Humans and AI

 

Be ashamed to die!

 

Helping while people are alive

 

Jibran on Love

 

Elites, Poor and sharing

(Shared by a professor of pharmacology in one of the Grand Rounds)

"One life lesson I learned from the pharma industry is that the proportion of price drop is independently associated with anything's use in life among the elite and poor.  Elites try to control things but fear sharing, and keep things at a high value so low-income people can't reach them. They are even afraid of sharing things among themselves. As soon as anything in life, like a drug, becomes generic, its price drops quickly. I found that people experiencing poverty are more intent to share and crave less material things. It's the most bizarre paradox of life. I don't mean that a person should stay poor, but there is a line where the human mind loses its tendency to connect with other humans and seek the welfare of other humans - and that's the biggest curve ball of life."

Money vs Relationships

One lesson I learned—and advised children in the family to understand—is that sooner or later in life, they will be presented with situations where they must choose between salvaging a relationship or walking away with (some) money. It sounds strange, but it is true.

It may be a friendship, marriage, or another relationship.

Alas! I have seen people fight for money at the expense of relationships. Siblings not talking to each other for decades, getting divorced, blocking friends - It's all not worth it. Even if you have to sustain some loss, take it. 

It is absolutely not worth going to the extreme stage on the pretext that he said this, she said this, He did this, she did this.

Even if you have to give up on your rightful stand, do so. Let things go. Move on.

Later, as years go by, you will learn that money vanishes, good jobs end, cars get depreciated, and houses get sold - but heartache and memories stay.

*

265 years old letters

 Pakistan TV pe aik drama aaya kerta the: "Raat, Rail or Khat" - jis main aik train ka aik raat accident ho jaata hai - aur post-office ki khaton se bhari aik bori gum ho jaati hai

Aur phir har ghumshuda aik khat ke peeche ki kahani dikhai jaati hai

Aesa hi kuch peechele dinoN huwa.

Khaton ka 'treasure box'  -265 years - baad daryaft huwa.

“I could spend the night writing to you … I am your forever faithful wife,” Marie Dubosc wrote. “Good night, my dear friend. It is midnight. I think it is time for me to rest.”

Read this interesting story:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/06/world/french-letters-national-archives-scn/index.html

Hamsafar

 

Smell of poop and humanity

 America is an amazing country. When you live here, you realize what an interesting melting pot this country is of immigrants worldwide. I have interacted and made friends with people from many countries, religions, cultures, colors, and languages.

Somebody said it so well yesterday: "In the end, the smell of all poops is the same." :)

*

A man called Otto

President Clinton once said: Only one actor can play my character as he has the emotional depth to play any biography, and it's Tom Hanks. Over the years, it also never changed for me since I watched Forrest Gump. If you ask me one actor, I will put him on top of all the actors in Hollywood. One and only Tom Hanks.

Last year was darn busy at work. It kept me away from reading books, watching movies, and traveling. Life was too tasteless. While on my way back from Montreal, Air Canada was kind enough to give me an upgrade, and I watched his last year release "A Man Called Otto."

What a beautiful love story and a story of human bonding. Clint Eastwood is the only person who could have played such a complicated role besides Tom Hanks.

It is a story that tells us why good people go on a path to suicide and how they return, as they don't want other humans to suffer pain. If they can pull their weight to make a difference in their life, they will go out of their way to do it. This story tells us how a man and a woman stick together despite one partner getting disabled and or can't have children all their life. How two fighting neighbors are the best friend. The movie also touched on the power of rising social media. How old actual intended America is dying (Manual vs. automatic cars' symbol), and how greedy real estate mafia is destroying societies and neighborhoods. All these and other complicated issues are tackled in a simple-looking storyline.

The movie starts with Ottto as an irritated suit-tie-styled man who is hard to approach and how a Mexican immigrant woman thaws that ice, and the beautiful stories start flowing to us. It tells us how an innocent young man turns into a grumpy old man.

It is an interesting storyline, where Otto's wife dies, and he losses his job – and so he decides to commit suicide but keeps postponing his suicide as he feels someone needs his help, or he can make a difference. 

*

Ma!

 

On love

Sach hai: Muhabbat insaan ko badal deti hai

 

Maan

There is a word for it in Urdu: "maan"

 

Friendship

 A text from a friend

Something personal happened in last 5-6 months which has prompted me to study philosophical aspects of “friendship”, starting from Socrates, Plato, to de Montaigne and current philosophers. I think this quote is painfully true: 

 “Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.” ~ Jean de La Fontaine

Symbiotic

 "We all mutate into each other." ~ Anonymous 

Human Bonding

 

My Conscience Is Dying A Slow Death

 My Conscience Is Dying A Slow Death

By Javaid Jabbar. 

Sometimes in the darkest hour of the night, I call on my conscience to see if it is still breathing. It's dying a slow and gradual death

every single day.

When I pay for a meal in a fancy restaurant

an amount which is perhaps the monthly income of the guard who holds the door open, I quickly shrug away that thought. My conscience dies a little. 

When I buy vegetables from the vendor and his son "Chhotu" (a small child who should be studying at school) 

smilingly weighs the potatoes, I look the other way. My conscience dies a little.

When I'm all decked up in a designer suit (a suit that costs a bomb) 

and I see a woman at the crossing in torn clothes, trying unsuccessfully to save her dignity, I immediately roll up my window. My conscience dies a little. 

When I buy expensive gifts for my children and returning home I see half-clad naked children with empty stomachs and hungry eyes selling toys at the red traffic signal, I try to save my conscience by buying some. Yet, my conscience dies a little more. 

When my sick maid who can't come to work sends her daughter to work by making her miss school, I know I should tell the little girl to go to school, but then I look at the loaded sink full of dirty dishes and I tell myself that is just for a couple of days. My conscience dies a little more. 

When I hear about a rape or a murder of a child, I feel sad, yet a little thankful that it's not my child. I cannot look at myself in the mirror. My conscience dies a little more. 

When people fight over caste, creed, and religion and I feel hurt and helpless, I tell myself that my country is going to the dogs, and I conveniently blame the corrupt politicians, absolving myself of all responsibilities. My conscience dies a little more. 

When my city is choked and breathing is dangerous in the smog-ridden metropolis I take my car to work daily, not taking public transport, or carpooling. One less car won't make a difference, I tell myself. My conscience dies a little more. 

So when in the darkest hour of the night I visit my conscience and find that it is still breathing I am surprised because bit by bit, day by day, I try to kill it and bury it with my very own hands.

On Amish People

When I came to this country, I didn't have much money to take airplane rides. For my residency interviews, I relied far large and wide on cheaper Grayhound buses. First time I saw Amish people at Cleaveland bus station. At first glance what impressed me is the calmness on their face after their attire, beard, and hanging too close with each other. Over the years, I grew huge respect for them and their lifestyle. Later in life, while driving through Pennsylvania rural roads, I certainly enjoyed the positive vibrations of their farmlands.

This is the first time I read this comprehensive review on them. You may like it (and beautiful pictures).

https://mydailymagazine.com/facts-that-can-change-the-way-you/50/

"The Amish people treat Demut – humility – and Gelassenheit – calmness, composure, placidity – as important qualities. They strive to stay humble and calm, rejecting what they call Hochmut, which translates to pride, arrogance or haughtiness. With their simpler and more modest ways of life, they shun modern technologies including cameras. They also don’t paint. So when a loved one passes away, they don’t have any way to visually remember them but only through their actual memory."

The first sign of civilization in a culture

In the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, Amitabh Bachchan shared a story about what being civilized actually means.

“Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones. But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts".

Referring to his fans, he said, “ You are all the medics that repair that ‘broken femur’. “We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized. be safe .. be cautious .. be in care ..” ”

Education-2 / Milgram experiment

On our previous post 3/4 days ago regarding education, I was sharing the same quote with one of  my nephews who is doing a major in psychology. He shared this experiment done somewhere in the early 1960s to determine how normal people get willing to participate in genocide, mass murder and other heinous crime which are unthinkable in a normal situation. This experiment was carried out to explore the fine line we have between obedience to authority and personal conscience.

18 variations of the same experiment had a chilling conclusion that a common person is likely to follow any order given by his 'authority figure' and if they think in their head that authority is morally right and/or has legal power. This includes even if they have to kill other human beings. This was in high contrast to what pre-experiment surveys done in psychology communities.

It explains a lot of atrocities we see around today.

You can read at Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzd6Ew3TraA