Is the asking of advice making us look weaker?

    In the same context of the previous articles; when we said that the human life is a part from social life, and it can’t continue normally separately alone. when you think that your existence is a part from social existence; you’ll deal and interact with people more and many great values appear and strengthen. So you communicate, discuss different matters, help and asking help too. That’s the way that people develop in their minds, find out different cultures and knowledge, and get always new perspectives.

    Every one passes by bad circumstances, and some hard times come across his life’s irregular moments, in those times; the problems weaken the person who undergoes them in somehow. Sometimes the situation leads to the matter that we already talked about in last two articles “the loneliness”, and this choice isn’t pleasant neither likable.

    But some others; they prefer to overcome these cruel times in way to face them instead the isolation. So they look for an exit or outlet to exceed the circumstance that they have currently. They think about a way to handle it, regardless if it’s a moral problem or depending to some life’s responsibilities.

    The smartest people are who share this situation with others to contributing in the way to resolve the problem, two minds are thinking together it's better than one only, and when three minds are thinking it's the best. And the luckiest people too are who find the suitable person to share with. You’ll add more experiences to yourself although you didn’t experiment them or test them at all. And that protect you to be mistaken in your next step and what you should do among a lot of choices. Through the advice you can get rid of your fogginess and you won’t be confused anymore.

    Whatever; we all know that your brain can do the necessary and it’s enough, but we are talking for the better option, for example, when you ask about an opinion, they think in free and they look to the matter from different perspective than yours. In contrast; with concerned person can’t do it normally in many times because of pressures of short time or having a bad mood, no energies for doing, …etc, don’t allow a quiet reflection.

    If you didn’t find with whom you share and ask advices to make a clear view about your actuality to pursue the life, work.., it doesn’t mean that it’s bad choice to let others contribute in solution of your problems, they are just suggestions when you listen well and in the end it’s your decision to choose what to do next. Probably you didn’t meet yet such as cruel circumstance for this reason or that, and it’s not weakness when you ask advice from the true person whereas it’s just an advisory option in order to light your mind by a different though, economizing your energies in road, and shortening time toward the solution and getting your target easier.

    We’ve a saying that says: “the fruits of experiences are the good choice”, and the asking of advice - when it’s necessary - sometimes; enters within this point. To get benefits from the fruits of gardens besides of yours.

The loneliness is a personal advantage or a social disease (part 02)

    The loneliness starts from a feeling of nobody understands correctly your needs, thoughts and your interests in life, then those people don’t find the essence of themselves (don’t feel their true value as persons), they suffer from some of marginalization in somehow, after that they don’t find any role they can do in life which brings depression, then more sadness, psychological instability ….(bad feelings too). So they prefer to be lonely more to not show their weakness and avoid talking with others even don’t discuss the matter except when it’s necessary. Because no one understands them, and again more depression more sadness until trending toward drugs, drinks, or suicide sometimes.

     I know sometimes you need to stay with yourself to renew your energies and discover yourself again, that’s logical to do, but to isolate yourself from any human interaction, that’s the wrong part in the matter. Maybe you blame yourself because of failures, your body lives in present whereas your feelings and spirit remained in past. You won’t have any progress in your life in this way.  And there is a saying: if you can’t change the circumstances; change your position and your attitude toward them! Look differently to the matter! And the live will flow in the other direction.

  How to do with them?

    Everybody needs help and support, it’s the social life and if you did a great job whereas no one evaluates or estimates well your work, you won’t like what you did, and you won’t enjoy your success at all, because it looks valueless work. Else when your work gets appreciation, and it looks valuable you feel pleasant and really you did something worth. And that’s the social life and the ordinary interaction with people.

    Moreover your destiny will bring to you who can help you in critical times; therefore you’re required to see when others are in need of your help or at least need your understanding as well. To not lose this person in the maze of loneliness; it’s preferably to bring him out by the sincere feeling of the understanding. When the person gets an impression that’s possible to find who can understand him, we won and we did a great achievement. Then the most important thing to do is the trust, it’s the channel to make this person feels your support and understanding, feels his existence in the real world as a member like everyone, all that to let him start talking with someone and break the wall of silence, it’s the first step.

    Secondly try to define for him his role in life (define again: remind him what he’s now? What can he do? And what should he think for to do?), and help to make a clear view for him to continue the life ahead. New dimensions ..with new horizons.

    If it’s in your responsibility or in your work to escort someone, you should provide the necessary help, show him the positive sides in his life, suggest him to join cultural or sportive clubs, improve some new skills and motivate him to learn something new in line with his tendencies, and also offer the guidance to achieve something valuable according to his interests, that recall to him self-esteem, and strengthen his confidence in himself.

How to do if you don’t find help?

    I know that the hardest times for each person are when he’s in need to close people - to standing beside him- and he couldn’t find that support from them, I mean when they aren’t available in the right time.

   The time is going on and you can’t stop the life, just you make yourself in vicious circle like living without existence and I think it isn’t fair enough for yourself. Probably that you don’t find who can help you to overcome that because it’s bad situation that you’re, so what should you do in this case?

    Break the routine! Change the things that you are used to do them every day, especially in weekend if you haven’t time in other days. If you’re working all days, you’re exhausted, go to have some fun (outside the work environment), plan to spend some time with family, friends, go to cinema, theatre, the park, the zoo,…etc or travel to a different city or country maybe.

    All the different kinds of pressures - from several responsibilities in life - lead to exit the life (in fact quit his existence as an active member), but the life doesn’t work like that, we should make effort to override all those, like I mentioned in many previous articles on this blog. Try to be in touch with others more, and discover how many people are different according to your tastes, you'll discover other things yourself within and how much you’ll be pleasant in your life.

The loneliness is a personal advantage or a social disease

   When the life is going for nothing useful, the person feels himself in empty circle, especially when this feeling is mixed with impression of no goal to like for and no need to be exist in this world. Those feelings lead to a sadness and make this person disappointed from the entirely life.

   People in those situations prefer to stay alone for a while, although the world became like a small city and all this big jam of social communication in different ways and means, but many people stay feeling by the loneliness in life because of no true people in fact beside, nobody cares. This feeling increases when you really don’t find anyone beside in times when you need to have someonein time when the family ties are broken more and more.

   The society looks coherent but if you check inside (nearly) you find out that many people are separated and living separately in their thoughts, their feelings, their goals ( regardless to living near of far from people). Everyone sings a different musical piece without harmony between them, this is the fact in our societies.

   And the loneliness becomes a kind of lifestyle for many people, because they don’t interact enough with others, sometimes it’s depending to personal convictions that everyone can live by himself and only. And for some reasons they don’t trust people, so they prefer the loneliness as an inevitable choice, their eyes start see the darkness without any bright face to the world.

   But the human life is based on social interactions and deal with people, so we can’t continue a normal and ordinary life if we choose to go mentally far from the society and stay alone when we’re obliged to remain within it.

   That’s why some people look for companionship through new technologies when they failed to find suitable mates that in daily life, not just to enjoy their time, have fun or make friends, but because they suffer from loneliness in real life whereas they’re surrounded by a lot of people and everything important for living.

    If we see the matter generally we find: when the people get encouragement, they work seriously to achieve what they’re working for. Whereas they give up when they don't get attention or enough care…etc. and that’s what happens in fact.

    We learn the success from successful experiences and people in the world when you spend your life with others, you’ll find the solidarity spirit, giving help, the morally and physically support, standing by side of each other…etc, you'll be ready to provide help in the same way that you wish to get when you need it.

   But I can say that those qualities disappeared today (in different degrees from place to another) unfortunately because of majority are looking only for themselves regardless to world around.

An overview of previous articles about democracy

    We talked I last 10 articles basically about one topic only, “the democracy of new century and its faces” and we tried to discuss the matter from different sides, political, religious, social, and economical.

    We mentioned the historical point about the democracy and the context which it took to be in the way we know today. Also the discussion shown some parts of its principles and main one regarding to the absolute freedom of human power with no interference from his religion and we brought some evidences besides makings questions, that background intervenes directly in every position comes in front of whether human being,  organization or government.

    The second aspect, about social life into the shade of the known democracy, displayed numerous problems inside, and how the life isn’t look the same like it appears generally, when we find out the details in depth of societies.

   The last one was talking mainly about the economic side, and this last has huge troubles and instability from the governmental procedures and regulations until reaching the simple income of family. And the world suffers from the inequality in different part of life and several degrees. Moreover the last writings gave some experiences from other places with different perspectives too. All those were only to spread this knowledge, in order to get benefits all together and exchange experiences which are efficient practically.

   This small study didn’t get a big impression and I saw that the majority of people in our world aren’t interested in those topics and issues, although it’s very important to have a glance about them, and think how the life is going in fact.  In next articles I hope that they’ll be more interesting and touch a different side too, because we always try to discuss the important matters in life for everyone.

Lending money by rates or simply the usury (part 02) : a different perspective

   When many economist admit the practical working of usury in monetary system now, and they justify that implementation by reason of the missed opportunities, today; many others are bearing the idea of cancelling the usury from all commercial contracts and lending policies, including practical Christians and Muslims who consider that as a violation of God’s legislation, in case of the big gap between the rich people who become richer, and the poor who became poorer too with time when many people can’t pay their interests regardless to the origin debt and its services which denotes a new crisis in the road. And the authorities prefer to escape forward in hoping to get results, but they don’t know how much they waste from time and from other hidden and fruitful experiences until now, or maybe deliberately isolated, but they agree also that these economic benefits of usury, “make enormous problem from ethical and philosophical aspects”.

    The Islamic banks provide several ways to invest in money avoiding the usury transactions, the first experiences in this way were unilateral tries since the forties of last century until seventies in Dubai. Then these experiences are expended in many countries when the UK integrated these transactions as a part among their financial systems to collecting more and bringing an important amount quantity from Muslim community in there.

    There are 7 or 8 faces of financial products in Islamic banking, and I’ll mention here the most important of them like:  “al-murabah” (win-win) or “al-musharakah” (contribution in the capital, and whether in benefit or losses), direct or indirect investments. Besides; some other procedures and mechanisms (which we can explain all of them in one article or two) to insure the legal transactions between people, organizations or banks.

    From their benefits on global economy, these rules decrease the inflation rates, because the money is used just in legal investments, and not to make a large expenditure without production increases the volume of cash without exchanging for foods or services. And we get a monetary inflation in fact. The Islamic perspective is based on the principle of lending money without zero interests but with a deadline of course. But in case of “procrastination” and delay in payment of debts, what should we do if someone exceeds that deadline?

Regardless to the sinfulness toward the god (the reason which push the majority of people to rushing in payment); the logical sanctions are the imprisonment, inhibition him from the licit advantages for whole people, prevention from the financial facilities in his transactions and the reputation of - person/organization/company- in business generally.

    And from practical solutions we can cite: the collaboration between banks and financial institutions against those who delayed intentionally to pay off their debts to adding them into the blacklist.  Or like it is going now by holding on some of his properties to the bank or the entering of bank by a certain portion with the debtor in his realties.

Lending money by rates or simply the usury

    I talked in two previous articles about “Ez-zakah” and I discussed the matter how to proceed the way to make an equality between people in their incomes. But the content was talking only about the cash sources to support the fund of this institution, because there are other sources are existing also to share them like we do with money and apply them too for the same purpose, like the agricultural crops yearly and livestock which are regarded as an asset too. Today we’ll turn to another topic knowing that we’re staying in the same context.

    This March, the EU bank cuts the benchmark of interest rate until 0% to stimulate economy, not only in Europe, even in US, Canada and Japan, the banks cut the interest rate to the negative rates, in order to insure some recoveries for economy and avoid the case of collapse or recessions, but the problem can be worse, in brief when the risks of inflation increase because of the big amount of money created and delivered without stock of gold or foreign currency, which leads to falls of prices then the weakening of production’s cycle, so the question is: what’s the harm on economy because of the existing of interest high or less from banks?  And why these rates of interests make negative effects on economies’ growth?

    From definition; the usury is an illegal action to lending money at high rates of interest. From the Christian perspective, clear chapters from the bible preventing the deal on usury. But the church –after many centuries- distinguished between the people in the same society about the way how to apply on them these rules of interests (the nobles were like victims who deserve to get compensations, else the money will stay between hand of church instead to direct toward poor), “that fact strengthen the financial power of church into the society.” so this practice is forbidden from all religions on account of its bad consequences on the economy, and social life in every society.

    Although the term “usury” is widely taken to mean “excessive interest” (which is never defined how many exactly) or illegal interest, now the usury is defined as a practice to lend the money with an interest.  This interest is fixed by time, and when the time isn’t enough to return (money + interest); this last will grow up more and more

    A European study about the “usury laws in EU” said it its main finding that usury ceiling had led to a high degree of exclusion from small loans for poor people in those countries and created a market of illegal lending.

    Of course, government policy for decades has been to encourage lenders to provide mortgage loans to lower-income families, “In this way, homeownership would be impossible to all but the wealthiest people they do”. That looks unjust in somehow when people can’t guarantee the basic needs for a normal life to a family (I mean to have a shelter). In the next article we’ll continue a second part to show a different perspective too going on the same way to fight the usury.

Some details about Ez-zakah mechanism

    I talked in the previous article about one important mechanism “EZ-ZAKAH” and I displayed generally how this system can affect on people’s life, like the social benefits on people, and the big results of equality in incomes even we don’t reach 100% but we can obtain better than we're in now. This system was used in past and its effectiveness has proven. But I didn’t mention how the mechanism is applied and how is the way exactly to apply that?

    To make it more obvious for people who read before, I’ll review some details:

    In first place; It isn’t easy to make rich people dispense of some of their money annually, and that calls in minds that the matter is depending on kind of attitude (conduct / manners), which work in starting from the human belief of whether charity and obligation to do. The feeling of guiltiness “in this way” is greater than when it comes “in policies’ way”. I mean the religious aspect in the human character, people can deceive rules but they can’t deceive themselves when there is a true belief inside, it’s necessary so to complete the integrity and sincerity of human being, and i talked before that we can't make a strict rules of all (social, economic and cultural sides) of society’s life without interference of manners and religions too.

    Secondly, i didn't mention the people who really deserve this money, besides to say they're 8 kinds of people, besides the strict procedures are detailed in this mechanism to function correctly and efficiently. And these people who deserve to get this amount of money, they're also needed to have some qualities (ethic), so like the first one accepts to give his money, the second also must have some characteristics. And that brings the mutual confidence and trust between all people in the same society, especially when they see the positive effects of their money appearing in the fact.

    Thirdly, I can notice some kinds who deserve to get that money, and give examples for that. The poor people (in 2 parts: who haven't the food even for one day, and who can't provide to themselves everything necessary to live (basic for life)). It’s a right for those in bondage and those in debt. For the wayfarer people who travel in everywhere for study or seeking livelihood. The people who employed to administer and gather that big money from rich people in all provinces, also they have a portion, like charitable projects,....etc and other kinds as well. The students (in different ages) also get their finance from this money. And every kind - among these 8 kinds - has a defined portion, precisely.

     It’s true that the world has a huge diversity between people, and that appears also in their experiences, and they’re amazing and successful experiences which are able to change our world is we apply them, a lot of experiences are in different nations and accumulated for several years to be fruitful. If we learn from each other and share the valuable knowledge (wherever it is), we can get many benefits and have better life in all sides mentioned above.