Strength , not power; synergy not sensationalism; Nothing is a taboo,
know the nuances and calibrate everything to contextual relevance.
From the time the social media empowered everyone, for good, often, most
of us share well meaning, excellent sayings, quotations, slogans with good
intentions in the morning, which in a way is an additional useful entertainment
for old people.
However, whatever we read or see , we must try to go in depth to find
out the actual meaning behind and beyond words . Then, we may stumble upon
either accidentally or intentionally notice the most important meaning
especially, the nuances, that escape our attention.
These are accompanied by eye catching nice pictures and they have
become, for many of us, a nice verbal and visual treat in the mornings either
before or after we opt to read the negative narratives nudged as news in our
daily nuisance papers ( predominantly political or calamity news - called as
headlines).
However, these very slogans and saying, inadvertently, contribute to the
predominant malady of modern times i.e., ' failure to reasonably distinguish
the 'NUANCES' of words and , more importantly, the immense power of meanings
they carry.
The greatest short comings in many aspects of our lives are failing to
see the ' NUANCES' and instead, we are getting carried away by the
narratives nicely packaged as catchy slogans ( often, they are slow guns) that
destroy real understanding of nuances.
Economist Don Boudreaux says, " Law's expense is so vast, its
nuances so many and rich, and its edges so frequently changing that the popular
myth that law is that set of rules designed and enforced by the state becomes
increasingly absurd ”.
This we will be able to understand, if we read certain great
philosophical texts where the philosophers ( those who seek to know and to
understand and not to merely convince others- so, being philosophers, they paid
greater attention to the meanings than merely sprinklings words around , so
automatically, their telesis of terminologies led to convey the intended
purpose).
Instead of 'power' ( the word power has too many connotations -meanings-
and, often, misused and abused because it brings with it positions of unbridled
authority ).
It would be better to replace it with ' strength' ( strength of self-confidence,
self-esteem, self-belief, relevant merit, inner conviction, sense of Dharma-
what one is doing is correct in context).
Then, courage will evolve automatically, which will guide you not to do
things just to please or to convince others, sometimes, not even to obey
irrelevant and unimportant rules and regulations ( often they are terms
of euphemisms used to indirectly convey blind following of traditions,
beliefs etc and these are promoted further under the garb of discipline to
maintain status quo).
But the irrefutable reality is that the world and all life in it and
their functions are subject to constant churns and changes.
The human minds prefer ( often selectively) status quo in certain things
because that helps them to use ready to use templates to monitor and to
exercise control. These are against nature.
Nature is like a Virendra Sehwag (whack) or Suryakumar Yadav or B.S.
Chandrasekhar ( it will often generate unpredictable impacts- unmindful of the
outcomes).
There are certain universal mantras from which no one can veer away
humanity’s preference they are, ‘changes and the constantly changing context
created by those changes along with their many concomitant characters like
comforts, convenience, benefits, utility, profit, happiness, pleasure etc’.
All wisdom and value systems must be woven around these universal
mantras or at least relevant to these. Otherwise, something else will replace
all values, wisdom, principles, practices etc.
The most important wisdom is to make the necessary adjustments to
emerging changes and contexts.
Time and change have become inevitable part of our life because through
them, either as measuring tools or as describing our observations, we grasp or
try to express and explain the inevitable metamorphosis of life.
The only reality is life unfolding itself constantly through various
manifestations of metamorphosis.
All the rest are ambiences of life [as Jaggi Vasudevji says because
there are dimensions of life beyond the logically definable parameters] or
accretions that we choose to understand life.
First great biologist Darwin, I would prefer to call him the father of
evolutionary biological science-who incidentally advocated the theory of
natural selection, because he laid the first blueprint for such a specialized
study [some of them may be wrong or all of them could be disputed and radically
changed], and he had the honesty and humility to declare, “Variation
proposes and selection disposes.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/oct/09/evolutionary-psychology-an-exchange/
Evolution goes about its jobs unmindful of whatever we do or do not do,
that decides and determines everything including our birth and death as
biochemical organisms which are bound to decay or to die or to reorganize or to
reborn or to recreate into something else eventually.
While innards and inherent qualities are inevitable and beyond our
choice, at least, our utilization of strengths /reactions to shortcomings can
be sane and more sensible, that is what must be the attempt of any subject be
it philosophy, spiritual science, or pure science.
These require strength of conviction not power.
Again, talking about evolution, a very interesting and vast
subject by its very meaning indicates the innards of all species with
inevitable strengths as well as short comings, rather the multiple embedded
contradictions.
The best we can do with all our brains and technological advancements
available at our disposal is to minimize/compensate for our weaknesses like
starting from using basic tools to using spectacles to implanting stunts and pacemakers
for heart problems to name a few.
As Guy Murchie declares, “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”.
Here is a list of very worthy articles available fortunately free on
the
net
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/ [
incidentally I have all his works along with all the works of other
evolutionary biologist like Richard Dawkins and the great Guy Murchie’s ‘ the
Seven Mysteries of Life ‘.
I wish for a more comprehensive understanding one must also read the
following works:-
Kathleen Taylor’s ‘The Brain Supremacy’,
Walter Gratzer’s ‘Giant molecules’,
Frank Close’s ‘The Infinity Puzzle’ and most importantly
Tirumoolar’s Tirumanthiram,
Vilayanur S. RAMACHANDRAN and for a more sane philosophical and rational
non-religious outlook also read
Neale Donald Walsch,
JK,
Osho,
Bertrand Russell etc.
That's why Keats wrote, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those
unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, .......".
" Society is always engaged in a vast conspiracy to preserve itself
- at the expense of the new demands of each new generation.” ~John Haynes
Holmes
Sascha Vongher mentions in ‘Science as Rationalization And Ultimate
Religion by
“Every adaptive system has what can be called a perception
apparatus and information processing structures and so forth. Science is part
of the perception/thinking of social systems. All perception has its “blind
spot”. Perception is ignorant of everything except for a tiny slice that it
evolved to select and focus attention on. Thinking is there to interpret in a
certain evolved way. Humans, being parts as well as environment of social
systems, cannot grasp the perceived world of social systems, let alone map out
their blind spots. Scientists are especially suspect when it comes to judging
the blind spots of science.”
Self-imprisonment works in these ways without even our realizing it.
“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.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, " The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
We must remember that we owe to so many ( who were not luddites) who
have made our evolution to enhance from Kuru disease generating
cannibals [this disease happens because of cannibalism] to cyber–Guru
Venerators.
Worth listening talk Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong | Video on
TED.com www.ted.com
In fact, I remember reading a book some 40 years back by A.E.M. JOAD
titled "That There is no such thing as Morality" and along with that
BERTRAND RUSSEL'S "IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS" and this is precisely the
reason why the works of
John Brockman books become interesting reading namely, his books (
imbued with facts and fantastic interpretations) like 'THIS IDEA MUST DIE',
'WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA',
'This Idea Is Brilliant' ( Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated
Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know),
Pierre Lecomte du Noüy's ' HUMAN DESTINY',
James Trefil's, ' 101 Things You Don't Know about Science and No One
Else Does Either’ . It must be 1001 now.
Ideally the best book of slogans and sayings must be titled
"Nothing is a Taboo", with chapters on "know the nuances",
"calibrate everything to contextual relevance" etc.
I feel there is lot of wisdom in the following piece which 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.”
(@upholdreality) tweeted at 8:39 PM on Sat, Jul 22, 2023:
