Do you believe?

Do you believe?

What do you believe in?

In God (are you American or Egyptian)?

In science (a seeming dilemma – contradiction in terms – while science, conventionally is never to be believed in but to be dismantled, analyzed, reassembled and perhaps agreed on its temporal and spatial infallibility for the given context and considering the very special initial conditions and variable parameters)?

In Aristotle (have you even read his Politics or Poetics or just anything)? The guy solidified what his unfortunately not-very-lucid teacher had the bad taste to say and write aloud…

In yourself (planning, effective time management and rationalizing people and their motifs seem like means for understanding this world and yourself)? Go read some literature such as Nicolas Taleb’s “Fooled by randomness” or its sequel “Black Swan” and then we will talk…

Think twice in what you believe or don’t believe…

Not saying you must believe in nothing, you cannot. Human brain activity, as one of its unintentional and collateral consequences, has systematizing the incoming data and building certain set of attitudes, beliefs, approaches in reaction to and in order to cope with this world.

All the above mentioned concepts, ideas, things are usually instilled in us at schools, universities, institutions and in our families and societies. These and more are worshipped, respected, taken as faith and blindly followed by overwhelming numbers of people. Many of those we didn’t chose to believe in. We grew up, conditioned as we were, and never asked a question because we took things and notions for granted, and those things and notions never raised even the smallest of doubts or hesitations in us until…..something happened or someone showed otherwise… All our cherished values or many of them, build, cherished and followed during our lives, collapsed in that very moment, in a split second…Life could have been different if only the right question was asked... An old Arab saying goes, “Asking a right question is already half-way to finding the correct solution.”

Choose what you believe in… Never trust what others say even if all say…Find in yourself the reason, the courage, the commitment to scrutinize and feel what you are about to believe.
See that the belief you are about to follow is worth it, is worth your heart and mind, your body and soul, your time and nerves.

Finally, believe in your belief and stay faithful to it for as long as possible but always find time to take a break, to look back, to look forth and decide whether you still are devoted and committed to you belief.

Good luck.