Despite the culture of affluence, Western society has its strengths. The progeny of the affluent are encouraged to seek part-time menial jobs like waiters, laborers, clerks, to enable them to absorb the work ethic. Work can be a humbling experience instilling the sense that recommendation is not necessarily the sole qualification. It also sends a message that what you know counts more than whom you know – photo Terrific Parenting
The Concept of Qut
Mowahid Hussain Shah
Intriguing is the impact of adversity on human character. In other words, the concept of qut (rhymes with put), the Punjabi term for absorbing punishment and enduring a beating.
Hardship can be a great teacher, imparting enduring lessons.
Adversity does have a make-or-break impact. In many instances, it debilitates resolve, saps confidence and leads to a resigned acceptance of the unfairness of life and the unlikelihood of a positive change. There is an addiction to failure and an allergy to success. But in a few cases, adversity can be a tremendous character-builder. Bouncing back after setbacks and suffering reinforces faith in the capacity to survive in the human jungle with élan. If success is seen as fleeting, so, too, can be failures.
The history of great lives is often the story of the human spirit maintaining its dignity in difficulty. It is a tale replete with disappointment and heartbreak. The common denominator is the unwillingness to accept the permanence of a gloomy situation.
Sometimes, setbacks are a stepping-stone to success. The poem, “Invictus” by William E. Henley talks of one’s “unconquerable soul” being subject to adversity and emerging “bloody, but unbowed”. This can also apply to those resisting superior forces backed by overwhelming firepower, and yet dauntlessly fighting on. By not quitting, they are winning.
A Qaum, which can endure qut, can never be written off.
Materially well-endowed societies with massive technological superiority are sometimes vulnerable and fragile from within. Caught between fear and desire, they are more prone to panic and paranoia and, consequently, overreact to adversity.
Similarly, ‘helicopter’ parents don’t do their children any favors. Transparent are the travails of the molly-coddled children of the wealthy. Their education, career paths, and even matrimonial choices are often steered by their parents, walling their children from the ups and downs of life.
Their power of independent decision-making remains shriveled and initiative limp. Over-pampered from the outset, they are unprepared to face the unavoidable blows of life and lack, thereby, the resilience to overcome life’s obstacles. Openly materialistic and self-absorbed, they seem disinterested in the wider world.
And, on big occasions, they may not be mentally tough enough to raise their game. Having not gone through the furnace, they have little empathy for those on the receiving end of life. This may partially explain the huge disconnect between the elite and the street, which currently roils the Muslim world.
Despite the culture of affluence, Western society has its strengths. The progeny of the affluent are encouraged to seek part-time menial jobs like waiters, laborers, clerks, to enable them to absorb the work ethic. Work can be a humbling experience instilling the sense that recommendation is not necessarily the sole qualification. It also sends a message that what you know counts more than whom you know.
It has been said that it is not a sin to be knocked down; it is a sin to stay down.
The lacerations of qut are the smiling wounds which give one the fortitude and faith not to fear the long night as something endless, but to hope for the inevitability of dawn.
