K. Kumar's Blog, page 23

Vitalism

There are times you come across a word for something that you have thought about a lot but were not sure if the idea had been studied or looked at. Vitalism is one of those words for me. It is defined as:

The idea, as I understand it, is that if you take away all of the matter that makes up living things, there is an element, some life force, that is contained in all living bodies that distinguishes it from other non-living bodies. This life force, or the belief in such a force, is vitalism. I...

The Artist

I had a friend. We had grown up together and stayed in contact. He was more ambitious than most and so I kept tabs on him. I had an interest in seeing where he ended up in his life. I had a feeling all along that he would end up doing great things. 
My friend confided in me that his ultimate ambition was to be an artist. He wanted to compose a novel of such grandeur and prose that it would change people. It would change society. He thought about all the ways he could contribute to so...

Motive and Money

The idea of motive and motivation is more a trick than anything. It does not exist in reality, but the trick is that by using the words "motive" or "cause" or "reason" we end up tricking ourselves into thinking it exists and act in accordance. The idea of "motive" leads us to act in certain way, we're tricked into action. This is a kind of conformity, it makes life easier to understand.
When you read and see all the great things that you can obtain with money, then it is easy to find yourself...

An Honest Conversation

I have noticed that when I observe a group of strangers talk to each other, they are able to maintain polite conversation pretty simply. You often hear the same benign topics being discussed, the weather, some local event, some historical event, or just some random musing. These conversations tend to exhaust themselves and then the people move on.
But once in a while, you might observe a conversation that gets beyond the superficial, where the topics are more divisive. And often the tone will...

Motive

We talk a lot of motive and motivation. People behave in certain ways and we like to look for reasons to explain peoples' behaviors. For example, when someone commits a crime, we like to look for a reason behind their action. You'll read a story about someone cheating on their partner and then maybe the partner will be filled with anger and will go out and commit some act against their lover. We're told the motivation is jealously or anger, and so we are given this story as a sort of explanat...

Investment

You can tell a lot about a society based on where the private sector and government make their investments. Both the public and private sector respond to forces, either market forces or public demands. Investments, real investments, tend to be longer term in nature and they can tell you a lot about what the future will look like. For example, if you have a society that favors things like education and infrastructure investments versus defense and or other sectors, than you can guess what the...

Criticism II

I have written about criticism before. My views on criticism have changed throughout my life, and it something I think about more now. In the past, I was always suspicious of people trying to criticize me. I took it as an insult, an affront to who I was. If someone was apt to criticize, it had to be because they felt a need to degrade me, to attack me. I recently looked at a definition of criticism and it supports my prejudice:

To criticize is to attack, to condemn, to censure...To be critical...

On Individuality

One of the great virtues today is the idea of individuality. It is something that we promote, it is something that distinguishes one against another. There is not much debate on what constitutes individuality so people are given free rein to define it for themselves. With the proliferation of technology and the increasing push towards definition, categorization, and reductionism, the idea of individuality has taken on increased importance.
In a way, there are two ways to look at the issue: (1)...

Choices

I recently attended a class where the professor took a break from his slide presentation, and became reflective for minute. He spoke of his experiences. These are the most revealing moments, and I was drawn to what he said. He told the typical immigrant story in vivid terms. He had been born into poverty in Central America and took notice of a world that had little regard for him. He joined the leftist movement and the government tried to kill him. He immigrated to a few countries and then wo...

Achieving Wellness Goals V

Achieving wellness goals is 99% mental, the rest is the rest. There is an absurdity to it and a perversity to it. In reality, you cannot sell wellness, because it is not accessible in written words and images. It is beyond our capacity to communicate with words and the like. There is no real money in this game, the money is in the idea of wellness. The books you read, the television commercials, the testimonials, its all preaching the idea of wellness. They are trying to sucker you in, you're...