Friday, December 31, 2010

A Decade ago & Looking forward.

When I look back in ten long years gone by… What I know now which I did not know then?
Of course age makes feel good inside and bad outside but apart from that ….how was the show in the matter of Education, Employment, Finance, family, friends, health, travel, spirituality, wisdom, knowledge and rest of the other victories and disasters? What did I learn and what is it that I am still trying to understand as a person?

Hard work and diligence counts, a decade ago I thought I would never be able to join college even but having my PG degree proves that no matter when but some day all the toil we do pays back.
A wish to be independent came true either…A decade ago, I had stared at expensive perfume and sighed ‘wish I can buy this for me’… now I can enjoy that pricy perfume. I pay for all my necessity and can save for my uncertain future :) I thank all of those who supported me in doing this. Yet there is lots to do though.
My lonely years in faraway land made me realize the value of my family. Honestly, it feels like heaven when I have my parents and siblings around. It’s extremely delighting to have two little nieces who twaddle in my ears. I pray that I will always have them by my side.

I also earned 3 new friends in the decade passed, hopefully they will be there till the end. Interestingly I am more thankful to those who came in the form of friend and turned out to be something else… I was deceived, I was misunderstood and cheated. Now I know, you never know whom to trust before you are betrayed. Now I know that we have to take the calculative risk and let things go sometimes. Now I know that it hurts but nothing lasts really. Now I know that there is destiny and there is time. In such cases nothing can be done except being careful. Now I konw that few lessons are expensive but stumble prevents the fall.

I weigh less than a decade ago and run better too. To my surprise, I turn out to be a role model in the area of health and fitness for my age. I think I did ok there by God’s grace.
Well, Bravo to me !! …I have developed the skills of silently counting down the minutes of each day is the most estimable achievement, which I had thought I will never learn a decade ago.


Now the rest of the areas where I performed not so good :( I travelled to 10 new cities in India and 5 new cities abroad. This should have been double. I am actually not so ameliorated in spiritually as well, Though I am trying. I am relatively wiser than a decade ago but still not up to the mark as per my own standards. I can make better choices for sure but lots to be done to prove myself as knowledgeable… Actually it’s in ‘Work-in-progress’ status where I have just figured what I can have for myself and how.

I must thank last decade for giving me the staying powers, affability, and adaptability.
Hope I can work on detachment, cognition and spirituality in coming new decade.


Close up:
“even a brick wants to be something”
~Louies Khan

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Playing God.

At this moment, I am having an affair with Divinity. I realized that love doesn’t fluctuate, the very quality of love is something which lasts, something which doesn’t leave you. Or may be affection is for humans…because affection dissolves, affection develops and affection shifts…and love is for God. Hah…Now I will say that it can only be with God, humans don’t deserved to be loved.

Na thaa kuch to khuda thaa, kuch na hota to khuda hota
duboya mujhko hooney ney, na hota main, toh kya hota?

"When nothing was, then God was there; had nothing been, God would have been,
My being has defeated me, had I not been what would have been?"

I had been Shiva devotee for long...thinking that Shiva is God. Unless the thought stuck, Shiva is meditating !? To Whom? Shiva is meditating to God?? Means shiva is not the God? May be …well, During my entire being, he was with me…2000 yrs ago and 350 yrs from now, he will be with me.

“I needed God. He was given to me and I received Him without entirely comprehending what I was seeking. Then – because my heart didn’t let Him set roots there- God ended up dying inside me. Today, when people mention Him, I say – like an old man trying to revive an old flame, ‘Fifty years ago, if there wasn’t a misunderstanding, if there weren’t certain mistakes, if there wasn’t the accident that separated us, both of us would have had a beautiful love story.’”

“The Words” Jean-Paul Sartre. French philosopher.



Close up:

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

~Harper Lee

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Winter winds.

Mischiefs in the surrounds, winter wind told me the story I have heard long ago.
Sun becomes recital and every ray becomes reciting the old tale.
Distances call from far, all the awaiting dispersed in the shiver.

Sitting against fire, Still I am cold, Warmth is neither felt nor ignored.
Games of dark and light, Oh this, vicinity and aloofness.
Winter winds telling me the tale, I have heard long ago.

Every moment elapsed looking for another one, every moment of gaining and loosing.
Making a little mark, on my heart, each of those moments faded…
Again, this winter wind is telling me the tale, I have heard long ago.


~Close up:
"REVENGE IS THE PUREST EMOTION"
Mahabharat.
(Image is from Flickr, Phillip Klinger)

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Being Intelligent.

My personal definition of umbrella term intelligence is
-To be strictly be able to decide on priorities i.e., To discard the unimportant and improper.
-To be brave enough to implement the priorities ruthlessly.
-To be able to relate and resolve the problems (priorities) in minimal time, with minimum efforts.
But as per the Wikipedia “IQ scores reflect general capacity for performing intellectual tasks, such as solving verbal and mathematical problems”.IQ (intelligence quotient) = (Mental Age / Chronological Age) x 100. The average IQ score is 100.

50% of people have IQ scores between 90 and 110
• 2.5% of people are very superior in intelligence (over 130)
• 2.5% of people are mentally deficient / impaired / retarded (under 70)
• 0.5% of people are near genius or genius (over 140)
As they (intellectuals) always amaze me, thought of exploring inside intelligence.

Summarizing the wonderful traits of being intelligent is being cognitive. Which widens to include original, unusual ideas,creativity, superior abilities to reason, generalize or problem solve,vivid and rich imagination, extensive vocabulary, learns new things rapidly, excellent long term memory, grasps mathematical/scientific concepts readily, insightful, avid reader, complex and deep thoughts,abstract thinker, runs mind on multiple tracks at the same time.
Being emotional which means highly sensitive, beautiful sense of humour, perceptive, keen sense of observation, passionate,sensitive to small changes in environment, introverted, aware of things that others are not, perceive world differently, tolerance for ambiguity, can see many sides, childlike sense of wonder, openness to experience, emotional stability, serenity.
Being active/Social comprises great deal of energy, long attention span, persistent, cannot stop thinking, work myself to exhaustion,needs periods of contemplation, solitude, spontaneity, questions rules or authority, asks embarrassing questions, feels different, out of step with others, empathetic (feels along with others, helps them understand themselves).

Also some of questions arouse base on observations are “Why do they do crazy/unnatural stuff? Why intellectuals are night owls? , Why they insult ignorance? , why are they unhappy? , why do they have messy handwritings? , why are the atheists?, like Ravana (who was very knowledgeable) why intellectuals indulge in criminal/anti social activities ? Why intelligent men don’t cheat their partner?”

By evolution we adopted psychological modules to solve all the familiar problems. We have established standards for general issues.We know what to do when it comes to mating, parenting, learning a language or earning bred for family. These things already have ready-made solutions in our brain, but sometimes there are new problems that requires to think and that’s how intelligence develops.So in contention some people think, reason and solve novel problems.Some people even introduce new problems to engage and prove their intelligence.The key part of the equation is they derive new challenges and they sit and solve to feel intellectually satisfied. Hence intelligence makes people do unnatural things by not following the standards.
Once again, few of that intelligent people do unnatural things and staying up all night or may indulge in criminal/antisocial is part of unnatural things given human nature. Our ancestors depended on natural sources like wake up when the sun comes and go to bed when sun comes down. Being phylogenetically different some of more intelligent are more likely to engage in nocturnal activities. Same with believing in God. We are designed to be religious. Declining the higher power that cause natural phenomenon is another important trait of intellectuals and they become atheist, honoring their ability to reason.
Why is it so common for intelligent people to insult ignorance? Talking to a little kid is cute for 10 minutes. Imagine if everyone else was 3,4,5 year old? And Mr/Ms. Genius get to talk with someone who is comparatively less mature or less understanding for so long ! They will surely get frustrated while talking to someone who is not on same page intellectually.Personally I feel, Ignorance implies that a person doesn't know not that they are being intellectually dishonest.

why are they unhappy ? Some intellectuals have issues such as Asperger's Syndrome. This makes them rather focused or may be anti-social, but they are very skilled at specific things. Few geniuses get isolated at a early age because they have little interest in talking with others or people find them too smart to hang around with. Expressing things into words is also difficult for them because they might be presenting unique ideas..Regarding penmanship, It appears they care more about the message than how it looks. Show of the words is unimportant. They also have more stuff to figure out quickly then us which makes them least bothered about looks of the word. We see lot many doctors, lawyers,professors with sloppy handwritings which could be often a sign of higher intelligence.

How about proving their brains on sexuality ?
Recent example occurs to me is Tiger wood and Pandit Ravishankar.Genius in sports and music. Adopted new preferences and values in sexual liberalism … but well that dosen’t prove very smart of them based on logical research…Several researches are stating from studies that cheating men have a lower IQ. Or take it as smarter men (not woman) are more 'evolved', they are suppose to accept the new terms of evolution, which includes monogamy. Humans are by nature polygamous,which means that evolutionarily men had multiple mates, whereas women always had one mate in their relationships, So more intelligent men may like to reject that natural state of polygamy and value sexual exclusivity, whereas intelligence doesn’t affect women’s tendency to value sexual exclusivity…

This studies, like many other studies, tends to over-generalize, over-label, and under-appreciate the uniqueness of the individual human soul. There is a difference between being smart, being intelligent and being wise. For example, to design and build a hydrogen bomb takes intelligence - But is building something that could potentially destroy civilization is it such a wise use of brainpower? well there is no standard or formula to measure wisdom though. If you can derive ABC you are intelligent, If you know ABC you are smart, if you can see D coming you are wise... :-D

~Close up:

“There is no ‘why’?”