Do women drive badly?

Lady Driver ! - I want to put that as my bumper sticker :-) As a warning! :-O  like the baby on board stickers :-) I think its very funny. I know its sarcastic but I dont know if its a take on  sexists or feminists or both :D

Anyway coming to the question - Do women drive badly ? Is it true?
https://mystic-babe.blogspot.com/2014/02/reasoning.html 

I decided to not go by stereotype like people who blindly believe that women drive badly and also to not be affected by liberal blindness and feminist rage :D. People like me so firmly believe in equality that we dont see reality staring us in the face.

I decided to notice other people, take note of the drivers who annoy me who drive badly etc.  I love finding patterns, and I am good at it.

Are all women bad drivers? definitely not.  I drive daily, I drive well for the record. ok but  are all bad drivers women? Definitely not ....but..


Firstly, Genuinely bad and dangerous drivers who are a threat to people on the streets, those to jump lanes, drive too fast, cut you off , weave in traffic etc. Mostly were men. Almost 99% men,  white vans and buses( this sometimes driven by women) , professional drivers who drive every day and a lot, who are exhausted frustrated and couldn't care less. ( but not Uber drivers ) And also young men under 25. I will be politically incorrect and say many of these were Black and Asian men, trying to be cool with beard/jewellery etc. ( This may be due to the area I drive in or whatever )
So the Stereotype is completely false? No actually.
There is another type of bad driver, the annoying driver. They are not exactly a threat on the street, but they raise your BP, They irritate the fuck out of you and make u swear more than the first group because you are too stunned to swear at a real bad driver :D They driver slowly, really slowly, They break suddenly, they stop at the orange light, they turn without indicator or give wrong indicator, they look like they are going to turn but wont.  What is the profile of these? Old people, both  men and women. Very old like all white hair types usually.  and women.  Political incorrectness time again, They were either mums doing school run or  Muslim women in hijab. 
So! Do women drive badly? No!
Do muslim women in Hijab drive badly then? No!
Clearly the main reason for this kind of driving is lack of confidence.  These people are not driving daily, even if they are may be not having equal standing in society affects our confidence and ability to drive?
Did women driver badly in 70s? probably, They had more unequal standing in the society and hence probably lacked confidence.
In my view, Its not lack of spatial awareness or direction sense, its confidence that made women drive badly at the time.
My conclusion is all generalizations have a grain of  truth in it, but it is superficial truth. Instead of just going by numbers and statistics and coming to stupid conclusions, people should delve deeper and look at the root cause or real reason for issues in the spirit of true scientific enquiry.

Not Shy about being Shy,

 I am free to be shy, I dont have to feel bad about not talking, not saying that hi, not asking that question. I am free to stay in that corner , quite and not interacting. Yeah! not Shy about being shy.

Extreme/Excess?

This annoys me like hell, like health and safety does. I dont have a name for this. May be it can be called Excess or greed? or indulgence? I want it - I get it?

When I was a kid I liked pink. So, my parents got me one pink dress or may be 2. Now, girls like pink, So EVERYTHING is pink.  Dress to bicycle to shoes to underwear and toilet paper!!! Pink!!!
When I was a kid I liked Dosa, So "when" my mom made Dosa I was happy and ate happily without fuss. I enjoyed it. Now if kids like Chicken, it means they dont eat anything else but eat only chicken. They eat chicken everyday,every meal. Whatever is cooked at home, chicken is cooked for them!
Garlic is good for us - Indian cuisine, add garlic to some foods, Westerners - take a garlic tablet every day!!
Meat makes us strong, we should eat protein, So now we invent Keto diet! we will eat only protein. Carbs ? Eeeeeks!!!! We treat it as if its shit or poison.
Make up makes us look good, We used to wear makeup on special occasions, but now people wear makeup every day. Some even when swimming - water proof makeup. False lashes, fake nails? Fake hair attachments?  This was the realm of movie stars and stage artists. Normal day to day people didnt feel the need to "Dress up" like this.
If you liked shiny clothes, Ok you could wear it for weddings and functions. Today, glitter is in every thing from my eraser to toilet paper :P Thanks for all the micro plastic pollution ppl!
Intimacy - from the age 15 to death, we want someone to f***. In relationship fine, if not pick someone from the pub/tinder or friend with benefits!?

All this is same thing , We dont want to control cravings and we are slaves to it. In this society, Controlling our wants and especially controlling the wants of children is seen as some kind of cruel abuse! *rolls eyes*

phone camera

Thinking about my past in early 2000s I was going for horse riding and Kalari martial art, was really excited about it and about treks too. Very few others did and were even interested. Only thing people were interested in was - did u meet anyone :) Felt like the reason to do anything any class or trek or hobby was to meet someone. :-)  There was a culture of treks, photography etc in Bangalore, no doubt but it was niche.
Now u find everyone wants to do all these things, This explosion of interest coincides with Facebook and Instragram . A judgemental thought comes to my mind - Is it that people got inspired by seeing others pictures  and are doing things Or are people more interested in posting the pics and increase their interesting quotient than actually doing it?
If people stop looking at what they are doing, how many are still interested?
I think its also the need to fit in, lot of people do lot of things because everyone else is doing it. In contrast some people do a lot of things just because no one else is doing ( yours truely may be guilt of that at times ;-)

Also I remember how kids looked when we were small, especially boys, they had summer cut, basically so short no one shud be able to pull it when they fight :) Standard T shirt and shorts, no one cared how they look. We dressed up only for Photo days - once or twice in a year.
Now lil kids are fashionistas, even boys, toddlers with their little suits and ties, Boys seem to have designer haircuts, look so much more expensive than mine ! Is this the effect of constantly having a camera? Parents are under presentation pressure?

Stars and celebrities used to live under the glare of the camera and media before and lead a stressful life, Now have we become like that in our day to day life?
How much of our life is for the camera? Should we get rid of the camera on the phone as an experiment and see?

In love with flaws

See, my name on the passport is completely messed up - My real first name is my passport last name, my real last name is my passport middle name and my real middle name has become my first name. So now my name has become - Bangalore. The name of my city , no ! The Ex name of my city. My city in the meantime has changed its own name and become Bengaluru! LOL!

Now I had decided when I get a new passport made, I will correct this mess. I will drop the silly city name and have only first name - last name. But when the time came ... It turns out I LIKE it like this, I couldnt bring myself to drop any part of my name, nor correct the order. I left it like it is. Let it be.. Its mine. ( Teda hai par mera hai?! KurKure? :-P  )

I have a big scar on my knee from an accident right across it. It is big and Ugly believe me. Some people look at it and say - you know u can get this fixed! I felt  What? I love it. It makes me feel brave, even tho it is only accident scar, not a brave warrior scar or saving some one scar,   I can still pretend interesting adventures behind it, I used to like showing it to kids also - that was before Jimmy Savellie, 😄 Dont think its inappropriate but still these days.. :D

Same with 3 chicken pox marks on my face - they are very light... I used to like the red and black moles on my dad,  I am getting them now and I like them.. and the skin tags on my face! LOL! I can get them removed... but...My eyes decieve me and tell me they look nice... like freckles look nice.. :-P Dont think these are nice tho, to other people!

When my light mustache grows, my eyes tell me that imperfection(??)  makes me look young and  innocent and carefree.

and Oh yeah the Glasses! This comes first even before the name I think. How many times have I thought I should just go for Lasik! its easy not that expensive safe etc! but... I seem to like my flawed eye... I like wearing glasses, Its me!!! To struggle to look for glasses in the morning, to look geeky and unkempt, to be paranoid about what will happen if my glasses break and Mummy comes chasing me!!!  😄

Even weight , as soon as I get slightly slimmer, oh no I am getting too thin, oh no I am getting anorexic ! not at 62 kilos for my height! LOL! There is no chance in hell of me becoming anorexic! with my love for food!! but still ..I guess its the love of my fat.

I hope I grow to like my wrinkles and tumours like this when( :-P If? :-O ;-) )  I grow old 😄

I am generally forgiving of many flaws which matter to other people.. few specks of paint on a dress, a little tear, a chip, a scratch, a spelling mishtake ...There may be somethings which I am not forgiving of which others are like sexism, arrogance, white lies,  illogical story lines, fake news ... :D  Thats a different story! This is different.

I am so attached my self Image- that too physical, I feel. Only THIS feels like me! True yoga is getting beyond all identity. Am I a yogi?  Getting beyond identity would be not caring either way. I think I am like that at times.. may be I dont care enough to fix these "flaws" and not "attached" to my identity, you know 😋 I may still be yogi 😋

metoo?

Everyone is saying me too, because its too easy. Especially when everyone else has already said it.
Saying Me!!!  is the thing, It is the hardest! The first few  me toos take courage! after that - ya ya you too- thats what you are...  Meeh tooo


Edit: It would be nice(?! not "nice"! LOL!  more impactful may be ) if I had left it at this.. but ! Oh man (feminist!? :-D or .. ) rant after a long time
Its not just this, Its anger about  everyone who stands behind other waiting for them to do the right thing, everyone who plays it safe. Especially women! Who play tactical, who "manage" things, who carry on wanting to be seen "good women" who dont cause any "trouble".
This anger is about all those women and girls who stood behind my back and didnt even say me too - When I stood up to things, be it sexism or anything else, those silly girls who giggled when a boy lifted their skirts and giggled when I slapped him and then ran to tell about it.
About all those who make me question myself wondering if I should just let it be too?
About all those kids who hid behind my back when I stole Vaada from the kitchen, who ate it but didnt have the spine to stand up when we were caught. Why were most of these kids girls?

Yes It took a lot of courage for many to say me too but why didnt u say me??? Is this why ppl say things like dont u have balls? Does it really count? Do I have them  ;-) invisible as they may be?

Edit again: As it inevitably happens understanding happened ( or the desire to not look like a jerk to the world happened? ;-) )   I realised that just like I lack some skills which others posses like being nice may be, or connecting with people, or understanding other peoples emotions - Other may people lack skills like standing up and being brave. So we are even! ok?

Vaanaprastha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanaprastha

Vaanaprastha is this the solution to the aging population problem?
better than this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84ttestupa ;-)

This also gives a feeling of relief when thinking about the future which seems to extend for long time. How long will my old age be? Whether I will have money, meaning goal etc... these kind of questions are answered. atleast for me, Its good to put an end date to our pursuits.?

My thoughts were already running along these lines when I started thinking about how you would live if you knew u had an expiry date( hehe literally ;-) ).
We have technology and we can indeed live very long lives, but there is stress involved in that, you will live long but we may not be earning.  Save to save for indefinite old age, with indefinite set of health problems, who will take care? Burden on the younger generation etc etc. Old times people had children as support for old age and then now we have pension schemes. Its all not that grim really, but The idea of winding down life style and needs and going into spiritual pursuits is very attractive.

What is VanaPrastha? It means heading toward forest. In old days when any person had their first grand child, it was assumed that they had finished all their worldly responsibilities and they were eligible to go into spiritual pursuits. Go to the forest and live in an ashram, studying or worshiping etc. Some people chose this, some people stayed with families interpreting vanaprastha as handing over responsibility.
If we decide that at certain age - say 55 I will retire in the true sense, if I dont have any responsibilities. Then take up full time meditation. So we dont need a pension or money. If you fall sick in small ways you can get a cure , but if you need care - no care is available just like for wild animals, its The end.
Is it so bad?
Are we holding on too tight to life? Is it ok to let go? Is it even possible in this age - when cure is available for almost everything? Does it feel like suicide to not take advantage of this?
 In a world where Partners in firms who die as soon as they retire at 55 due to lack of purpose.  Is Vanaprastha like giving up?Vanaprashta is not giving up, Its more like change of focus. Climbing Everest and running marathon can be done as part of Vanaprastha no?
Will it be hard to give up on the current life style or wind down? If you are going to live to be 100 then can we live doing meditation for 40 years?

What is the difference between old age home and Vaanaprastha?

would you go to school if...

How hard parents try to train their children and craft their life, to make it better for them. So many classes and school and making their life hell :-D
And my cat? I just let him be, no school! no training, he is fed and he sleeps and chills out :D life is so much fun for him :-D
 I wonder if I am letting him do what I want  because he will live only 10 years... if  a kid was like that, life span of just 10 years would parents send him to school? or would the kid live like a pet? what if it was 25?would the priorities be same if they knew kid would live for only 40?

How would people bring up their kids if they knew for sure that the kid would live for 40 years only,  How would I live if I knew for certain that I would live only 40 years? Or 50? or only 10 more years?
How would I live if my death was decided and a certain event? I mean it is, but if I knew the time and date?


MaranaSati 
Buddhism has a meditation on contemplating death, that it can happen any moment, today or in another week or next year, not just ours but our loved ones as well.   It is so easy to forget this in this modern world, Also we avoid thoughts like this like plague.
I dont know the answers to the above questions? I can guess that if we had knowledge of shorter life we would probably spend time more enjoyably?  or not.

I should contemplate on that.

ps: Its not easy to contemplate death, we have some kind of firm belief that we will live for ever i think, I intellectually know and can think those things but I do not experience it. It feels like something that can happen to others but not me, like war, poverty etc :-O

priorities

This is how our priorities are. This is the information from 1998. Today I can only imagine that spending on materialistic things has gone up exponentially.  Time to rethink our spending - not money wise but in terms of actual cost to earth.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/764

Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide reproductive health care for all women in developing countries	$12 billion
Amount of money spent annually on perfumes in Europe and the United States	$12 billion
Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide water and sanitation for all people in developing nations	$9 billion
Amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States	$8 billion
Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide basic health an nutrition needs universally in the developing world	$13 billion
Amount of money spent each year on pet food in Europe and the United States	$17 billion
Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures)  to provide basic education for all people in developing nations	$6 billion
Amount of money spent each year on militaries worldwide	$780 billion

health and safety

We are over cautious these days! The level of health and safety in current day western world almost feels like dystopia. "Mind the Gap"  "You are approaching the end of the escalator" ( Ok may be this is for blind (I am not calling them visually impaired! )  Caution written on plain plastic bag. People not planting flowers because bees will bite their baby. Children below 11 accompanied by adults at all times!

I feel like has the society lost faith in human common sense and intelligence? Or I wonder if this is a side effect of loss of belief in God?
Did belief is god allow people to live a free but ( may be slightly more risky) life?
Like They say in NLP, it does not matter if a belief is true, it just has to be beneficial to you. I kind of cant accept this I want the true truth :D but I see the merit in this. I have seen people live very stress free life, leaving the worrying to God.

When we believe in God, do we indirectly believe in our biology, genetics and evolution?  and is that what we have lost faith in , in recent times.

I was swimming in the river and my brother was tossing stones into it ;-) deadly combination, a stone hit me, right between my eyes , 1 mm and I would have been hit in the eye. I have seen a lot of near misses to the eye. Is that pure luck? or god?  I believe its our instincts. I must have seen the stone and jerked the head just a lil bit to miss the eye. Not soon enough to avoid the stone completely but just enough to avoid the eye?

Driving in Bangalore makes me feel the same, People turn into streets without looking, no one is using rear view mirrors. Still the number of accidents is low, the number of near misses is many times over the accidents. I joked that I started believing in god after driving here. Its not co-incidence is it ? Its again our instincts which are saving us?
Babies falling from high places and surviving, We do not appreciate our minds and bodies enough, its 3 billion years old technology with constant improvement! Its miraculous . We are insulting this by lame health and safety.

falling off the wagon

"Falling off the wagon is inevitable, Should just learn to get back up quickly!"
Gyan! very apt gyan  from yours truly after falling off the wagon and wallowing in guilt and regret upon gaining 3 kg in 1 month, out of which 1 kg was in one week :D

It is true isn't it? It will happen, after few days, few months or few years. More likely than not, may be after 11 years... even u will fall off. Its fine. Just Get back on it with out fuss as fast as possible.
So Slow, this is very hard, have to start from scratch etc etc thoughts will come , so what?
Is there any other option?

Experiment ;-)

Elementary

Line of duty

Body guard

True detective

Brooklyn 99

I didnt know it myself but my fav genre is Police dramas :)  Comedy, action, thriller, investigation, In everyform!  :) 

Be gone! Hesitation

1) Its perfectly ok to take an OK decision rather than a perfect Decision.
2) In most cases the cost of changing a decision is less than delaying the decision. ( provided we have done some ground work before, which I always do)
3) In many cases the lesson from mistakes pays for the cost of the mistake. ( Provided we have done the ground work ) Also mistake is like that first scratch on the car, it lets us relax.

my 100th painting will be wonderful.

Tell me a story

Audio books

I remember that day long ago 2011, when I was going in the tube and wanted to hear stories. I remembered by parents telling me stories in my childhood and wanted it again. I searched for stories and realised I can listen to audio books, Then came the London library and my first book Zahir by Paulo Coehlo!

How I loved it, Its been a long journey and 100s of audio books ( :-P May be 30 atleast? ) How I loved listening to Poisonwood bible in Kew Gardens. I walked the whole day listening to the book. 5-6 hours!  Slummy mummy - which made me laugh the most in the tube.

How I love them, Now I drive with audible .  There are lot of fillers for sure, Agatha Raisin and Alexander McCall Smith. Though I really like Alexander McCall Smith.  but then there are wonders. The Gene, That was enlightening and The Secret Garden,  I think I listen more than I read now...because its 2 hours a day dedicated to listening :-)

My love of listening to stories had definitely been satisfied :)

measure and display progress

This is one thing that is missing in my self development journey
Some people would say this is not required, you dont have to measure, you just go with the flow.
but at this point in my life I feel like I have tried and left everything half way. I am a magpie who is going after every new trend. like I have not really made any progress at all
May be this will help me stick to one thing and progress in that instead of being a jack of all, and master of none.
Reminder of this half year will be about measurement and tests and progress charts.
I did think about this before, that in school we achieved so much because we had a timetable a syllabus and tests ( I love tests ;-) I am like Harmoine! Okay :P )
so I guess some kind of discipline is required to actually show progress.
so it shall be.

know our future?

When you approach a fortune teller ( ;-) Like u do ) 
Dont ask, Will this happen?
Ask What aspect of me shud I change to achieve this!
Because Future is not a fixed path,  its an infinite field of possibilities.
  - Jessica Macbeth in Faery Oracle

Manifesting and affirmation

Okay okay u may think its woo woo and all but I think I figured how to do it!  Not that it worked so far ;-)

So the big kick was when I was listening to Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza. He gave two examples of  how doing things in the mind actually affects the body and our brain structure.

One physical example is experiments where olympic athletes practice in their mind and it helps in real world. Read this
https://www.businessinsider.com/olympic-athletes-and-power-of-visualization-2015-1?r=US&IR=T
I have done this when I had knee pain when I went to yoga.

Second example for other not physical outcome, such as having more money, better job or relationship or for emotions like to feel happy, feel gratitude etc.
Basically the same thing, basically told by every affirmation book. BUT ... difficult to digest isn't it? Somehow was never convinced about this before, even tho I was convinced about the first one since day one.
However when this guy said it clicked.
When u visualise the other life situation you want, you should make the energy of your body - match the thoughts. Its not just seeing your self in a situation but also feeling it.  When we think the new thoughts, we should make ourself  mind feel like the outcome has happened.
First we need to cut the connection to the default feeling how imagining a situation brings about
For example, talking to new people. you feel a dread.
If you say affirmations, I am good with people. 10,000 times but feel the dread, nothing is going to work.
but if you say I am good with people then notice the dread, feel it , cut it out and replace with good feeling ( which is hard part- may be do loving kindness meditation ?) then this will become reality.

This is also not new, but may be how he explained it, clicked.

Feelings are chemicals and hormones secreted when we think certain thoughts,  and we feel this in our body. Emotions are felt in the body at different locations.  So He says, when we think in a certain way, it makes our body feel in certain way, and because we are feeling like this, our brain scans for more similar kind of thoughts and these in turn reinforce the same feeling. In time, this link to thoughts and feelings becomes hard wired in our brain.  It becomes the default neural path. By the time we are 30-35 most of the situations are hard coded like this. So we do the same things with the same outcomes.
To change our situation we need to break this link. and create a new pathways in the brain, which makes our body feel differently with the same thoughts.
The situation we are in, is definitely what we have attracted, if we want to create a new situation we should feel in a new way, in our body, or we will convert any situation to the old way.

So manifesting will totally work, but done in the right way.
First step to my manifestation training, is training to feel gratitude and love. I am going 28 days of gratitude. then I will move to loving kindness meditation once a week ( twin hearts is also great ) That should give enough practice to elevate my feelings at will,
In the mean time also notice and pay attention to how certain things make my body feel , then once I am aware I can try to replace them.
wow!! this is really exciting, It will work, first visualisation is to visualise that this works! Its recursive as shit and amazing!!! 

Konmari our life?

What would happen if we Marie Kondo our life?
Marie Kondo is this lady who is kind of revolutionising cleaning up our homes and decluttering.  She, based on Japanese Shinto ideology advocates keeping at home only those things that you love and cherish and let go all the other things which u have but dont need/use etc. You hold on to each thing and then u ask yourself does this spark joy - If yes you keep it , if not u let it go.
So If you continued with this ideology and did the same to your life ...  your relationships ! your job! your tasks!! What would be left?

( I know, I know, this kind of ruthless thinking is why people are shocked and run away when I open my mouth and this is why this blog is secret ;-) )