The Secret Powers of Time

This week and due to travel arrangements, I will only post an interesting short video about the secret powers of time and how it shapes our life and our decisions.  This video briefs the theory of Professor Philip Zimbardo about the six time zones that people live in.    

From the suggested theory, we are past and present oriented people.

The Good Old Days

Days ago, I was mistakenly watching a music show on a supposedly respected national TV where the host was interviewing a composer.  The host started talking about the good old days of Arabic music and the old singers and the impossibility of having such great people again in our lifetime. She added that most of the new generation singers have nothing to do with music and art and nobody can ever take the place of our deceased old artists. So ideals, ideals and ideals.

It is not the first time I hear such a lame argument and I have also heard the same argument about other kinds of art.

I got no problem with those who like classics or old timers stuff but I have a problem with those who undermine the new generation without a valid argument.  I personally rarely see their work as high standard but here I would like to say why do I have a problem with that?

1. Art in general is a result of a social, psychological, political, etc... status of a given nation and as a result if those new guys are losers, it is a definite consequence of the disastrous status of our culture. So shoot at the culture and not at those poor people who think they got talent.  Their talents are relatively good compared to the nothingness that they live in.  To make the story short, we lack culture and we live in the culture of lacking.
2. Most who criticize the new generation and their limited capabilities are past oriented people who dwell on the past and live the dreams of the good old days or are negative competitors who won't admit any positive trait for people in their field of work. (I will shortly post an article about the culture of negative competition).

Guys, most of the old generation artists in our culture were not that good.  Only few made it and those are the ones you hear about today. (although I doubt the talents of many due to several plagiarism cases that were revealed).

I haven't heard Al Pacino talking bad about Brad Pitt or about Andrew Garfield trying to undermine their work.  I haven't heard Dolly Parton talking bad about Jay Z or about Rihanna.  Never seen a show on any respected western TV that demolishes the work of any popular artist but rather in many circumstances present a social/political/psychological analysis of his/her work.

Try to positively criticize and just forget about the wrong national quote that says: "Akbar minak youm, afham minak sini" which translates "He who is older than you by one day is a year ahead of you in knowledge".  This is not always true and I am sure many of you can prove that.

Conspiracy Theory: Not a Sign of Intelligence

"Conspiracy theory explains an event of being the result of alleged plot by a group, organization or government."  Although historically many conspiracy theories turned out to be true (Operation Ajax, Kennedy Assassination, Illuminati, etc...) but one cannot explain every strong phenomena by this theory.

We are culturally used to adopt this theory in many aspects.  We have to give up the idea that there is an office somewhere where a group of people meet and control every single aspect in every country, for every event at all times.  Predictions can be made about everything but certainty cannot be the norm.  Our people enjoy this theory and many get the rush of "feeling intelligent" due to certain analysis about an event in terms of this theory.  Yes some conspiracies can exist but building all ideas, plans and moves on such a thing will definitely jeopardize all the credibility of one's argument. Give a space to randomness and allow the unpredictably of human behavior to explain events.   


Trying to determine the reasons behind the heavy adoption of this theory, I arrived to somewhat a satisfying explanation after researching this topic and determining the socio-psychological factors behind such belief.

1. We culturally deal with things from an emotional point of view, and thus we strive sometimes for rationality, hence we try to explain randomness through a meaningful pattern.
2. Since our region has been struggling with wars and instability for ages, people try to turn a blind eye on the main reason of such a history and tend to blame it on others.  In order to have a clear evidence on what they already believe, they create such a rational pattern that satisfy their blame and that explains events.
3. Also due to instability in our region, people imagine to live in a predictable and safe world.  Since instability creates discomfort and in order to eliminate this discomfort, people tailor theories that best fit a certain explanation which makes them feel either safer or helpless. In both cases, it is a relief.

We Can't Say "No"

Why is it so difficult for us to say "No" when we don't want to do something?  Many say that we can't say "No" out of politness but guess what? Most of the time the effect of not saying "No" overcomes the  positive consequences of politness.  Others say we don't want to lose opportunities but guess what?  You will lose many others if you don't stand for your commitment on this one.  Others add; we want to help people but guess what?  In many circumstances, your agreement, if not implemented according to your promise, might be an obsticle.

However, I do believe that the problem is far more than politeness, lost opportunities and the need to help are concerned, it is a problem of wrong predictions. 

We are not programmed to plan for the future and we tend to make future predictions based on the present status or on similar previous experiences.  A past experience or a present event completely dictates our future assumptions in a country where tomorrow is uncertain in many aspects.  We lived decades of uncertainty and chaos at many levels so the concept of planning is almost inexistant.  The years of uncertainty that we lived give us an ideal image of the future so we tend to squeeze in all the pleasant events or ideals not taking into consideration other crucial real life factors.

The future is nothing but a continuous path on the time coordinate that might be affected by one's past or present decisions but can not be completely determined by the past or the present.  Think for a second and consider many variables before agreeing on future plans.  Eventually saying "No" when you can't do something will become easier and easier.

                                                              Image from Cartoon Clipart

Are We Really Smarter?

Social behavior varies from one culture to another and it is interesting how different people from different cultures react under certain circumctances.  However and in almost every culture, most people generalize or derive their conclusions about others from the first impression.   Many of us though leaves a bad first impression due to a very tempting assumption.

Many assume that they are smarter than the person they are talking to and guess what?  In many cases they are wrong.  Many of them think that this tricky move is buying them respect and power but in most cases this backfires really hard.  This is how many people do it here:

1. They talk to someone assuming they are smarter.
2. They realize they are not specially after ones disapproval on many inaccuracies or fallacies.
3. They retreat and give the person the space to express his/her point.
4. They end up talking to him/her as he/she is smarter.
5. They lose his/her respect.

Talking to a friend about that, he adds a very important observation;  "After their realization that they are not smarter, they proceed using the same conversation technique with another person and this goes on and on." 

The Push-Pull Dilemma

Wait next to a store that has a sign "push" on its door and count the number of people who pull the door instead.  I conducted this experiment on three different days for thirty minutes each.  I chose Monday (the most annoying working day), Friday (last working day) and Saturday (supposedly the problem free day) and guess how the results came out to be?

All the results from the three different days matched regardless of the pressure factors that were taken into consideration.  The result came out to be 85-89% of people did the wrong thing and only 11-15% of the people thought before attempting to open the door.

I said to myself: "Maybe, the sign is in English and even though you know what it means, you still have to think it so let me try a store with an Arabic sign on it "Idfaa3" (which means push in Arabic). I did exactly the same experiment and guess what the results came out to be?  Amazingly 82-85% of the people did the wrong step again.

So then I had to analyze this problem and I reached the following conclusion:

We are either highly intelligent and we keep our mind extremely occupied so we do not notice small details or it is easier for us to try all possibilites rather than giving our actions a thought.   Well, I don't think it is the first case and I hope it is not the second one so what is left is that there might be a flaw in my sampling process.

Arrogance: The Nation Number One Killer

Arrogance according to Merriam Webster is an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in a presumptuous claims or assumptions.  Here is the catch: "Assumptions" and Webster got right in our case.  Many in this country claim superiority over others in different ways but guess what?  All this superiority is built on irrelevant and fake assumptions.  This growing phenomena is the number one killer in our country and it is growing fast.  Besides all the obvious reasons from the creation of the "nouveau riche"  in the post-war era to the "copy-paste" method of many concepts from the West without passing through the normal evolution into those concepts, there is a socio-psychological reason behind this phenomena.

It seems to me that many of those who have this sense of arrogance in this country are those who either achieved something relatively minor or achieved nothing and they either truly believe that their achievements are significant or they know the limitation of their achievements.  Approaching this phenomena through this angle will definitely relieve you and will keep you sane if you want to live here.  People in this small society are very close to one another and this closeness automatically creates social pressure in addition to other forms of pressure. This pressure pushes one to achieve and many average persons are psychologically paying the price.  In case one's achievements were non-impressive or nonexistent, one has to create this wall between him/her and the society in order to hide one's weaknesses.  From behind this wall, one either has to amplify his/her minor achievements, invent virtual ones or has to materialistically substitute for his/her lacking in this aspect.  Don't get me wrong here; we all like luxury and we all seek to serve our comfort in the physical world but not to the point when our belongings define us or when it becomes a pillar of our identity.  This show off society makes many outside observers sick while when one try to look at this issue from this perspective, it actually makes one feel bad.