Suresh Chandrasekaran's Blog, page 3

The foremost strength?

I don't know how it is in general but Indian philosophers tend to think of their current idea as the 'foremost' idea. Or, perhaps, it is just a linguistic...umm...idiosyncracy. You know, like the 'mother of all battles' etc sort of hyperbole. So, at any point in time, one finds that the foremost virtue is the virtue under discussion only to discover that there is another 'foremost' virtue a

The key to all good?

You tend to get put off by philosophy, sometimes, simply because it tells you what you already know but are unable or unwilling to do. I mean, like, when you get told that hard work leads to prosperity, you get angry. Not because it is wrong but because you know it already but do not want to do it. If there was a philosopher who told you that prosperity will come to you as you loll around in your

To prefer violence?

You tend to think of philosophers as peaceful souls. I don't really think anyone thought of a philosopher who prioritises violence. I mean, like, the chappie is most likely to say that 'War indicates a failure of diplomacy' or 'There is nothing that cannot be sorted by sitting down to discuss' and things like that. In fact, the first advice that you expect a philosopher to give in times of

A time for procrastination?

About the one thing that I was sure of was that no philosopher would support procrastination. You know how these chaps are - if you truly like a certain behavior, the whole lot of them will come down on you like a ton of bricks and call you all sorts of names. AND, bar a very few, the whole world sort of likes procrastination though, yes, they may claim otherwise. Much like they all claim to be..

Pick your advisers

There is this idea, fostered at our schools and colleges, that the more you learn the more successful you will be. And, almost inevitably, you end up with some people thinking that they are bound to fail if they do not know everything. As in, you got to be good at coding, at finance, at HR...you get the picture. Why, if they had a garden, they will feel a pressing need to be good at digging (AND

Physician, heal thyself?

There is this thing about vision. It is sharper when it focuses on the ills of others and practically blind when it comes to your own flaws. There is hardly a school of philosophy/religion which turns an...err...blind eye to this particular character trait in humans. There is something about seeing the 'mote in your brother's eye ignoring the beam in your own eye' in the Bible, for example.Tiru

The indipensable three of leadership?

I was under the impression that this 'Five best ...' and 'Seven worst...' etc were the result of some recent virus that had infected humanity. Not so, not if I am to just peek into one of the philosophers of my own country. Ah, but I AM being remiss. When such a thing happens, I am not supposed to bemoan but beat my breast and claim how we had done it before everyone else, no?So, yes, long before

Listening humility?

There is this thing about philosophers that they give a great deal of respect to humility. The idea of any humble man being worthy of respect is, quite possibly, funny today. The man of respect is the man who flaunts his power, not the man who speaks politely. I mean, when we were praising humility, we also called the open-minded chaps who were willing to see the other person's point of view as

A desireless life?

There is something in common with most philosophers. They seem to be against the idea of desire. One could easily dismiss that as 'sour grapes' on the grounds that philosophers are only those people who are unable to gratify their desires. Unfortunately for that argument, a leading light of the 'desire is the root cause of sorrow' school of thought is the Buddha, who was a prince and, thus, more

Outdated Advice

One tends to think of advice as timeless. All advice, however, comes with a date stamp except, perhaps, the advice that roots you in values. One likes to think of values as being timeless though one has seen that even value systems come with a timestamp. (I mean, how well does this 'sanctity of human life' gel with 'You are sinless if you just carry out your duty as a Kshatriya and wage war'?