Tag: tolerance

  • Saturation Point

    Saturation Point

    There is a price to be paid for believing in people before they give you reason to believe in them. That price extracts a toll that demands your contribution during the days when they see little reason to believe in themselves. It often results from years of betrayal or failed expectations, until eventually the way the world treated them became the definition of how they viewed themselves, and how they viewed you.

    I’ve witnessed first hand how some rise to the challenge simply because they know that there is someone that believes that they can, while others recede and don’t even try because they know that there is no one that cares about the outcome either way. This resonates with me personally as well. I dropped out of school because no one noticed that I was uninterested and barely in school for a large portion of the year in the eleventh grade. So dropping out in the twelfth grade was an easy decision that went unchallenged. I didn’t particularly find it liberating or depressing. It just was that way, and at the time, the consequences were irrelevant. All that mattered was that no one noticed, so I had no reason to care either.

    But that only lasted to a point. The complacency and lack of ambition annoyed me. It annoyed me because it felt like there was something missing. Something beyond the token of having completed school, or needing a job others would respect. That something was a need to be consequential. To make a difference.

    Going with the flow never directed the flow. It only ever gave force to something already in motion. Sometimes, like dropping out of school, it felt irrelevant. Whether I was in or out didn’t matter, because the decision I had taken wasn’t a decision that mattered. I therefore gave up on the pursuit of something that seemed inconsequential because the effort to sustain something that I did not see any value in felt burdensome rather than purposeful.

    Entering the job market in a menial role also didn’t matter. It was a means to an end. Career goals were not foremost in my mind and I had no intention of changing the world. I simply needed to sustain my basic needs and contribute to those around me within the limited expectations that they had of me. It worked, and human attachment didn’t feature at all.

    That set the tone for things to come. At least it did until I realised that I always found a way to improve what I was doing even if improvement was not required. It wasn’t about reinvention, or fixing something that wasn’t broken. It was the excitement of realising that the little I had could do more than was originally intended. Whether it was a subconscious scream for purpose, or merely a frustration at seeing opportunities being wasted when someone could benefit instead, it drove me to constantly improve things without there being reward or recognition attached to it.

    Without realising it, that became my overwhelming passion and ultimately defined what I saw as purpose in life. At the time, I did not see it as passion or purpose. It was simply who I was, and still am. But that’s how I perceive it (and me) to be. Anyone not party to that journey of mine simply sees a restless soul that is never satisfied or content with what he has before him. I guess such a view has merit, but it’s the same type of merit that suggests that planting a tree whose shade you will not live to enjoy is a fruitless exercise. Such thinking causes the child to be oblivious to the comforting shade of a tree. When that child discovers the comfort of the shade later in life, they then find themselves compelled to plant a tree whose shade they will never live to enjoy, so that another lifetime is not wasted in acquiring such comfort.

    The energy to sustain such a drive for purpose in life is only acquired when the belief in the value it creates is held with conviction. That conviction fades when there is a constant barrage of critiques questioning the motives behind the contribution, rather than appreciating its outcomes or sharing its convictions. Eventually the conviction dulls and is replaced by the weightiness of ingratitude. That is the point at which caring becomes optional and servitude becomes obligatory.

    We all have physical constraints and self imposed tolerances. We reach the saturation point of tolerance long before our capacity to contribute has been depleted. It’s easy to lose the essence of who you are in your service to others. A life invested in the upliftment of others often results in an under investment of the self. Like it has been so eloquently stated before, you cannot pour from an empty cup. What’s worse is that the cups that were filled by your investment are rarely willing to look back to see how empty yours had become in filling them.

    Reaching saturation point means that the investment in what you saw as purpose starts to weigh you down more than the fulfilment of seeing its fruition lifts you up. It sets in when the contribution is constantly paid forward, but seldom is anything paid back.

    [This is an incomplete and rather cryptic thought process, the value of which will escape most, and add yet another weight to the burden of investing in others. Perhaps it is an investment that was never intended to yield returns in this lifetime. Perhaps not.]

  • What Doesn’t Kill You…

    There’s a few quotes that come to mind this morning that I doubt the truth of. One of these is the claim that whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. This is a lie. It is a lie of the worst kind because it sets an expectation that is unrealistic.

    Those experiences that ravage us most doesn’t strengthen us when we survive it, it strengthens our defences. Like Abraham Lincoln said, as adults we grow to expect that things won’t work out the way we want them to. This is not a sign of strength but rather a sign of tampered reality. Each time something hurts, a dream is eroded. What was previously enchanting will suddenly become taunting because holding on to an utopian ideal leaves us feeling naive and incompetent at times.

    Strength doesn’t come from surviving betrayal, or surviving heartache or loss. If that were the case, each betrayal would drive us further from wishing for death rather than closer to it. Strength, for me, has always been an active choice based on hard earned realisations about the nature of people. The only thought that has ever kept me sane throughout the insane morbidity of life has been this:

    Your actions are a reflection of who you are, not who I am

    This single thought has made it possible for me to drag myself out of the doldrums on more occasions than I care to remember. Strength does not come naturally. Weakness does. Being weak, run-down, and listless requires no effort at all. So the next time someone tells me that what doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger, I’ll ask them very politely to pick a finger.

    Some clichés are clichés because people were distracted by the clever use of words rather than the truth embodied within it. The point I really wanted to make in this post was that each time I pick myself up after being knocked down, not only do I have to consciously choose to move beyond it, but lately I’ve realised that every untoward incident in my life has caused me to be that much more sensitive to the innuendos that are often a prelude to my next life’s lesson. Again, the choice to restrain myself from acting pre-emptively under such conditions does not come naturally, but demands a level of mindfulness and conviction that is often not easy to realise.

    It then stands to reason that what doesn’t kill me does not make me stronger. Instead, it informs my tolerance levels relative to my capacity. That tolerance level is what makes me brittle because each time I approach it, I get that much closer to snapping. When I’m not aware of it being breached, I do snap. But when I’m mindful of it I find it easy to compose myself realising that the tolerance level is based on the accumulation of experiences up to that point, and is not specifically the current experience that threatens to tip me over. This is usually the sobering thought that keeps me composed when everyone else is ready to justify why snapping would be understandable.

    What doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger. It simply makes you more brittle.

  • Filled to the Brim

    Given my recent overload of pressure and work at the office, I found myself facing the realisation of what determines my capacity to deal with what is thrown at me each day. I found myself having conversations in my head about how I’ve had enough, how I’m not willing to put up with the crap any longer, and how this is all pointless. However, I couldn’t fend off this nagging feeling that that was just me setting limitations for myself. I was determining when it was enough, often long before it really was.

    There is a physical limitation that is also breached at some point which results in physical fatigue or exhaustion that simply makes it near impossible to function effectively. But the more I considered all this, the more I realised that I was setting a limitation for myself long before I arrived at that point of true physical exhaustion. It reminded me of a study by Dr Tim Noakes that confirms that our brain tells us that we’re tired long before we reach a state of being physically fatigued even though we are capable of much more. That poses a significant challenge to the perspectives that I’ve held on to for so long. I always assumed that being able to read my physical symptoms would be the surest way to make informed decisions about my emotional well being, but it turns out that it’s not as straight forward as that.

    And so I contemplated my current frustration with the on-going seemingly endless cycle of pressure that we’ve been under for more than a month now, and each time I felt like indulging myself with the defeatist proclamation of ‘I’ve had enough’, I knew that I was still capable of dealing with more. Funny how my attitude determined when enough was enough rather than any real physical or emotional constraints I was faced with. Through this painful exercise of working with some of the most amazingly inept resources I’ve ever had to contend with in my career, it has become obvious that what I am capable of is far from what I am tolerant of.

    I guess the focus needs to shift towards improving my tolerance and therefore my abilities to navigate around issues that challenge my tolerance levels, rather than to constantly focus on subject matter competence and relationship building. However, I suspect that this is really just scratching the surface of a bigger issue that lies beneath, that being the issue of self-worth, confidence, and emotional intelligence, each of which have a myriad of supporting issues as well. Yet again, a vicious cycle emerges. What remains clear though is the fact that I determine my capacity long before anyone else is able to push me beyond my own limits. This cup is far from full, although at times it serves my purposes to present myself as having reached a threshold that is reasonable to be considered a limitation of wits and patience for any reasonable person.

    Even in that there is little comfort, because in so doing, I am reminded that I am merely comparing myself to the mediocre, rather than striving to exceed such levels of complacency.

  • How I Came to Love the Veil

    As most of you know, I have a separate blog to reflect my views on Islam, but this post, despite presenting the views of a Muslim woman, is a very important description of the naivety of the West in understanding the context and widsom of Islamic injunctions. If we had more willingness to understand these concepts and practices, it would very quickly erase the ignorantly vile attitude that Muslims are subjected to on a daily basis.

    Personally, in my daily interactions with non-Muslims, it always, without exception, becomes apparent that cultural (read religious) ignorance is much more prevalent in non-Muslims than in Muslims. Ask the average non-Muslim about Islam, and you’ll get media-biased views and opinions. Ask the average Muslim about Christianity (or even Atheism) and you’ll get a relatively informed view of the tenets or fundamentals of the faith, an understanding of their sects, and an appreciation for what is common and what are differentiating factors between the religions. I won’t hazard any guesses just yet as to why this is true, but from my experiences and engagements so far, it simply is.

    ammarmali:

    SubhanAllah, my tears refuse to stop flowing. This is everything I’ve ever felt regarding hijab; everything I’ve always wanted to say.

    I used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed creatures — until I was captured by the Taliban.

    In September 2001, just 15 days after the terrorist attacks on the United States, I snuck into Afghanistan, clad in a head-to-toe blue burqa, intending to write a newspaper account of life under the repressive regime. Instead, I was discovered, arrested and detained for 10 days. I spat and swore at my captors; they called me a “bad” woman but let me go after I promised to read the Koran and study Islam. (Frankly, I’m not sure who was happier when I was freed — they or I.)

    Back home in London, I kept my word about studying Islam — and was amazed by what I discovered. I’d been expecting Koran chapters on how to beat your wife and oppress your daughters; instead, I found passages promoting the liberation of women. Two-and-a-half years after my capture, I converted to Islam, provoking a mixture of astonishment, disappointment and encouragement among friends and relatives.

    Now, it is with disgust and dismay that I watch here in Britain as former foreign secretary Jack Straw describes the Muslim nikab — a face veil that reveals only the eyes — as an unwelcome barrier to integration, with Prime Minister Tony Blair, writer Salman Rushdie and even Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi leaping to his defense.

    Having been on both sides of the veil, I can tell you that most Western male politicians and journalists who lament the oppression of women in the Islamic world have no idea what they are talking about. They go on about veils, child brides, female circumcision, honor killings and forced marriages, and they wrongly blame Islam for all this — their arrogance surpassed only by their ignorance.

    These cultural issues and customs have nothing to do with Islam. A careful reading of the Koran shows that just about everything that Western feminists fought for in the 1970s was available to Muslim women 1,400 years ago. Women in Islam are considered equal to men in spirituality, education and worth, and a woman’s gift for childbirth and child-rearing is regarded as a positive attribute.

    When Islam offers women so much, why are Western men so obsessed with Muslim women’s attire? Even British government ministers Gordon Brown and John Reid have made disparaging remarks about the nikab — and they hail from across the Scottish border, where men wear skirts.

    When I converted to Islam and began wearing a headscarf, the repercussions were enormous. All I did was cover my head and hair — but I instantly became a second-class citizen. I knew I’d hear from the odd Islamophobe, but I didn’t expect so much open hostility from strangers. Cabs passed me by at night, their “for hire” lights glowing. One cabbie, after dropping off a white passenger right in front of me, glared at me when I rapped on his window, then drove off. Another said, “Don’t leave a bomb in the back seat” and asked, “Where’s bin Laden hiding?”

    Yes, it is a religious obligation for Muslim women to dress modestly, but the majority of Muslim women I know like wearing the hijab, which leaves the face uncovered, though a few prefer the nikab. It is a personal statement: My dress tells you that I am a Muslim and that I expect to be treated respectfully, much as a Wall Street banker would say that a business suit defines him as an executive to be taken seriously. And, especially among converts to the faith like me, the attention of men who confront women with inappropriate, leering behavior is not tolerable.

    I was a Western feminist for many years, but I’ve discovered that Muslim feminists are more radical than their secular counterparts. We hate those ghastly beauty pageants, and tried to stop laughing in 2003 when judges of the Miss Earth competition hailed the emergence of a bikini-clad Miss Afghanistan, Vida Samadzai, as a giant leap for women’s liberation. They even gave Samadzai a special award for “representing the victory of women’s rights.”

    Some young Muslim feminists consider the hijab and the nikab political symbols, too, a way of rejecting Western excesses such as binge drinking, casual sex and drug use. What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence? In Islam, superiority is achieved through piety — not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex.

    I didn’t know whether to scream or laugh when Italy’s Prodi joined the debate last week by declaring that it is “common sense” not to wear the nikab because it makes social relations “more difficult.” Nonsense. If this is the case, then why are cellphones, landlines, e-mail, text messaging and fax machines in daily use? And no one switches off the radio because they can’t see the presenter’s face.

    Under Islam, I am respected. It tells me that I have a right to an education and that it is my duty to seek out knowledge, regardless of whether I am single or married. Nowhere in the framework of Islam are we told that women must wash, clean or cook for men. As for how Muslim men are allowed to beat their wives — it’s simply not true. Critics of Islam will quote random Koranic verses or hadith, but usually out of context. If a man does raise a finger against his wife, he is not allowed to leave a mark on her body, which is the Koran’s way of saying, “Don’t beat your wife, stupid.”

    It is not just Muslim men who must reevaluate the place and treatment of women. According to a recent National Domestic Violence Hotline survey, 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner during an average 12-month period. More than three women are killed by their husbands and boyfriends every day — that is nearly 5,500 since 9/11.

    Violent men don’t come from any particular religious or cultural category; one in three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime, according to the hotline survey. This is a global problem that transcends religion, wealth, class, race and culture.

    But it is also true that in the West, men still believe that they are superior to women, despite protests to the contrary. They still receive better pay for equal work — whether in the mailroom or the boardroom — and women are still treated as sexualized commodities whose power and influence flow directly from their appearance.

    And for those who are still trying to claim that Islam oppresses women, recall this 1992 statement from the Rev. Pat Robertson, offering his views on empowered women: Feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

    Now you tell me who is civilized and who is not.

    By Yvonne Ridley

  • the72sects:
    For the sake of brevity, I’ve omitted the original parts of this post which can be found here. In response to brad-t: Firstly, if you read my blog, you’ll note that I am totally against radical or irrational responses to the slander that is heaped against Islam and Muslims. So…
    Unfortunately you choose to read into my posts whatever perspective suits your argument best. There’s no implicit justification of either, and if there was, let me clear that up for you now. Every action comes with the responsibility of accepting the accountability of the backlash or response that it will get. Assuming anything less is naively liberal and impractical in the real world. It’s not just about sensitivity but about respect as well. Don’t selectively paraphrase what the Quran contains about scientific content. Or would you assume to know more than esteemed Western scholars of medicine that confirmed the accuracy of both the detail and the sequence of embryology as described in the Quran? And no, the Quran does not stop at stating that sperm is required for procreation. Furthermore, assuming that there is even an iota of credibility to your claim that the ancient Greeks knew all this before the Arabs around 600 AD, pray tell would you hazard a theory on how an unlettered prophet that never left the peninsula came across such knowledge, and then related in such eloquent poetry that not even the most accomplished of poets of the time could equal it? Before you answer that, you should study the importance of poetical eloquence and the social status it carries in the Arab world before assuming that it was something that was taken lightly. By the way, if you assume that the publisher did not do anything wrong, then why does your secular system of justice allow for crimen injuria? Surely then everyone is entitled to their opinion about anything and everything regardless of how insensitive, blasphemous or slanderous it may be? Besides, who decides who has the moral high ground to begin with? If I were to listen to you, I’d have to believe that it would be the self-proclaimed progressives. It’s all relative, isn’t it? All the more reason to show respect and consideration for the belief system of others. If it doesn’t concern you, leave it alone. A simple rule that would find the world in a much better place instead of looking for deliberately inflammatory content of a sector of society that had nothing to do with them, yet they found it necessary to vilify its followers? Oh, let me guess, by me presenting this view, you will once again assume that I am defending the action of the Muslims in this case. So again, NO, I’m not! Just trying to get you to understand that nothing is ever as cut and dried as you’d like to paint it to be.  Beyond this, we’ll have to agree to disagree. And no, I won’t take out a fatwa to have your house fire bombed, or your blog hacked. 🙂 Peace.

    brad-t: the72sects: For the sake of brevity, I’ve omitted the original parts…

  • I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers.

    Kahlil Gibran