Have you heard of or met those people who go through their entire lives thinking only of themselves? There's a good chance that you have.... These people have been brought up to believe that you should always look out for yourself, otherwise someone will take advantage of you. So they counter this by grabbing every oppurtunity they get, even at the cost of discomfort or harm to fellow men and women, being under the illusion that this is the only way to survive in this hard world.

As they are only on the lookout for things that will benefit their career, make them richer, make their kids smarter( that is,their own version of being smart, to look out for personal benefits) and so on, they will have little interest in things that don't concern them. You won't see them feeling sorry for the neighbours when they get robbed, but you'll see them clucking away like chickens if there is a rumour that the burglar is going to strike their house next. They show no interest in global warming, increasing levels of carbon dioxide, excessive forest cutting, loss of habitats for animals, recycling, saving water, avoiding food wastage, saving paper, avoiding use and burning of plastic...they beleive it that these worldwide phenomena will not affect them, it is for others to worry about and besides, how will one less person forgetting to turn off the tap affect the world anyway?

They will only help others when they know that they will get something in return. Haven't you often heard the line," Why should you keep helping him when he does nothing for you?" (granted, there are definitely a few crooked people who ask for your help or money often and then disappear from your life). In a crowded train, they will refuse to adjust so that more passengers to sit down, complaining that they paid for the seats, have had a long hard journey that was already delayed by 2 hours, they have the right to use them fully and blah blah blah. Well of course you have the bloody right since you paid for the seats, but did you realise that the standing passengers are having a harder journey?

When they are responssible for an accident on the road and injuring someone, their immediate reaction is to screech away from the scene before the police come, shouting loudly that it was the other guy's else's fault (in America it's understandable, because some wierdos are more interested in suing the culprit than in grieving for their family member). There are so few people who even stop to offer help when a fellow's car breaks down on the highway.

When you think of matters only from your own point of view, you are known as a narrow-minded person. Such people are also more judgemental and have shorter tempers. When a broad minded person does things in his own unique way, instead of following the age old practices of his society these fools are quick to pass comments and ridicule them, never bothering to fairly judge if this person is making a wiser move than everyone else. It is because of broad-minded people in history like Giordano Bruno, Copernicus and Galileo that we know the truth about our solar system and universe today( the Church in the medieval ages believed that since God has a path set for us, it is no longer necessary for us to think). Bruno was burned at the stake for having opinions contrary to those of the Catholic faith, Copernicus had his works published only after his death to avoid repurcussions and Galileo was sent to jail for claiming that the earth was not the centre of the universe... I ask you....

Do you know how everyone believes in something? Some people believe in God, some believe in destiny, in fate, some believe in soulmates....i believe that everyone of us has some unique skill that we are better at than anyone else...i want to find it....

It's predictable that he will be unpredictable. So in the end is he predictable?

The only permanent rule in the game is that you can't play it the way you did last time. So in the end does the game have any permanent rules?

If you have succeeded in failing, then have you done both at the same time?

" Is I feel happy considered a factual statement in philosophy? "

awesome question....

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101009043912AAgj4uL&r=w&pa=AptqD2bwHTHc5uaCZKA1uiducr6iClnmrToTFAL0JUBa0g--&paid=voted

Why are disgusting-tasting foods usually the most nutricious?

Wasn't nature supposed to have built us for survival? When you feel cold, your body shivers to keep you warm. When your skin gets cut, platelets clot the blood around the area. When you get a disease, your immune system kicks in. So why does the tongue want to reject nutricious food? Doesn't the brain know that the food can make our immune system stronger?

If we think along the lines of Darwin theory, it would be suggesting that the world will slowly be rid of weak-minded people-people who cannot bare to swallow 'bluaarrrgghh!!!'-tasting foods. Hmmm....

Meeting new people seems difficult for some of us... We tend to think of what they will think of us, how best to approach them to get on good terms with them, and if there might be any habit of ours that they will find silly or look down upon. But just a week later these 'new people' have probably become your friends. And when you continue to meet more and more people, the mindset that many of us have that everyone out there is the same and they are all part of the ratrace will slowly get dispelled.You finally start to get a grasp of just many different souls and opinions and mindsets or perspectives are out there in the world.You'll find that each and every person has some amazing unique ability (or abilities), and each person has some unique interesting story to tell from his/her life, no matter what background they come from. Forget people from different cultures or countries, even your neighbour could be someone who has an attitude towards life that you have never thought of before.

But getting back to my first point, how is it that we can become friends with them so easily if every single person on the planet is so unique? It's because we do have some similar interests, and the more the better. Just like we are nervous when we meet them for the first time, they are also nervous of our opinions about them, though they will not show it. Afterall doesn't that make you look weak and insecure?

And also it's fun :D....If we take the time to understand every new person we meet, it's like diving into the universe's most dense and diverse library. Forget an actual library-because an actual library has the thoughts of only those people who WANT to write books. But when we physically meet new people, they give us a plethora of knowledge and understanding of the way things work around us....

India, USA and other countries have all drawn up Constitutions and other important documents. These have been preserved for scores of years and talked about proudly by patriots. Why did all of this happen? Because humans cannot live without arguing and trying to achieve supremacy over each other.

The Illusion of Control

Whenever we watch big organisations or groups work, or we employ their services, they give us a feeling that everything is under control, everyone in the world has a purpose and we are all heading towards it in an orderly and businesslike-fashion. They make us feel everything is ORGANISED and taken care of, by people or machines or computers, that have planned out everything well ahead and looked out for all possible glitches and hiccups.

For example, we go to a hospital and register ourselves and get accounts in their records...We tell them what tests we want done, and they give directions to go up the stairs, take a right, past the cafe blah blah blah.... When you arrive at the next counter, the receptionist already knows your name and is waiting for you. Apparently your name was passed on through the mainframe computer that runs this place. Oooh you're impressed by the organisation inspite of how busy the place looks. Another example is how your VISA or master card is recognized anywhere in the world. In college a common timetable is devised for 100s of students but each batch derive their own schedules from it according to their course.

But does it really exist? Complete, non-compromising control that is.... HELL NO!! And it can be pissing off to watch their attempts to give us this illusion.

Whatever maybe said about the impressive qualities about a mainframe computer that runs the entire hospital, there's no denying that it can and will breakdown sometime, and confuse your name for your mom's or "John Pantstill" instead of "John Painsil". However fast and quiet the new electric bullet train maybe, we know someday its going to break down and maybe strand passengers over a bridge for several hours. And how many times have you seen aircrashes on BBC and CNN?.... You get stopped by the security every-single-effing time you cross the border cause your name sounds similar to some terrorist (true story-saw it in a reader's digest issue).

Then there's the frailty of rules. And the blatant -aw what the hell- the bloody hypocrisy shown by the people who enforce them. They make themselves look so important when announcing the rules, chest out, eyes cold and pretending they can't hear your protests or explanations. And just watch how they skim past the situation when they are caught breaking the rules themselves. A professor might tell you to hand in your homework specifically on monday even though your class is on tuesday. But when monday arrives, he's like 'eh? what homework?' Your boss might tell you to cancel all your plans, no matter how important they are and attend the meeting. Then he says the meeting has been cancelled cause of an 'emergency at home' and tries to act magnanimous by saying '"I've decided to give you a holiday afterall, consider yourselves lucky".

Politicians always give us the promise, the illusion that order is coming, a better world, where everything and everyone will benefit. And that keeps us hoping and expectant, for something that we have never experienced before and so have no real idea whether we are already experiencing it or not.

Control has never existed in the past and it doesn't exist now. In the past it could take a week to tell the entire village that a meeting is going to take place in the barn or whatever, and now its all about red-tapism. What could take a year in a democracy could be done in a month in China....

In A World of No Consequences

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so says Newton's third law. But that's physics. In life, it's slightly modified: To every  action, there is a reaction or consequence. This reaction may be like, unlike, or irrelevant to the action. You slap your friend, he slaps you back. You go out of your way to help someone you have a crush on, he/she wonders what the hell is going on. And even if you do not move when someone is about to throw a snowball at you, you still gave a reaction; your reaction was to ignore that buffoon.

Imagine a world where consequences do not occur. There is no reaction to any action. Wouldn't this world be frozen in time? The 2nd minute of an hour comes because the 1st minute has passed. So the arrival of the 2nd minute is a reaction to the 1st minute passing by. So this event cannot occur in a world of no consequences, and time stops. But then it's not much fun to be in such a world....hmmm.... Ok, just for the fun of it let's pardon time and Newton's 3rd law. Time flows by as usual and there are only reactions to material actions. You push a wall, it shows resistance, but you kick someone in the bum, he shows no anger, pain, anything. He only falls flat on receiving the kick. What would you do in such a place? The possibilities are really enticing :D. You could get back at all the people who annoyed you, travel to any part of the world for free, get a Lambhorghini, a private plane, buy a mansion, get a supercomputer that takes care of the whole mansion and all other stuff you own(like in the movie Iron Man), go to Las Vegas and crap yourself out, see what it's like to shoot a bazooka, or drive a submarine, check all the restricted military areas of the world to see if there ever really was a genuine alien activity that was hushed up, go to space on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.....

What were you taught as a child?

A child, being innocent and inexperienced, accepts completely everything he sees and hears. He never stops to think whether he should question what others have to say. His mind is not yet developed enough to understand how and why people would want to twist stories and tell lies. It implies that our experiences in childhood have a very heavy impact on our mind. When one is older, one takes things with a pinch of salt. We often analyse what our companion would gain or lose by saying what he wants to say. This is why all moral values and related stuff should be taught at an early age, to have the deepest possible impression.

What was the time before Time?

It's hard to accept the Steady State Theory, the theory which states that the universe has existed eternally. What a huge relief that it has been disproven. But it's equally hard to comprehend what the Big Bang Theory implies, that there was a time when nothing existed, including time. Notice the use of the word 'time'?

Einstein simply said that it makes no sense talking about what happened before the Big Bang....

Hmm...

It is easier not to look back when you have a plan for the future. Having said that, ask a sentimental fellow if he has a clear cut ambition in life.

Humans, The Anomaly

I thought of this topic after I watched The Matrix. In the words of Agent Smith, " It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals...(pause, big sinister smile). Every mammal on this planet naturally develops an equilibrium with their natural sorroundings, but you humans do not. You move to a new area and multiply... multiply until all the natural resources are gone. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area..."

Noble Smith's claim that we are not mammals is of course codswallop, because the primary factor is that mammals are warm-blooded, which we certainly are (to all the biologists, forgive my inability to be more precise). The rest of his words, however, is certainly food for thought. How is it that humans are different and have risen so much above all the other animals, to the extent that our forefathers could arrogantly proclaim that we are at the apex of the ecosystem, rather than just another part of it? Was it mere chance that we are more 'intelligent' than the rest? Darwin's theory certainly implies that anyway; by CHANCE, an error occurred during DNA duplications, and then the baby ape was smarter than the rest. Natural selection ensured that his descendants multiplied rapidly.... Or maybe there is some deeper pattern that could explain this anomaly, that we have not yet been able to fathom. It cannot be regarded as impossible, because we still don't know a lot of things,  like the existence of alien life. And if we do discover alien life, that could give us a valuable insight as well. This is an excerpt from Michio Kaku's book 'Physics of the Impossible':

'Humans are vastly more intelligent than they have to be to survive in the forest. Our brains can master space travel, the quantum theory, and advanced mathematics-skill sets that are totally unnecessary for hunting and scavenging in the forest. Why this excess brainpower?'

Can you imagine a pig developing an atom bomb and screaming "Death to America!!" ? Or a horse giving a lecture on dinosaurs in a museum to kids on a class trip? Or a lizard tending to his garden tirelessly and then looking at it at the end of the day with his lizard-wife, deep satisfaction evident on his pointy face? Or maybe a mouse doing something even as simple as making tea?.... We humans have progressed so, so much but hardly any of us pause to look back and wonder. We are not just smarter than the rest, we are also capable of more complex emotions. Animals experience only the most basic types (which are, I suppose, necessary for survival), like fear and delight or as Anthony Robbins puts it, pain and pleasure. It would be hilarious to think of them being able to experience more subtle ones, like surprise , jealousy and suspicion...

There is one particular emotion that we possess, and I believe this is the reason that we come so far, and as Agent Smith says, do not develop an equilibrium with the sorroundings....greed (muhahaha!!). Because of our greed, we have always wanted more than necessary and are always looking for faster, easier ways to do things.  This greed (and admittedly also short-sightedness) is the reason that we are etching our dominance over the other animals and pushing them slowly out of existence. It is the reason for the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Other animals are satisfied in feeding themselves and their family. In other words, they keep to themselves! You won't catch them robbing a bank and then drinking booze and 'living the dream'....

My 1st Post...

How do you start a blog? What are the first words you write to get the flow going? I searched around the internet for some inspiration, but google-search only seems to pop up with well-established blogs and bloggers, not beginners like me. I even went to sites like wikihow.com but they were too general. So I think I'll just do it freestyle....
This blog, as it says above, is my little online notebook for my random thoughts, or 'revelations' if you will, that I have during some of the quiet moments of the day (and night). Originally I had thought of making this blog a sincere, thoughtful one (which is evident from the innocent-looking title, 'The Pensieve'). Afterwards I realised that this would not reflect my true personality and it would be constricting my methods of relating with potential readers. Noticed the use of the word 'potential'?...hmmm....No, I couldn't resist adding microscopic doses of sly humour, satire and some craziness as well.
And then........................................I guess that's all I have to say....Ok, roll the cameras!