Humans fly

Have you ever seen birds fly? How they flap their wings and then hold them still mid-air? After having done their part, they let the wind carry them. Still they do not relinquish control completely. They control their direction, steer themselves the way they want to. Even though they depend upon the wind to carry them, they do not let it control them. Such intelligent creatures they are…

Have you ever seen humans live? How they breathe in and out, and let nature do the rest? After having done their part, they hand themselves over to nature and to fate. They relinquish control. They take a silver platter, decorate themselves with achievements and degrees, and hand themselves over on it to fate, for it to do with them as it pleases. Very few of them control their direction and steer themselves the way they want to. Very few of them step off the silver platter and make fate follow them. Of course, they depend upon nature and fate truly does control them. But isn’t that why they’ve been equipped with such intelligence and the right of self-determination? Isn’t that why they’ve been given a will to do as they choose? Why then, do they cower in corners, clutching on to fate’s pinkie for dear life? Why do they not hold its hand firmly, and steer it into the direction they want to go? It would follow. Surely, it would follow, for it has no choice. It is chained to them. It is not the other way round as humans have mistaken it to be. But of course, if the jailer hands the keys over to the prisoner, that is how it shall be.

They believe, while relinquishing control, that they are free. Why do they not scoff at their own naivety? The word “free” they have made up to delude themselves. They have tried to define it in dictionaries. When will they figure out, freedom is not to be defined? Because to define it is to confine it. And confining it goes against every definition that they have tried to place upon it. When will they realize that freedom exists only within themselves, and can not possibly exist in any form anywhere else? Within themselves, they have a funny freedom. They have been given a “choice” to be free. They’ve been given the choice, and then a permanent, overbearing partner called fate. Fate has been given a plan which it follows to the dot, which is why it can be overbearing. But it is also permanently chained to humans. And humans have been given a choice to be free. That is the plot twist. Humans have the choice to pull the chains in their direction. And fate, being its overbearing self, will always follow. It is a prisoner to these cowering creatures of high intelligence. It can be manipulated. Of course, it will still follow its plan to the dot, but humans can interfere. Humans can exercise their freedom within themselves. Humans can fly too.

~Moniba Mehboob

Too naive to understand: The prince

Sitting outside, I look at the sky. It’s so blue today… And clear. I see a million stars in a glance. The effect of this on me is that of magic. I look and look, never tiring of its monotony. It’s the same sky, unmoving. It’s the same stars, blinking at the same pace. The same effect. But it’s new every second. Dear God, I marvel at your creation.

Today in university, walking from the gate to my department, I was thinking about my international relations class. We had just started the topic of realism, and studied the 5 assumptions it was based on. Why oh why must the world be so pessimistic? Is power the only power? Are all human beings selfish? The world I observed then, didn’t look like that… And then today in class, we discussed Niccolo Machiavelli’s book “The prince”. When we were told that book has been used since then, as a manual of politics or state-craft, I was horrified. And then the teacher told us, its principles are still applied in the international politics. What the book basically tells us is that a good ruler is rigid, has no respect for his promises, and only looks for his own interest in everything. The thought of that book being followed scares me…

So when I walked out of the university today, the human nature is what I had in mind. The fickleness of it, and the selfishness. I agree, they do exist. But why is it that they exist a hundred times more intensely in the ruling figures? Why is it that no one focuses on the good that can come out of the good? Am I too naive to understand? Or is what I understand true?…