11 hours ago
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AS usual, I like looking at matters through the lens of the ancients. Heraclitus said everything flows, and nothing stays still, not even the things we swear are solid. Our grandparents knew a version of this. They believed the world held more than eyes could see, and they lived by rules to match.
The old rules
Think of those rules. Don’t praise a newborn too loudly. Say masya-Allah when you admire something. Cover the face of a baby at the kenduri. Hang a charm over the door. Don’t brag about the harvest, the house, the child or the new car.
Picture a family gathering in the evening. Someone admires a baby, and the mother smiles, but her hand moves quietly to the blanket. Nobody comments. Nobody asks. Everybody understands.
Not everyone keeps these rules today. Some laugh at them. Some follow them quietly and never explain why. But look at what the rules actually say: be careful what you show, and be careful who is watching.
Believers call it ain, the evil eye. The idea is old and simple. Admiration mixed with envy can do harm. Beside it sits a wider world of belief: jinn, the unseen beings, and saka, the spirit some families say is passed down through blood. A house nobody asked to inherit.
I am not here to argue whether you should believe. That is between you, your faith and your family. I am here to ask a better question. What were these rules protecting?
The eye has moved
Here is my answer. They were protecting people from being seen too much.
Our grandparents had one village. A few hundred pairs of eyes at most. A new house drew a few stares and a few whispers, and the whispers came from people who knew the whole story. They knew the sleepless nights behind the new roof. They knew the debts, the quarrels and the funerals.
Now you post one photo and thousands look. They are strangers who know only the highlight. The car. The holiday. The wedding. The ring. The salary slip dressed up as a “blessed” caption.
Every scroll is a small act of comparison. Every like counter is a measuring tape. Envy used to need a doorway. Now it only needs wifi.
The eye never blinks anymore. It does not sleep. It does not forget. It sits in your pocket and looks at everyone, including you.
The unseen in the machine
Here is the part that makes me pause. Our ancestors spoke of forces unseen, moving through the world and shaping what happens to people without ever showing a face.
Now look at your phone. Something unseen decides what you see first. Something unseen notices what you linger on, then feeds you more of it. Something unseen learns your fears faster than you can name them. Nobody can point to it. Nobody can bargain with it. And most people never think to ask what it wants.
I am not calling the algorithm a jinn. I am saying our ancestors understood something we forgot: what you cannot see still shapes you, and the wise person treats it with respect and a little caution. Not panic. Awareness.
The old rules were a kind of digital hygiene, written long before anything digital existed.
What the eye does
Believe in ain or not, you can still watch what the feeling does. You know envy. That quick, hot twist in the chest when someone gets what you wanted. And you know the other side. You post something good and feel strangely exposed. Then anxious. Then flat.
The ancients had a name for it. We have new names: comparison, burnout, FOMO. It is the same shadow in new clothes.
Epictetus said it is never the thing itself that troubles us, only the judgment we place on it. The eye can look all it wants. The harm begins when we carry that look inside and let it rewrite how we see our own life. The eye has no hands. We hand it ours.
Look at how many people now measure a wedding by the photos and a holiday by the likes. Joy that waits for an audience is joy on loan.
The inheritance
Now back to saka. Set belief aside for a moment and look at the idea itself. Something unseen, passed down without consent, shapes how a person lives.
Every family has one. Maybe not a spirit. A fear of money. A silence around certain subjects. A temper that skips a generation and lands on you. A habit of expecting the worst. A grudge older than anyone at the table can explain.
We inherit all of it without signing anything. And like the stories of saka, it works best when nobody names it.
The Dao has a simple teaching here. What you fight grows heavier. What you look at plainly grows lighter. Wu wei is water moving around the stone without pretending the stone is not there. Name the thing. Then decide, calmly, what you will do with it. Ask one honest question: what did I receive that I never chose, and what will I pass on?
Protection without fear
People who kept the old rules were not fools. They had a practice. Pause. Say the words. Name the blessing. Hand it back.
Think about what masya-Allah actually does. It reminds the speaker that the gift was never theirs to claim. It reminds the listener that praise has weight. It slows the moment down by three seconds, and those three seconds change everything.
That is the habit we are missing online. Pause before you post. Pause before you scroll. Pause before you envy. Name what you feel. Hand it back.
It is not a spell. It is a skill. And it works whether you believe in jinn or not, because the real battle was always inside the chest, not outside the door.
Look away
None of this asks you to fear anything. Fear gave the eye its power in the first place.
Share less but let your words carry meaning. Some blessings grow best in quiet, away from curious eyes and unnecessary opinions.
Offer praise slowly and sincerely. And reserve a little of your joy for those who sit beside you through ordinary days.
Look honestly at what your family has handed down, both the goodness and the burdens, and decide which lessons deserve to continue.
Teach children that being seen is not the same as being known, and that attention is not always affection.
The eye never blinks, but you can choose to look away.
Close the app. Say a prayer. Let the room fall silent. What watched you was never as powerful as the hold you allowed it to have over you.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune.
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