Human = Human, =/= American, =/= Indian

My friend's topic on terrorism (9/11: An Indian perspective) made me respond in the following manner. Here is the opening post to this topic. My friend (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=38223781391) says....
"9/11 was horrific. Innocent live were lost - of all religion, of all nationalities. Estimated death toll was over 6,000. We still have horrifying pictures of it impressed in our minds. It was undoubtedly very traumatic. And no way can it be justified.

More importantly however, it happened in American soil.I hear this all the time "This was an attack on the World", "This was not about America, it's against the free world!" or even get asked all the time, "Was that not a big deal in India for you guys?" "We were devastated! Weren't you??" "I still remember what I was doing at that second, dont you?" "Shruti how are you so passive about this!" When I dont really know how to respond to all of these, I get told "Well you hate America ..."

It would be pretty frustrating when someone tells me "You hate America." This is actually disrespectful since even though I live here and consider myself as American as anybody else, the connotation behind the above statement completely voids me being American and my respect for America as a country.

I understand the fragility of the situation. I am a brown person, I was not here when the terror took place. Anyone who was here in person understands the emotion much more than me. So when I don't exhibit as much distress and emotion as the person who was actually here whenever the issue is brought up, there is a possibility that I will be accussed of not being sympathetic enough, since "I don't know!." That's ok, but calling me a hater means you are accusing me of being morally wrong. This is unacceptable.

I guess there is nothing I can do about it but hope and try to explain to him/her that I understand that innocent and helpless people were made victims of a group that is collectively weak, unintelligent and ignorant. I would also make it known to him/her that whenever I see something like this on tv, it infuriates me to my limit regardless of caste, creed, religion or geography of the victim. There is nothing else I can do to explain my emotion against terrorism. But calling me un-American by assuming I don't care about lives lost in America as much as I would care about lives lost in India is just plain disrespectful. I respect this country as my own and I have no reason to have a bias for either.

It is true that I am connected with India to a deeper extent emotionally since my childhood and most of my life was spent there. But this does not mean I am immoral. Moral values of a good citizen usually stay the same in most societies.

Violence is an attribute of the weak.

Violence and using force are for the weak. I have noticed that when I have a problem I want to resolve, I can almost always use violence and brute force to achieve this end. Now, this may create more problems in getting to the desired solution but no one is to say that I won't be using violence to climb these newly created rungs of the problematic ladder. Maybe I successfully do climb this ladder to the very top, maybe I don't. But in any case, my focus today is not on the violence but on me, or any person for that matter, that uses violence to achieve his or her ends.

Basic violent thinking is "I create BANG....I get attention, I get what I need." How can you call this way of getting attention and realizing your ends weak? I call this weak because it is an easier way that might be favorable for one, but is harmful to many. This way is tried as a substitute to the other way where you don't really see the result in the near future, but you don't see immediate and moral harm to humanity as well. It is a difficult feat to accomplish. A weak person is easily apprehended. In this case, he is scared of the fact that he does not have an immediate result. A weak person lacks confidence in himself. In this case, he is inconfident of his capability of achieving the result that might not be immediate.

For example, I want to create my own traffic signal system that I see more sense in than any other. I am a powerful personality that has almost unlimited access. I decide to start my system in the new island that I have secretly discovered. Now the island already has a democracy, so I need to convince the majority that my system works better than whatever they have. I get about 90% resentment since they are unwilling to change their customs. Me and my 10% clearly see that ignorance is holding people back from seeing what I see. I tell myself, "If only they could see what my new system can bring to them...." I have two options here: Either I can shoot some of them down and apprehend a society unwilling to accept, or I can try to keep persuading them and finding more ways to make them see sense.

If I used the gun, they would accept my system almost immediately (considering I am more powerful than any force on their island) and would then see the sense I was talking about. But the sense would come at a cost of the human beings that were shot down in the beginning, and this would be a permanent dent in my effort that will never be repaired (You can't bring back dead people to life). When I try to use the other way, I see little, if any progress for the next year. But I know what I believe in is correct, and if implemented, it will work towards the greater good without any moral disobedience or dents. So I decide to find ways to get support by small scale demonstrations and such. I am now about 85 years old and on my deathbed and still the persuasion exists. There is little visible change in the traffic system as I say my final goodbye. But whatever little progress I made does pay off in the long run and the traffic system changes. And the society realizes what it should've realized 100 years ago.

In both cases, I am working towards what I believe is right. When I use force to impose this belief, I am not strong enough, or not capable enough to solve the problem without killing or hurting my own kind. If I die without seeing results, I would be incapable of making the society realize something good instantly. In either case, I would be weak in one way or the other, right?

Not really. The first alternative resulted in death of a human being. This would mean I was weak as I was not able to respect an individual's basic right to live against the power of a gun. Also, the fact that I decided to kill a particular human being over another is not justified. Considering the killing was meant for the future betterment of the society as a whole, why did person A have to die in particular over B? There is no sure answer. There is no justification. You are weak because you will be unable to explain the widow why she in particular had to become the widow against her will.

For the second case, I have not inflicted direct harm on the society. Yes, a lot more people died due to the bad traffic system that I was unable to change compared to the few that would've died if I were to pull the trigger a couple times in the beginning. But I am not directly responsible for this loss. I was strong enough to respect the right of an individual human being over the power that I had at my disposal. What happened to the society was a result of the decision of the society. It was in my hands to try to convince them while respecting their individual rights which I did.

There are other points at which it can be further reinforced that a violent action is a weak action but I will hold off on formulating this any further since it is 0442 and the fact that long walls of text are usually not very much appreciated.

Negative connotation not intended.

I have yet to meet someone my age who is evidently comfortable with their "serious" relationship with the opposite sex. I am not against having girlfriends or boyfriends, I just think this is not the age yet. Atleast not for me. I always wonder why people, especially guys, indulge in such a complicated thing as a girl. Girls are almost always associated with some sort of drama. Guys are supposed to be carefree and spontaeneous. Most girls at this age are not like this. This is not necessarily a bad thing so much as it is a difference in character. Compromising your natural character for a girl might not be a bad thing if you are trying to gain experience on successful relationships. But I really laugh at that concept. Ok, it teaches you how to be responsible. But right now?

Don't get me wrong. I am not against following the textbook of correctness but I get the feeling that sometimes, what's right is not worth upsetting the natural preset.

Or maybe, as a lot of them say...."You have to experience the relationship to appreciate it's beauty."

I say, "Meh..... I like chillin with my buddies that I haven't lost to girls. And none of them are losers that smoke and drink alchohol to 'make up' for their singularity. lol."

Don'ts.

I don't drink. Therefore, there is no chance that I will ever drink and drive.

I don't smoke. Therefore, there is no chance that I am going to die on my family out of some silent cancer.

I don't indulge in violence. Therefore, there is lesser chance that I will incur hate upon myself.

I am not employed. Therefore, there is no chance that I will be caught in this capitalistic network of pain.

I hate retaliation. Therefore, there is less chance that I will engage in an argument over my last statement.

lol. Be in peace, boys and girls.

Warm Up.

Being focused is to want something so much that when you initiate the attempt to get the thing, you unconsciously zone out everything that comes in the way of that attempt. I feel aggression is a part of this attempt. For me, and for a lot of people I have seen and met that talk about aggression, I feel that aggression is a tool to gain momentum on focus. In a lot of instances, aggression is taken to be something along the lines of being violent and physical fighting. But I am talking about being aggressive in a completely non violent and non physical manner. I want to explore this idea of being mentally aggressive.

Aggression is effective when I use it on my mind. I use aggression to force my mind off any doubts it has when I am trying to perform a task. I have to admit I don’t do this often and that I rarely consciously do it. There have been times when due to the luck factor, I have had absolutely no distractions in performing the task that I have been set to. When I look back on such cases, there is a hint of aggression somewhere in the picture, although it is a very faint hint.

The goal in any case, is to develop a way to consciously channel this aggression into each and every algorithm that is carried out by the mind, thereby optimizing output to the greatest degree possible. And I think there might be a way to do this, however, it’s always an experimental approach that may or may not work. I feel it is going to work.

When you are part of a team, or part of a scenario where your actions dictate reactions from other human beings, there is a chance that your mind will spend some of its resources to calculating those outside reactions; which is a very unnecessary expense. This takes a toll on your aggression and focus and sets the gears of your mind into an extra curricular activity that is in no way contributing towards the task. Therefore, when I am engaged in such a scenario, one way to optimization would be to mind my own quarters when I am actually doing activity related to the task. The team doesn’t want you to constantly keep performing the task or achieve the goal that you are there for. But for the fraction of the time that I spend time with the team that requires me to perform, I need to mind my quarters and not let the mind think of anything but me.

Mastering conversation and a thought on THOUGHT.

So we have been getting pretty abstract lately. It's fun to talk abstract. It's more fun, although to talk about real life, practical stuff that you know something about. There is only one problem with talking about practical life. The talk is very limited. I like to listen to the people in the group that are experts at carrying the party. I don't talk much unless I somehow feel the urge to say something. Ya know I'm sayin?! On a similar note, its interesting to listen to people who really know what they are talking about because of the fact that they have experienced what they are talking about. I have noticed that there are some people in this world who absolutely understand what they are talking about when they are engaged in an intelligent conversation. Such people speak in a very clear, pause-free speech. Yes, there could be grammatical mistakes here and there based on how much of the language you have been exposed to. But the important part is that their thought process is so clear that whatever they say comes out in an extremely professional manner no matter what the circumstance. This is because they have complete trust on their brain and their tongue. They know that whatever they are going to say is going to be right, and in some case if they are not on the spot accurate, they will still be able to comprehend that mistake and understand that they made the mistake and take measures to rectify it. Society, as they know it, is there to learn something from them and not to debate and prove them wrong at what they are going to say.

If one wants to achieve this ability of flawless conversation, one needs to be knowledgeable. This can be achieved by learning and experiencing. This is fairly easy to do in my opinion. You don't have to sweat and stress about reading books day and night to become a good speaker. You just need to realize your knowledge and not open your mouth when you do not have sufficient matter to converse about. For me, it's easy to think that when you talk, you are essentially teaching someone something that you know or what you think about that thing. In the same manner, when someone is talking and you are listening, he or she is teaching you something that you may or may not already know. I am not talking about general conversations between friends here. I am talking about those scenarios with either friends or adults or other groups that you interact with when you feel you don't know enough about the subject and feel guilty about it.

I think it's dangerous when you start thinking too much. From personal experience, I have noticed that I have best performed when my mind is purely following a rhythm it has been set in by practice. When you think, you try to find a new way. This is not bad, but when this new way is implemented on test day without practice, it can have inconsistent results. Inconsistency results in lack of ability to predict and this leads to lack of confidence which affects your physical performance thereby changing the visible image that you reflect in the eyes of society.

On the other side of the prism

I went on huge boat to good places. I went with 5 other friends and we all had fun.

Specimen A - Specimen possesses a conscious personality. This doesn't necassarily mean specimen is an introvert. Tests for friendly tolerance give positive results. Specimen is a law abider and will not step of bounds for anything illegal. Specimen intelligence level is above par. Welcomes all types of interaction. Specimen has a rigid thinking and thus is hard to be reasoned with in areas that don't follow specimen's preset plan. Specimen needs a solid plan.

Specimen B - Specimen is a conscious introvert. This doesn't mean specimen is not friendly. Specimen shows normal tolerance, however, this is not been tested significantly. Specimen shows indifference to stigma that don't catch or that even go against specimen's beliefs. Specimen seems to be slightly stimulated when ego is addressed. Specimen intelligence levels are above par. Specimen is reasonable and needs a solid plan as well.

Specimen C - Specimen is an aware extrovert. However, specimen shows positive results to emotional stimuli. Specimen knows the rules of society and follows book to a good extent. Specimen does not exhibit a very obligate behaviour to law as A, but follows law to a very good extent. Specimen is materialistic. Specimen shows a decent amount of rigidity in daily acitivity. Specimen intelligence levels are above par. Specimen is reasonable and possesses a solid plan.

Specimen D - Specimen is a conscious extrovert. Specimen takes minimal time to acclamate to new environments. Once adaptation has been achieved, specimen shows signs of conscious presence and conscious feedback. Specimen does not follow book very well. Specimen is one that learns by experience and adaptation. Specimen is egotistically tolerant. Specimen does show agitation at times of scarcity. Specimen is not very rigid in activity schedules. Specimen intelligence levels are above par. Specimen is very reasonable and needs a solid plan.

Specimen E - Specimen is an conscious introvert. Specimen exhibits a high degree of learned consciousness. Specimen depicts highest levels of social obligation and thus feels uncomfortable in a social setting especially amongst members possessing traditional authority. Specimen shows decent aggression. Specimen shows low levels of emotional indulgence. Specimen shows low levels of egotistic feedback. Specimen intelligence levels are above par. Specimen is very reasonable and is building a solid plan.

Specimen O - Specimen is a conscious introvert. Specimen is also a bad singer...........

तुझमे अगर प्यास है,
बारिश का घर भी पास है।
रोके तुझे कोई क्यों भला,
संग संग तेरे आकाश है।

तू धुप है,
छम से बिखर
तू है नदी,
ओ बेखबर

बह चल कहीं,
उद चल कहीं,
दिल खुश जहाँ
तेरी तो मंजिल है वहीं।