kindness?

Kindly old man was there. He was very kind. It was a winter, the birds in his garden didnt have any food. he fed the brids all thru the winter. Then next year  was a very harsh winter. he fed this birds thru very harsh winter. All the birds very making it now. The weak runts, the slow growers...everyone had a chance now, in this lovely new world. Next winter was harsher but old man -kindly old man helped the birds again.
Then after a few years he died and in the next harsh winter all the birds were wiped out, there were too many there was no food for all of them and they were too weak - nature hadn't made her selection , the runts and slow growers who we humans are so fond of... had diluted the gene pool. so they all went extinct :-D

recycling

Natural organic tea - Pretty cardboard box, wrapped in shiny plastic , inside another plastic air tight bag to keep the freshness, then each tea bag packaged in another easy to tear plastic sachet to keep in individual goodness - Oh! but dont worry I recycled all of it!
I recycle bags and bags every week. even bananas and eggs are packaged and wrapped. so I can recycle a lot. I m doing so much good for this world!

moral humility

moral humility! I love that concept. It may help find answers to many questions.

These days I am (intellectually at least) against convincing other people to my point of view.  how can I be so sure I m right and they are wrong?

Church and evangelist did just that, they were very sure they were right and converted half the world into Christianity. they were thinking they did absolutely right.. it is very doubtful if the effect of that is good.

When I m trying to convince someone that they should diet/become a vegetarian or start re-cycling or save the world and not make their children sissy what if I am being an evangelist.
what if they are killing girls! can I still practice moral humility? What would Dalailama or Buddha do in this case? think win win..
don't think for and against. They don't "want" to kill girls.  punish them, stop them is not gonna work. we need to find a win win. There may be some people who want to kill most do it because .. . ( Grr I m getting angry with them. I want to kick them. I m not good at this understanding thing. )

but may be we will find better solutions to problems when we start thinking win-win. EVERY problem has to have a win win solution, nature vv/s man.  dolphins vs whalers etc.
Its just a ray of hope or a glimmer I see, there is no right and wrong, there is no sides. we are all on one side.
what if we were killer whales? what if our sense of self extended beyond ourselves. would we fight our right hand with our left hand? unless it is a very very dire situation most times we should find a solution which saves both hands, not a compromise with losing a little bit of both hands! but a win win situation, may be we will be smart enough to find that.

I miss the river side...

[ Undrafting an old post. Looks like I wrote it after an afternoon by my favourite lunching spot by the river. but so weird - I start the blog with  "hehe all empathy and spirituality have gone to dogs n replaced by irritation but I m calling it kickass attitude :P :P yeah few posts coming that way" and .... What is kickass/irritated about the blog below?  have split personality?!! ]

I saw this funny bird by the river, he looked like a kid with a bad haircut :D  like a straight haired boy with two vortices on the head :D no one can give them a good hair cut :D LOL!

 Funnier this guy thought he was a duck n was hanging out with some ducks, swimming with them acting like them :D He looks nothing like them. Creepy thing :D They all looked like good kids with oiled hair and this one with bomb blast hair. What do you think we looked like if we din have mirrors? :D


I found its Great Crested Grebe-Male.


photograph by: JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Crested_Grebe

saving lives at all costs

[This may not be politically/morally correct, But What the heck ]
Sudden thought I need to stop my donations to RSPCA.
They send me pamphlets about what work they do,
They spent 10,000£ to rehabilitate a mangy dog with half of its mouth torn off.  They rescue a neurotic cat which cant go out, cat with hole in the heart, dog with attitude problems ready to attack any one. They do psychotherapy for these animals and try to fix them and send them to people to adopt.
I wonder what would be the quality of the life of people who adopt these problem pets? Its not the pets fault that it got so sick, its old owners were horrible horrible people.. but still.. is it justified? my money being spent on almost a hopeless case? ( yeah yeah you may think I m a heartless bitch, like I care :-P)

I tried to keep this indoor plant alive for 6 months, insect sprays, re-potting, fertilizers, change window etc ets. It was alive but sickly for such a long time. I wonder was it really kind of me to keep it alive like that? Shouldnt I have just thrown it in the bin as soon as I realised it has root rot?

Now I realise, if a fish is sick, flush it, if a indoor plant is sickly and dying, bin it. If a pet is really sick - like it has diabetes or heart disease? :( enthuse it?? not sure. don't buy breeds which are introducing such problems into dogs, they were eliminated by natural selection in street dogs!
That is the hard reality of life.
We are working against evolution when we try to keep unsuitable specimens alive, . Most plants and animals are designed to be alive only in top most condition, once they suffer damage, they give up and die quickly.  ever tried to save squirrels and baby birds?
Also  It is a huge huge drain on our emotions ( more than money, its the emotions)  It may be a tiny little fish, but seeing it die little by little every day or the plant not reviving at all is really downing.

And what about little ones? I love tulasi plant (holy basil), One summer I had about 500 saplings of basil :-) Should I save them? can I save them? because it is a plant answer is easy - make kashaya and drink. What about baby rabbits or puppies or kittens? Every species produces in excess to compensate for infant mortality, Save them all?

When we put in lot of effort into keeping these things alive, is it kindness or is it pity? or is it some kind of guilt and obligation? which are all wrong reasons.

and What about people?

 Is it really kind to try to save lives at all costs? In this day and age I wonder ... we can keep things and people "alive", even those who are in a really bad way.  The blue baby, accident victim  in coma.... and we are morally obliged to do this in this day.

But it does raise a question, should we change our morality?

Dolphis are intelligent

"Dolphins are highly intelligent creatures, They like to keep themselves occupied all the time. Most of their time is spend in having fun!" the documentary tells me! Grrrr!!!!

We ... are also suppose to be highly ...


Edit: When I was searching for killer whales brains - apparently they have parts to their brain which we dont have, some suspect they are more advanced than humans emotions wise ( Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy? :) ) I found this.( Captian Watson has something to do with  anti whaling and Georg is a Whaler I think)

Captain Watson: "Georg, I happen to measure intelligence by the ability to live in harmony with the natural world. By this criteria, whales are far more intelligent than we are."

Georg: "That is a stupid criteria. By that stupid criteria, you could say cockroaches are smarter than people."

Captain Watson: "Georg, you are beginning to understand what I'm talking about.

dividing or uniting?

opposite of religious is not atheist, because religion divides, atheism also divides.
opposite of  vegetarian is what? caught you! looking for opposite itself is diving! ;-)
Its a way of thinking we need to change,
Start looking for uniting factors not dividing ones.
Start rejecting diving thoughts/ideas/arguments. Is this a dividing thought? that, is enough to make us feel so much better day to day.

There is no win-lose. there is only win-win, there is no win if someone loses we are all connected.

extinction

haha as if Death was not grim enough! :-)
Dino 101 was an eye opener. 65 million years ago - Dinos were flourishing, they were not just toys or movie characters or something in history(?? Oh I love them, It feels like history after all)  They were real! They were so cool! They were warm  blooded, had societies, cared for their young! and they were flying!!!  oh They were as good as any mammals! if not even better! Also T-Rex had feathers!? :D so Cool!  There were 4 winged Dino's which flew... They had guts so big, they produces tons of methane gas! haha! soo cool!
Then Bham! obliterated ! gone! One big rock was enough to wipe out this whole civilisation ( :-) I told u I love them no!) .
I get emotional thinking about it. They all disappeared almost over night!
 Mother earth is patient, she just starts over - I like to think may be Dinos were a dead end, even better things came out of that mass extinction.. may be, may be not! Does she feel for all that is lost? Or does she know that life goes on? Life and Death part of the cycle, hey we even have a god for destruction Shiva! Pralaya keeps happening, new life always come out of destruction of old doesn't it?

I m feeling melancholy thinking of this....The extinction was gruesome.  When the meteor made impact the atmosphere got so hot, they think most life just got cooked alive in a few seconds.. and then came the clouds and no sun light for years. Those that lived thru the cooking by being in water or hiding under rocks died of starvation, no plants no sun light! They think it took 100 years for things to really get back to normal.
Still life clung on! and mind this is NOT the biggest mass extinction,... hmmm... Sad! but life clung on!!

The life of any species is on an average 10 million years, some have stayed way longer, most have come and gone. All the cool dinosaurs that we see together in parks Stegosaurus and T-rex, never lived at the same time.. :-( one lived 275 million years ago and another just 65.. so stegosaurus was farther away from T rex than T-rex is from us! The immensity of time is kind of mind numbing. we as a species havent even been around for a million years.. 100,000 more like? baby species and already planing our extinction. 6-7 billion people we dont even think about extinction, but just a few 100 years ago we were in 1 billion. So humans wont last for ever. I wonder if at all we will last another billion, let alone 10?! Life is fragile. Its so easy for a rock to hit us or for earth to just decide to burst into volcanoes or for us to nuke each other. ( that btw will do wonders for evolution!?)
Hmm.... Bring on space travel! We should spread across the galaxy - make colonies out of planets and head our to conquer the stars! no? Life is precious! being on earth is like putting all eggs in one basket! :D

BTW about the Dinos, They are still with us!! Birds!! :-)  Birds are direct descendants of dinos. Mammals are as far away from birds as from reptiles. and all reptiles are not dinosaurs either, turtles, snakes and crocks are very far away from dinosaurs in the family tree.
I felt happy to hear that! They are still with us, in some way! :)

which story do you believe

Saw life of pie today - I really liked the ending - there are two versions of the story , Pi has for everyone. One fantastic one with zoo animals and unbelievable things.. which everyone refuses to believe so he then tells  another with just people in it. He tells believe the version you like?
:-) I really liked the choice... we face this every day especially in this modern scientific world we just dismiss the fantastic...
haha I like myself because when my tenant said there is a ghost in my house, I was really curious to find what it is that he is talking about.. I want to believe the fantastic one :D I want to believe in faeries and carnivorous islands and Yeti and UFO's ! :-D

Do things which are their own reward

Wow such a profound thought! Sometimes we say things and dont realise the profoundness of what we are saying.
People do things for others and then expect others to do things back for them Or expect appreciation or credit. Usually for their children or partners and for old parents etc. So I was saying that people should ideally do things for others only when what they are doing is its own reward.
I realise isnt it true for everything? Our jobs too? instead of working for a salary for that promotion or the bonus what if we did something which was its own reward, instead of being paid to do something, do something which u would love to pay to do?  Is it possible? Is living like that possible? Would we really be doing something different or would it just be a mindset adjustment?
Ah! now I know why I feel confused and irritated when people ask "does meditation help?" help with what? I meditate because I like it, It is its own reward :-)  Thinking if meditation "helps" makes it less rewarding somehow.

haha totally unrelated -or somewhat related - This reminds me of the psychology story - These Nazi boys taunted a Jewish merchant everyday. They called out  Jew Jew when he passed by. The Jewish merchant called the boys in one day and paid them 10 cents each, he said that was the reward for calling him Jew. Next day he paid them 20 cents for the same thing, then next day 30 cents ... upto  a dollar and so on! ( or Mark or whatever) . And Then  one day he stopped. No! he is not gonna pay them anymore! Sorry!:-D
 and What happened? The boys stopped calling him a Jew! They were not going to do it for FREE anymore ! were they? :-)
Something changes when we do things for a pay doesn't it?

What will we eat?

I attended social psychology class - Which asked a question - "we think killing humans is wrong but we eat animals. Are you discriminating against animals?" 

[Got me thinking  isnt that question discriminating against plants? They care for animals ok but plants are alive too. Do plants deserve rights as well?  Do plants have emotions, Do they feel? 
I feel very sad when I see a tree being cut, but I dont feel all that bad when I eat chicken that afternoon.  So... when I saw a course on coursera - What plant knows? I want to know what plant knows.]

https://secure.einterview.org/lifestyle/

The questions in the interview are the ones I ask myself many times.The interview  provokes introspection which is very good, but the questions are pointed, trying to push their thinking in a certain way - which is not good. Some how puts ideas in our head and may promote biased self introspection? I wonder. Are there flaws in their thinking?

Two arguments came to my mind.
1) Death is part of life. Nature produces in excess so that the weak are weeded out and the fittest survive. Evolution happened because infant mortality in nature is very very high. Is it really wrong to kill animals.  

2) Where does the line of "compassion"  start? When do species start qualifying for compassion? 
Animals are alive, people are alive, plants are alive, like someone else said on the thread insects fungii and bacteria are also alive. Does small pox virus not have a right to live? and polio?  where to draw the line?  
Some Buddhist monks do not kill mosquitoes who bite them. Jain people dont eat potatoes and ginger. Each person draws his own line, mine is humans/pets/wild animals are this side of the line and farm animals on the other side.

There is a saying Cow cant be friends with grass...  
If we dont want to eat anything then we would have to have chlorophyll in our skin and make our own food, once we start doing that there wont be any need for us to move or get around so we will grow roots and turn into plants and new life forms which will eat us will evolve :-) :-)

but still it is a moral dilemma ,I feel if we give back as much as we take from nature.. may be thats the solution. 
[from discussion forums on coursera ]

Chasing dream

First time in my life, I got caught in a chasing dream.

Strange chasing dream, I think it was triggered off by something I saw on TV. My friend some muslim/conservative punjabi type with a veil on her head was being forced to get married to somebody she didnt like or may be it was somebody really horrible. So I help her run away. Some men are chasing us. We are going higher and higher on a building.( Duh!) We hide under a water tank or on  a sajja or something. They almost miss us, but last minute they see us. Friend got caught. I jumped to the next house. ( why are they still chasing me? Wasnt it my friend they wanted?)  and again I start climbing. The men also start climbing, upto second floor and then up the tank, It was really scary, jumping off walls at that height and catching hold of things with finger tips. gives me the creepies even now. In almost every other chasing dream, at this point, I escape, The lion/ tiger/elephant/snake/knife man/psycho/gorilla  is caught, Or I just am too fast or something like that. But this time they caught me. :-( I dont like it at all. 

It wasnt as bad getting caught,  I was in the wedding later on, as if the whole chase was a childish thing. But at the start of the dream it wasnt.. it was some how crucial for her to escape..
like life isnt it? Once we are given a deal, somehow we start thinking the deal is okay...(which is not really a bad thing? )

Related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance 

social psychology on coursera

"I am a human being, It could be me."
All those experiments which show that in unusual circumstances( It is necessary to remember that it is unusual circumstances) people behave in ways which make us uncomfortable, or ridiculous or  make us feel downright horrified!!
Should remember, I am also a human being, That could be me.
Helps to remember that all people are being pulled by mental processes and patterns and so much pressure, most of us very very unfortunately cant help being what we are. Doesnot mean we have to accept it and say things like "Boys will be boys" NEVER!!  but remembering this makes me be less judgemental about all this.

 Social psychology and behavioural economics( basically the same thing) can be used to increase self awareness and see others/ourselves in better light.

I realised Social psychology is being used by charities in UK to increase donations. Text book techniques

They first start of  with "Door in the face technique"
- They say would you like to donate 15£ for so and so charity? I say no, then they say, can u please donate 3£?  because I have said no first I tend to agree and say yes.
- Once I m in they use "foot in the door technique."  you are already donating 3£, can u please just donate another 2£  for so and so cause.
Low balling - Once they get you to say yes, they will read out the small print. It is very embarrassing for us to say no later.

But people see it soon enough, techniques grow old very soon, like the petrol bunk cheatings.
If you are skilled you will be pioneer. like "Catch me if you can"  He worked because society was innocent. Then people catch up, someone finds a new way, few copy, all copy and it fails.
seduction is like that too,
Awareness, Awareness Awareness.
Awareness and attitude spreads. People used to say it is natural for men to beat their wives , to rape, just like today we say it is natural for people to be greedy, to be messy, to be take bribes.
I hope self awareness spreads by sprituality and also by social psycology. I m terribly impressed by social psycology. love it.

Milgram experiment

Sachin no, he only told me to do it, I didnt do it.
This takes on a whole new meaning now.
When 4 year old Joy came home one day, denying any wrong doing. I didnt do it, I didnt do it, That Sachin no, he only told me to do. :-D we found it very comical. We saw it as a blame game. Bugger has thrown a stone and broken a tube light!!! and now he is blaming it on Sachin! This was our catch phrase for blame game.. that Sachin no.. he only did it.  Its true kids do a lot of blame game, the dog tore the page, bird took he biscuit.. but now I wonder about Sachin.
What if Sachin did tell Joy? What if  Joy being a lil boy obeyed the Authority figure!
Have a look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Reading about this is one thing, Watching the actual footage of the experiment,especially the 1960's footage!. Watching decent innocent people torturing themselves but still going ahead and doing it. It was very very disturbing.

How much are we obeying, How many times it happens that  I did it, but actually u did because Sachin told?? much much more than we realise.

stereotypes

Mumbai Gang rape and Udbhav Thakery makes a statement,  non maharastrians are responsible for all this. I thought Shiv Sena is at it again. At the time it was not even sure who the suspects were.Bigots! Bastards!

But just one day previously Me made a statement - Karwar is really nice and safe people are so decent, but lot of bihari/UP labourers are coming in for work.....Hope they dont spoil it... Udbhav is an idiot but  I m allright :P

Ingroup/outgroup bias, sterotypes, prejudices... each of us a typical case study for social psychology.

Atheists on FB

 ...There are people  like Richard Dawkings and some Dumb followers logically attacking religion and faith on facebook! Duh!?Accept it, people are not logical.  to think we give so much prominence to logic and its mostly useless in dealing with people.

Religion gives people a sense of belonging and community, Singing in choir is making old people healthier.
Religion gives people comfort.
Prayer gives people hope. God gives people a sense of well being. Sense of more control over events than they actually have.
I met this Chinese girl bought up as atheist wanting to convert to a religion after a breakup. The guy hooked up with a bar girl and this girl had to be taken to hospital for nervous breakdown. She thinks religion will help her cope better with such circumstances. She will take a log to float on , when flooded by emotions.
I also suspect people also like some structure and rigidity which comes with religion. Sometimes people like being told what to do, some rules.

Dry logic gives people heart burns :-p

Telling someone they are fool - is that the best way to convert people to your way of thinking? :-}

Sometimes very clever scientists fail to grasp basics of human interaction . As if I m any good, I do all this analysis, but I am exactly like RD in these things, I tell people logically - hey u are being stupid. they get angry and then I tell them -come on I was being objective :-)

Also , These atheist groups, with their own fanaticism and ideology are exactly like religions, They are divining people and encouraging herding tendencies. I think opposite of diving force of religion is something unifying. Instead of saying u are different, u should find something similar and say we are all same.

insight

They think that someone wearing a saree with the whole mid-riff showing is decent and ok, but jeans! u are totally covered from head to toe and its indecent! Crazy!
Indians are so stupid, totally illogical!! or They are hypocrites!

Finally realised it not about that at all, its not about exposure or decency or any such thing. Its the same old "us and them" saree is "us", so good! jeans is "them" so bad"

Its not Indian/western phenomenon, Its world wide..Like I said before Burqa is almost exactly like nuns habit, but in france burqa is banned but nuns habit is ok(I think)

Nobody thinks of all this logically, Anything which is not in their "us" bucket causes bad feelings in them. (and in us :-p)  Ashte.

We love to see familiar things. Familiar is comforting.We all hate change, it causes us a lot of discomfort.  Amma without bindi :-) Begum begum :-) as if I care about bindi, I just like my mothers familiar face with the red dot, in the same place in the same size. She changed bindi brand and I din like it.
 Love to try new food but if I mom makes even a small change to her recipe!! I m in flames :-D Why green chillies in cabbage palya, I want RED CHILLIE!!! X-( :-)
Those stupid principals which ban jeans in their colleges are probably also doing the same thing. Off course there are other factors ...

America

The only country in the world to use nuclear weapons, to use chemical weapons(effects of which are still being seen after 40 years), support rogue regimes in Africa/South america just for the benefit of some greedy businesses. No no, not all in the past, In the last 10 years has attacked and destroyed 2 countries completely with out any provocation. Has the largest stock pile of weapons even tho has no enemies and largest producer of weapons.
That country is supposedly qualified to intervene in Syria? £$%^ you USA. 

I have always idealised GandhiJi. He was the only person ever who lead people into non violence.
Was it just conformity and group dynamics and a powerful person using the mindless mob all over again. Was it still manipulation? Was Gandhi another pied piper after all?
Like JK says was Indian independence another attempt at prison reform rather than being free from prison. was the only person who was free - Gandhi?

we are usually run by default programs by our patterns etc. Ok once u get awareness and get over the default program, what do we do? How do we behave?