My usually strong sense of smell, has been even more intensified. Last night, my roommate cooked some rice with a few spices, and I could smell them from all the way upstairs. Such an intense marvelous scent, each individual spice I could feel in my nostrils, I could feel them in my stomach. The same thing happened when I walked into the cafeteria to get some hot water yesterday morning, the pastries and the chocolate filling inside of them, and I could even smell the cream cheese. I can't explain it fully, but it is a though my nose was my eyes. I don't recall seeing the pastries, but I have full memory of them through smell.
Qur'an surat al Mulk (67)
Say: "What do you think? If of a sudden all your water were to vanish underground, who [but God] could provide you with water from [new] unsullied springs?
I often think of this line from the Qur'an, and remember that I am not self-reliant. If droughts were to come and be sustained, if the temperature of the earth were to rise 1 degree and we were to lose 10% of our agricultural output, if my water were to become bitter, or filled with radioactive isotopes, who then would provide me with nourishment and subsentence? My state on this earth is always tenuous it is uncertain, so it does me little good to be boastful or prideful. This is a hard lesson, a lesson of continuous humility, and of gratitude and thanks. A classmate of mine from HBS posted on twitter the following, "'Lucky' is what the lazy call the rich. Be prepared to take the opportunities laid out before you and make your own luck." I find this statement is drenched with such arrogance, and clear unawareness of how the world really works. Obviously it is beneficial to think this way, to believe that your actions are 100% correlated with outcomes, that somehow luck is fabricated by some group of lazy people, that we are self-reliant, but it is just a canard. I wonder if this classmate of mine has ever stopped to talk to the custodians at HBS, who come in at 10pm to start cleaning, who have finished an 8hr shift at a different school, and won't be leaving till 6am. One such person is 57 years old, and he still is trying to get his high school degree (GED?) but only can find a couple hours a week to study. He can't see a time in which he will ever have enough not to work, so he keeps working 16 hours a day. Is he lazy? and would he really be wrong to think that all the students at HBS are lucky? Lucky to know that if they work 16 hours a day they probably can retire at 50, lucky enough to have the freedom to choose any field, "To unite avocation and vocation."
Our perception needs to change, we are a community, we are a society, we depend on each other. I depend everyday on the myriad of people working to build a civilization that works. I can only provide "great value add", to steal a favorite term at HBS, if and only if there is food and water, and electricity, and roads, and public safety, and schools to send my kids (future kids inshallah). I rely on everyone else, and so I know that I am lucky to have the mere opportunity to "make my own luck". And in my opinion all of this depends on God, it is easy to feel secure, until we are not. May God grant us all peace and blessings on this earth, and in the next life
a little over 30 hrs to go! keep up the amazingness.
ReplyDeletealso, you should seriously consider formalizing the "give up one lunch per week and donate it" idea. getting just 100 people to join would raise $50,000 annually.
I am proud of you Kareem, although I am not convinced by the fast as a manner of political engagement. While fasting can be a source of insight into the routines and expectations of everyday life, outside of a context in which a majority of people are fasting (e.g. Ramadan in the Muslim world or the Lent of yesteryear) I believe it can take on an individuated and atomizing character. For me the lesson of the moment is that bringing people together, collective action--in its most basic form of the huge protest--is effective both at bringing about change and developing new political movements and ideas.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of Gandhi's fasts of his later years, so beloved by his Western admirers. I always found them strangely moralistic and unpolitical, as if India's future was represented by his frail body and piety. As their world went up in flames, Gandhi took to his bed on hunger strike.
That said, through your actions and reflections here, you are promoting a discussion of the crisis facing the majority of Americans at a critical time. I salute you and look forward to the day (soon to come) that we march arm in arm on Washington and into the future.
Point agreed with Nick, above.
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