The Human Condition - The 21st century edition

Shorok Ahmed
2023 / 4 / 3

“If, however, you want to retain some control of your personal existence and of the future of life, you have to run faster than the algorithms, faster than Amazon and the government, and get to know yourself before they do. To run fast, don’t take much luggage with you. Leave all your illusions behind. They are very heavy.”
―-;- Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century


No matter what’s your political background and it doesn’t matter if you’re liberal´-or-conservative´-or-you are in the center´-or-not interested in politics, we all have a moment when we are watching the TV when political leaders give a speech and that moment we all want to throw the remote-control and smash the TV if it wasn’t going to cost you buying a new TV. Even if we don’t like to admit it publicly that we despise political leaders specailly the ones we voted for, just because you had to choose the bad out of the worst, thinking that if you don’t vote for this lair,´-or-the other option is someone crazy, just like a toxic relationship for example, when the toxic person in the relationship know that you won’t leave them because they know that you depend on them´-or-they know deep-down that you will not walk away because they planted fear inside of your mind that without them your life is going to be worse, you believe the lie and in some cases you just don’t know what will happen to you without this toxic manipulative person, just like that political leaders they know for fact that we are forced to choose them and they know that we know that they are manipulative people, yet we always end-up going back to them because they provided us no other option, convincing us that the alternative is chaos, but then after you vote for them you look around you and you see that the world is still dangerous, the economy is collapsing, the social environment is toxic, our planet is suffocating, wars are everywhere, conflicts and tension is everywhere, racism is everywhere etc.. , But when you hear their speech it feels like they are the most peaceful creatures in the planet, if there is another planet and people´-or-creature from that planet ever came to earth and heard those political leaders believe me they will cry, and think that the problem is just God spreading chaos for no reason, and the worst of it all, those leaders will come out with the a Hollywood performance as if they are so emotional and the Shakespearian speech makes even Meryl Streep jealous of them, making it the most complicated dilemma, only God knows where it will end, like Yuval Noah Harari says we created this illusion called politics, borders and religion and culture with our own hand and now we don’t know how to fix this illusion that became a nightmare.


And then you jump to religion which is a very sensitive subject because it’s something that is rooted in our veins and souls, one can’t live without a belief and even if you’re an atheist, you have your own values and dogma, but even with religion, religious leaders are not less guilty than politicians, their speech is dividing more than politicians, acting as if God gave them the keys to the heavens and they must defend it, but what’s with the heated voice, attacking others believes and values, those attacks will never make any religion stronger it won’t bring peace and harmony, how many times you clashed with someone views just because they want you to believe in their beliefs and if you’re not part of that believe than you will burn in hell, the minute someone speak about religion the arguments immediately get heated and people tend to scream and through exaggerated insults on each-other, how many times people have attacked me for my views about religion and how they think my views are extreme when I say that we should live in a world where everyone should believe in whatever makes their soul at peace and happy, how many times I had people in my life lecturing me about morals and religion and how it’s a merciful religion, then after five minutes of the conversation they would attack someone´-or-bully others, they gossip and they do all kind of evil when in just five minutes ago looked like saints and angels, just like politics, people tend to talk about religion and how it’s deep and rooted in their veins and in public they practice it perfectly just to show off that they are practicing it as i should, yet behind closed doors they attack others choices in life and other religions, and commit all kind of sins, we all have that one person´-or-group of people in our life whom have a certain beliefs´-or-follow a certain religion make you feel like you are broken because you’re not following religion, while you know what they are doing behind closed doors and you wish you could just scream and show the world their true colors. Let people follow their hearts, it doesn t matter to me what religion you practice,´-or-you are an atheist´-or-Sufi, etc... Bottoms line religion is how you treat others and how to carry yourself in this journey called life, your religion is how you implement words to actions, and just like politics if you give a one-hour speech about peace and human rights but behind closed doors, you do the opposite, then both are the same.

If you gather a group of people in one room and you forbid them from speaking about politics and religion and talking about music, love, relationships, and life, for example, if two mothers one is from Latin America and the other from the Middle East start talking about their children and how much they care about their family, they will find so many things in common, any mother´-or-father in the world would give their lives for their children no matter where you come from, and background´-or-nationality´-or-believes´-or-sexuality we all agree on the same things we all have the same fears, we fear death, and losing the people we love, as children, we would give our lives to protect our parents and vies versa, we all have the same feeling when we listen to music and how it moves us from the inside and how music connects us, that if I listen to a Hebrew song without knowing the meaning behind the lyrics I find myself touched by the voice and the melody, how many time you heard a song in a different language and it made you cry´-or-dance, and that’s why people make love while listing to music and not the news, how many times you heared a song and without knowing the lyrics it made you go back in time and remember a moment with your friends in university days´-or-a date you went on, you never feel nostalgic when you hear the news´-or-politicians speechs´-or-religious leaders speak but you feel nostalgic when you hear music and go back in time to a memory and you get Goosebumps ´-or-butterfly in your stomach, but music never make you feel scared and anxious and angry at the world. We all share the same human foundation which is LOVE, the love we carry for our friends and parents and our love to fall in love, we all watch Forest Gump and love Tom Hanks for that movie, we all watched Titanic and cried when Jack died, we all loved “ I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Huston and sang it in the car, we all sing in the bathroom when we are taking a shower´-or-had thoughts in the middle of the night about Tomorrow, we all have the same struggles but different stories, we all want to belong to something, we all smile when we eat Ice-cream´-or-chocolate and we all love to get a hug from the person we cherish the most, we all smile when a text come from the person we care about´-or-if you are a parent a phone call from your child telling you how much they love you and they are grateful for everything you gave them and I can go on and on and on ….., basically what I’m trying to say is that we are scared of each-other because someone told us that we should, it’s based on an illusion that created centuries´-or-hundred thousand years ago an illusion created by Human kind that religion and politics and borders are our safe house and that anyone´-or-any group attacks those ideas are attacking all of us and that’s how this infinite war and conflicts cycle will not end soon´-or-in the next five hundred years, because we fear the unknown and just like being in a dark room you start imagining things like monsters and your mind starts creating a web of different stories about darkness because we are naturally scared of the unknown, some of us will start panicking and start screaming and will hold into anything in the room´-or-just set their in the dark trying to wait for the light to come on and some people will attempt to find the light and others will become a hostage to their own darkness waiting for someone to show them the light and control their whole life.

The bottom line of what I m trying I am trying to say in this article is that we are standing in a very critical moment in our history, right now we are witnessing the most dangerous curve in the 21st century, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that since Covid-19 first hit until today and with all the conflicts around the world that in any given moment things might get catastrophic, In this moment of history is where the future generation would thank us for our wise decision´-or-curse us for our stupidity and nativity,´-or-they will say look how fifty years ago how our grandparents decided to save the world,´-or-they will study this moment in history books and say that it was because of our ego we destroyed the world because we couldn t keep our egos in check. Perhaps at this moment, this article is nothing but words on the web but fifty´-or-one hundred years in the future, someone will read it, like a time capsule might find it interesting, Just like what the German spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says about the current world we live in "World leaders lack Wisdom, Wisdom is what we need, Wisdom arises out of awareness, we don’t arrive at wisdom through improving the consensual thinking´-or-knowledge, more knowledge doesn’t give you more Wisdom, To be able to think consensually in a better way doesn’t give you more Wisdom, Wisdom transcends that, Wisdom is a deeper intelligence that arises out of awareness, rather just attack this one thing and say that’s what we need to do” this I quote him from a podcast about the current situation in the world.


“One potential remedy for human stupidity is a dose of humility. National, religious, and cultural tensions are made worse by the grandiose feeling that my nation, my religion, and my culture are the most important in the world – hence my interests should come before the interests of anyone else,´-or-of humankind as a whole. How can we make nations, religions, and cultures a bit more realistic and modest about their true place in the world?”
―-;- Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century




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