Something significant is about to take place in my life in 21 days, and I am both excited and nervous about it. And I am not in control of those two states. All I know is that when I imagine the future going as per my desires, I get excited and when I don’t see it going as I want, I get nervous.
When I am excited, those 21 days seem long. ‘There’s a lot that can happen in 21 days. Time and life changes quick. I am ready but time is long. I hope something wrong doesn’t happen,’ I say to myself. I then become nervous.
On the other hand, 21 days seem short when I am nervous. ‘Nothing substantial happens in 21 days. Everything takes time. Change is slow. It is here and I am not prepared,’ I tell myself. I then become even more nervous.
From this perspective, time seems to move slow when we want something to happen fast and time seems to move fast when we want something to happen slow.
But there’s another perspective to all this. Something in the line of what Einstein said explaining relativity:
Scrolling through Raymond Carver’s poetry collection, I came across a poem titled ‘In the Year 2020.’
As a 21st century man filled with fear and confusion, I got excited at the prospect of having discovered quality perspective on the future from one of the better literary minds of the 20th century.
‘Now I will have a solid and unique perspective on modern technologies and their implications. I can now boast about AI on Medium and shock everyone,’ I said to myself and began reading.
But what I read caught me off guard. The only technology or its implications mentioned in the poem is a faucet — that too as an analogy.
‘How can it be possible? How can someone write about 2020 without any mention of technology?’ I gasped and read again.
No, Nothing about technology!
Instead, his 2020 is about someone from the 20th century getting old by then. Carver talks about old age, friends, friendship, memories, love, legacy — things human! All he talks about is human life and human relationships. That’s all!
HIS POEM IS ABOUT HUMAN LIFE. IT HAS HUMANS AT ITS CENTER!
‘Damn!’ I say to myself.
Carver’s poem reminded me that we (poets or normal people) no longer place ourselves at the center. We have already given control away to technologies. They have become the focal point of our conversations, poems, and stories. All we now do is keep technologies at the center of everything. Phones, apps, maps, followers, shares, chargers, AI, airplanes, roads, buildings, towers, systems — that’s all we talk and think about these days. Everything revolves around them today!
Everything should have revolved around us, our relationships and life. But that’s just a byproduct of technology these days. No wonder we are scared and confused! No wonder we piss our pants about AI!’
‘Now I have a solid and unique perspective on modern technologies and their implications. I can now boast about AI on Medium and shock everyone,’ I say to myself and write this.
When I wrote Mental Discipline Is A Ceaseless Process last August, I promised myself I wouldn’t allow internal chaos to confuse and destroy me. I said I would always remember that the workings of the mind are complicated and I need to be on the constant lookout and endeavor if I am to make my life more tolerable and comfortable.
Yet, countless times over the past six months, I have trembled, feared, got uncomfortable, and have found mind and life to be intolerable — not for once remembering the promise I made to myself!
I forget the thing I invent myself
I forget the lessons I teach myself
No wonder I lost myself!
But this morning, it came back. The idea of Mental Discipline came back! Not through a sudden or miraculous solution, as the mind sometimes produces. It came while I was reading Goethe’s maxims
…False, irrelevant, and futile ideas may arise in ourselves and others, or find their way into us from without. Let us persist in the effort to remove them as far as we can, by plain and honest purpose — Maxim 317.
And then, BAM! The lesson I taught myself last August came back:
false ideas, persistence, effort, removal were the keywords for me when I realized and wrote that Mental Discipline was a ceaseless process.
I had once written Mental Discipline and put it as my phone wallpaper, but it was no longer there when I needed it the most.
It has to be said right now that ideas in phone wallpapers evolve, develop and vanish. I may have stopped using the wallpaper with Mental Discipline written on it, or may have removed the text when I must have thought the idea was permanent in me. I will come back to this whole thing in a while.
For now, I want to know why the ideas I need are elusive.
Is it because there are too many ideas that I think are important and I get confused? OR,
Because all ideas have their appropriate time and place. And the time and place of the mental discipline idea hadn’t come until this morning?
If it is the first case, I need to do something with my ideas. I need to be clear about the value and importance of each of my ideas and find a way to manage them. Like by using phone wallpapers better. I will also need to know which ideas are of general importance and which of particular. I need to master my ideas. This makes me a conscious agency with a strong will.
While it may seem like a style-statement of a 21st century wannabe thinker who has come to write here right after reading Socrates’ quotes, it isn’t!
And I am going to give you some evidence:
I was sure the bus would fall off the cliff. It didn’t.
I was sure the airplane would crash that day. It didn’t!
I was sure someone at home had died that day. No one did!
I was sure I had killed someone with my car that day. I hadn’t(?)
I was sure I would get rejected on that application. I didn’t!
I was sure I would get that fellowship. I didn’t!
I was sure that girl liked me. She didn’t!
I was sure the other girl didn’t care about me. She did!
Although I have written ‘I was sure’ up there, I was actually CONVINCED about all those things. C-O-N-V-I-N-C-E-D.
I was convinced the bus would crash, and I took my ID out from my bag and almost threw it out of the bus window that day — until something else intervened! (I will come to that something else in a while.)
All those ‘sure’ up there are based on my knowledge of myself or the world at some time and place. Those knowledge came to me through my thoughts. I even called them ‘gut-feelings’. But all of them turned out to be false. That’s why I say:
The only thing I know now is that I know nothing and
SOME THOUGHTS ARE USELESS. Garbage.
The examples given above had immediate outcomes, that’s why it was easy for me to validate their truth. I fall off my chair wondering how many of those knowledge and thoughts I have been breeding inside me whose outcomes take time to come.
Here I have to undertake a difficult task:
While I say some thoughts are useless, I will try to understand thoughts through thoughts.
Another family wedding reception party. Another night of heavy drinking and conversations with people I wouldn’t even look into the eye for more than a second on a normal day. Another morning filled with enormous guilt and physical weakness!
I am making weird sounds every time my mind gets flashes from last night, which my wife says is me cringing on myself.
Why, Adesh, why?
Why do I drink, when I know it hurts the next morning?
At first glance, things seem something like this:
I don’t have friends so whichever party I go to is a family one. Which means, it is about obligations.
Obligations mean it is something I do not want to do. I do not want to go to such parties because I do not want to socialize. I do not want to meet my extended family members.
Yet, obligations mean I have to go, despite my lack of interest! Which means I need to find a way to make it tolerable and manageable. (I also need to find a reason to tell myself I am beyond obligations and I am doing it out of my free will.)
And what do I lure myself with?
Alcohol!
It becomes the thing that makes the visit tolerable. It becomes the thing that makes me alright.
I drink even though it hurts the next day because I have to make obligatory family parties tolerable for me. And alcohol makes that happen!
Or so I thought before writing this. Because from a slightly different glance, things seem something like this:
If I go to parties for obligations only, why the hell don’t I stay for half-an-hour and leave. I mean, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Obligationsdone✔ ️Alcohol none❌
But I don’t do that, do I?
In fact, the thought of such an act makes me feel I am missing out on something big. It’s like everyone’s playing outside and I am forced to sleep in my bed with a fever.
And then I discover another reason I go to such parties. A reason that is in contrast to the reason I thought I drank alcohol at such parties:
As I read H.G. Wells’ A Short History Of The World this morning, a particular section grabbed my attention and made me draw correlations with our modern times.
In the 12th chapter Primitive Thought, he speculates how power and religion must have sprung in primitive times:
What Wells has tried to say in this is that the primitive men were unable to form sound judgment on the important things that were happening around them. Those things spanned from the availability of their foods to illness and death. Although they tried to make guesses, they weren’t able to discover the proper cause-effect. This made them prone to fear and panic.
It was then that the older and steadier minds among them took lead and began advising, teaching and eventually commanding the multitudes. Those leaders were priests, which then gave birth to religion.
The Correlation
I am the proof that our modern time with computers, internet and now Artificial Intelligence, Space-Travels, Medical science, etc. is taking us into the great unknown which is making us fearful and anxious.
If the information overload — which has given us more confusion than wisdom — was not enough, the thought of machines taking our jobs, megalomaniacs stepping into moons, diseases taking our lives, have guaranteed almost nothing as we are unable to form sound judgment on what will happen tomorrow, let alone in five years time. We are confused about our livelihood and health — important things — just like the primitive men. The only thing that has changed is the tools. For example, anxiety about the availability of foods has been replaced by anxiety about the quality of foods. And in some places, quantity of it.
Although we try to make guesses, we aren’t being able to discover the proper cause-effect of all this. A quick scroll on Medium will prove this. This has made us fearful.
Once again, as per Wells’ narrative, this problem in primitive days led to older and steadier minds among them to take lead in advising, teaching and eventually commanding the multitudes. Those leaders then became priests, which then gave birth to religion.
Although the tools and mediums have changed today, we have seen an uprising of religious and spiritual pursuits on a global scale. We saw that in the mid 20th century due to bombs and we see that today due to computers, AIs, medicine, as mentioned above. The 20th century crisis had limited sources of threat from what we have today.
But a big part of us isn’t satisfied with the religious and spiritual doctrines that have its roots in spears and stones. We are today dealing with machines that threaten to be more intelligent than us. The ones that threaten to even eradicate us! We do have the option of deeming them ‘devil’ and ‘monsters’, otherwise those teachings don’t touch us in the regions we want to be touched.
If history does indeed repeat itself, what that leaves us with is to identify the older and steadier minds among us that are taking lead. Who are advising, teaching and commanding the multitudes.
In the ancient times, those leaders were called priests who gave birth to religion as we know today. Who is doing that today and what new religion is being formed from all this? Should we not be skeptical of what forms from all this?
Once again, if history repeats, they are here. They have to be here by now. So, Who are they? Is it me? Is it you? Is it us? Or is it a billionaire?
I just saw a school bully of mine in my dream. He was a powerful person waving a flag at a big event of which I was a mere spectator. Although the crowd booed him, he seemed to care not. He was as confident and cocky as I remember him to be all those years ago.
I woke up a few minutes earlier feeling bad. I am in my bed. I have recalled the dream and analyzed it. It is midnight. I had just fallen asleep.
At first, I couldn’t stand the thought of him or any other bully of mine being a successful or powerful person in society. And then I asked myself if he or any other bully of mine were successful or powerful yet. The answer was no.
During that questioning, I noticed that I didn’t seem to care if they were successful or powerful in ‘my’ country Nepal. In fact, it felt natural. ‘What else would they be?’
But I couldn’t stand the idea of them being successful or powerful in the world.
‘That would be unjust!’ I thought.
The biggest change in me in the last couple of years has been my disgust towards ‘my’ country Nepal. In fact, I am disgusted by the concept of nation-states itself. But Nepal is the cause, so I hold the darkest and deepest disgust towards it!
I can’t confirm the amount of influence the bullies have had on my eventual disgust towards Nepal — which is made up of Nepalese — but I can sense some.
I then asked myself if any bully of mine was successful or powerful in the world stage. I found none.
I then asked myself if any bully of mine could be successful or powerful in the world stage. ‘NO WAY!’ I laughed.
I then asked myself if any bully of mine could be successful or powerful in the areas of my concern like literature, art, philosophy, science?
‘NO Fucking WAY! They are light-years away from all this,’ I laughed louder.
I felt glad and satisfied.
And then I asked myself if any Nepalese was successful or powerful in the world stage yet. No was the answer.
‘There is justice after all!’ I said to myself and wrote this.
Now I will try to sleep.
But I am startled by the question I have asked myself just now:
Did I subconsciously choose the field I thought would keep me the furthest away from my bullies?
I can’t confirm the amount of influence the bullies have had on my eventual choice of field — writing — but I can sense some.
I have no idea how universe functions on these things, but, what I discovered once was:
When I want something, my mind conspires in helping me to *not* achieve it.
Take for example when I woke up early one morning and said to myself that I wanted to live and die as a writer. Full Stop.
It was okay for a couple of hours, but after that…my mind began its functions:
‘Writers are dead.’
‘There’s no point being a writer.’
‘You’re not living in the 20th century! Now, we have videos. Nobody writes.’
‘Only the people who can’t be billionaires become writers.’
These are just a few specimens. Not that I was scared from all this, the intensity was such that I was in fact, traumatized. Still am. I no longer want to be a writer. Which obviously means, my mind keeps showing me the benefits of being one:
‘Writers are alive.’
‘Life is all about being a writer.’
‘You’re not living in the 20th century! This is the best time for writers. Look at the platforms!’
‘Only the people who can’t write become billionaires.’
In my childhoodplays, I imagined (created) a perfect sportsman with a perfect new name, gave him a perfect look and personality and put him into the team I liked. I then simulated tournament(s) in my head. The team with the sportsman obviously won everything. And the sportsman obviously became the player of the tournament. It didn’t matter if the sport was cricket, football, basketball or WWE.
It was fun! The player reflected my inner urge to be the best. To be perfect. To be a hero. Living a perfect life for a change was fun.
But when I tried to recreate that type of storyline this morning, I got bored.
‘What’s fun about having a player who always performs. Who is flawless. And who – even when he goes through a bad phase – will surely end up winning?’ I asked myself.
‘Isn’t it too predictable. Too perfect. Boring. Dead?’
Like playing a game with cheat codes. Or, playing an easy game.
And then I thought of something else I have started to find too predictable, perfect, boring and dead:
MOVIES!
Of course, not all movies. I am talking about mainstream, popular, franchise, movies. I can’t stand them anymore. Especially Hollywood, Bollywood and all that shit. Ones with HUGE budgets and huge Superstars, Megastars and all that!
If you understand the types of movies I am talking about, you would surely know that I am also talking about heroism in those movies.
Aren’t the Mega/Superstars ethically and morally flawless? (Yes, even the ‘bad-guy-protagonist’ is shown stylish, sexy, hot, whatever) And even when they go through bad phases, aren’t we sure that they will surely end up winning?
Yes, there are aberrations, but that’s not the point here.
The point is: I now find perfection boring. No wonder I feel dull and get bored when I imagine my future self with everything I desire today!
Life is not perfect and that’s what makes it fun. That’s what makes it beautiful and live-worthy:
To overcome the next challenge. Decode the next hint. Solve the next problem. Enjoy the meal with your loved ones after the entire day of separation. To be generous towards each other, knowing that we will all die one day.
Think what would happen if life was perfect. If life threw no challenges at you. If it had no puzzles, no problems, no separations. What if life had no death?
Living would be like playing a game with cheat codes. It would be like watching a tournament in which a team won’t lose a game (Arsenal playing in Nepali football league, perhaps?). Its best player scores a hattrick every time. Like watching a popular Bollywood movie. It would be dull and boring.
The Perfect Ones
But there are people who would prefer that. In fact, those people must find perfection fun and colorful. I used to find it non-dull all those years ago! When I simulated perfect sportsmen and enjoyed Shah Rukh Khan movies. I am obviously not the same person as my childhood self. It means there is a difference between such people. There’s a difference between the childhood me and today’s me.
In my personal case, I can clearly see the reasons behind the difference. One is age. Obviously. But I see many people my age still enjoy those movies. So, it must be something else. And what else but the fact that, a decade ago, I decided to go deep. I decided to explore dense Literature and Philosophy. And my life has never been the same. I have never enjoyed perfect movies, perfect games and perfect beings since. I haven’t tried to be perfect since. Although there have been sporadic desires to be one.
With my example, it would mean that perfection wasn’t dull until I experienced true reality. Colorful reality. Or deep reality. stupid reality. Or worthless reality. Whatever you would like to call it. I will call it depth.
Those who go deep, don’t care about being perfect. They no longer see anything perfect. Perfection becomes a charade for them. A show. A pretension. A shameful effort of superficial people.
Those who can enjoy perfection, must be all that: Show-off, Pretentious, Superficial.
It’s not that they must have never seen the depth. In fact, they maybe deeper than me. It might just be that they are too weak to let go of their superficial desires – their Kingly, Godly, general desires.
You can locate them:
They are the ones trying life-extension techniques, building perfect technologies, enjoying being called kings, making heroic movies. For them surviving is clearly more important than living. Being is more important than feeling. Death concerns them more than life.
Readers are doubtful types of people. Writers even more so.
What can we do when we are doubtful whether we should continue our search for more meaning and knowledge when the majority of the world seems to be doing fine with their food and drink?
What can we do when we are stifled by the thoughts that tell us that the words we type with passion, expressing hours of hard-thought wisdom might actually end up being read by no one apart from you and your computer?
I think I have found a solution:
Fill the working room with book smell!
Old book smell, new book smell, all sorts of book smell. Paper smell. Books. Books. Books. Book Smells.
On one hand they will remind us that the meaning, knowledge and wisdom we crave are real things with real presence and not random abstract stuff inside our heads to be suppressed by food and drink. One might tell you that the thoughts you have and talk are nothing, but what when you hand them a bulky physical thing? Are they still nothing?
And on the other hand, they will remind us that we are not alone in the thing that we are doing. If the smell is a mixture of old and new books, it will perfectly remind us of the permanence of meaning, knowledge and wisdom in human affairs. While old book smell will remind us of a glorious human past where knowledge not only freed but also evolved humans, new book smell will remind us that such search still matters and exists. It may matter to fewer people, but it still does. And who knows your writing can be the flame that ignites half of the world with a desire to know and be profound?!
You might question the need for written texts and books to ignite half the world.
‘I can do it with my podcast and YouTube videos,’ you might smirk. ‘I can fill my room with microphone smells.’
But, if birds could fly without wings, we would see birds flying without wings!
Even if all the books are about cookery and wine, they will still help to show us that fundamental things such as foods and drinks can be thought about deeply to be stored in books. Even those things can be dealt with wisely.
This should allow us to continue our search for more meaning and knowledge.
This should allow us to write words with passion, expressing hours of hard-thought wisdom.
This is not a religious thing, it is psychological. It is about our mind!
I am not a religious person. I am not a theist. I am not even an atheist. If anything, I am a person who has gone full UG on things —who has denied every system of thought and deleted all reverence from me. Which makes me a person whothinks that not enough has been known about the mind to know higher truths and who likes to find his own truth and reality his own way. This probably makes me an explorer. A mind and self explorer if you want to be precise.
But I have grown up in a Hindu family around Hindu myths, gods, stories, narratives, spirituality and philosophy. Which equips me with certain information on what lies within this religious system.
I am currently into mind and self exploration which takes me into the components of mind and their functions. I dig through my past and my present to see what I am all about and what I can make of myself.
While into this process, I observed something about the Hindu trinity that finally made them relevant and significant for me. It was their basic and commonly consented definition and description that gave me the idea of using them for my exploration and made me hypothesize that they may have actually been created not for worship but for mental exploration and idea programming. But I don’t want to get into whether they created us or we created them debate here! I also do not want to get into the history of the religion, it’s various sects and all that.
All I am concerned about is on using their basic description and definition for mind exploration and experimentation.
Before I get into how I think we can use them for creating new us and destroying the old, let me share a few things I have discovered as of now and how I got here:
The best way for us to see ourselves is through our desires.
Desires — apart from basic ones — are ideas. We create names and concepts, identify with them, get shaped by our environment, mix them all up and project basic desires into ideas. Eg. basic sexual urge turns into fascinating choices and preferences.
We can program our non-basic desires ourselves. That is, we can delete or modify old ones and create new ones. This is idea programming.
This means, we can create new versions of ourselves by modifying and experimenting with our desires.
We can use the Hindu triad for such a task.
This is how idea programming works:
You identify the prevalent idea
You identify its history and components
You design a new idea
You destroy the old idea
You persevere with the new idea until it is time to move on
It can be generalized in this way:
Identification
Design
Destruction
Preservation
Now, into the general and common definition and description of the Trinity.
Vishnu: Preserver and protector. A personification of preserving power. Calm, Relaxed.
2. Brahma: Creator. A personification of creative power. Restless, Innovative.
3.Shiva: Destroyer. A personification of destruction, reproduction, change. Meditative, Aggressive.
Let’s add them all up:
Identify: Desires that exist in you at present. The desires currently preserved. Enjoyed. Desires that are there. Just in themselves. Not as good and bad. To do this, you need to dig into your past, observe your present, notice everything that excites or frustrates you. You have to list them all down. Generalize them. Shove them into categories. Understand why they might be there. Understand their cause and effect. In simple words, you need to know the things you want and not want; desire and not desire; like and dislike. You need to know the identity you attach yourself to. You become Vishnu to do all this. Accept things as they are in order to know them and enjoy them. Approaching them with good/bad will make them elusive. Just be them. Preserve them. See them. You need to be calm and unimaginative in all this. Be Calm and Relaxed.
Design: Desires that you would want in you. At this phase, you should be imaginative and creative. Think and feel what you would want to become. What you would want in you. Judge your pre-existing desires. List the desires you want in you. Generalize them. Shove them into categories. Understand why you want them there. Understand their cause and effect. In simple words, you need to know the things you now want and not want; desire and not desire; like and dislike. You have created a new idea! You become Brahma to do all this. Don’t accept anything until you are fully convinced. Keep searching, keep designing. Until you reach the sweetest of spot. Once again, you need to be extremely imaginative and creative in all this. BeRestless and Innovative.
Destroy: Desires that you would want modified or destroyed. After you have identified the existing desires and designed the future desires, it is time to destroy the old ones. Destroy the old ideas. Destroy the old you. You need to operate at the emotional level for this. Like a surgeon. Like your own surgeon. You got to be able to feel things. You need to be able to suppress. You need to be able to ignore. In simple words, you need to get rid of all emotional residue of the old you. Get rid of all ideas of the old you. You become Shiva to do all this. Be savage. Be detached. Be both Meditative and Aggressive.
REPEAT.
Q: But how do you actually use them?
A: Remember their basic definition, description and characteristics and use their images as symbols. Place their image in your phone or computer wallpaper as per your phase.
You can modify the image as per your requirement. You can use symbols and metaphors as per your need. THIS IS HOW THEIR IMAGES HAVE BEEN MODIFIED AND PLAYED WITH FOR CENTURIES, ANYWAYS!
A drizzle,
Under a metallic roof.
Surrounded by,
leaves dancing to an unadulterated tune
Real ones!
Cool breeze…literally
Not contaminated by globules of global fetish
bulbs…too far away.
What else does one need?
While you’re there
Just while you stare
you are not,
A desiring clockwork.
It was a sunny morning
and so you planned to bask all day
when a lusty cloud came
from who knows where
and made it dark:
Now you shiver in pain.
You write these words
They go talk with gods
The gods get it
and make it sunny again!
Though the cloud seemed gone
You see it in the horizon
The damage has been done!
You have to be a Rshi:
Compose mantras and chant them full time.
And you have to plough your field
Chant and plough
Chant and plough.
You can see some clouds out there
But the sky is clean up here
You can’t un-see the clouds now
Chant and plough
Chant and plough.
It is night
but it’s too bright.
You want that cloud now
So you write different words
They go talk with same gods
The gods get it
and bring the cloud back again!
and the next morning…
you repeat it again.
The gods are greedy
The gods are crazy
They want sweeter words
They want them all the time
They want to play
They play with you all the time
But you don’t mind
Because you need a clear sky in the day
and some clouds in the night.
You are greedy
You are crazy.
You go through all this
to keep them near
To eventually reach beyond
them and there.
Composed at some point in 2016. This is about an alley near my home named Kush Galli where I frequently went to smoke.
Never knew when this passage became a rest-path
A path of contemplation, solution.
You stood there, never knew from when
and lighted one cigarette after another
conquering one thought by another
While you always gazed around in reluctance.
It has become a house now,
yet always trying to illustrate a reason to make it home.
Sometimes,
You get there after a long while,
assuming you have got a license.
Other times,
You try to hide there, yet go there to hide.
Oft,
you act as a passer-by smoker
Yet, a ring of smoke you leave over…
If smokes could carry thoughts and desires
then may be,
someone can smell it
and inhale what I had to exhale…
Whatever you go through in your childhood will have a profound impact on the rest of your life. This is because in our lives – like in the world – a thing will cause the following event and that event will in turn be the cause of another and so on.
While this holds true for all phases of our life, childhood is especially significant because it is then that we change the most. That’s the phase when we are the most passive and relatively unconscious of ourselves and the surrounding. This passivity and lack of proper consciousness means we are not at all in control of ourselves and whatever happens to us happens without our consent and will. We are at the mercy of other entities. Which means, our actions of that phase are reactive. We are malleable.
I reach back to the days my childhood whenever I try to understand the thoughts and feelings I currently behold. Almost everything takes me back there. Everything seems to have its roots there and then.
For example, today during my evening walk, I tried to understand my passion towards the unacceptable things in society. My digging took me to the stage of my life when I was mentally ill-treated and bullied by someone who was acceptable in society. I can’t recall being fascinated towards the unacceptable before my close encounter with that person and the ill-treatment/bullying I got from him and his supporters. This must have developed a sense of rebellion in me which prolongs to this day and which has largely shaped a lot of my crucial decisions.
Of course, that person must have been valid from his point of view for his ill-treatment and he might not even consider it to be an ill-treatment, but what that did to me shaped not only my behaviour but my character and entire personality. He was conscious, I was not!
Of course, I don’t have an issue with how I ended up, but I could have ended up worse if I hadn’t dared to work on my self and if I hadn’t dared to stand-up to rotten values.
What do I take away from this?
Be careful with things that are malleable and sensitive. Tougher things will resist you and will probably shape you instead. Don’t express that frustration of yours on weaker ones. Take care of softer things if you’ve got balls. If you’ve really got it, try to shape things bigger and stronger than you!
P.S. Maybe that person was more unconsious than the childhood me?!!!
A trick for Self-Improvement. Unfasten all the seat-belts that bound you to seats. Wear something comfortable. Stretch your body parts. Take some deep breaths and get ready to go for a long thought drive.
A thought drive is a drive where you free yourself from the cycle of static sitting or sleeping and hence, free yourself from many shitty and sleepy thoughts.
A thought drive is a drive where you move around in such a manner that it sets the platform for your thoughts to take you to amazing mental places to see spectacular things.
A thought drive is a drive where your movement acts as an accelerator and the thoughts that you will have inside as the views you would see from your physical vehicle window.
How do you go for a thought drive?
First, you have to be willing to see what your thoughts have got to show and tell you. After that, you have to move around. But, you have to let go of all those meditative, sedative mind-control, self-control, god-focus, self-focus lessons that shitty and sleepy gurus have preached to you. You have to be ready to listen to your thoughts. Listen to what they have always been meaning to tell you but you have always been shutting them off because you fell prey to the scam of some philosophical conman.
After all this, go for it. Move around in whichever pattern you feel comfortable. Long walks, short walks, to and fros, stand and stares. Find the sweet spot of movement, like you do with your car seat. And then welcome your thoughts. Accept them. Invoke them. Do not use dull philosophical theories to understand them or control them. Let them flow. Let them come. Accept them.
But how do you make sure you don’t get lost?
That’s a good question. Thoughts are stingy and lethal at times. that’s why you have to learn to be strong. You have to learn to be able to take every sting with a smile and you hve to be able to respond every slap with a deep breath.
Once you are ready with that and good to go for a drive, you have to begin with a single thought. It could be an image, a sound, an idea, concept, desire, goal, person, computer, star, whatever. Yes, right before you go for the drive, begin with a single thought. Then, finish the drive by coming back to the same thought. Finish it by bring the original thought back. And notice how that thought looked before the drive and after. If you manage to do that, you will not only have discovered a lot of things, but you will also have returned to your home safely!
Being Visionary is more about will than originality.
I don’t know how it goes with entities such as stars and rocks and rivers but with those of us living with cell (s): we are always forced to make decisions.
An ant crawls on my table and I for my own leisure block its path with my finger. Now it has to make a decision: persist with the obstacle or go a different path. The ant has obstacles apart from me: The dog, the wind. Which means, it has to make a lot more decisions in life. However, regarding the approach to making those decisions — looking at its circumstances — I believe it has only one: pragmatic which tells it to go to the currently most beneficial place.
I, as a human, am similar. I go along with my business and for some god’s leisure, a thought comes and blocks my path.
Then, I am left to make a decision: force myself out of the thought or go a different one. Lots of thoughts and events occur, which means I have to make a lot of decisions. But, when it comes to approach, I have observed two in me:
Pragmatic
Visionary
Within the pragmatic approach I am like the ant. Whatever thought or obstacle I face and have to make a decision, I decide to do that which seems currently the most beneficial.
While taking the visionary approach, I become a human in that whatever obstacle I face and have to make a decision on, I decide to do that which seems in line to the vision of myself I have in my mind. It’s like the ant going, ‘I have to climb this finger thing and die so my vision of becoming a martyr is realized.’
Pragmatic approach is understandable, you do that which ensures your survival and life-success. But where the hell does this thing called vision come up on me?
Where does the vision come from?
Ingenuity?
What else?
My observations of myself have shown that I do not in fact envision a future for myself. What I do is simply decide to not be pragmatic and allow my mind to drift along the inner voices, the rest is done by my mind. This way I don’t think it should be called vision. It’s more like natural is the correct term.
Why?
While I envision myself, I am in fact, not as creative as I think I am. This is because I am not designing a certain type of me from scratch. Rather, I am merely imagining (projecting) a me who has fulfilled all the desires that exist in me during the moment of envisioning. It is like the perfect balance of all my desires. THE SWEET SPOT. This way, fulfilling my dreams or realizing my vision is more like me being that which is natural to me: achievement of all desires, with the desires being the things which are natural.
Pragmatic approach is more about advantage. I will have to sacrifice a lot of my desires in the process. Success is the key here.
Let’s stay with the visionary approach:
Even if it’s not about free designing and creating, there is a certain skill required to envision yourself.
As mentioned above, firstly you need to agree to listen to your desires and let go of certain pragmatism (Of course, mixed approach exists in people but let’s not talk about that here). Even after agreeing to listen, the path won’t be easy. Your mind will make you scream, yell, cry, want-to-die in its search for the perfect image for your desires. It’s like pulling out a healthy tooth. But when your mind finds one, it fills you with ecstasy. You are freed. You are free to work on the how’s and finally forget visioning and decision-making!
And then the sad part begins:
The desires you have inside you are not constant. They change with new knowledge and experience and so has to your vision.
The irony of it all is that even if you go after the vision and reach the situation envisioned, there is almost complete certainty that things will end up being something completely different!
Do you also worry you are not doing enough or learning enough? Given your standard of yourself, do you think you aren’t productive enough? Do you feel like something is stopping you from being a certain place, feeling a certain way?
Even when you do manage to get rid of all distractions and do the things you ought to work on, do you feel a certain rope kind of thing pulling you into something — away from your deed? Do you also get anxious if you do not allow yourself to be pulled by that rope?
Do you feel anxious, nervous, sleepy, tired, insecure, confused, jealous, etc. most of the time?
If your answer is yes, than it implies that you too — like me — have been falling prey to the Seven Deadly ills of modern life.
I’ve been successful in avoiding all seven of these ills as of the time of this writing.
Yes, at some point of my life, I have experienced all these which makes me sit here and think that I should be sharing these ills with the world. I — with confidence — hold these ills responsible for many of my weaknesses, unproductivity and misery. They have threatened me, sucked life’s joy and beauty out of me and have almost killed me. These are serious diseases and should be cured/removed/avoided.
I will now share my personal experiences with each and communicate why I consider them to be ills.
Here we go then…here are SEVEN DEADLY ILLS OF MODERN LIFE:
Facebook: It’s been a dozen years since I deleted my personal facebook account. In between, I have created random accounts to manage my business accounts.
The major reason I deleted my personal account all those years ago was because certain people I didn’t want anything-to-do-with started appearing there. Those included distant relatives and school-bullies (teachers included).
I was going through a transition in my life which included a lot of pdf learnings in my devices, and the last thing I wanted was their face in my sacred temple. Whenever any of those people appeared through suggestions or through posts of friends’ friend, I got agitated. I was clear with myself on the fact that I did not want to befriend them at any cost. Yet, facebook didn’t understand this! It got to a point where opening a facebook app meant anxiety. I thought: I can talk to my family members and close-friends on a cellphone, having them on facebook has less reward than the risk of those unnecessary craps appearing on my screen. I deactivated and have never had a personal account ever since.
A few years ago, when I started a publishing company, I felt the need for a facebook account. I created one with the company name and created a few business pages. My sole motive was to use facebook for work. A few months later, I was fighting with a random stranger in a stupid group! I was checking my account every ten minutes. I wanted more likes and comments on my post. I was getting more anxious. Things soon started to get personal. I began adding a lot of friends…and yet again, some unwanted people appeared! I deactivated the account soon — my business didn’t go anywhere through facebook promotions (paid/unpaid) anyway. Illness because: Facebook thrusts you into the rat race.
Instagram: Oh, facebook’s younger sibling:
how late you came into my life
and how early you disappeared! If facebook is racing in a crowded city, Instagram is you reaching the posh-area. It’s not just about running here, it’s about how hip you look while you run.
As in facebook, I opened an instagram account when I started that company. I was told that it was THE platform to reach out to young and ‘cool’ people. I created my personal account and a couple of business accounts. Looking back at it now — considering how uncool I am — I wonder what was I thinking back then!
I tried to use it for work — which for me is all about expressing who I am. But what I ended up doing was checking if each post I created fit into the norm. While this may be looked upon as being business-friendly or staying relevant to the trend, my experience was such that I had become something completely different. I didn’t say what was to be said, I said what should be said!
The original me vanished and was slowly being replaced by a cool funny youth. Once again, I am neither cool nor funny and I am proud of myself for that. Whenever I went to a place that looked nice (by posh standards), my eyes searched for a spot where I could take a photograph of myself and post it with a stylish caption. When I did it, I spent every five minute refreshing the page and scrolling down the human coolness. I hated it. My account got relatively relevant, but it was me no longer. I deactivated it. Illness because: Instagram pressurizes you to fit-in.
Twitter Where do I even start on this monster?!
During the course of my life, I must have activated-deactivated twitter on more than ten instances. I start one, gain a few followers, get fed up, deactivate. I start another, gain a few more followers, get even more fed up, deactivate again…
The supposed platform for the intellectuals attracted me for the same reason. I thought I could share wise opinions and change the world. How it ended up was, I found myself intoxicated in half-baked thoughts — always looking for a line that would increase more followers than one that was actually wise. Another thing that happened to me while I pushed for those words was I hoped some significant celebrity would retweet my stuff and I would be popular forever thereafter!
Of course, that didn’t happen, so I must have been fed up due to that too…but the bigger reason I suppose for being constantly fed up was that twitter was more for show than for a pro. I was getting exposed to mediocre thoughts disguised as world-changing just because a person with a great following had said it. Words have quick impact on me and twitter’s impact wasn’t healthy. I should rather spend time finishing, polishing my thoughts and reading finished, polished ones, I concluded. And so I deactivated. Illness because: Twitter is seeming intelligent, not being one.
YouTube I wrote an entire story about YouTube and its impact on me the other day: This Thing Called Video-Addiction | by Adesh Acharya | Jul, 2022 | Medium
Let me list out the points I made there:
a. Videos expose me to ordinary people and content
b. Videos make me mentally weak
c. I may be getting manipulated Illness because: YouTube is just TV with even more mediocre channels!
Tiktok Okay, I am not familiar with this as much I am with the ones above. Yet, I have been around those who are and what I have noticed is: It’s goddamn addictive!
Uninterrupted supply of short-length videos with provocative music in the background that give you everything from the dance moves of that relative of yours to the review of that obscure restaurant in town means Tiktok has enough going-on within it to make you forget to turn off the stove. It doesn’t even allow you to get bored.
Although I do not use this platform as much, what I do know is that the more you enjoy shorter content, the more tedious longer works get for you. This means your patience dies and only quick stimulation can satisfy you. Depth gets boring. I don’t think all those are qualities you would want to miss.
Given Tiktok’s popularity, it has facebook’s rat-race quality within it. Also are twitter’s half-bakedness and TV with even more mediocre channels within it. This could only mean one thing: DISASTER!
Tiktok also seems to normalize otherwise embarrassing behavior. While it’s good not to get embarrassed at what you do, it is better for us all to not have normalized certain things. And there are lots of those certain things in Tiktok! Illness because: Tiktok satisfies your darkest urge.
Reddit While I had — without much intent — used Reddit a long time ago, I went back to it with purpose last year when I wanted to promote a link. I created a username and joined subreddits I thought would be relevant for me. Within a few days, I forgot the work purpose and started enjoying the opinions I and discussions I could read there. A few days later, I started posting comments and posts. A few more days later they started to get noticed. I wanted to post more. Comment more. I let my urge flow. I let it flow to such an extent that I still remember a morning where I shivered, fumed in anger trying to think of a reply to a comment of mine. This continued for a while.
Reddit is like school. There is knowledge there but you don’t pay attention because it is not provided well. There are bullies, and there are good guys. There are teachers. But one thing there is that, you don’t matter. YOU the person, the individual with an identity, with a context, doesn’t matter there. While it may be a nice thing considering how all other social media platforms exploit YOU, the discussions in Reddit don’t get humble and serious for that very reason. Illness because: Reddit devalues ideas.
Quora: It’s not at all a good idea to search all of your curiosities in Google. We should be able to answer certain questions ourselves — by reading and thinking about them. Yet in google you have the option to listen to credible people. It’s worse to ask random people about your curiosities in Quora. The flux of opinions you get means you will forget about thinking-for-yourself and turn into a mere pinball in the game of opinions of others. Illness because: Quora habit won’t let you think your own answers.
(Bonus) Entertainment Websites: Websites about sportsmen, movie-stars, musicians, etc. They are built and written to prove to you that the heroes they present and the works they do are superior to you in every way. That you are not like them. That you missed out being like them. That you should consume this and this to even slightly resemble them. Illness because: You can do better!
With experiences in all this, I have finally found some respite on Medium. It has allowed me to freely express ideas as these without having to worry how my neighbor will judge me, or how unkempt my hair must be, or will a Phd. from xyz trust me.
As of now, I don’t consider Medium to be among these ills. Hope it won’t get into the top seven anytime soon!
Before getting into why books should be read books in hardcopies, let me give some background.
This mind of ours is a weird thing of which we still have a lot to decode. When you think you have unearthed its mechanisms, it surprises you with something else. I mean, look at it, all I had done was sleep with a book in my bed last night and this is what I thought I this morning:
Hardcopy books are something you feel. The smell, the weight, the cover, the design, the font — it all adds up to the overall experience of reading a book.
In many ways, they are like wine. You don’t say this wine gives me this amount of buzz so I better drink this amount of whiskey. You don’t say it. It doesn’t work that way. Wines have their own essence and it is not just about the alcohol.
Similar are hardcopy books: You don’t say this book gives me this information so I better watch a video on YouTube or listen to an audiobook. You shouldn’t say it. It shouldn’t work that way. hardcopy books have their own essence and it’s not just about the content within it.
In fact, we humans don’t work that way. We aren’t utilitarian. We want beauty. We imagine. We philosophize. We want love. We want to feel. If we were only utilitarian, you wouldn’t have this thing called computer in your hand right now. So stop bothering hardcopy books and go enjoy your shorts!
For those who live by the ultimate questions of their existence and yet cannot satisfy themselves with the religious-spiritual view. Who cannot convince themselves with the scientific-evolutionary narrative. For them, the whole situation of existing is like a long scary dream that just doesn’t stop. The meaning of life isn’t readily there!
In a world where we are taught to seek reason in all thoughts, feelings and actions, the perspective that there is still room for dissatisfaction on that ultimate question means the existence is the biggest joke, the biggest irony, the biggest paradox.
I don’t have enough courage to walk in the streets without reason. I can’t make a call to those whom I call friends without reason. Yet, here I am existing — without an indisputable truth on why I do so. Yes, if I believe hard enough or think casually enough I will be able to ignore, satisfy and convince myself on one view-point/narrative or the other, yet the fact that a question of such magnitude and relevance is open to interpretation is itself the biggest irony. Joke. Paradox.
This feeling is nothing new as far as I know. The history of philosophy is the history of this realization. Notably, there has been a Russian novelist, a German philosopher and host of French thinkers who have come up with one or the other solution to this ultimate irony.
Yet, to each generation and each individual who is foolish enough to go through it again, this problem hits newly in new places. It hits so damn hard, sucks the taste out of the juice, juice out of your life, and life out of you. It turns you into a zombie if there ever was one. You are already dead in your mind, the thing which thinks inside you is only there because your body hasn’t stopped breathing yet. In a world where they question you why you want to visit their venerated nation, you are mocked if you are the type who ponders upon the most important question that can ever be raised by any creature. Man is an animal after all. The most ironic. The most bizarre.
You have looked at animals and birds and have tried to learn the meaning of existence from them, haven’t you? But they don’t seem to care, do they? Or maybe you don’t understand them just like you can’t understand the meaning of your being. Even when you do interpret them, they all seem busy. Each and every one of them. Busy finding the next meal, busy finding the next mate, busy finding the next shelter, busy finding the next joy, busy in alertness from the next threat.
There can only be two explanations for their behavior: either they have been whispered the meaning of existence by their creator or they don’t have the ability to question. Either way, they go about fine. While you don’t see them laugh and giggle much, you don’t see them smoking and drinking in sorrow too! This perspective makes you realize that many of your human counterparts and indeed animals. Yes, they wear clothes, they speak well, they drive, they earn money, but they go by life just like those animals. But unlike in the case of animals and birds, you do know that they haven’t been whispered any secret by any god. You know that for sure, you have talked to them, you have been friends with them. You know them. They — given their quality — walking around as modern-humans with cell phones in their pocket and english in their tongue appear to you as yet another irony of existence.
But it’s not about them. It’s about you. If you could have been like them, you would have already been like them. You wouldn’t be writing or reading this line. And for you the fact remains that in a world where we are taught to seek reason in all thoughts, feelings and actions, the perspective that there is still room for dissatisfaction on that ultimate question means the existence is the biggest joke, the biggest irony, the biggest paradox.
Where is the meaning of life?
For one, the relentless search for meaning of life itself is a meaning.
Apart from that, the idea to create a meaning for yourself while you seek the real meaning can also be a meaning. This means, the things you do independent of the ultimate answer can be the penultimate meaning. You can mean to be happy, you can mean to be intelligent, popular, powerful, whatever. If the smell of money makes you get out of bed each day in excitement at the prospect of the day and the prospect of the progress you will make on the ultimate-meaning-finding process, money can be a great meaning. It ticks almost all boxes of human psychological yearns. You just have to ensure this forward-moving meaning isn’t engaging enough to distract you from your real meaning — the search for meaning.
Whether you will unlock the ultimate meaning isn’t that important. The fact that you have lived your life questioning the views that dissatisfy you and searching for your own way is, however, meaningful.
It’s beneficial to step back and observe the human race from a distance, forgetting about your own goals and concerns for a while. In the true Schopenhauerian ‘will-less contemplation’ sense.
The distance has to be perfect. In true Nietzschean sense:
Do not stay in the field!
Nor climb out of sight.
The best view of the world
Is from the medium height.
The view from this distance is worth every sight of it. I mean, just look at us:
The leader of animals, dwelling in this blue marble sort of thing which itself hangs in empty space in a monotonous cycle. Yet, we aren’t inspired by our mother: we don’t want to do the same thing over and over again. We want ‘progress’, we want to grow into something else.
‘Everything has to evolve,’ we say, ‘the earth that you see today wasn’t the same a million years ago!’
We are unique in this sense. We come up with these half-baked theories and understandings of the world and justify our actions. In fact, we come up with particularly those theories that justify our actions. It’s like we as beings only see what we want to see. Our desires are primary. Knowledge comes later. For instance, we don’t say, ‘look how disciplined earth is towards her father…’. We don’t say it because we do not like discipline. We do not want to settle. We want to eat and grow. Eat and grow even if our diet turns us into matricides. But we will come up with some theory to justify that too!
Who are we, by the way?
Some say they have evidence that some god created us, some prove that we are a result of a natural process. But I think both those views are misleading. Distractions. To hide a simple truth: we are nothing!
Yes, we are monsters who like to consume and grow but apart from that, we are absolutely nothing! Kill us now and I don’t think that ‘god’ will even notice. Yes…yes the universe is conscious through us…But what I also get is that it is yet another justification for our existence and appetite.
So the answer to the question above is this: we are nothing apart from greedy monsters. We should have long ago said to ourselves that we are greed manifested in physical form. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Greed is a virtue. It is a virtue because it ensures survival. How else does a creature like this, which believes it has conscience and knows of what it has done in the past, continue on?
Another verification of our nature is through what we worship. Among us, we revere the ones who are the most greedy. While we do this, we are doing nothing else than appreciating our essence. There’s nothing wrong with it. Once again, how else do we go on?
Enough about greed. It’s our driving force. It’s our essence.
Yes, we love science not because we love to learn, we love it because it equips us with powerful guns — and a shot at a good career, of course!
Then there’s entertainment. Our fuel. We of today need it more than the real one. Once we thought the grass was green on the other side and that was our meaning, but then globalization happened. We saw the reality.
If we had meaning other than greed, we would probably be celebrating love and all other feelings. But we have no time nor energy for those things because they consume more. They trigger our imagination. They do things to us. They make us think more. What we need is the emptying of the thoughts. How else do we reset from the exhaustion of constant want? — No, not with a Dostoevskian novel in hand. That’s why, the bulk of us today watch people review movies instead of we ourselves watching one. The former is engaging, the latter stimulating.
‘I watched it, so you don’t have to.’ = ‘I live life, therefore I don’t want you to.’
Humans = Greed + Entertainment. Where everything done for both is pragmatic while if you seek to feel the truth with your flute, you waste your time.
‘What’s your real job?’
Where are we now?
Our biggest achievement is that we have managed to build computers. If we ever needed anything to prove to ourselves that we are superior than the rest, computers have done that for us. They have shown to us that we are capable of creating an entirely new being from scratch. They are our ego inflations. No wonder the most greedy do business on it! And we talk about artificial intelligence now as if we are scared, but what we are actually doing beneath is gloating at our accomplishment. We won’t allow any other being to rule over us! The so-called best among us don’t even allow a normal human being to enter into their territory without years of worship and application.
We have created vessels to take us to the stars. We look at the sight of rocket launches and floating stations with a deep glad sigh. ‘We have achieved so much,’ we pat ourselves in the back. It’s another one of those things that has validated our superiority. One has seen fishes swim and birds fly in the air, who has seen a creature reach the outer space! We try to convince ourselves that going to a different planet will somehow solve our problems where in fact all we are doing with those dreams is trying to fill the void: we are nothing! With a fantasy:
‘May be we will encounter god — who has been sleeping — along the way and wake Him up. Or we will encounter other clever beings like us and life will be meaningful again.’
Meaningful as in new wars, new politics, new golds…
So what else do we aspire to?
Happiness.
What is happiness, anyway?
A neurological condition arising out of the perception that an individual has attained what it set out to attend. It could have meant a lot once upon a time, but not anymore.
What has the individual of today set out to attend?
A piece of cake in this celebration of human coronation. A few more views, a few more likes, a few more subsribers, a few houses, a few more sex, a few cars, a few more countries. A few more hours of forgeting of the existential dread.
What is the lesson humans teach each other?
Don’t kill yourself. You too can eat and grow. That’s the meaning you’ve been after.
Yesterday was the first day of my new experimentation:
Stopping the flow of a regular habit.
The habit = Regularly watching senseless videos on YouTube.
Yesterday, I successfully tolerated all my impulses to touch the YouTube app on my phone or press y + Ctrl Enter on my laptop web browser.
The reasons of experiment were:
I got aware that I was watching way too much senseless videos
I worried about how those videos might be affecting my feelings and imagination
I wanted to find out if watching videos contributed to my constant agitation and anxiety.
The worst part was that I had developed the habit of playing nonsensical cricket discussion videos on YouTube in the background every time I tried to go to sleep. The app on my phone tells me that Monday alone, I watched around 4 hrs of videos on YouTube.
So, yesterday morning I thought it would be a nice idea to go cold-turkey on my video-watching habits and see what changes take place in me.
Achievement: I didn’t watch a single video.
I’ll go over a couple important things I was thinking yesterday. It was surprising how long it had been since I thinked with such flow. It appeared as though my habit of watching videos had turned off my brain.
One major change I would like to express right away is that I slept well and dreamt vivid after a while.
Anyway, here are the thoughts:
Be careful on whom you listen to: Listening to ordinary people on a regular basis can be disastrous to your life. Ordinary people: They are those who aren’t related to us and who aren’t our friends; they are those who aren’t mature in an intellectual and emotional sense. Now, it’s not hard to notice that platforms like YouTube, TikTok and more or less all social media are filled with such people. Regularly listening to them, especially on sensitive topics, means we are being deliberately or unconsciously led by ignorance because they don’t care about us (since they don’t know us) and because they aren’t mature enough to teach us. Which, as you may imagine, is not at all healthy.
People who don’t know us but have have devoted their life to learning— even if they are strangers to us — might have acquired some wisdom to impart. If their hard-earned knowledge might not be useful to us, they might not be harmful either. But any bicky-dicky with an opinion can provide us nothing but senseless information.Even the advice that they give can have serious consequences to our thinking as what they provide aren’t the product of care-for-us or hard-learning.
There are many with the habit of sharing their intimate information on the internet, which gets videod and then commented on by random strangers. My point is, if sharing our feelings on social media (or hearing about your problems there) was to solve our crisis, why would we need friends/families, why would we need art and why would we need education and learning? It won’t work. Our issues work deeper than the level at which social media interactions occur!
Is my video watching, my mental weakness? — Noticing how even a short abstinence from video watching had opened the floodgates of my thoughts, I wonder if I watch videos or stroll around the internet when I am afraid to think for myself or weak to use my own imagination.
When I go on a YouTube video watching binge, I have the choice of selecting from millions of videos, which allows me to skip or fast-forward a video if I don’t find it to be as mind-numbing or enjoyable as intended.
Which may imply that I have been using videos as a means of sucking-up all of my thoughts — to escape from my own head — which I do think is a weakness because, in ideally world, I would want to solve my thought-problems rather than ignore them.
What I did during the break, however, was read books and what I found amazing was that reading a book now feels like a meditation. Now, considering how some thinkers of the pre-internet/TV days condemned too much of book reading as a sign of reading-so-you-don’t-have-to-think, one can imagine how deep they lived than us!
Is video watching a form of manipulation? — When I was younger, I remember learning a common success lesson from my grandfather and from some ‘you can do it’ book: ‘Successful/great’ people don’t spend their time around petty people or gossiping. They dwell in great ideas and deeds. While thinking on my bed, I wondered if any successful person (not in financial/social sense but as in the master of his/her art) of today would spend their time watching senseless YouTube videos. They would probably be either honing their craft or reading a great book on life.
This made me question if senseless video watching is equivalent to spending time around petty people and gossiping. Which would mean such watching is a form of manipulation from the ‘system’ side — to keep you ordinary, to keep you a sheep! Why else would such platforms exist?
That’s it, those are some significant thoughts that I thought during the break of a single day. I will see if I can sustain this discipline for a little longer. If I can do it, I will definitely share what days of absence has taught me. But if I can’t, there wouldn’t be much point sharing.
If I can continue this break, it may teach me the advantages of video watching and I may end up watching even more of them. It may also mean I will quit video watching altogether and maybe, become an activist.
I was out to pick-up a dog cage from a pet shop yesterday. The cage was big and the street was narrow which meant I had to load it in the car in a short time. Motorbikes and taxis were already parked which meant I didn’t have much space to work with. I went past the shop looking for a place to turn around, and when I did, I spotted an empty spot from afar— a perfect spot. It was at the opposite end of the shop. I pressed the accelerator in excitement and went near. But what do I notice when I get there?
A young guy is sitting on his motorbike at the exact spot, leisurely using his phone. There was no point honking so I drove past staring at him and parked the car a little further. It would take more effort and time to bring the cage and load it in the car. But I did that. All the while cursing that young person’s existence in my head.
‘Why is this person even existing?’
‘There’s no use for creatures like these!’
I thought.
Miserable thought. Bad thought. I know. But I ask these too:
‘Why am I even existing?’
‘There’s no use for rascals like me!’
Whenever I get annoyed with someone (including me), I tend to have these thoughts. I tend to imagine the entire cosmos (as much as I think it exists) and judge the value of existence of each and every individual entity. Which is more important, the sun or the moon? The river or the sea?
What a sorry thing to do!
I…I know.
I don’t see much value in the existence of anything at all — including existence — apart from the value of existence itself. I mean, to exist is the only valid reason for existence. The only actual value.
Which means, I have no right to question the value-of-existence of anything or anyone. But I do it. I forget the lesson above.
I am a human and I have been shown and told a lot that existence in itself is nothing significant, its what you make of the existence that matters. So naturally I have grown up judging the value of existence of everything:
Dogs have less value than humans and ants have less value than dogs. Plants have less value than ants while mosquitos are there to be killed.
And then there’s the human world:
Writers have less value than businessmen and cleaners have less value than writers…and likewise. Division of labor. In society like mine — Nepali/Hindu — there’s this caste more valuable than that and that more valuable than that…
Yes, with my own eyes I have seen dead politicians taken to cremation in a parade and I have also seen corpses burnt with no one at all to attend. Division of value. VALUE OF EXISTENCE. Which means, high value people have more right to exist and properly die.
Now, when I saw the bike person, my human ego told me that the person was beneath me in terms of value-of-existence. I may have judged based on occupation or caste. But I judged and thought the person had a lower value-of-existence than me (and my dog since the dog I considered my own). Now, if there was a businessman with his Tesla parked — would I question the businessman’s value of existence?
Instead, I would question my own value of existence!
What a petty, miserable being I am. Why do I forget the lesson?!
Before getting into why I consider physical pain to be the greatest teacher, let me give some background.
I am one of those who constantly and intentionally creates problems for himself. Even when there is nothing significantly alarming in life, I have the habit of questioning and worrying about things such that I miss everything else going on, every emotion flowing in and need someone else to remind me of the absurdity of what I have been thinking and worrying about. That someone doesn’t have to be a highly intellectual or spiritual person. That something doesn’t have to be sophisticated or philosophical. Hearing a ten year old kid react while playing a video-game can do the trick. But such encounters rarely occur.
Believe me, I have read and heard the best of preachers preach and the greatest of teachers teach.
‘Thou shalt not do this…’, ‘You have been viewing the world wrong…’, ‘This is the proper way…’…they say.
But for me, what they preach and teach has always been like listening to some music you don’t like. You can hear the music playing, you understand what’s going on…but it just doesn’t touch you.
That’s my character.
Now I want to share my present situation:
I am going through excruciating pain in my mouth because of a couple of rotten teeth. It has persisted for a couple of days during which it has grabbed my attention, sucked my energy, has made me scream in anguish, has taken buzz away from beer, clouds away from smoke, taste away from food and relaxation away from a cup of tea. It has eclipsed my entire being and my thoughts haven’t been able to focus anywhere else apart from the region that hurts.
Under this situation, however, when I move my mind around things, I am amazed at my stupidity for constantly and intentionally creating problems for myself when there are none!
‘Everything is so simple…why was I complicating them?’ I ask myself.
‘This goes here, this there…this fits here…that doesn’t fit there…It’s all so simple. WHAT WAS THERE TO WORRY?!’ I question myself.
This is why I call physical pain the greatest teacher. While I sit here as a being suffering from the complications of its own body, I don’t have time nor space to get lost in mental forests of gloom. For one, it is because I don’t have the energy. Which makes me question whether my anxieties and mental issues are the result of me not being able to apply my energy appropriately. While all the energy of my being is sucked by the consciousness of physical anguish there is little left for the reveries of mind. This is why, perhaps, the mind focuses on the real.
Other thing I notice is the absurdity of problem-creating itself. While I sit here trying to figure out ways through which I can rid myself of this anguish, my state-of-mind is that of the issues of the body. The body which is real. I think I look at the thing that usually bothers me with the same state-of-mind which crops all unnecessary parts and perhaps, the mind focuses on the real. Here there is no place for problem-creating. Things are the way they are!
I don’t know how long this pain will last. In fact, I am about to go visit a doctor. But I don’t want to forget the lessons that this pain has taught me. Lessons about my reality, human reality. About my energy, human energy. Lessons about attention and conscience. Lessons I could never learn from gurus and philosophers.
This physical pain has given me hints on what I shall do and avoid. What I should try to constantly realize. Some part of me wishes some kind of physical pain always remains in me. But again, it’s not comfortable. I have to get rid of this anguish and this is what matters as of now. I need to go to the doctor for I have tried toleration and bearance but none has worked. I have tried homemade ways to avoid pain killers, hasn’t worked. The pain is real. I need to trust the system now. I need to trust a doctor. I need to focus on what is real. I need to do that which is there — not worry about that which may not be.
Right now, I don’t have enough energy or time to question the morality of medical systems!
You notice your anxiety and it burns such that you cannot help but question why you are feeling that way. By then, you have tried everything: distraction, inspiration, perspiration.
Questioning the reasons for anxiety is the only thing left to do and when you reach to that phase, half of it is already gone. ‘Why didn’t I do this before?’ you wonder. You begin digging, imagining, hypothesizing: what is causing this anxiety?
You go through multiple scenarios: past, present, future. Friends, family, self. Mental, emotional, physical. You trial and error through them. One moment you feel you have found the cause: memory of your bullies from school is causing this anxiety…but something doesn’t fit. ‘I have solved it before,’ you say and move on. Another moment: fear of failure! But still something doesn’t feel okay. The anxiety doesn’t leave! ‘No there’s something else,’ you say.
‘Oh, the absurdity of choosing a career of a writer’
‘Yes…but no not this time…I have dealt with it already. I have ideas about it…I don’t need to be anxious…it’s something else’.
And then you think:…it’s not the cause that’s the cause. It’s the anxiety that’s the cause. It’s the anxiety — which like a python dwells inside you. Yeah, it sleeps a lot too. But when it wakes up…it consumes you. It sees complications where there are none. It feels wrong when there are none. It sees another python when there is none. It may not only be the effect of sharp perception which sees the fragility in everything, It may be the cause of wrong perceptions. It maybe behaving like the way they call quantum particles do. In this case, it is both the cause and effect.
As long as it is effect, you can put the python to sleep (by digging the cause)and move on until the python wakes up again. And then you do it again. But if it’s a cause? What do you do? — Medication? Meditation? Masturbation? But, they’re all temporary!
Since I have mentioned the term ‘quantum’ above, I once read Einstein saying this:
…Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
I don’t know in which context he said it, but he said it good. The anxiety as the cause is similar. It’s some sort of weakness that lurks inside you and creates problem after problem. Time and time again. Why?!
It doesn’t let you have fun with your family, your food, your film. Doesn’t let you be at peace with your pet, your poetry, your plant. Nor does it let you do anything. It lurks and it hurts. Burns and it…It sucks!
It sucks color out of you, joy out of you, love out you, life out of you. And they say it is the sharp perception of the impending threat! I don’t wanna be sharp.
A better question then:
If you are constantly suffering from anxiety, are you shrewd or ill?
HINT:
(I have written this and now the python seems to have gone to sleep. I wonder when will it wake up again? Oh, wait…it’s back! Apparently, my thinking about it woke it up)
After sharing some Random Thoughts, I want to talk about Random Writing.
Every now and then it is a blessing to be able to just sit down to write — without planning, without an idea, without something to say, without anyone to criticize, without dreaming of followers. Without caring about the functions of writing and duties of a writer.
It is something you cannot do all the time and you cannot plan. It just comes. Flows, rather. When the burden inside your chest becomes too heavy for you to even breathe, when the idea of being a writer becomes too impractical for you to even live. When you don’t want to speak anything anymore, when you don’t want to make it anymore!
But it happens because you have to still sit down and write something!
I once heard Anthony Burgess say he’d quit being a writer if he suddenly had a million dollars. But I have also heard Charles Bukowski say that writing was never a work for him. ‘It all flows too naturally for me once certain prerequisites are met,’ said he.
But they are old folks. Long gone! That was their deal. Why do I cling on to the thoughts of these thinkers of yore? After all, they didn’t know how it was like to live here — today — 2022 — …they didn’t feel how it feels to be me, or you.
How did this idea of becoming a writer even get into my head? And Why? Why didn’t I want to be a doctor, or an engineer? Is it their doing?
Q: Why do I have to do it? Why can’t I not-do it?
A: Thoughts. My thoughts.
They may have long gone, but human-thoughts haven’t.
Thoughts
Every now and then it is a blessing to be able to quit old thoughts and patterns of thinking. They are like extremely heavy loads to your fragile imagination. They break your proverbial back.
Why can’t I move on from old identities, old relationships, from old self?
After all, I am living in a new world. Why do old concepts like nations and religion keep bothering me? Why do they buzz in my conscience like a mosquito? This internet thing wasn’t there a while ago. If the internet was there in the age of enlightenment, there wouldn’t be advocacy for sovereign nations. Nations were supposed to be a bridge connecting all of us of different races and castes. And now we are connected. Yet nations exist today —and they themselves are disconnecting you and I! What an irony. I hate nations — I hate my nation — I hate your nation!
I once talked to an old writer, ‘You guys of today are lucky…the computer corrects your grammar,’ said he.
‘You guys were luckier. In your age, not everyone could publish,’ I thought.
Old thoughts! They bug, they bite, they hurt. I want to be new every second. I want to be someone else every new day. I want to kill the yesterday’s me. I can’t do all that with my physical body, but my mind is free. I can do that to my image and self. But, why don’t I do that?
Is it because I have a citizenship with my name on it?
I condemn nations. They all should die. Nations are pathetic concepts infesting our modern souls.
I wonder if someone from Norway also criticizes nations as much as someone like me — who is from Nepal — does?
It doesn’t matter. Nations are like old thoughts. They are old thoughts! They trouble humanity just as my old thoughts trouble me. They should die, just as my old thoughts should!
It’s therapeutic to sit down and write nonsense like this. I wonder if anyone will even read this particular word. And this little jibberish here: hfdaslvnadfkl. If yes, then here’s a small gift from me to you:
Hello, I wish you well for your life. Please take care of yourself.
But even if no one reads, I really don’t care (on this one at least) for I have cured my anxiety for now. That’s what should matter to me!
I haven’t been-to or lived in the United States, or the United Kingdom, or Norway, or some nation similar — which means I cannot tell how those nations will make you perceive about humans, but, I have been born-on and lived in a small nation called Nepal — which means I can tell you that this Nation has made me disgusted with this species called human beings.
Q: Why?
A: People.
Q: What kind of people?
A: In general.
Q: Be specific!
A: Okay, there are two aspects to it. One is the people’s inability to manage and second is their greed.
Q: That’s common in people of all nations. Be more specific.
A: If that’s the case, buckle up!
Management: You wake up one morning fresh and hopeful about the prospects of both the world and your life. To respect that, you want to take a shower. You go to the bathroom and turn the knob of the tap: There’s no water flowing! Even the toilet lid is covered because you haven’t been able to flush the doings of last night. Still, you gotta do the morning deed. It smells bad: You get disgusted with your own smell. You get disgusted with yourself. But somehow you manage to hold yourself together. You change and decide to go out for a short walk. As soon as you leave, you are greeted by a smell. A smell so bad, so pungent, you feel sympathetic towards your toilet. That smell is from the waste that hasn’t been collected for weeks. It gets inside your nose and from there to your blood and soul. If the morning smell disgusted you with yourself, the public waste disgusts you with people. You can’t see yourself or the people around you without that smell. They seem and smell like waste. You get disgusted. You question humans in general. You wonder if other nations are similar. You return home and curse the god that placed you in this rubbish out of all the rubbish in the globe.
Pettiness: You are on your scooter and are about to park in a space. There are already ten other bikes and scooters parked. You spot a small empty space between two bikes. You, dreaming of your future, accelerate towards that empty space — but another bike rudely overtakes you and parks in that very space. You are angry. You look around and see that there are enough spaces left for ten more bikes. Why did this person have to park exactly where I was about to park? I was nearer to the spot? Couldn’t he have parked a little further? Then you argue with yourself that there’s no point blaming others, so you quietly go and park in another empty space. The empty space you saw at first was about a ten metres closer to the destination both you and that person were headed to! That person was just petty! This pettiness creeps on to you. It ruins your entire day. You enter the government office for whatever you were there for. You are already angry and hungry. You take the token and they tell you the official is out for lunch. You wait for half-an-hour — and they tell you the official has left for home. ‘Come tomorrow,’ they say and move away from you. ‘Why?’ you shout. No one listens, let alone answer. Now, they all seem and smell like shit. You get disgusted. You question humans in general. You wonder if other nations are similar. You return home and curse the god that placed you in this rubbish out of all the rubbishes in the globe.
I find myself feeling empty and frustrated during conversations of philosophical nature. By that, I mean conversations that are not gossip, or about success or money and are about the meanings of xyz. The feeling has occurred numerous times with numerous people.
I enjoy those conversations, that is why I get excited at meeting people with whom I can talk that kind of stuff. But every time, I end up disappointed and perhaps the other person(s) does too. Things go nowhere. Ideas go nowhere. Feelings go nowhere. What begins with beats of excitement always finishes with melodies of emptiness and frustration. Like swimming in nothing. There’s nothing to discuss after a certain point, no more to go. A void. A big dark void!
But a few days ago, after I devised a little concept called Contextual Philosophy I have begun to not only learn from but also enjoy philosophical conversations.
Contextual Philosophy begins with a simple premise: Why the hell should I talk philosophy with this person(s)? and goes to these:
I will not talk philosophy with this person because I enjoy it
I will not talk philosophy with this person because this person seems to enjoy it
I will not talk philosophy with this person because we are bored
I will not talk philosophy with this person to boast
I will not talk philosophy with this person because I am a writer
I will not talk philosophy with this person because I have just read a book
I will not talk philosophy with this person because I am frustrated with my life
and so on…
As you can see, this leaves me with not many reasons to talk philosophy with people and hence gives momentum to contextual philosophy.
Why should I really have philosophical conversations with this person?
I have had a couple of conversations after this conceptualization and things have gone smooth. Emptiness and frustrations haven’t been there while fruitful conversations have existed. Philosophical ideas have been relevant.
While I try to think why this process has worked — apart from the questions raised restraining me from unnecessary impulses — I have experienced a few worthy reasons to be having philosophical conversations :
If the ideas exchanged during the conversation make the participants question their desires in life,
If all the participants can constantly question: what new conclusion will we derive from this conversation.
For instance, if we are conversing about the existence of god — and if we deduct all ‘I will not talk ifs…’ from it, we will be making sure all points we reach will be connected to the desires we keep within ourselves and will generate new observations. But, it has to be relevant to all parties. Although this may not seem like much of a change, it ensures the conversation doesn’t go out of hand (mind) and always has relevance to the lives of the participants. This takes away the unnecessary and void from philosophy.
I have found this to be a useful thing which has eradicated the emptiness and frustration.
While this may seem similar to Selective Talking, it is different as it deals with philosophical matters only — while Selective Talking could be about anything with anyone.
This simple experiment of keeping the context of philosophical conversation in mind while thinking up new thoughts and arguments, doesn’t allow philosophical talks to be empty which can also be applied to personal musings and writings.
Philosophizing has now become relevant, in fact the most relevant thing to do in life!
The pursuit of truth for human beings (Human knowledge) is often depicted as being a linear affair. It either goes up:
We, evolved from apes, have managed to create computers, peek into our cells and now we have rockets and now we are heading into unknown space, time, and new dimensions and it is only a matter of time until we will discover the truth!
Or down:
The Truth: We, created by God…shall return back to God.
Either way, it’s a straight line. A timeline.
But I am having other thoughts:
The entire existence exists in the form of entanglement in our mind(s). Everything we have known so far, Every religion, science, art, philosophy, Every simple or complex knowledge, All our understanding, All our discoveries: are merely the process of untangling part(s) of a larger entanglement. The entanglement being our knowledge of our existence as a whole.
We untangle a knot, get excited and like a game of crossword puzzle, it leads to untangling of many other subsequent tangles. We then think we have unearthed the truth. Get excited. Oh, the joy of untangling!
Until… we hit upon another crisis…Time to untangle some more! Yet we don’t look at things as being in a tangle. We like to think of things as being linear. It feels as if every untangle is the last obstacle.
…my pleasure is in my own existence, not in those works that would remain of me. If that should be in opposition to the fact that something would remain of me, but I wouldn’t exist, then I prefer that I should remain and my work wouldn’t.
I like his reply, just as I like his cinema.
Career is supposed to be there to make our lives better, not the other way around.
I have seen many people around me and have also read about a lot who approach things in the latter way. Life for them is just a vessel for their career and nothing more. This is not just the case of those avaricious ones or of ordinary ones such as businessmen and jobbers, this is also the case with many artists, thinkers, scientists, philosophers and politicians.
Call it ambition, call it duty, call it professionalism — call it whatever you like, such people get obsessed with their work to such an extent that their life takes backstage and their every meal and breath culminates in the thought of climbing another step in their career ladder.
In arts, when we hear of artists who take such an approach, we tend to call them geniuses — and the more miserable the artist the greater we perceive them to be.
One has to be really really special to be able to rise above the petty dealings of life and devote oneself completely to the related field, we say. And we passionately discuss the stories of their misery and the glory of their art. Our such interpretation of genius provokes and motivates many a talent to burn themselves out — destroying their life in the process — for the sake of their art. Art has weird sources of inspiration anyway!
But my point is: such an attitude towards art or anything as such is an irony. Art is a means to an end and that end is always life — be it life’s knowledge or experiences. Similar is every other activity which we call profession and in an individual’s pursuit sense we call career. Science, philosophy , politics and everything else in between and beyond — are means to an end called life.
Hold on a second there Mr. Stupid, you might say, if everything is a means to make life better, doesn’t excess in means imply excessive betterment of life? Doesn’t excess art, science, philosophy and politics imply a greater life for the practitioner as well as for the receiver?
Yes you are correct, I reply, But that’s exactly where I see the problem. AndI give my own example:
Trying to make a living as a writer I understand the importance of reading. And at times, when I am reading to make my career better, I persevere in spite of anxiety, frustration, agitation and problems in relationships with my loved ones. In those moments, I get obsessed with reading to such an extent that I forget the very reason I have pursued a life as a writer — which is to live a life I think is the best. I forget that career-reading is a means to writing-career and writing career is a means to a writing life which is nothing but a means to a perfect life (as per my perception.) If only I could remember to shut Kant books at a point where they begin troubling my peace of mind!
This is exactly the problem with our educational structure. Education fundamentally is supposed to be something that acts as a means to provide us guidance and an environment for an appropriate life within which grades and such are supposed to be means for a better education. But what did we end up doing? — We ended up obsessing over grades and education and therefore ended up living a miserable student life.
A career obsessed scientist might eventually make discoveries for a better world, but a miserable scientist can equally do things that will take the world the other way.
Oh, if only we all remembered that any type of work we do is done merely to make our lives better : there would be less anxious and miserable of us and there would be more scrutiny in what we do, which could only mean one thing: there would be less anxiety and misery all around — which is after all a good start to provide a good and complete life for everyone! (Which is why listen to that wonderful piece of music anyway.)
a quality that you either have or want to have in yourself
In the traditional sense, this ‘special worth’ of Merriam Webster is socially given. If any qualities in a person of any given time and place is deemed worthy and ‘good’ by the society, that quality ends up being a virtue. But I don’t think that it should be the case. An individual should be allowed to determine what virtue he/she would want in themselves and fight or convince others that the virtue they have selected is more worthy then the one prevalent if that is not the case. It is about fighting for the true against prejudice.
While we’re critiquing traditional thinking, I am reminded of one Nietzsche from the 19th century.
In his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche talks about ideally have only one virtue. Saying how qualities evolved from the maturity of one’s passion is the best route to discovering one’s virtue, he also goes on to say that while it is illustrious to have multiple virtues, it is a hard ask. He says multiple virtues will eventually envy each other as they all vie for the highest position within you.
But I think multiple virtues can be managed together. For that to be possible though, we need generalization and a little act of symbolism.
At this moment, I want to share my virtues with you. (Not what I have, but what I seek in me.)
These virtues as of now are:
Calmness
Strength
Depth
Now, what I did to make sure these qualities I want to have in me won’t fight and compete with each other as Nietzsche warned, I have used symbolism to turn all three into one.
First, let me quickly define what I mean by those words above.
Calmness for me is the quieting of thoughts such that they go about slowly, gently and smoothly.
Strength for me is when your thoughts stop and ignore fearly emotions. Strength is when your own thoughts dominate and beat the hell out of petty and harmful thoughts.
Depth for me is thoughts reaching the root of everything it encounters.
I initially didn’t want to write and publish this article because all this is my personal work in progress and I may not have the same thinking about these things tomorrow as of now. But then I wanted to go ahead and do it, for reasons I do not know yet.
Well then, with that out of the way, I want to talk about the generalizing and the symbolizing.
I searched for a single thing (symbol) that would successfully have all the three qualities I have in it.
What could that be which is calm, strong and deep? — And then I got it:
Ocean/Sea!
Ocean surfaces can be calm. Oceans are mighty strong. Oceans are seriously deep.
Okay, I do know how ocean surfaces are violent and disturbing too! Just like our thoughts. But since we are humans, we can decide how we would want the waters to flow.
Let’s give some background before we discuss what is a GOAT:
The modern scientifically trained democratic man wants to mock and laugh at all gods and kings
‘Haha, gods are dead. It all started with a big bang, duh!’says he.
‘Haha, kings are dead. Long live the market!’ says he.
And yet look at the irony:
The same modern man goes to concerts and worships his musicians. He comes back and tattoos the musicians’ name and face in the most intimate part of his body.
The same modern man goes to football matches carrying flags. He bows to his sports player and imitates the player in every way practical: hair, the way to walk.
And then this modern trend of calling other people G.O.A.T — which presumably stands for greatest of all time.
This term called GOAT which should have actually been used as a satire for such performers and players — who are in most cases the reminder of collective human boredom and insignificance— is in fact a term of reverence.
It is a term born out of the inner urge to see perfection, the ideal in any field. In other words, it is a term born out of the urge to see greatness, because they themselves feel tiny. It is the same urge that gave birth to literal gods and kings — Gods are great. Kings are great.
The word great then is a relative term. You are always great relative to something. The classic Taoist case. But it is an urge isn’t it? You put five random people in a room and there is an urge in you to spot the perfect among them. The best among them. The great among them. And then you put the entire human history in a plane, the urge returns: you want to spot perfection, you want to filter out the best. The great. The great among the great: the greatest. Everytime you choose a great, you are belittling others who didn’t win over your perception. Everytime you choose a great that isn’t you, you are belittling yourself who didn’t win over your own perception.
My question and concern: Isn’t this urge the cause of gods and kings? Isn’t this urge the reason why humans have drawn vague and unnecessary lines between themselves? The same reverence which sustains our weakness, which makes us vulnerable, which makes us mote in the eyes of the greats!
How much have people across all cultures suffered because of this reverence! How much have people across all societies and states suffered due to the blindness and dumbness, force and fear infused by certain religions and monarchs?
When mythology was created, the goal wasn’t reverence for this or that god(s). When people came together, the objective wasn’t to choose a king to be a slave to. Life was supposed to be contemplative, imaginative, fun and organizable. That’s why those things happened. But then those things got exploited because some couldn’t rise out of their self-doubt and those systems got converted into organized systems of power. And people suffered…
People suffered and suffered until the progeny of the same culture and society dared to wake up and ward-off such reverence. And eventually the modern man was born: out of the hatred toward reverence. The modern man was born out of hope in science and democracy. The modern was born out of contempt towards political-religion and monarchy.
The modern man was supposed to enjoy Shiva but not revere him. The modern men were supposed to dance together in a circle but with an empty center.
But why then is the same modern man who has mocked upon literal gods and kings still so passionate about greatness? And that too for mere entertainers! Isn’t he supposed to have moved beyond greatness? Doesn’t the whole idea of his secularism and democracy revolve around anti-reverence? Doesn’t the whole idea revolve around self-belief?
This could only mean one thing:
The modern man has killed-off neither god nor kings, he is merely worshiping and being ruled by new ones.
In other words, the modern man worships and is ruled by his entertainers!
Q: And why does the modern man need such superficial entertainers?
In Nepal, it is difficult to find an intellectual unstained by Hindu/Buddhist or some sort of political ideology. This tendency might be a global phenomenon, yet, in Nepal, it stretches to a nauseating degree, so much so that you can correctly guess an intellectual’s entire idea-set by merely knowing his/hers religious/political inclination. The person I am writing about today is Laxmi Prasad Devkota.
He struggled with both those elements and yet managed to live and create in a way that included and transcended them.
You can’t predict him, you can’t guess him and you get both annoyed and exalted by his spontaneity and randomness: in other words, by his poetic genius.
There’s a lot of myth surrounding the man.
Stories of him giving away his coat to the poor; writing lengthy poems in cigarette packs; struggling immensely with money; being sent to Ranchi (a city in India known for mental treatment) — are abound. It was in this context that he was called a geographical mistake by a Brit whose name I cannot recall.
Yet some had enough sense to recognize him and call him a Nepali Mahakavi (Great Poet). But apart from that, his works and ideas aren’t popular in a folk sense and his presence is mostly limited within dull school-books.
Yes, such is the society of Nepal and such was the man born here: ahead of his time, inappropriately in space!
He mostly wrote poems (epic, short, metered, unmetered) spanning from Nepali Shakuntala to Prometheus. His seminal work Munamadan is still considered to be the greatest work of Nepali Literature. It is a tragedy about a man who leaves his wife and mother to go to Lhasa for a better financial life.
He wrote songs. He also wrote a lot of short stories and a novel.
His essays are brilliant and it is in this context that I would like to introduce his ideas to people who aren’t familiar with him.
A few years ago I published a collection of poetry in English named PARANOIA:
When I reached to the final stages the work — set to publish — I had the idea of using my work as a medium to interpret a couple of Nepali writers — in English. I translated certain lines I liked from Devkota’s essay collection and placed it in.
The translations include his thoughts on a wide array of things: creativity, art, science, philosophy, spirituality, education, life, god, etc.
I now want to quit this rambling of mine and insert those translations/interpretations so that you can judge and hopefully enjoy his ideas on your own.
Heart
Truth shines through feelings…
In the heart lies the luminosity of God.
Feelings or emotions are primary
Desiring and thinking come later.
Beast
Eyes identify
Brain understands
Ears listen
Heart feels.
To be devoid of these four is the sign of being a beast.
Depth
Difficulty doesn’t imply depth.
Difficulty doesn’t mean Art,
Incomprehensibility doesn’t have any value.
Schools are:
Industries
To manufacture machines.
Education system
And the soul desires a thing,
education provides something else.
All I’ve learned till B.A
in three years
I believe,
I can put into little children’s minds better,
reciting stories…
Folly
That we usually call Education
is making man stupid.
Creation Love Art
And love is the chief element of creation
Whilst Art is the chief action of love
Curiosity
I yearn to see:
What lies there in the heart!
Natural curiosity!
Sinner
I want to bow my head
As if the all pervading God is scolding me.
I know that I am a sinner.
Art
The beautifully illustrated Truth is Art
Which springeth from the creative imagination.
The truth lies in our life
and unless it comes from the formlessness to the form:
we do not realize it.
Civilization
Civilization hasn’t yet started.
We haven’t learned to respect life.
Real progress will start
The day our sentiment of brotherhood gets firm
Vairagya
As long as we aspire to become great in this world
or hold feelings to do things
and show our pride,
Vairagya is impossible.
Doubt
To doubt is better,
as it helps understand,
assists searching.
Question is everything, answer is maturity.
Dare
It is cowardice to not move forward in opportunity.
We cannot live in a life devoid of danger.
What Science does not
Science cannot satisfy man’s curiosity
and he searches for glimpses
beyond the Sciences
through the magic of emotional and imaginative world,
where man feels self-satisfied as if he is near the truth.
What Art not
The works done by mathematical formulas,
even though are the works of brain,
do not deserve to be called Art.
Painting is Art, Photography is not.
Where Art springs
When the creative imagination sees new dreams
Rising from imitation
And maneuvers its works in its own manner,
Art springs.
Let’s get small
There is fun in being small
We can see others’ significance dance around.
There is pleasure in the peacefulness of ego;
We can see others’ pretense.
Subtle Conscience
The energy to manufacture Art
Doesn’t come from the mere superficial darshan of objects
nor does it comes from mere intellect and knowledge;
It comes from those subtle consciences,
Which find emotional caressing from divine experience
rising above bestial eyes.
The beast merely looks and remains satisfied,
but man tries to touch the heart of everything.
Teacher and teaching
Science cannot locate everything
and our psychological studies end
within the darkness of the intellect.
This is why no teacher can teach.
Creativity
In the divine talent of the Creator
The word was born
And we,
studying this creation
attain clear messages of
Divine Conscience,
Divine Truth,
Divine Beauty and
Divine knowledge.
In the creative imagination of God,
Totality works and provides beautiful
lines and colors and forms
to the Truth of God.
We realize the ‘beautiful’ through the sensing of Truth
and where there is no Truth there isn’t beauty.
This Self-Illustrating form of God
manifests in artistic creativity such that
truth becoming beautiful descends to the outer forms of the senses.
Imaginative Truth
For me,
practicality is limited and
philosophy, intellect is blind.
I enjoy imaginative truth the most
and through it find the glimpses of God
Gambling
I enjoy gambling,
As I find ample opportunities there
To engage my mind and study.
Why is God silent?
It is the consequence of the
Western Civilization that,
God doesn’t speak in
Wind and Water.
Shadows
I speak with the shadows
For me,
The optical world is merely
The manifestation of the inside
And all solid objects are liquid.
The Poet
In the heart of the poet
The rocks speak
And the leaves have tongue.
Cadavers
Those who say,
The world doesn’t speak
Are Deaf
Those who say,
There isn’t life in the hills and the trees and the stars
Are cadavers.
Human Beings
If anything
Elucidates the affinity
Between man and God
It is Human-Heart and Imagination
In Art
Man seeks to
Show
His identification with the unknown
And in the world of the known
Seeks for the kingdom of the unknown
True Study
For studying the life of any culture
There’s nothing more enlightening
Then the Arts of that culture.
Near
We feel we’ve reached near to the Creator
When that eye in our inner world opens
Which
Can bring to form the unavailable and the irregular
And fill it with colours.
Imagination
A small spark of
The fundamental creative dream energy of God
In humans:
Is Imagination.
Man
He tries to create
Embrace nature
Runs after fresh magic to improve the world
Listens to the call of the unknown,
Ascending beyond sights and sounds
Seeks for the inner sparks and sounds
He turns forms into sounds and words into pictures
He dislikes boundaries
He wants to fly and pluck
Peek from darkness and
Steal the fire from heaven.
Work and Art
In a simple table,
The work of carpentry is done
Not Art.
But,
If a carpenter
Creates a table as if a beautiful dream
Art it becomes.
Dreams
We call those creations Art
Which are within the boundaries of truth and beauty
If they’ve got the natural affect
For the heart of life.
Empty dreams aren’t Art
As long as they don’t get published.
Truth and Beauty
Beauty arises from the prodigious consciousness of truth
I avidly followed professional sports once upon a time — especially cricket. I ‘liked/adored/followed’ teams, players: their style, etc.
And then philosophical interests kicked in and I began questioning the essence of my so-called passion for sports. I found ignorance and vulgarity down there so I resisted and stopped!
Until…last week!
India’s ‘festival’ of celebration of their ‘religion’ called IPL (Indian Premier League) is on these days.
Since I am from South Asia and we have this inherent tendency to compete (psychologically at least) with each other in things that we or some of us value — cricket happens to be in my blood (at least that’s what they try to convince us of). So I decided to let the blood flow freely and follow cricket passionately again.
I selected a team I thought I should like and I have been watching matches on TV, following analysis, news/gossip on the internet and also: thinking about the game. All this after a long-long hiatus.
One major change that has occured to me since this bloody-renaissance is this: I feel satisfied! I have a ‘good’ feeling going on.
There’s this massive wave of wind sort of thing inside my chest and it fills me up every time I think/see/hear of the league and when the team or the player of my choice does well. I then enter the internet and drink in each and every praise delivered for the team or the player(s). The wind drives me to do that. The more I drink, the more pumped I get. Once again, that lump/pump whatever of wind has made me feel complete.
On the other hand, if the team or the player doesn’t do well, I get agitated. A strange dissatisfaction lurks underneath as I constantly find myself not just roaming around the internet trying to justify their excellence but also imagining and playing out scenarios inside my own head. If the success of my choice fills me with a wind kind of thing, their failure fills me up with a stinky gas sort of gas.
Strangely however, irrespective of their success and failure: a general ‘good-feeling’ is inside me its thought form is as follows:
Tonight there’s a match, I will watch.
There’s a match, let’s see what they’re saying.
This is one strange drive for going through the day happily. I didn’t have such drives for a long time.
As I try to interpret the various elements present in this festival that may have been responsible for my changes, I find the following:
Support for a team or player(s): Their success winding and failure gasing me.
Competitive context: The tournament structure, the number of teams and players, the various possible scenarios, stakes mixed with my personal preferences with hearing/seeing what I prefer exciting me and hearing/seeing what I don’t prefer frustrating me.
Aesthetic(?): The jerseys, the style, the video quality creating a kind of attraction and excitement.
The Sheepiness: The number of people following this crazy nuance! Their sheer quantity providing me with justification to be-there and providing me with moral assurance.
The Zone: Everything above taking me to a zone of sorts where cricket and its context becoming an end-in-itself and the most important thing in existence. This generating assurance and warmth.
With all this, I want to look into the emotional spectrum in me — strictly in context of this cricket league.
As I mentioned above, what I have noticed in me is this flapping of excitement-frustration (wind-gas).
Now, this research here lists these as categories of emotions present in humans:
I do not want to get into detail and analyze these. Adding frustration, for my current pursuit, I guess accepting these to be enough is enough!
While following the league, these are the emotions I have noticed in me (in a strictly cricket-following context, I am trying my best not to include the carried over emotions of my life affairs):
I do understand how people might find the emotions absent in me available in them in this cricket context. Some might have sexual, romantic interest towards some player or even umpires.
But isn’t it strange that some people find this cricket thing to be aesthetically pleasing, awe-some, horrorful, romantic?
I mean, this here is van Gogh’s work and van Gogh works with aesthetical things:
Now this is what German Philosopher Immanuel Kant said generated awe in him:
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me — Translated by Lewis White Beck
Similarly, normal people associate things such as death and ghosts with horror; nature, relationships with romance.
Once again:
But won’t it be strange if people find this cricket thing to be aesthetically pleasing, awe-some, horrorful, romantic?
This scenario then is thus:
Following leagues and tournaments such as the IPL takes one to a zone. The zone stands independent of normal reality and its weltanschauung is that the league is an end-in-itself and everything else in existence is a means to the league and its success.
Inside the zone, there are preferences and those preferences generate certain emotions. Limited but nonetheless. Regarding emotions, there maybe two scenarios:
The zone does not contain all emotions of life: My case.
The zone contains all emotions of life: Some cases perhaps.
In the second scenario, isn’t it crazy that something like sports can generate diverse emotions in its consumers? This task is generally limited to arts and life. Come tomorrow with more and more resources, such sports might enhance the experience for its fanatics to such an extent that people will begin to say, romantically align with its players and love them if the players justify their ‘love’ by performing as they want to OR that people will begin to get petrified and afraid if their players do not justify their interest by performing as they want! (Some call cricket a religion in India.)
Now, this I find both weird and scary!
But do you know what I find weirder and scarier? — Case like mine (1) where while such sports aren’t providing me with a complete range of emotions, yet I am spending all of my time not just consuming but also musing them!
There may be a lot of people who follow sports just for a light escape or a switch-off, in which case these sports do no harm at all. They are games and that’s it. Maybe you read/watch a Shakespeare play; live life to the fullest and come to these leagues without taking it seriously. That’s great! But what if you live in the zone so much that you stop caring about feeling the full range of emotions and merely live within the wind-gas?
I mean that’s what capitalist culture with solid support from the scientific mentality is all about isn’t it? Take social media notifications and modern comical superhero movies for instance.
Published in 1848, this short work is where Poe searches for the sweetest-spot of wisdom to look into scientific and philosophical questions.
In his own words, he wanted it to be considered as a work of poetry:
To the few who love me and whom I love, to those who feel rather than think, to the dreamers and those who put their faith in dreams as in the only realities, I offer this book of truths, not in its character of truth-teller, but for the beauty that abounds in its truth, constituting it true. (Preface)
Apart from physical, cosmological, and spiritual implications, Poe in this work provides us with his epistemology. By that I mean — he provides us the method/way he believes in and has used to observe what he has observed and conclude what he has concluded. In doing so he has also provided us with his own brief interpretation of the history of philosophy.
I have summarized in this manner:
It was the metaphysicians who first came up with singular fancy that there exist but two practicable roads to Truth. Aristotle was the founder and popularizer of the deductive or the apriori method. He started with axioms, or self-evident truths and from axioms he proceeded logically, to results. His most illustrious disciples were one Euclid and Kant. Aristotle and his method reigned supreme until James Hogg preached an entirely different system, which he called the à posteriori or inductive method.
His plan referred altogether to sensation. He proceeded by observing, analyzing, and classifying facts — instantiæ Naturæ, as they were somewhat affectedly called — and arranging them into general laws.
While the mode of Aristotle rested on noumena, that of Hogg depend on phenomena; and so great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its first introduction, Aristotle fell into general disrepute.
But he recovered ground, and was permitted to divide the empire of Philosophy:
For many years, it didn’t matter whether the truth was even demonstrably such, for the dogmatizing philosophers of that epoch regarded only the road by which it professed to have been attained. It all ended with the scrutiny of the means, where it was found that the mean fit neither under Hog, nor under Aristotle.
If the crawling system was exclusively adopted, men wouldn’t have arrived at the maximum amount of truth because the repression of imagination was an evil not to be counterbalanced even by absolute certainty in the snail processes. Nor was that certainty absolute. Their method was like holding something close to the eyes to see it better. Which in turn blinded the seers.
The major taint in Baconianism lay in its tendency to throw power and consideration into the hands of merely perceptive men who mostly dug for minute facts, especially in physical science. All they did was depended on facts and closed their eyes to everything else. They gave hard time to those who wanted to evolve from facts through generalization. They called them ‘theoretical,’ ‘theory,’ ‘theorist’ in a degrading manner.
On the other hand, the Aristotleians were blind as they had:
The focus was a lot on Logic. A certain Mill said that the ability or inability to conceive is in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth.
But their logic was baseless, worthless and fantastic altogether. The two narrow and crooked paths then — the one of creeping and the other of crawling —is where they confined the Soul:
This way, none of them came — even by accident — to the broadest, the straightest and most available of all mere roads — the majestic highway of the Consistent. They failed to deduce from the works of God the vitally momentous consideration that a perfect consistency can be nothing but an absolute truth?
After that proposition, the process of truth investigation was taken out of the hands of the ground-moles and given to the only true thinkers — to the generally-educated men of ardent imagination:
The speculators and the theorizers. The Keplers, The Laplaces, whose theories are corrected/reduced/sifted/cleared of their chaff of inconsistency —
This new method is powerful and it is proved by the fact that Newton’ s gravitation was deduced from Kepler and Kepler being a speculator/theorizer had merely guessed it.
This way, Poe establishes and selects intuition, which he describes as:
A conviction resulting from shadowy deductions or inductions.
Elsewhere, he describes an artist as someone with an exquisite sense of beauty which affords him not only a rapturous enjoyment but also a sense of deformity of disproportion (FIFTY SUGGESTIONS XXII).
Poets (who are artists) have the ability to sense the wrong and they can see injustice where the unpoetical see none. They have a clear-sightedness in respect to wrong which is nothing more than a corollary from the vivid sensation of right. Poets have an irritability towards the wrong.
An Euro-American lover-of-money — moneyphile — named Peter Thiel wants to live forever!
While his greed for money and his desire to live forever are his personal choices — what amazes me is his greed for wanting to be a philosopher as well. (Some people need everything, don’t they?) He says something like this:
I think there are probably three main modes of approach to death…You can accept it, deny it or you can fight it.
Now, Mr. Thiel is a businessman, a merchant, a capitalist. He loves money more than anything. And he is proud of it.
…merchant must concern himself with buying and selling, earning money and making a profit. This requires cunning, willingness to enter into disputes, cleverness, constant quarreling, and great persistence. These are things that belong to commerce. They are qualities detrimental to and destructive of virtuousness and manliness, because it is unavoidable that actions influence the soul. Good actions influence it toward goodness and virtue. Evil and deceitful actions influence it in the opposite sense…
…These influences differ according to the different types of merchants. Those who are of a very low type and associated closely with bad traders who cheat and defraud and perjure themselves, asserting and denying statements concerning transactions and prices, are much more strongly affected by these bad character qualities. Deceitfulness becomes their main characteristic. Manliness is completelyalien to them, beyond their power to acquire. At any rate, it is unavoidable that their cunning and their willingness to enter into disputes affects their manliness (adversely). The complete absence of (any adverse effect) is very rare among them.
The character qualities of merchants are inferior to those of noblemen and rulers. This is because merchants are mostly occupied with buying and selling. This necessarily requires cunning. If a merchant always practices cunning, it becomes his dominant character quality. The quality of cunning is remote from that of manliness which is the characteristic quality of rulers and noblemen. If the character of (the merchant) then adopts the bad qualities that follow from (cunning) in low-class merchants, such as quarrelsomeness, cheating, defrauding, as well as (the inclination to) commit perjury in rejecting and accepting statements concerning prices, his character can be expected to be one of the lowest sort, for well-known reasons. It is because of the character that one acquires through the practice of commerce that political leaders avoid engaging in it. There are some merchants who are not affected by those character qualities and who are able to avoid them, because they have noble souls and are magnanimous, but they are very rare in this world.
With this, I want to define Mr. Thiel as having the following characteristics:
Greedy
Cunning
Cleverness
Quarrelsome
Persistent
Cheating
Defrauding
(No wonder he wants to live forever!)
Greed Mr. Thiel…greed! Wish someone had taught you some virtue in your childhood
As these people have both the will and the resource to make life extension happen — once such technologies will actually happen — these people will be the ones who will live the longest or in the craziest scenario: they will be the one who will live forever. With people who are not greedy, cunning, clever, quarrelsome, etc. perishing.
It implies the world will be inherited by people with values such as the ones given above. (greed, cunningness, etc.)
So what about those who are not of those characteristics? I mean what about those of us who are not greedy, cunning, fraud, etc.?
But I have a more serious consideration:
Why do I care if Mr. Thiel and the likes live forever?
Why should I care?
Should I care?
If yes, how can I stop them? OR how can I help establish certain equity first?
You, born in a normal family with normal requirements in life and a normal worldview properly begin your social life with your school.
There you are immediately introduced to rules and regulations. If you break them, you are punished. Your punishments are so impactful to your psyche that — after a certain while — even a thought about breaking them makes you scared. Anxious. If you are thick-skinned enough to not get scared, you will end up a hooligan, a thug.
Likewise, if you follow those rules and regulations, you are rewarded. You are rewarded with claps and medals and praises. This makes you proud of yourself. Your pride is such that — after a while — the thought of gaining more of those claps and medals and praises gets you drooling. You are lured. You want more. You want to achieve more. Hear more. Claps, praises.
And so the same formula of rules and regulations drive you through college and university where — if you perceive you haven’t been up to the rule, you get anxious and at the moments when you think you will achieve or actually achieve some kind of success, you get excited…
And this way, you get into the job market, and you go through your life.
The formula (once again) is simple for you: follow the rules and be happy or break them and be miserable.
Now, if you are lucky (yes lucky!) or crazy you will question who the fk created that system of rules in the first place. Only if you are lucky or crazy! And you will start questioning a lot of things. The foundation of the system, the motive, the people invovled, etc. etc.
There you will be stunned at your first hypothesis of the division. Yes, there is a division!
On one end were you: a normal person with normal wants and circumstances and at the other end were those who made all those rules and regulations.
And then you will realize something that will feel like a slap: a slap vicious and lethal, embarrassing and humiliating than any teacher had ever given you:
What you did or did not was always ordained, controlled, fabricated!
Yes, your entire thoughts, desires and your bloody life was designed to make you exactly the way you ended up. You were never free, you were engineered! And it was never for you, you were just a tool…
And this is where you reach that realm: The Realm of Gods & Kings!
And then you will see them for the first time in a way you had never seen them. Yes, you had always heard of them, known them: but you had never understood them. Now, you understand them. Feel them.
They are the ones who drove you around like cattle. There you will see them and tremble at the sight. Tremble at your ignorance: they are the same kings, priests, philosophers, scholars and merchants that you were taught about. That you were preached about. Who were praised and venerated. Revered. Followed by thousands of you on Twitter!
Yes, you, you do think and talk to your buddies (same as you) about your big ideas — Where did this all come from, where might it be headed; what if life and what is existence; does god exist ; do aliens exist; democracy rules! — wear pendants and tikas, sit on your yogic postures chanting om, close your eyes and pray, sing, etc. but you do that with a vicious unconsciousness. Yes, you may talk and write about Plato, but you do it without a clue, without a sense. You are just a babbler, an unconscious machine. Going bla bla bla. Talking much but realizing nothing!
But guess what: they aren’t! They are your Gods and Kings!
You had once questioned god with your friends while smoking ganja on top of that hill, hadn’t you? Now, here you have it: Plato is your god, so is Buddha, Ashoka, Alexander and Napoleon! And so is Hawking. So are Jobs and Gates: Your gods and kings. For they set the rules. They watch you move. They decide your fate. They are in the realm of gods & kings, and you — you poor normal guy: aren’t! You are just normal. A normal tool. Nothing. You are dispensable. Manageable. Organizable. You, you normal person!
And then you think you are a democratic citizen of whatever your country. You talk of your vote, and your rights, and your activities.
Here’s to democracy:
Only when each and every human individual reaches the realm of gods & kings, will democracy even begin to be practical.
Until then:
Dream on, Run from bombs and surveillance!
Follow on, Praise on!
As to education:
Well, they removed this secret from the curriculum a long-long time ago!
Philosophy’s task is to Understand and Guide Life and the World. That is what Real Philosophy is and should be.
Philosophy in general tends to get a bad rap in our times. Almost to the extent of getting bullied by the scientific community. In fact, philosophy has been getting it for a long-long time. Paraphrasing Kant, ‘she used to be the queen once, but not since long’, Understandably so!
After the advent of the scientific method and its apparent successes in the form of Copernicus’ model, Galileo’s observations and most importantly Newton’s calculations, philosophy in Europe quietly hung its head low and retreated to the back side of the scholarly ‘classroom’. Literally too, the success of science and its use to the states at around the 17th century along with the growing irrelevance of church and theological speculations meant philosophy had no place in what used to be the highest level of learning — which it used to share for a lot of years with theology. Understandably so!
Philosophy had no business meddling in things that were empirical in nature. Things of matter. It never had. The scientific method was destined for that. And once it arrived, philosophy had to retreat.
Yes, there have been philosophical roars and explosions now and then after the advent of the scientific age but they haven’t been intense enough, they haven’t been loud enough, they haven’t been impactful enough. Apart from: in the social, cultural and ‘life’ domains.
An example is Nietzsche. He was good and impactful because he didn’t speculate much on the nature of atoms, or the color of stars. Or even if he did, he wasn’t promoting it as loud as superman. He was a good thinker of human thoughts, nature, culture and understanding — the domains not accessible to science. That’s why he was good. He was doing real philosophy.
Real Philosophy for me then is philosophy in its truest sense: love of wisdom.
And wisdom is the ability and the state of mind where everything (notice the word everything) is taken as a whole and reasonable (notice the term reasonable) observations and conclusions are drawn from it. This is where philosophy is good. This is where philosophy is relevant and this is where philosophy is beautiful. The end goal of philosophy is life. That is: The Everything. Human Life. Animal Life. Machine Life. Whatever life. But Life. Not life in an organic sense but life in a subjective sense. And whenever philosophy focuses on life, it wins. It becomes relevant and it makes bloody sense.
Let’s take Plato. His works have multiple dimensions. He has talked about all sorts of things from Government to God to Education to Arts. I find Republic to be an extremely valuable and life changing piece of work, but Timaeus feels tedious, vague and nonsense. Whenever he talks about how people work or how society should operate; about the types of people present and about the use of art or war in human affairs: he is solid. He is there. Making sense. Changing thoughts and lives. Breaking shackles. Un-ignorable. Same is with the Allegory of the cave. We take something to be true, but what if it isn’t: this is the domain of skepticism, about our tendency to mistake things false as real — it’s about illusions and deceptions. It’s bloody good! False perceptions can have dire consequences in life. One human doesn’t need to experiment by jumping off a cliff to know that one cannot fly. It is common sense. It is pre-science. It is Real Philosophy. It is Plato. But when he starts talking about how the earth — which is our nurse, clinging around the pole which is extended through the universe — he comes un-believable and ignorable.
Similar is Schopenhauer. In his seminal work, The World as Will and Idea, look how bloody genius he is when he is talking about Arts and their use for us in life. And then compare that with his preoccupation with wanting to find the material and ideal source of it all — he goes astray and never becomes the genius thinker again. He seems like a mere copywriter of Upanishads and Buddhism.
Staying with those latter two, my experiences with them too have been similar. They are relevant and working as long as they are addressing life in general. About the misery. About the absurdity of desires, etc. But as soon as they venture into expressing how the universe may be working, how the earth may have come about — they look stupid.
Real Philosophy then is a subject that deals from the most general POV. With Wisdom. About life. Let science rant about The Big Bang Theory, the duty of philosophy is to check its relevance to our lives. Point out the theory’s absurdity for the mind, life and society. Laugh at science’s over-ambitions and faults. Be sarcastic if needed. Bring everything that is overrated back to size.
Real philosophy’s duty is not to compete with science. It’s is to guide and nurture science. An aging grandfather may not be able to outrun his granddaughter who is breaking records in local running competitions — and he shouldn’t try — because it’s not his job! His job is to tell her what she is doing right and what of hers is wrong and guide her appropriately. Tell her what over ambition will do to her life. Share experiences. Tell her what in life is of value at the end of it all. Show her the meaning of race in the context of her life. That’s the role of real philosophy and its presence for humans is eternal. Unlike the analogical human grandfather however, philosophy will only die with humanity and will only get wiser the as humanity ages.
For instance, let Neuroscience or psychology — the scientific embodiments of age old philosophical question of mind-body — do their work. See where they lead. Patiently. If they stumble upon a problem that is not empirical in nature but is epistemological, tell what may have been wrong in the approach. Guide those sciences. Don’t go around forming new speculations about what mind may be. Don’t go around promoting simulation theories. Those will lead nowhere. Science is philosophy’s child, there is no need to be competitive. Without philosophy, science wouldn’t have been born, without philosophy humans might not be around for long! That’s enough of pride for real philosophy!
As humans sit on their rockets and fly above, pump their data into their computers and a new being create, take more and more control of earth and its surrounding: many-many challenges await. Numerous problems will this race and other creatures face. If you leave it all to science, the chances are: either everything will be mechanical or dead. This is where real philosophy shall step in. To keep the real human engine running, to keep things alive. To think about and better life. It should show the significance of various things to people and all beings capable of seeing. It should teach to be critical, skeptic. It should explain the value of everything. It should be able to talk about the impact of learning and knowledge. Importance of virtue. Context of greed, lust and everything of the likes. About the good and the bad.
It is something no university can/should teach. Because it’s no business of organizations driven by various motives to be teaching life to people! Whenever they have tried, they have failed. Let them create their workforce for states and corporations. Real philosophy should be kept away from all these temporary structures. Its work is to contextualize and guide all thoughts and actions.
It is real and it has always come out of real thinkers. Call it Real Philosophy, Philosophy OR Thinking: the choice is yours.
A quick glance of known/believed human history will reveal to us one constant: Learning is essential. Vital. Crucial!
Learning in the sense of:
the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences.
But another quick glance will reveal to us one more constant: learning has never been much popular among the masses. Yes, the populace has gathered a fact here, a fact there, and have been informed, but that cannot be said to be learning. Similarly, learning has had to face obstacles from many sources.
Yet, humans have been — time and again — able to learn and generate new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences with the load of all those people carried by a selected few in all time and place. Those carriers are the people of learning. Therefore, the value of learning and people of learning is constant.
We might never know the individual(s) who first came up with the understanding of the process of bipedal walking, fire production, stone tools manufacturing; language, art— yet looking at trends of how men have learned in recorded history, we can safely assume that there was someone somewhere who first converted an event of natural occurrence into a method. Who first converted phenomenon to knowledge. Crisis into solution. Despair into fascination. Those who did all these were people of learning.
It is those people of learning who first had the idea of viewing natural items as gods. Irrespective of civilization, this has been common. We might look upon that as weakness today, but for that time and place, this was learning: understanding, knowing, the world. You can’t call them weak. If that view didn’t happen, then who knows what would have happened! They had a way to turn fear into some kind of control. Those people of learning!
Similarly, it was peoples of learning who first had the idea of organizing pre-civilizations scattered societies into an order — once the number of folks increased. This too has been a constant in multiple civilizations. You might call it natural, I call it the doing of peoples of learning. Remove them from the equation, and we might not have been sitting here writing and reading on Medium.
And likewise, the peoples of learning came up with centralized power, religious rites, aesthetic buildings, laws, etc. And it was the same people who with their learning came up with the idea of things as diverse as citizenship, republic, and reason.
Indeed the rest is history. History made and interpreted by peoples of learning.
Without the people of learning, there might have been no history. You might say, there might have been a better history, but how? showme!
Irrespective of the moods of the temples, states, monarchs, councils, universities…People of learning have stood and shined.
Here today and heading to the future, uncertainties abound. Anxiety, paranoia, and stupidity reign supreme. That’s just the way we perceive natural things. But of course, here we are people of learning. Let’s understand and DECIDE where things shall go. Where we shall go. These kinds of shaping’s have always been the task of peoples of learning. Now it’s the time for current peoples of learning.
Let’s decide the fate of us all — our mind, life, earth, and everything else. If we won’t, then who will? — — Machines of Learning?
The opening few pages of The First Part of the Tragedy in Goethe’s Faust is where Faust laments and complains. This I call the Faust crisis as it expresses his state of mind – confused, dissatisfied with a willingness to change into something, anything.
This part is what attracted and still attracts me to Faust so I thought I should take this opportunity to understand what exactly is the issue with him – in the process, trying to understand what exactly is the issue with me such that is attracted me to the text.
So, what is his problem?
The situation is thus:
It is night time and Faust is in his ‘high-vaulted narrow Gothic room.’ He is seated at his desk and is restless. And then he begins.
He says he has studied medicine, law and philosophy and worked his way through every school. He has even studied Theology and sweated like a fool. And then he asks himself:
Why labour at it any more?
This feeling of not wanting anything anymore would imply someone has either accomplished something or has realized the incapability of the self or futility of something.
And then he answers:
You’re no wiser than you were before.
Which makes it clear that all those learnings have been futile for him. He pursued them to get wise, but apparently he doesn’t think he has become that.
This has got me questioning: is it because the subjects are futile or it is because Faust is incapable?
He then goes on to reveal that he is a Master of Arts and a doctor too. But he doesn’t value those accomplishments much, as he believes – for ten long years, all he has been able to do is lead his students a fearful dance through a maze of error and ignorance.
And then comes his conclusion after admitting that he is miserable:
There is nothing we can ever know.
The use of we clearly suggests that he is not someone who suffers from self-doubt. He confidently proclaims the fault is in the learner itself. The human inability, rather than the inability of the texts or Faust.
This confidence is verified as he goes on to admit that he is brighter than all relics, professors and doctors; scribblers and clerics. He isn’t troubled by any doubts or scruples and has defied hell and the devil too. But he no longer enjoys self-delusion and says that his search for truth ends in confusion.
His personal affect aside, he is not too positive on the impact of his teachings on society too. He tells himself not to imagine that his teaching will,
ever raise the minds of men or change their ways.
At this point, the Faustian crisis is defined:
We humans can neither know anything nor can develop our minds and change our ways in anything. Yet he has spent his entire life trying to know and do such things.
Now, it is understandable why someone would feel this way when he has spent so much of his time and life pursuing something that he realizes is vain and has led him nowhere. It is like a gate suddenly appearing and closing access to the upper sky for Mr. Bezos and the likes. Devastating!
This is grave pessimism. But why? Why reach that conclusion?
The character of Faust is based on a real life magician who was popularized by numerous authors during the sixteenth century. Goethe apparently took that character and created a symbolic figure who in the section that we are talking about:
Doesn’t think man can know.
Doesn’t think man can change.
The first part was published in 1790, around the time of Voltaire, Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and the likes. Within the European Enlightenment and before the advent of Romanticism.
I do not know much about scholarly implications, and I do not want to pretend to be or be one, but I cannot help but notice a simple pattern here: the character is fed up with a certain type of learning and wants to explore through some other means. That some other means is different from books and theories apparently. Transition from Enlightenment to Mysticism? To Romanticism, perhaps!
This assumption is backed up by what Faust says after his declaration that minds of men or their ways cannot change.
He bashes himself on the fact that despite all these efforts, he hasn’t been able to gain any worldly wealth, or honor or glory. After which he thinks of turning to a magic lore which – he hopes – will reveal some secret knowledge to him: of what makes the world revolve. Here he also says:
No more in empty words I’ll deal –
Creation’s wellsprings I’ll reveal!
He then calls his room and its stuff a ‘torture’ and expresses a desire to flee that place and walk the mountain-tops again. He wants to make his way through moonlit meadows and in mountain caves play. And then comes another bashing, calling the study ‘accursed dungeon’ where even the light of heaven can only pass through the painted glass. This here is interesting to read:
Immured behind a pile of books,
Motheaten, dusty, in the reek
Of papers stuffed in all these nooks –
This is the wisdom that you seek.
These jars and cases row and row,
Retorts and tubes and taps and gauges,
The useless junk of bygone ages –
This is the only world you know!
And he realizes, it’s no wonder he is feeling this way as all these things have sapped life’s energies.
When God created us, he founded
His living nature for our home;
But you sit in this gloom, surrounded
by mildewed skull and arid bone.
He then urges himself to escape into a wider sphere and opens a book of magic writings guided by Nostradamus. He believes now in nature, who he thinks can help us seek the paths the stars in heaven go.
After this…he opens the books and sees the Sign of the Macrocosm, an astrological diagram representing forces and influences linking the heavens, earth and man. And immediately after this, he is filled with an ecstatic joy with youthful passion glowing through his veins and nerves. His raging soul is now stilled and his empty heart is filled with joy. It is as if all nature’s forces are revealed to him. He questions if he himself is a god with his mind now so clear. He then grasps the wisdom the Seer:
The spirit world is with us still,
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead.
Up, worldly scholar, drink your fill –
At heaven’s gate the dawn is red!
He sees everything in a wholeness and the powers of heaven. He sees the universe in harmony. After this, he turns the page and sees the Sign of the Earth Spirit which inspires him more. He feels new energies, with mind glowing. He now dares to finally face the world again, and share in all its joys and pain. He wants to set his sail into the eye of the storm, before he summons a great spirit and the spirit arrives.
This transition of Faust’s mood and perception, gets me everytime. But in all this, the idea remains clear that the character has transformed from the agitations of vain scholarly pursuits towards the beauty and magic of romance and mysticism. Transition from reason to intuition. From books to nature. From vain theories to beauty. From intellectual pessimism to exploration. To try something new. Something fresh. Something joyful. Something complete. From boring philosophers to Goethe – as far as I understand him.
Once again, I am not an academic scholar and I do not mean to be one – but these kinds of things fascinate me. Touch me. Thus my idea!
My initial goal to understand the issue with him is clear. I am sure I will have new perspectives on this as I continue to live on and learn on. As to the case of me trying to understand the cause of my fascination and attraction with this, I think it is similar:
It is me wanting to break the shackles that bind me to things of ‘reason’ (the things that ought to be done) and fly towards things of beauty, to things I love (the things that make me feel alive).
While thinking about the ongoing war in Eastern Europe and its consequences, my thought went to the businesses that are being adversely affected – along with lives in both Russia and Ukraine, with both suffering from their respective problems. How many dreams paused, threatened; how many goals destroyed; how many ideas shattered!
I am just trying to focus on business here.
One can understand how much is at stake in the execution of one. Particularly in modern times of uncertainty in everything. The risk, the hope, the plan, etc. Of course, life has more at stake – which once gone cannot be re-attained – yet business is where my thoughts are as of now. Those that are not operational due to the lack of peace. Those that have been affected by war. What would those businesses be wanting ideologically? Would they be concerned about the realpolitik? What would they support?
This took me to Ancient India, through a book called India: An Ancient Past… written by Burjor Avari.
In ancient India, after the rise of Buddhism, there were multiple instances where Buddhism as a religion was patronized, protected or supported by merchants or rulers. Especially the former.
First, it was during the Pre-Mauryan age, when Buddhist along with Jain monasteries were built which were enthusiastically received by kings, merchants and ordinary people. After that, during the time of the Satavahanas of the Deccan, there were numerous cave sites in NW Maharashtra, which housed Buddhists. There too evidence has been found of religious charities and endowments by merchants. People belonging to other professions and crafts were involved as well. And then there were other monasteries over the Satavahana Deccan, which too were established with endowments from the Andra merchants, who the writer says, ‘were some of the greatest donors.’
During the period in the history of India when the Kushans were dominant, there seemed to have been some kind of alliance between Indian merchants and Buddhist missionaries. At various places, merchants establishing their colonies and missionaries their monasteries went in parallel. The site of Ajanta caves is said to have stood in a strategic point at the merchants’ routes. Here too Buddhist monks and monasteries were richly supported by that merchant class.
Despite some mundane differences, the things in common between those ancient Indian merchants and the modern entrepreneurs are that they both work for profit, are involved in commerce and sell their goods/services. In this way, they both can be put under the umbrella term ‘business class.’
Buddhism as a philosophy – at its root – is one that talks about detachment and salvation from desires. The whole concept then builds towards disinvolvement, simplicity, knowledge, awakening – eventually culminating in nibbana. While at a first glance, this seems to be absolutely opposite to the motives of the business class, and one might ask why on earth would they be protecting and promoting such idea, anyone who knows anything about this philosophy knows that Buddhism isn’t the type of thought that reasons towards fight, ambition and war. Making it a socially passive philosophy too. An example of this is King Ashoka who, disgusted with his actions at Kalinga, adopted peaceful doctrines of Buddhism and went around building pillars and promoting the religion. He even deemed his further conquests religious.
It is quite apparent why certain groups of people in society who wouldn’t want war would want to promote and protect this philosophy of peace. Irrespective of their faith and ideology. And among them would surely be merchants and entrepreneurs – unless dealing with weapons, unless involved in a business untouched by war, or extremely opportunist. Which is a vast majority!
I had this idea to open my laptop and write in short about life in Nepal – the country of my birth and citizenship. Things to write have weird sources and this one is no different.
In regards to the people to whom I may be writing to : I had Non-Nepalese people in mind, especially the open minded and intellectual type – to provide them a glimpse of things from a relatively insignificant nation in the world.
Well, some nations are significant. Extremely significant. While some are utterly not! While their existence and citizens in themselves are criteria for significance, I tend to look at two basic factors to decide for myself on what makes a nation/state significant or even successful:
Surviving
Thriving
Surviving implies survival of the society/nation’s basis and essence: identity and peculiarity. Thriving on the other hand implies strong political, economic, cultural presence along with the ability to generate new knowledge and invent whole bunch of things.
Surviving alone makes a society significant to itself while thriving makes it significant to others as well. Just as in the case of individual creatures.
In this regard, Nepal is a surviving nation but a terribly non-thriving one! (It’s political, economic and cultural destiny is usually guided and at times even driven by agents that are not Nepalese.)
That’s the first thing about Nepal: It’s an insignificant nation. (Ask every single Nepali person that you happen to meet in your country and they will validate this for you!)
Life of mere survival – on the inside – is not too amazing. It is the case of existence without meaning. You are just there existing. Surviving for the sake of survival. Nothing else. While some cases of survival are fierce: where you have to battle against adversity day in and day out; some are ordinary: you are just there because you are so insignificant that no one wants to even hurt you. Nepal is in the latter category. That is why it is the case of existence for its own sake.
And this rubs on to you. You too are just surviving. You feel there is no larger motive and purpose. The evening sun hits you in your face, you feel warm and get drowsy. The sun goes away and you feel cold and lost. This is what happens if you get influenced by your nation.
It is not that life out here is tough. It is dull. That’s the issue, if it was tough, you would have a purpose. If it’s dull, you just want to sleep smelling your own fart. That’s what this nation is doing and I guess that’s what most of its citizens are.
Disposable waste generated each day from households lie shamelessly in the streets just because the bloody government can’t manage a proper landfill site, while sounds of construction equipment bombard your ears all the time from all directions. (They are apparently building houses to house KFCs and Pizza Huts). Look at the irony!
People are obsessed with doing what they have seen Americans and Indians successfuly do in YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. Most young lads who have remained inside the country still find riding bikes at high speed is ‘cool’ and meaningful. You go talk to elderly blokes, and you will notice that their brains have stopped noticing anything in life apart from money. That’s the way it is.
You respect the nation and decide you will live here. You go through your pains and eventually decide to make a living as a writer. No one cares. And then you write in English. You see a platform such as Medium. And when you are eligible, you realize that even Medium doesn’t care! (about your nation)
These are not talks of frustration. This is reflection. A part of reality.
See, I have things to motivate me and give my life direction and purpose. I am okay. I won’t quit and go. But at times, looking at the nation am a part of, I wonder if some nations (insignificant ones) should be allowed to quit and go!???
Unless they can give themselves their own direction to go.
Morning shows the day is a popular proverb. Is it correct, or is it merely a case of a lazy attachment towards mornings?
Let me give some background first.
Back at school, the classes I hated were Mathematics, Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), Computer, Dance, and Music. One of my earliest memories of mathematics is nervously queuing up to submit the homework to the teacher. I may have wet my pants on one or two occasions. While I could argue that my hatred towards and difficulties in mathematics – which still persists to this day – was because of that evilesque teacher, who frightened me a lot, I do not remember such intimidating teachers in Science, Computer, Dance or music. Of course, I have never loved math and neither has it been graceful to me. Although I tried my best later on.
This has led me to conclude that those hatred are directed more towards the subjects than classes. Never enjoyed science and computer! Always found scientific concepts boring and sedative. They never managed to trigger the learner in me. And since I never was a ‘love-what-is-right-for-your-career’ person, I never seriously tried. Computer classes were interesting as long as they provided me with the opportunities to play card games. I have never been a dancing person. In regards to music, I can confidently say that the dissatisfaction was more because of my boastful and annoying classmates rather than towards music itself. Later I enjoyed a lot of music alone!
School has long gone but my learning hasn’t ceased. I self-learn most of the time. Perhaps, because learning is the source through which only I can be better at my writing but actually because I love to learn.
I have tried to teach myself all sorts of things over the last decade. I have gone through Euclid, Einstein, Plato, Rousseau, Shakespeare, etc. etc. Some have been tedious. Some like a smooth ride. Analyzing which subjects have been which, I have realized that: Euclid, Einstein and the likes have been brutally tedious while Plato, Rousseau, Shakespeare, have been fun although not easy. In fact, this adult-age difficulty is the thing that made me think about what I may have loved at school in the first place!
Coming back to school, the subjects that I liked and felt more natural towards were Social Studies, English, Nepali, Environment and Population.
Although I never acquired good marks in anything in any classes, I remember once getting crazy high marks in Social Studies, not only by my standard but also my entire classroom’s!
Whenever it was time to go up a grade and new textbooks were made available, I finished reading (not studying) all chapters in Social Studies, and all stories, poems and essays in English and Nepali.
It is funny when I think about it:
I buy and download all sorts of books. And still to this day, the mathematics, science, and computer books feel very impenetrable and I have to focus incredibly hard to go beyond a quick skim – during which I get seriously doubtful and anxious. But books about politics, society-culture, psychology, philosophy, and literature get consumed with great enthusiasm and ease.
This has got me questioning whether interests are hardwired in childhood itself or whether it’s about the reluctance to get out of the comfort zone?
Before talking about attention crisis, let me share a small story:
Forget quietly being around nature, I am preoccupied with my own thoughts so much that I am now unable to quietly sleep even in the comfort of my bed.
Observing the dynamics of clouds and stars are the things of past now, I can’t even observe the movements of sparrows and pigeons that dwell right in front of my eyes.
But this morning, it all changed as I walked around my room with a cup of tea in hand and stared out of the window. It’s not that I rarely stare out of windows. In fact, I do so a lot. But I hardly see anything outside. It’s always about my own murky reflection of myself. Once again, due to self preoccupation! I temporarily spot houses, their owners, the birds, the street, before going back to the self reflection.
This morning though — after a long long time — my eyes halted at pigeons and sparrows fidgeting around at the roof of my neighbor. And then I started to curiously observe and enjoy their activities. All of a sudden the mirror shattered as I felt a connection with those birds, and my anxieties vanished: allowing the elusive joy to grace me. And then I looked around, and noticed a crow. And then I started wondering what bird-politics might be going around among those three species. I also noticed the bleak morning moon in the western sky.
Observing such I reached to a conclusion:
The ability to understand things in real time is more important than the ability to know facts.
I was lost in these sights and observations, when the mirror came back and THERE: I was back inside my own head!
Obsessive thoughts are gradual, I have noticed. If you have been constantly obsessing over say, your fame-magnitude — and one day you are involved in a recreational activity like swimming managing to be away from those thoughts for a while — when the obsession returns (the fame problems) it won’t appear in extreme. It occurs gradually.
First, they will bring the most common factors between swimming and fame and then gradually they will take you to a point where swimming will seem a futile pursuit unless you take your phone out, take a self photo and upload it with proper tags in your social media. If you can’t do that, the act of swimming will get chaotic.
Similarly, in my case, as I enjoyed the observation, the entry-thought was: You can’t attain this feeling through philosophy. Hence, the latter is sucking the life out of you. It merely talks about abstract things that have no significance in real life. Drop it now!
But thankfully and luckily an argument came up:
It is not the task of philosophy to generate these feelings. You don’t do philosophy for that. You do it to be capable enough to achieve these feelings.
Come together with people who are special like you and together – do things special!
Once there lived a hunter. He always lay in woods and fields with his arrow stretched from his bow in a ready position and shot whatever caught his eye. Even gnats weren’t spared. He meticulously killed each that flew near him. Such was his aim! This way he had gained a great reputation as an expert archer.
One day a person who could walk relentlessly passed by the hunter’s way. He walked so quickly that while walking with his friends, even if he took a toilet break for half-an-hour he would be able to catch up with them in no time. He noticed the hunter’s actions and was impressed with him. In fact, noticing someone as talented as him, he proposed to him for friendship. The hunter agreed and so they started traveling together.
During their travels, they once saw a group headed for a wedding. It was hot so the people were finding it hard. Then a man plucked out a huge tree from the ground and placed it near the group to ensure the shade from the tree cooled them. Seeing this, the hunter and the walker were impressed and proposed to the strong man for friendship. He agreed and so the three friends traveled together.
One day they met a man who was able to spot a tiny grain from hundreds of meters afar. They asked him to join in too. He did so and now there were four of them. They had nothing to fear now. They could stay and walk anywhere and at any time. After a few days, they all came to a realization that they could together achieve something huge. One of them said –
‘Friends! We all are talented in our own way. We shouldn’t just wander around without a purpose. We should do something. I think we should go to a different country and see what we can do.’
The friends agreed. And so they set off. They walked across woods and deserts until they reached a deadly river. There wasn’t any bridge or boat. There were people discussing ways to cross it, however. Those people were trying to find a way to cross that river for the last fifteen days. The four men saw this as an opportunity to make some positive contribution. So, the strong one uprooted many trees and threw them in the river. In no time, a bridge formed which was easily crossable. The people thanked them and began going about their usual business. The four men crossed too.
They were forced to spend that night in a dense forest.
‘This forest is too huge and dense. We need to sleep one at a time,’ they agreed upon.
First, it was the turn of the one who could see afar to stay awake while the rest slept. He discovered that there lived rakshas in that forest who came towards them drooling at the smell of humans. He first woke the hunter and then everyone else.
The hunter stepped forward and began shooting. He killed a lot of rakshasas but soon he ran out of arrows. They discussed and then decided that the walker would rush and bring some arrows. During this, the rakshas had already come near them. The strong one uprooted a few trees and threw them at the rakshas. He even picked a few rakshasas and threw them around like cricket balls. The rakshases were scared and started to run away. The walker returned with arrows and so they all together finished the rakshasas off. They slept the night in peace.
The next day they resumed their journey. They faced a lot of obstacles on their way but together they managed to successfully defeat them all. They eventually reached the capital of a different country. They lived in a Dharamshala.
They walked around the country and noticed that the people there were sad. They were told that it was because their beloved queen was ill and was unable to recover despite multiple efforts for a prolonged period of time. Now an old mystic had said that if anyone could bring water from seven seas within two hours she would recover. The queen had disseminated this message and announced that the one who could bring it would get half of her kingdom and great wealth.
The four friends discussed among themselves –
‘Friends! All four of us are special in our own way. We had decided to travel around to do something great. If we manage to save the queen, we will be able to acquire great wealth, honor, and dharma.’
Everyone agreed and went to the palace and met the king.
‘Your Highness! We are ready to bring the water from the seas but we have no vessel to bring water in.’
The King gave them a vessel. The walker carried the vessel and with the guidance of the far-seer, he proceeded.
This news spread around the country. The people were curious to see men who were ready to accept such an absurd venture. They rushed to the palace to meet the remaining three. This soon led to a stampede and the soldiers had to intervene.
Meanwhile, the farseer stood on the roof and watched his friend rush along woods and hills. He communicated this with everyone. Suddenly, he saw the walker get scared off his feet. He had seen a tiger and it was about to kill him. Hearing this, the strong one quickly uprooted a giant tree from the palace compound and asked the exact point at which he was to shoot. The seer pointed precisely. The strong one threw the tree in the pointed direction. It hit the tiger and the tiger died on the spot.
The walker went ahead. The seer commentated his every move:
He has reached the sea. He has filled the vessel. Now he has moved.
The public watched along dumbfounded.
He has reached the sea. He has filled the vessel. Now he has moved. Now he is trying to know the time. He is staring at the sun. He might have realized that he has enough time. So, he is now taking a nap. Now he has fallen asleep. A giant tiger from the forest is approaching him. She has reached up to him.
The shooter loaded his bow and shot the tiger with the guidance of the seer. The tiger died.
The walker woke up after a while and saw a dead tiger. Seeing it, he was pleased and returned back without harm.
In the palace, the queen was handed the water. The queen recovered immediately. Everyone was pleased. The four men were celebrated in the palace. A great feast was held for them. After that, they were allowed to leave. The King opened his treasury and asked them to take whatever they could take. The strong one carried everything. This ashamed the king. He then gave them half his wealth and state.
After this, all four men returned to their respective homes.
It is not about being fast. It is about doing what’s appropriate.
Once there lived a tortoise, a frog, and a snake nearby a river. They were good friends. Their life was normal and good. They crossed the river together early in the morning, ate their respective foods, and returned back in the evenings.
One day while they were on the other side of the river, loud thunder and lightning together with deadly black clouds filled the skies. Realizing that it would soon rain heavily, the wise tortoise said –
‘Hey, guys. Look at the skies. I think it will rain heavily. We should return back. It will get worse if it floods.’
‘Don’t panic. Nothing is wrong. We can cross when it starts raining. There’s no point worrying now. I am innovative enough to figure out tens of solutions even if it floods,’ the frog, who was intelligent, said.
‘Exactly! It hasn’t rained yet. We shouldn’t bother about things that haven’t yet happened. Live in the present, son. Even if it floods I think I am smart enough to figure out hundreds of solutions for us,’ the snake added.
The tortoise wasn’t amused with their way of thinking.
‘See. I am neither fast nor intelligent and smart as you guys! All I know is that it will soon rain heavily and it’s better we cross the river. Else we may not be able to return at all. There’s nothing to lose if we get going now. Let’s go. I am going.’ the tortoise said and started to cross the river.
The frog and the snake smirked and went about their business. But just as the tortoise had anticipated, it soon rained heavily. They were finally alarmed and decided it was time to cross the river. The rain got heavier and heavier until the river started flooding.
First, the snake jumped but he got badly hit on his head by a large piece of floating log. This got him giddy. He lost control of himself. The river violently took him away and he soon died.
The frog, not seeing the snake, thought he had crossed the river. He jumped too. But the torrential river was too much for him to handle. The water kicked him around like a pinball. He couldn’t handle the force and died.
The tortoise saw all this from the other end. There was nothing he could do except wonder why his friends didn’t listen to him in time.
As I sit here with my laptop staring at this white canvas that tells me to write my story, I wonder who I might be writing it for. I wonder who would care about these ‘stories’ — which are in fact nothing but doubts, excitements, half-formed/uninformed ideas, opinions, perspectives and reveries. Yet, I believe such writing has the potential to do a lot if only a lot of people read seriously! I have even derived a quote: Writing is a small attempt with a huge potential consequence.
People who think a lot should write a lot. People who can’t think a lot should read a lot.
Some writer’s books feel like an ocean while some writer’s books feel like a muddy street.
Billionaires going on space trips and ordinary minds becoming writers is like wearing a woolen jacket on a hot summers day: They will only make things worse!
What I have noticed is, the more you write the better your typing gets. I do not know what importance it has on whatever I will end up writing today but I thought it would be a fun thing to share.
If you are like me who doesn’t have a dedicated list of things to write, then at times you must also feel there’s nothing special to write. What do you do then? Yet a feeling inside you pushes you to write, doesn’t it? It is like an addiction. But let’s be good on ourselves and call it a habit. Yet, that feeling is nothing but — the reasons why you write telling you why you should now be writing.
I started this by focusing on what Medium puts in its header: Title and Tell your story…I think it was a good start.
Yesterday I visited a book store and I saw a book written by a person who has participated in mediocre art-works throughout his life. His book was a Self-Improvement book and he was supposedly instructing others on how to live a quality life. IRONY!
If there’s anything in my life that resembles the cat and mouse situation it is me trying to interpret and understand what is causing my anxiety.
Apparently writing during a block is a lot like getting out of bed in winter mornings. Initially, you start imagining you won’t be able to get on with it. But once you decide to do it, you will always find a way around it.
People who have the habit of questioning whether their pursuits are substantial or not are both lucky and unlucky. Unlucky because they can no longer be children-like. Lucky because they can no longer be children-like.
As a writer, you can bend the Universe in whatever way you want. But for that you need strong shoulders. (Thanks Nietzsche!)
Let’s say, it’s 2070 and Humans have settled on Mars or some other planet. What did you imagine them doing there? — — I imagined them quarreling over some piece of land.
My dog is a local Nepali guy. What I realized today is — if I look at him without his name and all other cultural associations I have with him — he is a raw and wild animal living in a manmade world of language and technology.
Sometimes I utter the word Humans and enter a trance.
We humans, in this Cosmos is: a weird situation.Living to figure this riddle out is equally important to Living to make the world better, if not more!
You want to see the power of ideas? — — Imagine a cold dark pessimistic philosophy ruling over everyone’s thoughts!
Without entertainment and art, we would feel cold.
What is Art? — — Art is to humans what humans are to the Universe: Not practically necessary, but you haven’t been able to be without it either.
It is not AI vs Humans. It is Avaricious-Humans (AH) vs Humans.
Don’t be afraid of other people, ever.
These are some random thoughts I wrote when I had nothing specific to write. What do you write when you have nothing to write yet want to write?
Wisdom is difficult to acquire. You have got to be patient and must continue to learn and persevere.
Once there lived a king who loved to hunt. While on one such expedition, he reached deep into a forest. The forest was nothing special in that the king had hunted in its fringes numerous times. He hadn’t reached so deep, however.
When he reached to one particular area, he was suddenly filled with great calmness and peace. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced. While he was a spiritual person, he had done nothing special to make him feel that way. So he realized it was not his own doing but of something special that lurked there.
He looked around until he discovered a small hut. He went inside and there he saw an old man who didn’t seem to be bothered with the arrival of the king. He stayed calm and smiled. The king was impressed. He knew why that place had such a vibe. He decided to leave everything he had and stay with that old man to learn the wisdom of calmness and peace.
He came back after a few days to live as a pupil of that old man. However, the king didn’t find life there as convenient and easy as he had thought it would be. The old man never spoke a word apart from commanding the king to do certain works. This way he didn’t let the king sit idly even for a moment. Worst of all, the old man never lectured nor taught anything. The king didn’t dare to make queries.
In a few days, the king found it intolerable. It was worse than his royal duties. He couldn’t take it anymore. So one day he amassed courage and went to the old man and asked –
‘Why don’t you teach me the secrets to wisdom?’
‘You are not ready yet,’ the old man replied.
The King quietly went about his tasks.
After a few days, the king asked again. But the old man replied that same –
‘You are not ready.’
And this continued until the king lost patience. One day while he was out on the spring to fetch water, he decided to walk away. Not had he walked a few steps, he heard a voice say –
‘Oh, look the king is running away from his duties.’
The king was surprised to hear this. He looked around but saw no one. Assuming it to be his illusion he continued to walk.
‘You are running away! The mighty king is fleeing,’ the voice said again
The king was now convinced that it was not his illusion. He looked around carefully and guessed it must have been coming from the pot. He went near and monitored the pot.
‘Where are you going?’ the pot asked.
The king was startled. He had seen nothing like this before. He looked around once again wondering if anyone played tricks on him.
‘Don’t be surprised. It’s me, the pot. Answer my question – Where are you going?’
The king nervously replied –
‘Back to my kingdom.’
‘Why?’
‘I came here hoping to learn wisdom on how to be calm and peaceful from the old man. But he keeps telling me I am not ready. I no longer think he is special. Even the little calmness and peace I had is gone now. There’s no point,’ the king said.
‘To learn even a small thing is difficult my friend. Much more difficult than to rule, you may have observed. You may suffer your entire life yet learn nothing. Look at me as an example, I have suffered much but have remained ignorant.’
‘Really? Can you tell me more about yourself? How can you speak? Why didn’t you speak before?’ the king asked. He now seemed interested.
‘It’s a long story,’ replied the pot. ‘Once a man came up to me with his spade and dug me out of my home. He then took me to his house and poured a lot of dirty water on me. He kneaded me into a dough. Oh, how much I suffered then!
‘But that was not it. He then took me to a shed and made small balls of my parts and placed me on a potter’s wheel until I got lightheaded. When he finally took me out of it, I thought the suffering was over. But far from it. He bear me with a wooden mallet and put me in a burning furnace. He then took me to a shop and left me there. Just like that!
‘There were many like me in that shop. I looked at them and realized that all of them had gone through the same suffering and agony like me. So that gave me some solace. I realized that I was not alone in this suffering. That’s when I was full of pity for other pots too.
‘But tell you what – that was not the end of my suffering. People came and thumped me to see if there was anything wrong with me. I was surprised that an intelligent creature like man would be so indifferent to the suffering of others. I began abhorring humans. After a few days of thumps and lumps, a fellow came and bought me. He then gave me to the old man. Thankfully, I haven’t suffered since then. The old man takes good care of me.
‘You have to understand this, oh mighty king. Wisdom is difficult to acquire. You have got to be patient and must continue to think, learn and persevere. Do not despair and return to your life of power and glory. They are nothing compared to wisdom. In fact, kingship is easy. You have people to do the smallest of things for you. On top of that, you won’t get the chance to contemplate and improve. Such is the grip of power. I have seen you desire and try. I think you have a chance. Very few people get this chance. Count for yourself how many kings there are in this world and how many wise people. I don’t think you will find it difficult to see that there aren’t much around with wisdom. Don’t let go of this opportunity that very few get.’
The pot said and sighed.
The king carefully lifted the pot, filled it with water, and took it back to the hut.
The pot hasn’t spoken nor has the king returned to his palace ever since.
Read Duration: 2–3days (It is short but requires attention.)
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Year: 1848
Genre: Non-Fiction
Sub-Genre: Philosophy. Cosmology. Spirituality.
Opening sentence:To the few who love me and whom I love, to those who feel rather than think, to the dreamers and those who put their faith in dreams as in the only realities, I offer this book of truths, not in its character of truth-teller, but for the beauty that abounds in its truth, constituting it true.(Preface)
Top 10 Highlights:
‘Now I do not quarrel with these ancients’,continues the letter-writer, ‘so much on account of the transparent frivolity of their logic — which, to be plain, was baseless, worthless, and fantastic altogether — as on account of their pompous and infatuate proscription of all other roads to Truth than the two narrow and crooked paths, the one of creeping and the other of crawling, to which, in their ignorant perversity, they have dared to confine the soul — the soul which loves nothing so well as to soar in those regions of illimitable intuition which are utterly incognisant of “path”.
‘Kepler admitted that these laws he guessed — these laws whose investigation disclosed to the greatest British astronomers that principle, the basis of all (existing) physical principles, in going behind which we enter at once the nebulous kingdom of metaphysics. Yes! These vital laws Kepler guessed, that is to say, he imagined them…’
‘In concluding this letter, let me have the real pleasure of transcribing them once again: “I care not whether my work be read now or by posterity. I can afford to wait a century for readers when God himself has waited six thousand years for an observer. I triumph. I have stolen the golden secret of the Egyptians. I will indulge my sacred fury.”’
A diffusion from unity, under the conditions, involves the tendency to return into unity — a tendency ineradicable until satisfied.
Discarding now the two equivocal terms, ‘gravitation’ and ‘electricity’, let us adopt the more definite expressions, ‘attraction’ and ‘repulsion’. The former is the body, the latter the soul; the one is the material, the other the spiritual principle of the universe. No other principles exist.
…the tendency to the general centre is not to a centre as such, but because of its being a point in tending towards which each atom tends more directly to its real and essential centre, unity — the absolute and final union of all.
The wonderfully complex laws of revolution here described, however, are not to be understood as obtaining in our system alone. They prevail everywhere where attraction prevails. They control the universe of stars.
And that all around them (circular masses of nebulae), on every side, there are volumes of stars, stretching out apparently as if they were rushing towards a great central mass in consequence of the action of some great power.
With a perfectly legitimate reciprocity, we are now permitted to look at matter as created solely for the sake of this influence — solely to serve the objects of this spiritual ether.
Existence — self-existence — existence from all time and to all eternity, seems, up to the epoch of manhood, a normal and unquestionable condition. Seems, because it is. But now comes the period at which a conventional world-reason awakes us from the truth of our dream.
My Blurb:
Poe searches for the sweetest-spot of Wisdom to look into philosophical questions and he almost does it!
Before talking in detail about bad thoughts, let me give some context.
A terrible nightmare woke me up at 3 AM this morning. After that, I went into a 30 minutes or so of ridiculous post-dream analysis.
I felt terrible. Weak. The dream and its thoughts were miserable!
I restrain myself from using the lessons from Vedic and Buddhist spirituality I once learnt. I dumped them after practicing for a lot of years, because I felt they were limiting my world-view and perspectives.
But this morning I the petty thoughts were intolerable. The more I argued with myself, the more I suffered.
So, after a long gap, I took out that spiritual-weapon. Focusing, drowning and losing myself on a feeling of nothingness!
It helped me fall asleep.
But that episode is still haunting me right now. Like a wound it persists. I don’t know what to do with it. It is injuring and damaging.
I have decided to write about them here to see what happens!
Thoughts are the ultimate entities of this human existence of ours. I have elsewhere tried to justify this statement. Thoughts play a crucial role in our knowing.
True and False are also essential to us.
If I am hiking in the woods and a thought suddenly says — A tiger is approaching, my immediate reaction will be to be alert and then look around. I do this because I want a proof of that thought. If I don’t find any, I relax a tad and walk on. This is because I haven’t found any justified truth to what the thought told me.
But still why my thought may have told me that is a question that won’t let me relax completely. If I can relax a bit, it’s only because I found a certain false in the thought statement.
However, if I notice birds flying or other animals making hasteful noise when I look around, I have found some evidence to support that thought, which increases my heartbeat, gets me sweating and emotionally injures me after which I start to figure out mechanisms of defence. This is because I found a certain truth in the thought.
But the differentiation between true and false is not an easy task as thoughts in themselves do not provide us with any distinction. Thoughts in isolation can be either. False thoughts can be judged as being true and vice-versa. As happened to me this morning, I panicked because I took the thoughts as being true which may or may not have been the case.
This is where a faculty in us called thinking is to be used for — locating evidence.
the facts, signs or objects that make you believe that something is true
In the case of the tiger in the woods, I searched for facts, signs or objects that had to prove to me that the tiger was there. In the case where I did not find any, I relaxed and moved on, whereas when I found some, I panicked and began thinking self-defence.
But figuring out the evidence wasn’t so easy this morning. For one, the dream and the subsequent thoughts told me things that were detrimental which was followed by imaginative ‘evidence’ which then emotionally injured me.
Unlike the tiger-case, I had no way of identifying facts, signs or objects as the thoughts were not about my immediate physical environment. They were about my self-worth and poor-decisions.
I then tried to argue with the evidence it provided by searching for counter-evidences which were again countered…
Now, how do I correctly gather evidence to judge the true or false thoughts that are about things as subjective as self-worth and decisions?
In other words, How do I deal with injurious subjective thoughts?
If my thoughts tell me that I am worthless, justified by an immediate evidence of me not earning money currently, which then injures me; how do I deal with them?
The path I chose was of ignoring — focusing, drowning and losing myself on a feeling of nothingness!
Is that it? The best solution? Is it healthy?
My purpose behind writing this was to just interpret whatever had happened this morning with me. As I have been writing, I have been noticing how absurd but effective the spiritual method is. While it would have been a stupid act in the woods, it does seem to be a worthwhile act in the safety of bed. That is, in the domains of subjective thoughts.
But in the long-term it seems hazardous. Since it is like tucking away an object of discomfort, I think it won’t stop thoughts from haunting you after a certain period. As I said in the beginning, while I did manage to fall asleep, the wound hasn’t left me.
A long-term approach such as that is sure to keep one away from addressing the issues at hand turning one’s life into one with ignorance. It was one of the reasons I had stopped using their teachings altogether because I thought they were limiting my world-view and perspectives.
So what is the solution?
I think I have found a few:
(Please remember that I am only talking about injurious thoughts related to Self-Worth and Decisions)
Be Strong:
Irrespective of the situation and threat, the only thing we can do that will not have any repercussions in both short and long-term and will only help us in dealing with the injury better is to be strong. Come what may I will deal with it could be the best thing to remind yourself during a crisis.
Seek Evidence:
While seeking evidence may not be as easy as in the immediate and physical scenarios, I think we should try to look for real-life proof of the doubts we are having. Trying to answer questions such as — What is the basis of the thoughts I am having? How can I prove it? What may have triggered it? can prove to be helpful as they take us away from the injury into the lands of scrutiny, where we have control (somewhat). This questioning I believe is the apt method to judge the true or false thoughts that are about things as subjective as self-worth and decisions
Remind yourself of deeds done:
This is where every deed ever done comes into play. Reminding ourselves of each act of success achieved, however trivial, can prove to be very useful. Maybe it is a game won, a road travelled, an adventure, an obstacle that had been overcome!
For me the purpose behind writing this was to — firstly, interpret what had happened to me earlier and then to hopefully heal myself through it.
I think I have successfully managed to do it (for now).
Writing for me is very important for many reasons. I am feeling the beauty and reality of one of those right now.
I asked myself about the future of thinking after I noticed how alert I was getting using my phone, laptop and TV.
I tried to understand the alertness and discovered that there was a voice inside my head that constantly reminded me that whatever I do in those devices is being surveilled,monitored and analyzed.
What is happening now is that this alertness is getting contagious. The hangover from device-usage is getting into my head. I am getting alert while Ithink, see or talk sensitive stuff in the same manner.
As if my thoughts and views are being surveilled, monitored and analyzed.
Is this what will happen to our thoughts in the future?
I have often found myself in the middle of philosophical arguments fuming with anger, full of anxiety. Speaking or typing at the speed of light what my fast-beating heart and an inflating ego demand of me.
While my intention behind discussing ‘deep’ things with others is almost always to share and hear things about I have been reading, thinking or writing, I haven’t been able to stop myself from getting petty to the point of attempting to humiliate the other person with all kinds of insults to his/her intellectual capacities.
Thisgot me questioning:
How can I handle such philosophical arguments better?
There are a couple of things I am clear about:
I *want* to have such discussions
I *don’t want* to win the arguments. I just want to learn a thing or two, boast a bit and have a good time at the end of it all!
So, how can I stop such philosophical arguments from getting petty?
How can I handle such arguments better?
Can I?
The first thing is to see what goes on during such arguments by trying to identify some significant factors at work.
We have to remember that Man – being an intellectually advanced (relatively) animal – is very sensitive towards its intellectual abilities.
No normal or dignified human being would ever want to be told that his/her cognitive abilities are of a low-grade. It would be like challenging a python on its strangulation abilities by strangulating it. The python would obviously want to prove you wrong.
I think this factor is at work our petty philosophical arguments.
The dignity factor
What I noticed was, most of us arguers believe that the ability to philosophize is the highest kind of intellectual ability. It’s just the way our culture is set up.
But it is justifiable because the ability to philosophize implies the ability to use our brains for something other than trifles. Everyone can trifle! Something other than practicality. Everyone can be practical! To dwell in the domains of abstractions and values. Now, not everyone can do that is what we believe! The same reason we value science, mathematics and engineering too. Apart from the money.
I think this is why no one wants to lose such arguments. As it would imply intellectual loss. Defeat.
From this angle, it seems as if philosophical arguments are the best test of cognitive abilities.
At this point we can wonder why it has never become a popular sport or a reality show. There is so much at stake!
The other factor I found was Cultural/Identity Sensitivity.
Philosophical arguments touch on areas that form the basis of any culture and identity. Religion, Ethnicity, Nationalism, all these have subjective worldview at their bases. Philosophical arguments are merely debates at core: The nature of reality, Creator, Rights and Wrongs, Why x is better than y, etc.
These are substantial stuff. No wonder people get agitated! Some even kill others for their views…This is a dangerous territory!
The other factor is emotional sensitivity.
If Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra has helped me get over severe nervousness and anxiety, then I certainly would be emotionally offended if anyone calls it merely a reverie of a madman.
Similarly, if Vedic spirituality has helped someone get over an emotional trauma, and if I go and tell that person the whole Vedic system is merely intellectual narcotics composed by addicts drinking liquid narcotics, they are bound to want to pull my tongue out of my mouth!
These are the factors I have discovered as of now. I will update if I find more.
Now, what about the answers to these questions:
How can I stop the arguments from getting petty?
How can I handle such arguments better?
Can I?
The best solution is to stop participating in such arguments altogether.
But as I mentioned above, I do not want to do that.
So, in order to stop it from getting petty to the point of anger and harassment, I should remember that the person in the argument who remains calm the longest has a better intellectual ability. This is self-explanatory.
Of all abilities, I believe that controlling and directing thoughts, desires and feelings are the most difficult. If I manage to remain calm throughout, then I believe my ego will be silenced.
At the same time, I should remember that I always have the option of walking out of such arguments or not participating at all. If I am having an argument it means I have voluntarily participated in it. Therefore, I should be able to reasonably listen to others and calmly defend my opinions and learnings. Even if it concerns me culturally and emotionally. If I can do that, my ego again will surely keep quiet.
Because They Are Travels: Into a Different Space, Time and Identity.
If I am to recall the moments from my childhood when I have felt the strongest in a joyful way Absorbing Stories would surely occupy a lot of headspace!
The stories I read of Sindbad, Gulliver, Panchatantra, or the Arabian Nights gave me some of the most intense and wonderful feelings. I immersed myself in the character, time and the environment of the story with a sense of both nervousness and excitement. The warm feeling inside my chest boiled and tried to explode from the limitations of my physical body. It’s inability to do so being the only thing to remind me that my existence belonged here in this world in this country called Nepal and in this family called…
There were sports, TV cartoons and movies. While I didn’t find them as immersive as reading, they were deeply influential. I played a few video games but wasn’t too fond of them.
I wasn’t a social guy and I do not have fond memories with friends. Yes, there are moments with family that are special but let’s not talk about it here. What I want to discuss here is stories.
The moments I have spent absorbing fictional narratives or creating my own — strolling around my room and the house — are deeply special.
As time has passed, I have tried to understand why stories did to me what they did. I have tried to understand the feeling that arises when I am about to dive into one. The understanding process hasn’t been easy. But what I have come to realize lately is — this is a special subject for not just me but for a lot of people.
There are a lot of theories and a lot of interpretations. I don’t want to get into all that too. What I want to do, however, is share how I currently interpret the feeling generated both from the stories and the nature of stories. This interpretation is neither academic nor professional. It is about the reasons they make you feel that way and is simple:
Stories are a type of travel.
Yes, Stories are a form of travel. A psychological, spiritual, philosophical travel. This is what makes it special.
Not getting into the practical implications, I see three different types of travels we participate in during our immersing in the stories:
Different Space
Different Time
Different Personality
These three factors are together responsible for creating that feeling.
Different Space: Through stories, we travel into different places. Our mind seems to forget that the body it is in is actually in a cozy space — consuming a narrative. This frees us from the burdens of our current space. (Maybe we are freeloading!)
Different Time: Same as the above, through stories we also travel into a different time. This frees us from the burdens of the current time and age. (Maybe we have an installment to clear tomorrow!)
Different Personality: Perhaps the most important characteristic responsible for the joy stories produce — through stories we travel to a different personality. We forget our self-identity and become the character we relate to. We forget our national, cultural, religious, age identity as our mind relates to something else. This frees us from the bondages, headaches— anxieties of our present self. This relaxes us. (Maybe we do not like our present self, situation and society!)
This escape from the identity shackle is what most spirituality is about too!
But I have a question:
Does a person who absolutely loves his/her place, time and personality feel this way with stories too?
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I had developed a desire-management formula. I have been implementing it for more than a couple of years now. The reason for sharing?
It has proved to be very effective.
Now that I have fully committed myself to a life as a writer, there are a few elements which I think are essential to such a lifestyle.
This desire management is simply an allocation of those elements to the wants and needs embedded in almost all of us.
I had been very random and all-over-the-place with my thoughts, desires, time, work and life management. This particular formula has helped me get a little bit more organized. It may be of help for others as well, irrespective of the profession.
I hereby publicize this formula as The ABCD formula as it contains the (fundamentals) ABCDs of my existence and life.
The ABCD
ABCD = A, B, C and D desires. All four are distinct sets of various sub-desires. Those which are common with each other are organized in the same set. This way, each set is a whole desire or as I like to call it — the wills. Each will is named according to the most generic term that applies to all sub-desires.
Let’s dive into the desire management formula.
A
It stands for Ability.
Ability is the state of being able to do something. It is about skill, talent and capability. It is the absolute means, the foundation without which none of my other wills or sub-desires can be fulfilled.
My desires in terms of the abilities I want/need are as follows:
Ability to Think
Ability to Learn and Understand
Ability to pursue freedom
Ability to love
Ability to experience
Ability to enjoy
Ability for aesthetics
Ability to earn and survive
Ability to be strong
Ability of Wisdom
Thinking, learning, freedom, love, enjoyment, aesthetics, earning and surviving are my sub-desires. All these are grouped in the ‘A’ set.
With the A set, my purpose is — to remind myself that in order to look far, I need a good telescope.
It’s all about maintaining, polishing, updating and upgrading my abilities to do things. It’s about sharpening the tool, so to speak. It’s about the tool. It’s about the lenses and the vehicles.
B
It stands for Being.
Being is about existing in a certain way with certain values and ideals. It is about personal ethics and feelings. It incorporates everything I am, want-to-be and will-to-be as a free-being, human-being, son, father, etc. etc.
My desires in terms of the being are as follows:
Greedlessness
Non-Petty
Love
Good life
Freedom
Strength
Free thinking
Life and World Experiences (including Travels)
Aesthetics
Joy
I want to be as greedless as possible. At the same time I want to ensure I am not petty. I want love, freedom, strength, free-thinking, experiences, travels, aesthetics and joys in life. All these are grouped into the ‘B’ set.
With the B set, my purpose is — to remind myself of things that really make me who I am. My real purpose in life. My being. My essence.
It’s all about being who I am with this. I have settled on these sub-desires after years of hard work. My work with the B set is to ensure I don’t ‘sell-out’ (Whatever that may mean!)
C
It stands for Seeing. But is written C. Hence, C is an apt alphabet. Plus, it makes it easier as it perfectly fits well into the ABCD system which makes it easier for me to remember whatever I am trying to. I hereby use the term C-ing for seeing.
C-ing is about learning, knowing and understanding various subjects and elements of my life and of this existence of ours.
I had earlier mentioned about my life as a writer. My desire to — learn throughout my life was one of the things responsible for this choice. Now, it is also a necessity to sustain that choice. If I want to continue being a writer, I have to try to learn all the things all the time.
All the subjects I find interesting, relevant and important are covered under the C will or the C set which contains 3 distinct subsets.
My desires in terms of the knowledges of things I want/need are organized as follows:
HG-HE-STEP
sPa
POLE™
All three are acronyms.
HG-HE-STEP includes knowledge of things that are somewhat social or humanitarian in nature.
H: History
G: Geography
H: Humanity
E: Experiences (of People)
S: Society
T: Technology
E: Economics
P: Politics
sPa includes knowledges of and via three tools of knowledge acquisition:
S: Science
P: Philosophy
A: Arts
This sub-set includes looking at the previous subset through all three lenses (for instance, looking at technology from a scientific lens as well as from a philosophical one) along with studying the fields themselves and their interconnections.
For example, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Arts, Art of Science, Scientific Art, etc. etc.
POLE™ is all about my subjective, intuitive understanding and conclusions of everything possible.
P: Perceptions
O: Opinions
L: Life-Lessons
E: Experiences
™: Thought Management
Alternatively, I also use: EEEGSSTTPP
which stands for: Existential, Experiential, Economic, Geographic, Scientific, Social, Technological, Temporal, Political and Philosophical knowledge.
But it is difficult to memorize. C-subsets are much more convenient.
With the C set, my purpose is — to remind myself of things I want to and have to learn.
It’s all about organizing, balancing, selecting and choosing the subjects to learn.
D
It stands for Doing.
Doing is all about the actions I need to take and the things I need to do to fulfill the desires of ABC. This is through which I get things done. It’s about setting and implementing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.
At the point of this writing, my D is threefold:
Write
Publish
Enterprise
I got to write, publish and be active in various activities apart from those two. This part is subject to much change and adaptations.
With the D set, my purpose is — to remind myself and ensure I successfully do what I need to do.
Conclusion
You may have noticed how they are all interconnected. I think this is the beauty of this desire management formula (for me obviously!).
Let us begin this thought experiment by imagining a habitable planet with life. Far Far away!
The planet is revolving around its own star. Its day-night period same as Earth’s.
And on that planet, let us imagine species – Millions. With variety for procreation. Just like on Earth.
Let us imagine one species among them head-and-shoulders above the rest – In intelligence and sophistication. Just like us!
Now let us decide that the planet has had life for more than a billion years. The intelligent species there has been smarting around for more than 2 million years. Just like ours!
Now let us imagine the planet with its peculiar atmosphere, water, soil, forest, etc.
Let us imagine all this with one crucial difference — it’s intelligent species not like humans. Let us imagine them different. Yes, let them walk on two feet and let them look like us physically. But let them not be like us behaviorally.
Let’s make them different.
Let’s not make them build huge buildings, monuments and structures. Let’s not make them political. Let’s not make them national. Let’s not make them create huge corporations. Let’s not make them kill each other or creatures. Let’s not make them adhere to their own mandatory principles. Let’s not make them need any kind of superficial entertainment — Let’s make them wise.
Yes, let’s imagine them greedless, free and wise. It’s just a thought experiment after all!
They didn’t build huge buildings and structures because they are okay with distributed minimalistic settlements and structures of aesthetic/experiential importance.
They didn’t organize politically because they are okay with improvisational organizing. They understand the need of community but also realize the absurdity of politics and power.
Everyone is wise enough to mind their own business and greedless enough to not want unnecessary things. Everyone has their own land and they are fine cultivating what they need and consuming it. Remember, they are not greedy, so it will work.
Now, since they are wise as such, they did not need/want big businesses.
Nor did they have to trouble other creatures for their own amusement. They live at a distance far enough to remain untroubled by other creatures.
Since they are free and wise, they didn’t adhere to mandatory customs and principles such as marriage and children. Their population is well balanced. Whenever it seems to increase, they have the wisdom to understand it, hence, there will always be those who will make personal sacrifices. They didn’t need any forms of superficial entertainment as they don’t have any dissapointments hence anxieties.
So, what will they do? How will they live? How do we imagine that?
I propose the following:
They will spend their time in philosophical, scientific or artistic contemplation and creation. Depending on individual preferences or the need.
They won’t build sophisticated technologies. There is no need — they don’t want to conquer their fellows or the cosmos. They are wise enough to be happy where they are. They will scientific technologies though. For reasons clear! They might have computers and internet.
They have understood that the only purpose of their high intelligence is to experience and understand life and the world. Nothing else matters! All is peaceful and well.
Rahul Sankrityayan was an Indian Marxist thinker who studied, travelled and wrote a lot.
Here I want to quickly share his views on the birth and use of Hindu God Brahman and the Hindu Reincarnation system by the ruling system in ancient India. It is presented in fictional form in his historical-fiction From Volga to Ganges.
Pravahan is a king of Panchalpur (Kannauj) in around 700 BC who has modified the Hindu Religion. His lover Lopa is not very fond of that kind of thinking though.
One day she asks,
‘Why are you involved in things apart from royal duties?’
To which Pravahan replies,
‘You mean my flight towards Brahman? But Lopa, all these things are not separate from Royal Duties. Our ancestors had honored Rishis such as Vasistha and Vishwamitra for the sake of supporting the State. Those Rishis inspired people to follow the command of the king in the name of gods such as Indra, Agni and Varun. Those Rishis made the kings conduct huge and expensiveYagyasso that the public’s belief in them would persist…All this was done to establish people’s faith in divine forces…and to tell them that all we have is due to Gods.’
‘But you already had old gods, what was the need of Brahman?’
‘For ages, nobody has seen Indra, Varun and the likes, therefore a few have started to doubt…I have established the form of Brahman in such a way that no one can ever demand to see it. It is beyond the senses. No one can doubt this concept the way they might doubt gods with forms’
‘…are you doing all this merely to keep your citizens in illusion?’
‘…It is necessary to do all this to keep the state under my control…our biggest enemies are the ones who doubt gods and Yagyas’
‘But you also talk of the existence and philosophy of Brahman…?’
‘If there is an existence then there has to be a philosophy. Not through senses though, because skeptics will talk of empirical proofs — this is why I talk about subtle senses. And now I talk of such methods that people will keep searching for ever and ever without losing their belief…’.
And then Pravahan tells her about his new invention that is greater than Brahman — Reincarnation:
‘Reincarnation is the most useful. The rate at which the wealth of we feudals, Brahmins and merchants is increasing is the same at which ordinary people are getting poor. There are those now who provoke artisans, farmers and slaves by saying, “You are troubling yourself by giving away your earnings to others. They trouble you and tell you that the Suffering, Pain, charity and sacrifices you do here will be repaid in heaven…No one has seen anyone enjoy happiness in heaven…”, to which we have established a narrative. All differences in this world are the result of your deeds in your previous lives…I do not care about Truth and Lies, it (an idea) just has to be useful for me. Today the idea of coming back to this world after death doesn’t seem credible…there will come a time when all of the pathetic citizens will be ready to bear pain, suffering and injustice in the hope of rebirth…’
‘But isn’t it ruining the lives of hundreds of generations just for your selfish wants?’
‘…it isn’t wrong. I am doing such a task that even the ancient Rishis couldn’t do…’
‘You are too cold Pravahan!’
‘But I have merely acted as per my ability!’
I understand that this whole thing has been presented by Sankrityayan in a Marxist mirror. That is, this thing of Metaphysical and spiritual nature has been looked upon from a dialectic-political-economic angle. It has also been presented in an artistic/imaginative manner. It is surely a limited view-point. But, it is a different perspective nonetheless!
It is about questioning the one who said the said.
It was a fun ride. So, I have decided to go on it again. I have manually translated these from the Nepali language. So, it is like the handcrafted version of literary work. Enjoy!
Everyone sees a burnt forest, none see a burnt heart — External problems are easily visible so they gather attention. Internal problems are known only to the sufferer and there are few who understand them.
One who eats ember excretes ember — Your output depends on your input. If you listen to a dictator, you will praise the dictator!
Without carrion, a vulture doesn’t roam — An opportunist isn’t there where there isn’t opportunity.
I will fake a hit, you fake a cry — Let’s act together to deceive everyone else.
A roaring tiger never eats — One who is intimidated, doesn’t hurt.
Poor have no money, the rich have no heart.
A sleeper loses, waker gains — If you are not alert enough, you will lose a lot of things. It will be taken by the one who is alert.
Where there’s lake, there’s water — Lake is a body of water.
Give your ears not your words — Listen freely, do not commit easily .
A single moon is better than a thousand stars — A single person who seriously reads your works is better than many worthless followers.
Only a snake sees a snake’s feet — To know the weaknesses of others, you have to be like them.
Small mouth, big talk! — To talk of things beyond your ability.
Washing an ass with soap won’t turn it into a cow — External change doesn’t mean change in substance.
A barking dog never bites — Threatening things rarely hurt.
It’s dark under a lamp — We focus far and wide and miss what’s beside.
Never ask for directions to places you won’t go — Don’t concern yourself with things that are not important to you.
Everyone is naked underneath their clothes — We all are!
Suffering never comes alone — A single source of suffering hardly exists.
The bigger the pile the bigger the strife — The more you amass your wealth, the more problems for you.
You can hide contentment but not suffering — It is easier to be humble than be calm.
Did you like these wise proverbs?
If yes,
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When in crisis, always remember to stay calm. Try to understand the situation instead of reacting. Make things happen with what you have.
Once there lived an old woman. Her husband had died when she was young. She didn’t marry again. She had neither children nor relatives. She was wealthy, however, and lived in a nice two-storeyed house and had lots of valuable items.
One night when the old woman was deep asleep in her room on the upper floor, four thieves broke into her house. They saw extremely valuable items and grabbed everything they could possibly take. This turned into a noisy affair that woke the old woman. Instead of reacting, however, she carefully paid attention to what was going on downstairs. She correctly observed that there were four thieves and all were young men.
This made her think. It surely wasn’t a good idea for a single old lady to go after four young thieves. One, they could hurt her. Two, even if they ran, they could come back later knowing it was only an old lady. Three, they could divide into multiple groups, where one could come back and steal while she was after another.
But hardships in life had strengthened the old woman. She was tough and wise. She didn’t panic. Instead, she calmly thought of a solution. A few minutes later, she got it!
She had multiple items in her house: Maana, Pathi, Supaa, Daala, Bancharo, etc. (all Nepali utility items.) What she did was modify their names and pretended she was calling her sons aloud –
‘Maanyau, Paathyau, Supaau, Daalau, Bancharau, wake up quick! Four thieves have broken into our house. Hurry up! Bring your weapons.’
She then created a lot of noise on that floor: She rapidly opened and shut the doors. She dropped and smashed things.
The thieves heard all this. They immediately paused and tried to look at each other in the darkness of night. While they couldn’t see each other, they all understood the severity of the situation. They understood that they couldn’t afford to wait even for a minute. Each dropped whatever he was taking, including his bag, and ran empty-handed from the house as fast he possibly could. All were gone in a jiffy.
The old woman went downstairs and saw that the thieves had managed to collect almost every valuable item. The old woman checked their bags: There were valuable items stolen from others as well.
Instead of panicking in the time of crisis, the old woman had shown great resolve and presence of mind. She made use of whatever was at her disposal.
(Translated from NEPALI LOKKATHA, TULASI DIWAS)
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When we have anxieties and frustrations, our thoughts are stuck at some point in between the present (A) and the future (B). Both being points previously opened by ourselves from a different angle.
In other words, WHEN we feel that way, it is mostly because we are not finding a solid thought pattern that leads us from our present point A to our goal B. This maybe due to newer challenges.
More often than not, the solution comes by itself after a duration of intense suffering. Or we might force things.
For years she had dreamt of this trip. For years she had energized herself in the darkest of nights — thinking of this journey. The idea jolted her, inspired her — rendered meaning to a life otherwise plummeting towards inconsequentialism.
How much had she imagined herself reaching her destination — The mountains of Annapurna!
She had imagined the moment she would take that woolen scarf off her face, remove her jacket cap and expose her face to the mountain wind — the cold wind would smash itself into her and she would finally rise and shine out of her slumber.
She would wake up to be new! She would wake up from a long long night of dread and frustration — into a morning of vigor, purpose, and action.
She would stare at the dazzling mountain snow as the sun would gleam on her face. She would take a deep breath and get into a meditative state. She would drink in each and every moment and then return home — to dedicate her entire life to the feeling she had mustered there.
Here she was —mere 5 km away from her destination. After this night was done, she would wake up early tomorrow and rush! Bloody run!
But she isn’t able to sleep. It is 2 AM and the old melancholy is back.
‘What are you so excited about?’
‘Wasn’t you arriving here inevitable?’
‘You have come 5 years too late’
‘You were always supposed to reach here. There’s nothing new. So, shut up!’
If you have suffered injustice – exploit and expose the rat and the flawed system. There is nothing wrong with that!
Once there lived a pair of sparrows. They loved and cared for each other until the female got pregnant. The male left her and fled. The female’s life was miserable after that. She gave birth to a chick and raised it in great hardship.
After a few months, the male realized that his child had now grown up and could be of great assistance to him. He came back and demanded the chick. This angered the female. She yelled –
‘What makes you think you can come back and take my child? You left me stranded in time of hardship, what makes you think you can take my child!’
The male wasn’t going to give up. They fought. The male said the chick was rightfully his while the female said there was no such right. They went to the king’s court to settle the issue.
They explained everything to the King.
‘Whose is the chick, your highness?’ asked the female.
‘The chick belongs to the father,’ the King decreed.
‘Then you should write this on an inscription,’ the female said.
The King ordered – ‘A child belongs to the father more than the mother,’ to be written in the inscription. After this, the male took the chick away.
The female was badly hurt. She yelled and cried. She vowed to take revenge on the King.
A few weeks later, she died.
There was a carpenter who worked in the King’s palace. His wife was pregnant. The spirit of the female sparrow transmigrated into his wife’s womb. A daughter was born to them after 10 months.
She grew up endowed with great virtue and talents.
One day, there was a meeting in the palace between kings and the ministers. They were discussing who could grow a pumpkin inside a Gagri (Nepali Water Pitcher). No one thought anyone could.
A Gagri
After a while, one of the ministers spoke –
‘The carpenter is quite wise. He might!’
The King asked the carpenter to be brought to the court immediately and ordered him to do so. The carpenter couldn’t deny so he returned home dejected. He looked disappointed as he entered. His daughter saw this and came running at him. He shared everything with her. She thought for a while and told him to stay calm and go to bed. The father was not convinced but his daughter’s support did manage to calm him. The daughter meanwhile had a plan. (And some special abilities!)
The next day she bought some pumpkin seeds and a clay gagri. She planted the seeds in her garden. It sprang the next day and within a few days, some sprouts emerged in it. She took them and placed them inside the gagri. She took good care of the pumpkin and on the seventh day: The gargri had a pumpkin inside it. She took the gagri to her father and told him to go to the palace and ask the king to take the pumpkin out without breaking it into pieces. The father was pleased. He went to the palace and did as she had asked.
The king was astonished to see this but was nevertheless pleased with the carpenter. He gave some reward and the carpenter returned home.
There was another meeting in the palace after a few days. This time they discussed who could build a house in reverse order. Everyone thought the intelligent carpenter could do it, if anyone. The King summoned the carpenter and asked him to build a house in reverse. This time too, the carpenter couldn’t deny so he returned home dejected. He had the same look of disappointment as he entered. His daughter saw this and asked what was wrong. He shared everything. She thought for a while and told him to stay calm and go to bed. The father was not convinced but his daughter’s support meant a lot to him. The daughter had a plan.
The next day she told her father to go ask for money with the King to build the house. She told him to take a paathi (an archaic nepali cup) and to tell the King to fill the paathi from the opposite end when he is about to give it. The carpenter went to the palace and did what she said. The King yelled at him –
‘Fool! How can a paathi be filled in reverse!’
The carpenter told him that he would require money that has been filled in reverse order to build a house in that order. The King realized the error and pardoned him. The carpenter went home and shared this with his daughter. She was pleased.
During the next meeting at the palace, they discussed who could bring the things of ultimate quality, character, and taste. Once again, they all agreed that only the carpenter could do it. The carpenter was called and was asked to bring them. The carpenter couldn’t deny so he returned home dejected. He looked disappointed when he entered. His daughter saw him and asked what was wrong. He told her everything. She thought for a while and told him to stay calm and go to bed.
The next day she asked him to bring a piece of new cloth. She tore the cloth into three pieces and filled them with salt, chilly, and rice. She gave those to his father and told him to take this to the King and say –
‘The ultimate quality is rice, the ultimate character is chilly, and the ultimate taste is salt.’
The carpenter went to the court and did what his daughter told. The King opened the clothes and was impressed with what the carpenter had done. He rewarded him with two thousand rupees. The carpenter gleefully accepted it and returned home. He gave it to his daughter. She, however, asked him to buy her a horse with it. The daughter began riding the horse around.
The carpenter’s house wasn’t too far from the palace and its stable. There were only female horses there. The daughter sneakily left her horse at that stable every night. After a few months, one of the king’s horses was pregnant. In due time, she gave birth. The daughter then went to the stable, took the foal and brought it with her. When the guards interrupted, she said the foal was hers and didn’t give it back. When this issue couldn’t be resolved by the soldiers, the King had to intervene. He came up to her and said –
‘The foal born of my horse is mine.’
‘Who does a child belong to : the father or the mother, your highness?’ The little girl asked.
‘The mother,’ the King replied.
‘Why don’t you confirm this in one old inscription of yours,’ the girl suggested.
The king asked one of his men to go check. The man returned with the information that a child belonged to the father more than the mother.
And so the little girl took the little foal with her and the King remembered the sparrows.
The female sparrow took her revenge!
DISCUSSION
This is a mystical tale about a character wronged by both her loved-one and the system. The only thing of meaning and comfort is taken away for her. The character vows to take revenge, not just for personal satisfaction but also to expose the fallacy of a thought and a system. The character ends up taking revenge. But it required a great plan from her.
If we remove the mystical element from the tale then it becomes a tale of a woman’s struggle – which frequently occurs in society and people’s lives.
What we can learn from this is –
If you have suffered injustice – exploit and expose the rat and the flawed system. There is nothing wrong with that!
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One willing to go to the summit, should not give a damn about shame, disgust, sin, etc.
Nepal may not be among the strongest and the most powerful nations — but that doesn’t mean it has lacked the occasional thinker with words-of-wisdom. Today I am going to share a metaphorical story written by one such writer: Bhairav Aryal.
Hearing his uncle always say, ‘We all have to make it to the summit of success, anyhow!’
— a young schoolboy one day asks, ‘How tall is the summit of success? Can I reach there someday?’
In reply, the uncle says it was possible and would even take him there — if he could manage some money.
The same day the boy steals cash and jewellery from home. They leave in a Mercedes. On the way, the uncle first teaches that — one willing to go to the summit should not give a damn about shame, disgust, sin, etc.
Reaching a huge red pond, the uncle explains —
‘This is the sea of success. See how fun and romantic is this sea formed by the blood of the poor and the stupid. This is the route to the summit.’
The uncle takes him nearer and presses a switch. This takes them to a checkpoint. The boy hands his bag to uncle after which the latter disappears. He waits for four hours ! That’s when he remembers what the uncle had taught:
One willing to go to the summit, should not give a damn about shame, disgust, sin, etc.
He then — letting go of his shame, enters.
In a room, he sees self rotating chairs. Nervously he says —
‘I am here to see the summit of success but my uncle betrayed me. Can I get an entry-pass?’
The chairs laugh. A serious-looking chair asks whose guy he was. The boy is unable to answer. Meanwhile, a new person enters with a bag and all the chairs get into a tussle to get hold of that person. The boy sneakily leaves the room and heads upstairs.
After a floor with automated vessels that fight, he climbs further up.
A sweet voice welcomes him there. He looks around. He sees lots of thighs and legs. One thigh comes near him. And the lights go off. He hears chaotic sounds of those organs fighting with each other. He leaves to go further upstairs.
He sees nobody there. While he looks around, his back presses a switch that opens a door. There he sees a room with a disgusting smell. He sees human heads and bodily organs. He gets scared. He looks to run when he stumbles upon a corpse. Unable to bear the suffering, he closes his eyes and screams —
‘Uncle…Is this the summit of success?’
When he opens his eyes, he sees his uncle in front with a pistol pointed at him. The angry uncle tells him to leave. The boy joins his hands and tells him —
‘I will leave uncle! I saw the way to the summit of success you showed, but this wasn’t the summit of success I wanted to see’
This website here: 2021 U.S. Animal Kill Clock (animalclock.org) keeps count of the number of animals slaughtered in the US in the current year. The number at the time of this typing is — 49,336,478,598.
Not every species that goes extinct is because of human beings. But we are responsible for quite a few!
A quick walk around a city like Kathmandu will show you stories. Better than movies – because these stories are not just of human sorrows and glories. The stories are also of dogs. Stray dogs!
Dogs like to get cozy in winters or when it gets cold. They like to wrap themselves around their own body to generate heat.
A dog warming itself like that is disturbed by the noise of a speeding motorbike (which Nepal quite honestly hasn’t made and doesn’t deserve considering its output) which passes by the dog.
The dog is forced to get up in horror, only to realize that all is safe. No one cares about him/her enough to even intentionally bother. The biker is gone — to his friends perhaps. To watch a game of football perhaps! The dog looks on in shock. He has been robbed of his moment of warmth! No one knows if the dog will be able to sleep in there again.
Sights such as these make you apathetic towards people. While you may, a few minutes earlier have empathized with the desperately waiting human-eyes in shops that don’t sell a thing — You stop caring after these incidents.
You then start questioning — Why should I empathize with people? What right do some people have to burden others? Why are some people even existing? Why can’t there be a system that looks at animals and animal-like-humans equally?
It is nothing to be ashamed of. If the same question can be asked of dogs and other animals then why not of humans?
If more than 50 billion animals can be killed each year in US alone, what is the big deal with COVID? Let me go. Let them go.
(Such stray dogs are mercilessly killed by the municipality once their population goes out of hand.)
Why sustain a species at the price of finishing every other?
The paradoxical questions are :
Why do so many people have to live?
What is their purpose?
Why does a human get to ask these questions?
Where is the management?
To the third and fourth questions I have another question:
Is it time for an association of Post-Humans, who are intellectually superior to normal people?
Such Post-Humans can be decided on an emotional and intelligence criteria. Not IQ, Mensa or likes. Something new. Something beautiful. Something glorious!
Why can’t those Post-Humans then manage humans, just as normal humans manage animals and slaughter-houses?
Not to eat of course!
The idea is to create a situation where a superior breed of humans take control over the world and with intellect and empathy manage other humans, creatures and environment. Creating a balance.
How can it be done?
It won’t be easy of course!
But remember: It mustn’t have been easy for our ancestors to tame and manage dogs too.
The number at the time of this finishing is — 49,344,410,694!
Before I get into UG Krishnamurti, I want to share some background.
I intensely explored the internet for doses of wisdom. Philosophers, Spiritualists, Poets, Writers, Filmmakers, Artists, Scientists — I was on a mission to find and understand everyone who thought freely and deeply.
I used to jump around fields — at times philosophy, at times spirituality, literature, cinema, arts, science…where, finding a thinker I related to — I would consume everythought available on the internet of his/hers. I wasn’t committed to any specific field.
Deep inside however, I was in fact seeking ‘the one’ ultimate thinker to whom I could submit myself intellectually-whole-heartedly. And based on whose style of thinking, I could build and develop mine!
A case of seeking the giant on whose shoulder I was to stand.
It was during such explorations that I stumbled upon the ideas of an old person from India discovered under the tag: Indian Spiritualists.
I had followed quite a few from India before — Kautilya, Kabir, Vivekananda, Paramhansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Rajneesh, Aurobindo Ghosh, even one Vimalananada from Robert Svoboda’s Aghora. I was pro-vedic spirituality at that time and had great reverence for the System.
But this particular old bloke I discovered was something else!
He said Vedic Rishis were fanatics high on drugs (Soma) and called one Rajneesh a pimp. He openly said he was not anyone’s guru and that knowledge of the ultimate was absurd.
‘You cannot know anything
You don’t want to know’,
he proclaimed. He hadn’t written any books, so all that was available was through videos. YouTube has tons of it.
He yelled, sweared, and roasted almost every revered spiritual saint and system.
I was immediately drawn to these thoughts as he spoke unlike any I had heard and had ideas that would put even Nietzsche to shame. He was quite something ! He was UG Krishnamurti.
I am not going to write about his life here. My only purpose with this article is to share what I think he was and his perspective is.
And so as time passed I started getting heavily-influenced by him. I continuously watched his videos and his thoughts and ideas became the foundation of my own thoughts and thinking. I had found the shoulder. But the one I couldn’t stand on. There was none!
He was elusive and incomprehensible. The more I thought I understood the man the more confused I got. I tried to fit him into different systems of thinking. At times it felt he fit into Roussean style, at times to Postmodern thought, at times to Mahayana and eventually to Absurdism. But something or the other always didn’t connect!
Initially, he had felt so natural and easy to grasp but the more I watched his videos and read stories about him, the things he said, the more bewildered I got.
He didn’t seem to care to write, make money, enterprise his thoughts. He didn’t seem to care about anything. He at times calmly expressed his ideas while at times, yelled in the videos. What was he about? What does he care of? Does he even care for a thing? Even Buddha preached as far as I knew!
Who was this guy? What was wrong/right with him? Was he a hypocrite? Was there any marketing-propaganda I missed? Who was he most like: Camus, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Rousseau?
Years passed and the influence remained and grew. His perception of life and the world very much remained at my intellectual-core. I gradually separated from Vedic Spirituality as I discovered flaws and absurdities.
My every impulse of wanting to be a guru someday, revering some thinker, monetizing my thinking, pursuing the 4 Ps (Power, Prestige, Popularity, Pleasure) used to hit upon the wall called UG which used to shatter and destroy the desires mercilessly. Desires were gone alright, but I didn’t know what else to do. What to pursue!
UG Krishnamurti was there in his American/Indian home talking with celebrities and big-shots. He didn’t seem to have a concern for money. It all seemed to have been taken care of by his followers or however. But I was here in Nepal, struggling in semi-political institutions to make ends meet. He may not have wanted to be a Guru but he was one.
I quietly kept his thoughts and ideas inside a small compartment of my mind and called it UGian Philosophy. I didn’t want to discuss or debate about it with anyone. I didn’t even want to search for other people’s opinion on him on the Internet. He was a puzzle, a riddle that I was to solve — by myself. He was a philosopher whose philosophy had inspired me, influenced me and had formed the base of my intellectual thinking. I had to find a category for his thinking. There had to be a category!
This continued for a few years.
But now, as of today, I think I have an answer to him and his ideas. I think I have finally understood what his philosophy was. Although, I have to honestly say that the UG Krishnamurti that influenced me was the one I viewed and listened to on the internet. I have no idea what he was like in person and what the background of it all was. It is just about the UG Krishnamurtithat appears in Videos and his meeter’s blogs.
What I understood was that the process of assigning UG Krishnamurti and his thoughts to a school of thinking or philosophy was in itself an absurdity. UG Krishnamurti was not a philosopher. In that, he didn’t have a philosophy to teach or preach. UG Krishnamurti was merely a negater:
He was what remains if you remove all schools of thoughts from a person.
Let me explain:
All thinkers I mentioned above: Kautilya, Kabir, Vivekananda, Paramhansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Rajneesh, Aurobindo Ghosh, Vimalananada had some philosophical destinationto sell and achieve. This applies to all other schools of philosophy, science and arts. They all are about taking you to a particular intellectual space. A destiny, a goal.
UG Krishnamurti had none. He was not about anything or anywhere. He was only a denier. Once again, he is what is left in a person if you remove all schools of thoughts from him: Philosophies, Sciences, Arts — everything! With that removal goes every value, morality, perception related to those schools. Every ambition or corruption we have is indeed the mixture of countless confused schools of thinking!
Take Schopenhauer for instance, a denier but still had spaces to sell and achieve. Be it in the form of an aesthetic-genius who can perceive the will-in-itself or in the form of an ascetic who accepts the nature of will. Buddha had nibbana to sell and achieve. Nietzsche eventually had Uberman and perspectivism. Absurdists had existential-meaning to achieve. Science likewise has empirical evidence.
But UG Krishnamurti had none. He didn’t seem to profess any particular destination. All he did was deny all existing ones. The closest I have found to this type of thinking today is of the absurdists. Yet, the absurdists seek existential-meaning, the cause to exist and do. For example, through Camus’ Arts it is as if they seek justification to do things in life. But without pursuit, UG became a natural thinker. The what is!
I would even go as far as to say that he is Man in the natural form without a color of culture.
UG Krishnamurti seems to have firstly, denied everything and secondly, didn’t seem to have bothered to search for new avenues. He seems to have just settled in negation without bothering to seek further. Why he didn’t care is not for me to answer. Although I can make a guess that he might have thought that commiting to a seek would once again trap him in the rabbit hole. It would mean ambition, rhetoric and eventually —would have meant ending up like everyone else making the same mistakes. Just another system!
All systems eventually fail, and what begins as a naive pursuit of truth necessarily ends with forceful adjustments to opinions once hardships arise, he probably understood. Absurdism!
What all this has eventually meant to me is that UG has immensely helped me see the absurdity and negate all propaganda, marketing, hypes and promises of various systems of thinking. Yes, we all have seen how each system promises, asserts and presents itself as if it is the only credible method to the truth. Thanks to UG Krishnamurti I have had the courage to see the absurdity in each and negate all of them in me.
What this has done to me is — opened me to the exploration of brand new possibilities either through the invention of a new system or through the amalgamation of all existing ones. (Yes, I am risking inevitability but I have my tools of hope!)
Other difference with me is that I have not concluded. I have not settled in negation. I still seek, search and pursue. And that immediately makes me a non-UG. And I have no problem with that! I believe in exploration and seeking. Not on settling and concluding. Hence, I look to learn and take important aspects from here and there. With UG, what I have done is follow a technique professed by Buddha with whom I don’t agree on much otherwise:
Just because a boat has taken you across a river doesn’t mean you have to carry the boat around with you further.
A small background before we jump into the philosophy of cataclysm.
I grew up with Hindu/Buddhist philosophies and as you may know — there’s a gargantuan presence of the inevitability of death in these systems of thinking.
Take the goddess Kali for instance — one of the most popular goddesses around. Her name is the feminine form of Kala which implies both time and death.
Psychospiritually, death could mean the killing of Ego and Maya — the kill is optional. But it also means the finish line of a certain biological span — which is inevitable. It doesn’t mean you should kill your biological self though!
Worshipping Kali is a method of non-stop realizing the fact that death is inevitable and living according to that realization (with humility and wisdom).
Hear from one of the most popular ‘experts’ of the system:
While numbers do tell the magnitude of impact, they don’t tell the whole story — especially psychoemotional ones!
For more than a month we all lived with the constant thought that anything catastrophic could happen any fkn time and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.
(Except hope you weren’t the one who ended up in rubble with your corpse looking like a smashed brown tomato with shades of grey concrete!)
And then in September of the same year, this happened:
India imposed an economic blockade on Nepal. Since every day-to-day stuff comes from there, things got pretty hard!
Basically, there was no fuel so everything inflated. From food to clothes, every fkn thing! You had to plan for a week to travel a distance of 30 km and if you agreed to do it — you had to share a bus with ~150 co-pathetic souls which had a capacity of 60 at most. That too at a high cost.
But the most vicious inflation took place in the most dreaded area — inside the head!
Here you were, hardly recovering from the natural catastrophe that didn’t take you away only because you were lucky — and now you couldn’t even trust humans! Bastards from the South could march in anytime with their leather boots and take you to their concentration camp — Yes, you thought these!
And then 2020 came andCOVID happened. You sat at your home wondering what the brothers from North and West have spread around the world. You come from one of the most irrelevant nations in the world which means the richer folks could be experimenting on you and you could do nothing about it! Your perspective on vaccines or the whole issue didn’t count too. You were nothing! And you could be thrust into nothingness anytime they wanted!
So you spent all your time on the internet with the intention of understanding the world and then knew all about Climate Change, Food Crisis, Water Crisis, World War 3, Asteroids, AIs, etc. etc — all serious contenders to end this human hubbub!
All this has accumulated into an understanding of the world where:
Some of us have started to constantly realize the fact that catastrophe is inevitable. Philosophy of Cataclysm is real.
My point is —
There is a new philosophy in the market place. It is called Cataclysm. Or it could be called inevitabilism, even catastrophism, maybe end-of-humans! Decivilization???
Even that’s not the point though.
The actual point is that we may have to start a new religion:
Where we invent a new God. This God shall be the symbol of impending catastrophe. This God’s only job will be:
To make us constantly realize the fact that cataclysm is inevitable!
So the possibility of cataclysm remains and determines every breath we take, every hand we shake.
Let’s discuss more of this philosophy of cataclysm.
As I went through his life and ideas, I realized how profound impact this guy and his type of thinking has had in our minds and the world today.
I will cut to the chase: The impact is damaging!
Yes, I do understand that the laptop I use, the phone I use — are all the results of innovative works done on the West Coast of the United States. And I also understand that these technologies are the very reason why I could dare to self-study and self-employ myself.
But when I looked at these people and their motives closely, a horrifying reality grimly slapped me in the face: These people wanted to rule the world and our minds, and they did!
Now there’s nothing new with people wanting to rule others. It has been happening forever. And there’s nothing we have been able to do to remove this part of our existence.
Tribal leaders talked of security, and ended up leading.
Spiritual/Religious leaders talked of material salvation, and ended up leading.
Democratic heroes talked of freedom, and ended up leading.
Communistic utopia promised of kinglessness, and ended of leading.
This has been going on forever and unless we do something radical to the collective human conscience, it will continue to do so. In this latest chapter, however, our leaders are the hollow boys from California — who talked of technological-empowerment, and have ended up leading!
Yes, once again I will say — the technology I use today is their blessing. It has helped me in my learning and creative process.
But,
Wasn’t that commander a blessing to normal folks who didn’t know where the next attack would come from?
Weren’t spiritual talks a blessing to people when they failed to attain satisfaction through material pursuits?
Wasn’t democratic ideal a blessing to citizens when tyrants horsed around doing whatever they wanted?
Wasn’t communism a blessing when capitalistic thinking destroyed the life and soul of people who bled their sweat in work?
What I have realized is — Whenever we accept blessings, we accept reverence too! And this is what is happening to our world today: We have unknowingly welcomed new Gods because we were so blind with the blessings given to us.
But there’s something damaging about gods, that’s why we time and time again put up a struggle to destroy the old temples and jump into creating a new one whenever anyone promises to take the initiative. This damaging thing is: God rules over not just our life and economics, God infiltrates deep into our minds!
And this is why I said that the impact of Silicon Valley heroes is damaging: They are not just about technology. They have infiltrated into the deepest regions of our individual minds — therefore into our social behavior. They have become our new Gods. Like it or not!
The concept of God was to create a presence so strong within us that it penetrates deep into our consciousness and the teaching dictates our every thought and behavior. The same is with any kind of ideology. And the same is happening to us with the values of Silicon Valley.
There are a few mindsets I noticed that have come out of there:
The only purpose of life is to make it big, you shall believe!
Tell them you are denting the Universe, and they will follow
Become a king through entrepreneurship, and they will bow
Create platforms, set the rules, and they will fight
Create technologies that expose their weaknesses, and they will drool
Create technologies that encourage laziness, and they will submit
Make them dependent on you and your work, and they will surrender
Tell them the market decides, and they will feel helpless
Tell them their life will get better, and they will believe
and finally,
Present yourself with daunting cockiness and — they will worship
Again, it is not about the technologies, it is about the impact these ideas have had on our minds and the world. It is about the impact this kind of thinking is having on technologies themselves.
One can only wonder what kind of technologies we might have had if they were not dictated by the ambitions of intellectually immature children with fanciful dreams! (With a lot of support from the Uncle, of course!)
See for yourself. Look at the richest people in the world today and all that have come out of that wretched valley called Silicon, don’t you see all of the above being ticked?
Look at the most powerful person in the world today, doesn’t he talk the biggest?
Look at the audacity of a person who trades in software, don’t you bow?
Look at ‘that’ platform for instance, aren’t we bashing our horns with each other?
Look at the platform that had to recently change its name for posterior goodwill, didn’t it expose us all naked?
Look at the watch in your hand, are you supposed to be told when to sleep and when to wake up? Do we need a bloody software to tell us if our grammar is correct or not?
Look at the most popular internet search service, can you even search your key anymore?
Look at the heap of algorithm-driven generic content that is eclipsing who knows how many Aristophanes, Rousseaus, Beethovens and Teslas (Nikola), don’t you feel powerless?
Look at your life, did you need all these fancy AI driven inspectors, don’t you feel duped?
Look at the confidence of those narrow-minded marketing coaches spread over the internet like cockroaches in a gutter — who promise you a navigation through the market — don’t they make you feel helpless? (Even if you ‘make it’ through their coaching, you will have already become somebody else. It comes at a price: you have to be one of them!)
And all this is damaging: they have turned our mind and the world into one pathetic automated machine whose only function is to ‘dent the universe.’ Isn’t the universe already dented enough?
I am convinced now more than ever: We have had enough of technology. They aren’t going to solve any of our issues. It’s people’s behavior that has to be mended. It’s not out of a utopian need, it’s out of self-preservation that I speak this.
A person who takes vulgar pictures of young children will continue to do so — be it on an analog camera or IPhone 13!
A culture that produces crap drama will continue to do so — be it in theatre or Netflix!
Two nations that fight with each other will continue to do so — be it in SC Sea or Mars!
A country whose people are morally corrupt will continue to deceive the public — be it through government or e-commerce!
A spoilt kid who irritates others will continue to do so — be it through his bicycle bell or 1000 cc bikes!
These toys just don’t matter if people are going to be the same.
We have reached to a point where there can be millions of articles on the internet talking about the dangers of AI for writers and yet, none have the audacity to stand up and say: Stop this AI bullshit!
I really wonder:
What kind of technologies we might have had if they were not driven by the ambitions of intellectually immature children with fanciful dreams!
Coming back to the original point, we are driven today by the ideals of: superficial living, technology/market dependence, mutual exploitation and averageness with cocky-presentation. All these are Silicon Valley givens.
Yes, Silicon Valley has given a lot more to us. And I personally thank them for it. But now it’s time to move on. Now it’s time to unlearn. It’s damaging. This is not what life is about!
And for those who care about posterity,
I think the people of 2050 will wonder:
What kind of life we might have had if those who were aware 30 years ago did not surrender to the ambitions of the intellectually immature children with fanciful dreams!
So what do we do?
We start off by unlearning the lessons taught by them and detoxifying ourselves of their influence.
Technology isn’t wrong. The ones who control it should be scrutinized. Technology can be used for self-knowing, experiences, and exploration. It has to be freed from the clutches of Lusty boys of Silly-Con Valley! and so should our thoughts and life and the world and…
Once a dog was strolling near a forest when he saw a jackal sitting with her cubs. The dog sensed a resemblance with them. He went near and said –
‘We look the same. We must be from the same family. I think we should live together as one.’
The jackal too didn’t see much difference between herself and the dog, so she agreed to the proposal.
They went together until they reached a warm-looking den. They sniffed around and knew it was a den of a lion. The lion was apparently away, so the dog, the jackal, and her cubs went inside and made themselves comfortable.
In the evening, they sensed the lion approaching. The cubs got scared and began to cry.
‘Why are they making such a distressing noise?’ the dog asked the jackal.
‘They are asking for the lion’s heart,’ said the jackal loudly. She wanted the lion to hear.
The dog was smart so he understood what the jackal was up to.
‘Why don’t you give them the heart I brought the other day,’ said the dog loudly.
‘They are not gonna eat stale heart! They want it fresh,’ the jackal replied.
‘Tell them to be quiet for a while. I can sense a lion coming this way, I will kill it and bring a fresh heart,’ the dog said.
The lion heard all this. He believed a stronger creature than him was inside his den. He ran away in a jiffy. The dog and the jackal made that den their home after that.
(Taken from Folk Tales from Nepal: The Origin of Alcohol and Other Stories, Keshar Lall, Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 2009)
Discussion:
This tale is about characters of similar nature coming together to fight opposition and adversity. This tale doesn’t give a good message as it is about occupying what belongs to others and deceiving the rightful owner with trickery and teamwork.
What we can learn from this is –
There are lots of dogs and jackals in this world. Be alert and discover the truth before giving up!
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When you realize that the environment you exist in is incompatible, unsuited for you and it becomes inhospitable, you have four options in life.
You can either,
Adjust
Conquer
Change
Leave
All these require distinct traits. Let’s see what they are:
Adjust: To adjust in such an environment means to be okay with things as they are. You will need patience, tolerance, malleability, and open- mindedness to do this. You have to be willing to change yourself and suppress a lot of thoughts.
Conquer: To conquer such an environment means to rule over it. It requires energy, will-to-power, boldness, and cunningness.
Change: To change such an environment means struggling to eliminate the toxicity in it. It means changing the agents. It requires involvement, persuasion, vision, and communication. You don’t necessarily have to conquer to change.
Leave: To leave such an environment means to quit it altogether to never return again. It requires courage, imagination, determination and detachment.
Q: What’s the best option in life among them?
A: In life, 4 isn’t an option, so I would go for 3. If it’s any other environment, I would go for 4. But it all depends on the traits you have or can have. You can add more options in life too!
A man was out in the forest hunting birds when he came across a tiger. Excited at the sight of a muscular adult, the tiger prepared to pounce on him. The hunter noticed this in time and began pleading –
‘Please don’t kill me. Let’s be friends. I can manage better prey for you and will help you in a lot of things.’
The tiger liked the idea and said –
‘Sounds good! Go and kill my enemy – the porcupine’
The hunter agreed and asked where the porcupine was.
The tiger led the hunter to the hole where it lived. He pointed his gun at the face of the hole and waited for the porcupine. As soon as it came out, the man shot it – dead on the spot!
It impressed the tiger. But he didn’t want others to know about it as it would hurt his reputation.
‘Please don’t tell anyone about all this. I do not want others to know that you killed the porcupine,’ he requested.
The hunter agreed. He took the porcupine home and ate it for dinner.
The next morning, the hunter’s wife went to fetch water in a local tap. She picked her teeth with a bamboo splinter as she walked. Two of her neighbors observed this and asked what she had eaten.
‘My husband brought a porcupine last night, he had killed it himself,’ she boasted.
The news spread like wildfire around the village. It was only a matter of time before it reached the tiger. Fuming with anger, he went around the jungle searching for the hunter. When he finally spotted him, he questioned the hunter’s commitment.
‘I said nothing,’ the hunter argued.
‘I don’t know. Now, I will prey on you,’ the tiger said.
This frightened the man and it showed in his body. He trembled.
The tiger noticed this and asked –
‘Why do you tremble?’
The hunter thought for a while. He realized that the only thing the tiger was afraid of was the porcupine. So, he decided to cash in on this opportunity.
‘The porcupine I ate yesterday is mad at you. It wants to come out of my body to hurt you,’ he said.
The tiger sprinted out of sight in a jiffy!
DISCUSSION:
A person is in threat. Scared out of mind, that person requests the threatening person to pardon him by promising to help in return. He helps the threat get rid of its biggest weakness. But the threat asks for a commitment to that secret. Although the man adheres to his words, the nature of things is such that the secret is out. The threat is mad at the person for revealing it and goes to destroy him. The man realizes the threat’s weakness and uses it to chase it off!
What we can learn from this tale is –
Be careful with sensitive information
Stay true to your words – but if someone doesn’t understand your situation and comes to hurt you, use your intelligence to exploit their weakness for your safety.
There once lived a haughty boy. His name was Bunachha. He spoke like an old man.
One day, he went to his mother and said-
‘Mother! Now that I am clever and I can correctly pronounce tough words, I am thinking about going to Calcutta to make good money. Is it okay with you?’
‘Sure. Why not! But do you realize that there are wild rivers on the way?’ she said.
‘Am I a coward! I will go. Send me as soon as possible. I will bring great money and we will build a new house,’ Bunachha replied.
‘Who will you go with?’ the mother asked.
‘Why are you worrying. I have six-seven friends. We will go together.’
As soon as the mother agreed, Bunachha ran out. He went to his friends and spoke-
‘Look, friends! I am leaving for Calcutta. Whoever wants to go, can join me. We are now capable enough to correctly pronounce tough words. What’s the issue? We will earn well and build new houses here after we come back. What say?’
The friends agreed.
The next day, the friends took permission from their respective homes and gathered at the same place. Eight kids were now set to leave.
‘Okay, then! Tomorrow, all of you bring the necessary things and take leave from your home,’ Bunachha ordered. They all agreed and left.
Bunachha carried his belongings, took leave from his mother, and arrived at the designated place early the next morning. Slowly the friends gathered too.
‘Okay, friends. Are we ready to leave?’, Bunachha asked.
They cheered.
‘Okay then, let’s go.’, he said and they left.
On their way, they talked about all kinds of stuff and easily crossed the roads, until they reached a river.
‘See my friends! My mother had warned me of these rivers. So we all have to cross it as a unit. Else the river will take us with it. So…Hold your hands and let’s go!‘ Bunachha ordered.
They successfully crossed.
Immediately, Bunachha said –
‘Wait, now we will count if all eight of us are here.’
He began counting:
‘One, Two, Three…Seven’
‘Where’s one,’ he wondered. Another friend came forward.
‘Should I recount? You may have missed,’ he requested.
Bunachha agreed.
‘One, Two, Three, Four…Seven.’
‘You were right! Where’s one? Who is gone? Where did he go?’ he panicked.
All the boys panicked. They restlessly began screaming.
An old man who was bathing in the river nearby heard the noise. He rushed to them and asked –
‘What’s up boys? Who is lost?’
‘Eight of us left home to go abroad. All eight of us were here before we crossed this river, but now we are only seven,’ they explained.
The old man laughed.
‘Silly boys! Stay in line. I will count,’ he said and counted –
‘One, Two…Seven, Eight!’
‘The one who counted forgot to count himself. Silly boys!’ said the old man and went back to his bath. But on his way he thought –
Where might have they come from! Where might they be going! If I could keep them with me, I could make them work for me. This way, I could make some more money.
The old man went back to the boys and asked –
‘Tell me, where did you come from and where are you going?’
‘We came from our home and we are headed for Calcutta. We are going there to make some money to build houses for us here,’ the boys immediately answered.
The old man now was excited. He wanted to take them with him. He could take great advantage of them.
‘See boys – You guys are children as of now. It’s not easy to reach Calcutta. You won’t be able to do it. There’s a lot to do at my house. Why don’t you guys help me, I will pay you. You will become more mature in 2-4 years. By then, you will also have enough money. You can leave then. What say?’ he asked.
The boys looked at each other. They couldn’t give an answer. So they all went to the old man’s house. He fed them well. He didn’t make them work that day.
The next day he assigned them each a work. One had to carry water, one had to bring logs from wood, one had to graze the goats…
On the eighth day, they had to beat rice in a Dhinki (It is a traditional rice mill or husk lever used in Nepal). The old man gave each of them a bundle and said –
‘Boys, go and beat these rice in the dhinki.’
A Dhinki. Source: Krish, Wikicommons.
(In Newari it can be interpreted in two ways: either ‘Go beat the rice’ or ‘Throw the dhinki.’ The boys interpret the latter.)
For a while, the boys stared in amazement at the work assigned to them. Bunachha spoke –
‘Why are you guys staring? We have to do whatever grandfather has told us to do. Before he returns, we have to throw this away. Else it won’t be good for us.’
Everyone agreed and worked together to bring the dhinki out. But they were not sure where they were supposed to throw it. Again, the leader Bunachha stepped up –
‘Can’t you see? We will throw it off the cliff of that hill’.
Everyone did as he ordered and threw the dhinki off the cliff. By the time they were home, the old man was back.
‘Did you beat rice in the dhinki?‘ the old man rudely asked Bunachha.
Banuchha interpreted the other meaning.
‘Yes. It was tough. But I threw it out of the cliff,’ he proudly said.
‘What?!’ the old man exploded in rage –
‘Rascals, did I ask you to throw the dhinki? I told you to beat rice. Go, bring it back. Else you may have to starve.’
‘But how can we bring it back? We can’t bring it back from there!’ they said.
The old man felt bad for them.
How will they bring it back from such a height! he thought and told them to work carefully from now on.
One day they went goat-grazing. While the goats browsed the boys played.
At dusk, the weather deteriorated. Black clouds covered the sky. A cold and fierce wind blew. The poor kids brought the scattered goats together at a pati (A roofed resting place). The boys and the goats woefully shivered until the boys couldn’t take it anymore. They collected dry leaves, twigs and started a fire.
The fire, however, scared the goats. They moved away.
‘Why won’t these goats stay by the fire?’, Bunucha said – ‘Friends, we have got to bring them closer to the fire.’
The boys followed his command and forcefully brought the goats near. The goats retaliated and haphazardly jumped around. The further the goats went, the more the boys brought them closer – until they brought them too close. All of them burnt and died!
‘Look how things are! A little while ago they jumped and ran because it was too cold. Now that they are warm, they sleep calm,’ Bunuchha said.
After a while:
‘Now the rain has stopped. Let’s get back home. Let’s wake them up,’ Bunuchha ordered.
The boys made noise and tried to shoo away the goats. But they were dead! They didn’t move.
A frustrated Bunucha said –
‘How long do we wait! How long do we warm them! I am starving! Let us carry one each and leave.’
And so all the boys carried a goat on their back and walked.
The old man was already back home by the time the boys returned. He was astonished to see the boys carry one scorched goat each.
‘What did you do to them? Why did you kill them?’ the old man asked.
‘We didn’t kill them! These poor folks were shivering. It rained crazy and the wind was fierce. We collected dry leaves and started a fire. We allowed them to enjoy the fire too. They were silent once they were warm. But they didn’t seem to want to leave and were reluctant. We forcefully carried one each,’ Baluchha explained. The boys confirmed.
The old man couldn’t utter a word! He was shocked. Dumbfounded. Hopeless!
DISCUSSION:
This tale majorly shows the thought process and activities of young and bold characters. Our main guy, Bunachha, is innocent and haughty. He is in a hurry to mature so he wants to do things that older people do.
Luckily, he has friends who too are bold. But they are more simpleminded and are willing to do whatever Bunachha commands. So this tale can also be looked upon as a tale of leader and followers. The introduction of the old man brings in an opportunist character who is clever and knows how to manipulate others for his own advantage. We do not have a shortage of such people in our society! However, the old man himself suffers, thanks to Bunachha’s haughtiness and the innocence of the boys. This way, it also becomes a tale of innocence and boldness vs cleverness. At the end of it all, innocence and boldness prevail.
A major lesson to be learnt from this tale is this –
While it is great to be brave – watchfulness, humility and wisdom are equally important. Our society is full of opportunistic rogues, and the world is a tough place to be. Mix courage with knowledge and humility and no one can ever hurt you!
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Once there lived an old couple. They had five sons of which four moved out of the country at a young age. Only the youngest son, who was feeble-minded, stayed with them.
At the age of 55, the old man suffered from an illness. But luckily he recovered. The young son worked with responsibility after that. He loved his parents. The parents too, loved him equally. Soon he married.
Time passed and at the age of 85, the father suffered from a deadly disease. They tried a variety of solutions, but nothing worked this time around. The father finally lost hope, so he called his son and said-
‘Your brothers ran away early but due to God’s grace, you stayed with us. I am satisfied with you. I won’t live long now. Take care of your mother and your wife. I will give you four instructions which you have to follow if you don’t want to suffer in life. Now listen to those four instructions:
Never run in a sesame field
Never idly sit on walls and streets fidgeting your legs
Never share your secrets with your wife
Never befriend a Kami (A low order caste in Hindu System)
The father suffered in agony and didn’t last long after that.
This is after four years of his death. The son remembered the instructions. But he wondered how true they really were. So, he decided to test them himself.
First, he ran in a sesame field. The seeds stung his feet badly and the wounds didn’t heal for years. He realized that sesame seeds were actually rough and poisonous.
He then wanted to test the second instruction.
He went to the walls of his field and sat. A black snake bit his legs. The snake was venomous, so his feet didn’t heal at all. His toes rot and fell.
Realizing the truth of those two instructions, he decided to test the third.
He befriended a Kami. Nothing bad happened to him immediately, he went on to test his wife.
He went to the palace of the king and stole his peacock. He came home and told his wife about it. He then hid the peacock in a box without letting his wife know and killed and cooked a chicken. That night, they both enjoyed the meal.
‘Do not tell this to anyone, if the king finds out, I am dead,’ he told his wife.
The next morning his wife went to bring some water from a local tap. She uncomfortably moved her tongue around her mouth as she walked. The neighboring women noticed this. One came up and asked – ‘What’s wrong with your mouth?’
‘Nothing,’ the woman replied and walked on. After a while however, she couldn’t resist and whispered –
‘Okay I will tell you something. But make sure you won’t tell this to anyone. Yesterday my husband stole the king’s peacock. We ate it for dinner. That’s what has stuck in my teeth.’
The neighbor said she won’t tell anyone and left.
At the palace, the king searched for his lost peacock. Everyone was at it. Around the same time, the neighbor woman told her husband about the peacock. The husband told somebody else and in no time, the news spread like wildfire. It reached the king. He was told that someone stole and ate his peacock. The king immediately ordered two of his guards to bring the culprit to him. It didn’t take long for them to find the man and then they brought him to the palace.
‘Why did you steal the peacock?,’ they asked him.
He told the truth. So the king ordained to have him executed. The ministers took him to the riverside. At that time, a Kami was sharpening his Khukuri. The ministers called him. The man thought to himself-
‘This Kami is my friend but now he is helping them execute me. My father was correct.’
But just as he was about to be executed he plead-
‘Please don’t kill me because I haven’t killed the king’s peacock. I will bring it as it is. I did all this to test my father’s instruction.’
And he explained everything. He was then allowed to go home and bring the peacock.
He realized that it was wrong to befriend a Kami and reveal secrets to one’s wife. He found all his father’s instructions to be correct.
THE END.
Discussion:
This story is all about four instructions a father gives to his son:
Never run in a sesame field
Never idly sit on walls and streets fidgeting your legs
Never share your secrets with your wife
Never befriend a Kami (A low order caste in Hindu System)
The first instruction teaches this – If you do reckless activities in a dangerous environment, you can’t expect good things to happen to you. You will be hurt. Be careful and understand the environment before taking action on it.
The second instruction teaches this – Sitting idly in public places or in life implies you are a careless and lazy person. The snake bite probably symbolizes someone saying harsh things to you.
The third instruction can be applied to any person who has a habit of gossiping and who doesn’t have control over the self. It doesn’t mean it has to be a wife or a woman. There are men who are worse. The message is this – Never share your secrets to stupid people!
The fourth instruction is caste-biased. But if we remove the character and caste, what we learn is – Never befriend and trust a person who is unobliged to the friendship. Choose your companions and acquaintances wisely. Don’t depend on anyone unless you are sure of them.
The general message is to be careful in life. Choose companions and activities with great care, attention and wisdom.
There once lived an elderly couple who gave birth to a son in their advancing years. They named him Balram.
When Balram matured, they had an extravagant wedding for him. Balram’s wife was very beautiful. The old couple were glad to have found such a daughter-in-law.
While assured of her beauty, the old man one day decided to learn of her mental abilities. So he called her up and asked –
‘Can you tell me how much we may have spent at your wedding?’
‘I think only 2 mana rice (1 Mana equals 0.56 liter),’ she replied.
The old man irritated with this answer said –
‘I spent so much on your wedding and now you say only 2 manas! You talk as if we didn’t do enough. I don’t want to see the face of a stupid person like you. You go back home. There is no place for a daughter-in-law like you in my house’
The daughter-in-law was astonished to see him react like that. But she didn’t speak a word. The old man decided to take her back himself immediately.
On their way, the old man walked ahead while she followed behind.
They saw a group headed for cremation. The daughter-in-law asked them, ‘Is this a single corpse or a hundred?’
Hearing such a stupid question from her, the old man fumed. He thought what a fool of a woman she was. How can she ask if it was a single corpse or a hundred when she could clearly see only one. I think she really is madcap. But he didn’t speak a word. He kept on walking.
A little further, they saw large cropland. Farmers were harvesting. The daughter-in-law asked-
‘Father, are these crops of last year or of the current year?’
The old man was fed up with her, yet he didn’t speak a word and kept walking. The daughter-in-law kept up with him.
A little further they heard a jackal howl. The old man didn’t bother but she got restless. She understood animal language. The jackal was saying, ‘A corpse is buried here. If anyone would dig it out, I could eat. There’s a diamond ring in the finger of this corpse. Whoever brings it out, will get that ring’
‘It would be great to get hold of the ring. But how? The old man won’t believe it if I tell him about it,’ the daughter-in-law thought to herself.
The old man was tired from the walk. They sat under a peepal tree for a while. The old man took a nap. She took this opportunity and went near the jackal and began digging. After a while, she found both the corpse and the ring. She placed the corpse in front of the jackal and took off the ring.
When the old man woke up and couldn’t see her, he looked around for her. He finally spotted her near the corpse. He nervously thought – ‘Oh my! what kind of daughter-in-law did I get! She is not even afraid to be around corpses. I don’t think I should walk with her.’
So he didn’t say a word and walked on.
Seeing him walk away she ran towards him and walked together.
They stayed over at a place overnight and continued walking the next morning.
They heard a crow cawing. The old man didn’t notice a thing but she understood what the crow was saying:
‘There are two vessels underneath this tree which are full of coins. There’s even a bowl of curd. If anyone dug this place, I would eat the curd and give the coins’
She ran and began digging. After a while, she spotted a vessel. It was exactly the way the crow described. She gave the curd and took the coins.
The old man now was impressed on having gotten such wealth due to his daughter-in-law’s valor. She told him about the crow. The old man felt guilty for thinking she was a nincompoop. He decided not to send her back and they returned.
The old man was curious.
‘Why did you sit beside the corpse,’ he finally asked. She explained everything. She even gave him the ring. The old man started believing her.
After a while, he asked – ‘Why did you ask if that corpse was one or hundred?’
‘One who does well for others is called a hundred corpses after death. One who hasn’t done anything is called a single corpse – that’s why I asked,’ she replied.
‘And what about the harvest?’ he asked.
‘One who collects the harvest of the previous year has no debt to clear. If it is of this years, then there will be debts and investments, that’s why I asked.’
The old man now was happy hearing all this from her. But he still had a question. He asked it –
‘Listen, I spent so much on my son’s wedding. But you said I didn’t spend much. Why did you say that? Do you think the wedding was possible with 2 mana of rice?’
‘There’s a reason I said that. Yeah, you may have spent a lot at our wedding, but I could see only 2 mana of rice spent with all your heart. The rest of your expenses were merely for showing-off. Only the expense out of love and sympathy will give good returns. That’s why I gave such an answer but you didn’t understand,’ she replied.
Hearing such bitter but true words from his daughter-in-law impressed him.
‘She is very intelligent. She is equally virtuous. I thought unnecessary things,’ he said to himself.
After that day, the old man handed all the responsibilities over to her and lived in comfort and peace.
Nepal may not be among the strongest and the most powerful nations but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had occasional thinkers with words of wisdom. Here are 30 wise proverbs from the land of mountains and wise ones (what?):
The lost fish is always big
He who is thirsty needs to find the spring
A devious friend is worse than an enemy
Opportunities come but they do not linger
When the Sun arrives, the Stars disappear
Greed brings Gain, Gain brings Sorrow
Even an ox will give birth — if you are lucky
To be in a hurry when one can barely walk!
You may eat what you want, but you wear for others
When brothers brawl, the villagers exploit
The tiger that eats you will not spare me
You have to tolerate the kicks of the cow which gives you milk
The buffalo is scared of the mendicant just as the mendicant is afraid of the buffalo
When elephants fight, grass trample
Ask for a goat to those who promise you an elephant
When the cat leaves, the rats rule
Too many cats kill no mice
Don’t sacrifice your goat for an ill chicken
Even a black crow lays white eggs
Can a hog muddy the sea?
The forest goes and so does the tiger
Every spring has a different taste, every man a different idea
Pulling a creeper can bring a landslide
No one sits by an extinguished fire
Children are the wealth of the poor
Will impatience bear a son?
A knot tied with joy is untied with tears
While the holy men die of starvation, rogues live on milk and rice
Even an unloaded gun fires when you’re having a bad day
The enemy is never idle
Did you like these wise proverbs?
If yes,
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We all have limited time. There’s a lot to think, learn, do and live in this duration. At times it feels a single life is not enough. And it isn’t! This makes effective time management a serious thing.
While we may not have been able to unearth an elixir to make us immortal (it’s good it doesn’t exist), we have been equipped with a good enough intelligence for us to do wonders with – if we use it effectively.
One way to do that is by trying to allocate and manage our life and its duration in an effective manner.
Time Management is simply the process of managing the time allocated to us for an effective life.
I developed a time management formula a few months ago and I have been implementing regularly. It has proved to be effective.
Now that I have fully committed myself to a life as a writer, there are a few elements which I think are essential to such a lifestyle.
This time management is simply an allocation of those elements to the clock-time embedded in almost all of us.
I had been very random andall-over-the-place with my time and work management. This particular formula has helped me get a little bit more organized.
I hereby coin this formula — The C-Clockwork (because it contains a few Cs)
The C-Clockwork
The C-Clockwork consists of 4 Cs sub-grouped into 2 Cs each, which in turn are allocated into groups of roughly 3 hours each. Each pair of Cs get around 6 hours and are interconnected. The clock cycle begins at 6 AM and ends at 6 PM.
The Cs are:
Contemplation
Consumption
Creation
Coordination (Communication)
Here 1 and 2, Contemplation and Consumption make a pair while 3 and 4, Creation and Coordination make one.
Let me briefly describe what they mean so to show why they are paired like that. But I would like to remind the reader once again that this allocation or division is based on what I think are the essential elements in my life as a writer.
The 1st Pair: Contemplation and Consumption
Contemplation: This is where I think. I begin the process at 6 AM by trying to answers questions that are integral to my life as an individual, such as —
What is going on in my life currently?
What do I want?
Why do I want what I want?
What have I wanted?
What should I want?
What is the status of all that I have wanted?
What should I not want?
What do I need?
Why do I need?
What should I do?
What should I not do?
What is helping me?
What is ailing me?
What do I need to do to remain motivated/inspired? etc.
More often than not, I wake up confused or curious on these. So by asking these questions walking to-and-fro with, firstly a cup of warm water followed by a pinch of black pepper in a cup of warm water and finally a cup of tea, I try to answer all these questions. I note the important points.
On rare occasions where I do not wake up bothered by my personal conditions, I contemplate on social, political, scientific, artistic and philosophical issues. The questions vary. There is no set formula in this. It may often be what I had been exposed to the day-before or in my dreams.
This lasts for 2.5–3 hours.
Consumption: It begins with my bathroom time at about 9 AM where I read the news followed by mostly continuing with the book I have been reading.
I use the term consumption for any reading, listening or video-watching activity — from others. But it is mostly reading.
I have made reading a great priority in my life. But before this structuring I was very haphazard in it. If I was reading a book, I would go on and on for the whole day until I finished it. But I noticed that such reading had an adverse affect on my thinking and writing. Most days would just pass by reading books without anything else. Reflections on books read were not happening. Writing wasn’t happening. This gradually became very problematic.
This C-Clockwork has allowed me to manage my reading time well. Now, I read at a certain period of time and have adequate time to think and write about it.
This ends at around 11:30 when I have lunch.
The C-Clockwork
The 2nd pair: Creation and Coordination
Creation: After lunch and chores, at about 12:30, I begin the process of Creation. This is when I write. This goes on for about 3 hours.
Writing on medium has proved to be very helpful for me in this process as it has allowed me to dedicate myself to one piece of writing a day. Otherwise, I wasted a lot of time either wondering on what to do or debating with myself on why not to write xyz.
The writing projects I have has to be worked on in this time period.
I am also involved in visual-arts projects. I make documentaries and animated cartoons. Writing them, directing them, is reserved within Creation.
Coordination: Interchangeable with Communication, this is the time-span when I:
Meet in person- go outside, talk to people with whom I am working or am supposed to work together on project(s).
Meet on the Internet- talk to people online with whom I am working or am supposed to work together on project(s).
Seek people with whom to work together on project(s)
My poor organizing before this system had me isolating myself for days without any communications with others, whenever I was reading or writing something important. That got me ignoring a lot of projects and people. Didn’t turn out to be a good thing at all!
Beginning at 3 PM and extending up to 6 PM, I spend my time going outside to meet people, making phone calls, sending or reading emails, finding relevant people and organizations, etc.
The Pairing
I have paired it as such because Contemplation and Consumption are inward, introspective processes. Nothing comes out of me during these. I just intake. They are about organizing and receiving thoughts respectively.
Similarly, Creation and Coordination are extroverted processes. Here the thoughts go out. They are outbound. They are about creativity and communication respectively.
Inconsistencies
Of course, there are days of inconsistencies. I may have to go out early in the morning or read a very important work in the evenings. I try my best to not divert but at times circumstances get the better of me.
But I try to cover-up by doing the activity missed in that timespan, the activity of which I did in the period of inconsistency.
Aftermath
After 6 PM: It’s Personal time. I spend time with family or doing activities of joy. Going out for an evening walk or some glass of beer takes place here.
Before the implementation of this formula, I wasn’t spending much time with my family or in activities of joy.
Enjoy this Story about life which both entertains and provides valuable life lesson!
An ambitious rat wanted to get married. So, he went to the most powerful human king and asked for his daughter.
‘You are the greatest. I am the best. I want to marry the princess,’ he said.
The King responded by saying that the Sun was mightier than him. The rat then went to the Sun and said the same.
‘But…the cloud is more powerful than me,’ the Sun said.
And so the rat went to the cloud. The cloud explained how the wind was more powerful — for the wind pushed it around.
The ambitious rat went to the wind.
‘I am not as strong as you think Mr. Rat,’ the wind responded and told him how the grass was stronger.
‘For, no matter how hard I try, I can’t blow it away.’
The rat then went to the grass and asked for his daughter. The grass responded:
‘What are you talking about! You are stronger than me. You hide beneath me, cut my roots and kill me. You are better than me, rat!’
The ambitious rat understood the fallacy of his reasoning and married a rat!
This short inspirational story which is a Nepali Folk Tale teaches a valuable life lesson.
Blinded by ambition and greed, we tend to go after that which seems the most lucrative. We forget what we are as individuals in this process. We are all wired different. This is due to our distinct environment and experiences. We are all unique in our own way. Our desires and skills and different. We need to identify them!
Our task is to understand our desires and go after them — all guns blazing. Mastering the skills in the process.
In the first part of my What are thoughts? series, I discussed basic things about thoughts and the importance of understanding them. This time I want to dive into the history of thoughts – which is nothing but a history of the attempt to understand them.
A Brief History
Throughout history, humans have attempted to understand the nature of thoughts, thinking, mind, heart, and brain.
The Edwin Smith Papyrus of Egypt from c. 1600 BCE is the earliest found documentation of such an attempt. It contains descriptions of the brain and its functions albeit speculative.
It is in Indian Philosophy that the pursuit gains serious consideration and gathers momentum.
The Chandogya Upanishad (600 BCE) describes the mind as an object distinct from the soul. In it, when Narada tells Sanatkumara that he has a thirst for knowledge, Sanatkumara says,
Before satisfying one’s thirst for knowledge, one has to know about the mind…
When Narada expresses further desire to know about the mind, Sanatkumara tells him that to know about the mind one needs to have devotion and before one can have devotion one has to have faith and has to know about concentration, for which, one has to know about happiness as concentration comes only in the pursuit of happiness. When Narada tells he wishes to know about happiness, Sanatkumara tells him the following:
Happiness lies in greatness. You will have to know about greatness. Greatness is that in which nothing can be seen, heard or known. It is immortality, it is the brahman. He is above and below, to the front and behind, to the north and the south. I am the brahman. I am he…Learned ones realize that it is from the atman that one derives the breath of life, hope, memory, sky, energy, water…meditation, emotion, resolution, the mind, speech, names, the mantras and all actions.
These earlier Upanishadic perspectives interpreted thoughts along with everything else as being given by some unitary entity. It further goes on to tell that,
in the physical body exists the heart in which the Brahman resides in minute form. The heart is like the sky, heaven and earth, fire and wind, the sun and the moon, lightning and the stars. Everything in the body is in the heart.
The Katha Upanishad describes the brain as the charioteer and the physical body as the chariot with the atman being the owner and mind the bridle. It talks about the need to pacify the mind without which, the intelligence remains without consciousness.
Describing Brahman, the Katha Upanishad says,
It is through the mind that one can visualize the brahman.
This type of thinking is of Advaita Philosophy which asserts there is only One entity in existence and perceiving otherwise is illusion. The reason things seem elusive and otherwise are due to ignorance and this is due to- Thoughts.
Thoughts are entities that hinder this natural connection of the mind and the brahman.
When there is contemplation of the non-dual Self, then all thoughts vanish and one is established in that Supreme Reality, says Ramana Maharshi, an Advaita monk of the 20th Century.
His philosophy revolves around the concept of Self which is both- every individual’s identity and the only thing in existence. The Self alone is real and there is no other consciousness to know it, for it is consciousness. The distinction between God and Soul too is not real and to know the Self is to be the self. Consciousness is existence. Mind is only a name for thoughts of which ‘I’ is the support. Mind is truly nothing else but the thought ‘I’.
This way, the Vedic systems of thinking describe thoughts as things that create a perception of duality or diversity in an otherwise uniform existence with only a single entity. Thoughts, therefore, are something to control and eventually destroy. They arise due to the contact with the world with senses.
Buddhism has a general point of view that the thoughts themselves are part of consciousness and are thinkers.
Buddha himself had mentioned various types of consciousness, evolving from sense bases. For instance, visual consciousness arises because of eyes and forms. For them, the concept of contact is significant. Contact being the conjunction of the sense organs with the sensed object. It leads to the birth of feelings.
It is feeling that experiences the desirable or undesirable fruits of an action done. Besides this mental state there is no soul or any other agent to experience the result of an action.
Entire Buddhist thinking is described as follows:
Dependence or cessation of:
Ignorance leads to Conditioning activities
Conditioning activities leads to Relinking Consciousness
Relinking Consciousness leads to Mind and Matter
Mind and Matter leads to Six Sphere of Senses
Six Sphere of Senses leads to Contact
Contact leads to feelings
Feelings lead to Craving
Craving leads to Grasping
Grasping leads to Actions
Actions leads to Birth
Birth leads to decay, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair.
For them, the mind consists of 52 mental states among which feelings and perception are distinct. The remaining 50 are collectively called volitional activities. Among them, volition or citana is the most important factor. All these psychic states arise in consciousness.
Now, in regards to thoughts, they have a concept called ‘thought-moments’ which are time-limit of consciousness:
There is no moment when one does not experience a particular kind of consciousness, hanging on to some object whether physical or mental. Time limit of such consciousness is called thought-moment. Each thought moment is followed by another.
Consciousness consists of 3 separate instants: genesis, static/development, cessation/dissolution. Each new consciousness is in a state of flow, like a stream, which once gone never returns again. This consciousness flow occurs without any interruption. Death too, is simply an event for them during which the final thought moment of a life conditions another thought-moment in the subsequent life.
This way the Buddhists look at thoughts as incessant instances in mind which ought to be eventually shut down or extinguished (nibbana).
In terms of time, we humans are wired to dwell in two dimensions — the past and the future.
While ideally we wish we could live in the present, realistically we are drifting along time – where the wave of the past keeps stretching. Where the quantity of information from which we are supposed to constantly learn, build and identify is ever increasing. Where the distance to the end of our lives is ever shortening. We are supposed to fulfill or nullify whatever desires have dwelled in us since our birth in that duration.
This leaves us with only one thing to do — absorb ourselves in the past in order to carry over the thoughts, emotions and desires from there to the impending future.
Hence, present is the moment in which our minds dwell in either past or present. In this way, what is now called ‘flow’ is merely the moments where we engage in some activity during which our minds are unknowingly pacified because it knows it is involved in either rectifying some misdemeanors of the past or in acting for the fulfillment of some desire on the future.
As part of this project though, we tend to want to predict the occurences of the coming future. Which seems a natural thing to do. Our minds naturally identify the patterns of past haps and projects the outcomes of the future as per our environment, necessity and all. This process is called prognostication.
This holds true for all individual humans. Hence, as an example of whole-being-an-extension-of-the-parts, this holds true for humans as a species. The reason to study history, we are told, is to learn lessons from the past and apply them to understanding the future, which isn’t at all a false reason to study. But we have no formal study of prognostication or futurology yet. And it is understandable as the future is merely a vague nothingness into which we drift, filling that void as we go along in comparison to the past which is full of realistic information in the form of memories (cognitive or written or such). Future study is impossible as we are complex beings with complex sets of desires and complex technologies in a complex planet of a complex universe, all combining to create a whole and existence that is very very complex.
I just tend to imagine the faces of people in the hospitality sector in Nepal when they heard that COVID was about to shut everything up, who had meticulously planned for their hotels as the Tourism year 2020 was coming about.
Yet we are also beings that try and endeavor and through the lessons of history and the knowledge of the wills of governments, corporates and society we tend to fill pages of Science Fiction and devise mathematical formulas to make some educated guesses. Some of these projections do manage to get hold of us and shape our perceptions to such a degree that any thought of a mutual future and we cannot help but imagine the pictures presented by them. Two cliched futurological works — 1984 and Brave New World are the example of such projections. Both written in the 20th century, the paranoia created by them are real and the amazing thing is that we can find enough clues and symptoms to convince ourselves that the picture presented by Orwell and Huxley is becoming a reality and some of us even tend to make decisions of our lives based on those pictures. Their success hasn’t given birth to less futuristic perspectives through fiction, but I believe all of them have one thing in common:
Those pictures are flawed! What those pictures have done is present to us a futuristic projection of the world based on characteristics of people of that generation presuming the characters to be static. Yes, human characters rarely do change and rarely have the will-to-power and the extent to which certain ambitious people go to achieve and increase it varied since the advent of recorded history, something is different this time around. It is different to such an extent that residual images of the future have to be abandoned and something actual has to be done.
We are at a pivotal point in human history. This is a pivot because we are at a point where we probably have mutual decisions to make in the quantity that has existed never before. All thanks to exponential technologies (thanks Ray Kurzweil) almost all of which have epoch-altering potential (AI, 3D Print, BioTech, Energy, Outer Space vehicles, etc.) we have arrived at a juncture today where not only the decisions that impact all of us forever is to be made, for the first time in history, it is to be made by all of us. This leads to the statement that motivated me to write all this in the first place:
We are at a pivotal turn, where it is not the time to make predictions, it is a time to make decisions!
No, this isn’t some optimistic-pro-democratic BS which terminates with a cheesy line such as — Together we can, etc. etc., this is objective and this is real. How?
Because we have the internet. We are at a point where more than half of the people in the world are connected to a network in which they can exchange any kind of information at a crazy speed. This gives us an ability strange — so strange that the like of which has never existed in such a large scale before.
Humanity has always been ruled by itself but only by a certain part of itself in any given space-time. Those parts have come in the form of Religious leaders, Generals, Monarchs, Merchants, Corporates, Representative Politicians, depending on the time and place. But, what all these varieties of parts have had in common is their insatiable will-to-power and their audacity to do whatever it takes to attain it. We can safely say that humans have always been ruled by those who have had the most desire to rule and who had luck and talent too.
We can also safely say that those parts exist today too. Fundamentally, in the form of rising corporations and in the form of sputtering state-politicians do we have the power hungries today. The former with the likes of Musk, Bezos, Gates, Branson, Zuckerberg, Googlers and their fanboys/fangirls are proud enough already to think they own the show and they are justified in thinking so as they have the most advanced know-how of technologies and business at their disposal. On the other hand the latter comprises struggling political leaders of an ailing system who with their uncanny rhetorics and decaying power-model are likely to go to any extent to keep the throne relevant and themselves in the process because they lack the know-how’s of the real deal.
The former openly controls the exponential technologies mentioned above while the latter will surely devise ingenious methods to control the controllers of the technologies. This narrative is not new as demonstrated by one Buckminster Fuller with the Edison-Morgan narrative, this eternal narrative is also the reason Orwell-Huxley are so influential. But, a slight difference this time around is that the non-power hungry majority are equally capable of huge influence.
As mentioned above, this power of majority isn’t due to some abstract concept of republic/democracy that drove the previous generations — the concepts and their application being that which has proved to be the biggest ‘what were we thinking’ in history of humans.
Once again, due to the internet and the massive interconnection we have going around today, we can be hopeful that the collective mass with no gargantuan power ambitions can make decisions for themselves. What this tool called the Internet allows us to do, if willing, is take in enough knowledge independently and use it to generate ideas helpful for problem solving and decision making and share them ruthlessly to such an extent that the sheer force of quantity will help decisions bend to overall advantage. Climate groups have started to do this.
What we have in one of our hands today is — extremely ambitious corporations with their leaders who know what to play with and how to present themselves as supermen who are here to save the universe, all to increase their power base. They have got their greedy gullible fans by the scruff of the neck whom they will use to shape thoughts and perceptions.
On the other hand, we have desperate political entities who are willing to go to any extent to keep this rusted and failed system called State in operation as it is the only way their limited abilities will take them to power, and they too with their rhetorical skills know where to touch to trigger the patriotic sensationalism.
But as a whole, both of those are unhealthy for a normal person as they together will be disseminating more and more propaganda, lies and manipulations to have their ends meet. The game once again is about the part of humanity ruling the rest.
As Musk and his co. dream of kingship seen never before and Politicians plan to cash in on their rise, we, who don’t quite care of being Kings have to conjoin smartly and efficiently if we wish to not be a modern techno-slave.
All of the exponential technologies are already under the control of the corporates and the corporates are already at war with each other and the rusted diplomats. Everytime there has been a power struggle in history, people have suffered. This time it will be no different IF we do not realize what has to be done and get going.
The Internet and such decentralized technologies have provided us with the option of making our decisions while the kings are controlling each and every sophisticated technology posing as heroes.
The potentiality of the technologies we have is huge. One can just wonder in awe regarding what they will allow us to do and where they will allow us to go. But, one may also equally wonder and regret tomorrow in regards to whom we have allowed these technologies to go to.
If the large mass can come together, this could mean this pivot will lead to a place decided by normal human beings, if not, prognostications, residual images of Orwell-Huxley will become real.
I believe that the sky is greatly responsible for the birth of philosophy, religion and science – if not the most.
The Sun and the clouds no doubt had immense practical implications so the ancients could not help but try to understand and interpret it in a utilitarian sense, but the dark night sky with specks of white lights must have triggered an even greater curiosity in man.
Hidden by the grandeur of the Sun, the sky at day time looks limited and practical, but at night the same sky looks monstrous and vague. Immense and vast. Beautiful and Impractical. Abstract. It must have been crucial to raising that elusive question for the first time:
Where are we?
Astronomy is the name given to the study of that vast expanse of space above our heads. It is one of the oldest sciences. Every advanced society we know of has had interest and works done on it. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indus-Valley, MesoAmerican, Chinese, Greek- all these civilizations have some kind of interpretation on the sky above and our positions relative to it. They all have questioned Space.
Space in the simplest of terms is the region beyond earth.
Exploration has a deep meaning:
an act or instance of exploring or investigating; examination.
It is not just limited to physically being available at the site of exploration. In that regard, every form of investigation or inquiry is an exploration. But what we will be concerned with here is only the physical exploration of the sky and space above us. That is the immediate developments leading to and activities in space. Let us begin.
As mentioned above, space is the region beyond the Earth. This immediately begs a question- Where does it begin?
For this, a system called Karman Line is used. Named after engineer and physicist Theodore Von Karman, this hypothetical line lies 100 kms above earth’s mean sea level.
The first spacecraft to cross the Karman Line was the German A-4/V-2 rocket MW 18014 launched in June 1944. It was the first manmade object to cross the line and attained the apogee of 176 kms. It was a test launch as a follow up to multiple A-4 rockets which had managed to reach an altitude of 90 kms. But those rockets weren’t convincing enough. The MW 18014 was in fact a series of launches designed to monitor the rockets’ behavior in vacuum. This paved a way for post-war rockets and eventual satellites. But this was by no means the beginning of rockets. But it had the same use rockets’ conception had: Military.
The transportation technology for space travels is called rockets.
It was a British mathematician William Moore in 1813, who contributed significantly towards thrusting ourselves upwards seriously. He developed rocket theory and developed a rocket equation. Where he
British inventor Henry Trengrouse then developed a rocket apparatus in 1818. It’s purpose was to project a lifeline from a wrecked ship to the shore. It was supposed to save lives for a change and not the other way around.
The next few decades saw many developments and improvements on military rocketing. But it was a Russian-Soviet self-taught genius Konstantin Tsiolkovsky born in 1857 who was to focus and work on the space beyond in such a way that it changed rocketry and the possibilities of space exploration forever.
Dedicated to scientific agendas from an early age, he had already begun tofantasize space travels. Based on his vision of solar-system, galaxy colonization and a human controlled Universe, he studied motion of rocket apparatus, rocket propulsion and eventually derived the now famous Tsiolkovsky equation. The equation described motions of rocket-vehicles as:
a device that can apply acceleration to itself using thrust by expelling part of its mass with high velocity can thereby move due to the conservation of momentum…
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
His main technical contributions were in liquid fuels and staging. He also discussed space-suits.
Rocket Scientist such asWernher Von Braun, who was immensely influencial to the developments of rockets in both Nazi Germany (V2) and later in the US space program; and engineers/designers such Valetin Glushko and Sergey Korolev were influenced by Tsiolkovsky and the latter two may have even worked to realize his vision.
In May of 1924 the Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travelwas founded in Moscow by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Friedrich Zander and 200 other space and rocket experts to discuss space travels majorly.
1927 saw the amateur space organization Society for Space Travel established in Germany which helped push things there.
Around the same time Ukrainian/Soviet visionaryYuri Kondratyuk circulated his book The Conquest of Interplanetary Spaces where he discussed many ideas on space travels among which he talked of lunar orbits and the concept of gravitational slingshots which were to be influential later.
Another key figure around this time was a Solvene engineer namedHerman Potočnik.He published a book The Problems of Space Travels in 1928 where he discussed human settlements in space, space stations, use of space for communication, etc. He also expressed skepticism on the potential military use of space.
With all these technical, scientific and philosophical ideas, rockets started to blast off in 1928 with the Lippisch Ente (German for Lippisch duck). The struggling aircraft flew 4900 feet in its second attempt in its first flight and met with an accident in its second flight. This was a part of the Opel company’s program.
Opel RAK.1, world’s first public flight of a rocket-powered aircraft.
The Opel-RAK program in Germany saw a series of rocket aircrafts. It helped advance rocket and aviation greatly.
EA-41 developed during 1931-1942 saw the development of the first French liquid fuelled rockets. It was a part of the French Space Program, the third national program after the USSR and US. There were multiple launches in 1941-42 with the fifth one reaching 60 kms.
Multiple experiments with JETO (Jet assisted Take Off)/RATO (Rocket Assisted Take Off) were conducted in the US in 1941.
This takes us to the V2 rockets mentioned earlier.
After the Second World-War, the V2 systems came into the hands of the US and thus began the proper take-off of exploratory programs. In 1946 the first research flight took place from the US with V2 for cosmic radiation experiments. The same year also saw the flight of the Nike Missile.
A landmark achievement saw V2 No. 13 take the first photograph of Earth from the Space. It was taken from 105 kms. The project was launched on 24th October 1946.
First Photograph of Earth from Space
In 1949 the RTV-G-4 Bumper (Bumper-5), a combination of V2 and the American WAC Corporal sounding rocket attained the altitude of 392.68 kilometers.
1949 also saw the publication of the influential book The Conquest of Space by William Ley. The book talked about the prospects of Solar System exploration.
Wernher von Braun published The Mars Project in 1952 which highlighted the technical specification on the human expedition to Mars. It has often been deemed aninfluential and important book. He talked about a scientific expedition of 10 spacecrafts, 70 crew members spending 443 days on the surface of Mars. He also talked aboutnitric acid/hydrazinepropellant and reusableheavy-lift launch vehicles.
In 1956 the American Jupiter-C program saw the first rocket to enter the Exosphere. It went to a height of 1097.57 kms and achieved Mach 18 velocity. von Braun was influential in the development of these vehicles.
Jupiter C
The same year saw the first launch of PGM-17 Thor, a US ballistic missile which paved the way for Delta space launch rockets.
Thus the Cold War Space Race gathered serious momentum. While it had political motivations, it helped develop technologies and mechanisms that changed space travel and explorations forever.
1957 saw the launch of USSR’s Sputnik-1, the first artificial satellite which also sent the first signals from space. It orbited for three weeks. The same year in the month of November the first mammal -Laika the dog was sent to the orbit in Sputnik-2. A decade earlier fruit flies were sent as the first organisms in space in V2 by the US.
1958 saw the US send its first artificial satellite in Explorer 1 mission. It confirmed the existence of Van Allen Radiation Belt which is a zone of charged particles held by Earth’s magnetosphere. The same year the US also launched its first ISBM in Atlas B.
In 1959, the Luna 1 spacecraft reached the vicinity of the Moon as it missed its surface by only about 6000 kms. Luna 1 also became the first spacecraft to detect solar wind and reach Earth’s escape velocity. The same year American Satellite Explorer 6 took the first photograph of Earth from Orbit.
Explorer 6’s photograph
The same year also saw Luna 2 become the first human spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. It has impacted the Moon at the speed of 3.3 kms per second. Next month Luna 3 brought the first photograph of the far side of the moon.
Luna 3’s Image of Moon
The 1960s saw the most revolutionary decade in human Space-Exploration. First, the US mission Pioneer 5 launched a space probe to investigate the regions between the orbits of Earth and Venus. It confirmed the existence of interplanetary magnetic fields. In August, the Korabl-Sputnik 2 mission saw the USSR send two dogs, two rats, forty mice and plants to orbit and bring them back.
Strelka. Made it into Space way before the billionaires!
October saw the failed attempt at first shot at Mars through USSR’s Mars 1M.
1961 began with US sending the astrochimp,Ham in MR (Mercury Redstone) 2. A dozen days later USSRs Venera 1 achieved the first spin-stabilization of a space vehicle. Then a landmark moment in 12th April saw USSRs Vostok 1 send Yuri Gagarin to space in what was to become the first instance of a human orbiting the Earth. US followed with the first human-piloted space flight Freedom 7 withAlan Shepard becoming the 2nd man to reach space. The spacecraft was launched on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight. A couple of weeks later USSRs Venera 1 reached within 100,000 kms of Venus.
In 1962 USA with its OSA (Orbiting Solar Observatory)-1 initiated the first orbital solar observatory. The same year the US launched Mercury MA-6 (Friendship 7) where John Glenn put US in orbit. In August, Norway with Ferdinand 1 launched the first auroral research rocket into the ionosphere. USSRs Mars 1 reached 11,000 kms to Mars and in December, USs Mariner 2 reached 34,773 kms to Venus.
In 1963, USSR launched Vostok 6 whereValentina Tereshkova became the first woman and first civilian to orbit earth. USX-15 Flight 90, the first reusable manned spacecraft (suborbital) reached space which pioneered reusability and carried out launch and glide landings.
In March of 1964, Alexei Leonov performed the first space walk.
Ranger 8 in 1965 yielded over 7,000 photos of the lunar surface. The Soviet probe Venera 3 became the 1st artificial probe to impact on the surface of another planet, Venus. USSR Proton rocket, a highly successful launch vehicle was launched with notable payloads, Salyut 6 & Salyut 7, Mir & ISS components. US Mariner 4 took the first close-up photograph of Mars in July.
Source – NASA
In 1966, the USSR Luna 9 made the first soft landing on the Moon. Later the USSR launched Soyuz spacecrafts. Vanera 3 in March made the first impact on Venus. In August, Lunar Orbita 1 became the first mission to map the moon.
1967 saw Surveyor 3, scoop and test lunar soil. Mariner 5’s mission to Venus saw it reach solar orbit and achieved the closest Venus flyby which paved the way for obtaining readings of Venus atmosphere.
In 1968 the Apollo 8 became the first space mission to enter the gravitational influence of another celestial body (Moon).
1969 saw Mariner 6 reach within ~ 3200 of Mars where it collected photos and other data. American mission Apollo 11, sent the first men on the Moon. It also brought the first sample from the moon. In August, Mariner 7 took the first photograph of Phobos, the moon of Mars.
In 1970 Venera 7, the Soviet probe became the first to land safely on the surface of Venus. Earlier the American satellite Uhuru became the first X-ray orbital observatory
In 1971, the Soviet Salyut 1, the first Space Station was established. Mariner 9 in November became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. Later, Soviets with Mars 2 and 3 had the first impact on Mars and the first soft landing there with photographs of its surface, respectively.
Pioneer 10 in 1972 passed Jupiter and it took readings on Jupiter’s composition finding that the planet is composed mostly of hydrogen. It also became the first craft to escape in a trajectory away from the Sun and also the first mission to escape the inner Solar System into the asteroid belt. American SAS 2 also became the first orbital gamma ray observatory.
In 1973, Pioneer 11 passed Jupiter and then Saturn in 1979. It discovered an additional ring around Saturn and also 2 moons. The same year the Mariner 10 mission to Venus and Mercury began. It passed Venus in 1974 and arrived at Mercury in 1974. It also took readings of clouds and wind patterns of Venus’ atmosphere.
Viking 1 took off for Mars in 1975 and landed there in 1976. It was the first probe to land safely on Mars. There it performed chemical analysis of soil.
Panoramic photo of Mars from Viking 1 lander.
Viking 2, the sister probe of Viking 1 took off in 1975 and landed on Mars 1976. The year 1975 also saw the establishment of ESA, the European Space Agency. Soviet Venera 9 became the first to orbit Venus and took photographs of its surface.
1976 saw Helios 2, the joint venture between US (NASA) and West Germany’s DFVLR fly closest to the Sun at 43.432 million kilometers. It also recorded the highest speed by any aircraft at 252,792 km/h. Later, Viking Lander took photos and soil samples from the surface of Mars.
The legendary Voyager 2 in 1977 left for Jupiter, Saturn,Uranus and Neptune. It eventually encountered Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus 1986 and Neptune in 1989. It provided evidence of rings around Neptune and its great dark spot. It entered into the boundary area of the solar system in 2007.
Voyager 1 left for Jupiter and Saturn 16 days after Voyager 2. It had encountered Jupiter 1979, providing evidence of rings around it and passed Saturn in 1980.
Towards the end of the decade the Pioneer Venus 1 in 1978 entered Venus’ orbit, studied its atmosphere, magnetic field, weather, and surface. Pioneer Venus 2 was a multiprobe which entered the Venus atmosphere, took its readings and impacted on its surface.
In 1981, US space shuttle STS 1 pioneered reusability and glide landings.
The next year, Vanera 13 took sound recordings of Venus.
In 1986 USSRs Mir was the first constantly inhabited space station. The same year ESAs Giotto made a close observation of Halley’s Comet at a mere 596 kms.
In 1989, ESAs Hipparcos became the first astrometric satellite in that its work was to precisely measure positions of celestial bodies in the sky. Magellan left for Venus the same year and landed in 1990. It then mapped over 99% of its surface. Observed volcanoes. Galileo used Earth’s gravity to propel itself toward Jupiter. The COBE launched in November was the orbital cosmic microwave observatory.
1990 saw Voyager send the first Solar System image and the launch of the legendary Hubble Space Telescope as a joint venture of NASA (USA) and ESA.
In 1991 USA Galileo experienced 951 Gaspra, which was the closest flyby to an asteroid at 1600 kms.
In 1992 Ulysses, a joint venture of NASA and ESA began a journey to orbit around the Sun. It made scans of the Sun in 1995, 2005 and 2008.
Mars Global Surveyor in 1996 began orbiting Mars. It began mapping its entire surface in 1999. Discovering a weak magnetic field on the planet and finding evidence of liquid water of sometime in the past. Mars Pathfinder took off and landed on Mars in 1997, it sent surface images.
Cassini-Huygens headed for Saturn in 1997 and began orbiting in 2004. It was a mission to study the planet’s atmosphere, rings, and moons. It managed to spot a subterranean ocean and other astounding discoveries. Mars Pathfinder headed to Mars.
In 1998, the first multinational space station ISS, was established as a joint venture of- Russia (FKA) USA (NASA) Europe (ESA) Japan (JAXA) and Canada (CSA). Russia launched the Zarya module as the first part of the ISS. Lunar Prospector began orbiting and mapped 11 elements on its surface. It also discovered evidence of water ice at both lunar poles. Deep Space 1 saw the comet Borrelly fly by within 2414 kms. It used an ion thruster for propulsion.
Stardust in 1999 headed for the comet Wild-2. It reached there in 2004 and gathered its dust samples.
Taken by Stardust in 2004
The 21st Century began with NEAR Shoesmaker orbiting the asteroid 433 Eros first in 2000 then in 2001.
2001 Mars Odyssey reached Mars and detected evidence of water ice near its South Pole. It also aimed to identify minerals on Mars. Genesis in 2001 orbited The Sun and collected particles from solar wind.
Mars Express/ Beagle 2 arrived at Mars in 2003 and performed remote sensing.
Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004. There they found further evidence that water existed on its surface.
2004 also saw Cassini-Huygens orbit Saturn. The following year it had the first soft landing on Titan
and then in the outer Solar System. MESSENGER in 2004 left for Mercury and flew by in 2008. It managed to provide images of 20% of Mercury’s surface.
Deep Impact in 2005 headed for the Comet Tempel 1. It did reach and deployed an impact probe which slammed into the comet. Japan’s Hayabusa managed the first asteroid ascent on 25143 Itokawa.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2005 reached there in 2006. It took detailed images of the Martian surface. Later it discovered salt deposits.
In 2006 India’s Chandrayaan -1 from ISRO discovered lunar water in ice-form.
2009 saw the launch of the much anticipated Kepler telescope. It’s function being to search for Earth-like exoplanets.
Hayabusa brought sample returns in 2010.
MESSENGER had its orbit of Mercury in 2011. The same year the Dawn probe managed to orbit Vesta. It later went on to orbit thedwarf planet (Ceres).
This very deep combined image shows the interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua at the centre of the picture.
Hayabusa 2 in 2018 sent a rover on the asteroid Ryugu 162173.
2019 saw New Horizon exploring contact binary 486958 Arrokoth, the trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt. It also sawChang’e 4 land on the far side of the moon. Event Horizon, the telescopic network provided the first direct photograph of Black Hole Sagittarius A*.
In 2021, Ingenuity had aerodynamic flight on Mars.
There are numerous missions today headed for the future. We can talk about it sometime later.
The story of human success in space exploration is the story of the success of human will.
How do we measure how much of an influence the gaze, awe and curiosity of ancient wonderers have had on the present successful human venture into the vast unknown?
I also wonder what those ancient musers would be more surprised by:
The fact that their progenies have managed to physically reach to that vast, dark unknown above OR
Hey there, it’s me Adesh and I would like to welcome you all to my website. I hope you are having a good day.
As you may have noticed, I am just starting out with this.
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Hey, I am Adesh.
Welcome to my world! I am a Life & Mind Explorer, Self-Explorer,
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