Wisdom

There is never a more humbling realization than the fact that one does not know anything, despite all one's touts of knowledge and experience. In one of his books, Paulo Coelho said, human wisdom is madness in the eyes of God, and he's right. Wisdom is a slippery eel - after a particularly harsh experience, you'll find it's jumped right out from between your palms. You were as good as never having it in the first place.

What of the people of the Quraysh at the time of Islam? Do you think they were so different from you and I? Evil wasn't separated from good as black from white, no sir. After all, this is not a superhero comic book we're talking about - this is real life. Despite all the abominations that some people of the Quraysh did on Muslims, most of them probably thought they were doing the right thing. (I won't say all, because that's probably not realistic). Most of them had their reasons - reasons we can identify with even today - preserving family honor, culture and stead in society, as well as, of course, peer pressure. The fact that these familiar, innocent-sounding factors led to such a gaping chasm between good and evil scares the hell out of me. It scares me even more because these reasons are present today and always have been since time's little heart first started beating.

How many of us have taken or given bribes because, well..."because that's the way things are done around here?" How many of us have lied because there seemed no other way to save our skins? How many of us have talked down to people because that's what we saw our father and his father doing? How many of us have been suspicious of people of other Islamic sects because of hearsay in our own family? The list is as long as an inter-state highway, but you get the point.

The only true knowledge, I think, is the willingness to concede that everything you know may be wrong. That's the only way knowledge won't turn into pride, and pride won't become a spiralling downfall.