This was one of the most exhausting and busy week of the 12th grade. In spite of all the work I had, I have learnt that life always surprises you. You can make all the plans in the world, but things will always surprise you. Life is not what we think. It hits you hard and fast and most of the times it is unexpected. Life does not always go as planned. You can adapt to these surprises of life and make the most of them whether they are good or bad. Life and the surprises life holds are not within your control. But what is on your control is your reality. You can choose to take these surprises in an optimistics manner or in a pessimistic manner. Either way it is entirely and completely your decision.

Just when you think that nothing will ever go your way and just when you are on the verge of giving up on everything you believe in, something will come your way. And that something will show you the reason to hold on and to never lose hope. When it seems as thought things are not going your way you feel dejected, hurt, and angry. You are scared of so many situations because you do not want to feel the same pain again but these very emotions that are not very pleasant things to experience are in fact chances. When dealt with the right spirit and frame of mind, they are chances given to us to feel them and then eventually move on. This helps you to reconnect with the world and your the loss soon fades away.

For business men, they are always in for surprises. One minute they are on top of the world with everything in their favour and the stock market soaring, and the next minute the stock market crashes and they lose everything they ever worked for. On the other hand, one minute they are down in the dumps worrying about their next move and just a second later they check their email only to find that an old client is moving back into the area for business. Thus, being in such a fickle and unstable profession, it teaches the businessmen to go on with life. Everyday they learn about how unpredictible life is. And everyday they are reminded to celebrate the good news and take the bad news in a positive stride. Similarly for scientists, just when the think that everything is going their way and the only thing they need is for the experiment to work, something goes wrong and all their efforts are flushed down the drain. It takes only a matter of seconds for life to change and there is hardly anything one can do about it.

One can never know what to expect from life. This realisation dawned upon me after the death of my Grandfather. His death was so unexpected and so sudden. Just a night before his demise, he was having a good time with his friends and family at a function. It is scary how things change so fast. How the border between life and death is just a fraction of a second. This week I learnt that life is indeed nothing but a brief moment Live it in such a way that you dont regret anything.

Religion

In my opinion religion is a way for people to look for answers and make sense of things. People look for peace and even phychological or mental satisfaction in the name of religion. Religion can be something one can believe in and can fall back on and thus it can also prove to be a support system of some kind. Religion can also be used as an excuse for doing something or even for not doing something. For example, if a fanatic muslim terrorist kills someone or even a mass of many people, he is justified in his view along with all the other terrorists and people who think on his lines which say that "we kill in the name of God" as this is what "Allah" would want. This is the misuse and misinterpretation of religion to suit ones own needs. This also greatly reflects on the induvidual's ethics and morals.
There are certain things that we, as humans, do not have the answers to. Those in search of these answers find them in in religion which answers their question and gives them a sort of psychological satisfaction. religion fulfills the need of some kind of truth and provided answers to some questions that mere humans are unable to answer.
Conversion depends from person to person and also from situation to situation. Those who are broght up their entire life on the lines and teching of one particular religion would probably find it hard to just convert to another religion that is entirely new to them. This is because they have been depending on their religion for a long time and adjusting to entirely new principles, new customs and new traditions that are a part and parcel of a new religion or even no religion is very difficult or even impossible for some people who staunchly believe in the religion they have adopted and have been following. On the other hand converting from being non - religious to religious is also hard. If you are used to not following certain rules and customs that come with religion, how can you be expected to just become religious? It is however easy for those who CHOOSE to become religious. If it is forced upon you, it is definitely not easy. It is easy for those who believe that there is nothing like "God" or a "force" but not for the others.
Religion is a way of channelising one's beliefs. The answers religion provides are usually as logical as they can be so that people will believe them and have faith in them.
Religion is mainly percieved differently by different people and thus religion is full of varied biases. Staunch religious men like the pujaris and the pandits believe that religion is the utlimate. And anything done in the name of God is the right thing to do where as, others like the atheists, o not beleive in the concept of God at all and thus naturally their bias will be extremely different fom that of the pujaris and that pundits. Even the decision of choosong whether to follow a religion or not is based on a persons belief system and the beliefs he or she possesses and thus is completely bias itself.

history

"A page of history is worth a volume of logic" - Oliver Holmes.

History is a subject from which on can learn a lot. It provides a lot of information from the past and hence forms a foundation for the future. it provides people with vital facts that form the basis of logic along with many other factors. history provides us with logical examples and claims. if you sit and read a page or a book on history, you know for a fact that you will gain some knowledge. it is worth something and it will not go to waste. in fact one can also use historical examples as a learning experience and apply them in everyday life. on reading about an historical event, one will be able to relate to it very easily and will gain a lot from it. reading about history allows you to come across different perceptions of the same event and many different writers and authors write about the same events that took place in the past. it also improves your reasoning skills. these historical writers and authors reason out even a simple event that occurred in history. we get different biases and different opinions on the same topic of interest. history allows us to study the past, think about the present and plan the future.

knowledge at work - 7

Recently there have been many articles in the newspaper about the major eclipse. i came across this one particular article in the mid day which stated the do's and dont's during an eclipse. It stated the various superstitions believed by many people. one of which was that pregnant women are advised not to go out and lie very still. this statement completely lacks reason. it does not make any difference wether you move or lie still during an eclipse. it is mainly blind belief. originally a superstition, the more the people begin to think its true, the more it turns into a belief. slowly, gradually but inevitably it does tranform into a wide spread belief. generalisation also causes it to become a belief and probably even the 'apparent' truth. however, reason says that lieing still or being forced to stay under house arrestmwould hardly make a diffedrence to the baby's growth and development or even the pregnant mother. thus it is a clash between reason and belief. many people believe that during an eclipse, the earth is plunged into darkness, which is a negative force. as a result, one must pray for the duration of the eclipse, and take a bath there after. this is where religion comes into play. people are so passionate towards religion that their emotions would not let them reason out what they themselves are following. even though it seems more logical and practical to not be affected by such baseless claims, their emotions are so strong that they over rule their reasoning power. thus in this clash between emotion and reason, emotion takes over even though it should be the other way round. thus we come to a conclusion that letting irrelevent things to block your reasoning power is not something you should allow.

k@w assignment 6

cock fighting
during my trip to Thailand, i was on my way to the shore as we were going fishing, i saw an advertisement which was on cockfighting. i was shocked, surprised and astonished all at once. watching two cocks fighting to death is not what i call fun or amusing. it is in fact simply cruel and mean. thus we can come to a conclusion that some people perceive it to be fun and entertaining where as others look at it as something that is ruthless or rather cruelty towards animals and nothing else. therefore we deduce that perceptions vary from one person to another. the emotions that run in the minds of the audience or witnesses range from excitement to sadness as a result of these very perceptions of theirs. the reason as to why these cock fights have become so popular is basically due to the extreme orthodox and village-ish mind set of the local people who watch these matches. another insignificant but rather important reason is money, the financial aspect of the entire thing.
it is basically a struggle between emotion and reason. all those people who find the cock fights entertaining and interesting definitely let their emotions win over reason as they believe that the death of two living creatures is far less important than fifteen minutes or half an hour of entertainment. this is an example of emotion winning the battle against reason which is harmful and as lives at stake. on the other hand, there is a similar struggle also between emotion and reason. if one thinks about how cruel and harmful this activity actually is and reasons it out cleary and carefully, he or she will arrive at a logical and practical conclusion which would state that cock fighting causes nothing but harm to the animals taking part in it. for them it is nothing but a slow death. and in this case it is evident that reason defeats emotin and thus arises as the victor.
in ancient rome, there was a concept of the gladiators that prevailed ages ago. in this humans were made to fight lions, an incomparable, one - sided fight. it was considered quite amusing and thousands arrived as spectators to watch it. however, gradually this practise was terminated as it soon came across to the people as ruthless and in considerate. the practrise slowly but evidently came to and end. similarly, i hope that this too will ome to and end . however, this is only possible if people keep in mind their age old ethics, values and morals which were formed from ages memorial.

knowledge at work - 5

I have taken an article from the newspaper to work on this time. it talks about the independent candidate Meera Sanyal from South Mumbai.
Politicians are known to use emotions widely in order to appeal to the illiterate sections of society. This is mainly observed in the Indian political system. The reason corruption has crawled to its highest peak is because the people have not been able to reason. the basic and major problem being that they have not been given the opportunity to educate themselves. Therefore the politicians are able to continue their legacy to be able to brainwash the people and take advantage of the fact that their emotions over power their abilty to be able reason out situations. An example such as providing free electricity and water supply and food supply to those who live in the slums have as a result provided the political party a benefit by acing and doubling the votes and reserving their seat in the political systems. The political system works on the basis of manipulating those minds which are uneducated and keeping them in the dark by promising their demands, playing with their emotions and thereby winning the elections.

meera sanyal on the other hand promises to refrian from such activities an thus reasons out her being an independent candidate and not a part of any such group like the congress os mns or anything of that sort. however, others percieved her being an independent candidate differently. they percieved her as a weak candidate. this as a result was a major reason as to why she failed to connect with the voter which could be the main reason as tho why she loses her seat in the elections to the other candidates who are in fact a part of some collective group or the other.

in the past, there has never been a single candidate who won the elections single handedly. there has never been such a situation in history where an independent candidate, that too a woman, has been given the seat. therefore it is less easy for the voter to trust her. the generalisation still prevails. ' a single handed lady cannot take such a big responsibility on her shoulders'

thus the way in which a certain something is shown to someone forms a part of their belief system and therefore paves way for their respective perceptions. it has such a huge impact on an individual that she or he fails to reason out anything and goes with the flow. in such cases, reason fails to defeat emotion and thus emotions over power an individuals reasoning ability in turn leading to fallacious reasoning.

Intuition: 20th April, 2009.

1.) whose intuition should you trust? Are some peoples any better than others?
In my opinion the only intuition you should trust is your own. It can also extend to those who fall within your circle of trust. but one also has to make sure that that person who he or she trust is perspective enough and is able to make correct decisions void of fallacious reasoning. he or she should be emotionally strong so that emotion does not over power his or her reasoning power. such individuals whose reasoning power is strong and who has a strong hold or control over their inner being will but naturally have intuitions better than others.
2.) If something is intuitively obvious should everyone believe it?
No. the word obvious does not guarantee anything. it is just that one feels that it is obvious due to inner gut feelings and also as a result of powerful emotions. intuition differs and changes from person to person and thus it is not practical for everyone to follow just one persons intuition. an intuition cal also be wrong and thus it is not logical enough to follow the intuition of someone that can also be wrong at the end of it.
3.) Is there anything that everybody agrees about?
No there is certainly nothing that everybody in this world agrees about. the world consists of millions and billions of people each of whom have a perception of their own which but naturally differs from one another's. it is possible for a large group of people to have the same perception as a result of being influenced by another individuals or even emotions as a result of their gullible nature. but it is practically impossible for EVERYBODY to agree about something.
4.) could you be wrong to think that something is intuitively obvious?
Yes you could most definitely be wrong to think that something is intuitively obvious. intuition is something that originates from nothing but a gut feeling from within. it is very possible for this gut feeling to be un true, false or even meaningless. intuitions are often proved wrong as well. this is where reason comes into play.
5.) Might you one day come to see that something you though was intuitively obvious is in fact a deep rooted prejudice?
yes. on the first day of 7th grade, there came this new student in our school. i had an intuition, a gut feeling that she would be a nice girl. i went up to her and tried making a conversation. she was however scared an intimidated. emotion overpowered her reasoning ability and she came across to me as someone who was rather rude. however, after the air settled, she opened up to ma and we are now bets friends. nothing less than sisters!
If something is intuitively obvious must everybody agree about it?
If something is intuitively obvious must everybody agree about it?