Category: freedom

No, not James Bond. But Ruskin Bond, the well known author.

Was reading an interview of his recently. And I loved two of his answers.

1) What is your relationship with technology?

I am technology-illiterate. I have no mobile or laptop. I use that wonderful invention called the ballpoint pen to write. I am not against technology, but I'm not a slave to it.

2) What are your vanities and vulnerabilities?

Well, I'm proud of my work, but I don't brag about it. I know writers have big egos, so I try to control mine. I tell myself, there are other writers in the world, too! Vulnerabilities? I am sensitive and get hurt easily if someone says something overly critical of me. You have to know me to understand my vanities and vulnerabilities!

Such down to earth responses!

The song Paradise City by Guns’n’roses is something everyone with even a little white hair today would remember and love. But where is paradise city? Where is paradise?

Here’s what Osho once wrote, about a Tibetan mystic named Marpa:

It was asked of a great Tibetan mystic, Marpa, "Where will you go when you die - heaven or hell?" Marpa said, "Surely I will be in lotus paradise". The man said, "But how can you be so certain? You have not died, and you don't know what God has in His mind."

Marpa said, "I'm not worried about God's mind, that is His business. I am certain of being in lotus paradise because of my mind. Wherever I am, I will be happy and it will be heaven, so it makes no difference whether I am thrown into hell or heaven, it is irrelevant. I carry my own lotus paradise with me, wherever I go."

Does our own paradise city have a lotus in it?

Know what’s common between electricity, clean air, and good health?

We tend to take them for granted until they’re no longer available.

In our daily lives, there are many things that we don’t appreciate until they’re gone.

It’s only when we’re faced with the absence of these things that we realize how important they really are.

We rarely think about the quality of the air we breathe until we encounter smog or pollution.

We often assume that clean water will always be available to us, but many people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water.

Continued tomorrow…

Most people would have studied about Schadenfreude in school. The term refers to the happiness that people feel at the pain of someone else. One may think that it is a bad word, and that it has nothing to do with themselves. But the reality is, that every single action of ours in our lives involves schadenfreude in some form or manner. Really?

Like if we get a promotion at work. This comes at the expense of someone else’s promotion that same cycle, because it is not possible for the entire organization to get promoted at the same time. If we’ve got the promotion, we are happy, at someone else’s expense. Or even in simple things like taking a walk. How many insects have got crushed under our feet, just so we can enjoy the fresh air? Or when we let the tap run, how many others are deprived of water? The list can go on and on, but living thinking like this can be very defeatist and fatalistic. What to do then?

Concluded tomorrow…

Some people say customer is king. That’s true.

Some others say employee is king. Haha, no no, nobody says that. Because employees are mostly treated as slaves. But imagine if they were treated as kings! Wouldn’t employees deliver 200%?

Or would they? Some might, but some would also misuse their position.

Some employers take really good care of their people. Even through times like Covid, they ensured everyone got paid, and that no one was laid off.

And then there are others that buyout companies, have insane amounts of wealth, and yet in the name of business profitability, kick out thousands of employees, almost as if on a whim. Some employers apologize, others not so much.

Nothing about any of these is illegal. But is it moral? Is it humane? What truly matters? One can only answer for themselves.

We’ve all faced tough situations in the past.

Some situations are so tough and grim and mentally draining, that even weeks, months or years later, the after effects play (and prey) on us.

And these instances bring down our productivity and efficiency in the current moment.

Which is why I love the story of the two Holocaust survivors. Both had just gone through the worst times in their lives. When they were finally free, one chap was ecstatic, while the other was revengeful (understandably so).

The latter just could not understand the former’s ability to remain peaceful. “You just got out of that prison, and were treated in the worst way possible and yet you are so calm?”

“Yes”, he replied. “We are both apparently free now, but mentally you are still in that prison. Is that what you want?”