It wasn't the chemistry, it was the thought patterns, instead, that had had him bury his head in the hot sand of real-life for the past one decade. The doctor convinced him, through examples taken from his own mind, that it had to be straightened out, instead of the brain. This came as a very pleasant news for him after all. The Chemicals would now be replaced with exercises... mental exercises, as he was told, demonstrated and taught. "You will have to practice these exercises daily", he'd said.
He'd developed a negative image of his apparently mal-functioning head since long, oblivious of the fact that it was not the brain that was faulty, instead, it was self-created perception that was wrong. Life had been very tough for him due to this. Despite the fact that he had enjoyed all the material luxuries one could afford, he had to struggle a lot. The stifling feeling that anything that may emanate from his mind may be inherently flawed, had affected his performance negatively. He had lived as if he had been trying to swim the river upstream. He had lately started figuring out that while (al most) half of his mind would function spontanelusly, the other half was always dedicated in monitoring the first half. This had snatched spontaniety and creativity of his collective mind significantly. Added to this was the misery that he had become dependent on chemicals to get rid of the side-effects of such a delapidated mindset. He wanted to get rid of this ever existing state of mind now. He no more wanted to live with a collective mind that was a mere captive of itself. He would rebel, he had decided, and get the things in the right order. And he was adamant. Thus, the new doctor.
"You will be very successful in life", the doc would tell him convincingly time and again, "provided that you think positively." He would tell these same lines to all of his patients, whispering hope and belief in their ears. As if all were mentally retarted. As if all suffered from the same disease. The deadliest disease, that plagued the mindsets of the whole human race i.e. negative thinking.
I have two very important questions, but I would like to go with the preamble first.
Given the current political upheaval in Pakistan, the US would be willing to deal with Sharifs as well, provided they play with the rules. An analysis about pakistani political options has been given as top stories today in Dawn. This is no surprise. As a matter of fact, US is somewhat fed up, tired and drained due to sustained warfare; it needs a break. There is an increasingly growing antiwar sentiment within the US as well; please read of the suicide epidemic. If this happens (that US packs up or soothes up its policy) it will give a lot of breathing air to Sharifs automatically: they pose to be right-wing Pakistanis, and US would be leaving for its own reasons, the latter may always be used by the Sharifs to create some kind of an epic about them.
1) Given this the most important question that should be asked from Sharifs is that what EXACTLY is their stance on relations with the US now and when they come to power. The decision boundary regarding this has been very foggy, this will turn out to be very intricate when the fog shed. However, the Sharifs should “educate” the people precisely as to what their view is about being anti-US or pro-US, from various vantage points, for I think that from deep inside Sharifs ARE pro-US. This is the most important question that stares any Pakistani politician i.e. How will they align their foreign policies with the WEST.
2) I have a very strong notion that the new recruits into the PML-N are once again completely inept donkeys. i) What are their criteria for distribution of tickets for elections. ii) how do they propose to bring about a democratic change with their donkeys given that an average army officer has a reasonably good BA from PMA, how do they propose to put the ARMY back to the barracks with their donkeys?
Adil Raja