Saturday, August 31, 2013
Women and insecurity
Why are women so insecure? Why do they feel threatened by a beautiful woman? They don't feel threatened by a smarter woman...Why so?
I am forced to believe, it's coz of the men out there. The attraction between men and women is the reason so many things exist (you, me and the millions of products sold across countries from boob enhancers to lingerie to makeup). Almost all the products sold are either for men to attract women or for women to attract men :-)
So, this attraction is a big thing for many people. They emulate their favourite heroes or heroines, dress up, put on an accent, wear makeup, sing songs and do a lot of things just to attract the opposite sex. Nothing wrong in it. Survival and procreation and extremely hard wired into our genes. The reason a peacock dances, is to woo the female.. all the birds with lovely voices are singing love songs to woo their ladies. So, this attraction exists in all species. No debate about that.
Let's come back to women... Many men say women are jealous. They mock at women. Women mock at themselves. Why do we feel jealous of a beautiful woman? It's most probably because we are afraid that our partner will leave us for her. (I'm not counting myself there as I have never tried to woo someone or be jealous of other girls, lucky me). Men are attracted to feminine beauty. A shapely woman or a beautiful woman is more likely to attract a man than a bespectacled, tangled haired geek. Men are frivolous too. When married men cheat on their wives, the boyfriend has even more excuses. This leads to insecurity. We have to guard our man. We can never be sure if he will leave us for someone else. I have seen so many girls outraged because their boyfriend dumped them for a more beautiful one. They failed to see their beauty and character. Some less fortunate ones could not even make the man of their choice sit up and notice them in the first place. They were not in the list at all. It hurts.. it hurts badly... especially since it's a serious issue for the woman. She is in love with a nice guy and wants him but he just fails to notice her because of this beauty fixation.
Then why is it that men are not insecure? Easy... Women, so far, are attracted to well-read, steady and caring and sensitive men. They choose their men with care. They are not frivolous (mostly). It would be very very hard for her to dump you for a more handsome guy. These things happen nowadays but it's not the norm. So, a guy feels less threatened. If he's financially secure, he doesn't have to worry.
Imagine the kind of pressure this insecurity puts on women! They spend a fortune trying to look beautiful. Most women I know dedicate their entire lives to choosing colorful clothes, wearing them, choosing makeup, wearing makeup, visiting parlours (I too go for my pedicure and hair color), buying shoes, buying handbags, buying ear rings and accessories, buying scarves, buying perfumes, watches, gold and diamond jewellery, watching fashion trends, obsessing about their diet and weight and so on. They redo their makeup a thousand times and are constantly glued to the mirror. They even put makeup while driving! Imagine how many hours of hard work that is! It's important to look good and presentable. But, is the amount of time spent (unknowingly or knowingly) to woo the opposite sex, justified? How will you pick up new skills?
If you love clothes or makeup without the need to look attractive to guys, go ahead. But if you're obsessing over it just for the guys.. forget it. Move on.
A lot of women do just this - atleast in their early stages. Later on family and motherhood and career put so much pressure that they are forced to change.
If we didn't care for the men so much, would we obsess about looks? Would we rather do something else like read a book?
What would happen to men when women change their choice of men and start liking only handsome men and men with great bods? Will they also become insecure and fret and fume? I'd like to see that happen.
I am forced to believe, it's coz of the men out there. The attraction between men and women is the reason so many things exist (you, me and the millions of products sold across countries from boob enhancers to lingerie to makeup). Almost all the products sold are either for men to attract women or for women to attract men :-)
So, this attraction is a big thing for many people. They emulate their favourite heroes or heroines, dress up, put on an accent, wear makeup, sing songs and do a lot of things just to attract the opposite sex. Nothing wrong in it. Survival and procreation and extremely hard wired into our genes. The reason a peacock dances, is to woo the female.. all the birds with lovely voices are singing love songs to woo their ladies. So, this attraction exists in all species. No debate about that.
Let's come back to women... Many men say women are jealous. They mock at women. Women mock at themselves. Why do we feel jealous of a beautiful woman? It's most probably because we are afraid that our partner will leave us for her. (I'm not counting myself there as I have never tried to woo someone or be jealous of other girls, lucky me). Men are attracted to feminine beauty. A shapely woman or a beautiful woman is more likely to attract a man than a bespectacled, tangled haired geek. Men are frivolous too. When married men cheat on their wives, the boyfriend has even more excuses. This leads to insecurity. We have to guard our man. We can never be sure if he will leave us for someone else. I have seen so many girls outraged because their boyfriend dumped them for a more beautiful one. They failed to see their beauty and character. Some less fortunate ones could not even make the man of their choice sit up and notice them in the first place. They were not in the list at all. It hurts.. it hurts badly... especially since it's a serious issue for the woman. She is in love with a nice guy and wants him but he just fails to notice her because of this beauty fixation.
Then why is it that men are not insecure? Easy... Women, so far, are attracted to well-read, steady and caring and sensitive men. They choose their men with care. They are not frivolous (mostly). It would be very very hard for her to dump you for a more handsome guy. These things happen nowadays but it's not the norm. So, a guy feels less threatened. If he's financially secure, he doesn't have to worry.
Imagine the kind of pressure this insecurity puts on women! They spend a fortune trying to look beautiful. Most women I know dedicate their entire lives to choosing colorful clothes, wearing them, choosing makeup, wearing makeup, visiting parlours (I too go for my pedicure and hair color), buying shoes, buying handbags, buying ear rings and accessories, buying scarves, buying perfumes, watches, gold and diamond jewellery, watching fashion trends, obsessing about their diet and weight and so on. They redo their makeup a thousand times and are constantly glued to the mirror. They even put makeup while driving! Imagine how many hours of hard work that is! It's important to look good and presentable. But, is the amount of time spent (unknowingly or knowingly) to woo the opposite sex, justified? How will you pick up new skills?
If you love clothes or makeup without the need to look attractive to guys, go ahead. But if you're obsessing over it just for the guys.. forget it. Move on.
A lot of women do just this - atleast in their early stages. Later on family and motherhood and career put so much pressure that they are forced to change.
If we didn't care for the men so much, would we obsess about looks? Would we rather do something else like read a book?
What would happen to men when women change their choice of men and start liking only handsome men and men with great bods? Will they also become insecure and fret and fume? I'd like to see that happen.
Henry David Thoreau on Defining Your Own Success
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/12/thoreau-on-success/
Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
The art of observation
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/12/on-looking-eleven-walks-with-expert-eyes/
“How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard wrote, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And nowhere do we fail at the art of presence most miserably and most tragically than in urban life — in the city, high on the cult of productivity, where we float past each other, past the buildings and trees and the little boy in the purple pants, past life itself, cut off from the breathing of the world by iPhone earbuds and solipsism. And yet: “The art of seeing has to be learned,and it can be learned".
This adaptive ignorance, she argues, is there for a reason — we celebrate it as “concentration” and welcome its way of easing our cognitive overload by allowing us to conserve our precious mental resources only for the stimuli of immediate and vital importance, and to dismiss or entirely miss all else.
While this might make us more efficient in our goal-oriented day-to-day, it also makes us inhabit a largely unlived — and unremembered — life, day in and day out.
“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.”:
A better way of thinking about attention is to consider the problems that evolution might have designed “attention” to solve. The first problem emerges from the nature of the world. The world is wildly distracting. It is full of brightly colored things, large things casting shadows, quickly moving things, approaching things, loud things, irregular things, smelly things.
Thus, evolution’s problem-solving left us modern humans with two kinds of attention: vigilance, which allows us to have a quick and life-saving fight-or-flight response to an immediate threat, be it a leaping lion or a deranged boss, and selective attention, which unconsciously curates the few stimuli to attend to amidst the flurry bombarding us, enabling us to block out everything except what we’re interested in ingesting.
Much like French polymath Henri PoincarĂ© argued that to invent is simply to choose ideas, to attend, it turns out, is simply to choose stimuli — but what sounds so deceptively simple turns out to be marvelously complex.
Horowitz tickles this latter type of attention to unravel all the unseen, unsmelled, and unheard miracles of a city block, the wonderlands of sensation and awareness that bloom behind the looking glass of our evolutionarily primed everyday inattention.
Part of normal human development is learning to notice less than we are able to. The world is awash in details of color, form, sound — but to function, we have to ignore some of it. The world still holds these details. Children sense the world at a different granularity, attending to parts of the visual world we gloss over; to sounds we have dismissed as irrelevant. What is indiscernible to us is plain to them.
Part of toddlers’ extraordinary capacity for noticing has to do with their hard-wired neophilia — the allure of the new and unfamiliar, which for them includes just about everything that we, old and jaded, have deemed familiar and thus uninteresting.
Eventually, we made it from A to B, but not before visiting all of the later letters of the alphabet. … Objects and people on our route became possibilities for interaction, rather than decoration or obstruction, as the urban pedestrian might define them.
I had not noticed, until forced to by Kalman’s sociability, how I was engaging in a fundamentally social activity by walking out in public.
our minds are constantly coerced into reading the “dull, tedious words” that bombard us from storefronts, billboards, and computer screens nearly every waking moment — but besides the linguistic burden, embedded in each letter we ingest is also a design one, for typography can quietly convey an unwritten message, set a mood, create an ineffable sense of something being either terribly wrong or terribly wonderful. There is a humanistic quality of words.
We learn that on every square inch of surface, entire microcosms oscillate between vibrant life and violent death. (“If a driveway holds an ecosystem,” Horowitz ponders, “what of a parking lot? Perchance a universe.”)
“Half of tracking is knowing where to look, and the other half is looking.”
Once you have an eye for these things, even when you’re not looking for them, they just jump out at you. Everything is a sign of something.
Every single crack, hole, and slit between buildings is part of a vast and elaborate transit system of urban wildlife passageways.
Part of what restricts us seeing things is that we have an expectation about what we will see, and we are actually perceptually restricted by that expectation. In a sense, expectation is the lost cousin of attention: both serve to reduce what we need to process of the world “out there.” Attention is the more charismatic member, packaged and sold more effectively, but expectation is also a crucial part of what we see. Together they allow us to be functional, reducing the sensory chaos of the world into unbothersome and understandable units.
Humans are visual creatures. Our eyes have prime positioning on our faces. We have trichromatic vision, which is sufficient to paint a Technicolor, million-colored landscape of the world. Our brains’ visual areas, with hundreds of millions of neurons designed to make sense of what we see, takes up a full fifth of each of our cortices. The resplendent scene our eyes carry to us is entrancing. As a result, we humans generally do not bother paying attention to much other than the visual. What we wear, where we live, where we visit, even whom we love is based in large part on appearance — visual appearance.
I imagined that someone who has lost her sense of sight could lead me, however superficially, into the invisible block that I miss with my wide open eyes.
Gordon navigates swiftly along the sidewalk, masterfully using her cane — a sort of sensory extension of herself .
Dogs are called macrosomatic, or keen-scented, while humans are called microsomatic, or feeble-scented.
==============================================================
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/07/annie-dillard-the-writing-life-1/
In our obsession with optimizing our creative routines and maximizing our productivity, we’ve forgotten how to be truly present in the gladdening mystery of life.
==============================================================
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/29/the-art-of-observation/
Aristotle commented that on observing that the bright side of the moon is always toward the sun, it may suddenly occur to the observer that the explanation is that the moon shines by the light of the sun.
The thing noticed will only become significant if the mind of the observer either consciously or unconsciously relates it to some relevant knowledge or past experience, or if in pondering on it subsequently he arrives at some hypothesis.
what is more important and more difficult is to observe (in this instance mainly a mental process) resemblances or correlations between things that on the surface appeared quite unrelated.
“real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know”
One cannot observe everything closely, therefore one must discriminate and try to select the significant. When practicing a branch of science, the ‘trained’ observer deliberately looks for specific things which his training has taught him are significant, but in research he often has to rely on his own discrimination, guided only by his general scientific knowledge, judgment and perhaps an hypothesis which he entertains. Most of the knowledge and much of the genius of the research worker lie behind his selection of what is worth observing. It is a crucial choice, often determining the success or failure of months of work, often differentiating the brilliant discoverer from the … plodder.
Training in observation follows the same principles as training in any activity. At first one must do things consciously and laboriously, but with practice the activities gradually become automatic and unconscious and a habit is established. Effective scientific observation also requires a good background, for only by being familiar with the usual can we notice something as being unusual or unexplained.
“chance favors the connected mind.”
“How we spend our days,” Annie Dillard wrote, “is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And nowhere do we fail at the art of presence most miserably and most tragically than in urban life — in the city, high on the cult of productivity, where we float past each other, past the buildings and trees and the little boy in the purple pants, past life itself, cut off from the breathing of the world by iPhone earbuds and solipsism. And yet: “The art of seeing has to be learned,and it can be learned".
Right now, you are missing the vast majority of what is happening around you. You are missing the events unfolding in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you.
By marshaling your attention to these words, helpfully framed in a distinct border of white, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses: the hum of the fluorescent lights, the ambient noise in a large room, the places your chair presses against your legs or back, your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, the tension you are holding in your shoulders or jaw, the map of the cool and warm places on your body, the constant hum of traffic or a distant lawn-mower, the blurred view of your own shoulders and torso in your peripheral vision, a chirp of a bug or whine of a kitchen appliance.
This adaptive ignorance, she argues, is there for a reason — we celebrate it as “concentration” and welcome its way of easing our cognitive overload by allowing us to conserve our precious mental resources only for the stimuli of immediate and vital importance, and to dismiss or entirely miss all else.
While this might make us more efficient in our goal-oriented day-to-day, it also makes us inhabit a largely unlived — and unremembered — life, day in and day out.
“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.”:
A better way of thinking about attention is to consider the problems that evolution might have designed “attention” to solve. The first problem emerges from the nature of the world. The world is wildly distracting. It is full of brightly colored things, large things casting shadows, quickly moving things, approaching things, loud things, irregular things, smelly things.
Thus, evolution’s problem-solving left us modern humans with two kinds of attention: vigilance, which allows us to have a quick and life-saving fight-or-flight response to an immediate threat, be it a leaping lion or a deranged boss, and selective attention, which unconsciously curates the few stimuli to attend to amidst the flurry bombarding us, enabling us to block out everything except what we’re interested in ingesting.
Much like French polymath Henri PoincarĂ© argued that to invent is simply to choose ideas, to attend, it turns out, is simply to choose stimuli — but what sounds so deceptively simple turns out to be marvelously complex.
Horowitz tickles this latter type of attention to unravel all the unseen, unsmelled, and unheard miracles of a city block, the wonderlands of sensation and awareness that bloom behind the looking glass of our evolutionarily primed everyday inattention.
Part of normal human development is learning to notice less than we are able to. The world is awash in details of color, form, sound — but to function, we have to ignore some of it. The world still holds these details. Children sense the world at a different granularity, attending to parts of the visual world we gloss over; to sounds we have dismissed as irrelevant. What is indiscernible to us is plain to them.
Part of toddlers’ extraordinary capacity for noticing has to do with their hard-wired neophilia — the allure of the new and unfamiliar, which for them includes just about everything that we, old and jaded, have deemed familiar and thus uninteresting.
Eventually, we made it from A to B, but not before visiting all of the later letters of the alphabet. … Objects and people on our route became possibilities for interaction, rather than decoration or obstruction, as the urban pedestrian might define them.
I had not noticed, until forced to by Kalman’s sociability, how I was engaging in a fundamentally social activity by walking out in public.
our minds are constantly coerced into reading the “dull, tedious words” that bombard us from storefronts, billboards, and computer screens nearly every waking moment — but besides the linguistic burden, embedded in each letter we ingest is also a design one, for typography can quietly convey an unwritten message, set a mood, create an ineffable sense of something being either terribly wrong or terribly wonderful. There is a humanistic quality of words.
We learn that on every square inch of surface, entire microcosms oscillate between vibrant life and violent death. (“If a driveway holds an ecosystem,” Horowitz ponders, “what of a parking lot? Perchance a universe.”)
“Half of tracking is knowing where to look, and the other half is looking.”
Once you have an eye for these things, even when you’re not looking for them, they just jump out at you. Everything is a sign of something.
Every single crack, hole, and slit between buildings is part of a vast and elaborate transit system of urban wildlife passageways.
Part of what restricts us seeing things is that we have an expectation about what we will see, and we are actually perceptually restricted by that expectation. In a sense, expectation is the lost cousin of attention: both serve to reduce what we need to process of the world “out there.” Attention is the more charismatic member, packaged and sold more effectively, but expectation is also a crucial part of what we see. Together they allow us to be functional, reducing the sensory chaos of the world into unbothersome and understandable units.
Humans are visual creatures. Our eyes have prime positioning on our faces. We have trichromatic vision, which is sufficient to paint a Technicolor, million-colored landscape of the world. Our brains’ visual areas, with hundreds of millions of neurons designed to make sense of what we see, takes up a full fifth of each of our cortices. The resplendent scene our eyes carry to us is entrancing. As a result, we humans generally do not bother paying attention to much other than the visual. What we wear, where we live, where we visit, even whom we love is based in large part on appearance — visual appearance.
I imagined that someone who has lost her sense of sight could lead me, however superficially, into the invisible block that I miss with my wide open eyes.
Gordon navigates swiftly along the sidewalk, masterfully using her cane — a sort of sensory extension of herself .
Our brains are changed by experience — in a way directly related to the details of that experience. If we have enough experience doing an action, viewing a scene, or smelling an odor to become an “expert” in a field, then our brains are functionally — and visibly — different from nonexperts.And yet:
The brain is plastic, and can creatively adapt to a new situation, but it changes right back when it no longer needs to be creative.The dog nose has hundreds of millions of receptors in that nose; All animals house hormones, which are involved in bodily and brain activities, and those hormones we emit, called pheromones, are detected by the vomeronasal organ. This is how a dog could detect another dog’s stress or sexual readiness in a spray of her urine left on the ground.
Dogs are called macrosomatic, or keen-scented, while humans are called microsomatic, or feeble-scented.
==============================================================
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/07/annie-dillard-the-writing-life-1/
In our obsession with optimizing our creative routines and maximizing our productivity, we’ve forgotten how to be truly present in the gladdening mystery of life.
==============================================================
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/29/the-art-of-observation/
Why genius lies in the selection of what is worth observing.
“In the field of observation,” legendary disease prevention pioneer Louis Pasteur famously proclaimed in 1854, “chance favors only the prepared mind.” “Knowledge comes form noticing resemblances and recurrences in the events that happen around us,”Aristotle commented that on observing that the bright side of the moon is always toward the sun, it may suddenly occur to the observer that the explanation is that the moon shines by the light of the sun.
The thing noticed will only become significant if the mind of the observer either consciously or unconsciously relates it to some relevant knowledge or past experience, or if in pondering on it subsequently he arrives at some hypothesis.
what is more important and more difficult is to observe (in this instance mainly a mental process) resemblances or correlations between things that on the surface appeared quite unrelated.
“real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know”
One cannot observe everything closely, therefore one must discriminate and try to select the significant. When practicing a branch of science, the ‘trained’ observer deliberately looks for specific things which his training has taught him are significant, but in research he often has to rely on his own discrimination, guided only by his general scientific knowledge, judgment and perhaps an hypothesis which he entertains. Most of the knowledge and much of the genius of the research worker lie behind his selection of what is worth observing. It is a crucial choice, often determining the success or failure of months of work, often differentiating the brilliant discoverer from the … plodder.
Training in observation follows the same principles as training in any activity. At first one must do things consciously and laboriously, but with practice the activities gradually become automatic and unconscious and a habit is established. Effective scientific observation also requires a good background, for only by being familiar with the usual can we notice something as being unusual or unexplained.
“chance favors the connected mind.”
Friday, August 30, 2013
A mechanic who dreamt big...
A very inspiring story of Arunachalam Muruganantham from Coimbatore and his journey towards the limelight. He truly mocks all of us and proves what a shallow and meaningless life we lead!
http://newinventions.in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk ( What a bad title - man wears sanitary napkins)
http://newinventions.in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_MeS6SOwk ( What a bad title - man wears sanitary napkins)
Thursday, August 29, 2013
The avocado lesson and children
Hiran told me "Good news! Did you see the avocado? It's growing well. The first leaves have come. Unless we do something harsh or stupid, it will bear fruit in 15 years".
Then, he says.. see this is how children also are. Just give them a little good atmosphere and they will turn into great people. Don't stifle them.
A seed has the entire intelligence to grow into a beautiful plant. It needs minimal external help. So is the case with humans. The embryo has the capability to grow the brain, heart and other organs.. from a single cell...why can't it perform more miracles? Wrong parenting and stifling schools aside, a child will learn.. in his own way, the things that interest him...that fascinate him. A little water and encouragement is all that's needed. We may grow into different individuals.. We express ourselves differently.Each of us is beautiful. What each of us loves, is art to us.
Yday we went to Bistro claytopia to paint something. There were so many artifacts displayed. You can't slot them as beautiful. Each artifact is the art and mind and soul of one person.. each looks as different as we are...I learnt to appreciate that and not judge things...it was wonderful.
Being with a child filled with wonder - the magic rubs off on you. Just like J.K Rowling said.."All of us have magic".
Around the same time, one mom has written a beautiful article:
http://www.mycity4kids.com/parentingstop/Lean-Mean-Efficient/article/rules-of-nurture
Then, he says.. see this is how children also are. Just give them a little good atmosphere and they will turn into great people. Don't stifle them.
A seed has the entire intelligence to grow into a beautiful plant. It needs minimal external help. So is the case with humans. The embryo has the capability to grow the brain, heart and other organs.. from a single cell...why can't it perform more miracles? Wrong parenting and stifling schools aside, a child will learn.. in his own way, the things that interest him...that fascinate him. A little water and encouragement is all that's needed. We may grow into different individuals.. We express ourselves differently.Each of us is beautiful. What each of us loves, is art to us.
Yday we went to Bistro claytopia to paint something. There were so many artifacts displayed. You can't slot them as beautiful. Each artifact is the art and mind and soul of one person.. each looks as different as we are...I learnt to appreciate that and not judge things...it was wonderful.
Being with a child filled with wonder - the magic rubs off on you. Just like J.K Rowling said.."All of us have magic".
Around the same time, one mom has written a beautiful article:
http://www.mycity4kids.com/parentingstop/Lean-Mean-Efficient/article/rules-of-nurture
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
A little a day
As if answering my prayers, Maria has put up this wonderful quote:
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone, until those smiling possibilities are dead. Whereas ten minutes a day of poetry, of spiritual reading or meditation, and an hour or two a week at music, pictures, or philosophy, provided we began now and suffered no remission, would infallibly give us in due time the fulness of all we desire. By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.
William James (January 11, 1842—August 26, 1910) in Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals
Fun periodic table and how your brain works.. Nice videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUDDiWtFtEM&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiTz2i4VHFw&list=TLeDE3pKotC1U
Thanks to quirky friend Chak!
If only we could make computer science and algos so interesting and fun and easy.. Many people would be advantaged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiTz2i4VHFw&list=TLeDE3pKotC1U
Thanks to quirky friend Chak!
If only we could make computer science and algos so interesting and fun and easy.. Many people would be advantaged.
Are girls wired differently?
All my years in IT, I have been tortured immensely by this question. Am I any lesser than a man?
Do I lack something? Why is it science and technology and algos is so tough to me while it seems to come easily to many men? Do they have genetic advantages because they are men?
I always felt that many men were better (technically). I had no woman to look upto in my org. All women were managers - non technical people or HR or Finance.
Why were there no WOW women around me?
I attended the GHC to improve myself. I found a few WOW women but not many.
Even as doctors, men come across as more technical.
Even in official mails, women tend to be more elaborate and flowery and subtle while men are to the point and impersonal.
I found myself trapped in gender biases regarding women.
There were very few women photographers.. very few astronauts.. very few computer programmers. Why?
================= Interspersed with Women in Science Part 1 ====================
http://www.bwfund.org/feature-women-science-part-one
Are girls wired differently, so that verbal skills come more naturally than mathematics? Are they socialized to go into more nurturing professions? Does the burden of child-rearing get in the way of their achievement? Or is the culture of the workplace toxic to women? But one question that has not received as much attention as the rest is why it matters that there are not as many women as men in the scientific profession.
I started feeling that due to years of conditioning to an outside world, men's genes had certain abilities. Women, from a long time, were nurturers. They tended to family. They did arts. So, they excelled in it. These genetic advantages got passed on to their daughters. Somehow the father's advantages never seemed to reach the daughters. Girls stuck to pink barbie dolls and boys to speedy cars. Women excelled in arts and hospitality. Men in Science and engineering.
Somehow I felt I could do nothing about it. I am a streetsmart woman. I am dumb in a few ways but not the stereotypical dumb blonde girl types. What prevents me from excelling in science?
Yday my frustration and imagination led me to think "If we created a world in which arts and literature were more important than money and science, how would men feel?"
I really wanted to do that. Make people feel incompetent and worthless (that's how they've made women feel). I want to see them play out in a stage where they are disadvantaged genetically. How does it affect them, not being the best and not being the fastest? Imagine what would happen if all the supporting women, withdrew their support? Let's say the maids stopped cleaning, the women stopped cooking..would their life come to a grinding halt or they'd turn to McD all day? Would that affect their abilities?
If men had to grow up children, how difficult would it be for them? If they had to cook and clean and take care of the house while the women worked, how long would they take to be as efficient as the woman? Will a woman be able to catch up with men's so called scientific advantanges in the same time? Can we change our wiring and bridge this gap in a while or would men still be advantaged?
Somehow women feel its a "man's world". They feel less talented and less valued and less employable.. less worthy. They feel their natural abilities to nurture a family is under valued because that does not fetch them a salary. The men have, probably very unconsciously, created a world where their skills and their work are the most valued. Women feel like losers. They may have difficulties understanding algorithms. They may be unable to roam around all day in motorbikes (sales). They may get stressed at work because their brain is not conditioned. All the small things add up.
In her book Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, Virginia Valian explains that expectations of men and women in our society are different, and those expectations – “gender schemas” – skew our perceptions, even among the very scientists whose livelihood is based on their objectivity. Because of the influence of these gender schemas, the abilities and contributions of men tend to be overrated whereas those of women go underrated. A large body of research exists suggesting that each disadvantage – not getting credit for an idea, not being invited to a scientific meeting – can add up over time, so that men reach the top faster and in greater numbers than women do. As Dr. Valian later writes, “Well-meaning observers may tell the woman not to make a mountain out of a molehill. What they do not understand is that the notion of the accumulation of advantage encapsulates. Mountains are molehills, piled one on top of the other.”
I can see changes today. Many girls are learning fast. Technology is going to change some things. The fact that a whole generation of women worked before you - gives you an advantage. How long would it take to see women equal to men in so called STEM? How will the world change if you allow a woman's perspective? I've always said, I felt the need for changes at workplace. The beauty that women bring to a workplace is unappreciated. I have personally been very let down by the absence of any credit given to women at workplace. All my efforts at mentoring and guiding people never found the appreciation that it deserved.
Compared to the previous generation, women are vocal now. They voice their opinions loud and clear and many rational and open minded men value women. So, that's going to change men's circuitry for sure. This interaction, along with the interaction with technology will lead to a new breed of men. Workplaces will definitely acquire a different aura. I won't live long enough to see women on an equal footing, but I hope it will happen.
"When diversity is lost in any discipline – whether in terms of racial diversity, ethnic diversity, or gender diversity – a certain amount of intellectual content is lost as well, says Dr. Leboy."
“In effect you are training a huge amount of people who have creative, important thoughts who are never going to continue to contribute to scientific discovery,” Dr. Wagers says. “That then limits the pool of creative thought that goes into science.”
“It is not a matter of one field being better than another, but rather it is important that we are covering diversity in the kinds of questions that people ask about science.” And it is not only the questions that women ask, but the way that they ask them that may make female researchers a particular asset to the scientific process. Women may have a different style of interaction than men, one that could foster the collaboration and cooperation needed for the success of today’s large-scale research endeavors.
“I frankly don’t care how many women do science,” says Dr. Hopkins. “I just care that the ones who want to do it can do it without worrying about this problem.”
====================================================================
http://www.bwfund.org/feature-women-science-part-two
“People were questioning why there weren’t more women in science, and I had to point out that we are not going to be banging down the doors to enter a profession that just sounds so awful,” said Wu, who just completed her doctorate at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke. “While I do love science, I just don’t know that I can be the heart and soul of it.”
“If all you know about scientists, if the vision of a scientist is a brilliant white man with glasses and funny hair and a lab coat, then none of us are going to feel like we match that model,” said Mary Wyer, “The truth of the matter is that women and people of color have made substantive contributions to science and that these are forgotten, they are lost history.”
One concept she teaches is that of stereotype threat, or the risk that a negative stereotype about one’s group –such as being female or African-American – will lead to self-doubt and affect academic performance. In the classic study of this self-fulfilling prophesy, social psychologists Steven Spencer, Claude Steele and Diane Quinn told a group of students that they were going to take a very difficult math test. When they scored the exam, they found that on average, the women earned ten points, whereas the men got twenty-five.
This experiment, and over a hundred others like it, indicated that it was not simply innate ability, but rather the perception of one’s ability that can make a significant difference in how women scientists perform.
“Tons of students leave graduate school not because they aren’t good at the subject but because they feel like they just don’t fit in,” said Carol Frieze.
“Our intellectual capability may be the same, but our life experiences and the culture we live in can be different.”
====================================================================
http://www.bwfund.org/feature-women-science-part-three
“Nobody told me how to do it, I just figured it out on my own,” said Dr. Pisano, who is also vice dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. “There is nothing magic about having a career and kids – it just takes hard work and support and some luck.”
But finding that right combination can be a challenge in a culture where scientists are faced with a limited amount of time to prove themselves worthy of tenure.
Dr. Halpern says the problem is that tenure clocks and biological clocks run on the same time zone. The average age for receiving tenure in the sciences (according to Mason’s report) is around age 39, well past the peak child-bearing years.
“They wonder if they have the baby early if it will hurt their chances of tenure, or if they wait until they get tenure if it will be too late,” Dr. Wolf-Wendel said. “When we interviewed their male colleagues, they hadn’t considered timing to be an issue -- they had never even thought about it.”
Stopping the clock may help women balance family responsibilities when their children are infants, but when the clock turns back on, those responsibilities do not magically disappear. Scientists on average work about 50 hours a week until retirement age. When you add to that care-giving hours and housework, women faculty with children in the University of California system report a weekly average of over 100 hours of combined activities, says Dr. Mason, who is also co-director of the Center for Economics & Family Security at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. That is in comparison to 86 hours for men with children.
“Women are expected to do the second shift, but it works against them” says education researcher Dr. Wolf-Wendel. “Many of the women I interviewed gave this example of leaving a meeting to pick up their kids from day care. When the woman did it, she felt like their colleagues believed that she cared more about her kids than her work. When a man did it, everyone seemed to respond that he was such a great dad. So the same action is criticized when one type of person does it and lauded when another type of person does it.”
Emily Monosson, editor of Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory, says that it can be a real struggle to keep up a high-profile academic career and take care of your family.
“As one of my contributors said it best, you can’t be superscientist and a supermom,” said Dr. Monosson. “It is the rare person who really has it all. You just have to know that up front, and make your decisions from there.”
Research and parenthood are both greedy, time-intensive endeavors.
For Dr. Monosson and the other women who contributed their stories to Motherhood, that often meant choosing nontraditional careers – as consultants, writers, lecturers. An academic post may be considered the gold standard, but many other – often unrecognized -- opportunities do exist that enable women to continue to contribute to science without dropping out completely.
“There is this impression that the only way to be a good scientist is to work 80 hours a week – that it is not a part time job, not something you could turn on or turn off,” said Dr. Wolf-Wendel. “If you want to win the Nobel Prize or if you want to cure cancer you need to be doing it all the time -- you are either devoted to it or not. Many women today are fighting that notion. In my opinion, it serves everyone, not just new mothers, if institutions recognize that you can’t do science 80 to 90 hours a week, whether it is because you have kids or because you want to ride your bike or just do something to take care of yourself.”
Do I lack something? Why is it science and technology and algos is so tough to me while it seems to come easily to many men? Do they have genetic advantages because they are men?
I always felt that many men were better (technically). I had no woman to look upto in my org. All women were managers - non technical people or HR or Finance.
Why were there no WOW women around me?
I attended the GHC to improve myself. I found a few WOW women but not many.
Even as doctors, men come across as more technical.
Even in official mails, women tend to be more elaborate and flowery and subtle while men are to the point and impersonal.
I found myself trapped in gender biases regarding women.
There were very few women photographers.. very few astronauts.. very few computer programmers. Why?
================= Interspersed with Women in Science Part 1 ====================
http://www.bwfund.org/feature-women-science-part-one
Are girls wired differently, so that verbal skills come more naturally than mathematics? Are they socialized to go into more nurturing professions? Does the burden of child-rearing get in the way of their achievement? Or is the culture of the workplace toxic to women? But one question that has not received as much attention as the rest is why it matters that there are not as many women as men in the scientific profession.
I started feeling that due to years of conditioning to an outside world, men's genes had certain abilities. Women, from a long time, were nurturers. They tended to family. They did arts. So, they excelled in it. These genetic advantages got passed on to their daughters. Somehow the father's advantages never seemed to reach the daughters. Girls stuck to pink barbie dolls and boys to speedy cars. Women excelled in arts and hospitality. Men in Science and engineering.
Somehow I felt I could do nothing about it. I am a streetsmart woman. I am dumb in a few ways but not the stereotypical dumb blonde girl types. What prevents me from excelling in science?
Yday my frustration and imagination led me to think "If we created a world in which arts and literature were more important than money and science, how would men feel?"
I really wanted to do that. Make people feel incompetent and worthless (that's how they've made women feel). I want to see them play out in a stage where they are disadvantaged genetically. How does it affect them, not being the best and not being the fastest? Imagine what would happen if all the supporting women, withdrew their support? Let's say the maids stopped cleaning, the women stopped cooking..would their life come to a grinding halt or they'd turn to McD all day? Would that affect their abilities?
If men had to grow up children, how difficult would it be for them? If they had to cook and clean and take care of the house while the women worked, how long would they take to be as efficient as the woman? Will a woman be able to catch up with men's so called scientific advantanges in the same time? Can we change our wiring and bridge this gap in a while or would men still be advantaged?
Somehow women feel its a "man's world". They feel less talented and less valued and less employable.. less worthy. They feel their natural abilities to nurture a family is under valued because that does not fetch them a salary. The men have, probably very unconsciously, created a world where their skills and their work are the most valued. Women feel like losers. They may have difficulties understanding algorithms. They may be unable to roam around all day in motorbikes (sales). They may get stressed at work because their brain is not conditioned. All the small things add up.
In her book Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, Virginia Valian explains that expectations of men and women in our society are different, and those expectations – “gender schemas” – skew our perceptions, even among the very scientists whose livelihood is based on their objectivity. Because of the influence of these gender schemas, the abilities and contributions of men tend to be overrated whereas those of women go underrated. A large body of research exists suggesting that each disadvantage – not getting credit for an idea, not being invited to a scientific meeting – can add up over time, so that men reach the top faster and in greater numbers than women do. As Dr. Valian later writes, “Well-meaning observers may tell the woman not to make a mountain out of a molehill. What they do not understand is that the notion of the accumulation of advantage encapsulates. Mountains are molehills, piled one on top of the other.”
I can see changes today. Many girls are learning fast. Technology is going to change some things. The fact that a whole generation of women worked before you - gives you an advantage. How long would it take to see women equal to men in so called STEM? How will the world change if you allow a woman's perspective? I've always said, I felt the need for changes at workplace. The beauty that women bring to a workplace is unappreciated. I have personally been very let down by the absence of any credit given to women at workplace. All my efforts at mentoring and guiding people never found the appreciation that it deserved.
Compared to the previous generation, women are vocal now. They voice their opinions loud and clear and many rational and open minded men value women. So, that's going to change men's circuitry for sure. This interaction, along with the interaction with technology will lead to a new breed of men. Workplaces will definitely acquire a different aura. I won't live long enough to see women on an equal footing, but I hope it will happen.
"When diversity is lost in any discipline – whether in terms of racial diversity, ethnic diversity, or gender diversity – a certain amount of intellectual content is lost as well, says Dr. Leboy."
“In effect you are training a huge amount of people who have creative, important thoughts who are never going to continue to contribute to scientific discovery,” Dr. Wagers says. “That then limits the pool of creative thought that goes into science.”
“It is not a matter of one field being better than another, but rather it is important that we are covering diversity in the kinds of questions that people ask about science.” And it is not only the questions that women ask, but the way that they ask them that may make female researchers a particular asset to the scientific process. Women may have a different style of interaction than men, one that could foster the collaboration and cooperation needed for the success of today’s large-scale research endeavors.
“I frankly don’t care how many women do science,” says Dr. Hopkins. “I just care that the ones who want to do it can do it without worrying about this problem.”
====================================================================
http://www.bwfund.org/feature-women-science-part-two
“People were questioning why there weren’t more women in science, and I had to point out that we are not going to be banging down the doors to enter a profession that just sounds so awful,” said Wu, who just completed her doctorate at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke. “While I do love science, I just don’t know that I can be the heart and soul of it.”
“If all you know about scientists, if the vision of a scientist is a brilliant white man with glasses and funny hair and a lab coat, then none of us are going to feel like we match that model,” said Mary Wyer, “The truth of the matter is that women and people of color have made substantive contributions to science and that these are forgotten, they are lost history.”
One concept she teaches is that of stereotype threat, or the risk that a negative stereotype about one’s group –such as being female or African-American – will lead to self-doubt and affect academic performance. In the classic study of this self-fulfilling prophesy, social psychologists Steven Spencer, Claude Steele and Diane Quinn told a group of students that they were going to take a very difficult math test. When they scored the exam, they found that on average, the women earned ten points, whereas the men got twenty-five.
This experiment, and over a hundred others like it, indicated that it was not simply innate ability, but rather the perception of one’s ability that can make a significant difference in how women scientists perform.
“Tons of students leave graduate school not because they aren’t good at the subject but because they feel like they just don’t fit in,” said Carol Frieze.
“Our intellectual capability may be the same, but our life experiences and the culture we live in can be different.”
====================================================================
http://www.bwfund.org/feature-women-science-part-three
“Nobody told me how to do it, I just figured it out on my own,” said Dr. Pisano, who is also vice dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. “There is nothing magic about having a career and kids – it just takes hard work and support and some luck.”
But finding that right combination can be a challenge in a culture where scientists are faced with a limited amount of time to prove themselves worthy of tenure.
Dr. Halpern says the problem is that tenure clocks and biological clocks run on the same time zone. The average age for receiving tenure in the sciences (according to Mason’s report) is around age 39, well past the peak child-bearing years.
“They wonder if they have the baby early if it will hurt their chances of tenure, or if they wait until they get tenure if it will be too late,” Dr. Wolf-Wendel said. “When we interviewed their male colleagues, they hadn’t considered timing to be an issue -- they had never even thought about it.”
Stopping the clock may help women balance family responsibilities when their children are infants, but when the clock turns back on, those responsibilities do not magically disappear. Scientists on average work about 50 hours a week until retirement age. When you add to that care-giving hours and housework, women faculty with children in the University of California system report a weekly average of over 100 hours of combined activities, says Dr. Mason, who is also co-director of the Center for Economics & Family Security at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. That is in comparison to 86 hours for men with children.
“Women are expected to do the second shift, but it works against them” says education researcher Dr. Wolf-Wendel. “Many of the women I interviewed gave this example of leaving a meeting to pick up their kids from day care. When the woman did it, she felt like their colleagues believed that she cared more about her kids than her work. When a man did it, everyone seemed to respond that he was such a great dad. So the same action is criticized when one type of person does it and lauded when another type of person does it.”
Emily Monosson, editor of Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory, says that it can be a real struggle to keep up a high-profile academic career and take care of your family.
“As one of my contributors said it best, you can’t be superscientist and a supermom,” said Dr. Monosson. “It is the rare person who really has it all. You just have to know that up front, and make your decisions from there.”
Research and parenthood are both greedy, time-intensive endeavors.
For Dr. Monosson and the other women who contributed their stories to Motherhood, that often meant choosing nontraditional careers – as consultants, writers, lecturers. An academic post may be considered the gold standard, but many other – often unrecognized -- opportunities do exist that enable women to continue to contribute to science without dropping out completely.
“There is this impression that the only way to be a good scientist is to work 80 hours a week – that it is not a part time job, not something you could turn on or turn off,” said Dr. Wolf-Wendel. “If you want to win the Nobel Prize or if you want to cure cancer you need to be doing it all the time -- you are either devoted to it or not. Many women today are fighting that notion. In my opinion, it serves everyone, not just new mothers, if institutions recognize that you can’t do science 80 to 90 hours a week, whether it is because you have kids or because you want to ride your bike or just do something to take care of yourself.”
Information diet and information curation
While we spoke abt filters, here's some more.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/08/101signals/
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/17-08/by_media_diet
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/11/as-we-may-think-1945/
conversations about information overload, filtering, and our restless “FOMO” — fear of missing out, for anyone who did miss out on the memetic catchphrase — amidst the incessant influx. Bush worries about the impossibility of ever completely catching up and the unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio:
Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month’s efforts could be produced on call.
Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.
More than half a century before blogging, Instagramming, tweeting, and the rest of today’s ever-lowering barriers of entry for publishing content, Bush laments the unmanageable scale of the recorded “human experience”:
Fear is the enemy of creativity and innovation and of starting things. The resistance hates those things—they are risky, they might not work, so the resistance pushes us not to do them.
On the other hand, it loves the notion of to-do lists and favors and multi-tasking and yes, continual partial attention, because those are perfect hiding places, perfect places to avoid the scary work but still be able to point to a day's work, well done.
But if you have nothing else due, nothing else to do, no other measurable output but that thing you've promised yourself, if all your mental bandwidth is focused on this one and this only, then yep, you can bet that you will get more brave.
Before internet connectivity poured from the sky, I was able to get on a train, plug in my Mac and have nothing to do for four hours but write. And so I wrote. I once bought a round trip ticket to nowhere just to eliminate every possible alternative... pure, unadulterated mental bandwidth.
Plenty of places to run, plenty of places to hide. None of them are as important as shipping your best work today.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/08/101signals/
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/17-08/by_media_diet
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/11/as-we-may-think-1945/
conversations about information overload, filtering, and our restless “FOMO” — fear of missing out, for anyone who did miss out on the memetic catchphrase — amidst the incessant influx. Bush worries about the impossibility of ever completely catching up and the unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio:
Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month’s efforts could be produced on call.
Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.
More than half a century before blogging, Instagramming, tweeting, and the rest of today’s ever-lowering barriers of entry for publishing content, Bush laments the unmanageable scale of the recorded “human experience”:
The challenge of transmuting information into wisdom given the scale of
what’s available — a scale that has grown by an incomprehensibly
enormous magnitude since 1945. He stresses, as many of us believe today,
that mechanization — or, algorithms in the contemporary equivalent —
will never be a proper substitute for human judgment and creative
thought in the filtration process:
With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is
suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some
intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other
characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are
prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet
the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental
pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.
“information curation”:
There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world’s record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.
“curation” - a drive to find the interesting, meaningful, and relevant amidst the
vast maze of overabundant information, creating a framework for what
matters in the world and why — is an increasingly valuable form of
creative and intellectual labor, a form of authorship that warrants thought.
People really respond to other people’s enthusiasm about things.” ~ Edith Zimmerman
Ideas are the most valuable thing. Good ones make all the difference; bad
ones can hold us back, maybe even destroy us. If we can focus on
finding the right ones, helping distill them, and transfer them as
quickly as possible, we can get more of that. Curation is that means to
the end.” ~ Peter Hopkins
All this information overload is definitely not without side effects. We have no silence inside. We constantly worry about missing out info. We fear that we'll be left behind. Thing is, everyone is going to get left behind! No one can curate so much info. What is the use of all this info that we blog about or put up on the internet? Is someone listening? My own blog is just an archive of the things I read. I read here and there and forget things. Just to have a place to go back to, I am kind of archiving my reads.. and my thoughts..so that SEARCHING the blog is easy and fool proof compared to searching my memory. So this blog is my working memory and my external hard disk.
Mental Bandwith
“Before internet connectivity poured from the sky, I was able to get on a train, plug in my Mac and have nothing to do for four hours but write. And so I wrote. I once bought a round trip ticket to nowhere just to eliminate every possible alternative… pure, unadulterated mental bandwidth.”
Fear is the enemy of creativity and innovation and of starting things. The resistance hates those things—they are risky, they might not work, so the resistance pushes us not to do them.
On the other hand, it loves the notion of to-do lists and favors and multi-tasking and yes, continual partial attention, because those are perfect hiding places, perfect places to avoid the scary work but still be able to point to a day's work, well done.
But if you have nothing else due, nothing else to do, no other measurable output but that thing you've promised yourself, if all your mental bandwidth is focused on this one and this only, then yep, you can bet that you will get more brave.
Before internet connectivity poured from the sky, I was able to get on a train, plug in my Mac and have nothing to do for four hours but write. And so I wrote. I once bought a round trip ticket to nowhere just to eliminate every possible alternative... pure, unadulterated mental bandwidth.
Plenty of places to run, plenty of places to hide. None of them are as important as shipping your best work today.
Distilling and Filtering what we read, to remain sane
Everyday I am inundated with blogs, news and articles and books on the internet. There is so much to read. Even if I devote all my time to reading, I cannot finish those books that I have shortlisted. I cannot see the top 100 movies. What to do?
This has put me in a fix. I now filter a lot. Then I filter even more... and I read some.
Sometimes I wonder, have I missed on something that was worth reading? Was there something out there that could have changed my life, that I missed? I used to attend every possible concert (without knowing anything abt music) and theatre in the hope that I will find my calling. Now, I go to very few ones - ones that I MAY enjoy.
What does one do when inundated with so much knowledge?
Linda Holmes seem to get a hang of my lament and wrote about it:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything?sc=tw
I then jumped to:
http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/does-anyone-want-to-be-well-read
and from there to:
http://jeromestueart.com/2011/04/17/the-nudge-the-monument-and-the-fan-base-thoughts-about-the-endurance-of-writers/
I picked one of the writers Paul Goodman and read a bit. He echoes education outside school.
"It is in the schools and from the mass media, rather than at home or from their friends, that the mass of our citizens in all classes learn that life is inevitably routine, depersonalized, venally graded; that it is best to toe the mark and shut up; that there is no place for spontaneity, open sexuality and free spirit. Trained in the schools they go on to the same quality of jobs, culture and politics. This is education, miseducation socializing to the national norms and regimenting to the nation's 'needs'".[7]
Goodman thought that a person's most valuable educational experiences occur outside the school. Participation in the activities of society should be the chief means of learning. Instead of requiring students to succumb to the theoretical drudgery of textbook learning, Goodman recommends that education be transferred into factories, museums, parks, department stores, etc., where the students can actively participate in their education... The ideal schools would take the form of small discussion groups of no more than twenty individuals. As has been indicated, these groups would utilize any effective environment that would be relevant to the interest of the group. Such education would be necessarily non-compulsory, for any compulsion to attend places authority in an external body disassociated from the needs and aspirations of the students. Moreover, compulsion retards and impedes the students' ability to learn."[7]
After all the confusion and disappointments and fears.. I have come to believe that books will find me.. authors who I'm destined to meet, will come knocking at my door or jump at my browser.
Should I read and re-read what I already have instead of buying new books?
Should I do a course on Literature and philosophy to discover these greats?
I'm confused. May these authors guide me in my quest.
This has put me in a fix. I now filter a lot. Then I filter even more... and I read some.
Sometimes I wonder, have I missed on something that was worth reading? Was there something out there that could have changed my life, that I missed? I used to attend every possible concert (without knowing anything abt music) and theatre in the hope that I will find my calling. Now, I go to very few ones - ones that I MAY enjoy.
What does one do when inundated with so much knowledge?
Linda Holmes seem to get a hang of my lament and wrote about it:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything?sc=tw
I then jumped to:
http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/does-anyone-want-to-be-well-read
and from there to:
http://jeromestueart.com/2011/04/17/the-nudge-the-monument-and-the-fan-base-thoughts-about-the-endurance-of-writers/
I picked one of the writers Paul Goodman and read a bit. He echoes education outside school.
"It is in the schools and from the mass media, rather than at home or from their friends, that the mass of our citizens in all classes learn that life is inevitably routine, depersonalized, venally graded; that it is best to toe the mark and shut up; that there is no place for spontaneity, open sexuality and free spirit. Trained in the schools they go on to the same quality of jobs, culture and politics. This is education, miseducation socializing to the national norms and regimenting to the nation's 'needs'".[7]
Goodman thought that a person's most valuable educational experiences occur outside the school. Participation in the activities of society should be the chief means of learning. Instead of requiring students to succumb to the theoretical drudgery of textbook learning, Goodman recommends that education be transferred into factories, museums, parks, department stores, etc., where the students can actively participate in their education... The ideal schools would take the form of small discussion groups of no more than twenty individuals. As has been indicated, these groups would utilize any effective environment that would be relevant to the interest of the group. Such education would be necessarily non-compulsory, for any compulsion to attend places authority in an external body disassociated from the needs and aspirations of the students. Moreover, compulsion retards and impedes the students' ability to learn."[7]
- "It is by losing ourselves in inquiry, creation & craft that we become something. Civilization is a continual gift of spirit: inventions, discoveries, insight, art. We are citizens, as Socrates would have said, & we have it available as our own. "
After all the confusion and disappointments and fears.. I have come to believe that books will find me.. authors who I'm destined to meet, will come knocking at my door or jump at my browser.
Should I read and re-read what I already have instead of buying new books?
Should I do a course on Literature and philosophy to discover these greats?
I'm confused. May these authors guide me in my quest.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Knowing your art or trade...
Yday a group of friends went to Habenaro. The waiter proudly proclaimed that they'd do a live demo of guacamole. We were a little tired I guess so no one was very excited nevertheless we did pay attention - aunty the oldest in the group being the most attentive. The dish turned very unappealing. There was no flavour of avocados. The garlic overpowered everything. I have never eaten guacamole with garlic. I expect people to know their trade. I won't expect a cook to know astronomy but he better know the dishes that he cooks. I'm let down by very mediocre restaurants in Bangalore, more so because they charge so steep and offer very little. I had voiced my dissatisfaction about the food scene in Bangalore to The Food Lovers and nothing happened. Every restaurant they heaped praise on, served me very average fare. I lost faith in them. Also, Burrp and Zomato has varied reviewer profile. My taste buds may not match theirs. So, I take their reviews with a pinch of salt.
The net result - I am wary of eating out. I can't let my hard earned money get washed for average fare. If you have nothing new to offer in terms of taste and variety (forget texture and presentation) - please don't get into food business. These pretentious also-rans charging steep prices has destroyed the food scene in Bangalore. Such people have put off diners like me. I am now content cooking simple flavourful food at home.
The next thing was an encounter with the delivery guy. I had precisely told him the address and how to take left, etc and the guy got lost while he was so close to our house. I was surprised! The only reason is - he did not listen carefully to my instructions. You better know your trade man!
The net result - I am wary of eating out. I can't let my hard earned money get washed for average fare. If you have nothing new to offer in terms of taste and variety (forget texture and presentation) - please don't get into food business. These pretentious also-rans charging steep prices has destroyed the food scene in Bangalore. Such people have put off diners like me. I am now content cooking simple flavourful food at home.
The next thing was an encounter with the delivery guy. I had precisely told him the address and how to take left, etc and the guy got lost while he was so close to our house. I was surprised! The only reason is - he did not listen carefully to my instructions. You better know your trade man!
The trophies and witnesses to our life
Shall we dance has a very memorable quote. Today I realized it in a very different context.
We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/trophy-wife/article5012715.ece
Premlata's father in law has a huge scrap book of her feats.
This was very touching. It reminded me of the importance of family.
Everyone of us is unique - our stories need to be told. We may seem mundane boring people to others. There may be others who are more accomplished (I don't even understand how you compare two people's accomplishments unless you're running the same race, even then some people may be genetically endowed to win the race). Anyway, now that you get the idea, here's the point. We may not end up like Tagore. We may not become famous or quoted or debated. There are so many people who never got their due. Scientists, artists, writers, teachers, philosophers, actors... For every single person who has been recognized, there are a million who go unrecognized. The innovative women of Rajasthan who use camel dung to cook. Women who put up with abusive husbands. There are tons of unrecorded heroes out there. Even if you've not innovated something or fought a war or written a great piece, your life is unique. It needs to be celebrated. That's where the family comes. Susan Sarandon limits her speech to spouses. I broaden it to include family and friends. We are witnesses to each others lives.. our transformations.. our small achievements..the battles that we've fought and won.. or fought and lost.. of our losses.. our gains..of falling hair... of weight gains..of wrinkles... we celebrate our child's first essay.. their first stage play, your wedding.. your first child.. your birthdays..promotions... My friend rightly said "My son getting into a good school is greater than my brother getting into IIM :-) ". We harp about our parent's or siblings's successes. We are direct witnesses to the lives of those around us.
This encouragement has myriad benefits. We are hugely unaware of the subtle role of family in our lives. Today, I have been enlightened on reading this lady's achievements and her father in law's celebration of her achievements. Everybody's life deserves to be celebrated. An understanding network of friends and families is what nourishes us, roots for us and celebrates our mundane accomplishments. This is the podium in which each of us gets our nobels and pulitzers. This is the audience who will remember us long after we're gone. These are the people who make us immortal, who unknowingly make our lives more meaningful and worthy.
We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/trophy-wife/article5012715.ece
Premlata's father in law has a huge scrap book of her feats.
This was very touching. It reminded me of the importance of family.
Everyone of us is unique - our stories need to be told. We may seem mundane boring people to others. There may be others who are more accomplished (I don't even understand how you compare two people's accomplishments unless you're running the same race, even then some people may be genetically endowed to win the race). Anyway, now that you get the idea, here's the point. We may not end up like Tagore. We may not become famous or quoted or debated. There are so many people who never got their due. Scientists, artists, writers, teachers, philosophers, actors... For every single person who has been recognized, there are a million who go unrecognized. The innovative women of Rajasthan who use camel dung to cook. Women who put up with abusive husbands. There are tons of unrecorded heroes out there. Even if you've not innovated something or fought a war or written a great piece, your life is unique. It needs to be celebrated. That's where the family comes. Susan Sarandon limits her speech to spouses. I broaden it to include family and friends. We are witnesses to each others lives.. our transformations.. our small achievements..the battles that we've fought and won.. or fought and lost.. of our losses.. our gains..of falling hair... of weight gains..of wrinkles... we celebrate our child's first essay.. their first stage play, your wedding.. your first child.. your birthdays..promotions... My friend rightly said "My son getting into a good school is greater than my brother getting into IIM :-) ". We harp about our parent's or siblings's successes. We are direct witnesses to the lives of those around us.
This encouragement has myriad benefits. We are hugely unaware of the subtle role of family in our lives. Today, I have been enlightened on reading this lady's achievements and her father in law's celebration of her achievements. Everybody's life deserves to be celebrated. An understanding network of friends and families is what nourishes us, roots for us and celebrates our mundane accomplishments. This is the podium in which each of us gets our nobels and pulitzers. This is the audience who will remember us long after we're gone. These are the people who make us immortal, who unknowingly make our lives more meaningful and worthy.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Deep intellectual thoughts
http://drleaf.com/blog/general/we-are-designed-for-deep-intellectual-thought-it-keeps-us-healthy
The deeper you think the more intelligent you become. This is a scriptural and scientific truth.
scientifically the deeper you think the more thoughts and memories you will grow inside your brain. This means we are not designed to skim the surface of things, but rather to think things through, to read deeply, to understand and build strong memories. The deep pursuit of knowledge increases not only our intelligence but also our health. In fact, recent research has shown that better health is another good reason for getting a degree. According to one study led by Dr Walsemann, attaining a degree after 25 years of age is associated with better midlife health and fewer depressive symptoms.
And, while we are on the topic of developing our intelligence, let’s talk about the other end of the spectrum…getting our children to read books! Research shows that books in the home are an important factor in determining a child’s education level. In fact, according to a 20-year study done at the University of Nevada parents who have books in their home increase the level of education their children will attain. They found that having a 500-book library (even with illiterate parents) could propel a child 3.2 years, and sometimes as much as 6 years, further in education on average. And it doesn’t have to be 500 books; the researchers found that having as few as 20 books in the home still has significant impact.
The development of deep thinking through books is a great return on investments.
http://www.wikihow.com/Sharpen-Your-Powers-of-Observation
Observation is a whole brain skill. Using your senses at the fullest capacity that you can, paying close attention to many details, focus, analyzing, reasoning, and memory all take many processes in your brain. Many people envy those that are highly observant, degrading their own Powers of Observation. They seem to fail to realize that these skills can be developed and honed through diligence and training. Here are the activities that I have found that aid in improving my own Powers of Observation. Observation will not only help you to be more aware, and smarter in general, but job performance will increase, relationships, etc. Observation is a highly important life skill that a lot of people take for granted.
1) Meditate. Mindful Meditation is the act of clearing your mind to pay attention to the moment and the world around you. Sitting Meditation is the best way to begin, close you eyes and focus on your breathing. The idea isn’t to get lost in your thoughts or the world around you. Keep your focused attention on your breath, while practicing awareness of these things, kind of like being a tape recorder. Practicing this for thirty minutes a day, you will begin training your mind to pay attention to the environment, and you will hone your attention and focus, two highly important skills needed for observation. Researchers of Meditation have discovered that they grey matter housing Attention, Focus, and Sensory Processing thicken and actually grow in size through regular Meditation. They have also discovered that Meditation enhances the Brain’s activity levels, similar to shifting a car into a higher gear. This means faster processing, better memory, focus, attention, etc. All skills that are important for observation.
2) Practice Logic Constantly. - games and puzzles.
3) Practice Memory Recollection. Memory is another tool that observers use in observation, either that, they observe in hopes of retaining information. By recalling the days events at the end of the night and thinking about them, you exercise four parts of your brain. That involved in Memory, Working Memory, Reasoning, and Analyzing. Many of the same skills that are used when effectively observing.
4) Experience New Things. Experiencing new things helps to improve observation by engaging your attention. Taking it further and consciously remembering to pay close attention to the details of the environment and experience will help enrich the experience, increase knowledge, and using your powers of observation is the best way to improve the skills involved.
The deeper you think the more intelligent you become. This is a scriptural and scientific truth.
scientifically the deeper you think the more thoughts and memories you will grow inside your brain. This means we are not designed to skim the surface of things, but rather to think things through, to read deeply, to understand and build strong memories. The deep pursuit of knowledge increases not only our intelligence but also our health. In fact, recent research has shown that better health is another good reason for getting a degree. According to one study led by Dr Walsemann, attaining a degree after 25 years of age is associated with better midlife health and fewer depressive symptoms.
And, while we are on the topic of developing our intelligence, let’s talk about the other end of the spectrum…getting our children to read books! Research shows that books in the home are an important factor in determining a child’s education level. In fact, according to a 20-year study done at the University of Nevada parents who have books in their home increase the level of education their children will attain. They found that having a 500-book library (even with illiterate parents) could propel a child 3.2 years, and sometimes as much as 6 years, further in education on average. And it doesn’t have to be 500 books; the researchers found that having as few as 20 books in the home still has significant impact.
The development of deep thinking through books is a great return on investments.
http://www.wikihow.com/Sharpen-Your-Powers-of-Observation
Observation is a whole brain skill. Using your senses at the fullest capacity that you can, paying close attention to many details, focus, analyzing, reasoning, and memory all take many processes in your brain. Many people envy those that are highly observant, degrading their own Powers of Observation. They seem to fail to realize that these skills can be developed and honed through diligence and training. Here are the activities that I have found that aid in improving my own Powers of Observation. Observation will not only help you to be more aware, and smarter in general, but job performance will increase, relationships, etc. Observation is a highly important life skill that a lot of people take for granted.
1) Meditate. Mindful Meditation is the act of clearing your mind to pay attention to the moment and the world around you. Sitting Meditation is the best way to begin, close you eyes and focus on your breathing. The idea isn’t to get lost in your thoughts or the world around you. Keep your focused attention on your breath, while practicing awareness of these things, kind of like being a tape recorder. Practicing this for thirty minutes a day, you will begin training your mind to pay attention to the environment, and you will hone your attention and focus, two highly important skills needed for observation. Researchers of Meditation have discovered that they grey matter housing Attention, Focus, and Sensory Processing thicken and actually grow in size through regular Meditation. They have also discovered that Meditation enhances the Brain’s activity levels, similar to shifting a car into a higher gear. This means faster processing, better memory, focus, attention, etc. All skills that are important for observation.
2) Practice Logic Constantly. - games and puzzles.
3) Practice Memory Recollection. Memory is another tool that observers use in observation, either that, they observe in hopes of retaining information. By recalling the days events at the end of the night and thinking about them, you exercise four parts of your brain. That involved in Memory, Working Memory, Reasoning, and Analyzing. Many of the same skills that are used when effectively observing.
4) Experience New Things. Experiencing new things helps to improve observation by engaging your attention. Taking it further and consciously remembering to pay close attention to the details of the environment and experience will help enrich the experience, increase knowledge, and using your powers of observation is the best way to improve the skills involved.
The many us
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/02/character-personality/
"Ongoing experience gradually transforms his neural configuration, changing him from who he was into who he is, one synapse at a time. Emotional identity drifts over a lifetime — if fast and far enough, one might encounter a stranger’s heart where a friend’s or a lover’s once dwelt."
We have already spoken about Sadhguru's article below.
This is the same as everyone realizes over time. What you were 10 years ago, is not what you are today. Your understanding of the world has changed (for the better).
Your understanding of who you are, what you can do and what your limitations are - has improved.
Your relations with people have changed (for better or worse).
Your choice of clothes, hairstyle, books, movies, music - can change. They can be shaped by external influences like availability of particular genre or non availability of specific genres ( I find it increasingly difficult to get clothes in decent colors. So I wear all colorful clothes which don't suit me).
Lots of things change.
So, whatever you called as you - 10 years ago, is not the current you. That is what the above and below quoted paras say. It's like we all have infinite versions of ourselves from birth to death.
The more we observe, introspect and sensitise yourself to nature and the world, the more the world has to offer... the more of the world you get to see and enjoy.. Less things worry you. Your confidence and self esteem improve. As you age, without much effort you see yourself becoming wise :-)
What it means is you're changing... your change lets you see more of yourself and the world and this is what you call wisdom.. Your sense of observation alerts you when someone is bluffing. Your energy body or vibrations prevent you from becoming close with certain people, who may not be your type. You take up what you can do.. so - all this makes you feel wise...
It takes enormous courage for a person to look beyond the conditioning of his belief systems and admit that he knows nothing about even the most basic aspects of his life. Do you believe that you have two hands or do you know you have two hands? Even if you do not use your eyes to see them, you still know you have two hands. It is experientially clear to you. But when it comes to God, you have been told to believe; nobody told you to explore Divinity.
Believing something is not going to transform you. However, if you experience the same, it will leave you absolutely transformed. Without being touched by an experience, whatever you believe does not mean anything. Suppose from the day you were born, if I kept telling you my little finger is God, if I show you my little finger, divine emotions will come within you. From the day you were born, if I teach you that my little finger is the Devil, if I show you my little finger, terror will arise within you. This is the nature of your mind.
Whatever you make out of the mind is of no true significance. As a device, yes but in the ultimate sense it does not mean anything, because it may take one shape today and another shape tomorrow; the mind is fluid, you can make anything out of it. How it is shaped simply depends on how it is influenced. If you look deeply, what you call ‘your mind’ is really something you have borrowed from thousands of people around you. You have accumulated this mind in bits and pieces. Your mind is just your background — depending on the kind of family you come from, your education and religion, the country or society you belong to and the world you are living in.
The intellect is just a survival tool, a limited aspect of your life. Survival is essential, but not fulfilling. If you want to go into deeper dimensions of life, first you need the necessary instruments. Right now you experience life with just sense organs — by seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. With these, you cannot know anything beyond the physical. You cannot measure the depth of the ocean with a foot scale. That is what is happening with people right now. They are approaching the deeper dimensions of life without the necessary instruments. So they jump to wrong conclusions.
People are eager to jump to conclusions because without a conclusion, they have no substance of their own. What you call as ‘myself’, that person or that personality is just a bundle of conclusions that you have made about life. But whatever conclusion you have made, you are bound to be wrong because life does not fit into any conclusions that you make.
To look at it very simply, just take one human being. Maybe you met somebody 20 years ago and did not like what he was doing. So you concluded that he was not a good man. Now suppose you met this person today after 20 years, he might have become the most wonderful human being, but your mind will not allow you to experience this person the way he is right now. So the moment you make a conclusion, you have stopped your growth; you have stopped and destroyed the possibilities of life.
A spiritual process does not mean jumping into another set of conclusions. When you dare to exist here without any conclusions, willing to look all the time, willing to exist here as just a small particle of this existence, then you will know the limitlessness of the existence.
"Ongoing experience gradually transforms his neural configuration, changing him from who he was into who he is, one synapse at a time. Emotional identity drifts over a lifetime — if fast and far enough, one might encounter a stranger’s heart where a friend’s or a lover’s once dwelt."
We have already spoken about Sadhguru's article below.
This is the same as everyone realizes over time. What you were 10 years ago, is not what you are today. Your understanding of the world has changed (for the better).
Your understanding of who you are, what you can do and what your limitations are - has improved.
Your relations with people have changed (for better or worse).
Your choice of clothes, hairstyle, books, movies, music - can change. They can be shaped by external influences like availability of particular genre or non availability of specific genres ( I find it increasingly difficult to get clothes in decent colors. So I wear all colorful clothes which don't suit me).
Lots of things change.
So, whatever you called as you - 10 years ago, is not the current you. That is what the above and below quoted paras say. It's like we all have infinite versions of ourselves from birth to death.
The more we observe, introspect and sensitise yourself to nature and the world, the more the world has to offer... the more of the world you get to see and enjoy.. Less things worry you. Your confidence and self esteem improve. As you age, without much effort you see yourself becoming wise :-)
What it means is you're changing... your change lets you see more of yourself and the world and this is what you call wisdom.. Your sense of observation alerts you when someone is bluffing. Your energy body or vibrations prevent you from becoming close with certain people, who may not be your type. You take up what you can do.. so - all this makes you feel wise...
It takes enormous courage for a person to look beyond the conditioning of his belief systems and admit that he knows nothing about even the most basic aspects of his life. Do you believe that you have two hands or do you know you have two hands? Even if you do not use your eyes to see them, you still know you have two hands. It is experientially clear to you. But when it comes to God, you have been told to believe; nobody told you to explore Divinity.
Believing something is not going to transform you. However, if you experience the same, it will leave you absolutely transformed. Without being touched by an experience, whatever you believe does not mean anything. Suppose from the day you were born, if I kept telling you my little finger is God, if I show you my little finger, divine emotions will come within you. From the day you were born, if I teach you that my little finger is the Devil, if I show you my little finger, terror will arise within you. This is the nature of your mind.
Whatever you make out of the mind is of no true significance. As a device, yes but in the ultimate sense it does not mean anything, because it may take one shape today and another shape tomorrow; the mind is fluid, you can make anything out of it. How it is shaped simply depends on how it is influenced. If you look deeply, what you call ‘your mind’ is really something you have borrowed from thousands of people around you. You have accumulated this mind in bits and pieces. Your mind is just your background — depending on the kind of family you come from, your education and religion, the country or society you belong to and the world you are living in.
The intellect is just a survival tool, a limited aspect of your life. Survival is essential, but not fulfilling. If you want to go into deeper dimensions of life, first you need the necessary instruments. Right now you experience life with just sense organs — by seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. With these, you cannot know anything beyond the physical. You cannot measure the depth of the ocean with a foot scale. That is what is happening with people right now. They are approaching the deeper dimensions of life without the necessary instruments. So they jump to wrong conclusions.
People are eager to jump to conclusions because without a conclusion, they have no substance of their own. What you call as ‘myself’, that person or that personality is just a bundle of conclusions that you have made about life. But whatever conclusion you have made, you are bound to be wrong because life does not fit into any conclusions that you make.
To look at it very simply, just take one human being. Maybe you met somebody 20 years ago and did not like what he was doing. So you concluded that he was not a good man. Now suppose you met this person today after 20 years, he might have become the most wonderful human being, but your mind will not allow you to experience this person the way he is right now. So the moment you make a conclusion, you have stopped your growth; you have stopped and destroyed the possibilities of life.
A spiritual process does not mean jumping into another set of conclusions. When you dare to exist here without any conclusions, willing to look all the time, willing to exist here as just a small particle of this existence, then you will know the limitlessness of the existence.
How we view the world
Just today I was wondering... The way we see the world is entirely based on our personality, habits,etc. Also based on our maturity (that comes with age) we view the same thing differently.
What part of the world is accessible to you is based on your level, if I may say so. As you become more sensitive to the world and more observational and introspective, many things that were right before your eyes, begin to show up clearly. Some things that we would have never seen, crop up.
When we see a picture we see what the artist showcases. The artist has his own lens. He has already cut some of the view and presented what he wants. On top of that, we see what we want - from his art. So many times, I have attended music concerts or art exhibitions and come away empty. I never understood the artists's works. I thought I was dumb. The thing is, I am not on the same plane as the artist. To understand a person or some part of the person, you need to have an overlapping frequency. Same with art.. You need to overlap with the artists's domain to appreciate the art. Recently, I saw The Ship of theseus and came back unimpressed. Some masala movie might have impressed me more! Whereas Kiran Rao was so mighty impressed. So, all that means is, she's at a higher level of understanding than me (actually she's at a different level.. may not necessarily be higher).
The most stark contrast was discovered by me at Las Vegas. Many people questioned how I went twice to Vegas.. Vegas is the porn capital and open prostitution market of America. That's the perception most people have. But to me, it was like a happy place. Everyone was happy.. There were great pieces of architecture to appreciate.. Everyone showed off their architecture and grandeur. It was a photo-op... My parents enjoyed.. There was exotic food and lots of colorful things to see. There was La Reve... which I loved.. there was the wonderful musical fountain at Bellagio.. the obervatory, the glass flowers, flying parasols, night lit gardens, the cream and reds and butterflies at Wynn, the golden peacocks of Baccarat, the pastry shops, the artificial sky at Caesars, the gondolas at The Venetian - everywhere there was something to see. We never gambled. We never drank.. No girls as well.. We just hopped from hotel to hotel.. eating .. walking and sleeping.. We enjoyed the place thoroughly. It was a mini world.. For me, seeing so many people was amusing. America can be terribly lonely.. My view of Vegas would never match with anyone else's. The takeaway for me was so different. Given all these experiences I learnt that, we all have our own unique eyes to see the world. Maybe thats why the say the world is a maya. What appears to me, may not appear to you, or may appear as bad to you. We can never be certain, because what you see if shaped by what you are..
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/05/an-abz-of-love/
"Each one of us regards the world through his own lens, his own glasses. The effect of those glasses is that, even though we may be looking at the same thing, not all of us actually see the same thing. The lenses are ground by each individual’s upbringing, disposition and other factors.
This book is neither art nor science — even though it borrows ingredients from both. It is more by way of being an extra piece of glass through which we can regard a part of life. One can slip it in between one’s own glasses and the window.
It is a piece of glass we have found and polished up a bit. We have looked through it and thought the world looked a bit more human. Perhaps some will think the same as we do.
"
"Disappointments and depressions are necessary features of any process of learning, every development."
What part of the world is accessible to you is based on your level, if I may say so. As you become more sensitive to the world and more observational and introspective, many things that were right before your eyes, begin to show up clearly. Some things that we would have never seen, crop up.
When we see a picture we see what the artist showcases. The artist has his own lens. He has already cut some of the view and presented what he wants. On top of that, we see what we want - from his art. So many times, I have attended music concerts or art exhibitions and come away empty. I never understood the artists's works. I thought I was dumb. The thing is, I am not on the same plane as the artist. To understand a person or some part of the person, you need to have an overlapping frequency. Same with art.. You need to overlap with the artists's domain to appreciate the art. Recently, I saw The Ship of theseus and came back unimpressed. Some masala movie might have impressed me more! Whereas Kiran Rao was so mighty impressed. So, all that means is, she's at a higher level of understanding than me (actually she's at a different level.. may not necessarily be higher).
The most stark contrast was discovered by me at Las Vegas. Many people questioned how I went twice to Vegas.. Vegas is the porn capital and open prostitution market of America. That's the perception most people have. But to me, it was like a happy place. Everyone was happy.. There were great pieces of architecture to appreciate.. Everyone showed off their architecture and grandeur. It was a photo-op... My parents enjoyed.. There was exotic food and lots of colorful things to see. There was La Reve... which I loved.. there was the wonderful musical fountain at Bellagio.. the obervatory, the glass flowers, flying parasols, night lit gardens, the cream and reds and butterflies at Wynn, the golden peacocks of Baccarat, the pastry shops, the artificial sky at Caesars, the gondolas at The Venetian - everywhere there was something to see. We never gambled. We never drank.. No girls as well.. We just hopped from hotel to hotel.. eating .. walking and sleeping.. We enjoyed the place thoroughly. It was a mini world.. For me, seeing so many people was amusing. America can be terribly lonely.. My view of Vegas would never match with anyone else's. The takeaway for me was so different. Given all these experiences I learnt that, we all have our own unique eyes to see the world. Maybe thats why the say the world is a maya. What appears to me, may not appear to you, or may appear as bad to you. We can never be certain, because what you see if shaped by what you are..
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/05/an-abz-of-love/
"Each one of us regards the world through his own lens, his own glasses. The effect of those glasses is that, even though we may be looking at the same thing, not all of us actually see the same thing. The lenses are ground by each individual’s upbringing, disposition and other factors.
This book is neither art nor science — even though it borrows ingredients from both. It is more by way of being an extra piece of glass through which we can regard a part of life. One can slip it in between one’s own glasses and the window.
It is a piece of glass we have found and polished up a bit. We have looked through it and thought the world looked a bit more human. Perhaps some will think the same as we do.
"
"Disappointments and depressions are necessary features of any process of learning, every development."
Friday, August 23, 2013
John O John!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1vKcxZ2fU
For some reason, I love this guy. He reminds me of a very dear friend.. He is boringly charming and seems honest. There is some reason we connect with actors.. Some vibe...
For some reason, I love this guy. He reminds me of a very dear friend.. He is boringly charming and seems honest. There is some reason we connect with actors.. Some vibe...
Cheeky but good self help - Louise L. Hay August 13 on Facebook
Somehow I have this prejudice about Americans - they market every single thing. There are books you can never imagine someone would write - I don't mean that as a complement, I mean - very common sense things are packaged as books. They use so much body language, spend so much time dressing ( I mean the president's wife and these motivational speakers) and they have that dreamy tone which they develop - all of which pushes me back. I am very skeptic of such people.
There are a handful of such people who are good public speakers. They use this talent to mint money (which is not wrong at all, because one's talent should fetch one money, else how will you pay the bills?). But somehow if I were to pay for that talk, I would come out feeling disappointed. All sugar coated and flowery language uttered by a well dressed, well made up woman, in a dreamy tone - somehow does not appeal to me. Nevertheless, I do admire some of the wise words that they utter.
One such speech here.
If Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If the lemons are rotten, take out the seeds and plant them in order to grow new lemons.
WHEN I WAS YOUNG, between my ignorance and lack of self-esteem, I went through a long series of low-paying jobs. I worked in drugstores, dime stores, and in the stockrooms of several department stores. While my dream was to be a movie star or a dancer, I had no idea how to go about achieving that. Any job beyond where I was, became a far-off dream. I was so uneducated that even a secretary’s job was out of my league.
Then one day, Life took an interesting turn; I must have been ready. I had a job in Chicago that paid $28 a week. Why I walked into the Arthur Murray dance studios that day, I can’t remember. But I did. A slick salesperson sold me $500 worth of dance lessons, and when I returned home that night, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was terrified. The next day after work, I went back to the studio and confessed my poverty. They said, “Oh, but you signed a contract, and you must pay us the money. However, we have a position open for a receptionist. Do you think you could do that?”
The job paid $10 a week more than I was making. It was a large studio with 40 teachers. We worked 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and always ate our meals together. Within two days, I discovered that I was capable of handling the teachers’ appointments, collecting money, and making all of those introductions. I had a built-in social life and never had more fun at a job. It was a great turning point in my life.
After my job at Arthur Murray’s, I moved to New York and became a fashion model. But I never really possessed much self-worth or self-esteem until I began working on myself to release old negative beliefs from my childhood. In the early days, I had no idea how to change my situation. Now I know that the inner work must be done first. No matter how stuck we seem to be, it’s always possible to make positive changes.
If you were raised with the belief that you must “work hard” to earn a living, it’s time to let that belief go. Use the affirmation: Work is easy and fun for me or I enjoy all my work. Keep repeating these affirmations until your consciousness changes.
Do what you love and the money will come. Love what you do and the money will come. You have a right to enjoy earning money. Your responsibility to Life is to participate in enjoyable activities. As you find a way to do something that you enjoy, Life will show you the way to prosperity and abundance. Our inner guidance never gives us shoulds. The purpose of life is to play. When work becomes play, it’s fun and rewarding. Negative attitudes about work create toxins in the body.
If you’ve been fired, please get over the bitterness as quickly as you can, for bitterness won’t bring good into your life. Affirm often: I bless my former boss with love. Out of this, only good will come. I am now moving into my greater good. I am safe and all is well. Then use affirmations for creating a new job.
It’s not what happens to you, but how you handle it. If Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If the lemons are rotten, take out the seeds and plant them in order to grow new lemons.
Sometimes when we get very close to our dreams, we become so frightened of having what we really want that we begin to sabotage ourselves. As hard as it is to imagine, we’re doing this to protect ourselves. Making a big move, having the ideal job, earning really good money, can be a very scary undertaking. What if I fail? What if people won’t like me? What if I’m not happy?
These questions represent the part of you that’s very afraid of the fulfillment of your dreams. Often, your inner child is the key to your fears. It’s time to be very loving, patient, and gentle with yourself. Reassure your inner child, love it, and make it feel safe.
Don’t get stuck with the belief that it’s hard to find a job. This may be true for many, but it doesn’t have to be true for you. You only need one job. Your clear consciousness will open the pathway for you. Too many people put so much faith in fear. When there’s a shift in the economy, the masses immediately buy into all the negative aspects and constantly talk about it. What you dwell on and accept in your consciousness becomes true for you.
When I hear about negative trends in business or the economy, I immediately affirm: It may be true for some, but it’s not true for me. I always prosper no matter where I am or what is going on. As you think and speak, you’re creating your future experiences. Be very careful about how you talk about prosperity. You always have the option of choosing poverty thinking or prosperity thinking. For at least the next week, notice how you talk about money, work, career, the economy, savings, and retirement. Listen to yourself. Make sure that the words aren’t creating poverty now or in the future.
Are you in a job now where you feel stuck? Do you hate your job or find that you’re just putting in your time to bring home a paycheck? There are definitely things that you can do to make positive changes. These ideas may sound silly or simplistic, but I know they work. I’ve seen countless people change their working situations for the better. The most powerful tool you can use to transform a situation is the power of blessing with love. No matter where you work or how you feel about the place: Bless it with love! I mean that literally. Affirm: I bless my job with love.
Don’t stop here. Bless with love the building, your desk (if you have one), the various machines that you may use, the products, the customers, the people you work with, and the people you work for, and anything else associated with your job. This will work wonders.
If there’s a person at work that you’re having difficulty with, then use your mind to change the situation. Use the affirmation: I have a wonderful working relationship with everyone at work, including (insert person’s name). Every time this person comes into your mind, repeat the affirmation. You’ll be amazed by how this situation will change for the better.
If you want to secure a new job, then in addition to blessing your current job with love, say this affirmation: I release my job with love to the next person, who will be so glad to be here. This job was ideal for you when you got it. It was the perfect reflection of your sense of self-worth at that time. Now you’ve grown and are moving on to better things. Now your affirmation is:
I know that there are people out there looking for exactly what I have to offer. I now accept a job that uses all my creative talents and abilities. This job is deeply fulfilling, and it is a joy for me to go to work each day. I work with and for people who appreciate me. The building is light, bright, and airy and filled with a feeling of enthusiasm. It is in the perfect location, and I earn good money, for which I am deeply grateful.
If you hate the job that you have now, you’ll take that feeling of hatred with you. Even if you get a good new job, in a short time you’ll find yourself hating the new one, too. Whatever feelings you have within you now, you’ll carry to the new place. If you live in a world of discontentment, you’ll find it everywhere you go. You must change your consciousness now before you can see positive results in your life. Then, when the new job comes, it will be good, and you’ll appreciate it and enjoy it.
So affirm: I always love where I work. I have the best jobs. I am always appreciated. By continually affirming this, you’re creating a new personal law for yourself. The Universe will have to respond in kind. Life will always pick the most appropriate channels to bring forth your good, if you allow it!
There are a handful of such people who are good public speakers. They use this talent to mint money (which is not wrong at all, because one's talent should fetch one money, else how will you pay the bills?). But somehow if I were to pay for that talk, I would come out feeling disappointed. All sugar coated and flowery language uttered by a well dressed, well made up woman, in a dreamy tone - somehow does not appeal to me. Nevertheless, I do admire some of the wise words that they utter.
One such speech here.
If Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If the lemons are rotten, take out the seeds and plant them in order to grow new lemons.
WHEN I WAS YOUNG, between my ignorance and lack of self-esteem, I went through a long series of low-paying jobs. I worked in drugstores, dime stores, and in the stockrooms of several department stores. While my dream was to be a movie star or a dancer, I had no idea how to go about achieving that. Any job beyond where I was, became a far-off dream. I was so uneducated that even a secretary’s job was out of my league.
Then one day, Life took an interesting turn; I must have been ready. I had a job in Chicago that paid $28 a week. Why I walked into the Arthur Murray dance studios that day, I can’t remember. But I did. A slick salesperson sold me $500 worth of dance lessons, and when I returned home that night, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was terrified. The next day after work, I went back to the studio and confessed my poverty. They said, “Oh, but you signed a contract, and you must pay us the money. However, we have a position open for a receptionist. Do you think you could do that?”
The job paid $10 a week more than I was making. It was a large studio with 40 teachers. We worked 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and always ate our meals together. Within two days, I discovered that I was capable of handling the teachers’ appointments, collecting money, and making all of those introductions. I had a built-in social life and never had more fun at a job. It was a great turning point in my life.
After my job at Arthur Murray’s, I moved to New York and became a fashion model. But I never really possessed much self-worth or self-esteem until I began working on myself to release old negative beliefs from my childhood. In the early days, I had no idea how to change my situation. Now I know that the inner work must be done first. No matter how stuck we seem to be, it’s always possible to make positive changes.
If you were raised with the belief that you must “work hard” to earn a living, it’s time to let that belief go. Use the affirmation: Work is easy and fun for me or I enjoy all my work. Keep repeating these affirmations until your consciousness changes.
Do what you love and the money will come. Love what you do and the money will come. You have a right to enjoy earning money. Your responsibility to Life is to participate in enjoyable activities. As you find a way to do something that you enjoy, Life will show you the way to prosperity and abundance. Our inner guidance never gives us shoulds. The purpose of life is to play. When work becomes play, it’s fun and rewarding. Negative attitudes about work create toxins in the body.
If you’ve been fired, please get over the bitterness as quickly as you can, for bitterness won’t bring good into your life. Affirm often: I bless my former boss with love. Out of this, only good will come. I am now moving into my greater good. I am safe and all is well. Then use affirmations for creating a new job.
It’s not what happens to you, but how you handle it. If Life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If the lemons are rotten, take out the seeds and plant them in order to grow new lemons.
Sometimes when we get very close to our dreams, we become so frightened of having what we really want that we begin to sabotage ourselves. As hard as it is to imagine, we’re doing this to protect ourselves. Making a big move, having the ideal job, earning really good money, can be a very scary undertaking. What if I fail? What if people won’t like me? What if I’m not happy?
These questions represent the part of you that’s very afraid of the fulfillment of your dreams. Often, your inner child is the key to your fears. It’s time to be very loving, patient, and gentle with yourself. Reassure your inner child, love it, and make it feel safe.
Don’t get stuck with the belief that it’s hard to find a job. This may be true for many, but it doesn’t have to be true for you. You only need one job. Your clear consciousness will open the pathway for you. Too many people put so much faith in fear. When there’s a shift in the economy, the masses immediately buy into all the negative aspects and constantly talk about it. What you dwell on and accept in your consciousness becomes true for you.
When I hear about negative trends in business or the economy, I immediately affirm: It may be true for some, but it’s not true for me. I always prosper no matter where I am or what is going on. As you think and speak, you’re creating your future experiences. Be very careful about how you talk about prosperity. You always have the option of choosing poverty thinking or prosperity thinking. For at least the next week, notice how you talk about money, work, career, the economy, savings, and retirement. Listen to yourself. Make sure that the words aren’t creating poverty now or in the future.
Are you in a job now where you feel stuck? Do you hate your job or find that you’re just putting in your time to bring home a paycheck? There are definitely things that you can do to make positive changes. These ideas may sound silly or simplistic, but I know they work. I’ve seen countless people change their working situations for the better. The most powerful tool you can use to transform a situation is the power of blessing with love. No matter where you work or how you feel about the place: Bless it with love! I mean that literally. Affirm: I bless my job with love.
Don’t stop here. Bless with love the building, your desk (if you have one), the various machines that you may use, the products, the customers, the people you work with, and the people you work for, and anything else associated with your job. This will work wonders.
If there’s a person at work that you’re having difficulty with, then use your mind to change the situation. Use the affirmation: I have a wonderful working relationship with everyone at work, including (insert person’s name). Every time this person comes into your mind, repeat the affirmation. You’ll be amazed by how this situation will change for the better.
If you want to secure a new job, then in addition to blessing your current job with love, say this affirmation: I release my job with love to the next person, who will be so glad to be here. This job was ideal for you when you got it. It was the perfect reflection of your sense of self-worth at that time. Now you’ve grown and are moving on to better things. Now your affirmation is:
I know that there are people out there looking for exactly what I have to offer. I now accept a job that uses all my creative talents and abilities. This job is deeply fulfilling, and it is a joy for me to go to work each day. I work with and for people who appreciate me. The building is light, bright, and airy and filled with a feeling of enthusiasm. It is in the perfect location, and I earn good money, for which I am deeply grateful.
If you hate the job that you have now, you’ll take that feeling of hatred with you. Even if you get a good new job, in a short time you’ll find yourself hating the new one, too. Whatever feelings you have within you now, you’ll carry to the new place. If you live in a world of discontentment, you’ll find it everywhere you go. You must change your consciousness now before you can see positive results in your life. Then, when the new job comes, it will be good, and you’ll appreciate it and enjoy it.
So affirm: I always love where I work. I have the best jobs. I am always appreciated. By continually affirming this, you’re creating a new personal law for yourself. The Universe will have to respond in kind. Life will always pick the most appropriate channels to bring forth your good, if you allow it!
E-Squared and Kalpavriksha
Lots of noise about this book.
http://www.amazon.com/E-Squared-Do-It-Yourself-Experiments-Thoughts-ebook/dp/B00B2JSRAS/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1375946718&sr=1-1
I read some reviews and got an idea about what it is. It's the same as Kalpavriksha or the wish-fulfilling divine tree. I have the CD and have attended the meditation course at Isha Yoga, Coimbatore as part of the Isha Rejuvenation 21 day program.
http://www.ishashoppe.com/USA/kalpavriksha-guided-meditation.html
"If you organize the four dimensions of mind, emotion, body and energy in one direction, the source of creation is with you. You are a kalpavriksha; you have the power to create what you want." - Sadhguru
I guess I am a little cynical, confused, less objective and doubtful person. Maybe these are preventing my dreams and passions from coming out... and coming true..
It's amusing that many Indian thoughts are repackaged and sold in easy formats by the West. I am sure Sadhguru noticed this and wanted to do something about this. He's doing aggressive campaigns, planning a hollywood movie on Adiyogi - Shiva and many other monetary schemes. I don't know what his end goal is. Some of the activities seem like big time money making schemes. But, that is none of my business. I have immensely benefitted from his teachings despite the fact that I don't practice Shambavi or Hata yoga nowadays. The teachings alone have made me an introspective, calm and peaceful person. So, for that, I am very thankful. What he does, is upto him.
http://www.amazon.com/E-Squared-Do-It-Yourself-Experiments-Thoughts-ebook/dp/B00B2JSRAS/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1375946718&sr=1-1
I read some reviews and got an idea about what it is. It's the same as Kalpavriksha or the wish-fulfilling divine tree. I have the CD and have attended the meditation course at Isha Yoga, Coimbatore as part of the Isha Rejuvenation 21 day program.
http://www.ishashoppe.com/USA/kalpavriksha-guided-meditation.html
"If you organize the four dimensions of mind, emotion, body and energy in one direction, the source of creation is with you. You are a kalpavriksha; you have the power to create what you want." - Sadhguru
I guess I am a little cynical, confused, less objective and doubtful person. Maybe these are preventing my dreams and passions from coming out... and coming true..
It's amusing that many Indian thoughts are repackaged and sold in easy formats by the West. I am sure Sadhguru noticed this and wanted to do something about this. He's doing aggressive campaigns, planning a hollywood movie on Adiyogi - Shiva and many other monetary schemes. I don't know what his end goal is. Some of the activities seem like big time money making schemes. But, that is none of my business. I have immensely benefitted from his teachings despite the fact that I don't practice Shambavi or Hata yoga nowadays. The teachings alone have made me an introspective, calm and peaceful person. So, for that, I am very thankful. What he does, is upto him.
Europe travel
http://www.tripbase.com/d/awards/2011/categories/winners/europe.htm
Best of Europe travel blogs, that's what they say!
After seeing Paris Breakfast's pics through http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.in/
I desperately want to feel Paris. Being a vegetarian and one who loves low sugar desserts, I don't know how much of an experience that would be but I am fascinated. Is everything in Paris so delectably beautiful? Will I be an odd woman out in the fashionable land of Paris? Will the journey satisfy my curiosity and inculcate some artistry in me? Sometimes, some of these magazines and websites paint such a rosy picture that when you see the site and go through all the hassle, it looks much less perfect. But, why do we aim at perfection in the first place? What is wrong with messy? I think only photoshoots carefully planned and executed can achieve that perfection. A real travel is messy. Plans go awry.. You will be forced to eat food that's not your choice. You will have bedbugs. You may catch the mosquite bite in Africa. You may lose your wallet and worst of all your passport. You may face discrimination. You may be running all the time, to cover a place. You may be all sweaty and dirty at some places. You may not have a decent shower place (as discovered in my recent trip to TopSlip).
All of this could happen. But still, man travels. He travels to see new things. He travels to meet new people and cultures. He travels to form new ideas, to get inspired, to fall back in time or ahead of his time, to see things that he never imagined.
Ironically most travels don't achieve this -because we want to rush and see things. We Indians, most of us, do not observe carefully. We miss the finer details of travel. We want to cover everything so that it can be ticked off as done. We come back from vacation just to be tired and in need of a relaxing one. I was one among that class. Slowly I realized that I could not run that fast. I could not absorb things so fast. I started liking relaxed holidays. I would make a list of things to see.. and places to eat in.. but would not be very rigid. Yes, occasionally there are the regrets that I did not do what I wanted to (recently I wanted to pick some nice teas from TMJ Trader in Valparai but totally slipped out of my mind). But that's ok. Travel also comes with regrets. You looks shabby in desert pics. You're ill dressed for the beach. You had a severe episode of gas after rajma. All this happens. You are severely constipated (something I suffer during all my travels). If all this deters you from travelling that means, your comfort matters more than the travel part. So, stay at home (I give this advice to myself most of the times).
The wandering woman has a nice collection of travel quotes.
http://wandering-woman.blogspot.in/2006/12/to-travel.html
When I was searching about France and Italy I stumbled upon this nice blog.
http://mesamis.wordpress.com/
On my bucket list is:
Discover Rabindranath and food in Kolkata.
Visit wildlife in the North East.
France and Italy - cultural, historical and culinary tours.
Turkey - the whirling dervishes and Grand bazaar alone are enough to enchant me.
London and Scotland
Now that I am jobless and so is hubby, I have kept my desires at watch. It would be nice to see these places but I would be ok even if I die without seeing them.
To top it all, I saw a job opening at WOW. How cool! But, I don't know what is expected and whether it's my type. For one, I cannot travel too much. 1. My body violently opposes too much travel for some reason. 2 - I donno if I am that adjusting with unclean surroundings or people. 3. I am picky about food. 4. My war with heat - I get all sweaty in even moderately hot surroundings. It then takes all the fun out of the travel. 5. I am ill dressed mostly. That's not my problem, but I am sure people would hate to see such a terribly dressed person. (What would the French think of me?).
If I even plan a journey to Europe, I need to take months before to alter my sartorial choices. Given my 1X size, it's not easy to get decent fitting and decent looking clothes, but nevertheless I shall try.
Why not start a portal where you advice people what to wear where? Would make travel even more interesting. I remember in absolute horror the days I roamed the US in very colorful salwars. Some people did like them as they were unique...but I must have been a pretty odd sight.
Best of Europe travel blogs, that's what they say!
After seeing Paris Breakfast's pics through http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.in/
I desperately want to feel Paris. Being a vegetarian and one who loves low sugar desserts, I don't know how much of an experience that would be but I am fascinated. Is everything in Paris so delectably beautiful? Will I be an odd woman out in the fashionable land of Paris? Will the journey satisfy my curiosity and inculcate some artistry in me? Sometimes, some of these magazines and websites paint such a rosy picture that when you see the site and go through all the hassle, it looks much less perfect. But, why do we aim at perfection in the first place? What is wrong with messy? I think only photoshoots carefully planned and executed can achieve that perfection. A real travel is messy. Plans go awry.. You will be forced to eat food that's not your choice. You will have bedbugs. You may catch the mosquite bite in Africa. You may lose your wallet and worst of all your passport. You may face discrimination. You may be running all the time, to cover a place. You may be all sweaty and dirty at some places. You may not have a decent shower place (as discovered in my recent trip to TopSlip).
All of this could happen. But still, man travels. He travels to see new things. He travels to meet new people and cultures. He travels to form new ideas, to get inspired, to fall back in time or ahead of his time, to see things that he never imagined.
Ironically most travels don't achieve this -because we want to rush and see things. We Indians, most of us, do not observe carefully. We miss the finer details of travel. We want to cover everything so that it can be ticked off as done. We come back from vacation just to be tired and in need of a relaxing one. I was one among that class. Slowly I realized that I could not run that fast. I could not absorb things so fast. I started liking relaxed holidays. I would make a list of things to see.. and places to eat in.. but would not be very rigid. Yes, occasionally there are the regrets that I did not do what I wanted to (recently I wanted to pick some nice teas from TMJ Trader in Valparai but totally slipped out of my mind). But that's ok. Travel also comes with regrets. You looks shabby in desert pics. You're ill dressed for the beach. You had a severe episode of gas after rajma. All this happens. You are severely constipated (something I suffer during all my travels). If all this deters you from travelling that means, your comfort matters more than the travel part. So, stay at home (I give this advice to myself most of the times).
The wandering woman has a nice collection of travel quotes.
http://wandering-woman.blogspot.in/2006/12/to-travel.html
When I was searching about France and Italy I stumbled upon this nice blog.
http://mesamis.wordpress.com/
On my bucket list is:
Discover Rabindranath and food in Kolkata.
Visit wildlife in the North East.
France and Italy - cultural, historical and culinary tours.
Turkey - the whirling dervishes and Grand bazaar alone are enough to enchant me.
London and Scotland
Now that I am jobless and so is hubby, I have kept my desires at watch. It would be nice to see these places but I would be ok even if I die without seeing them.
To top it all, I saw a job opening at WOW. How cool! But, I don't know what is expected and whether it's my type. For one, I cannot travel too much. 1. My body violently opposes too much travel for some reason. 2 - I donno if I am that adjusting with unclean surroundings or people. 3. I am picky about food. 4. My war with heat - I get all sweaty in even moderately hot surroundings. It then takes all the fun out of the travel. 5. I am ill dressed mostly. That's not my problem, but I am sure people would hate to see such a terribly dressed person. (What would the French think of me?).
If I even plan a journey to Europe, I need to take months before to alter my sartorial choices. Given my 1X size, it's not easy to get decent fitting and decent looking clothes, but nevertheless I shall try.
Why not start a portal where you advice people what to wear where? Would make travel even more interesting. I remember in absolute horror the days I roamed the US in very colorful salwars. Some people did like them as they were unique...but I must have been a pretty odd sight.
Farewell Steve!
http://infographicworld.com/the-life-and-times-of-steve-jobs/
I don't dig Steve. I am content to know that he turned around Apple.
Somehow I stopped at this article.
Some parts of it make no sense to me but some of the thoughts are good.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/01/apple-education-jobs/
I don't dig Steve. I am content to know that he turned around Apple.
Somehow I stopped at this article.
Some parts of it make no sense to me but some of the thoughts are good.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/01/apple-education-jobs/
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