[Applause] One of the deteriorative effects of the Western materialistic culture promoted in many Western

countries, particularly the United States, is that it undermines our pursuit of genuine self-improvement. Now I know that

there's an oversaturation of self-help gurus out there, and there's a promotion of a very superficial

version of improving yourself, maybe best expressed in slogans like, "Be the best version of yourself," or "Be

better today than you were yesterday," and all of that sort of thing—like an Instagrammable version of being better. And most of this really

just sort of comes down to three basic goals: better physical fitness, better time management, and better income. Now I'm not saying that these sorts of

goals or these sorts of pursuits don't have any value, but they're not at all the classic understanding of what

self-improvement means, and it's certainly not the Islamic view. And no matter how well you may succeed at these

types of pursuits, it's not really going to improve you as a person. Now I'm not just talking about

say, your moral or ethical character as a person, and improving your moral and ethical character, because obviously you could be

very physically fit, you could be very time-productive, you could be wealthy, and also be a complete sociopath. None of

these "best versions of you" are really that much better than any other version, at least not from a moral or ethical

standpoint. But that's again not really what I want to talk about; that's pretty obvious. What I want to talk about is

well, refinement. Let me give you a hypothetical example. Let's say you work in an office and one of your co-workers,

say, the IT guy—he's the IT guy; that's all you know him as—he's very good at his job; he can answer

All your questions he can solve; all of the I.T. problems in the office. One day, he invites you to a gathering at his

home, and over the course of that dinner, you discover that he also plays classical violin and is even a composer.

One of the other guests tells you that your coworker works on a committee for the natural history museum, where he's

responsible for verifying the historical authenticity of artifacts. You overhear him speaking to another guest

in Mandarin. The topic of conversation turns somehow to philosophy, and the I.T. guy suddenly is

able to recite pages and pages and pages of Immanuel Kant from memory. You overhear him talking to another guest

about agricultural policy in Brazil in the 1950s, and that turns into a discussion about nuanced differences between the way

Portuguese is spoken in Brazil versus the way it's spoken in Portugal. In other words, you discover that this man

is infinitely more than just the I.T. guy, and he becomes instantly much more impressive in your eyes. Now, none of these aspects of his life

earn him any extra money; they don't make him more money; they don't increase his social standing; they don't

give him more social capital; they don't make him famous. These are all things that he just pursued for his own

internal enrichment and refinement, because internal human potential is a vast field of cultivatable growth of incalculable

depth, breadth, and variety. But materialistic culture does not promote its nourishment. Now, we all value it when we see it in someone;

we can't help but be impressed, but the culture does not encourage us to pursue refinement and internal development for

its own sake. We are encouraged to pursue monetizable skills, marketable talents, educations that can give us an edge in

Our careers and this is criminally negligent towards the cultivation of the inner wealth that we have the potential

to attain. What a human being is or can be should not be, cannot really be reduced simply to market value. We are not

commodities. This is not civilization; it's the opposite. A civilized society produces people who create, cultivate, and

appreciate excellence and refinement, sophistication and artistry for their own sakes, because that makes every

individual in the society a higher-quality person, which in turn adds richness to the culture, to the society,

and to the overall tapestry of life. I remember a Sahabi commenting on the meticulous and disciplined manners

with which Umar ibn al-Khattab used to eat his food, even if it was just bread

and olive oil. This is emblematic of the high degree of culture and refinement among the early Muslims.

He was a connoisseur of perfumes, and the Muslim respect and regard for poetry is well known. This is a civilization;

it's a civilization because it civilized people. There used to be a much higher expectation about the level of competence and

fluency that a person should have in a multitude of areas—areas that have nothing to do with money or business or

being popular or what have you. There was just a much higher lowest common denominator of what would make you regarded as a

mature adult, a whole person. And we are seriously shortchanging ourselves in this regard. Materialism hollows out culture and bankrupts

society, leaving individuals with stunted growth—internal growth—and their human potential is left derelict. I mean, you see ads on YouTube

about how to make money as an author without ever even writing a book, for crying out loud! As if that's not something

Disgraceful. So learn things because knowing them makes you a more well-rounded person. Do things because doing them makes you a

more capable and more skilled person. Gain knowledge and develop talents for the sake of your own upliftment, not just

to compete in the marketplace. Assalamualaikum.

The Paradox of Materialistic Self-Improvement

The Paradox of Materialistic Self-Improvement

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