4/02/2009

A sudden night in Zephyr's life

Dear diary,
There is no greater experience in this world, not even love, but the feeling of that good old catharsis. However ineffable it might be, there is a certain elation associated while being liberated in the catharsis zone that is unmatched. Somehow that is why I think, fighting vehemently, staying away and then making up is this world's most underrated yet most significant bunch of emotions. Being a witness to such an event at close quarters is the only thing that probably can take you ever so closer to experiencing catharsis. As a person equally involved with the fighting parties, as a person who both of them feel one of them like a close confidante, as a person being able to say things that otherwise might be rejected as being "none of your business". This is what is catharsis, and I experienced it today. The elation and the smile that fills you up and suddenly revs up certain dead parts inside your existence is what it is. The thing with feeling so is that it also wells up inside feelings of being privileged, that inner smile that so often seems so rare in this world. That is what I experienced today. Seeing people handle themselves in a manner befitting much older, wiser and being able to say things to the same people and who take it with the real gusto of a well deserving human being is what is privilege, is what is catharsis.
I am feeling unusually happy and it seems that my elated heart is up there showing its entire countenance in my teeth and my brain, is something I have never seen, done before. So they say distance makes us appreciate those close to us, so does going away and coming back also achieves the same effect but the emotion build up is all the more stronger and all the more inhuman to witness if handled by such people.
Privilege! Catharsis! Amen!
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3/06/2009

Which comes first - conflict or cooperation ?

Inner ConflictsImage by Delphien Experiences via Flickr


Today has marked a day of twin importance - me crossing 100 posts and the other one, the more important one, having a long discussion with semi-drunks on Richard Dawkins, Selfish Gene, History, Into the wild and much more.
Of course its more of a given that the selfish gene operates at every level of human activity known till now. Its cause is more complicated by the most fundamental arguments of biology (and evolution) that the human end result (not death, though) is attributable to nature or nurture. So our discussion went on when we actually stumbled upon the problem of conflict versus cooperation. I am extremely aware of the fact that such topics of discussion laden with the nature versus nurture conflict raises a lot of pertinent points but the question that really stuck was that of primality.
Which comes first conflict or cooperation?
As I often experience, history and culture are the victims of causality. All sorts of improper causal relations have been sought to explain human character. So I thought whether such a causal relation exists between conflict and cooperation.
At the level of basic thought process, cooperation is fundamentally a more involving mental thought than conflict which is more of a natural process. Therefore, as plotted against the chart of evolution, the idea (here I mean even the basic notion of these two ideas) of conflict and cooperation require different kind of mental acumen. Cooperation, by its nature, requires two or more parties in a state of agreement that requires a mental and verbal (often) interchange of the tenets of working together. Cooperation bases itself on the recognition of the power imbalance and an effort to ameliorate that imbalance while conflict is only an exposure to this imbalance. As a primeval organism, cooperation must have evolved much after the first experience of conflict.
Furthermore its only after experiencing a conflict that the idea of cooperation must occur to any living and mental (not the exclusionary one) organism. Its just goes on to prove (again the influence of causality) that cooperation as a thought is not natural and a post facto concept. A real question to be asked here is that the existence of conflict (or even the visualisation of conflict) is necessary for the formulation of cooperation among such thinking animals. Prima facie a causal link exists on the basis of -
  1. Complexity of thought of the idea of cooperation as against conflict which is readily experience-able
  2. Experiential (imaginary) coexistence of conflict
  3. Requirement of a developed mental faculty
What do I think? Conflict comes first and then comes cooperation, a weak link exists. Am I right?



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3/05/2009

Linguistic overtures

Day 57 - On the Nature of LanguageImage by margolove via Flickr

D.H.Lawrence once said "trust the tale - not the teller". Well what can be more perfect because anyways all the great fiction writers in essence are magnanimous LIARS. Anyways coming back to the theme of this post of linguistic overtures, I ask you to look at the following very closely
WORDS
Now why these are so powerful so much so that people say "words once spoken can't be taken back" because in them they contain the proverbial
SWORD
On that note consider these words about writing which so mirror the feeling one gets while writing -
"Sitting alone in a room for hours while essentially talking in your head about people you made up earlier and then writing it down for no one you know does have many aspects which are not inherently fulfilling." - A.L.Kennedy
"Another reason is the professionalisation of the vocation so that the novelist is supposed to produce novels as naturally, automatically, and regularly as a cow gives milk." - Amit Chaudhuri
"Writing a novel is largely an exercise in psychological discipline – trying to balance your project on your chin while negotiating a minefield of depression and freak-out. Beginning is daunting; being in the middle makes you feel like Sisyphus; ending sometimes comes with the disappointment that this finite collection of words is all that remains of your infinitely rich idea." - Hari Kunzru
Finally
"Civilisation's greatest single invention is the sentence. In it, we can say anything." - John Banville

Do read this entirely for at least the writing pleasure
PS - 100th post calls for a celebration. I have evolved so would I like to claim, but no I still remain the same and raring to reach 200. This blog still remains largely a self-documentation project which I hope to continue. With that I wish "18 till I die" sine die.




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Thoughts

A dominant sign of human achievement -
Only in today's world could memories could mean two things

3/01/2009

Linguistic Overtures

macroImage by Μя.Ćăv㣣ǐ ™ via Flickr


The burden of
CREATION
is the fear and anxiety of
REACTION

2/22/2009

Linguistic overtures

What characterises the oppressive regimes of the world?
Try to
DEMAND
but you will be
DAMNED

1/21/2009

Even OUP makes mistakes

I just got to read a book long due - Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. I was browsing the table of contents and I saw a word - Foreward, a word that according to the best of my knowledge relates to a van.
I was immediately turned off, how could they do it. Foreward instead of Foreword. Such an insult, OUP. Coming from Oxford, not expected. Nevertheless I will read the book.

So I thought only us normal people make typos. Shame!!

1/20/2009

Linguistic overtures

I think I will keep this simple - Freudian Mistake -

Diss ID dent "versus" Diss ent

Dissent just missed an "ID" to become a dissident.