The Most Profound Matters in Life: Indecision, Overusage, and Friendship

Our article today is fantastic, lovely, exquisite, and helpful in addition to providing intellectual pleasure since it discusses some of our most common issues, like disorientation and indecision, and it introduces us to Hamlet from the play to help us resolve them.

Then we will move on to overusage, which initially seems to be a bad thing, but you will discover an exception to this rule in this article. Last but not least, based on the philosophy of the first instructor, Aristotle, we shall learn about one of the most lovely and significant concepts in life: friendship.

If you fall into the pit of confusion, indecision, and pain, do what Hamlet did.

In case you are possessed by severe pain and fear at some point in your life and you fall captive to excessive indecision, to the point where you are unable to make any decision because you are in great confusion that makes you unable to know the appropriate option for you, here you can use Shakespeare’s wisdom that we deduced from the famous play Hamlet.

It is to make a decision that is right in and of itself, without regard to the consequences. In other words, the decision does not necessarily lead to better conditions or a higher rank, but rather it is a right decision because it ends the grief, sadness, and anxiety in which the confused person is immersed. This decision may be painful at first, but soon stability and balance will follow.

Even while there is some question that this decision will provide the intended effects, staying in the pit of anxiety, hesitancy, and loss will be preferable than the alternative. It is very similar to the process of cauterizing the wound, which is very painful, but it stops the bleeding and leads to healing the wound. Despite the great pain that accompanies the cauterization process, it is much better than living with all the pain, problems, and diseases that may result if the wound is not cauterized.

There Is One Thing You Must Overuse Despite the Negative Effects of Overuse, So What Is It?

The sages say that a person should reach a middle ground between overuse and negligence, and others believe that this middle ground is only an imaginary state that a person may not be able to reach. Despite the strenuous attempts made by a person, they remain lost among them. Success and excellence in work require continuous study and work, and this is what makes a person move away somewhat from their children and wife; the opposite is also true.

Another view of the critics is that a person should not overuse anything because excessiveness is considered a negative thing in most cases, except in one case—reasoning. As the proponents of this opinion say, man will not reach the truth, the unique thought, the amazing invention, or the development they aspire to in various fields unless they overuse their mind, to such an extent that it allows us to discover the truths, and not taking a useless, superficial look at matters.

It is the deep truths that can be used in the process of development and growth, unlike things that float on the surface of the truth, which may deceive us and lead us backwards.

How Has Overusing Reason Contributed to Changing History?

The pleasure of knowledge lies in diving deep into thought instead of focusing on what floats on the surface. This is what gets us lost between the superficials and those claiming knowledge and truth, and this is what makes our society also produce half writers and half novelists.

Descartes, the father of skepticism, would not have developed, and we would not be familiar with Ibn Sina, the founder of psychology, if it weren't for this overuse of reason and intellect and having the audacity to debate the depth of problems. Those figures and other scholars and thinkers have reached what they have by overusing their minds and conducting research on the nuances of things rather than the husks and visibles.

Criticism of Overusing Reason

Critics target the supporters of overusing reason, as it is a narrow approach—that is, it is limited to a small group of people—the elite or the so-called literate.

It may be limited to a narrower group, which is the scientists, innovators, inventors, and philosophers who changed the course of history and made a fundamental contribution to building human civilization.

Life Is Short and Knowledge Is Endless, So How Can We Deal with This Dilemma?

Our lives cannot be complete without books occupying a fixed part of them. They are the means of thought and the assurance of development and progress for us, whether as individuals or as nations. Life, however, is short, and the path of knowledge is long, ramified, and complex. If a person wants to read the available books, research, and references, then their life may not be enough.

Therefore, the famous writer Rifa'a al-Tahtawi advises us that reading should be selective because life is short and knowledge is endless. Not all books are worth reading and wasting our time on. So, the best books from each field should be picked and read.

Al-Tahtawi reached this conviction when he had a holiday in Paris, as he sat in his room and collected books that he would like to read on this holiday. But he was surprised by the mountain of books he was planning to read, and he felt here that human life is very short compared to the existing knowledge, sciences, and ideas.

What Kind of Books Should We Read, According to Franz Kafka?

Speaking of reading, the famous novelist Franz Kafka wonders about the value of any book if it does not deal a strong blow to our minds, eliciting doubt in the swamps of our certainty. If the book we are reading confirms what we already know or is consistent with the principles and knowledge we already have, then what is the point of reading?

A good book is one that inspires us to venture into unfamiliar waters and takes us to previously undiscovered locations, whether they be within ourselves or in the world around us. A good book is one that adds new skills to ours, new knowledge to ours, and expands the horizons that we think about by opening doors that we may have been passing by without realizing they exist. In short, it can be said that a good book is a new life that we have not lived before.

“A Friend of All Is a Friend of None.” What Does Aristotle Mean by This?

Aristotle raised the importance and value of friendship in life and considered it the first foundation for building a virtuous society. He went beyond that to the point of preferring it to justice, and he saw that true friendship can replace justice and make people independent of the law's existence. However, Aristotle did not mean just any friendship but set strict conditions and criteria for it.

Aristotle saw having a small number of friends as one of the most crucial characteristics of true friendship. Aristotle bases his belief that friendship entails freely giving the friend services, whether they be moral, material, spiritual, or behavioral, on the axiom that a friend of all is a friend of none. The second half of a friendship, which is demonstrated by repaying the favor in a way that is considerate of their friendship, love, and respect for one another, is necessary for the first half to be fulfilled.

Aristotle believes that this cannot be achieved if there are many friends, as this person will not be able to return all the services they receive from their many friends. This generates a feeling of injustice or a sense of lack of appreciation, love, and respect.

And the large number of friends constitutes an obstacle to the continuation of friendship or even building true friendship, because you will not be able to satisfy all your friends in times of disagreement, and you will not be able to stand with everyone at one time. Therefore, Aristotle confirms that the most important basis for building true friendship is not to have too many friends, for while we wish to take everything, we end up with nothing.

The Philosophy of Aristotle: Constant Meetings Are Essential for Developing True Friendship

One of the important criteria set by Aristotle for building true friendship is a continuous encounter that is not punctuated by many interruptions, or that the interruptions are not long-term, as the famous Arab proverb says, "Out of sight; out of mind." Friendship does not develop through telepathy; it requires meeting on the ground, which is one of the most important requirements of human communication.

This leads us to the main clause set by Aristotle, which is not to have many friends, because this will lead to difficulty in meeting and perhaps the impossibility of real and effective communication with all friends.

In Conclusion

A person must always be aware of everything that is new and different in all fields of life, even if this new thing is contrary to what we have been taught or brought up with.

This is because what most enriches minds is openness to the different and the new, accepting it and coexisting with it, no matter how contrary it is to what we are now.