Friday, May 27, 2016

The logic behind poor listening

It's hard to listen when we wish to say so much ourselves.

But it's possible to become better at listening if we consider the following
a. People are mostly not interested in that particular thing we are bursting to say
b. That particular piece of information is irrelevant to what is being discussed
c. we have to acknowledge what others say, or they will never acknowledge what we have to say
d. it's a waste to say what we consider to be interesting if most people in the audience are gossips, are people who want to put you down.
e. often things we say to make ourselves feel better, such as, I did so well today, i look good in this dress, my friend is cool, etc manage to make us feel better, but at the same time make people near us feel lousy. So, it's better to reconsider our wish to say nice things about ourselves.

f. Slowly but surely, we can learn to listen better rather than speak our heads off.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Mixing mystery in real life with the magic of reel life

A dog has been howling for the past thirty six hours near my gated community. The sound comes from behind the high walls at  the left corner. I first thought it was a dog from one of the  houses in that corner, and wondered why it was howling so much.
May be they had left it inside the open, gated garage and gone out.
But no, the howling went on and on, and I realized it was coming from the mangroves behind.
Apart from wondering what was happening with that stray caught in the heavy spurts of rains here, I was also reading a suspense story by......wait for it..........G.K.Chesterton.
It's a story called the blue cross, but it's not about dogs or cats or camels.
It's about a silver cross with blue sapphires in it.

The suspense, the build up and the denouement are well done, but having known the author as an essayist in my school text book, I noticed how cleverly the essayist in him had sneaked in to chat with the reader all through a fast moving mystery. He had included many blogger like random observations all through the story. Also, in the style of early twentieth century, the nouns are ambushed by adjectives.
It was a good read. Never knew the author had written a series of detective stories in which the main character is a priest named Father Brown.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

beyond magic or logic

Increased connectivity means being in touch with all the people you care for, and also coming face to face with very different kinds of people.
Today I stumbled into a woman hater's blog. (misogynist, I know the word, but prefer how straight forward it sounds in English, rather than like the name of some kind of specialist)
This person, a male, hates all women from a particular continent, whom he sees as arrogant and selfish. He probably assumes that women from other continents may be more in keeping with his idea of feminine. 
I read through several of his posts.
He sounds normal, in spite of the hating, generalizing and his focus on what is bad with young women today.
He does have real life tabloid extracted examples of extreme sloppiness, lack of moderation and other flaws that can be found in women of today.
But this is not the problem with just women of today, but such selfishness, arrogance and narcissism are flaws of all human kind today.
I want to offer a better defense, want to tell this young person not to waste time hating, but look at all the great stuff he can do.
He seems so obsessed with hating and seems to be connected with people with other types of hate, people who are against other religions and races, and love only their race and classify races according to their hatefulness.
These bloggers and those who comment on them keep saying that their race is the strongest and the best.
It was weird, but I went through many blogs. Their tone is petty and childish, although there was no violence in any of them.
I guess these men have found a channel of expression for what they truly feel, and the internet is a like a huge outlet for their level of negativity.
I am too stunned and a little sad to read all this.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Concluding logically that I'm a global citizen

John Oliver appeared in my nightmare, (it was a day dream in which I saw him)

He started talking about online classes I conduct during my night time for kids from other continents where its evening.
My eyes are half closed from fatigue and boredom.
A student ( 14 years old, a dear, charming age) tells me that they discussed 'rap' in school.
I ask him to try rapping and he starts:

Sleep, teacher, Sleep
It's midnight in your country.
Why don't you sleep?



Is it right?
Is it fair?
Should I sit when you stare?

You can sleep
I can chill
Why do we have to go through this?

Actually, a student rapped on in this fashion during my class. I kept a straight face, but felt if John Oliver had watched this scene, and investigated, and discovered that I was on the point of dozing off during sessions, I would be torn apart in his show.
Soon I stopped taking night classes, citing low blood pressure ( my bp is 90-120) as a reason.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

A poem with a twist in logic (hey, the poet is not me but Stewart Macfarlane, ofcourse you must have logically deduced that from its beauty and slang)

Tae think of when ye pour.O whisky is the king of drinks,
Renowned the world o’er,
But here’s a word o’ caution,
There’s a certain combination,
That tastes so very good,
But when it hits your tummy,
And mixes with your food.
That’s when the trouble starts,
For yer pleasure hits overload,
And half an hour later,
Ye’ll suddenly explode.
So there ye are in the pub,
Completely engulfed in flames,
And yer good wife’s dashing home,
Tae lodge insurance claims.
Well now that I have told ye,
Don’t say ye’ve no’ been warned,
So don’t try it oot yersel’,
Or ye’ll soon be bein’ mourned

Friday, May 13, 2016

logic to the rescue

When magic does not happen, logic rushes to the rescue.
For instance, someone's career goes down the drain.. He or she tries to pull every trick from his hat to keep it from sinking,
but fails.
Now if we look at it logically, he may be jobless, penniless and clueless; at the same time he has no crushing responsibility and daily drudgery of uninteresting tying up the loose ends type of work that we have to do every work day. He is like an infant or a house pet that has all the time to snooze, play and watch others suffer.

You may think I am a loser to talk like this about a life that has just lost its mission.
But this is a just the example of a typical situation. It is true that beggars survive on this logic, but it is also true that beggars experience liberation beyond compare.
Now what am I trying to say?
Not that we should throw our lives and beg and be parasitical.
I'm just saying that if we lose something, we can get over the gloom by logically listing out the indirect benefits of loss.
And this is the secret of my calmness through all storms.
Cheers

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Logical and magical world of Korean drama

Just to get some sleep, I started watching Korean movies. Simple plot lines drawn around teenage characters, pretty urban settings, uncomplicated emotional content and above all, the strong musical intonation of an unknown language drew me to these films. 

There were days when I worked night shifts when I could not sleep during days. So I would lie down, place the lap top on my tummy, and doze off  to the twang and the glide of Korean dialogues. 


Recently, I started watching Chinese films, Filipino films and Korean Drama.  Korean drama is well directed, Chinese films have complex stories, while Filipinos act well.
The world of words, brilliant quotes, engrossing articles and riveting stories has found worthy competition in what we view through multi media where most of today's talent pour in their efforts to create alternate worlds inhabited by a variety of people.
It is hard to believe that ideas were once expressed only through speeches, plays and writing. We get access to a lot more through movies, television dramas and social media