Nouman Ali Khan – Our Deep Desire For Attention

			The Universe, the physical universe as we know it. physicists tell us it's existed for about 13
point 9 billion years, this planet has been around for maybe four to 5 billion years, the formation
of this planet, and all of that endless ocean of time, I was not being talked about, I was not
mentioned, I didn't exist. And even when this world came into existence after this endless period of
time, when humanity started on this planet, so much human history has passed, and no one in that
history knew who I was. I was never remembered, I was never mentioned, you can read about history,
and those people are irrelevant. The only one not relevant is you. You don't exist for them. They
		

			exist for you, you don't exist for them. Using this as a reminder, Allah says, the vast majority of
time has passed, where you and I were completely irrelevant. We weren't, we're not part of the
story.
		

			And this is Allah's way of reminding us that the few moments that we do exist after I come out of my
mother, in fact, even when my mother was pregnant in the beginning, she had no idea that I was
inside merace She's walking around with the baby she doesn't even know. And then when she notices
her body changing, then they will start making the data now Holohan. If you can just give us a good
child. They don't even know who this child is. Even when they remembered my mother was thinking
about me when I was still in her belly. She didn't know who I was, she couldn't actually think of me
properly. She didn't know if I was a boy or a girl. She didn't know what kind of child I will be
		

			what kind of features I will have, she knew nothing. But then after I even came into this world,
even after I came into this world, you'll notice something human beings by their design, one of the
words for human the origin of the word inside is actually owns and owns means love and compassion.
Human beings don't just give love, they also want to receive love, and they want to receive
compassion. So even from childhood, the moment you become a little bit self aware, you are looking
for attention. If your mother's not looking at you, mama, mama, mama, mama, those of you that have
kids know this already. Kids need attention. They're always looking for attention. When they get a
		

			little bit older, they draw something they want to show you because they want your attention. They
want to be acknowledged, look at how I'm dressed, look at what I did. Look at what I can do. The kid
can't even jump yet. This is his jump. But he says look at me. Look at this. Now look again, because
he wants that attention for himself. He wants to be much cooler. The word is much cooler, someone
who is mentioned someone who is remembered this is put inside the nature of a human being. And as
you grow older, you want to when you're a teenager, you want to dress nicely. You want to look good,
because you want to be seen and noticed also much cool. You want to be mentioned you want to be
		

			talked about and as you grow further now when you're in university, I know there's a convocation
happening. There's it's a big deal to graduate and what what happens people when they people get
their certificate, you're gonna get a lot of uploads on Instagram and on Facebook, have pictures of
certificates that nobody cares about except you. But you will have a need to be much cooler, you
have a need to be mentioned. Mashallah, congratulations, congratulation. We live our life looking
for acknowledgement. Even when people get married. They're the wife is looking for the
acknowledgement of the husband, the husband is looking for the acknowledgement of the wife. We're
		

			looking to make our parents proud. We you know, when you graduate, everybody's congratulating you
what you want to be much cool. Hear Dad, dad, I graduated, that it's done that Did you see the
picture? And you need to get that congratulations from your father or your mother, because there's
always someone who we want to be remembered by? You know, there are studies now that people are now
more isolated and feel more lonely and alone than ever before in history. It's interesting. I was at
an Islamic school, and another Muslim country. And I was talking to a number of boys and girls, they
were about 300 400 Boys 300 400 Girls 1314 years of age. And I gave a lecture and the principal and
		

			the teachers everybody was there. So they had a question answer session. And nobody asked a
question. 800 children in the room, nobody asked a question. And I said they're not asking a
question because the police is watching them. The teachers are there. The principal is there. The
cameraman is there. They don't want to get in trouble. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go
into the crowd and talk to these kids with no camera, no microphone. I just want to talk to them. I
went inside
		

			had the girl section just talking to these young girls? Two hours, they couldn't stop asking their
questions. And on the other side, the boys another two hours, they couldn't stop asking their
questions. And the most common question was, what do you do? If you feel alone all the time? What do
you feel? What do you do if you feel invisible, if nobody sees you, human beings have such a deep
desire to be math code, that a teenager sees all their other friends online. And they're like, I
don't have an online account. I don't, I don't have that many followers. I'm not being seen, I'm not
much good. I better take another picture. No, I better change the filters, I better do something
		

			else, I better change the background where the light wasn't good enough. And then post it, ah,
somebody will put a heart emoji somebody will put a thumbs up, I'm with good ha I can exist now. And
if you don't post it, if you don't post your next slice of pizza, if you don't post your you know,
where you're standing, what Park you're in, or some wisdom from Abuja, * or something, if you
don't post that, then all of a sudden, nobody knows you exist. So you become a YouTuber school.
		

			For the vast majority of the existence of the universe, and for the vast majority of the existence
of humanity, you were hailed with cool.
		

			And there's a time that's coming pretty soon, or you and I are going to be in the grave. And some
people will remember us, and they will cry over us. And then time will pass. And we will be right
with Google again. We remember famous people, right? We remember scholars, for example, in Islamic
history, we remember people like you, I'm a chef and you like him a whole lot. Or Imam Abu Hanifa
Rahim Allah, but they had a big family. Nobody remembers their family. A lot of those people are
invisible to us. Now, we don't remember the rulers, we don't remember the millionaires and the
billionaires. We don't remember the good looking people. We don't remember the popular people, the
		

			famous people, we don't remember the art, we don't remember them, they're gone. They became
irrelevant again. And Allah is teaching you and me, you're running after this thing to be relevant
to be remembered to be talked about to be to have users engage with you, this is what you want all
the time. But you were created for the most part as I was schooled, and you will be the most cool
again, they're gonna go back to that irrelevance again. That's a pretty depressing outlook, that,
uh, nobody's gonna remember me, nobody's gonna know. And by the way, people who don't even believe
in Allah, they also feel the need to be remembered. So you will have billionaires that are that
		

			don't believe in anything, they don't believe in any religion. And they're about to die. They're
old, they're about to die, and they take their wealth, and they donate it to a hospital, or they
donate it to a charity, but they've got a condition, put my name on the building, and make a statue
of me and put it at the entrance. Because I even if I don't exist, my memory needs to exist, I still
need to be mathcore even if I don't exist, this is something put deep inside them. But this desire
that Allah put inside of a child to get the attention of the child, or the desire that Allah put
inside human beings, that is driving the multibillion dollar social media industry. If human beings
		

			did not want attention, you couldn't have social media. It wouldn't exist. It's not some evil
machine. It only feeds on our own desire. We have this desire, which is why it's it works the way
that it works. It feeds off of our own energy. While the thing is Why did Allah put this inside me?
What's the point of it? Why am I looking for acknowledgement all the time? Why do I feel like
something is missing? If I didn't get acknowledged, you know if I feel something if I feel if I feel
invisible, there's a there's an emptiness inside me. And Allah himself describes this in the letter
ion. He says in that head he now has sebelah in Masha killin him Naka fora, we guided him to a
		

			journey of past
		

			every human being inside them Allah put in programmed inside them that they are in this life on a
journey. Now there's one part of that journey, whether you will realize it or not, you're on the
journey anyway. In NECA Academy upon Nila Becca Callahan, formula P. Every dose passing by life is a
journey. Every human being is making a journey towards death. Every one of us every single day is
one day closer to death. That journey is happening on autopilot. That's not controlled by me that's
already decided by Allah. But there's another journey, not the journey of my lifespan. But the
journey inside of my heart and inside of my mind. There's a journey Allah wants me to make back to
		

			Allah we came from Allah, we belong to Allah and we want to Allah wants us to make a journey back
towards him in our head in our mind, but the mind is too preoccupied, wanting to be acknowledged by
someone else, wanting to be acknowledged
		

			by other human beings, and Allah wants that heart and that mind to first be busy will looking for
the acknowledgement of Allah.
		

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