Perspective or point of view, the way someone sees the world, people, society, can have variety of effects on peoples’ thinking, behavior, and can even shape their lives. In Afghanistan, people do not give much attention to it. Perspective is one of the fundamental ways of life that can have profound effect on humans’ life. It leads people to happiness or drowns them toward misery.
For instance, in Jawzjan the word manhood can have two different meaning for literate and illiterate men and they can have different points of views about. Abdul Karim and Ahmad Faisal from Jawzjan, Afghanistan have two different views on being a man and manhood. Abdul Karim believes, “manhood is that no one from your family should work without your permission and you must rule on the decisions of life for everyone. If someone doesn’t follow you, beat them and force them to stop. This is what manhood mean and a man should be like in order to keep his grace and name in the society.”
But unlike Karim, Faisal has completely different opinion about being a man and manhood. He believes, “manhood is to be self-sufficient, to be generous, not to hurt others, and also a man should have forgiveness.” As it says,” forgiveness shows the high character of a man.” he added that Islam taught us to be generous and forgiver, because the pleasure that is in forgiveness is not in revenge.
These definitions and different opinions do shape peoples’ lives. Sayed Mohammad Abedi, a writer and researcher from Jawzjan said that based on what Karim believes; his life will be full of violence and won’t have too many peaceful and prosperous moments. On other side, Faisal with his softer and gentle perspective and views; he will have a peaceful and prosperous life.
Mr. Abedi added,” Peoples’ points of views and perspectives depend on what is their level of knowledge, who they communicate with, and how they see the world.”
Moreover, he believes that a person who is talking to many people, traveling to other parts of the country will broaden his view about people and how people live according to their different values.
