Observations on the way Intellectuals debate.

The extremities in thoughts,  ideologies, inclinations are an inescapable reality. The more people have tried running away from it, the more they have found themselves in nasty confrontations with the same. The only thriving ideologies that seem to have (if only meagerly) survived the test of time, are the ideologies that are inherently most accommodating.

Take for example the concept of Democracy. Though extremely flawed and inefficient, the reason for it to enjoy Universal appeal is because it provides an Universal feeling of appreciation for the people, irrespective of their identity traits, factors and attributes. The merit and the quantifiable and tangible advantages of Democracy is a topic of an altogether different debate.

But then, one thing I have come to notice about the most beneficial and humanitarian valued based ideas is that they generally don't sell.

I have come to understand that the reason for the same is that they are over loaded with facts.

Nothing good comes easy, true. Often it takes scholars, philosophers, philanthropists and alike, years to actually  study, analyse, experiment and experience before they can conclude upon certain enriching concepts - like tangible and practical way of realising near-perfect freedom.

The reason why such ideas or theories do not manifest on a larger scale is, I have come to understand, because they take time. They are not easily digestible. Much like the bitter pills for better health.

Then again these good natured, educated men fall out of favour with the very public they try to help, because they are found to be intimidating.

My good sirs, you and your lofty diction may not earn you the fandom that you imagine you can. Rather, I have come to perceive that the more base, and street-savvy social person, which a moderate level of intelligence, yet great tact wins the audiences and the polls much better than any scholar on any given topic, if given a chance to prepare and present oneself.

Sadly the people with abilities to help humanity in unique ways, lack tact, and people with tact more often than not are not equipped with such abilities/knowledge.

Most outstanding example can be that of Austrian Economics, propagated by stalwarts like Mises, Hayek, Friedman, so on... Though an Utopian concept of economics, which has the promise and the ability to devolve all economic woes on the Global economic system, has got only a few takers.

The reason for this is best explained by an example :

When pitted in an argument or a debate, more than one Austrian economics supporter I personally know (many a times) either acts condescending, or aloof, or heavy and extremely boring, drilling people with facts and hypotheses, and obscenely long speeches; or they choose to remain cryptic.

On the other hand, a regular Socialist economics supporter is extremely colourful, though completely empty of facts supporting his argument. A socialist economist drives his argument from an ideological perspective, filled with slogans, limited number of words which emotionally directly connect with the judge, the jury and the audience of such debates. He makes a moving case out of nothing, and he attacks a factually dominating adversary, only because he knows his adversary lacks the ability to win over the crowd.

Sure the former are extremely sarcastic, but dear sirs, your jokes are understood by a limited people, and even when public gets entertained, noone buys an argument which doesn't give them a 'feel good' factor EVER in a debate.

It is simply put this way - when asked an answer, it would always help if you said two or three sentence long answers with a little bit of emotion, rather than a long essay of facts. People do not have the time for that.

Bernard Shaw once said, 'though my adversary was much more experienced and intimidating, I ripped him apart because I was the veteran of the stage' (not verbatim, but you get the point), citing his famous debate with H.G.Wells.

Similar is the case with most beneficial aspects of alternative scientific theories, economic models, philosophical and political ideas. People with ability, please do take help! Get a soft skills trainer, attend a few Socializing workshops, understand larger public psyche! Try to Make your ideas attractive, make them simplified, so that a common man with a limited intellect or a limited amount of attention span can not just register your idea, but also remember it, be captivated by its beauty, marvel at its benign abilities.

Package your ideas, don't make enemies at the very outset, accommodate your audience not alienate them, bend down to the common levels of comprehension, teach people in a way they will like to listen and understand.

And please, for the last time, humanize and get rid of the essays and the aura when you are talking to a common individual who doesn't work in R&D with you!

A Great Flaw. - Analysing Differences Resultant in Post-Structural Allowances.

An existentialist argues that the picture of merriment always talks about the myopic beholder. The romanticist on the other side struggles to drill relaxation into an ever somber realist. And then there are the Hail Marys of philosophy who sing in unison the beauty of God, and yet provide a long list of heretics on the foot-note.

There seem those organized on the values of humanizing society, decadent with rhetoric, decaying with their systems, and then those excessively objectified looking at even a little humanizing thought as a sign of weakness, successful but unhappy in their own style.

The discrepancies are too huge to catalog, and the more attempts we make at definitions and/or criticisms, the more grander (and hollow) the schemes look.

All but lay waste to one single bracket of thought - presumptuous men, egotistical thoughts.

On Lions and Tigers...

Mankind has a lot to learn from nature... Today I am going to focus upon upon two of the nature's most fearsome mammals existing - the lion and the tiger...

I perceive, humans are essentially of two psychological set-ups, individualism and collectivism, and these two types can be roughly understood if one studies the behaviour of the lions and the tigers...

Lion has been the symbol of majesty, pride and strength across all civilizations over the history of mankind. They, to me represent the collectivists. By collectivists, I mean human beings of the psychological thought which necessitates co-dependence. This group of people believe that there is strength in organising oneself, or a community into a systematic group for its concerted goals, aims and achievements, and like lions they "hunt" together, and share the exploits too...

The group of lions being called "pride" is no mere coincidence either. Lions are social animals, and their social behaviour along with their majestic look and strength has often been appreciated as a symbol from nature to be inspired from... In human collectivists, I believe the notion of uniting under a banner represents a lion's mane... A symbol binding all collectivist human beings together, and also a symbol which brings fear, and/or reverence to the members of the group, as well as in the rivals...

Generally, unlike in lions and tigers where both are vulnerable on an equal scale, amongst human beings, it is noticed that collectivists tend to be greater in number... All the behaviour of collectivists except one can be understood by studying the lions. We will get to the one anomaly later...

Now there is the tiger... The biggest and strongest of the cats, often depicted with fear and certain suspicion in most of the folk myths... Tiger, unlike lion, is a solitary but social animal... This implies that they don't generally socialise but only accept company while sleeping, only at times, and mating. No more.

Tigers, according to me, represent a much smaller yet equally significant group, which is the individualists. Now individualism is seldom appreciated for what it is, and portrayed as selfish or anti-social behaviour, but it essentially is a natural way of behaving for certain set of human beings. It is not that harm is intended upon other human beings, but they just want to be left alone and not forced into anything that they do not choose by themselves. They are highly self-motivated and do not feel the necessity to seek companionship and comradery in any of their endeavours, and prefer to do it alone. This behaviour is just like the tigers, who prefer to hunt alone. But though they hunt alone, tigers are characterised by their ability to share with other related and unrelated tigers, as well as sometimes with other animals like jackals. They don't mind, as long as they are not interrupted and their space not intruded without their permission or acceptance. Unlike lions who generally squabble over the propriety of the prey even amongst themselves.
However, it doesn't mean that they do not seek company, they do. But their definition of company only restricts to few chosen tasks. They believe they can handle the rest of their aspirations all by themselves, and almost always they succeed, if allowed to do so without interruptions or intrusions.

Team-work and such sorts is greatly appreciated in the world today, but this set is only made up for individuated tasks, and they fail miserably in tasks of inter-dependence, just like collectivists generally fail in tasks of independence.

Now coming to one major point of deviation between humans and the big cats - affectation.

While lions and tigers have been the predators in different places of earth respecting each others' territory and not trespassing, we humans almost always have to deal with individualists and collectivists in a common environment. There is also this innate tendency of lions amongst our ranks to force tigers to behave like lions...

It is true that the way of lions is admirable and one to learn from, but the age-old proverb "united we stand, divided we fall" is greatly unjust to the few endangered tigers in our society. Tigers can be of great benefit to humanity if left to hunt alone, rather than in a pride of lions.

We try to force out a collectivist out of individualists. This can simply not happen, as some of us are just not cut out for that.

So, in the end, I would just say, lions to grasslands and tigers to jungles, where they rightly belong.

No TRESPASSING and No COERCION please.

Coffin.

I live in this oblong room, and this room is my prison. I have heard of many seas, never seen many; I have heard of snow-capped mountains, never climbed any; I have heard of dark, perilous forests, never been to any. I sit in this middle-class household’s urban and well-furnished room. My tasks have been laid out, my escape blocked, and the lock though not on the latch, the spirit suffers in the emotional blockade of society.

I live in this oblong room, where there are pink walls and a dilapidated bed, where the only wilderness is few remnants of cobwebs, and the bed bugs on my sheet. I am a captive of my birth, searching to find all that is heard of, and praised. I have heard lark’s sweet song, but only on Television, and I have travelled to lush green tea estates only a few miles away from my home, but on Television.

I live in this oblong room, with its maze of furniture, torn papers, all thoughts in earnest yet lacking experience of life. I yearn to tell a story, talk of journeys and adventures, aye, I want to live, but am a victim of survival.
My health is sound, and energy yearning, my love for creation intact to admire the marvels, but alas, I live in this oblong room with pink walls and pink curtains and a dying canvas bed. Even this oblong room seems to be dying, it is always cold as a chilly carcass and it is always numbing, and the slumbers troubled.

I live in this oblong room, and my doors are different. I like it alone, as it is my respite from a long forgotten past, and now the way of my life.

I look at this room people call as mine, I look at those pink walls, the oblique windows, pink curtains, furniture and dried coconut shells. And then I look at all those torn papers scribbled away under the pressure of my lost ink and lost thoughts, crumbling to dust. Sometimes the light reflects the darkness outside. Perhaps it is my room that is darker, coffin like. I see no lock, yet I feel bound.
Locked myself inside, I have thoughts of outside world, and often I ponder of mountains and monasteries.

I try to plan, to set out for the journey to find those places only known to me to exist in Television.

Perhaps I am waiting for the time to come, perhaps I am looking for the key to an unlocked door. Perhaps walls are supposed to be pink, perhaps I am waiting for my bed to sink.

Perhaps it is something else.

I live in this oblong room.

© Karthik Adithya Singaraju

Do it The Japanese Way...

When faced by a problem, it is often observed that the psyche of people makes them look for the source of the problem in a person rather than a cause.I was once told this anecdote in one of my classes, and since then the anecdote has left a huge effect on how I used to perceive things, and how I have gradually begun to understand them.

The anecdote goes like this:



'Not long ago, a team of Japanese corporate magnets visited an Indian firm from the same sector on a visit. The Manager of the firm wanted to show them the best picture of themselves and so prepared a splendid tour through the corporation. After a day long tour, they all met in the evening in a posh plastic hotel for a lavish dinner. By the time the desserts were served, Manager decided that before Japanese leave he should gain something in return from them too. So he ventured to ask a question to the Japanese CEO of an International Giant. He asked,"We Indians and you have almost similar machinery, skilled labour, capital and working methods, then how is it that you always manage to stay ahead of us?"

The Japanese took sometime to think and then solemnly answered in an unwavering deep tone,"My friend our facilities, money and skill might be similar but I have observed something today. I must tell you, when faced by a crisis or problem, we tend to try and think in terms of 'what' and you tend to think in terms of 'who'. That my friend, might be the difference." '


Well this anecdote gives the simple reason for all the problems we as citizens or mere human beings face. More often than not in the sense of injustice that we feel, we end up blaming someone else for the problems we mutually might be suffering.To this day nations fight to overthrow a dictator, calling him a tyrant... Only to replace such a dictator with another individual, who on the longer run more or less becomes another tyrant. I do not think it is the individual to blame, it is the power.


Corruption and loss of integrity is something which can be called a weakness in human nature surfacing due to undesirable vested powers on an individual. We must suffer the subjugation of our own conscience when it is over-ridden by the undeniable temptations that power brings with it. Whoever denies that can either be a impractical hypocrite or an extraordinary moralist, with the latter being a rarity.


'Power corrupts' is a concept which can be applied to almost all the individuals, except a few. Most mortals don't come with the necessary moral package to defy the temptations!


Now the question I would like to ask here is, What are we as citizens and individual human beings doing here, with a "LOKPAL BILL" or probably with slogans of "SAARE NETA CHOR HAIN"?

Aren't we being plain hypocrites?



I don't blame the politicians for going corrupt, because had it been me or you or anyone of us in their position, 9 out of 10 people might be lured too. Such is the nature of material lust.



What I ask is, is it not enough to have pointed fingers at individuals for more than 100 years now? Is it not time to think beyond the two points we have always restricted upon, which are:


first - The moralistic Utopia that we believe in, where every individual is morally, ethically and spiritually impossible to corrupt; and


second - In case some people go corrupt, it is their own inherent lack of moral fibre punishable by law but not the flaw in the system.These are the only two things we have always observed!


I believe that we need to learn some great deal from the Problem-solving and Decision-making techniques of huge corporations. Problem-solving is not putting the "guilty" to the guillotine, but rather making a system with minimal susceptibility for producing guilty stock.


We, as public, on the other hand, are obsessively over-ridden by the vicious cycle of giving power and then ostracizing the tempted, which will always be the case.Now Lokpal shall come, and on a longer run, I perceive it to produce the most obscenely perverse scams of corruption ever, as POWER CORRUPTS!

It is high time, the word "Reform" took an objective outlook, rather than a subjective outlook.We must reform the system, not add to its rumble list, another rotten egg! The mistake is not of the individuals, but the system, and as long as system is not reformed, it is bound to produce a never-ending livestock of corrupt individuals.


So, I would like to conclude with the lesson I learnt from the that Japanese guy's perception:

"Analyse WHAT the problem is and direct your energies to solve it, rather than analysing WHO the problem is and directing energies to blaming and ostracizing him/her."



Sometimes, it is good to learn from others....


- Karthik Adithya Singaraju

On the Wishes of Independence...

In these 64 years into what all perceive to be 'independence', we have only travelled from being ruled by white babus to now our own native babus. And the stupid system called democracy/socialism which designs our lives has over the years gone from bad to worse, lately. It would be far more sensible to spend this day discussing, talking and analysing the "progress" rather than just a gloat about a make-belief utopia that surrounds this day. True independence day to me would be when the system breaks down, to protect the people, and do nothing more or nothing less.

True independence is when one gets the free will to choose his trade, his love, his property and his identity. True independence would be when all could see at each other and not stimulate any emotion, any feeling of hatred, of dislike, of disgust.

True independence would be when the prejudice could be weeded out, not from our books, not from our laws, but from our thoughts, our minds and hearts.

True independence for me would be when one sees other for what they are, but not what their colour, their caste or their religion is.

True independence is where we need no leaders, where we need not rely on any big brothers to represent us and lead us (which now they do as 'ruling').

Independence from the helplessness that we experience while paying our petty bribes. Independence from the helplessness when we see apathy all around, and the mad rat race to make it big with the money, and the ruthlessness with which people trample over others, just to climb another insignificant and meaningless step of what is perceived to be 'success'.

The many independence days we celebrate would be meaningless when we know that few who are there to feed children with our money are letting the children starve.

The celebrations would be gross insensitive acts of apathy clear in its cruelty when we know there are amongst us who can't seem to be able to afford a three-course meal and we would feast on a supposed victory back in 1940s.

Life is unjust, but the means of this group of people living as Indians is not small. If independence be truly achieved, the means ought meet the ends, or it is a failed purpose.

I do not see Gandhiji smiling from his after-life. His soul, I believe, lives in India, and amongst Indians. And I am very sure it is weeping. It must be in anguish, though I think Gandhiji had made this prophecy. One of the few true leaders, who unlike many other pretending 'freedom-fighters', who were merely trying to get the power, did try to make this nation a 'Ramrajya' had known all along what was going to become of this nation. A mere shadow of what he had envisaged.

So, to me it would just be a ridiculous hypocrisy if someone came and wished me, or if I were to wish someone a 'Happy Independence Day'.

People do not comprehend the paradox, the irony, and the hypocrisy entailing that greeting. Hence this August 15th, I would say, time would be better spent trying to answer a few of the complicated questions, the whole of which are so gargantuan in volume that it would be imprudent for me to even attempt encasing them in a single article.

On the Art of Extrapolation...

Taking stock of the situation with the use of an art learnt while studying Physics seems to serve me pretty well, which being the art of extrapolation... I want to dedicate this piece to the art that I hold very dear to me and prize.
Back in the days when I studied quantum mechanics, particle science, atomic chemistry and modern physics in high school, I realised two fundamental things -
1) Every phenomenon in the world is based on a firm ground called "the ideal case"; and
2) The various phenomenon based on the same 'ideal case' are the "real" variants affected by the circumstantial parameters.

The next thing I observed was the fact that most of the theories that were explained in Physics and Chemistry were designed on two basic ingredients - Assumptions and Extrapolations, which were of course later tested and verified scientifically. Then again, there were many theories which remained what they were, mere "theories", but still considered with great weightage, like the whole Wave-Particle ambiguity over the nature of matter. No one seems to know for sure what exactly matter is, but yet, the assumptions and conjectures seem to be revered and appreciated as intellectual wealth.

An intriguing factor in determining, visualizing and making REAL progress in the field of science seemed to lie in the ability to assume the unthinkable and extrapolate on it, apply blind assumption and materialize results realtime. And this very brave act re-enacted countless number of times seemed to have led to the gargantuan progress of science.

Naturally my thoughts drifted to the possibility of applying the same to various other thinking processes, for science is but another stream of thinking based on a lot of numbers and of course, imagination.

Thereby applying the same art of assumption and extrapolation in other fields would in fact, I thought, help an individual find an accelerated way of understanding the intricacies of many fields and arts, sciences and subjects, ideologies and specializations.

I realized the potential of the ability to extrapolate and tried using it in various situations. Some would call it thinking too much, but I think this is REAL thinking. Wherein you do not need to spend years researching, studying, and learning the intricacies of a single expertise but rather try to listen to the gists, listen to the synopsis of the abstract sciences, philosophies, arts and trade, make a few assumptions and extrapolate your thought on the little pattern that you catch from the experts.

Though through this technique, I haven't been able to get the hang of any single subject in great depth or minutest of details, I certainly have managed to broaden the perspective, the base of the various fields I have touched upon. Though I might not specialize in anything else, I can prize the fact of my ability to extrapolate.

And in the German way of Gestalt Psychology, as an Extrapolator, I think, by knowing various pieces of the jigsaw, ever so minutely, as you can, you can at least gain the ability to complete the puzzle and win the game...

As in the game of life, the world, the mankind, "The Picture is the sum total of all the Individual Pieces".

© Karthik Adithya Singaraju