There is a joke which goes like this: Knock, knock. Who is there? Celebrity. Celebrity Who? That’s show business!.

When we flick through the still wet pages of our migration history there is something positive we can take from the first generation.

Evolution is a very slow process. We rush from appointment to appointment from text to text from email to email distorting our sense of pace but there is an angst evidence in slow breakdown of relationships between children and parents, between husband and wife, between families.

We are living on the surface of the ocean making meaning from the visible commotion choosing to ignore the slower pace of activities below.

What in the stillness are we afraid to confront such that we must only live life at a frantic pace?

Relationships take greater meaning in the context of ill health amongst young men and women.

Young deaths are very hard to take and unjustifiable especially when small children are left fatherless or motherless but as Muslims we accept death as a Divine rulings.

What this brings into focus is our dehumanising relationship with technology and this is where taking a leaf from the first generation which seemed to put so much emphasis on relationships.

Where a reputation was built one and sustained over a lifetime - not a seven day cycle.

Relationships leave a legacy. They leave a framework for the generation that follow. They provide the basis of deep friendships. Some of our family relationships are now in their third generation.

They require time to develop, they require investment and introspection.

One shouldn't stop texting, emailing, or ‘facebooking’ but one should switch off occasionally – buy a takeaway and go to a friends and share a moment together.

One should learn to listen deeply and empathise.

Young men took barely unknown countryman to their bosoms in 1962 when they all had very little to share – they accommodated, fed and supported each other.

Reputation mattered. My father still remembers the first night in Blackburn.

Today’s information overload belies a need for a deeper silence and a need to drink from the well of experience before it’s too late.