Life, Beauty, Soul, Context

Thought-provoking experiment and some profound observations by Washington Post.


Wonder why it reminds me of KM programs in organizations ;-) Do we always work out of context? How does one play music in such a way that passers-by change their priorities and stop and listen? Ha ha ha!

Quotes:

Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com

• In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
• The event had been described to him as a test of whether, in an incongruous context, ordinary people would recognize genius.
• IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?
• What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?
• At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.
• Context matters

• The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.
• Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.
• What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. -- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies
• This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.
• "Yeah, other people just were not getting it. It just wasn't registering. That was baffling to me."

Rabbits and Carrots

Super! Nothing left to say... :-)

A Single Story?

If there's only one thing you plan to do this entire week, then please watch this video. :-)


http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Same Choice, Same Results

A quote I'll always remember, though not verbatim, is Paulo Coelho's quote on how if we experience the same challenges and problems again and again in life, it means that we have not learnt our lesson.

Check out this excellent article from Daily OM: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2012/32081.html 

Repeated bouts of adversity are an unavoidable aspect of human existence. We battle against our inner struggles or outer world forces, and in many cases, we emerge on the opposite side of struggle stronger and better equipped to cope with the challenges yet to come. However, we can occasionally encounter trials that seem utterly hopeless. We strike at them with all of our creativity and perseverance, hoping desperately to bring about change, only to meet with the same results as always. Our first instinct in such situations is often to push harder against the seemingly immovable obstruction before us, assuming that this time we will be met with a different outcome. But staying power and stamina net us little when the same choices consistently garner the same results. A change in perspective, behavior, or response can do so much more to help us move past points where no amount of effort seems sufficient to overcome the difficulties before us. 

Whether our intention is to change ourselves or some element of the world around us, we cannot simply wish for transformation or hope that our lives will be altered through circumstance. If our patterns of thought and behavior remain unchanged, our lives will continue to unfold much as they have previously. Patterns in which fruitless efforts prevail can be overcome with self examination and courage. It is our bravery that allows us to question the choices we have made thus far and to channel our effort into innovation. Asking questions and making small adjustments to your thought processes and behaviors will help you discover what works, so you can leave that which does not work behind you. To break free from those unconscious patterns that have long held sway over your actions and reactions, you will likely have to challenge your assumptions on a most basic level. You must accept once and for all that your beliefs with regard to cause and effect may no longer be in accordance with your needs. 

Stagnation is often a sign that great changes are on the horizon. Courting the change you wish to see in yourself and in the world around you is a matter of acknowledging that only change begets change. The results you so ardently want to realize are well within the realm of possibility, and you need only step away from the well-worn circular path to explore the untried paths that lie beyond it. 

Our long vacation in the Troposphere: A perspective

Our long vacation in the Troposphere: A perspective


To be one with nature, to be friends with a four-legged creature, to read the best of literature, 


To connect with The Creative Power, to seek wisdom and humor, 


To tune into the divinity of music, to do that which makes us feel good and tick. 

Life as it is

Why does it take a lifetime to understand that if one wants to clean a ditch one needs to get used to the stink? If, on the other hand, one realizes that a ditch will always be a ditch, why can't one go away from it or breathe less of its air?

Saturday Stories

This is the story of a Cat, Cow and Horse that were good friends. One day, the Horse who happened to be slightly late in arriving at their regular hang-out found the Cat and Cow quarreling. The Cat was saying "Let's go to the Meow-ies!" and the Cow was saying "No, let's go to the Moo-vies!". The Horse flicked a speck of dust off his collar, snorted, shook his head and said "Let's go to the Ci-neigh-mas!!"


The dog that was sitting at the next table murmured, "Ensure you sit near the Woof-ers".

The Poem of the Phoenix

There are two ways to look at poetry. There are two ways to look at life. It must be a lie because the 'poet' *makes* it rhyme. It can't be anything but the truth because the rhyme somehow falls in place.


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Life is at the peak of confusion
Not when 'up' is followed by a 'down'
But when it blows both hot and cold
When one feels weak as well as bold


When nectar and poison are one
When soft and rough spoil the fun
When the child is both patted and hit
When the lamp is blown out immediately after being lit


When one reaches the mountain peak
And yet there are no traces of what one seeks
When the fire of life is doused out of sight
Just as it begins to burn bright


The words to repeat as always 
are Trust in God and hope of a divine blaze
The picture of a rising phoenix 
Shows silent strength and wipes off the jinx 

Happy New Year - 2012!

Happy New Year - 2012

1. Great message
2. Perfect illustrations 
3. Nice mix of quantitative and qualitative proof

Context Rules

When one doesn't take the complete context into consideration, nothing may make sense. Things may seem contradictory and illogical. Decisions and conclusions under such circumstances can and, most probably, will go wrong. I may enjoy watching a speeding car in a Formula 1 race, but not on a busy road. Logic is a function of the context (if there is such a thing as universal logic). Detectives probably crack the case more because of the clues that the context provides than because of those provided by the content. Right? Wrong?

Quotes

Here are four brilliant quotes that I came across recently and found to be thought-provoking. 


All cruelty springs from weakness. ~ Seneca


Notes: The next time you come across a person who seems to be cruel, see if you can possibly discover the weakness behind it...and address that!


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There is one path for the fleer, many for the seeker. - Marathi proverb


Notes: Seek. Seek. Seek. Never ever give up.

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Between what I think, 

What I want to say,

What I believe I’m saying,

What I say,

What you want to hear,

What you hear,

What you believe you understand,

What you want to understand,

And what you understood,

There are at least nine possibilities of misunderstanding.

- French Jurist Francois Garagnon




Notes: If we believe and understand this, we may trust more people around us.


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Thinkers 50

Vineet Nayar's "Employees First, Customers Second" philosophy has put him in the list of Top 50 Thinkers. Tom Peters, anyone? Sheena Iyengar (TED video on the dilemma of Choice) is the only Indian Woman in the list. 

Umair just about makes it at #49. Phew. Seth Godin, Gladwell, Marcus Buckingham, Rosabeth Kanter, Daniel Pink, Gary Hamel, Stephen Covey, Goleman and Nitin Nohria are all there. Ken Robinson is definitely there but I'd have expected him to be higher up the list.

Clayton M. Christensen is at #1 and, importantly enough, he is someone who talks about organizations' (single-minded?) pursuit of profits being not just the death of innovation but of the economy.


http://www.thinkers50.com/

Warning: A Wandering Mind

How does one deal with the paradox of “be yourself” and “adjust” (the famous term that used to be associated with Bangalore and its people before the former became a cosmopolitan city) at the same time? In the long run, is happiness a consequence of listening to your heart and doing things your way or “adjusting” with what is? What if the situation you are in involves entities outside of your well thought-out and deeply absorbed (or prejudiced) value-system or communication model or something else equally important? Is it okay to kill a little part of you – in a virtual sense - and adapt yourself to the situation while pretending to align with it even if you are not perhaps really doing so? Is it okay to live with the attitude that you may, after-all, change or things will change or, well, you can change things somewhere down the path? Does it make more sense to be practical and result-oriented rather than attach yourself to a subconsciously acquired (some of it may be natural, if genetic causes can be labeled as natural) value-system (or communication model or…..)? Or, more alarmingly, how do you know it is not your ego that wears a clever disguise and convinces you to be the way you are?

An episode involving the ethics of a social worker triggered me off to muse about the identity of the so-called “truth” and the validity of a black and white world as opposed to a grayish world. I then attempted to see it from the perspective of the Mahabharatha, when a brave woman I know responded and declared that Sri Krishna may have won the war for the Pandavas by deceit but he achieved his goal (justifiable to some and not so justifiable to others) he set out to achieve and that is all, perhaps, that mattered. Outsiders, she said, only watch and debate his methods. How do you blend your thinking and action? If Sri Krishna is the answer to today’s ruthless, ambiguous and vague world, then what is the importance of the unquestioned obedience and love that Lord Rama is identified with? Go ahead. Share your wisdom. Some of you are capable of running a correspondence course on the human psychology in the context of relationships/communities, like the Master might say! ;-)  

KM Asia 2011

Here is a very high-level mind-map of the recently conducted KM Asia 2011 Conference. Please note that this is only a bird's eye-view of the proceedings. You can look up the #kmasia11 hash-tag in Twitter for more details, ideas and thoughts from the conference attendees. 

The Living Root Bridges of Meghalaya

Ingenious. Inspiring. Brilliant. And a superbly shot video too.

Take a look at this video. It is the story of how people in the rural areas of Meghalaya, in India, connect and interact with nature and build natural bridges made out of tree roots! Reminds one of the blockbuster movie, Avatar. The video shows how an old man shares his knowledge of how these bridges are built with his grand-daughter. Someone from the source network said - very beautifully - in response to this video, "The joy of sharing the knowledge is its own reward".

More Information:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035520/Meghalaya-villagers-create-living-bridges-training-roots-river.html

http://rootbridges.blogspot.com/

http://chrisgagne.com/541/the-root-bridges-of-meghalaya/

Mixed

Some inspiration that I thought I would share:


Two great quotes that I came across today:


"Nothing is interesting if you're not interested." ~ Helen MacInness


Brilliant! Not something that many people understand or agree with, however true it is. I wish I'd known this quote a year ago. Could have probably used it to my advantage :-)


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This was in one of the responses, in Quora, to a question on God's invisibility: Read the full set of answers here, in case you're interested. 

The worst kind of leader is one who is despised and defied. 

Next is the one who is feared and obeyed.

Then the one loved and praised.

But the best kind of leader is the one whose existence is doubted,

who accomplishes all things, and the people say, "I have done it myself."

-- Tao Te Ching


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Moving on to less philosophical things, here's a nice set of slides on Social Media Strategy by @zaana. She has done a great job of collating data and ideas on the topic, with some cool pictures too


http://www.slideshare.net/zaana/strategically-social-plan-engage-act 


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Finally, I loved this article on the two flavors of passion for work - harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Via @gautamghosh


http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/why_your_passion_for_work_coul.html


In other words, I think it is all boils down to the philosophy of being engaged in work for inner happiness and yet being detached enough to pay attention to other dimensions of life. 

Think Different Advt - Steve Jobs

Serenity

Just reading these Buddhist tenets makes me feel serene. Following these, however, I know will require herculean effort and infinite faith.

1. Bao Yen Hsin: The willingness to accept, without complaining, suffering and unhappiness because you understand it is your own karma.
2. Sui Yen Hsin: Understanding that all situations are the consequences of karmic causes, and therefore, you maintain equanimity in all circumstances, both negative and positive.
3. Tsung Fa Hsin: Realizing through practice the essence of your Buddha Nature, which is equanimity.

Source: http://sped2work.tripod.com/bdharma.html 

Facts

I found this interesting and thoughtful set of quotes on the significance of facts.

“If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.” -  Albert Einstein 


“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.” -  Mark Twain


“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” -  Charles R. Swindoll 

 
“There are no eternal facts as there are no eternal truths” - Friedrich Nietzsche 


“If the dream is big enough the facts don't matter” -  Dexter Yager



“I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts” -  Mark Twain


“In the wild struggle for existance, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.” -  Oscar Wilde


“It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts…it is to teach them to think.” -  Robert M. Hutchins


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Isn't it ironic that the most opinionated people are the ones that think they are armed with all the facts, A to Z? Sometimes, reading (and remembering) a lot leaves one with a fixed mindset rather than an open mind.