For a dear friend

Not like trees in the woods green and ever

Are my friends so many

But a few of them, some hard, some clever

Have I got now without losing a penny

And this one, you, funny and true

Doesn’t possess to many folds, don’t need a clue

Simple within, simple without

They made paper-boats before, he makes laughter-shouts

But for laughter, joys and friendship, years and ears

I can’t say much but, thank you

I could promise the moon, the shine, to someone so dear

But there ain’t no exchange, God knows this and so should you.

Bare Necessities

"Hey, what room are you in?, I want to know if the AC is working"

"Well, err…third floor"

I have been caught off guard with little details. Not knowing what is your room number for instance. There is in us a inherent latency to live with a minimum of information in order to survive. We will know our pant size but not our collar or know our height but not our shoe size. Being perplexed while filling forms or someone asking your Constituency ward number are things of sun sets and sun rise:welcome to ordinary life

And isn't this a great trophy of human life, to survive with the least information? Why should I know my street name and full abbreviation of my college? Why should I know the name of that flower, I just want to buy it, not do a thesis! Queen comes to my mind, singing: Let me live!

Aye, but the necessities of life are not the measure of human perfection. It is not about a dog's life. Our ideal image of ourselves is always of greatness not of fighting fires and living camp-life until we are seventy. I suppose we have a tendency to live but for necessity.

A measure of a man is the measure of the finest details he ponders on. Why would Man care so much about blending colors of a table cloth, or the bucking pressure of Nadal, or the serenity of a Tenor, or the majestic beauty of a gothic cathedral? Why not just wallow around like a dog until food has been put on the plate? Because we have not been made for comfort, chico, but for greatness, bellows Benedict XI.

Then next time I get caught with an address but no envelope, a number without a code, or an important document but without a photocopy, I would like to remind myself that it is better to say mea culpa than to say "damn! There is so much negativity around"

Yes, and when are you planning to get that air freshener for it?

No one buys Peace

Today, I left my mother to a place on my bike. It was a tense ride and slowest I've driven so far. Even my mom could only heave a sigh of relief only after the bike came to a halt with her still in one piece. I asked her, "Wouldn't it have made more sense to pay 10 rupees, hire a rickshaw and earn some peace?" She said she'd prefer carrying the heavy bag and break a sweat than take a rickshaw

I believe many people think peace is an absence of strife, having no problems, no catastrophes, no troubles or tribulations. Very few people believe peace is also attained as a sum of good decisions. Good decisions that don't create momentary tensions.

My mother preferred carrying that heavy bag in the scorching heat and deafening noise than pay 10 rupees and make a good decision. The consequence of choosing the former also would be to curse the purpose of doing the work, sympathize with oneself, "…what a difficult life I lead", and not being able to do anything cheerfully or with love.

Like everything else, peace comes at a price. I stand here outside a long queue with people complaining about slow service. Sir, please take a little pain to learn how to pay bills online. Wage a war on yourself and your less than average existence. Peace will follow this War

Resurrection gives a chance, gives Hope

As Ash Wednesday has begun today, I was meditating on the homily of Pope Benedict XVI. He mentions and I quote,

"God created men and women for resurrection and life, and this truth gives an authentic and definitive meaning to human history, to the personal and social lives of men and women,

to culture, politics and the economy. Without the light of faith, the entire universe finishes shut within a tomb devoid of any future, any hope."

All of history has seen triumphant victories and big-hearted losers. What comes to my mind are those countries, or regimes or periods which saw victims, or generosities that had a price to pay. To take one example is the Holocaust in which millions of Jews were massacred. My point is that Human History cannot be a page without being a part of a book. A book points somewhere, it leads to a climax or an end where everything is understood in proper light. Detaching one particular murder on a page makes and reading it independently would make you wonder why such injustice. Our Human histories of War or Terrorism or misfortune, whether individual or historical, should also make us think? Does not it make us wonder that everything loses meaning and is pointless to fight for just a better world, or to have to pay a price, an individual, or for an entire community or people to pay a price for an ideal. Is it worth it just to make a day or two better? Will this human history of people who have died more valiant than others go up as smoke if we are to believe that life is here and now and while you and I are here, let's talk, give and take?

Resurrection changes it all. Human History of fortunes and misfortunes, stroke of luck and grave evil and injustice all can be seen in perspective. There is accountability, there is reward. There is a chance!

Surrogate Pregnancy: Buying and Selling Life

An excellent article by Clare O Neil in the Sydney Morning Herald where she argues about the moral, commercial and societal difficulties that surrogacy poses. Here's a snippet

 

A second, more complex set of moral concerns is that commercial surrogacy could commodify pregnancy, babies and motherhood, leading to the breakdown of cultural beliefs we may not wish to change.

Babies and pregnancy are seen by society as sacrosanct. Through commercial surrogacy, they are given a price, and sold and exchanged much like other goods and services. If we allow babies to be bought, why not a two-year-old child? Should we allow babies to be sold at auction? For many, these (albeit extreme) hypotheticals feel intuitively wrong, contravening a basic belief that some things simply should not be bought and sold.

Moral Absolutes: Some acts are always wrong no matter what the circumstance or great good (purpose) acheived

Here is a very good snippet from this column written by Christopher O. Tollefse called, Speaking Truth to Evil (in Public Discourse), on how certain acts not matter what the circumstance or the good one wishes to attain, is always wrong by the virtue of choosing that object, an evil object i.e (say) murder, Rape, Contraception ect.

 

Only "Unjustified" False Assertion?

The first challenge has to do with the nature of moral absolutes, such as the absolute norm against murder, or, as I believe, the absolute norm against lying. Hadley Arkes and Francis Beckwith, while seeming to agree that these are moral absolutes, have both argued that absolute norms such as these contain within them a moral qualifier. The prohibition on murder is a prohibition on unjustified killing. Likewise, the prohibition on lying is on unjustified false assertion.

Yet no critic, speaking from the Catholic intellectual or faith tradition, has drawn the obvious conclusion from this that therefore the (absolute) norm regarding adultery is a norm against unjustified extramarital congress; or that the (absolute) norm against contraception is a norm against unjustified prevention of conception. And this is hardly surprising, for it is widely recognized that this is not, in fact, the nature of these norms.

As John Paul II labored to explain, there are acts which, independently of their further ends, or of their circumstances, are wrong precisely in virtue of the object chosen. That object—the form of behavior settled upon by the agent—is incompatible with the human good, including the human being's ultimate orientation to God. Choices of these sorts are wrong everywhere and always. Their objects are designated "intrinsically evil" precisely to indicate that their moral character can be recognized by considering only the object of the act itself (other questions, concerning the gravity of any particular violation, for example, will require attention to ends and circumstances).

One does not, therefore, look to whether extramarital intercourse is being performed at the right time, with the right person, in the right way, or with a view to some good end (perhaps an abortionist will give up his trade if a married woman were willing to be his mistress, thus saving the lives of many unborn in the area). Rather, one recognizes that the choice of such intercourse is incompatible with the human good because of its violation of the good of marriage, full stop. In asserting that adultery is always and everywhere impermissible, then, the tradition does not hold that adultery is "unjustified extramarital intercourse," but that it is simply extramarital intercourse as such.

Education is a progression

I have recently taken up teaching a few computer courses. When I plan them, I plan assuming that the student already has some prerequisite knowledge of element A (say) without which you cannot learn element B.

The problem begins when the person has enrolled to learn Course C without having any knowledge of Course A - B. You end up teaching him A - B - C or left gasping for air.

Education is a progression. You cannot jump to Dante or Shakspeare without an elementary appreciation of Poetry neither can you appreciate Plato or a novel if you have not already had patience with lesser books of humble length. The latter are a training for the former. They lead you to it. Without that training, you wither give up the truly noble because you haven't yet been training on those less noble stairways leading up to the great Hall.