Is Good enemy of Great or is it Viceversa?

Voltaire said this - Don't let perfect be the enemy of good!, My ex boss introduced me to this deeply philosophical concept and I liked it instantly when I heard her saying for the first time. 

I do tend to agree with it in the context of our work life where we often delay execution for want of perfection and that can bring down the desired impact, time as they say is critical in the fast moving world. The patient will be dead if we keep waiting for the best doctor to arrive, we need to trust when good is enough.

However while reading Steve jobs biography, I thought good can be the enemy of great.. Jobs brought some magnificent products with his sheer madness around perfection, around bringing a great product much ahead of its time, he rebelled against practical wisdom and he managed to create all of this only through this.. Had he also thought let perfection be damned, good is enough would we have not stuck in mediocre products? 

Does good not bring us a mediocre life? Striving for perfection is what gets us to move up... There are facets of greatness of which we cannot cut corners, we should not for our own good. 

What aspect to strive for perfection and what not, is a question we must answer and live with both the good and great....

Life's Biggest Questions

For now there have been only 2 - What's the purpose of life?  & How do I achieve Happiness?

There is 1 more about which I will talk later, I realize these are definitely bull shit questions !!!! Yes I have been giving it too much importance trying to solve, thought, written, read tomes on this and now I think these are no questions to solve.. stop looking for a purpose and you will be happy, purpose is sought for happiness and happiness is a trick you can play with your mind... so if you are happy why need a purpose?

Few mind tricks for happiness- Arrogance, delusions, contentment, denial, narcissism, detachment, acceptance, etc.. there are many choose the one suits you... 

Work? Life? Family? Balance? Superior?

My boss has decided to take a break, she is very passionate about her work, tipped to be next function head, all what you can think from work perspective which can make her successful is working for her - ability, passion, visibility, drive, ambition, etc. 

She loves her work and yet she is taking a break. A break for taking care of her kids. And therefore a lot of feminists and women folk wonder in office why? They think this is  how the system (social, organization) conspires and makes it tough for woman. I also know it has been tough for my boss to take this decision, making this choice would have not come without endless debate. The soothsayers all tell her she will be back soon, the time period varies but all say it will be quick. 

I can understand her debate but I do not understand the others argue on below points- 

• Betrayal of society for woman to give up her career, it is based on the premise work is of a higher order? I wonder, is it really? 
• Woman are being robbed of their independence, the terrible culture of work, India. I wonder - Who is independent in this world? Money comes with work but it does not take out dependence for any one of us, we are dependent on others at any point of time for our needs. Money is not the only need we have and does money buy us everything?
• It is a man's world. I wonder - Is it? why does the game we master to earn money become so superior? Is taking care of kids lesser than the office work we do?
• Why cannot man take a break? I wonder  - why does it matter, is it not looking from the lens that what woman has to give up is inferior and work superior? Can this not be considered 2 different tasks equal in value? No one is giving anything, it is just that more skilled is rotating to a role which needs attention, the role being take care of the kids?

I wonder - Why money earning activity has become so important? Why all other activities been relegated to an inferior position? Why do we need to judge this and make a big deal out of it. 

Time to Shed the Old Skin

"Even the finest books deserve to be thrown aside" - This is the last line of the book I recently read - How Proust can change your life, written by Alain De Botton, he quotes Marcel Proust here. 

The book overall was heavy for me but this ending line has caught my attention. 

Doing my self assessment as usual with each of these philosophical thought I think I am caught up with the books I have read, the theories, the periodic battle of to be or not to be; it is time that throw all of this aside, there is much to life which needs to be experienced, the books, the theories can only take me to a small distance, beyond that I have to traverse myself.

What holds back that experience is mental conditioning, the fears of different hues, the judgements and the desire of being desirous. 

It is time to shed the skin, and take another leap, wear the new skin...

I know what went wrong

You know what I have been wronged by my office,
Even I am wronged by the leadership team,
I was wronged by the salesman,
I was too wronged by this selfish friend,
What the hell, mine is bigger I was wronged by my sibling,
That's nothing I was wronged by my best friend,
Hah, I was wronged by my own family, all of them,
I was by - Selfish blood suckers, destiny, her, him.

Blame on everyone others is the story today, everywhere,
I am looking for souls, who say I was wronged by myself,
I know happiness is in me and I am being wronged by self.
If anyone is to be blamed it is me, and only me.

I believe my destiny is my creation and I believe I have control, I am not a puppet of others and circumstance.

Learning to see

i never thought that i will have to learn to see again... i will have to unlearn my patterns and train myself to see again... what i mean is that mind is always so busy and talkative that we see objects yet are not seeing... i know what i am syaing is confusing...

when driving my eyes are on road, when walking my mind is lost in thought and i just walk i see all the roadblocks i need to avoid and nothing else..

while talking to someone i am seeing the other person but my mind is reacting  - agreeing or disagreeing or collating my own response... my mind is processing not what i am seeing but what i will be reacting to person i am talking to.. i miss the body language

i am always preoccupied by thoughts and my mind is processing something else, the something else could be gratifying but i have lost the art of seeing...

i remember i had this realization sometime back... it was i think around the time i saw some photography by some great photographer who captures beautiful momens out of ordniary life.. he said u need to surrender to the moment and u will see what others fail to see.. thats the skill of photographer it does not lie in techinchal skill of clicking photographs...  it stayed with me and then while i was walking i just stopped.. stopped thought process of what i will do next or daydreaming.. just stopped or slowed the pace of life by calming my mind.. and then i saw the ordinary life, a building, a tree and some kids playing... it was different it was always there... i do stop someimes to just see and it always surprises me... there is interesting beautiful visuals everywhere.. one does not have to go to a scenic place always...

another question which i have but himalayas are still more beautiful, the answer is yes people see its beauty as it is so that forces you to see it... but if you see again by just slowing the life, calming your mind it can be even more beautiful...

now when i talk to people i look in their face at times, just stop listening, stop processing what is being said, slow down, calm my mind and see them.. they look different, i can see their face, the contours, the beauty, the ugly and everything... they look so different... they look lively

It is an interesting exercise, try it if u have also stopped seeing... you will see very differently and often it is quite amazing...

Religion & God

An interesting debate forwarded by a good friend :) and i thought instead of getting into a debate i would put my views on religion and god and etc...

i have simple thoughts around this:

RELIGION

To me religion is nothing but a code of conduct/ code of discipline which some geinius wise people have made so as to help people live righteously. See most of us are running for fulfilling our responsibilities, trying to become perfect in our hobbies, interests. So religion takes care of a basic subject of what we need to do nor not do by some genius wise man. There have been several such genius wise men and therfore there are so many religions. for e.g. in scientific discovery like mobile phones do we all need to learn to make/ manufacture mobile phones? No some genius scientist discoverd it and is sold to us as a product and we just use it. Now you have a Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and so many other brands.. all have same underlying principles but are at the same time different.. Can all of us develop capability to develop mobile phones? no you have to be genious and a scientist its not every ones cup of tea.

simialrly some genius social/ life scientists or genius wise men created religion. it is a product to be used for better living. Choose whichever, criticize any each has its good aspects and flaws afterall no mobile is perfect some other scientist make it better so is the same with religion. But all religions underlying principles is to how to live a good peaceful happy life, how to become a better human being. There is nothing more which suits you follow and if think you are bigger and smarter than a christ or a buddha please create your own... but are you, just get that right else you may get caught in what the wise called maya....

Religion gets corrupted and some time the caretakers of religion for their good and greed of power misuse the trust bestowed on religion. But one cannot judge religion by the caretakers.. people who think religion has no meaning i would suggest they read the core text of such a religion though it will need some intelligence to understand it. Can religion lead to salvation... my answer is no it will lead you to a point but the journey is long and after the point you have to walk with a faculty and capabilities developed in the course of life.

Is religion made to control people? No the caretakers are misusing the powers, it does talk of controlling your mind, negative emotions but what is the harm in it? the rules of religion or the controlling nature has come from the caretakers and not the core text...

do you have to follow it to be better? Do you need to use a mobile to talk always? No so not necessary there are other ways too... to each his own

God

this one is difficult.. to say someone physically sits up above is difficult to believe. But there is a lot more than as we understand life and there is a larger system which lies beyond all of our understanding. Call it supernatural, heaven-hell, god, super power, nature, whatever. Yes i do believe in that. Why? Well come to think of it it is just amazing to have such perfect human beings, we are such perfect machines!! the functioining , male female, birth, growing up, senses, love, sex, death, mind, thoughts, eating, i can just go on .. No scientist has ever reached near this and will ever do.. no robot no car can eat food and walk/ run the roads... it can never feel... it obviously make you think there is some more to life than what we understand.. for simplicity we call it god... Different wise men in different religion have expressed it diffferently buddha says god is in you, attain it through the understading the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path... Jesus said compassion and love can lead you to that understding... etc, i am not sure which is correct as it is not easy for me to understand or experience i experiment and so do urge others and to discover...

I have tried some occult/ spitirual practices and it amazes me the reults it shows.. nothing short of miracle and it cannot be understood by scientists... so i believe there is something larger than life as we humans understand.. call it god or whatever... it is a higher ideal to live and achieve.. how an established religion? or my own or some other way... that is a choice i have given i am not a genius wise i choose religion (buddhisim is for me..).. it will take me to a point from where i have to anyway make my own religion but till then let me not rediscover a wheel but follow the one which suits me as an individual....

So, what did you do on new years eve?

So, where did you party?

Well my answer to all this is nowhere i slept through and well what a sleep :).... for me this is the best way i can celebrate. No i am not anti-social i just get surprised by the madness of the concept it seems insane, every day the clock strikes 12, every day the date changes so whats the big deal. I can understand for some people it is another reason to party, and they are always looking for one reason to another, it does not matter to them if it is a new year they will any way find occcasions to party hard all the year. That class deserves to party but i do not fathom the others who are otherwise simple, traditionalists who become wannabe on the new year eve and want to party and discuss next day what i did on the new year...

C'mon either be there or here just dont wander confused.. life is too short to create stupid talking points, figure out what you want to do and not just on a new year on an each day each second basis.. i am not against partying but this foolishness all of us go about trying to live life in a manner that pleases insiginificant others in life... just because the herd is dancing if i do not i may be left out... the actions which emerge out of not choice or liking but out of compulsion to prove yourself... out of fear that by being your self you may displease others... get comfortable with your own skin and do as you feel like and not just on a new year, it has to be a way of life. shit when you have to and not when everyone does, your body may just have a different rhythum....

i dont party as i dont want to party on a date which is artificial, i party in my own way when i have a reason to celebrate.. i party the way i wish to, it could be just shutting my laptop and the flood of mails and just chatting up with an friend about life, or these days writing this blog :)

my party is over for now, pretty late in the night just was feeling the itch to write.. but i shall party again and will be back :) i am addicted to my parties in my own way...

Desire

Desire comes with both angels and demon... one part of mind wanting it and another chiding.. There is the heavenly experience of fulfilling a desire and there is buddha who says that desire is the root cause of suffering.. I have become a votary of chiding desires.. beleive that buddha was more intelligent than the pop philosophers, the intelligent well read people and my own intelliegence so for past few years I have been trying to walk his path.

Diffficult it is for sure but now i have come to realize there is more peace and happiness in not desiring.. I can love more without wanting more returns in my roamntic ways, I have more time to focus on giving than wanting. Though this is a long journey but i am finding it more fulfilling.

Earlier I used to cry for the lolipop I wanted, felt sad if I did not get it , cried till I got it and had no capacity to look at the suffering the other went through to procure one for me or my own suffering to follow as others told me to get that lolipop like do the boring homework, be disciplined :). I was being a slave to others to get that lolipop.

I am grown up now and I dont mind getting the lolipop, i can remain happy, or happier even without it and i dont have to take orders or trouble someone to buy me one.

Just that the lolipop in the adult age has become pretty complex and often unconscious.... as i said this journey is long...

Life Myth 3 - I know it is the truth

I know it all or the arrogance of intelligence... let me explain what i mean by this. how often we just know that we know.. for e.g. some time back the scientists of the world believed that earth is flat.. so be it people mocked when someone suggested it is not flat.. all intelligent people but pushed into a new reality when they realized they did not know it all... same goes the story of flying... everyone mocked at who said we could fly, today you cannot think without flying.. then we thought we knew all and came internet all rules have changed and humans have become more ambitious now in thinking and each time when we know it someone breaks barriers and what we knew no longer remains the truth.

the above is on macro level, at individual level -  sometime i knew there is a god and i could argue with all others who thought there is none, i could challenge and feel pity on their not knowing but did i really know as I grew more and no longer do I have faith in an existence of god.. my theories have changed. at an individual level we carry certain set of beliefs, ideals in one phase and when we grow more and have an ability to look beyond the earlier capability we realize we knew s wrong and we know something new... we know today the rights and wrongs but when we undergo more experiences what we knew as truth no longer is truth.

As a child my i knew my parents could never be wrong about anything, i just did as i was told as they were ideal god like.... when i was a teenager i knew they were all wrong.. i just knew it and i could swear on this.. and now as an adult i know they are right in a lot of aspects and incorrect on others... but from there perspective they may be right in a lot of things but it does not fit my reality.. how i knew changes over a period of time.. yet what i know today i like to swear upon, add stress to myself and fight.

how often we fight on viewpoints in office, in life as to how some work should be done and that is the only way to do it correctly, i know it... At times it gets vetoed and you swear this will not work.. but more often than not it works.. if you are intelligent you will broaden your horizon else you say that well they were lucky...

few months back i thought people can be changed if given right direction until i was in a relationship with a woman who had messed up her mind from childhood.. then i got to know i wish i had listened to those who told me that i know it wrong this time... it happens with all of us all the time, you believe in what you know and you may know it also more often than not, but the fact is when you move ahead or time moves ahead and you experience or the world experiences something different the truth changes...  we really do not know much but we still are arrogant in what we know today.. and that for us is the truth and all others who know not are nincompoops....

if you are honest enough to look back you will realize that a lot of whatever you knew as truth earlier does not hold good today... it is changing... to an extent or completely... always changing

But i must also say that after realizing that you know not everything you must not get into a mode of non action, non decisiveness.. if you do you will lose it... you must acknowledge the action or decision today is the best as per my knowledge today and be ready to broaden your horizon, question midway and know better than what you knew a little while ago.. this is learning and a way to break myths and grow wiser..

another fact is that some people know better than you and some others worse... to know that is very difficult.. each has his own boundaries of knowing and can fathom only limited to that... for e.g. if you make this (what i am writing) child to read ( 5-6 years old who otherwise reads stories)... he will not fathom anything.. make some Einstein read it and he will say ahhh such a childish philosophy.. as he knows a lot more... make a party hopping kid read this and he will say well this is crap and what is the use... some will not know this as a truth and never fathom it.. for them what they know within their boundaries is the truth and not this... some others will acknowledge it and say it is a minor point there is much more to knowing... this is just a starting broaden your horizon...

Life Myths - 1

Myth:

Visualize, Slog, Slog, Visualize, Slog and life will be as you desire... A happy ending.



A concept you would have seen in many movies one i remember is "In Pursuit of Happyness". Its a big myth media, movies, novels glorify this. the motivational speakers, spiritualists, trianers make money out of it.



I am not a pessimist or hopeless but i am a realist. I beleive that there are geniuses and mentaly challenged.. 2 extremes and all the billions of people on this earth are interspersed between this 2 extremes. Only a few are on the extreme and not everyone can become or is a genius. One genius who is born in penury and he may achieve what Will Smith did in the movie but that is once and only one in a lifetime.



This whole concept is so flawed but so interesting (come to think of it someone is promising you the world if you slog) that most people fall for it and only later they realize that it is not happening as they had seen, visualized and they get hopeless. hopeless to an extent that it becomes difficult to get them out of this and help find happiness.



True happiness comes from accepting yourself as you are and being able move ahead step by step from there. But at the same time also remember that at times destiny has a differnt story for you and you may end up being pushed backwards.. The happiness comes from the journey and having some love around you. Your acceptance of your self and having people around you who repsect who you are and help in taking you ahead in the journey of life.



Even our education system is made of making everyone a genius/ expert, however they have a new concept of multiple intelligence and one should find his/ her attribute of intelligence where one is genius. It is flawed it must just focus on finding what you are better at and can make a good living and you can grow.



True happiness lies in finding yourself and knowing yourself and planning life accordingly. Not biting more than you can chew that you choke yourself or not dreaming what will only frustrate you and make you feel smaller. Just know and move ahead.. you may become a genious in this way but may not also. Just get along and enjoy the journey...