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On 2 different balances, and hierarchies


I was telling two of my friends recently that I had a new-found respect for there being a balance to all things. We often categorize things in our heads - people, objects, events - as things that are "good" and things that are "bad". But we seldom think about how every bad thing (eg: a challenge) has a good side (ie: an opportunity). Likewise, every good thing (eg: luxuries) have a bad side (ie: complacency).

But it was then that my friends asked: That's how you think of good and bad, what about our views on good and bad? They told me if we were to think in terms of "balances", then there is my view of the balance as an individual, but there is also a second, bigger view of the balance, which is societal.

So from this conversation, I learned that the measurement of value in the big sense (costs relative to benefits in the macrocosm) is a lot more complicated than one person saying "let's measure it this way". Bringing together a consensus of basic human values is bound to be a very, very big matrix indeed.


On to hierarchies.

We were discussing hierarchies in class the other day, and it got me thinking. Who do you work for? It might seem like the person/school/company that occupies most of your time. But don't we decide to make it that person/school/company, hence we ourselves being the initiator of any action?

I think we work for ourselves first, before anything. What direction we tell ourselves to pursue for whatever purpose then becomes the second cause we work for. Then, only then I think we can say we are working for a certain company or institution, as a third cause. Thought, then action, then tools.

More on this later insha'Allah.

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