Thursday, October 15, 2009

Life and Work.

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
David Foster Wallace's commencement speech that he delivered back in 2004 is by far one of the most thought provoking pieces I have read up to date. Here's a link to the speech: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html


My thoughts on the article:
I admit, the article is a little extensive. So, if you dont have the time to read it I'll quote a sentence that struck out to me:
"There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."
This is undoubtedly the truth. By way of example, one of the possessions that many of us hold dear is our wealth. If you spend so much of your time and effort investing, working or even gambling (for those of us that like fast cash) we are worshipping wealth. You fall in depths of despair however, come recession and wealth slowly departs. All the time and hard work you have dedicated to its attainment, and it has nothing to offer you in times of hardship. This is likewise for any material possession. It is only through spirituality where loyalty and aid dont dissipate. Through his many writings and experiences he concluded with such an intriguing rationalized thought.

As humans our natural propensity is to search for answers regarding life and purpose. All the works produced by renowned philosophers,scientists, innovators and even leaders always had the objective of fulfilling this inclination. Throughout their many years of experience, they generated numerous theories but to their disbelief, none of them proved successful, simply because they needed empirical evidence. Science claims to be revolutionary, in that they work towards objectivism and incorporating all relevant ideas into their sphere of knowledge. Why have they then limited themselves to empiricism and discarded rationalism? 

Science has proved many times, namely through the visual spectrum that humans are extremely limited. The human visual system is sensitive only to a small portion of the electromagnetic field. SubhanaAllah this is a clear example of how limited we are as creation. Alhamdulilah though Allah (SWT) has provided us with the ability to REASON and submit our worship to a higher power. Despite the many complex technological advances that are being produced we will never be able to find the exact composition of oxygen, or process in which plants supply themselves and procreate asexually (can you tell I'm a science student) simply because of our bounded dimensional spheres. I find it hard to believe that many of the learned scientists we've studied, have absolutely no attachment to faith. Having personally studied the intricate field of science, I find this extremely peculiar. Science has been around as early as the 16th century, and there are still many natural processes we fail to explain, this should indicate a superlative existence which should ultimately lead to submission. They instead, dig around mess and bring themselves to believe that there will eventually be an explanation. The Quran states : "That is the Book, wherein is no doubt, a guidance for the God-fearing who believe in the unseen.." (2:1) Emphasis on UNSEEN. We are unable to empirically substantiate the power of the unseen but our rational capability (proving the restriction of man) should be sufficient proof of existence beyond man. This is the solution to the meaning of life. The rest of the struggles and experiences we go through serve minimally to the relevance of the recondite purpose of life...

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