Being Happy (whatever that means) means that you are satisfied with the present and not much bothered about the future.
Happiness is an incident. Pursue happiness and it will lead you to a wild goose chase. I don't think we can ever attain happiness
Someone told me that all great writers expresses themselves lucidly and in a langauge that the mass can understand. I agree with him. Easy reading is damn hard writing!!!!
I cannot understand why people memorize when the same thing that one utters is found in the books.
Schopenhauer says that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will." This statement has helped me many a times when I went through life’s hardship and found a Wall in front of me
We don’t live. We only dream about living. By the time we stop dreaming, it's too late.
There are dominant gods and goddesses, there are myths, men are still barbaric and obsessed with signs and symbols waiting for miracles to happen.
I am beginning to understand that it is a natural phenomenon to contradict. I have discovered a very strange phenomenon. If you hate being contradicted – quote Albert Einstein! Nobody will dare contradict you……
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Questions.
What to you is the most worrisome thing? What are the causes of your worries? Can any of your worries be eliminated? How? Which of them might you deal with first? How do you decide? Are there other people with the same problems? How do you know? How can you find out?
What bothers you most about people? Why? How do you want to be similar or different from people you know.
What, if anything, seems to you to be worth dying for? How did you come to believe this? What seems worth living for? How did you come to believe this?
At the present moment, what would you most like to be — or be able to do? Why? What would you have to know in order to be able to do it? What would you have to do in order to get to know it?
When you hear or read or observe something, how do you know what it means? Where does meaning "come from"? What does "meaning" mean?
Where do words come from? Where do symbols come from? Why do symbols change? Where does knowledge come from? What do you think are some of man's most important ideas? Where did they come from? Why? How? Now what? What's a "good idea"? How do you know when a good or live idea becomes a bad or dead idea? Which of man's ideas would we be better off forgetting? How do you decide?
What is "progress"? What is "change"? What are the most obvious causes of change? What are the least apparent? What conditions are necessary in order for change to occur? What kinds of change are going on right now? Which are important? How are they similar or different from other changes that have occurred? What are the relationships between new ideas and change? Where do new ideas come from? How come? So what? If you wanted to stop one of the changes going on right now (pick one), how would you go about it? What consequences would you have to consider? Of the important changes going on in our society, which should be considered and which resisted? Why? How? What are the most important changes that have occurred in the past ten years? twenty years? fifty years? In the last year? In the last six months? Last month? What will be the most important changes next month? Next year? Next decade? How can you tell? So what? What would you change if you could? How might you go about it? Of those changes which are about to occur, which would you stop, if you could? Why? How? So what?
Who do you think has the most important things to say today? To whom? How? Why? What are the dumbest and most dangerous ideas that are "popular" today? Why do you think so? Where did these ideas come from?
What are the conditions necessary for life to survive? Plants? Animals? Humans? Which of these conditions are necessary for all life? Which ones for plants? Which ones for animals? Which ones for humans? What are the greatest threats to all forms of life? To plants? To animals? To humans? What are some of the strategies living things use to survive? Which are unique to plants? Which are unique to animals? Which are unique to humans? What kinds of human survival strategies are (1) similar to those of animals and plants? (2) different from animals and plants?
What does man's language permit him to develop as survival strategies that animals cannot develop? How might man's survival strategies be different from what they are if he did not have languages? What other "languages" does man have besides those consisting of words? What functions do those languages serve? Why and how do they originate? Can you invent a new one? How might you start? What would happen, what difference would it make, what would man not be able to do if he had no number (mathematical) languages? How many symbol systems does man have? How come? So what? What are some good symbols? Some bad? What good symbols could we use that we do not have? What bad symbols do we have that we might be better without?
What's worth knowing? How do you decide? What are some ways to go about getting to know what's worth knowing?
What bothers you most about people? Why? How do you want to be similar or different from people you know.
What, if anything, seems to you to be worth dying for? How did you come to believe this? What seems worth living for? How did you come to believe this?
At the present moment, what would you most like to be — or be able to do? Why? What would you have to know in order to be able to do it? What would you have to do in order to get to know it?
When you hear or read or observe something, how do you know what it means? Where does meaning "come from"? What does "meaning" mean?
Where do words come from? Where do symbols come from? Why do symbols change? Where does knowledge come from? What do you think are some of man's most important ideas? Where did they come from? Why? How? Now what? What's a "good idea"? How do you know when a good or live idea becomes a bad or dead idea? Which of man's ideas would we be better off forgetting? How do you decide?
What is "progress"? What is "change"? What are the most obvious causes of change? What are the least apparent? What conditions are necessary in order for change to occur? What kinds of change are going on right now? Which are important? How are they similar or different from other changes that have occurred? What are the relationships between new ideas and change? Where do new ideas come from? How come? So what? If you wanted to stop one of the changes going on right now (pick one), how would you go about it? What consequences would you have to consider? Of the important changes going on in our society, which should be considered and which resisted? Why? How? What are the most important changes that have occurred in the past ten years? twenty years? fifty years? In the last year? In the last six months? Last month? What will be the most important changes next month? Next year? Next decade? How can you tell? So what? What would you change if you could? How might you go about it? Of those changes which are about to occur, which would you stop, if you could? Why? How? So what?
Who do you think has the most important things to say today? To whom? How? Why? What are the dumbest and most dangerous ideas that are "popular" today? Why do you think so? Where did these ideas come from?
What are the conditions necessary for life to survive? Plants? Animals? Humans? Which of these conditions are necessary for all life? Which ones for plants? Which ones for animals? Which ones for humans? What are the greatest threats to all forms of life? To plants? To animals? To humans? What are some of the strategies living things use to survive? Which are unique to plants? Which are unique to animals? Which are unique to humans? What kinds of human survival strategies are (1) similar to those of animals and plants? (2) different from animals and plants?
What does man's language permit him to develop as survival strategies that animals cannot develop? How might man's survival strategies be different from what they are if he did not have languages? What other "languages" does man have besides those consisting of words? What functions do those languages serve? Why and how do they originate? Can you invent a new one? How might you start? What would happen, what difference would it make, what would man not be able to do if he had no number (mathematical) languages? How many symbol systems does man have? How come? So what? What are some good symbols? Some bad? What good symbols could we use that we do not have? What bad symbols do we have that we might be better without?
What's worth knowing? How do you decide? What are some ways to go about getting to know what's worth knowing?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Art of Flying
Catching a morning flight is like crossing hurdles. It's not always simple to wake up on a cold early morning, specifically when you have downed innumerable number of pegs and went off to sleep late and drunk, to struggle and get on to a flight. Packing was done the night before given that security and logistics hurdles that you must go through to make it on the plane is nightmarish.
Liquids and gels go in a one corner. Contact lens cleaner go to the other corner. Think hard on what bags to carry, now that there are regulations for bags too. Which bag should I take? And if you are a sporadic and non frequent flyer, such aspects are easy to forget.
It gets harder when your airport is a good two-hour drive away, an irritant thing, translating into an hour of lost sleep the few lucky people take for granted.
Once at the airport, there is the sensitive matter of steering through the security. Shoes, laptops, belts, loose change, jewelry watch, et all — gets dumped into containers and shoved through the X-ray machine, and we comply because we desperately want to get to the destination.
It is a marvel that the system works despite these and countless other interventions in the natural right to travel. Think of the numerous coordination problems that get solved, daily, at the major airports of the world.
My flight is a measly dot. It left at 8:05 a.m., and landed at my destination at 11:15 a.m. My plane began the day and end up at the destination without any stops. And this was just one of the hundreds of planes operating that single day at a single airport.
Before my boarding, the plane was loaded and unloaded with food and drink, fuel and garbage, cleaning crews and airplane mechanics. The pilot, copilot and stewards were exchanged for new ones. When determining its schedule, the airline must consider the time necessary for taxiing the plane, something that differs from airport to airport. My plane taxied for what seemed like 30 minutes, but when it was finally in the air, intricate computations helped it to arrive at the predetermined time.
Multiply this by hundreds of flights an hour going in all routes; and reflect on the synchronization of stacks of decentralized workers attached in some way to the airport, to say nothing of the paying customers whose desire to fly justifies all of the activity. How does it all get done?
It happens in spite of the Govt. or its lapse, no matter what our Aviation minister tells us. It works because of the interaction between property rights and prices. Property rights, when well-defined and cared for, generate motivations for self-interested owners to exploit resources in various ways that encourage the social good.
Market prices guide property owners to arrange resources in different forms: wages for pilots, baggage handlers, airplane mechanics, and airport bartenders; loans that help fund training facilities, airports, and aircraft themselves; ticket scanning machines and automatic-flush toilets; and even the food that you are served once up in the air. No authority could pull off such an astounding accomplishment of harmonization, and yet it occurs day in and day out.
Sure, there are hiccups, but they are so odd that they make the lead story in the evening news when they transpire. In spite of the Govt. control of so many facets of modern commercial air travel, I made it to my destination with no problem and with much help from thousands of people I didn't know. What's remarkable is that it is still considered, by so many as, unremarkable.
Liquids and gels go in a one corner. Contact lens cleaner go to the other corner. Think hard on what bags to carry, now that there are regulations for bags too. Which bag should I take? And if you are a sporadic and non frequent flyer, such aspects are easy to forget.
It gets harder when your airport is a good two-hour drive away, an irritant thing, translating into an hour of lost sleep the few lucky people take for granted.
Once at the airport, there is the sensitive matter of steering through the security. Shoes, laptops, belts, loose change, jewelry watch, et all — gets dumped into containers and shoved through the X-ray machine, and we comply because we desperately want to get to the destination.
It is a marvel that the system works despite these and countless other interventions in the natural right to travel. Think of the numerous coordination problems that get solved, daily, at the major airports of the world.
My flight is a measly dot. It left at 8:05 a.m., and landed at my destination at 11:15 a.m. My plane began the day and end up at the destination without any stops. And this was just one of the hundreds of planes operating that single day at a single airport.
Before my boarding, the plane was loaded and unloaded with food and drink, fuel and garbage, cleaning crews and airplane mechanics. The pilot, copilot and stewards were exchanged for new ones. When determining its schedule, the airline must consider the time necessary for taxiing the plane, something that differs from airport to airport. My plane taxied for what seemed like 30 minutes, but when it was finally in the air, intricate computations helped it to arrive at the predetermined time.
Multiply this by hundreds of flights an hour going in all routes; and reflect on the synchronization of stacks of decentralized workers attached in some way to the airport, to say nothing of the paying customers whose desire to fly justifies all of the activity. How does it all get done?
It happens in spite of the Govt. or its lapse, no matter what our Aviation minister tells us. It works because of the interaction between property rights and prices. Property rights, when well-defined and cared for, generate motivations for self-interested owners to exploit resources in various ways that encourage the social good.
Market prices guide property owners to arrange resources in different forms: wages for pilots, baggage handlers, airplane mechanics, and airport bartenders; loans that help fund training facilities, airports, and aircraft themselves; ticket scanning machines and automatic-flush toilets; and even the food that you are served once up in the air. No authority could pull off such an astounding accomplishment of harmonization, and yet it occurs day in and day out.
Sure, there are hiccups, but they are so odd that they make the lead story in the evening news when they transpire. In spite of the Govt. control of so many facets of modern commercial air travel, I made it to my destination with no problem and with much help from thousands of people I didn't know. What's remarkable is that it is still considered, by so many as, unremarkable.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
The satire of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis
I was reading Satires by Juvenal otherwise known as Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis .. He was a Roman satiric poet. I couldn’t but marvel at some of his lines and wanted to keep some for records and reference:-
Travel by night in Roma is fraught with danger from falling tiles, thugs, and robbers.
Since there are so many poets wasting paper and everyone’s time anyway – why not write?
Begging is better than being treated disrespectfully at a patron's dinner.
An invitation to dinner is a social exchange for your services as a client.
Different wines and goblets for different social ranks.
Different water is served by different grades of slaves - and different breads served by arrogant slaves. The patron gets a lobster, and you get a crayfish; he gets a Corsican mullet, and you get a sewer-fish.
If you had a fortune the patron would respect you; it is the cash that he really respects. Different mushrooms and apples.
"throw the bolt and lock her in.” But who is going to guard the guards themselves,
The urge to write is an addictive disease.
Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering
Lust for military glory has ruined countries, and time will destroy even the graves of famous generals.
What did Hannibal ultimately accomplish? He dies of poison in exile.
The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was. Xerxes I crawled back to Persia after his misadventure in Greece.
Long life just means ugliness, helplessness, impotence, and the loss of all pleasure.
Old people are deaf and full of diseases. Dementia is the worst affliction of all.
Many men would have been thought fortunate if they had died before a late disaster overtook them: e.g. Croesus, Marius, and Pompey.
Now rich people get no enjoyment from delicacies unless they eat from tables decorated with ivory.
It takes no philosopher to realize that there are many worse wrongs than being defrauded. A financial loss is mourned more than a death, and it is mourned with real tears.
Become a lawyer, join the army, or become a merchant. Profit smells good, wherever it’s from. Nobody inquires into where you got it, but you have to have it.
The anxiety of protecting wealth and possessions is a misery. Alexander the Great realized that the cynic Diogenes was happier than himself while living in his pottery home, since Alexander’s anxieties and dangers matched his ambitions, while Diogenes was content with what he had and could easily replace.
How much is enough then? As much as Epicurus or Socrates was content to possess is best, or - in the Roman manner - a fortune equal to the equestrian order. If twice or three times that does not suffice, then not even the wealth of Croesus or of Persia will suffice.
But these days there is greater concord among snakes.
In Egypt they worship bizarre animal-headed gods, but not the familiar Roman ones. Similarly, they wont eat normal things, but do practice cannibalism. Ulysses must have been thought a liar for his tale of the Laestrygonians or the Cyclopes.
Compassion is what separates humans from animals. The creator gave humans mind (animus) as well as life (vita), so that people could live together in a civil society.
______
Many of us may think that management writers and authors have contributed many a maxims and have proclaimed some of these as theirs; but facts reveal that some of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis’ lines are the source of many brilliant, familiar and memorable aphorisms today.
Oh! By the way he existed between 60 AD to 140 AD1 AD to 2 AD. That is nearly 2000 years back. Time and again my views have been substantiated that there is nothing new in this world. All things have been said and done………its only that you don't know or are not aware of it___
So much for your thoughts!
Travel by night in Roma is fraught with danger from falling tiles, thugs, and robbers.
Since there are so many poets wasting paper and everyone’s time anyway – why not write?
Begging is better than being treated disrespectfully at a patron's dinner.
An invitation to dinner is a social exchange for your services as a client.
Different wines and goblets for different social ranks.
Different water is served by different grades of slaves - and different breads served by arrogant slaves. The patron gets a lobster, and you get a crayfish; he gets a Corsican mullet, and you get a sewer-fish.
If you had a fortune the patron would respect you; it is the cash that he really respects. Different mushrooms and apples.
"throw the bolt and lock her in.” But who is going to guard the guards themselves,
The urge to write is an addictive disease.
Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering
Lust for military glory has ruined countries, and time will destroy even the graves of famous generals.
What did Hannibal ultimately accomplish? He dies of poison in exile.
The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was. Xerxes I crawled back to Persia after his misadventure in Greece.
Long life just means ugliness, helplessness, impotence, and the loss of all pleasure.
Old people are deaf and full of diseases. Dementia is the worst affliction of all.
Many men would have been thought fortunate if they had died before a late disaster overtook them: e.g. Croesus, Marius, and Pompey.
Now rich people get no enjoyment from delicacies unless they eat from tables decorated with ivory.
It takes no philosopher to realize that there are many worse wrongs than being defrauded. A financial loss is mourned more than a death, and it is mourned with real tears.
Become a lawyer, join the army, or become a merchant. Profit smells good, wherever it’s from. Nobody inquires into where you got it, but you have to have it.
The anxiety of protecting wealth and possessions is a misery. Alexander the Great realized that the cynic Diogenes was happier than himself while living in his pottery home, since Alexander’s anxieties and dangers matched his ambitions, while Diogenes was content with what he had and could easily replace.
How much is enough then? As much as Epicurus or Socrates was content to possess is best, or - in the Roman manner - a fortune equal to the equestrian order. If twice or three times that does not suffice, then not even the wealth of Croesus or of Persia will suffice.
But these days there is greater concord among snakes.
In Egypt they worship bizarre animal-headed gods, but not the familiar Roman ones. Similarly, they wont eat normal things, but do practice cannibalism. Ulysses must have been thought a liar for his tale of the Laestrygonians or the Cyclopes.
Compassion is what separates humans from animals. The creator gave humans mind (animus) as well as life (vita), so that people could live together in a civil society.
______
Many of us may think that management writers and authors have contributed many a maxims and have proclaimed some of these as theirs; but facts reveal that some of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis’ lines are the source of many brilliant, familiar and memorable aphorisms today.
Oh! By the way he existed between 60 AD to 140 AD1 AD to 2 AD. That is nearly 2000 years back. Time and again my views have been substantiated that there is nothing new in this world. All things have been said and done………its only that you don't know or are not aware of it___
So much for your thoughts!
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
They say,” Keep smiling!”
How do you react to a person with a perennial smile on his face? Do you identify him as a good natured person? Do you call him, a man with a lovely face? Do you feel he has a pleasant personality with a constant smile on his face? Do you call him a being with a smile in the face of all adversaries?
What do you make out of him?
Do you label him as a man with no feelings for the sufferings that he perceives around him? Do you describe him as a moron, that in spite of seeing hunger, pain, misery, poverty and homelessness, he continues smiling? Do you dub him as a selfish human being when he sees so much of injustice, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, chauvinism and you see him smiling? Do you term him as a dunce, when you wonder, as to why these things are not affecting him? Is his smile a symbol of ignorance, or doesn’t he care?
Do you think it is less of a smile and more of a smirk?
I am puzzled to see a man with a persistent smile on his face.
What do you make out of him?
Do you label him as a man with no feelings for the sufferings that he perceives around him? Do you describe him as a moron, that in spite of seeing hunger, pain, misery, poverty and homelessness, he continues smiling? Do you dub him as a selfish human being when he sees so much of injustice, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, chauvinism and you see him smiling? Do you term him as a dunce, when you wonder, as to why these things are not affecting him? Is his smile a symbol of ignorance, or doesn’t he care?
Do you think it is less of a smile and more of a smirk?
I am puzzled to see a man with a persistent smile on his face.
Monday, March 01, 2010
A Life Ended
A vivacious young woman concluded her life
She might have been somebody’s wife
People saw her in a dismembered state
Why she died, nobody could ever state
The rail tracks have no blood traces
A problematic life without braces
It did need guts to end one’s life
In the hope of ending her strife
While life laughs at death
Death smiles at breathe
She might have been somebody’s wife
People saw her in a dismembered state
Why she died, nobody could ever state
The rail tracks have no blood traces
A problematic life without braces
It did need guts to end one’s life
In the hope of ending her strife
While life laughs at death
Death smiles at breathe
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