Miserly Slaves in a Temporally Technological World

Within a fraction of a moment, my life flashed before my very eyes

I do not hold on to material possession too much. If I lose money, or something of the sort, it ain’t the best day ever, but I know I’ll survive. I hold on to health very strongly. As long as my family, loved ones, and I are in good health, I consider the world to be sunshine and rainbows. However, my one Achilles heel is my work.

After attending a cousin’s wedding in Pakistan, I just finished transferring all the images and videos from my camera to my laptop as I was waiting at the airport. I was looking through the pictures, reflective and reminiscent over the last few days. It had been a great trip. I had even managed to fulfill a dream of mine; filming to produce a short video about a hospital that was built on the very back of my own grandfather, who founded an NGO in Pakistan to treat children suffering with Thalassemia.

Not five hours later, I arrived at the breezy Emirati airport that brought back warm memories. I raced home and slumped on my bed, flicking my laptop open for a casual email check.

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I tried to click on 'Cancel' but I was not allowed to. IPhoto was open and this horrifying message just blared at me, taunting my existence.

Say wha’? Where ma shindig at, yo? My heart sank; I looked for every possible solution as the realization that every picture and video I had taken for months had mysteriously disappeared. I was in disbelief for many reasons, I thought that  I must just be technologically impaired. Deleting 5 GB from my computer would at the very least take 5 seconds loading time, yet over 100GB of files had just been made entirely redundant. No online solution seemed to work, and a visit to the Apple stores brought some very consoling advice.

“Make sure you have a backup next time”

This was an anomaly. There was no explanation for this. Although a few more hours of research might have saved me some expense, 75 pounds and a computer shop acquaintance brought me back every last file.

This long-winded attempt at exposition made me reflect on a few things. Technology rules us. Sure, we can produce a chip the size of a fingernail that can hold our entire life but…. this is a chip the size of a fingernail that holds our entire LIFE! Information has become volatile. Memories have become fragile. Knowledge may have become more decentralized, yet in a sense, it is corruptible. Maybe I am misconstruing the situation, but all I know is, it’s sure as hell easier to lose Gigabytes worth of information than it is to lose a few hundred papers. We are dependant.

My grandfather, God preserve him and bring him joy and comfort, has all his contacts’ phone numbers in a chip far more powerful than any; he can regurgitate them by memory. I can barely remember my own. The great Sufi mystic, Imam Ghezali, was once robbed whilst in a caravan, and the one thing he begged the thieves not to pillage was his book collection. When one of the bandits jeered at him, remarking how knowledge has no value if it can be lost in a moment, Ghezali vowed to memorise any further knowledge he ever gained.

I started thinking of the difference between one who is knowledgeable, and one who is wise. Who is better? If one is able to apply knowledge, surely that is more useful than one who can blindly regurgitate knowledge. The wise will always be reliant on his sources though. The brilliant academic will still need to browse his libraries, and make the same Google searches as us laymen. What happens when Google makes a no show, and rare literature becomes impossibly difficult to find?

Sleepiness leads to pointlessness. These are but thoughts. Thoughts remain temporal.

Hydration and drought, nothing deep

No one denies the magnificence of water. It is the single, most essential compound for the survival of life, whether hominal or not. In fact, under the assumptions that water is equally integral to extra terrestrial beings, liquid water is the magical elixir which astronomers search for in their quest to find out whether we truly are alone in this universe.

Water is frickin awesome.

But water is neglected; taken for granted; excessively wasted; unashamedly polluted; a front for one’s naval might; a front for one’s economic prowess; a physical anomaly; even a reason nations have gone to war. Perhaps, our worst crime is that we simply don’t think about water.

Today, I thought about water.

I was roaming around one of the world’s largest and most extravagant shopping malls today. Dubai exudes an air…comfort for many. After a succulently appetising dinner, I rushed upstairs as the time for prayer drew near. I was met by a queue of people waiting outside the ablution area of the prayer room within the mall. This was surprising, as this mall had more than adequate facilities to cater for the vast numbers of worshippers, boasting numerous prayer spaces. I found out that there was a problem with the water supply, and the entire floor’s toilets, kitchens, cleansing facilities had gone completely dry.

The feeling of not being able to cleanse myself for prayer in this ‘comfortable’ environment was eerie. As the time for my prayer was drawing to a close, I struck my hands against the cool, marble wall and set my palms against my arms and face. I performed tayammum, a ritual that was historically practiced in a complete absence of water, and so pure desert sand was slapped against the arms and face in a symobolic spiritual, stand-in ablution. The irony was not lost on me that I was standing in the middle of a desert, yet purifying myself against one of the most lavish walls I had ever seen. I thought about the odd sight of confused people, whose expressions revealed how rare an occurrence like this was in this sacred land.

Earlier this morning, I had read about a prayer for rain that had taken place in California. This prayer was a rarity in the Prophet Muhammad’s time, and yet a drought under the hot Californian sun had driven the American Muslim public towards times of desperation. Heavenly showers descended that same week.

I envy the chemists and physicists whose research revolves around testing and exploring the mysterious properties of this abundant potion. I take for granted many things in my life, but water is something I give very little thought to; however, behind water lies an absolute ocean.

"He sends down water from the skies and each channel starts flowing according to its measure, and then the torrent bears a swelling foam - like the scum which appears from metal which are melted in the furnace for making ornaments and utensils. By such examples Allah depicts truth and falsehood. As for the scum, it is thrown away, being worthless, but that which is useful for the mankind remains behind on the earth. In this way Allah cites examples to make His message clear." [ar-Rad: 17]