Humanity; What it Takes to Be Human

Last month, I happened to attend an Islamic speech at the local mosque. The speech in itself was beautiful, but the best part of the event for me was when halfway through the speech, the speaker asked all of us in the audience to stand up, turn towards someone we've never met before and tell them that we love them for the sake of God. This event started at midnight and many of us, in spite of how interesting the speech was, began to feel drowsy. However, once this announcement was made, the audience stood up in unison. I turned to my right and saw a woman who I've never met before. She greeted me with the brightest of smiles and hugged me tightly, like one would hug their sister or their best friend. I went home that day having learnt some important life lessons and touched by that little activity. That experience made me reflect upon the very basis of human nature, how we are all strikingly similar beneath our layers of differences.

On the days that followed the event, I began to think of that woman. I thought of how I knew nothing about her, her ethnicity, her educational qualifications, financial background or anything else about her. But sharing that smile and that hug with her was so easy! That was when I realized that the distinctions we have created for ourselves don't really matter if we are willing to look at the person underneath all that. When we identify ourselves with our nationality, race, religion, language, skin color, educational qualification, political affiliation and financial status, we lose our primary identification; that of being human. Come to think about it, all humans want the same things - food, shelter, security and society. Are these needs any different for a person belonging to a country other than yours or following a different religion than yours? I think not.

I strongly believe that one must hold on to and take pride in their individual identities. Yet it is really heartbreaking to see that people think of their differences as reason to hate others. The death of a dear one, destruction of your house and property, having to live in fear and anticipation of death, all have the same effects on people irrespective of their nationality, religion or race. It seems like this fact is often forgotten or overlooked. People always find reasons to look down upon others. But in the process of building nations, humanity seems to have been forgotten. When people have differences, they seem to ignore the fact that the other person is not just someone who disagrees with you. That other person has a family, dreams, aspirations and ultimately, a life to live.

The beauty in living in a world with so much diversity is the variety that these differences in cultures, ideas and opinions bring to our lives. Why can't we use these differences to bring us all together? If only we could all look at others as individuals rather than categorizing them on the basis of the country or religion they belong to, maybe violence wouldn't have such a dominating presence in our world. If people could stop hating others just because they have different beliefs, some people in certain parts of the world wouldn't have to spend their lives in dread and fear. If we could only start appreciating the fact that the value of a human life is constant and doesn't change because of one's beliefs or identity, we could actually save some lives.

Think lemonade, not sour lemons

My blogging journey so far has led me to discover a bunch of facts about myself. I have realized how I tend to observe people and their behavior without realizing that I'm observing them, how writing is the best kind of therapy for me and a few other things. I have also discovered that inspiration to write articles strikes me at the most unlikely, unexpected and random moments. I've been on summer vacation for 68 days now and all that I have contributed towards this blog or towards writing in general has been ONE blog post. On the contrary, while classes are in session and it is one of those monstrous weeks that require me to study for three midterms, finish two programming projects AND write a term paper, inspiration strikes me from nowhere. It is during one of those weeks that words can't stop flowing, ideas won't stop coming in and time to put those ideas into writing is also pretty much non existent. However, one has to be practical and realize that time to blog is easy to come by, but ideas and words have to be bottled up and saved whenever they graciously appear in your head. It is during those weeks that I find myself at my productive best. I use up all my free time to put my ideas into writing. I write in the bus, while having lunch, in those precious few minutes I save between each class by running from one building to another,... you get the idea. Contradicting all the plans I had for the summer (the plan was to publish a blog post every fortnight), this break has been a dry spell so far. In between gardening, traveling, looking at graduation pictures on Facebook, meeting up with friends I haven't met in years, falling sick, lazy hours in front of the TV, reading a few interesting books, sightseeing and fasting in Ramadan (the Islamic month during which Muslims fast from dawn to dusk); ideas, inspiration and time to blog have all evaded me.

So, let me continue the little story I had going on there. At some point this summer, I began to wonder if I were suffering from what is commonly known as "writer's block". Writer's block is officially defined as "the condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing." I began to think that I'm going through writer's block and in a few days' time, I'd be ready to write again. However, only time seemed to pass, not writer's block. It was then that in a moment of defiance, I told myself that I would not let something so mainstream as writer's block obstruct my path towards following my passion for writing. In that moment of adrenaline rush, I began to write about the first thing that crossed my mind. That post was coming along pretty well when I decided to not continue with it. It just didn't feel like the kind of thing I'd write about. It felt too forced, too unnatural. Writing is my passion and to force myself to put down words felt like I was doing injustice to myself. I abandoned the post right there.

Earlier today, after an exciting weekend of walking around New York city like I've always wanted to, I suddenly had the urge to write again. This time, I knew just what I'd write about. I knew that I'd write about the very thing that has been keeping me away from writing. I decided to write about my "summer of not being able to write at all". I'm surprised that it took me so long to have actually thought about it. This is my "success story" of overcoming writer's block by writing about the thing itself, of using the obstacle in my path to lay down the road ahead of me.  So, in keeping with tradition of leaving you all with something to think about, I'm sharing with you what my experience this summer has taught me. Before this whole incident, whenever someone said "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade", it never made much sense to me. Now I know what they meant. No situation is too hard to make sense of, no problem too hard to solve. When things seem to be getting too hard and you feel like there are only closed doors ahead of you, maybe the problem itself could open a door for you. I've always felt that the biggest life lessons come to you in the form of trivial every day problems. This time, going through writer's block has made me realize that every problem has a solution and sometimes, the problem itself is the solution. The next time life gives you sour lemons, add some sugar to them and make lemonade!

"Okay? Okay."

One really needs to read a good book to experience what it feels like. It is an experience that can't really be put into words. It's mostly bittersweet, the joy of having read something so alive and the heartache that accompanies the end of a good journey. There are some books, after reading, which the bittersweet feeling lingers on for days. I read one such book a few weeks ago. As soon as I started reading, the story absorbed me into its world and to be honest, I still don't seem to have left it. It was simple yet intricate, realistic (well, semi-realistic) yet in a way unreal, extremely heart-wrenching, yet heart-warming at the same time. This book was special to me not just because of the story, characters or narration but also for the language used. The lines and dialogues mentioned in the book are metaphoric, expressive and thought-provoking, all at the same time. Since I am totally obsessing over this book, I thought of sharing some of my favorite things about the book with you all. Who knows? It might inspire some of you to go ahead and read the book. Now would be the best time to mention that I don't mean for this to be a book review, it's just my thoughts on what the book means to me. I'm sure I've created enough suspense around the book itself. Time to reveal the secret! The book I'm talking about is "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green. (Cue excited squeals.)

The Fault In Our Stars was suggested to me by a couple of people. All they told me about the book was that it is a love story about two teenagers who have been diagnosed with cancer. That was all I needed to hear. The word 'cancer' put me off and gave me all sorts of doubts as to whether I wanted to read the book or not. However, the popularity of the book intrigued me. It was displayed all over, at every bookstore I visited in the last 6 months and had a 150 holds on it at my nearest public library. I finally gave in to my curiosity and bought the book last month. As we were about to go pay for the book, a girl walked up to us and said, "This is a beautiful story. It'll make you laugh and cry at the same time. I'm so happy that you're buying it!" I realized why she was so excited when I finished reading the book two days later. TFIOS is indeed a love story about two teenagers who've gone through cancer. It definitely talks about sickness, death, despair, grief and everything depressing. Yet, there wasn't one sentence in the book that made me feel depressed. It was a beautiful story, told beautifully about the harsh realities of a disease as deadly as cancer, the hardships that families of cancer patients go through, how life never comes to a standstill in spite of sickness and the beauty of little moments in life that seem to last as long as forever.

One of my favorite things about the book were the dialogues and the metaphors. Oh, the metaphors! They were brilliantly placed in the story, like little stars in the night sky, that formed constellations when you finally realized the depth of their metaphorical meanings and gave a little "Oh!" of surprise. Here are one of my favorite lines from the book; "There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities." This line can be pretty confusing when you don't read it in the context of the book, but what it conveys is that some moments in life are not measured by the time spent, but in how that time is spent. Some moments in life seem to last forever. They are infinities, and some infinities are definitely bigger than others. The book conveys a very strong message about cherishing those infinities and being thankful for them. Another line from the book that really caught my attention was "The world is not a wish granting factory." How true is that? Of course we are all aware of the fact and secretly wish that it were not true. However, most books written for teenagers do a pretty good job of convincing the readers that wishes do come true if you truly want them or work for them or something of the sort. What I loved about this book was its efficiency in conveying to its readers that the world is not a wish granting factory, while also showing us how to live life to its fullest even when all our wishes might not come true.

This book is full of such witty, well-thought out, metaphoric lines. Some of my other favorites are, "The thing about pain is that it demands to be felt.", "I fell in love with him the way you fall asleep, slowly and then all at once.", "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.", “You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices." and “You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.” I could probably go on and on about this book, but I think I'll stop here. I wouldn't say that I read a lot, but I read a good decent number of books every month. I usually like books for their story, setting and characters. I'm not someone who is really particular about the language in books but sometimes when a good story is accompanied by amateur writing, it can put me off. However, for the first time, I've fallen in love with the writing itself. The only complaint I have about the book is that the characters appeared to be a bit 'too mature' for their age. I had a hard time believing that the characters were young adults themselves and that is why I said the book was semi-realistic.

There is a line in the book that seems to sum up the thoughts I have right now:

Yes, that is how I feel about this book. I wrote this blog post to share my love for the book with the readers, hoping that at least one of you will be inspired to read the book through this post. I'd love to hear what you thought about The Fault In Our Stars as well. I believe that sharing an amazing story is just as precious as sharing love, ideas or something that you hold dear to you and this is just the kind of book that must be shared.

P.S - My sister made the first picture for me on "Paper by 53". Check out the app, it's amazing!

The second picture is from www.betweenthelines.com.au

An everlasting gift - kindness

It's been a long time since my last published post. I say "published" because quite a few drafts have accumulated since then. A couple of them were almost published and for reasons still unknown to me, I decided to keep them safe in the drafts folder. Meanwhile, school work has also been piling up and I was forced to take a break from blogging. However, a small act of kindness that I witnessed a couple of weeks ago just had to be blogged about. I've been wanting to blog about little acts of kindness for a long time now. After that incident, I thought "why not now?". We humans have this tendency to focus on and make a big deal out of mishaps and unfortunate incidents, however trivial they might be. Why don't we have the same attitude towards all the positive things that happen? So I decided to write down this blog post as a celebration of kindness. I'd love to hear about little acts of kindness that have inspired you as well! Do drop them in as comments.

The inspiration behind this post came about a couple of weekends ago. I was at Washington D.C with my family at the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The blossoms were in full bloom that weekend and so was the crowd. A friend, my sister and I were at a highly-crowded public restroom. We were standing by the sinks when my sister pricked her finger (she claims the pin attacked her) and it started bleeding. None of us had first aid and we were trying to make do with paper napkins when a woman standing nearby by noticed us. She told us that she had a first aid kit. Being tourists, most people were in a hurry to leave. In spite of that, she took the time out to "hunt" for the first aid kit in her bag. She gave my sister a band-aid and left with a smile. We were all surprised at the little show of kindness from a total stranger. That incident left us feeling warm and happy.

When you think about it, a stranger being kind to you brings more joy than the same gesture from a person you know. An expression of kindness from someone you know isn't extraordinary. Yet, the same expression from someone who has never met you or known you, is definitely special. Over the past couple of years, I've made it a point to make note of every instance of kindness expressed by a stranger. Keeping them in mind reminds me to pass on that act and that spirit. Last year in December, I was at the metro before sunrise one cold Monday morning on the way to an early morning exam. On reaching the metro I realized that the next train would leave a little too late for me to get to my exam on time. I had two exams that day; I knew that reaching late for a final exam would be extremely unfortunate and that worry probably showed on my face. I was standing there worried when a complete stranger walked over to me and told me in the nicest, most grandfatherly way that another train would leave in a few minutes and that I need not worry. I would still have gotten on the train that the stranger mentioned even if he hadn't told me about it. Yet, that gesture of kindness lit up my whole day. I just breezed through both exams that day! A few months before this incident, a group of really nice people at the public library found me my lost text book when I'd given up hopes of finding it (story here). The thing about kind gestures is that they're not only capable of brightening up your day or bringing about joy, but they're also contagious. They make you want to pass that kindness on.

Now, here's an act of kindness from a complete stranger that has been bringing smiles to my face for the last four years every time I think of it. I had participated in a city-wide inter school talent competition when I was in the 12th grade. One of the stages of the competition involved an elocution competition where we had less than 30 minutes to prepare a speech on a random topic and speak in front of an audience. It was definitely nerve wrecking yet I felt quite confident when I started speaking. The audience included my mom, friends and teachers, all of whom later told me that I did well. But right before we left the venue, a woman I've never seen before walked up to me and told me that I spoke really well. Of all the compliments I received that day, that woman's words were the most memorable, just as memorable as the prize I won for that speech!

Over the years, what I've learned about "gestures of kindness towards strangers" is that everyone is going through their own set of ups and downs in their lives. Sometimes neither their faces nor their actions can give you hints about what they're going through. Yet, a small gesture from a stranger, a gesture as small as a smile can turn things around. All of us have those bad days, days when everything seems bleak. It is on those day when we desperately look around for something to cheer us up. It is on those days that we're in need of those smiles and kind words. When the bus driver you barely know, greets you with a "good morning", when the random stranger at the airport helps you with your super heavy luggage, when an unknown person in the audience walks up to you to tell you how good your performance was, your day just brightens up and a permanent smile is plastered on to your face. It is those seemingly little gestures that I cherish, appreciate and hope to pass on.

P.S - Do watch this beautiful video about kindness towards strangers!

Gadgets & Us; Then & Now

My 6-year old sister proudly says, "As soon as I wake up, I move my arm around looking for the nearest mobile phone and start playing on it." Every time she says that, I go back to my childhood and subconsciously compare the kind of childhood I had with the one she described. Those flashback visits have been pretty interesting as well, thinking of the days when we used cassettes instead of CD's, floppy disks instead of USB drives and the internet was.... well, it existed.

There is a page on facebook with a really interesting name that I don't seem to remember. However, it goes something like, "I've been in three decades, two millenia, seen America's first African American President being elected, blah, blah and I'm not even twenty yet!" That got me thinking about how much change my generation has witnessed. Those of us born in the 90's have experienced the soothing pace of life that existed before technology took over and we also grew up just in time to have fun with all that technology in our teens. Kids these days refer to the 90's as "the olden days" and that really gets you wondering if you are old too!

We had a computer at our place when I was 5. I don't even remember what we did on computers back then. But I thought it was really cool that we had a computer when most of my friends didn't. Coming to think of it, I don't even remember ever using it. That shouldn't be surprising since I don't even remember watching t.v. back then. It's weird because the kids these days talk about the first ever shows they watched regularly (which was probably when they were 1 or 2) and the earliest show I remember watching is, Mr. Bean and that too when I was 7 or something! Back then, we'd come back home from school, have a snack and run out to play. We'd go back home with just enough time left to do homework, have dinner and go to bed. The only knowledge I had about the internet was that you could send e-mails from your computer if you were connected to the internet. As I grew up, we got internet connection at home when I was 10. It was so painfully slow that I never wanted to test my patience with it. Today, you can do anything and everything on the internet. In those few moments in a day that I'm not spending on the internet, its pretty amazing to reflect upon that fact. Our internet addiction has reached such sky rocketing heights that I couldnt help but agree with a meme that I came across. It said "Last night, my wifi was not working so I spent some time with my family. They are actually really nice people!"

I remember the very first mobile phone in the house. That was in 2003, I suppose. It was half as long as my palm, had a minuscule black and white screen and could do nothing except making calls, sending texts and playing a couple of games. The only available wall papers were outlines of flowers and the like. It amazed and amused me so much. I mean, who wouldn't be amazed by a phone that you could carry around with you and it was small enough to comfortably fit into your pocket? The coolest thing was that it came with two covers! One was navy blue and the other was rainbow-colored. Later on, as the flip open and slide open phones became popular, they were all the rage. Then smart phones came into existence. The smart phone could do everything and owning a smart phone is as important (possibly even more), as having your limbs. The sad thing is that no matter what companies come up with in their smart phones, we aren't surprised anymore. The standard reaction to any new smart phone functionality is, "It's about time they incorporated this into phones." 

Kids these days are introduced to smart phones and the internet at such a young age. They grow up watching their favorite characters on screen and playing virtual games. A couple of days ago, I saw a one year old, taking selfies on a smart phone (which is one of the most adorable things I've ever seen!) and that one-year old also texts me often from his mom's phone. And I think of myself who was so fascinated by that primitive little mobile. Wow! If so much could change in ten years, I wonder what incredible changes we are yet to witness. However, I'd always feel resentment at the fact that childhood is being defined by different things today, that imaginary friends are being substituted with virtual friends, that games we once played with our family are now being played with a computer. Now that I have also succumbed to the luxuries of technology, my hands are constantly glued to my phone and my eyes forever fixed on the screen. Yet I still can't help wonder when technology took over our lives and at what point we let it do so.

Grab your confidence, get, set, go!

After my last blog post, I wrote a couple of drafts and then shoved them away for no reason at all. But here is something that I think I must write about. Something I've noticed a lot in school and college students (I can't speak for those older than them) is the lack of self confidence. I've learnt from my own experiences how important self confidence can be and would like to share my thoughts, stories and all that I've discovered along the way about having self confidence.

As they move through school, kids generally tend to compare themselves with their friends, they like to know who has the better school bag and stationery. As they grow older, they start comparing clothes, talents, achievements, trophies and so on. It is around this time that some of them start losing confidence in themselves when they notice that their friends are doing better than themselves in any particular field. At that age, it is easy to be put off by small failures. As they move to high school and college, they tend to not believe in themselves at all and think that they're not good enough to achieve certain things. I've seen quite a few people who underestimate themselves and believe that they are not as good as their peers.

Thinking that you are not good enough to achieve something means that you have given up before you even tried. Unless you believe you have it in you to achieve something, you are never really going to try hard to achieve it. When you have confidence in yourself, it shows in everything you do, the way you talk, the way you carry yourself, the way you talk to others, the way you approach problems, the way you take up challenges and what not. That confidence is what lets others know if you are capable of achieving and taking up challenges. I've always believed that, for someone to believe in you, you must first believe in yourself. So what is it that you can do to build self confidence?

You might always feel that you lack something. However, every single person is unique and your unique qualities are your biggest strengths. If each of us could look at ourselves from a different person's perspective, none of us would ever think we are not good enough. However it is not practical to have someone tell you how good you are all the time. That responsibility is solely yours. Whenever I face self confidence issues, I think of my most treasured achievements. They remind me of all that I am good at. I suggest you do the same. It also helps to remind yourself that no one can be perfect and you are amazing in your own way. Do remember that one cannot be good at everything. So, instead of trying to achieve that, why not work on your positive qualities? If you've failed many times, remember that you've learned more from each failure than you'd have learned if you'd succeeded. When things go wrong, don't give up. Look towards the future with confidence in yourself.

Having spent a large chunk of my childhood battling self-confidence issues, most of what I've written here is out of personal experience. It took me quite some years to realize that the solution to my problems lies with me. Once I realized that and worked on my self-confidence, I met a completely different version of myself. One of my friends fondly refers to it as "Zeina's metamorphosis"! The changes I witnessed in myself then onwards were incredible. I could find myself being much, much more confident of myself when I interacted with others. That made it easier for me to make many new friends and hone my talents. I then worked on all my strengths and got better at what I was already good at. I stopped worrying about all that I was not good at and focused on my talents. I continue to do that today. It is human to be put off by failures, but once you over come that disappointment, success is not very far off. If you do not realize your worth, no one will.