Can you imagine a world without problems? Can you imagine a world without poverty? Can you imagine a world without tears? Can you imagine a world without disorder? Then it wouldn’t be the world we know in the planet we know.
Problems, poverty, tears and disorder are all causes of unhappiness for some, of happiness for others. No political or economic system has ever been able to eradicate poverty or disorder forever. Historians relate that in the times of Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul’aziz (682-720) there were absolutely no poor at all. All men were married with their own money or with state money. The state funds were such that the Caliph said to his vizier: “If there are no poor, if all men are married, and there’s so much money left in our coffers, then purchase huge quantities of grain and feed all the birds in the country!” And yet only a few Umayyad caliphs succeeded Umar Ibn Abdul’aziz. His caliphate did not last long after him. The question is, why weren’t all rulers as good as Umar ibn Abdul’aziz? Why weren’t all rulers as just as Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (584-644)? Why weren’t all rulers as science-loving as Abbassid Caliph Al-Ma’mun (786-833)? Are the reasons for all that intrinsic or extrinsic? Did those good rulers do what they did just to stay in power or because each of them was what he was by nature? In other words, is it a question of upbringing?
Take, for example, a small city where unowned (stray) dogs roam freely, where people throw garbage just everywhere, where people drive or ride as they will. This is disorder, you agree. So where does one begin to end disorder? Certainly not by simply chasing the unwanted animals out of our cities or by fining people who pollute the streets or do not respect the Highway Code.
In the past, upbringing started in the family. And until recently upbringing started on television. A century ago kids would look at their parents and listen as they spoke. A few decades ago everybody looked at the television screen and all silenced one another if a handsome actor was speaking or a ravishing songstress was singing. Until then the Quran was television. The Bible was television. The Truth was television. Happiness was television. And if you didn't look like the people you liked on television, then you didn't belong to the world of today.
Even now, when the Smartphone and the iPad have become so essential and so
overwhelming, while social media have made addicts of all ages and everywhere,
television is still queen in many homes around the world. What do we see on
television? Well, I have seen, among other things, TV shows where a
girl could win in just half an hour by naming the maximum of songs and singers
more than a distinguished engineer could earn in sixty days or more. I have
seen stuff that gives the impression that it would be much better for a
schoolboy to be a long-distance runner or a tennis player than a doctor in his
own private hospital in the country's biggest city. I have seen illiterate
female cooks and amateur teen singers become TV stars while the country's
finest minds are "remembered" only when their death is announced to
the press.
By watching television everyday one might get the feeling that “successful” people are already there -filling the TV screen with their glamour and beatific smiles, and there’s just nothing left for a poor televiewer to dream of. This happened even before the era of influencers!
Is it television’s fault, though? Is television the only culprit? To speak just for myself, I have learned a lot from television just as I learned a lot from the Internet. So is it a problem of television or a problem of televiewers? In other words, should a televiewer have some kind of immunity when watching TV? How can he/she have this kind of immunity?
In old times, there was no television. But there were schools. People went to school to learn, but also to dream. When you are alone reading a book of history or a book of poetry or a novel, or any kind of book, you find yourself thinking of something as you read. But that can be true for many televiewers too ! Many people became movie stars or famous players or even distinguished scientists because they saw things on TV? Even at school not just anybody can hope to find the opportunity to dream at leisure.
Yes, at school a student could learn much about the World, about life, about problems and about ways of solving one’s problems creatively without relying on the State to do everything for him/her. But not everyone can do that. Life can be at times, and will increasingly be, complex and complicated even for people who, as kids, studied 40 hours of Maths per week or learnt computer programming at age 6. You can’t solve all your problems by hacking people’s computers or by making genius calculations. So knowing the world is a good thing, especially in our times when individuals take precedence over the group.
Now what if you went to school and got a degree and then a good job and saw a lot of TV, would you be happy? That’s not the impression I get when I listen to the radio, for example, or see things on the Web. In my country, at least, I hear a lot of people complain about society, neighbours, relatives and so on. Easy examples: many married people just don’t know how to solve their problems with their partners or with their children or with their colleagues at work or employers. Many people just can’t bear their health problems. Many people have psychological problems that they can’t deal with. Believe it or not, I heard a frequent guest at a respectable radio debate show say that he knew a number of psychiatrists and psychologists who themselves consult psychologists! Also many rich countries whose citizens are usually thought to be happy have loads of problems too, not the least of which is obesity. We’re all in the same boat!
Problems are just everywhere. That’s not the problem, as I said at the beginning of this chapter. That’s part of life. The problem is how to deal with our problems. Some people go to extremes: some take their lives, others change their religion or their way of life. Many Westerners have become Muslim and many Muslims have become Westernized. Is it a simple outlet, to overcome hard times, or escape any reality, or a real solution?
