has lost or who has gained is yet another argument and I don't want to indulge into that but point is that there is a new form of dissemination of Artificial and or Superficial Information termed as "Media". You can disagree on the point that media was ever unbiased- no it was never unbiased. I have seen highly government oriented news bulletin but now it has taken another direction. In the following discussion, I will try to clarify my point regarding the dissemination of false information by media and resulting into the common man's misjudgment about others. A good is interpreted as bad and bad as good--Thanks to the media. In one of my earliest blogs, I wrote a 180 degree turn regarding the image of present President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari cleaning him from all the corruption charges and yet after he took Presidency holding back the previous position of considering him "The Most Corrupt Person of Entire Pakistani Nation". The image alteration came for a very short time during the election time period and as "some hidden powers" would have decided to elect him as next supreme power of Pakistan and when that happened, they worked on next agenda to tighten the rope around his neck so that he never commit any disloyalty from their set agenda. Thanks to Media. This is just an example from Pakistan, but I know countless other examples from other nations. 

In my previous writings, I was discussing about the scarcity of role models amongst nations; and media portray a very negative image of some popular tigers. Now it involved some such personalities in their dirty jokes, false information and baseless claims that according to some learnt persons have had all charismatic traits to qualify them as leaders of a nation. I can quote examples of mockery of such people who have been highly praised among their nations. A person who has been glorified for last 1400 years, now I can see images, text and false information, ruthless madness and all efforts to deprecate him.  Same holds for his counterpart yet 600 years elder than him who also has been humiliated in every possible way. This all causes anarchy and frustration. (These two most respected persons are Muhammad and Jesus respectively). The people who have been admired for centuries, the true leaders as we believe them  to be the savior of humanity are being confused as foe and enemy. All goes to media - Freedom reaching the abyss of ignorance. 

Any successful society is based upon justice, equality and keeping balance. Any society deviating from the above things are likely to collapse in very near future. Abusing my father and expecting me to consider it as freedom of expression is a total non-sense. Secondly, blaming someone without having an adequate explanation and good faith is also biggest of all crimes. This is what happening in today's world. I guarantee if Mother Teresa was alive today, she must have biggest corruption charges against her. Take for example the campaign led by Anna Hazaray in India and how his fellows are facing biggest charges of corruption. This wave of defamation against them surely would not have erupted had they not put their hands into this fire. 

Although, today's media is abusing any popular figure whether good or bad but there are some elites who are somehow respected and their character defamation is considered as a crime. We must reckon upon the traits of people who have been admired and respected in today's forged world. We may find them disobeying laws of nature, spreading bloodshed, hatred. Are they worth calling a leader or respectable? Do you think a leader sleeps in palaces while leaving the rest under open sky? Do you consider one as your chief who has a high protocol saving his own life but opens up all kinds of threats for you? Is it a trait of a captain to stand last in the queue of a dying force. NO!!

I emphasize the importance of point that nations have not stopped producing leaders, they are there but unfortunately they have been confused as your enemies and your enemies are hidden in a veil of friendship and leadership. People are desperately waiting for a savior, a leader but they are dispersed and confused who to trust who not to trust. Good is seen as worst and Worst is seen as Better. All credit goes to Media.

I do not say Media is all a crap. They sometimes highlight those darkened areas in our society that would otherwise remain unnoticed. But this comes at a cost. Showing facts does not mean intruding into one's personal space. Most of the times, our Media goes too far and start to unveil the parts of one's life which he/she otherwise would not like to disclose. A personal space is a fundamental right of everybody and depriving one of this right is another big transgression. Sometimes we like our superhero but then Media presents such hidden fact of his life that we are forced to dislike him. 

The consequence is that the world is standing on the verge of destruction as a result of misunderstand and making abrupt judgment about people. People ought to judge you on the basis of your background and color which is the most abhorrent thing one can do. I can recall that once after a rigorous running to catch the train, I missed that so I immediately went to Information with a query. For a second, I jumped into a wrong place thinking it as a queue but realized my mistake in just two seconds. When asked a person about the correct queue, his reply was astonishing. He blamed my religion and country for this accidental and impulsive mistake. I went into a total shock. Another incidence occurred when I took a wrong way for entering into a tram. This was my first time taking a tram and therefore I should have been forgiven for that but instead the TT abused my country. At both instances, because I didn't see a connection for accusing my background for such faults because even if did that deliberately, I did not learn such law breaking things in any of the constitution or a religious book :) These were just two small examples while there are a couple of such things with greater intensity. How could people pass judgement on me while they never met me? Its the magic of media that can surely tell you who you are while you yourself don't know those facts. I don't say those who share the same beliefs as me are totally free from this kind of emotions. I would regretfully acknowledge the fact that we are as or even more corrupted in our thoughts than any other person belonging to a different group. Yes it is true. 

As long as we keep on passing judgement on people without digging for truth, we are very likely to astray and then we will continue led by individuals similar to those ruling us now! As long as we are moving between the two ends of superficiality and artificiality like a pendulum, we cannot reach the reality and then no movements, calls, revolution will bring the results. And the deprived masses of society cannot develop the real spirit necessary to make reforms- we continue to go inside this abysmal. I do not make any conclusion as you might be expecting, my point was to bring to light one of the forces responsible for hindrance of our Advancement- Humans are growing but humanity is getting scarier and scarier - exponentially! 

The Wall Street Magic

Perhaps the other name I could think of for this blog was the "Evils of Joint Stock", but I knew in that way I could not attract attention of my readers so I used my naïve business knowledge to market my blog. Few hundred years ago, our poor (deprived) man was fighting with his destitute state and suffering. You may ask "Well he is still suffering today", what point you want to make? Actually few hundred years ago, he knew he was suffering but today, this poor man is intoxicated with hope of becoming a billionaire like Mr. Warren Buffet. Whatever Mr. Buffet (with all the respect) says become part of syllabus of Business Students and remembered and respected as something heavenly. His dictum may motivate any penniless or indigent to strive and succeed. I have nothing against him. I was talking about the destitutes who were undergoing lots of distress during the time when a capitalist had money and all the resources. Those who had no money were depending on the resources provided to finance their subsistence by this capitalist so that he and his family could survive. In return, the capitalist had designed an excellent "Financial Model". According to that model, he was not only able to get back his principal, but the return was more than the money he had "invested" in that family and they remained slave for their entire lives. This slavery could last for centuries, so if your great grand father had taken loan, it was likely that even your kids could not be able to pay it off. The markup for such an amount was obnoxious. Yet the long for wealth of this capitalist was a never ending thing. Who amongst you consider this guy to be smart? His offspring proved to be smarter than him. 

When it was smelled that this system is going to collapse and there is a better alternative to keep their rule on the wealth by depriving masses of whatever they have. The concept of "Joint Stock" was therefore created. This reversed the role of Financing and Financed Party. The poor man who had been victimized for centuries was given a very lucrative deal. "We have been financing you for a long time and in return you have been paying us the interest - Now you are going to finance us and we will pay you the return". This naive guy was astonished. Now I am going to be the owner of resources and now its my turn to take revenge, I will be rich, time is mine. He could not realize that this financier whose elders were so smart, how their offspring can design a system that goes against themselves. While the earlier Joint Stock could be traced back in 1250, this phenomenon strengthen its roots in nineteenth century and finally specific legislation was introduced in 1844- the so called "Joint Stock Companies Act 1844". 

Usually any business venture is financed by two sources; Capital (belonging to the owner) and Loan. Small lenders were asked to be owners of a big company by buying shares. In their very small chunks, these small capitalists developed the foundations of big sometimes multinational companies, they could never dream of owning. In other words, they were the financier of the companies ventured by the wealthy & smart. The Financial Model working behind was: the owner will have the last priority in case the business fails; Fair Enough! There were other so called Micro Economics phenomenon introduced addressing the Moral Hazard, Information Asymmetry, Principal Agent Problem, whatever that could satisfy those investors. But in reality, everything was standing on a bubble. The provider of the loan had the largest priority of payback when the business was diluted. So wealthy remained wealthy, because the model was designed by them. They had a perfectly designed - the most optimal financial model so that when the company remains in profit, they get the highest return and when it fails, they get (at least) their principal, to pack up and start another venture.  

The Occupy Wall Street is a cry from those victimized by this model. Do you think this model will survive as it is or another innovative model will be developed increasing NOT BRIDGING the gap between Rich & Poor. Do you think this Occupy Wall Street will help and some revolution will take place moving the resources towards the deprived people, or what else do you think will happen. I reserve my comments at this moment for another time. But my researcher husband must have found his hypotheses here. 

H1: The person who lends in a joint stock is richer than the provider of capital (Bond holders vs. Shareholders)

H2: The probability of failure of a company whose lenders are richer is higher than the probability of failure of companies where finance comes from poorer sources. 

H3: .................................................................... (I know he will add up something here). 

Coming back

Hello readers,

I am back into my blog world once again! The reason for temporary distance from the blogs was not that I had nothing to write, or I was too busy, or I didn't have enough motivation to put my thoughts into words. Strange enough, There are so many things going on in my mind that I feel injustice to write one while ignoring the others. World is changing rapidly, every second brings up an issue, perhaps serious issues have become part of our daily life. We all know the world is digging into a great depression, Euro is on Artificial Pacemaker, Occupy Wall Street is another buzzword of economics, governments have taken heavy debts and in an attempt to save them from sovereign risk, those countries are given lucrative bailout packages and everyone knows this won't help in the absence of "Growth". But hey, where is growth? To me, it looks like all the money is sinking towards Arms Industry, Cosmetics and Health sector! We humans know each and every way to kill each other. Suffering from self-obsession, we know "I am the most innocent" but each one of us has a contribution in taking our mother earth towards doom. Funny thing is that whenever we have a recessionary trend in economy, money is pulled out from "Education" while no nation is willing to cut budget on "Defence". Which defence? We all want to defend ourselves and in that attempt, we forget that others also have equal right to survive. In that respect, I find no discrimination among East and West, rightists or leftists, Americans or Africans. We have become brutal animals eating the masses of each other and trust me no one can escape from the consequences. Previous centuries also marked with brutality and cruelty but there were heroes! We remember them with respect and pride but now no one seems to be a hero. That's the difference. And hence our well-paid policy makers cannot help us because we need help from "Masses" not them.

People say its a war between the nations, but I don't see any nations. We are all a single nation in the world. No nation is different from each other; of course, we differ in color, names, religion, language but we all are short sighted, mean, superficial, material, cruel (Please add all the negative adjectives here). Yes we are one! All of the affluent masses are the same. The gap between rich and poor was never so large as it is now, and I am not talking in terms of their economic standing. We are a step ahead of those times of slavery! When I put a glance over those economic indicators going up and down, I feel a desperate need of some social measures depicting our mental state of sickness and I am sure, our affluent state is digging our own grave.

Now let me come to those who are really responsible for all of this mess. Earlier, I was talking about the heroes that we don't have anymore. Nations were proud of their saviors and now you will see people make dirty jokes about their leaders (who were supposed to be called heroes). Social media is busy developing millions of jokes a day about those big respected names, and there is no nation willing to accept their ruling parties. The history of world is evident that heroes do not come with full stomachs, gold adorned, accompanied by attractive female army, graduates from top business schools or any material things. They come out of hardships, they are polished with grieves, they are decorated with pain, they are shined with hunger and their excellence comes out of blood. No big man is created in the most favorable circumstances. The problem is that those small people (living below our so called poverty line) have stopped producing those big heroes. Our poor man does not bother to change his state, if his children are bombed by a combined force of 28 states, he will cry in himself, he does not have the courage to speak for his rights. God doesn't help those who do not want to help themselves. I don't hold responsible the greater nations of this world; as long as those weak masses keep SPOON FEEDING the richer, their lust will keep growing. Even God hates those weak people who have no desire to change their state. 

God has designed the economic system of this world in such a way that if money is not circulating from Richer to Poorer, it will start to PERISH. We are in a similar state. In my following blog, I would like to write about a cancer called "Joint Stock" and how it created a hole in the pocket of this world. Our world at present is in need of an Economic Reform supporting not pulling out the roots of people. I cannot even hope for something good because I don't see a spark in the deprived masses of society. Till that time, no redesigning or reformation will take place-- for sure! But system is close to collapse and approaching its end with an exponential pace.

Missiles fired on Libya: another war imposed on humanity?

I opened the newspaper felicitously after Pakistan's victory against unbeatable Australia to read more about it when saw a despairing news of allied forces attack on Libya. For a moment, I was stuck because I could never expect such a great piece of imprudent action at a very critical time. The allied forces are having a highly depressive outcome against their expectations in war in Afghanistan, and when the world has not forgotten the hidden contemplation against war on Iraq, the drone strikes in Pakistan killing dozens of innocent civilians everyday that has proven ramifications yet another involvement of US and its allies in upcoming episode of bloodshed in Libya has shaken me deeply. I have asked myself this question a million times that is there no peaceful solution to the problem? Why everything is getting entangled in the vicious circle of hostility, contentions, conflict, fight, bloodshed, annihilation, hatred and why is the world being painted with red? If war was the only solution, why we don't see any improvement in past 10 years amid the 9/11 massacre; in fact the situation has been worsening with every passing day? And had the war been fruitful only by a smallest fraction, the two world wars would have made the world a nicest place to live in. I am embarrassed that we didn't learn anything from past, we are the same filled with bestiality, ignorance, barbarism, false pride and ruthlessness. It is astonishing that the present economic conditions have caused so much of inflation yet human blood has become astonishingly cheaper! 

If these superpowers of the world are being asked the reason for their war, they give their stereotype reply that they are striving for peace. This situation has been beautifully portrayed 1400 years ago in Quran:

And when it is said to them, "Do not cause corruption on the earth," they say, "We are but reformers." (Chapter 2, Verse 11)

Had these forces ever endeavored for real peace and they were the reformers, the peacemakers, they would have followed the message of Quran which I would say in simple words the crux of Islam that: 

"Anyone who saves one life, it is as if he has saved the whole of mankind and anyone who has killed another person, it is as if he has killed the whole of mankind" (Chapter 5, Verse 32).

And a parallel utterance in Jewish Scripture "We find it said in the case of Cain who murdered his brother, the voice of thy brother's blood cries out (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)...... "and he says, it does not say he has blood in the singular, but bloods in the plural. It was singular in order to show that to him who kills a single individual, it should be reckoned that he has slain all humanity. But to him who has preserved the life of a single individual, it is counted that he has preserved all mankind." (Genesis 4:10).

If you have no idea about the importance of human life and how you feel when you save one, go and feed a dying kid in Africa, take a step to provide shelter to homeless people in Japan and give a missing child of a mother and look into her eyes then; and that there are still thousands of flood effecties in Pakistan save them from severity of weather there, go help the countless Haiti earth quake effecties who are fighting against the aftermath of the earth quake one after the other. Why have we failed to understand that the war remains impotent, rather weakens our roots and there are clearly NO benefits even to the parties imposing it on other nations. It seems that the war history from thousand years doesn't bring any lesson for us, and that we are not killing others, we are killing ourselves and our next generation. I wonder how those eyes sleep that cause tons of tears round the globe, how such eyes ever meet with their offspring when they have snatched parents from their children or the other way around, how their hearts ever find peace while they have plagued the world with bombs, suicidal attacks and guns. If such people consider themselves to be humans, I am embarrassed for being part of this group. 

I have so many questions that are blowing up my mind...Can their deadly laboratories ever stop generating the deadly mass of destruction and their resources being utilized for inventing human helping technologies, and their military bases stop sending the troops for war and rather send them for helping the needy and homeless people? Can we spend our heavy substantial budget share that is otherwise spent on wars in enlightening the next generation with knowledge? Shall I be able to see the real peace in my life because me and my cohorts are jaded with brutal killings! We are born in war and we are living in wars.... Shall we take our last sighs in war and would see the world leading towards a deadly end even till our last moment? 

I am worn out and I don't see a ray of hope! the more I think about it, the more I feel that perhaps it was not the Satan who was cursed, but the human of our time. Even the satanic forces would be taking refuge from the human of today for the way we have corrupted the world and shed eachothers' blood for a nominal price or mere worldly gains. I wish I was never born so that my eyes would not have seen this much I have seen till now, and the deadly show seems endless. We are perishing and destroying and this is not happening quietly! The only thing is our lips that are quiet and everybody is silently watching this horror show going on! If the lips remain dead, the next generation would curse on us for taking them to stone age. I am ready to play my part for peace, is there anyone who want to accompany me??

Ready to Airport

(I started writing this blog two months ago. I could only write a few lines when I had to stop. I remained so busy during those past days that couldn't get a chance to look back at the blog. tonight, I began writing the remaining part and finished quickly as I was full of enthusiasm to share my thoughts with you- I hope you will enjoy reading it)

Like all my blogs, the title doesn't simply go to the most straightforward meaning and has nothing to do with my scheduled visit to Pakistan. As you go on, the title would become comprehensive.

Last month, my nephew visited me in Netherlands. We had a great time together after almost 5.5 years. Because of him, I traveled so much that I had not done in past two years time spent here. Nephew had a very unplanned sort of visit and we were making very spontaneous decisions regarding our visits, shopping, eating, hanging out and that was the most exciting and fun part of being with him. Like rest of plans, our visit to Paris was also sort of unplanned. I was planning for Barcelona but we ended up in Paris; the city of love, the city of lights, the city of fragrances and I would add my own given names to Paris later. From Paris, the only image popping up in my mind was Eiffel Tower. For me, meanings of Paris were confined to a big tall tower standing in the center of the city and nothing else. I had some preconceived ideas about Eiffel Tower itself and these were creeping in my mind due to the noble work of my countrymen who had visited it before. According to them, if a person had ever seen electric transmission grid pole, he/ she doesn't need to go to Paris. Eiffel Tower is just like a transmission grid pole. These were the words from few people who had visited it before and the words were cruel for a person who had always dreamed to see Eiffel Tower. Also, it raised serious questions to the fact that Eiffel Tower is the most visited paid monument in the world. Since it is also among the seven wonders of the world, I was highly surprised by such a description of it. Anyways, the journey begun and we took a night coach to Paris. The journey was sort of difficult as it was an overnight journey and it was a chilling outside. We finally made our journey to Paris early morning. Another evidence of our lack of planning was that we didn't even take a city map of Paris. We were expecting that Eiffel Tower would come to welcome us on the bus station ( No it isn't so, we expected that we would get city map from tour guide on the bus station). Anyways, we came out of the bus station and started looking for an enormous, tall architecture somewhere and headed towards some unknown direction. We were in fact moving away from the tower where a charming French lady guided us the way to Eiffel Tower. Before that, we had heard many stories about the French people that they do not speak to you until you talk to them in French. The first lady negated all those (un)fabricated stories. After a walk of like 2 KM, we eventually saw something. Hurray... that was the Big Tower. Wow. We made it. We were congratulating each other for making such less efforts to search it. But, we didn't go to see the tower. Paris was amazing. Whatever street we were taking, it was pulling us so much and attracted our attention such vigorously that we thought this would be the most amazing place of Paris but it wasn't true. Before going to France, I had visited some tourism inductive places like UAE, a couple  of cities in Germany, Belgium, almost all famous cities of NL and Luxembourg, but I was never so much intoxicated by any sort of Beautiful Architecture and Magical Sights. If I start to write everything, then my blog will be a travel log and thats not what I intended to write before starting this blog.

After some hours of rigorous walk and seeing almost all famous places of Paris, we planned heading towards Eiffel Tower before our energies end up and we would need to call it a day. The area nearby the tower was full of immigrants selling the French souvenirs and trying to talk to you in Hindi, Urdu, Spanish, Malay (whatever you tell them about your nationality) and trying to be-fool you by charging more than double the price of each article. Every time some corps popped up, they started the relay race to get away from them. There were so many tourists like us and this made us to think that it might be some special day of celebration, although it was just a normal day. I saw Eiffel Tower. The simple description was that it was huge, and its top was reaching skies. I had no plans to go to the top, partially because there was no lift on that day and one had to take stairs and other reason was that I wasn't that much impressed by it (as my mind was already polluted by the fellow colleagues). Suddenly my nephew drew my attention towards someone. He was a "Desi" guy, having one big luggage bag in one hand and another even bigger handcarry and a laptop bag on his shoulder. With all this burden, he was busy taking the photos of Eiffel Tower with a professional camera. My nephew told me, "look at this 'Ready to Airport' guy". "He would have a short stop over in Paris, and he is quickly making the photos to show to his family and friends that he has been to Eiffel Tower. Just by making photos from so far, he would be fooling people that he has actually visited it. What do you see from so far, without experiencing it by looking from top to down rather than the site from down to the top". I was burst into laughter by his impulsive remarks but I started making it clear to him that I won't to go the top either. My nephew is often over-bearing and highly stubborn. He didn't stop until I took the way to the queue buying tickets to take the stairs. We started climbing up the stairs and an Italian couple was behind us. They started a competition with us to see who moves fastest to the second floor. It wasn't an easy job, as even reaching the second floor needs you to take more than 700 stairs. It wasn't Ovais who gave up, but I decided to separate myself from this competition as my legs started to get out-of-control, shivering, shaking moving here an there. This was the time when I started "feeling" the place. Looking at it from inside and taking different angles to view it, it was something more than awesome. We were amazed by the fact that this tower was built in 1890, and despite the fact that lightening struck it many times but a wonderful piece of architecture was standing on the earth with all its pride and magnificence. I simply have no words to express how I felt after actually experiencing it. At one end, you see the rivers and canals moving across the city and from the other side, you see Napoleon's tomb and church, and another view takes you to a beautiful park of Sacre-Cceur Basilica. and further views catch your attention towards the marvelous architecture of the city as a result of the vast mid-nineteenth century urban re-modelling. The more I write, the more I would feel the urge to give you the nicest view of the city but before I become too boring for you, I stop describing Paris here. 

I said to my nephew that if I had not experienced to go up and observed it with my eyes rather than the eyes of camera or camcoder, I won't have the same feelings. Thank you for being so bossy to take me up. He felt a little bit overconfident at that time and was also happy for me that I proved to be a nice companion and despite my knee problem, I made it to the highest point we could reach.I would never forget this experience ever in my life. 

The purpose of telling this big, long story is that there are many people around us who we have some preconceived idea of. We judge them from our own angles. No matter how smart we think we are in recognizing people, but we are bounded by our weaknesses. We miss many good people from our lives who would otherwise be our friends. We judge them either through the eyes of our society or their appearance. Once we have a beforehand opinion about them, we don't try to know them, to experience them, to dig them or to come closer to them. We never realize that every society has its own weaknesses and every society has some binding forces like culture, religion, social norms etc. which frames the way a good person should look like. Once that person doesn't fit into that frame, we consider him/ her to be an alien and we expel them from our society by actually not making them part of our society. Although heterogeneity is the beauty of every society but we want all homogeneous masses around us. I would emphasize the need of knowing people through your own lens, learn them, give them chance to change your thoughts. Perhaps, in their lens, you yourself are also not fitting very well and thats the reason they keep distance from you and you keep distance from them and the vicious cycle continues. If you don't believe me, ask your best friend what he/she had thought about you before actually coming closer to you. I am sure their preconceived ideas about you would bring not a smile but a laughter on your face. Don't miss good people from your life as life is a "One Voucher Gift". If you do not make most out of it, you will be a looser. Just like the "Ready to Airport" guy who would go back tell his friends that Eiffel Tower looks like "Electric Transmission Grid Pole", you might have some ordinary thoughts about some exceptional people around you. 

Cherish every moment of your life because it will never come again. "Being Happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you have decided to look beyond the imperfections". Stay Happy and wish you a nice time ahead.