Tweet Disematkan
I must say that few poems capture character and self discipline as powerfully as Kipling’s If. Below is my understanding and interpretation of its verses.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
(So you go on ClubHouse, Facebook, or on X Space but you keep your virtue. Don’t be a Landaghar)
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch
(When you’re with kings, don’t fall for the act that THEY are kings. NO one is king. We’re all common. That’s what Kipling is saying. Keep فطرة)
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
(Do you understand how strong you are if your enemies nor your friends can hurt you)
If all men count with you, but none too much
(It’s perfect! It’s about the balance. All men and women are important but not too much because on top of all is Allah. So there’s no رِيَاء now. You don’t act for them but they matter. This is a heart that is so live. Because Allah is the top, you love His creatures. All of them! But none too much. You don’t worship them)
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
(You know why it says unforgiving minute? They say time, is the most BRUTAL master in the universe. It doesn’t stop even for prophets! Time will get us all. وَٱلْعَصْرِ. إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ لَفِى خُسْر, Islam has a بُشره, glad tiding. إلَّي, except. By the way, Islam has a lot of إلَّيs. لا إله إلا الله, those are the opening. It starts with a, very realistic hard punch! Then it shows you the إلَّي for the مؤمنون. The unforgiving minute. This is important why it says unforgiving. It’s a common motif in art, in literature. That time’s unforgiving. It just goes. It doesn’t matter…. That’s what a director is good at. Director is good at making time emotionally stretch and compress, stretch and compress. The movie is still two hours. He can have you pee in your pants in 30 seconds but he’s been preparing you for 30 minutes. That’s the art, right!)
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run
(It means you give it your BEST)
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it
(This is a VERY Islamic thing. The prophet used to say, من الدنيا و ما فيها about the two Rakah’s of Fajr…)
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
(This makes me wanna cry… And if you can do this, you’ll be a Man. Man with capital M. Prophets came to teach us what this means…)
#Afghanistan
@HAMDARD_JH
English
