When reality is restricted by identity, then, sobriety is causality and moderation is a mute spectator.

When reality is restricted by identity and rationality is relegated, then, sobriety is causality and moderation is a mute spectator.

Impact matters-a definite yes, in all spheres of activity.

But allowing oneself to get overly impacted or influenced by any particular thought, idea, ideology, philosophy, concept, culture, stream or subject of pursuit , pursuing what one likes innately, what appeals one’s emotions, intellect, what gives pleasure to one’s senses, trying to have a go at what titillates one’s sensitivities, scrupulously subjecting oneself to social expectations of various hues and colors, following certain religious edicts and so on are the many aspects of life of human beings.

What one chooses to carry along with or decides to dump is again interconnected with many of the influences of the above.

Sometimes, when one is grown up mentally or intellectually, the tendency is to evaluate with conscious awareness.

Then, these influences set in as a broad outlines of one’s prejudices, identities, perspectives, attitudes, frames of reference with which one  likely to evaluate and to perceive many things around to choose and decide.

Sometimes, when one is not that grown up mentally or intellectually, then there seeps in subconsciously similar outlines set in.

“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

Therefore, the so-called broader outlines, whether subconsciously seeping in or embedded or consciously chosen, are not actually broad, however well ensconced they may be in appealing terminologies or appalling justifications.

The fact is none of them i.e. the outlines are all inclusive or completely pervasive or a please all factor or panacea or Omni-appealing or Omni-acceptable factor for human species as a whole or for every individual or for any group.

So, based on what we have chosen to like or get addicted to or made to follow we end up forming our notions of reality, ultimate truth and many other lofty terminologies.

Some of us make a living in the process; some also use them as crutches to lead a life; a few also have the privilege of or choose to live their life as well either with these so-called broad outlines and lucky enough also by moving between, beyond and besides these outlines.

In this process life swings as a pendulum between many inevitable and inherent polarities.

However, life predominantly deals through many aspects of life and relates with almost all aspects of living with two predominant extremes- which are contradictions and which manifest in vast varieties, different degrees, and innumerable intensities as multiple psychological actions or reactions- namely, Love and Fear.

That’s why whatever be the area of life be it in religion, politics, technology, social sciences, for everything, we come across strong supporters in the form of inspiring initiators, mighty motivators, powerful preachers and powerful protestors in the form of diligent dissenters and aggressive opponents.

Obviously moderation takes a back seat.

However, every human being has also a natural instinct to aspire for a secure, safe, peaceful, calm, happy environment to live.

So, who, what and how is this going to emerge out of the very bases which contribute to make life and living less happy and less peaceful in the first place?

Any operation or process that emanates from the bases cited in the forgoing paragraphs is not going to bring in any moderation.

However, for at least a moderate level of calm or peaceful social life and cohabitation certain amount of moderation or moderating elements must evolve away from the bases- which seem at best a utopia or an outright illusion.

Having said all these, there is also the thing called the natural species’ instinct for survival, more so a better, calm, comfortable and more secure level of survival persists.

Human beings, as a species have evolved certain time tested qualities for a better state of living.

In some people these qualities are natural attributes; in some others they are nurtured as a part of their socio-cultural milieu; and in certain cases they have to be enforced by various rules and regulations.

These qualities are again too many to list out.

However, for the sake of brevity, we may broadly term them as tolerance, forgiveness, non-violence etc.

These qualities by themselves my not contribute to happiness, peace and calm but they will ensure to provide at least a conducive environment to enable happiness, peace and joy to happen.

Balance is all about creating such an atmosphere. 

In short, it would be better that as human beings we may opt for compassion sandwiched between the inevitable passion and dispassion as a moderator of life, [1] but with a rider that at the same time, anyone must have, preferably everyone is made to have complete freedom to explore, experiment and experience everything without any overbearing restrictions, identity barriers, cultural constraints or impositions from any other source.

So, by all means everyone is encouraged to listen to, to read and to learn from every source, every view without any restraint.

“Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.” - Ram Dass.

"Existence consists in the interplay of a plurality of elements whose true nature is indescribable and whose source is unknown. Combinations of these elements instantaneously flash into existence and instantaneously disappear, to be succeeded by new combinations of elements appearing in a strict causality." - Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre

"To make progress in understanding all this, we probably need to begin with simplified (oversimplified?) models and ignore the critics' tirade that the real world is more complex. The real world is always more complex, which has the advantage that we shan't run out of work."- John Ball, 1984, Memes as Replicators, Ethology and Sociobiology, Vol. 5

After all life is a constant process of learning and adjustment wherein we can neither deny nor defy the importance of anything or anyone.

We need to adopt an attitude to gather knowledge from as many sources as possible-like a butterfly that hops from flower to flower, from all the extreme points of a spectrum ranging from what are considered as most important, vital, exalted to what are deemed as the least worthy and wasteful stuff.

In every field, the story of human evolution is nothing but the history of impacts, either positive or negative, made by people who refused to take the beaten track and no wonder that George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. All progress depends upon the unreasonable man”.

Individual human life, after all, is a very short journey in the ocean of totality of LIFE but endowed with at least certain advantages over other species inhabiting this planet and chief among them is to a very great extent the ability to choose and to decide to create conducive conditions to lead a calm and compatible life with other human beings, other species and the whole environment.

We can observe and learn that evolution takes care of almost everything in its stride but as human beings we also have the option to learn to carefully evolve in our stride.

We must learn to make existence the essence and concepts perhaps the shell and not vice versa and allow both to grow and glow freely together as a part of evolutionary splendor.

Here in I am reminded of what Sherlock Holmes declares, “From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So, all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a link of it.”

Life’s journey is made up of evolving through multitude of passing phases of romance as links and not remorse of the past or reveries of remote future.

The series of romances knitted together: - romances of the senses, of sensible living, of sensitivity to everything and everyone around us, of joy of learning, of helping and of giving hope for all and everything to become better, enjoy whatever one prefers to enjoy without harming or injuring others and also explore possibilities of synthesis and synergy in all relationship that one has with oneself, with others, with nature, with machines, with different cultures and traditions etc.

It is only human gullibility that both the ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ brigade in any issue may be or prone to become wrong as they tend to take extreme positions.

Very often we tend to proceed from the presumptions that tastes, trends, traditions all over the world may be either similar or homogenous and worse still, sometimes presumed to be same or uniform and based on such foolish presumptions attempts are made to homogenize or over simplify or over generalize.

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

But even what is whole is difficult to define.

Identities of all hues while they enable creating social groups at the same time enfeeble options for universal acceptance.

I have very often held that identity, though inevitable, excessive and exclusive veneration is at the heart of many problems be it in the realm of religion, region, language, tradition, culture, nationhood and so on.

"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - Mortimer Adler

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better." - Albert Camus

Growth and freedom involve the broad mindedness to accept different views, perhaps all views.

'It is better to know something about everything then everything about something' - Blase Pascal

"When we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men"-Sartre

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself- Sartre

Life is an unmapped atlas consisting of unexplored territories and a jig saw puzzle without even all pieces available in the box.

That’s why it is better to go with the tide of the inevitable evolutionary churning process of life in all spheres of life and preferably immerse any topic or subject matter, primarily and basically with all their  intrinsic elements/components/aspects/attributes intact, into a cauldron which has a mixture of all these- knowledge based analysis; limited perception- based on frames of reference and scales of observation; skepticism; criticism; intellectual scrutiny; compassionate emotionalism; humane socialism; rational thinking- as rational approaches refine what is otherwise viewed as contrasts that divide into variations that seek synergy; contextual relevance based prioritizing [ which includes too many components] , traditions, practical viability, psychological comforts, aesthetic sensitivity, scientific scrutiny and so on, and churn the cauldron without clinging on to any particular restrictive social, cultural or political or religious identity or ideological constraint.

This process inevitably may bring out lot of outputs.

We can exercise our freedom and sometimes select and choose some of the outputs.

Sometimes the outputs will draw us.

Sometimes away from all or any of our intended searches and seeking, outside the circle of these known paradigms, almost tangentially serendipity will drag us to an oasis of serene clarity.

Ken Wilber in his work ‘ No Boundary: Eastern and Western  Approaches to Personal Growth’ like these two small pieces, “ Even to say ‘reality is no-boundary awareness’ is still to create a distinction between boundaries and no-boundary! So we have to keep in mind the great difficulty involved with dualistic language. That "reality is no-boundary" is true enough, provided we remember that no-boundary awareness is a direct, immediate, and nonverbal awareness, and not a mere philosophical theory. It is for these reasons that the mystic-sages stress that reality lies beyond names and forms, words and thoughts, divisions and boundaries. Beyond all boundaries lies the real world of Suchness, the Void, the Dharmakaya, Tao, Brahman, the Godhead. And in the world of suchness, there is neither good nor bad, saint nor sinner, birth nor death, for in the world of suchness there are no boundaries.”  And  "The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare to state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the Universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of Reality, but of the way we map and edit Reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two."

On a lighter vein is Reality the jigsaw puzzle involving these things: Nothing, Everything, Anything, Something.

Even as  Jarod Kintz  says, “ Nothing, Everything, Anything, Something: If you have nothing, then you have everything, because you have the freedom to do anything, without the fear of losing something.” 

We must not hesitate to analyze anything and everything in depth from as many angles as possible but also ultimately find out the points of or areas or domains of synthesis/synergy leading to harmony and unity with all variety and/or differences in tact. This is will be the automatic progression of life experience and life itself.

What is DIVISION after all, if we unwrap it in acronym as follows;-

Differences are

Inevitable;

Variety is

Inherent and

Synergy is

Indispensable to

Operationalize

Nicely certain commonalities among all and everything in life…

We started with impact and here is an impactful speech

http://blog.fawny.org/2015/05/31/johnwatersrisd/

1] In ThinkEdu16 conference in concluding session Sri Sri Ravishankar answered spontaneously very well to VC of a university in very simple terms how to avoid irrational depressions due to high expectations and corresponding disappointment.

He used just three very effective words. He said you definitely need 'Passion' to perform effectively but 'Dispassion' to carry on with shortcomings and failures. He said when you succeed in Passion you enjoy, when you have this 'Dispassion' then you do not 'hate yourself' between these two if you have 'Compassion' then you do not hate or blame others. So he said you need Passion, Dispassion and Compassion -all the three.

I think this simple mantra can contribute enough moderation and sense of balance which is the ultimate test of a matured person.

No one starts and must not start or cannot start all aspects of life in moderation.

Aggression, passion, influence, impact, intensity are the things that spice up the adventure of life but then everyone must grow out of these experiences into a matured balanced person acting with moderation.

From http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/03/lifes-socio-political-churning-process.html

Biographies and Gurus

Elaboration is indeed important

A brief account about the need to be elaborate and why every anesthetist must learn / read about caste or tribe?

Why we have too many activities in wedding/marriage ceremony most of which do not matter at all?

Why did not the religions just convey in one line sermons like Aviayar or Saint Tiruvalluvar and instead opted for not only voluminous scriptures and also created many epics and mythological characters? Even with such elaboration, interpreting religious scripture is a billion dollar business in all religions.

Why in military they just stop with teaching only how to operate weapons but also subject one to rigorous repetitive drills? Most activities are dominated more by frills and drills.

Why can’t sport men just made to go and play instead we subject them to so many physical and psychological toughness testing drills?

Why cannot we just teach someone when he can understand how to build a bridge? Why must we make him study 12 years of all stuff which he may never use in his life and another few years of useless studies?

Why the hell did Shakespeare tell just that Romeo and Juliet were romantic lovers, instead wrote such a long poetry to understand which I had to read a dozen guides?

Life itself is confusingly perceived and lived, though unfortunately, more through its ambience than what it really is. Jaggi Vasudev explains it very nicely.

It is all because to ensure that we never omit any micro detail and at the same time ignore to have a macro view and as a result perception becomes encyclopedic.

Why every anesthetist must learn / read about caste or tribe?

  

If an anesthetist is focused only about patient’s age, operation and dosage and does not read about the DNA of patient he can kill the patient through scoline even before surgeon takes a look at the patient because whole of certain tribes are allergic to this particular common drug used in anesthesia for examples all Chettiyars of Tamil Nadu, Agarwals of Andra, Pashtuns of Pakistan etc.

"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner

I firmly believe at least while discussing certain subjects in what Dobelli says, ‘In the Art of Thinking clearly’ "With journalists, it is more difficult. Some have acquired true knowledge. Often they are veteran reporters who have specialized for years in a clearly defined area. They make a serious effort to understand the complexity of a subject and to communicate it. They tend to write long articles that highlight a variety of cases and exceptions.”

"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, 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

"Existence consists in the interplay of a plurality of elements whose true nature is indescribable and whose source is unknown. Combinations of these elements instantaneously flash into existence and instantaneously disappear, to be succeeded by new combinations of elements appearing in a strict causality." - Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre

"To make progress in understanding all this, we probably need to begin with simplified (oversimplified?) models and ignore the critics' tirade that the real world is more complex. The real world is always more complex, which has the advantage that we shan't run out of work."- John Ball, 1984, Memes as Replicators, Ethology and Sociobiology, Vol. 5

This is why Raga alapana in music and foreplay in sex are also considered as an important component.

Everything has its own influence and impact. So, we can neither deny nor defy the importance of anything nor can we even claim to know/ understand or define everything.

Abbreviation is good in satire and sometimes in attire and in retorts but never in serious discussions.

Data has its own limitations

Data driven studies are important and vital in many domains but they can also be of no consequence in certain cases.

For example a UNNIKRISHNAN or Sanjay Subramaniyam would have rendered ‘Radha samedha krishna’ more than 100 times to a gathering of 500 plus audience and every time would have also got great applause from the audience but GNB would have rendered it only some 20 times that too an audience of some 50 people that does not make GNB’s rendering any lesser or for that matter UNNI’s any greater.

While all data reveals interesting information it may not include all the parameters or multiple verticals. So to data driven conclusions on certain areas cannot give you a correct picture.

I always maintain evaluation must be contextually relevant, based on intrinsic merit or inherent attributes of whatever or whomsoever that you are evaluating.

There was a three generation sprint competition for women at Chennai some years back. One old lady of 75 plus ran at a speed of 4 steps a minute and fell down mid way. Data analysis based on speed indicated she was the poorest runner but she was the eldest of the whole lot.

In sports, especially in team sports, it is impact of a player on a given occasion is more relevant than his individual records.
Robin Singh played very few matches for India he always got a chance to bat at the maximum for 4 overs and got to bowl 2 to 3 overs [he was called an all rounder in the team but not used as one]. Unfortunately, his records are very poor, not even worth mentioning in any book on Indian one day cricket but in terms of impact, in every match he played it was consistently worthy.

So while we may judge the batsmen based on runs they have scored we do not analyze each innings in terms of the situation which includes the strength of the bowler bowling, the field placements and the quality of fielding, climate, country, pitches and unfortunately the dimension of the ground whether the boundaries were 65 meters or 95 meters; whether the runs scored were of nudges and edges [ there was a two test wonder called Hemant Kanitkar who was the top scorer in 1974 first test in against west indies at Bangalore when Andy Roberts was at his best, he scored all shots in nudges and edges but for that India would have been bundled out for less than 100 on that day] or glorious drives or bold classical flicks and late cuts  or cross batted drives and pulls etc.

I feel cricketers must be judged on cricketing merits, the joy of seeing them competing with class, craftsmanship and crisp strokes. The pleasures of watching them do so. There was immense joy in watching the sudden breezy spells of Safraz Nawaz;  Dennis Lillee  and Jeoff Thomason hunting down like a pack of wolf; the generations of  West Indian bowlers do that; the classy calm display of silky strokes of Sunil Gavaskar, Dravid, Sachin, Steve Waugh, Allan Border; the audacious display of taking on the bowlers by Vivian Richards, Shewag, Hayden, Gilcrist ; the smooth flowing drives of Lara, Lakshman, kalicharan etc.

Let us not therefore barter the joy of watching the game or let our judgments be influenced by prejudices based on favoritism.

Players like Arjuna Ranathunga, Javed Miandad, Allan Border , Clive Llyod, Dilip Vengsarkar, Azhruddin   used play the ball in the gaps and scamper through for singles and twos, especially Ranatunga will run like Bolt till he reaches the other crease then stop at once.

 But I would never like to watch someone living on only running between the wickets and playing strokes once in a while when there is a loose delivery or through nudges like Bevan , even if he holds all the best records in the game as a finisher.

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/08/is-dhoni-or-bevan-better-finisher-in.html

Science, Impact, Serendipity and Acknowledgment

This is really an excellent video from Mali [http://www.storypick.com/15-year-old-quit-school-9th-grade-wont-believe-next/ ] 

I think serendipity is an invisible angel not only eavesdropping on our conversations but listening to our minds through clairaudience.

Only this morning in some context I was telling my daughter as to how the collective psychology of human beings allows its children to acknowledge and know more and more about a Michael Jackson or a Miley Cyrus or a Rajini kanth and A.R. Rehaman and how every time that you use anything that they have produced or copied or participated in you need to mention their name repeatedly and also end up paying royalty.

Imagine if for any activity connected with radiation if the world were to pay some amount to my all time hero Madam Curie's family or descendants or every x-ray in the world we are asked to pay a percentage to the family of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen or some organization which can take up more useful research in those areas. Leave alone credits and compensation do we at least give enough importance to all the technologies that we use.

This speech is really wonderful and true. Our education systems have killed inquiry, experience and have replaced everything with grand theoretical texts to be learnt and reproduced either with or without understanding. Science can not only be an art but it has enhanced human living, made life more comfortable and helped human beings understand about life better and  far beyond what religions or arts or politics or perhaps all put together did or do. Their impact and influence is obvious in every sphere but unfortunately humanity respects and reveres science less and scientists are pushed into oblivion.

  

We make children even learn the sciences only to get a job or work in some organization or to take pride in the suffixes or prefixes that gets added to the name.

It is only open, inquiring and questioning minds, generous and unbiased hearts, enthusiastic spirits who wanted to awaken the world have produced great impact in their respective areas of activity.

As a Darwin set down to scientifically explain methodically the theory of evolution  or as Issac Newton did by creating extensive formulae to explain his discoveries or as a Madame Curie who risked her life to help humanity or as Albert Einstein did through his extraordinary Theory of Relativity or as a J.Krishnamurthy did to philosophical inquiry or as a Vivekananda who declared boldly in the language and idiom that westerners were willing to listen to ‘that anything that is not rational is not religion’ and helped the whole world enjoy the benefits of huge literature of extraordinary philosophical concepts that were hidden in the various texts of Sanathana Dharma or as a Kerry  Packer did by reforming cricket matches and so on.

In every field the story of human evolution is nothing but the history of impacts either positive or negative made by people who refused to take the beaten track and no wonder that George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself.

All progress depends upon the unreasonable man”.

The beauty of science can also be presented as the most interesting literary piece and the essential aspect of living as was shown by, again an inquiry mind who was not a branded scientist nor a great author but by profession a pilot, the great Guy Murchie in his great work ‘The Seven Mysteries of Life’ a necessary scripture for every educated youth.