Pearl and Sea

"If you wish for a pearl

you must leave the desert

and wander by the sea;

and even if you never find

the gleaming pearl, at least

you wont have failed to reach the water"

- Sama'i

The Restart button and Tawba

We were reflecting on how restarting our computer can sometimes help the functioning of our computers and speed up things and help us start afresh. Sometimes, the closing of non functional programs is not good enough and one has to start with a clean slate.

Restarting our computers almost seems like its repentance (tawba).

Things are usually much better after we restart, alhamdulillah. We want to restart our computers and keep them in running condition before they deteriorate to a point where the restart button wont do the trick and they will be shut forever.

Death of a schoolmate

A schoolmate who was one year junior from me in high school was killed in the mosaue attack in December last year.

On a page dedicated to him I said:

"Was a year ahead of him in A levels. Have very positive memories of him: A person of good ikhlaq and very well rounded (sports, studies, social skills, etc.).

May he be granted Jannat and may his family/friends be granted patience in dealing with this immense loss.

"To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return"

His best friend talks about the loss in this BBC article and probably speaks for many over there. May Allah make things easy for the people who ware overloaded with many hardships.

"When the number of victims in such attacks gets reported in the news, it doesn't really reach your heart. But these people are real people, they are not just numbers. I lost someone I love, he is not here any more and it's unbearable at times.
It's such a loss, not just for the family, but for the country. He was an exceptional human being, a professional who had so much potential."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8408684.stm

Malcom Gladwell on Arranged Marriage

"Not surprisingly, interview specialists have found extraordinarily difficult to persuade most employers to adopt the structured interview. It just doesn't feel right. For most of us, hiring someone is essentially a romantic process, in wich the job interviews functions as a desexualized version of a date. We are looking for someone with whom we have a certain chemistry, even if the coupling results in tears and the pursuer and the pursued turn to have nothing in common. We want the unlimited promise of a love affair. The structured interview, by contrast, seems to offer only the dry logic and practicality of an arranged marriage."

From "What the Dog Saw" Malcom Gladwell p.390-391 (October, 2009) and from the article "New-Boy Network", The New Yorker (May, 2000)

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