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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Success and Happiness

What is success? What is happiness? What is real education? What is reality?

It is actually good and fortunate that these debates about what constitutes happiness? What constitutes success? What type of education is real education are fortunately floating around.


It is all the more welcome trend if these are debated seriously in the realms of scholarly academic circles involving psychologists, psychiatrists, besides, of course  politicians, economists, entrepreneurs and all other concerned leaders, mass opinion molders and other manipulators of social perception who involve in social engineering for various purposes and all these invariably spilling onto social media as well.


Even if  nothing of great worth or value emerges out of all these questions, at least they reflect our inclination and inquisitiveness to know something else or something more than what all these terms like success, happiness, education have been referring to so for.

Besides, these debates inevitably lead to rethinking and reworking many out dated models and also they try to remove fixed definitions of certain concepts which are loosely and carelessly used without realizing the influence and impact that they have on especially impressionable minds and the injury that they inflict to those who are unable to fulfill the deemed correct definitions of these terms-which incidentally lead to many major psychological, neurological and social problems.

The worst symptoms of all these terms are the labels that get appropriated and assigned unmindful of the social and psychological impact that they can have.

I have written on all the three above referred terms, namely Success, Happiness, and Education at various platforms at different times, sometimes these terms do not pop up as they are but they are injected in certain other versions through a clever usage of plethora of thesaurus of terminological tirade which flushes down all nuances of life forms on its way.

The social engineers of various hues and colors mostly politicians, religious leaders, media persons, business houses to name a few who deliberately define these terms to suit their agenda.
The following three quotes I find hit the nail more effectively.
"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner


"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multi-dimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex."- M. Scott Peck

“An array of coordinated genes is required to explain even the minutest human phenomenon.’Discoveries' of a 'gambling gene' here and an 'aggression gene' there are derided by the more serious and less publicity-prone scholars. Yet, it would seem that even complex behaviours such as risk taking, reckless driving, and compulsive shopping have genetic underpinnings."- The Selfish Gene – The Genetic Underpinnings of Narcissism

I wrote the following  for a detailed article and debate in a forum of global education the topic was the myopic one ‘Growing up and settling down’
[Life in its very essence means lively so it cannot settle down. Settling down is a loosely used and well accepted terminological contradiction.

Life has neither a pause button nor is it a pass it on baton.

Everything is part of life and not apart from life and therefore cannot be kept apart for a future date or an assumed future condition.]


I need to search for some of my old articles on Happiness and success, invariably very long ones and need to load them too in my blogs.

However, you may find a lot of Education and Reality in my blogs.


Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Technology cannot be avoided

Wabi-Sabi*


Extremism in anything is bad.

Even to pass on this message of feeling of  annoyance  against technology one has to use technology.

Unloving criticism is as bad as uncritical love- both are susceptible to overlook facts and realities.

Some years ago a well known swamiji was sermonizing about the utter uselessness of materialism which he said ‘was not required for life’ at all.

I just went near the stage and switched off the mike.

It has become a fashion to condemn everything modern and predominantly used by the present generation and also by all or many at present.

Surprisingly this tendency to put down modern trends-irrespective of their importance, impact and also indispensability in some cases- is even adopted by institutions which are supposed to promote them.

Drucker forum conducted a conference last year titledClaiming our humanity in the digital ageand I did write a rejoinder


Instead they start viewing them as something against all things old and start viewing it as different and dividing factor.

 They all forget the inevitable polarity principle in nature and evolution.

As a result of this wrong perspective and attitude there is an unending list of ‘versus’:-

Faithful versus unfaithful;

Religious versus irreligious;  

Science versus Religion;

Science or religion versus spirituality;

Tradition versus taboo;

Technology versus Humanity;

I can elaborate the damage it has done to the development of humanity leading to petrified ideologies, putrefied perspectives, puerile interpretation of many things and view various  polarity principles as paradoxes.

Recently I had to refute a great scholar on this.

Technology is religion and gadgets are the new gods.


Humanity and Technology- let us not see it as humanity versus technology


Paradoxes or Polarity



SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY


*Japanese  word:- Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”


Monday, September 26, 2016

Humanitarianism is a great discipline

Self restraint either out of fear or love or innately along with awareness of social responsibilities as one among the many of the same species living together and a sense of humanitarian concern promoted as an important ingredient and inculcated as the most important component of all types socio or religious or cultural morals are enough to ensure sane behavior and not necessarily parades, pellets and bullets.

The mistake is because no religion or culture prioritizes humanitarian concerns like compassion and care as much as it does towards performing rituals and doing worship or adopting specific attires and other extraneous things.

Education also fails to teach children their social obligations and rights.

If these two important institutions namely religious preaching and practices and social education emphasis on humanitarian behavior, then, awareness based social responsibility and individual restraint will automatically creep in or seep in at subconscious level and stop unleashing many types of  insane behaviors.

All the social psychologists are aware of these but unfortunately in all social systems religion, culture and tradition dominate.


Of what use is all our talk of all tall philosophy if we cannot share water, we cannot allow vehicles from other state registration within India to ply hassle free and if we cannot donate at least all unused things to the deprived and so on.

Convincing others is prioritized

We, most of us, swing as a pendulum between excuses and justifications with a keenness to convince others and end up coming with answers like these: - A tourist guide who, when once, a lady asked him “How a row of fine rock formation were piled up”, said “they have been piled up here by the glaciers”. When she anxiously asked him “Where are the glaciers?” he replied “Madam, they have gone back to get some more rocks”. Such replies are often the result of ignorance, half-knowledge or impatience or all of these.

Electricity and evolution

Everything is subject to evolution and growth.

Brushing aside big terminologies and subject specific jargon all types of evolution in all domains involve change, growing out of certain things and getting further into certain other things depending upon various factors of utility, relevance and intrinsic values of indispensability.

Neither electricity nor the discoverer of electricity nor the aspects that have been established to contribute to electricity are ever worshiped, though practically very few can lead a life without it even for a day. No scientist/book/institution ever craves for people to worship that either.


Nor do any scientists ever keeps reminding the uses of electricity except that school students study them but everyone uses electricity in different equipments most of the times.

Food for our thoughts through some thoughts about our food

Food for our thoughts through some thoughts about our food.

Seven very useful and wonderful articles for seven days of the week to follow for anyone in Agriculture related activities and to know the need for  overall integration of all agricultural products across the globe for our own good
1. Where your food really comes from


2. Link from same article on origin of crops


3. The world produces enough food to feed everyone. So why do people go hungry?

4. Food security and why it matters


5. The secret to food security in East Asia

 

 

6. Six maps that will make you rethink the world


7. We need to rethink about the food that we waste especially in most Indian weddings



Social media versus main stream media mafia

Social media trumping paid and prejudiced news

Mr.Chidanand Rajghatta’s particular write up ‘RBI change an example of politics trumping good governance’ in TOI page 16 Chennai edition dated 21st June reveals the sub conscious anger and fear of wound and worry that worthy news through social media [‘English –driven social-media echo chambers’ ]replaces willful misrepresentation by main stream media.

So desperate that MSM that they do not miss any opportunity to show their disgust for this social media trumping paid and prejudiced news.

Jealousy driven, frustration filled club of media mafia who lived in the sanctuary of comfort where they felt that peddling lies, opinions , twisted presentation of news with hidden agenda of provocation were their sole preserve.

Their only qualification being misinterpreting, misquoting and maligning their chosen targets with impunity and worse still gloated over their status of mass opinion molders.

These media channel room heroes, in some cases Romeos thought that their sanctuary will never be invaded by any force and they could burn anyone or any truth or fact in their toxic gas chambers of Left or paid patrons’ ideology.

Unfortunately they have been upset by unexpected technology which enabled people to capture facts in real time and also vent their views on various dimensions of any issue so they call this force of social media users as ‘English –driven social-media echo chambers’ as this echo is gradually silencing the 24/7 news channel cacophony.


Dwijavanthi raga

Dwijavanthi raga while may sound nice and seem easy to render it can carry a great a load of some phrases of sahana.

But here are some gems

One with a heavy full throat with impeccable azutham [ proper stress] and correct pace by Maharajapuram Santhanam

A class apart by Dr.M. Balamuralikrishna in his excellent Tillana

Great piece on violin by Lalgudi Jayaraman free flowing

This doyen Semmangudiji at 80 plus rendering mater strokes of  kalpana swaras that are very chaste


Master technical stuff by TNS sir

Akilandeswari both renderings are good  MS and Bombay Jayashree
Excellent Malayalam songs by K.J.Yesudoss



Linguistics and Words

                                                        ‘Lingo LOOK’


Happy to share the news that I finished reading somehow online the 1000 plus pages of interesting stuff of what I call as a journey for linguistic addicts who have an irresistible itch to update and unravel more appropriate or nuanced expressions to existing as well as emerging contexts.

This exercise naturally involves scrutinizing all nuances and synonyms not only from one language also attempt to borrow from many languages –which can be a blessing in disguise.


Here is that  very interesting reference work for all translators titled ‘Dictionary of Untranslatables’- A Philosophical Lexicon originally in French EDITED BY Barbara Cassin.

Then TRANSLATED BY Steven Rendall, Christian Hubert, Jeffrey Mehlman, Nathanael Stein, and Michael Syrotinski TRANSLATION EDITED BY Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood”.


Here is a very interesting article that can lead to many such works


and some other interesting links are






Reading and pleasant use of internet

I make it a point to read at least something once a week or mostly while travelling something from these sites.

Most of these are very useful sites for books and reading beyond regional politics










The New Yorker, World Economic Forum etc

These along with TED talks and BBC debates and discussions can ensure optimum and pleasant utilization of internet.


Knowledge and Understanding

Of late there has been lot of debates about lack of understanding and more knowledge in the social media.


It is good and incidentally several years back Aldous Huxley wrote a wonderful but long essay on this topic ‘Knowledge and Understanding’ and surprisingly one may find a  pdf of half the essay in Sri Ramankrishna Mission site.

Coming back to the subject.

It has become normal to confuse information for knowledge;

Knowledge for experience and thought;

Ideas formulated based on these for wisdom;

The problem is as these may inadvertently lead to an arrogance which may create unassailable prejudice, petrified presumption and start projecting what we know or think we know or presume as some great piece of tool to decipher the puzzle of life as panacea.

The most important facts of humility are that our perception or understanding based on whatever  may be the source of knowledge is defective or at least not totally prefect and therefore there is nothing that can be construed as a panacea in this world.

Education is the enlightened awareness and acceptance of facts of inevitable evolution of everything and experiencing life as a flow of all or some them as they emerge through the churning process of life where they express the multiple dimensions of everything and the various dynamics of each dimension emanating from inherent attributes as well as a reaction to external impacts.

Life is an unmapped atlas where we are not even sure whether all pieces of the jigsaw puzzles are there to create a shape.

Lot depends on proceeding on unbiased observations beyond or besides or if necessary even without existing loads of knowledge because the existing bunch of knowledge could also act as a conditioning factor if we are not alert and totally divert our understanding of anyone or anything.

Besides all these there are also factors like our attitudes towards multiple interpretations, ideological identity based inhibitions to accept certain things, attitudes and overall perspective towards what we encounter etc.


That is why it becomes a necessity to not to take on extreme positions in anything and instead maintain a balanced view.


Extreme positions can blur the view from seeing the multiple possibilities that may exist everywhere.

Phenella writes in “The Unwritten Comedy”.
“To be ignorant of many things is expected
To know you are ignorant of many things is the beginning of wisdom.
To know a category of things of which you are ignorant is the beginning of learning.
To know the details of that category of things of which you are ignorant is to no longer be ignorant.”


“Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:
first, that beliefs are the result of conditions;
second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions;
and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”
― Eric Micha'el Leventhal


 “All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs, opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has no power in and of itself. Its power arises from the fact that you accept it mentally.”
― Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind


We, most of us, swing as a pendulum between excuses and justifications with a keenness to convince others and end up coming with answers like these: - A tourist guide who, when once, a lady asked him “How a row of fine rock formation were piled up”, said “they have been piled up here by the glaciers”. When she anxiously asked him “Where are the glaciers?” he replied “Madam, they have gone back to get some more rocks”. Such replies are often the result of ignorance, half-knowledge or impatience or all of these.


The problem with human beings unlike other species is that we are consciously aware and we can also collect, store and retrieve data and reuse them. This faculty along with our intellectual thinking and reasoning powers hamper us from having humility to accept the mere fact that there are many unknown as well as unknowable elements to life as a whole and even in our individual lives.



We either act or react according to what we want, what we can and what we are destined to. At different times either one of these three predominates i.e. what we want, we can we are destined to do.
















































Saturday, September 17, 2016

RelationShip

RelationShip is one of the many ships that float or sail through in the ocean of life.

Various factors are important, impact and influence different relationships at different times.

So, we need to understand the context, content, character and contribution of each and every relationship in proper perspective, rather than making over simplified or over general statements involving the word relationship.



I am against usage of terms loosely as well as following things ritualistically without inner involvement.

Most of us human beings are vulnerable to slogans, statements and scriptural justifications which block our original thinking, proper evaluation and interpretation of  many things in proper perspective and contextual relevance

India needs these

I like his columns and I am an avid reader of all the above mentioned newspapers and magazines along with others.

In fact I have conducted some programs with Chandan Mitra in Delhi, a very articulate and sensible person.

My only request being ‘India Facts Research’ is to go beyond art, culture, traditions, religious practices, scriptures and in addition also highlight the geological wonders and wealth that this nation posses in nature and also cull out the immense talents and skills of many individuals and ensure to first have a complete and comprehensive data followed by institutional action plan.

I am doing it in my small way both because the synergy of all these strengths of Bharath Mata can definitely make India into a great super power.

We may respect symbolic gestures in praise of our traditions by some foreigners and get high and we may revel in the refrain of our past glory.

However, life is lived in the present with pleasant purple pages of the past as reference which act as pride of ancestry and hope for the future.

So, we need to prepare for a life in future for a glorious well organized systematic and methodical models for future development.







Probably make a brief but comprehensive map for each district of India this will be useful for administration, politics, security, tourism and many other businesses.

For example I made a few started with Andra when it was undivided, then one by one districts of TN




Thursday, September 15, 2016

Culture

I happen to read this article and then felt like putting forth certain fundamental flaws in approach https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/13/lionel-shrivers-full-speech-i-hope-the-concept-of-cultural-appropriation-is-a-passing-fad#comment-83358971



























































What is culture? The highly misused and misinterpreted term why?

We suffer due to lack of proper definition and misappropriation rather than appropriation.

Too much of assigning labels, getting imprisoned in the identity cages created by these through ideological and emotional appeals along with sensationalistic frenzy supplied by mass opinion molding industry of vested interest groups, lobbies, ideology marketers, victimhood  peddlers, many  other zealots and mafias who define what is moral and what is immoral; what is religious and what is not; what is important and what is not; they invariably mask everything with scriptural or chosen ideological justifications or  excuses of traditions.

They do not realize that in the process they are not only making a mockery of everything human and humane and also blocking the psychological evolution of humanity.

Here I would like to share two links one obviously an attempt to define culture, not traditional practices or arts confined to any particular geographical zone [which have their own beauty and benefits] or practices pertaining any specific religion [which have their own justifications and significance] or practices of certain ideological outfits [which have their own claims to  greatness] but what everyone fails to notice is that there is no panacea nor any single global spectacle which can be classified as a global culture however much every outfit may try to homogenize.

Variety manifests itself and always awaits only harmonizing bends and not homogenizing trends.

Nature needs synthesis not mere thesis or traditions.

Culture and its multiple facets



Identity veneration and ideology peddling the great stumbling blocks preventing Unity




Definitions –the need for them


When clear cut definitions are not there, then this is what happens


What many things could actually be…


Panacea – nothing is a panacea for all human problems