This is a saying which appeared in the novel "The brothers of Karamazov" By Fyodor Dostoevsky the famous russian novelist. The statement stands by itself. A rare gem of a sentence and today the article is about a detailed explanation, to why this statement itself harbours the meaning of life. First we will introduce you to a story to illustrate how it is applicable to charity and other good deeds, when it is hard to figure out subtle nature of our selfishness which hides in these acts. Then we will expand more to The Sisyphean suffering of rolling the perpetual wheel of self or life. perpetual Motion : https://unsplash.com/@dmitriielj Understanding charity, Is there a lier? Once upon a time there was a king. He was a good king and as all other kings of the era, from time to time he went in disguise, in the kingdom to see how his people were doing. Maybe they did not trust their own news agents for that matter, so kings wanted to see themselves how their governance were at work. He disguised himself as a commonor and left the palace, and plan was to come back in a week. However, on the way, in a far corner town, he was robbed by some gang and severely beaten. Without all his armed gurds, the king was left to die helplessly by the road. Like a begger, he could not even speak or beg. Nobody looked at him except a one man who walked by. His heart melted looking at the poor man. He got down on his knees and took him in his arms. He brought the poor man home and treated him for a good couple of weeks until he was able to walk and talk by himself. The king thanked the good man and went to his palace. Regained the throne. And first thing he did was summoning the good man, and gifting him with unimaginable wealth and status. And the news spread rapidly throughout the kingdom to what happened. And from the next day, the beggers in the country did not have trouble atleast for a couple of months, as there were plenty of "good" men who would help. Some even went in trouble of looking for such disabled people. Some even started works of charity, in the name of their parents to help poor people. The question at this point is who had good intensions? It appears, that only the first man who did not know about any good or bad consequences of his act, did it anyway from the kindness which appeared from the bottom of his heart. Others were just cheaters! how much they tried to appear good, their faith was blinded by the potential benifits. Acts of heart : https://unsplash.com/@designecologist Philosophy of charity Now we can answer some philosophical questions about charity. How about the following? How many charity organisations would prevail in the world, if there were no stories about heavens and hell? How many people would spend their time saving children? Animals? trying to help diseased and poor, if guranteed nothing good or bad will happen to them even if they did or not do these things. What if we make the return value of charity 0? Not even a "feeling Good"? I am sure we will be straight away looking at a society like in a jungle. It seems even acts of charity, or acts of good deed are still harbouring our selfishness at its core. I am not saying we should not involve in such acts. It is exactly the opposite of it. I am trying to show you how to do charity properly, like a good kind hearted human, without getting stranguled in the process by the demon of greed. 0 return charity is the best charity out there, and like the good kind hearted man who treated a poor man, not a king. This is why a donation of a penny by a begger can be a bigger act of charity than a million dollar donation by a wealthy CEO. I am sure gates of heaven if at all is there will not open depend on the amount of coins you put in, but by inherent purity of the act which doesn't depend on the culture religion or our believes. Investment: https://unsplash.com/@nampoh Above all do not lie to yourself. Not only in doing charity, we sometimes lie to ourselves more often. Even in day to day activities. Think about love? What is love ? Is it not a kind of deeply rooted greediness to satisfy our needs from someone else? Do we lie to ourselves we love someone purely from our heart? Can there be exist some pure platonic love outside our imagination? What about frendship? What about happiness? Do you lie to yourslef about happiness? Do you lie to yourself about a happy tomorrow and suffer yourself today by cheating yourself promising a dream? What exactly do you need to be happy at this moment ? Nothing? If you look at your thoughts a day, with mindfulness, you will witness, that the mind does lie to itself, from time to time, more when you understand simple truths about life . And realising this fact might make you ashamed of yourself. But do not be disheartened. After all it is all nature, and nature is a neutral phenomenon. Feeling ashamed is just a negative value which we give artificially to our own thoughts, which itself is wrong. Hence that is excessive. Just being aware is enough.

Thales of Miletus is a Pre- Socratic Greek Philosopher, who famously said the origin of all the matter is water. He was famous for many other things, and among them few fascinates me the most. Fact 1 - Earliest known polymath. He is one of the earliest known polymaths. Philosophy, mathematics, astronomy were his main subjects of interest and had made significant contributions to each. When someone is majoring not one but three developing subjects, it would have profound effect in all of them, as there would be more interconnected knowledge. This makes a significant difference in understanding the world and hypothesizing. Such as his famous "water as an Arche". (Which means everything is originated from a single substance, and his hypothesis was water.) A battle Fact 2 - Astronomer who fell into a well. According to the legend he was deeply engaged in studying the stars that he accidentally fell into a well and made fun of by a servant girl, that he was crazy to know what was up in the heavens but could not see what was in front of him beneath his feet. This is not an uncommon fact. Although it was a laughable accident, I am sure Thales was not that the guy with a tunnel vision. Yet, it is good advice for anyone to climb down the ladder of ego and feel the feet above the ground to see where we stand with respect to life. Fact 3 - Thales of Miletus and his Olive Press. Thales of Miletus was an entrepreneur. He was not rich at his birth, but perused wealth. According to later philosophers, it was rather in a mission to prove that philosophy can indeed provide a practical value. What a shame if someone comes and ask, your philosophy has no practical value, as there is no richness that you have gained. If philosophy is about truth, it should have unraveled the philosophy of wealth as well. Indeed, the richest people on planet must be philosophers by definition. If you are a trader or have done bit of trading at some point in your life, you may have heard of the Options, and Futures. Thales of Miletus had done this few thousand years ago, by renting olive presses, either as options or futures, and then when the harvest is abundant and need for presses was rising, he had made a profit. It is unclear he became rich at the end of this endeavor, yet, that futures, and options still exist in the financial world, means he was not a mediocre salesman. Olive In the modern world I find a great many examples of entrepreneurs who are also, philosophers. But I am not aware of any individual story of a person who became rich just to prove a point to others. In a sense richness had no value for Thales of Miletus, but he sleeked only validity from general public, the practicality of his philosophy. Maybe he wanted to test his own theories than external validity. Whatever the reason the chronological order is a rare occurrence. Analyticity without practicality is nonproductive. Do you know any philosopher who attempted being rich -> to show the practical value of philosophy? Maybe Benjamin Franklin was one such.

Rabbits, cutest innocent animals of all. Yes, rabbits are innocent. And cute. I dedicate the first part of this article for these cute animals. If you compare with Buggs Bunny, you will get the wrong idea about rabbits. Of course, in reality rabbits are far from Buggs Bunny. Have you seen a rabbit up close? With their big eyes and ears. I did not know until I had opportunity to pet one. They are afraid of everything. It is shaking all over, all the time, even when I pet it. Maybe it is their fast heart beat or respiraton, but it feels like they live in fear. Like afraid of something all the time. I can understand what it feels like to live a life of a rabbit, in wild, when you know your death can be hiding behind every bush. And you can only hope your legs would not slip when you run away from it. One day it may, until then you run from it. They live a life of a Hollywood death race every day! How did the nature overcome the problem? The nature gave the rabbits ability to create more offspring. Sometimes they are called baby making machines. They would make more than 50 babies if conditions are ideal, in a year. So, isn't nature cruel? I mean, just to feed the fox and snakes and humans. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand nature's intentions. https://unsplash.com/@kris_ricepees A word of caution reading following. When we were kids, we had a nearby playground, with plenty of grass. And rabbits used to come there at night. How did we know? Well, in the morning we saw plenty of rabbit dung. We never saw them during the day, except one day our little dog, out of curiosity had caught a one. The wounded rabbit could not escape. It was there on our doorstep, with blood all over the floor, and like he had done something brave our dog was there wagging its tail with a mirthless savage smile expecting appreciation. I was deeply saddened by seeing this horror, as a kid. Maybe I was few years old. Yes, I always wanted to see a rabbit and pet one. But not like this, there was no point even a gentle touch would hurt the poor animal! The rabbit was unsalvageable, and it was put out of its misery and fed to the dog. https://unsplash.com/@lisablevins What is rabbit philosophy or running away from problems. So, the rabbit's strategy to the problems of life is running. And it is a good one, until one day inevitable happens. I have done it. And I am sure you have done this, if you have lived long enough. Sometimes we face problems which squeeze us through bottlenecks in life. Which are hard to escape and only thing we can do is run away like a rabbit. And hoping we can outrun the problems. And it really works, as some problems given enough time would never come back. You may run to the edge of the land, into the beach or up on a mountain, you may find peace. Like the famous run of Forest Gump. yet you will have to turn back. This is not a good strategy as you can see in the long term, as rabbits would end up in the belly of the fox one day when they are caught, if not young, old and feeble. What is the alternative? The alternative is to ask the question why ? without running away from the problem. Rabbits should start to ask the questions like, Why am I a rabbit? Why fox is a fox? Why python is a python? Why death? why hunger? why a food chain? Why should I make offspring? More rabbits with more problems? I am sure, rabbit would not ask those questions. They would run away from death, surely for a one last time. The question is would you do the same? It doesn't matter if you are a rabbit or a fox or a hawk. We are gifted by the nature to question. And we should use it. And if we do not, we would die like just rabbits' foxes and Hawks without ever understanding the natures plan. It takes someone bravery and courage to take action even when they are given the facts. I am sure you are brave, just like a lion.

"Life is too short. We have to be aware, where we spend our consciousness. I would rather read a poem, watch a hummingbird or take a nap than listening to shit news about Trump and Politics." If you came to me as a dear old friend for advice about life, and happiness, above is one way I would put it into words. It is simple, it is applicable and it is profound if you think about it for a while. For few days and months for now, I have been feeling a calm happiness. Which wasn't there about two or three years ago. There was a time that I hoped the unhappy days would end and I would feel happy. I was waiting for some spontaneous miracle to happen and pray. Thing about miracles is they do not happen often and frequently enough, so was the case with mine. Like all the miracles were gone on vacation to far east, and my prayers for a happy day was delayed being answered month after month. Lucky for me, I never went into a phase of thought block. And I took tiny deliberate actions to spend a one hour in happiness. Following are a list of changes which happened over time. Tiny things mattered most. Happiness this Way I started to take a walk even when I did not feel like it, and noticed, the mind which did not like the thought of a walk would not remain same, during the walk . Most likely during the walk mind would start to like it, more than it imagined before. I started to read books , again, novels, math books, anything and everything interesting. I did not have targets, reading books. I would do that for pure enjoyment. To satisfy the curiosity of my mind. To enrich the blog which I have started writing. I started noticing people, who are able to interact with me, and not worry about things which are out of my reach. The sphere of our influence is constrained than we think. Although we can influence someone, far away from us by using modern methods of communication, the practical value of doing this is very low. I became more aware of the immediate influence range, and kind of accept, the things I cannot reach shall remain untouched. I quit news , almost entirely. Unless they are big enough to come to me over some other means I would leave the news alone. And I started to forgive myself for enjoying a film. A good film was a place for me to feel warm, looking at emotions of human beings, although theatrical it may look, I would keep the feelings for future reference deep within me. Last but not least, I learned there is a choice I can give to my consciousness. All these acts tend to have a nasty counterpart. When I turn on the TV, there would be news. And If I mindlessly act, it will consume a good part of the day. Instead, I would deliberately choose a boring task and enjoy doing it for a while, and when I am bored would jump to a different boring task. How boring it is to read a poem, or Moby Dick, while everyone else is watching a football match. Not at all! Both can be equally happy, if it was a deliberate choice and you are aware of the consequences, and if they align with your values. If I package this into a take home message following would be the one. "Deliberate choice of everyday tasks, by careful consideration of their outcomes, is one way someone can spend a happy hour." So, what are you going to do in next hour?

Russells paradox, and Godels incompleteness theorem. I do not wish to be a mathematician. At least after reading first chapter of the book of proof by Richerd Hammock. I came to the conclusion, by no means there is any complete mathematician ever lived on earth. So, I wouldn't. And the enlightenment came with the Russells paradox, introduced in the first chapter itself. Even in the book of mathematics, which are supposed to be provable, and "True" there are contradictions, that exist, which are inconsistent with knowledge and unprovable. I do not wish to explain, Russells paradox and Godel's incompleteness theorem in detail here. Yet I will summaries their conclusions, as it is important to understand the fundamentals of living with incompleteness. AI summary. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems  state that in any consistent mathematical system capable of basic arithmetic, there will always be true statements that cannot be proven within that system; Gödel showed this by constructing a self-referential statement that essentially says “this statement is not provable,” which, if the system is consistent, must be true but unprovable—revealing that no such system can be both complete (able to prove all truths) and consistent at the same time. Incomplete Self-referencing problem. Let's forget about mathematics and proofs for a moment. The problems arise when a system is used to reference itself. Mathematics is one such system. I cannot stop thinking about similarity of human mind with such systems. Human consciousness is essentially a similar system to mathematics, with ability to self-reference itself. It seems mathematics and fundamental philosophy are sharing this common feature of self-referencing and then fall into paradoxes. Let's compare some of the cleaver solutions mathematicians have come up with to overcome such problems of self-referencing and how these are applied to human understanding of self. Solution 1 - Using hierarchy. Introduced by Burtrand Russell by himself, the solution means, that there are only hierarchies, and we can only refer to things that are at a lower level. So, the problem of self-referencing does not occur. If you compare this to the version of "God". You can say, agreeing to the fact the self is made by the God, would build a hierarchy that we do not and cannot reference to ourselves as standalone "thing" creating a paradox of existence. This is clever solution in a way. Almost like avoiding the problem, by creating a different framework. But for some obviously this doesn't come as an agreeable solution as there is little evidence to such imaginary hierarchy exists. Solution 2 - Putting restrictions. We can put a rule to our language "Self-referencing is prohibited". So, there would be never problems of self-referencing. This is comparative to the life of a person who never ask questions about their existence. They have decided it is fundamentally wrong to ask such questions. But I see danger in this, as it looks like blissful ignorance to the facts, rather than intelligent choice. One should not choose to live with ignorance, when they can chose intelligence. Acceptance Solution 3 - Acceptance. Godel has proved every system is incomplete. A rational thing to do here is accept this as an inherent error in any system. Any system we have built, and going to built is not devoid of error. By accepting this we can lower our expectation of everything will work out eventually well. It may not. There exist limits of life. There exists no solution to these limits. By accepting, we can achieve our freedom from expectations. Isn't it a smart thing to do?

The ground zero and Chernobyl The 9/11 crash site of world trade center is often referred to as ground zero after the disaster of 2001. The memorial now built over the previous world trade center remind us how much taller the skyscraper as it was only few seconds away from the reach of the ground when it collapsed. And that I think is a more formal definition for a ground zero, and which is meant by the people who named the rumble of concrete and metal mixed with human flesh and blood on the doom's day. If the basement is the ground zero of a skyscraper , what is the ground zero of a society? Manhatton Ground Zero Have you seen the film "I am legend" where Will Smith (before the slap) plays the role of a lonely survivor of an apocalyptic ending to the human society by a deadly virus? In the first chapter of the film, there is no other actor than himself and the dog. And while watching, it made me realize that is "the ground zero". A real ground zero of a collapsed society. Later I learned the abandoned city the film captured was a real city in Ukraine before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. There are a plenty of videos, and documentaries about how the nature has slowly engulfed the city structures and wildlife flourish nowadays against all the odds and the threat to life by the deadly elephant foot of uranium core at the heart of the city. A real ground zero of a doomed society is there in front of our eyes. I consider ourselves lucky just like Robert Neville the scientist who played golf on an empty city once roamed by cars and carbon dioxide, to see our dooms day before it happened. But that is not the end of the story. As I realized there is another ground zero. What is my ground zero? What is your ground zero? It might mean different things when I say to consider your ground zero. But during the philosophical journey the Magical mindful living takes, I have come to realize there is a ground zero. Which is untouchable, unreachable, and unexplainable. Just like nothingness , with this ground zero What I can do is only accept it as it is. Mind you, although the characteristics of this ground zero is as above, it has a great unexplainable value too. It just helps me find baseline of the being when I am lost in daydreams of life. As of recent, I use this simple trick more often. Chernobyl I am sure you might have not understood anything from above paragraph. But I will try to explain in few more words. The task is difficult as this whole blog is dedicated to explaining unexplainable existence of human consciousness. Often, we can trap our existence into a second, or a thought. But taken in isolation this thought or a second has no meaning as well. Yet we derive a meaning, create values and chase dreams after dreams in our lives. And only when we are exhausted and failed, we look back and try to understand what and why it goes wrong. And that'd be natural. It happened to me as per countless others in the past. But then we realize there is something called ground zero. Death is a good example, as it separates and put a limit to life. So, several times each day when I am exhausted or happy or even elated, I take a deep breath and remind myself that there is a ground zero, with no meaning exactly at this moment, behind all the numbers I chase. And it makes me humble, separated from greed and remind me I could just chose to be a silent observer of life. I am sure if you have lived enough life beyond teenage years, you have felt ground zero. It may be a breakup, or a death, or even little bit of climate change. But have you learned the lesson? Or just carry on chasing another dream like me? Let's take a moment to remind ourselves our own ground zero. It can be a good mindfulness trick for your bag of tricks.

A Book about gravity. I was reading a book about gravity out of curiosity. And it was heavy with assumptions, axioms, theorems and laws. I could feel the book being heavier each passing page that I attempted reading it. Maybe gravity has hidden pull on the book! So, I decided to skim and tackle the book differently by going through the index and finding what is interesting to my humanly brain. And to my surprise there were lot of things which made the book an example to illustrate the interconnectedness. Following is a list of several random topics the book of gravity connected with. List of keywords gravity interconnected. Charles Darwin. KFC Pythagoras Shakespeare Apple Computer rainbows Surrealism West Africa Indian Number system. This is just a sample. A tip of the iceberg. It is true a topic like gravity is mainly connected to physics astronomy and mechanics. Yet, above list proves that even Shakespeare and KFC is connected to gravity somehow. It made me wonder, is there anything in this world isolated? Isn't everything is connected to everything else; how much space and time separates them from each other? Given enough time and space, between things, wouldn't be the future of the universe decided by a grain of sand which happened to stumble over with some sudden wind? gravity The gravity of interconnectedness. Study of maps is a fascinating subject, that there is a separate Math developed around this. Its not just geographical, even maps are made to describe behavior of internet, weather, economics, London underground. If there is any system with complex interactions, we can represent these by maps. Similarly, we can consider the nature, a giant interconnected map. There may be a thousand steps which brings an arctic penguin connected to an Antarctic sea lion. Nevertheless, there are meaningful connections. Instead, being consisted with separate entities, universe such can be considered universally interconnected flux of matter. A gigantic soup of fluctuation, like a weather map, if we make the reel run faster a million times of normal speed, we might just see every big rock dissolve into dust and process repeat itself. Gravity of interconnectedness Interconnectedness has more gravity than gravity itself in the way we look at the world. It totally makes sense. For a fact that I am not isolated from the rest of the world. My existence is constantly reassured and constantly challenged by the environment. Not because it is particularly angry with my existence or it has an opinion on this. Only because, my erroneous thinking pattern which tries to separately identify it from this gigantic eternal flux. And the flux which happens without anyone's opinion, will determine the future of me and countless others. In the short term, this is not going to do anything. As I will still carry on like a willful selfish individual in a struggle of survival. But in the long-term, mind has opportunity to understand the absurdity of it. Isn't it liberating to know that none of the seriousness that we think exist are just makings of our own minds?

Routines are dangerous. But you must not fear them as a knife. As knife, although dangerous to a monkey, can be handy, when it's uses and limitations are known. Similarly, when routines are known for what good and evil they possess, they can be tools not weapons. Routines are dangerous when they are made by your boss One such sign Routines are dangerous is if they are made by someone else for you. Generally, as inevitably every non-Saint human being is possessed by their own greed, whoever make the rules make sure they align their intentions, not yours. This makes digging up a hole in the ground hoping for emeralds far better than working in a corporate job. At least in theory. In other words, if universe had plans for your prosperity, it wouldn't have place you in a corporate job. routines Routines are dangerous when you're addicted to them. Routines have tendency to be addictive. Like a morning cup of coffee. This is the most powerful thing about Routines, as time goes by there would be less motivation and effort needed to complete a task. However, this also can push oneself into a comfortable corner of the universe, sometimes without any hope of progression. Routine itself might provide some bare minimum subjective hope and satisfaction for the survival of the soul. But facts remain that unknown is more for any human being at any given time and deliberate breaks in routine and drop of randomness can be a good thing in the long term. So, we can extend our limits of life for a better overall quality. Routines suppress thinking and creativity. Some routines suppress creativity and thinking. Routines either be helpful or hinder the course of creativity. A routine which has creativity as a primary goal would be helpful in promoting just that. But all the other routines are killers of creativity. Mindless scrolling, 8-5 routines, traditions, rituals, they all suppress thinking and creativity. How can we overcome some problems of these routines? We cannot avoid routines. It's impossible and unnecessary. For a major part of anyone's day we should embrace routines. As they provide a canoe for us to raft through the day without much effort and thinking. But it is essential we play the day by different rules. We should add a drop of randomness to our routines. When we deliberately add some elements of randomness to our routines we create more opportunities for change. These might not be good changes always but rarely one or two changes that we introduce to our routines will stick for the better altering entire future course of life. As an example, when I used to study for competitive exams in college, I would deliberately mix up topics and randomly pick up one to study. Like pulling out a random card from the deck and studying it. Then I would often notice even topics I was sure that I grasped had more stuff to offer for understanding. And it would be more difficult, but enjoyable as no longer I have to memorize A to Z. Even if I forget C, I will know what E and F means by being purely random.

We were having a discussion on spiritual aspects of life in a 'WhatsApp Fun group'. And Someone wanted to know the definition of fun. There were no options other than turning to dictionaries at this point, due to the seriousness of the question, we couldn’t afford to miss anything. So, we did and following is one such taken straight from the DIC :).   What is Fun, a Dictionary definition.   Fun is the experience of enjoyment or pleasure that comes from doing something you find engaging, interesting, or satisfying. It often involves a sense of lightness, curiosity, or excitement—like when you’re laughing with friends, playing a game, exploring something new, or even getting absorbed in a challenge you like. It’s not just about entertainment; “fun” can also come from meaningful activities, creativity, or learning—anything that makes the moment feel enjoyable and rewarding.   Who is having fun? Doing what?   It made me realize that if life is a play, all we do is seeking fun. Some people seek fun going to Church on Sundays, listening to sermons, some instead choose to go to parties. Some have fun being vegans, some Eat meat. Some people make children for fun, later they hate them for fun. We avoid things which destroy our fun, and we embrace things which sustain our fun. This view of life seems primal, hedonistic. You must disagree saying that there is governing morals and ethics above this all. But, it seems, moral and ethics just justify the “Fun for everyone” instead “No fun”. Hence, the fun seems to be the driver everything that we do.   Having Fun. Is it wrong to seek fun in everything?   It doesn’t seem like it’s a wrong thing to do. Even if you go to a party and get drunk, or not go to a party and stay calm, the mind seeks some sense of pleasure. We cannot help it. It is obvious there are consequences, and choosing the former will get you a drunkard socially and financially affecting your future “FUN”. So, any wise man or women would balance their current fun against the future fun. I would seek fun, sometimes from my work, by reading a book, doing some meditation, or even a solo late afternoon walks. They are subtle. Not like having fun climaxing watching Saturday night Football. Fundamentally I see no difference. It is like a snake. Which dwells in the mind. Waiting to bite in any moment if there is any disturbance. It, is calm and sleep, like a little piglet. But the venom it possesses is still there, capable of killing a thousand mockingbirds if necessary.   Self-discovery of Hedonism. For someone, who is not aware that these covert features of mind exist in every dark room of their labyrinths in their brain, can be unforeseen and astounding. They might not know what to do with this. I suggest just to observe. Like a mindfulness beginner myself would do.  We need to consolidate our knowledge on our mind before understanding what it does throughout our lives. Oscar Wild did this to the character of Dorian in his only novel, the masterpiece of picture of Dorian Grey . Similarly, once discovered that there is a dirty picture within us, we would know so does everyone else, that fact is just majority do not know, and majority do not have guts to admit that they do, so live a life of denial. No progression can be expected from someone who is not true to themselves. As only in consciousness truth exist, it is utmost important we embrace our nature with acceptance rather than rejection. So, one day we can tear down dirty picture of ourselves forever. I am not aware such status exist. Maybe there is. Hopefully Oscar is correct on this.

Resilience of happiness of slum dogs This is one of the superpowers of a human brain. The resilience, to find peace and happiness admist of chaos. I consider this a heavenly trait, a gift from nature rarther than a conscious decision of an individual. After all this is one quality which gives a hope, for a human inside places like Autzwhitz or Gaza strip or even Wall Street. If we consider the income gap between any society, there is a marked variation. It is a well known fact top 0.1% of any society own so much wealth, that the ratio with the bottom 1% will have atleast 10 digits in it. But, one must ask the question, how about happiness? Is the happiness people across these income groups also proportional to the income ratio? If not so what other factors determine outcome of a happiness of an individual? Is there a way for a slum dog to be happy, even when his labour is robbed and muscles are dissolved into false hopes? A roadrunner Chasers and watchers I wouldnt say it's unlikely. Considering the case of myself I can say that it takes a man for decades to understand what factors determine the relative happiness in their own subjective world. Selflessness, education, generosity, being content, are some temporary values a person can harvest within themselves. Such an individual who is self aware can have more happiness and content than a chaser. It seem the name of the slum that you live in is of a less significance. Let it be narrow streets of Bombay, Pattaya in mainland Thailand or palm beach USA FL, there are these two groups of people. Chasers, and Watchers. Chasers chase, everything. While ambitions keep running like road runners, chasers tire themselves without ever stopping to see what happens. Majority of the chasers lern their trade by their parents or teachers or gurus in their own society. From cradle to coffin chasers do not stop. We tend to hang these gilded framed stories of chasers on the empty walls of our minds as we are not aware of alternatives to decorate our minds with. But what is the alternative? Alternatives to chasing. Watching. There are plenty of alternatives. But we have to be Watchers to know these. If you choose to stop running and just watch you would see people in the slums who are smiling. They are not rich, they are not successful, they are not intelligent. Maybe a bit of Generosity, sharing, curious creativity made them smile. Only for those who chose to watch their minds with utmost seriousness, these subtle pleasures of life would be openly accessible. Smile can be brought out with a flower, a buzzing bee, a broken shoe or an hour spent in silence without the sound of artilaries. As the endgame remains the same for everyone, including rich and poor, male and female, brave and coward, I would chose a game that I can win, inside my brain, as I am the creator of my own universe here.

The picture of Dorian Gray is a great masterpiece novel by Oscar Wild, which I had my hands on when I was in school. I loved the character of Dorian Gray so much, that when he destroyed his valuable picture and himself in the final chapter, it left an empty sadness, which I can still remember. Is it the sad truth about all of us painted here by Oscar Wild? If it is not Hedonism , which we should follow in life, then what is it? Is it Abstinence? https://unsplash.com/@farreal Let me give you a background to the novel, assuming you have read it a long time ago. So, you can follow the thought process. For others, who are fresh with memory, you can skip the plot. Plot It is a story of a young man named Dorian Gray, whose portrait was painted by artist Basil Hallward, magically connecting his character with the picture. Dorian becomes obsessed with his own beauty and youth and wishes that he could remain young forever, while the portrait ages in his place. As Dorian indulges in a life of disinhibited pleasures, he becomes increasingly cruel and corrupt, although he doesn't represent it from outside, his picture shows his horrible self, by changing its appearance over time. And finally, after years, Dorian decides to restore the picture but, ending up his own life in doing so... https://unsplash.com/@sijmen89 Message of the Picture of Dorian Gray What is the message Oscar Wild wanted to give us in the picture of Dorian Gray? We can argue that he was just telling a story and there is no message in it. In which case we should stop arguing and thinking about the novel. But that is not our nature. Hence, we will look at Dorians' in our society and within ourselves. It is true that Pleasure, whether we like it or not, controls our lives. Remember when we cried asking for more candy when we were little? From that time onwards we were in a never-ending struggle to keep a steady income, to travel, to feel the pleasure of food and wine, and relationships. How can we be so sure, when we are greedy, when we act angry, that our picture is not painted with our actions? Is it what Mr. Wild is suggesting? That we all have a picture of our own drawn somewhere hidden in an empty room, re-painted with our every action? https://unsplash.com/@sheldonliu If it is not hedonism (Pleasure determines what we should or not do) we should follow, Is it the opposite? Is it the abstinence from pleasures that we should follow? If so, to what extent should we follow that? Can we make our picture better if we donate all our wealth to the poor and live just with minimal necessary things needed for living. Should we really buy an expensive car, even if we had plenty of money to do, even after donating. Or should we avoid cars and use public transport instead, and is there a limit for being good? There are some insights for this question, we can get from the famous argument, which was put forward by Peter Singer in 1971, some 80 years after the publication of the Picture of Dorian Grey. In his essay "Famine Affluence and Morality" he argues that affluent people are morally obliged far more to donate resources to humanitarian deeds than what is considered normal. So, if you buy and expensive car instead of a normal one which is obviously needed for transport, you are helping to the death of some children somewhere in the world by not donating that money which we could have saved. So, we make our pictures dirtier by nature even something simple as not donating money. ( Singer’s ‘famine relief argument’ and vegans. ) Boundary between traditional good and evil is stretched nowadays more than ever when, bad is represented as good in disguise and even accepted by the society as norm. So we can question as is there a boundary at all. As an example, it is bad to watch someone's hands to be chopped in ISIS video- it is snuff, but it is not bad to watch a SAW movie. Latter is more accepted by the society but represent the same, killing someone for some reason. Horror is a genre on its own. Does it mean our insides get rotten, when we appear doing good from outside, even when is not obvious? https://unsplash.com/@marckleen So, it is true individually up to us to do whatever we desire with our resources. But I think the message from Oscar Wild is very clear that we should go back to our Attic from time to time and look at our picture and adjust our course of action before it becomes uncorrectable. Thank you for reading "Picture of Dorian Grey- what is the message" You may also like : Singers famine relief argument and vegans What is time - a novel understanding.

I am a friend of books more than anything else. Ever since I touched the magical, fairy tales of Russian storytellers accidently as a toddler, I had the fascination to make myself be absorbed into pages of a book. The remarkable nature of a book being silent makes it resonate with my mind. Reason 1. Books are dynamic Books do not ask themselves to be read. I cannot see a moving thing inside its pages unless I turn the pages deliberately. Words remain at exact places as put Forwarded by the author. But paradoxically they are dynamic. There are moving cars, raging hurricanes, and marching armies inside those pages. Movement is everywhere. And books are dynamic. I know this in firsthand even before I start reading a passage, by the end of a chapter something is going to move and move markedly. Books are magical Why you should read a book Reason 2. Books are replicating Movement is only one sign of a living. On the other hand, there are many signs, which characterize living. And I have encountered all of them in books. There are dreams, there are emotions, there is propagation and growth. Books even have captured the consciousness of some fellow human beings of the past. Hence, I would say a book written a thousand years ago, is still a specimen of life that existed. They can propagate ideas in your mind which would change the course of future humans. Reason 3. Living is just another narrative Living is a first-person narrative. If you have watched your life day after day, you would understand there is nothing more to life. It is just a description of things which appears happening around you. Ruminations of a first-person perspective. In a sense, life is just another unwritten book, and the protagonist is you, with all your ebbs and flows. If a life is a narrative, I suggest books are replica of these lives. As they hold records of everything in approximation, just like it happens in our minds. Reason 4. Books are intelligent friends. Because of these qualities I consider, books my great companions. I do not wish to speak with a group of people who has nothing interesting to tell other than, what happened to them yesterday. How boring is to talk about 5 years of future, when there are far more interesting things hidden behind pages of a single book. I would spend afternoon with five books, on a circle table, speaking to me simultaneously about, electromagnetic waves and Fibonacci numbers or metamorphosis. What a fascinating afternoon it would be if I can find five, similar intelligent fellows to surround me in this boring existence. Yet, I do not find them unless among pages of old library books. I am not sure what to make of this. Maybe I am being thrown into chasms of loneliness, when I lose the interest on human beings. I cannot help myself. Maybe embracing books might be doom of my eternal soul. Let it be. I love the peace it creates when the mind roam across the pages of a chapter written by a solitary mind half century ago, half across the world, a friend that I do not have the privilege to meet. ReAsOn 5: BoOkS aRe MaGicAL ! Next -> What to read?