Welcome to this week’s 5BF: pleasing sex in Islam, Jesus the
man, meaning over happiness in life, the difference between healthy and unhealthy
guilt and more…
1 – what I read
Zealot by Reza Aslan – this very historical biography of
Jesus of Nazareth which might displease the pious Christians since this book discredits
many of their unrealistic claims, pleased me nonetheless – for it presented an
articulate and logically worthy life of Jesus the man, no less than Jesus the
Christ.
The Proof of Honey by Salwa Al Neimi – a controversial book
to read in the month of Ramadan, since Neimi’s book is at its core a
celebration of sex in Islam, I nonetheless both enjoyed and learned from this
important book. The last chapter standing alone makes this book a winner for
me.
2 – this week’s articles
How to save yourself another guilt trip @psyche.co – this very
important article breakdowns where those guilty feelings come from and how
distinguish between the good guilt and the bad ones. Read this article and help
yourself.
The meanings of life @aeon.com – is a meaningful but unhappy
life more important than a happy but meaningless life? What is life and meaning
anyways? And how can we bring more meanings into our lives? This article
answers.
Writing-tools I learned from The Economist by Ahmed Soliman –
this article brought back the days of English Language academy where we learned
writing paragraphs and essays. Soliman very articulately brings together some
key lessons to learn in writing well.
3 – reading articles in group
This past week, me any my friends, gathered to materialize our
joint idea of doing something intellectual in our post-iftari sittings. I
presented the idea that listening to an article and discussing about it
afterwards might be a good execution – and the rest is history, if only a
single week long. This practice is not only intellectually feeding but something
that has brought us closer and together on the friendship level. To learning
and understanding!
4 – an excerpt from ‘thinking out loud’
‘Thinking out loud’ is my collection of memoir/essays about
my life and moods. Following excerpt is from opening lines of entry number 13:
‘‘The future where this is past’. This was the title
of a poem I wrote back in April. The poem was an act of hope, a hope for ‘the’
future – nothing specific, but just an urge to skip that miserable present that
I lived those days. But as I read it now, both the title and the last lines, I
realize that I wrote ‘the future’, and not a future, with some expectations. As
the ending lines of the poem tells, to be able to sigh a relief that the present
is now past. So now, as this future is here, a short one however of three
months, am I able to produce that sigh of relief? Or am I still waiting for
that future? Yet, from another perspective that I shared in another poem of
mine, ‘It dawned and I didn’t see it happening’, that hope for a better
change, a better-than-now future doesn’t happen in the strict terms of
certainty. It may happen, yet we might never know that it has. But I am both
disappointed to my past self, and sorry too, that it hasn’t happened. This
future here and now is just as bleak, if not more, as those days of that past.
More so, I dare say, since the miseries that we were so keen to escape from
have bitterly continued. They continued, multiplied, deepened – and we, under
its affect, decayed even further…’
5 – this week’s quote
‘Any fool can know. The point is to understand.’ - Einstein