Saturday, September 17, 2005
Part 1
An interesting tale to narrate:
A university friend emailed me out of the blue the other day. She's also working in Calgary for her co-op term and we briefly chatted about the first three weeks in Calgary. Upon her invitation to 'hit up' a bar on friday night, I had the standard response:
"Me no drink alcohol so me no go to bars." (but with proper grammar)
Then she replied maybe we could visit a club to which I mentioned that I'm not much of a dancer or a clubber for that matter.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere she posed the question: 'Are you Muslim?'
This caught me slightly off-guard. Upon my further inquiry as to why she asked that, her response was:
"like how you guys are not allowed to date, forbidden to drink, how the girls are suppose to be covered up and yah. crazy stuff."
She further added:
"hmm...no, no muslim friends until this year. It's just such a strict religion, I guess probably cuz I'm not muslim and never grew up with those values and beliefs so it just sounds outrageous to me. But how do you feel about it? Do your parents force it on you? Or do you freely believe in it?"
My response:
"Most people think they these 'rules' are forced on by the parents and a lot of times its true.
But just like you can force a horse to water but can't force him to drink it, similarly, you can enforce all the lawz on your kid that you want but unless he personally believes in it or sees the advantages that they offer, he/she is going to let go off it sooner or later.
Therefore, I'd say that I believe in it freely because I'm all the way across in calgary and can do anythign I want w/out my parents finding out but yet I don't. It's not because I fear my parents but I see that following my religion offers me advantages that I don't have.
Think of it this way, you go to university and are getting an education. Did you parents force you?? Maybe. But its also possible that they made you see the wide array of possibilities that will be open for you if you get a good education.
Therefore, now instead of your parents forcing education on you, you have seen the advantages for your self and are self-motivated even though there are dayz you hate engineering/univ. and there are dayz that you don't want to show up to classes cuz you've had enough but yet you do.
Why? Because you realize that it’s just a few years and after that you can sleep in all you want or have all the fun :-)
Similarly, if someone mentioned that in your life, you can take path X which is initially hard and there are difficulties but if you get through them, you will have the best of time and all your worries will go away. Or you can can path Y that initially seems very attractive but sooner or later will lead to great hardships. Which one would you choose?
I hope I'm making sense :-)"
She didn't reply after that but lets see how she behaves next time we see each other. She seems like a smart girl but when you are twenty-something old, society tells us this is not the time to think about useless things like religion but rather live it up. And we go on following that advice, convinced life is too short and the only way to live it is to squeeze every second of it.
But one day you wake up in a 6 bedroom house in an upscale neighbourhood with three garages, a boat, 3 bank accounts, 10 credit cards.......but you realize that something is missing.
A co-worker in my last work term once asked me (he was by the way the lead engineer on our project with a very hefty salary):
'What is our purpose? We grow up to get an education and a job just so we can buy all the things that show up on our TV. Is that why we are here?'
Keep in mind that we've never talked about religion or anything of that sort.
I didn't really know what to say back to him. I left him but his words never left me......
I don't think they ever will.
A university friend emailed me out of the blue the other day. She's also working in Calgary for her co-op term and we briefly chatted about the first three weeks in Calgary. Upon her invitation to 'hit up' a bar on friday night, I had the standard response:
"Me no drink alcohol so me no go to bars." (but with proper grammar)
Then she replied maybe we could visit a club to which I mentioned that I'm not much of a dancer or a clubber for that matter.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere she posed the question: 'Are you Muslim?'
This caught me slightly off-guard. Upon my further inquiry as to why she asked that, her response was:
"like how you guys are not allowed to date, forbidden to drink, how the girls are suppose to be covered up and yah. crazy stuff."
She further added:
"hmm...no, no muslim friends until this year. It's just such a strict religion, I guess probably cuz I'm not muslim and never grew up with those values and beliefs so it just sounds outrageous to me. But how do you feel about it? Do your parents force it on you? Or do you freely believe in it?"
My response:
"Most people think they these 'rules' are forced on by the parents and a lot of times its true.
But just like you can force a horse to water but can't force him to drink it, similarly, you can enforce all the lawz on your kid that you want but unless he personally believes in it or sees the advantages that they offer, he/she is going to let go off it sooner or later.
Therefore, I'd say that I believe in it freely because I'm all the way across in calgary and can do anythign I want w/out my parents finding out but yet I don't. It's not because I fear my parents but I see that following my religion offers me advantages that I don't have.
Think of it this way, you go to university and are getting an education. Did you parents force you?? Maybe. But its also possible that they made you see the wide array of possibilities that will be open for you if you get a good education.
Therefore, now instead of your parents forcing education on you, you have seen the advantages for your self and are self-motivated even though there are dayz you hate engineering/univ. and there are dayz that you don't want to show up to classes cuz you've had enough but yet you do.
Why? Because you realize that it’s just a few years and after that you can sleep in all you want or have all the fun :-)
Similarly, if someone mentioned that in your life, you can take path X which is initially hard and there are difficulties but if you get through them, you will have the best of time and all your worries will go away. Or you can can path Y that initially seems very attractive but sooner or later will lead to great hardships. Which one would you choose?
I hope I'm making sense :-)"
She didn't reply after that but lets see how she behaves next time we see each other. She seems like a smart girl but when you are twenty-something old, society tells us this is not the time to think about useless things like religion but rather live it up. And we go on following that advice, convinced life is too short and the only way to live it is to squeeze every second of it.
But one day you wake up in a 6 bedroom house in an upscale neighbourhood with three garages, a boat, 3 bank accounts, 10 credit cards.......but you realize that something is missing.
A co-worker in my last work term once asked me (he was by the way the lead engineer on our project with a very hefty salary):
'What is our purpose? We grow up to get an education and a job just so we can buy all the things that show up on our TV. Is that why we are here?'
Keep in mind that we've never talked about religion or anything of that sort.
I didn't really know what to say back to him. I left him but his words never left me......
I don't think they ever will.
Faraz Ahmed 2:01 p.m.