When I was a child, my mother struggled to ensure that I took my schooling seriously.I was having difficulties in school as I had joined 2nd standard straight after spending a small time in a hindi medium school.My father had little time or inclination to help me.However he inadvertantly gave me some of the best lessons in life.
Firstly, he introduced me to the world of comics.I still remember the Amar Chitra Katha comic on Rana Pratap, which was his first gift.This got me into a lifelong passion of reading, which I am eternally grateful to him for.
He also taught me that I should understand what I read. He advised me to answer questions in my own constructed sentences, instead to repeating exactly from a text.This was an invaluable lesson.He did not spend time teaching me,but he gave me the tools to teach myself.A lesson worthy of being passed down to my children.I tell them this story.I tell them that they may get lesser marks, but they will at least carry their own ideas,which is ultimately a higher achievement.
Recently someone asked me a question. Why did I read? After a little thought I replied that I read to become a better human being.
This was not what he expected. The stereotype answers would be for learning,knowledge,growth,seeking truth,enjoyment,escape from reality,wealth,power,skill,Immortality etc.
I fall back to Maslow to explain. He espoused that the two BIG problems facing humanity are 1) To create better/superior persons 2)To create a better society. Predictably, he refused to identify what comes first, but said that they work in tandem.
Maslow also opined that a better society is a requirement to generate better persons. He mentioned that better people are required to create better society.
My life is devoted to become a better person. All the work I do are in a way towards achieving this goal.This also includes reading. I hope that the society I live becomes better. I also recognize that a corrupt society can corrupt people. And corrupt people can corrupt society.
What is a corruption? Any idea of benefit which is not tied to common good can be seen as a corrupt idea. A corrupt idea can then corrupt persons. The corrupt person can then corrupt society. A corrupt society can then corrupt people. Maslow if I remember uses Hitler as an example. His 3rd reich could have changed the world if he had won the war.
Some of our value systems are formed at a young age. Some challenge their own beliefs and evolve towards better values. Books are an important tool,but not the only way. Quite a few can not challenge their own views as it creates insecurities and punctures the comfort zone. Not all have a spirit of adventure or the courage and belief in self.
Early in my career, I was handed an important lesson by my first boss back in 1992.
He told me that all persons have latent(potential) and obvious qualities. Additionally these qualities can be judged by self or others.This creates a quadrant.I will list all the squares below as it is the best way to describe them.
1st square: Self=Obvious, Others=latent. These are your secret abilities/qualities.
2nd square Self=latent,Others= obvious. This is what the world thinks about your qualities/yourself, but you may have no inkling.
3rd square Self=Obvious, Others= obvious. These are your proven abilities recognised by all.
4th square Self=latent,others=latent. This is your unknown potential.
There can be an issue of self image when there is contradiction between 1st and 2nd square.You may believe yourself to be a very straight,honest and god-fearing humble person.Others may see you as a crooked, conniving,lazy person.Truth is usually midway between self image and reputation.
Not many people face up very well to square 2 if there is a negative connotation as it is seen as criticism and denial is complete. I actually have practiced hard to get a cool headed analysis of such things directed at me. An useful ploy is to look at it from the others point of view. Sometimes it is genuine, sometimes it is because of insecurity and fear, or plain malice or jealousy.
Sometimes we create a halo around our own heads, in reality the head is in the clouds.
It is necessary to do a self assessment periodically and see if self image and reputation are well reconciled with each other.
I was discussing with a colleague on how our jobs have been impacted with the advent of the “e” age and 24×7 business.
Burn-outs,nervous breakdowns or worse a coronary are emerging as real threats. Some people lose focus of their objectives in life.They find solace in the concept of keeping themselves busy with inane urgent but unproductive activities.This creates more pressure with unfinished tasks piling up.
A senior pro consistently got top achievements till one fine day he found himself relegated to the bottom and he had very few ideas to change the situation.He had not managed the paradigm shift well when his responsibilities were expanded. He shifted blame on failure to personal reasons and biased management.
His self image of a selfless and “a people’s person” was at variance with the general perception.His confidence is in tatters.He is unable to prioritize, as reasoning is affected due to these various pressures impacting him.His despair and anguish is clearly visible.
If only he negotiates the next few steps well, and gets some wind back!!Not only does he really posses a fantastic PR, he is also very capable of finding back his midas touch.
All this is subject to his getting his thought process organised.
Another gent was hugely dis-satisfied with a sales job, so he undertook a self development plan which allowed him to leapfrog natural progression and assume a higher function.He managed the paradigm shift well.But he lost his will to work.All energies are now devoted to the pursuit of retirement at the earliest.I was taken aback when my opinion was sought on a complex algorithm developed to crack the case of wuinning a 3 million USD bounty in a lottery.A colossal waste of intellectual capability,were my private thoughts.So is the paradigm shift really mastered by this gent? His other favorite discussion topic is “immortality “.
Meet you in a couple of centuries from now?
I myself lead a dysfunctional life with my dear ones countries apart. What would others be thinking of me. “This guy is a desperate person, with no emotional attachments, only money drives him”.
Who am I to judge others?
Time and again, I see loyalty being rated as a top pre-requisite in the list of desirable qualities.This is true for friendship,relationship and even in the work environment.
Loyalty is listed as the top reason for engendering trust. Any show of disloyalty is seen as a personal attack, even a stab in the back. “Et Tu Brute”
Loyalty to an individual demands that we suspend judgment on his/her acts and are unequivocally receptive to all their actions. Or even if we are not receptive, we would not voice opposition as it would be seen as a disloyal act.
This loyalty may require you to overlook your bigger role towards society or organization.So is loyalty to an individual a higher desirable quality than the bigger entity?
I guess relationships demand this kind of suspension of judgment, if the original fervour has to be retained. Or put in another fashion, the attachment of a relationship overrides judgment. The heart wins over the head.
It starts with the backyard you live in,loyalty to the state you belong to, or the country or the language, or the caste, or the religion. Same suspension of judgment are programmed from early age. Loyalty to your kind of people.
So when “Neeraj” espoused the cause of humanity over the divisions of state, or religion, it was a radical idea. It challenged loyalty as a concept. With his poetry, patriotism, religious identity, caste,language etc. were subject to new evaluation.His hindi poetry was part of our curriculum in the 6th standard when I was growing up.He had a profound effect on me.
And suspending judgment is never going to be a wise thing as then evolution,change, growth,improvement would also be not possible.
So I would rather have critical people in my company, who could challenge my actions,beliefs and thoughts. For me the traditional definition of loyalty would mean surrendering the power of reasoning in a way. It would probably assuage the ego, but stunt thought and growth. No one can afford to be right all the time, as mistakes are the tools necessary for learning.
But then this is my view.
All of us are influenced by our society. As children we are born with very little powers of discrimination. Generally the bolder babies travel happily from shoulder to shoulder while some babies would limit their travel to recognized faces. But ask a baby its colour or religion, and it is blissfully uncluttered with these considerations.
In the process of growing up, parents,teachers and peers pass on quite a few of their ideas and thus influence the children. They develop the child’s power of judgment and make them ready to be citizens of the world. In this process quite a few of the ready made algorithms or shortcuts get taught consciously or unknowingly. We teach children that a dog could bite, so be careful. We teach them that doves and deer are gentle and so on and so forth, without the child having to go through the act of self-discovery.
In the process of growing up if there is a clash between what a child learns from his nearest and then what he learns from society, a clash can result. This can lead to rebellion or produce complexes in the child.
Importantly there are some basic fundamentals which are absorbed in such a way that they become part of the person. The person with this latent quality may not really be aware of this development.
Prejudice. It is defined as an act of pre-judgment. It is the act of assuming or classifying something or someone without knowing the entire facts. It is in fact a shortcut applied by the person on the basis of his understanding of race,religion,language,culture,country,intelligence,beauty, gender etc. The list goes on.
Closer home, you can hear statements like “Bhaiyya”, “Ghaati”, “Madrasi” ” Papad” the list is endless. These pejorative terms are used to paint an entire segment of society. Then the entire segment is given attributes.
Recently in Bahrain, there were some high profile crimes committed by Bangladeshis. This resulted in the government banning the entire community. For all young and impressionable minds the image of the Bangladeshis has been imprinted emphatically. It will not be a great wonder if they grow up with this fixed prejudice. It is like the Puerto Ricans, infamous the world over while experienced only the US.
What is the outcome of prejudice?
I can best relate to the book “To kill a mockingword”. Harper Lee won a pulitzer for this work. This novel describes how a black handicapped man is charged with rape of a white minor girl, leading to his unfair conviction by the jury. The defense advocate proves it beyond doubt that the act was not possible physically. The jury decides otherwise. This book was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck. Since it was at a time when segregation was still fresh in black minds, it was a very evocative and emotional piece of literature.
In deed in our daily lives, we face and commit prejudices on a daily basis. I worked with an extremely talented and intelligent gent who prided himself with the ability to make decisions based on his observation powers. So within a few minutes into a conversation with a stranger, this gent would have strong opinions on the stranger’s character.Indeed his geography and history. He would be able to rationalize the most trivial things and present them as facts. While strangely the truth is that even after spending lifetimes together, partners make mistakes about each other.
It is of little consequence if your grocer or milkman is prejudiced. But what happens if you feel its presence in family or workplace?
When presented with such prejudiced and judgmental behavior, people tend to either spend their energies in trying to prove the fallacies of the assumptions, or sometimes they are trapped by self-doubt.This could result in introspection and possibly loss of confidence or mental balance.
Early in life I learnt that it is futile to try and correct a prejudice. Prejudice is a blind spot, and a prejudiced person never realizes this fact. So the more you correct him, the more it seems like a challenge for him.
I believe that it is best for everyone to be true to themselves. Those who love you and care for you, will accept you with warts and all. They will overlook your flaws if any. The rest don’t amount to much anyway.
By the same coin, you will have to learn to live with the flaws in the others if you care for them. “Forgive them for their sins” from the bible resonates with this message.
Forgive people their prejudices, and be open to own up your own prejudices.Amen.
There are 3 powers affecting life:
Power to create:
power to sustain/nurture:
power to destroy :
They are present in each life form in the form of their physical organs. Personality or characteristic is determined by the balance between them at a given point. This extends to all matter as well.
If creation is a pure positive white and destruction a pure negative black, then sustenance involves grey area where a mix of both is required.
For sustenance/nurture – i.e. lifecycle, the amount of darkness or whiteness used determines the color of the soul. Purer souls are whiter as they use more of the whiter powers i.e. creativity, while darker souls are darker as they have used more of their destructive powers.
Capitalism if based on creativity can generate wealth which is white.
Capitalism if based on destructive powers can generate wealth which is tainted.
Frequently it is observed that creativity is altruistic, as its intent is to give and benefit others.
However destructive power is generally for self-propagation and interest.
All saints/good men do not hanker for wealth or fame. It is simply a byproduct of their actions.
Karma- Action- We feel we understand it. However action is itself not adequate without understanding the motive.
A surgery of a limb is good motive based action. However amputating a body in war/terror is a evil motive based action. Both actions are the same, the motive is different.
Frequently actions are classified as good or bad. However Motive is at a higher plane than action itself.
What is higher than motive?
It is DESIRE.
Life/being is a captive of desire.
Desire gives birth to motive. Motive gives birth to action.
So a being is controlled by its desires, or the being controls his desires. It is the nature of the desires which sets the circle in motion.
So all saints/good men advocate control of desires.
This may be anti-capitalism, egalitarian, bourgeoisie etc. Slots are just classification. But man is multi-dimensional. So no one label suffices.
Karma= Action
Yogi= practitioner of the yoga.
Karma Yogi = Practitioner of the yoga of action.
All actions are governed by motives, which in turn are governed by desires (aasa).
A true Karma Yogi is the one who attains controls of his/her desires and hence controls his actions. So his actions would not be driven from the objective of personal gain or desire, but more driven by the sense of duty (dharma).
Duty= Dharama- Each person has multiple duties. e.g. as a son, as a father, as a citizen, as a human being, as a spirit/soul etc. The actions which are governed by performing various duties are the actions of a karma yogi.
So a Karma yogi does not require to retire, pray, prostate to achieve his goals. He is truly governed by his sense of duty.
Where does the sense of duty come from. Some of it is part of the soul itself. Rest is the result natural influences like society and upbringing.
If people do not recognize duties, or exclude them from their lives then they are not Karma yogis.
I remember a time when I started my career in 1992. Internet was not all pervasive, cell phones were not there.In fact a facsimile machine was a luxury.
In 15 years technology has evolved and is all pervasive. It has frighteningly acquired dimensions that have created huge dependencies.
What happens if the plug is pulled on it due to force-majuere. Well, the impact is crippling.
On the flip side, the communication revolution provides us with an opportunity to use knowledge and innovate like never before. You enjoy,relax, and learn at the same go.
The generation of youth exposed to these technologies are scoring higher in IQ as per a recent study reported in the BBC world service. Apparently the computer games do impart these additional IQ scoring abilities by challenging and multiple dimensional problem solving aspects of the games. With the advent of role play, they frequently substitute real life. And technology in way starts nearing the definition of a deity for some. It is all powerful,all knowing and all pervasive.Omni everything.
Is it also causing the erosion of norms of behaviour? I mean abusing a keyboard is simpler/easier than calling a person a name to his face.Especially when the consequences are negligible. So has civilization and freedom of speech come at the cost of honor? Or erosion of the soul.
Imagine someone of the calibre of Amitabh Bachchan using the blog to now defend himself from such abuse. Right back at you he says to the media which is used to abusing their power. Naming and shaming people has been his strategy. I personally feel it will cause the individuals shamed a bit of a shock.Some may actually benefit.People love celebrities especially when they are being lynched. It somehow comforts them to know that they are better off than that so and so XYZ, who though famous, is actually a worthy person.
The good news is that now several versions of the truth can be available, so there is no dearth of data on any subject. Wikipedia is the source I frequently refer to whenever I need the shortcut to knowledge. So exposure to multiple thoughts and views on a subject also widens our horizons. It also renders us more amenable to the idea of a disparate world with a myriad existence.
Bye with these thoughts
