Awais Ali

In China, there is a well known story about a large, twisted tree that carpenters ignore because its wood is useless for building. Precisely because it is “useless,” the tree is never cut down and is able to live out its full.

In Daoist thought, being “useful” in a rigid, conventional sense often makes a person a target for exploitation, control, or burnout.

By contrast, those who are unconventional, overlooked, or who do not fit society’s narrow standards can preserve their freedom and longevity.

ایران، امریکہ اسرائیل مابین مذاکرات پاکستان کی ثالثی میں منعقد ہو رہے. اس حوالے سے مجھ ناچیز کی تجویز ہے پاکستان ہر فریق سے دس دس ارب ڈالر بیعانہ بطور زر ضمانت پکڑ لے. پھر جو فریق معاہدہ کی خلاف ورزی کرے اس کا بیعانہ نپ لیا جاوے. اور ہر تین فریقین کی رقم پاکستانی ریاستی سرکاری بینک میں اگلے دس سال پڑی رہے ۔ تاکہ کبھی کوئی فریق جارحیت یا خلاف ورزی کی کوشش نا کرے ۔ اس طرح بین الاقوامی امن کی تادیر ضمانت دی جا سکتی ہے.

نیز معاہدہ ہونے کے بعد ہر فریق سے دس ارب ڈالر بطور قرض بھی مانگی جا سکتی ہے. اتنے سستے میں امن، صرف پاکستان ہی دے سکتا ہے.

ماہر معاشیات و جوڑ توڑ!، منقول شریف!!

“اسلام آباد “ ہو گر عالمِ مشرق کا جنیوا۔۔۔

‏77 سال نازک موڑ پر رہنے کا یہ فائدہ ہوا کہ دنیا نازک موڑ پر پہنچی تو پاکستان پہلے ہی وہاں موجود تھا

Via Ahmad Lak

Give a man what he needs and he will want comfort. Provide him with comforts - he will strive for luxury. Shower him with luxury - he will begin to sigh in exquisiteness. Let him get the exquisite - he will crave follies. Give him whatever he wants - he will complain that he was deceived, and that he did not get what he wanted.

Ernest Hemingway

When you’re 5 years old, a year is 20% of your life. And when you’re 50 years old, a year is 2% of your life. This is an explanation given why time speeds up as you age. It's called Janet's law. It states you’ve experienced roughly half of your perceived by life by 20 years old. Or to put it another way: A summer holiday for a 5 year old feels as long as the 10 years from 40 to 50 years old.

But Janet's law can be broken with high agency.

You have agency over the speed time. You're not a passive victim. A better explanation of why time speeds up as you age is because you have fewer new experiences as an adult, so your brain deletes the memories. If you take agency over your life, do new things and create memory dividends, time slows down.

If you live your life on autopilot, you may die at 80, but feel like you died at 20 years old.

If you take agency over your life, you may die at 80, but feel like you died at 200 years old.

In a leadership exercise the other day, we were assigned to shortlist items of a survival kit with certain constraints on a sinking ship. After extensive brainstorming and consultation, we presented our idea before the instructor. Everything said and done, he asked if the leader had pondered on the notion of saving the ship itself. On our protest that this was not assigned, he commented, "What good can you do as a leader, if you fail to consider the possibilities beyond obvious!"

Money from Natural Resources

In 1969, Norway discovered one of the largest offshore oil deposits in the world.
The Ekofisk field changed everything. Suddenly, this small Scandinavian nation was sitting on extraordinary wealth. They could have done what most oil-rich countries do: spend it all immediately. Build monuments. Create economic bubbles. Enrich a few while the many suffer. And when the oil runs out, collapse into debt and instability.
Nigeria tried that. Venezuela tried that. Libya tried that.
Norway looked at these cautionary tales and made a different choice.
In 1990, the Norwegian Parliament created the Government Pension Fund Global. The rules were simple but revolutionary. All oil profits would flow into the fund. The fund would invest globally in thousands of companies. And Norway could only withdraw a small percentage each year—originally 4%, now 3%.
The rest would stay invested. Forever.
People thought they were insane.
Why hoard money for people who don't even exist yet? Why not lower taxes, build bigger programs, enjoy the wealth right now?
The Norwegian government had an answer: Because future Norwegians will exist. And they deserve this wealth as much as we do.
In 1996, they deposited the first payment: $150 million.
Then they did something even more remarkable.
They stuck to the plan.
Year after year, oil revenues flowed into the fund. Year after year, the fund invested in global markets—stocks, bonds, real estate across 70 countries. Year after year, politicians resisted the overwhelming temptation to raid the fund for short-term political wins.
Every election cycle brought promises to spend more. Every economic downturn brought demands to tap the fund. Every crisis brought calls to break the rules "just this once."
Norway said no. Every single time.
The fund's managers didn't try to beat the market or gamble on hot stocks. They simply bought small stakes in thousands of companies worldwide—around 9,000 today—and held them.
They played the longest game imaginable.
By 2000, the fund was worth $50 billion. By 2010, it had grown to $500 billion. By 2017, it crossed $1 trillion. Today, it has surpassed $2 trillion.
For a country of just 5.6 million people, that works out to roughly $340,000 per citizen.
But here's the extraordinary part.
More than half of the fund's value didn't come from oil. It came from investment returns. The fund now generates more income from its global investments than Norway makes from selling oil and gas.
They transformed temporary oil wealth into permanent financial wealth.
The fund owns approximately 1.5% of every publicly traded company in the world. It holds stakes in Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and thousands of other corporations. When you buy almost anything from almost any major company, a tiny fraction flows back to Norway.
The 3% withdrawal rule ensures the fund will last indefinitely. That 3% provides roughly a quarter of Norway's national budget—funding education, healthcare, infrastructure, and pensions without ever depleting the principal.
Norway's oil will eventually run out. Maybe in 30 years, maybe 50. It doesn't matter anymore.
By the time the last barrel is pumped, Norway will have a multi-trillion-dollar fund generating returns forever.
The genius wasn't in discovering oil. Lots of countries found oil.
The genius was in the radical decision to save almost all of it, invest it wisely, and resist every political pressure to spend it immediately.
It required vision to see beyond the next election cycle.
It required discipline to follow the rules for three decades without exception.
It required humility to admit that future Norwegians deserved this wealth as much as current ones.
In 1996, they started with $150 million.
Today, they have over $2 trillion—and growing.
In 50 years, when Norway's oil fields are empty and the rigs are silent, Norwegian children will attend free universities, elderly Norwegians will retire with security, and the entire nation will thrive—all funded by oil that stopped flowing decades earlier.
Because in 1990, Norway made a choice that most countries never make.
They chose their grandchildren over themselves.

ویسے تو دورِ جدید میں کتاب خریدنا اور کتاب پڑھنا مہنگا سودا ہے ۔ اول تو اکثر کتابیں آن لائن دستیاب ہوتی ہیں، دوم یہ کہ کتاب پڑھنا مربوط فکر والوں کا کام ہے ۔

اب چونکہ دنیا کا نظم و نسق غیر مربوط فکر والوں کے ہاتھ میں ہے اس لئے مربوط فکر کی ضرورت نہیں ہے ۔

دوسرا کتاب پڑھنے سے انسان کے سامنے ماضی و مستقبل کے دریچے کھلنے لگتے ہیں جوکہ دیہاڑی دار ارباب اختیار کو قطعاً پسند نہیں کہ لمحہ موجود سے باہر نکل کر سوچا جائے ۔

ایسی سوچ سے غلط اور صحیح سمت کے سوالات پیدا ہوتے ہیں جو عالمی سیاست و معیشت کیلئے چنداں ٹھیک نہیں ہیں ۔

سید فیضان عباس الخوارزمی

غمگین بے مزہ بڑی تنہا اداس ہے
تیرے بغیر تو مری دنیا اداس ہے

پھیلا ہوا ہے رات کی آنکھوں میں سوز ہجر
مہتاب رت میں چاند کا چہرہ اداس ہے

لو پھر سے آ گیا ہے جدائی کا مرحلہ
آنکھیں ہیں نم مری ترا لہجہ اداس ہے

بارش بہا کے لے گئی تنکوں کا آشیاں
بھیگے شجر کی شاخ پہ چڑیا اداس ہے

شہزادہ سو گیا ہے کہانی سنے بغیر
بچپن کے طاق میں رکھی گڑیا اداس ہے

آنکھیں منڈیر پر دھرے گزری شب وصال
لپٹا ہوا کلائی سے گجرا اداس ہے

سورج لپٹ کے جھیل کے پانی سے رو دیا
منظر فراق شام کا کتنا اداس ہے

کس کو ہیں راس ہجر کی کٹھنائیاں سحرؔ
جتنا قریب ہو کوئی اتنا اداس ہے

سدرہ سحر عمران