The answers lie inside you

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The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

You know more than you think you do. The problem is we tend to keep ourselves too busy and distracted to realize it. We’re used to instant gratification so if an answer doesn’t pop into our heads immediately then we turn to Google. This process works great for most questions but falls flat when it comes to answering personal questions.

The best way to find answers to questions about you, is to sit with yourself. Slow down and listen to the conversation in your head. Wait for your personal judgments to subside because after they clear out, the real answer will surface.

Face code

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A face is a code, a shorthand to decipher. Succinct as it is, it is a sizeable piece of information about someone. The human ability to perceive a face is particularly refined and is linked to processes of emotional and cognitive evaluation.

When a face is directly gazing in our direction, the more attractive it is, the more pronounced is a response of gratification in us, with an underlying involvement of brain areas that process reward and a concomitant rush of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

By looking at a face, we involuntarily form inklings about traits and attitudes. One of the immediate features we infer is whether a person is trustworthy or not. Should we yield to them or should we avoid them? Should we dismiss or trust in their intentions? The process is subliminal. Aided by experience and predictions, we produce those rulings unconsciously, within milliseconds. We are so trained that this happens even when we are exposed to a face for a time so short we don’t even realize we have seen it.

Who I am?

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Not a believer in the mosque am I,
Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.
I am not pure amongst the impure,
I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh.
Bulleh, I know not who I am.

Not in the holy books am I,
Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine,
Nor do I live in a drunken haze,
Nor in sleep or waking known.
Bulleh, I know not who I am.

Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found.
I am neither pure nor mired in the filthy ground.
Not of water nor of land,
Nor am I in air or fire to be found.
Bulleh, I know not who I am.

Not an Arab nor Lahori,
Not a Hindi or Nagouri,
Nor a Muslim or Peshawari,
Not a Buddhist or a Christian.
Bulleh, I know not who I am.

Secrets of religion have I not unraveled,
I am not of Eve and Adam.
Neither still nor moving on,
I have not chosen my own name!
Bulleh, I know not who I am.

From first to last, I searched myself.
None other did I succeed in knowing.
Not some great thinker am I.
Who is standing in my shoes, alone?
Bulleh, I know not who I am.

― Bulleh Shah