In pursuit of “Unconditional Love”…..

Friendship, Love, Colleague to Colleague relationship and many other types of relationships that exists amongst human beings are conditional in nature. Or symbiotic in nature. Nothing can be entirely altruist in nature. Not even a mother child relationship (after all, the child is spreading the genes of the parents ;-))though it is the closest which appears to be unconditional in nature.

A nice take on altruism in the TV show House, MD.

(Benjamin – Patient who is very altruistic: House - A diagnostician : Park and Adams: Assistant Doctors)

(In the Clinic)

Benjamin: I started with 10 million, and I couldn't think of a reason not to give 20. Or 40. I figure I could live off $25,000 a year. One-room apartment. Bus pass, thrift stores. Bare necessities. I still have my software company. And when I make more, I'll give that way too.

(In House’s office)

Park: He's nuts.

Adams: He's generous.

Park: There's a neurological issue. He's getting rid of everything.

Adams: His echocardiogram is negative for cardiomyopathy. Head CT showed no signs of stroke or hemorrhage.

Park: He has one pair of pants.

Adams: Most people with his kind of money are commissioning oil paintings of their Yorkshire terrier. Benjamin is sacrificing his own comfort to help others.

House: That's because helping others is his Yorkie oil painting.

Adams: That's good. Not sick.

Park: That's naive and sick.

A take on conditional love in one of my favorite movie “A”. (Watch between 54:31 to 1:01:18)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TlqjncRpNE

So what/whom am I in Love with??

I have always struggled to love the “person” more than the “Idea of a person”. People often say they are in love with a person unconditionally meaning irrespective of what happens or changes in the person, love towards him or her remains unchanged. But in my understanding, one loves a person for certain characteristics and those can be anything, persona, attitude, money, looks etc etc etc.. Now these can continue to remain the same or change. Sometimes the change will have causes which are very reasonable and it never comes in the way of relationship. Suppose I like someone ONLY for looks and get married, I can't except the looks to remain the same after 40 yrs ;-) (Also here, my looks would have deteriorated too.. Magically if I always retained my 20's looks even after 40 yrs, how would I look at the person whom I have liked only for looks??). The same logic applies to the character of a person. We like someone else because we see somethings in them. Either those things should continue to exist for us to keep liking or if changed, the reason for change should be justifiable. Random unjustifiable changes always comes in the way of relationship and rightly so because the relationship was based on certain desirable characteristics to begin with. Also, what is a person without the characteristics which one is identified with?? It's just flesh and blood and I find it hard to be eternally in love with just flesh and blood when the persona is changing.

The above idea is not always used to judge/evaluate others. It very well applies to self. I like myself for certain characteristics which I have and certain other things which I try to posses and so work towards it. If I fall short in those, I tend to dislike myself for those shortcoming though the only difference is we tend to have much more tolerance when it comes to ourselves than others (As in the movie clip, the protagonist says “We love ourselves more than anybody else.”)

So being unconditional according to me is a state of mind in which everything (likes and dislikes) gets equalised and in that state of mind one is either a saint or dead. Living with some conditional and some unconditional relationships hasn't come to my comprehension still. Either every relationship is conditional or everything is unconditional in nature and I am in the pursuit of “Unconditional Love”.

“Honesty is the best policy”.. Really?

“I love you”, “You are the most amazing person I have seen”, “I think I am quite contented with the life I have” etc etc. We often hear people make such statements in different contexts. How truthful are people when they make such statements? Are they being true/honest or delusional/dishonest?

People also say things like “I want to be honest with you”, “I want to be able to tell what I actually feel like and not hide things”, “I want to follow my feel and be natural rather than artificial”. Now, these statements seem to suggest honesty and dishonesty, natural and artificial, true and false are 2 states and one can be either here or there. Let us explore the validity of this (mis)understanding.

According to me, honesty, being truthful etc etc is a spectrum and NOT 2 states where one can belong either here or there. I shall explain the rest with the help of graph.

In the above graph, honesty varies on X axis. A very dishonest person (close to 0) is an absolute hypocrite and someone who is very very honest (max on x axis) cannot be “normal” and has to have frontal lobe disinhibition (Watch House MD, “The social contract”). As one becomes more and more honest, inner peace (blue line) increases. This might be difficult to understand but imagine if one CAN speak the truth without having to maintain a web of lies, how comfortable it can get. Many times we are lonely when it comes to our thoughts because we seldom share them (mainly because we can't). We believe one thing but pretend to believe something else because what we believe might offend someone else. Also one can get labeled as crazy if he/she speaks whatever comes to mind which eventually leads to social rejection. People cannot bear to hear others' inner most unpleasant, sexual, cynical, pessimistic thoughts though they themselves will be having similar such thoughts. Everybody wants sugar coated sweet lies and therefore “Everybody lies”. As a result one can only hope to strike a balance between inner peace and social acceptance and find their own “sweet” spot. In the above graph, the point corresponding to 10 on X axis is the sweet spot where both the lines meets (a magnitude of 5.5/10 of inner peace and social acceptance). But this is no way universal. Each person has lines of different slopes and hence different sweet spots.

This graph can also help us to understand why people drink. The sober state (being inhibited) can be quite annoying at times. So we tend to drink to loosen inhibition so that we can rant out our inner thoughts. This is socially OK if others are also equally drunk but imagine drinking and ranting around people who are sober??. The comfort of speaking out inner thoughts comes with a cost of social awkwardness.

For an imaginary person with the above graph, he/she is roughly half honest, half natural, half peaceful and accepted by half the society :-). I know this is an over simplification but I hope the idea is clear.

“People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up.” - ― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

The Delusion of being in “Control of oneself” after drinking

I am a social drinker… But I socialize quite often!! However, I have always (mostly) limited the amount of drinks I take per sitting.

Reasons being:

1) It's expensive to drink too much, both for pocket and liver.

2)The fun is in the woozy state and not being sloshed out

3)Alcohol in limited quantities enhance the fun of conversations but reduces it if quantity increases a lot. (Law of diminishing returns)

4) No hangover the next day

5) I like being in control of myself even after a drinking session.

I have always been proud about myself wrt the 5^th point, in fact to an extent of looking down upon people who loose control of themselves after drinking. This post will burst the myth of it.

I held that belief (5^th point) largely because of comparison between “control I possess in my drunk state“ and “control others possess in their drunk state”. But who are the others? It's only those drinkers who loose control of themselves (quite evidently) after drinking. But I had missed one major aspect in my comparison, which is the level of “control I posses in my sober state” and the level of “control the others posses in their sober states”. The following graph will help in understanding of where my delusion came from:

* - There are no specific units for measuring the amount of control one has. The measures used here are coherence in talking (Rather Bullshitting), walking, etc etc. Arbitrarily I am assigning 1 to the absolute but hypothetical saint state and 0 to completely sloshed out state.

The point of importance here is at 180mL (3 pegs of alcohol). My delusion came form the fact that I was more or less like others even when 3 pegs had gone down. But the catch here is, my comparison was between my drunk state to others' sober state. But if the comparison was between my own sober state to drunk state, my control has reduced. So will I stop drinking because of this realization? Let action speak louder than words ;-)

P S: Since I am not used to drinking large quantities of alcohol in one sitting, I get sloshed out quite easily than others (Point at 300mL)

A Number Line Representation of Social Interaction

The dynamics behind how 2 non blood relatives form a relation.

Disclaimer : The below analysis works in the context where there is freedom and opportunity for social interaction. Extreme situations of power, gender hierarchy is out of the scope.

1. First impression OR Forced conditions - I think initially people start talking/socializing voluntarily if the first impression (physical, behavioral etc etc) are compelling or there are forced conditions (Teacher student, colleagues, neighbors etc etc)
   
   
2. Reinforcement/Deinforcement of created impressions OR creation of new impressions - With more and more interaction, if characteristics match the created impression, it continues to strengthen else alternative (Good or Bad) impression starts to get formed. Under forced conditions scenario, a impression starts to get formed assuming there was no strong first impression to begin with (There will always be a little. None of us are so objective in our approaches).
   
   
3. The Outcome - I would like to invoke a concept here. A number line to represent the nature of our social interaction. Unlike the mathematical number line, this has finite numbers on either side of 0. 
   
   1. The 0 - This is the absolute neutral state one can have wrt to the other person. Meaning, the other person is neither a positive aspect to one's life nor negative. I have nothing to gain or lose types. He/she just exists in the one's life because conditions expects that. Eg: A perfectly neutral colleague
      
   2. The + side of number line – If the first impression is good, we already start on the positive side of the number line wrt the other person. With interaction it can continue to progress on the positive side. If the first impression is bad, we already start on the negative side of the number line wrt the other person. With interaction it can cross 0 and come to positive side. If started from 0, it will simply move towards + side
      
   3. The - side of number line – If the first impression is bad, we already start on the negative side of the number line wrt the other person. With interaction it can continue to progress on the negative side. If the first impression is good, we already start on the positive side of the number line wrt the other person. With interaction it can cross 0 and come to negative side. If started from 0, it will simply move towards – side.
4. The limits (A very important aspect according to me) – The number line concept pretty much exist universally. But what differs from person to person is the magnitude of positive and negative numbers. (The positive side and negative side need not be equal).
   
   2. Positive limit - For a person, if the social interaction has reached his/her positive limit (Could vary from small positive to large positive), the he/she wishes/attempts to convert that relation (which has just been in social circle till now) to a personal level. Eg: A very close friend, A mentor, A lover etc etc.
   3. Negative limit - For a person, if the social interaction has reached his/her negative limit (Could vary from small negative to large negative), then he/she wishes/attempts to break away from that relation and throw the other person of the social circle.
      

The above is what a natural progression usually looks like. As always, there will be exceptions. Can one follow such a algorithm in a war field for that matter? Even if someone has loong crossed the negative limit, the soldier should still hang on.
 

Who is a Great parent?

I have been an Anti natalist from a long time now. A simple Google search will help one know what anti natalism is all about and therefore I am not going to expand on that. With that as the premise, the term “Good parent” does not evoke positive feelings in me. In order to be a good parent, one has to be a parent first, which is an act of pure selfishness. The selfishness of having the pleasure of giving birth, raising a child, filling the void in one's life etc etc.

“Selfishness is not as one wishes to live,it is asking others to live as one wishes to live” - Oscar Wilde

But what about the child itself?? Has a consent being taken from the non existent person that whether he/she wants to be born in the first place?

According to Jimmy Alfonso Licon, procreation is only morally justified if there is some method for acquiring informed consent from a non-existent person, and due to the impossibility of this, procreation is therefore immoral

In my opinion, lot of parents simply suck. A good parent at the max is just a bad parent (for choosing to be a parent). So who is a great parent? The answer is, A Non parent!!!

A person who chooses to be a non parent by fighting all the biological needs and social pressures in the pure interest of the child (Non existent of course) is a Great parent.

Finally,

Sleep is good. Death is better. Not being born is the best!

Rational OR/AND Emotional?

It's not uncommon that one gets type casted as a rational person OR an emotional person. In reality, are they mutually exclusive or do they co exist? Is it right to say a person is rational/ emotional person? Or would it be appropriate to say that a person is rational at some points of time/situations and emotional in others??. I think the concept of chemical equilibrium would be of some help in this context.

Let us invoke a constant called K _personality (K_p ). This constant is a measure of both rational and emotional components of a person and it stays more or less constant for a person. At any point in time/situation, our reactions/ behavior are a combination of both the components and K_p tells which of the 2 components is dominating. So the equilibrium condition looks somewhat like this

 

                               [Emotions]

                          K_p =  -----------------

                                       [Reason]

If, K_p < 1, The person's rational component dominates.

If, K_p = 1, The person's rational and emotional components are roughly equal.

If, K_p > 1, The person's emotional component dominates.

In my opinion, K_p is unique to a person. For Eg: If my K_p is 0.5, it implies my rational faculty dominates the emotional faculty. Now what happens if this equilibrium is altered by external factors?? As always, Le chatelier's principle comes into picture.

Scenario 1: If RHS (Emotions) are high under some altered conditions.

Loss of a job, troubled relationship, achievement etc etc can have heightened emotions (happy, sad, anxiety, stress, fear etc depending on the situation). Since the equilibrium is altered, the rational faculty comes into picture to reduce the emotions such that the equilibrium is restored. 
 

• Say I loose a job and troubled by it, then I would say to myself that it's not so hard to get another job and so the situation is not very bad.  
• Say there is lot of jubilation due to an achievement, then I would recall the temporariness of everything in order not to get carried by the happiness.

In such cases, the rational understanding of the world will help to calm down the heightened emotions such that K_p is restored.

Scenario 2: If LHS (Reasons) are high under some altered conditions.

Sometime dwelling too much in the so called “perceived truths of the world”, one can become very numb (Eg: States of Nihilism, agnosticism etc etc). The understanding of the world which initially makes someone comfortably numb, would not be a desirable state to be in for too long. Since the equilibrium is altered, emotions are needed to restore the equilibrium. I would in such cases indulge in activities which brings out emotions of “desirable anxiety” (a risky trek for Eg), Fun and nostalgia (hanging out with friends and going out ) and such things so that K_p is restored.

Probably writing this post itself was an exercise to restore the altered equilibrium for me ;-)

I do business with only women as employees..... But I am NOT a pimp.

I recently got an advertisement on my email called Netmeds, online pharmacy store. My first reaction to that was - "Shit, why didn't I think of this!". I need to give some history in order to understand why my reaction was that. I come from a generation who did not have smart-phones, online shopping and related things for the first 2 decades of their lives. I am exposed to these things from past 6-7 yrs maybe. When flip kart came first, I was skeptical because everyone was very new to this online shopping. However it got me thinking when flip-kart became a hit. The fact that most people buy books with just title/author's name, flip-kart was no different from buying a store except that the book gets delivered. The conclusion was that online shopping can easily become a success for those products which are bought only by the name it carries (I still wonder how online clothes shopping thrives when people actually want to see and feel the clothes they are buying). So when I saw Netmeds, my reaction was - "Shit, why didn't I think of this as medicines are also bought just by the name and no one needs to see and feel the medicine strip”.

When I discussed the above things with my friend, he explained to me the idea of USP (Unique selling point). The USP of online buying of books or medicines is that it saves the effort and cost of going to the shop. When we brainstormed on what new services can be provided in this changing world, Liquor-kart was an app we thought of. Still many people (especially women) are not comfortable going to a wine store to buy liquor. The app would solve that problem (which would be the USP). However we got to know the app already exists :-(

What is the connection of all these to the title of the article? Today also I had a “Shit, why didn't I think of this” moment. While cycling, I saw a cab with a woman driver. Immediately it struck that the USP of this service being safety concerns of women are being addressed to some extent. But then my mind started wandering (which it usually does while I am cycling) and the direction was how things would have been if I did intend thought of the idea and started the business venture. Then I would have been successful (hopefully) and in my imagination a friend is making the following comment - “So the feminist Vinay is finally running a business with only women as employees :-)”. But for a second, I did not like that sentence and started wondering why. The reason being once upon a time such a sentence was only associated with a pimp. Women did not have much opportunities in many areas of work and if one thinks of a exclusive women work force, flesh trade comes to the top. Others being (though not exclusively) teaching and nursing. It's good that the changing world is also in many ways changing the perspective (directly and indirectly) that women are not objects of pleasure. And if a man runs a business with an exclusive women work force, he doesn't have to be a pimp.