When Shahbaz Bhatti was murdered, it brought lot of us back to the despairing reality which seems to be life in Pakistan. On countless Facebook statuses, Tweets and blogposts, Pakistanis mused about the fate of our country and society, and wondered what sort of future we were heading towards.

What is depressing is that these thoughts seem to have been propping up with a frightening regularity over the past few years. I am not just talking about the blasphemy laws, but the general state of society.

The marches, the bombs, the raids, the rapes, the drugs and the corruption, the feuds and the feudals, the talk shows and the talk-show hosts, the drones and the floods, the cartoons and the no-balls, the veritable buffet of target, sectarian, classism, racist, extremist, imperial, political killings.

But amidst all this, we have to pause and try to figure something out. What exactly do we mean by Pakistan?

Now wait, I am not going to bore you with clichéd tripe on our identity or how we have lost our way. No, instead I am asking what we mean by, or how we define what our country or society means? What is Pakistan in terms of a mental concept? What is it in terms of a lived experience?

When you think of society, it probably conjures up a list of your family, followed by a group of influential and famous people – like politicians and generals and Veena Malik and Zaid Hamid, followed by the faceless masses known as the Common Man – which, quite frankly, is a very hazy reality.

So we feel the need to create some sense and structure, some logic to this disparate idea.

This is where the left hemisphere of our brain kicks in. (You didn't see this coming, did you?) Now, as you might know, our brain is made up of two hemispheres, which behave very differently when it comes to many of our basic functions. For example, when it comes to language, the left is in charge of grammar, vocabulary, and deriving a literal sense of what is being said or read. The right focuses on accents and intonations, on context and insight. Working in tandem, the two parts help us create our perception of reality.

It gets very interesting when we see how these two sides of our brain deal with time and events. The left one seeks to create order, and hence it perceives events in terms of chronology, in terms of before and after. It tries to create a chain of events. In contrast, the right is where we manage to live in the moment, where our sense of events is experienced in of themselves, rather than in relation to other events. Instead of past and future, it deals with present – the here and now.

Now we all experience living our lives in unique ways. However, when we try and conceive of living as a society, we try and do so by looking at a chain of events and occurrences. The news, whether in print or on TV, is an excellent medium for arranging this for us. It helpfully provides us events and orders them in sequence, and uses them to project the future. We might not always agree with the analysis being presented, but we certainly comply with seeing events as chronological and draw our conclusions based on them.

Hence when we keep asking – what now for Pakistan? – we are usually using only half of our brain.

But then how does one experience society 'in the moment,' in the here and now?

Well, one answer might be to look at what else the right hemisphere is good for. (To the doctors out there, I apologise for my crude generalisations) The right side of the brain is also noted as the seat of our creative faculties. So, when you wonder about where we are going as a country and as a society, try ignoring the analysts and the articles and the half-hour shows and the multi-linked posts and try something else.

Maybe, you can listen to this.

Now, I know some of you are commenting on how exciting it is to see people from the war-torn tribal areas singing pop, and the New York Times is already sharpening its soft-story-commissioning pencil. Some might marvel at the continued resilience and reinvention of Pakistani music shows, while the vast majority will start chattering about how music can defeat terrorism and culture must be valued and we should ban Bollywood. Or you might even throw a hissy fit about corporate sponsorships and stop listening to this.

But you need to listen.

You need to listen to the music, to the words, to the song.

You need to listen, because just as much as any other source, this song also speaks to you and answers your questions and revives your flagging hopes.

You need to listen because you've listened for too long to everyone else, with their half-brained views.

You need to listen, because there is more out there than the sum of all these self-smug opinions.

Za ba da sahra war na kram da Iran pa Gulistan Dalta za yaw ao yak-ta yam, alta zar zama pashan

Char chapera speray khaoray, za yawaze yama raokhan

Dalta de tor Registan k za da rang ao noor lamba yam Da khaais chapa naghma yam, karishma da laa-makan

Sta pa bagh ke pa zargunu di gulaab, zama pashan Sta pa bagh ke pa zargunu di gulaab, zama pashan

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In a desert, once, on a hunt did I find, With a radiant smile, a flower so fair;

Sadly, I approached and sighed, “Ah! Of my kind Are you too – a hapless flower from a beloved's hair.

Frail fingers wouldn't take you to a soft face so close, Nor would you be kissed by lips delicate and rose.”

With a silent smile the flower replied, “Don't lose heart! With a silent smile the flower replied, “Don't lose heart!

Ahmer Naqvi is the Brian Lara of his generation – he’s a genius but his team usually loses. He blogs on his own property in Blogistan, and makes short films you can see here, and here.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.