Of perversions and perceptions:

Of the many perversions prevalent in our society, the glamourisation of sensationalism is also one. It has now become ‘cool’ to experience and foster stress , anxiety, dissent ( without due cause) to exclude and to be different. 

We actually revel( consciously or sub-consciously) in a weird sense of thrill by creating anger, anxiety, fear and difference in others. 

To be in agreement or to be similar is politically and socially incorrect. A blow to one’s individuality. To become one has been seemingly made difficult. 

I am reminded of a beautiful approach I once read in a book by Tariq Ramadan and cannot help but quote that: 

“The point I am making is that we cannot go on standing at our windows. Off we go, we said, along the paths of the heart, the mind and the imaginary! The horizon ahead of us offers us a choice between two paths: we can go from window to window, from one philosophy to another and from one religion to another, and try to understand , one by one, traditions and schools, their teachings and their principles. As we go from one to another, from ourselves to others, we will find many similarities, many things in common and many shared values.

Or we can take the other path, which leads us into the very heart of the landscape and then invites us to turn our gaze on the windows around us! Once we take that path, it is no longer a question of considering the multiplicity of the observers but of plunging into the object we are all observing, and then apprehending the diversity of our point of view and the essence of their similarity!!!”