“Economics is what economists do”.. Jacob Viner (an eminent international trade theorist, 1892-1970).. A lot of economists look at this definition with anger and bitter criticism as to them, this is not a scientific definition of economics but at the same time they also cannot refute this definition as it is not wrong either…Unfortunately there were, there are and there will be a general trend to look at other cultures, ideologies and religions through Jacob Viner’s definition… For example, what is Islam? “Islam is what Muslims do”….What is Judaism? “Judaism is what Jews do?”…What is Hinduism? “Hinduism is what Hindu do”…What is individualism? “Individualism is what individuals do?” … Do all these definitions make sense? Of course, they are not making sense… One only becomes an economist after years of intensive education, training and working experience in the field while the same is not true for Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, individuals and so on…Simply, if one is born in a Muslim family, he/she grows Muslim irrespective of whether he/she goes through Islamic education or not… the same is true about other religions or cultures… So, “Christianity is what a Christians do” is not the same as “Economics is what economists do”….
Recently I come across some comments about Muharram that were supposed to be “intellectual” and logical in nature but were really not making sense at all. Although I appreciate questioning but questions like answers have to be logical in order to make sense. I am not a religious scholar and I don’t like two categories of “sermons” and “confessions” that are peculiar to religious way of expressions. But I wanted to express my opinion on the issue and I as mentioned earlier, “Islam is not what Muslims do” so my opinion in no way either justify or refute anything. It is just my personal opinion.
Before talking about Muharram and how I look to it, I am going to construct a context so it becomes easy to grasp the way I look at it. Beginning by foundation, what it really means to be alive? That is the most basic question. Life has certain requirements that make us do almost same things (what we call routine) every day and growths come from very small changes. (When I was teaching at school, majority of complains were about, why the rate of learning is so slow? We study every day for long hours but we learn so little out of it. It is not just learning, all processes of life are very slow). So again, what does it mean to be alive? I want you to watch this part of documentary by name of “Examined Life”. This part is 7 minutes 17 seconds long and I want you to watch from 5; 50 till end of the video that is going to take just 1 minute and 27 seconds, fair enough. In this part Professor Cornel West talks about, what it means to be alive. He says that if you are in library and reading some interesting books, you may be so intensely alive that you might need a break.
I am sure that you have heard that we have two kinds of ages, one is physical and one is mental? A boy may show higher mental maturity than an adult or an adult might possess the mentality of child. You might say that well, all these constructions may be amusing but it is also true that ignorance is bliss. Haven’t you experienced the intensity of life in childhood? Don’t you agree that we lose that intensity in living by growing and understanding more? I say yes, definitely we lose the intensity but we get new ones. How? During childhood we depend on our senses and by growing up, we depends more on our mental life. Growing up means a shift from sensual life to mental life…Still shaky? Let’s have a break by another example,
In this short talk of just 3 minutes and 51 seconds, Demon Horowitz tells how Philosophy (mental life) liberates of a prisoner (mentally) who is charged with murder case and he starts living a life of a Philosopher. It is one of powerful examples as it allows us to rethink about prisons that we have created for ourselves and how can we liberate ourselves.
You might still say, well again, I want some real hard life examples outside of individual pursuits.
Good then let’s take some really hard realities. It is more than true that majority goes after money and power, of course in their own ways (and some like to cover them by good names of service, sacrifice or so on). Let’s talk first about money. Money in the sense we know it today is called fiat money that drives its value from government regulation or law. Before 1970, the currencies were backed by gold but no more. The authority of government to print fiat money made Soviet Union to collapse and it is the core reason for 1998 economic meltdown in United States and current crises in Europe. In 1991 Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union while Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the head of Soviet Union. In 1991 while 14 other constituents of Soviet Union were in economic trouble, the Boris Yeltsin as president of Russian constituent refused to pay its due to central bank so practically it became impossible to run Soviet Union and Soviet Union was dissolved on December 25th of 1991. Of course everybody knows, what happened to Ruble then? It lost its buying power. Why this was happened? The reason is simple that Soviet government was borrowing money to spend on large projects like gas pipelines projects and defense. The central bank was printing money beyond the real values production to fill the gaps and once borrowing reached the ceiling, the whole system collapsed under its weight. The same is happening in US and Europe. The governments have borrowed more than their GDPs and are trying to control the shortage by printing currency. Of course, this is misuse of the power by governments. What if the system collapses then all people will suffer and have to pay in many ways…
I am not trying to say that “We” that are always toiling our lives for earning money and that is in a way equals to deceiving ourselves but instead I am saying that the value of “money” that we are working so hard to earn is in control of an authority that we call government. Check this point as I am going to come back to it..
Let’s go to another hard reality, power. Nietzsche believed that it is “Will to Power” that drives men in their life. So nothing could be more as hard a reality for men than power. What is power? It is authority that people give to some individuals either directly as their representatives or indirectly as civil servants to protect their certain rights. These rights are varied by among varying systems. Let’s suppose that democracy is the highest form of system because it protects our certain liberties. But we know that “Will to power” is so seductive that a lot of forces try to gain power by deceits (for example, corporations’ roles are currently the cause of troubles). Still those who are in power do not content to the power assigned to them and want to have more power by snatching the very basic liberties they are supposed to protect, again through deceits. It would be repetition that why people in Middle East, US and Europe have come on streets.
OK, now that we are clear that values of money and our basic rights are in the hands of government, I like to add one more point. Though governments have the authority but their authority is based on the participation of people. If people do not participate, no government, I mean no government in the world can survive. Gandhi knew this fact and it is why he presented his practical theory of Satyagraha “insistence on truth” or what is well known as “non-violent movement” the core of which is “civil disobedience”. If people go for civil disobedience through non-violent means that will do two things simultaneously, delegitimizing government (taking back the authority/power) and practically making government become nonfunctional.
So until now we discussed four basic things, what it means to be alive? The role of government in our hard earned money, our basic liberties and how people can check back on government if government misuses the power.
One more short point and then I go to my opinion on Muharram. Evolutionary speaking among all animals, human have the longest period of parental care before becoming able to participate as a capable individual in society and largest and most costly part of it takes in form of education. The largest forms of education come through culture. Culture is a common education for all, irrespective of age, gender, social and economic orientations. Proper schooling may be biased towards social, economic and even based on gender however culture is something that all benefit, based on their interests and aptitudes. Authorities may use culture against some but culture is a mandatory form of learning that all benefit in their own ways.
I think, I am now ready to tell my opinion about Muharram. Muharram is a religious festival that is totally devotional and people do not participate based on philosophical inclinations and that is including me but still I have my opinion.
It is an event we find almost all characters that all can link with, men, women, children and diversity of ways in which each had struggled against misuse of authority. There were times when there were the opportunities to exercise the power of will freely or freedom of choices to fight or leave and yet they chose to fight. Everyone has a breaking point (It is an old tactic, keep pushing, there will reach a point where they will break), So we see a bunch of women and children who have lost their most valued things, family, being oppressed, misrepresented, arrested and yet insisting on truth. The insisting on truth had led in illegitimacy of authority and it followed by four revolutions.
Simply it allows everybody to go through a mental process of reconnecting to that revolutions and rethink of prisons that we have created (a chance every year to become alive) and to insist in truth so liberties of society remain intact. It also reminds that insisting on truth is a perpetual struggle that all times and all lands and all people need in order to live lively and freely (They might get oppressed and sanctioned but their minds and ideas will remain free, a constant threat and source of fear to authority). All aspects of Muharram from processions to self-flagellation to serving food and drinks to people are facing created fears… I don’t see any event in world paralleling the events of Karbala and I don’t see any culture parallel to Muharram to provide people a chance in making them ready to insist on truth and face the fears… Of course, Muharram is voluntary so those individuals who do not want to insist on truth or face their fears have the freedom of choice to stay the way they are and think the way they are pleased…..
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The solution of an old man
I used to work during winter breaks of my school and college years. In one of such winter breaks, I was working with an old man whom I really respected for his real life experiences. He had spent his large part of life traveling by wandering, doing random jobs and interacting with people of different cultures. Of course, this type of life has its costs and the cost for him was that at the time that he was an old man and needed to rest, he hadn’t saved enough money to retire. He had to work to support his family having a decent life. It was the biggest regret of his life that was the source of pain for him.. But out of this regret he was thinking a way of out by looking towards his community that he was always proud of as well as boastful about its unparalleled uniqueness and qualities. He was saying that, “OK, I am an old man but still I have a skill that is paying me well but what about those old men (he was referring to his friends that he was meeting regularly on weekends and was sharing their views) who unlike of me stayed at one place and worked hard their entire life because life wasn’t kind enough to them to provide opportunity of learning a skill or a freedom to travel. They had to stay at one place and go every day to work so they could support their families. But now when they are old and their physical conditions hardly allow them to work as hard as they were doing, they can’t sustain their lives very well. They need a rest but they can’t afford it…
He had simple solution for it and definitely you don’t need to be genius to come up with such solution or not to understand its logic… He was saying that, the population of our community in Quetta is almost half a million.. If everybody just gives one rupee that even a child refuse to take as one rupee can hardly buy a candy then in each two days they can grant a decent retirement of 1000,000 rupees to an old man. That means 15 retirements per month and 180 old men per year. That is a real big figure for such a small community as Hazaras of Quetta. His idea stuck with me and I knew that our community was much generous than this and also had much more capacity but what he was realizing was the lacking of a mechanism. People are always more than ready to help to their vulnerable but they don’t know how to do it…
It was then, when there weren’t terrorism and there weren’t victims of terrorism.. Since last decade our community has been the target of non-stop terrorism and a lot of families have suffered in the process. I know there are some organizations that are helping these families but still the problem is much bigger than the capacity of such organizations and also this problem is getting bigger as terrorism is on rise. A recent TV interview of a family (You can watch it at end of this knol) whose head was a vegetable-seller and was killed in a terrorist attack on vegetable-sellers’ bus on by-pass road in October was really painful for me to watch. It was even more painful to learn that there is no mechanism through which people learn about such families and have their contributions… In the rest of world, people really come up with innovative ideas to help vulnerable parts of society... I was just wondering if our youths who really want to have their contributions to their community, start scratching their heads to think of innovative ways and roll back their sleeves to use the potentials of our community to support the vulnerable parts of our society who have no other way to look for support except their own community….
He had simple solution for it and definitely you don’t need to be genius to come up with such solution or not to understand its logic… He was saying that, the population of our community in Quetta is almost half a million.. If everybody just gives one rupee that even a child refuse to take as one rupee can hardly buy a candy then in each two days they can grant a decent retirement of 1000,000 rupees to an old man. That means 15 retirements per month and 180 old men per year. That is a real big figure for such a small community as Hazaras of Quetta. His idea stuck with me and I knew that our community was much generous than this and also had much more capacity but what he was realizing was the lacking of a mechanism. People are always more than ready to help to their vulnerable but they don’t know how to do it…
It was then, when there weren’t terrorism and there weren’t victims of terrorism.. Since last decade our community has been the target of non-stop terrorism and a lot of families have suffered in the process. I know there are some organizations that are helping these families but still the problem is much bigger than the capacity of such organizations and also this problem is getting bigger as terrorism is on rise. A recent TV interview of a family (You can watch it at end of this knol) whose head was a vegetable-seller and was killed in a terrorist attack on vegetable-sellers’ bus on by-pass road in October was really painful for me to watch. It was even more painful to learn that there is no mechanism through which people learn about such families and have their contributions… In the rest of world, people really come up with innovative ideas to help vulnerable parts of society... I was just wondering if our youths who really want to have their contributions to their community, start scratching their heads to think of innovative ways and roll back their sleeves to use the potentials of our community to support the vulnerable parts of our society who have no other way to look for support except their own community….
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Neo-inequality...Is it scary?
Though we normally like to think that we are understanding the world more clearly as we are growing up but it seems (at least for me) that we are hardly catching up with reshaping of world and the events they unfold...
In 1991, before even I could understood class struggle as a teenager, Soviet Union collapsed but still it didn't push me to abandon my curiosity of why people revolted against Tsarists... This revolt or Revolution was not something fun as I realized by reading Boris Pasternak novel's "Doctor Zhivago" which is based on events of 1917 revolution. The revolution of 1917 lead to civil war in 1918 in which millions of people were killed without distinction of class or political affiliations. Famine, sickness, loss of jobs, homes and social bondage were just natural outcome of such big social upheaval... The biggest question for me was, what made people to go for a class struggle (classless society)? After almost a century, the pictures become vague and the only time-machine that is available for us to revisit that time are books and of course most of the books are more of personal opinions or documentation than real depictions of such a historical event....
I was not really sure that I was really understood class struggle as Philosophers and religious scholars were divided equally on them... On side, there were great French existentialist Philosopher "Jean Paul Sartre" and great British Philosopher "Bertrand Russel" and of course the great popular revolutionary Che Guevara who were supporting class struggle and yet I was not fully understanding why Soviet Union should go into WWII. It was not making sense to me because it was WWI which opened up the way for collapse of Tsarists Russia.... What made Soviet Union to go for same mistake because WWII turned Soviet Union into an imperialist state what she was born to stand against?
Well, the Collapse of Soviet Union and the great shifts into communist China were knocking on our skulls to accept the reality that class struggle was unnatural and was just an ideological myth that had a powerful message to let millions of people sacrifice themselves for it just to make the world more worst...
I was barely able to understand the fate of class struggle that economic melt down of 2008 alerted me as well as a lot of other people who were growing confused like me to leaf again into class struggle and see if there is something in it... Since 2008 to current economic crises of Europe and gaining momentum of Occupy Wall Street movement, one thing is becoming clear that Class Struggle is real... Class is actually a "structural perspective" of society... Communists were arguing that the way capitalism have structured societies are wrong and they provided an alternative structure... People revolted against capitalism in many countries (as you know), destroyed its structure and let communists build their alternative structures but we have seen that the communist structure is also didn't work....
Now, before moving ahead let me share some main parts of the current dominant politico-economic structure so you could understand where are the sources of problems,
It is fair to think that everyone should get what he/she deserves. It is natural that one who is working harder should get more or one who is more skilled should get paid for his/her skills as well... there is nothing wrong in it... As all do not work or acquire skills at same rate so the inequality is a natural outcome which results Class-structured society. This shouldn't be the source of problem but the problems come when,
1. Individuals compete with corporations;
This is not a fair race or competition...Take for example the most recent case that is unfolding right now.... As Walmart is marching into North India, the small businesses are fearing to go out of their businesses...simply because they can't survive to this unequal competition... This is what happened in US and Europe. Small family and individual businesses were just ruined by corporations in an unequal competition...
It is not just economical competition but also political competition where individuals lose the battle,
In democracy it is the collective votes of individuals that decide the future of society but the votes of individuals do not match with votes of corporations which decide the fate of economy... It is the trading centers which run the economy not the Assemblies and Senates.... They have the capacity to buy anything and set up organizations that do not come through voting but impact on the competitions...
In short there is a race between individualism and corporatism...
I am not an expert on economy but just wandering where lies our future and just scared to see that generations are coming who barely familiar with the world that are shaping to embrace them....
I liked the following You Tube demonstrations of socio-political structures and recommend to watch,
In 1991, before even I could understood class struggle as a teenager, Soviet Union collapsed but still it didn't push me to abandon my curiosity of why people revolted against Tsarists... This revolt or Revolution was not something fun as I realized by reading Boris Pasternak novel's "Doctor Zhivago" which is based on events of 1917 revolution. The revolution of 1917 lead to civil war in 1918 in which millions of people were killed without distinction of class or political affiliations. Famine, sickness, loss of jobs, homes and social bondage were just natural outcome of such big social upheaval... The biggest question for me was, what made people to go for a class struggle (classless society)? After almost a century, the pictures become vague and the only time-machine that is available for us to revisit that time are books and of course most of the books are more of personal opinions or documentation than real depictions of such a historical event....
I was not really sure that I was really understood class struggle as Philosophers and religious scholars were divided equally on them... On side, there were great French existentialist Philosopher "Jean Paul Sartre" and great British Philosopher "Bertrand Russel" and of course the great popular revolutionary Che Guevara who were supporting class struggle and yet I was not fully understanding why Soviet Union should go into WWII. It was not making sense to me because it was WWI which opened up the way for collapse of Tsarists Russia.... What made Soviet Union to go for same mistake because WWII turned Soviet Union into an imperialist state what she was born to stand against?
Well, the Collapse of Soviet Union and the great shifts into communist China were knocking on our skulls to accept the reality that class struggle was unnatural and was just an ideological myth that had a powerful message to let millions of people sacrifice themselves for it just to make the world more worst...
I was barely able to understand the fate of class struggle that economic melt down of 2008 alerted me as well as a lot of other people who were growing confused like me to leaf again into class struggle and see if there is something in it... Since 2008 to current economic crises of Europe and gaining momentum of Occupy Wall Street movement, one thing is becoming clear that Class Struggle is real... Class is actually a "structural perspective" of society... Communists were arguing that the way capitalism have structured societies are wrong and they provided an alternative structure... People revolted against capitalism in many countries (as you know), destroyed its structure and let communists build their alternative structures but we have seen that the communist structure is also didn't work....
Now, before moving ahead let me share some main parts of the current dominant politico-economic structure so you could understand where are the sources of problems,
It is fair to think that everyone should get what he/she deserves. It is natural that one who is working harder should get more or one who is more skilled should get paid for his/her skills as well... there is nothing wrong in it... As all do not work or acquire skills at same rate so the inequality is a natural outcome which results Class-structured society. This shouldn't be the source of problem but the problems come when,
1. Individuals compete with corporations;
This is not a fair race or competition...Take for example the most recent case that is unfolding right now.... As Walmart is marching into North India, the small businesses are fearing to go out of their businesses...simply because they can't survive to this unequal competition... This is what happened in US and Europe. Small family and individual businesses were just ruined by corporations in an unequal competition...
It is not just economical competition but also political competition where individuals lose the battle,
In democracy it is the collective votes of individuals that decide the future of society but the votes of individuals do not match with votes of corporations which decide the fate of economy... It is the trading centers which run the economy not the Assemblies and Senates.... They have the capacity to buy anything and set up organizations that do not come through voting but impact on the competitions...
In short there is a race between individualism and corporatism...
I am not an expert on economy but just wandering where lies our future and just scared to see that generations are coming who barely familiar with the world that are shaping to embrace them....
I liked the following You Tube demonstrations of socio-political structures and recommend to watch,
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Does the world have ceased to produce great men?
“I would like to have the brilliant young man like you in my court. Would you like to join my court?” Asked, King Philip.
“I would like to join the academia of Plato in Athens. Would you send me to Athens?” Asked the young Aristotle.
Socrates was teacher of Plato, Plato was teacher of Aristotle, Aristotle was teacher of Alexander, and Alexander was the teacher of all coming great emperors who wanted to create a global empire and global civilization. This part of history is the most sweet and delicious part of human story. Here we hear about the romances of the wisdom and aesthetics that have been more romanticized by failures of coming generations of human kind to revitalize or at least copy this era.
The story starts from intuitions of Socrates but these intuitions were different from all other intuitions. The intuitions of Socrates had a mechanism and methodology that all can adopt. This methodology or mechanism is the topic of present discussion. Socrates has created the methodology of cross questioning to find the truth. The purpose and the methodology to achieve the purpose were obvious and simple to understand and adopt so it revolutionized the young men in streets of Athens. This method was adopted and popularized by Hegel in formula of “Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis” and later on it was made fashionable by Marx and Marxists as Historical dialectic.
Today we know these methodologies and have evolved them into scientific methodologies and are more confident about the facts and truths than ever in human history about the scientific methodologies but again why we lack creativity or we have ceased to produce great men? Why our Schools, Colleges and Universities have failed to produce creative men to shake the current conceptions of realities? Why our generation despite their thirst is not hopeful of evidencing new realities and perceptions. Why the modern men have lost hope in having new perceptions. Why our generation have forget to think about ideologies that only twenty or thirty years before people were enthusiastic about to give and take lives for them as they were thinking of them as a destinations of humankind. Why our generations like to sleep in shades of hopelessness. The world’s security and economics are crying in pain and the people are silent. Universities are full of researches and students are struggling hard in academic competitions but the all nations of world are worried about the drying out of leaderships. Everywhere around the world are conferences and workshops about the leaderships but leaderships are not a few pieces of experiences of tired whitehead old men retired from executive posts.
Leadership is reengineering of a whole nation or reengineering of ideas, perceptions and methodologies. Leadership is the creation of a new world, with new sets of knowledge, hopes and destinations. Leadership is well defined in terms of Adolf Hitler, “A great theorist is seldom a great agitator. A great agitator is seldom a great theorist. A leader is a great theorist and a great agitator.”
Even some claim that the creativity is an innate and personal property that can’t be taught. OK! If we accept this notation, still the question arise that why we have failed to hunt for creative people that have innate creativities to lead our world?
It is not only the methodologies but it is environment which evolve and hunt for creativity and it is evident from the series of creative men like, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander. The world have seen only two times such surge of creativities one in Athens and the other in Western Europe during the last quarter of 19th century and first half of 20th century. The great men have great effects on their fellow men that exposed to them. Great men themselves influenced from their environments. Though there may be a lot of reasons but the strongest reasons are three as follows:
1- Great general thirst of knowledge
2- Great value of knowledge, especially if the value of knowledge is romanticized
3- Freedom of thoughts ( No society ever in human history have allowed the freedom of thoughts though some societies bear greater freedom of thoughts than others )
Great general thirst for Knowledge:
A general thirst for knowledge in public is the most powerful triggering power for creativity and creative men to flourish. It is evident from both Ancient Athens and western countries of first half of 19th century. In ancient Athens there were a true democracy where all citizens could express their ideas and participate in national debates, hence here the eloquence and logic have a great value and it was one of the strongest factors in determining ones social status. So there were a general thirst and praise for knowledge and logic. Sophists were teaching people the art of debating in public places and public places were the public classrooms. This general thirst for knowledge was that triggered the thirst for truth in Socrates. The Socrates has seen that people especially the Sophists are misusing the logic in response to public demand. The people were using the art of debating only for social status. Socrates turned the trends of known arts in pursuits of truth. Persuasion for truth was aimed to engineer the Athenian society but it is revolutionized the whole humanity. What about today? Is there not the need for another Socrates? Does we are not again using the knowledge and sciences only for our social status? Does again Sciences are not only serving the wealth and the sources of wealth? Is it not time again that a Socrates emerge and question all the norms and values that modern world have created and is not allowed anyone to question them. Are again we are resisting change? Does all slogan of the change is not to save the current systems?
Great value of Knowledge:
The first half of previous century, when the Science and Scientists were romanticized and they have great attractions for young men and women, so the thirst for discoveries, inventions and theorizing were general trends. In Ancient Athens the martyr teacher and philosopher, Socrates was romanticized. It was memories of Socrates that led to Dialogue and Academia of Plato and it was the stories of the cross questioning of Socrates that led to Logic of Aristotle. The advent of Cinema and later on televisions and Cable and dish antenna services turned the face of romanticism from Great Scientists, discoverers, inventors, theorists, philosophers, Men and Women of letters to Film Stars and TV stars. The Hollywood, Bollywood and other woods become the sources of inspirations and dreams of young men and women. The Scientific and intellectual life styles were forgotten and the dreamy life styles of Movie characters become the thinking brains of the young generations.
Freedom of thoughts:
As the Socrates started to question the established norms and values of the Ancient Athens, the democratic society declared it as a rebellion and united to punish this rebellion to stop the future threats, so they poisoned one the greatest man of history. Every society has aggregated some form of norms and values that they are very sensitive to them. The world history has not have seen only the two famous trials of the Socrates and Galileo. Modern world that praise and proud of itself for four freedoms and human rights is still resisting changes and it is declare the freedom and liberty only to those norms and values it has established.
Conclusion:
The world has really ceased producing great men. The main reasons though are many but it is the insensitivities of masses to knowledge that slow down the hunt of creative minds. Unfortunately the educational institutions are following the public mood and demand. The educational institutions have all turned to the educational industry where information and researches designed to hunt the information is served the interests of capital. Knowledge is not the primary goal but capital is the prime goal. The leaderships are all in hands or under directions of the businessmen and business managers who brought world to financial crisis. All are busy in Bail out plans to rescue the markets but what is the result as there is no great man to give the world an alternative system. The creativity is imprisoned in glassy castle of capital where all things are shining and reflecting well but none is able to see.
“I would like to join the academia of Plato in Athens. Would you send me to Athens?” Asked the young Aristotle.
Socrates was teacher of Plato, Plato was teacher of Aristotle, Aristotle was teacher of Alexander, and Alexander was the teacher of all coming great emperors who wanted to create a global empire and global civilization. This part of history is the most sweet and delicious part of human story. Here we hear about the romances of the wisdom and aesthetics that have been more romanticized by failures of coming generations of human kind to revitalize or at least copy this era.
The story starts from intuitions of Socrates but these intuitions were different from all other intuitions. The intuitions of Socrates had a mechanism and methodology that all can adopt. This methodology or mechanism is the topic of present discussion. Socrates has created the methodology of cross questioning to find the truth. The purpose and the methodology to achieve the purpose were obvious and simple to understand and adopt so it revolutionized the young men in streets of Athens. This method was adopted and popularized by Hegel in formula of “Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis” and later on it was made fashionable by Marx and Marxists as Historical dialectic.
Today we know these methodologies and have evolved them into scientific methodologies and are more confident about the facts and truths than ever in human history about the scientific methodologies but again why we lack creativity or we have ceased to produce great men? Why our Schools, Colleges and Universities have failed to produce creative men to shake the current conceptions of realities? Why our generation despite their thirst is not hopeful of evidencing new realities and perceptions. Why the modern men have lost hope in having new perceptions. Why our generation have forget to think about ideologies that only twenty or thirty years before people were enthusiastic about to give and take lives for them as they were thinking of them as a destinations of humankind. Why our generations like to sleep in shades of hopelessness. The world’s security and economics are crying in pain and the people are silent. Universities are full of researches and students are struggling hard in academic competitions but the all nations of world are worried about the drying out of leaderships. Everywhere around the world are conferences and workshops about the leaderships but leaderships are not a few pieces of experiences of tired whitehead old men retired from executive posts.
Leadership is reengineering of a whole nation or reengineering of ideas, perceptions and methodologies. Leadership is the creation of a new world, with new sets of knowledge, hopes and destinations. Leadership is well defined in terms of Adolf Hitler, “A great theorist is seldom a great agitator. A great agitator is seldom a great theorist. A leader is a great theorist and a great agitator.”
Even some claim that the creativity is an innate and personal property that can’t be taught. OK! If we accept this notation, still the question arise that why we have failed to hunt for creative people that have innate creativities to lead our world?
It is not only the methodologies but it is environment which evolve and hunt for creativity and it is evident from the series of creative men like, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Alexander. The world have seen only two times such surge of creativities one in Athens and the other in Western Europe during the last quarter of 19th century and first half of 20th century. The great men have great effects on their fellow men that exposed to them. Great men themselves influenced from their environments. Though there may be a lot of reasons but the strongest reasons are three as follows:
1- Great general thirst of knowledge
2- Great value of knowledge, especially if the value of knowledge is romanticized
3- Freedom of thoughts ( No society ever in human history have allowed the freedom of thoughts though some societies bear greater freedom of thoughts than others )
Great general thirst for Knowledge:
A general thirst for knowledge in public is the most powerful triggering power for creativity and creative men to flourish. It is evident from both Ancient Athens and western countries of first half of 19th century. In ancient Athens there were a true democracy where all citizens could express their ideas and participate in national debates, hence here the eloquence and logic have a great value and it was one of the strongest factors in determining ones social status. So there were a general thirst and praise for knowledge and logic. Sophists were teaching people the art of debating in public places and public places were the public classrooms. This general thirst for knowledge was that triggered the thirst for truth in Socrates. The Socrates has seen that people especially the Sophists are misusing the logic in response to public demand. The people were using the art of debating only for social status. Socrates turned the trends of known arts in pursuits of truth. Persuasion for truth was aimed to engineer the Athenian society but it is revolutionized the whole humanity. What about today? Is there not the need for another Socrates? Does we are not again using the knowledge and sciences only for our social status? Does again Sciences are not only serving the wealth and the sources of wealth? Is it not time again that a Socrates emerge and question all the norms and values that modern world have created and is not allowed anyone to question them. Are again we are resisting change? Does all slogan of the change is not to save the current systems?
Great value of Knowledge:
The first half of previous century, when the Science and Scientists were romanticized and they have great attractions for young men and women, so the thirst for discoveries, inventions and theorizing were general trends. In Ancient Athens the martyr teacher and philosopher, Socrates was romanticized. It was memories of Socrates that led to Dialogue and Academia of Plato and it was the stories of the cross questioning of Socrates that led to Logic of Aristotle. The advent of Cinema and later on televisions and Cable and dish antenna services turned the face of romanticism from Great Scientists, discoverers, inventors, theorists, philosophers, Men and Women of letters to Film Stars and TV stars. The Hollywood, Bollywood and other woods become the sources of inspirations and dreams of young men and women. The Scientific and intellectual life styles were forgotten and the dreamy life styles of Movie characters become the thinking brains of the young generations.
Freedom of thoughts:
As the Socrates started to question the established norms and values of the Ancient Athens, the democratic society declared it as a rebellion and united to punish this rebellion to stop the future threats, so they poisoned one the greatest man of history. Every society has aggregated some form of norms and values that they are very sensitive to them. The world history has not have seen only the two famous trials of the Socrates and Galileo. Modern world that praise and proud of itself for four freedoms and human rights is still resisting changes and it is declare the freedom and liberty only to those norms and values it has established.
Conclusion:
The world has really ceased producing great men. The main reasons though are many but it is the insensitivities of masses to knowledge that slow down the hunt of creative minds. Unfortunately the educational institutions are following the public mood and demand. The educational institutions have all turned to the educational industry where information and researches designed to hunt the information is served the interests of capital. Knowledge is not the primary goal but capital is the prime goal. The leaderships are all in hands or under directions of the businessmen and business managers who brought world to financial crisis. All are busy in Bail out plans to rescue the markets but what is the result as there is no great man to give the world an alternative system. The creativity is imprisoned in glassy castle of capital where all things are shining and reflecting well but none is able to see.
Prophet of Mind
Preface to Prophet of Mind
“Hard is real to unlearn the loves that your heart is accustomed to.”
Khudadad
Men in every stage of their lives have internal conflicts to resolve. Successful strategies ending in successful resolving of these conflicts grow a personality to a happier, self reliant and confident personality. All these characters make one more ambitious not only in thinking bigger but to stand for them with stronger determinations. Successful strategies that are the foundation of this process require tools to create these templates. Certainly the most effective tool is expression. The individuals who succeed to find their medium of expressions grow quickly to distinguish themselves and easily resolve all internal conflicts on time.
There is an easy puzzle that all know its answer unconsciously but it reveals to few. The puzzle is, if nearly all people communicate each other via speaking, writing, body language or any other form then why a large mass of people fail at some stage of their life to resolve the internal conflict? The answer is really easy and is a matter of general observation. Though they communicate with each other but they hide what they really are? They hide what they really feel and think. Why? because they are afraid of becoming wrong. Due to fear of being wrong they burry a large part of their personality under shades fact images that they try to create and present to world.
The pain and conflict between adopted and imitated image and real hidden personality slow down the growth of one’s personality. The real personality of an individual is his mind. The only way to liberate the hidden personality from deep shades of fake images is to own the mind. To own the ideas, emotions, feelings, imaginations and expressions that one has. Owning of mind requires expression. Unfortunately, mediums of expressions require art, knowledge and have rules to learn and follow. So these requirements make the windows of opportunity fewer and special to those who met these requirements.
But it is not a problem because creativity is always rebellious in its nature and breaks down the rules at ease of its expressions. When I was a school going child, I was constructing stories to amuse my friends but as I grew older I lost the opportunity self expression via storytelling to newly acquiring facts, logics and reasoning that I was acquiring from society and schooling. It was a painful period for me because I was exposed to ocean of knowledge and information through books and teachers but I had no way to express my opinions. My mind was not accepting the world as I was discovering it. The world views that I was exposing to them and they were to convince me to observe the world through their perspectives was not acceptable for me. I wanted to break down those mirrors that were no showing the images as I wanted by creating my own world views. In meanwhile I was curious reading books in different disciplines and also about thoughts and lives of individuals whose thoughts and world views have changed the world. My search to find thoughts or life styles from these great men that were in harmony with those of mine to convince myself that I am not alone were less successful. Besides, literature, philosophy, science, media, business and others had their own giants with their own world views and also there were major events that not only changed the individuals but entire nations. It was unbearable for me to accept that though individuals have to select a discipline as their field of specialty but how they couldn’t have their own opinions about the ideas of the giant of these disciplines that were deciding their fate. But again the same problem that all disciplines have their own specialized mediums that need expertise. It was the time that I was drawing white pigeons flying and sometimes a white pigeon with broken wing.
It was the summer of 1997 that I got admission to college. In our first week while we making new friends, one of these new friends by name of Hassan told me about a little but impressive book about art of speech. I requested him the book but there were others also in waiting list. After two or three weeks I got this little book. From this little book I learnt a few practical points that really changed my life. Though the wordings are not same but the basic points were as follows,
1- Never neglect your ideas as unimportant.
2- Record your ideas by writing them down in your own words and style either it is a sentence, a paragraph or in any other forms at your ease.
3- Always use your own ideas while expressing yourself as originality is more effective and impressive than quoting giants of knowledge.
This methodology liberated me and I started to explore myself my owning my mind. This method or better to say medium enabled me to resolve an internal conflict by expressing me with my own ease. I found no other medium strong and flexible enough to let you express yourself so thoroughly and reveal yourself so deep than aphorisms. I am amazed that why people haven’t yet used the aphorisms as they adopted other forms of literature?
There is nothing to become amazed for as there is one thing that stop people to adopt aphorism and that is the “fear of becoming wrong”. I always say that beauty never can be wrong about itself because beauty is distinguished but not specified. No one has come out with the definition of beauty as beauty is. So letting the imaginations appear in the forms of beauty make you distinguished rather than wrong. In “Prophet of Mind” I haven’t organized the aphorisms under proper subjects but written down as they were born out of nowhere. The main reason was to not harm the chronological order and originality of expressions. Imaginations are random just like dreams of babies and when they become organized they grow into ideas testable to tests and tastes. I let the “prophet of mind” to remain in the form of imaginations so it could serve its purpose to spark imaginations and help readers express themselves and grow liberate their personalities out of shadows they have constructed to vastness of liberty.
Khudadad
Introduction
Here is a story that is story of all. The story is about becoming “distinguished………..”. How one is going to become distinguished is a problem ahead of all in all stages of their lives to solve. But there is a way for all. All can choose the way and become distinguished. The way is “You can become distinguished simply BY OVERCOMING THE DISABILITIES YOU HAVE”. Helen Keller became distinguished by overcoming the darkness imposed to her by deafness and blindness. Disability doesn’t mean physical disability as in case of Helen Keller because all of us have physical disabilities. Human eye is blind to waves higher to violet color and lower than red colors. Due to these limitations distant stars are invisible to us. Microbial world that we live with is invisible to us. We only become aware of them by symptoms or changes in our foods they cause. Our ear is deaf to all sounds of radio frequencies and ultrasonic sounds so we are unable to hear the sounds that are all around us broadcasted and communicated by fellow human. The same is true for our other senses. Hence in order to overcome these physical disabilities the scientists have created microscopes, telescopes, spectrometry, radios, radars, and thousands of other instruments. Why Scientists are praised and honored? because they have succeeded to overcome a lot of physical disabilities and made themselves distinguished. By overcoming these physical disabilities they introduced human to invisible ancient worlds of earth history, history of life, world of microscopes, galaxies and world of inside of our cells and our heredity genes. By advancements of Science and technologies we are overcoming these physical disabilities that we all have. So it is proved that physical disabilities are common to all human.
Now that we have defined “Disability” and “Distinguished” we can go to define another noun and that is “disease”. Disruption of the ability is called disease. An infection may blind one and cause diarrhea in another. The first one was able to see but lost its ability to see by disease and second one was able to digest but lost temporarily his ability to digest due to disease. From genetic perspectives viruses and bacteria that cause diseases are only doing their duty and that is spreading their genetic material using your body cells. But viruses and bacteria have their limitations. They can’t cause illness to those who have developed immunity against them but damage badly who haven’t developed immunity. Hence people travel in new places are more in danger of local viruses and bacteria and the locals are in danger of viruses and bacteria that the traveler is carrying with himself.
The most essential ability in humans that distinguish it from all other forms of the living organisms is the ability to think and judge well. The thinking ability of men chiefly relies on ideas and information they get. Misinformation and wrong ideas are like viruses and bacteria that use human mind for propagations of their genes and make one disable to think and judge properly. Scientists have developed vaccines that make human immune to particular bacteria but what about IMMUNITY OF HUMAN MIND? Is there is any immune system?
The answer is YES. Strengthening of personal judgments is the best immune system against infectious ideas and information. How to strengthen the personal judgments? It is all “Prophet of mind is all about”. Providing with method as well as well ideas to think through is a real way to start. Sometimes you have ideas to express but are unfamiliar with methods to express it. Your best ideas may die before they develop to maturity to help you have strong opinions and strong judgments on the issues. On other hand you may are familiar with methodology and technology to express yourself but lack ideas to work on or get inspirations to start with. Here the ideas are presented in random just like imaginations. You may go through them and find yourself in conflict with them and got your own ideas. If these aphorisms succeed to make you think and get ideas then they have served their purpose.
The adventure of the overcoming disability never ends because it is a chain reaction. The new facts that come out of invisible worlds will leads to new ways for overcoming more disabilities. Just the fact that genes code for proteins was enough for Scientists to think of new possibilities and to overcome the physical disabilities. Genetic engineering and biotechnology have become the leading sciences of the today. On the other hand just knowing the fact that brain is the main organ to control almost all human functions and behavior is enough for neuroscientists to experiments with brain and brain areas to overcome the functional and behavioral disabilities. It is involved both hope and fear. Hope to overcome the disabilities and fear the knowledge and skill may b used to disable mental abilities.
It is the ideas and inventions of the Michael Faraday on the electromagnetic devices that led to generation of electricity and motor technology that revolutionized the abilities of men. Do you think that your life will be in good shape without electrical appliances and devices in your home, work areas, shopping centers and recreational centers? One really feels disabled without computers to connect with brain of world (World Wide Web).
OK! I have just given you some examples that are known by almost all and are boring to repeat. You may have already gotten bore of repetitions that I made. But it is important to note though after boredom that “Knowing a fact is enough to work for overcoming the disabilities that we have and becoming distinguished”.
Now it is time to come towards a disability that is common to all and it is what this entire book is all about. “IT IS THE DISABILITY TO OWN THE MIND”. All the people from a baby to a scientist that is working on the frontiers of knowledge are wrestling with their minds. The relation of human with their minds was never an easy relation. After spending whole his life wrestling with his mind Descartes declared, “I think therefore I am”. It was the declaration of owning of mind after a lifetime tough relations with his mind. Aristotle was stopping people on streets of Athens and start cross questioning to know how much they own their minds. His life ended by drinking poison rather to leave the ownership of his mind. It is fashionable to quote Einstein in discussions related to mind and brain, so here is a quote from Einstein, “Imaginations is more important than knowledge”. It is really difficult for some people to digest it. Einstein is simply explaining himself by saying that his imaginations about the theory of relativity is more important that theory of relativity itself. How?
There are masses of academics, students and immature who have learnt and worked with theory of relativity but they didn’t became distinguished as Einstein. The reason is simple; they got the knowledge but not the imaginations that generate knowledge. Einstein became distinguished because he developed the imaginations that generated the theory of relativity. HENCE, ignoring imaginations as unimportant or the fear that they may be wrong is an act of killing knowledge at the bud. Besides the imaginations and ideas that are not expressed is lost or in other words, killed. What if an idea proved wrong? It is still a contribution to knowledge as you let people know that this idea is wrong.
One of the ability of humankind that distinguish it from other organisms is the ability of prediction based on the knowledge and reasoning. But because of enormous amounts of researches and creative works the predictions are becoming more and more difficult and uncertain. Every new discovery or invention opens the doors for new possibilities. Every individual had limited capacity of time, energy and resources to invest and expend. Uncertainties sometimes cause loss of crucial time, energy and resources. Again a personal judgment is what that is important in guiding and safeguarding of preventing key losses in key times. People take refuge into different practices in order to save them of uncertainties but there is a guide residing in every skull. How much this guide that is always available for help is reliable depends on how much one relies on it. “Prophet of mind” is not only a name but a message, “Own your mind rather to have it”.
Read the book here,
Prophet of Mind
“Hard is real to unlearn the loves that your heart is accustomed to.”
Khudadad
Men in every stage of their lives have internal conflicts to resolve. Successful strategies ending in successful resolving of these conflicts grow a personality to a happier, self reliant and confident personality. All these characters make one more ambitious not only in thinking bigger but to stand for them with stronger determinations. Successful strategies that are the foundation of this process require tools to create these templates. Certainly the most effective tool is expression. The individuals who succeed to find their medium of expressions grow quickly to distinguish themselves and easily resolve all internal conflicts on time.
There is an easy puzzle that all know its answer unconsciously but it reveals to few. The puzzle is, if nearly all people communicate each other via speaking, writing, body language or any other form then why a large mass of people fail at some stage of their life to resolve the internal conflict? The answer is really easy and is a matter of general observation. Though they communicate with each other but they hide what they really are? They hide what they really feel and think. Why? because they are afraid of becoming wrong. Due to fear of being wrong they burry a large part of their personality under shades fact images that they try to create and present to world.
The pain and conflict between adopted and imitated image and real hidden personality slow down the growth of one’s personality. The real personality of an individual is his mind. The only way to liberate the hidden personality from deep shades of fake images is to own the mind. To own the ideas, emotions, feelings, imaginations and expressions that one has. Owning of mind requires expression. Unfortunately, mediums of expressions require art, knowledge and have rules to learn and follow. So these requirements make the windows of opportunity fewer and special to those who met these requirements.
But it is not a problem because creativity is always rebellious in its nature and breaks down the rules at ease of its expressions. When I was a school going child, I was constructing stories to amuse my friends but as I grew older I lost the opportunity self expression via storytelling to newly acquiring facts, logics and reasoning that I was acquiring from society and schooling. It was a painful period for me because I was exposed to ocean of knowledge and information through books and teachers but I had no way to express my opinions. My mind was not accepting the world as I was discovering it. The world views that I was exposing to them and they were to convince me to observe the world through their perspectives was not acceptable for me. I wanted to break down those mirrors that were no showing the images as I wanted by creating my own world views. In meanwhile I was curious reading books in different disciplines and also about thoughts and lives of individuals whose thoughts and world views have changed the world. My search to find thoughts or life styles from these great men that were in harmony with those of mine to convince myself that I am not alone were less successful. Besides, literature, philosophy, science, media, business and others had their own giants with their own world views and also there were major events that not only changed the individuals but entire nations. It was unbearable for me to accept that though individuals have to select a discipline as their field of specialty but how they couldn’t have their own opinions about the ideas of the giant of these disciplines that were deciding their fate. But again the same problem that all disciplines have their own specialized mediums that need expertise. It was the time that I was drawing white pigeons flying and sometimes a white pigeon with broken wing.
It was the summer of 1997 that I got admission to college. In our first week while we making new friends, one of these new friends by name of Hassan told me about a little but impressive book about art of speech. I requested him the book but there were others also in waiting list. After two or three weeks I got this little book. From this little book I learnt a few practical points that really changed my life. Though the wordings are not same but the basic points were as follows,
1- Never neglect your ideas as unimportant.
2- Record your ideas by writing them down in your own words and style either it is a sentence, a paragraph or in any other forms at your ease.
3- Always use your own ideas while expressing yourself as originality is more effective and impressive than quoting giants of knowledge.
This methodology liberated me and I started to explore myself my owning my mind. This method or better to say medium enabled me to resolve an internal conflict by expressing me with my own ease. I found no other medium strong and flexible enough to let you express yourself so thoroughly and reveal yourself so deep than aphorisms. I am amazed that why people haven’t yet used the aphorisms as they adopted other forms of literature?
There is nothing to become amazed for as there is one thing that stop people to adopt aphorism and that is the “fear of becoming wrong”. I always say that beauty never can be wrong about itself because beauty is distinguished but not specified. No one has come out with the definition of beauty as beauty is. So letting the imaginations appear in the forms of beauty make you distinguished rather than wrong. In “Prophet of Mind” I haven’t organized the aphorisms under proper subjects but written down as they were born out of nowhere. The main reason was to not harm the chronological order and originality of expressions. Imaginations are random just like dreams of babies and when they become organized they grow into ideas testable to tests and tastes. I let the “prophet of mind” to remain in the form of imaginations so it could serve its purpose to spark imaginations and help readers express themselves and grow liberate their personalities out of shadows they have constructed to vastness of liberty.
Khudadad
Introduction
Here is a story that is story of all. The story is about becoming “distinguished………..”. How one is going to become distinguished is a problem ahead of all in all stages of their lives to solve. But there is a way for all. All can choose the way and become distinguished. The way is “You can become distinguished simply BY OVERCOMING THE DISABILITIES YOU HAVE”. Helen Keller became distinguished by overcoming the darkness imposed to her by deafness and blindness. Disability doesn’t mean physical disability as in case of Helen Keller because all of us have physical disabilities. Human eye is blind to waves higher to violet color and lower than red colors. Due to these limitations distant stars are invisible to us. Microbial world that we live with is invisible to us. We only become aware of them by symptoms or changes in our foods they cause. Our ear is deaf to all sounds of radio frequencies and ultrasonic sounds so we are unable to hear the sounds that are all around us broadcasted and communicated by fellow human. The same is true for our other senses. Hence in order to overcome these physical disabilities the scientists have created microscopes, telescopes, spectrometry, radios, radars, and thousands of other instruments. Why Scientists are praised and honored? because they have succeeded to overcome a lot of physical disabilities and made themselves distinguished. By overcoming these physical disabilities they introduced human to invisible ancient worlds of earth history, history of life, world of microscopes, galaxies and world of inside of our cells and our heredity genes. By advancements of Science and technologies we are overcoming these physical disabilities that we all have. So it is proved that physical disabilities are common to all human.
Now that we have defined “Disability” and “Distinguished” we can go to define another noun and that is “disease”. Disruption of the ability is called disease. An infection may blind one and cause diarrhea in another. The first one was able to see but lost its ability to see by disease and second one was able to digest but lost temporarily his ability to digest due to disease. From genetic perspectives viruses and bacteria that cause diseases are only doing their duty and that is spreading their genetic material using your body cells. But viruses and bacteria have their limitations. They can’t cause illness to those who have developed immunity against them but damage badly who haven’t developed immunity. Hence people travel in new places are more in danger of local viruses and bacteria and the locals are in danger of viruses and bacteria that the traveler is carrying with himself.
The most essential ability in humans that distinguish it from all other forms of the living organisms is the ability to think and judge well. The thinking ability of men chiefly relies on ideas and information they get. Misinformation and wrong ideas are like viruses and bacteria that use human mind for propagations of their genes and make one disable to think and judge properly. Scientists have developed vaccines that make human immune to particular bacteria but what about IMMUNITY OF HUMAN MIND? Is there is any immune system?
The answer is YES. Strengthening of personal judgments is the best immune system against infectious ideas and information. How to strengthen the personal judgments? It is all “Prophet of mind is all about”. Providing with method as well as well ideas to think through is a real way to start. Sometimes you have ideas to express but are unfamiliar with methods to express it. Your best ideas may die before they develop to maturity to help you have strong opinions and strong judgments on the issues. On other hand you may are familiar with methodology and technology to express yourself but lack ideas to work on or get inspirations to start with. Here the ideas are presented in random just like imaginations. You may go through them and find yourself in conflict with them and got your own ideas. If these aphorisms succeed to make you think and get ideas then they have served their purpose.
The adventure of the overcoming disability never ends because it is a chain reaction. The new facts that come out of invisible worlds will leads to new ways for overcoming more disabilities. Just the fact that genes code for proteins was enough for Scientists to think of new possibilities and to overcome the physical disabilities. Genetic engineering and biotechnology have become the leading sciences of the today. On the other hand just knowing the fact that brain is the main organ to control almost all human functions and behavior is enough for neuroscientists to experiments with brain and brain areas to overcome the functional and behavioral disabilities. It is involved both hope and fear. Hope to overcome the disabilities and fear the knowledge and skill may b used to disable mental abilities.
It is the ideas and inventions of the Michael Faraday on the electromagnetic devices that led to generation of electricity and motor technology that revolutionized the abilities of men. Do you think that your life will be in good shape without electrical appliances and devices in your home, work areas, shopping centers and recreational centers? One really feels disabled without computers to connect with brain of world (World Wide Web).
OK! I have just given you some examples that are known by almost all and are boring to repeat. You may have already gotten bore of repetitions that I made. But it is important to note though after boredom that “Knowing a fact is enough to work for overcoming the disabilities that we have and becoming distinguished”.
Now it is time to come towards a disability that is common to all and it is what this entire book is all about. “IT IS THE DISABILITY TO OWN THE MIND”. All the people from a baby to a scientist that is working on the frontiers of knowledge are wrestling with their minds. The relation of human with their minds was never an easy relation. After spending whole his life wrestling with his mind Descartes declared, “I think therefore I am”. It was the declaration of owning of mind after a lifetime tough relations with his mind. Aristotle was stopping people on streets of Athens and start cross questioning to know how much they own their minds. His life ended by drinking poison rather to leave the ownership of his mind. It is fashionable to quote Einstein in discussions related to mind and brain, so here is a quote from Einstein, “Imaginations is more important than knowledge”. It is really difficult for some people to digest it. Einstein is simply explaining himself by saying that his imaginations about the theory of relativity is more important that theory of relativity itself. How?
There are masses of academics, students and immature who have learnt and worked with theory of relativity but they didn’t became distinguished as Einstein. The reason is simple; they got the knowledge but not the imaginations that generate knowledge. Einstein became distinguished because he developed the imaginations that generated the theory of relativity. HENCE, ignoring imaginations as unimportant or the fear that they may be wrong is an act of killing knowledge at the bud. Besides the imaginations and ideas that are not expressed is lost or in other words, killed. What if an idea proved wrong? It is still a contribution to knowledge as you let people know that this idea is wrong.
One of the ability of humankind that distinguish it from other organisms is the ability of prediction based on the knowledge and reasoning. But because of enormous amounts of researches and creative works the predictions are becoming more and more difficult and uncertain. Every new discovery or invention opens the doors for new possibilities. Every individual had limited capacity of time, energy and resources to invest and expend. Uncertainties sometimes cause loss of crucial time, energy and resources. Again a personal judgment is what that is important in guiding and safeguarding of preventing key losses in key times. People take refuge into different practices in order to save them of uncertainties but there is a guide residing in every skull. How much this guide that is always available for help is reliable depends on how much one relies on it. “Prophet of mind” is not only a name but a message, “Own your mind rather to have it”.
Read the book here,
Prophet of Mind
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