When You’re Born With It

Posted on August 24, 2006
Filed Under General Thoughts |

I’m convinced that there are some things you’re just born with. The whole nurture VS nature debate is the context of this post, just in case you were wondering or felt like going off topic.

I don’t believe there’s something called bad qualities. A stubborn little boy is a bad kid, right? Wrong! A stubborn kid is just… stubborn. It’s how he uses that stubbornness that defines him as bad or good. If his mama tells him to clean his room and he stubbornly objects, he’s bad but if someone tries convincing him he’ll never achieve his goals and he stubbornly refuses to accept that idea, he’s good.

The same goes for Muslims. We Muslims are super emotional and we get mad pretty easily. We’ve got a lot of anger and frustration bottled up so is that bad? No, it’s not. In fact I think it’s good. The catastrophic bad part though is that we’re directing all that anger in the wrong direction, namely America and Israel. Take that anger, light it on fire, take that fire and turn it further into an inferno BUT… Direct it all at our own bloody governments for God’s sake. Okay, fine, fine. You can leave a tiny legitimate bit for Israel and America. Happy?

Back to my point. If you’re angry, stubborn, wild, cold-hearted etc. and people tell you to quit being so, the hell with them. I’m pissed off, I’m stubborn, I’ve got rage, and I embrace all. However, I try my best to put all of those emotions into good use so put yours into good use too. Find a constructive outlet alright? If you… we do, we might just start managing changing this entire loony radicalism and tribalism garbage we’re witnessing. Let’s just try something different. Pretty please with a cerry on top.

Anyways, me off to bed. I’m really sleepy and not in a very good mood. I’ll tell you the reason in my next post.

Comments

8 Responses to “When You’re Born With It”

  1. Aimster on August 24th, 2006 12:39 pm

    Drima I beg to differ.
    I totally believe in nurture.
    We’re not born with religion (tho I’m not quite sure how you see that) it’s nurtured. Our morals, our opinions, our dreams, our goals… it’s all nurture.
    What you said about Mulims being super emotional.. that’s all nurtured by way of our environment, our culture, what we’re taught in school, what our parents teach us, what we watch on tv, what we talk about with our friends, the reason we get all wiled up the first place(thoughts like American=evil) its all nurtured.
    Why are some ppl born Christian, others Jews, others Muslim? They’re not! We’re all essentially born the same. Our heritage/culture determines our religion.

    I think some characteristics are definately inherent though. I was born stubborn. and determined.
    Some things just come naturally to us like math or public speaking. But then these things can also been nurtured.. some ppl are terrified of public speaking, but overcoming these kind of barriers includes nurturing our fears.

    and I don’t think people are inherently good or bad, but they do have the capacity to do/ become either. –>nurture

    It’s all about a healthy balance.

    Balance what comes to us naturally, and the right type of nurture.

    And it’s all about using our energy/strengths productively/constructively and putting them to good use- like you said.

    but then, the argument of freewill vs fate/destiny come into play.

    Do we choose who we want to be, or is it a course of nature/predecided?? Do we have control of our destiny?
    I believe we do… God gives us options, and we choose which path to take.

    You should expand on this more. It’s a very inetresting topic. Something I tend to blog about a lot.

    Have a nice day ;) Enjoy whatever you will be doing ;p
    Hope to see you sooon!

  2. Aimster on August 24th, 2006 12:47 pm

    I actually don’t believe it is nature vs nurture.
    I think people are essentially nature+nurture.

    We are given certaint things, but like you said, it’s how we use them that defines whether they are good/bad. But how we choose to use them essentially depends on how we have been nurtured.

    Our mentality basically indicates how we have been nurtured. The world needs more nurture.
    Make love, not war? lol

    Obviously this is something I think about a lot.
    *winks*

  3. Tsedek on August 24th, 2006 4:30 pm

    Drima, it’s a meridian thing. It seems the closer you’re born near the meridian the more temperament you’ve got. (I’m the exception LOL). Anyway, that’s my unscientific observation :)

    Tse.

  4. Anonymous on August 24th, 2006 5:14 pm

    Don’t mean to put a damper on you Aims, but when people say “EVERYONE WAS BORN MUSLIM” basically they’re saying that everyone is born with a soul that recognizes the existense of a power higher, because that soul has not been tainted with the ideology of materialism, ever wonder why children (thats if they haven’t been poisoned by their parents) smile at everyone and try to grab at you despite of color, language, and religion, it’s because they see what we have now been conditioned to ignore, and what everyone says is insignificant. I would explain in greater detail and try to be more eloquent in this, but my kidney stones are making it hard to concentrate. But everything else you said about nurture is on the dime. LoL.
    -Yan

  5. The Raccoon on August 25th, 2006 1:19 am

    Hmmm. According to research, it’s more or less 40% genetics and 60% environment (personality traits, that is).

    About anger and the use thereof - it is… problematic. Anger is blinding. Very few, if any, good things come from anger - simply because it impairs your analytic capability. Emotions are problematic like this - their function is to react to immediate stimuli, and when they become relevant to long-term problems it always complicates things.

    Yan - Uhm. I have a feeling we’re going to disagree quite a bit. Soul is a problematic concept - namely because it’s baseless. We do have a sort of information matrix that defines us and is, indeed, us. Knowledge, however, is something gained by necessity through experience. A newborn human offspring has no knowledge because it has no experience; moreover, its brain is not yet fully formed and will not be for many years.

    Children are creatures of base instincts and reflexive reactions; Children smile when they are pleased and cry when they are displeased; they seek to experience the world and therefore try to have as much empiric experience as possible (hence the grabbing). Moreover, things like color, language and religion are meaningless to a child - the first lacks context and hence irrelevant, the second is an unknown and hence irrelevant, and the third is an abstract concept (abstract thinking is a higher brain function that develops at later stages) and therefore irrelevant.

    Kidney stones are nasty. Good luck with these.

  6. Anonymous on August 25th, 2006 7:51 am

    The existence of the soul is definite, but to me, and I would have to give an explanation and I would have to give examples, it’s something too delicate and intricate to explain in a spastic frenzy. So I will get back to you Racoon. :0)
    Salaam

  7. halalhippie on August 25th, 2006 3:04 pm

    There’s an exercise I do at times, trying to direct myself into a more positive way of thinking.

    Say I’m stubborn (just as an example) so…stubbornness is the “dark side” of perseverance.
    If I can be stubborn about learning something or achieving something, rather than refusing something, then it can be a positive emotion.

    Say I’m “super emotional and [..] get mad pretty easily” :-) well, on the bright side, I’m passionate, I’ll try to use that passion to be creative rather than reactive.

    [Using the Danish cartoons as an example: if Muslims use their passionate love of the Prophet (PBUH) to show the world what wonderful human relations they have, rather than burning cheese, flags and embassies, what a boost to human culture it would be….] (forgive my incessant babble about them cartoons, they are my ticket to the Muslim world]

    Say I’m cold-hearted: well, I might just be modest, self-controlled and protective.

    Catch my drift ? you can always make better with what you have.

    Salaam

  8. Drima on August 25th, 2006 11:33 pm

    Halalhippie, that exactly the point of this post and I agree with you 100%.

    I think people might have misunderstoof the whole nurture VS nature debate thing. I don’t bother to take sides on that debate because as Aimster and Raccoon said it’s both nurture+nature. There are some people who use the excuse that it’s nature that makes us who we are and hence we should be excused for the nasty things we do. Total bullcrap. There’s no such thing as a bad quality. It’s how you direct those qualities that ends up defining them.

    My point is just like Halahippie’s. Lunatic Muslims can’t use the “nature” excuse. There’s no such rubbish.

    Anonymous, you seem to be enjoying yourself being anonymous. Do me a favour, I suggest you make up a new nickname or something so at least in the future we know which anonymous is which. Please do so… Pretty please with a watermelon on top. Okay??

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