How Red Sneakers Changed My Life

The best thing about growing up in the Internet Age is that you're old enough to pick out the best parts of your childhood and replay them over and over again. For me, that was Sesame Street, PBS Kids Arthur, and Chris Van Allsburg books. I took a day off from university and spent my afternoon watching old Arthur episodes (which, suprisingly, still make me laugh) and listening to Sesame Street music videos. I also happen to be 21 and counting. : P Seriously, we all need more of this.  We all sing with the same voice, the same song. We all sing with the same voice, and we sing in harmony. I used to love listening to this back then, but I never understood how powerful its message was until now. Maybe because the world around me seems to be more intolerant than the one I remember growing up in? I remember Chris Van Allsburg's stories mainly because of the beautiful, unsettling illustrations. His stories were for kids, but there seemed to be a deeper, darker meaning l...

So, they tell me there are worse things in life. And somewhere deep inside, I know they're right. Hell, in this century, with countries vying with each other over nuclear warfare, and suicide bombers blowing craters a meter wide in residential streets, merely existing is an achievement. People get divorced, get cheated on, lose their kids to gang violence, have their houses robbed (sometimes five times over), get jailed for crimes they didn't commit. How many families have lost loved ones in airplane crashes? Yes, there's always somebody out there who has it worse than you. But does that mean that if a person doesn't fall in one of the above-mentioned categories, his or her problems aren't important enough? Their suffering doesn't matter because they haven't been hurt enough, is that it? I don't think so. Every time someone hurts, no matter how small, it matters. We're all human, and we're all equal, and when one of us hurts, it is a t...

Let's face it, as horrible as it sounds, religion is considered pretty old-fashioned these days. Fancy words like 'liberal', 'modern', and 'progressive' jump out at me every time I flip through a magazine or newspaper, telling me that there is a need for a reformed, secular approach to the question of human rights and civil liberties, that religion has no place on an 'enlightened' planet. I've got nothing whatsoever against human rights, but I've got nothing against religion either. After all, isn't the whole point of religion to further human progress, albeit focusing more on spirituality than materialism? Anyway, it got me thinking. How important is religion for human society? Can there even be a basis for right and wrong without a religion to follow? Can we separate morality and religion? My friend, Arsalaan Khan, who’s also studying Electronics Engineering from NED has got more to say on the subject. According to Wikipedia, mora...