We are a single leaf

standing on the Tree of Life.

Bound to the body by the heart’s emotions,

so long as breath remains

we are praying.

From the fairy tales of youth’s spring,

at times we long to whisper

into the ear of a blossom.

Yet our hidden secrets

we tell to You alone

You who can listen to everyone

at the same moment.

You are Almighty, O God!

You bestowed valleys upon the deer,

wide tablecloths spread for them.

To what fate did You inscribe

eternal destiny, my Lord,

Like inscriptions carved in rock and stone?!

The author of the poem is the poet Nurbek Norchayev, from Kason District, Kashkadarya Region, Republic of Uzbekistan.

Translator Nodira Ibrahimova is a laureate of the international award named after Muhammad Reza Ogahi.

Is traditional sport more beneficial today, or e-sports?

On the one hand, many people consider traditional sports to be more beneficial. First of all, sports improve human health. By engaging in sports, people become physically fit and energetic. Secondly, as the saying goes, “A healthy body hosts a healthy mind,” meaning that a healthy person’s intellect develops better and it becomes easier to overcome illnesses. Moreover, people who exercise regularly also differ in appearance. For example, a 72-year-old man who has practiced sports since childhood looks much younger than his biological age.

On the other hand, the opinions of those who prefer e-sports are also valid. First of all, today young people’s interest in the IT field is growing, and this is closely related to e-sports. By learning this type of sport, they also gain the opportunity to learn IT skills. Secondly, many people earn income through e-sports, which is why it is turning into a profession. In addition, specialists say the following about e-sports: “It improves reaction and perception and helps make quick and accurate decisions.”

In my opinion, e-sports are developing day by day. This type of sport also has many advantages. As the saying goes, “Think first, then speak,” it is not just a game, but a means of developing strategic thinking and making correct decisions. Today, this field is popular in countries such as the USA, Russia, South Korea, and Kazakhstan. Therefore, a decision was adopted by the President to further develop this sport in Uzbekistan. Uzbek e-sports players won second place in the “Moynaq-2021” tournament. A few years ago, a Pakistani teenager, Sumaya Hasan, won a prize worth 1 million 280 thousand US dollars in e-sports. This shows that interest in e-sports is increasing day by day.

In conclusion, the choice of which sport to pursue depends on people’s interests and preferences. The most important thing is that they benefit from their choice.

The real heroes of today

The real heroes of today are our enlightened Jadids. Jadids are people who fought for the development of Turkic languages, the enrichment of literature in these languages, and the equal rights of women and men in society. Therefore, their role today is incomparable. Jadids called on people to unite, learn, and love spirituality and art.

The Jadid movement arose in the second half of the 19th century on the basis of the principles of enlightenment. Jadidism was first founded by the Crimean Tatar enlightener Ismail Gaspirali. The founder and father of the first Jadidism in Central Asia is Mahmudkhodja Behbudi.

Jadidism representatives in Tashkent: Mubavvarqori Abdurashidkhanov, Abdulla Qodiriy, Abdulla Avloniylar

Jadidism representatives in Bukhara: G’ulom Zafariy, Abdurauf Fitrat, Fayzulla Khojayevs

Jadidism representatives in Andijan: Abdulhamid Cholpon, Usmonkhodja Pulatov and Sodiqjon Karimovs are listed.

During the Soviet period, due to the literature written by our Jadids, they were described as a “nationalist movement” and “bourgeois liberal”. After the USSR, our Jadids’ name was justified.

Jadidism representatives often called themselves progressives, and later Jadids.

Progressive forces thinking about the nation were present in almost all classes of the people – farmers, merchants, shepherds, artisans. Our Jadids fight for the independence of Turkestan.Jadids are devotees who sacrificed their lives for the future of the nation. They awakened thinking, lived for the future, and instilled love for the homeland in the hearts of people. Our enlighteners awakened the nation through science and modern knowledge.                                                                                     

Hilola Khudoyberdiyeva. Born on May 19, 2012. A student of grade 7-A at the Specialized School in Kukdala district, Kashkadarya region, Republic of Uzbekistan. She is interested in history, English, her native language and literature. Her hobbies are mainly reading books and learning languages.

Review of Collateral Damage

Collateral Damage: Literary Biographies by Virginia Aronson is a keeper.

As explained in the Introduction, the poems in this collection focus on some well-known poets who have caused suffering and suffered themselves. Each poem is narrated by the poet, or a lover, spouse, muse or other intimate. Having read Smiling Little Hooks, her biographical poems related to Sylvia Plath, I knew she was up to the challenge. Aronson keeps her empathy ability set on eleven.

Now add her well-honed poet’s eye, a filter through which she renders powerful metaphors and depth perception. Her poems lay out what happened in the lives of these revered authors and those descriptions are smoothly linear yet have the unexpected potency of seemingly harmless cocktails: Long Island Iced Tea, Cosmopolitan, Mai Tai.

I don’t want to give them all away but here are some favorite zingers: 

In a poem speaking for T.S. Eliot’s first wife, she writes: And when living is done/ he told me one firey night/ he would like his bones/ flung into my grave.

Speaking for Robert Lowell’s widow: It’s the worst to see/ a man, a woman, an estate/soaked in the black suds/of disaster and sold off/ to help pay off/ debt, help, rooms/rented out while I wrote/of the abyss he fell in/without me.

For Anne Sexton’s therapist she channeled this: I was the one who/ she later wrote/ walked from breakfast/ to madness at the sad hotel / while she raged in her own/ glass bowl…

And for Dylan Thomas’s wife:  Drink was his temporary escape/ from the slavery of his calling/ there was no escape/ for me/ from Dylan/ his werewolf heart/ full of black blood/ until he died/ from drink.

It seems a familiar story: when mortals follow muses down that path—be it writing, making music, painting…other forms of self-expression, the ride can be rocky and fraught with collateral damage.

# # #

Tim Bryant’s has two published novels, Blue Rubber Pool (2018) and The Bird in Your Heart: A Carolina Sea Island Story (2023) with a third, The Stained Glass Mustang, scheduled for publication in May of this year through Unsolicited Press.

Virginia Aronson’s Collateral Damage: Literary Biographies is available here.

What Happens to the Brain When We Stop Asking Questions

Questions are the engine of thought. Long before formal education, before language becomes refined, the human brain develops through inquiry. A child’s first intellectual act is not knowing but asking. Every “why” reshapes neural pathways, stretching the mind toward understanding.
When questions disappear, the brain does not simply become quiet. It changes.

The Neurological Silence
Cognitive research suggests that curiosity activates multiple regions of the brain simultaneously, particularly those associated with memory formation and long-term learning. When questioning stops, these networks weaken. The brain shifts from exploration to maintenance.
This transition is subtle. There is no sudden loss of intelligence. Instead, thinking becomes economical. The mind favors familiar patterns, pre-existing explanations, and mental shortcuts. Efficiency replaces depth.
Over time, this efficiency hardens into rigidity.

From Curiosity to Certainty
Certainty is often celebrated as intellectual maturity. In reality, premature certainty is frequently a sign of cognitive closure. When individuals believe they already know enough, the brain reduces its tolerance for ambiguity.
Questions feel unnecessary, even threatening.
This state is psychologically comfortable. It reduces mental effort and emotional tension. But comfort comes at a cost: the gradual erosion of adaptability. Without questions, the brain stops rehearsing alternative perspectives. It no longer simulates possibilities.
It merely confirms itself.

The Educational Effect
Many educational systems unintentionally accelerate this process. Students are trained to ask questions that lead to answers, not questions that challenge assumptions. Over time, inquiry becomes transactional: a means to a grade, not a tool for understanding.
Once formal education ends, questioning often ends with it.
The brain, no longer required to explore, defaults to repetition. Ideas become recycled rather than re-examined. Intellectual growth slows—not because capacity is lost, but because it is no longer exercised.

Cognitive Aging Without Age
One of the most overlooked consequences of abandoning questions is premature cognitive aging. This is not a biological condition, but a mental posture. The brain begins to behave as though change is a threat rather than a resource.
Learning becomes defensive. New information is evaluated not for truth, but for compatibility with existing beliefs. This is how intelligent minds become closed without realizing it.
Not through ignorance—but through certainty.

Why Questions Matter More Than Answers
Answers stabilize knowledge.
Questions destabilize it.
And destabilization is necessary for growth. Questions force the brain into active negotiation with reality. They reopen closed circuits, reintroduce uncertainty, and demand reinterpretation.
In this sense, questioning is not a sign of weakness or indecision. It is a neurological act of resistance against stagnation.

Conclusion
When we stop asking questions, the brain does not stop working—it stops evolving. Thought becomes predictable. Understanding becomes shallow. Intelligence turns inward and feeds on itself.
The most dangerous moment in intellectual life is not when we do not know enough, but when we believe there is nothing left to ask.

Ashes in the Dry Garden

The rain remembers nothing,

It weeps dust, grain by grain,

As Time buries its face in sand,

The sky, concave and breathless,

Is a priest without a sermon.

The grass prays in brittle tongues

 Beneath a ferrous sun,

Thorns rehearse old rites,

Where roots renounced the covenant of earth.

Buds dissolve in the womb of stillborn hours.

The path no longer pretends,

A threshold breathes but has no door,

A window mourns, clothed in the linen of neglect,

Shadows press their faces to the glass,

And broken panes echo footsteps never returned.

Leaves fall like confessions,

Not from boughs, but from clocks,

Whose hands no longer grasp meaning,

Rust speaks the liturgy of loss,

Iron forgets its shape,

And corrosion writes the gospel of forgetting.

Smoke, the incense of wasted time,

Rises from hours sacrificed to absence,

Walls whisper in crumbling syllables,

Not shattered by war,

But worn by the sighs of the unseen.

Among the ash:

A mother’s breath embalmed in plaster,

A child’s gaze fossilized in soot,

An old man’s dream folded,

In the envelope of an oxidized memory.

And the silence,

The silence chants,

I am the shape of what was thought,

The breath between two centuries,

The echo of a name unspoken.

When All Remains But Thee

The lamps still burn with contemplative fire,

Their golden tongues untouched by grief or pyre,

The meadows don their emerald attire,

Yet none lament, none long, none tire.

The birds unfold their morning psalm with grace,

Their wings inscribe soft hymns across the space,

The bells still toll where sacred echoes fall,

Yet none recall thy voice, none heed thy call.

The paths remain where once our steps were laid,

But Time has brushed thy footprints into shade,

The leaves lift birds to sky’s cathedral 

dome,

While travelers pass as though they’re heading home.

O Memory! close thy weeping, sleepless eyes,

Unclench thy hand from what beneath it lies,

Let Past recede into the breathless hush,

Its mournful dirge now but a dying hush.

For all remains unchanged, complete in tune,

The morning glows, the breeze retains its rune,

But thou, O friend art not in any place,

Not in the sun, the wind, the stars, or space.

In The Shade Of Seeking 

In blissful torment I sought smiling tears,

Seeking sorrow’s shade in sunshine’s shimmer,

Dark veils of anguish dimmed each golden dawn,

My eyes hunted shade in the arms of radiance,

An eternity dissolved under one teardrop’s weight,

O Pain, thou cruel artist, you inked my time,

A quiet absence visits my inward skies,

Loud silence nests in the heart’s vacant throne,

And chases shadows across the desert of longing,

In endless alleys, I seek echoes of essence,

The path is a relic of a vanished presence,

The dust knows my quest better than my lips,

I seek the trace ‘I seek the trace,

And I walk, and I yearn, and I call,

O nameless echo, art thou memory or prophecy?

Who moans in the dome of my soul’s roam?

In the Veins of Mist

Beyond the veil were dust and mist alone,

A traveller was I, yet journey there was none,

The tale once bound by threads was bore of grief,

Though paths bended beneath celestial turns.

I walked through clocks that melted into breath,

Where roads were stitched from shadows of desire,

Each turn revealed a mirror with no face,

Each milestone sang but vanished into fire.

Ideas rained like feathers made of glass,

Breaking soundlessly on the floor of thought,

I sought the ones who dwelled behind my eyes,

But found them drowning in a glass of haze.

No sorrow wept beneath the laughing moon,

I moved, yet floated in a static sea,

Time wore a cloak of whispering spectral wings,

And space knelt quiet at memory ‘s rusted gate.

The spring I chased turned into mirrored smoke,

And kissed the void with incandescent flames.

My river slept inside a cave of wind,

No wave disturbs the mirror of my stream.

No voice, no flame, no herald of the dream,

No beacon flares, no shore, no destiny,

No wave stirs forth within my silent sea,

In endless pursuit my compass turned to mist.

In the orbit of seeking lost my compass,

Diverts in the agony of smouldering path,

Each step dissolves into a vow forsaken,

And vanishes beneath eternity’s breathless veil.

A Vigilant Soul Awaits

A solemn vigil stirs the soul’s deep core,

Veiled fire beneath humanity longs to roar,

An ancient cry breathes through the folds of thought,

Time’s hush prepares the truth ,the seers sought.

The soul desires clouds ablaze with peace,

Tranquility draped in celestial, silent release,

Is a sacred phrase to light the mind’s domain!

And whisper grace through reason’s rich refrain.

For centuries I’ve thirsted for one stream,

A draught to heal the wounds of dream,

A pilgrim bearing thought’s illumined flame,

I name the stars yet shun all fame.

Let peace arise on wisdom’s tempered wing,

Let every soul in silent union sing,

Let truth be refuge for the bruised and torn,

And tyranny die where light is born.

A day shall come when division’s veil shall fall,

One voice shall echo in the hearts of all,

Those drunk on power shall at last descend,

Marked by the time their might cannot defend.

 The Role of Women in the Development of Society

     The development of society is shaped by the harmonious interaction of various social forces, among which the role of women holds a particularly significant place. Women are not only the foundation of family life but also key contributors to the moral, social, and economic progress of society. History and modern experience alike demonstrate that societies in which women are respected, educated, and actively involved tend to develop more steadily and sustainably.                

One of the most fundamental contributions of women to societal development lies in the upbringing of future generations. From early childhood, values such as honesty, responsibility, compassion, and respect for others are largely instilled through maternal guidance. A mother’s level of education, awareness, and worldview directly influence a child’s intellectual growth and moral character. Therefore, investing in women’s education is, in essence, an investment in the future of society. An educated woman contributes to the formation of an enlightened and responsible generation.

       In the contemporary world, women’s roles extend far beyond the boundaries of the household. Today, women are actively engaged in education, science, healthcare, culture, entrepreneurship, and public administration. Their participation in these fields brings diversity of thought, innovation, and a strong sense of social responsibility. Women’s dedication, patience, and ability to approach challenges from a holistic perspective significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of social and professional institutions. 

     Women also play an increasingly important role in economic development. Through entrepreneurship, small business initiatives, and leadership in various industries, women contribute to job creation and economic stability. Their involvement in economic activities strengthens household incomes, reduces poverty, and promotes sustainable growth. In many cases, women-led enterprises prioritize social responsibility, community development, and ethical business practices, which further benefit society as a whole.

     Furthermore, women’s active participation in social and political life is essential for ensuring social justice and equality. When women’s voices are included in decision-making processes, policies tend to better reflect the needs of all members of society. Women often draw attention to critical issues such as education quality, healthcare access, child welfare, and social protection. Their perspectives help address societal challenges with greater empathy and long-term vision.

     To fully realize women’s potential, it is crucial to create equal opportunities for them in all areas of life. Access to quality education, freedom to choose a profession, and the right to express opinions without discrimination are fundamental conditions for genuine progress. Supporting women is not merely a matter of fairness; it is a strategic necessity for sustainable development. Societies that empower women benefit from higher levels of innovation, stability, and social cohesion.

     In conclusion, the role of women in the development of society is invaluable. Educated, confident, and active women contribute to social harmony, economic growth, and moral advancement. A society that values women and enables them to fully realize their abilities lays a strong foundation for continuous progress and a prosperous future.

Ismoilova Jasmina Shavkatjon qizi was born on May 2, 2009, in Navoi Region, Uzbekistan. She is currently a 10th-grade student at Secondary School No. 20, located in Qiziltepa District of Navoi Region. She actively participates in the educational process and consistently demonstrates strong academic engagement. During her studies, she has achieved notable success in various fields. In December 2025, she obtained a B+ level certificate in Mother Tongue and Literature. In August 2025, she was awarded the nomination “Best Reader”, and in the same year, she became the holder of nearly 50 international certificates.

In addition, she was elected as a leader in the “Girls’ Academy” direction during the Children’s Movement Leaders’ Election, where she received a One-Star Certificate of Trust. She has also won first and third places in various essay competitions. Moreover, she is a member of the Argentine Association of Science and Literature Writers, holding an official membership certificate.