More from The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton (expect more in due time; I wrote down tons of gems from his gorgeous book on architecture, The Architecture of Happiness, as I read it earlier this year, far too many to excerpt here). In this scene, the author watches via closed-circuit television as a private career counselor listens to a client describe “her personal history and professional dissatisfactions.” Read the rest of this entry »
From The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton:
Partially undermining the manufacturer’s ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful contribution to mankind was the frivolous way in which it went about marketing its products. Grief was the only rational response to the news that an employee had spent three months devising a supermarket promotion based on an offer of free stickers of cartoon characters called the Fimbles. Why had grown-ups so churlishly abdicated their responsibilities? Were there not more important ambitions to be met before Death showed himself on the horizon in his hooded black cloak, his scythe slung over his shoulder? Read the rest of this entry »
Hello, and welcome to my brand-new blog and website! I’ll be posting new content soonish. Meanwhile, I’ve imported some old blog posts (a.k.a. rants) from past blogs for you to enjoy. My About page is a nice place to start, as well.
“Once asked by a magazine editor to name his favourite chair, Le Corbusier cited the seat of a cockpit, and described the first time he ever saw an aeroplane, in the spring of 1909, in the sky above Paris—it was the aviator the Comte de Lambert taking a turn around the Eiffel Tower—as the most significant moment in his life.”
–Alain de Botton, from The Architecture of Happiness.
We’re currently producing an SoF show featuring Jean Vanier, a wise old man who has spent his life doing charity work with mentally disabled individuals around the world. Although he’s Christian, his words and his gentleness are unsettling in their beauty and have given me plenty to think about as a Muslim. His notions of God’s vulnerability, in particular, make me better understand the word islam better than I ever have. (I’m going to delve into the kind of theological matters I don’t typically discuss. I mean, yes, I do talk about religion often enough, but my own spiritual bent is difficult for me to pin down, even though I’m coming from an Islamic perspective. So I’ll be talking about God as a reality more than I usually do. That’s even uncomfortable for me to do because I think God is something that we are incapable of talking about well using language. It’s awkward, and language is limiting because of its precision and linearity. I’ll be addressing that awkwardness in this post, as well.) Read the rest of this entry »
Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve been busy writing my article for ISNA’s Islamic Horizons magazine, looking at the Muslim community of Montreal. I have a few smaller focus pieces to finish up, but the main article is out of my hands now. It will be appearing in the November-December issue of the magazine, at which time I will also post the article up here.In the meantime, I thought I’d just share a couple of thoughts on one of the main themes that came up during interviews I had with various people: reasonable accommodation. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m in the middle of writing and researching my article on the Muslim community of Montreal. It’s going well, but just as the wider conversation about modern Islam has become infected with politics (or, rather, politicized), I find that in conversations I’ve had so far, the same issues inevitably come up without my having to ask about them. Read the rest of this entry »
During an all-hours-of-the-night conversation with one of my best friends, I was asked by him, strictly from a place of genuine curiosity, how someone as educated and intelligent as I appear to be could “fall for” or “buy into” religion (“fairy tales, wizards and magic” as he put it). It’s a valid question, one I’ve been asked before in some form. I’ve always found it difficult to deliver the kind of succinct answer that would satisfy such a question. To be honest, I myself ask myself regularly how or why I believe what I do. Not because I think I’m in danger of losing my faith or anything like that, but because I am genuinely curious about the path I’ve taken, and about the mechanics of this device that operates in my soul. Read the rest of this entry »
The other day, I came across an essay by a user-experience designer called Designing The Experience of Islam. It’s something I’ve been thinking about on and off, myself. Basically, the question it brings up is how Muslims experience the story or essence of being Muslim today, and how that is expressed. Read the rest of this entry »
An article over in Wired got me thinking about the genre of science fiction. It seems that writers and directors of “sci-fi” shows and movies dislike using the term “science fiction.” It has everything to do with the fact that the term connotes images of robots and aliens, spaceships and lasers. It’s basically, as the article mentions, fantasy in space, replacing orcs with Vulcans, and magic spells with science spells.I myself dislike the “spaceship” genre of sci-fi, on the whole. I enjoyed bald Sisko kicking ass back in the day, but I find Star Trek to be a bore. And yet, I think science fiction — “classical” science fiction — is a wonderful genre. What do I mean by classical science fiction? Read the rest of this entry »