Fundamentally Flawed

By Shaista Khurshid, Calgary, Alberta

We humans are funny in the sense that we perceive or believe things which are sometimes completely and inherently wrong. Still, we live our lives according to our fictional philosophies. We may be delusional, but this is how the world works, in my opinion.

Mostly we know our flaws and we want to hide them, and it is completely understandable and sometimes overtly necessary. Why should we flaunt our flaws in public anyways?

There might be many reasons we hide our guilty pleasures or flaws. One would be that we want to be seen in the public eye as we perceive ourselves- flawless and confident. Or it could be that we might not like to be fed to the proverbial wolves. That we dislike to face the lashing of gossipy tongues. Or it could be that we inherently think that the flaw we have is really devastating and morally or ethically wrong. Or could be that we think that we are flawless.

It is one thing to hide the flaws and guilt from others and another thing to think ourselves as inherently flawless. Sometimes hiding our flaws from public eyes can instill some traits which might be wrong itself. For example, in order to shift the public's attention from us, we sometimes keep our focus towards other people's flaws and we gossip about others, to keep the negative attention away from ourselves. This is a tried and tested distraction tactic. This type of thing is done by the media and governing bodies all the time. Suddenly, some minor and irrelevant things take up most of the news and are discussed as if the world is ending, but as soon as the purpose of distraction is over, the chaos subsides. The real story dies as it was never born, hidden in the piles of bytes. This is the same ploys we apply in social situations when we know we must hide our flaws.

"And whoever does a wrong or wrongs himself but then seeks forgiveness of Allah will find Allah Forgiving and Merciful. And whoever commits a sin only earns it against himself. And Allah is ever Knowing and Wise. But whoever earns an offence or a sin and then blames it on an innocent [person] has taken upon himself a slander and manifest sin. (4:110 -113)

There are two problems that arise from this thought process. Firstly, in this way we focus our energies and attention towards finding other people's shortcomings. This leads to self righteousness and negative perceptions of others.

"Have you ˹O Prophet˹ not seen those who ˹falsely˹ elevate themselves? It is Allah who elevates whoever He wills. And none will be wronged ˹even by the width of˹ the thread of a date stone." (4:49)

Secondly suspicion, negativity, and mistrust also arise and our delusion of being flawless, as we unintentionally compare ourselves with others and we become victims of our vicious attention.

Is this a productive and decent way to live? I guess not. What if we all treat others as we want to be treated before doing anything? Be cognisant of our actions. See the bigger picture of the impact of our action. This way many moral, ethical, and criminal dilemmas will never occur.

It is true, who wants to be robbed, murdered, kidnapped, exploited or abused by others. Similarly, who wants to be bullied, lashed, catcalled, verbally abused, or discriminated against. If everyone is cognisant of this simple yet powerful moral code, these words probably would never enter the dictionary.

Moral code application starts with understanding ourselves as humans, flawed, mistake prone, yet beautifully created humans. We have a capability of either building or destroying this place earth, our only home for this life. We are all humans, there is no ‘other’ in this. The ‘other’ is a human like us. Fundamentally flawed like us, in need of necessities, longing and ridden with mistakes. We might be different in culture , religions, colors, race, language, yet uniquely similar with each other. But it is important to believe firmly in that we are not better than others and there is no comparison or competition.

When we see others as our equal but different, similar yet unique; applying simple laws of decency towards others becomes quite easy. If we keep away other people from our lashing tongue and stop throwing them to the proverbial wolves, we will eventually create a society based on love and mutual respect. Nobody will feel flawed or flawless. This earth becomes more serene and peaceful.

Photo By Janita Sumeiko on Unsplash