2016

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.

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Everything has been figured out except how to live.

- Jean Paul Sartre

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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