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 it is only few seconds away from the reach of the ground. 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 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. 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 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.

Who is wiser? Who is stronger? Looks can be misleading and deceiving. Often this is a mistake our minds let us make. Historically from time to time if we do not remind ourselves. Here I will give you two stories one from an ancient book, and one from kindergarten. the Elephant - Unsplash Once upon a time there was a jungle where an elephant, a bird and a monkey lived as friends. Often, they would chat by the river, where there was a big Bodhi tree. They were very fond of each other and loved each other's company. One day the elephant thought, well although we consider equal, we must have a leader in our group. We must know who is the eldest among us. Then he told his wise idea to his friends, and they all agreed. One must be elder than the others and the trick is to find who that is. And the monkey said. "Oh, that's easy, let's see who remembers the most about this bodhi tree, so we can find out who is older" Elephant said, "well that's a good idea, I will go first, when I was little the tree was so small that it brushed against my belly." The monkey said "when I was little the tree was so small I could eat its top leaves standing on the ground" the bird said, the tree was not here when I was little, but there was an old tree few feet away. I used to come here and eat fruits of an old bodhi tree. This tree came after." And then everyone agreed. The bird although small is the oldest among them all and the gave him the proper respect that he deserved. When I consider the story, I can understand why the confusion among these animals about their ages. As they were from different species. But if you consider one species, you can most likely identity the older ones easily. But, consider something like intelligence, and then we would have hard time finding out who is better even after tests. Next story really shows this. And it came from a friend of my daughter. Ant Carrying Weight - Unsplash Who is stronger? Why looks can be deceiving "Father, do you know that an ant is stronger than an elephant?" How? I asked curiously. And she said, "Ants can carry eight other ants, but elephant cannot carry even one other elephant." Although at a fundamental level I agreed the claim, there was a lot of explaining needed. As an example, ant may not carry "eight ants" but it may be able to carry eight times weight of its own. Maybe even more. And also, the strength is relative. Ants even cannot carry a single leaf, but an elephant can lift a log. There is a big difference when we consider relativity. This is a nice thing to remember, as in life often looks can be deceiving. A nice-looking meal may not be tastiest. The prettiest girl may not be the kindest. The strong looking man may not be the strongest, might even weep if he lost a few dollars. Another lesson is the relativity of things. Although is elephant is stronger when compared with the ant, the ant is stronger relative to the body weight. When we change the frame of reference, the truth doesn't hold any longer. And this can be proven for any truth, as there is nothing built other than from language, time and human consciousness. And that is what this blog entirely dedicated for, Disproving what you try to prove to be true! which is life. Let's do a challenge. Give me what you believe to be true in a comment, and I will attempt to give a frame where it doesn't hold true any longer. And if you would like to read about truth -> this is link to our article on the topic .

Flash Burns. (This article discusses about philosophy of life, not medical term of a "Flash burn") Recently I watched a documentary on YouTube about a lady who was in a Cashier of a store, was put on a fire by a psychopathic woman. And this whole footage was captured in the CCTV cameras. The women although survived her injuries had a dramatic change in her life, as now she is a "Burn victim". And all this came out of nowhere as the women who set her on fire was a lady with some mental disorder, just bought a can of gasoline from the same Store. But, just wanted to point you out how quickly the circumstances of our lives can change in matter of seconds like flash burns. Burns - Unsplash Last weekend as we were in a camp, some remote part of the country for a group project, we had a little get together. The group members had a long night preparing for a concert held the next day, and decorations were all ready by the time. And just before the chief guest came, the oil lamps were lit, and suddenly there was a fire. It came from nowhere, just with a little bit of wind, fresh decorations were all burnt down, and luckily, the building did not catch up any fire. Yet again proving, things, can happen any moment, and the stable lives that you and I wish can be turned upside down too. How can we survive in this unpredictable world? Flash Floods Have you seen flash floods? If you haven't again, there are plenty of YouTube videos of these as well. And you will see at least a couple of them where people being washed away, down unsalvageable waterfalls. I cannot imagine how these happy moments where they explore a waterfall becomes a scene of tragedy in a matter of seconds. Often any water stream can become a deadly trap, when there is heavy downfall or a overflow of an upstream dam. The fact is although we feel safe and we are away from any disaster; we are not. And this is one reason, for me to take a journey to find the meaning of life sooner than later. If I am quite sure I would live up to 70 I can start searching the meaning of life at 60, stopping everything else. Yet I am not sure about flash floods, and maybe tomorrow, or today would be a good day to start my search. How about you? Hill country - Unsplash I worked in hill country for a few months last year where there were a lot of mountains with bendy roads. These unprotected slippery roads were meant to be disastrous, And I would take my time driving slowly, yet sometime tiredness overpowers my judgement. Although I was safe, just few weeks back I heard the news of a bus packed with men women and children directly drove down a `100 m slope of these heavenly mountains. I knew it was just a matter of time that something like that would happen, as I have seen how unsafe these roads are. 22 were killed and some were saved miraculously. Meaning of life. I am not trying to scare anyone or make you anxious about the future. If you understand every second, we live on earth comes with a risk, and we saw this with the covid pandemic where we were stuck in our rooms watching death counts on "World Meter". Times are good and sunny for where you are and where I am. I had my dinner just a few hours ago and planning to sleep after I write this. But let's remind ourselves one more time, that the life is not just about making happy memories and having fun. We need to understand ourselves before it is too late and I have been trying to open up a discussion with you about this for the last few years. So, I would like to know what happened to you. I am sure you have plenty of experience about life, which are unique and different from my point of view. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

You are lying on the floor, as the room with no fan or AC is too hot yet the ground is always cold. The best way to capture this is by lying on the floor. Yet it's not comfortable to do that as the body is not used to the hard surface. And you remember you are not sensitive as a princess in the story of Princess and pea! Floor would do just fine for a couple of nights. Yet the problem is the cockroach . Cockroach - unsplash Cockroach Habitat The floor is the habitat of the cockroach. It had been roaming free over the past few months at night when the giant monster was asleep. Yet now even when it tries to cross the room it brushes against the monster. The monster is making the cockroach a little confused. So far it had lived its little cockroach life risk free. It's a scavenger in the jungle of the room. Like a hyna for  savannahs. The giant, although it's scared, is the main source of food for the cockroach. As often it could find fallen food particles, leftovers and hiding places for it to be away during the day. Even a place to lay some eggs and bring cockroach offspring. It had two things in mind, one is to avoid danger and other is to feed itself. For the cockroach consciousness its life is precious. Which is evident by the fact it runs away in fear when the giant walks towards it. Yet, it had to take the necessary risk everyday to earth for food.  And you look at this tiny creature who climbs up your leg without even knowing that you are the giant it tries to avoid at all cost. Slightest movement will make it run away and hide in a corner for a few minutes until its fear hormones disappear and hunger hormones start to rise again. Making it a fool for the stomach. You see no purpose in its life. Collectively cockroaches might be doing favour by keeping bugs in check. Yet individual cockroaches did not matter. Just like an individual mosquito, an individual ant or individual human. An entire symbiotic biome on earth doesn't make sense as it cancels out each other. The Giant Cockroach Night. You take a moment to appreciate what you have been doing since morning. Going to work, in the office, typing line after line of code, to make a salary to buy stuff to fill your stomach with to create more fat out of nothing. How can you even born up these calories which accumulated just like your bank account. It doesn't make sense. When do you stop living a cockroach life and understand how to be. What else is there to the life other than being a cockroach and travel around your own home  called earth. And you appreciate the deed of the garage book seller bezos and his blue origin, creating an opportunity to reach space for the people who can afford this. Maybe for a day, Katy Perry and crew forgot that they are just cockroaches, when they wear space suits. Maybe they can fool all those other eight billion cockroaches to believe that they are made of different material and they are just super group of futuristic cockroaches. Then you realise the irony of the fact. Life has found a way to persist by making individuals realise that they have an autonomy. Yet you see there is no immortal material which can make  something last longer than eternity. Hence no matter how hard we try, the extension of life would still not make any sense as it's impossible. Although you haven't seen the sixth dimension of the soul, still you agree that it would be eternally boring if the millenial man baked an eternal soul. You were suddenly disturbed by the slipping sounds of the polythene bag. It seem cockroach had put himself inside a bag and was trying to get out. And you see the only way it is ever gonna do that is by going back the way it came in. And you turn back to yourself and ask, who am I? What am I doing here? Isn't it worth doing this without wasting any time at all? Thank you for reading cockroach nights

This article discusses philosophy of success and wealth. United we stand, divided we fall. - Groups Groups are everywhere. If you look at animal Kingdom there are plenty of examples. You just have to watch a couple of documentaries about killer whales. When they hunt for seal, killer whales work in groups to break the thin ice and make the poor seal fall into the water. If you look at a pack of wild dogs, they will work in a group to bring down a prey larger than any individual dog. Yet these wilder beasts cannot escape when they are bitten by 40 dogs at the same time. I do not have to give you more examples, but I can give a list of animals. Consider ants, consider fish, consider buffaloes and crows . Although there are so many solitary animals, we cannot deny that animals in groups are more futuristic than animals who live solo. Nature has cracked the code for success it seems, as groups help persistence and survival. I consider myself an introvert . And from early life chose to be isolated. I didn't want to participate in any group activity. Not voluntarily and did not try to avoid them either. Yet I had a strong belief that my values are important and that is what matters the most in the world. And that was a big mistake. If I can go back to my former self and teach something about life I would teach myself the importance of being in a group. Or more importantly why you should focus on forming groups. / Skyscraper How to build a skyscraper Let's look at some common examples. If you walk in the city, any city for that matter, you will see skyscrapers. Sometimes I look at them, stare at them and my mind goes "wooow". Isn't it incredible achievement of human beings. I often wonder how these gigantic skyscrapers were built. Was it engineering? Electricity? Steel industry? And who build them in the first place? I compared my wealth. If I collected all the money from my 8 to 5 jobs working my a** off till I die still my wealth would not be comparable to 1/50th of cost of one of the gigantic pillars of one world trade center. It made me feel pathetic and think more. And that is the truth for 99.999999 people on the planet earth. Except for Jeff Bezos. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon musk , nobody can build a skyscraper alone by their accumulated wealth. Yet I am sure these latter individuals would not do that just because they can. As they know that the way to create these enormous structures and moving marvels is by groups. Behind every skyscraper, a gigantic ship, or a monumental dam, there is a group. Sometimes we call it a government, sometimes we call it a company, sometimes we call it a Facebook community or a YouTube channel. But when we consider incredible work, except for artists, it's done by a group. You cannot have a billion dollars in your bank and go and build a skyscraper by scratch. First thing still, is you need to create a group. Construction Group Let's build a skyscraper. Now you can create a skyscraper by above method, by accumulating capital and form a group to create a one for you. Or you can go the other way. Create a group and then try to attract capital and expertise to build a skyscraper. I don't say it's going to be easy. First you will need to create some extraordinary thoughts in your head which has enormous value for something and convince a group of people to share these values. I am not sure how and why you are going to do that. I am just a philosopher. I just think helpful things for my selfish existence. Yet, side effect of this process makes me understand the rich and poor as well. I need you to do something about it. Once you formed your group and formulate its values. Let me know and convince me to join! (sell me) Let's build a skyscraper together!

I had hard time understanding art. Specially why it is so expensive. And it seem so random how one artist becomes so famous, and very expensive while someone else is struggling financially over the years. I loved art, the process of making a painting fascinates me. Not only a painting, a pottery , a statue , or even conceptual art is an special interest of mine. Consider the latter, where someone just burry worn out tyres in a row in a desert land and call it a conceptual art. How can that be? Why the bleeding robot of china looks tragic, and why some art become so expensive, like in the case of Banksy art or Jackson Pollock? An art gallary I say this incredible film sometimes back, its name slipped in my mind. Yet the story was remarkable. It was about a couple who were attracted to art, specially the women. And she had bought paintings of unknown artists over the course of her life journey and when she was dead her husband kept them at his wing. And his will determied that it should be acutioned at his death. A similar young couple seeking comfort in art, were attracted by their story and they also went to the auction. They did not have much money as there were some famous art collectors, gathered around. The value of this art collection were enormous as those artists were no longer living, and the art they created came at a time, when majority of them were not famous. At the acution, the first thing to be auctioned was a painting by the deceased man, of his wife. Obviously he was not a famous painter, and his painting was not in top class like others and demand was less. And nobody was interested in betting this one, except the young couple. They bet and won against all odds, expending a good sum of money. But here, the plot twisted, as just at the moment the art was sold, the autcion stopped and all the rest of the paintings were given to the buyer of his painting of his wife. Although other people gathered around the young man who won the bet tried to convince them to sell other paintings, he decided to keep the art collection in a museum. Birds Why art is so expensive? This story gives me a good perspective to look at why art has a monetary value. Consider the painting by the old man. It was a painting of his wife, who was his love of life. And for this old man his wife holds an enourmous value. His painting caputred his thoughts, of values in a painting, although not perfect in his mind this thought about wife is more valueble than anything else he has acquired, including all those invalueble paintings of other artists. So, it makes sense when in is will, he concluded that the one who sees the value in his painting recieves all the collection. But, as you can see, the value of an art comes from its ability to capture someones thoughts, ideas. From the time of the cave painters, humans had the ability to caputre their thoughts in paintings. Nowdays the means of caputring thoughts are diverse, from a ticktock to facebook, from a blog to photograph, you can collect these human values in form of art. If you cannot create them you can collect them. How to monetize art? There is another step, in this process of monetization of art. That is you have to convince other people to value your art. For the old man, his picture of his wife was more valueble than any other art and he conveyed the message through his will. Onces others also agree your art is valueble, then it doesn't matter you draw a stick figure or a collage. It is going to be valuable. And mind you this process of convincing others to value your art is most difficult part of an artists career. Sometimes this doesn't happen even after arist is dead, and most of them die relatively poor. Van Goh Art has no value? At this point in your mind you must go "That sounds pretty crazy, it seem that art really doesn't have any value". This is exactly my point. I can expand this saying, not only art, nothing has inherent value. It's just a relative to mind. It is true and false at the same time, the vlaue of art. And it is true to gold and Mortgage. But if more people believe in something, more physical "money" it will generate, as human values are in human thoughts, not in physical "things" like art or gold. Now I have given you something to play with. I am not sure what you will do with this wisdom. And I hope its worth and you can spread it to someone who struggle in their life. And I bet about the fact that "Philosophy will make you rich, one way or the other"

Emeralds Colombia is the largest emerald producer in the world. These green color shiny stones have enormous value when compared to stones in your backyard. Although fundamentally I see no difference I cannot magically convert thousands of people to believe in what I believe. It's a belief anyway, so Colombian emeralds will keep its value. It is a well-known fact that Colombian civil war between its left and right parties, revolves around the emeralds. Emeralds had kept the country both rich and poor at the same time. As cartels often clash with government for the power of emerald mines. It is understood as emeralds considered rarest form of gems, and the fine quality of the Colombian emeralds are not matched by any other. As an example, Duke of Devonshire emerald and Gashala emerald from Colombia had their own wiki articles as they are more important and valuable than you or me. Lol. So that is one example of a pathetic looser. But there is another and this is about philosophy of mining. Emerald I was watching a documentary on emeralds the other day about Muzo Valley mines in Colombia. Apparently now fighting are less and foreign investors are using peaceful times to make it a profitable investment. However, from time to time they give out mined earth, which is already devoid of emeralds to general public. And I have seen people gather around, waiting overnight to rush to a lump of gravel to fill their bags with, once they done that, to wash it by hand to pick up any leftover emeralds. I can compare this thing only to people who fight for a bag of rice in the cyclone battered country of Heiti. Pathetic losers, right? Real pathetic losers? Wrong! And the proof came from a girl who has been doing this emerald hunt for years. Her story was remarkable. She had been a waitress, living by herself yet participate in emerald ritual whenever there is a give out. And she doesn't shame herself for doing that. When interviewed by the documentary crew she remarkably gives a different view. She says "there is no shame in hunting for an emerald. I might or might not be lucky. But pathetic is to wake up every day to get stuck in 8 to 5 jobs without any hope of breaking out" 😕 I was taken aback by the deep philosophical nature of her saying so dedicated this article for everyone who believes in finding emeralds in their mines. Consider what it means. She is talking about risk management in life. Earthworms Emerald hunters and pathetic losers Living is a leap of faith. Whether we liked it or not we have to believe in something. And everyone is right and wrong at the same time. Consider the stock market, generally have a higher return than bond market as the risk of losing money is higher in stock. Similarly, 8 to 5 workers appear safe, but they will never break out into a rich life as they do not take any risk in life. At this point you would say, hold on a minute. I am not a gambler . I am a true Christian. I value a peaceful life and a safe heaven. I value good deeds and a family life. I would not go into arguing with you. I would just point out the fact that you must investigate where your believes come from. It's just like artificial values we give to emeralds which are not even edible but just have a bright color and persist over time. Whenever we give a value to our own thoughts we gamble. We gamble against the nature which has no meaning or value as it stays only as long as the reasons are matched, eventually to entangle ourselves in a messy life of a pathetic looser. What would you do instead, now you know the facts. Are you going to dig up a mine in your backyard or painting your pictures on walls like a Banksy? How about learning some philosophy and mindfulness with me. I can be a friend and show you some emeralds. So, there is one less pathetic looser in the world.

Extra dollars. I have been digging up about investments lately. So, my next few articles are going to be around the subject of investing. I wonder why we were never taught about this in School. Big mistake for the students of future generation. I have no doubt majority of our society would become employees in 8-4 jobs. But still, investment is a simple life skill which anyone can learn in few days. Which has potential to change your as well as everyone else's life in years to come. But this article I dedicate for the rich. What would you do with your extra dollars if you are rich ? I want you to continue reading if you are rich. If you are poor still, I would want you to read the article as one day there is a chance you would be rich. I am not sure, maybe you will step onto an Emerald or something. Life has an amazing way of turning up good into bad and bad into good. Rich Adopting a child? how about 100? The real reason for this article is a little story I read few years back. I do not know the characters of this story. But I can still remember this white young woman, smiling behind a group of children. About 100 of them. They all were smiling for the camera, and they all looked happy. It was a story, where this remarkable woman, had adopted all those children, and given them a life. The article described the biography of this young women, who was seeking a purpose in life, one day thought "I should adopt a child" and one after the other, she couldn't help herself adopting so many. I am sure there was more to the story, that she had plenty of help from some other people. Yet she had dedicated her life for these children, making their lives better. I do not even remember she is a wealthy woman or not. But what does it matter, if human consciousness holds the values , she had saved a hundred of them, so it must be the most valuable thing. And that is the reason I remember it all these years. It is difficult and marginally selfish to adopt a one child. Adopting a 100 would be selfless. This is life - Sir Nicholas Winton. This is life This is not the first time I have heard such a remarkable story of saving humans. Have you heard about Sir Nicholas Winton? It is a story about a Stockbroker and a humanitarian pre World War ii Who have saved few hundred children. And more fascinating thing is he had kept it to himself. After so many years, the children whom he had saved got together in a TV program called this is life in 1988, and appeared behind his back, and thanked him for what he has done. There is still a YouTube Video out there if you would like to watch the moment. But the important lesson for us is, it is hard. It is hard to be generous, selfless and helpful when all the forces of universe try to pull it in the opposite direction. Especially when poor, as we like to play the victim, and especially when rich, when we are blinded by the ego. Hence, let's proliferate stories like these for us to remember not to lose our sanity in search of Gold in life . So, what would you do with your extra dollars?

There is no guarantee what you are doing is right. Life is a game. I can compare it only to a game of blackjack or poker in a casino. I would say it is even more random than that. Have you seen Matt Damon gambling a hand of poker in the movie Rounders? Life is exactly like that, even if you like it or not. It's a worldwide imaginary game. Played by imaginary rulers' imaginary rules and imaginary boundaries. How do I know this? Because I have dived deep into so called mind, to understand myself like a philosopher would do. As a side effect of this process of mindfulness I realized the shared delusion is what we all are in throughout our lives. And this is exactly how I came up with the topic for this article. "There is no guarantee what you are doing is right" And that fact would give a powerful blow to my own ego that it would shatter no matter what I do. Games that we play Why dissolving ego? You may ask why? Why shatter my own ambitions, aspirations and dreams? I would say for better understanding the world it's a necessary sacrifice. Imagine you are a tree, in a thick jungle trying to reach for sunlight. When there is a lot of competition above, you will never reach there unless you start on the ground, examine the root system of big trees and finding out a plot of fertile land, to plant your seed. Unless you are willing to walk on the ground in your spare time it's hard to break the canopy. This is why offspring of rich and elite often fail in life, while who reach the top are the ones who faced harsh truth of life on the ground. To hit the rock bottom once in a while Let's step aside for a moment from our tree analogy and look at an example. Donald Trump once said while he was walking on the street, he saw a Begger. During early 90s he was a merchant and while looking at this Begger he smiled to himself as he thought how rich the Begger is. Of course, the Begger was not rich, he had zero dollars at his hand yet, Trump was 800 million in debt. Which means he was negative in worth compared to the Begger. And ultimately, he has won the battle and come out of his debt to be successful and even to run for presidency. So, hitting the rock bottom once in a while would shatter your ego enough so that understand the rules of this game of life. It's all in head. Floating in the dead sea. A simple truth "It's all in your head" Let's say you understand that truth. The truth in simple terms it's all in your head, and there is no guarantee what you are going to do next is right. You can do two things with this information. You can get a little depressed and sad and worry that nothing is going to work at the end of the day as its all imaginary. Or you can just start playing. This time with better understanding and freedom in the game of life . You can choose to play with some Legos to build a castle. Remembering and knowing it might not be the true meaning in life, just another camel . You might choose to compose a song or invest some money in gold. Chose to play piano or take a bar exam and be a successful thief. Or become a check fraud specialist. I am not sure what you would do with the freedom it provides but better if it provides some fake value to your life. And once in a while enjoying this new freedom in a corner of a coffee house, I want you to break the illusion and see for yourself. You just have to repeat the words and see how illusion of ego disappears when you say "There is no guarantee what I am doing now is right" but you will do it anyway because it's just subjective. Floating in the dead sea. Have you been to the dead Sea? A long time ago, the dead Sea was not so dead. It was just a normal sea. If you would jump unless you know how to swim you would drown. But after so many years, water has evaporated so much now the dead Sea is so much dense. You won't drown anymore. You can just Flot. Think about this for a moment. Once you know how to disslove your ego, little by little you'd be able to float through life effortlessly. Hopefully to become a completely hydrophobic leaf one day. That my friend is the art of dissolving ego.

I wonder if there is anything new at all to discover when we consider the wise generation of the past. From Cherokees of Ancient America to Friedrich Nietzsche , Good and evil has been a dichotomy concept fascinated by minds. Here I am spined by the midlife crisis, trying not to fall, turning pages of memory to figure out what is life, met with good and evil. Not once or twice but many more times as it happens. This time with a fable of two wolves. Bad wolf Fable of two wolves. Once upon a time a wise Cherokee chief was teaching his son about life. He told "In my mind there are two wolves". They are fighting with each other. Ever since I can remember. One is Evil. He is anger, sorrow, regret, greed, ego, selfish, Lies, Proud, guilty, lazy cunning one. The other is Grey, and Good. He is generosity, self-esteem, helpful, happy, calm, courageous, brave, successful, agile, faith, kind and empathic. The battle between them is gruesome. They would make me sweat in dark cold nights in winter and make me froze in summer. They battle so hard against each other that blood spills all over the snow. And in every mind that battle is inevitable. His son, hearing his father thought for a moment, and said " Then who is winning father? is it the good? or the Evil?" The chief said "Well the one whom you feed will win" Discussion - The meaning of the fable of two wolves In life often we are taught about good and bad. From early life, and ever since the good fights against the bad inside our heads. The fight continues until one dies. Sometimes good wins, and they become saints. There are generous successful rich people, who lives a life of abundance and humanity. Just because they chose to feed the good wolf. Guided by their parents and the society. Then there are bad. The drug trafficking, pain inflicting, rapists' murderers and wall street thieves. During the battle of the good and bad wolf they have just decided to feed the bad wolf at some point in their lives. And they keep on doing this, until they become hedonistic demons corrupted by power and wealth. Good wolf Then there are philosophers, and mindfulness enthusiasts, like you like me like Cherokee Chief. Who have just decided to watch the process. The fight between good and evil. Unless we peep into the machine called mind and the process called its thoughts, long enough we would not realize it is just another imaginary battle which goes on forever. I am sure lots of people have something against this, as they have just chosen to feed one wolf over the other. But unless we tend to starve them both, we would never see the light beyond. In other words, life is a potential like a lump of clay . And we ourselves create monsters and saints out to nothing. Isn't there anything eviler than that? It is the process of mind which is evil. Not the pictures it creates. The question is are you willing to take the middle road, that separates good and evil? If so, just look into your mind for a while each day with mindfulness.

Super rich. I have no intention to become one, I am too lazy for that as a philosophy student. Yet I am fascinated by the concept of these super rich billionaires as it comes often in my twitter feed. It's unavoidable. Just a few decades into the past we even did not hear the word 100 billion worth individuals. It was extremely difficult to accumulate such wealth in the past as the global free economy was not well established until the Internet became a sensation. Unless you are willing to risk your life conquering cities and robbing wealth it is impossible. Nowadays we are connected globally conceptually by the world wide Web. The contribution from each individual from this vast network is going to make billionaires overnight. For that matter, consider simple math. If all the eight billion people on earth contributed one dollar to a poor person, he would be among the richest people on the planet overnight. The problem is how to make people donate one dollar? Super rich This raises the question: What do modern billionaires sell? Can we do that by selling electric cars? Consumer products? How about a futuristic phone? Or a social media network? An addicting game? A super power pill? I saw a lady who vanished after making her super rich by selling crypto, which means stealing from people. But let's get facts straight. What do these billionaires sell?  What do billionaires sell? I can give you an idea. Let's look at some billionaires, obviously the ones who are known to everyone come from the land of dreams. Let's go down the order, Elon musk claims he sells electric cars. But I say otherwise. I say Elon sells a brand of "futuristic cars" that everyone is willing to and dream of buying, an idea. Some say his cyber truck looks like a brick. But I can still see proud owners on the road. It's the Tesla brand which sells. And investors want to put their money in. Similarly, his space X doesn't sell anything significant. Yet it has miraculously accumulated funds, billions of them. Just to be burnt on the space. And it seems absurd, and this proves what he sells is not a product. But an idea of a "multiplanetary consciousness". Remarkably people respond as we all are inclined to believe in something in our lives. One or the other. Even a kid's dream would be enough if it is iced enough for the monkey mind to believe.  So let's look at some more examples. Let's look at Steve Jobs . His apple company does not sell the iPhone 16. An essential smart device which gets updated with the newest technology each year. So there would be no end to the number of iPhone as it's just an idea. Facebook sells nothing, but still accumulated a billion dollars worth as globally everyone uses it. Maybe they just get a small contribution from the amount of time you spend by paying for data. Can you see? You are just paying your one dollar indirectly by paying for your Internet service provider.  Selling Ideas Capitalizing on an idea  At this point you may think what do Magical mindful living know about being a billionaire as it is about mindfulness and philosophy . I would agree. Maybe I am day dreaming. Maybe it's just an idea. Can I sell it?. But look at Mr Warren buffet tells about being rich. And that was the whole starting point for this article. Once in an interview Mr Buffet said it is easier than ever today to become wealthy. You can just "capitalize on an idea". And this is exactly how these brands work in today's global market. It's not about the product anymore. It's about the brand and the belief of humans about the brand that matters. And you can sell anything once people believe in your brand. Maybe a prototype of a space X rocket would add a nice atmosphere into your living room. How about crypto currency? So my suggestion is if you are hoping to become an entrepreneur or a CEO, to put more focus on philosophy as it might harbour ways to be successful than any other subject.

100% delutions I have been greedy, I confess. I have been trying to achive 100% in my life. Like majority of our urban population, and by doing so have exhausted myself, as I have lost the objective of life. I am not saying ambitious about future is bad. But still the argument holds true. 50% is a damn good number in the game of numbers. Sometimes way beyond we think. Consider the following. Growth 1% rule of progressie growth. There is a rule which says, if you are 1% better than yesterday at the end of the year you will be 32% better than last year. Imagine this goes on for few years. And you will be flying high anyway without significant drainage or exhaustion. It doesn't matter what field you are in but this is a good rule to follow to show us that small things matter in life, but the magic word is "incrementation" or as Steve Jobbs puts it, "iterations" over time. Now consider 50% as a number, and that would be a far better number. 50% is not a failiure when we consider in this context. In fact in lot of competitive exams 50% considered as a pass mark. Which means you are doing just fine. 50% is 100% in life I am writing this article as I remembered a joke someone said a long time ago. It is about how 50% is applicable to life, but other than the sense of humor it harbours some important philosophy for life. The Joke is as follows. A guy says that he is in love with some girl. And he is sure this is going to work. His friend asked well, give it a number. And he goes, we are at 50%. Well that is damn good number when we consider Love. But his friend goes. That of course is my 50% She is still at 0%. It is only recently I wrote about What is a true Friendship . Above logic is also applicable to any kind of human interaction. Frendship, relationship, love. Often we cannot control the other party. But if you focus in your 50% basically it means giving your 100% into something indirectly. If the relationship, love or friendship fails the tests of time, it is not due to your fault then. You can be still satisfied and carry a positive memory as you have done everything you can. Farmer doing 50% But the logic of this 50% interactions doesn't end there. What about a human animal interaction. I have seen a guy who reared a pitbull. He has given his 50% fully commited to his loving dog. But at some point neighbours found out that he was killed by the same dog. Imagine he survived. Should be he angry and shoot the dog? I am not sure. The bottom line is no matter what you do, what you can achieve in life is 50%. Rest of the 50% comes from so called "outer world". To end up in a good number at the end of the day, we just have to focus on our 50%. Consider yourself a farmer. You prepare the land, cut down the bushes, plough the field during the drought. And at this point your 50% is done. And it is nature to follow and complete your action. Essential rain will come, and if it doesn't you are the last person on earth to be blamed. But I have seen people worring over the 50% more often, even myself as we often forget the logic of life when we are too much focussed on writing stories. Even if you do not agree 50% is 100% in our interactions with the world, I can mathematically argued that 51% winning chance is a good bet in life to take. If you would like to read that article it is here. Let's be greatful to magical number 50 today.