My Skeptical Thoughts by Suleman Nasir (book club suggestions .txt) 📕

M Y

S K E P T I C A L

T H O U G H T S

M Y

S K E P T I C A L

T H O U G H T S

S U L E M A N N A S I R

Also by Suleman Nasir

Ecstasy- A Montage of Poems and Short Stories

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and the author.

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

9798607266196

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Copyright © Amazon, 2020

Seattle

Washington, USA

To all the great people in my life

Contents

Author’s Note 10

What’s in the Name 13

Light Shines Best Through a 17 Cracked Heart

Age is Just a Number 22

The Past is Not Your Enemy 26

A Lecherous Drug 32

The Opium of the Masses 38

The Weapon of Mass Instruction 43

A Rainbow Nation 46

Men Do Not Cry 53

A Hymn for The Daughter of Eve 58

Hail The Son of Adam 64

A Movement for ‘Movement’ 70

Why Am I Here? 74

Till Death Do Us Part 79

Salvaging the Fall of Love Marriages 84

Begetting Love in Arranged Marriages 92

Snakes in the Grass 96

A Water Thicker Than Blood 101

An Enslaved Generation 106

The Home to Our Souls 111

Do What You Love; 115 Love What You Do

No One Is Your Than You 119

A Wine for the Eyes 127

New World ‘Disorder’ 133

The Clothes Our Thoughts Wear 139

Kill Them with Kindness 144

Assumption is the Mother 149 of All Screw-ups

The Sea of Solitude 154

The Lord is Thy Light 160

Speak, for Your Lips are Free 166

A Nation’s Achilles Heel 172

Desperate Eyes, Empty Bellies, and Bare 177 Pockets

The Anatomy of an Emotional Fool 183

The Soothing Magic of Letting Go 189

What Shall People Say? 194

The Thieves of Joy 201

Who Am I? 209

The World is Your Oyster 213

Author’s Note

In our day to day lives, we light upon a drove of experiences and escapades, some pleasant and some utterly unwanted; manifold thoughts germane to them permeate through our minds, but we often do not harken to them. It mostly occurs that we silently lock swords with our problems and troubles and do not zoom in on the causes that give life to most of our problems, in the first place. Whenever we are visited upon by any tribulations, we either ascribe them to the whims of fate or meekly moan and groan over them, in place of finding answers to our vexed questions.

“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.”-William Thackeray

This book is a humble endeavor to address some subjects that often go unaddressed. I, through this book, do not assert to shed light on any out of the box and unheard-of matters; but this book does avow to devote itself to run-of-the-mill affairs from out of the common vantage points. It draws on the issues that not only haunt our lives as an individual but also as a society and as a nation. Most of the subjects discussed are overarching, but some are particularly circumscribed to the Eastern culture. Each chapter sheds light on a different subject and bears no link with previous or incoming chapters.

Given the questioning and doubtful nature of essays included in this book, ‘My Skeptical thoughts’ revealed itself upon me as a becoming title for this book. I wrap up my message with confident anticipation that this book will live up to the hopes of the readers, and will leave them in contemplation over its contents.

Suleman Nasir

Dera Ismail Khan

Pakistan

Chapter 1

What’s in the Name?

“A man’s name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one per chance may safely twitch and pull; but a perfectly fitting garment, which like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.”

–J.W Goethe

As soon as we conclude our allotted time in the womb and are admitted to the outside world, some syllables, as a name, are fastened upon us. Akin to something carved in stone, a name, like an indelible mark, lingers with us till the moment our soul escapes its vessel. A name is like a face that paints a distinguished identity of its possessors and tells them apart from their fellow beings.

Despite being indiscernible, a name invisibly encompasses us and makes us visible to the world. A name is something we leave for the world to remember us by, when we shuffle off our mortal coils. Without a name, our lot must have been deplorable; living a faceless life and dying an invisible death.

All the goodness and conveniences that a name ushers in are laudable, but what does it receive in return for all the services it renders? Apart from its literal meaning, what meaning and connotation do we afford it?

It is one’s deeds and doings that impute an actual value to his/her name. If someone’s life is abundant with charitable work and acts of altruism, his conduct is devoid of duplicity and deceit, and his words are only weaved to please others rather than hurting or disconcerting anyone, then his name will inevitably morph into a token of hope and reverence. But conversely, if an individual spends his days treading on wicked paths, his name falls into ill-repute and resembles a curse for him and the social setting he resides in.

It is binding upon us to serve the hallowed gift of name, in the fashion it serves us. It behooves us to keep it immaculate and not to smear it with amoral and demonic misdoings of any sort. Only our actions determine that our name, when taken, whether leaves a bad taste in the mouth of its utterers or leaves their heart in a transport of delight and pride.

Chapter 2

Light Shines Best through a Cracked Heart

“The little troubles and worries of life, so many of which we meet, may be as stumbling blocks in our ways, or we may make them stepping stones to a noble character and to heaven.”

-Mme. De Maintenon

We, the Homo sapiens, possess a bred-in-bone desire, hankering for life abound with peace, tranquility, and happiness. The chief shares of our actions are merely aimed at procuring these ends; we adopt vocations to bask in the satisfaction of stability, we forge friendships, we engage in romantic love, and we share our lives with our partners solely for the purpose of relishing in the warmth of companionship. Everything that we do is driven by our self-serving ulterior aims. 

Fulfillment of our dreams and satiation of our desires and longings is our definition of happiness. As long as our needs are being met, we inveigle ourselves into believing that we are happy and living a fulfilled life. But when some misfortunes visit us, we immure ourselves in a prison of disappointment, forlorn and suffocated without the air of hope. When some of our deeply-held dreams shatter before our eyes, it is not only those dreams but our heart too, that is splintered to pieces. But it is not always the case with everyone; it (heart) breaks for some and for some, in the moments of despair, it opens. 

We may experience the loss of a career, stings of failure, pangs of a failed relationship, or throes of betrayal from a loved one. Some may deem these devastating experiences as a fatal end to their happiness and may embroil themselves in an inescapable whirlpool of mourning. Life, for such ones, hits a dead end. They not only lose hold of hope and purpose of life but also lose the motivation to find it. It is our own idiocy that we unreasonably hold ourselves entitled to an idyllic life, and when things do not pan out in the anticipated manner, disappointments await us. Life has its own machinations; it does not bestow us with the things that we wish for, but only those that it deems fit for us. If we behold life as a piano, with white keys reflecting the jubilant periods of life and black keys as sorrows, we shall find out that the black keys also make music as melodious as the white ones. It is in the times of war that we come to know the value of peace; sorrows indoctrinate us with the preciousness of happiness, and it is upon failure that worth of success is dawned upon us.

However, there also reside some valiant beings in our midst, who when life knocks them down, pick themselves up again, no matter how daunting it may be for them. They, like a phoenix, resurrect from their own ashes. They, too, go through the same ordeals as others, but in lieu of winging and whining about it, they extract salutary lessons from them and install their focus on surmounting them. They are mindful of the fact that maturity and wisdom comes, not with age but with experience, especially undesirable experiences. People of such extraordinary state of mind grow with every trial that life pelts towards them, and eventually the hardships and travails of life cave in before the unbending will of such people. In the face of any physical torment or any emotional calamity, heart, for such individuals does not bear resemblance to a broken element, but becomes a passage through which the light of wisdom discovers its way and illuminates them. 

Chapter 3

Age is Just a Number

“We do not count a man’s years, until he has nothing else to count.”

-Emerson

During the course of our pilgrimage on earth, our body inexorably evolves into many forms, with each one ensuing its own prerogatives and disbenefits. First, we mature from an infant to an adolescent, and then our adolescence transitions to adulthood. During the time of adolescence and adulthood, we are in high spirits; our passions, vigor, and enthusiasm are at the zenith. Thereafter, follows the undesirable state of senility, wherein our faces, once brimming with youthful beauty, are marred with wrinkles; old age accompanied by diseases and joint pains feast on our energy, and feebleness overshadows our energetic youth. As soon as one begins to cross the threshold of old age, [s]he commences feeling herself/himself closer to the grave, with every passing day.

There linger many misconceived notions among us germane to the process of aging. It is a prevalent idea that youth and adulthood are the sole appropriate stages to slake one’s desires, realize dreams, and bring goals to fruition; while, old age is considered a time, wherein wisdom reveals its face to us. Both these assertions are spurious to the hilt.

It is an unimpeachable truth, that in the times of youth, our bodies are at high nodes of energy, but a plunge in energy with growing age should not be the excuse to curb us from doing what we cherish. It is another false apprehension that prudence comes with age. Nay; wisdom is the consequence of experiences. It is not contingent upon age. An individual in his adulthood, if goes through a myriad of experiences and escapades, will exude more maturity and well-calculated opinion of life as compared to an elderly who never had taste of different slices of life.

Aging is merely a natural process. It does not imply an end to