2016
01/01/2016
Every person
looks at the world from his or her own perspective - which often
differ, even drastically. It is not possible to make one see from
others' point of view as long as he or she can entirely realize
others' situations. Also it is an immensely complicated and huge job
to make others change their standpoints only for the sake of the
somewhat abstract idea of truth. It is a project in itself which
demands all of one's energy and dedication. If I am not entirely on
it, then it is advisable to avoid any such situation which may call
for my effort to make others understand the idea of relative truths.
09/01/2016
The superior
quality of character is understood by its faculty of self
deprecation. Persons capable of self deprecation can appreciate the
need to evolve and enhance themselves. And there is possibility only
for them to change and improve.
A few
observations:
1 : The
contemporary social ways of Bengal largely promote different
categories of mountebanks: most important of them are political. No
political entity in Bengal envisages the much needed enhancement of
the quality of human resources here, which calls for spread of the
culture of solid rational thinking, based on education and practice
of knowledge, contrasted to groping in the turbidity of superfluous
information.
The next
important group of such are the businessmen. This class of people are
continually trying to make others gobble their fictitiously useful
and much talked about products and officiously laden everyone with
their garbage of so called services.
These two types
are the most sought after in here, by the rest of the population.
Qualities finer
than that required for the activities of these classes of people are
thought to be largely useless and often irrelevantly redundant,
almost frills. Thus focus of an average citizen almost always keeps
ideas like altruism and unconditional help out of their rationale,
they are not of much help in the power mongering of the political
people of here and these were never the favorites for the
businessmen.
The culture of
the contemporary politics of India at large is about having very,
perhaps ultra short term plans for grabbing the seats for three, four
or five years - such views have hardly anything to do with making
radical enhancements or improvements. This behavior is a parallel to
the thinking of a mountebank, who, usually, is not supposed to cater
for fine articles. It is not expected of them either that they can
offer sustainable long lasting solutions for critical situations.
As for the
businessmen, they do not believe in the possibility of existence of
any social institution which might not use the involvement of
pecuniary matters. Hence they mostly advocate something if it only
relates to the barter system. So they, usually, are averse to
unconditional deed, even if that helps improve conditions of the
society in its entirety. As a justification of such stand on their
own part, they say that such actions will not inculcate the value of
accountability to the receivers of the benefit, which is true. But
this altogether avoids the issue of responsibility, which every
member of a society must bear.
Responsibility
must be an idea independent of accountability. To put it in a
different way, everyone is accountable to be responsible to the
society at large. It is the cost for the benefits that one enjoys
while living in a society and it must be regarded in the barter
system of life in general.
2. When I face
something which is not agreeable, that disturbs me until I can make a
mental model of the event with the known prototypes of despicable
things. When started thinking why it is so, I found out that it is
about my innate desire to make things agreeable to as many as
possible. A problem can be solved for good only when it is entirely
understood. A wholesome alternative to something disturbing can be
chosen only when we can squarely identify it in its entirety. So,
whenever I can formulate a framework for the disturbance, which
necessarily include the possible causes of the same, it raises a hope
within me that things can change some time.
3. Contemporary
society almost denies the existence of loners by denying the space
required for them to live in peace.
15/01/2016
Do I try to earn
good opinions? - No ! Curious enough !? I simply do not care to !!
Actually, that's the way I reciprocate to the way the world behaves
with me. Hardly anybody cares to whether I like something or not -
people only keep whining or demanding things to go their way -
whatever be its implications on the world around themselves. Nobody
cares, and that tend to jeopardize my situations of life. I find
myself not to be strong enough (it calls for a surrealistically
humongous strength to cater for the welfare of the entire world
around - without any significant help whatsoever from other people)
to be benevolent to the entire world similar to the way of the
glorious Son of God (and that is also a largely exaggerated myth ).
I just behave my
way - go my own way and cannot afford to take account of upon how
many minds I create favorable effect or generate good opinion. I
cannot afford to care as it tends to smother me.
18/01/2016
Ease is
preferable to convenience for me. Ease is about intrinsic qualities
like competence, skill etc. The better these qualities of a person
are, more at ease the person is, in various situations.
Convenience is
about external conditions prevailing in a situation, which can be
more out of control of a person.
Hence it is
preferable to develop one's own faculties which will help one to
overcome difficulties rather than to seek conveniences to handle
situations.
28/02/2016
Civilization and
culture:
We, at times use
the above words interchangeably - which should not be so. Culture is
the aggregation of the ways of life of a population at some
particular span of time. Civilization includes the practice or habit
of putting serious efforts towards enhancement of the skill (physical
and mental) of most of the population so as to maintain themselves
beyond the particular span of time.
Culture is a part
of civilization. So, if a population lacks in the mental and physical
capacities mentioned above, can be characterized as less civilized,
though they may be rich in culture.
That is the case
with present day Bengal - the population here may surely boast on
their reach cultural repertoire - but since they are not capable of
seeing beyond just now, they lack the core of civilization. The
population of Bengal are actually pushing themselves backward through
the way of civilization - and that process started way back in time,
may be shortly after we got "freedom". They promptly
grabbed the essence of freedom and inferred that they should enjoy
the freedom of being hedonistic and do away with learning and being
truly educated.
This mindset took
the shape of rejection of new technologies like computer and means of
automation during the so-called communist government as they did not
took the pain to find out ways of reinstating the manpower, who might
loose their job they were in, if new technologies were adopted, in
new areas. This stalled progress of civilization.
An now, on date,
the wheel is being turned the opposite way and making the system
regress. And as it always happened, people are not taking the worthy
and necessary pain to see that the capable can be given the scope to
work so that real progress takes place.
29/02/2016
We mostly do not
care to know facts. We just try to find out whether the other person
is conforming to my ideas or not. If the answer is negative we
channelize all our energy to make the other person conform. To most
of us freedom means only my freedom - to hell with others. And my
freedom largely consists of sort of my right to disturb others and
encroach into others' territories
01/03/2016
Many of the gurus
advocate selflessness. Selfless behaviors are often idolized. But
this selflessness is a paradox. Every living being who wants to live
must have a self. While talking about selflessness we actually mean a
self which is absolutely self reliant, independent and complete in
the sense that it can live, mentally, without subscribing to
dependence on others.
03/03/2016
The best way to
attain peace of mind? !....
To avoid, at any
cost, all the crucial and important questions those may rise by the
way of being holistically conscious, for the sake of inane gibberish
and banalities and thus rendering oneself as insensitive as a
starfish or sea aenemone. So, be an edifice of sculpture-like
clinical indifference and make dialogues like a tenacious political
power monger. What's the use of trying too hard to help the
distraught - especially when it calls for some real good hard work.
Everyone knows if one's energy is drained out for solving problems
one will lose enjoyment!!
The above point
of view is the happening, widely accepted and popular one, though the
statement might be looked at as somewhat offensive, sort of intended
for bleeding somebody. If we look at the matter in a less incisive
manner, from a more wide angle point of view, it may be noticed that
the problem lies with the nature of self of the subject - if it is
independent from the environment where the person gets to pass his
life, he or she need not take all that trouble and would remain at
peace anyway. It is a crying need for the self to be immune to
denial, rejection, indifference and suppression of one's expression,
to insensitivity and thus to become independent. This is associated
with emotional detachment while being fully aware and conscious of
others feelings.
Detachment is
totally different from indifference. When one is emotionally
detached, one is not stimulated to produce the same behavior as the
other person, but as said above, as long as the awareness is there,
one will feel others' feelings the same. Then there is possibility
that one will try and do help others, as per others' need. But by
being indifferent one keeps others feelings at bay - while one may be
doing well by academic or theoretical efforts towards finding out
numerous meanings and implications of others behaviors and actions.
But these does not take the observer real close to the cause
prompting that particular behavior. And hence, if there is something
disturbing in the behavior of the subject, which has potential for
disruption of healthy life, it remains undiagnosed - and remains
there for emanating sometime in future, causing .... may be upheaval.
24th March, 2016
My aliment is my
inability to dissolve myself (or myself?) into the blithe and
insensitive masquerade called social life. I am cursed by my terrible
capacity of piercing through anyone I touch - this is pushing me
further and further from everything so far known, every moment. But
still something causes me cling to the dilapidated structure where I
was born and have grown up, actually outgrown everything around me.
I heard someone
saying beautiful and that reminded me that I have not happened to say
the word for a long long time - mat be because I fail to see beauty
or is it not there!? Does my kind of alienation keeps one from seeing
beauty in things or it's not there - what is it? But it is a fact
that I long for beauty - wholesome beauty of goodness (yes - I can
see beauty only if it is associated with a feeling of goodness - is
it wrong?). Am I expecting beauty to be doing good to me - is it not
being too much of an utilitarian? Cannot there be anything just as
such - not elevating or serving any purpose - just as such....is
there anything undesirable about it?
31/03/2016
Flyover under
construction near burrabazaar Kolkata collapsed: many of the TV
channels are catering the twaddling of the smug schmucks and
schlemiels. The population of this part of the country has long been
suffering from this ailment of affinity towards shallow ways of life
which has always pulled back the life in here from getting into the
next better level in the process of social evolution. This has been
preventing its members from taking effectual actions which can bring
about sustainable changes towards a better quality of life. Most of
the people are constantly trying to pass the buck and avoiding
responsibilities and responsible action.
Also, life here
has been attracting all sorts of douche bags from all corners of
India and the world while there has been a constant drain out of the
refined minds. This had put the social structure of West Bengal in a
vicious circle of steady and persistent deterioration.
We must stop and
reflect and question ourselves - what do we want actually.....
08/04/2016
A ronin - samurai
without a master, a soldier - seeking honorable death.
14/04/2016
Kolkata is an
accumulation of bad taste from all over India and the rest of the
world.
13/05/2016
While talking
about plans most of the people insist upon setting a target date for
completion of a work, and usually leaves the responsibility for
acting every moment to others. This approach is incorrect and it
should be just the opposite way.
17/05/2016
What ails me - my
inability to take part in, and actually a deep feeling of repulsion
towards the masquerade of the pettifogging witty nitwits. My weakness
of honesty and propensity towards being sympathetic towards the
apparently distressed, has made me a victim of many an exploitation
throughout my life. My weakness is not being able to fake feelings,
be it that of joy or despite so as to gain favour of power disbursing
judgment, wrath or privilege. My rationale informs me that humans are
supposed to be more than some creatures trying to survive anyway -
humans live to search their purpose of living. This cause for living
does not depend on the favor of any entity whatsoever. But life
around me take part in the masquerade from the fear of being
abandoned by the rest of the herd - so that they can just live with a
little convenience, and they are absolutely numb towards the purpose.
They just consume and execrate and reproduce and discuss and think
and live in these activities. So the herd is there to try to make
their species remain forever and not to know why and cover up the
miserableness of their wretched existence in masquerade. I do not
belong to this. And my purpose of living is defeated every moment due
to my aloneness. I am not being able to reach the purpose - cannot
realize a meaning out of all this.
22/05/2016
Political leaders
in Indian context are, by and large, panderers to unwholesome,
decadent minds. As is seen as of now, it is a very special feature of
the Indian social ways that they prefer assholes to good souls. So
there is a tendency in the culture of almost all parts of India
towards becoming as great an asshole as possible - though, as any
other child a healthy child in India, be it born in a well to do
family or otherwise, starts with a pristine mind, as a good soul.
This is how the phenomena of consistent Indian decadence may be
explained.
25/05/2016
I feel good when
I am relaxed and recluse. I must put effort so that I remain so even
amidst a messy association of minds who are in ruts are pressing me
to be in some rut like themselves. I have to remain unattached -
rather than get detached after some initial attachments. I have to be
mindful regarding attachments - be it with humans, or things or
environment. To be relaxed one has to get rid of the feeling of
compulsion. There has to be poise - in which interval one can reflect
- quickly - as to whether one is to be conforming to the compulsion
or can deny any such compulsion; such mindful actions can make one
(me) relaxed.
05/06/2016
I continually
give way to the intruding, trespassing, numb, insensitive,
conceited, jostling and pushing populace around me and by way of that
compromise my self, always giving up the first option and settling
for the second, third, fourth or such other options in almost every
walk of life. Now, the fact is, nobody is going to pay any heed to
your proposal of giving space to others. So the main challenge in
life is to derive satisfaction out of such sacrifices which does not
show any sign of getting me anywhere near the goal of my vision of a
fulfilled life.
১৮/০৬/২০১৬
বাঁচা
অবশ্যই জরুরী,
কিন্তু
ভালভাবে,
অর্থাৎ
সাবলীলভাবে
না বাঁচলে,
বেঁচে
থাকাকে অনুভব
করা যায়না।
তাই বেঁচে
থাকা বলতে
আসলে সহজ
এবং সাবলীলভাবে
বেঁচে থাকা
বোঝায় ...
29/12/2016
Why do I not have
friends?
Developing
friendship requires a little effort, however small it is. It implies
that friendship engenders some effort, work. Work may have variable
degree of difficulty. It turns out that friendship with me demands
quite some work for others with a high degree of difficulty, which
others might not be able to put in, I am ready to do that though. So,
despite my sincere efforts to be amiable, helpful and friendly to
most of the people, I do not have friends ... Sounds like I am
passing the buck !? Not exactly. The bottom line of this is that I do
not quite fit to the present state of affairs around here. Me or
others - someone or others have to make some sacrifice to make it a
whole. Even if it is not a whole - the parts can continue to remain
like this - side by side. That is what is happening here and all is
well ...
Quotes:
The eternal
problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours. In
this existential sense, the function of all social living is to lend
mutual assistance for this project.
- Games people
play - Eric Berne
I was forced to
admit, at the end of thirty years devotion to the Cause, that I was
never made for it. I was born condemned to be one of those who was to
see all sides of a question. When you're damned like that, the
questions multiply for you until in the end it's all questions and no
answer. As history proves, to be a worldly success at anything,
especially revolution, you have to wear blinders like a horse, and
see only straight in front of you. You have to see, too, that this is
all black, and that is all white.
- Eugene O'Neill
Culture is made
or created by its articulate voices
- Ayan Rand
Quotes from "The
Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus :
1. We get into
the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.
2. A world that
can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on
the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and
lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy
since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a
promised land. This divorce between man and this life, the actor and
his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.
3. It is always
easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the
bitter end.
4. It is probably
true that a man remains forever unknown to us and that there is in
him something irreducible that escapes us. But practically I know men
and recognize them by their behavior, by the totality of their deeds,
by the consequences caused in life by their presence.
5. One has to
disparage the greatness that insults.
(Insulting
greatness is a curious and interesting idea indeed!!)
6. ....... In
this facile city with its parade of painted girls unable,
nevertheless, to simulate emotion, feigning coyness so badly that the
pretense is immediately obvious.
- describing
streets of Oran (Algeria)
7. can one be
moved by a city where nothing attracts the mind, where the very
ugliness is anonymous, where the past is reduced to nothing? - about
Oran
Quotes from Bleak
House by Charles Dickens
1. The whole of
that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate
blockheads!
2. Daily the
restless men who have no occupation in life present the appearance of
being rather busy.
3. Homely filth
begrimes him, homely parasites devour him...
Quotes from
French Revolution
by Lefebvre
1. The
Anglo-Saxons in America offered an example that suggested another
kind of development. In their struggle against the mother country
the ‘insurgents’ employed not only the arguments of traditional
liberties but also appeals to natural law, which remained alive in
Puritan thought. They gave voice to the rights of man and the
citizen in their declarations of universal principles and they
erected a republic in the name of the sovereign people.
******************************
Everything has
been figured out except how to live.
- Jean Paul
Sartre
******************************
In spite of all
our "fascination with people," we humans have resisted
studying ourselves psychologically and scientifically. As Francis
Bacon said, "Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true."
We like having a grandiose view of ourselves. For instance, one of
the last sciences to develop was psychology; that was only 100 years
ago. About 450 years ago, Copernicus almost lost his head for
suggesting that man and earth were not at the center of the universe.
About 150 year s ago, Darwin suggested humans evolved along with
other living things. That idea is still bitterly opposed by some
religions. About 100 years ago, Freud suggested that we humans aren't
even in conscious control of ourselves, unconscious forces really
deter mine what we do. Unconscious factors are still denied by many
people. Humans are prone to oppose anything that lessens their
greatness, superiority, power, or importance. Thus, we as a species
may even resist the idea that anyone (or anything less than God ) is
needed to help us cope better with our lives.
... your values
and major purposes for living, if well developed, are perhaps the
most powerful determinants of your major life decisions. Ther efore,
each of us needs to take great care in deciding on the values we will
live by.
Our limited
systems for distributing useful knowledge to everyone are lousy
because they are, thus far, p rimarily devoted to entertainment and
selling products.
Still another
reason to keep objective records is that many of us are poor judges
of our own weaknesses and incompetence (Dunning & Kruger, 1999).
Actually, the more a perso n lacks certain skills, e.g. understanding
grammar or grasping logical reasoning or humor, the less likely they
are to realize their failings (or to recognize the skill of others).
For every complex
problem, there is a simple answer... and it is wrong. -Mark Twain
There are but two
roads that lead to an important goal and to the doing of great
things: strength and perseverance. Strength is the lot of but a few
privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may
be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose,
for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time. -Goethe
The world is
filled open-- with skeptics and naysayers. Try to be minded and learn
for yourself. Be sure your negative views of certain self help
methods are based on facts, good research, or your own experience;
avoid having opinions based on comments from someone else who is also
inexperienced.
- Quotes from
Psychological Self Help
"The
aristocracy," he continued, "is really a military
institution. Take Germany, now. She's got thousands of aristocrats
whose only means of existence is the army. They're deadly poor, and
life's deadly slow. So they hope for a war. They look for war as a
chance of getting on. Till there's a war they are idle
good-for-nothings. When there's a war, they are leaders and
commanders. There you are, then—they WANT war!"
Paul Morel in
Sons and Lovers
- D H Lawrence
My time has not
yet come, some people are born posthumously.
... mankind would
rather see gestures than hear reasons ...
Ecce Homo
- Nitszche
... even if their
happiness and survival are at stake, negative people cannot negative
people won't change their nature. Although they cannot change,
negative people go on defending their points of view at all costs.
Misery does not
only love company, it demands it !
Don't walk away
from negative people. Run!
The joy of not
working
- Ernie J
Zelinsky
Solitude makes us
tougher towards ourselves and tenderer towards others : in both ways
it improves our character.
- Nietzsche
