It is an incredible feeling to go beyond yourself and realize that it takes more than a status to really tell if the person in front of you is a good soul or a poisoned soul. Poisoned only from the self at most times, but good always with the heart and inner intentions. It is not about religious belief, race or language that defines how good or compatible the person is, and it is not about genre, situations, or stereotype cultivation. But it is always about base intentions. The mind set in harmony with the heart. It is never about general judgment, it can never be about first impression, and it is not about generalization. People are different, and real people are hard to find. So most people are just simply imitations, and some are just trying to find their true souls, questioning; where do they fit in the most? And only few times, the pure pulls the pure, towards one person or another. Your heart speaks to you and when it does, it is truth. “Don’t let your thoughts cast a shadow over your heart” Rumi once said, because your thoughts are noise, only noise that was created by the other, and the other could have been poisoned and so now you have been poisoned too. Don’t generalize. You have never asked or truly tried to see behind that first impression you have received. That status. That same status that is only a label; a label that was possibly imprinted quickly, have you even ever looked at your status? How many people have similar statuses as you? How alike are you? How would you feel when you have been put in a closed circle and you go along those people who have that similar status? How much are they like you? How much of you are they? So don’t generalize. A status is only a label, to define you, but it can never be who you truly are. It is just armor. I don’t even know why we need that armor anymore in a world where it is so wide open to one another, and one status can never identify you as someone else who has the same status as you. Muslim, Arab, single with a Western Mind. What can this mean to you anyway? How could this mean one thing all the time? Do you know how many carry that very same status? But we don’t all like ice-cream, we don’t all enjoy dancing, we don’t all read Rumi, we don’t all speak 3 different languages, we don’t all fast Ramadan, we don’t all enjoy shisha, we don’t all agree about equal rights, and we sure don’t all love pizza!!! So why are we generalizing? Just because he is an Atheist, British, Married, Rock and Roll fan, why can he not have so much in common with me? What is a status today when the status itself does not represent itself anymore? How many Muslim act the very same way? Believe in the very same thing? Practice the very same way? How many Westernized Arabs think the same way? Enjoy the same thing? Agree on the same values? And how many rock and roll fans are Atheists? British? And how many Atheists are not open to learn about religions? Or no longer question the existence of God? Or practice values that were derived from religions? Again you might have started to generalize again, the questions here are not about the status, it is about different people with same status only because they had to be identified to the world, and what did we do? We decided to imprint that first impression, and what did that first impression do? It prevented us from really seeing the true soul of that person we have just met. So Voila, maybe it is time to stop criticizing before feeling annoyed being criticized.
Razan Masri 