The Will in Philosophy

'The Story of Philosophy' by Will Durant is a pioneering work in philosophy, which I was fortunate enough to struggle through during my college days. It deserves a show-case for itself, though it is castrated by the fact that Oriental philosophers have been omitted, probably because of the fact that Advaitha requires many minds per person for even a basic level of understanding.

However, many years later, I come to the understanding that most philosophers do nothing more than describe very drab situations with incredibly flowery language. They rarely change the socioeconomintellectual situation, only describe it in incredibly flowery language. Change needs courage and leadership, philosophy is but reflection. Leadership is action.

Heady hedonism

Was going through some of the Avatar's quotes recently; cant stop myself from posting this one, which I feel is the biggest lesson that we never learn:

End joy, enjoy.

In dependence - from cotton to code

We celebrated our Independence day on 15th Aug. Precisely, we celebrated our Independence from the British on 15th Aug. Yet, in a world that touts independence but flourishes on lopsided interdependence, we are far from independent.

More specifically, unless we are psychologically independent, we can never truly be free. We are still that source of cheap labour, currently for US-based MNCs. In other words, we simply have had our object of servitude shifted from the UK to the US. Prior to 1947, we were physical labourers for UK-based companies, now we are automatons for US-based companies.

From growing cotton to entering code, the situation has changed little. Prior to 47, we sold our cotton to UK companies for clothing that got sold back to us. Now, we create code for US-based companies for software that runs our infrastructure, right from refinery information management to avionics for our airplanes. The cotton-growing farmer and the call-centre operator are different but in garb,- one toiled physically, the other strives mentally. One fed British imperialism, the other feeds American capitalism.

Unless we shake ourselves free from the shackles of self-indoctrinated psychological insubordination to everything Western, we will never really achieve independence, we'll always be in dependence.

History in the commenting

I have created (personal) history here. Someone has actually commented in my blog. And it was an anonymous comment, from a very public person, Rajesh. The downside to my upside in blogging is that his comment was a response to a very innocuous post of mine, Holy song, wholly performance.

Coincidental Krishna

We marked the first anniversary of our Mandir yesterday, with lots of religious fanfare and mild spiritual overtures. As an insignificant cooincidence, yesterday was also Krishna Janmashtami. We celebrated the same with an Ekadasi Rudram session of Lord Shiva.

God is in the details

The more you engage in business, the more this message hits you: He who accepts mediocrity must himself be pretty mediocre. Infinite patience with mediocrity is poor management and aimless leadership.

On cutin and creation

Humanity always takes insanity to greater heights of incredulity.

Now, they have grown actual living and breathing mice from reengineered skin cells. And of all places, it had to be in the world's largest producer of human beings,- China.

Unzooed animals

Took my family to Jumeirah zoo yesterday. Akshitha was tired of seeing animals on the screen. Figured out one thing yesterday,- real animals live outside the zoo. Many of those animals looked more humane than some humans that I know of.