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I recently submitted an essay for the NUHA blogging prize . The question I picked was "Most people don't listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply." - Stephen R. Covey. Do you agree? My title was " We Make the Sacred Profane ". Here is the introduction: Covey writes at an interesting time for humanity. While his quote is taken from a book about personal change, it is also written in the context of effectiveness. Effectiveness can be defined differently depending on one’s context, but this essay focuses on two perspectives: One is of the Responder, and the other is of the Understander. These two perspectives can often seem to be opposites, but are in fact interdependent. Read the rest of my essay here . I also submitted an essay back in 2016, titled " The Paradox of Arts Today ".

To whom it may concern: Your situation in the future is influenced by your actions now. Your actions now are influenced by your vision for the future. So while you are here now, think big and do big. There is no other way around it. If you believe your situation in the future is influenced by random events, and if you also believe that your actions now are randomly contingent, then you cannot think big, because you do not believe you control your thinking. And you cannot do big, because you are not thinking it. "Thinking big" is an expression to refer to your ambition. The thinking does not have to indeed be "big" in the physical sense; just big in its impression on you. Carpe diem, Jack D Aside: One way to understand time is to assume it is cyclical. On a macro-scale: The state of affairs in the world today is similar to the situation at a point in time in the past. Similarly, the state of affairs is likely to arise again in the future. On a micro-sca...

According to a rough search, the word "cultivation" yields two types of definitions. Bot relate to growth based on something. One type concerns biological cultivation - that is growth of living things - particularly of plant life. Another type concerns metaphysical cultivation - that is growth of a certain sense - particularly of human and communal life. I was prompted to conduct this rough search after a conversation with MK last night. The conversation - as always - covered many topics, but one seemed to stick for some time. That topic was about cultivation. Though we didn't use the word, we spent some time contemplating what it is that we grow up to be. Growth is inevitable, it is something we cannot prevent or whose rate we cannot decrease. So what is the reason for which we grow? Some options we discussed for answers to this question were: To make a living, to reproduce, to maintain the young or elderly, to search for new frontiers, to create from what is ar...

The scientific method ensures that the system of building knowledge respects what has been built already; what continues to prove existing theory is retained, what breaks it is further investigated. The further investigation aspect has to do with replicability. A scientific experiment should be able to be tested repeatedly, otherwise it is merely a one-off activity that cannot do much to established knowledge. But replicability is often taken for granted. Our experiments assume that our version of time is continuous, ever-lasting and indefinite. Can we help it? Even under the assumption that time is continuous, things change over time. Value increases or decreases based on prevailing circumstances. Does this change affect any part of the scientific method? There is a clause in proofs - "ceteris paribus" or "all other things being equal" - that is a slight fix for the assumption that time will not change value. But this clause is also the extra, unexciti...

In the last few years since I completed grad school, I have been thinking about why history seems more difficult to reminisce than the future is to look forward to. But this Economist blogpost  from the other day highlights some new research in this area. "They used to think that time does not have a direction, at least at the subatomic level, though they now agree that it does. Ordinary people, of course, have always known this. Nearly all cultures have a version of the arrow of time, a process by which they move towards the future and away from the past. According to a paper to be published in Psychological Science this has an interesting psychological effect. A group of researchers, led by Eugene Caruso of the University of Chicago, found that people judge the distance of events differently, depending on whether they are in the past or future."  It's interesting how the psychology of time has been found to work similarly to the sound of moving objects. Event...

Work that concerns social development seems to have gone from one extreme to another in the last 30 odd years. We used to think that institutions knew what people needed and thus provided for these needs in the best possible way. More recently, we seem to be thinking that people know their own needs best, and so to know how to provide for themselves given capabilities. But the capabilities of one person are not the same for the next person and assuming this is an injustice. So, from a capability perspective, it appears more accurate (and humble) to say that nobody "knows" what the heck people need. Instead, learning about capabilities through observation, analysis and interpretation seems to be a better approach towards doing things that matter in peoples' lives .  This is not to say that once a "solution" is observed, analyzed and interpreted, it will always apply. Human lives (preferences, tastes, moods, actions, etc) are contingent on differe...

"The third law states that all forces exist in pairs: If one object A exerts a force FA on a second object B, then B simultaneously exerts a force FB on A, and the two forces are equal and opposite: FA = −FB." ( Source ) Could this be applied to intangible forces as well? I was reminded of Newton's 3rd law as I was reading about how the M23 rebels seized Goma in DRC , which was previously controlled by the ruling government with support from the United Nations. 

On Vijana FM's poll this week, we asked whether traditional healers can work with doctors. So far, most people say "in some ways, sure". Coincidentally, I came across this article today titled Traditional Medicine Excels Where Science Fails . Here is an extract: "Traditional medicine is popular in rural and urban communities due to beliefs. High cost of living, which has made medical treatment unaffordable to many people, is another reason for the popularity of the customary medicines. Other factors notwithstanding, long distance to a local health facility has also pushed many people towards traditional medicine, which to most rural people, is more readily available.   "It is estimated that over 80 per cent of rural people in Tanzania depend on traditional healers for their primary health care needs. Since the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in the country allowed treatment through traditional medicines, clinics and shops, which give that service are...

Here is an epic  panoramic view of Mars, with love from Curiosity. Thanks Engadget !

In different areas of work - whether they be private or public - we tend to chase measurements of demand. That is, what do people want? But we are growing increasingly aware that peoples' actions do not always reflect their ideal desires (thanks UK and Nudge ). In light of this awareness, it appears that the question we should be asking is, rather than what do people want, what do people do? 

Three years ago in London, I met Adil Mamodaly, who happened to be living in the room next door to me at our student residence near Kings Cross. At the time, Adil was pursuing a double Masters program (in Muslim Civilizations and Education respectively), jointly run by the Institute of Education and the Institute of Ismaili Studies . Though we no longer live in the same city and can no longer enjoy a game of Monopoly together as easily, I am lucky to still be in touch with Adil. He is now working as a teacher and scholar with the Ismaili community in Canada and recently published a paper titled Rethinking the role of religious education in a knowledge society: A Shia Ismaili Muslim perspective . Yesterday I caught up with Adil over e-mail and asked him five questions on the paper. He was kind enough to respond. Here is what he said: 1. This knowledge society; does it just have to do with the physical production of knowledge or are there intangible aspects to it?  Knowledg...