Have you ever been left?
I know it’s hard to leave, but it’s nothing like being left.
It’s like you’re playing third base and the pitcher picks up the ball and goes home. Like you’re the quarterback, waiting for a hike, but there’s no ball.
You’re ready to give it your all, you’re still in the game, but there is no game.
The game's off when you're at your peak, at your height, at your crescendo.
Showing posts with label Awkward Thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Awkward Thoughts. Show all posts
in these last 5 years.. even i though i did not ask u out outright..
i have worked hard to prepare myself for you.
i labored and made myself awesome
at my age.. i have managed to distinguish myself from the other 20 year old lemmings out there
i dont know what kept me back from asking u out while in college
maybe becoz u were the queen bee..
maybe becoz i have this weird idea that 'i shud be "prepared" for my girl'.
i was preparing
i didnt wan to go on living with out every really trying to do what i wanted to do
thus
i prepped
did a lot of things
hustled
bustled
travelled
topped rooms
topped college
got a red-carpet-arrival job
changed things
changed the world
purged myself of all cultural programming
changed...
and then thus
i asked you out in rainy july
i really dont know what was the trigger
except the fact that i felt that i was done preparing
now comes the 'ask'
and i was late
didnt even have an inkling of your situation
you seem to be a good secret keeper
since then
you are my own personal brand of heroin
my own personal brand of ecstasy
got high on you
tried to talk
tried to let u know m not the same
i have made myself awesome
tried to meet
on a special day
but u seem to be happy with your possessions
u dont seem to be the same one i knew
in our first talk u said u are confused about stuff
i thought
hmm.. here's a partner for the journey
but things didnt move on
u didnt see the change
maybe u are happy
maybe u want me to go on alone
and be awesome alone
if that is so
then say it to my face
i am not bright enough to pick up girly hints
after time
the drug subsided
i saw that u had changed
not the one i knew
in ur mars-venus book
there is this line
'a woman never forgets the men she could have had.. a man never forgets the woman he could not have'
No Shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels differently goes voluntarily to the mad house....
All are clever and know everything that has ever happened: so there is no end of derision. All still quarrel, but are soon reconciled - else it might spoil the digestion....
"We have invented happiness," say the last men, and they blink.
From Friedrich Nietzsche to John Rawls the cunning con continues.
The intellectual, smug in the superiority of someone else's ideas, thinks he is smarter than the rest of us. It is enough to make a rational person stop ... and think.
This post is about my gut feeling. There are no concrete reasons for my opinions.
I think that USA will partner with Pakistan big time, and help Pakistan against India.
Now I have only a couple, and possibly very flimsy reasons as to why this might happen.
First, the Obama government is actively ignoring India. For them, New Delhi is not in the same league as Beijing. The previous years were full of the 'ChIndia' noise. Then, India was overblown, and now it is undersold. Maybe they think that India can be arm twisted into accepting any deal they throw at us. And if not forthright pressure, they think they can atleast present us with a fool's choice.
Next, funds from the Obama government are now flowing steadily into Pakistan, which are actually meant to bolster the Pakistani forces against the Taliban. But that isnt happening. While the people of Pakistan are torn apart by chaos, the military cognoscenti are busy increasing the stockpile of their nuclear armaments. And they are providing flimsy reasons for that too.
So.. those are my reasons.
Of course, India isnt blackmailing USA the way China and Russia are.
Hello.
I have been to America and am back in Mumbai now.
I have always been apolitical, but this Student Exchange Program has put me in a position to take a stand. Generally I refuse to do so. My American friends, who are honorable in every way, often ask me what I, and my fellow countrymen, think about Pakistan, China, Muslims, America and french fries.. As always, I keep my mouth shut, just letting out "I have no idea"..
After coming back, many of my Indian friends are now talking about India and America like never before. The major opinions can be summed up as 'hopelessness for India' and 'gross optimism for America'. A few of my friends say that China or America should invade India and dominate us. They think that foreigners are better suited to run this nation than ourselves!
In the classroom too, my fellow students talk about how Iceland has using geothermal energy - how Canada is preventing deforestation - how Tokyo is building sky cities - how American police tackles crime - how good the Chinese are nation building - how the British are clean - etc, etc. But I guarantee that not one of them knows about the increase of mangroves in Gorai - no one thinks twice before employing a 12 year old in their kirana shop - no one thinks twice when they promote someone of their same caste - etc, etc..
Almost half of my friend circle can teach you about Watergate but cannot say a single line about 1961. They go crazy over MagLev trains that are still insanely expensive, but are completely unaware of the functioning of the Mumbai trains. The Konkan Railways are possibly the most advanced mountain trains in the whole of Asia.
Why this distinction?
Now, even after what I wrote above, I still believe myself as a believer in universal love. And for love to be universal, I am prepared to dissolve boundaries.
But I still dont get it.
I will begin putting material from the web right here at the end of this post. Let everyone see what everyoneelse thinks of us Indians..
Jason Mar 13 2007
Manhattan, United States
[Member]
I have worked in the IT industry for around 18 years. I have worked with a wide variety of Indians in the US and on offshored projects, for companies such as Anthem Blue Cross, HP, etc. etc. My professional opinion of them as a group is that I have never seen a more uniform bunch of lazy, work-shirking idiots in my life. In every case, these mush-mouthed morons do not want to work, want to do as little work as possible, with the worst possible quality imaginable. I have striven in vain to find a single iota of creativity in them. They are worthless and I would never hire an Indian to do anything. Set aside their alleged ability to speak English. Set aside their laziness. Set aside their stupid coding practices. They are rude and every one of them thinks they are brilliant. Puh-lease. If I never have to work with another Indian developer or spend an evening rewriting the total crap an Indian developer wrote, I will die a happy man.
Comment Link
If u go across India you will find more interesting Loo-Istic behavior. While for most Indians having a private bathroom itself might be a distant dream with most of them making do with standing in long lines with mugs of water in hand or quietly going outside to the nearest isolated place with sufficient bushes and trees to give the necessary cover though they won’t necessarily hesitate even if its in open view. The sitting arrangement is to sit on ur haunches (probably the most authentically human way of excreting ). And infact this is also the arrangement that is used in a lot of Indian houses with the western pot as they call it probably less preferred to the tiled hole with slabs on the side.
A more recent innovation it seems in India is where the need for a mug full of water is obliviated and the water comes in from a pipe fitted into the pot to aim at ur crack.
People (Indians) who are getting the direct financial benefit from these powers do not hesitate to sacrifice not only their own honor, but that of India's. Their point of view is like this: "What has India given to us? India could not even give us jobs matching our qualifications -- that's why we are on foreign masters' payroll, Romilla Thapar being the latest success amongst us. And why not India be invaded by the USA? They will probably manage the country better..... "so on and so forth. The example of Romolla Thapar getting a good US position as a reward for hating India will make many other India haters even more vicious against India. They will now try to beat Romilla Thapar in how better they are in denouncing anything Indian.
It therefore comes as no surprise that ‘hate India’ lessons form an essential part of the British Madrassa curriculum. Pictures from Kashmir with provocative captions adorn the walls. The ‘serene surroundings’ of the Dal Lake are shown as being surrounded by ‘600,000’ Indian soldiers, a patent Pakistani propaganda. Gun-totting Indian troops are depicted as harassing ordinary Kashmiris by stopping and searching them in bazaars. A Kashmiri youth’s funeral is shown with a perversity that is common in the Pakistani media: ‘one more added to the genocide,’
http://www.gatewayforindia.com/articles/cool_to_hate_india.htm
http://rupeenews.com/2008/11/28/mumbai-intoxicated-india-deaf-blind-to-internal-terror-unable-to-introspect-resolve-its-huge-race-caste-religious-problems/
Keep checking back.. I will be updating this post with many more..
Generally people are not obsessed with their work. Be it school work or office work, many do it because there is no other way round..
This thought post is not about them. It is not about the people who do just because they have to do, but about the people who love what they do and often go the extra mile to do some more...
Entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, mothers, fathers, generals and directors.. all of these people have to love what they do.. otherwise they wont survive for long.. Almost everyone from the above category often works harder than required because their delight knows no bounds when they are engrossed in their rituals..
However, the main question comes here - How do you balance between the details and the larger view ?
Almost any project has innumerable details to attend to and over-optimistic expectations to overcome.. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe quotes (German born American Architect. 1886-1969) that "God is in the details". And someone else with as much authority proclaims that the real leader is the one who climbs the trees and cries out "Wrong jungle!!"..
Who do you pay attention to the most? The trivialities..? Or the major regions of concern ?
I have been watching quite a few movies about India made by western directors. While Slumdog Millioniare is indeed one of them, the rest are classics. Like Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, David Lean's A Passage To India, The Man Who Would Be King. And also the BBC series The Story of India. All of these are brilliantly produced. The artistry does shine through the artist's work.
However, one thought is unresolved in my mind. How did the westerners ever got a foothold in India ? In each one of the movies above, I can see the Indian servicemen saluting the Englishmen. The policemen brought by Dyer to the Jallianwalla Baugh were Indians. The policemen who mocked the crowds and then got burnt in return were Indians.
In the movie A Passage To India, there is a scene where a newly arrived Viceroy is been driven by an Indian driver. The driver just knocks over some of the pedestrians on the road. In Gandhi, Indian policemen are shown lathicharging Lal Bahadur Shastri's protest. In another movie, an Indian watchman standing outside an English club thrashes some young teenage Indian boys who were sneaking inside the exclusive club.
We all are enraged by the story where Gandhi was thrown out of his first class cabin in South Africa. But in the movie The Man Who Could Have Been King, an Indian TC throws out another Indian from the first class, in order to 'do his duty' towards the Englishmen already occupying the cabin. Inspite of the other man having a valid first class ticket.
Now I dont know if these events are fictionalised by the directors or not. My parents never spoke of life under the English rule. But they were born in free India. The textbooks that I was made to study only spoke out the atrocities committed by the English on Indians. But what about partiality shown by Indian servicemen to Englishmen over their fellow Indians ?
Why didnt the Indian police accompanying Dyer refuse to fire on their own countrymen ? Why did the TC do what he did ? Huh ? Any answers ?
Mark Twain had put it rather eloquently India as
“The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions, whose yesterday's bear date with the modering antiquities for the rest of nations-the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined.”
I have often heard and read these days that the art of the essay is dying.
Magaiznes are churning out smaller and smaller bytes of text that the reader can digest in seconds. The blame lies not on the texting generation but on the schools and universties that demand bullet points and modules. Their fancy with modules, byte-sized courses about everything under the sun have mitigated the respect for flair, creativity and originality. What if the 4-page article the student turns in does not 'meet the syllabus requirements' ? What if the student doesnt want to deliver as per the 'assessment rubric' that is handed out in class ?
As always, I havent cared a shiitake about the requirements in any of my essays, whether personal or academic. Never before have I revisited my writings. Never have any of them been updated. The first drafts have been my final drafts. And each of them has been well received by all.
While writing the above paras, something has just flashed in on my mind - the need to write an epic.
Dont ask me why.
Some rainy evening, sitting behind a glass window and overlooking all that the eye can see, I shall begin.
There are two ways to convince people that you are intelligent.
Talk fast.
Or talk slow.
Fast talkers overwhelm you with the sheer quantity of information they can project. Surely someone that talks this fast must also be able to think fast!
Slow talkers convince you of their wisdom by gradually withdrawing their responses from the depths of knowledge.
The slow talker and the fast talker share a common talent:
Control.
The fast talker controls the conversation by ploughing over all obstacles. Other people's thoughts are shoved aside before the onslaught. The fast talker is always on the edge of going out of control, of spiraling off into incoherence or circuity. But the talent of the fast talker lies in staying just below that threshold, and generating a pulsing stream of discourse at the threshold of listeners' comprehension.
The slow talker, on the other hand, controls the conversation by forcing everyone else to stop and listen. The slow talker can remain silent for most of a session, and then, finally opening his or her mouth, can change the entire structure of the conversation through sheer force of will. The slow talker's talent is to speak with a richness, and a pregnancy of meaning, that sweeps aside other people's words as but a pale reflection of the underlying Truth.
In Univers, control is power.
Universe is a kaleidescope, in which every certainty is undermined and every reality is temporary. The length of time in which the world becomes unrecognizeable has been shortened well below the average lifespan of an individual. The experiences of one generation are useful only because of the inherent cyclicality of history; the past will become the future not by passing through the present, but by reappearing in a different form at a later date. The world spins endlessly on its axis, but the axis twirls as well, so that there is no longer any point, anywhere, that is truly at rest.
In this ever-changing universe,
the successful are those who can
create some measure of certainty and
familiarity. Intelligence is the ability
to see the emerging patterns as they form;
to slow, if only for an instant,
the hurtling mass of reality to a point
that is comprehensible to others.
I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.
Special Update: I received one of my other assignment entitled "Whats in it for me" after it was graded and my professor made an observation that my writing style is a bit too harsh. He observed that my "tone is angry, perhaps even snide, but I cannot find any evidence in your article supporting your assertions." Well, the article above is supposed to be an opinion piece, and I have not cited, and will probably never be able to cite, any sources in a bibliography. This article just voices my own opinion. And opinions of mere mortals like me may change some time later - Only the fools and the gods dont change. Secondly I want to say something about my writing style. I never try to "make" any of my writings polished. All of the posts here on this blog are the first drafts. In fact all of my essays, project reports, articles, etc that I have ever written till date are the first and only drafts. I write in a "stream of conciousness" fashion. And I never proofread any of them. Also, I wasnt aware till now that my language is angry. Nobody ever told me that. Of course my previous professors called my articles "cold and hard-hitting", but I never drew any conclusions. I am sorry if I had ruffled a few feathers because of that.
Coming from India, which many Westerners still think is a country of snake charmers and naked godmen, I had high respect for American education. I also had high expectations. I study in Champlain in the Software Engineering program. However, on the third day of classes itself I found that the professors are wasting my time. In many classes they were saying anything that I already knew, while in other classes I wouldn’t have any idea of what the professor is talking about. I spoke to my friends here and they too were in the same boat. I decided that I shall do something about it. Being an outsider, I was aware that I would be taken seriously by the authorities. I observed my classmates and my professors – why they were doing whatever they were doing. For two months I kept observing.
The students here don’t like the general studies courses. They think it is a waste of their precious time. They have all the more reasons to dislike these courses because their books are priced much higher than average, and they have to buy multiple books, ranging from 3 to 7. The books often have high literary value, but this is lost on the students.
I understand that the intent of the syllabus formulators must be noble, but the intent should be carried through in the implementation as well. Such courses often help creative people draw on inspiration in their field of work. Often the most overarching works in computers were accomplished by drawing on inspirations and metaphors from other fields. The reason why milestone products such as the Macintosh and the iPod are so intuitive is because their creators were artists - painters, singers, philosophers, dramatists. But they also happened to be the best computer engineers, and their creative influences enabled them to create products that are not just commodities but jewels in the industry. The students should be impressed upon by giving such examples. And it should be done repeatedly. Not only during the orientation sessions. Good professors often highlight this importance during the course of the program, but smart students are generally skeptical whenever a professor gets into “this-is-important-because..” mode. This should be done by some higher authority, or better still, someone from outside the institution.
My other observations led me to find that the teachers in C++ are very hands-on and make sure that each and every student’s queries are answered in the classroom itself. I say this at least with respect to the software professors. We have a code jamming session in every lecture. Code fills our class. During the class, the professor writes a program from scratch, exemplifying whatever concept / chapter we are doing. During this session, all of the syntax, libraries, and minor errors are discussed. The students (or at least myself) gain a full understanding of the concept. What happens at Champlain (and I guess in the whole the United States) is that during the class the professor just elaborates on the esoteric points of the concept, spending time on speaking about the rarest exceptions that occurred in his/her career before he/she became a professor. I just gaze at the professor and have no idea of the underlying concept.
Let me give you an example. Let’s saying I am learning a new language (computer or spoken). The first step should be to teach the alphabet of that language. Then the grammar. Then phrases. Then sentences. However in Champlain, after having breezed over the alphabet, the teacher then jumps to figures of speech, and as a real life example squeezes in Shakespeare’s exquisite work. As an assignment we get to write an essay. How, at the lord’s mercy, are we going to write a whole essay having just learned the alphabet? But we are left to figure it out and complete the assignment.
Maybe I am picking too much here. But I am highly dissatisfied with the way a technical class is being conducted by American professors. Maybe they were taught the same way. But then there isn’t much value coming from the teacher to the student. The real value then comes from the websites we get our answers from. And then, rightfully so, we start to respect that website more than the professor in the classroom. I don’t know if this is due to the cultural differences between the 2 countries (or is it because of my learning habits that are attuned to Indian habits).
At the end of the day, what we see are huge numbers of American students dropping off from American colleges, and the respect for professors declining. In India, either the students don’t make it to engineering colleges, or else become full blown delinquents. This difference in teaching has some sociological consequences too. Due to the Indian teaching pattern, Indian institutes produce a huge load of efficient software engineers. They students know what they are supposed to do, and they do it efficiently. This method has worked out well, and India now has reached critical mass of software engineers available. Maybe that’s why we get them cheap. On the other hand, the American method produces a few geniuses and a big mass of mediocre engineers who cannot compete with the engineers from India. The American geniuses who graduate know how to do new and innovative things. The mass produced Indian engineers know how to implement and maintain those new things. The average American software engineer is left in the dust.
In conclusion, the combination of Indian professors with American curriculum is utopia. Champlain has always tried to be at the cutting edge of education and has prepared the new CORE curriculum. I am taking one course with a legendary professor who also taught for one semester in India. But again, the intent of the formulators is indeed very noble, but this intent is lost on the students. Nowadays students don’t need to know only their books, but also why they are doing those books. Relevance is the key word here. Meritocratic education is the gift that American had given to the rest of the world. It is time the giver keeps up the value of the gift.
Special Update: I received one of my other assignment entitled "Whats in it for me" after it was graded and my professor made an observation that my writing style is a bit too harsh. He observed that my "tone is angry, perhaps even snide, but I cannot find any evidence in your article supporting your assertions." Well, the article above is supposed to be an opinion piece, and I have not cited, and will probably never be able to cite, any sources in a bibliography. This article just voices my own opinion. And opinions of mere mortals like me may change some time later - Only the fools and the gods dont change. Secondly I want to say something about my writing style. I never try to "make" any of my writings polished. All of the posts here on this blog are the first drafts. In fact all of my essays, project reports, articles, etc that I have ever written till date are the first and only drafts. I write in a "stream of conciousness" fashion. And I never proofread any of them. Also, I wasnt aware till now that my language is angry. Nobody ever told me that. Of course my previous professors called my articles "cold and hard-hitting", but I never drew any conclusions. I am sorry if I had ruffled a few feathers because of that.
The race for being the better one…
Hrishikesh Choudhari.
Champlain College, Burlington, VT, USA.
March, 2009.
Champlain College, Burlington, VT, USA.
March, 2009.
Coming from India, which many Westerners still think is a country of snake charmers and naked godmen, I had high respect for American education. I also had high expectations. I study in Champlain in the Software Engineering program. However, on the third day of classes itself I found that the professors are wasting my time. In many classes they were saying anything that I already knew, while in other classes I wouldn’t have any idea of what the professor is talking about. I spoke to my friends here and they too were in the same boat. I decided that I shall do something about it. Being an outsider, I was aware that I would be taken seriously by the authorities. I observed my classmates and my professors – why they were doing whatever they were doing. For two months I kept observing.
The students here don’t like the general studies courses. They think it is a waste of their precious time. They have all the more reasons to dislike these courses because their books are priced much higher than average, and they have to buy multiple books, ranging from 3 to 7. The books often have high literary value, but this is lost on the students.
I understand that the intent of the syllabus formulators must be noble, but the intent should be carried through in the implementation as well. Such courses often help creative people draw on inspiration in their field of work. Often the most overarching works in computers were accomplished by drawing on inspirations and metaphors from other fields. The reason why milestone products such as the Macintosh and the iPod are so intuitive is because their creators were artists - painters, singers, philosophers, dramatists. But they also happened to be the best computer engineers, and their creative influences enabled them to create products that are not just commodities but jewels in the industry. The students should be impressed upon by giving such examples. And it should be done repeatedly. Not only during the orientation sessions. Good professors often highlight this importance during the course of the program, but smart students are generally skeptical whenever a professor gets into “this-is-important-because..” mode. This should be done by some higher authority, or better still, someone from outside the institution.
My other observations led me to find that the teachers in C++ are very hands-on and make sure that each and every student’s queries are answered in the classroom itself. I say this at least with respect to the software professors. We have a code jamming session in every lecture. Code fills our class. During the class, the professor writes a program from scratch, exemplifying whatever concept / chapter we are doing. During this session, all of the syntax, libraries, and minor errors are discussed. The students (or at least myself) gain a full understanding of the concept. What happens at Champlain (and I guess in the whole the United States) is that during the class the professor just elaborates on the esoteric points of the concept, spending time on speaking about the rarest exceptions that occurred in his/her career before he/she became a professor. I just gaze at the professor and have no idea of the underlying concept.
Let me give you an example. Let’s saying I am learning a new language (computer or spoken). The first step should be to teach the alphabet of that language. Then the grammar. Then phrases. Then sentences. However in Champlain, after having breezed over the alphabet, the teacher then jumps to figures of speech, and as a real life example squeezes in Shakespeare’s exquisite work. As an assignment we get to write an essay. How, at the lord’s mercy, are we going to write a whole essay having just learned the alphabet? But we are left to figure it out and complete the assignment.
Maybe I am picking too much here. But I am highly dissatisfied with the way a technical class is being conducted by American professors. Maybe they were taught the same way. But then there isn’t much value coming from the teacher to the student. The real value then comes from the websites we get our answers from. And then, rightfully so, we start to respect that website more than the professor in the classroom. I don’t know if this is due to the cultural differences between the 2 countries (or is it because of my learning habits that are attuned to Indian habits).
At the end of the day, what we see are huge numbers of American students dropping off from American colleges, and the respect for professors declining. In India, either the students don’t make it to engineering colleges, or else become full blown delinquents. This difference in teaching has some sociological consequences too. Due to the Indian teaching pattern, Indian institutes produce a huge load of efficient software engineers. They students know what they are supposed to do, and they do it efficiently. This method has worked out well, and India now has reached critical mass of software engineers available. Maybe that’s why we get them cheap. On the other hand, the American method produces a few geniuses and a big mass of mediocre engineers who cannot compete with the engineers from India. The American geniuses who graduate know how to do new and innovative things. The mass produced Indian engineers know how to implement and maintain those new things. The average American software engineer is left in the dust.
In conclusion, the combination of Indian professors with American curriculum is utopia. Champlain has always tried to be at the cutting edge of education and has prepared the new CORE curriculum. I am taking one course with a legendary professor who also taught for one semester in India. But again, the intent of the formulators is indeed very noble, but this intent is lost on the students. Nowadays students don’t need to know only their books, but also why they are doing those books. Relevance is the key word here. Meritocratic education is the gift that American had given to the rest of the world. It is time the giver keeps up the value of the gift.
We can't afford mediocrity when competing with Indian kids: Obama 20 Mar, 2009 0051hrs IST IANS 
WASHINGTON: "We can't afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they're competing against kids in China and kids in India," US President Barack Obama has said.
Interacting with local residents at California's Costa Mesa town hall Wednesday, Obama said, "It can't just be a single high-stakes standardized test — but we do need to have strong, powerful measures of performance, because schools are like anything else."
"We can't afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they're competing against kids in China and kids in India who are actually in school about a month longer than our kids. So, there's a whole bunch of reforms that we're going to have to do," Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying.
He exhorted American parents not to put "all the burden on a teacher".
"If you're not making sure your child does his homework, if you're not reading to them, instilling a sense of excellence and a thirst for knowledge in them, then they're not going to do very well, no matter how good your teacher is. Okay, so that's very important," he said.
Referring to the AIG bonuses, Obama said: "I know a lot of you are outraged about this. I'm outraged, too. It's hard to understand that a company that is relying on extraordinary assistance from taxpayers to keep its doors open would be paying anyone lavish bonuses. It goes against our most basic sense of what is fair and what is right. It offends our values."
He went on to say that these bonuses, "outrageous as they are", are a symptom of a much larger problem.
"And that is the system and culture that made them possible - a culture where people made enormous sums for taking irresponsible risks that have now put the whole economy at risk. So we are going to do everything we can to deal with these specific bonuses."
I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.
“Plato has segregated the citizens of the Republic into 3 rigid groups. Do you think this hierarchical society can be successful if it came into existence? Evaluate the drawbacks and the benefits of such a government. Which type of government do you think would ensure contentment and happiness to all strata of society -- Democracy? Monarchy? Communism? State your views explicitly.”
Plato divided his kallipolis into three classes – namely the producers, the guardians and the rulers. Plato was adamant not to provide any social mobility in his kallipolis. When interrupted by Adeimantus that the most powerful people in his city were to lead an almost ascetic lifestyle, and the manual laborers were allowed more freedom to carve out their own social habits, Plato hit out by saying that his aim was to make the whole city happy, not just one section of the population. If just one section were bestowed too much freedom and wealth, it would create discontent among the rest, and spite among the rich.
Plato was of the opinion that if we make something so beautiful that it doesn’t seem what it was supposed to seem, then it is a lost effort. If the farmers and craftsmen lolled around in heaps of gold, Plato said, and ignored their craft, then that wouldn’t harm the city much. However, if the guardians themselves regaled and celebrated, then the city would be open to attack – from the neighboring cities from the outside, and the brewing discontent from the inside. They wouldn’t remain ‘just’ rulers. Plato said that the teachers of the guardians will persuade them and condition them in such a way that the guardians would willingly set aside material wealth and embrace their duty with their body and soul.
Such a situation is portrayed beautifully in Peter Jackson’s movie – ‘The Lord of the Rings’ – the movie about the mythological Middle Earth. While the citizens rejoice after defeating the enemy in a major battle, the rulers still continue to anticipate the Dark Lord’s last attempt to vanquish the Humans. A similar scene was shown in ‘Titanic’; the passengers aboard continue their drinks and dance – while the ships officers fight for time for the sinking ship.
Plato further says that the profession of a son must the same as that of his father. The bloodline of the guardians must be preserved. Only the descendants of a king shall be the rulers, only the descendants of the courtiers shall enjoy the nobility and the sons of farmers would continue toiling in the sun. This would enrage any twenty-first century libertarian human rights activist. Such restricted social mobility is often frowned upon in our times. We all want to go to America, where anyone can become rich – where anyone and everyone can build up a fortune based upon his own talent, ability and resourcefulness. For those who do not think internationally (or are patriotic), Mumbai is their City of Dreams. A place where a suburban boy could become big in Bollywood, where an illiterate young man could build a business empire. This is dream is shown perfectly in the movie Bunty Aur Babli, where the highly ambitious Bunty wants to leave his sleepy town of Fursatganj and come to Bambai, because this is the city which rewarded the Tatas, the Birlas and the Ambanis. Plato would certainly not have approved of Mumbai, New York and London.
Ok, now let us consider the above three cities. Mumbai is the nerve centre of the world’s largest democracy. New York is supposed to be the world’s financial capital, while London is the last remaining civilized place in the world. Mumbai is housed in a democracy; NY is under the federal government while London used to be under a monarchy. The reason these cities are the nerve centers is that these cities absorbed everybody. These cities are pursued by the ambitious because these are the places where one can smell, taste and touch success. To live (or exist) in such shimmering places is regarded by many as their only goal in life. Why? Because it allows mobility. Never will a young person will dream of making a career in Beijing or Sao Paolo or South Africa or the Middle East. Unless that career is in drugs or guns. The public in these places is never allowed to live free. To make a fortune in such cities will require extremely powerful connections in the right places. No one from a middle class background would want to go there. The cities which boast of a track record of rising billionaires will attract more aspiring billionaires. The cities which are doused in blood and gun powder will attract the scavengers.
This sets the record of classifying the citizens straight. If a city may follow Plato’s blueprint of the kallipolis may find itself embroiled in constant revolts. The peasants, after having tasted wealth, would want more, and rob the merchants. The merchants, having gained money, would now want power. The guardians, if all too powerful, may impose tyrannical rule over the city. While it is possible to condition and program the minds of the guardians to stay away from all vices, the chain of the bloodline rulers will always have a weak link. Once the barter system was done away with, and currency was recognized as value, everyone would want to have a piece larger than one gets.
The British monarchy understood this long before. Having faced a couple of revolts, the rulers came to realize that sharing the power with the citizens will quell the uprisings. This gave rise to the representational form of government, which is now being used almost globally. The citizens were satisfied. The rulers were allowed the right to the Title. And the armed forces were controlled by the representatives of the masses. The monarchy was transformed into a democracy. Everything seemed to be rosy. Or so it seemed.
The scenes behind the curtains hid the maneuvers of the rulers. Even though they no longer pass laws, they have an inordinate amount of influence over the ones who do. Those who once beseeched the kings now are lobbyists, playing for their clients, and getting the laws and judgments passed in their favor. In India too, those who once owned the lands as kings in olden times now own the same lands through corporations. Democracy is just a façade put up on autocracy. And it is a beautiful façade too.
The voting public believes it has voted for the best man for the job. Yet they fail to realize that they have voted for the one who has marketed himself well to the public. They fail to realize that the best man might not even have contested for the elections and follow the herd, where the herder is a ruler in disguise. Those who do contest are photogenic people with ‘charmth and warmth’ and have good rhetoric skills. These are not required of a ruler…they are required for an actor. Yet, these politicians all over the world do put up a good drama, as they dance to the tunes of the same bloodlines, which once used to seat in the royal throne, but is now in the CEO’s chair, behind a corporation.
There are many reasons why democracy is loved all over the world. The most important selling points of democracy is the promise of better life, and illusion of a share in the administration. These may not be achieved by a person outright. If the person fails to find what he wants, then democracy sells Hope too. Never to lose hope is what our wise old men have taught us. Having been unable to uncover the sham of the government themselves, they forward it to us in the category of ‘values and culture and tradition’. Secondly, since everyone is entitled to have a say in the administration, confusion and chaos soon engulfs the parliament halls, and the powerful among us strike at the right moment to have their way. Free mass media, one of the crown jewels of democracy, is measure of the public memory. The mass media decides what the public should listen to, what should be the headlines, and what should be mentioned in the sidelines. The mass media is one of the most powerful weapons in the autocratic rulers’ arsenal. Only that they wield it subtly.
Democracy is a necessity based on an idea of a ‘social contract’. People want to be free, but too much freedom can be dangerous. Hence, we surrender a few of our liberties in exchange for curtailing others’ freedom and for our own protection. Government, and by consequence, democracy is a form of social restriction. It makes no sense to say “I love democracy” and “I love freedom” in the same breath.
Communism, as described by Karl Marx, seems an ideal concept. Communism, as put into practice in the USSR and China, is a form of government totalitarianism that has led to brutalizing the populace. While Nazis and communists are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, they use the same means to achieve their goals. India is a nation born from revolution against authority. It was founded on the ideal that ultimate power rests in the hands of its citizens. Communism dismisses this individual empowerment as ‘greed’, and assigns power to the State, commonly called the ‘collective’.
While democracy and brings in capitalism into a country, communism wants to abolish that capitalism and the competition that comes with it. So now democracy wants to remove communism from its country, but it can’t. Because a bunch of intellectuals and puppeteers just go on squabbling. Up comes a ruler, known as Hitler, and creates fascism (which promotes the genetic advantage in its propaganda), which hates communism. So capitalism and fascism together hate communism and they have war. Then fascists kill many people – and the world is afraid. So here comes democracy to the rescue again.
After having gone through all these ‘-isms’, I think that a conclusion can be reached - All form of government was designed to ‘control’ the disasters that crazy people could do. No government was ever designed to keep people happy.
Now we come to the final question – which is the better one? The indecisive among us might want a cocktail of all the three. They might try to take the good of each and leave out the bad of each form of governance. Big mistake. Nehru decided to make a mishmash of things, and create the Indian constitution from capitalism and socialism (i.e. communism) combined. This decision, taken with a personal bias, doomed India to almost forty years of economic struggle.
All forms of government were raised from personal ambitions. The young men of old times, in quest for power decided to organize things a bit. They had set their sharp eyes on the pinnacle of power and ultimate control. They got it. But once they got there, they got lonely at the top, and their vision blurred, and they faltered to keep their government alive. This is the usual power cycle.
What I would personally like, though, is the creation of a soft power. A government like water. If the government is too lethargic to set trends, then at least it should follow the trend. A country like France has always enjoyed respect across the globe. But it doesn’t figure anywhere at the top of many lists. It doesn’t have the largest military spending, it doesn’t have the best educational institutions, it doesn’t have the best geographical boundaries, nor is it an economic superpower in the literal sense. Yet, it is admired by everyone. The terrorists too, do not take it seriously. France is treading a very fine path. France has welcomed the capitalists into its fold. The renaissance artists, the cultists, the ones who want to enjoy life – all find a “Welcome” mat in France. That’s what governments should work like.
This one was written in Feb 2008. And holy cow I scored a hundred. All I spent was around 3.5 to 4 hours writing this paper at 2 in the night on some Saturday. Aarti Ma'am gave me a glowing statement which pumped me up - "Never have I given 100 to any philo assgnmnt. ButI cant give you even one mark less. Brilliantly written and thought about, You are an assett to my class, Keep it up." But then on this day, I grasped the Zen concept of disconnectedness. Did my thought change before or after this comment by my teacher. Should there be any connection between the Rishi of yesterday and the Rishi of tomorrow?
I will be posting the papers I write for Champlain courses. I am required to maintain the "academic standards" and thus my language in these kind of posts might be dry and boring. But I have really done research for these. So take them seriously.
“Elucidate Glaucon's views on the common man's views on justice. Compare the life of a just and honest historical personality with that of an unjust one. Explain your views with the aid of one or more examples from world history. Who do you think leads a better life?”
Glaucon was Plato’s younger brother. In Plato’s The Republic, Plato portrays Glaucon as the youth of the times. His character was painted such that he personified the pragmatic , smug and self-opiniated youth.
Glaucon was of the opinion that “to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice is naturally bad.” People, naturally, want to behave in a selfish and self-indulgent way all the time, even at the sufferings of other poor souls. They do not want the sufferers to get back at them, because being at the receiving end of injustice is absolutely unacceptable to them (to all, in fact). Thus, both the parties arrive at an agreement whereby both neither do injustice nor suffer it. This is a sort of compromise. People do not want to live with this compromise, but neither do they want others to get full power of performing injustice.
This brings us to Glaucon’s next point. He says that “those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice.” This is the most exotic conclusion, I thought, any philosopher could have ever reached. However, on closer inspection, it seems perfectly true. We mere mortals do not possess the power to do whatever our psyche tells us. We are afraid of our parents, our friends, the social authorities, the law of the land. Well, there are psychotics who are not bothered by any of the above. So, society developed an omnipresent guardian – god – to watch over all wrongdoers. When little children go to school, they are given text books full of moralistic stories. I remember a story in which a group of kids go on to steal cookies from a neighbor’s kitchen, and the boy who was keeping a watch cried out. When he was asked by the kids the reason, he said sagely that “God was watching.” In that particular situation, the kids had complete power to steal – there was no one watching. Yet, one child, programmed by his authorities not to do such things because a powerful source is always watching, played spoilsport. But this case has a caveat. If god was the ever powerful being, then what about the atheists? Would they be free to do anything? Well, the vanguards of society found an answer to that also. They created a phantom object – the conscience. If god won’t bother you, then your conscience definitely will. All of these are efforts to undermine the wild imagination of humans, and to make them follow the path of justice.
Then those who follow the just path also run the risk of ridicule. If one is presented with an opportunity to further one’s cause, and if that person passes it up in order to follow the just path, then that person will become the object of public ridicule. The crowds will regard him as a coward. The best example is of a student from my class. He gives the most politically correct answer to the questions asked in class. Once, when another student gave him a hundred rupee note and told him to do the ‘most just act’ he could do, he simply returned that note to the owner. His contention was that giving a lost property to its rightful owner is the most just thing to do. Needless to say, he became the number one bumpkin of our class. He raised the bar for stupidity. However, I asked him later, that if he found a hundred rupee note somewhere and no one’s watching, then what will he do with it? How will he find its ‘rightful owner’? He was silent this time.
This brings in to focus Glaucon’s third point. “No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private.” The student in question might have put up a great show of fair play when presented with money in public, but the question is, will he display the same equitableness when faced with a similar situation alone. The Page 3 socialites who adopt different NGOs do it to gain mileage with the press. Why do they require the camera to do some good? After the public eye is closed, the same ‘socially responsible citizens’ turn in to anti social elements while they drink and drive and mow down laborers. One good example that I can give is of the founder of Infosys Ltd., Mr. Narayan Murthy. His wife has set up the Infosys Foundation, a trust for the underprivileged. Now Mr. Murthy goes and donates two and a half million rupees (that’s 0.06 million dollars) to the Foundation. The media is there to give coverage to the event, the flashes his face on the front pages, calling him the most socially responsible entrepreneur. However, they remain ignorant of the fact that the Foundation is just a ‘money park’, a tax shelter. The same Foundation provides housing to the servants who work at the homes of high level Infosys executives. This way, the only beneficiaries are the Infosys executives, who don’t have to pay for their servants’ housing.
This is all wish-wash. We have had instances of entrepreneurs who have given away whole estates worth more than a hundred million to the local constituency, and even then remain anonymous. There is the British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson who is giving away more that two billion dollars annually for developing alternative jet fuel. And he is doing that even though he is the chairman of the Virgin Atlantic Airways. Nobody asked him to do it. He did this of his own volition. Now that’s what I call justice. Or magnanimity if you want.
This emphasizes the fact that Glaucon says – “People do not want to be just but want to be believed to be just.” History is rife with examples of poor farmers and dainty princesses living a life of hell, and of headstrong generals and crafty courtiers living in pure bliss. The just person is always the one to bear the brunt of any negative situation. The scheming ones will slip away by using their persuasive skills or high contacts and leave the just and honest ones to take full blow of the axe. The public at large pity the just and honest ones, but do not want such a life for themselves. Yet, they strive to be just and principled and delude themselves that they are always just. They want everyone only to believe that they are just. Who wants to live a life of hardship and blight? And even then, that belief is also a delusion.
We always equate hardship with justice. The difficult path is always the correct path. The road of vice begins beside you; while the road of virtue is across the mountain. Why is it that the just way of living of always less colorful. Why do we say that the just will get to sit beside god, while the evildoers will burn in hell. Who has seen it happen? Isn’t god one of our own creations? Why is it always necessary to be poor and live an ascetic life if you have to be just and honest and enlightened? Why is the way to get a billion dollars always an unjust path? Why aren’t the just and honest people the richest and the most powerful on this planet? Why is simple and just living so revered if it is so hard? Why do we follow the ‘correct’ path unwillingly if we almost always follow the wrong path? Why don’t we just interchange the labels of these paths?
The answers to these questions (may) lie in cultural programming. The way we are brought up and the stories we hear from our elders at a young and impressionable age conditions us to believe so. It is our elders who have glorified the just and the honest. But we need not take their word for granted. We can think on our own, don’t we? We need not subscribe to the dogma and sham put up by society. It is completely okay if we live by the work hard and party harder mantra.
I personally believe that Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison did more good than Gandhi and Socrates and Karl Marx and other philosophers and religious gurus put together. Gandhi, to those who know him closely, understand him as a stubborn child who never grew up. Most of the other religious gurus and philosophers led very uninteresting lives. Maybe the people around them did not understand them at while they were alive. I think Socrates became ‘Socrates’ just because he gave up his life to stand by his ‘ideals’. And he was glorified to no end by the historians. But the two other examples – Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison – led legendary lives; in fact, Steve Jobs is leading a legendary life. But by all means they were not just, nor were they honest in all of their transactions. I think greatness in this life is much much more desirable than greatness in heaven (or the next life, if there is one).
Going by the definitions of a just person given by Socrates, a just and honest person should not do anything for honor and glory. Thus, if he ever achieves fame, without his/her volition, only then can that person be said to have led a successful and just life. So, the people who come to my mind who fit the bill are Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. There may be many more about whom I am ignorant. And I have purposely left out religious leaders out of this. And the people who led an unjust and successful life that come to my mind are Dhirubhai Ambani and Robert Mugabe. Now let us analyze why I have categorized them as such.
First the ‘unjust’ ones. Dhirubhai Ambani was a man of tremendous ambition and energy. He was born in a poor family. He did not want to remain poor. He used all means to increase his wealth. However, he often left corruption and low work ethics in his wake. By hook or by crook, he achieved his end. He enjoyed tremendous wealth in his lifetime. He had antagonized many; and he had made millionaires out of many.
Next is Robert Mugabe – the current President of Zimbabwe. Born to a carpenter, he rose rapidly through the ranks of the international intelligence agency KGB while getting eight degrees from the University of South Africa. He arranged massive coups to take over from the previous rulers of Zimbabwe. His Presidency comes at the cost of twenty thousand innocent lives which were massacred by his underground troops. He even ordered mass murders in 1983. Yet, now the country is having a GDP growth rate of twenty six percent year-on-year. This progress indicates that though Mugabe’s rise was marked by violence, his stay will be marked by hyper growth.
Now, let us have a look at the ‘just’ category. While Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, was a strong opponent of apartheid, he became a symbol of freedom and equality. He has been presented with more than four hundred awards, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize of 1993. Mother Teresa needs no introduction. She is the most respected, most loved person on this whole planet. It is said that when Mother speaks, the whole world listens. Even though she is no more now, the world’s respect to her has not faded an iota.
Now, what we understand from these four lives is that we need to live life on the extremes if we ever have to become successful. Either be totally unjust, have no regrets about doing unethical activities and just ram your way through to achieve your end; or be the most loving and principled person known. We need to attain biblical proportions in our behavior – we are either completely just or completely unjust. There is no room for mediocrity.
I wrote this probably in mid-January 2008 for PHI 210. I got 95 for this one. My teacher, Mrs. Aarti Walia, really appreciated my work. She complimented me by writing - "That was impressive. You couldnt have written better." Thats all I needed to get more into this philostuff.
“Elucidate Glaucon's views on the common man's views on justice. Compare the life of a just and honest historical personality with that of an unjust one. Explain your views with the aid of one or more examples from world history. Who do you think leads a better life?”
Glaucon was Plato’s younger brother. In Plato’s The Republic, Plato portrays Glaucon as the youth of the times. His character was painted such that he personified the pragmatic , smug and self-opiniated youth.
Glaucon was of the opinion that “to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice is naturally bad.” People, naturally, want to behave in a selfish and self-indulgent way all the time, even at the sufferings of other poor souls. They do not want the sufferers to get back at them, because being at the receiving end of injustice is absolutely unacceptable to them (to all, in fact). Thus, both the parties arrive at an agreement whereby both neither do injustice nor suffer it. This is a sort of compromise. People do not want to live with this compromise, but neither do they want others to get full power of performing injustice.
This brings us to Glaucon’s next point. He says that “those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice.” This is the most exotic conclusion, I thought, any philosopher could have ever reached. However, on closer inspection, it seems perfectly true. We mere mortals do not possess the power to do whatever our psyche tells us. We are afraid of our parents, our friends, the social authorities, the law of the land. Well, there are psychotics who are not bothered by any of the above. So, society developed an omnipresent guardian – god – to watch over all wrongdoers. When little children go to school, they are given text books full of moralistic stories. I remember a story in which a group of kids go on to steal cookies from a neighbor’s kitchen, and the boy who was keeping a watch cried out. When he was asked by the kids the reason, he said sagely that “God was watching.” In that particular situation, the kids had complete power to steal – there was no one watching. Yet, one child, programmed by his authorities not to do such things because a powerful source is always watching, played spoilsport. But this case has a caveat. If god was the ever powerful being, then what about the atheists? Would they be free to do anything? Well, the vanguards of society found an answer to that also. They created a phantom object – the conscience. If god won’t bother you, then your conscience definitely will. All of these are efforts to undermine the wild imagination of humans, and to make them follow the path of justice.
Then those who follow the just path also run the risk of ridicule. If one is presented with an opportunity to further one’s cause, and if that person passes it up in order to follow the just path, then that person will become the object of public ridicule. The crowds will regard him as a coward. The best example is of a student from my class. He gives the most politically correct answer to the questions asked in class. Once, when another student gave him a hundred rupee note and told him to do the ‘most just act’ he could do, he simply returned that note to the owner. His contention was that giving a lost property to its rightful owner is the most just thing to do. Needless to say, he became the number one bumpkin of our class. He raised the bar for stupidity. However, I asked him later, that if he found a hundred rupee note somewhere and no one’s watching, then what will he do with it? How will he find its ‘rightful owner’? He was silent this time.
This brings in to focus Glaucon’s third point. “No one believes justice to be a good when it is kept private.” The student in question might have put up a great show of fair play when presented with money in public, but the question is, will he display the same equitableness when faced with a similar situation alone. The Page 3 socialites who adopt different NGOs do it to gain mileage with the press. Why do they require the camera to do some good? After the public eye is closed, the same ‘socially responsible citizens’ turn in to anti social elements while they drink and drive and mow down laborers. One good example that I can give is of the founder of Infosys Ltd., Mr. Narayan Murthy. His wife has set up the Infosys Foundation, a trust for the underprivileged. Now Mr. Murthy goes and donates two and a half million rupees (that’s 0.06 million dollars) to the Foundation. The media is there to give coverage to the event, the flashes his face on the front pages, calling him the most socially responsible entrepreneur. However, they remain ignorant of the fact that the Foundation is just a ‘money park’, a tax shelter. The same Foundation provides housing to the servants who work at the homes of high level Infosys executives. This way, the only beneficiaries are the Infosys executives, who don’t have to pay for their servants’ housing.
This is all wish-wash. We have had instances of entrepreneurs who have given away whole estates worth more than a hundred million to the local constituency, and even then remain anonymous. There is the British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson who is giving away more that two billion dollars annually for developing alternative jet fuel. And he is doing that even though he is the chairman of the Virgin Atlantic Airways. Nobody asked him to do it. He did this of his own volition. Now that’s what I call justice. Or magnanimity if you want.
This emphasizes the fact that Glaucon says – “People do not want to be just but want to be believed to be just.” History is rife with examples of poor farmers and dainty princesses living a life of hell, and of headstrong generals and crafty courtiers living in pure bliss. The just person is always the one to bear the brunt of any negative situation. The scheming ones will slip away by using their persuasive skills or high contacts and leave the just and honest ones to take full blow of the axe. The public at large pity the just and honest ones, but do not want such a life for themselves. Yet, they strive to be just and principled and delude themselves that they are always just. They want everyone only to believe that they are just. Who wants to live a life of hardship and blight? And even then, that belief is also a delusion.
We always equate hardship with justice. The difficult path is always the correct path. The road of vice begins beside you; while the road of virtue is across the mountain. Why is it that the just way of living of always less colorful. Why do we say that the just will get to sit beside god, while the evildoers will burn in hell. Who has seen it happen? Isn’t god one of our own creations? Why is it always necessary to be poor and live an ascetic life if you have to be just and honest and enlightened? Why is the way to get a billion dollars always an unjust path? Why aren’t the just and honest people the richest and the most powerful on this planet? Why is simple and just living so revered if it is so hard? Why do we follow the ‘correct’ path unwillingly if we almost always follow the wrong path? Why don’t we just interchange the labels of these paths?
The answers to these questions (may) lie in cultural programming. The way we are brought up and the stories we hear from our elders at a young and impressionable age conditions us to believe so. It is our elders who have glorified the just and the honest. But we need not take their word for granted. We can think on our own, don’t we? We need not subscribe to the dogma and sham put up by society. It is completely okay if we live by the work hard and party harder mantra.
I personally believe that Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison did more good than Gandhi and Socrates and Karl Marx and other philosophers and religious gurus put together. Gandhi, to those who know him closely, understand him as a stubborn child who never grew up. Most of the other religious gurus and philosophers led very uninteresting lives. Maybe the people around them did not understand them at while they were alive. I think Socrates became ‘Socrates’ just because he gave up his life to stand by his ‘ideals’. And he was glorified to no end by the historians. But the two other examples – Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison – led legendary lives; in fact, Steve Jobs is leading a legendary life. But by all means they were not just, nor were they honest in all of their transactions. I think greatness in this life is much much more desirable than greatness in heaven (or the next life, if there is one).
Going by the definitions of a just person given by Socrates, a just and honest person should not do anything for honor and glory. Thus, if he ever achieves fame, without his/her volition, only then can that person be said to have led a successful and just life. So, the people who come to my mind who fit the bill are Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. There may be many more about whom I am ignorant. And I have purposely left out religious leaders out of this. And the people who led an unjust and successful life that come to my mind are Dhirubhai Ambani and Robert Mugabe. Now let us analyze why I have categorized them as such.
First the ‘unjust’ ones. Dhirubhai Ambani was a man of tremendous ambition and energy. He was born in a poor family. He did not want to remain poor. He used all means to increase his wealth. However, he often left corruption and low work ethics in his wake. By hook or by crook, he achieved his end. He enjoyed tremendous wealth in his lifetime. He had antagonized many; and he had made millionaires out of many.
Next is Robert Mugabe – the current President of Zimbabwe. Born to a carpenter, he rose rapidly through the ranks of the international intelligence agency KGB while getting eight degrees from the University of South Africa. He arranged massive coups to take over from the previous rulers of Zimbabwe. His Presidency comes at the cost of twenty thousand innocent lives which were massacred by his underground troops. He even ordered mass murders in 1983. Yet, now the country is having a GDP growth rate of twenty six percent year-on-year. This progress indicates that though Mugabe’s rise was marked by violence, his stay will be marked by hyper growth.
Now, let us have a look at the ‘just’ category. While Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, was a strong opponent of apartheid, he became a symbol of freedom and equality. He has been presented with more than four hundred awards, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize of 1993. Mother Teresa needs no introduction. She is the most respected, most loved person on this whole planet. It is said that when Mother speaks, the whole world listens. Even though she is no more now, the world’s respect to her has not faded an iota.
Now, what we understand from these four lives is that we need to live life on the extremes if we ever have to become successful. Either be totally unjust, have no regrets about doing unethical activities and just ram your way through to achieve your end; or be the most loving and principled person known. We need to attain biblical proportions in our behavior – we are either completely just or completely unjust. There is no room for mediocrity.
I wrote this probably in mid-January 2008 for PHI 210. I got 95 for this one. My teacher, Mrs. Aarti Walia, really appreciated my work. She complimented me by writing - "That was impressive. You couldnt have written better." Thats all I needed to get more into this philostuff.
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds -- then hurried to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3-year old boy...
His mother tried to rush him, but the boy stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats averaged $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The themes were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: How do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
Want to be really innovative? Notice what's going on right in front of you and appreciate it.
India and its people have a way of turning everything on its head...Take a look at the internet..
The internet, when it became mainstream, ate into the revenues and marketshare of magazanies, tv shows, films and music and newspapers...The traditional media began to die in the wake of the Internet behemoth...People would rather love to notice an ad on a website and follow thru than see the same ad in a newspaper and follow thru...
In India however, the reverse is happening...
We have internet companies advertising in the papers, on the radio and on tv !!!!
WTF is happening ???
Now remember that I am writing this post with a white flag in my hand...I already surrender to those Casanovas who have their own melodious ways of spending time with their girlfriends and romantic interests...Following is my consideration...The only way to be happy with your love interest is to do other (read non-romantic) activities together.
Tell me...how many times can both of you on a bike ride in the evening Mumbai traffic ..? How many times can you two eat out..?? How many movies can both of you tolerate (after you're done tolerating each other) ?...After a couple of weeks...time spent at the coffee house will feel like time spent in the local train...
What I am thinking is that the best way to keep the level of excitement going on is to do something constructive and profitable together...
Going to drawing class...
Joining a dancing class...
Joining a swimming pool (wow!)..
Going out of the city on your bike or car early morning and return late night...
Coach kindergarten children for 100-metre races...
These things will help each other to discover the hidden things...things that will never surface in the college basement or in the canteen or in the coffee shop...
Love you all...
Thats the question that most youngsters face at some point...
Why do we live...?
What do we want from our lives..?
What worthwhile things shall we want to do in the 60 or 70 years of our existence..??
...
...
...
Well..I think I have found my goal...
And that is...
To change the lives of a million people...
Thats it...
XRD.rar
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