What is true, depends on you (almost entirely)
Truth is a many storied building.
The Buddha in his enlightenment discovered that there is no such thing as an absolute truth!
The four noble truths and the eightfold path ensue.
The poet’s truth is just as real to him as is the scientist’s to himself!
Merely because the latter appeals to the rational mind it cannot and should not be given a higher weightage than that which only a mystic can perceive from beyond the five senses.
More importantly, truth when its not your still remains untruth, believing is not the same as knowing be it god or small intestine!
So, what is true, depends on you. Your ability to perceive and to know much more, possibly entirely even, than on what the object of truth is.
Rumi Quotes
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī was a Persian sufi saint, poet and mystic.
His poetry has always resonated with me for a long time.
These are some of my favourite quotes of him.
Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
What you seek is seeking you.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.
The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.
Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.
The wound is where the light enters you.
The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep.
I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.
Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.
Travel brings power and love back into your life.
Love is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with love.
The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering.
Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.
The rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.
You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.
Don’t be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.
A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.
The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.
The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?
There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?
The wound is where the light enters you.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
I am yours. Don’t give myself back to me.
We are born of love; Love is our mother.
There is no salvation for the soul but to fall in love. Only lovers can escape out of these two worlds.
In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.
I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.
When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.
The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind does not understand.
Arthur Ashe - Why Me?
Arthur Ashe was the first African-American male player to have won three grandslam titles and inspired a generation of athletes.
He had a heart attack which forced him retire from professional tennis. He contacted HIV AIDS diring blood transfusion on the second bout of heart attack.
When he shared this news with the world he recieved letters from fans all over.
One of which read: “Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease”?
To which Arthur’s response was both touching and wise.
“The world over — 50 million children start playing tennis,
5 million learn to play tennis,
500,000 learn professional tennis,
50,000 come to the circuit,
5000 reach the grand slam,
50 reach Wimbledon,
4 to the semifinal,
2 to the finals,
When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD ‘Why me?’.
And today in pain I should not be asking GOD ‘Why me?’ “
• Happiness keeps you Sweet,
• Trials keep you Strong,
• Sorrow keeps you, Human,
• Failure keeps you humble and
• Success keeps you glowing, but only Faith & Attitude Keeps you going..”
Sometimes you are not satisfied with your life, while many others in this world are dreaming of living your life.
A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead dreams of flying, while a pilot on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of returning home.
That’s Life! Enjoy yours…Because;
• If wealth is the secret to happiness, then rich should be dancing on streets, but only POOR kids do that.
• If power ensures security, then VIPs should walk unguarded. But those who live simply sleep soundly
• If beauty and fame bring ideal relationships, celebrities should have the best marriages
Therefore, live simply, Be happy, Walk humbly & Love genuinely!”
He spent his final years raising awareness of HIV AIDS and helping the victims through his foundation.
When you have friends who can make profoundly wise words seem like perfect BS, you don’t need a lot more to be happy in Life 😄
My Favourite Movies of All Time
My Favourite Movies of All Time
Gladiator
Troy
A Beautiful Mind
Pearl Harbour
Shawshank Redemption
Cast Away
Forest Gump
Terminal
Imitation Game
Life is beautiful
Cinderella Man
Paycheck
Independence Day
Hancock
Pursuit of happiness
Silence of Lambs
Twelve Angry Men
Scent of a woman
Godfather trilogy
The recruit
Wolf of Wall Street
Dark Knight
The Big Short
Vantage Point
Brave heart
2012
Fight club
Prestige
The Illusionist
Margin Call
Pulp fiction
No country for Old Men
Sherlock Holmes
Django Unchained
Titanic
Catch me if you can
Rocky Series
Enter the Dragon
Karate Kid
Spring Summer Fall Winter Spring
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Ghost and Darkness
Memento
Aviator
The Departed
Training Day
Bodyguard
The shining
Good Will Hunting
Dead Poets Society
Which is(are) your favourite movie(s) and why do you recommend anyone to watch it?
Almost every story is...
a story worth telling. Of course some more than others. After all, we are nothing more than the stories we tell ourselves.
If that’s the case, then why not tell a good one? Better still is the best story we can tell us about ourselves, this probably helps us live our best lives more than anything else.
This is also why movies and books, especially the biographical ones, have such a transformative effect on the lives of individuals however it can be short-lived if not coupled with intrinsic motivation.
Remember, you are only a story away from living an inspired life.
Hardware/Devices that a smartphone has replaced
with a feature or an app!
It’s remarkable how much of our life happens on a small screen with a little bit of hand eye coordination.
Just a nostalgic take on all the things that a smartphone has replaced.
Phone ☎️
Radio
MP3 player and Tape recorder 🎧🎵
Torch 🔦
Wallet/Cash 🤑
Camera and video camera 📸 and Albums too
Maps 🗺️
Passbook
Calculator 📟
Alarm clock ⏰
TV and Remote
📚 and Notebooks(purist in me, continues to live in denial)
Gaming consoles 🎮
Board games - ♟️ carrom, Ludo, Monopoly, 🃏 and more
Wrist watch ⌚
Calendar 🗓️
Compass 🧭
Letters and Greeting cards too ✉️
Newspapers 📰
Sure a lot more (ordering stuff etc.) can happen over a mobile phone but here I’ve tried only list some of the physical objects a cellphone has rendered redundant.
Question to you?
What are something things or even activities that you think will never ever be replaced?
Also, what would one day replace a cellphone?
One of the best and simpler explainers on the #svbcollapse
Finshots keep up the excellent work of financial education 👍
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
~Aristotle
This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
~Alan Watts
For two years a person learns to speak, and then for the rest of his life he learns to be silent.
When it ceases to be new
It ceases to amaze you.
When learning something new,
Be it an idea, a skill, a tool (hardware/software), playing a game or a 🎶 instrument or picking up a new hobby.
We are nervous and excited at the same time. Constantly thinking about it in the🚿 or before going to 😴 and all the time in between.
Early on, every little progress seemed like a milestone worth celebrating and every blip seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.
There is a sense of alertness to the mind and body while being engaged in the activity.
A feeling of magic.
Along the way, the newness is somehow lost. The spark is now missing. Eventually it becomes mundane and gets relegated to a chore.
Alas! This is also when you stop having fun and start burning out.
The fortunate few who don’t fall into this trap of inevitable boredom are those who wholeheartedly embrace the idea of a beginner’s mind while also constantly striving to improve through deliberate practice.When it ceases to be new,
Elon-isms
Recently watched an excellent Interview (link at the end) of @Elon Musk by @Lex Friedman. And as Lex rightly pointed out in his opening remarks, Elon is someone who has given hope back to humanity in a bunch of different ways. Even more so in these tough times. I also noticed that, Elon has a few key ideas that he often talks about in most of these enriching conversations. Attempting to take a quick look at some of them in here.
Orders of Magnitude
Simply means, in powers of 10. An order of magnitude is 10X times and two orders of magnitude is 100X and so on… Elon says, a new product or service has to be much better, by orders of magnitude for the consumer to switch from incumbents or its not enough incentive to switch.
On Balance
All things considered. Most things in life are neither completely good nor bad. There are shades of gray to almost everything. One needs to decide how much gray one is okay with to take action or make decisions. Musk’s individual carbon emissions might be higher than most ordinary individuals but his contribution to sustainable energy future more than offsets for this on balance.
Eating Glass and Staring Into the Abyss
This is how he says, a friend of his describes starting a company feels like. Elon’s advice was, “If you need inspiring words don’t do it.”
Thinking in the Limits
This is about looking at the extremes. From the atom to the universe lets say. Do things behave or work out differently in very small numbers or very large ones? Also, things like when a product is manufactured in large numbers does it cost less due to economies of scale etc. Interestingly, he said a Govt. is a corporation in the limit with a monopoly on violence.
Money 💰💵
Elon surely is uniquely qualified than most of us to talk about money being the richest man and all that. Also because of his work with PayPal. Money is not valuable in and of itself. It serves as a means to allocate labor. Its an entry in a database, with mainframes that run COBOL and central banks having editing permissions to the DB.
Area under the curve
Area under the Curve = ∫ab f(x)dx Elon’s life and work is classic example of the utility optimization function going full throttle. If one can create a product or service that brings happiness or improves the quality of life of a large number of people in some small way or has a huge positive impact on a small number of people, its success is highly probable.
Rate of Innovation
In the long run, the survival and then growth of a company is determined primarily by its rate of innovation. This is important even for our individual careers, the degree to which we stay relevant is determined by the extent of our learning, unlearning and relearning.
Fundamental Breakthrough or Holy Grail
Elon is known to correctly identify and relentlessly pursue fundamental breakthroughs in his chosen areas. When it comes creating a self-sustaining civilization on mars, the key was to have fully and rapidly reusable rockets. When it comes to autonomous cars it was solving for computer vision and so on. Link to the interview
You want to be rich and anonymous, not poor and famous.
~Naval Ravikant
Everything is a process.
It Depends
A long time ago.
Wait!
Actually, not so long ago! When I was in 7th Std and my sister was in 2nd we would have what we then called deep discussions.
In fact, along with our dad, we even had a group (not on what’s app, we just called ourselves that), called Smriti
We grew up in a village with no access to electricity, let alone a TV or internet so we spent time reading and talking to real (not virtual) people.
During those deep discussions whenever my sis asked me a question, more often than not, my answer would almost always start with a phrase, yes you guessed it right, it depends.
I think this story elucidates the the point I am trying to make, much better than I ever could.
I’ve been thinking about this again off late. It was triggered by a conversation with a good friend. Who seemed to think of it as an act of escapism or a copout.
I on the contrary, feel that its a mere acknowledgement of the complexity of the nature of truth, our existence and its meaning of perception & perspective and various other subjective, messy topics.
Or
Its a humble admittance of my own ignorance.
Or
More optimistically, its my genuine belief.
Because, I THINK and have to come to believe it more with each passing day. That, there is no such thing as absolute truth or atleast not until you know it yourself.
What is true, depends on you and truth, no matter how profound or enticing, when its not yours (experential) still remains untruth. Thats also why most people have a hard time believing, let alone relating to the hard things that happen to other people in their lives but have vivid recollection of whatever happened to them in their own lives decades ago and continue to view the world from that same lens shaped by their one experience.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~Maya Angelou
Take any question, and try to think through it and come up with a convincing answer and you’ll see what I mean.
These are some questions I can’t help but start the answer with it depends.
Is there God?
If yes, is he/she/it human or in some other form? Or formless? Or just energy? Or Light Is there one supreme god or are there many? I could go on with this, but I guess you see the point.
Are you happy?
Who is the greatest tennis player (or Boxer or Investor or Scientist) of all time?
It seems like a settled one but it depends on how you measure, isn’t it? Some say Rod Laver, others like to go with Roger Federer. But, how do you decide by the number of Grandslam wins? Titles? Matches? Weeks as number one?
What about the times in which they played? The quality of opponents? The role of tech? Global and geo-political situations?
While we imagine or expect most things in life to be binary, either black or white, the truth is that often, they are fifty (or a million shades) of gray.
Thanks for reading, what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Have a different thought?
Try out some of the questions that lend itself well to this thought experiment and share your comments.
Jordan Peterson on thinking for yourself and faith in the redeeming power of truth
What a beautiful line by Ruskin Bond
You are always selling, whether you know it or not!
When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?
~John Maynard Keynes