Category: Philosophy

Categories
Philosophy

No Sense

There is no sense
in making sense
of senselessness
derived from the absurdity
of understanding life
as is

Maybe because
being so consumed by
what was or what will be
distracted by decisions
of what should be

say as if
deciding had weight
on the blind hand
that wrote this

There is no sense
in making sense

With your hands
you set out to carve
or perhaps hoping to
sculpt
But that blind hand
that built this machinery
has foretold how it will be

Of billions upon billions of paths
it had to be this one
what has your deciding got to do with it
there is no sense in making sense
of why it is
just that it is

Strings that pull and tug
the butterfly flaps its wings
the machinery that churns and hums
and you believe in something absurdly
that it is you who has faculty



Categories
Philosophy

A Better meaning of Kali Chaudas

While growing up in an Indian Hindu family, my sister and I and other Hindu kids in the neighborhood were frightened into waking up before sun rise, bathing and getting dressed and doing pooja else face some very dark and evil happenings. Kali Chaudas was always portrayed as something bad.

The festival is also called as “Kali Chaudas”, where Kali means dark (eternal) and Chaudas means fourteenth, this is celebrated on the 14th day of the dark half of [[Aaso month)]. In some regions of India, Kali Chaudas is the day allotted to the worship of Mahakali or Shakti and is believed that on this day Kali killed the asura (demon) Narakasura. Hence also referred to as Naraka-Chaturdashi, Kali Chaudas is day to abolish laziness and evil which create hell in our life and shine light on life. Narak Chaturdashi, celebrated just one day before Diwali, is also known as small Diwali.[2]

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

Destroy Your Demons

Kali is the destroyer of Demons. Why not be inspired by Kali an destroy your demons? In the west we have the concept of “New Year’s Resolution”; it is when people decide that they are going to make some positive changes in their lives, which usually means exercising and eating healthy for most people. In some regions of India, New Year’s is the day after Diwali, and it is when people start something new to bring good luck to their new ventures.

If the Nutan Varsha (new year) is to start something new and good, then I say make Kali Chaudas to end something old and bad. Get inspired by Kali,the demon slayer to end your own demons, and lets face it, we do have our demons as individuals and as a society.

Say no to fireworks

How about start with deciding that you are not going to light firecrackers, which only pollutes the ground with the air around you. Our environment needs all the help that it can get.

Be Vegan

And speaking of the environment, how about adopting a vegan life style. Did you know:

“It[Animal Agriculture] is responsible for somewhere between 20 and 33% of the fresh water usage in the world”

“…livestock, and the production of feed for them, occupy about a third of the earth’s ice-free land.”

“animal husbandry is responsible for up to 91% of the deforestation in the Amazon region.”

“Cows produce from 35 to 40% of the overall methane emissions of the planet”

“Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of the powerful and long-lived greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry

What are you Demons?

What other vices would you like to destroy? Perhaps it is something personal, like anger and greed, or cruelty towards yourself in the form of self doubt, fear and negative thoughts, or perhaps it is holding onto painful memories.

Maybe there is clutter in your house or at work that you would like to destroy, or those extra pounds that you have gained because of the pandemic ( I know I have). Have you abused yourself with addictions like alcohol, processed sugars or gambling? Maybe it is time to destroy those demons.

I cannot tell you what your demons are. You may not even want to share with others, but you know what they are. It is Kali Chaudas – it is time to destroy your demons.

Categories
Philosophy

Things the World Does not Need(or Needs Less of)

I have a tendency of writing my thoughts and ideas down, and that is why I am a big fan of note taking apps and services. I have used Google Keep, OneNote, Evernote, QOwnNotes, Apple’s Note app, Joplin and others that I may have used in the past but do not remember now. I currently use my own program called mynotes. It uses vim, bash shell script and markdown. You can download mynotes for free from github.

I was doing some reorganizing of my notes when I found a list of “Things the world does not need or needs less of”. I have included some here.

plastic bags

Plastic in general should be avoided almost always, but it still does have its place especially in places and products that are going to be used for a very very long time – think in terms of at least double digit years. However, plastic bags are a menace to the environment and should be BANNED everywhere in the world. They have a very short usage time, but a very long life span and causes havoc in our rivers, lakes, oceans and to aquatic life.

Antivaxers, Flat Earthers, Anti-everythingers, and Conspiracy Culture

The current Covid19 pandemic has shown something quite strange – the existence of a subclass of skeptics called antivaxers.

“Why do I need to take a vaccine for something that I do not have” is what most of them say. That is literally what vaccines are for; for something that you do not have, but in case if you do get it, your immune system is better prepared to fight it off, thereby avoiding hospitalization or worse – death!

Conspiracy culture has been brewing for some time, but the this Covid19 Pandemic has brought to light

The Caste System

Now this is specifically related to the Indian Culture, and I can talk about it because I am Indian. India has given the world yoga, pranayam, meditation, ayurveda. India is the birth place of religions like Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism with all these religions having non-violence and equality for all living things at its core simply by saying that every living thing has a soul, from humans right down the the smallest insects.

India has also been responsible for deep philosophical concepts like Dharma, Karma, Maya and Mokshya. India has given the world great epics like the Mahabharat and the Ramayan.

With everything that India has given the world that Indians should be proud of, there is also this one thing that all Indian should be ashamed of and that is the caste system!

No country and no culture is perfect, and every society has had its share of missteps in history. What bothers me and what frankly is unacceptable is that the caste system still exists in the minds and hearts of many Indians from big cities to small villages. The caste system makes no sense, and the only thing it is good for is prejudice and discrimination.

Petroleum Fuel Based Cars

I think every country should mandate the ban of petroleum fuel based cars by a certain date; the sooner the better. Brands like Tesla have already proven that electric cars are not only a viable alternative, but they are actually cool! Electric cars mean less air pollution, less lining up at gas stations, paying close nothing for a ‘fill up’, having the option of charging your cars at home, and adds to our global efforts of reducing our reliance of fossil fuel.

Poverty

When you have companies that are richer than entire countries, it is a big problem. The 1% of the richest people in the world have the wealth and power to lift people all around the world out of poverty. I am not talking about redistribution of wealth, I am merely talking about empowering people below to the poverty line to be lifted out of it. The only reason that the rich are not helping the poor is because of greed. I do not see any other reason.

Animal Agriculture

Just think about these facts:

“It[Animal Agriculture] is responsible for somewhere between 20 and 33% of the fresh water usage in the world”

“…livestock, and the production of feed for them, occupy about a third of the earth’s ice-free land.”

“animal husbandry is responsible for up to 91% of the deforestation in the Amazon region.”

“Cows produce from 35 to 40% of the overall methane emissions of the planet”

“Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of the powerful and long-lived greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry

Need I say more?

The best thing that you can do for the environment is to stop consuming animals.
You cannot be an environmentalist and not be a vegan.

Influencers, Reaction Videos, Fake Pranks and TicToc

I am honestly sick and tired of people who call themselves “influencers”. How is that a thing? At what point did we as a society decide that that is an actual career choice. A lot of the videos that I have seen on tictoc or Instagram Reels and now youtube shorts is mind numbingly annoying trash. Or maybe, I am just a “boomer” .

How is watching someone react to another person’s video entertaining. These people get millions of views for practically doing nothing. I consider this as stealing, being lazy and is detrimental to general creativity on any platform.

90% of the prank videos that I currently see on any platforms are fake. There was a time when people actually made an effort to prank people, and I mean genuinely prank people. Then there was an era when people faked the pranks but at least put genuine effort to make it convince; they were putting an effort to make their fraudulent and very fake pranks look genuine. I hated that era, but now sadly I kind of appreciate and miss those days when I had to think and figure out if these were fake or genuine. Nowadays, we inflicted with 15 second trash pranks – bad attacking, zero effort garbage.

Which brings me to platforms like tictoc, instagram reels and stories, and youtube shorts that make such things possible. This rapid descent of society started with Tictoc, but the downword spiral began much earlier with Facebook.

Just my Opinion

This is just my opinion and like me, you have opinions of your own. There are many other things that I can think about that we as a global society need less of, but if I write all of them down, I am afraid I will never be able to stop writing.

What are some of the things that you think the world needs less of?

Categories
Philosophy

These 3 Principles will Change The Way You Live

I am not a religious person. I am also not a spiritual person, and quite frankly, I never really understood what that meant (being spiritual). I admit to being philosophical. I love dwelling into philosophy, and thus, sometimes expression of my ideas encroach into the realm of religion or “spirituality”, because religion is mostly steeped in philosophy.

I do not claim to perfectly live by these principles, and I have had no sudden epiphanies about these. Each principle was revealed so to speak over time and contemplation. Somehow I knew for a very long time and we all do in some form or another. However, it is funny how the mind works; when we see or hear ideas that have always been floating around in our heads, we finally “see” or realize.

What I ask of you is to ponder upon these principles, and try to start applying them slowly and see how they change the way you live.

You are Responsible for Your Experiences

Whatever you have experienced, are experiencing or will ever experience is your responsibility. Your thoughts, your choices, your actions that were made by you, led you to experience each and every event that has happened in your life. The same will be true for anything and everything that you have not experienced.

I know that this becomes tricky when people start giving counter arguments like, “Oh what about that car accident?” Or “What about the hurricane that destroyed my home?” or some other negative or bad thing that they experienced.

Has anyone ever blamed anyone or anything for something good happened to them? When good things happen, it is always, you worked hard, or you are smart, or it is your abilities, or your luck made it happen. If you are not responsible for all the bad that happens to you then you are also not responsible for anything good that happens to you.

This principle is not about blaming the victim, but empowering them. Accepting that all your thoughts, actions, choices and decision led you to that specify point in time and space to experience that event, releases everything and anything that you do not have direct control over. Moreover, accepting and knowing that you are responsible for what you experience, you can choose what to experience next. You become the master of you destiny so to speak. You are in the driver seat; not your mother, father, friend, lover, boss, weather, stock market, or anything.

There is the physical aspect of an event, and then there is the after effect of that event. The event itself you may not have control over, however, how you experience that event is up to you. I will give you an example of what I mean by that.

There are two people at a concert. One person is annoyed that they did not get the seats that they wanted, that people are jumping around and blocking their view and it is too loud or not loud enough. This person will have a completely different experience then the other person who is filled with joy because they are at a concert of their favorite band, they do not care about where they are seated because they just wanted to be at that concert, and enjoying the fact that there are other people who love this band just as much as they do and they are enjoying the experience together.

These two people are in the same event in time and space, but their experiences of that event are drastically different.

So there are two distinctions of this principle. One is that your thoughts, actions and decisions bring you to an event in time and space. The event that occurs is something that may not have control over, because the chain of cause and effect was already set in motion. Second, although you may not have control over the actual event when it happens, what you experience because of that event is because of you.

Be Present

There is a theory that time is such that everything that has happened in the past, is happening now and will happen in the future is happening all at once. I am not going to get into that.

What I mean by being present is to have your focus on the present. Do not live in the past, do not live in the future; just be present.

This is very important in relationships. Every relationship has ups and down, there are arguments and there are differences. What most people tend to do is bring out the past. Because 20 years ago someone said something that offended you, you decided to get back at them by doing something else.

A lot of times, you keep dwelling on your past mistakes and because of fear of making the same mistake again, you fail to move forward in life. Or that feeling of, ‘oh things were so great. I was so good in basketball, or I wish I could go back to being young’ or something of that nature.

By being in the past and dwelling on what could have, should have, or would have been, you forget to live in the present. On the other side of the spectrum are futurist who keep living in the future. “When this happens, I will do that.”

Some might feel that if you do not look at the past, how will you learn the lessons of the past? For this I will remind you of the first principle, which is you are responsible for what your experience, and so it is important if you want to change your experiences in the future, you must learn from your past and then make changes so that you have a different experience in the future.

When watching a TV show, you watch a recap of what happened in the previous episodes and then you continue watching the show. Do you keep watching the previous episodes again and again without moving forward to the next episode?

Learning from your past is vital to have the optimal first principle, which is “You are responsible for your experiences”. But dwelling on the past is disservice to your experience.

Likewise, planning for the future, and setting goals is vital for your experience as well. If there is something that you would like to experience in life or also importantly not experience in life, you must plan and set goals for the future accordingly. But once that is done, your entire focus must be on the present.

Truly experiencing the present sets you free from the past and future and in my opinion of the ultimately way of living.

Let go

The third principle may seem like a direct contradiction to the first principle. Before that, what do I mean by “let go”?

Let go is the concept of letting go of expectation, of control, desire, hate, bad feelings and even good ones. It is a form of detached way of living. It should not confused with the idea of letting go of all your possession and relationships and duties and responsibilities so that you can go live in a forest, or high up in the mountains. I am very much against that way of “letting go”.

Let go has more to do with letting go of expectations. You are responsible for your experiences and thus you have a right to want to experience certain things in life and for that you must be present and work on those goals. However, you must not be attached to events that either fulfill those experiences or go contrary to desired experiences.

Letting go also applies to the other two principles. Sometimes, you may not be able to focus on the present. Sometimes an event forces you to focus on the past or the future. You must not become angry with yourself for losing focus on the present. You must not be attached to the outcome, do not expect that you will always be able to focus on the present, doing so will create anger and frustration, and this will then affect what you experience.

Likewise, after accepting that you are responsible for experiences, you must let go. Do not keep holding onto the thought because if you do, every little action, every little thought is going to force you evaluate whether or not it is going to start a chain of cause and effect which will ultimately lead you to have a good experience or a bad one.

Being attached to these principles must also be abandoned. These 3 principles must be kept as a reference, as a guide that you keep to remind yourself about what is important in life.

Letting go of expectation in work, business, sports, and especially relationships will bring a serene kind of balance which will be hard to experience without this principle. You have the right and ability to chose your experiences and work towards them, but you do not have the right or power over the faculties of other people and things, and therefore, the only solutions is to let go.

Categories
Philosophy

Buy if for Life

A couple of years ago I was introduced to the idea of “Buy it For Life”, which means what it says. The idea is when you purchase something, one of the requirements that you must consider is longevity of the product that you are buying. You must buy something which will last you a very long time.

Why?

Saves Money

There a couple of reasons for this. Buying something that will last a very long time will in most cases saves you money, although, that sometimes means spending more now so that you can save in the long run.

Reduces Waste

When you purchase something that lasts a very long time, you end up purchasing less of that type of product ultimately reducing waste which generally is better for the environment.

Simpler

Another consequence of “Buy it for Life” philosophy is minimalism. Now minimalism is a whole philosophy of its own. But the the idea is that if you buy something that is going to last a very long time, you will probably own just one or hopefully at least fewer of that type of product.

The Criteria

Quality over Style

This mostly pertains to clothing and footwear. One of the downsides to living in Canada is having multiple types of clothing and footwear. There are 4 seasons that require about 3 to 4 types of clothing. You can get away with using the same jackets and shoes for spring and autumn. But you definitely need a dedicate winter jacket and some summer clothes.

For example, I use a high quality plain black parka jacket which works in work or business and casual settings. It is not fancy looking at all. It is just plain black with a black zipper and a black hood. It was the most expensive jacket that I had ever bought, but it has been 6 years and it is still going strong. I did start having issues last winter – the hood now keeps coming off. The buttons have gotten loose. However, the jacket has a life time warranty, so all I have to do is send it to the manufacture and they will repair at no cost.

Which brings me to my next criteria.

Right to Repair

This is a bit of a misnomer. Of course, you have a right to repair anything that you like; the key idea is that it should be easy to repair. As I have mentioned, my jacket has a life time warranty and the manufacturer will repair it free of charge – this is the kind of product you should consider buying.

When you buy something, you must take into account the time, effort and money it will take to repair the product in case it breaks or gets damaged.

When it comes to violating right to repair, the biggest culprits are electronics manufacturers, and especially laptop and cell phone manufacturers. I loved buying cell phones that had removable batteries. It increased the lifetime of the cell phone. I also miss the days when laptops were upgradable with faster RAM, or faster or bigger storage. It meant that consumers could increase the lifetime of the product. Nowadays companies are notorious at going out of their way to ensure that their products are not upgradable.

Multipurpose over Single Purpose

Buying products that can be used for multiple purposes or in multiple settings means you can get away with buying fewer items in general. I will give you the example of my black parka jacket. It can used in multiple settings, both casual and business.

The same goes for footwear. When purchasing shoes, instead of purchasing something that looks ‘cool’, but only works in certain situations, why not go for something that is of a higher quality, may look plain, but can be used in multiple situations.

For the Canadian climate, I prefer waterproof hiking shoes because I can use them in the winter when paired with warm winter socks that keep me dry when I step on snow, and keeps me dry in the fall or spring when it rains. I can wear them in the summer by pairing up with regular socks, when I am out and about, plus I can even go hiking with them – you know because they’re hiking shoes.

When it comes to sports shoes, I prefer cross trainers as they are built for a variety of workouts. Lets face it most of us, including myself are not high performance athletes and we do not need dedicate shoes for different types of shoes.

A common concern that people might have is – will owning generic multipurpose items not make me boring? Sure, if you have boring personality!… BURN.

But seriously, let your personality, your passions, your interests do the ‘talking’ for you. You are not the brand or style that you own.

Categories
Philosophy Uncategorized

Veganism

About a year ago, I decided to adopt a vegan lifestyle. I call it a vegan lifestyle, because I feel that there is some negativity associated with the word “vegan” or rather the phrase, “I am a vegan”.

It’s Lifestyle

Also, “I AM…” signifies a core identity, and that somehow that is the lens through which I see everything. I have come across the idea that being vegan is associated with someone who is uptight, inflexible, and unreasonable, and somehow every aspect of the person’s life and every decision is based on the idea of being vegan.

I am not like that and I do not want to be associated with such an attitude. I stopped consuming meat and eggs and anything that comes from an animal. I also stopped wearing leather belts and bought a single ‘vegan’ belt made of nylon. The fact that I have never really used it is a different matter; we have been living in very strange times. It has been a year since we have been locked in our homes in one way or another so I have not really had the chance to utilize this ‘vegan belt’.

Now, going back to why I say I have adopted a vegan life style rather than saying “I am a vegan” is again because of negative connotations associated with that phrase. It somehow gives the impression that I am right, and everyone who does not follow my way of living is WRONG. Sadly, I know vegans who do in fact behave in such a way. This really does not help the ‘vegan cause’ or the ‘vegan movement’, or whatever you want to call it.

I like a more flexible approach. To me living a vegan lifestyle is just that, a lifestyle. That is the way I choose to live my life and I do not want to be judged for living this way, neither do I want to judge others for not living this way. I do hope that more and more people join me, and ideally, I would rather have it that everyone adopted the vegan lifestyle. However, I know that it might not be a right for everyone, or rather not right just yet.

Think about the Environment

I decided to adopted a vegan lifestyle for moral and philosophical reasons. In simple terms, violence against animals was a big factor in my decision. However, there are other reasons to adopt a vegan lifestyle. There is a phrase that a lot of vegans(that I know of) say:

You cannot be an environmentalist and not be a vegan

I happen to agree with this idea. Animal agriculture is one of the leading factors in greenhouse gas emissions, which as you may know already, is one of the greatest threats to our environment.

Also, when people talk about the environment, it almost has a dissociated characteristic, as if it is something that is external and separate to an individual person. What affects the environment, affects us all. So if you care about the environment, if you are someone who believes in recycling, using electric cars, or at least fuel efficient cars, then you may want to consider adopting a vegan lifestyle.

Vegans – take the win!

And I am of the belief that every bit helps. You can be a weekend vegan, or have vegan Wednesdays, especially if you are someone who eats meat or eggs or milk 7 days a week. You can start by taking a couple of days off.

I know a lot of vegans, including some of my friends who would be appalled that I even suggested this. To them I would say, take the win, every small win counts.

Take this analogy. More people are buying electric cars, hybrid cars and fuel efficient cars. Not everyone is going to suddenly be driving electric cars over night. Likewise, not everyone is going to be turning vegan overnight. But a reduction in the consumption of meat, fish and dairy is a good start – take the win.

Drinking Milk is Weird

Not only is a vegan lifestyle good for the environment, it is also good for the body and the mind. A few thing that come to mind are fat, cholesterol, hormones, antibiotics.

Did you know that no other animal drinks milk that comes from a different species? Also, did you know that no other species drinks milk in adulthood? Humans are the only ones that do this very odd thing.

Choice

Anyway, I am not here to convince you to change your habits. All I am saying is this is the way I am choosing to live my life… and is that not a very important distinction. Choosing to live this way?

Whatever habit, whatever programing that you may have whether it is cultural, or family, or any other, you do have the mental faculty of choice. You can choose to behave a certain way. You can choose to not eat meat, or drink milk, or eat eggs. You do not have to make it permanent. You could occasionally choose not to do those things.

Categories
Activism Internet Philosophy Self Development Software Technology Uncategorized Web

Farewell Facebook

I’m conflicted – I want to delete my Facebook account. For some years I was benefiting from this and other platforms by working with programs and providing strategies to businesses. But I wanted out.

I stopped working on social media related projects and I had my social media accounts either deleted or disabled for around 2 years but I had to come back due to academic reasons; university club meetings, tutoring sessions and group studies are conducted and coordinated on Facebook. It boggles my mind that that sentence describes the norm.

Just when I decided the negatives outweigh the positives and again when I was so close to deleting my facebook, whatsapp and instagram accounts, my attention was brought to the current use of social media as a platform to push forward change in a way that was not possible some 10 to 15 years ago.

If it was not for social media, it would not have been possible to get the world to rally behind a cause – frankly it is heart breaking that such issues still exists even in 2020.

During the pandemic, we were kept in touch with our friends and family through this platform, racism and other injustice gets exposed routinely, and people are able raise awareness and organize actions against injustice through this very platform.

It’s a great tool that has helped change for the better. But it’s also a pit that drowns people and tears people apart despite being one click away. It’s a platform that encourages what the world needs and fights against what shouldn’t exists. But it also does the opposite.

It taps into our humanity and satisfies that need to connect, but also chips away our connections.

But digging deeper what it really feels like is The Matrix, where you and I are batteries in a vast farm of others like you and me, it’s sole purpose to keep us engaged, to keep us dreaming so that our lives can be harvested and sold and traded to benefit the few that are at the very top.

We have willingly taken the blue pill. In the next days or weeks to come, I intended to delete my Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, gmail and other google and microsoft accounts. That’s the plan, it didn’t work in the past, but let’s see.

There are alternatives to gmail, microsft office, onedrive, google drive, whatsapp, android with Googleapps, windows, macos, ios … Not easy, but doable. I have moved about 80% away from these.

Follow my blog if you are interested in alternatives or want to join forces and start taking control of your own data.

Categories
Enlightenment Philosophy

If I could See you with your Guard down

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
–Carl Sagan
Dear human,
If only I could see you with your guard down, if only I could see you without the sword of words, demeanor, or of metal, I would not have to judge you for your cruelty in intention and action.
Maybe, I could let my guard down too, put my sword away too.
See, in this stand off, no one wins, but at least one is guaranteed to lose and neither of us wants to be the one.
I’m sorry, if I walk away; it’s not that I don’t care – it’s because I do not possess the will to continue this silly game. It also does not mean you won or I lost – it just means I abandoned the game, a game in which violence of any kind is fair game.
I desire to abandon the ego, but I can’t do it while you are watching. The naked truth of the self is light and liberating, but it is also fragile. So I’m sorry if I walk away and be SelfISH so that I can let the Self be what the Self IS.
Categories
Enlightenment Philosophy Science

Uncertainties

The fear of not knowing, the fear of uncertainties and the anxiety surrounding an unknown state of future events is not only detrimental to productivity and general well-being of an individual, but also just simply put, an unnatural state of mind.

Uncertainties are very real – that is a fact, and although there are many uncertainties that one can and may change to certainties by working hard/smart, doing researching, reading, learning etc.. but there are some uncertainties which one will never be able to convert into absolute certainties. Some things simply can never be known 100%, and this is not a philosophical statement, this is no self-help BS stuff, this is a simple fact.

Uncertainties are fundamental part of existence. Uncertainties are woven into the very fabric of our universe. In fact just that statement is something that cannot be said with absolute certainty, because there may be multiple universes.

The natural state of the universe is uncertainty, it is chaos and randomness. There are things that we can know, but there are things that we cannot know. In moments like these when simple truths of our existence dawns upon us that sometimes we realize the relevance of naive phrases like, “ignorance is bliss”.  Well to a certain extent not really, but to a certain extent yes, maybe…

The  very act of wanting to know more about something increases the uncertainty of that thing or an aspect of that very thing which we seek to understand. This is not philosophical – this is the fundamental structure of our universe. One cannot know the position and velocity of an electron at the same time. Light even even matter has a dual nature. The yin and the yang.

Knowing this, why do you perspire? Why do you hanker over things which you do not have control over? The fundamental nature of the universe is a tease – why let it tease you? Do what you can, accept it and then move on with your life.

You have a choice now. Knowing what you know now, either brood and be upset about this truth, wishing it were not so, knowing that it cannot be changed, or simply surrender to it, accept it and do what is in your power. Why must you insist on hanging onto a rope that is tied to nothing?

There is a great level of peace in accepting this fundamental truth of your existence. Serenity is not in gaining, but in letting go.

Categories
Philosophy

Lessons from Cycling

I have been cycling for 2 months now and I must say it is one of the best habits that I have gotten myself into in many years. I have had my bike for more than 8 years, but I doubt that before now I had even ridden it for more than 8 hours. I started riding that old mountain bike first on a nearby multi-use paved trail, then on the road for short distances, then I pushed myself a little further and soon I realized I needed a road bike, so I went and bought myself a road bike. When came bike month, I had an extra bit of motivation to keep riding. I did the “Bike the Creek Event” in Brampton, organized my own event and overall cycling has had a manifold positive impact on my life.

There are some lessons that I have learned from Cycling.

If it is important to you, you will make it happen

If it is important to you, you will make it happen, if not, you will find excuses. I learned this lesson when I started to invite friends to bike with me. Of course, some had genuine reasons to not come. Some were too busy to come, some had not biked in many years, some didn’t own a bike and either didn’t want to spend the money to buy one or wanted to wait for the season to be over so that they could get it cheap at a clearance event and the list goes on. These are all valid reasons, yet I find these same people are not too busy to spend countless hours watching reruns of their favourite and not so favourite TV shows, cannot wait to make an expensive purchase of things which they probably don’t even need,..so on… and you get my point. I’m not judging them; my point is, if it is important to you you will make it happen.

priorityOn the other end of the spectrum, I have a friend, who didn’t have a bike, had not ridden one in more than a decade, has a bad knee, and yet somehow managed to come ride with me on a 40KM+ stretch with multiple hills with me. He asked me if I had a spare bike which I did, he went and bought himself a helmet, put a knee sleeve to protect his knee and showed up way earlier than his usual saturday morning wakeup time. Why? In his own words: being active is important to him.

So the next time you find yourself wanting to do something, but it is not something that you are actually doing, maybe it is just not that high in your priority list, and instead of beating yourself for not doing it, just figure out where your priorities lie and question whether they are justified?

If you do what you love, you’ll start loving what you do

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Source: http://www.yalovalifeisgood.com/

Let’s face it; not everything that we do, we actually like doing let alone love doing it. Most people don’t LOVE their job, most might like it, but there are very few who actually love what they do. That is the reason people need vacations and they call it a ‘retreat’. Just google the words “meaning of retreat” and see what you get.

There might be things that you love doing, but you may not have been doing them because you have other ‘important’ things do do. If you just shifted your priorities a little and allocated some time and effort to do the things that you love, that joy and feeling of accomplishment will translate into a stress buster and sip into other areas of your life, whether it be your work, your health, your relationships, your spiritual life and more. When you make time to do what you love, you’ll end up loving what you do – I speak from personal experience! 🙂

If you push just a little more, you will go a lot further

If you push just a little more, you will go a lot further than your imagined. There have been times when my legs felt the burn, my back hurt, shoulders almost gave up, but in that moment I pushed a little more and then a little more and when I checked on my GPS, almost always I was greeted with an amazing and pleasant surprise. Sometimes I end up covering more distance than I had imagined and I usually get to something interesting.

Life is like that too. Most people give up and figuratively speaking get off their bikes or turn around and go back home to a place that’s comfortable at the sight of the slightest incline. Sometimes all it takes is a little push, a bit of hard work and we can accomplish things that you previously thought were impossible. You can apply this principle to sports and fitness, education, business and finance or any other endeavour that you can imagine.

Go the extra mile – it’s worth it!

To get something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done

I have seen and discovered more things about Brampton and the surrounding area in the past 4 weeks than I have in the past 4 years. I try to take different routes every time I go for a ride and every single time I’m greeted with new discoveries.

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Graffiti art under a bridge on the Humber River Recreational Trail

For the Bike The Creek event, I took my bike with me on the Brampton Transit bus which I had never done before. I used the presto card for the first time and I was amazed at how much better the bus ride has become over the past 7 or 8 years.

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Ride and Bike, using the Presto card on the Brampton Transit for the first time en route to “Bike The Creek” Event.

To get something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done – If you think about it, isn’t this true for life in general. Why is it that you have never had the kind of house, car, income, relationship, body, spirituality that you truly desire? If you keep doing what you have always been doing, you will get what you have always gotten. A great definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over gain and expecting a different result.

If you don’t want to fall, you gotta keep moving

Just recently I taught a friend in their 20s how to ride a bicycle. Most people learn how to ride a bicycle early on in their life, but it’s never too late to learn anything new. I noticed that this person was afraid to fall and so was trying to move slowly. I told them the key is to keep moving, if you stop or slow down you will fall, you have to keep pedalling if you want to stay up.

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Picture taken on Humber Station Road en route to Albion Hills. (Photoshoped motion blur)

Then it hit me! Isn’t that a great lesson in life? You have to keep moving, whatever happens in life, good or bad, you have to keep moving forward. If something bad happens to you whether it is a heart break, divorce, someone dumps you, someone betrays your trust, you are faced with financial difficulty, you are having health issues, you got fired from work, you end up in an embarrassing situations, or whatever the case maybe, you have to move on with your life sooner or later. If you stop and keep thinking about the bad things that happened, you’ll fall deeper into depression, negativity, anger and it’ll be harder to get back up again.

Likewise if something good happens in life, a promotion, graduation, you achieve your health goal, get married, fall in love whatever the case may be, you still have to keep moving to the next step. If you stop and spend all your time wanting to stay in that same moment, life will pass by and you won’t even realize and you will fall. Celebrating your victories is an important part of life, but wanting to stay in that moment forever is merely wishful thinking.

What is the opposite of movement? Stagnation. Stagnation is death. Think about it. How do you know if someone is dead. You identify it by them not moving, their pupils won’t move or react to light variations, their heart won’t move – no heart beat, their brains seizes to function, blood doesn’t flow through the body.

Life is movement.