Sharper AI wit and duller human brains

 

In an automated and mechanized world it’s not about good and bad; it’s primarily about good, better and best—strictly in terms of numbers. The entire moral façade crumbles and the vast potential of our fabulous brain is as much within the reach of the evil as it’s available for the good. With the equation of good and bad sidelined, the human race enters a hazardous zone. The quest for betterment, for more efficiency bypasses the check-dams of morality and ethics. It’s a blind race for achieving more and more material gains at any cost. When there is no consideration for the costs that we have to pay, we naturally cross the balance sheet. We then beat even the nature in hatching disasters and hazards.

We fly too high in the eternal quest for more and more conveniences and better and better products. In the unrelenting quest we burn our wings and fall down. The unreined and unchecked impulse to go for betterment in every sphere of life churns out such models of production and social norms that come with open-ended potential. These seem to facilitate a process but carry an equal amount of potential for multiple adverse effects that require solutions. For example, artificial intelligence will of course churn out interesting and more and more media content, but it will put challenges in the form of manipulated synthetic media content and deepfakes. For the latter we need more and more technologies to manage the fallouts. After a time, it becomes very difficult to tell whether we are creating more problems or solutions. The confusion results in a melee. Just mere exhaustion and tiredness born of the relentless march makes us believe that we are progressing. While in reality we are simply throwing arms in darkness, caught in the web of our creation, like an over-smart spider spinning a castle of web and then forgetting the way out.

Imperilled democracies

 Capitalism was one of the hands -- that too indirectly -- which pulled the strings of the puppet of democracy. Of late capitalists have begun to pull the strings -- directly. Individual powerful capitalists now are a parallel force in the world's largest and strongest democracies. Democracy is now more or less capitalist democracy. Well, when the entire world becomes a bazaar, and tariffs and profiteering become the geostrategic forces, the world will have major upheavals. Other democracies will be stretched thin in the wake of this reshaping of the two major democracies: India and the USA. Against this background, communist capitalism will be viewed in new light. It might be viewed as far more normal than it has been so far by the world outside the iron curtain. It will no longer be an anathema merely on ideological ground. Democracies will possibly lose the high moral platform from where they have been taking potshots at the communist China. There will be more practical judgment of China and its system of governance. Basically the greed for power, money and authority carries the same muscles, bones and tissues under the varying skins of political ideologies and systems.

Now the sun of blind profiteering will tan all types of skins in the same colour. 

We get bored with what we have possessed for a long time. So don't get too surprised if the equations get reversed in future: democracies taking to communism and communists trying democracy. 😀

Honoring the dynamics of life in others

 

There is an age-old proverb in the villages. Making a child laugh and playful might not earn you a good name, but if she cries while under your care, it will surely earn you a bad name. Negative experiences leave a far bigger impact on us than the positive ones. One sour word very easily undoes the sweetness of hundreds of beautiful words. This proclivity to lock the ‘negative’ in our mind while filtering out hundreds of ‘positives’ is the cause of strife, tension, anxiety and discomfort within. It also very easily sours relationships.

We simply judge people for the ‘exceptions’ in their behavior, ignoring the common ‘mundanities’ of their demeanor. We simply catch the black dot on the otherwise white board. It even seems that we are operating as watchdogs looking and sniffing for the chinks in the walls. I sometimes wonder whether we are actually companions while walking with someone or are we spies going with a mission to catch the other person on the wrong foot. No wonder we feel so vulnerable and insecure most of the time. A spy on a secretive mission will of course be on his toes and full of tension.

It becomes so easy to blame others for all the problems in our lives. But why would we always go searching for the tiny black dot on a white canvas? Why would we simply forget the rest of the white sheet? We are always looking, peeking, searching for those chinks in the armor. It just shows how insecure we are. What breeds this insecurity? It’s caused by the conflicts squirming inside us: the friction caused by our quest for the eternal ease of ‘being’ and the poor ‘becoming’ that we are molded into by conditioning, roles, stereotypes, expectations.

Most of the time we are self-charged on the grand mission of aggravating our own miseries. We are suitably helped all along by our ability to hold onto the master illusion that others are responsible for all the shit flying around in our lives.

We are always pulled in two directions. Then we get scared. We are a scared species. We put the blame on others in order to somehow clear our guilt for not being what we are supposed to be. To have that conflict-free ease of being, we have to learn to retain our vision spread out to still see the surrounding white even though the black dots appear here and there. We have to accept and view situations and people in totality. We have to accept this law that an all-white scenario is impossible to sustain as per the laws of nature. It’s a dynamic canvas. Things and people change and shift in shape, size and color. They aren’t stones that they will retain the same appearance. They aren’t dead. They too are evolving and growing, shifting and changing as much as we are doing the same.

It’s very easy to theoretically discuss, write and understand this fact. But it’s very difficult to bring it into practice. Anything that requires rewiring the habitual network needs a regular exercise. So we can remind ourselves regularly that people aren’t stone idols cast in the mold of our expectations. They are an evolving life. They will grow and change and come out of the mold we have created for them to fit our needs and desires. Accept this fluidity and sanctity of change in a living form and most of the judgments will drop of their own. We then accept the black dots on a white canvas.

 

The flow of life

 

Making love, a mere repetition; falling in love, a mere repetition; falling out of love, a mere repetition; doing this, a mere repetition; doing that, a mere repetition. I think we are creatures of repetition. And repetition is primarily born of habits. So most of the things we do are the results of habits. Why do we form habits? Possibly because we feel safe. And why do we crave to be safe? Maybe because we have fears. Well, then even fear might be a habit of the mind.

The moment we allow ourselves to be driven by the habits, we limit ourselves to a customized social unit, for our own safety. The society too feels safe when it sees fine creatures of habit swarming around. Habits define a safe zone around us. They breed convenience and that’s why we hanker after them. They define and limit us and give us a false promise that we will be happy in that little zone. But very soon we find that the happiness born of mere conveniences hardly brings juice and joy to life. It’s dry. We still feel something is missing even though we adopt more and more habits to erect sounder structures of safety around us.

The human spirit wants to fly and habits are the chains. It wants to be free. But habits hold it back. When we set out to chart out our own path, we have to break the mold of habits. Habits clip our wings. They condition us, limit our potential. We have to do everything in a way that it doesn’t turn a habit. Then whatever we do is an ode to the present. It’s open ended and creative in nature. We create and move on. The past doesn’t drag us. The future doesn’t make false promises. We flow. We fly. We live.

The spiritual passion of Tibetan Buddhists

 Tibetan Buddhism is one of the most pristinely preserved belief systems. There was a time when every Tibetan family had a full monk or nun devoted to keep the lineage going. Tibet had more monks than soldiers. Imagine the spiritual depth of this vast land during those times. Then tragedy struck. Atheist China puts a big challenge for the Tibetans to preserve their unique culture and religion. Scattered over different countries in tiny communities, Tibetans still hold onto their faith with devotional perseverance. 

I know a few lovely Tibetan Buddhist sadhaks, one of them a deeply spiritually imbued woman sadhak. A good friend.  She was out of radar for three years and I was worried about her...today it came as a relief to know that she was ok...she was in a remote cave in a totally uninhabited part of Ladhak...she carried all her basic provisions on 6 pack horses and trekked for one full day to reach this cave...and meditated here for three years, in complete isolation...I am amazed at the spiritual passion of Tibetan Buddhists to maintain their legacy 😮 it's a vast domain of asoteric, mystical practices. I myself don't believe in extreme austerity on the path of religion and believe in Buddha's middle path, but I respect such honest seeking from someone on the path of realising the true Self. This is the view from her spiritual hideout somewhere in Zanskar, Ladhak.