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Saturday, December 30, 2017

Punctuation

                                                    Punctuation


When thoughts, ideas, opinions gush forth like a cascade or a cyclone little do they bother about the twigs and saplings on the way. 

The flow and force get prioritized and the recipient is not even in the scheme of things.


I suggest everyone to read one of world’s leading linguist Steven Pinker’s [of Harvard ]‘The sense of style’ -‘The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century’ -from page 284 on Punctuation. This chapter covers very comprehensively the complete width and depth of  the uses and usefulness of punctuations.


“ The problem for the writer is that punctuation indicates prosody in some places, syntax in others, and neither of them consistently anywhere…..Even the sticklers cannot agree how to stickle….In 2003 the journalist Lynne Truss in her wonderful book ‘Eats, Shoots &Leaves’ ..decries the punctuation errors she  spotted in ads,..newspapers. 

In 2004 New Yorker Review the critic Louis Menand decries punctuation errors he spotted in Truss’s book.

In Guardian …the English scholar John Mullan decries the punctuation flaws he spotted in Menand’s review”


The world functions on actions spurred on by thoughts and ideas and not punctuation marks.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

The beautiful art of Kolam or Rangoli

            The beautiful art of Kolam or Rangoli


         Let us stop grumbling and start grasping and appreciating whatever is available in whatever  form:-


         1. First we all need to acknowledge that there are unique cultural niceties or mastery in   different realms in various geographical locations.


         2. We all must be happy that there is lot of interest and revival in some cultural aspects for   various reasons.




         3. Having said that we must accept our failure i.e. when we fail to record, document and methodically explain in an idiom [not necessarily  linguistically] understandable to outsiders  then we cannot blame lack of acknowledgment.


         4. When civilization marches on its evolutions in multiple domains certain things get relegated   in importance, we must be thankful that they have not become extinct.


         5.Life’s evolutionary aspects and aspirations are tossed among repetitions, recorded evidences and changes and therefore their [life’s evolutionary aspects and aspirations] popularity depend on how they manage to survive all these and they get further promoted through organized institutionalization and constant propaganda and not through mere desperate vocalization of   ethnocentric pride or blinkered belief systems.


         6. “The things that are wrong with the country today are the sum total of all the things that are  wrong with us as individuals” ~Charles W. Tobey
        

         “We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it”-  Timothy Ferris


         7. In civilization’s evolutionary trends which went through various ages like age of  cannibalism, age of hunter gatherers, age of sailing to  discover new locations, age of   religious activities, age of artistic renaissance, age of industrialization, age of nuclear energy, age of internet, age of IOT etc the older traditions and activities lose their charm ,   unfortunately sometimes even their relevance, unless they happen to be an intrinsic aspect of human activity, more so, in a nation with lack of economic prosperity, it becomes part of survival aspect of life.




         8. In the absence of that some aspects of tradition and culture are sustained with great difficult  by people with aesthetic sensibilities,  immense attachment or if such activities happen to be the only activity they know to do for their livelihood or they carry on with such activities with ancestral pride.


         9. There are many such activities, across the globe, which are lingering with lovely pride but   within just one or two families or in some remote villages.


         10. In India I can quote Jaladharangam, abroad I can quote sea silk for example.


         11. Even those who know and like such activities do not have even enough time to appreciate  them as more pressing issues demand their time and attention.
        

         12. In fact, on the contrary, for most of these cultural or traditional activities which we think is not that much visible, there are plenty of social networks which give more detailed information and details.


         13.For example you would be surprised to know groups which discuss how madisaru has to be  worn by Iyers and Iyengars, what type of saree must be worn by Bihari Yadavas and UP  Yadavas –and most of these sites are administered by NRI’s from USA.


         14. There are thousands of things which demand our attention in the radar of daily life wherein we can hardly even think of these things.


         15. We can at best have symbolic festivals and days assigned like Pongal, Ayudapooja,   Valentine’s Day, Marghazhi music festival, world book day etc when we can revisit  certain activities and flood the social media with our likes, leanings and learnings that’s all.


         16. In India do we know the number of folk arts, folk music that are there and how great they are?


         17. Are we proud of world’s two unique dairy products –Avial and Morekzhambu?


         18. Why last week I happen to attend a Nadaswaram concert without mike after almost 40 plus years in a place and what a pleasure it was.


         19. In my own very limited estimation that we can create at least twenty new world’s very   attractive tourist destinations for example construct bridges and roads in the hills around Gokarna, Murundishwarar near the sea in Karnataka.




         20. Despite its predominant role and extraordinary prevalence and presence no single religion could stop the evolution of new religious movements.


         [Erich Fromm, “humans have a need for a stable frame of reference. Religion apparently fills  this need. In effect, humans crave answers to questions that no other source of knowledge  has an answer to, which only religion may seem to answer. However, a sense of free will must  be given in order for religion to appear healthy. An authoritarian notion of religion appears     detrimental.”]

Friday, December 22, 2017

Happy New Year 2018



Wishing you all A Very Happy New Year 2018 in 18 pages , a different note and narration , some recapitualtion of  old stories but would make, hopefully a nice journey of sorts. I have not delved into any subject in detail or specifically . However, everything is for every avid seeker of knowledge, information and those who have an hunger to grasp facts and reality as they present themselves and decipher them to understand life as a whole.






























































1] The above picture Courtesy from : The Origin of (Almost) Everything is a visualized science book that explains the origin of (almost) everything, like dark matter Jennifer Daniel/Nicholas Brealey.
Wonderful book not to be missed, “Graham Lawton in his new book, The Origin of (Almost) Everything, worked with designer Jennifer Daniel to unravel dozens of life’s biggest mysteries. Lawton crafts the narration while Daniel handles the infographics. Together they’re able to answer nagging questions that have inspired centuries of scientific inquiry’The Origin of Just About Everything, Visualized]



“In the end nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”- William James


 Writing and reading are activities that go together

On doit tout faire pour écrire ce qu'on ne peut pas écrire. Hélène Cixous

On devrait inventer le verbe éclire

2] I have the habit of writing something really ‘new’ every year for the New Year.

Sometimes it is too long that people just acknowledge having received it, seen it, mostly not read, because had they read it they may have blocked me.

If time permits I would like to revisit the journey of the past 365 days exclusively through some select books and articles that I have read both physically and also [mostly] electronically.

3] The purpose is not to give an account of what I have read, it is a suggestion that those who find time and inclination may do so and benefit from reading from those sources.

There is some amount of inherent contradiction is usage of internet where people spend hours and hours sharing sensational and scandalous political events or celebrity gossips along with repetitive religious materials, there is nothing wrong in any of them and I am not sitting on judgment on any of them either but when suggested to go beyond this radar of just forwarding and recycling the same/similar stuff, most of which feeds on to our confirmation bias, social sermons [mostly meant for others] and all these comforts us psychologically- so far so good, people normally say that they do not have time to read.

This is typical of all escapists’ non-committal cautiousness not to disturb their confirmation bias, and comfort zones.

However, if we notice it and honestly evaluate the above activities it is a unique contraction of excessive usages and traffic but actually underutilization of the medium of internet as most of the material is a reloading and relocating.

But when given something new or different to read, to reason, to rethink, to review and to replenish the intellectual perspective there is a frequent excuse of lack of time.

This contraction is typical of what Susan Ertz writes, "Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon."


4] So, I mention here some sources because in this vast world of internet which is a highly crowded place with various things catering to the tastes of many which prevents any single sieve/filter to narrow down and select items of things that may be of specific interest to some irrespective of all the tall claims of many specific and targeted search options.

5] Some of these sources offer a wide variety of worthy content presented in wonderful communication tools of verbal expressions, marvelous maps and beautiful data charts.

What I have come across and still what I have narrowed down to present here is, of course, a tiny portion of vast and varied such similar or other wonderful resources out there.

6] Unless we ourselves, consciously start either expanding the radius of radar of our view or accept opinions even tangentially beyond the circle of our radar then we may be giving room to neo-homogenizing and institutionalizing control freaks who may clandestinely mold our opinion like what most of the mass opinion molders do with catchy statements like these, “vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos we are coming up with a dazzling mission—“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible”

They will do this with highly empowered tools of multipronged propaganda mechanisms to ensure a social engineering to suit their agenda of homogenization.

7] The chief among them being described in the book “More Damned Lies and Statistics [though mathematical models can define as well as decipher many domains of activities].

 

However, there is also lot of truth in what Joel Best says in his book,

 

How Numbers Confuse Public Issues by Joel Best (Author)

“Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues: missing numbers are relevant but overlooked; confusing numbers bewilder when they should inform; scary numbers play to our fears about the present and the future; authoritative numbers demand respect they don’t deserve; magical numbers promise unrealistic, simple solutions to complex problems; and contentious numbers become the focus of data duels and statistical  wars. The author's use of pertinent, socially important examples documents the life-altering consequences of understanding or misunderstanding statistical information. He demystifies statistical measures by explaining in straightforward prose how decisions are made about what to count and what not to count, what assumptions get made, and which figures are brought to our attention. 

Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues. Entertaining, enlightening, and very timely, this book offers a basis for critical thinking about the numbers we encounter and a reminder that when it comes to the news, people count—in more ways than one.”

8] There are some sites that vye with one another for the top slot.

Even , if I don’t act like a lumber jack editor, who chops ,sometimes strips most of the content to make it too brief , I am forced to limit myself to a few to ensure at least partial attention by readers of the present times who prefer ‘Memes’ ‘Tweets’ ‘Sms’ etc.

Chief among them are https://www.weforum.org [ for their varied topics in socio-economic realms and wonderful maps, charts and data analysis which enable us to grasp the wide bandwidth of a subject in a jiffy] ;the long reads from The guardian like https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/mainsection/the-long-read for the in depth insight into the subjects which allow the subject to seep deep and linger long into our mind that they get etched in our memory for long [some samples given item 44] ;of course the ever reliable BBC especially its http://www.bbc.com/travel/story and many more.

9] Being a bibliophile [lover of books] and also more a lexophile [lover of words] with a crazy obsession for words, etymology and all nuances of verbal expressions, evolving new trends and nuances in linguistics I would be failing in my duty towards my own consciousness if I do not acknowledge the immense work and innumerable research and advances that are going around in many languages.

Because of my limited knowledge of only a few languages I would also like to place on record some latest developments as well as some irresistible but less talked about unique works in the domain of linguistic devices and word development.

The most exhaustive multi-lingual lexicon on google platform wherein my wonderful and scholarly Romanian friend Lucian Velea who motivates me to write certain things has his blog  http://www.omnilexica.com/ and many works of Steven Pinker , David Crystal [a great linguist David Crystal in his books WORD,WORDS, WORDS and THE STORIES OF ENGLISH. Here I would like to reproduce some bits of information like these words science, conscience and shit all had originally common etymology. I thought for a longtime that the Britishers were obsessed with sex that’s why they have named their places like Essex, Sussex , Wessex, Middlesex etc but I learnt that they  refer to only Saxons occupying different directions with varying dialects. David crystal writes,  “It remains a lexicological puzzle why some words were accepted and some rejected. Wedo not know how to account for the linguistic ‘survival of the fittest’. Both impede and expede were introduced during the same period as well as disabuse and disadorn, but in each of these pairs the first item stayed in the language and the second did not”.], John Simpson [https://johnsimpson.org/the-word-detective/ .

10] Of course one of the old but best possible palindrome in the world written a few years ago in Sanskrit the best palindrome in the world is in Sanskrit language in the book raghavayadaveeyam see link you can download pdf format http://www.ibiblio.org/sadagopan/ahobilavalli/raghavayadaveeyam.pdf

[In this book if you read the sixty couplet slokas from beginning to end you get the biography of  Lord Rama and when you read the same 60 slokas backwards you get the biography of Lord Krishna]







11] Many articles in https://www.weforum.org

Especially the transformation maps wherein they briefly present the vital issues that need to be addressed.

I have shared and commented on many issues in this forum

12] Every social evolution or society has many things which may be similar



"This study shows how the sciences and humanities, which have not always seen eye-to-eye, can actually work together effectively to uncover general rules that have shaped human history."

13]  The following link talks about various issues , mostly connected with education –its various dimensions and contextually relevant perceptions about the necessity to create a world of literate masses and I too I have made many suggestions there.



There too I have contributed some articles


and a comment here


15] The most exhaustive multi-lingual lexicon on google platform my wonderful and scholarly Romanian friend Lucian Velea who motivates me to write certain things has his blog



16] The emerging complications and complexities of global governance


17] When women seem to know /see more colours or a huge spectrum of shades of single color men definitely feel defeated and the textile shop owners turn richer have you wondered why?




[interview conducted by Lucian velea for miratico]

18] The tragedy of google books


19] What happens behind the computer screens?

20] Crows can recognize you in the crowd what?



21] From Bartleby, the Scrivener a wonderful short story by Herman Melville later on made into an excellent movie by US film makers the battle of or with CLERKS continues in Britain


22] What Can a Historian Reveal About Positive Psychology?

23] “Humans are fragile, capable of much on all ends of the moral spectrum”―Dr. Brandon Ogbunu

Shared identity plays an important role



24] Can one practice to counteract the gravitational pull of confirmation bias.


25] Margin of safety matters in many things


26] “I think consciousness comes in different flavors,” agrees Mather. “Some may have consciousness in a way we may not be able to imagine.”


27] Certain circumstances and crowd can push away individual sanity even in very sane men


28] Nudging is about how choices are presented, what we call choice architecture. By altering what is the default option, people’s choices will change. So it all comes down to communication,” 



29] Being situated in present realities is more vital for a leader in any realm


30] Sweet as sugar


First sentence: What if Roald Dahl and Michael Pollan are right, that the taste of sugar on the tongue can be a kind of intoxication? Doesn't it suggest the possibility that sugar itself is an intoxicant, a drug? Imagine a drug that can intoxicate us, can infuse us with energy, and can do so when taken by mouth. It doesn't have to be injected, smoked, or snorted for us to experience its sublime and soothing effects. Imagine that it mixes well with virtually every food and particularly liquids, and that when given to infants it provokes a feeling of pleasure so profound that intense that its pursuit becomes a driving force throughout their lives.

31] Inter cultural milieu of children




First sentence: This is me. Italy. My name is Romeo, and I'm called "Meo." I'm eight years old. Japan. My name is Kei, and I'm called "Kei-chan." I'm nine years old. Uganda. My name is Daphine, and I'm called "Abwooli." I'm seven years old. Russia. My name is Oleg, and I'm called "Olezhka." I'm eight years old. Peru. My name is Ribaldo, and I'm called "Pirineo." I'm eleven years old. India. My name is Ananya, and I'm called "Anu." I'm eight years old. Iran. My name is Kian. I'm seven years old.

32] Negotiating with Giants Paperback – February 10, 2012

by Peter D. Johnston  (Author)

Wonderful book with case studies and samples

one may read the reviews here

33] Good mixture of some simple articles



34] A list from Bloomberg


35] Both content and language are good in this site though sometimes opinions may be one sided





Jean d'Ormesson illustrated that change in at least three ways. The French language that he loved had become less important; it was hard to challenge English as the dominant language in the world. Similarly, Europe was no longer the center of world affairs, nor was France the first country in Europe that had become less important, though it was wrong to talk about decline all the time.
As a result of the weakness of European countries, populism had advanced in some of them. He insisted that culture goes together with a flourishing economy and military power. Yet, though Africa was advancing, Europe must be praised and safeguarded; it had succeeded in forming a single currency and preventing war among its members.

36] Undoubtedly a great source for nature and environment based articles

https://www.nature.com/

37] Though predominantly leftist in political approach, some of the articles on non political subjects and by those who do not live in cages of political ideology or obsessed with extrapolating everything according to some political ideology are good
https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article5029-books-of-the-year.html

38] Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky


“Sapolsky argues that our inborn propensity to notice difference in others and be wary of those we don’t recognize as part of our “tribe” is the product of brain chemistry that evolved to keep us safe from strangers. Yet this response is highly influenced by how we are raised, the people we are exposed to, and the things we are taught, showing how social factors impact us—even at the neural level.
The book helps explain power dynamics, political lying, social comparisons, and social hierarchies, among other phenomena. By uncovering the mechanisms behind them, Sapolsky also offers a way forward that includes treating people as individuals, emphasizing what we have in common, and perspective taking, and fostering equality in the pursuit of shared goals. His book is a call to all of us to understand how our brains lead us astray and to use that knowledge to bring out the best in ourselves”.

39] A very sad story of nature about CHAD

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/lake-chad-the-worlds-most-complex-humanitarian-disaster
40] Diamond how it drives on the delicate human vulnerabilities
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/
41] World’s most beautiful road
Almost every story of http://www.bbc.com/travel/story is unique and maintains a very level of originality and pleasant presentations

This particular link is personally special to me because I happen to travel all the way in this most beautiful road in the world

and articles like
The Only Person in the World Who Can Weave Sea Silk-meet This Italian Artist


42] Power of real Stories
https://spoonagency.com/academy/the-power-of-real-stories/
43] Intricacies of content marketing

44] It is just not tad too much of an affection it dad too dear



45] END PAIN FOREVER -HOW A SINGLE GENE COULD BECOME A VOLUME KNOB FOR HUMAN SUFFERING








52] Of course the daily dose from www.brainprickings.com

53] Excellent site for books from many languages



54] The worldwide catalog of library resources





55] Social Engineering preferably and ultimately must deliver a wisdom that enhances life of every species.




56] One of the previous year’s New Year message I wrote the following to inject real sense of newness through a realization of reality. It is very long write up with many links but then those who read it , I am sure would come out both more exhausted and enlightened


Best wishes and regards

Balayogi


The greatest mistakes in our relationships, overall perceptions and evaluations are because we read three fourths, listen half, understand quarter, think zero and are indifferent to the impact of our actions, reactions, thoughts and words on humanity and the environment.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

SELF


Synergy of
Everything, everyone and environment with
Love for all life is the  
Fulcrum and foundation of all selves.

“In the end nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”- William James

The fact is that each individual SELF unravels many facets, dimensions and dynamics of  multiple aspects of LIFE as lived  and experienced through various domains, many frames of references  at different levels  of consciousness with varying degrees of intensities , involvements, imaginations  and interactions.


In  this churning process it explains and enhances  many thoughts, ideas, ideals, concepts, philosophies, theories, hypothesis,  premises  by injecting more life to all of them  by ensconcing them  in appropriate contexts  and  encapsulating them  with impactful articulation through wonderful  expressions physical, psychological, spiritual, artistic  as well as through words and various other forms of expressions. 
















Give yourself enough time to read all the links indicated above and the sub-links therein to get a comprehensive idea about the SELF.





Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Writing why I do it ?

When someone asked me how , irrespective of whatever you do or however busy you are , you seem to read and to write on a daily basis , if not hourly basis.

I told him there is an inherent need to listen to, to read, to learn, to follow ideas, to generate ideas, to internalise the wisdom that we learn from others and also to write our own reactions or perceptions.

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self"- Cyril Connolly

The folowing quotes flashed across my mind and I replied to him in a jiffy, of course some of the quotes are obsessively struck in my bone marrow like the last seven quotes.

I told him to chew on these for the next 24 hours and assimilate what they do to him.

Starting with a very haughty quote of Tom Stoppard, “My whole life is waiting for the questions to which I have prepared answers” , and meandering through the following.

1. There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.-Reinhold Niebuhr

2. “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.


Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.


Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.


No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.” ― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History


3. Write close to the bone, write until you’re not thinking in words anymore -Bonnie Friedman


4. Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story. F. Scott Fitzgerald




5. You should know more than what you put on the page. The reader can sense that. SUSAN ORLEAN


6. You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. ― Maya Angelou


7. There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
~Ansel Adams


8. “Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ¬people. Nothing that happens to a writer–however happy, however tragic–is ever wasted.” -P.D. James


9. Just trust your own voice. And keep exploring the things that are interesting to you. Nikki GIOVANNI


10. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. FRAN LEBOWITZ




11. If you really want this writing life, don't ever give up Bill Bibo, Jr

Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself. CONROY


12. You are your own stories, free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without fear-T. Morrison


13. I was made for another planet altogether. I mistook the way. ~Simone de Beauvoir


14. You never know what you will learn ’til you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed. ANITA BROOKNER




15. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something. JOHN IRVING




16. A writer fails, not when a reader is not moved; but when, as a reader, the writer is not moved. Gerard de Marigny


17. Poetry can break open locked chambers of possibility, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire-A. Rich


18. "The spirit of Advaita is not to keep away from anything, but to keep in tune with everything." -  Swami Chinmayananda

19. “In the end nothing less than the whole of everything can be the truth of anything at all”- William James

20.  “We live in a changing universe, and few things are changing faster than our conception of it”-Timothy Ferris

21. “There is no tomorrow. There is only a planet turning on its axis, and a creature given to optimistic fancies”-Robert Brault


22. “Evolution itself is an open ended and indeterminate process”… “Given the remarkable progress in our understanding of biochemistry, molecular biology, and evolution as a whole … we have failed to develop concepts, ideas, even a language that could capture the dance of this life” - Guy Murchie

23. “Humans have a need for a stable frame of reference. Religion apparently fills this need. In effect, humans crave answers to questions that no other source of knowledge has an answer to, which only religion may seem to answer. However, a sense of free will must be given in order for religion to appear healthy. An authoritarian notion of religion appears detrimental.”- Erich Fromm,

24. विद्या ददाति विनयं विनयाद्याति पात्रताम् 
पात्रत्वाद्धनमाप्नोति धनाद्धर्मं ततः सुखम्   
vidyA dadAti vinayaM, vinayAdyAti pAtratAM |
pAtratvAddhanamApnoti, dhanAddharmaMtataH sukhaM || 5 ||

(true/complete) knowledge gives discipline[humility], from discipline [humility] comes worthiness, from worthiness one gets wealth, from wealth (one does) good deeds, from that (comes) joy.

This particular quote is an outer shell of the egg which contains these:-

"All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants”- Isaac Newton


 Shakespeare once said “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people”.

William Lyon Phelps puts it, “One of our secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute”. 

Or as Thomas H. Huxley says, “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.”


We must remember that we owe to so many souls that has made our
 evolution to enhance from Kuru disease generators [this disease happens because of cannibalism] to cyber Guru Venerators.