Tom Facchine – al-Raghib al-Isfahani #10 – The Human Potential

			fulfilling our potential is one of the most important things. And it's one of the most significant
sources of meaning in our lives. So a lot of us were hanging next he talks about the importance of
fulfilling our potential. And he says that our honor is inherently tied to fulfilling our potential,
and our humiliation or our debasement is also inherently tied to the lack of fulfilling our
potential. Because previously, he talked about kind of the different layers of purpose that we have
as human beings. So the base level being a male to OB, right livelihood, the second level, being a
better Rockman,
		

			expressing gratitude worship, and then the third being clear data, and being a laws, managers or
successors or, you know,
		

			stewards upon the creation. And so if you look around you, you know, most people are stuck at level
one, right? They've got their job, they've got the family, they've got the friends, they go to the
bar, they go home and watch Netflix, and they're not even trying to live life beyond that, they
think that a good life and happiness is just more of that, right? Have more money and a bigger house
and you know, a nicer car. And you know, this other thing, you know, and that's a trap, because
you're trying to max out on level one, but you're still just stuck at the very, very subsistence
level of human existence. Right? So then no, you have a higher purpose than that you have a bad you
		

			have worship expression, expressing gratitude, and then you have this sort of managerial position of
Khilafah. And so to live your whole life and not realize that potential is is debasing is
humiliating. And the author author gives a couple of humorous examples to kind of demonstrate this
sort of thing. Imagine that you have something that's
		

			that's created for a certain purpose. He talks about a sword right? And this is imagine like the
finest shaped and Smith sword in the whole kingdom, right? We're thinking hundreds of years ago.
Okay, what if you use that sword? What's the purpose for that sword? The purpose of that sword is to
go into battle is to kill the bad guys. It's to you know, save the kingdom like all these sorts of
noble you know, heroic things that people make movies about and write books about. Okay, what if you
use that sword just to cut paper right or to chop wood? It would be embarrassing for the sword. Hey,
it would be a complete neglect of attire purpose. And if we wanted to give a modern day example
		

			maybe we could think of of a racecar right we think of a Bugatti or a Maserati or something like
this one of the most expensive a Ferrari one of the more expensive souped up cars. It's it's built
for speed. Okay, now what if you just let it sit in your driveway and don't ever get in and drive
it? Or you only take it to go to the laundromat? You're just stuck at 25 miles per hour you never
take it out on the highway, you never take it out on the open road. It would be embarrassing. It
would be like this car is like we have this expression a shell of its former self like it's this
kind of embarrassing thing that's humiliating this thing doesn't ever get a chance to live up to its
		

			potential. But human beings are the same we have this amazing potential to be a laws successors a
laws stewards, right the steward of the creation the manager of the Creation helping everything and
everybody and if you're only stuck in Netflix and and your job and a couple of things that your your
hobbies and your little interests here and there, then you're you're not fulfilling your potential
and you're not obtaining the honor that is your dude right?