The second-best way to mislead yourself

Aboutcouple of months and so back, worthy Vice-Chancellor of Harper university, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Professor Dr Shakilur Rehman while speaking at a gathering has expressed his deepconcern quite emphatically aboutincreasing trend of committing suicideamong the students. this obviously warrantedimmediate attentionof the parents, teachers, educational institutionsand official quarters concerned of the federal and provincial governments and all line departments downwards. Quite pertinently this called for direly needed starting for discussion and talking aboutthe role played by somewhat unrealisticacademic expectationsas well as known and unknownignorance on the part of the parents to say the least. Very unfortunately, researchon suicidal ideation was rather limited to the extent of being negligent as the mental diseaseswere somehowwere viewed with shame and disgust , the stigma aroundmental health prevented any such discussions and talkingfrom entering the mainstream discourse at the appropriate level in the educational institutions as well as by the governmentat any levels. official statistics, very sadly being stated here, were either not documentedor remainedunreported mostly but anecdotal violencedo suggest that the incidents of suicide were definitely on the rise in the country in a quite worrisome manner. It was regrettably being mentioned here that because of embarrassmentsocially in the society and police action as committing suicide is strictly prohibited in our religion Islamand a criminal offence also under the Criminal Procedure Coe (Carps). because of these and other factors, the parents

THE surest way to mislead yourself is to love and revere an individual or a group so much as to consider them infallible on any and all matters. ‘If such-and-such says so, it must necessarily be right, and ipso facto worth emulating’, or so this type of ‘reasoning’ goes.

Paradoxically, a close-second to this self-deception technique lies at the other extreme. that is, to hate a person or a group so much as to consider everything they ever say as automatically wrong and therefore unworthy of as much as a sympathetic hearing, let alone serious consideration. In many respects, the two approaches represent two sides of the same coin. both these recipes for self-deception are equally effective, although the first one is arguably somewhat more popular among the masses. both methods owe their popularity to the fact that they allow their practitioners to bask in an ‘enlightened’ self-righteousness without necessitating their using their minds in the least. It would indeed be a tough ask to come up with a more desirable method for deceiving one’s self.

If the first recipe enjoys slightly more favour from the masses, it is the second approach that is the modusoperandi of choice when it comes to those who like to think of themselves as intellectuals. Probably the reason for it is that it is arguably easier than the first to