Implementation of Respect (Rei)

After gathering the opinions of all the participants we decided to begin with the virtue of Respect.

For information on this virtue u can find it Here .
And now how to implement this virtue in our daily life I think that it is quite obvious how to be a respectful and in return respectable person the only thing that u have to do is to respect all in life and respect life itself with no exceptions u have to treat everyone and everything respectfully...
Let's say that ur Boss is the ideal as$#@l then how could u respect him? well if u don't respect him for him being ur boss (Out of business courtesy) u may respect him for his accomplishment if not then there has to be some qualities that u may respect him for and even if there isn't u have to respect him for being a human being at least.
How may ur respect be met by others? I assume that at first u may find a rejection by the person u may respect as he may think that u r sucking up to him and others may think the same but I assure u that after a while when people find out that u respect them for nothing in return but respect itself then they'll respect u in return.
So this is our challenge for a whole week we have to respect everyone and everything to the out most starting with ur own self so it doesn't mean that if u respect someone u have to stand still when he disrespects u but u have to respond in the most respectable way.
Any way what ever I say I may never reach the answer the question of how to implement this virtue so I will believe in the nature of the Human being to really reach that answer via experimenting and I'm sure that we -some how- r going to find our way.

So I hereby announce the beginning of V-Experiment on the 25/11/2006 and may God help us all...
HAJIMETE

P.S. for the online participants u have the total freedom to suggest, argue about any part in this experiment about the how or the time just say so in ur comment and thank u.

Virtue of Choice

Where should we start? that is the question going to be, I thought that we should start with a virtue that is not very complicated and vague a virtue that may be understood and implemented easily so I limited the options to three virtues:

• Honesty
• Respect
• Benevolence
  

and I've got the approvement of the offline participants and I thought of taking the opinion of the online participants so u may agree or disagree with us and also u can name the most suitable virtue to begin with in ur opinion and to help u decide u may check these virtues in my previous posts or where ever u like .

OK that is all for now I hope that u'll respond quickly and may God help us all...

V-Experiment

We may take years talking about the virtues and how we can apply them in life and what it does feel to be honorable,honest,loyal....or having any of the honorable virtues or even more than one or may be all, but to know what it does mean there is only one way and it is the extreme level of commitment to one or all of the virtues and by extreme I mean holding that commitment in our daily life some may say that is impossible to perform in our current life but I say if a whole class of people (the samurai) has applied and lived by a certain code of honor for hundred of years then why can't we live by it for few days and I don't mean in the same way that they lived (that u have to commit suicide if u dishonor ur self) but at least in a certain respectable level that we might be considered as honorable human-beings and here V-experiment comes in.

V-Experiment is a short for virtues experiment and in that one I tend to experiment the applicability of the seven virtues in the real world, and is the community able to accept whoever lives by such virtues? but in order to do that I need some help as I can experiment on the community in Iraq (and believe me that won't be easy cause lying can be a life saver) but what about other places and communities so I here by announce the initiation of V-experiment for all of the world and for those who r tempted to join me in my experiment u can say so in ur comment and I can only assure one thing that this experiment will be useful to u one way or another u may not realize it now but afterward u'll see the difference in ur personality and the way u see the world around u I know it won't be easy at all but I say it worth the shot, for having new perspective to the world u have to suffer a little and this experiment will manifest the best of u...
The experiment goes like this:We select a virtue and then we try to apply it in our daily life for a brief amount of time and we see from there how things will go, the key is the level of commitment to that virtue and since I've been in the world so I know how hard it will be to be fully committed to that virtue all the time so to ease things up u'll get to have piece of paper in ur pocket and every time u act against that virtue u'll score a point in the paper and in the end of the day u count the points and try the other day to lessen them and so on and u'll get angry some times furious others but u'll be happy when u lessen ur points so it will be an experiment filled with emotions so if u r up to the challenge tell me now and the experiment will be started next week and may God help us all...

P.S. if u r a blogger I will really appreciate if u link to this post even if u r not participating since I'm kinda new blogger so this will be like a big favour to me and thank u in advance.

Tadaima (I'm home)

Tadaima Baghdad, it's me again and although I hoped that the next time I'll be here I'll recognize some improvements of any kind and I surely didn't expect that it will go worst but what can I say I can't sit with my feet in the sun and expect that everything will be just as I wish for and I think in the mean time I'll be just content if u (Baghdad) just replied "Ukarinasai" and I promise u that I've learned a lot of my trip things that may improve me and will improve me to be a better Iraqi and better human being so as a final words I'll say "BEHOLD, I LIVE AGAIN"...

Saddam A fallen Icon (a post of joy not politics)

An Icon indeed, but an Icon of what? Bravery? Honesty? Justice? well that is tough question to answer some would say he should be an Icon of bravery cause he stood against USA and didn't fear the might of its armies well I doubt that cause he was sitting on his Butt all the war long, and did he fight? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO he let the army do the dangerous stuff and he was satisfied ordering his minions to broadcast lies, and if he is brave where did his bravery go when he was hiding like a filthy rat in his hell hole before he got caught so I think bravery is not the answer.
Then what about honesty? let's see he lied to God when he did his oath to serve and protect this country while we were the ones doing all the serving and protecting and he lied about being a descendant of the prophet Mohamed while he was killing and torturing the real descendants and all who would say we r following the path of the prophet, and he lied and lied about plenty of things so I think that Honesty is not the answer.
Then it must be justice, let's see annihilating a village, taking the properties of people with no right to do so imprisoning any person that may doubt his decisions right or wrong and many many unjust acts...hmm I doubt that it is the answer of our question.
Well I'm kinda lost here "Saddam an Icon of what?" call me outrageous but let's try something out, let's inspect him for the quality of...hmm let's say Saddam an Icon of tyranny, hmm that sounds interesting let's see he ruled the country for more than 35 years with no just elections during all that 35 years (don't tell me about the time that we were forced to go vote for him against no one), how about the fact that if u want to get promoted in ur job or in anything u should join the Ba'ath in order for ur application to be accepted, and many many more of these actions... hmm that sounds interesting is it possible that he is fit for such hideous quality?
let me try something else how about Mass-murdering? let's see he killed numerous amount of people in Halapcha, Anfal, and in many parts of Iraq he murdered people for a reason and no reason... hmm I can't believe it he is fit for this one too.
And that is when it hit me that believe it or not Saddam Husein is a bad person, yeah I know that is almost impossible to believe "Saddam a Bad person" I must be on dope if he is a bad person then why r there people that love him and support him who would support a trash? why would anyone love and support a tyrant and a mass-murderer? unless...OH MY GOD I NOW GET IT ONLY THE TRASH SUPPORT THE TRASH and that is the way around with Saddam and his minions, oh my God I must be a genius to figure that all by my-self since it does require a genius to do so...Dos it?
Well now I can enthrone Saddam by his true title "Saddam the Icon of tyranny and Mass-murdering" well that's seems more like it and in the end I can only hope that u'll have a nice hanging Saddam and that u may never know peace not now not so ever and I also want to congratulate all the good people of the world for the fallen of this Icon and may God bless us all...

Honor

Principled uprightness of character; personal integrity, the quality of being honorable and having a good name, a code of integrity, dignity, and pride, chiefly among men, that was maintained in some societies, good name; reputation, glory or recognition; distinction
these r the definitions for honor that can be found in the dictionaries but I absolutely didn't feel satisfied by them so I thought that the best way to know the meaning of Honor is to ask an honorable person so I asked a Friend that I have full confidence in his honorable behavior (I'm not sure of the validity of my judgment but he is surely more honorable than me) and that is what he said:
"Honor is showing great respect for yourself, other people, and the rules you live by. When you are honorable, you keep your word. You do the right thing regardless of what others are doing. Honor is a path of integrity"
After hearing that I felt that I'm almost on the right way to catch the real meaning for Honor so I searched harder, squeezed my brain harder and after ten hours of meditation (that I didn't do) I reached multiple opinions on the matter of honor.
I begin with William Shakespeare and his play "King Henry IV" in a wonderful scene on Part one of the play and her is a quote from Sir John Falstaff while he is defining Honour to us:
"Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no. or an arm? no. or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere escutcheon: and so ends my catechism".
After remembering that I felt closer to know the meaning of Honor so I kept going...
I remembered that I've read a story concerning honor some where so I've searched the web a bit and what u know I've found it and it is a story of a master swordsman who sat calmly through a barrage of insults from potential robbers. The swordsman avoided a fight by expertly catching four flies with his chopsticks and then getting up and walking away. Traditional misunderstandings of honor would see this man insulted and would say that he should get revenge. In fact, nothing that the robbers could say would take away the swordsman's skill or honor. Fighting them would not make this swordsman more skilled or honorable. It was more honorable for this swordsman to walk away so Honor is not to avenge someone or something.
In summary Honor is to know shame and trying to prevent it at the cost of ones life and there is no need for explaining the meaning of the word shame cause we deep inside know what we should be ashamed of and what we shouldn't and as one of the great samurai once said "Shame (haji) is the most important word in a samurai's vocabulary. Nothing is more shameful than not understanding shame" and from here comes the origin of seppuku that the samurai that feels that he has dishonored himself or his master commit suicide (I'll talk about seppuku in another post).
So it seems that Honor sums all the 7 virtues of the Bushido in one and to be honorable is to live putting the honor in front of u in all ur actions...
Note: that was the hardest post I've ever wrote so I hope that it is good and if not then forgive me for my lack of intellect...