Why "FourtyNine13" ?
Blogging for me is an act of faith. I'll explain.I created this blog about 2 months back because it felt like the direction towards which so many threads in my life were pointing. I want to write. I want to share. I want to be heard. I want to discover. I want greater accountability towards my craft. To name a few. These many aspirations coupled with the present circumstances of my life (more on this in earlier post: why blog? ) came together to create this overwhelming need to to SOMETHING.
Around late August, I finished reading the book
The thought that must always follow is 'why?'
(once we're at why, the transition to the existential and then the religious is pretty quick)
Why write? why blog? why now? Kleon offers the beginnings of an answer when he explains that blogging offers a means of self-reinvention and inevitably builds community. Both of these I want in my own life. Still there is a deeper why that must be asked: why do anything at all? An existential question indeed, but an everpresent one.
I believe the ultimate purpose for everything is to serve God. It is why we were created. In the Quran, God says:
"وَمَا خَلَقْتُ ٱلْجِنَّ وَٱلْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُون"
"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." (Surah Dhariyat, 56:51)
If I am sincere in my conviction than I must understand what connection exists, if any, between trying to please God and starting my own blog. This brings us back to Kleon. If Kleon's words are true and blogging allows us to build circles of common interest and expertise, then there is worship in this. In Surah 49 verse 13(the verse that inspires the website name), God says:
"...يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَـٰكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍۢ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلْنَـٰكُمْ شُعُوبًۭا وَقَبَآئِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوٓا۟ ۚ "
"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another..."(Surah Hujurat,49:13)
To put this succinclty, naming this blog after verse 49:13 is a commitment to myself to have this blog be a conversation starter. Here people can get to know a little of who I am. Hopefully, some of you will be intrigued enough to reach out. Then I can get to know who you are. From there, I expect only other great things.
So reach out. I'd love to hear your thoughts...any of them. :)
