Civilisation, Structure and the Meaning of Life
Every act of human beings that has been an outcome of civilisation has a structure to it. A general conception is that, structure is for rational minds and not for the artistic. But I beg to disagree. If we dissect an act to its core, we will encounter a structure behind it. And an act that does not have a structure will not have a following.
Allow me to explain this in a little bit more detail. We can straight away assume that any scientific act has a structure to it and we will not ponder on that too much. So, let’s look at some artistic acts like painting and music. My contention is that however abstract a piece of art or music might be, but the one that generates at least a handful of followers or fans, will have an underlying structure based on which it has been built. Most of us are unable to appreciate abstract art is because, we are incapable of seeing the underlying structure and hence unable to appreciate the beauty of that piece of work. And the ones who ’see’ it either are greatly impressed by the trick the artist has played with that structure or at the least appreciate the twist the artist has created using the structure underlying to it.
The reason I use civilisation in this context is because, I think the first discovery by the people of the first civilisation is the discovery of the human ability to recognise structures and build something on top of it. The moment, you develop the innate capability of observing these structures, you become compelled to act and build on it and that in turn makes that individual or group of individuals civilised. I think it does not necessarily apply to human beings alone. Even in the animal kingdom, one can observe acts of civilisation such as the monkey’s using a straw to draw the ant out of an anthill. This is possible only if they are able to see the underlying structure of that act which results in the ability to draw ants for food. If we extrapolate this to all acts of living beings, you realise that none of them are a random act but an act coordinated to achieve an objective, which means there is a structure (or framework) behind it. Now, I am getting close to the metaphysical argument of whether there is any act of nature that is based on randomness alone without any predetermined objective.
I have read about the quantum physics experiments that shows at an sub-atomic level, we influence the experiment, when we observe them. But for this argument, let’s keep the sub-atomic state of affairs aside and look only at the macro side of things.
Now for argument sake, if we take the premise that every act of nature has a predetermined objective unless interfered by an external force, then does that not indicate that there might be a predetermined objective which explains the meaning of life? The caveat here is the interference by an external force, which in the case of human beings, manifests as the ability of choice. The counter argument could be that the ability of choice prevents a presupposition of an exact meaning for life. But as earlier demonstrated, that an act performed by a person has a structure / framework underlying it and any act based on randomness is detrimental to the actor. So collectively speaking, the choices however numerous, is limited by the frameworks underlying them and hence the choices themselves are predetermined. The net effect could be that we are moving towards a destiny that is already configured and our choices are only giving us an illusion that we have the ability to make our own future.
Is this possible?
Peace.
Life… (cont.)
I posted the link to my previous post on facebook and I received the following comment:
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” (Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)
Dutifully, I googled Viktor Frankl and his book Man’s Search for Meaning. I have linked them to save you some time to search. After reading through that and also mulling over the statement above for a while, I re-read it many times for two reasons – one, as to what exactly the author is trying to say and two, why was the comment posted as a response to my post. Anti-climax; I am still trying to figure out the answer for both the points. But, it did get my thoughts to run along other paths, which I thought I’ll write them up as a continuation to my previous post.
The author summarises that we have the onus to determine what our life is supposed to mean by being responsible rather than seek it as a external purpose that we collect (or realise) and apply it on our lives. Which makes sense if we look at the meaning of life from an individual’s point of view – a point of view that is taken by most people when they lack purpose due to an externally imposed circumstance like adversity. Part of my reason for the previous post is taken not from an individualistic view but rather at an existential level as to why evolution provided reason to humankind and is there a purpose behind it. Of course, I realise now that it probably did not come across as clearly as it should have. But as I said before, the comment put me through another path of thinking about the meaning of life from one’s life’s perspective.
The pondering of this question, in most cases, arises when the environment imposes an adverse situation on us. This is not to say that during happy occasions we don’t think about these questions, but more often then not, we are busy being happy that we let little such philosophical questions arise in our minds, lest we lose the moment of happiness we possess. That brings me to one of the key root causes of these thoughts – adversity. Now, adversity has many a forms that you could write a thesis on them but I am particularly intrigued by one element – pain. Pain as in mental agony and not anything physical. Pain that’s caused because of the loss of a dear one, defeat in a cause etc. Let’s narrow this down even more and try to focus on pain that is caused solely because of a situation where you don’t have anything external to blame it on. To quickly draw a contrast to the book by Viktor Frankl (note: I’ve not read the book and my brief knowledge comes from a quick glance at Wikipedia), he talks about the state of mind that exists when one is in a concentration camp and how do deal with such a situation. We need to note here that this adversity and pain is caused externally by a force that you don’t and can’t control. What I am referring to is a situation, where you seem to be the only one that could potentially be ‘blamed’ for the pain that’s causing you.
I think mind here takes an interesting form. Speaking from personal experiences, it first desperately seeks something external to put the blame on. Not finding any, one starts to introspect to find what could have caused the situation. Many a times you realise that the one suffering is pretty much the cause of it as well. Like failing in an examination simply because one did not prepare well for the same. But on some occasions, you actually don’t find yourself to be responsible as well for the situation causing the pain. Or let’s say, the degree of your responsibility it not high enough for you to take the full blame. Then you face a roadblock where you are unsure what to do next. You ponder more, examine the situation with multi-various lenses, simulate the incident in different forms and from different perspectives but still the answer eludes. If the degree of pain being suffered is all encompassing you then it leads to a state of paralysis, where you don’t function in the way you normally do. Then the metaphysical questions are raised as to the purpose of life. The interesting conundrum is that at a holistic level you know you need to take responsibility for life but are paralysed by an event that prevents you from taking the next step of being responsible. You are still bemused by the situation which seems to have no form.
We all come across such incidents in our lives and we get through it somehow – fading memory being one of them. But some leave a lasting impression on you that keeps coming back like a boomerang every now and then to haunt. What do we do under such circumstances – many seek religious help, some seek medical etc but these are safe deposit boxes that temporarily hold on to your issue giving you the illusion that it has been resolved. But depending on how intensive the issue is, it always comes back.
I do not know the answer to deal with them and I have my own demons to fight but I see a clear purpose in raising a metaphysical question here and follow the path of seeking the answer. The reason I say this is not because, I need an excuse to stare at a blank wall in the premise of thinking but rather that this approach could potentially put us on a path of dissecting the problem in a methodical way and peel the skin of the onion, one at a time. In the end, will it help tide over that situation and give you lasting peace… I don’t know. But you could potentially peel the last bit of skin and realise that there is nothing left anymore to peel. The sense of nothingness in everything could help you deal with it. Maybe…
Peace.
Life…
Bismillah,
(Arabic phrase from Quran that means ‘in the name of God, the merciful, the beneficent’)
Like many people, I muse about life. I ask some of the cliched questions such as the meaning of life, is there purpose for human life, what should we strive for, is evolution a mere accident in the unimaginable size of this universe etc. And, like most people who ask these questions, I don’t have a definite answer. In fact, there is not even a glimmer of hope that I would find a definitive answer.
I come from a culture that is known for pioneering this study and many a treatise have been written from time immemorial trying to address these and other questions. This innate nature to question would probably not be as strongly entrenched in me, had I not been born and brought up in this microcosmic society (I beg for pardon if this usage of microcosmic society in the sentence is a wrong usage, but I hope you get the point I am driving at). This has an even bigger impact on me since my parents have brought me up with the independence to raise these questions and boldly try to find the answers however rational it may or may not seem. Here I should digress to say a bit about the people who have had the most profound impact on me. I have been blessed with some of the best people one can have the opportunity to know in their life. This includes my parents, my brothers and one friend (whom I consider my teacher and brother in more than one way) and his family in India. I do not wish to name anyone to guard their privacy. But this digression is important to emphasise that few people have this opportunity to meet so many great souls and learn from them to differentiate the different shades of grey that we encounter in our lives.
Coming back to my earlier point on whether these questions are rational enough to ask or not and the reason for which I say that is because, I have had the opportunity to experience scientific way of approaching and the loosely put religious or spiritualistic way of approaching on various aspects of life that portray the different shades of grey that we very often encounter. The thought of rationality appears in this discussion because, science demonstrates to you through the concept of reasoning (and hypothesis and proofs) that the universe is an immensely vast place and the fact that life exists in this piece of rock that we call earth among the uncountable number of such rocks is a mere accident and unavoidable given our knowledge of chemistry. So, if science were to hear my appeal to it to find the answers, it would reply back that there is simply no point in asking this question as it is merely philosophical in nature and having an answer (if an answer exists) will have no bearing on existence (or life as I term it here) itself.
On the other hand, humans have conceptualised (or experienced) God which has given birth to religion in many forms depending on the environment in which it was born. This is not a debate about whether God exists or not but more a philosophical inquiry in what is the purpose (if there is something called a purpose) of life. So from this perspective, if I raised this question to ‘religion’ (and I put this in quotes because that is probably the easiest way to collectively refer to any form of thinking that is not scientific in nature), the answer would be quite different depending on which school of thinking that I raise this question to. But most of these diverse group would agree that self realiasation and experiencing God is the key purpose of life. Now we can debate in length about the concept of God itself and many scientific minds would immediately dismiss it to be a brainwashed concept handed over through many generations. But I do not wish to dismiss it likewise. I think, merit should be given to those thinkers who claim to have experienced God and achieved self-realisation and tried to hand over their experiences so other may also experience the same. I can specifically speak for (if momentarily I take upon that arrogance) the thinkers in the today’s Indian sub-continent. The reason why I do not dismiss like the many scientific minds, even though I reasonably understand the scientific process is because, the thinkers and philosophers in this region did not attempt to teach dogma but rather urged everyone to think, ponder, question and challenge their hypothesis and seek the ‘truth’ for themselves. They provided the tools for people if they needed but never insisted that they use their tools. And this broad minded approach akin to the scientific approach of allowing theories to be disproved by others, does not allow me to throw away their claim of vivid experiences simply because I cannot demonstrate that in a laboratory.
We have all been trained well in the scientific process – learning all branches of sciences in our school curriculum, has enabled us to easily embrace the scientific method but the same cannot be said about the self inquiry school since none of their tools have been taught to us in a structured manner for us to embrace or dismiss the benefits that you can achieve through self-realisation or realisation of God. If for example we take the simplest of the tools – Faith, most of us do not have the greater strength to sustain faith. Even though we try it at different points in our life, we soon lose confidence in it and relapse to our scientific method of approaching a problem. I am not suggesting here that when someone is suffering from a cardiac arrest, the people around that person sit next to him / her and say that we’ll keep faith and hope it cures. That would be madness at least in the context in which we deal with our lives. But faith as one of the tools, here takes a larger role to sustain it to achieve self-realiasation among the using of other tools such as self-inquiry, meditation etc.
I have many a times tried to use these tools to try to understand or seek answers to the questions in my mind. But like most people, I give up, because it is hard, does not align with my predominantly scientific mind, does not have interim results to encourage me to sustain etc. Here, people who solely follow the scientific approach would pooh pooh me saying that there is no point in even trying as one is never going to achieve anything through this. But I resist the temptation to agree with them and give up for reasons stated above. Even if I never see the light of the day in this approach, I think I would be contented that I did experiment with a non-scientific approach to experience the elusive self-realisation or enlightenment and was not pigeon holed into thinking only in terms of hypothesis and proofs in a laboratory.
So, why do I seek answers in the first place? I don’t start asking these questions to achieve enlightenment as I think that is at a farther point of my journey of life but rather to deal with the unexplainable experiences – painful and pleasurable that goes on in our lives and to deal with them with more maturity and with innate strength especially if the experience if painful. When I usually have these discussions with my brothers, I try to give an analogy that people are, in some sense behind a huge wall blocking their vision. So when you attempt to jump up and have a look on the other side, you get a glimpse of it depending on how high you can jump. The ability to jump higher comes from the eagerness to pursue the objective of knowing what is on the other side of the wall and also by gaining more awareness about what you saw during the previous glimpse. So effectively, the more aware you become and more eagerness you have, you can jump higher and higher, until one day you can jump over the wall and maybe that’s what many who have jumped over call it as enlightenment.
The sheer act of attempting this is an enriching experience in itself. No matter if you believe in God or not, or believe in the concept of enlightenment or not, but the journey to self-inquire and peel the skin of abstractness and unexplainable episodes in your life is an exciting one. I constantly endeavour to do this albeit I lose the strength to pursue, but as I said before, being blessed with the some of the great souls in your life, helps you to regain your lost path and pursue it again with new vigour.
Peace.
Economy Moving Forward
I had a thought this afternoon about the economy.
Disclaimer: I am not an economist and probably understand0.0001% of economic principles and the way of the world.
My understanding goes this way: America is the biggest consumer of the world, closely followed by Europe and Japan and a bulk of the world’s production is being consumed by a relatively small population of this planet. For this argument, let’s look at just America as the key consumer. America borrows significantly large sums of money to foster their consumption and the producing worlds lends the monies to America to sustain the consumption. I don’t wish to go into the details to justify this as it is too complex and there is a good possibility that my understanding is flawed.
If the above it mostly true, then it poses an interesting problem. Beyond a critical point, the lending to the consumers does not make sense as you don’t see your earned money appreciating enough as the borrowers are not returning money and neither does the money grow. So what can the producers do to safeguard themselves? For one, they can foster internal consumption so at the least the monies stays within their economic domain, which is probably what Japan did and China and India are trying to do.
This poses an interesting situation. If the developing economies no longer depend on America to consume their produce, they no longer need or care America to consume so much and which means, they are no longer a cheaper destination to produce goods as the local demand increases so does the cost of production (as the demand out paces the supply, at least in the short term, the cost of goods will go up). That leaves America with two choices (loosely speaking) – reduce consumption or produce locally to support internal demand. The first option is harder to implement unless there is a social and cultural change. The second option looks like a practical one, only that the cost of production has reached such a high point that it is too expensive for peoples to afford it unless they borrow more.
Where does this leave America and the rest of the world. Some thoughts:
- Is this a harbinger that America will no longer be the most powerful country in the world and there will arise a community of powerful nations?
- Is this a harbinger for an exponential increase in consumption to sustain the economy and put a big strain in the natural resource of this planet
- Is this a harbinger for power struggle to stay on the top by a new community of nations when in the past it was a de-facto single country
The above thoughts sure look like bleak ones, but it need not be all bleak. There might be some silver lining. This could foster a cultural / social change of sustaining economy with reduced consumption – which means, new economic / social models evolving out of this bottleneck situation. America is known to be a land of innovation and they could innovate themselves out of it. This could also cause the wealth to be more evenly distributed around the world thus reducing envy, anger and frustration which happens to be the cause of most violence.
There are several ifs and buts and it is hard to really predict what could happen but there sure is a change that seems to be driving the focus away from the Americas as the leading nation in the world and lesser known voices being heard.
So brace yourself for an interesting ride that potentially you might see before your lifetime and I do sincerely hope that is a positive one.
Borrowed a Tikit to Ride
A housemate of mine recently bought a Bike Friday Tikit. He’s, what I would call not-a-keen-biker. But one ride in a foldie changed his perception completely. He was totally smitten by the comfortable ride and the compact folding of the bike. So much so, that he immediately went to a local Bike Friday dealer Diginexx and bought a tikit. And since then he’s been riding it pretty much daily (unless he’s got a date that evening 
.
I for one have been riding my Trek 1200 SL for couple of years, mostly for recreation. I used to commute to work when I had a bike lodging place in China Town, Singapore but that was intermittent and it was never a convenient thing to do given that the work can sometimes extend the normal working hours. And then there was the Nature as a variable to contend with – rain, hot sun etc and of course, last but not least, the traffic. For an avid cyclist, these are of course a welcome thing to contend with, in some sense it is for me too. But sometimes it can become an annoying thing especially if you’d a long day.
I’ve been a bit suspicious of a foldie unlike @nat, who’s a big fan of the bikes. I refused to try one for a long time. Of course laziness counts a big part of it. But recently, my housemate had a minor surgery and he stopped riding till he’s healed. Now was my chance to take it out for a spin and test it out for myself if the foldie was living up to its reputation. First I tried a long distance ride, about a metric century in Malaysia. The ride went perfect except for my fitness.
Next I decided to take it to work. And I should say, the foldie passed with flying colours. Let’s see how:
- I take about 30-35 minutes by bus to work and I take 20-25 minutes by bike
- The roads are fairly flat which means, I exert less energy than if I were to climb up and down
- I cool down at office / home after my ride in about 15 minutes
- The bike stays right under my desk, so no need to lock it down or find a safe place
- A good exercise regime without specifically taking time off
- Friendly to the environment and if we scale this habit to more people, less traffic and pollution
- People appreciate and sometimes awed that someone is riding to work in this equatorial weather
- and several more…
I’ve been riding for about a week now and it’s been great. I’ll definitely recommend this to everyone. There are several foldable bike options in the market today. Hit the nearest store, do your research online, read @nat’s blog on parts, bike choices and reviews and get one and start riding.
Wowed by speed
As you may have already read an earlier post about the Yahoo! CEO’s speech at AmCham Singapore; something interesting happened today. Someone from AmCham called me today following up my previous post and informing me about the other events that AmCham organises throughout the year. I was totally surprised – not much by the fact that they read my post and tracked me down to call and sell their other products but by the fact that it was less than 24 hours since I wrote that.
I work in marketing and I know how difficult the new social media is in managing from a marketing perspective. And I must say, I was thoroughly impressed by the speed in which AmCham followed up on their leads. Kudos to their efforts and I am sure things like these are the ones that sets apart the successful from the not so successful.
I am sure someone from AmCham will read this by tomorrow morning!
Carol Bartz at AmCham, Singapore
I had a chance to sit through a speech by Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! today at AmCham Singapore. I’ll make this a quick post about my opinion on today’s speech.
I went there with a bit of expectation to hear her speak as the (relatively) new CEO of Yahoo! I read through her bio in Wikipedia beforehand to put the person in context and I should say, I was quite impressed by what she has achieved in her career. At the time of reading, it struck me as to why would she take up a position as Yahoo!’s leader given that at the outset it looks like a lost cause to head a company that has paled against it’s competitors in terms of new landmark innovations in the recent past. People at that position and at that age (I am very broadly generalising here) would want to leave a legacy behind, especially in her position for what she has achieved at Autodesk.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, the speech was terrible and pathetically weak in my opinion. She kept using Autodesk instead of Yahoo! more than once (and I can attribute such slips to jet lag or hectic schedule). The statistics she was throwing (with the expectation I suspect, to impress her audience) was totally irrelevant and who cares now whether Yahoo! manages 100 billion emails a month? I am sure many in the audience must have more such tidbits to throw around and we didn’t want to hear them again! There was no new insights that I gained (which I already didn’t know). No strategic thought process or direction as to where Yahoo! was heading and mind you, many of those sitting through the sessions where shareholders as well. No indication of any new innovation coming out of Yahoo! No clear growth plans for emerging markets. No clear solutions for SMEs and enterprises as to how they can leverage Yahoo!’s platform. In total, nothing beneficial to the audience at all.
To cut her some slack; I understand that 30 minutes at AmCham in Singapore is not the great venue to talk about grand plans and I am sure she has a million things running through her head to manage shareholders and board of directors expectations. But one needs to also bear in mind the time that several key leaders and business people have sacrificed and have gathered to hear someone at the forefront of Internet and Technology speak. But well… what can I say. Being the head of Yahoo! is not easy and not going to be any easier in the near future until something radical happens to that company.
At the end after several cliched Q&A banter, I was itching to ask her my question. I, for once would like a CEO of a struggling company putting up a brave face to the world, to come out and say loud and clear – what we are doing sucks and we would like to hear from you as to what you think we should be doing, our strategies don’t seem to be taking us anywhere and we have little clue as to how to bring this company out of the woods and compete in real terms rather than the legacy the company has accumulated over the hay days of the Internet boom. Guess what, I did ask the question and I got a politically correct answer from her – we have made some tactical mistakes in the past but our current strategies are sound and will yield the right results – this in effect was her answer to me.
Let me not scathe anymore. I am sure she is doing the best she can and I do sincerely hope that Yahoo! does become one of the leading players in the Internet services space.
Hougang to Kota Tinggi
I’ve been on long hiatus in posting anything to this blog. Blame it all on laziness, lack of motivation and quality content to write.
But some of that changed this weekend (not the laziness if that’s what you were expecting). I went on a biking trip to Kota Tinggi in Malaysia with my brother on Sunday. The road distance we measured from our home in Hougang, Singapore to Kota Tinggi and back was approximately 120 kilometers. I wasn’t too worried about the distance as we have done this kind of trip in the past and I felt reasonably fit having ridden about 20 kilometers the previous day to TR bikes, a bike shop in the east coast of Singapore. I know what you must be thinking now but let’s just say, that I was psychologically feeling fit about the ride and I love riding in Malaysia, one of the friendlier places to ride a bike.
We started at about 8.30 in the morning and by the time we crossed the border and stopped for breakfast it was 10.30 in the morning. Had some sumptuous Indian breakfast and we set off on the Malaysian highways. For those of you who have not ridden on Malaysian roads, they tend to be a little daunting for an occasional rider (like myself). There is never a long (about 1 KM or more) flat patch of highway for you to relax and stretch your legs.
I normally ride my Terk 1200 SL but this time, I picked up my friend’s Bike Friday Tikit and it was super comfortable to say the least. It has 20″ (updated) 16″ wheels and can be quite slow compared to my road bike but I don’t like riding fast so it was just nice. By the time I hit the 45 KM mark, I started to feel the strain. Tells a lot about my current fitness condition! When we reached the 60 KM mark, we stopped for tender coconut and I realised I was scraping my last reserves. We still had another 8 KM to Kota Tinggi and the whole 68 KM back home. But we decided to turn back as I was not sure if I could go up the additional 8 KM to our destination. Looking back, it was a good decision to have turned back without pushing further. I almost lost it when we were about 10 KM to Johor Bharu the town just across the causeway from Singapore. I had to push my bike up a hill on one stretch. My brother was feeling quite fit on the contrary.
To cut a long story short, we reached Singapore after 10 hours completely exhausted and burnt out. Now that I’ve had a day to reflect on my ride, I think the highlights of it were that we did 100 KM in a day after a long time and discovered the whole new riding experience of a folding bike. The lowlights were of course my fitness level and the incredibly hot sun. I think it must be my hottest ride ever.
@nat had taken some photos which I’ll try to post once he’s processed it. Hopefully, I keep riding most weekends from now on and of course, write about my road trip in an engaging way!
From non-profit to profit
My brother forwarded me a link – www.kiva.org and after I looked at the site it struck me as to how closely it was related to an idea of mine, which I wrote about a few days ago. Of course I don’t claim to be first here but it is nice to see that I could think of something original which has materialised elsewhere even though I wasn’t the first.
I think KIVA is a great initiative and it seems like it is a natural extension of my idea. I wanted to build a portal that will bring the charitable organisations and volunteers together in a seamless way and generate huge man hours at the disposal of these organisations. And as in any charitable activity everyone recognises that the people receiving the charity would eventually like to stand on their own legs (no pun intended). There are of course exceptions such as old age home, tree planting etc which would have to be a continuous effort. But where there is effort to help people rebuild their lives, we would want them to start managing their affairs by themselves at some point. That is when a service like KIVA kicks in where it takes my idea one step further by allowing people to “loan” small amounts of money to small entrepreneurs around the world through micro-finance institutions with which they partner. The micro-financing institutions ensure the proper disbursement of money and collection and eventually pay it back to KIVA who then disburses the money to the original lenders. So in effect someone requiring a loan of US $500 in Cambodia could be getting the loan from 20 different people who would have donated $25 each. The Internet ensures that the money is collected properly, accounted for and handed over to the financial institution with which the borrower is associated with and it works in the reverse when the money is paid back by the borrower. There will be tons of nitty-gritty issues in managing bad debts, lead time for collecting the loan money, service charges by KIVA and the financial institution etc. But I think they can all be ironed out with minor compromises.
Micro-finance is a powerful tool which was popularised by Muhammad Yunus through his venture called Grameen Bank. He jointly won the Nobel Peace prize in 2006 for his efforts to bring people out of poverty through small credit facilities without collateral. Many agree that this is one of the most powerful tools we have today to uplift people from dire straits. There are also criticism levied on this process since the micro-credit scheme levies a higher than normal interest due to the risks involved and the cost of managing several accounts in the place of few. But nevertheless it is still a wonderful way to provide capital to small and micro businesses by cutting through the bureaucracy and red tape.
Coming back to the main argument, that Internet can and does indeed change lives in several ways. In fact, KIVA can then be further diversified to offer investment options for medium to large business – but then I am getting ahead of myself. The core argument that I am trying to put across in this blog is that we can and must do something to change lives of the peoples of the world. We face numerous problems today from different dimensions – religious, political, economical, natural etc., and beyond a certain stage we lose track of what we are trying to solve as one resolution seems to fuel as a cause for another problem from a different dimension. An example would be a political solution to resettle the Jews during the Second World War has caused a religious problem in the Middle East post that event. If one takes a step back and has a holistic perspective, I am sure we would be able to see a cause-effect outcome in most of the solutions to problems. One of the best ways to have the right lens to see the larger issues is to get most people in the world into some sort of a common platform so most of those people see the problem with similar variables attached to it. We have divided this planet into different countries, different races, religions etc and all this has disintegrated the fabric of a common human society. We should all be seeing each other in the same standard and the way we can achieve that is by ensuring that everyone has access to all the knowledge about the other. If only I understand the sentiments of a particular race, I would be careful not to upset it and it works vice versa. And this works in all levels like if I can understand the role of a scientist then I would be sensitive enough to provide them the space and tools necessary to continue their work or at the least not do anything to upset them.
The only way we are ever going to do this to ensure that there is free and fair access to knowledge, structured, malleable and willing to grow as and when it learns of more and more types of people. This should be some sort of an intelligent Internet organism that feeds people with what they want, learns from them and adapts to their needs. I am not talking about Wikipedia but something that is more structured as an University course but provided free with no strings attached.
Knowledge is free
Wonder if there is a study which talks about how many people would like to have education but cannot afford it; especially in a developed country where education is not subsidised by the government. I think most of Western Europe is out of this equation.
Now, why would such a study be interesting? To start with, it tells how much the government is lagging in laying the foundation for a better future. The way we measure success and economic prosperity today is primarily through how rich the people are. Although I strongly disagree with this approach, I can’t do much but live with it. The way people can become rich is by producing more and the society consuming the production at an every greater volume so we see a constant increase in production and consumption which leaves people with enough money, employment and security. But the biggest flaw in this approach is the concept of consumption itself. What we are consuming is this planet’s resources and the more we consume, the lesser the available resources are and it will deplete if not immediately but at some point in future. We would have accumulated so much of garbage that we would have to colonise another planet just to dump them!
Anyway, back to my core point of this post, fundamentally we need to shift the focus of economic prosperity from wealth to knowledge. Of course we would still be a consuming population but the shift in focus in terms of how prosperous a person is will be from money to knowledge. And I think this is imperative we recognise this if we need to save this human species from self-destruction. Unless we understand the workings of the Universe and constantly create conducive environments for the people to live, we would disappear like the Dodos. Ancient India had recognised this as an important aspect of life and the economy was never around how someone can make money but rather how knowledge, education, art and literature could be fostered and opportunities created for the peoples of the society. We are living in a world were everybody wants to be a trader. It is not practicable and it will only lead to a collapse which we are seeing now.
For a nation to be advanced from a knowledge perspective, it needs to give opportunity for every person to be able to seek that knowledge, try them out and see if they are able to acquire it and find a suitable niche where they can shine and where they feel contented simply because they have physically seen their own limitations. This does not leave room for any anguish and jealousy and retarded complaining that one did not get enough opportunity to survive in a better way. And the only way it can be done is to ensure every person gets free and fair access to knowledge and facilities. I think governments everywhere should recognise it and start preparing for a platform to meet its needs if it wants to be a knowledge leader in this globalised world.
Use the Internet – Change a life
I recently discussed an idea with my brother about building a portal that would connect non-profit and voluntary organisations with people willing to volunteer for short periods in a week thereby amassing a significant number of man hours towards a social cause. The way the idea works is like this. The website would dedicate a page for any organisation that requires volunteers or donations for a social cause – could be in nursing, education, animal welfare etc. Each of these organisations would first need to register and they would be invited to write about them in that page which would be sort of a wiki controlled by that registrant. Once they describe enough for someone to get an idea as to what the organisation is involved in, then they can create ‘Events’. Events are those activities conducted by that NPO which calls for external volunteers or donations in order to run it. An example for an Event would be volunteers required to spend time in the old age home entertaining the old people. Every Event would have several attributes which describes the Event, specifies what is required – volunteers, cash etc., what kind of skill set required – nursing, no skill etc, date and time of the Event and so on and so forth.
This portal would also invite Volunteers – any kind of people, non-skilled people to professionals to register themselves and generate a unique identity in the portal, sort of a social networking structure. You could also make friends with other registrants. Each individual who registers would also have a set of attributes – times they can volunteer, skill sets they possess etc.
What the portal does is it enables NPOs to search within the list of Volunteers as to who matches to the Event created by the NPO and access their profile, free times available for volunteering and invite them to participate in the Event. It also allows the Volunteers to search for appropriate Events where there is a match between the times they are available to the times when the Events are conducted and register themselves. It would be a simple process similar to booking a sports hall to play an indoor sport! As this is voluntary and given that many of us could easily spend couple of hours in a week volunteering for a social activity, my gut feeling is that there would be a point of inflection when there are more people actively available to volunteer than there are social projects existing. This would in turn drive a new initiative to create new social projects – A tennis coach could volunteer to teach tennis to under privileged kids for couple of hours in a week etc.
This has to be highly localised given that the volunteers have to be within the same city where the Event is taking place but I don’t see why this can’t be scaled up to large projects as well such as earthquake relief etc. I haven’t seen anything like this on the Internet although there are many sites – more vertical for specific projects such as blood donation sites etc.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this idea and one last thing; the site can support itself with advertisements or donations similar to what Wikipedia is doing thereby releasing any financial commitment on anyone’s part.
Sewers in India to social support in Singapore
Couple of things prompts me to write this post. When I asked my brother as to what did he thinks of my post yesterday, he said that it was fine but there wasn’t much value for him in it since it did not have continuity to it and it was just random thoughts. Today he shared one other post from another blogger called Mr Wong Says So who commented on a news item in Today newspaper and went on to explain how the Singaporean government thinks that $330 is enough for the needy and poor to survive for a month. So I decided to write more along those lines.
Thankfully, I am not in the business of determining the amount of money to be dispersed by the government to the needy. I am sure Dr. Vivian has trouble bridging what he believes and what he is expected to do and convince a parliament and the people at large. Now, in a country like Singapore where the concept of poor is very different from what the term means in a country like India, it is easy to point the finger at a person like Dr. Vivian and say how he could be so insensitive and expect a person to live with $330 a month. But if you are a little bit read and travelled, you understand that everything is subjective and relative. Perspectives drastically change with just adding or removing few variables into the equation.
What do I mean by that? In yesterday’s post, a complaint about a complaint by a reporter about squalid working conditions of under privileged people, we see that things are much worse in a country like India where a huge number of people are living on less than a dollar a day. When Dr. Vivian says that people should learn to be self-reliant and / or depend on the immediate family for support rather than the State, as otherwise we cannot run an efficient and lean government, he is stating what is rational and what is expected out of every citizen. But what about those people who do not have a base to begin anything to become self-reliant and how could an immediate family support when they potentially are in same or similar conditions. Naturally they turn to the State for support but then again, the government cannot be feeding everyone as that is not its function.
I define the function of the government as a facilitator for every citizen to become self-reliant and as an arbitrator of open issues and a guarantor to the weak and under privileged ensuring they get a level playing field. If this definition is adhered, I believe that every government irrespective of how rich or poor the country is, would be able to do justice to its people. In order for the government to do this, the most important thing to offer to the citizens to create level playing field is to offer education to one and all irrespective of whether they have to resources to study or not. Now, if a person refuses to acquire knowledge or skill and chooses to be lazy, then he / she deserves to be poor and under privileged. No amount of money from anyone is going to solve that problem. In fact the Dr. Vivian could declare that $330 is more than enough without doubt or guilt if he promises free education to everyone in the country who is willing to study. So goes in India. If the government steps forward to such people who clean sewers in hazardous conditions and tells them that they can acquire a skill (to clean sewers in a safe and hygienic way) or knowledge to pull themselves out of the rut they find themselves in to improve their lives. Governments who don’t do that will have sleepless nights and so would the needy and poor people
Space program or Sewers?
I just read an article on BBC. I have read many such as these where I hear an emotional voice of a reporter voicing out for the voice-less people of the society. It is an amazing feat to speak for others who find it impossible to speak themselves. Kudos to their effort. But I don’t understand why such articles are being written. Of course, I am not trying to be naive, I can think of few reasons:
a. The reporter is venting his / her frustrations when the press (or website) allows the content to be published simply because it comes from a qualified reporter
b. The press thinks that this article would generate enough clicks or readership that will warrant some revenue for the company
c. The reporter and the press are trying to create awareness among the larger public on the plight of many under privileged citizens who are suffering
d. The reporter and the press are hoping that this would elicit some responsible citizen to take up the cause with the authorities and do something about changing their lives
e. The reporter is giving voice to the voiceless and hopes that this would give them strength to take up their cause themselves and seek justice
f. The reporter wishes to shame the authorities / people responsible for making others suffer
g. A combination of the above and so on
What I fail to grasp here are few things:
a. The comparison called by the reporter on the government spending on space program vs. sewage improvements
b. The reporter feeling guilty about the plight of another human being
c. Indirect criticism of the authorities and calling all economically developed people to feel guilty through his / her article
Now, since I don’t understand the true intentions of the reporter my comments can be way off what the truth could be. But I persevere since I would like my thoughts on paper (or blog) as you interpret. I think the reporter is venturing into areas where he / she has very little knowledge, expertise or information about. A reporter’s job is to state facts and not write articles laden with facts and suggestive ideas as the reporter see’s fit. By comparing the investments on space program and calling attention that sewage infrastructure could use some of those funds the reporter has demonstrated poor knowledge about the functioning of governments and tried to spread misinformation and perceptions that the Indian government has misplaced priorities.
Secondly, why is the reporter feeling guilty? Because the reporter is contributing to the sewage fluids that another human being is cleaning or because the reporter has not done enough to uplift that person from that state to a better one or because the reporter has not challenged authority to change status quo or is it because the reporter has written a poor article on a so called prestigious news agency’s website. It leaves me wondering where the reporter’s priorities are when he / she states – “How can our so-called civil society be so indifferent to the millions like him? I, for one, am left feeling guilty.”
Thirdly, there is no direct accusation or information about any municipal office responsible for such affairs. There is no link between the so called middle-class and upper middle-class as to why they should feel responsible for the sewage cleaner’s state of affairs. I am not a heartless man to ignore another man’s suffering. But I am not that naive to put the blame on someone who is working hard to make a living with a middle-class, upper middle-class or rich status. There is clear accusation on the government not doing anything about the lives of such people but instead spending the money on space programs. India is a country where the majority are poor, majority among the poor are below poverty line, lack education, opportunities, suffer caste discrimination and work in the most squalid conditions a person can imagine, work more hours than most people with a decent life and yet earn less than they can afford to eat a decent meal. Now they are the ones electing the government. They are the ones who believe that the leader they elect will change their lives for ever or at least attempt to. The so called economically comfortable people who wash off their responsibilities by expressing their altruistic thoughts in such articles on BBC are the ones corrupting the same government elected by the majority of the poor people. Given that there is such a symbiotic relationship between these factions, and the ‘poor people’ not willing to take things in their own hands by seeking knowledge, we are not going to eradicate such living conditions.
What people need is facts stated on a certain situation. These facts might call for the necessary authority to take action with enough information provided by the reporter and hopefully bring about at least attempt at bringing in change. It should be left to the reader as to what is justified and what not. There is no point in stating that the country should be stop spending in space programs and spend on sewer. A society needs to go on and which means a lot of activities must go on. Sometimes, changes are slow in happening and people suffer in the process. Nothing can be done about it. Instead of pitying them and having a false sense of guilt, the responsible journalism should ensure that the facts and facts alone reach the audience. If opinion is required, the readers would naturally seek the opinion section of the site and not intermingle it with factual journalism or News.
Me and my first Marathon
I ran a marathon last December and completed it in about 8 hours. I never really prepared for it although I thought I was reasonably fit to complete it in 5 hrs 30 mins. Running a marathon is a funny thing. There is lot of excitement and optimism at the beginning that you will meet the target you have set for yourself. As the run progresses and you become tired, you tell yourself that this is an incredible challenge and that you are attempting something that many don’t. And when you cross the mid-way point and your legs start to cramp, you develop thoughts that it is better to give up than to damage something in your legs and that it is not shameful to give up and try next year. But if you somehow convince yourself to carry on and reach the 30-34 KM range, you start to ask in your mind some profound philosophical questions about life and pain and the meaning of our actions; most questions for which you never get an answer. But if you still manage to drag yourself towards the final few kilometres of the run, then you get to a stage where there is nothing in your mind. It is blank with no thoughts, all you feel is a dull lingering pain that seems like it will stay with you for ever and you are no longer bothered about anything. There develops an insensitiveness that you have never experienced before or thought that you were never capable of. And then the finish; for one glorious moment, you feel at the top of the world, elated, as if you have been the first ever to attempt something like this and that you are the One. But this feeling vanishes as soon as you begin to revel and it follows by an incredible amount of pain that you have never experienced before. Pain you thought that human body was not capable to withstand and that you are probably going to have some permanent damage to your body. You start to look for a corner to sit and then just pass away.
At least this was how I felt during my ‘record’ 8 hours run. But I did finish. Right after I finished I looked for my brother who ran the same marathon and he finished just under 6 hours. He seemed to be doing quite fine except for some pain in his legs and here I was completely hopeless and wishing that life would just stop there. After a couple of days, I started to get back my usual spirit and the pain started to ebb away. I am now getting ready for my second attempt at the marathon called the Sundown Marathon in May. I hope to be better prepared this time and I am still aiming for that 5 hr 30 mins finish.
How to make Coconut Rice?
This Saturday started off well with getting up early and having a nice hot cup of coffee. I had to decide if I go out for lunch or make something at home. Mom came to the rescue. Few days back I bought grated coconut to make a particular type of coconut chutney and had some left overs of it in the fridge. So, she suggested that why don’t I make coconut rice and that’s it, I made up my mind to cook at home. Here is how I made it.
Ingredients:
1. 100 grams of grated coconut or less depending on how much you like coconut
2. Urad dhal – half a table spoon. Click if you don’t know what Urad dhal is.
3. Channa Dhal – half a table spoon. This is a bit hard to explain in English but it is commonly available. It is split black chick peas with the skin of the black chick peas removed. You should be able to get this in any grocery store. Check the linked Wiki article to read about it.
4. 2 green chillies
5. Mustard seeds – half a tea spoon
6. Salt
7. Cooked rice
Method:
Use a wok and add couple of table spoons of oil. You can use sunflower or canola oil. Add the Urad, Channa Dhal, Mustard seeds, chillies cut in small pieces. Once it starts to heat up, the dhal will start to turn brown. Add the grated coconut now and saute it a bit. Don’t overdo it since the coconut can easily burn. Once it heats up, switch off the heat and add the rice to the mixture and mix it well. Add salt to taste and voilà the coconut rice is ready.
The coconut rice goes very well with fried potatoes. Cut them in small pieces and saute the potatoes until they are cooked. Add salt and chilli powder to taste and it is a great side dish to the rice. Enjoy! and if you like it, leave your comments.
Pumpkin soup made easy
I tried my hand at pumpkin soup on Sunday and here is the way I did it in case you would like to try your hand at it.
Ingredients:
1. Red pumpkin – half a big one or one small one – approximately 1 kilogram
2. 3 Onion – purple or white – depending on what you like. I like the purple ones
3. 3-4 red chillies – You can use the green ones but it affects the colour of the soup
4. 3-4 cloves of garlic
5. Cayenne pepper – in powder form – half a table spoon or depending on how spicy you like it
6. Salt
7. Corriander leaves
8. Coconut milk – 150 milliliters
Method:
Remove the seeds of the pumpkin and the skin and cut them into small pieces – just so that it boils quickly. Boil the pumpkin chunks until they are soft. Cut the onions into small pieces. Keep it small so that they are not too chunky while eating the soup. Sautee the onions until they are golden brown. Don’t make it too brown as it will affect the colour of the soup.
Add the chillies, garlic, corriander and boiled pumpkin in a blender and make it into a nice paste. Pour this into the wok in which you sauteed the onions and let it simmer a little. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste and keep stirring. Just before it begins to boil, add the coconut milk and let it simmer a little. Don’t keep it too long as the coconut milk will start to separate and will make it taste bad. After you add the coconut milk, do not boil more than 5 minutes.
Add some corriander leaves and ground black pepper to garnish. Voilà the pumpkin soup is ready.
Let me know if you tried it and leave your comments below. Would appreciate it much.
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