Dreaming Horror on Halloween

We have moved to a new place with my mom and brother. That small house is like the hallway of our apartment with a number of rooms. My mom slept in one room while we took to another. Late at night, I started to feel that there is a presence of some other being in the room, the thought of which wouldn't let me sleep. I would keep feeling an extraneous shadow on the room's wall or the room's door screeching open. I decided to pray some holy verses but my mouth wouldn't move much. I rushed to my mom's room passing through the hallway which seemed creepier in the middle of the night. I woke her up and told her that something isn't letting me pray. She calmed me and said to pray here. So I took out my prayer mat but didn't know where is the Qibla direction to pray to. So I took out my cellphone to look at the Qibla but the WiFi would keep getting disconnected, then when I would try to open up the app to find out the angle of the Qibla, the app would keep getting shut as if someone didn't want me to know where to pray to. I was annoyed but more so getting overwhelmed by this emotion of fear.

Fear from what, I think now. If God is omnipotent and everywhere then I wouldn't have had to worry and even if that thing had control over physical factors outside me, no one could take control over my heart. And if the love of God, His recognition as all powerful, and hope in His mercy resides within me then I don't have to fear but to just call upon Him from within. I opened my eyes then from the dream and began to say the holy verses. I felt relaxed that now no one can stop me from summoning God's power. As I felt relaxed, I tended to go to sleep again. But a voice within me kept telling me that its time to pray. That's what you wanted to do in the dream and something stopped you short. Get up now and pray. I wrestled my laziness as relaxation from the acceptance of God's mercy settled inside me, when suddenly the alarm rang for the prayer time. I quickly fought myself to leave the bed, turn off the alarm, and say the Tahajjud prayer with full attentiveness, composure, and pride. Pride that I serve Him, who is everywhere, all powerful, all knowing of what's coming my way, and all merciful to shield me from harm, and all wise to guide me to success.

Procrastination is the sweet kill pill

Just heard today that "chronic perfectionists are classic procrastinators." And I agree to that because I learned that the hard way while doing programming in a computer science language. Because I always worried about typing in the most optimized code with the proper comments, descriptive variables and function names, and factoring the methods and classes appropriately, I ended up wasting so much time and also delaying beginning to write the code in the first place. I compared myself with other colleagues who wouldn't give a rat's ass thinking about the nomenclature or factoring the code but reached the end result soon. Basically, when you take off the perfectionist's hat and take up the result-oriented approach, you will not get it appealing but you will get it done. And you have all the time remaining in the world to get it right afterwards. Definitely there has to be some mindfulness about getting it right while you are working on it so that your approach has perfectionism built into it. So in a nut-shell, your mindset should be result-oriented and your act should be smart and artistic.

I had a very connected dream the other night reinforcing this fear within me that I am chronically perfectionist. The dream went like this. That I am a part of a team of students who are studying in a class and the class plans a field trip to a local planetarium. The organization of the event is divided among students, with the arrangement of lunch assigned to a lady, acquisitions of tickets to a boy, and facilitation of transportation put up for election. I campaign aggressively to get the votes for arranging the transportation because I fervidly wanted to save our class valuable amount of time. I pitched that instead of going for bus, I will arrange to have us picked up and dropped off through private cabs and will end up saving us atleast 1 hour of working time. I became the favorite and was elected. I thus began to jot down my plan. I decided to go with the taxi company, Uber, to have students picked up and dropped off. I planned to have every one invite others to use Uber from a new account so both the invitee and inviter gets $30 off their first trip, which will make the first trip essentially free for everyone. We would further have 3 people ride the taxi at the same time, which would ensure that third of the class takes the cab 1 way and the other third pays for the way back and the remaining third population rides free. And if we can have 4 people ride the same taxi, we have a possibility of getting the same thing done with the $30 credit being saved for almost half of the class with half of the class paying for the other half. In this way, if some people have even used the taxi, we can still have the entire trip done for free by relying on those extra people in the model.

The concept seems involved at first but works out well and I end up taking till the morning of the actual event date to come up with this concept in the dream. Now I am all set, but the time has almost run out for me to delegate the arrangement of the Uber service. This plan actually involves requesting half of the population to send email invites to the other half and then having the invited half to register for Uber and then request the taxi. But everyone is busy getting ready for the trip and some people have even come to the departing spot. Only 2 hours are left and all of this needs to be done. I didn't even request other people to help me out in encouraging others to do it, collected people's email addresses and checked Uber's availability. Even the time for reserving the bus in advance has passed. And if I even deliver a bus at the end, it won't be any thing unique and I won't end up fulfilling my promise of saving everyone money and introducing a novelty.

Essentially, I got screwed by coming up with the perfect plan to save everyone money and overlooking the result-oriented approach. A dream explained to me my problem with the simplest of example by putting me in the shoe of an organizer of a low-stake but high-accountability task. If I could properly handle the perfectionist within me, always keep the goal of delivering before me rather than delivering best, then I can succeed in real life. An artist within you often times stands between you and your goal!

Live you interest and Get earned for it

From childhood, I have been hearing this peace of advice from my elders that enjoy your work, make your livelihood your hobby and then you will never work your entire life because you will be playing instead. It was simple enough of an advice to understand but very difficult to implement. I could not see how can I begin to like my work. I liked to rest, to play games, to sleep, to collect stamps, to watch tv, to not do anything, etc, etc. But who would pay me to do these recreational activities unless I get recruited into a sports team.

I was actually lacking a curiosity for exploration at that time. Once I began to do scientific research at college, I realized that I can enjoy researching new phenomena for livelihood. But that still would get boring for me when I would attempt to push frontiers of science without having fully mastered its foundations. Only when I began to write software programs and that too for processing images and videos that I began to stay curious for longer hours while I studied or worked. Still, I would get a feeling that I am not regulating my efforts in understanding the bigger picture of the existence of this universe. As I would continue to ponder on ways to fill this gap in my approach of doing research, I came to a realization that understanding the purpose of ones creation holds the key to understanding the existence of universe. To this point, a scholar has famously said "one who finds himself finds God." And to understand ones self, one must understand ones mind, how it thinks, perceives, makes connections, reasons, and so on. But how can I apply this into my research in image processing software development, I asked. And I quickly got an answer, which was by learning to train computers to do that image processing for me using the model of a human mind. I could then see myself entering into the realm of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

I now feel that if I keep learning new ways to make intelligent systems that can automatically perceive and reason, I can continue to understand our mind better. Since mind is the supreme creation of God and the creator manifests himself in his creations, I can actually understand God better through my research.

So I like to explore the world around me, I like to research the scientific phenomena governing the happenings around me, I like to answer questions arising in my mind regarding the reason for our creation, I like to pass on my knowledge to others through teaching, I like to train machines to do tasks for me, and I like to see the results of my efforts within my attention span for a given quantifiable task. And the goal for me is to center my work for earning the livelihood around these likenesses.

I feel that I am quite close to achieving this goal because I have apparently taken the first set of steps of quantifying my likenesses and picking up the areas in my academic and professional fields of interest that are aligned with these areas of my personal interest. Now, I need to begin to fuse my profession into my daily life.

I need to continue to write software programs which would enable the training of machines to facilitate the image and video processing. And I need to keep doing this at home, as I wake up from sleep as I sit down for a few moments after having a sweet cup of tea with my wife. I need to adapt it as my life style. I need to find ways to infuse curiosity about my work in my family, get them to appreciate me and contribute in my efforts. And I need to start finding ways where I can use the skills learned here in areas that can directly benefit my community of brethren in faith.

Once I achieve this feat, I will be living my work and hence enjoying my living and thus getting paid for my enjoyment. Then, I will never have to work my whole life!

Existence of God cannot be a Myth. Lack of proof is itself a Proof.

God exists to answer all the possible questions that science does not have any explanations for. And the science will never have an explanation for everything. We should always strive to find an explanation though so we can fully harness the energy and matter around us and to not get fooled into believing in an illusion. However, its true that the science will be helpless at some point from generation to generation, no matter how advanced it gets.

This is simply because of the fact that the humans will never be able to reach every part of the universe and there will always be a "final frontier," as Star Trek puts it, for the humankind to explore and to explain by scientific reasoning. For instance, we might never ever be able to get the first-hand knowledge of the physical laws that govern the interplay of energy and matter on the most distant brightest star, Deneb, in our galaxy, because even if we travel at the light's speed, we would exhaust our body's limited lifespan and die as it'll take us over 7000 years to reach it.

Even if we do discover and theorize all the scientific laws in play in this universe, we can still never be at a stage of tweaking the laws to our taste. Every scientific advancement so far has involved harnessing/transforming matter or energy to our needs, but how can we generate this matter or energy out of nothing, having customized qualities and attributes of our liking? Somehow, the 116 elements in the periodic table came about to their existence, but how can science explain their origination. We will have to call their origination a reaction to some action, [knock knock] "Newton's 3rd Law"? There has to be the source of this action, some source that preceded the "reaction" that was caused i.e. the origination of the periodic table elements and all the matter that resulted from them!

Besides these more technical questions regarding the universe around us, even the most elementary of questions pertinent to the existence of all "living" beings in this universe are equally bewildering. Questions like the inception of a soul in the embryo within a female's womb, and the itinerary of that soul beyond this material world after the body's heart stops pumping, are completely unanswerable and silly to even hypothesize by science. Genetics can explain the physical traits of a baby but cannot comment on the moral traits inherited by the soul.

Not having an answer to any of the above questions is an irrefutable evidence in itself of the existence of an external power. "Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations," as Einstein puts it in an interview published in 1930's Viereck's book, Glimpses of the Great. At every instance of the humankind's existence, we will be forced to believe that the existence of that mysterious force, God, is to our delight or distress, alas, inevitable.

Prophet as the superhuman, a god-like figure

An atheist, who refuses to accept the Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H. as the appointed messenger of an All-Mighty All-Knowing All-Sustaining and an Ever-living God, would have to accept that the prophet Mohammad was a super-human poly-math and a god-like figure himself. I convinced myself on this revelation with the following perspective.

Prophet Mohammad lived his entire life in public, from the time of birth and childhood where he would help his uncle in worldly chores and go on trading campaigns to learn the well-known Arab trading profession, to the adulthood where he would carry out trade missions for rich Arab moguls and capitalists (having met his loving wife Khadija through such expeditions). He was not away from the public scene to pursue his scholarly passion or to indulge in the prevalent Arab hobby of poetry-writing or reading, or to ponder over the moral degradation of the Arab society in seclusion. He engaged with everyone, his neighbors, his relatives, his friends, colleagues, bystanders, poors and the riches of the Mecca to establish his reputation as an honest, trustworthy, friendly, dependable, compassionate, wise, and simple human being. From an atheist point of view, he could not have been on an innate mission to undertake a much greater mission of spreading a divine message one day after establishing his popularity. But even if he was, he can't possibly have any magical powers to garner enormous popularity, trust and the skills needed to achieve what he would right after his youth.

Prophet Mohammad, right after the peak of his youth at the age of 40, began to preach what he proclaimed was the message of a new religion. And within the next 20-23 years, he would complete this message, call it a perfect one for the entire humanity, end up bringing the entire Arabian peninsula under the banner of his religion, and  have lived through almost every walk of a human's life to setup examples and traditions for future generations to follow. These twenty or so years within their own existence are nothing short of a miracle for a 'normal' human to achieve, and all of this while maintaining a perfect balance between one's life, work, hobby, interests, passion, goals, and all other relationships and commitments.

When we study these twenty years and the message that he preached during that time in detail, we clearly see the traits that truly made him a superhuman. Just notice, again with an atheist point of view where one should keep in the back of his mind that Prophet Mohammad is not appointed by any divine will, that Prophet Mohammad comes back from his home every other night (or so on average) to disseminate a new message to his believers, that is poetically perfect and unmatchable, and has deep philosophical and scholarly dimensions. His messages would appeal to a scientist, a philosopher, an explorer, a traveler, a biologist, a doctor, a theologist, a historian, a superstitionist, an accountant, a lawmaker, a politician, a linguist, a philanthropist, a psychologist, a moralist, a leader, a community, a poor, a rich a young, an old, and alas everyone in the middle. And not just appeal, it would make them all ponder in awe and surprise.

He talks about the places where two seas meet but still not merge, about suns and moons following their precise orbits, about the movements of mountains and the lands, about the creation of man from clay and a drop of blood into a fetus lump and in defined stages, about the ants being females, about the birds being observant, about the humans co-inhabiting the planet with the jinns. He gives a complete breakdown of the distribution of a dead's wealth, and about the circulation of general wealth. He narrates hundreds of a historically significant stories and gives even the hidden of details from the biblical stories. He teaches people morals and empowers the weak while encouraging tolerance amongst the powerful and the rich. He presents prophecies about the life after the death and gives a precise standard for judging people as good or bad. He presents a lifestyle for people from every profession of life, the rulers and the beggars, the traders, the vendors and the buyers, the parents and the children, friends and foes, fighters and peacemakers, financial authorities and the lawmakers. He trains people self-restraint by way of prostrating 35 times a day, fasting 30 days a year, donating 20% of a year's savings, and sacrificing an animal once a year. He indulges in fights, signs the best of peace treaties, prefers negotiation and respite over violence, forgives unaccountably, and penalizes the oppressors mercilessly. He has touched every aspect of every man's life and death. And more so, he showed through action that his preached path is both perfect, achievable and the most successful both for individuals and for communities.

Undoubtedly, he was a great scientist having talked about the then undiscovered frontiers of astronomy, geology, and physics; he was a great physician, who explained the details of a man's creation from a biologist's and philosopher's perspective; he was a great historian who seemed to have been fully informed about the historical texts and to have godish-ly witnessed the past personally; he was a great theologian who reasoned through the need for the existence of God and the necessity of the life hereafter; he was a great prophet, who continued to present prophecies of the various events, battles, and milestones that would unfold during and after his life; he was a great lawmaker who presented a precise code of ruling a community with honesty, justice, in-discrimination and philanthropy; he was a great naturalist, who talked about the hidden realities and facts surrounding the animal kingdom and natural habitat; he was the greatest linguist, who presented his entire message, spread over hundreds of thousands of words presented over two decades in the most admirable of poetry; he was the greatest preacher, public speaker, and leader, who expanded his believers' pool and kingdom to millions of people and multiple countries respectively within a teenager's life span; he was the greatest traveler and explorer, who talked about places on this planet which were not even discovered till his time and the phenomena surrounding those that had not then been witnessed; and he was a great human being, who was just praised by his wives, daughter, relatives, friends, colleagues, followers and acquaintances, and acknowledged for his traits even by his enemies. To put it simply and clearly, he was a polymath, a SuperHuman.

The question then is, after we have established his miraculous personality, that where did he come from, what led to his abnormal, or extra-ordinary, personality, what did he learn, for how long and from whom, and what helped him get such a wholesome experience of so many facets of the world around him and beyond his seemingly physical reach? And the observation is astounding: he never attended a school, he never undertook vast travels, he was unheard of attending any unique clubs, gatherings or cults, and he did not do anything extra-ordinary throughout his youth, nor did he physically exhibit any superhuman powers. So was he God himself? Because our observations, our psyche, our logic and our knowledge all bear witness that what he practiced, preached, and achieved, given his circumstances and resources, is plain impossible.

And this leads to believing in his own foremost claim that "I am none but a messenger of an All-Mighty All-Knowing and an Ever-living God, The Creator, The Sustainor,The Resurrector, The Judge, and The Beneficient!" So, when the human mind refuses to believe that Mohammad (PBUH) can be a super human with God-like qualities, which are so vividly reflected equally perfectly even through the personalities of his twelve descendants, is when the belief in Allah begins with all firmness and certitude!

Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and his descendants were the face of God - God's revelations and reflections - through whom an All-Mighty power, that is too majestic to be seen by human eyes, can be seen, perceived and understood.

Perceptions Limit our Thoughts

I am limited in my ability to think ahead and to develop a picture of the future, by the way world has been perceived by my mind thus far. I begin to surprisingly question myself whenever I am conducting research that what new can I possibly discover when so much has already been explored. I get this frightful feeling that my mind might saturate in its ability to grasp and preserve more knowledge upon acquisition, when I look at the limits of a computer's memory. In such cases, perceptions have although broadened my knowledge, they have also acted to restrict my level of thinking for the future, as I have begun to compare the marvelous and divine creation of a brain, which has never been revised since the inception of humanity, with that of a human creation of a computer, which is revised every year with the hopes of continuing to meet the Moore's Law.

I must begin to think out of the mental landscape sketched out by my perceptions because there lies much more in this world that cannot be perceived because it has not yet been physically realized. It can only be thought of with a belief that the divine creation is much superior than our discoveries, there lie far greater possibilities than so far experienced, and we can achieve the next vaguely plausible idea given our present knowledge acquired through past perceptions. We must never stop questioning, never stop thinking ahead. Our perceptions must only strengthen our knowledge not limit its extent.

Origin of Species, Not their Discovery or Utilization

The perfection of invention is in the origin of species, their creation from nothing, and not in our discovery of them or their utilization to create new species or to take other benefits. We, as human beings, have only discovered the species already in existence on this planet and beyond, like natural elements, e.g. hydrogen, etc., explored and documented their properties, like hydrogen is flammable, or that it combine to cause fusion reaction, etc., and finally utilized these properties to facilitate our living on this planet, like liquifying hydrogen and exploiting it as a fuel to power engines and to gain energy, etc. It is enough to recognize the omnipotence of some external power in effect in this universe, that we ponder over the origin of all these species, their source in the first place, and the reason of their being in the second.

Even after having gained so much knowledge, we are not even near to answering the question that how and why did these species, e.g. hydrogen, got formed. Not with all the knowledge available can we synthesize hydrogen in its minutest of quantity. What shall we create it with in the first place, some other naturally existing elements? But how to create those elements from scratch? The answer to my inquisitiveness here in a nutshell is that we are just utilizing what we have been given in this world, we cannot and shall not be able to create anything that has not existed before. But all this did not exist before it was created, because we are aware that this universe had an inception. So, my curiosity again forces me to ask how are these species created. Perhaps the same question perplexed Darwin and he also was forced to conclude that a self-starting mechanism of evolution existed, which paved way for the arrival of humans on this planet as the climatic and geographic conditions on this planet began to turn in favor of the existence of life.

Still I found myself bewildered by the thought that can we call ourselves inventors and discoverers if what we have discovered has already existed since its inception, or for that matter since our inception, and all we have accomplished is to learn about its existence and exploitation to facilitate our living. The more we delve into learning the complex mechanisms in place all over this universe, e.g. those involved in the energetic particles' exchange between our earth and the sun, its trickle-down effect on the earth's inner atmosphere and the life on earth, or on a microscopic level, the conditions involving the fusion of hydrogen isotopes for the release of humongous energy, I feel that although we increase our knowledge, create a wealth of information for generations to come by documenting and delineating every step of discovery, and feel excited about scientific achievements, we should stay humbled upon knowing that we are not creating any new process, we are just getting into a position of harnessing the infinite amount of knowledge that was created by some external power at the inception of this universe. With every step of gaining knowledge, we are getting closer to and at a better position of understanding our Divine Creator, the Originator of all Species.