Book Review: An Odyssey Of The Mind by Narendra Murty

According to the Odyssey, the epic written by the ancient Greek poet Homer, it was for ten years that Odysseus wandered around on the high seas after the Trojan War to reach his beloved country of Ithaca. The journey took Odysseus to several lands inhabited by different beings, and instead of permanently settling in any of these places, despite temptations, he managed to reach his destination. Narendra Murty has collected 20 of his essays written over ten years in this collection, aptly titled An Odyssey Of The Mind. It is evident that he has, in preparation for writing these essays, studied a wide range of disciplines and subjects and read a vast array of books. I believe it is to his credit that he expanded his knowledge base as wide as the sea between Troy and Ithaca and didn't confine himself to a single island of thought.

The essays in the book An Odyssey Of The Mind cover a wide range of topics: psychology, philosophy, ecology, economy, sociology, politics, and history, and all of them invariably centre on the challenges of living in the present age of AI, automation, cultural turmoil, and rampant consumerism. Murty has stated his aim as being to provide perspective to the confused person who is stuck in the rut of existence. He certainly makes the reader think and re-evaluate his life and that of the world around him, and that itself I feel is a success. Unlike the books that provide some ready-made and quick-fix solutions to living one's life, Murty makes the reader walk the tough path and come to their own solutions and conclusions about the topics that he raises.

The tone of the book is very conversational and makes the reader feel that a concerned friend is having a discussion about life. It changes from advisory to lamenting, from concerned to complaining, from grave and weighty to witty and jovial. We can find some satirical pieces and even a poem in there. This quality—the wide variety of topics and shifting tone—creates an intriguing experience.

Personally, I liked the essays on philosophy and psychology the most among the lot. It is in these essays that Murty comes into his element and puts forth humane arguments for living enriching lives. The one that differentiates knowledge and wisdom, another that ridicules the folly of blindly following quick fix books like The Secret, and yet another that dissects the increasing feeling of emptiness in spite of accumulating material wealth are some examples of the best empathetic writing that I have read.

At the other end of the spectrum are the essays on globalisation, the onset of a technological utopia, and concerns about the unchecked growth posed by humanity. There are many valid issues raised in these essays, and most of them have to be of immediate concern to our policymakers. But I don't believe that situation is as dire as it seems. I would take a far more lenient position as far as science is concerned. It is true that the progress of science is lopsided and lagging, thanks to the interference of our politicians and their misguided priorities. But it still seems to be on the right track, and it is only a matter of time before we reach our destination.

Technology, especially AI, will replace jobs and definitely pose a threat to our workforce. But so has every technological advancement that has happened in the past (though the scale may be higher this time). From agriculture to wheels to steam engines to computers, the function of technology is to disturb the status quo between production and inefficiency. Every upgrade has invariably resulted in the loss of livelihoods. I sincerely believe that collectively we will survive this onslaught too.

I believe right now is the time when human lives are most valued in all of history. Common people were treated worse than cattle throughout human history. But today they are treated at least as cattle. It is not ideal, but nevertheless, it is an improvement over forced slavery and mass killings. I believe humanity is at a crossroads, but we have faced such situations before. We may not choose the best path forward, but I am positive that the path that we choose will be the one that ensures survival.

An Odyssey Of The Mind is a thought-provoking collection of essays that examine some existential crises that modernity is facing. It is a very relevant book that asks all the right questions. The readers need not always agree with the views of the author, but the book's significance is that it forces the readers to think along its lines and draw their own conclusions on certain significant threats that are encircling us.

5 Things I Learned During Crisis

I hope I was missed. It is more than three months since I have posted anything here. There was a crisis in my life. I may share the details here some other time, may be at a time when I will be able to look back into all that happened in last three months and smile at them. But as they say, anything that does not kill you makes you tough. It was a learning period, when you are in the middle and lot of stuff happens around, things you wish had never happened, people you wish you had never met. Needless to say, I lost few things, but gained a lot. The crisis is unsolved yet and I am in no way sure of the outcome, but as of now, I am at peace with myself and the world. I am in a position now, to look back at things and analyze them, though it makes me feel sad. I thought I will make my come back post by writing about few things that I learned during this time. May be you can use them sometime.

1.     Face the heat: You got two options when shit hits the fan- run for cover or stay and face the heat. You run from any problem, it always finds a way to reach back to you. But if you stand and face it, in your terms and your way, there eventually emerges a solution. It may not be what you wanted, but some solution is better than no solution. At least you will not face the same problem again. And even if you do, you have some idea of how to tackle it again, because you stood up and faced it first time.

2.    Forget the convenient way, go for the right one instead: While facing any problem, there are many ways you can go about it. Normally people end up taking the first visible path that is seen in front. Because it is convenient. It is a well made path and you have a comfortable journey. The best thing is that you reach somewhere too. But most of the times it may not be the right path. The destination that you reach may not be the one where you should be because all you were looking at was the smooth, wide highway just in front of you. If you want to reach the right destination, you may have to look more intensely. It may be a path that is less travelled, laid with gravel, thorns and many obstacles, but which will take you were you really want to reach. Sometimes you may not even have a way to reach there and you have to make a new path. It is tough, but better than reaching a false destination and pretending that you have done a right thing.

3.       Let the life be principle-centered: All of us built our lives around some objects or virtues. We have lot of money-centered people amongst us, who is hell bent on making money their sole destination. There are luxury-centered people, God-centered people, spouse centered people, job- centered and alcohol centered people. What is your center? I feel we have to be principle centered. I feel I should have a set of well formed principles on which I build my life. My actions should be based on them. I told to someone last day, “I don’t feel the need of convincing you or anyone the rightness of my deeds. The only guy whom I should convince is that man in the mirror whom I see daily. If I am unable to meet my eyes with him, I know I am in some real trouble.” I believe principle centeredness gave me the confidence to assert it. But do not be too tight with your principles too. You will soon be an arrogant ego centered person. Every while let your inner man- the man in the mirror, audit your principles and let him to modify or scrap it for you. 

4. Keep your options open: No one can say what lies in future. Never shut a door fully unless you are clearly convinced it is out of bounds. Keep the good relations; give whatever support you can to anyone around you without giving a thought if they deserve it. Be open to everyone and every thing, because anything that comes to your life makes a mark on it. It is up to you how you interpret if the influence is good or bad. Let your life be flexible enough to accommodate diversity and it will surely pay one time or other.

5.      Money is a means, not the end: Money is never an evil. It is a necessity. Just like air and water is required to sustain life, in modern life money is essential to sustain and develop you. But undue importance should not be given for money. There is no point in killing a relationship for sake of money.

That's all for now, guys. Keep smiling.

A Management Talk...

"I cannot do this job. These guys, you know, never obeys what I say. And at the end of shift, our boss call me and fire like anything for not getting production as per target. I feel like running away from here." K was disparate. (No, he is not Joseph K and I am not a Kafka wannabe. His name starts with K and as I respect his privacy, I am reluctant to reveal the full name. Which is again absurd because any of my company employee reading this Blog will id him and others, I am sure won't care a hoot).

This guy used to work under me and as his performance was quite good, he was promoted to another department, handled by my boss, as a foreman when there was a vacancy. He was finding it difficult to cope with additional responsibilities and was ready to come back to the former position. But our boss was not agreeing.

The time was evening, and our cab was about to move out. If I am going to miss it, I will have to hitch a ride with any of the big shots in their comfortable air conditioned cars, which sounds a pretty good proposition, but is not the case, as my previous experiences had taught me. Lending ear to more office talk or gossip, as these talks eventually turn into, is harrowing. But as is my inherent style, I decided to hand him some pearls of wisdom quickly so that I won't miss my cab. (The best things about giving advise according to me, is that it does not cost you anything and can generate enormous goodwill. So I never misses a chance.)

I will not check your patience by giving all the personal things that we discussed. In short, I gave him some tips on dealing with workers and our boss from my experience, as my relation with both parties had been quite stable till now. I concluded by telling him a story that I read in an article sometime back, which I feel may be of interest to my readers.

Once a manager approached his mentor who is in the top management of another firm. He was totally let down by his team and was blamed on a daily basis by top management for the failures. He was frustrated of dealing with his subordinates, who hated him, and with his superiors who simply blamed him for any and every trivial matters.

His mentor asked him, "How much salary you draw every month?"

"Rs 60000."

"Ok. Just think that for the actual work that you do in office, you are paid Rs 20000. Rest of the payment is for getting hated and blamed. You don't have any physical work like an operator or your juniors. Your actual job is getting hated and blamed. Now if you have this attitude and you work for reducing the hate and blame targeted at you, you will be in profit. Always remember, for the actual work that you do, you get only 40% of your salary. 60% of salary is for getting blamed and hated by others and for absorbing the pressure."

On laughter and forgetting

Decades before, in Bohemia, a communist general, Gottwald, took over the power. Standing near to him when he was addressing the nation for the first time, on a balcony when snow flakes were falling, was Vladimir Clementis. To protect the leader from snow, Clementis keeps his fur cap on Gottwald's head. The photograph of Gottwald, fur cap and Clementis on the balcony with snow falling around them became popular. Years later when Clementis was executed, charged with treason, the propaganda department deleted him from the history, and also from the photograph, leaving his fur cap on the head of Gottwald the only spot of him in history.

  

In "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting", Czech writer Milan Kundera elaborates on two of the biggest enigmas of post modern world, laughter and forgetting. This is not a conventional kind of novel. It consists of seven totally different narratives, but altogether bound by the themes of laughter and forgetting. In between the stories there are snippets of memories, political satire and philosophical banter. Novel analyses variations of forgetting and laughter. Natural forgetting, like the wife after her husband's death trying unsuccessfully to remake him in every man whom she meets, and induced forgetting, like the one were Clementis is totally made to remain forgotten from public minds. Induced laughter, the one made by humor or jokes, and natural laughter, the angel's laughter, or serious laughter that comes by itself. 

This is Kundera's third book that I read. The effect of  "Life is elsewhere", the novel about the life of a poet, a novel that I read during my teens, is getting worn. Think its time for a re-read. "Testaments Betrayed" that I read last year, is a collection of essays. In this one Kundera makes a parallel between the history of Novel and European classical music. The part about music went above my head. But the part about novels were fascinating. Ultimately the discussion reaches Kafka and betrayed testaments are that of Kafka, whose works were published posthumously, although his instruction to his friends was to destroy all his notebooks.   

Art of/and Understanding

"Modern art is just some colour thrown on a canvas."

"The book is a classic one. I could not follow it."

"These movies are not made for public, who can understand these?"



Pablo Neruda



Certain comments I have encountered in many places!

My doubt is that, is an art form bad or good just because it is some thing that is difficult for you to comprehend? Or is it necessary for a work of art to be simplistic that every one can identify with that, the moment they encounters it?



My opinion is that every work of art needs a certain level of understanding, an effort from the viewers side to appreciate it. For some it may be minimal, like a screwball comedy movie, or a hip hop song. But for some, you need some preperation, some back ground knowledge of the times it was made or on many times, a second effort to appreciate it fully, like a novel of Kafka, or a piece of classical music. Many people are very allergic to give an exercise to their brain and when they comes up on something for which a minimal cerebral effort is required they lap it up.

I was reading Neruda some times back. I am not much into poetry, but this one was fascinating, though a bit tough to visualize the imagery used. Then I happened to read his biography and was amazed to know that the laymen of his country Chile, took these anti capitalist anthems to heart because the images in the poetry was taken from their day to day life and Pablo Neruda worked among them. So it is not a universal law that such art form, intellectual, if I can say so, has a very less patronship. With strategical marketing the appreciation level of public can be raised.

Abstract art

Another of my doubt is whether art should mimic life? Like is it necessary for a picture or a verse to show reality as it is, or even it should give a meaning? Like an instrumental music is not natural and if vocals are not added to it, it never emulates a meaning. But it is an art form. Like wise is it necessary that a pattern on a canvas to give a meaning to spectator? Or can I just appreciate it for the mix of colurs or the intricate design it shows. Or even a collection of words that does not make any sense, but feels good to hear... ?

If my knowledge is correct, abstract art borders on these concepts. I think it was Burgess who said that if he is writing about a Bengal tiger, what is wrong if it has five legs or talks, after all it is a figment of his imagination...

Flashes of insane thoughts...?

The lizard on the ceiling boasted to the man beneath: "Weight of this ceiling is safe on my shoulders..!"

The angry man shouted back: "Get off my ceiling, you filthy reptile."

Precisely the moment lizard got off, ceiling fell! 

I am not sure whether the man got a chance to curse his foolishness for making a pillar-less ceiling, there by giving a chance to the reptile for shouldering its weight. 

****

I know why the flap of my ears are open outwards. If it was inwards, I would have turned insane hearing the shouting of my brain.

****

Marriage and funerals- two rituals that I find very boring. Sometimes I wonder if I can sit through at least mine.. !

****

Recently I saw myself,

naked,

on a mirror on the wall. 

Realized that I am watching myself, 

after many years, 

may be a decade. 

And I cannot recognize him, 

this stranger, 

on this mirror on the wall...

****

People say they are afraid of uncertainties...!

Then why are they afraid of Death,

Which is the only certain thing in life...

****

The title of Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction should be Pulp F#ction..

Yeah, it was a bad joke,

I mean, It was a f*$#@in bad f$#@ed up joke, you muffin...

Growth: An organic concept

GROWTH

The magical word which makes everyone in this world excited. A small kid, a sprout, a family man, an entrepreneur, a shop keeper, a contractor or a politician. An organisation, a sports team or a nation. The aim of every one is to grow. To touch the horizon of greatness, of success. 

If you consider the phenomenon of growth as a natural process, it is very interesting to note how contrasting it is with the idea associated in present days with it. These days, everyone aspires for an overnight growth. Companies want to triple their growth rate every quarter, moms want their kids to be taller, stronger more mature than peers. A business man wants to earn profit the next day he invests. 

But if you observe closely how an organism grows, it is clear that growth rate is directly proportional to the life of the being. This may not be a very exact observation, but a very near to exact one. It is also a very gradual step by step process. A kid takes years to become a matured person, taking one step at a time to observe and start reacting to its surroundings and developing its mind and body from the time it is conceived in the womb. The turning of helplessness into confidence takes a time of atleast 20 years. Also important is the inputs that it intakes. Nutritious intake of food in right quantities, at right time, continual education required to develop the mind, all complements the process.

Now if the parents want their kid to start running in the age of  one and to defeat Viswanathan Ananth in ten, it is just over ambition. (Athimohamanu mone Dinesha.. as Mohanlal says in a masala movie). If they force feed the kid with more nutrients and over pressure to excel, it will cause more harm to the kid finally. 

In other systems also this theory should hold well. Like if you take the case of a start up, careful planning with achievable goals combined with a proper execution with sufficient inputs, qualitative and quantitative, and ethical transactions with their vendors and suppliers are essential for a wholesome growth. Otherwise the result is premature death. 

Being content..

"I AM CONTENT WITH MY LIFE!"

A sentence that you often hear in interviews, especially ones were the interviewee is a senior, well experienced person, who has reached on a top position by great hard work and toil. But I don't think I have ever heard this one, if interviewee is a beginner, some one who just tasted success and someone who is expected to reach on top after some hard work and toil.

Is this a coincidence, or is being content in your life is a feeling when you reach on zenith and are sure that what you are is the maximum possible to achieve? Is 'Being Content in life', a statement of accepting failure in front of old age? If a young person admits he is content with life, is he a loser or a quitter or is he trying to shirk off his responsibilities?

I believe being content is a feeling where you are at peace with people, nature, universe and yourself. It is not the feeling that you don't want anything more from life, but it is when you love what you are getting from life, and invest it to the most and gets benefited out of it- money, experience, affection or wisdom. Peer pressure, failures, back stabbing from friends does not affect you. You are eager to achieve success, but it is not for monetary gains or for show off. When you are a content man you aspire success because you know it is yours for the taking, and it cannot escape you, provided you walk towards it.

This feeling gives you confidence, relieving you of your fear for failure and humiliation. You know you are right and if proved wrong you are ready to gracefully admit and correct your actions, thereby leading to higher success. You completely takes responsibility to your actions and is reluctant to blame others for things happening to you. You gets proactive as you are not defensive. You are away from rat race and you can enjoy your time doing quality work. You can enjoy the beauty of nature, you have time for a walk in the early morning, or for appreciating a work of art. You cannot be compelled to do something that you do not like. You live your life with a set of principles that you stand for. You get respect and love from the people who enters your life because you are content with your life and they don't fear you harming them in any way.

That is being content... !

To Respond, or To React..?

I was reading this article on maintaining an emotional maturity in work place, when these two terms got into my attention- React and Respond. Two words that sounds similar, but the implications are totally different. 

To react is automatic, reflexive and mostly impulsive.

To respond is thoughtful, calculated, reflective and often positive in nature.

If we depend on reactions, we do not have any control on the situation. 

Like some one hits you, you hit him back, he and two of his friends barges into your home, kicks the shit off you, knocks down two of your front teeth and pisses on your expensive Persian carpet.

But response gives you total control of the situation. 

Now some one hits you, you bear it grinning, later you call two of your good friends, barges into his home at night when you are sure he is drunk and alone, beat the shit off him, knock his front teeth and piss on his expensive Persian carpet... See, now who won the war by giving a thoughtful, planned response...?

I started this one as a very serious post, but could not help it... sorry guys :-)

Lessons That I Learned as a Mechanical Engineer: One

I have read a lot of forwarded emails circulating with similar themes as that  of this title which are quite humorous. I myself has forwarded some of them. This post is more of a rumination of what exactly I learned, or imbibed in life as a mechanical engineer. Wherever I had worked, (there are quite some places, thanks to my nomadic nature!) the basic mode of work is similar, which can serve as a good model in any walk of life. 

 

Before proceeding, I will introduce you to a few terms, which will make our discussion more comprehensible. First one is PROCESS. Process is when some work is done on a set of inputs to give a desired output. So it becomes imperative that the quality and quantity of  inputs as well as the work done is what decides the quality of output. Next word is SYSTEM. System is a collection of different processes, that are interconnected with each other and mostly the output of one process serves as the input of another one. 

Consider life as a system, entangled with numerous interrelated processes. If any of the process is not giving the desired result, analyze the inputs that you feed into the system. Check it both quantitatively and qualitatively. Also give a look to the way you use the input. There may be an anomaly in the way you process them. Like for example: The gastronomic problem may be due to junk food (quality of input), due to excessive gobbling up of  dinner (quantity of input),  or due to not chewing the food properly and consuming as if world is going to end tomorrow (problem with the process).

See you next time with more...

Life Of Pi: A Bizarre Recommendation

Recommendations find me in very bizarre ways..

I have an interest in quite a wide variety of things, so I always hunt for recommendations- from friends, media, reviews. And some times I get a recommendation out of blue. Many times it works and sometimes not.

Some weeks back I happened to visit a blog in which the blogger wrote a post on feeding her dog. She wanted to know what was the natural food that was to be given. I replied it does not matter because domestication of dog is not a natural process. Hunting is what the natural mode of life sustaining to dog. 

Her reply was that, she took great care of dog, it was comfortable in her home and never wanted to go away. The logic sounds solid, but my doubt was, whether another option is given to dog,? Did it knew it can be free and hunt like his other cousins living in forest? And I mentioned the Jack London's novel Call of the wild, that chronicles the transformation of a dog to a wild hound when it gets a chance to come out of its comfortable human company. 

May be she was a bit irritated, and closed the matter commenting that she believed dogs, and other animals of course, are better protected with humans and they do not have to suffer for food like when in a jungle and she got her opinion from reading Life of Pi, a novel by Yann Martel. 

Now when came across this novel, I remembered this incident and decided to read it. And I am glad I did it. It is a wonderful piece of fiction, kind of Robinson Crusoe meets Panchatantra tales. 

Yann Martel is a Spanish writer, who came to India, to sustain himself as it is cheap here and also to get some inspiration, to write a good novel. He found it in Pondicherry, a former french colony, now a union territory surrounded by Tamil Nadu state. 

Pi, or Piscine Molitor Patel is a sixteen year old boy, the son of a zoo keeper. Political turmoil in the country makes the family decide to sell the animals and settle in Canada. On the way to Canada, the ship in which they travels, sinks. All family is killed except Pi, who escapes on a life boat along with an oddly named Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker! Pi stays in the boat and survives the six month journey with the help of lessons learned about animal behavior in his zoo. No one believes his story when he reaches back to civilization.      

The novel falls flat in the first couple of chapters. The obsession of Pi with all three religoins of the subcontinent reminded me of that scene in Manmohan Desai's epic masala movie Amar, Akbar, Anthony were all three siblings belonging to different religions, unknowingly donates blood to their long lost mother. (The scene shows three of them lying on bed and a tube circulates blood from all three simultaneously into the arteries of the old lady!) The balancing acts gets mushy. Another turn off was the long passages where author tries to justify zoos. Can you imagine Moby Dick starting with Ishmael defending whale hunting?

But once the boat sinks, the story starts floating. The suspense builds up, narrative becomes tight and you can feel the saltiness and heat in the middle of Pacific ocean. Richard Parker steals the show with its antics. The battle for superiority between animals is portrayed with much sincerity.

The notable point of the story is the transformation of the boy. A strict vegetarian by birth, he is forced to eat fish and turtles. The remorse that he feels when he kills a fish the first time just disappears moments later. Later it is also revealed that he ate a small portion of human meat too, of another stowaway, with same intentions, whom he meets mid-sea and whom Richard Parker polishes off.   

After reading the book I feel that my Blogger friend has misread it. The story shows that man is just a civilized animal, who can turn around to his basic instincts once the need arise. Another point is when Richer Parker exits into a jungle after the journey, without even acknowledging the presence of Pi, his tamer (which is strikingly similar to the way in which Buck, the dog in Call of the wild, exits into wild.. So the initial passages justifying zoo life gets contradictory and may be author included it there for irony. Then it is the master stroke of the book!

The Son Rise

Title is not misspelt. I precisely meant what I typed! These are the days of son rises. In politics, business, movies- sports seems to be an exception. May be because talent is a must there!

A son rise happens when a successful person, mostly who built up his own life by talent and hard work, promotes his son (or daughter)  to continue his legacy. On paper this may sound fair and fine. But, in reality?

Last week I happened to read an admission by Rahul Gandhi, scion of Nehru family, (I think attaching a Gandhi title to their family name is not a fair thing to do) touted as the next Prime Minister of India, in a meeting with students, that his family back ground has helped him in coming up in political circle. The story also mentioned that this candid admission did not go down well with audience. 

Now if an average person has to come up in politics, he should start from being an ordinary party member and then show sufficient leadership and organizational skills to slowly  make his way among the crowd to the top. It takes years of hard work and toil in different levels- from grass root to national. When the son of a political leader enters politics, he gets a top position automatically. On what basis can we ensure that this person deserves the position?

This situation makes me think of the origin of caste system. With division of labor, classes originated. Then after years, came a situation where it became impossible to a man belonging in one class to migrate to another, better class, socially or economically. Son of King remained King and son of cobbler remained cobbler. And society was plunged deep into caste system for centuries.

Are we going back to the same period...? When sons occupy the position of their rich fathers, there is no scope of outsiders to come in.

Being Proactive aka Prevention IS Cure..

"Mr X has ideas, see how he always find a way out in situations!" The voice of security guy whispered in my ear.

A bit of background info. Mr X is the senior manager of the understaffed maintanence department in the place I work. Right then he was standing in the middle of shop floor, giving instructions by sound and actions to some 15 odd workers and engineers, who stood surrounding him. He gave the appearence of the conductor of an orchestra, trying to put his musical thoughts into vocal notes from musicians around him. Tomorrow we have to despatch an important consignment and one crucial machine in the line broke down. His effort was to start the production line by combining some other machines of an adjacent line. He connected the machines by conveyours and made workers to stand in junctions to relay the work from one conveyour end to next. Mindboggling!

I replied to the security guy in whisper, " Mr X has got some really cool ideas. But if atleast some six months back, he had recruited competitive personnel, enforced regular preventive maintenance schedules and ensured the availability of machine spares in case of emergencies, we would never had faced this situation in first case."

Enough of rambling... enjoy these great songs from Amar Prem. (the kind of movie that they can never dream of making these days.) When compared to the acting calibre of Khanna and Tagore, all Khans and Roshans are nowhere in the picture..

A reason to live or An option to die?

My post on Guzaarish, the latest movie on Euthanasia, has attracted a fair amount of comments, with lot of different views being presented. The only unanimous view was regarding the movie, every one thrashed it. Now I feel some further explanation is needed about my view on the subject.

Many people supports the idea of awarding death to some one who is suffering from some fatal disease or injuries. Several factors that favors such a thought are pain, suffering, dependability, disability, dignity, mental anguish, causing pain and suffering to relatives and friends.

Now my view is that for any decision involving the life of a person, utmost care has to be taken, so that there is no margin for error. If there is any chance of an innocent getting executed, better not to have laws that favors capital punishment. A life taken is irreversible. Definitely there are people who deserve to die, but what if someone who is wrongfully accused gets a death sentence? It is a severe situation and don't tell me our, or any other constitution and laws are error free. I propose the abolishment of capital punishment for this one reason alone.  

Coming back to Euthanasia, a decision has to be taken that causes a damage, that can in no way be corrected afterwards. So on what basis can a system guarantee that a right decision is taken?. If a totally paralyzed person is decided to be awarded mercy killing, doesn't it matter that his consent is not taken? Or if a suffering person want to die, what way does it makes him eligible to exercise his wish? There are people who went on with their life even in a paralyzed state providing inspiration to millions around the world. So shall we encourage him to embrace death or shall we provide him enough support and motivation to embrace  life and go on with it.  From  my own post:

Brain dead patients whom doctors had certified dead has returned back. It may be a minority case, but still valid. If  the sufferer loses hope and decides to die, what makes it different from a suicide? How can the border line be drawn between a case of mercy killing and suicide? After all I believe suffering is a response to a situation by an individual. It is not a situation itself. Another person may, in the same circumstances fight with his will power to his fate and emerge victorious. (Imagine Stephen Hawking). There are plenty of cases where people with sever first degree burns throughout their body, went on to get cured and lead a normal life. There are cases were quadriplegic patients, bedriden for more years than the protagonist, bounced back .

Stephen Hawking is in an increasing state of paralysis and assisted by a speaking wheel chair for support. Now, what if he decided to end his life? There are inspiring stories of men and women who had fought disabilities and made their life worthwhile. (Please see the link in the above quote.) Instead of debating on whether to take a life legally, let us find out a way to support them and make their short life on earth better and joyful.  

This lady recovered from being in a vegetable state.

For almost 70 days, she was totally unresponsive. Doctors finally pulled her feeding tube. And, for eight days, she was dying.

Then Ms. Adamson began responding on her own. Doctors quickly put the feeding tube back in, and she recovered.

See this page for links to more stories like this. What shall we do? Provide a reason to live, or an option to die?

Enough of serious talk, enjoy these two great songs, Send Me an Angel and Losing My Religion:

Creativity, Puzzles and humour through lateral thinking

I had wrote on Lateral Thinking in a previous post. There I had given a very brief introduction on the concept and advantages of thinking the lateral way.In this post I am planning to show that it is not an alien concept and we encounter it in our every day life and even uses it some time to solve trivial problems without realizing...

So before we proceed I would like to recall the way lateral thinking is done. The mind continuously makes patterns with information accessed by it, that later becomes difficult to break or modify. Lateral thinking enables us to rearrange or modify these patterns and come to dramatic and effective results....

Creativity and Innovation

Creativity sounds a word too complicated... But basically many creative ideas originate when two totally different ideas are joined together or when the the information available to all is analysed from a different approach. de Bono calls it an outsider's approach. 

In his own words:

"For many years physiologists could not understand the purpose of the long loops in the kidney tubules: it was assumed that the loops had no special function and were a relic of the way the kidney had evolved.Then one day an engineer looked at the loops and at once recognized that they could be part of a counter-current multiplier, a well-known engineering device for increasing the concentration of solutions. In this instance a fresh look from outside provided an answer to something that had been a puzzle for a long time. "

Puzzles

Puzzles are of different types- mathematical, logical and some that requires out of the box thinking. Basically puzzles require us to arrive at a conclusion or a solution from processing certain information supplied to us. In case of mathematical and logical puzzles the processing is quite simple. A step by step procedure will already be there to move, and if this procedure is followed we reach the conclusion.

eg:

Haretown and Tortoiseville are 44 miles apart. A hare travels at 8 miles per hour from Haretown to Tortoiseville, while a tortoise travels at 3 miles per hour from Tortoiseville to Haretown.
If both set out at the same time, how many miles will the hare have to travel before meeting the tortoise en route?

Solution: The hare and the tortoise are together covering the distance at 11 miles per hour (i.e., on adding their speeds).
So, they will cover the distance of 44 miles in 4 hours.
Thus, in 4 hours, they will meet and the hare will have traveled 32 miles.

But in certain other kinds of puzzles these methods never work. In those cases the information given to us will be either partial, made to mislead the situation or both... There will not be any solution mathematically or logically. What requires is to think out of the box, from a new perspective.. To rearrange the patterns that are made by the information given to us.

eg:

A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his apartment. Why?

Solution: The man is a dwarf. He can't reach the upper elevator buttons, but he can ask people to push them for him. He can also push them with his umbrella.

Humour

The best humor always is the result of lateral thinking. 

eg:

"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving may not be for you."

The first part of the statement reminds you of a quote that you are well aware. So the mind pulls out those patterns made in the past ready to use them. But by the time second part is stated, those patterns become obsolete.. because a new revelation is made..This causes humour. Some times lot of built up is made by using the patterns already created in the brain and in the final moment rearranging them to give a totally different picture.  

eg:

His face was pinched and drawn. With faltering footsteps he wended his way among the bustling Christmas crowd.

"Kind sir," he suddenly exclaimed, "will you not give me a loaf of bread for my wife and little ones?" The stranger regarded him not unkindly.

"Far be it from me," he rejoined, "to take advantage of your destitution. Keep your wife and little ones; I do not want them."

Here an atmosphere is created till the end and in the last reply, a sudden twist is mad, so that the hearer realizes that stranger has misunderstood the request which causes the mental pattern to get rearranged thereby creating humour.

		Answer for the picture puzzle :

 

Thinking laterally

I attended a class some time back, where the guy asked us a question. He drew a point on a black board and asked whether any one can start drawing a straight line from there and meet the same point again. The exercise was to demonstrate the lateral thinking process. Lateral Thinking is a critical thinking method proposed by Edward de Bono who started a thought revolution, suggesting that thinking as a skill can be taught and practiced. Today Lateral Thinking is practiced in many class rooms and corporate offices all over the world with excellent and effective results. 

People generally associate the process of thinking  as a purely intellectual exercise and believes good thinkers are born genius. de Bono proves it other wise. As per him creativity and genius are not accidents or luck. They are the result of an organized thought process caused by rearrangement of thought patterns... Any one can think critically and get astounding results..

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking involves judging the thoughts to find out any kind of errors, that is not obvious and can cause a variation in the results.  So when a statement is put forward, a critical thinker deliberately studies it from all view points, thereby determining whether to accept, reject or rephrase the statement... A Critical thinker,  while putting forward an argument ensures that it is logical from all sides and does not contain any factual or judgmental errors. It is self- corrective too. It is like putting forward a scientific theory and proving that it practically works in specified circumstances.Most important requirement for a critical thinker is to be free of bias, ego and having an open mind. Different common mistakes made by people, that obstructs critical thinking is documented in detail by Mr K R Ravi in his book "Thinking About Thinking" published by Jaico in India... Critical thinking is an essential habit to practice lateral thinking... But before knowing about Lateral thinking, it is essential to know about the normal way our mind works, that can be called as vertical thinking.

What is Vertical thinking?

The biggest advantage and disadvantage of human mind is its pattern making ability . Mind works by making patterns with information that it receives. Brain joins together all the stimuli (data) that it receives from different sensory organs in a particular style that is determined by the order in which  it receives them. And a code is assigned to it. When that code is given to the brain in future, it pulls out the whole pattern and then process it by adding or reducing more bits of information thereby constructing more complex patterns.  Language is the best code. When brain hears the word red, it registers immediately a sight that was associated with the word before and interprets the color... This saves a huge amount of time while thinking, when the code is given to brain a thought can be triggered with a huge amount of data associated with it as ready made patterns. So when you hear or read the word "Terminator", immediately the brain associate it with Schwarzanegger  and lot of inter mixed patterns of scenes, dialogues, sounds, images of friends who had accompanied to Cinema all loaded together. Then as per the requirement of the situation, brain takes up the patterns out, adds or reduces data to form a new pattern.

But it has a disadvantage that patterns in course becomes so strong by the addition of various irrelevant data that it becomes difficult to disassociate certain things afterward. Like US airport authorities having a problem with people with beard. All photographs of terrorists they have seen are with beards, so they associate a beard with terrorists, making life hell for innocent passengers. Also another important problem is the difficulty to rearrange the patterns as they are formed in the order data arrives in mind and not in the order of accuracy.

So vertical thinking is the normal method of thinking were information is stacked one above another like a multi storied building. It is difficult to rearrange data in this normal method...and it is where lateral thinking comes into picture.

What is Lateral Thinking?

In this approach we don't go step by step, we go parallel. Instead of relying on ready-made patterns solely, for thinking process, here either existing patterns are deformed and rearranged or whole new patterns are constructed. Lateral thinking involves in creating more paths, to a solution thereby increasing the chance of reaching there.

Vertical thinking is digging deep when no water is found, whereas lateral thinking is digging at a new place when result is not achieved. In  vertical thinking, solution as well as the path for reaching the solution are equally important, but in lateral thinking, only correct solution matters. Distance from problem to solution can be covered in an infinite different ways, if we are ready to break and rearrange the patterns...which brings us to the answer of the question asked to us in the class on lateral thinking... Answer is to draw the straight line in any direction to a distance equal to the circumference of earth and there, the point will be reached due to the curvature of earth. Only one guy answered it that day and humility does not allow me to reveal his identity.



Most of the details expressed in this post and in few others that I plan to make in near future as a continuation to the topic are not original. I had just tried to express the concept of  Lateral Thinking, as good as I comprehend. So all mistakes here are mine and basis of everything else are the work of de Bono and several others working in this field... If you are interested more details on laeral thinking and exercises to practice it can be found in the book Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono.