There's no black and white in this world; it's all grey. That's what people are like! No one think they're a baddie. Everyone thinks they're trying to do their bit to make the world a better place.
Interpretation
The world is complex, and people often see themselves as good, regardless of their actions.
This quote by Riz Ahmed highlights the complexity of human nature and morality. It suggests that individuals do not typically view themselves as antagonists, yet everyone operates within a nuanced moral landscape where intentions may differ from actions, illustrating that morality is rarely black and white.
In practice
During a discussion about moral ambiguity in a philosophy class, this quote could be used to illustrate the complexity of human motivations.
I get good references from a wide range of music. Something who's been a good influence in the last few years is Qawwali music. If you listen to a Qawwali singer like Aziz Mian - he's like James Brown. Qawwali is like Pakistani gospel-jazz. It's emotional, but it's also improvised, and it's all about that sacred-and-profane tightrope.
No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true.
Rehearsing a scene beds a role into you. But sometimes, if you over-rehearse it without unearthing any new meaning in it, you can suddenly forget your lines. You realise that you are on a stage, not in the real world. The scene's emotional power, and your immersion in it, disappears.
Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.
As a minority, no sooner do you learn to polish and cherish one chip on your shoulder than it's taken off you and swapped for another. The jewellery of your struggles is forever on loan, like the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the crown jewels.
I'm an actor. Since I was a teenager, I have had to play different characters, negotiating the cultural expectations of a Pakistani family, Brit-Asian rudeboy culture, and a scholarship to private school. The fluidity of my own personal identity on any given day was further compounded by the changing labels assigned to Asians in general.
The historical mission of our times is to re-invent the human—at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience.
God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment.
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
In mathematics and science we solve our problems as well as create them. But in art and philosophy things are not so simple.
My heart, to put it more simply, got nostalgic for the present. Always a bad sign.
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