Superman is the savior of the world. Not just once, not just twice, but multiple times. He did save us from our inevitable death. But the movie ended there. Not just this movie most of the movie's end when the villain is dead. Unless there is a new villain to give a plot for the second movie giving rise to a series of movies. But let's imagine otherwise. Let's imagine superman happily married had his super kids and lived enough to see getting old to see what happens. What will happen When the superman gets old? Superman the Iconic character by DC comics possess following powers. Let's see what happens to these when he gets old. Superhuman strength: Superman has incredible strength, allowing him to lift heavy objects, including cars and buildings, with ease.: when he gets old, he will lose the ability to superhuman strength. And he will become a normal human strength and eventually a child's strength. His performance scale will drop down from hero to zero near his death. And he would need some help to get food into his own mouth. Superhuman speed: He can move, react, and fly at incredible speeds. And when he gets old, slowly he will become a slow-moving snail, and take ages to cross the road. And if he lived up to 200 you will be able to see him on a wheelchair, struggling to get up and move onto his own bed. Speed is a limiting factor even for the superman when he is old. Invulnerability: His body is nearly impervious to harm and can withstand extreme forces and temperatures. Of course, does this mean immortal? If he is immortal, there will be a no world for him to save at the end of the next billion years, when the sun ceases to exist. His solar power battery will ultimately die, and he will become vulnerable to all the forces of extreme universe and temperatures. And who knows ultimately, he will be happy to age and die, when endless saving of human beings seems to be an impossible task as they are inherently vulnerable, and he cannot do more. Flight: Superman has the ability to fly and maneuver through the air at will. When he gets old superman will lose the ability to fly gradually, his flight speed and rise above the earth will gradually reduce and ultimately he will hardly be able to levitate above few feet. He will need to use common transportation if he did not save enough to travel in a car and have to burn some fossil fuels like almost all of us. He would become a destroyer of our planet indirectly like all the rest of us in this respect. Superhuman senses: This includes enhanced hearing, sight, and the ability to perceive events happening far away. These superhuman senses will start to fade away, and he will need the help of television to see the news happening around the world. He would need telephone to hear some of his grandchildren talking from other side of the town. And of courses he will visit the optician one day for a pair of glasses. Not once, not twice, but again and again. If he outlives his senses, he will eventually become deaf or blind or both and will need the help of a caregiver. Heat vision: He can emit beams of intense heat from his eyes. Once he starts to lose this ability to emit beams, he would be no longer dared to fight the new evil who is present in the world. And he would use a heater to make a cup of tea and a fireplace and some blankets to keep him warm in the winter. X-ray vision: Superman can see through solid objects, with the exception of lead. I saw a comic image once the old superman on a wheelchair is using his x ray vision to see the naked bodies of his nurses in his homecare. They use lead protection against such intruding into their privacy. But most likely is that super Xray vision is going to fade away and like earlier becoming normal vision and later impaired vision. Superhuman breath: He can exhale powerful gusts of wind and freeze his enemies with his breath. Like all his other powers his superhuman mint breath will become a normal exhalation with normal smell. So, anyone would not want to feel this unless he brushes his teeth daily or someone else does this for him when he is too old to care for himself. That was long, and it summarizes what is possibly going to happen to superman when he gets old. Superman series began on television in 1948 and the first actor who played the superman Kirk Alyn is now two decades since he passed away in 1999. And I am sure he faced some of the consequences of old age like everyone else. What did we do? Instead of facing the reality we replace the image of superman with a new actor. And fool us with stories, and teach our kids an impossible dream, until they learn harsh truth on earth by themselves. Superman in real life. Have been there a superman in your life? Most of us have this person, or persons whom we looked at when we were kids. My father was my superman figure. Over the years I have seen his authority loose its strength and he is no more a superman he used to be. Day by day I see he is getting older and when I see his old photos sometimes, I forget how fast he has aged and has become an old superman. And it brings tears to my eyes when I know what it is like to become an old superman wanting to be helped to get his own feet. If you do not have a father figure, just do not worry. You will find most of our super humans in elders' homes. On their wheelchairs with lost superhuman abilities, struggling for the day and night to sleep. We are very good at hiding our old super men and super women in those dark places that we rarely see them in public places. In summary Finally, if you look at yourself, you will find out what a fool you have been thinking that you are a superman. This will reduce the ego. We crave for a beautiful vacation on a summer holiday on Bora Bora Islands. Everyone craves this. Sometimes I look at this thought and go on a vacation on my imagination. And then I see, the vacation is going to end, and I will be stuck at the end of this life like an old superman in some corner of an old house. What is the use of such a vacation? This is the life we all have to think about before our superhuman strengths are weakened. Thank you for reading: when the superman gets old.

Story of a silent Shrimp I was called a gentle Giant once. Yet, I chose to be a silent Shrimp. Silent Shrimp on the ocean floor, floating on a coral reef. Minding my own business until I am captured and cooked. My future plan is to avoid the dreadful fate, to live longer. A silent Shrimp Life. Of course, if you are not allergic, I assume you may have eaten shrimp. There are few fascinating things I noticed about the creatures over the years. And following is a fact sheet about Shrimp. This is not a cooking lesion unfortunately and if you are looking for how to cook there are plenty of articles there. Shrimp facts. Shrimp farming is a 50-billion-dollar industry! Could you believe that? That is more than total budget of many countries of the world. Although I call it silent Shrimp actually some Shrimp are not silent at all. Pistol shrimp for example is known to cause a sonic boom under the water. (Sonic boom is a condensed form of a shockwave created when the ultrasonic source is travelling faster than the speed of sound) And they are not as innocent as we imagine as they are predators themselves for small animals. Their stomach is in between brain and the heart. Maybe they are just in front of us in the evolution, considering the conduct of humans in the nature. The best definition of Happiness given by a Dancing Shrimp. Have you ever seen a shrimp dance? I suggest you watch the Under-pressure song played in the Film Happy feet. It is one of the most favorite songs of mine where I first heard it in the film. Later only I came to know it was sung by Queen and found out more of my favorites were sung by the band. There is a scene in the film where shrimp under the layer of ice is dancing to the vibrations created by sea Lions above the ground. In a momentary release from existent terrors of existence. Or in happiness. The man who knows everything about Shrimp If you want to know everything about Shrimp. You should meet Mr. Bubba from Forest Gump movie. He knew everything you want to know about shrimp. Unfortunately, He could not survive the war to practice his knowledge. It shows sometimes even knowledge and tactics even would not work as there are other forces working out there. But Forrest Gump on the other had had plenty of Luck, from the beginning of the movie till the end, when everyone else was failing. Even a hard storm benefitted him when all the other shrimp boats were destroyed leaving them to harvest the shrimp as much as they want. But why one man's misfortune is someone Elses fortune? Or is it just another random happening? Shrimp in Biodiversity/ Echo Tanks I will end the Boring topic of shrimp with one more interesting video I found on my random you tube recommendations. Have you ever tried to maintain an aquarium in your home? I can remember my brother used to have a fish tank at place. But after a while water gets dirty and needed change. Often it is a task taking hours of time to change the tank back to its previous state. But, as you will see there are aquariums built as a balanced echo system so that such changes of water is not necessary frequently as it sustains itself, and part of living, shrimp are used in most of them to create the balance. Think that you are having a small underwater forest inside your house? Sounds cool right? But it seems to be a very delicate task to create these echo balanced fish tanks. So here I will end the random collection about Shrimp. In Summary Story of a silent Shrimp: Shrimp are important crustaceans of our echo system which has far more important role in the environment than being ending up on our plate. Happiness according to shrimp is a momentary release from existent terrors of our existence. We do not have answers to why one man's misfortune is another man's fortune.

Nicest bus driver ever. I was travelling the bus the other day. And I met the nicest bus driver ever. I was travelling in London suburb bus, normal routine morning bus travel. For the past year I have been travelling. And as often it happens, "Thames water" has blocked the road for their repairs and bus route was diverted. And before diversion the driver got out from his seat, a middle-aged Englishmen with a pretty smile, greeted everyone and spoke to the passengers as he was addressing a gathering, explaining diversion route and asking any more questions at the end. He took full two minutes explaining changes. And I thought to myself "What a nice bus driver". Of course nobody had questions. When the bus came to the town, half of the passengers got out of the bus, and everyone shouted with a loud "Thank you driver" with a big smile on their faces. I think his little speech was the nicest thing happened to everyone that morning, and it cheered most of them more than their morning coffee. And certainly, it made me write this column about Flattery. Flattery Gets you Nowhere. That is the old-fashioned way of thinking. I suggest that came into the English vocabulary when there was industrial revolution or popularized at those times. Where the workers are treated as slaves of the co-operation and to get the more work done often the owners just leave with harsh judgments than the flattery. Since the human rights evolve and Ethics are advanced now at least we find out that our outcomes are inherently increased when the workers are satisfied in their job. Not only salary, physical and mental capacity as well. So, it is important that you feel a part of a team, and that feeling you are doing some important work can make a difference. So, maybe it is time for us to crossover or even agree that "Flattery gets you Nowhere" is a historical mistake that we made. Instead, nowadays it is replaced by "Flattery gets you everywhere." Why Flattery gets you everywhere? I first heard the term "Flattery gets you everywhere" in experiences in Ven Ajahn Brahm in Buddhist society of westerns Australia. He described the story of how he wrote a letter to the plumbers saying how helpful they have been when he was served one of their customer care centers for plumbing equipment. And following that he was returned with lot of favors from the company, and he was treated with a VIP customer service. If you are a politician, a CEO or anyone working with lot of people this is an important point to remember and you would agree with me. Words of encouragement goes a long way; it can make someone's day brighter. Is it only applicable to the workplace ethics? I would not say so, if you are a teacher, you would know this applies to interaction with children in the classroom. If you are a parent, you would know this applies to your kids, sometimes they need is little appreciation and encouragement from you, which can carry a long way into their future life. If you are in a relationship this will apply to your partner. So, I suggest, if you are interacting with any human being, or even animal "Flattery gets you everywhere" is a good advice. Follow this and make some smiles today. Be a true VIP yourself. Following is a tale illustrating the fact. A tale on flattery. Once there was a cow, a strong one who used to pull carts. If you have seen in rural parts of Asia, people still use cows as a form of transport by means of carts they pull. This cow was so strong that it could pull 100 carts at once. And his owner adored the cow. Once there was a contest in local town, funded by merchants, to find out who has the strongest cow. Cows were attached to a row of carts and made to pull the carts. The owner of the cow who pulled most carts becomes the winner and he will get a big sum of money, if he wins. Think of this as a horse race. Everyone can bet right? Now as the story goes our owner of the cow participated in this and knowing his cow could easily pull 100 carts, he knew he is going to win a lot, as there was no other cow stronger than his. When the race started as the money at stake, he caned the cow loudly shouting at it to drive it full speed. Even with his best efforts, cow did not move an inch and the carts did not move an inch. Lost of his all fortune the owner was very sad. And when he feed the cow next day back to his kind self, the cow felt sad of his owner and asked. (of course, in stories, cows can speak fluently) "Why are you sad?" Owner sad "I have lost a fortune because you did not pull the cart yesterday." The cow said " Yes, unlike any other day, you hit me, why did you do that? you have never hit me before." Owner was sad "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I did not know what came over me. Maybe its greed" The cow, feeling sad, asked the owner to race again, and bet again with double the lost money and, to bet that he will pull 200 carts this time around. Owner did as the cow told and he bet double the money he had lost. Merchants on the other hand knowing what happed last time were confident that they would win. But on the day in front of thousands of spectators the cow pulled 200 carts. Easy as it could seem, with only few kind words from the owner. So, flattery and kindness are better than punishment, so choose your words wisely. In summary: Flattery gets you nowhere is a historical mistake. Flattery gets you everywhere is the correct term to use. Thank you for reading, nicest bus driver ever. You may also like to read: Floating leaf of life.

There are thousands of ways to spend your money. This article is not about your day-to-day expenditure, or occasional vacation. This is about what to do to your excess money when you are rich, or if you are rich. Let's build up a scenario of a rich person. Making yourself is rich, is not an easy process, it needs hard work and perseverance. Specially if you are starting from zero in life. If you have no prior capital, inherited, you will spend most of your life to find out the financial freedom that you are looking for. And most of us would never get there. Yet, some of us will do. And most of the time it would be latter part of your life, and there will be few or more grey hairs, start to creep in and wrinkles start to form. Let's imagine an engineer, who is in his fifties. He has liberated himself from his financial shackles and have excess wealth to last him until end of his life. Imagine he has two kids as well. They are about to be engaged and start a life on their own. What is the moral duty of the engineer to the society, or how should he spend his wealth? He should keep aside enough sum to live comfortably (not luxuriously) rest of his life. He should welfare his family, so they do not struggle like he did. He has a moral duty to donate some to charity. Would you agree? Let's us carefully examine each. He should keep aside enough money to live comfortably. Of course you can spend your money, nobody would argue if you chose to travel the world in a five-star floating hotel, spending every penny you have earned. But that is not what Andrew Carnagie suggested when he wrote the Gospel of wealth in 1889. He suggested we have a moral duty to avoid a luxurious life as, our money have ability to save lives which otherwise would end up being dead, and suffering in gutters. This doesn't mean we can ever eliminate the poor. Yet, I think if we get together and be noble, that is not an unachievable target even. It's just we are selfish, trying to catch stars. If you would like to read about our moral duty, I have written previously about, Singer's famine relief argument. He should welfare his family. Similar argument follows. He should welfare his family, so that they do not suffer, or undergo hardships that he faced. Of course, we cannot treat our family members like equal to any other person in the society. We have not gained that God's nature of seeing everyone equally. So, as long as you are human, you would treat your family special. However, like in case of yourself, this doesn't mean that we should buy horses and jaguars for each and every family member. Gospel of wealth or How to spend your money? This brings us to the last part of our argument. What would the engineer do to his excess wealth that he saved by means of sacrificing a luxurious life for himself and his family? He has moral duty to donate to Charity. But how? This is where The Gospel of wealth comes handy. Imagine the engineer has two kids, nothing extraordinary in them. If he divides his wealth equally among two kids, how successful are they going to get? I would say chances are very less. Often it happens our own offspring behaves differently than us, and often it is the case that they have different values and means. It is likely that they end up being ordinary, and not reach the heights that the engineer did himself. It seems not a good idea. How about donating all of it to charity? He could cash all his savings and drive in the country into rural areas and donate it from door to door of poor. What would happen? That seems to be not a good idea after all. They will just spend their money and still be poor at the end of the day. Instead Carnagie argues that our engineer should spend his excess wealth in a meaningful way to reduce the poverty and suffering, to empower the poor society to build up their own out of the rabbit hole. How can he do this? He should identify, individuals and organizations which aims to do just that. Or he could build his own organization, after all, for a man how faced such challenges in life this would not be a difficult task. Imagine he builds a school in a rural part of the country. And provide enough to sustain this school for a few decades till his death. The children who will be educated in this school could get out of their poverty themselves and help their families. And one or two of them would become engineers and if they know the "Gospel of wealth or how to spend money" we can carry on the good deeds over time. Just then, you can relax, without killing yourself like a Dorien Grey.

Who builds prisons? Simply answer to this question is Governments and dictators. That is true, Governments build prisons to lock away the criminals form the normal society. Idea is to punish them or keep them away so they can do no harm to the anormal population who are otherwise loyal to the law. And our rules of law are used to pass judgments against such criminals in our justice system. Compared to dictators who are the creators of the rules and ultimate judges themselves. And it is obvious that these rules of dictators are not fair by all. Often dictators abuse their power to lock away all who oppose or threaten the dictatorship. And we are glad not be under the control of such dictators. However, there are enough and more examples from the past and in the world. Let's look at features of a prison to understand what it means to be imprisoned. Prison is a place with walls where you are not allowed to roam free in a society otherwise. There are grades of to these imprisonments. You may be totally blocked from interaction from other inmates, or you are allowed to some social function. Even when you are in good behavior for long time you may go out into the society under supervisor for some activities. In affluent countries prisons are so advanced even you may allowed with recreational activities, so you would not mentally be suffering, which is not the case with traditional prison. So, in modern world Prison means only physical confinement, not mentally you are suffering. This gives idea of physical prisons and mental prisons. Previously I have discussed about mental prisons. You can read more about this on the article here. However, I will expand more this mental prisons here as well. First of all, we will look at physical prisons. Letters to daughter Jawaharlal Nehru. For highly intellectuals' physical prisons doesn't affect their function. It seems it has the opposite effect. I can give you some examples. When I was in school, we read letter written by Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter, when he was in prison. These were not ordinary letters. These were dreams of his vision about the great nation that India could become. These were letters about nature and world in a mind of a prisoner. So, did Nehru suffer in his imprisonment? I would not say completely. It seems a true prison is not a physical one only mental one cause us suffering if we are not allowed to think. But this leads us to think, who truly can make you suffer in that case. Who has the ability to control your way of thinking. It seems not obvious first, but it is only us have the ability to limit our own thinking. So, if there is something called a true prison, I would say it is mental. And such a prison is only can be built by you. Have you made a prison for yourself? Let's look at this closely. Mental prisons we build for ourselves I see people build houses. And they live their whole lives in it afterwards. They are limited to the walls of the house. Occasionally they go out of their house only to come back and spend their rest of the time in the house. At the end of the life, they die in the same house. Can you see a similarity of a modern house to a prison? It doesn't matter how much big a garden is as long as you are attached to this and your mind cannot get away from the boundaries of your own house, I would say it is a prison. I see people build careers. And they live their whole lives living in it afterwards. They are limited by the thinking which allowed in their career. Their friends there, behavior, their stress and happiness revolve around their careers. And without even knowing it they are at the edge of their lives when they retire. How unfortunate is that for a prison. And I can see some of them cry, and call it stress when the prison walls are too heavy for them to break out and fly. I see people build families. Once they do that, they fail to see kids, as kids. They see my kids and other kids. They see my family against other families. They see everything related to their possession as mine. This gives us an important perspective how these mental prisons are made. A lot of suffering comes from these prisons. It seems, everything has a prefix 'My' are of course adds to our list of mental prisons. How did this happen you may ask. I will give you yet another example. Choices as means to build a prison Imagine you are going to a bakery to buy some snack. Imagine suddenly a rack full of buns tip over and fall on the floor. Now these, edible newly formed buns falling all over, does it cause you any harm? No, it doesn't you would not be affected as long as you are physically away from it. You might enjoy this and even take a photo and post it on Instagram. But, in another hypothetical world, you select a bun for yourself and pay for it. Now, if you dropped this bun on the floor, it would affect your mood. What is the reason. It is the same bun which was on the rack. Was it in the bun there was the reason to affect you or was it in the thought that it is your bun. It seems so trivial. But it seems moment you choose something to be yours, it has enormous power over you. Even a tiny pin or a piece of rock, a flower has the ability to harm, when it is chosen for yourself. Can there be a life without such attachment? How can you well spend your life? How can we learn to leave things as it is. I think the key is in mindfulness wisdom is the guide. Thank you for reading mental prison building You may also like to read: Living in a dream.

Dumb ways to die.. So many dumb ways to die.. Set fire to your hair Poke a stick at a grizzly bear Eat medicine that's out of date Use your private parts as Piranha bait Dumb ways to die So many dumb ways to die Dumb ways to die-ie-ie So many dumb ways to die Have you played the game the dumb ways to die? It starts with above lyrics which still ruminates my mind. It really feels like a joke, when we sing about so many dumb ways to die. And in real life it is far from a total lie. There are so many dumb ways to die. This article is about so many dumb ways to die and to open our eyes on reflection on life that we live. If you own a phone nowadays it is not very difficult to see the death on it. We see these dumb videos among many other Netflix specials, and you tube shorts. Often Isolated, and often we just have a look and pass them on. But I have selected few to discuss some aspects about life and death. Dumb Ways to die, Kerala elephants. I am a fan of elephants. So often I watch elephant videos. Mostly these magnificent, majestic animals are calm and smooth. They graze on a land. Slowly moving like boulders on wild trails and riverbeds. But human conflicts with these are growing large specially when their natural habitats are invaded. Occasionally I have seen a guy crushed by an elephant. But it is on you tube I saw a man actually getting killed by an elephant. Kerala elephants on rampage, often these videos are nothing but an elephant running on a road. But there was one video in which a domesticated elephant was on rampage. Surrounded by hundreds of people the elephant was aggressive and chasing people. And the mahouts are trying their best to keep the animal calm and collected. They try to restrain him. Once or twice a man almost got trampled by the elephant and narrowly escaped. This went on a few minutes, and I noticed one brave mahout who also helped others to escape, suddenly got hit by the elephant. And he was down in a fraction of a second. next second he was tossed over like a rag doll. That is only thing which can describe it. In a fraction of a second from a fully grown functional human being he went into a rag doll. And elephant kept tossing his lifeless body here and there. And I could see, he is lifeless as the joints were broken and they moved with unnatural bends, covered with dust. And it reminded me of the body I possess is not much different from a rag doll. There is only a fraction of a second need it to become a one. We are just lucky. Another scene which I saw, accidently is from a Facebook video. Trust me I have watched all the Saw movies and brutal killings in videos. Which are as true as possible. However on that video I saw a man being shot by terrorists. But it was slow motion. And fact that this was true account. I saw the man who was alive and in fear, going from live to dead in slow motion with a bullet. And it shocked me to the core. I started crying like a child and I could not stop for half an hour. Maybe I was not tough guy after all. And to this day, it is estimated that one person is executed in every minute on earth. How many so far today? We only hear about only a handful. If we take into account accidents, this number will be staggeringly high. So, even walking on the road is a risk on its own. So, we are just lucky not to get killed today. And life is fragile like a drop of dew on grass. I can give you so many stupid ways to die, which I have encountered in my life. Most recent being my Neighbour killed by crush injury from a lorry which fell on him when the Jack got jammed. He was a mechanic at a garage. So, the real question is how to stay alive when so many dumb ways are there to die? To stay alive as a species. Reproduction is the way to stay alive as a species. Truely speaking reproduction is one way to divide living from non-living. But if you go deep into the mechanism of reproduction, it is essentially a chemical reaction. One giant chemical reaction. Like everything else which is happening in our body. And at molecular level nothing is in our control. We can adjust macroscopic parameters of it and wait everything will fall into place. That is how far we have control over to stay alive as a species. And we cannot even 'Think' that it is our duty to survive as a species. Imagine nobody automatically gets these thoughts about our opposite sex as a craving. Do you think we would be focused on surviving as a species at all. Not at all. We all would be either running for other optimal experiences and that would be the end of the humanity. So, surviving as a species is not in our control. It is already programmed as a craving in ourselves. Surviving as an individual. Surviving as an individual is a game, which is lost even from the beginning. No matter what, we will be ending up at the bottom of the river. If you would like to read more about this, Life as a floating leaf is a good place. Here in this article, I have also discussed about possibilities of outcomes afterlife. So, what is it? What is the meaning if survival is not an option and not under our control? I hit a wall when I think about this question. I get around this question by looking at it. Maybe 'we' are not to be survived after all. Maybe there is no 'me' to survive in the first place. (most important question to ask) How are you going to survive? How would you answer such a question. Or would you just forget the question and live until the day comes that you end up in your dumb way of death?

Today I had thoughts like this. And I use this to show you the power of our imagination. I wondered what a blind person 'sees' the world as. First, we will Analyse the scenario, then we would discuss the learning points. And finally, I will show you what to imagine next. It reminds me of the teledrama 'Kung Fu' which I have seen years and years ago. The story of a runaway monk who lives a shadow life under different names. It had exiting episodes with full of life advice. I can remember the teacher, the 'grasshopper' had. Teacher was blind, yet he could see the world with his hearing, smell and tactile sensations. He could see more than the one with eyes. That is only one example. More modern example can be found in marvel comics. The Daredevil is blind. Yet he could see with his ears, and even fight Kingpin and win a brutal battle. Although I am not sure about the former the latter is blinded, during his childhood. So, at least he would have an imagination of how the world would be like in colors. Perspective of a blind person With these imaginations, I invite you to imagine perspective of a blind person. Imagine a person born blind. If you close your eyes, you can quickly switch into that mode. Yet it is not complete. When we close our eyes and keep them closed, we do not see anything, yet we know, where we are and what kind of things are surrounding us. Now, try to forget where you are and try to imagine that you are blind from the beginning, that you came into your room with closed eyes. It is empty right? It is empty except what you hear or what you can touch, what you can feel and what you can taste. Most of it is empty. That is empty only because we are so much used to our vision. When that is not there, we 'see' the vision is not there. I bet a blind person would feel otherwise. The blind person would feel the room is full of warm air, sunlight, and silence, and his world would not be that empty like ours. He would feel the smell of the dampness of the bedsheets. And the presence or absence of the others. He would touch and feel the general arrangement of the room and settle down when the mental picture of the room is complete. And like all of us, he would start wondering and making judgments on what he hears, and feel, and start to be happy and sad with this mental world of his. Power of imagination Now, we have somewhat reliable picture of what a blind person's world look like. We can start imagining more and more. If you read my article on a talking tree, you would notice that a 'tree' 'sees' the world differently than us. That is going backwards on the evolutionary tree. Yet surely the tree has a different picture of the same world, even animals do. If we move forward in the evolutionary tree, imagine a person who could see through material with mental focus. Imagine that person can even see through walls and see through your skin. He would say that your liver looks abnormal and ask you to get a surgery done. He would say a burglar is coming before even he break your windows. And relative to that person, we would be blind. He would say that we are blind, and we are not harvesting the full potential of the world. If he is kind, he would empathies us. Would you agree with him? If you passed a judgement on a blind person, I suggest we can take it back now. We can discuss what we have learnt so far from our little thought experiment. It seems, that although we experience the same world, for a blind person the 'world' is markedly different from us. And if we take our sensations one by one out of the equation, the 'world' would disappear completely if all the sensations are gone. So, essentially, we can give a different meaning to living. Living is just creating the mental image of something. For living to happen, both the sensations and the 'world' should be there and as we already know they co-exist rather than one after the other. So, why do we have to investigate such phenomena? Can't we take what is true, as it is. Can't we take what we see is as the truth? But, as the latter example, there is a danger that we all are blind as a species to the truth, which just hides in front of us, just in our clear eyes. Is there truth hidden in front of us? Join us with this beautiful thought journey to find out.

Sometimes I wonder how many examples the nature throws at us so we could understand the true nature of it. Following are the exact thoughts to illustrate the fact. I will elaborate more on the discussion. For a start, I think you have seen a cobweb. These octave foot friends of ours build their webs. I think you have appreciated the beauty at least once in your lifetime. Those beautiful patterns they make, is a deadly trap, although beauty to our eyes. I think this is what Robert Frost also saw in the nature. Spider and the web. I saw a spider weaving a web once. Carefully laid out an ingenious trap. Using its own body between two trees. To trap innocent insects, to harvest their sap. Yet I saw the spider. Trapped in its own web. Till it becomes the carcass as it is the web. It is a true account of the life of a spider. It builds a nice web, using its own secretions. And it hunts insects, inject its venom and suck the digested insides of the victims. But I have seen webs with the dead spiders. They themselves die in their own sweet nest. They cannot go beyond the nest, like a curse it becomes their own grave. And it makes me wonder what we do. I see children grow up. They grow up and learn from school from university, until they build an information sphere. And once they build this information sphere, they live insides of it their whole life. They hunt, for money doing their job. They build a house of their own. And without delay, in a few decades, they become weak. They are trapped in their own physical and mental prisons. (prisoners of mind) And the world they build for themselves become their own graveyard. You may argue that is not true. That the life is beautiful like a song. It is to be appreciated not to be scared of. I see it as a beauty of the cobweb. Even the spider, I think, has great gratitude towards its own cobweb. It sees the opportunity in it. It finds happiness in it. Yet only we see that it is also the end of it. That is how far it can go. You may remember the lyrics, when Louis Amstrong Sang the song, "What a wonderful world" everyone clapped. He was a great admirer of beauty, to see happiness in simple things. Everyone said, that's how a person should perceive the world. Yet, I cannot pay a blind eye to the simple horrors. They are so tiny unless you are able to imagine yourself in the situation. So, I remember the same song when ironically played with the background videos of Gloria and Marty first experience the wild in the movie "Madagascar". So, I have linked both the videos you also could compare. Why do we forget the dangers? We easily forget the dangers. Or we do not see them. Why is that? Are we ignorant? I gave this a thought and came to conclusion that it is a coping mechanism, placed by the nature itself. If we thought the world is a dangerous place, we wouldn't even bother to bring up offspring. Why should we make them face the same dangers, that we face. Similar to the argument that happiness is found even in a slum, we find beauty even in this dangerous world. So, to stay sane we have to agree that the world is a beautiful place. That there is a great meaning to it. And animals who are in danger and us humans are not connected by any means, and we do not have to fear. Maybe we should laugh at these stupid thoughts over a beer. And, if you ask me, what we should do? I would say, we all should become Seekers. To not to quit until we find truth about ourselves within. Not to stop, on other people's conclusions. And this is a great question to begin with. Who are you?

Why should I start with Why? You may have heard the above term before. Maybe in a success manual. Maybe in a TEDx talk. Maybe from some of your teachers. I can assure you it works. Asking the question why, will take you to a deeper understanding of any subject. Have you ever wondered why it works? If you haven't this is an attempt on answering the question, and reasons beyond reasons. I can remember reading a short story, a long time ago. It was a story about a toddler and his mom. If you have ever spoken to a toddler, you would know that there comes an age that they learn the word 'why'. And more importantly they learn that they can ask this question at anything and get surprising answers to unknown. Soon, they will start to ask the question, to each answer and sometimes as adults we get stuck. The story was about one such conversation between mother and her little boy. I will try and summaries their conversation so you can get a better idea, as it is a good example to see reasons beyond reasons. A short summary of a short story. The boy and the mother are at a riverbank, and he observes some floating flowers on the river. And he asks his mom. Boy: Mother, where do these flowers come from? Mom: They come from upstream. Boy: Why I cannot see where do they come from? Mom: It's because these flowers bloom far away in the mountains, when they fall into the water, water carries them here. Boy: Mother, in that case I will walk upstream to see one day, where do they come from. Mom: No, son you cannot go upstream alone. Boy: Why I cannot go alone. Mom: Because you are not big enough. When you are big enough, you can go there yourself and see. Mom: Why am I not big enough? I eat every day! I will stop there, although that is not the exact conversation, you would understand the fact, the why often quickly leads to unknown territories of our knowledge. As science basically try to understand cause and effects, (by examining relationships between several parameters - scientific method) Asking the question why, is directly linked with science. But when science cannot answer some problems, we use religion, our believes and imagination to formulate new hypothesis, until they are tested. Hence philosophy and religion still prevail. But the exact reason to write this article is not to show you how to learn but to show you restrictions of our approach and show our boundaries to know what is beyond. Reasons beyond reasons So, I invite you to be a kid and ask a stupid question. Let's do that. Why is the sky blue? (I really did not know the answer, so I asked Copilot AI and copy pasted the answer) The sky appears blue due to a phenomenon called scattering. When sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere, it interacts with tiny air molecules. Blue light, with its shorter wavelengths, scatters more than other colors, creating the blue hue we see. Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. Interestingly, on Mars, the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere results in a different sky color. So, some factors are necessary for the sky to be blue. Sunlight, earth's atmosphere with its unique properties, and some living observer to see the blue color. Why there is sunlight? Why there is atmosphere? Why does our eye see the color blue, when we are living, is it also blue when we are dead? We will expand on one question. Why there is sunlight? Copilot answer - Sunlight is essential for life on Earth! It originates from our Sun, a massive ball of hot, glowing gas. The Sun’s nuclear fusion reactions release energy in the form of light and heat. This energy travels through space as sunlight. When it reaches Earth, it provides warmth, fuels photosynthesis in plants, and allows us to see our surroundings. Why the sun is a giant hot ball of glowing gas? Why there is nuclear reaction in the sun? Why does this reaction releases energy in the form of light and heat? Why it travels through atmosphere? Let's expand on one question again.. Why the sun is a giant hot ball of glowing gas? Copilot answer.. The Sun’s fiery nature results from a delicate balance of forces within its core. Here’s a brief overview: Nuclear Fusion: Deep within the Sun, intense heat and pressure cause hydrogen atoms to collide and fuse into helium. This process, called nuclear fusion, releases an enormous amount of energy. Gravity: The Sun’s immense mass (about 333,000 times that of Earth) creates intense gravitational forces. These forces compress the core, raising temperatures to millions of degrees Celsius. Plasma State: The core becomes a seething, superhot plasma—a state of matter where electrons are stripped from atoms. This plasma emits light across the electromagnetic spectrum. Radiation Zone: Energy generated in the core gradually moves outward through the radiation zone. Photons (light particles) bounce around, taking thousands of years to reach the surface. Photosphere: The visible surface we see—the photosphere—is cooler (around 5,500°C) but still incredibly hot. It emits sunlight, which travels 8 minutes to reach Earth. Chromosphere and Corona: Above the photosphere lie the chromosphere (reddish layer) and the corona (outermost halo). These layers are even hotter, with temperatures in the millions of degrees. In summary, the Sun’s brilliance arises from nuclear fusion, gravity, and the release of energy as light. It’s our cosmic furnace, sustaining life and shaping our world! Analysis and discussion As you can see it quickly escalates. Often, we stop at couple of answers and stop asking questions beyond that. Unless someone like me forces you to do it. Now, we will stop there and analyze. Our initial question was why the sky is blue? And the answer is because of the scatter of the sunlight on earth's atmosphere and the living observer (Never forget the observer please). But after going through this painstaking task of reasoning, if I told you the Gravity of the sun is also a reason for the sky to be blue, you would agree. Otherwise, the nuclear reaction on the sun would not be big enough to create the sunlight in the first place. And If I told you there is nothing in between the sun and earth, is also a reason for the sky to be blue, you would agree otherwise sunlight would not reach the earth. And If I told you your ability to identify blue color is also a reason for the sky to be blue, you would have to agree. So, for the simple question like, why the sky is blue, there are thousands and thousands of reasons. And if even one of these unlimited reasons were not there the sky would not be blue. Do you think we can ever gain control of these thousands of reasons. It is impossible even to think about. So, that is our limit, that is limit of science, and that is one illustration to show you that 'we' are not in control of anything. Not to dishearten you, but to enlighten you about truths that nature hide from us. Another important message is that everything is as only as we exist. As existence of 'you' is essentially a reason for anything observable to exist. World and we are like two sides of the same coin. Although it appears as two, what if it's only a single entity?

Everyone loves to see world. I am yet to see a human otherwise. Hence, we travel spending hundreds of dollars to far corners of the earth in dangerous hikes to see the unseen. We capture them with our cameras and in our minds. Experience is everything right? Industries have exploited this craving of ours and adapted. They have adjusted to sell anything to be aesthetically pleasing. That's why you pay extra for anything luxurious. It will not only be tasty, comforting but more importantly aesthetically pleasing. Imagine a factory where they make shirts, or mugs. They do quality inspections and if there is any item with even a small damage would be taken out and sold to small vendors who will sell it in off market sales to low price. It is the same material. Same item. If you feel it your eyes closed, you will not feel any difference. But with a small dot, or a small cut here or there. Sometimes not even visible. But for the mind's eye it is a bigger hole. Far bigger than that it is. Even if you compare food in a five-star hotel and a three-star hotel, immediately we could tell even without tasting or smelling, just by looking at the picture, which is which. Hence there is the term, "it is the presentation which matters". Yet if you taste food from a street vendor, can be tastier than the latter. Where is the unseen world? This brings me to the question of seen and unseen worlds. Although what matters is what we see, often we forget that there is an unseen world. Imagine the last vacation that you spent. The alluring sceneries that you have seen. Now Imagine the same place at this moment of time. What we can remember is what we have seen. But the same place may still exist (which is uncertain) and same scenes continues. We haven't seen this. And this phenomenon is common to everything that you have seen. The world or nature or universe is vast. But we only observe only a minute fraction of it in a given time, which is our lifetime. Everyone would agree in this scenario, that the unseen is bigger than what we have seen, or able to see, always. I can give you some examples. You would agree, There are more types of mangoes in the world than what you have seen. There are more beautiful butterflies than you have seen. There are more unseen flowers, more unseen valleys, more unseen trees, more unseen equations and ancient ruins, more unseen jewels than what we are able to see. So, the unseen world is massive far bigger and there is no limit to this unseen world. And the obvious question is what we do with this? What do we do with this knowledge that the unseen world is massive. Trust me if you divide two heaps or lists the unseen list is expanding faster far beyond of your imagination. Why should we know about the unseen world? To me personally knowing this fact helps to reduce my cravings for things. When I see a beautiful tree, I would gasp, and see the beauty of it. Then I know the unseen world is bigger than what I have seen. Even if I stare at the tree a thousand years, I would not even be able to see everything about the tree. As it evolves second after second (world as a mathematical function). Should I be addicted to the beauty of a tree? To the feeling of happiness which I get now? If you have read the bestselling book " The power of now" by Echarte Tolle, he asks us to do just that. Just to look at the beauty of things as we only have now. But wisdom doesn't allow that. The danger of doing that is, obviously, once we get tried looking at the tree, we would be in search of some more sceneries or tastes. As unseen is more, we would definitely find something. It may be a movie, it may be a car, it may be silence inside a forest. Isn't that we did all the time since our birth? We were looking for something. Isn't that all the dictators in the world do? Isn't that all the robbers in the world do? Isn't that all the teachers, all the children, all the CEO's do? And when you know that you can never satisfy your eyes by looking at beautiful trees, the craving for the search will ease. And mind would be able to let the tree just be a tree. So, I invite you as a friend next time when you see beauty, to see beyond the beauty and see the unseen truth that it holds.

In Greek mythology Atlas, the giant has the responsibility of carrying the Earth. How did he do that? Greek mythology from Co-pilot The Greek myth of Atlas tells of a Titan who was condemned to carry the heavens upon his shoulders. However, the popular expression “to carry the weight of the world on one’s shoulders” is a bit misleading. Instead of the entire world, Atlas bore the celestial sphere—the sky itself. In various versions of the myth, he stood at the western edge of the Earth, supporting the sky on his head and hands or holding the pillars that kept heaven and earth apart. His most famous role involved assisting Hercules in retrieving golden apples from the Hesperides, a task that required Atlas to briefly take on the burden of the sky while Hercules fetched the apples. Quite the celestial weightlifting, wouldn’t you say? Have you ever carried the Earth like atlas? Of course you have. I’m sure of it but it’s not the true earth it’s a replica of it. We all had a globe in our house. I still do and I like to carry it turn it around and navigate. That was fun until we found out that the Google Earth it better so nowadays without carrying earth instead carry our phones. To carry the earth like Atlas- information sphere Atlas is a true giant. His only task was to carry the earth. And if I say, we all carry the earth like Atlas, you will not agree with me so I will have to explain. In a previous article, I have discussed about building mental prison and also about the Information spare if we assume our knowledge to be a planet or a sphere ever since we learn this information we are caring the information earth, and boy, this is heavy Just like the true earth for the Atlas. How much heavy I would say it’s more than the Earth. Imagine when you are a child with little Information, we were happy most of the day once the information starts to accumulate in our brain it’s heavier now. So, if you ask one thing which is heavier than the earth, I will say its information world that we carry. Next obvious question is can we get rid of this burden of information sphere? Do you know anyone, who is not carrying the information sphere? Are following examples. He who doesn't carry the earth. Imagine a person with dementia, he seems to forget everything, that he has learnt over the years, hence, he is getting rid of the burden of the world. Does this mean we should be happy, that someone be friend to ours is dementic, than being sad? Although he has lost the choice to be happy, he has lost the risk of being sad as well. Do you want to be dementic? Are we trying to achieve such a state by doing peaceful meditation? We are trying our best to reduce the sensations and calm down the thoughts which is fundamental state of a dementic individual! Or we could call it a Coma. Have you ever seen a person in the ICU, with a coma? His organ's function but can wake up one day without any thoughts of what happened since he had an accident. More commonly would never wake up, and family members might choose to donate the organs, for other non-comatic individuals. It seems like we do not like such a state. That our living is somehow associated with a functioning, information sphere. This is what is called the personality theory in philosophy. Once you do not have a functioning personality, it is rather like being dead. So, for a person who meditates, during the time that although the calmed down of thoughts, the personality is not lost. There is difference than in dementia, where personality is lost. Similarly, in a persistent vegetative state after a brain death, personality would be lost. So, now we have seen the two sides of the living and 'Not so living'. In living, we have to carry the information earth, like atlas does all the time. If we choose, to drop this earth, we would be achieving nonliving. Temporarily in deep meditation. So, you would understand that living is going to be heavy over years. Do you know something similar? It is like the Sisyphus Greek mythology. We are punished by the burden of the information we carry, which is the same information we use to find happiness in life. Is there a solution? I believe there is, and that is finding out and understanding the process. The true nature of things. Happy thoughts If I have made you little depressed in my article, I would like to apologies. To end up with happy thoughts, I would give you a trick. Let's look at a child. A child would not know about the bad things about the world, and he doesn't know much about the world. How can we gain, the happiness the child had? At least can we get closer. Can we train our mind? Try this trick, when you look at something or hear, try to identify the thoughts which follow. Silently observe this. And once you identify the learnt information, try to forget it and look at the object again. Like with bare awareness, and let the wisdom grow, like a child. If you would like to understand more on this, written, Statue of David.

Mindfulness is a tool not a destination, or outcome. The vision, mission and goals, lead us to success. If you are working in a co-operation for that matter in any organization, you would agree. Having a clear target helps us to get there with ease. And it is true for the mindfulness as well. If you start in the wrong direction, you will end up in a wrong place, as mindfulness is not a destination but only a path. So, where are you going to head by using the mindfulness as a tool? That is where the goal of mindfulness matters. Like I wrote in previous article, mindfulness without wisdom is like a blind goose. You will knock on rocks and trees ultimately to be eaten alive by wild cats. Let's get things straight. As always proper way is to start with wisdom. And mind you this is just a guide, and with mindfulness tools, you can choose your destination. How did I do it wrong. I can remember I did it wrong. In my early years as a child, by default from our culture, I was introduced to the topic of meditation. And everyone told me about the benefits of meditation. If you know a little bit of practice, there is a saying which goes, that there are three kinds of intelligence. Intelligence gathered by information, Intelligence gathered by thinking (about information) Intelligence generated through meditation. And I can remember I wanted to be an intelligent person. So, I believed I could achieve to be intelligent by balancing out three of the components. And I believe it helped me. Rather than let it be the universe, I believed in reading, listening, thinking, and meditation to keep everything together. I know, what you think, that is correct right? Wrong, I was wrong. Those were not the correct goals of mindfulness. So, I ended up being in the wrong place at the end of it. The Goal of mindfulness Before further into the article, I will introduce the correct goal of mindfulness. And the rest of the article would be just the discussion and explanation. True Goal of mindfulness is to learn the truth about nature (myself and the world) Wrong reasons to be mindful It is important to learn about some common wrong reasons to be mindful. If you read about or heard about mindfulness, straight away teachers talk about benefits of mindfulness. Like, having good sleep, relaxation, calmness, being able to concentrate, reduced stress, happiness, being able to tolerate sadness. I am not saying those are not, benefits of mindfulness. But they are more like side effects of mindfulness. If you focus too much on the side effect, you will stop there, and will never make mindfulness to grow into its true potential. And which is to understand the truth about nature. And you will become like the monk who did not know how to prioritize. Look at the following reasons given by Bing, as reasons to be mindful. And none of them gives the main reason and the only thing which matters, which is to learn the Truth about nature. "Mindfulness offers a wealth of benefits that can enhance both our mental and physical well-being. Here are some compelling reasons to practice mindfulness: Reduced Stress and Anxiety: Mindfulness helps us manage stress by promoting awareness of our thoughts and emotions. It encourages a nonjudgmental acceptance of the present moment, reducing anxiety and promoting calmness. Improved Emotional Regulation: By practicing mindfulness, we become more adept at recognizing and managing our feelings. This emotional self-awareness can lead to healthier responses to life’s challenges. Enhanced Cognitive Abilities: Mindfulness has been linked to better memory, attention, and cognitive performance. It sharpens our mental focus and clarity. Stronger Relationships: Being mindful fosters empathy, compassion, and better communication. It allows us to be fully present with others, deepening our connections. Better Physical Health: Mindfulness positively impacts our immune system, blood pressure, and overall health. It’s like a workout for our minds and bodies, promoting well-being from within. Remember, mindfulness isn’t about escaping life’s challenges; it’s about engaging with them more skillfully. So, consider incorporating mindfulness practices into your daily routine—it’s like giving your mind a refreshing spa day!" Now we have established the goal of mindfulness, I am ready for the next question. Why should we learn about the truth about nature? Why does the truth matter? Truth matters, and I would say that is the only thing which matters. From Descartes to Einstein, to Socrates, Scientists and philosophers and religious leaders are looking for a clue of truth. Often external, and often without any answers they fail. If you would like to read more on this, I have written previously on scientific method and why, it cannot answer some deep philosophical questions. And another dimension can be put forward by simply saying, that in life, something smells fishy. Even great scientists knew it, even Friedrich Nitsche Knew it (why he wrote beyond good and evil) that there is something fishy. Even Robert frost knew there is something fishy about the nature. And I am sure that they also knew where to look for, which is within ourselves. If that is not enough reason for you to look for truth, what about the problem of afterlife? And throughout the blog I have introduced some of the wisdom facts, gained by previous teachers, who kindly passed them to us. And hope these will guide you. More importantly, we should use the tool 'mindfulness' to do an experiment on ourselves if we really want to know truth about ourselves. And who you should do it? And once you know, this fact, you will choose the life of a seeker. Why truth matters, is answered in different forms in following articles as well Living in a dream Story of a scarecrow Spider and the web And even the poem, Dreamers and To catch the happiness