Authority

When you make someone an authority on a topic you stop questioning and when you stop questioning you stop learning. You blindly accept whatever he or she says because in the past they have been right. Just because they have been right in the past does not mean they are right now. The second problem in making someone an authority over a topic you stop listening others. You narrow your listening to one person and that too without critical thought. You passively accept input without much thought. You might as well be sitting in front of a TV.

Is there anything more destructive to learning than making your teacher an authority on that topic? The student is destroyed and in that process so is the teacher and teaching is lost.

Wanting..

Wanting is structural. What you want is content and the content is interchangeable. In other words it doesn't matter what you want. If you get it you will just switch your wanting to something else. So then why are we upset if we don't get what we want? Is it because we think that we will be happy when we get what we want? Is that not a delusion?

Infact we prefer to wanting to having. Once we have something, we no longer want it and we shift our wanting to something else. So while I am not saying we should not want, thats impossible.  I believe we should stop thinking that getting what we want will make us happy because it does not.  So then its alright to want and not have because having is not going to change my state. Thinking it does makes me unhappy or makes me to wait to be happy till I get what I want and then I shift to wanting something else. So pursue my wants like its a game, doesn't really matter whether I get what I want or not but because it is fun to pursue my wants. That way life is fun.

Self Pity

It is an interesting indulgence we have, this feeling sorry for ourselves. Today I spent the whole day feeling rather sorry for myself and in the end of the day, I have a headache and I am exhausted. Not working out very well this whole feeling sorry for myself. Its like I ate something which doesn't agree with my system and I feel bad.

So my poor wife asks me why I was wallowing in self pity. She would never say something like that. She would instead ask me what was wrong and I could trot out a dozen reasons on why I was wallowing in self pity today but the real reason, if we are honest with ourselves, was that we indulge in it. It is something we like. We like to feel sorry for ourselves even though its not good for us. We cling to this notion of how much of a victim we are and how unfair life is. And when I look back today, it is funny, idiotic and ridiculous. But for ten long hours, I was so convinced that I was this poor hard done by soul. Around eight in the evening after I had watched my thoughts for ten long hours, I started laughing. The whole idea was ludicrous.

Life is a funny thing. You think you have it all figured out and boom, one day you wake up feeling sorry for yourself. :)

Life and Death....

If you had one moment to live would you be enjoy that moment or would you be upset about the fact that you had only one moment to live and not more. Now stretch this moment to a life time. You have this one life to live, are you going to enjoy it or are you going to be upset that you are going to die.

My wife and I were having this conversation about why people get upset when they learn they are going to die and it does not make sense to me that when we know we have two three months to live we waste our time being upset about it. I have three months to live and instead of going and living it and enjoying the life I have, I will instead spend it by living in the future when I dont have this life when I will be dead. That future is going to come anyway, so why dont I wait till I die to die.

If you think about how much we crib and complain about uncertainty and then you are told you are going to die. There is certainty finally we know something for sure, you would think we would be happy and yet we choose to be unhappy. So may be we are not unhappy about uncertainty or unhappy about dieing. We are just unhappy. We are in a habit of being unhappy.

I think unhappiness is a habit people learn from childhood. We learn to complain, criticize, judge. So to be happy all you have to do is to consciously choose it. Make it a habit.

Stages of Grief

The five stages of grief was first introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. It describes a process by which people deal with grief and tragedy.

The five stages are as follows, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I think we all go through these five stages but I wonder why we do it in these five stages.

When I talk to people they clearly accept that the need to go through these stages but the first four stages clearly make us unhappy and the fifth gives us peace. So why do we not just go to the fifth stage? Why do we have to go through pain and suffering before we say we have enough with pain and suffering and accept? Is it possible to bypass the first four stages and come directly to the fifth stage? When I ask people about it, they look at me like I am crazy. But why should we say that it is inevitable to go through these stages just because thats what we have been doing it all these years. We might have a predisposition to it but cant we overcome our predisposition?

Why should we go through these first four stages of suffering and emotional pain before we decide we have enough of pain? Why should we not just move directly to stage five?

Interesting Day...

I woke up today morning dead tired, my wife was sick. Immediately memories rushed back, she had been extremely sick in 2007 and 2008, bed ridden for a year. I was panicking, anxiety surged, and so did anger. I stood still. Did not react. I watched and waited. A thought flashed through my head "If only she would take care of herself" and then another "If only she would listen to me". And then I laughed, old friends anxiety and control surging to take control of my life and make mine and my wife's life miserable.

I said nothing, I watched and waited. Anger abated, anxiety and tiredness remained. I got up made her some coffee, she was coughing. I gently suggested that she might want to go see a doctor, she said no she did not want to. Anxiety surged forth again. "Why doesn't she listen to me, I know whats good for her" came a thought. I watched and waited, said nothing to her, and watched and again anxiety stayed, the thought left me. This time I did not laugh, I was not alert enough. I walked away, went and had my shower, gave her a hug.

Started getting ready to go to work, and then I went up to her and said "Well how about I ask Kara to come and give you a massage, may clear up your sinuses" and she said yes, she would like that. I called Kara, who is one of the best massage therapist in town, and she said yes she could come over and help Beth with her headache and sinuses.

I felt better. So all in all this was not about her but about me and my anxiety. Two years ago when she extremely sick, this would have become an major point of contention with me feeling my life completely out of control and wanting some illusion of control. And her trying to find some control over her life even if it is refusing medication or refusing to see a doctor. I have finally learnt to respect her life and her space and to accept that there somethings which she does which I see as harmful but it is her right to do it. While I may suggest something, she has the right to choose what is for her and what is not for her.

Accepting that I have no control over my life and the only thing I have control over is my reactions to it has helped. Also watching my thoughts, repetitive patterns which make me want to feel sorry for myself. Anytime I start complaining, feeling sorry for myself I am starting to suffer and suffering is an addiction. I believe that our minds run constantly without stopping and if you dont watch it and are not alert you will fall into your old habits which is to suffer and complain. I still do it and then I catch myself. Today I found me catching myself do it again and again and again.... So all in all a good day :)?

Suffering

Why do we choose to suffer? Anytime when we are doing something and want to do something else do we not complain, criticize and suffer? When we judge and find someone something wanting, lacking are we not choosing to suffer? When we split yourself into two, wanting to do something but forcing ourselves to do something else and not accepting the choice do we not suffer?

So then why do we choose to suffer? Do we really choose it or is it a habit, which is socially acceptable.. to complain, to criticize, to judge others instead of letting things be the way they are....

Inconsistencies in life....

We are not consistent in our belief systems. Let’s take the political sphere. We have conservatives who are "pro-life" and yet are pro death penalty and pro war and then we have liberals who are pro-choice and yet are anti death penalty and anti war. One group claims that life is sacred only when it is in the womb and then not so sacred. The other group claims that life is not sacred in the womb but is sacred once it is born. At least the liberals try to explain by saying that the embryo is not really living which is at least an attempt at consistency than the conservatives.

Here is another inconsistency, we have social conservatives and fiscal conservatives together and that makes no sense to me. Fiscal conservatives believe in small government in the realm of economics but social conservatives believe in big government role in society. They want government to tell people how they can be born, how to have sex, how to live and how to die. Their need for government control is so intrusive and pervasive that I wonder how these two groups can reconcile their differences. A man consistent to his beliefs of small government would be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. That is a consistent position to take and yet so many of the fiscal conservatives end up spouting socially conservative ideas.

I don’t think people really think about what their beliefs are and why they believe what they believe. Most of them believe because their father or mother believes. So that is why they don’t even see any inconsistency in their beliefs. They don’t step back and think about what is they believe in. Any introspection would be threatening to their self image and identity as a Republican or a Democrat and so long as their party espouses a particular line they will use it as a proxy for thinking.

Pretty depressing....