I haven't written about mindfulness lately. That doesn't mean it has become a less significant part of my existence. In-fact, as I see, mindfulness cannot be separated from life itself. If I am not mindful, my existence is just a dream, during that period of time. If I cannot account every second of my life, it must be just a matrix that I have spent time in, a discontinuity of the function of life. Part of mindfulness is not just watching yourself. But deliberate effort for understanding. I have to be careful here, as what am I going to say next can be paradoxical to the above. Flowers for a change About free will and mindfulness If someone is deliberately trying to do something, and if we accept that as it is, then we spontaneously agree that the free will exist. Same goes, with mindfulness practice, as if there is someone who is practicing. Yet, if you look carefully and live by with your mindfulness, you will notice the contradiction. At the time of mindfulness, there is watching, but watcher disappears. If you try to focus on the watcher, the watcher appears but the object disappears. Watcher becomes the object of watching. What if the watching ceased? Would there be any watcher in the first place? You may say the watcher is always there in the background watching everything. Who is watching? Yet I see, the idea of the watcher is always just temporal relationship of watching. When I see the watcher typing some words, mindful about his presence it is there. And if I am not mindful about it, instead about the bottle of sauce on my table, there is just that. In simple terms I am aware of the continuity of the mindfulness, but I cannot say the same about the knower. He seems to take a vacation sometimes, when mindfulness is deeply focused on something. To be honest, I cannot call this "mind" or "mindfulness" as me. Obviously, the concept of Me has a free will built in itself. Yet I cannot guarantee about the object of mindfulness, what it chose to focus on in the continuum of time is by my free will. I am just aware of the crickets in my backyard moment ago, and mindfulness did this without asking for my free will. Understanding self is best way to understand others If you are confused by this argument by now, I have successfully accomplished my objective. I write for my own understanding, of my existence. It doesn't even matter one ever reads or think about these things. But as the topic suggest you should. By so called living, we all are indirectly trying to solve the problem of our existence, but they just come out as "life troubles". Only the ones with deeper understanding about life would agree to this, as others are simply not aware, as their awareness is not sharp. I wouldn't even call this scenario unhappy. It is just a way of nature. More flowers for more change Why should you hypothesize about your own existence? Everyone is stuck in their own subjective reality. So, hypothesizing about their own existence have in-fact formed the trajectory of their lives. I haven't come to any conclusions yet. But let mindfulness gather its own wisdom in its own phase. Just like a river, flowing without a free will towards its destiny. What have you done lately about the death you have to face in years to come? Would that not be a something to do? Or are you just worried about the oil price? It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such a great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence. - Leo Tolstoy

Why lies matter? Lies do matter as much as the truth. Lies can move crowds. Lies can start campaigns. Lies can start wars and stop them. Ever since we started to listen to our parents, we do not know whether we are living a lie or is there something called "us" and "future" in the first place. However, this article is not about deep philosophy about existence or time . This is just superficial facts about how a lie can shape our world for the better or the worse. "A mine is a hole on the ground owned by a liar" This famous quote tells us something about someone who sells us a future. Apart from owners of mines, who sell us, unpredictable precious stones which may or may not be there, there are many other sellers, life insurance companies does the same. So does investment banks. So does the stock market. As future is unpredictable, we are buying into some of these lies. But the tragic is there is no, alternative. Similarly, we educate ourselves without a guarantee of future success. We invest our time without ever knowing what is there beyond our death. We live a life as per societal expectations without a guarantee of a peaceful death. I am not saying education doesn't improve the odds of a satisfied life. But I am saying there are no guarantees to this hence partly a lie. A mine Pathological liars There are some, and there are few of these kinds. Current American President seems to be one of them. I am not in a position to comment about his conduct, yet, as his lies have far reached consequences, and it has affected me, in the form of a financial crisis, I am qualified to write about him. Consider this man who cannot make a pudding without extravagant toppings. When there is one ship in strait of Hormuz, he says there are thousands. When there is one missile shot down, he says thousands were shot down. When there is one telephone call between Teheran and Oval office clerk, he says they are so close to make a "Peace Deal" leaders of Iran. I have never seen world leaders so confused about US president's intentions, before this era. It is hilarious on one hand, and on the other he seems bold and blunt. Liar liar pants on fire Oscar wild once said, in his play, "I can resist anything except temptation". Here is a man who cannot resist temptation of lying. On the other hand, he seems to be impenetrable to lies of other world leaders. The fake humanity that everyone else covers their faces in the morning, hiding the hedonistic one which comes at night, seems to have no effect on him. Once I saw a guy who was a comedian, who became a president of a country and acted like he was a president and dragged them into an unnecessary war. Here is a businessman who acts like a comedian, while being the president of a country. I am not sure what would be the outcome, whether the act is intentional or not. Only time would tell. But sometimes I wonder, is there a way without a cost to life? Can we weight the current ongoing killing of people, against a future nuclear war? It seems, that alternative universe is not going to happens while current president of US is alive. So, we would never know.

Lesson 1 - Mr. Beast - Story of Growth. The Journey of James Steaven Donaldson - or commonly called Mr. Beast is nothing but extraordinary. He is the greatest YouTuber ever. His growth story is amazing for many reasons, the first is about resilience and consistency. As told by himself numerous times, and by looking at posts of his own, you can find out bits and pieces of his growth story. If you look at his number of subscribers each year, you will see that there was not much growth from 2011 to 2017. Just average number of followers. Yet after this period, what grew in hundreds before, suddenly started to grow in millions. It is evidence to compounding takes time, and it takes patience. For many of us such an endeavor is impossible even to think about, as we are dopamine addicts, looking for instant gratification. Apparently, he had mastered this ancient wisdom from Bhagawath Geeta for success, before everyone else he has thought about it. What is more important is, so did, Warren Buffet, as majority of his wealth has grown after his 65th birthday, So, did JK Rowling, as she went to 100 publishers to get her first Harry Potter published. If you are entertaining a project like Mr. Beast, consistency is the only thing you should be Focusing about. Not the outcome measures. And each iteration of your creative cycle is for a marginal improvement, which eventually will compound in the long term. I assure you, not many of us are able to tolerate such mental torture. Instead, we would use easy path of procrastination or moving away from what is important to urgent. Next - > How a bamboo grows Lesson 2 - Mr. Beast and his journey - Story of Capitalism. If you have seen the movie Wall-E. You may have seen the robot, Auto - which is the autopilot robot of the spaceship Axiom. Over the years, Auto, has become a terrible dictator given the status and the power. I saw side by side photos of Mr. Beast over the years and appreciated the remarkable similarity. There is a reason he is called Mr. Beast. As I can see some evil is hidden in his videos. Superficially he is giving up so much wealth to his participants. Sometimes, it is a luxurious car. Sometimes it is an enormous pile of money. But, if someone asked what he is getting in return, there you will find the Capitalist as he always doubles his money each iteration. Each video which is packed with emotions of his participants is an ASSET. A class of asset which hook millions of people to watch and pay with their valuable time on earth. The truth is anyone can do it. It is free. But nobody but few are prepared to endure hardships like him. And there is not a drop of luck in many of their soup. Wall-E According to Karl Marx When capitalism is at its peak, the human emotions will become commodities. In-fact, everything will become a commodity in this system. From words we speak to our food. What you eat at lunch, and the noise it generates when you crunch on a shrimp. You can make a YouTube Video out of it and sell. You can sell your kids innocent drawings on eBay. (I saw, 5-year-old who draws abstract paintings, and there are buyers thousands around the world). You can sell videos of dirty jokes and show how 85-year-old grandmother reacts to these. She would happily oblige to your demands as she is well aware of value of dollars you make. But I am not sure we should be doing these things, just because we are allowed. Unless we want to become hollow people with a label of success on our backs. It had been the same even 30 years ago. Chris Eubank, the Great UK boxer and the media sensation, once told in an interview, he does not like to fight. He does not want to become a hero, but the system has made an arena such brutal fights to occur between humans and he is just a part of the system. He had repeatedly, accepted the lowest point in his life is when his opponent Micheal Watson, had brain injury after a fight in 1991. This is a sacrifice made for just the entertainment of others. He also said, he wants nobody to become a boxer. Ironically his son became a boxing sensation few years down the road. It seems great Eubank Senior was unable to stop the wheel of capitalism which seems to be in perpetual Motion crushing and modelling every humane ambition. But someone would argue capitalism have done great many things. It has helped anyone to grow. Increase living conditions of rural African people. Contained wars, and distracted people from conflict. I am not saying it is totally bad. But it has provided a platform for evil to reach innocent kids even without them knowing it. Maybe it needs a major upgrade. Better be somebody working on these errors before it becomes apparent as a system failure. Mr. Beast lessons number 2 -> beware of the system, and what it does to your soul over the years.

The Principle of priority -You must focus on what is important and not urgent. This quote I randomly picked up from, where I cannot remember now. But the moment I read it I picked up the significance. Did you? If you did not read the quote again. PS: apparently origin of this traced to Stephen Covey the author of the book "The seven habits of highly effective people". In the first instance it seem there is something wrong with the quote. And it feels like rubbish advice. But Behold your thought just there, drop that prejudice. I will explain why this is great advice. Let's go back to college days in memory. The college example for the principle of priority Prioritize Imagine you are taking a literary class in college. And your teacher gives an assignment which needs to be handed over, by the end of month. You go home on the day 1 and what would you do? 99% of the time if you're a normal kid, of normal human parents you would just enjoy life. Doing urgent things, like going to meet a friend. Watch the final series of game of thrones. I am sure of this, unless your parents have deciplined you to start with important work, not the urgent ones. This pattern of behaviour will repeat until the last week. If you are lucky, your brain will switch to panick mode atleast few days prior to the deadline and, start working on the project. But 20% of the time still there would be some urgent things to be done, which takes precedence and you will pull an all-nighter to finish the project. This would not have happened if we focussed our attention on important things, without waiting them to become urgent ones. This view of priority is not uncommon in any decipline. If you ask a civil engineer he would say, maintainning of a bridge is important. It is far less expensive than trying to repair a one which has history of decades of poor maintaining. Similarly, we can assume if something have become urgent, we have already missed the opportunity to address it while it was important, as we haven't prioritised properly. I'm not claiming we can always avoid such emergent situations by prioritising, minimise is a correct word we can use. Four types of work. - Eisenhower Matrix If you are curious I have following list of types of work. We already have discussed two. I wouldn't bother about explaining others to you as by definition they are un important. But if someone is obsessive about getting all the unimportant information than using practical advice, and for completeness I will write them down here. Urgent and Important – crises, emergencies Important but Not Urgent – planning, learning, relationships, prevention Urgent but Not Important – interruptions, some meetings Not Urgent and Not Important – distractions Next -> story of the Monk who did not prioritize work

Some time ago, I wrote about leading and following. That there are two groups of people in this world. Sometimes, we behave as leaders, and sometimes as followers. I considered myself a follower than a leader. Never did I bother to ask what is best, or atleast I couldn't choose one over the other as both had positives and negatives. Yet, I came across following quote in the book by Leo Tolstoy - Calender of Wisdom. Apperently both are a crime - an Equal crime. "There are people who take responsibility for making decisions for others and determining their relationship to God and to the world; and there are people, the overwhelming majority of them, who give this authority to the others, and blindly believe in everything they are told. Both groups of people commit an equal crime." Let's apply this principle to the quote itself. And create a paradox. Firstly, we cannot divide any group of people into two groups. As I mentioned above, each and every one of us have potential to be a leader and follower. At work you may be the Boss who boss around a group of people, but at home, you maybe just following the lead of your spouse. But there is some truth in this scenario, as at any given time, there are more followers in the world than leaders. If the scentence is true then we should not believe the scentence as it would be just believing, what Leo Tolstoy (the leader) said. We would be just foolish followers. Then there is the question what should we believe in? Can we live devoid of any belief? A leader Axioms of Philosophy. In philosophy, axioms are basic assumptions taken as starting points for reasoning, such as the law of non-contradiction from Aristotle ( something cannot be both true and false at the same time) , René Descartes’ “ I think, therefore I am ,” the principle of sufficient reason from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ( everything has a cause or explanation ), the identity principle (“A is A”), and ethical starting points like Immanuel Kant’s idea that humans must be treated as ends in themselves or John Stuart Mill’s view that a ctions should promote happiness . For something to be an axiom it should have following characteristics. It is self-evident (seems obviously true), or at least widely accepted It is not derived from other statements It is used to support further reasoning How not to commit an equal crime? As you can see there is a problem in this. As nobody can prove with absolute certainty that any of these axioms that we assume true are infact true. There seems always a probability that they are not true. Whatever we believe in day to day human functioning, is built upon layers and layers of abstraction, above these axioms. For this reason, they are not absolute. When you say you got a promotion, today at work, it is both true and false at the same time. As there is a framework we can argue "You" do not exist. (this is only one simple explanation). And for this reason, and only for this reason, we commit a crime when we start to blindly believe others. So, the correct action would be to think for ourselves with information, and see what is true and what is false in the same observation.

Why discard thoughts? Have you ever tried to forget some memory? Why on earth you should? You may ask me. Unless you have PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) It is not only in movies, about veterans who flown home after war, that they try to lead a conventional life, sometimes even awful memories haunt us every day. We might carry the burden and the noise created by these thoughts to places where we shouldn't. I can give you an example. The other day, when I was driving in the morning towards home, I saw a van was parked in front of the house. Almost obstructing the driveway. And obviously I could not bring my car to the shed without reversing several times, if the van was not moved. How annoying this is? You come home to face this, and the guy who owned the van did not move it. Instead, he started to teach me how to drive my own car into my own driveway like he owned the place. And My temper meter was skyrocketing, although it was a chilling morning, I felt my blood boiling. My composure no longer looked tranquil. Even the lazy cat of my neighbor would notice my red-hot ears. I honked angrily and asked the guy to move his van. Obviously, he did with a frown on his face like I was interrupting his whatever damn business in front of my house. And that was it. The incident took place only for one minute. Yet, it was now carved into my brain with deep emotion. I am ashamed of losing temper. Parked Vehicles As you can see, I have carried this bad memory for several days, now I have written about it and made it a little more permanent. I have done the opposite thing of forgetting this memory. I have given it a negative value (or positive one). When memories are enmeshed with emotions by values, they are difficult to forget. This seems to be the reason why bad memories torment us again and again. Is there a way around this problem? How does our memory work? A simple framework. Do you remember everything happened when you drove home today? No right? Our minds have the remarkable ability to sort out important stuff from ordinary stuff. Generally, this happens automatically. Only the things which are extremely positive and extremely negative are kept in mind. Positives because they bring us pleasure, and we need to repeat creating these memories. Negatives because they hurt physically and mentally and we need to avoid these. To avoid you need to remember. But the problem arises, when the memory itself starts to hurt us. More you try to forget; more you will suffer from it. Just like that stupid van driver who is happily sleeping while I write about him. Ridicules, right? Exactly my point. You are not the center of the universe. When I say you are not the center of the universe, this is both true and false. It is intelligence to live with two opposing ideas and be able to choose what is best for the situation. As an example, if you choose to believe you are the center of the universe, as it seems the universe would not exist unless there is an observer, then all that matter is what you think. In that case whatever happens to you would have a great significance, hence by definition is what matters. Good or bad we cannot get rid of the memories. But for a moment look at the universal point of view. You're just a tiny speck of a dust in a tiny speck of a dust, in the milky way. Have you seen an image of a supercluster? (large collections of galaxies). If you put into this perspective a random consciousness in the universe would not be able to find you no matter how much they tried. This is how much insignificant "We" are together as 8 billion people. (You can throw in some animal species to make the biomass bigger, heavier, yet it would not make up to any significance) So, the best way to discard thought is to attack the significance of the thought. Negative or positive. It doesn't matter. When you consider the universal time scale. Or the perspective of other people. (Keeping in mind paradoxical nature of this argument). Now, if you have any other better alternative method, you can mention here. I wouldn't give much focus on distraction activities like physical exercise or going for a walk, or even meditation. As Even in these activities, what we are trying to do is give less value to the haunting memory.

Prejudiced reader At last I kept my hands on this novel by Herman Melville written about two centuries ago. The famous book about a whale by the name. There was a great resistance for me to hold the book in my hand for years. I can remember there was a copy somewhere in the shady corners of the house, but I never bothered to pick it up when my eye caught it occationally. Now I know where all the resistance came from. Who wants to read a 500 page book about a man and a whale? What interesting story can come out of such a simple affair. But, I was wrong. And deeply regretted that I did not give it a go a long time ago somewhere in my youth. But, that's life right? With a list of regrets and triumphs, that makes a man swing in between. I picked up the book. Randomly out of the library shelf. It hasn't been borrowed more than handful of times it had been there dusting in the library, for a decade. I could see it wasn't only me who ill treated this whale story. And with a good reason. The common prejudice among who haven't read the book, including me a couple weeks ago, was that the book is about a man and a whale. Or whaling. But that is totally wrong. Only two pages of the first chapter made me realise the book is nothing about whales. It just felt like a dictionary to me. Like a thick tropical jungle of words. A poetic one perhaps. Moby dick My first impression on Moby Dick In such a jungle you cannot move, than a few feet forward in a day. You have to make an effort. You have to make your own path. You have to study the flora, and cut the thicket with your cynthes with all your might as you proceed. You have to use a map. The resting is mandatory and inevitable, as daunting the task is. Yet I have seen explorers travel into these remort parts of the nature to be amazed of the silence and connectivity they feel within these evergreen forests. Similar was the journey through the first few chapters of the book. Imagine reading a comic. Everything is illustrated in pictures and story is just outlined in few words per frame. You can read such a magazine while you travel in the train or in a busy city park. But Moby dick is different. I couldn't understand anything unless I was fully concentrated on every word like a monk deeply engaged in meditation. Imagine you have been to an art gallary. Fact that you can rush through it in a half an hour doesn't mean you have gained an optimal experience. Sometimes you have to stop and stare at a masterpiece to appriciate the shades, the minute details, and the general abstract patterns. Imagine you have 500 such masterpieces in the same gallery? How will you respond to this? I am sure the only way you can is by sparing some of your quality time of your day to be with each painting. Maybe you will come back to some of the paintings you have appreciated before. And that is the journey I had to take reading the moby dick. Once I am done with the first attempt I will revisit the gallary again and again. Not because I want to learn more, but because the time I spend there is peaceful. Such is my first impression on Moby dick. Where I am headed - loomings There is no need to give you 100 reasons to read the book. If you love literature there is no reason you shouldn't, and a shame if you wouldn't. Such is the effect its having on me, as I know now my life would be divided into two parts. Before Moby dick, and after Moby dick. Maybe I am prejudiced by all the scholars. So what. We all are prejudiced by our own mothers. And that is my first impression on the book. I haven't even finished reading it when I write this, and it's hillarious, that I laugh at myself. What If the ending is terrible?

List of Einstein's Quotes on time. Time is relative "Time is relative; its only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing".  "Time seems to follow a universal, ticktock rhythm. But it doesn't".  "The rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference".  Time is an illusion  "Time is an illusion". "The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion". Time's purpose  "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once". Einstein: https://unsplash.com/@brentdalling Einsteins Quotes on time "Dumbest" to "best" Einstein has said many things, during his lifetime and some even would consider him as a demigod of science. As there is no depth he could imagine. So, more than science he had believed in the ability of imagination. Consider the following quote. "Imagination is more important than knowledge". As it pushes the boundary of the knowledge into the unknown parts of the universe. He has done this not once but many times. So, I am going to consider his quotes on time. A handful of them. The first one came across was the last one given here. Which is "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once". Having written a book about time and having a clear idea where the time exist now, I can say that must be the dumbest thing Einstein has ever said. Explanation is simple. "Everything does happen at once". And I can prove that is the case. More importantly once I prove I can show you that Einstein is false at least once in his life. Maybe he was busy feeding his cat when he wrote the above, that he himself forgot to imagine. And to see the proof we need mindfulness. Why everything happens now? On Time: https://unsplash.com/@heatherz Close your eyes and imagine everything happening in the universe this instant of time. You can call time is relative and we are stuck in different time zones at the same time. We feel this only because we are thinking about the universe inside the framework of universe (according to above quote by himself). Imagine the universe is a gigantic ball. And relative to the observer who is outside the universe, he can observe everything happens in the universe at the same time. Although we see the light from even dead stars far away corners, due to the relative slow speed of light. This observer outside the universe could "See" with his superpower that the universe has only one clock. Which is the clock that his observation happens. (maybe he has "Instant" vision about anything happening anywhere in universe so there is no delay) That is the proof everything happens at same time. Every function at this instant in the universe happens now. You have to imagine it, as our physical abilities are not capable of "Seeing" this. But with mindful imagination you can "See" this is the case. So, there is only one time. Which is called now. All the other things which happened before this instance is past. And everything which did not happen yet to happen is "Future". And as both are not existing anymore at this instance, they are just imagination. So, I can conclude that only reason for time to exist is because of imagination of consciousness which can expand the thoughts to an imaginative past and imaginative future. Now you can ask the question, Wait isn't its same process that creates now itself? I think I have answered this question in the book what is time ? So, you can get an idea. Future: https://unsplash.com/@hadijasaidi What about other quotes? Now, once we are there. You can read the rest of the quotes by Einstein about time. And I can see all the five other quotes about time given here confirms the above conclusion we arrived. "Time is an Illusion", "Time is relative", "Time does not function as a tick tock clock" as it is really a continuous function. "Time depends on your frame of reference" as this frame of reference is none other than your own consciousness. Time was born with you and will end with you. Things do not stop there. This is why again and again for the 400th time I am inviting you to be mindful. What is true for the time, is true for everything. Every mental object that creates throughout our lives have traceable origin which points back to us. Isn't it amazing? To know that even God exist within us. What about the devils and death? If mindfulness has taught me anything about life that is the biggest liar is my mind. As nothing it says is an absolute truth. How to be at harmony with this, is the question. Maybe which is another illusionary problem like time. Let it go, let it be, let it flow, is good advice.

Why and where do they exist? They exist in variety of forms. Sometimes, they are at the workplace like bullies. Sometimes they are commenting on your post. Sometimes they stand up when you present a scientific paper and ask dumb questions, not to enlighten themselves but to make you feel uncomfortable. And they do this with arrogance rather than awareness. And they add to the question that either your nose is like a pig or the ears are like an ape. I am not angry with them. They are like little rocks in my garden wanting to hurt my pinky toe. It seems for whatever reason the nature has decided to put them in the universe where you are exactly performing. The better response would not be anger, but action or inaction. Like when a gum is stuck to your shoe and make a noise and drag dirt every time you take a step. There is no point crying over it. Either you have to stop walking, get a new pair of shoes or remove the gum with your bear hand. How to deal with hecklers, two responses I wouldn't say it is a bad idea to fight back. But sometimes it doesn't work and its unnecessarily messy. Of course, this is the right option if you are cornered in an alley and, there is no way to run. But, if it is not, you can ignore. Unless they physically shout at you over and over. Even that is so, you can choose to leave the room and keep your human consciousness intact, devoid of any temper. Remember sound doesn't travel far. It's just your memory of it travels whenever you think back. So, you have to isolate and selectively discard your thoughts. This is more important than physical distancing. Anger is never the correct choice. Meanwhile at your leisure, you must build your strength and strategy to deal with the problem, if it arises again. In a more moral and legal way. The best response would be to focus on your own personal growth and reach a place where these ordinary hecklers cannot reach by design, but I warn you, when you are at a different place, there would be different set of annoying problems which follow. How to deal with hecklers is a different art that you need to learn as you climb the ladder of life, as there are gums at every step. This brings me up to the following quote famously attributed to Socrates, erroneously. But reference can be found it being said by Henry T. Buckle. BMW "Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss things, weak minds discuss people." There is some truth in the quote. Ideas are like abstract thinking about the world. In any subject, this is where, highest form and more difficult generalized concept are taught. If you want to spend your time wisely in the universe, while your consciousness last you should be thinking about your ideas. On the other hand, individual things are just copies of these abstract ideas. They are relevant and necessary but can drain your time on minute details without ever making you into groundbreaking discovery (you can either discuss about a concept car, about a real BMW, or you can just discuss about the driver). Discussing people is stupid. Unless you discuss about some great person from the history, to learn about him/her as a mentor. And it is to this latter group hecklers come under. So, I would look carefully at myself, when I am with a group of people what comes out of my mouth. Even an occasional gossip would make me ashamed, unless it is by choice, and for pure entertainment, and with intelligence that I choose to talk about it. Even so, I would diverge into some general abstract thing with guilt and shame. So, what type of abstract thinking you are engaged in these days?

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.