Why you have to write and proceed for a fruitful life

7 Years is a long time period in the life of a dog or cat, but for a human being it is a medium term period. The period I lost in between.This blog has been dormant for almost 7 years now.

The 7 years of my life has not been lost, but when I look back at those years,some time could have been spent on writing mindblogger, it would have been fruitful. Some signs say : Stop and proceed, I stopped but didn’t proceed.

I am an ardent reader, but my interests are not constant. At one period of time I maybe reading a classic, soon my interests turn to self improvement, philosophy, stock trading and so on. I am a drifter as some people may call it. Drifting through emotions, though periods of relative dryness, happiness, sadness, elation.

You can see many instances where people draw ideas and inspirations from thin air. Some desires love to go into hibernation, but those desires would still burn deep inside you, waiting for the right time to come out. My desire to write has been inside me, waiting for a spark.  The spark has become a wildfire now and I cannot withhold my yearning to write.

People have different motivations for performing certain tasks. Some people work for money, earning tons of money maybe their motivation. Even a selfless aid worker may have a motive of being appreciated. A writers motivation is readers.The desire to be heard, to be read and commented on. A writer has to write his hearts content, not some manufactured stuff. There is no pointing writing about the stuff you don’t love.

As the years went by, we have changed a lot. Now we have the most modern gadgets in our hands. Facebook has conquered the social media. I have read some very good articles on facebook . Writing on social media is the way forward, but the problem lies in the reach of the posts. On wordpress and other blog platforms your articles will be read by an interested person on the subject. Social media posts with the share option will spread like wildfire, bringing in all the rubble of the society, who have no idea about what you have written about.So I will stick to the time tested writing medium, and will blog on.

Penning down your thoughts can have many benefits. You maybe reading a lot, but writing a blog will help you have memories. I like to have my memories back….

The Pathology behind a criminal mind.

How do criminals and saints evolve?If you cannot blame a person  for his misdeeds  or praise a person for his accomplishments what is the point in living a life?These were some of the questions which perplexed my mind for quite a long time.“No one is born as a criminal or as a saint”,this is a proverb which has been repeated over ages. Does this  have any meaning, if it has a meaning how can we deduce the outcome from this sentence?

Now I have got the answer to this question, and it is really interesting.To understand more of this complex phenomenon we have to go through some simple reasoning.

Difference between a smoker and non smoker

Do you know the difference between a smoker and a non smoker? The difference between them started from the common dilemma they had. The common point connecting them is that at some point in their life, they faced the same dilemma, Should I smoke?.Those who decided to go with their desire became smokers and others non smokers.Non smokers can be of two types, either they  had a very strong will or they were having a really indecisive mind.Their indecisive mind would have prolonged their desire to smoke from time to time, and they could never muster the courage to indulge in smoking, for the fear of being caught red handed.The decisions of smokers would have been affected by a lot of external factors like friend circle and state of mind.Many chain smokers would have been smoke haters if they had escaped that fateful moment, the day of first puff! Once they took the first puff, the big wall which separated them from the wretched smokers had crumbled. Now the greatest barrier which held this man from smoking had been broken,his inhibition has blown away.Once the barrier has been overcome there is no looking back.The first few days would be filled with fear and guilt but soon it will disappear.

The story of the smoker holds true for every other vice in life.If you ask a chronic alcoholic, he will talk about his first drink.Ask a person who indulges in multiple sexual relationships, he will talk about his first encounter and represent it as his stepping stone to success.

If you ask a smoker who quit,”How did you manage to quit smoking?” He will say that his courage to withhold his first puff held him for so long.Had he taken the first puff, his motivating factor would have disappeared and he would have fell into his old vice again.

The Principle of reward and punishment

The principle of all this lies in the reward -punishment system which controls  of our actions.When your actions are rewarded you are most likely to do it again,whereas if you are punished, you are less likely to perform this act.

How one becomes a criminal.

When you are about to indulge in an act which is widely perceived to be a taboo,conversation within your mind goes like this:

” This is a very bad act, I shouldn’t perform it.”

” Why shouldn’t I, most of my friends and a lot of others do it.”

“I shouldn’t do this because I have some moral values.”

This inner conversation may go on for a few hours or may stretch  even to several days.Suddenly you gather all your courage to beat your conscience and do the act.You fell guilty and miserable for a few hours.Eventually the guilt wanes, and when your next chance to perform the forbidden act comes, the inhibition will be much less.After a few days you will be performing this activity daily and can feel normal.This is how criminal minds work, they all faced the dilemma, their inhibition is now gone, they live the life which is  normal in their own perspective.When they see blood or when they rape, they see it as a system which rewards them for their act.

Now consider a scenario, when you were caught red handed in your first act itself.The chances of you performing the act again will be much less, unless you are a very stubborn person.If this punishment happens the earlier, the better.As time goes by the role of punishment in reversing the act declines.Like a child who fears the cane of his teacher,every man fears the long arm of the law. As the child grows up his fear for the cane declines and eventually disappear,same in the case of a criminal facing the law for the first time and the tenth time!This is the role punishment has in our day today lives.

How to live a successful life in your own standards.

So if you are a person having clear ideals,you can lead a life you wanted to live by holding back your desire, don’t break the barrier you set for yourself.Remember this a person who is having a bad habit for quite a long time, he may not have any guilt. He or she  sees the act as quite normal,just like a prostitute who lost her inhibition after quite a long time of indulgence, they may invite you.So keep your virginity in matters you consider as a taboo. This is how you can lead a successful life in your own standards!

P.S Indeed there are born criminals, having defects in their chromosomes, highly aggressive people. But those anomalies are only a few in millions.This post is all about choices we made in our life.

How views of others influence our thoughts and actions

”   Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny”

Lao Tze

I came across this quote while surfing through stateofmindz blog. Reading this quote was like discovering something which I knew from my day today experience. The quote in itself conveys great ideas but there was something missing,Something I had been searching for such a long time.Now I have the answer to what I was searching, I had something to add to the quote.

Another version of this quote can be read as:

“Thoughts of others become their words
Their words influence our thought
These thoughts influence our words
These words influence a lot of others”

Haven’t you noticed how the thoughts and actions of others influence our behavior? When we hear an opinion on a subject, which we never thought of before, it becomes our opinion. So when someone else talks on this subject we too give an opinion, the other person’s version( The first person who talked on this subject). If the first person who talked to us on the subject was having some vested interest, and if we believed his opinion without doing any research a lot of others are going to be doomed. This is how the train of thought travels.

This type of thought manipulation occurs all the time and we are not even aware of this. When a friend talks about a movie and presents his opinion,” Man, that movie was wonderful” just because he is the greatest fan of the hero, who infact did a very bad job, our thoughts too become just like his. When someone else asks, we may just say, “It is a wonderful movie”.Thought manipulation of this form may be harmless, but when it comes to more  serious subjects it becomes detrimental.

Political views,views on love, family integrity, honour and a lot of others subjects are most prone to thought manipulation.

A friend of mine and I had this interesting talk on love vs arranged marriage. He was a person who had his love crushed by his parents, and his views were really changed this time. He said” Love marriage is like poorly planned robbery”. I had no opinion regarding this subject and the thought became deep rooted in my mind. So next time the subject came up, even though I had no clear idea, I gave away my opinion” Love marriage is like a poorly planned robbery”, it immediately got a great deal of attention. What I did was just absurd, now not only me but a lot of other people were having this belief. The only way we can get out of this type of manipulation is by doing a study on the subject, or by asking someone who was a master on this subject. So what I did next was, I asked another friend of mine who was leading a married life with his long time lover. This person had another version for me  “Living with a known devil, is much better than living with an unknown one”. Man, these guys have a hell lot of ideas! This time I am not going to be tricked, I will believe when I have an experience, when I understand really what I am thinking about or going to talk about.

If we don’t pay enough attention in this regard, there is high chance that our views will be biased on any subject we are not proficient enough to give an opinion.

Machiavellianism and Political Philosophy

I heard the word Machiavelli while watching the film Find Me guilty, lead role of Jackie Dinorcio played by Vin Diesel. The word Machiavelli was used in the film, to potray the dirty tactics used by the mafia members in America during the period. When I searched for the word Machiavelli in wikipedia, it turned out to be a lot more interesting.

Machiavelli has his own ideas about power, how to attain power and how to maintain it. Though many moderates may find Machiavelli’s principles a bit crude, the tactics were apt for gaining power during his era.His surname yielded the modern political word Machiavellianism—the use of cunning and deceitful tactics in politics.Though the word Machiavellianism may not be used in our day today lives, we come across several examples in the newspapers. Indian political leaders though they may have never heard of Machiavelli are using his tactics to hold on to power.

In a letter to Francesco Vettori, he described his exile:

“When evening comes, I return home [from work and from the local tavern] and go to my study. On the threshold, I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty work day clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and, in this graver dress, I enter the courts of the ancients, and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world”.

Machiavelli studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. To an extent he admits that the old tradition was true – men are obliged to live virtuously as according to Aristotles Virtue Ethics principle. However, he denies that living virtuously necessarily leads to happiness. Machiavelli viewed misery as one of the vices that enables a prince to rule Machiavelli states boldly in The Prince, The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. In much of Machiavelli’s work, it seems that the ruler must adopt unsavory policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime.

Our leaders who make us feel miserable, have some of the traits of Machiavelii in them, they make us feel powerless, insecure just to continue their reign. Time has come for people to wake up and join hands, to save our world from modern Machiavelli’s.