Abu Kasem's Blog, page 2

Paradoxical Insults

God hates women?

Saadi

“You, who are unmoved by others’ suffering, are not entitled to the name of (hu)man.”

This was uttered – supposedly, because I wasn’t alive then to corroborate it – by a man called Saadi in the XIII century. And yes: he was (and is) a man.

Now, ponder the following:

Most of the information targeted at you is meant to inoculate you against the harm that the ideologies pervading your surroundings constantly produce.

The process is well-known: dehumanization.

Therefore: what’s the problem if they suffer and die? They are not like us. They are not human. It’s us or them. Etc.

We have been desensitized.

Do you want to remain so?

In, not of.

Care too much about the world: it will engulf you.

Care too little: you lose your humanity.

Earn the name ‘human’.

Malice and Stupidity

Apparently – because I never met him and therefore, I cannot vouch for his true existence – there was once a man named Robert J. Hanlon, who happened to have (at the very least) one razor.

He allegedly didn’t use it to shave himself or to cut off his testicles, but to create a sort of dictum:

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

That is all very well and clever enough.

Alas, it misses one single (and eventually huge) point.

That stupidity, in the long run (and in sprints alike), ends up being more harmful than malice. By a mile, and more.

Just take a look at your surroundings.

Hopefully, you will see how true it is.

VEILS

“Rabbi Menachem knew that devils are so numerous that if they were visible to the naked eye it would be impossible for man to exist.”

The same veils exist between you and all the realities out there: both the worldly and the immaterial, immanent.

Let’s focus for one minute on the world.

Your experience of it, mostly, is a story narrated to you by others.

Others: those who are heavily invested in narrating stories and framing them in ways that are convenient and profitable for their own goals and agenda; media comes from medium, an intermediary between you and whatever happens outside of your scope of direct perception.

Reality, then, is a story told to you by the mediums who make you their target.

And your biases and prejudices will dictate who you believe, on whom you place your attention, and ultimately your trust.

We are moving targets, constantly.

How often do you remember this?

It all comes down, and up, to trust.

Who do you trust? Are you the master of the choice?

Or is this something directed by your prejudices and biases?

Mastering the choice of trusting or not trusting implies the development of an inner sense, or compass, that can and will help you perceive the emanations of untrustworthiness.

You can actually smell it.

SEDUCTION

“People who think that they have big brains more often only have big mouths”

Someone once said this. And how true it is.

Just look around, especially in that “new” reality that is called the internet and its social media.

It is not so much what they say, but how. And the charisma-personality complex surrounding their words, claims, assertions, knowledge, and truths.

And then the cultish following can only grow until it becomes a sect.

Plenty of examples. Can you find some?

In my humble opinion…

Uttering such a common phrase as a preamble of an opinion, informed or not, displays the opposite of what is supposedly meant to express: a total lack of humility.

And a certain absence of awareness, too? Yes, maybe. Perhaps.

Labeling yourself as something does not make you a representative of such a label. Words can be tricky, my friend.

Therefore, the principle would be like this:

The assertion of *any given quality or positive trait* proves its inexistence in the utterer.

Dynamics

Resistance is not Futile

Crux