mechanical world

two things
firstly why is it so hard to get across to people? nobody hears anything, let alone listen.
even when they do hear, they guess what I am saying and assume something and not hear what I am actual saying at all.
and then there are mental block which blocks them from hearing something different from what they have thought.
most people are so closed to new ideas!
uff its hard to communicate at all. whole new post needs to be dedicated to blocked shell of brains to resistance to new ideas.


So coming to the idea itself
Is the society especially the western society becoming more mechanical?
are robot like attributes valued more than human like attributes?
like accuracy over heuristics, order over chaos, pursuit of perfection. organisation, punctuality, following of rules take priority over orthogonality and imagination and initiative.
At first look it seems like the correct thing to do. who in their right minds would prefer chaos to order? we have been taught this since childhood, we are all shit scared of chaos! Ok order is required, but the desire for order in now infringing on our creativity and initiative. The rules are made for lowest common denominator, everyone should be able to follow it. If you are smarter than the rule book, screw you.
What you dont believe, ever talked to a call centre script?  Is there really a person behind that phone? no there isnt. there is just a script.
I went to a first aid course. First things I was told was don't use common sense :D follow the book.
compare a burger maker in Mc donalds with a Chef.
each and every mc donalds burger is the same, it makes millions of dollars, average chef can not make that amount of money. a chef can make a burger and not a single employee of mc donalds can make a burger, they are just clogs in the machine.


also our expectation of things to be orderly is so strong because our left brain is dominant
Like ironing clothes, we want plain wrinkle free clothes, so what's wrong with Ironing clothes? nothing. but  how we value people who have ironed clothes more than people with unironed is wrong.
if you look at cultures, Western rich ironed their clothes, Indians and Africans didn't, so our cultures are naturally at a disadvantage in this kind of judging.
ok fine nothing wrong with ironing, I cannot accept wrinkled clothes. it a disgrace. that's fine.
What about wrinkled faces? The same values start to apply here and we value unwrinked faces more than wrinkled ones. we want to hide all imperfections, we want plastic surgery. Is it a disgrace to have a  wrinkled face just like wrinkled clothes? untidy?
we want perfection, we want straight lines and circles, we want to tame nature, we want to prune our plants into straight lines :D I find square shrubs most ridiculous ever!

Is this coming down to the same discussion as yin and yang, we are too yang. we want to control and mend rather than just be and go with the flow. Isnt that what I am saying in so many words?
we are unbalanced, we are not balancing our yang with yin, right wing and left wing both are yang, western culture is yang, it is not being balanced by the Eastern culture of acceptance and just being.

we want fast roads we want smooth roads we want barriers speed limits etc etc so that we can get fastest from A to B at a very predictable time. Why are we not asking ourselves why we are actually going about so fast like headless chickens? Is it really necessary to go like this at all?

as a consequence we are becoming piece meal than whole picture people
we are suppressing whole parts of our personalities which actually make us happy, which are meaningful
like people of ikeria
they have no concept of time or timlyness
we are becoming like the time saving people in momo :-)

disgust

Do animals feel disgust?
we are disgusted by body odour shit, for animals these things are extremely interesting :-) Do animals get disgusted by anything at all?
The purpose of disgust is to keep us away from and prevent us from doing some things, same as fear..
what is the between disgust and fear?
fear is usually about unknown things and it is overcome once we get to know.
fear is more overcomable by rational thought than disgust. disgust is just disgust?
in fear we avoid something for self preservation
in disgust we avoid something for revulsion
nature wouldnt want us to fear slimy things or cockroaches, is disgust always small scale than fear?
btw cockroach what I feel is disgust and not fear, but I most tell people I am afraid of cockroach.
we may fear useful things it is called respect :D like fire or elders.
It is very obvious fear and disgust are different. I am wondering why nature evolved two different emotions, couldnt disgust be replaced by fear, is it so in animals?

I googled this and found that animals do feel disgust. mammals anyway cats and dogs! not at the same things as us, like poo and body odour but some smells and stuff apparently.
What about children? I think they dont feel disgust untill upto 3-4 years.

Oh BTW even writing this is giving me goose bumps, google for fear of small holes, actually dont google it. It brings up the most disgusting things ever.Lotus seed kind of things. I never thought lotus seed was disgusting but put those on a human skin and then.. Yew! I want to get some tweezers and get those seeds out of the skin and then I want to scrub those bloody holes clean. Then there were pictures of small holes with insects and maggots in them!!! God!!! Soo disgusting!!  It was my fault. I googled and I didnt leave it alone after the first wave of disgust, I made myself see it, I wanted to try exposure therapy to get rid of the disgust I guess. but oh boy! What a mistake. I dreamt and felt holes and all those disgusting things forming all over my body and real itching all over my body for days. I just had flashbacks upon flash back about these images! Oooooo even now after months after that incident I am still feeling disgust. and such a strange fascination, I kept going back to look at them and get a new wave of disgust all over again! Yikeeess!! Disgust! Yekeeees!

air lift

Air lift is an up lifting and positive movie, it is about the biggest air lift in history. 170,000 Indians were rescued/airlifted during Kuwait war.  Felt very sad. Indian! I am lucky to have a stable country, I am lucky to be an Indian. What about people who dont have a country? Who will help them? Yaziddis and kurds :(  Country is such an artificial construct, nobody knew each other those 170,000 they stuck together because they were Indians. But what is an Indian? So many of those were in Kuwait for so long, They considered themselves Kuwaiti. The movie makes a case for Indian patriotism, but What is Indian? One day they were Indians and now they are Pakisthan.
It drives home the point, make alliances, form groups tribes, It is important. In this world it makes a difference. We are all NOT ONE :-( It made me very sad.
Help your family. what about those who dont have family? Orphans :-(

I dont know the caste of my non bramhin friends, but all bramhin friends have mentioned their caste  :-D Tam bram  is the fastest - will drop that bit of info  with in first half hour of meeting. :-D


It is a little embarrassing and awkward when people refer to their caste ...

He/She/It

    That thing where people insisted that books stop using only He to refer to humans and start using She as well? When I first heard of it I thought they were being pedantic! What difference does it make! bla and all!
    Reading a book which switches between He and She and What a difference it makes! Our mind builds up pictures when we read something. Pictures that are built when u say He ate rice as staple v/s when u say She ate rice as a staple is infact immense. She is infact more inclusive, atleast for me.
    When they used just He to represent humans, they left a huge part of the humanity out of the stories. We only imagined the He's doing everything, even tho we knew that the He refered to both men and women, Our mind built up stories about only the He's.  We expected seperate stories for women, Even tho He and She ate rice, we imagined He eating rice and we ignored what she did, Unless it was explicitly mentioned - Eg: Women collected bulbs or something like that. 
The fact that it is so noticeable when someone uses She says something about how deeply He is ingrained as default in our culture, There is so much implicit bias in our lives!


I saw a face book status on valentines day today - which listed a few men who they said died for love, Jesus being one of them. They were asking where are all the women? Why are they not dying for women? It is a joke. But Its a sad joke, For me it brought home the fact that women have been left out of all the stories, out of all history all these 1000s of years.

history is like memory

it is manipulated, it morphs to fit in with your current acceptable version of reality.

Mahabharata, Ramayana and the purana stories, were they too modified?   Sita's agni pareeksha, did it happen or was it added by later more suspiscious society, the society became more intolerant they couldnot bear Ram living with Sita after abduction even after agni pareeksha so they added the rumours and sent her away to the forest? or was it all one cohessive story? 

Radha and Krishna story has more varied interpretations. They had a deep love between them, They are depicted romantically in many places. But Radha was married, How do people accept this? Many people just make exceptions for stories but some people cant. Sometimes this is made acceptable to current sensibilities by saying Radha was much older and Krishna was a child and their love was like mother and son. Some say this love is like the love between the atma and  paramatma, that it was not romantic. 

Draupati, She married 5 men. Even today the custom of one woman marrying all brothers is present in Himalayan regions, To control the population as there is limited land.  Was she just married as per this custom and later history changed the story to say Kunti ordered the brothers to share the wife so she had to do it, to make it more acceptable to later sensibilities? 

My brain scared me one morning trying to fit in the sloped bedroom roof of my brothers house. my brain somehow believed that the room had a flat roof, to accomodate that reality, it showed me that the wall was slanting steeply towards me! I woke up with a start after that illusion! :)

Why is everyone wearing Ironed clothes?

All my friends, my family, the world around me , we are all always happy, we are doing very well, even when we are not doing well, we are handling ourselves perfectly
we have no problems no no

How are you?
I am fine.

We all have perfect skin, no wrinkles no scars perfect teeth and red lips
We all have perfect emotions, no sadness, no frustration, no anger, no no

Our houses have no clutter or dust, behind cupboard doors are perfectly folded Ironed clothes and there is no dust under our beds
Our thoughts are clean too, very PC lest we cause offence, just like our words

and yeah I now know, why everyone is wearing perfectly Ironed clothes

:-(

but me.. I m not like that.
Ill tell you a secret, my house - the mess is not even behind cupboard doors :-) I cleanup and tidy up as you walk in, sometimes not.
Pssttt... I have scars and stretch marks and teeny tiny wrinkles, and white hair and hair in my arm pits too :-O yeah I do
and emotions ha ha emotions are a monster mess, my emotions are! he he. I feel things you know, like sooo sad scared afraid, I lose it! at times! soo angry soo frustrated. I m lazy . no I dont work like clock work, I am not organized, dont even want to be :D yeah, you can say my personality is wrinkled. Its not perfect!
:-O
What! u too? NO!
what? you put on a happy front and smile even when you are breaking inside?
I should  just pretend to be like them. wear Ironed clothes and make up and nobody will notice?
Oh! I should strive to be perfect and wrinkle free at the most superficial and easiest level possible? never mind what is Inside? Oh! because nobody can see inside?

That should be easy then ;-)  :-) 

Asexual

Straight, Gay, Lesbian, BiSexual. Logically there should be something called single also right? someone who doesnot want any partner at all? My thoughts ran like this many times.
There is! Asexual.
http://www.asexuality.org/ One in a Hundred is like this.

We are all unique. Label is just a label. everyone has a shade of this and that and everything else.
http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demisexual

for everyone who has ever wondered what is the big deal about sex? everyone else is pretending or what? this is the place to go to!
asexual is someone who doesnot get sexual thoughts! but what is a sexual thought? Its like telling a blind man what color is :) Its sweet! where do u draw the line? at the waist? :) :P !!??

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/69810-what-is-sexual-attraction/

If 99% of the people are sexual then why is the whole world trying to pretend to be like asexual? So much hypocrisy. For an asexual person this world is normal - but for all the rest its control/ hide /repress??!? since when they are in their teens? !! 

It is very hard for people to realise that other people may not be feeling/thinking like them. Either way. Sexual people feel asexual people are pretending to be "saintly" and Asexual person probably does not even understand what it is all about. 

bragging

People are usually not ready for my ideas,  they get there in a few years :-P

rape and getting the girl married off to the rapist for instance, in 80s and 90s nobody found it wrong.
The bhai giving dowry for sister,
hero kidnapping heroin to voo her/rape to seduce etc

now the whole world (atleast the sane parts :P ) boos with me at such things

And now another recent one- About Angelina Jolie

She was marketed as a brave mother doing it for her children at that time and lots of people cried with her , now two years on shes has a syndrome named after her - for getting a surgery with no sickness!

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/115942/20151216/highly-commercialized-health-and-beauty-standards-may-lead-to-angelina-jolie-syndrome.htm

and thats what I thought about it in the first place
http://mystic-babe.blogspot.in/2013/06/more-madness-or-is-it.html


So if you dont agree with me, World! I wont argue,  I know you need time to reach maturity. I  will wait it out :P 

mad tomato plant!

My tomato plant, single one, grew into a monster 5 ft wide and 3 ft tall in a few weeks. very quickly  put out 500 tomatoes all at once! like there is no tomorrow!and then with all its green unripe tomatoes, it died!! Winter had come!
What! why did it do that, like a mad person? why did it behave like this? Like a banker in sub prime crisis? Didnt it know better that its better off with a few red ripe tomatoes to propagate itself than have 500 unripe ones?
In nature everything has some innate intelligence, plants flower in season, have fruits and then seeds, fewer fruits during drought and more during good conditions . They know when to do what without interference from humans. They know how to live, Thats how they have survived for millions of years! but what happened with my tomato plant? Why did it lose this sense?
By hybridizing plants by choosing the fastest plentiest fattest tomato plants,  have we robbed the plant of its natural intelligence? what is left is not a proper being but a mad tomato plant? Is it a nutter? :-(
( On second thoughts civilized society so out of touch with nature is also like this only :-P We are all too dependent on tech nutters :D )

With all due respect, yes I am new to this kind of monster gardening which requires a lot of interference from the humans, I should have pruned it, cut off all the extra branches and restricted its fruits to a few, should have planted it early, may be too fertile a soil etc etc etc
But just see what is happening to a plant just by hybridization and what will happen when we start genetically modifying them! They will go totally nuts!

Oh! trying to grow an aquarium plant! aquarium plants hobby is entirely hijacked by geeks, men who like to tweak and tune and meddle endlessly and to control and to compete for maximum effectiveness, who want plants full grown in days!  result - very high maintenance plants with very specific requirements. They want CO2 blown thru the water every week, They want specific wattage bulbs for lighting, you need NPK measuring kits to accurately maintain the nutrient levels. Its as if you are bringing up a test tube baby :D

I think we shud respect nature more and back off a little bit. 

Reading my old posts I am feeling
Maturity is like weight :-P, It fluctuates :-P
It doesnot linearly keep going up with time unfortunately. some moments we are mature and then some we are not. Thats life.

Why konkani has no group bias

In group and out group bias

Just telling people you are over estimator and under estimator was enough for people to form groups. Gulliver knew this well - the little endian and big endian story :-). People will pick any lame reason to form a group and create biases, positive about in group and negative about out group.

Why don't konkanis group themselves based on language?
S was saying she was in a group of 5 Konkanis and they NEVER spoke to each other in konkani. This will never happen with any other Indian language people.
I classify myself as both Kannadiga and Konkani. If there are 5 Kannadigas I would definitely speak in Kannada but why not in Konkani?
My cousin is Pune is a huge Marathi fan/activist but not a konkani one.
Goans are proud of being Goans and not really of Konkani :)

Why do many Konkanis not have this sense of belonging/groupism by the language? Its not that those people are not prone to groupisim but Konkani language fails to be that element which groups.

For all the people involved, Konkani was spoken at home and not in the society, So is Konkani a family thing then, personal and private? meant for relatives only  family only  and hence not sharable? There is a group, but it is very tightly knit?
Interesting :-)

Is this effect present in Tulu? It is definitely not present in Sanketi language which is also a obscure and used by a small group.

moralities of everyday life

Moralities of everyday life

What is it that I want to get out of this course what is it that I want to know?
What is morality?
What was right yesterday isn't right today.
What is right in one part of the world isn't in another. Teacher naming a teddy bear Mohamed , Whale hunting.
What was right for me in one circumstance is not in another.

Drinking - was wrong - immoral. I believed that strongly but it was circumstantial. People in India who drink, beat their wives, spoil their livers,behave like they have no control. This was wrong. Here in UK its okay to drink, Its socially cool to get drunk and talk about it the next day. No beating or spoiling of life happens to these people I have moulded my opinion to suit the country, Now drinking is normal. It is not an issue.

For How much money would I strangle a cat with my bare hands?
I would never!!!
but really today I don't need money.
What if.. I was in debt? I lost my job - nothing too serious but 100,000£ would allow me to stay in UK or go home. I would probably not do it...
What if it were a rat instead?
For how much money would I cut off a chickens head? I eat chicken everyday and for gods sake I eat eggs, break them too.
What if I had a disease and the medicine cost 10,000 Rs and I didn't have it? What if my child was sick or mother?
The morality of the situation changes dramatically. I would probably strangle a cat for a piece of bread, if I had 10000000 Rs but it was floods and there was absolutely no food.
Depends on what is coercing me ( is that the right word?)

Is morality based on the person or circumstance? ( clearly demonstrated in psychology class that it is more circumstance than person even tho instinctively most of us would think it is the person.

What do I want to get out of this class? I want to understand how I make these moral judgements? Is it moral to think of morality?
Would it be easier for me to decide what is right and wrong after this course? may be?
for example Syria. There are people who want to bomb and those who don't want US to interfere. What do I want. I dont know! I cant make a decision. which is moral?
There is a natural course of nature - where death and cruelty is part of life, and then humans are trying to suppress this . Death is not the worst thing. Death is absolutely necessary for life to go on. but.. Is it ever right to chose death over life? 

I also feel I am falling into a trap of morality and doing/not doing judging/not judging a few things. I want to understand, what is happening inside me. The working of the brain.
It is humbling this understanding, I feel what I was really proud of - my values  are all inherited. not self made at all, all my hobbies are inherited too.
Will this class and the other psychology classes help me understand the working of my brain? will they come in handy day to day?

It didn't, recently. There was a bin bag thrown on the street. I didn't pick it up because I was shy, I would do it if I was alone, by-stander effect. no one did it, so no one else would do it.. It was on every ones conscience, then finally the lady in front of me did it.  but I still hope.

I want to understand other people and their motivation. I m quick to judge. These days I may logically understand why someone is doing something. I want to do that more. These classes help me.
They also reinforce many conclusions I have had independently before. That's one of the best things :D

compassion day - social psycology course assignment

The dictionary defines Compassion as "Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it."

I define being compassionate as awareness,sensitivity,understanding and love. So when it came to practical terms - as to how to make myself more compassionate - I tried to be more sensitive - more tuned into myself and others, more understanding and less judgemental again first and foremost about myself then others and I tried to have a feeling of love in my heart and softness about myself. 

I decided to have this feeling in my heart and go about and see how differently I would behave today. 

 Is compassion offering a seat to a old woman or is compassion not offering a seat to that woman so she doesnot feel so old and weak? Is compassion giving the crying child the candy or teaching the child that the world doesnot revolve around it?

Rather than deciding to do a bunch of compassionate actions (because  I cant sometimes decide?!) , I decided to go with the flow just being more aware and keeping "compassion day" in my mind. 

May be because of the approach that I took, compassion day was more of an internal experience for me rather than an action packed outer experience. If you are familiar with Yin/Yang I guess mine was an Yin Compassion day. 

The first beneficiary was myself, I found myself quickly getting out of bed to get myself a glass of water, instead of ignoring thirst for few more minutes in bed. I also found myself walking to work, Its about 5 kms I always take the bus. The walk was a beautiful experience, I found myself noticing the dew drops on the leaves and spider webs. The huge trees, the canal, dad taking his daughter to school, loving parents,cute pets.  It was raining and 14 degrees, I am really surprised that I was enjoying the walk and appreciating rain drops instead of thinking $£##%%^ London! always raining :-)  You wont believe I just felt so elated and happy, I was jumping and yelping like an 8 year old(in a deserted stretch of the walkway ) I realised this wont happen every day I decide in my mind that I will be compassionate etc. May be it was the newness of it. ( I know because I am trying to be aware since like ages now. Its a very long way, the road to enlightenment) 

Second recipient was my husband, This man hasn't emptied the dish washer today!! ITS HIS TURN!!! My first reaction - He is such a lazy man. Then I realise that situations influence behaviour much much more than personality. Instead of blaming the person, examining the situation. I remind myself he came home late, he is studying for an exam... ok...

Also during news I caught myself stereotyping and generalising during news coverage of burqa or muslim face covering. 

The study on conformance helped me volunteer for a task at work when no one else on the team was forthcoming. and When I asked anyone else to help me - no one came forward. I looked at one  particular person and asked him to help :-) it worked. 

If your behaviour was different than normal, which person did you like more: the "Day of Compassion you" or the "normal you"? If you preferred the "Day of Compassion you," what are the psychological factors that prevent this "you" from coming out?

I obviously like the day of compassion me better, Its been a long time since I have decided to get on this band wagon. The main factor which makes me slip of the wagon is awareness. I forget to be aware that I have to be compassionate.

The main reason for being less compassionate is Ego/being shy, the fear of making a fool of myself. That prevents me from being more open and helping people. I found a dead fox on the street, I was walking alone, I moved it to the side, but when I saw a dead pigeon on the side walk and few other people were present. I didnt put it aside even tho I wanted to. 

I want to put my hand on that old lady's shoulder, she looks sad.  I am not sure would be offended or happy at being offered help. I m not sure an asian stranger talking to them would comfort or frighten them...and so it goes. 

What are the psychological costs and benefits of behaving compassionately? In your view, do the benefits outweigh the costs?

first and foremost benefit of behaving compassionately is to the person itself, the feel good. The sense of well being and genuine freedom. There are material costs and spiritual benefits to being more compassionate.

How did others respond to your compassion? Do you think they noticed a difference in your behavior? What attributions did people make for your behavior, and why?

Others didnot notice or comment on my compassion day, In fact I think I have really changed in past 7 years - being more aware, less angry etc, drastically infact but people still see the same old me. :-) First impressions matter.

If you wanted to encourage others to behave as you did during the Day of Compassion, what psychological techniques would you use? How can social psychology be used to foster a more compassionate society?

compassion works like chain reaction, When someone holds a door open for me, I hold a door open for the next person. When I see some one doing a good deed I do a good deed too.  

If you were to predict your behavior one month from now, do you think it will be changed as a result of participating in the Day of Compassion? If so, how? If not, why not?

I think my behaviour has changed by taking the social psychology course itself, now I can be more understanding and forgiving of people. the experiences have shown how we behave in automated manner, may be be due to obedience or due to conformance or diffusion of responsibility. Its human after all.  It has also reinforced in me the need for awareness.which is so so so important.

dil dhoonda ta hai phir wohi phursate ke raat din....
It was written in a different context but this is so apt of us people who are always waiting for the weekend...

dream

There was very smooth mud at my feet, It was a bright and sunny Indian afternoon, sun was high up in the sky, the mud was very ligth colored sand colored creme color. at first I didnt see anyting around me, then I bent down and touched the mud beucase it was sooo soft I liked to run it between my fingers, then I notices houses next to the street which was acutlaly like a river bed dry one.  I tried to go into the houses and realise they are very high. they have  the karnataka village jagali, which is two hight for me. I walk forward a couple of houses and then there is a house which has steps from the street, i climb up the jagali transforms from house jagali to temple jagali and as I climb I see a temple, finally the door step of the temple the inside is filled with shallow water with statues on pedestals just above water level, and there was a sky ight wiht light pouring in and reflecting on water. I think i saw laxmi on a lotus may be tara or Quan in.

I hate hand dryers

Not for hygine conditions and all that, I believe our body is capable of taking care of itself. but  They are so...almost like nails on blackboard! I hate them. So cruel on our ears.  and our hand our eyes and our senses and everything. I cant ever use one again if I can help it, Ill use toilet paper but not those.
I have always hated its noise, its abasaive so abarassive on the ears. When are we as a culture start noticing such thing and start being kind to ourselves.
beauty/scumptousness :D deliscious things..we should start paying attention to this ( am i getting oooold? old means really old - like 80 or something :D u should see the procelian boxes I am collecting :D I have looked up how to sew a quilt. ok thats another story)

so yeah! we should make things kind to us, nice on our senses, clever energy saving, good on nature - how about a handkerchief, or just wiping the hand on our backside :D comeon, its just water!? Its a left brain /yang thing making effective effecient things? what about beauty, what about how it feels to us. Come on right brain inventors! wake up!

peace

My place of peace with in me,
its always there.
Anger saddness joy, frustration,
thru all this, its always there.
sometimes I forget, sometimes I ignore, sometimes I look frantically and just dont find it
but its always there, waiting for me to come.
with open arms,
Thanks for being there,
I love you, my peace.
( peace peas and piece :P and pees :D ) 

ghanana ghanana ghan

.. gir ayye badira. This song made me cry! my poor county! my poor country people hankering for rain!
 How blessed this land is? UK I mean. how precious rain is for India, how unpredictable, how it holds our (atleast the farmers and village peoples) lives in ransom. Sometimes floods sometimes draught. And UK I have a garden, I havent had to water it even once, The soil is very fertile, look at the greenery around, Its snows badly once in 5 years, they may have floods once in 30 years... god or earth has been partial to this country. May be to small parts of India like bangalore too.
even in premitive days the tragedies of these people must be milder compared to our people? (Vikings and all? May be bangalore is more blessed :D out of the way of mauraders :D)
Even the african song rain rain rain rain beautiful rain...brings tears to my eyes... what is falling freely all around me all year round is so precious for them, adore love worship rain. dance joyously have festivals write songs about :D ( not sarcastic moany songs , cursing rain, like I would be tempted to write if I were a poet)

one person had brilliant idea and made a huge differentce to world

project guttenburg 

God bless him!