On the barber's apprentice

There are those who give little of the much which they have--and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. 

(Kahlil Gibran)

This shall be a quick entry.

Something I thought about while having my hair cut several minutes after the spontaneous decision to take action on my forever growing hair.

His hair was of beautiful jet black, neatly combed back, a bit dull in terms of shine, not as rich as Richie Rich's but undoubtedly immaculate. Fit for a barber.

Then looking at another barber working on another head on the next chair, I began to think. Who cuts the barber's hair? Who would the barber, who probably knows quite a lot about hair dos and would probably be quite concerned about how his hair would look (obviously because he represents his products), trust to cut his hair?

And in a slightly schizophrenic jumping of thoughts, I suddenly began to think about giving. Specifically, the giving of knowledge.

Say, hypothetically in a place far far away, a barber has successfully planted his influence in a small town, so much so, that everyone in that town went only to him for a haircut, and there was no competition since the barber has crushed all of them to bits. And he plans to keep it that way.  And so one day the barber thought, "since i've crushed all competition in this town, and my hair is (thankfully) still growing, who will cut my hair? Obviously i can't let some old granma work her magic on me and cut all my sideburns off. I need someone good, at least as good as I am, if not better, of course..."

And so one day a young student came to him, asking to learn from him the art of cutting hair. And thinking that he would like to have someone capable to cutting his hair to his standards, he instantly agreed. Upon training the student, the barber saw huge potential in his student and this brought about a sinister little whisper in his heart "what if, this kid ends up being better than I am? Without doubt, my position shall be compromised and I will ultimately share the same fate as my previous competitors".

The hypothetical will stop there, I think its starting to turn into some enthusiastically written Form 3 essay assignment.

The barber represents many of us, who have huge stockpiles of knowledge stored in our hard drives.The student too represents many of us, people who seek the help of others to understand more about a certain subject. And the conflict is quite a common one, applicable to many things that we do. Football, martial arts, religion, cooking, medicine, computers etc. Anything really.

On the giving of knowledge, more often than we would like to admit, some people prefer withholding their knowledge from their students. Obedient slaves to their little hearts. Often to the fear of being overcome by their own product of teaching and falling themselves into the shadows, unnoticed by others. Some believe awe is needed on the part of the student so the respect towards the teacher shall forever remain. Some are just lazy.

I believe many of us understand what's wrong with this situation and thus I wont even bother typing it up. That whole length of text really is just to say this:

In giving knowledge to others, we should try our very best to give all that we can so that our student become at least equally versed, if not better than ourselves in the matter.

Sure, the student may someday forget that you have taught that ball trick to them, and sure, the student may someday bake better cakes than you have ever baked, and heck, you might some day have to ask them to explain the JGA back to you. But I believe that seeing your product succeed, even if it seems that the only one seeing that is you, is worth all the sweat. And it doesn't matter if the whole world doesn't know of the fact, but God knows and you know and I believe that is what matters.


4:86- And when you are greeted with a greeting, greet [in return] with one better than it or [at least] return it [in a like manner]. Indeed, Allah is ever, over all things, an Accountant.(God, unknown to me)