January 2005 Archives
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January 26, 2005

The Social Applicability

Nothing is required. Nothing is necessary. Nothing "should" be done, or followed.

Everything is just a means for us -- a means for helping us smile in our own current social world.

If anything isnt successful in that effort, it is eventually abandoned. (or rather, "should be"? )

Although, science and technology are applied to make "things" and change lifestyles, it affects our social life so very subtly over a short period of time, that its adoption only happens as far as it satisfies the above criterion. Only over a longer period of time, does it affect our very social life itself. (This period is becoming shorter though over time). Not that that is necessary or wanted.

Purpose

I think my purpose is to express my capability to obtain happiness.

January 25, 2005

love

When one starts liking himself, then he becomes likable by others.


January 22, 2005

Own culture

As I might have said before, I think that following your own culture is one of the best ways to solve dilemmas.

Because of the combinatorial explosion that happens -- there are so many ways that a person can behave and do -- that it almost becomes impossibe to make decisions, to choose between so many alternatives, by reason alone. Something more powerful, some more powerful support and help is needed. That help can come from the whole gigantic mass of knowledge that has been built up since time immemorial. That help can come from what your parents tell you, what your culture tells you, what people with similar background as yours tell you, and from what in general people suggest.

This help is so mighty that it is very difficult for thought and reason alone to conquer it -- this help is so important that ignoring can bring trouble sooner than we realize.

What I now feel is that what I should do in life, is things I have seen during my childhood, things that were followed in my house, things that my siblings and relatives did, things that have tried and tested and proven in my culture. Going around, and using reason to solve matters and coming up with optimal solutions and ways isnt practically realizable.

A couple of examples here: For example, which time schedule do I follow? Shall I sleep in the day and wake up in night? Or vice versa? How do I reason this out? What about the timings? What about civic manners? What about having a bath, having major meals two times a day? What about fulfilling what your parents have unconsciously, symbolically, unvoluntarily, imposed upon you -- the ways of life?

Since however, cultures become old, and what your parents teach you, might not be aplicable to today's world.

(incomplete)

January 20, 2005

Life extension

Cryonics: Alcor Life Extension Foundation attempts to preserve the human body after death by doing cryppreservation, in the hope that future technology will be able to repair the human body back to normal health. It has already 50+ patients cryopreserved, and 500+ alive customers.

This Technology Review article talks about a man's claims that biological immortality will be achieved within our life times.

January 19, 2005

The path

We follow a path. We find that path through our experience -- based on our family, what our parents tell us, what we communicated with siblings, and friends, and people around. The path is slowly building. The path shows the way we are supposed to live life, the things that we are supposed to do, the future that we are supposed to create. It gets molded slowly and slowly. Many times we are not even consciously aware that this thing is happenning. Then when we are big enough, i.e. have reached the age where the surrounding society expects us to come up with our own decisions, thats when we slow down the development of the path, and instead start "using" that path to find future directions, to find how the path extrapolates, to find how the path fits in with circumstances, to find a future which is most in harmony with our envisioned path.

The existence of the path is a definition of life. That, what has a path, is alive. Our likes, dislikes, choices, decisions are external manifestations of the path. In essence, making a choice, reaffirms the fact that we are alive and kicking.

(Similar past post: On Human Behavior)

This is when friends come in. This is when hatred comes in.

We judge sometimes that some person is totally incompatible with our path, he is just un-understandable, given our path's assumptions and postulates. That time, we look away from him. Nothing is wrong here, not the person who we look away from (since his path is different, he had different parents, he had different upbringing, he looked at a different part of society, all this does not make his path inferior than yours), nor your act of looking away (since in order for you to follow a path well, you will need to dislike elements that tend to throw you off it, and secondly, this looking away act tries to get in the Social Darwinism effect into the works, where the fitness of a particular path is determined by how well a person can live in it while throwing off all elements that do not align well with that path).

Friends help us find and cement our path for better, or rather we choose our friends such.

When sometimes, we dont have the path clear in our mind, or our path has not been well defined, we tend to wander around. That time, if we do a job, or any task, which we later find that is not somehow aligning well with our path, we become dis-satisfied. Thats what we measure as "job satisfaction". When our job satisfaction goes low, we understand that this does not fit us, this does not fit what we want to do.

Thats when is a time, for us to step back, and look at the bigger picture. To look from where we come from, and where we are headed, and where we want to head.

January 15, 2005

completion of tasks


Why do we feel good when we actually do and complete tasks?
Why do we feel more satisfied when we can utilize our time to actually do something, and then complete it?

Hmm. yeah it gets back to the survival thing.

are people selfish? should they be altruist?

Are people only interested in their convenience and their own happiness. And would they do things which only satisfy their needs?

Sounds scary to me... and makes me feel once again nervous, and alone.

Like I wrote before: If everybody is interested only in their individual self-interests and even "mutual" self-interests, then it means that all of us are essentially alone, very alone.

Should they do like that? Hmm. When we throw stones, they do seem to follow their own track, according to their own velocities, and do not follow other stones which have been thrown in a different direction with a different velocity, do they?

a smiling face

You should do everything with a smiling face.

If you cannot have a smiling face while doing some thing, you shouldn't do it. If you really have to, you should learn to change the situation such that you can still be able to have a smiling face while doing it.

:-)

animals, consciousness, and link to Supreme Consciousness

We are two beings in one -- biological and conscious. I used to think that our consciousness evolved in order to serve our biological needs, --- since after all we just evolved from amoebas -- and we seem to have quite a lot more consciousness than them. Amoebas and other animals' actions are highly predictable, they just follow what they have learned from their input patterns. They don't appear to think,and decide, and desire. Not that humans's desires, and decisions are not very predictable and are original and are magically appearing, but that the "apparent originality" in human's actions is much higher than the animals. Or so it appears. Maybe animals also think that their actions are so original. Just like we think. But I don't think that they would think that our actions are predictable. So we are in some ways higher than them. But how much higher, who knows. Maybe the difference is not that great as we think, since the appearance of our supreme unpredictability is just because we cannot look at ourselves so easily.

Anyway, whether we are conscious or not is a different issue, but it is universally accepted that we are conscious. So lets discuss assuming that we are actually conscious.

So then I had assumed that our consciousness evolved so that we can fulfill biological needs more easily.

But my friend Aditya, with whom I was talking, told me that THEN WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS WHO MADE THE UNIVERSE.

I believe that the very existence of the universe says that there must be some consciousness or something that might have desired to make the world.

Now he told me that the consciousness who made the world -- how is it different from the consciousness that is within us -- is there some link? Is it that we are part of it, are we similar to it, are we completely independent? The point is that since we exhibit similar behavior -- like having desires, and having desires to create, then that might be something that is common between us and "it". Consciousness cannot be so simple that it just evolves everywhere around -- wherever some molecules gather around.

Now this becomes difficult to envision. Because then if there is a link then how is that link established, how can it be scientifically explained?

Did Gods come down to manufacture us? Did a part of God feel onto Earth?

Or that our consciousness is itself an illusion?

Who we are? Who was he who made the world?

Aditya said that much of Hindu (Indian) philosophy is centered around on explaining this link between us and Him. Some believe that we are part of it, that everything is a single whole (whether the non-living are considered in this whole, also might be a differing factor between different philosophies), or some believe that we are separate, or some believe that we are servants to it, etc etc.

Spirituality, and reason, where do they intersect?

In fact, the existence of so many irrefutable philosophies -- does it mean that the fact is unknowable?

Well, we haven't observed the whole world yet, or understood it yet completely.

Lets use science for now, to explore this world, and then lets get more firmly grounded before we start tackling these unsurmountable questions of spirituality.

Detachment

Its like, you need to get out of the train in order to see what the train looks like. So in order to see what humans are, and how the society functions, you need to get out of the human society. You need detachment in order to actually be more aware! This is strange, and true.

When you are detached from normal society then you can see how the society is functioning and how people are doing what they are doing, and why they are doing. Like why people become angry, why people become miserable, or maybe why people become happy, or why people love?

But then the problem is that you don't connect to people very well. They both come in the same plate. When you become attached you love some people and you hate some people. In fact, if there are no people you hate (like me currently) that means you are detached.

Again, like all the things that you see in life, (or maybe those things are the only things worth seeing, rest all follow obviously), this also has its pluses and minuses. If you are detached, you are also not likely to cause a lot of conflict, you are also not likely to hate people, beat people, punish people. Because you can observe yourself, since your detachment might have put you in a place where you are even detached form yourself, where you don't feel the compulsion to do things which have been taught to you as things that one should do. And the other plus is that you will not be very sad either. Because you will be detached from the sorrow that the world and relationships and emotions bring. The disadvantage is that ofcourse you wont be able to love a person intimately. You might be, in some sense, but not in the normal sense.

Though, spirituality and religion sometimes teach you to be detached, that is not the normal way of life -- the way life evolved. Life evolved so that it can sustain, and grow. Detachment detaches you from that need.

Thou shalt be detached or attached?

January 14, 2005

Pete Sampras

ohhh....... Pete Sampras!!! I miss watching him so much....that was an era in my life... watching Pete.

Next century, people will remember 20th century tennis, and people will remember Pete Sampras, the player of the century.

And then next century, people will have somebody else to remember for the player of the 21st century. People will have wonderful memories of that player, and it will be so wonderful remembering.

Bahuhuhuhuhu...(sob)... and I wont be there... :-(

January 12, 2005

Individual and Group

This Times of India Article gives an example of how individual and group psychology differ.

For the individual: I want to do what I want to do. I will do things that will please me. I dont care -- I am here to have fun.

For the group: I willl do things that are usually deemed good in the group. I am a part of the group.

Either ends are bad. The optimum doesnt exist. But most areas in the middle are tolerable.

Has America gone too far towards the individual?

This earlier post was more oriented towards the individual, but I think that that end is also a bad idea.

January 10, 2005

Have fun

One thing I have found is that its easy to live with people in some ways. For example, all that people are seeking is a nice way of having fun in life, people meet in order to have fun, and exchange lively, funny, useful conversation. Just believe in this and nothing else, and you have already solved one aspect of your life. Second is realizing the other desires of people -- like security, being loved, considered capable, some intimate company, someone to share joys and sorrows, etc. After realizing this, it should be relatively easy to interact with people in general. AND YES, I SHOULD NOT FORGET -- CONVENIENCE. People look for convenience, AND CONSERVATION OF RESOURCES.

We should learn how to manage all these coveted factors around, and we have learned to live and understand people! :)

ask yourself how to be happy

Be silent.

Ask your heart what you really want to do, and how you can be really happy. Zoom in on the answer. Clear out unnecessary details. And then do it.

If you are happy, you will involuntarily spread happiness.

January 9, 2005

different paths for getting the same things

Its wonderful. All of us seek the same things -- but our paths and ways are so different!

January 5, 2005

Way to live life happily


One way to feel happy is to follow this life:
- conserve resources (save money, time, etc)
- set short goals and achieve them
- maintain your self-respect
- utilize yourself as much as possible
- fulfill your parents traditions and gain satisfaction based on your background
- make a friend and/or family circle and grow together

Going back to calm


After a couple of hectic weeks, -- los angeles, las vegas, bay area, -- back to rest.

More later.

January 4, 2005

Am I for Myself?

The basic question is -- is life based on personal fulfillment worth pursuing? Personal fulfillment includes helping one and close ones gain easier lives, looking to minimize resource use (money, time, attention, actions, etc.), trying to gain happiness by ways learned by living life till today, trying to achieve self respect by using ways learned by looking at family and friends, growing, rising higher in the company etc.


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