In the name of Reason

Dear Visitor

May I thank you for spending your valuable time walking through the valleys of my thoughts! Even though I do not believe in hope, I am compelled by the shortcomings and limitations of our language to hope, that you enjoy the short digital moments you spend on my page.

 

Who am i?

To give you a clue of who I am, I provide you with a short description of my nature, by which I mean, as you probably already know, my personality. By my personality I mean the mask that is pulled over my true face. By the mask I mean the veils of traditions, ways of life, religion, norms and values - the very obvious destroyers of our individuality - that we value. By individuality I mean the sate of being ourselves, which in its turn refers to a state in which we are no longer fettered by chains of dependency and belonging. What my true face is, and should be, I don't know. But I do know that what I consider as mine is not mine, since it is built by what is not mine.

So, 24 years ago, another question was brought into the world of existence. Another riddle was born and called Ofran Badakhshani. From that day on, I was gradually pushed to embrace the established order and harmony, to distinguish good and evil through the eyes of those around me and to choose what was already chosen. In other words, to become one of them; I was to forget myself.

I was born in Badakhshan, the north eastern province known for its beautiful landscape of high mountains, green valleys and wild rivers, and for its precious stones like red ruby and lapis lazuli. Badakhshan is also known as the land of literature and poetry.

As a matter of luck, I almost finished primary school in Badakhshan but the devastating war made me leave my beloved broken-but-still-beautiful country, Afghanistan , which I prefer to call Khorasan. Since 1997 I am living in the Netherlands , where I had to start all over again. Walking the path of loneliness, tasting the bitterness of responsibility, facing the danger and courage of being myself, trying to find ways to live with the ups and downs, I found my way to that part of the society that I wanted to be a part of.

At the moment I am studying political science (political theories and philosophy) at the Free University of Amsterdam. Next to my study I love to read philosophy and most important of course, poetry. It may be worth mentioning that a huge part of classic Persian poetry is basically philosophy. For example, in the west we have thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre and a few other ones who spoke of Nothingness and Existentialism. But long before them we had Persian poets like Omar Khayaam or Bedil who thought and wrote about nothingness; Persian poetry is food for thought. Fortunately I am blessed with the gift of writing poetry. I wish I could share my poetic thoughts with you, but since I write them in Persian (Dari) I can not and do not want to translate them into English. But I know a place where one can learn Persian.

I am also into music. For a couple of years I have been taking Tabla classes and I play a bit of flute and Harmonium as well. For those who do not know what Tabla is: well, it is a set of drums invented in Khorasan -contemporary Afghanistan- and developed in India . But I am not interested in its origin; it belongs to all of us. It is part of a civilization and like it, belong s to all humanity.
One last thing worth mentioning: As I often come across different people, discussing subjects like freedom, religion, humanity etc, they always ask me if I am a believer. In order to answer that question, yes I am very much of a believer. I believe in that, which no one dares to speak of openly; I believe in “absolute freedom.” Yes I can hear you saying and feel you thinking that nothing is absolute. That brings us to the question that “what is absolute?” It is just a word, a definition given by a given one, at a given time.

Struggling with the question of how impudent it might be to define an abstract notion as absolute, in my humble thoughts I have “defined” absolute freedom as “the physical, psychological and spiritual freedom one can enjoy.” And since psychological and spiritual freedom is based on being responsible for the cause that one causes and its effect, absolute freedom is absolute responsibility, though I am aware of our interdependence.

May Reason lead us towards “ the untruth !?”

 

Wellcome to My World


Food for thoughts

Sometimes I come in certain places, where I speak of something's and where some people say; they believe in me. And I sadly wonder, what's wrong with themselves?