Friday, December 02, 2005

4. Who can be a Listener ???

Self Absorbedness -> what has it got to do with the character of a person.Can this one trait speak volumes about a certain person?Is it wrong to be self absorbed? What do I mean when I say "self-absorbed".I actually am referring to the condition of being preoccupied with your own thoughts,that you hardly even listen to the person conversing with you.There is'nt an ounce of interest you show towards the guy/gal who is sitting and patiently listening , especially 'actively' listening to all that you have to dish out.You know, to make such a one-sided,one person dominated non-conversation, it takes a "Listener" on the receiving end.And here I arrive at the core point of this discussion.Who can be a "Listener"? What does it take to be a Listener? With all the people being too self absorbed and involved in doling their hearts out and expressing their troubles, good Listeners are always required to make a conversation a possibility.I feel being a Listener is a part of or rather should be a part of one's personality.This I say because social relations are formed and maintained on the basis of personal confrontations followed by conversations. If a conversation is'nt getting interesting,you initially try to make it lively.If this doesnt seem to work, then it's better off to get into the role of the "Listener".I tell you,it's the safest role to assume.People always keep saying "I am sorry,I should not have said it that way when we met" or "Why did i say that, i am a dumb fool to have spoken like that". If you are a listener, you dont have any such worries.The power of "not saying" something is huge , one whose magnitude cant be judged.Being the Listener, I get to hear all the thoughts, the opinions and thus evaluate the personality whereas I shield myself from everyone, without giving them a a chance to have a peek into my mind.So, I stay in my comfort zone, getting a peak into the minds of all others.Believe me, there are benefits of being a "Listener". :)

3. Ignorance is Bliss....

This title seems weird, like some proverb taken from a fable book. But when u come to think of it, there’s an amazing amount of information that it doles out, depending on the way you look at it. The very fact that you don’t know about a certain thing or a certain happening is a “blessing in disguise”, because that’s the way it’s meant to be, or that’s the way your life has been designed(I am getting kinda philosophical over here).Once you are aware/conscious about all the aspects of a certain activity, then you weigh the pros and cons a million times before you finally do it. You would have gone on and simply done it without any fuss if you were not aware of the event’s externalities. Let me give you an example. Remember the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during ww2? Who can forget that? The U.S ‘s pride was hurt real bad due to the destructive attack by the Japanese forces at Pearl Harbor, hence it decided to produce nuclear weapons. A big team of scientists was formed, a lot of funds pooled up to conduct extensive experimentation and produce a “destructive wonder”. After viewing the results of a few experiments after a few months of research, the leader of the team of scientists(say a Mr.Roger) realized that what he was going to create was a “weapon of immense mass destruction”. He tried to think of the repercussions it would have on the people who would be hit by this “demon”. He could not digest the fact that millions of people would have an impaired life because of his creation. So, Roger was in a dilemma ,on one hand he had worked so hard for many months, in his area of interest, which had given him a lot of joy. But, he was also aware of the fact that he would be creating a “monster” ,which would be unleashed on millions of harmless people.Initially,Roger thought that even if he would quit , there would always be someone else to fill his place and achieve the goal assigned. The completion of a research to a scientist is just like giving birth to a child for a woman. Several months of relentless hard work goes into achieving the final result and the joy, which they get after the job is done is immense. Roger wanted to continue research, but finally decided to quit because he did not want to be remembered as the man behind this devious man made creation . He stuck to his ethics and quit the job. He also tried to persuade his team mates to quit, but they did not, because they were not able to visualize the impact of what they were doing on the world. In their case, the fact that they were unable to perceive the destructive power of their creation enabled them to continue with the research. Roger tried to go public, explaining the direction in which the research was heading in, but he was mysteriously killed in a freak lab accident.Here we had Roger, totally aware of the externalities of his work, which put him in a fix, made his life miserable and finally led to a mysterious death, may be due to mental instability or due to the whim of higher powers. The point is that had he not thought of the repercussions of his work, but silently carried on his research, then he would have been a rich man, and who knows probably still alive.This was a very heavy example, but a very important one for you to analyze. We also hear the cricket commentators say during crunch situations “Players should just play their natural game and not think much about the present situation”. Why do they say this? This is because the more thinking done evaluating the match situation, more will be the pressure created due to the evaluation, which will lead to a lot tensions. Hence, it is very less likely that a pressurized, tense person will perform. On the contrary, a certain player who focuses only on his game and is also sub-consciously aware of how to handle the crunch situation will end up on the winner’s side. This is the way the human psyche (thought process) works.Why aren’t small children afraid of walking on thin walls or climbing trees or teasing stray dogs?????? That’s because they are blissfully unaware of the fears associated with these events. Once they get to know of the risks and dangers involved, they’ll be cautious and will always evaluate the risk involved before going on to do something.The same is the case with all of us. We remain blissfully unaware of so many things/events happening around us, because we try not to consider it as a part of our system/scheme of things. There is a tendency to deliberately remain unaware of certain issues, thereby not feeling guilty/irresponsible while doing such stuff. Every situation/happening has a number of parameters associated with it. Only if you know that a situation has some parameters will you begin to think and evaluate the situation, right!!! Life is a wonderful experience, we learn about the various parameters during the journey, thereby making us more evaluative and in short, more vulnerable.There is a certain pattern, a certain history behind every activity/event that is happening and that will happen. The inability to interpret the pattern a certain event follows contributes to it’s randomness or it being called “Random”. If something is random, then it means that the pattern of it’s functionality has not been discovered as yet. Sounds weird huh!!!! But give this some thought and you will find the answers to many of the unanswered questions.As for events with existing patterns, there is no way to say that the pattern it’s associated with is the only comprehensive one describing it’s features. There is a lot about nature that we are unaware of and we are slowly but steadily trying to figure the various mysteries it has to offer. We are steadily increasing or broadening our horizon and reaching closer to the absolute truth. There is a great saying and it goes like this - “we are always moving from the “lesser truth” towards the “greater truth”, not from the wrong to the right”. I don’t know who said this but it sure does make a lot of sense.

2. The Essence of education

There is a saying – “Education is in itself an education”. What is the basic aim of education? Is it to just the transfer a whole lot of knowledge from the different specific domains over a period of time? Education should be able to equip a person with the capability to think, apply the acquired knowledge in actual situations and most of all, it should make him/her a better person. When I say “capability to think”, I don’t just mean the logical analysis of a technical problem, I am referring to the ability to think and analyze the value of life and the notions of “personal satisfaction” and “identifying your priorities”.In the process of acquiring knowledge, we deal with various situations and face certain hindrances, which we overcome eventually. This exposure prepares us to face the real world at a later stage of our lives.When you see a ladder, can you estimate it’s length without using any instrument? Just by observing the sun, can you roughly guage the time of the day? At any instant, if you are asked to give a rough estimate of the cost of an outing to the movies, how accurately will your answer be? If there is a half filled bucket in front of you, can you give the quantity of water in it? These are a few real world situations where we tend not to apply our technical knowledge. We have learnt a lot about “Mensuration”, calculating areas and volumes of different surfaces, but we restrict the use of that knowledge only for the exams. The ability to identify real world application of the knowledge acquired is a very important asset, which an education should provide.My math professor used to tell us “Your marks may not be important for long but your character will be important forever”. He is so right, because it is on the basis of your character that you are judged throughout; your personality reflects the qualities of your character. Academic brilliance is recognized, but so is a good character. Special emphasis on character building is necessary. There is also the saying –“If you get the bigger things/aims right , the smaller things/aims automatically fall in place.” To illustrate, you are given two jugs, one with huge stones and one with small pebbles and sand grains. If you fit the big stones over the smaller pebbles, it just wont work out. Whereas, if you put the pebbles in the gaps between the huge stones, then the two jugs care made fit one. So, if one is able to absorb the essence of what his/her education has offered, then the technical/bookish knowledge and the logical reasoning capability will automatically fit into the person’s mind. In a nutshell, if you know why you are being bombarded with information from various domains of knowledge, you will have a clearer understanding of the various spectra of understanding, also you will naturally acquire the ability to apply this knowledge to the real world situations.

1. Evaluation

How does one judge a person? What I am trying to ask is, when you meet a person, your interaction with him/her is largely influenced by the ‘opinion’ you have formed about that person in your head. This “forming of opinion” is based on past experiences of conversing with that person and also on the feedback received from other people regarding that person. In short, you form your opinion about a certain individual after hearing to other opinions and by your assessment of his/her personality. You may ask, why at all should one form an opinion about another person. Well that is human nature for you, and if there are people living without forming opinions about the people they interact with, then they are truly a blessed group. Because, at a certain level in your mind, you do tend to form an opinion about every other person.So, the focus is now on your assessment of an individual’s personality. When you think of a person, what comes to mind is a few striking good features(if any), but they are eclipsed by even the smallest of the bad qualities possessed. You may be a calm and composed person throughout your life, but just one angry outburst of yours damages your image, because that is what will be remembered. That is the way the human mind works. We tend to remember more of the negativity, that the positive aspects of a person. One stark negative quality is enough for a person to get labeled as having that feature. You may have a million good qualities and might have done a billion good deeds, but it the one shady act/bad deed of yours that will be highlighted and projected.I can give a number of examples. Say, You have joined as a freshman in a college. You meet a guy/gal and become friends with that individual. You party along and have a jolly good time in the company of that friend. But one day, you come to know that that person “smokes and drinks”. You belonging to a traditional family with values filled into your head , are totally against smoking. When you meet that person the next time around, the only thought that lingers in your head is “here comes the smoker…….. here comes the smoker”. No matter how good that person has been to you, or how well you both have clicked as friends, you just cant seem to get this thing out of your head. All the positive aspects seen from the past experiences with that person are forgotten. You begin to judge that person based on only one negative quality of his/her. Now, another debatable point is , smoking and drinking is a conscious choice made by a person, fully aware of the externalities involved. Hence, you should not judge that person just by one choice he/she has made, because that is just not fair.Coming to the American presidents, first talk of Nixon. His “Watergate” scandal tarnished his image and he has ever since been looked at as the “the guy who disrespected democracy”. Talking about Mr. Bill Clinton, he passed many daring and revolutionary policies and took America to great new heights. But the incident with Ms.Lewinsky is what made him get impeached. Now, if even you as a layman, are asked to speak a few sentences about Clinton, the first thing that will come to mind is the “sexual assault on Lewinsky”.The human mind works in this fashion, and it is very tough to change it.I am not asking you to forget the negative aspects while assessing a personage.One must be able to judge a person by looking at the whole spectrum of qualities he/she possesses. This is really tough, because the mind is not prepared to work in this way. That is human nature and it’s unavoidable, but now that you are consciously aware of this idea, try to shape your way of thinking so as to judge a person in the most appropriate way possible. Just give this a thought.If this is difficult to put into action, try not to form any opinion about a person.Just take that person as he/she is, without any prejudices.