Men! Where?!

They say in Egypt "The shadow of a man is better than the shadow of a wall". Now, they say something close to "we don't intend to get married because simply there are no more men to marry".

I Agree, to a certain extent. Of course some people (ladies) go to extreme judgments, but after all as Egyptians say "there is no smoke without a fire", and the sure thing is: there is a holocaust going about and few are the people who give it much attention, the rest are just "living it".

Where is the problem? I'd lie if I say that I know, but I could at least think out loud, right?

It all starts at childhood as stated earlier in this blog. I haven't met a spoiled male who doesn't have a massive amount of one and/or more of the following:

• Lack of self confidence
• Inferiority complex which leads to ridiculous desire to feel important
• feeling that he is lacking something and always looking at other people's possessions
• Unclear targets in life
• constant indifference
• one or more documented personality disorders

Women never respect that in a man, and well, that was meant for healthy women as well, some women are just satisfied with the looks, the voice, the wallet and the car, but those collect their pensions later on alright.

Add to the act of spoiling itself two another very strong factor, which is: The reign of material and superficial judgment. A healthy man normally thinks about career and commitment. The men living nowadays normally don't think about career nor commitment, they just think about "Job, Salary, Money, Luxury, peace of mind, minimum effort". Everything is getting more expensive so one has to cover himself, every man for himself, whoever pays more is my man. That my dear friend is a big funeral for your career. In a few years our CV will be a joke, Period.

A spoiled guy was used to have everything made for him during his life, was used to having a loose life, doing almost whatever he pleases whenever he pleases, nothing whatsoever to tie him to anything other than the school report at the end of the year which usually means spending the summer at the beach doing absolutely nothing more than fool around and taking pictures so that one returns home to boast about the cool summer he had which was full of fun, only to return to the school days in which one studies right before the exams, takes a heap of private lessons (which mean going out and having fun afterwards) and in the end he finds himself wasting 5 years or more of his life gaining the experience of a parrot, the looseness of an alley dog, and the brain of a sheep.

The above ladies and gentlemen DOES NOT WORK. It builds a generation of loose airheads who are unfit for work, and unfit for anything but what they are used to: having fun whenever and wherever they could, even at work, they work minimal and always complain that they are not taking what is theirs, their right, etc.. they are NOT serious, wasting their lives, seeking more fun all the time, not thinking for a moment about doing an effort even for their own selves!!

But that is not all men to be fair, there are a lot of real men out there who demand respect, and gain nothing but respect, because they DO sacrifice a lot not just for the sake of being professional, but for the sake of others as well.


That is on the career side... what about the other sides of a human being?

Let us take a break and will be back with more later inshaAllah.

Excessive Parental Control

Now that caught your attention, didn’t it?

Okay, most of the kids around (all of you, us) constantly complain from their parents. "Our parents are always over-reacting. They don't understand, we are a generation and they are another, our thoughts never meet, etc." Till the end of time there will be such comments. Our kids - if we are destined to have any - will probably say the same thing about us, their kids will say the same thing about them, till the end of time.

So, what I will try to highlight here, is that most of the time we refer all of our mistakes towards the parental control we get subjected to. But actually it all goes wrong when someone sticks to that thought to verify all of his mistakes to himself. To say that I am oppressed so I am taking out my oppression out on smoking is not acceptable; it just shows how weak you are, and how capable you are of doing wrong. It actually shows that even the "Me" inside you is so weak that it seeks sanctuary somewhere unknown. You are just enjoying the moment of feeling that you are doing something that might anger them, some sort of punishment, or an avenging action, which adds nothing, not to you, nor to them.

Weaker Followers.. Better

Have a look now on the average cases, the moderate ones on the family levels, ordinary ones, raised not that bad, a glimpse of fear of punishment but okay in general. Those are the ones whether bullied upon, or following stronger personalities during childhood. Alright, let's have a closer look at those.

Hamada moderate is mainly not from those that could easily be affected by stronger personalities, and is from those who are fascinated and attracted to popular people, i.e.: people of stronger personalities that have an effect on people. So they generally want to feel more 'like' those, so they stick to those.

Given the world we live in currently, the popular is not that good, the strong personality you meet through your teenager years is not a very wise one most of the time, instead, it is a personality known to the people around as a bold one, who has had many experiences in life and is famous with the ability to try everything new, the one capable of making you have a really good time around him/her. And that good time is mainly because he/she makes you see/hear/try things you haven't been able to see/hear/try inside your ordinary life, so you stick to him/her, start to learn new stuff (which are not that innocent in general). By time you start to change, to enjoy, and to have the desire to enjoy more. You've become another "Me" in society.

Now what about the followers we just explained? They have become "Me's", but let me tell you this, most of the time they get back to their senses at later ages. That is after getting out of the "I want to be popular and loved" period, and getting into "I want to feel I am doing something for myself" period, and unfortunately it is "for myself" because this is the way the whole society thinks. No one had been taught to think of the plural. But that's a much better example that the ones we saw before; because this one brings another moderate case to our society.

Moderate followers become VERY good if they do get taught how to be on the other side, the better side, because mainly they are easy to affect. And their souls are on the moderate line, so they also get attracted to the words that are on the right side they hear, and they could join that side easily. But if only they see it and get exposed to it.

Drugs

What? Yeah, drugs cannot be out of the picture, it affects society directly and with precision. Hamada and Shaheera take drugs, they abuse drugs, rich and poor, all types of drugs and medications, all for your enjoyment mister and miss, depends on your taste and your money, all for your destruction, all to make society hate you, make you hate society, your parents, and yourself.

A "Me" takes drugs, ONLY a "Me" takes drugs. But why? Why go for the unnatural state of the head. Let me tell you this, about 9 percent of drug abusers take drugs because of childhood social disorders, problems with self-confidence and self-satisfaction, lack of feeling secure. Childhood disorders come mainly from some "irregularities" in the parents' behaviours.

The reasons vary:

- The lack of affection from the parents, the kid is most of the time taking orders to carry them out, and giving orders is not in a very nice manner. Oppression might be the word. Some intolerance to the kid's mistakes, beating the kid at the simplest mistake is lethal, and most likely to make the junior an avenging soul, that is the sort of human being that keeps the heap of energy built inside, till someday he/she bursts into flames, or take drugs to ease up the raging fire inside.

- The lack of feeling important. The feeling that Mom or Dad are treating me as a machine, because they are "Me" machines, no affection from them, so no affection from Junior. Junior like his friends, Junior likes to have fun, Junior likes to try new things Because no one made his heart able to make a right decision, because right decisions are either from the heart, or not taken at all. So Junior makes wrong decisions in choosing his friends, because they are all like him in the first place, so they gather around the concept "having fun" and what's more fun than the dizziness of the ultimate head, that makes you think of stuff you're not able to think of as a sober sad Junior.

- The procedure of LEAVING, which is having nothing to do with Jr., leaving him for the wild world to raise him, no one tells him what to do, because no one knows how to tell him. Mom and Dad have no idea how to, because they are that sort of "Me" that got involved in this relation while they did not have any idea what it was, courtesy of their Mom and Dad. So Jr. will be quite the same no doubt. Jr. likes to escape, because he does not know of anything else.

All are examples of the borders, the inland is much more complicated and filled with infinite variables, all with random values, but the "Me" concept remains the same everywhere. And Allah knows best.

Simple Indifference

From what you could observe, a case of "late Me" raises up a more severe case of "late Me" to start with. Okay, what is to come will not be too sweet, but it will somehow try to highlight some of the reasons why we are who we are now, why the kids aren't all that right. Why we are mostly selfish, and if we remain so we will certainly not be anything else.

A grown up "Me" in general finds the whole marriage and kids thing as a "burden I was not ready to take". So more moderate cases than the cases we've seen before just bury themselves in their work (I mean men here) and kind of disregard raising up the kids, or to put it in a more accurate way, they just don't give it enough time. Raising up kids is a job on it's own, and it takes dedication and a lot of effort, it's not just about bringing money back home and “There you go, I’ve done my part'.

What made him act like that in the first place is some lack in the ability to sacrifice the peace of mind he gets on the time out of work. Some people will tell me now, "Hey, the man has the right to chill". Now I’ll tell them, "What about the woman? Do you think she can do the job all on her own? Do you even think that she will be able to do it right under the pressure of working alone? And she has the right to chill too then, right? She would become too frustrated that way. Single mothers mainly are too nervous, simply because of the pressure they feel trying to raise humans on their own, which is not an easy task... not at all..

We talked now about the case where a father is at work all the time, not giving up much spirit for Hamada, and Hamada at the same time is alone most of the time with his mother, who cannot just stay face to face with Hamada 24/7, so she leaves him for the street to raise him up, and she is strict. She yells at Hamada as much as she could, actually the only conversation between herself and Hamada is yelling. "COME UP IT’S DINNER TIME!" or "ENOUGH PLAY, COME UP!" Maybe another “WHO ARE THOSE KIDS YOU’RE HANGING AROUND WITH?" at a later stage.

And the father has not grown the sophisticated sense of raising up simply because he has not tried, so the only interaction between him and Hamada is simply "SHOW ME YOUR EXAM RESEULTS!", "Here’s your birthday present", "Here’s your high school graduation present", "You have to major in engineering", "Why are you always failing? It’s all down to your mother!", "Marry him!" etc.

A family is supposed to be a team. Hamada did not grow up in a team, instead he has no "belonging" to his home, the only thing he understands from the principle "mother" to "father" is that "Father brings money and can be nasty when he gets angry" and "Mother is what sticks to one's neck and punishes as he does wrong" So, what kind of principles is this? Let’s put in a good question here: What is Hamada now? He is a "Me" of course, a simple street-raised "Me", he hasn't seen a proper compilation of a "WE" personality, so he simply has no idea how to grow into one.

That kind of "me" is indifferent, he cares less, his parents raised him up out of the "machine" concept, "We feed you and give you a proper life because this is out duty", not with much spirit, not with a goal to bring up the best in him. Hamada now is still somehow lost, because he didn't yet have the opportunity to understand what he wants from life, he just understands that he likes to gain, and enjoy. Anything else is not to be considered. So he gets married, and falls into the same cycle as his father's. But this time he is an "indifferent", more severe that his daddy, as his daddy was "indifferent", but at least he got raised up in times where a man HAD to know what he wants from life, because life was not as simple as it is now…

Symptoms (3)

Broken Homes

Now this is the case where the "Me" is most significant, and the "We" is mainly non-existent. A broken home is a home in which one or more "Me's" live in, and as we must all understand, marriage is NOT for the "Me" person, marriage is about sacrificing your "Me" for the "Us" one way or the other, and at the same time clinging to some of your closest "Me" things that do not affect your role as a plural worker.

In a broken down home one or both of the participants are not willing to sacrifice any or some of their "self-centred" lives, and suddenly they find out that marriage is not just a bed of roses, once the romance fades, other things appear, which require more cooperation and less selfishness. Well, let's say that does not happen, none of them are willing to give, they just want to gain and get themselves satisfied the most, which cannot be, simply because life is NOT like that at all.

Broken home major possible "extreme" effects:

- One of the major things that happen inside broken homes, is that each of the two parents try their best to attract the children to their side, thus each being the bigger spoiler than the other, thus meaning that we can kiss "proper raising" goodbye. The kid in this case does not only become a "Late Me spoiled". Add to that a kind of cunningness gained from their role models (*or those people who cannot sort out their troubles but we are making use of them right*), the cunningness that makes a Dad give something out to the kids so they could be on their side. So the Mom replies with something similar. Home is an intelligence agency, a constant war, so what do you think the outcome could be? Another "Me" injected into society.

- Another type of broken homes were the absolute opposite to what's written above happens, the kids feel they are not important at all, they feel like they are nothing, all the parents do are fight, split up and everyone of them is trying to throw the responsibility to the other. "Me" at it's best. So the kid does the absolute first thing he finds in order to attract their attention, and since he's just a kid, then what he does is childish. Then his life just becomes a series of acts to 'draw attention' and feel important. Self-centered of course, another 'Me', with a gentle touch of aggressiveness. The goal of his life is to just feel important trying to compensate the horrors his "Me" had seen as a child. Another "Me" injected into society.



*Sigh*

To those who come from broken homes, take care, you are humans, and humans are distinguished with their brains. Humans are not just a bundle of thoughtless emotions. Brains CONTROL the emotions. Now you are supposed to be old enough to realise why you are who you are. Now you know the problem, so now is the time to stop blaming other people, now is the time to, "Take cautions not to fall into their same mistake", or else what is your brain doing up there inside your head if you're not going to learn from other people's mistakes?

We surveyed some extremes in the past few posts. Next we will start taking a look upon more moderate cases, trying to highlight the mistakes in their systems, and God is the Helper.

Symptoms (2)

Now let's have a look at the other extreme, which is the extreme in which Hamada can say nothing of his own, do nothing on his own, because every step he takes is not planned by him, every single thing he does is under heavy surveillance… Till Hamada has no personality, has no “ME” as long as he's under the wings of his wardens, and this ladies gentlemen, as normal as it seems, is really dangerous to society.

Let us have a closer look on the outcome of such paranormal suffocation, in the childhood then in the teenage years, then later on. A person that comes out from under such strict circumstances becomes mainly weak from the inside. He does not bear the essentials of a successful personality, simply because the disrespect he sees throughout his life to his opinions as well as his actions. He has always been repressed, always been wronged, all under the flag of, "We know what is better for you more than you know yourself."

There are actually several possible outcomes.

- Either Hamada becomes a silent whipping boy, always with his head down, afraid to face society, yet starts to have a fantasy world of his own and having a big risk of getting trapped there for life.

- Another possibility, he might become a nightmare, a menace to society, a non-flexible person starting to take revenge on everyone he meets, every poor person God places in Hamada's way is doomed one way or the other, that's generally in the cases of "childhood violent repressing" of Hamada.

- The third possibility is that as Hamada breaks loose of his wardens, he becomes the "all desireful" Hamada, wanting to taste everything in life that he's been deprived from, wanting nothing to tie him up to anything. "Enough suffocating," he thinks, "I just want to live…this life is suffocating.”

All the above three, do they have a hope of becoming a "We" person someday? Or will they all be trapped into their own world, the world that their minds created on their own for the sake of having a “Me” in the first place. This world they created with virtual walls, the walls that made them feel safe because all they received was, "You don't know what you're doing"; "We know your own good more than you." It is not necessary to directly say "You are wrong, you are a bad child." No. Just the feeling of the inability to do something interesting kills a child and makes him create his own world where he can do lots of interesting things to a lot of interesting people, only those people are not real.

Hamada grows up being trapped in an infinite loop of "Me", because he never felt his "Me" under the wings of his parents. And as he breaks loose he finds it the biggest goal of his life; "Me", and it's not his fault, it's human nature.

Symptoms (1)

Now there are two main types of late "Me's" out there; the two types who represent the two extreme cases of being raised, let us call them, "Late Me Spoil", and "Late Me Suffocate".

We shall start by explaining the first type:

"Late Me Spoil": This is where you can picture Hamada sitting on a couch of feathers, getting used to Mom and Dad passing around all the time, sometimes adjusting the pillows for him, other times placing a bowl of grapes in front of him, etc.

Of course this is an extreme case, but logically speaking it happens, and since childhood, whenever Hamada cries, everyone in the family runs towards him. "What is wrong my dear?! You want to hold the electrical cable? No it will kill you!” Hamada response is dramatic: "AAAH!!" he protests. "Okay my dear, please don’t be upset… Here is Daddy’s mobile…Play with it, break it, do what you will with it!"

When you start to get some reasoning into his parents' minds they respond: "He’s still a child and doesn’t understand anything yet.” They give you a weak, embarrassed smile.

Well what they don't know is that a human being starts developing logic very quickly. For a child (whatever his age is, as long as he is grabbing and noticing that his brain is starting to gather data… intelligently) to get what he wants, he starts to develop methods; the simplest is to scream out. And his "spoiling" parents just give them absolutely EVERYTHING he wants.

So what happens next? The kid starts to develop a very rapid "You" stage and finishes it off at a very early age, only to start one selfish "Me" stage that remains for the rest of his life. Why? Because his brain cells actually have never learned to GIVE anything. All he did throughout his life was to just TAKE whatever he wanted without thinking , and I put a million lines under those two red words.

Now the eternal spoiled "ME" self starts to grow up and has a wider spectrum of desires. And since he got used to getting everything he wanted as a child, he will immediately start working on quenching those various desires. Here we have two very important aspects to regard. Firstly quenching your desires like that without thinking has its effect on the soul, it brings the soul down. Sinning simply brings the level of the soul REAL down, so a person starts feeling insecure, thus sad, and thus depressed. So he starts seeking security in other stuff, thus making him sin more, except those who Allah (S.W.T.) guides in the right path, and we pray for all Muslims to be of those.

Allah (S.W.T.) said in Qur’an, "And do not follow the steps on the Demon." "Wa la tattabe3oo khotowat al shaytan."

So they are steps, one step after the other, till the person is doomed.

Secondly, do you think that such a person who only thinks of his desires might someday grow with a goal for his life, an idea of what he wants to be, how to have a talent and use it for the REAL good of himself?

For example knowing what field he wants to study and accomplish in? Or does he just want to go to an easy faculty where he can fool around and study so little in order to give more time to his desires? See?

Then after graduation (which happens after loads of pushing, for some years), what becomes of Hamada? Nothing new, he just wants to stop doing all the bad things he did in his past life simply because it's enough, those were kids' stuff and now he wants to start growing up…"I" want to get married to quench my desire, and please Dad, "Find me a decent job.” So dad puts Hamada in a company where he does nothing because he is there with Dad’s influence, eventually bringing down the level of production of this country because another man is not in his right place.

The future social life of "spoiled ‘ME’ Hamada" becomes more depressing as he has kids; his wife becomes so fat and so ugly in his eyes. Hamada remembers how "Cindy" from his past looked like. She was beautiful. The kids come into being... Screaming little weenies... Hamada is not used to suffering "What is this horrible life I’m living?!"

What kind of children do you think Hamada will bring up? Or HOW do you think Hamada will raise his kids? I think he will not raise them in the first place. He would just sit around on the couch while Hamada Jr. pulls Hamada's cup, so Hamada says, "Leave it boy!"

Jr. grabs it. Hamada says "Like that?! MOSHEERAAA…Come see what this brat did!” And it might be a good idea to slap Jr. in the process. Mosheera hurries in. "What did you do to him you brat?! Come here my dear, I’m sorry.”

Divorce is wide spread these days, which brings tears to my eyes, to imagine such a great number of Muslims trapped in such a miserable life.

May Allah save us. Such Hamadas’ and Mosheeras’ are available everywhere in Egypt these days. Not necessarily a COPYCAT of the example I've mentioned, but pretty close, same concept, "ME and nothing but satisfying ME!"

In the next post we discuss the outcome of another extreme case... "Late ME suffocate"

Distortions

As we've seen in the previous chapter, the simple logic of human development can be left as it is, thus implying that in a normal healthy environment, with proper raising circumstances and proper morals fed into the heads of the infant, a human could grow into those three stages in serial form, one after the other, till he reaches the normal "Us" stage, which obligates a man to start working for a better society. However, this is an idealistic perspective in the eyes of many.

Now could we have a look upon what really happens?

Hamada is a teenager. Hamada wants to eat. So everyone works for the food of Hamada. Hamada is at school. Hamada wants to succeed (or in other words, Mom and Dad want him to succeed) so Hamada is injected with education into his brain. We can encourage Hamada to succeed by any means necessary…Now Hamada has done many things without any "Me" stage will power out of his poor head.

Hamada wants to go to college (by the way, Hamada never said anything, because by now Hamada doesn't know what he really wants), so Hamada got so and so percent at school, so Hamada must go into so and so college…Now we take a big PAUSE.

Look at Hamada now. Do you think he has passed with the healthy and necessary "Me" stage of his being? And if not, when do you think he will pass by the "Me" period? And the most dangerous question of it all... When do you think Hamada will seize to be a "Me" person?

Another example here, Hamada is a teenager. Hamada can do many wrong things... “LOCK up Hamada... Hamada, you shall obey every word Mom and Dad says without thinking, Hamada the world is BAD... Hamada have no "Me" inside of you...” And the wheel turns on.

Now look ahead... and look back... Hamada is a Dad, and Mosheera is a Mom... And now there are other Hamada's and Mosheera's in our society. Divorces start to manifest. Inconsistencies, selfishness becomes the plague of every new home built by very late "Me's". There is no "Us" anymore… A generation doing wrong, poisoning the next generation... and the cycle just continues...

In the next post we take a look into the side effects of those transformations with more detailed examples.

Stages

A "normal" human being passes through three main stages in his life.
1. The “you”. 2. The “me”. 3. The “we”.

Allow me to explain further:

1. The “You”
As a child, a human being is always counting on other people around him to satisfy his different needs. For example, a baby cries in order for the people around him to work on feeding him. As he grows older he is always demanding that "You" give me, “You” feed me, “You” take me to the bathroom, etc.

2. The “Me”
As a human grows a little older, and walks into his teenage years, the human nature inside him starts feeling the need for some independence and self-satisfaction. So he starts thinking, "Me" wants to do something, "Me" gets it. Or "Me" tries to think of a way to get it, of course asking other people in the process. The difference here is that a child asks anyone. As one gets older he becomes more specific and focused, thus asking the right people, most of the time.

3. The “We”
A man, a real man that is, starts thinking of the needs of not only himself, but of others around him. Maturity and responsibility becomes an asset in his life. He starts having a family, thinking of their needs; so he does not only act for himself, he acts for those he cares about. "We" want something, so I get it for us, etc.

Now we can apply the same concept in thinking, "Whatever is wrong is wrong with __ ", but in reverse. The stages of human development are as follows, in order.

1. Whatever is wrong is wrong with You:
This is the lowest standard of human thinking. We all thought so at a certain stage of our lives, and it should be known that once a person starts thinking that way, they become the worst of them all. This is since this attitude simply contains arrogance (Kebr), and the only Majestic (Motakabber) is Allah.

2. I have got to fix Me:
This attitude is not bad, it is a good start, a little more mature. But don't fall into the trap of "I’ll start making people's lives better only when My life is better". Don't be that selfish, don't be that negative, because actually you might end up getting worse. You alone are weak against the winds of time.

3. I have to fix us, we are all going wrong:

Now that's what I'm talking about. You don't just work on yourself, you work on people when you see them go wrong. Don't be like the first type, just complaining and complaining, but doing nothing in the end. The highest form of human actions is those who tend to improve the lives of many, not the lives of their own individuals. Keep that in mind, and pray for us all to be of that type.

Now can you relate the first three types to the second three types of human behaviour? In the next message we will have a look at our society, and how those three types are always transforming and mutating into a negative manner within it. Eventually and hopefully we will try to figure out a way to make better people out of ourselves, and to try to think of how to raise a new generation out of our own.