Thanking the Mailman & Other Positivist Eccentricities

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a loyal Apple customer. Too loyal, some might add, as I use even the built-in calendar app and my iCloud email account. The hype right now is around the iPhone X, and yes, I want one. Whatever, I am not ashamed.

If, one day, out of the blue, I received one in the mail, what would I do?

I would thank the mailman of course, he just delivered me a material good that I had been thirsting for. Thank you, mailman.

Clearly, he is the explanation, justification, and conclusion for this iPhone X.

After signing the papers, thanking the mailman, and maybe giving him a hug, I’d throw the box away (not look for a return address), and enjoy my iPhone X. And if anyone asked me where/how I’d gotten it or who kept paying for my data (and other logistics), I would just shrug and say, look, all I know is that I wanted this thing and a mailman brought it to me. And you know what? As any other normal human being with rational faculties would do, I asked no questions about it, attributed it all to the mailman, thanked him, and my business ended there. Good day my sir.

Are you tired of this long-winded metaphor yet (I hope you know it’s a metaphor)? Because I am. And not because it’s boring, but because it’s absurd to even write it out. Because it’s so unnatural. We don’t act like this – at least, not in our immediate daily lives. If we get mail, we look for who sent it, why they sent it. We reach out to them if we can, we thank them.

But at the same time, we do act like this, subconsciously. Every second of our lives, we are getting things that we don’t question. Or we question, but not wholly. We explain some things, but leave a host of questions unanswered.

It's as if you ask about my iPhone X, and I tell you how the mail delivery system works in the United States. And you keep asking, but who’s it from? Why did they send it to you? And I keep telling you – look, that doesn’t matter! What matters is that the system works, and I got the iPhone. Why are you asking so many [useless] questions?

And of course, you’re simply befuddled at this situation. Right? (You better be.)

Some examples of things we take for granted and partially understand are: being able to breathe, abundance of water, perfect gravitational constant, enjoying diversity of life in every way possible, colors, flavors, people who love you, etc.

We kind of understand the HOW – oxygen, the water cycle, rocks bumping into each other in space for thousands of years, evolution, light rays and reflections, taste buds and saliva, serotonin and oxytocin blah blah blah…

But where from? WHY?

To survive? That’s a low-quality argument and you know it. It’s circular. It’s always one-step behind. Where did the original singularity come from? Why do these things work? 

This what our current scientific enterprise does. JUST FYI. I promise I am not an anti-science conspiracy theorist that lives in an underground cave. I am just tired of repeating the same thing – science doesn’t answer our why questions. It answers our how questions. 

So no, science can’t answer questions about ethics. (I will fight Sam Harris on this but that’s another post waiting to be written). No, science can’t tell me where I can find meaning in my life. The "why?" is where all the juicy answers about meaningful living are! And I think more of us need to be digging there.

Without further ado, I present you Exhibit A.I, II, III of this blogpost:

Exhibit A shows three screencaps from the recent Doctor Strange movie. I watched it about a month ago and loved it because despite the alien elements, in its core, it is so quintessentially human.

The movie follows Dr. Stephen Strange, an extremely successful neurosurgeon, who gets into a terrible car crash that severely damages his hands and thus prevents him from performing any more surgeries. Early in the movie, he claims, “My work is at least going to save thousands for years to come.”

Of course, all that work is cut short once he loses the precision he had in his hands. After some experimental studies and hopeless physical therapy, he eventually finds his way to Nepal. He meets with the Ancient One who asks him, “When you reattach a severed nerve, is it you who heals it back together or the body?”

Your cells are not aware of you. Your atoms, your electrons – they don’t know they are a part of you. We say they are “programmed” to work a certain way – but we skip the part where there is no guarantee that they will follow through with their programming.

Against this backdrop, let me pull up Exhibit B.

It doesn’t matter if the doctor had 30+ years of training, and the most advanced technological tools available to him. There is no guarantee that a patient will heal or survive after his operation. Sometimes, doctors do all that they can, and there is still no luck. And sometimes, they think there is no chance of recovery but a miracle (!) happens.

Concurrence and causality are not the same thing. Problem of induction, remember? Just like there is no assurance that when you plant a seed and water it, it will bloom – there is no guarantee that a doctor performing an operation will help you.

These exhibits aren’t connected simply because they are both about doctors by the way, they are part of the same gallery because of bigger implications about where human ambition and lack of insight fits into the bigger picture.

What the doctor case shows me is that we want to take credit for things that don’t really belong to us. Whether it be healing someone or writing a poem, we have to admit that there is an element that’s beyond us. You do your part (as a doctor, a writer, a farmer) but the rest is outside of your domain of control.

I survive open-heart surgery and thank the doctor. The doctor thinks they (alone) saved me. When in reality, the doctor is the mailman (who likes taking credit for my iPhone X despite not knowing or wondering where it came from), and me? – I am the short-sighted receiver who asks no questions.

I hope we escape these trivialities soon. I am leaving you with a beautiful Rumi poem. 

“Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry, I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.”

Indeed, these are the questions of the century – Who is saying words with my mouth? Who is looking out with my eyes?

Who keeps sending me these packages? And why? What am I supposed to learn from them?

Lots of stamps,

Belle

Questions, questions...

Anonymous asked: hey sorry if I'm disturbing you, but I have a question about faith. I want to believe so bad. I've always believed in something, I just don't know what. My life's been pretty rough so far and if god were real, why would ze let all this shit happen? I'm really interested in islam and I have been for a long time, but I'm a mentally ill smoker coming from a long line of alcoholics and drug addicts. I'm really freaking myself out here, but I don't really belong anywhere. sorry to bother you :(

Hi friend! You aren’t disturbing me at all (:

Many people want to believe but they want to know why God would let all these bad things exist. Why would he let world hunger be a problem? Why would he let good people die, or catch diseases, or be victims of unnecessary wars? And it’s very human to ask that, isn’t it? We should ask it. If God is the most just, and the most merciful, why would he let all these horrible things happen?

And I can guarantee you, everyone, believer or non-believer, had these questions. I still have them sometimes. Because, on the surface, it really doesn’t seem fair. Why did kids die in Pakistan? How come I was born into this relatively privileged life and they weren’t? How is that any fair?

The answer is simple but expansive so I hope I don’t lose you. OK, so let’s divide the bad in the world into two categories. One type of bad we can help, and one type of bad we can’t. So Holocaust would be a bad we can help, and mental illness, disabilities, being born in a third world country, having a disadvantage because of your race, would be a bad we can’t help. One we, as humans, could prevent, one we can’t.

Now, the first type of bad roots from humans. Wars, exploitation, discrimination, 19 kids dying every day due to preventable diseases or hunger, is our fault. Our greed and our selfishness prevents us from helping each other and stopping these things. Islamically, one of the five pillars of faith, is to give zakat which is basically alms. So almsgiving is a part of the material solution. People are required to give 1/40th of their earnings+assets annually to those in need. Imagine that, now, projected estimates to end world hunger are around $30 billion dollars. You know how much alms could the US give depending on our GDP, in a year, we can give $420 billion. Yup, that’s right. We could solve world hunger 14 times. And that’s just the US.

But what about immaterial things? Like fraud, racism, hate crimes? That has a simple solution too. Religion is a way of life. It’s not something you confine to a single day in the week, or a single week in the year. It’s a guideline to help you lead a decent life. What does Islam say? Well, it gives you a few ethical decencies to stick to, and the rest is easy. Don’t lie, don’t gossip, don’t assume things about people or judge their actions (because you don’t know their hearts, only God does) & do tell the truth, do be kind, do know that you are also human, and in front of God you are all equal. Did this solve like all of our problems? Yeah, it pretty much did. I mean, c’mon, if we have people understanding that they are all equal in front of God we would dismantle entire institutions. Men, women, whites, blacks, homosexuals, heterosexuals, you are all equal in your humanity. No better, no worse. God is just.

I also mentioned bad we couldn’t help. Things we can’t change.  You being a mentally ill smoker coming from a long line of alcoholics and drug addicts isn’t something you signed up for. And yes, it sounds awful and really, just unfair. Why did you get these problems, when your next door neighbor is leading the apple pie life? Well, two things.

1. Don’t think that these mere 70 something years you are promised make the entirety of your existence, because they don’t. That would be highly contradictory if God said he was the most just being, but gave you that many years and a random set of circumstances to live through right? It might be insane to think about, but yes, your life isn’t limited to what you do on Earth. You will die and you will be resurrected and God will show his justice. After all, would it be fair if you and your neighbor died and that was it? She had the perfect life, no worries, no problems, and you suffered. And then bam, you die and that’s it. That’s all you get. That doesn’t fit the definition of justice. Justice is, testing you on this earth with different scenarios and weighing your actions in accordance to your circumstances. You have to struggle, you have problems, life is harder to get through for you, would your God overlook that if he was just? No, but he is just and he won’t. It’s sort of like a weighted grading system. Think of yourself as if you are in AP classes or taking harder courses and your neighbor is taking normal classes. Your work and grades affect your GPAs differently. You go through more, so your B is the same as your neighbor’s A in a normal class. You will be rewarded accordingly. God will say, you suffered through a lot my dear, every day you woke up was like worship, every breath you took was a prayer, deciding to hang on, deciding to go forward earned you this high throne. And to your neighbor he will say, you lived in comfort and wealth, did you help those in need, did you do good deeds with what was available to you, did you show gratitude, did you seek me?

2. Think about if we lived in utopia. Would you really seek God? Imagine he made everything perfect. No wrongdoing humans, no lies, no cheats, no pollution, no mutations, no disabilities, no mistakes, no nothing. Imagine we really lived in utopia. If everything was perfect, why would we look for God? We wouldn’t. Everything is already working like a nice clock, why wonder about who does it? I mean, even with the world we live in now, there are so many perfect things that we overlook.

Our location in space is just the right place for us to be. Jupiter’s mass, our moon’s tilt, our location in relation to the sun etc. The scientific argument says we evolved here because our planet is the only planet to support life, but that is true only from a human perspective. Humans cannot live without water, oxygen and vitamin D. Science says we evolved from a single-cell organism into photosynthesizing plants, into vertebrates, into fishes, into amphibians, and finally into mammals. Venus’s atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, why didn’t photosynthesizing plants that could endure high temperatures evolve there, and go through a complex evolutionary process to finally arrive at a being equivalent to a human who could maybe photosynthesize, or not be affected by high carbon dioxide levels and temperatures?
  
Coincidences are miracles in disguise. We are presented a vast amount of bounties yet we ignore them because we use them regularly. We can start listing everything that science claims to be the product of complete chance in our body and see how it cannot all be by mere chance. For me, life in itself is a miracle. Modern technology envies our heart, a machine that keeps working for decades. Fancy iPhones and brand new cars only last a few years, and they require constant repair, while your heart creates enough energy to drive a truck for 20 miles in one day, and in your whole life, you could go to the moon and back with that energy. Our brain can hold approximately a million gigabytes of information. That’s the same as leaving the TV open for 300 years and absorbing everything on the screen. Our stomach acids are strong enough to dissolve metal. Our noses can differentiate between 50,000 different scents. Our eyelashes curl outward instead of inward and don’t stab us in our eyes.

We have everything we have now, and we can still say it has all happened by itself. How did the world originate in the first place? The Big Bang Theory states that it all begun with an infinitesimally small and hot singularity. The singularity exploded and now it is still expanding. Where it came from and why it came, science cannot answer, and when science cannot answer a question, we do not delve into that topic too deeply. Mathematically, everything happening by coincidence is impossible. Although, computer scientists code programs to test probabilities, life isn’t a computer simulation.

If we lived in utopia, nothing to make us question God’s existence at all, would we seek him? It’s hypocritical to talk about fairness when we associate all bad things with God but we don’t go to him for the good. World hunger – Hey, where is God? Sacred geometry – wow, look at these awesome coincidences!

So yes, we have suffering, and we have struggle. But we need to have those. Just like you need darkness to understand the importance of light. It makes us ask questions. It makes us think. It leads to, “I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.”

And it leads to lots of pondering and smiling because did you know God tests those he loves even more. It’s similar to the teacher who pushes your limits and you hate him for a while but in the end, you get the highest grade in the exam. It leads to, God will never put you through anything you can’t handle. After all, he knows you better than you know yourself. He created you. He knows how strong you are. How perseverant you are. He knows what you can handle, and he will never give you anything that is not solvable or curable. He is the most just, and he is the most merciful. He is the most loving, and he is the all knowing. He knows you. He knows your heart. He loves you. He loves you and he loves me and he loves all of us, together and individually. And he knows you now. He knows what you are going through, he hears your pleas, he hears your wants. You don’t even have to pray directly to him, and he knows you are praying if you are trying to recover. He is with you. And isn’t that beautiful?

And whatever happens, your desire to believe in something is amazing, and in the end, if you don’t label it or have a name for it, don’t worry because even a grain of faith can and will save you. God has pushed you to this point, he has given you this desire, he wants you to learn and know and believe. Think of your doubts and your questions as a personal invitation from God. Isn’t that really cool? Think about it. The creator of all that exists, the being that manages everything – everything, the red blood cells in your body and the stars around our galaxy – sent you, one of his most beloved creation, an invitation. It reads, come, ask questions, wonder, think about yourself, think about your place in this realm, think, try to find answers, try to find me. Just come, I will lead you to me. Take one step, and I will run to you. Your heart is open, your mind is accepting, just come.

Think about that (:

Proximity

*This is going to be a post about death. Beware. (Good timing with Halloween, right?)

I have a few mentors who help me in my character building and faith strengthening quest as a teenager, and today we talked about how we ignore death, how we ignore its existence and its reality. But despite our ignorance and our disbelief in its immediacy, every single person is equally close to death in spite of zer conditions.

I am sitting here in front of a laptop in probably the most protected state in the US; the house doors are locked; my parents are home; and I have access to an emergency line through my phone. I am 16, and with the current life expectancy rate in the US, I have about 62 more years to live and prosper. I ride the bus every morning to school, avoiding a significant amount of car-related accidents, and my house is in a fairly secure neighborhood. I have a healthy diet and I exercise moderately everyday.

A girl on the other side of the world. A civilian in Syria, caught between war and hostility. She wakes up to gunshots and sleeps with helicopter engines. Her parents decide to become refugees and escape to another country. She travels through battlefields and tries to cross city borders. She runs from kidnappers, and she runs from rebel forces. She maneuvers around bullets and dances through landmines.

But we are not different. Not at all. I might die right this moment, before I publish this post. I might die from an unusual death like vinegar poisoning or something more common like a heart-attack. My bookshelf might topple over and break my neck, or I might fall while getting out of my chair and hit my head on the corner edge of my wall. She might die too, before I publish this post. She might not be able to run as fast as she had to, or she might get trapped under a collapsed building.

We look different. We belong to different places. We have different cultures and customs. But let's think together, because, really, we are in equal proximity to to our deaths, and that is eye-opening.

Lots of bears,
~Belle