Nadeem J. Qureshi

How close to death must man be before he starts living as if life will last forever?

“You only have a few months left,” she’s told, and suddenly there’s more life to her, and more to her life, than ever.

We fear death, but we don’t. It’s not death itself that’s terrifying.

Most of us have more trouble falling asleep every night than we’ll have fading out to nothingness.

It’s not the death of the body, but the end of meaning, that is bothersome.

The pain that no matter how memorable you make yourself, memory itself will cease to be.

The pain is that pain is there for no reason but itself. So is happiness, perfectly pointless. Perfectly okay.

And so we hurt, and we torture ourselves hoping it will matter.

Life will never willingly trade freedom for meaning, unless it is beaten, battered and bruised into submission.

Even then, it will beg of you “please do not poison me with meaning. I don’t need to matter. I need to be free.”

There is such power in uniting with our ephemeral immortality.

Who is there, and what is there left to fear when you have come to love your own meaninglessness?

Every man is a god unto himself. Though he makes every effort to rid himself of it, he maintains at all times the final authority in matters of moral and ethics. If there is any such thing as evil, then it is tightly knit to how man relates to his own divinity.  When he in humility shifts it from his own body to some other fantastical or physical body, there is room for evil. When he in arrogance extends his divinity beyond his own body, and forces it upon other bodies, there is room for evil. More often than not, he does both together. Indeed, he does both who submits to a puppet deity that he himself will be commanded and condemned by, and command and condemn others with.  It is a hollow humility that which is simply the empty space left behind when man displaces his divinity.

There is little substance to the mercy and modesty of a man who is himself the puppet master of a degenerate god. You have perhaps heard someone say “I have nothing against you, but you’re deserving of hell, dear.” These same people would probably hold a lot against some stranger sentenced to a few years in prison. How, then, do they not despise someone they honestly believe should roast in flames forever?

They do. But, it’s a secret. One which they have kept even from themselves. As our hearts and minds grow to become more civilized, misanthropic (“anti- human”) emotions and attitudes are correctly recognized as signs of immaturity. Only the barbaric and primitive would consider hatred and lust for vengeance traits of strength. No one wants to appear immature, but what to do with the the hatred that’s there? Some trick is needed. You’ll hear people say “I don’t hate”, while their whole personality reeks of burnt skin and hair.

How to release this tension, this build up of base animal emotion? The trick is to hate by proxy. To hate indirectly through a god, through a government, through a culture. The humblest man will turn around and say that his is the greatest country. He might as well be saying that he is among the best of men. But he can’t say just that. He can only say it by proxy.

I think every man will benefit from accepting his role as a god unto himself, with none above or below, but with equals in every direction. Then those who act in the name of God, or of country, or of culture, or of ideology will realize that they are acting in the names of none but their own selves. Perhaps it will do us some good.

The correct way to sit is the way in which you are going to sit next. To vary the way you sit is the right way to sit, because parts of your spine are nurtured only by being squeezed and released from different angles. The fluids flow in and out carrying nutrients and waste.

It’s the same with spirituality, as the mind or soul is nurtured in pretty much the same way as your spine. The right religion is your next religion. The right ideology is your next ideology.

Don’t get stuck and static. It will starve your mind, and yet you will think it is growing. A child with kwashiorkhor, protein deficiency, develops a bloated belly. You’d be foolish to think it’s because he’s eaten a lot and he’s full, when it’s quite the opposite.

Similarly, the starved mind becomes bloated. It looks bigger, and that’s how we deceive ourselves and each other.

I look at fifty year olds and they have been carrying the same religion, the same ideology and the same spirituality their fathers gave them when they were just five. They have been sitting still in that position for decades. Their spines are so starved that they’re practically spineless. In some ways they are still five year olds. Their minds are bloated and could easily impress. They can tell you every last detail about sitting still, and they call it religion, they call it knowledge.

Knowledge is not just the sum of all the things you know to be right. A big chunk is the sum of all things you know you have been wrong about. This chunk really is the biggest part of knowledge, and the best way to become more knowledgeable is to grow this part.

Don’t be fooled by the size of your mind and your intellect. Be intelligent. Keep varying the way you sit. Get up and move about, and sit somewhere else. Then do it all over again.

Short answer is no. Long answer below.

Suppose there is a medical situation. Someone’s life is at stake. There is drama and national coverage on the media. Surgeons and doctors are unsure and propose several different solutions. Each with their share of risks and benefits. So they decide to hold a vote. Anyone can vote. Everyone, no matter their education or line of work, or even their knowledge of the medical situation at hand. Not only that, it’s been agreed that everyone should vote. It’s your moral obligation, after all, a human being is dying, and you should do whatever you can to help.

Being an average Andy, would you participate in the vote?

I would not.

Coincidentally, I’m a medical student, but I still wouldn’t cast my vote.

This for me is a perfect analogy to democracy. I do not vote. It makes me ignorant and ungrateful, some say. They have it the wrong way.

I am ignorant, that is why I do not vote, it’s not the other way around. If I had cast my vote, that would not have made me any less ignorant, but some seem to think so.

I am grateful, that is why I do not vote. It would be ungrateful and wasteful to cast a vote based on ignorance. Harmful aswell.

I do not hide behind my ignorance to cover up any laziness on my part. I recognize my ignorance, and there is so much of it inside me everywhere. There is no way I could vote without feeling dishonest. There are simply too many things that I do not understand when it comes to good and bad policies regarding anything.

If I had an agenda, I could find a suitable candidate and throw all my votes his way. But I don’t have an agenda. Every day I try to clean up the shards of the fixed world view I held before, and then smashed a long time ago. I did this before I turned an adult, otherwise I would surely have voted. It is very easy is to vote for those with fixed world views.

So now I’m in trouble. Because if I ever decide to vote, I’ll make sure there is substance to that vote. It will always count as just one vote, but it will have more value than any number can hold. For me, atleast. Trouble is, when do I tell myself “You know enough now, go vote”?

So here is what I’m saying. Two things. To those in ruling, keep the voting open to everyone. It sounds silly given the above analogy, but it is the best option. To the people, make sure your vote is not just yet another number. Do not vote unless you are confident that you have done justice to your right to vote.

My working theory is that most people are, at the least, as smart as myself. Like myself, I would trust most people to refrain from voting in matters in which they had no insight. Yet, this is not the case with politics. Why?

Because there are too many people with too many set agendas and static world views. When there is an agenda, you become ignorant of your own ignorance, and an expert on the ignorance of others. You start neglecting your own ignorance and spend all your time on the ignorance of others. This is a huge red flag. This is what agenda does to you. Suddenly, the world is filled with idiots, except yourself.

Look out for that. It will happen to you. Just pay attention when it does. When you think someone is an idiot, forget all about them for a while. First, figure out what it is about you that makes you think of someone as stupid. Forget that someone. Don’t bring them into this. This is about you. It is your judgement, and you have to figure out what it is made of. Here’s an example.

You can bake someone a cake for being nice to you. But their personality has nothing to do with recipe of the cake. Your judgement is a cake, and its recipe has nothing to do with the ones you are throwing it at.

So go figure out the recipe of your judgemental attitude. Break it down, rearrange it, play with it, do whatever. Just get to know it. Then perhaps the idiot will not seem so after all, or he still might. I don’t know.

The tall giraffe with its head held high might be a very proud animal, but it just has to bow if  it wants water. It stands tall, but not above. Thirst forces it down to earth to be reminded of this truth.

I am the giraffe. You too. I will always bow to what nourishes me. And if I ever stand taller than those who have loved me, it will not be to look down upon them, but to watch over them.

Man should not believe in any notion which he is unable to disbelieve. For example, he who cannot disbelieve in god, should not believe in god. Such belief holds no value.

When I discuss religious or ethical matters with someone, I like to ask them:  Are you capable of disbelieving? If you were proven wrong, what would that do to you?

Sometimes, belief seems like such a stupid thing. We use it to impose upon how things actually are with how we want them to be.

Otherwise, why believe?

If what is, is enough, then what remains to believe in?

I wonder if I’m anything but what I have borrowed. Is there more inside me than what has been inherited? Have I more to give than the sum total of all that I have been given?

My identity is supposed to be what and who I am, but when I examine it, when I look closely, I am not to be found. My identity has nothing to do with what is purely me. There is nothing to my identity that means anything to me if it didn’t mean something to someone else aswell. My name, my age, my nationality etc., have everything to do with everyone else and nothing to do with me. Just look closely.

I have yet to know myself without all that has contaminated me. But I know now that I was mistaken about myself all along.

Are you mistaken aswell?