Wednesday, 20. August 2008, 01:58:27
My Random thoughts
Well last week I was in Hyderabad and I was sick with flu and a bad throat due to the screwed up weather there. It was raining for a couple of days and the roads were like swimming pool and pot holes everywhere. I was in the City Civil Court filing our Injunction and Appeal and the courts there are like the street bazaar. I came back with 10 kg overweight and I had to pay for the extra luggage.
Back in office and yesterday I had a maraton meeting from morning until evening. Well I was appointed as a director for one of our subsidiary company. God only knows what is in store for me. Anyway there seems to be a power struggle in my company and I hope I don't get caught in the middle.
So I am guessing that the storm has just started and either I pass through it or sink with it.
Monday, 18. August 2008, 23:20:03
Quotes of the week
"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart." --Jonathan Swift
"With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing." --Catherine de Hueck
"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies
opportunity." --Albert Einstein
Sunday, 17. August 2008, 01:29:05
My Philosophy
Paulo Coelho
ALL THE energy of thinking is eventually shown in the nib of a pen. Periods of inactivity are necessary — a pen that is always writing ends up losing the awareness of what it is doing. So let it rest whenever possible, and concern yourself with living and meeting your friends. When you return to the business of writing, you will find a happy pen with all its strength intact. Pens have no conscience: They are an extension of the writer’s hand and desire. They serve to destroy reputations, make us dream, send news, trace pretty words of love. So, always be clear about your intentions.
The hand is where all the muscles of the body, all the intentions of the person writing, all the effort to share what he feels, are concentrated. It is not just a part of his arm but also an extension of his thought. Hold your pen with the same respect that a violinist has for his instrument. THE WORD: The word is the final intention of someone who wishes to share something with his neighbour. William Blake said: All that we write is the fruit of memory or the unknown. If I can make a suggestion, respect the unknown and look there for your source of inspiration. The stories and facts remain the same, but when you open a door in your unconscious and let your self be led by inspiration you will see that the way to describe what you have lived or dreamt is always far richer when your unconscious is guiding the pen. Every word leaves a memory in your heart — and it the sum of these memories that form sentences, paragraphs, books. Sentences do not hesitate in changing course when they make a discovery, when they spot a better opportunity. Words have the same quality as water: they go around rocks and adapt to the riverbed, sometimes turning into a lake until the depression has filled up and they can continue their journey. Because when words are written with feelings and the soul, they do not forget that their destination is the ocean of a text, and that sooner or later they have to arrive there.
Translated by JAMES MULHOLLAND
This article was taken from Deccan Chronicle dated 17.08.08
Friday, 15. August 2008, 13:04:50
1st Anniversary at Opera, My Random thoughts
Yes it has been one long and colorful year for me blogging at Opera though I have to admit lately I have been playing truant. Been spending more time at my other blogs but never the less, I still do check and also update from time to time. It so happened that I was checking my blog just now and (coincidentally I am in Hyderabad at the moment, flying off home tonight) I noticed that today is my 1st Anniversary. So I told myself that I have to blog on it (like all bloggers who will find any excuse to blog). It is also India's Independence day and if I am not mistaken a year back I must been bored stiff on this holiday and hence started to blog on Opera. No I shouldn't be harsh with my excuse to blog, do I?
Over the years I have met quite a few friends online and it really helped me speed up my stay here in Hyderabad. Now that I am based in Kuala Lumpur at home, I hardly find time and also ideas to blog. By the time I get back home, I am really brain dead with the hectic work load and family obligation.
So my friends, if you are still here, do drop in and wish a happy 1st Anniversary.
Love
sukku
Monday, 11. August 2008, 17:14:51
My Quotes
"True happiness... arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self."
Joseph Addison
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."
Ayn Rand
"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
Martin Luther King
Wednesday, 6. August 2008, 13:26:26
My Philosophy
Saturday, 26. July 2008, 07:50:52
My work
Well this is my new worksite, been busy everysince I came back to Kuala Lumpur. I am in charge of the construction work of the superlink houses and I am rushing to get it delivered as it is delayed.
How does the houses look? Wanna buy an unit? Too late as all the units are sold out.
Monday, 21. July 2008, 13:22:08
Quote of the week
"The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which comes with a sort of mastery." --Janet Erskine Stuart
"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." --James Allen
"Children need models rather than critics." --Joseph Joubert
Sunday, 20. July 2008, 14:09:59
My Sunday Reading
Compelling anecdotal evidence of life after death comes in the form of messages from deceased loved ones, feels Stephen Wagner
Messages from the “other side” are most often words of comfort for the living, that they are okay and are still watching out for us. In the most interesting cases, however, those who have passed on communicate messages that are not only highly personal, but are of particular significance, important – even life saving. Here are some of those stories:
Mom’s voice
It was an otherwise ordinary night in August of 1975 when 18-year-old Kris was taking her clothes to the laundromat behind the restaurant where she worked. She put the clothes in the washer and headed back to the restaurant to help her boyfriend, who was a cook there, close up the place. While walking to the back entrance, Kris’s attention was grabbed be a nondescript goldcoloured car, although she didn’t know why. She started to walk to the front of the kitchen area, then decided against it and simply leaned against a door area where she could not be seen from the front. Suddenly, it became quiet. “I started to take a step when I heard my mom’s voice, as though she were standing there say, ‘Kris, don’t move!’” Fortunately, Kris listened. Then one of the waitresses came screaming to the back and grabbed the phone to call the police. The restaurant had just been robbed at gunpoint! “Had I walked into view of the doorway,” Kris says, “I would have seen my boyfriend lying face down on the floor, the waitress and the few customers on their knees – and I would have been directly behind the gunman, who was so nervous I probably would have been shot when I startled him.”
Grandfather’s gift
April had always been very close to her great-grandfather, who was a highly-respected baker and decorator of wedding cakes. When he died, April was heartbroken. A few weeks later, she was awakened from a sound sleep. She noticed something out of the corner of her eye. “I turned to look at the hall leading to my room. There was my great-grandfather standing there with another being. He just looked at me, raised his hand and lowered it back to his side slowly while saying, ‘Everything will be okay. I’ll always be with you’.” April was told to lie down and go back to sleep. “Ever since, I have been able to decorate and make any type of dessert – exactly the way he did. Before that, I had never even tried to ice a cake.”
Brotherly ties
One night in June, 1942, George D had a conversation with his brother that he could not explain. His brother, you see, was not there. He was flying bombers out of Trinidad, on a mission to destroy German submarines. “He told me he was going on a long trip and would not return,” George says. “I asked if I could go with him and he said not for a long time.” When George told his mother and sister about this impossible conversation, they dismissed it as a dream. Several days later, George’s family received the official notification that his brother died in a plane crash on 7 June, 1942. “Many years later, I was wounded and delirious during WW2,” George says. “When admitted for medical care, I could only remember my brother's name, serial number and military organisation identification. I am still waiting for my brother's permission to go on his long trip.”
Father’s important advice
“I was in a car accident in December, 1985,” says L Young, and although she was taken to the emergency room, she was not seriously hurt. Because the ER was so overcrowded, L was not able to get X-rays taken that day, but promised the doctor she would return the following day to have some tests done. That night, however, she received an important message from beyond. “My father had passed away the previous January,” L says, “but he visited me that night. He stood at the end of my bed, dressed in his work clothes and work boots. He asked me to come downstairs so we could talk and not disturb my husband. I went.” L to this day is still not sure if this was a dream. “We hugged, and he told me to forego the X-rays the following day because I was pregnant, and that he was so happy that I would be giving him his first grandson. He told me to make sure that I told ‘Kitten’ that he loved her. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I agreed. Our conversation finally ended when my husband came and asked me who I was talking to. My father disappeared.” L went back to bed. The next day, she told her mother about this remarkable experience. “She admitted that my father called her ‘Kitten’ when they made love – something that I could not have known.” The next day, L went to the hospital for X-rays, but first asked to be tested to see if she was pregnant. She was only three days pregnant then!
Dad leaves a note
One September morning in 1999, Clair was surprised to find a message written on a little notepad stuck on her refrigerator. It said, “Rise and shine, Claire.” She swears the note was in her father’s handwriting who had died two years earlier, and she knows the notepad was blank when she went to bed the night before. “I know it wasn’t faked,” Clair says, “because he had something called benign familial tremor, so his writing was really shaky.” Clair’s two daughters also denied any joke on their part. What’s more, the message was personal. “It was something he always said to me when it was time for me to go to high school some 30 years ago. I can’t explain it but I think it really is great that my father hasn't forgotten me!”
Play it again, grandma
Diane was of high school age when she received a remarkable message from her grandma. It was a Friday and whole family was at the high school game, as her brother was playing in it. “I had been grounded for some reasons I can’t remember now,” Diane says. Her grandmother had passed away about two years earlier. And she was the only one in the family who could play the piano, which was kept in the basement. “I only ever heard her play two songs,” says Diane. “One was The Third Man Theme.” “I had been watching TV, and all of a sudden I heard The Third Man Theme coming up from the basement. I was scared to death. I will never forget it!”
(Stephen Wagner is a paranormal researcher and author)
This is taken from Sunday Times Hyderabad 20.07.2008 Edition.
Sunday, 13. July 2008, 10:12:29
My Sunday Reading
There are enough scientific studies to show that moral law is inborn in humans, not God-given, writes David E Comings
The idea that man needs God to tell us how to behave morally, to be kind and thoughtful towards our fellow man, to aid others without any promise of benefit to ourselves, is a central tenet of most religions. To emphasize the point, we are told that if we do not obey God’s moral law, we will spend an eternity in hell while if we do obey the moral code, we will spend an eternity of bliss in heaven.
Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health is the head of the Human Genome Project responsible for sequencing the three billion base pairs of the human genome. In 2007, this eminent scientist wrote a book titled ‘The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief ’. He recounts that in his early years as a scientist, he was an atheist but one day, he had an epiphany and came to believe that man could not be a moral animal without the aid of a god given moral law. As a result of this realization, he became of person of faith.
This epiphany blew me away because although he was a geneticist, he found the extensive genetic evidence that altruism was an inborn genetic trait unconvincing. He also believed that while the development of all other living organisms on earth was the result of Darwinian evolution, the evolution of man was special and was guided by the hand of God.
Surveys have shown that most scientists, especially those in the field of the biological and genetic sciences, are non-theists, partly because they so strongly believe that Darwinian evolution was responsible for the origin of the species, including man. As a fellow geneticist, I was surprised that this eminent scientist was both disavowing the decades of research into the genetics of altruism and proposing that humans were so unique that God was required to guide the evolution of humans. This was uncomfortably close to the tenants of the Intelligent Design creationists.
I wish to just address the issue of altruism as an inborn genetic trait. Altruism is defined as aiding another individual while incurring personal costs to oneself. For example, if I jump into a raging river to save my son from drowning, I place myself at risk of drowning. This behaviour of being kind and helpful to others is a central tenet to of Christian thought, the golden rule, consisting of treating others, as you would like to be treated.
One of the best examples of altruism in the animal kingdom is the behaviour of sterile worker honeybees who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the queen bee. Darwin was quite concerned about altruism, fearing that it seemed to directly contradict his theory of survival of the fittest, thus allowing better genes to be passed on to the next generation. Worker bees are sterile and thus, derive no direct benefit for their altruistic acts and cannot pass on their genes. Darwin’s solution to this apparent contradiction of this theory was to suggest that the survival benefit did not always have to apply to the individual — it could also apply to the relatives of the individual. Thus, a sterile worker bee helping the queen to survive would help guarantee the preservation of the genes of the whole family. This became known as the ‘kin selection’ theory. As if his general theory of the evolution of the species were not enough of a problem for religions to swallow, Darwin was now suggesting that selfsacrificial behaviour, generally considered only to be within the purview of religion, was also biologically controlled and could occur in animals was well as humans.
The controversial issues of the genetics and evolution of altruism were addressed by some of the most brilliant and famous mathematical geneticists of the 20th century, including JBS Haldane, Ronald Fisher and Sewell Wright. Wright provided the field of population genetics with the term r, referring to the degree of genetic relatedness between relatives. For example, fathers and sons and brothers and sisters share half of their genes in common producing an r = 1/2. Grandfathers and grandchildren share 1/4 of their genes in common producing an r = 1/4.
However, it was a naturalist and student of economics, William Hamilton, who in 1963 published the equation that provided a framework for understanding the genetics and evolution of altruism. Hamilton was both a naturalist and a student of economics. The latter provided him with an appreciation of cost-benefit analysis. Hamilton’s famous equation was r x b > c, where b is the benefit accrued by the relatives for an altruistic act and c is the cost of the altruistic act. Thus, if a father saved his son from drowning, the odds that his son would be saved (benefit) must be twice the odds that the father would drown (cost) for the altruistic act to genetically benefit the family. The rearranged equation would be b > 2c (the benefit must be greater than twice the cost).
Inherent in the equation is the fact that the closer the relationship between the individuals involved in the altruistic act, the higher the r, and thus the greater the benefit to the family. This process that Hamilton defined mathematically was termed “kin selection” for its implications for evolution and natural selection. Examples of altruistic behaviour adhering to Hamilton’s equation have been described in a wide range of animals including mammals.
Subsequent work involving the concepts of reputation and punishment in societies has expanded the role of altruism in humans to include unrelated individuals in both small and large groups. These studies suggest a selective advantage for altruism involving not only small kinships, but also larger societal groups. Brain imaging studies indicate that cooperative behaviours that benefit the group, can activate pleasurable reward pathways, thus making altruism a pleasurable act.
Combined, the aggregate of these studies suggests that man is a moral and mutually cooperating animal not because God dictated the laws of moral behaviour, but because the genes for such behaviour were selected for and evolved over time. These behaviours were advantageous to early societal groups and individuals and groups displaying such behaviours were more likely to survive than those who did not. Moral law is inborn, not God given.
(David E Comings, author of Did Man Create God?, is a physician, human geneticist and neuroscientist)
This article is taken from Sunday Times Hyderabad Edition dated 13.07.2008
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