To The Best Of My Knowledge

 Good Day All!

To start.. 

Good Day, All!

When I was saying that I was not trying to amass money, power, and fame {corrected from, against; as later realised} it made me aimless or on a path of being an intellectual, or worse, a social reformer. I prefer to shun away from the word philosopher as it is considered as a bad word here and never read any philosophers and I don't know what that word means. All along the word wisdom was evading me. Off late wisdom, the word used to come across me when people saw my hair going grey, tell me that I have aged. Aged, said in Malayalam, resembles wise and I feel happy to answer that, yes, I have aged! The second occasion was while reading The Alchemist and I always thought at the end of the book, that anyone acquiring a treasure should earn enough wisdom to keep it and Santiago was forced to make a long journey in this regard. I can not say he made it or the treasure. In any case, there is no scale to measure wisdom it seems. Olden day fables have wise men and women and the world I see now have few people heeding to advice little. Most harming obsolescence, from my point of view. And a noticed abundance of intolerance in the part of the world I live. It is not that people apparently from all over the world tried to change this scenario, and all failed it seems, and ran away for their life. I feel they all tried their best in a symbiotic human society! Maybe genetic, racial and other differences inherent, or accumulated caused the task herculean. The development of engineering, in production, transportation and communication should have made things easier; or maybe it is doing the job now assisted by many, including ones from here. By the way, reality from my perspective is quite confusing me considering the period I go to sleep/ go out of the time axis and am brought back naturally or forcibly**. Somewhere before I said the present is not important, but maybe the present is only important and it creates the space for the other two, or rather past works as a basis of all actions.

From my part, I too, have travelled a bit, because of the profession I was forced to choose because of a stupid attitude toward the education system prevalent, or, maybe the profession chose me! Anyway, life was difficult because of my ignorance and luckily I was guided by a lot of good people from all parts of India, working with the National Shipping Company, Shipping Corporation Of India. And it was my maternal and paternal company and my Alma mater. I feel sorry, but it nullified all sorts of education I gained earlier. The only exception may be the eight-month training I got at Vishakhapatnam Shipyard, which gave some theory tips regarding shipping to me, which stands valid even today. I am not saying that most of these institutions or universities were bad in any way, but just that, I was unable to gain from them and try to accept it as my error. So I have travelled to most countries and major exceptions are South America, Germany, North Korea, Scandinavian countries etc. Holy land was Haifa of Israel, a walk on the streets in the early morning of 1997? Never bothered to visit Rome or London. I know only the people who use the street like drivers, pedestrians, shopkeepers etc and found all people nice. Found the Japanese extremely helpful nature and capable at it, but the Chinese in 1992, in the remote area very much incapable of it, not that they really liked it. The most beautiful place was Venice. Felt very sad to see Hodaida, Yemen in 1997 and it was pure coincidence that A ship which I have taken delivery, as Chief Engineer, on behalf of The President Of India from Colombo, went to Yemen to do an evacuation duty at a political upset, in 2014. I was omitted, and I thank God for that, as I was too tired for the operation after a stressful delivery. Another vessel accompanied and after 4 years, I had to do a stressful job on that ship too. A lot of things happened after I joined the sea, and leaving the SCI, after ten years of service caused a lot of changes, particularly after the marriage. Prior to that, I was on a Japanese-built crude oil tanker, and at the mid-sea on the Y2K day. My minimal knowledge of electronics helped me very much to sleep peacefully, but now I realise the seriousness of the issue. At this stage, I feel in a way that an early adherence to Christianity led me to a tough life scenario, but a Bahai-like attitude which I took even before knowing much about Bahaism. I visited the Lotus Temple of Delhi in 1984 but was not knowing much about Bahais at that time. Nor when I set foot at, Haifa, because of a  machinery failure I had to ditch the idea of visiting Jerusalem.

So I feel, wisdom also is a hypothetical word, and terms like wiser and wisest may not be valid. Maybe you reach a plane of wisdom and keep moving. Only that makes the Alchemist distract Santiago from trying to save a clan and at the same time comes back and heeds his words. I feel that Alchemist was a wise man, and I don't know what is philosopher's stone,  elixir, panacea and all!

Also, even now, what is India, as a whole, I do not know, but I am sure it will be good. This is a war-torn land, just because it needs to be. People have lost memory and the ability or patience to memorize. Maybe many people associate only Hinduism with this land and India. India and Indian in English to me are more to Red Indians of Mexican mountains. I am not sure, but Hinduism contains the major chunk of old times Higgs Boson all world together called Chathur Varnya which I feel succeeded, but the war between polytheism and monotheism collapsed everything. Maybe Dravid and Arya came out? God is still evading and may continue to. After all, we need only a proper answer, scientifically proven and we do not have to control, view or know God! Materialistic science is good enough and contrary to what I said earlier, Murphy's Law will keep the system moving more than any law!

**This sleep thing I wanted to take up as many may take it as my imagination. Normally we consider as a state of rest for the mind and body and sciences of all times stipulated some minimum requirements of time of sleep. But I consider myself as a twin left/right helical spring of mind and body as in an internal combustion engine valve and alive and asleep are just winding and unwinding of these springs. It seems to me that the sleep time, actually the winding happens and conscious self may be doing the unwinding. Still looking a bit fancy? I don't know, this sleep thing is quite slippery and may be worse than death. It is with us and still we can not figure it out. By the way I have been talking about God, but I have no idea where the present day science stand. May be it is not fully understood by a single entity. Like a locker with different key combinations?... 

To continue... 

Dear All, Good Day!

This actually belongs under the title "Crime and Punishment" and I thought I might take it up separately here, too.

I noticed a serious error in this adage, and I noticed it early, but I want to believe that I noticed it later than many. To say that to forgive is a Godly affair makes us an excuse not to forgive, stating that we are only human. In our language, Malayalam, there are so many adages, and we can get away from any situation by stating a suitable one. And personally, I had some aversion to the adages, and we have one, meaning that there is no chaff in the adages, making them look infallible. But later on, I realised that the chaff here is intended for the rice grain. I noticed that the good grains are to be conditioned for sowing purposes, and if you want to consume the grain, then you have to process it, and the byproducts and the grain itself can be used as suitable. That way, the adages also have to be analysed properly before putting them into use in any situation. Otherwise, it may cause more harm than good.

                                                                                    Also, I feel that the Malayalam I am familiar with is mostly unstructured, and history says that German Missionary Dr Herman Gundert had made a Dictionary for Malayalam, as he observed this issue, and it is said to be in the 1800s. But the Krishna Sthuthi, Njanappana, which is written by Sri. Poonthanam, a Brahmin, in the 1500s, looks so well structured. Quite confusing! Now, if you read a Malayalam newspaper, you may notice that absolutely no punctuation is used, and one who is trying to learn Malayalam may find it very difficult to comprehend the actual meaning.

                             Okay, I agree that to err is human, and this particular adage apparently means that it has caused some harm to other human being/s and also it was unintentional, clearly from the wording.  So the one who made the mistake wants to be forgiven. I do not understand the logic behind this. Any error is a failure. Just try to take a corrective measure and try to nullify the effect/s as much as possible. And I may add that this is the time the one who caused the harm has to become calm and fearless, and maybe other attributes as needed. Normally, we have to keep some fear within us as a safety aspect till an error occurs. English uses the term sorry at this juncture, taking responsibility for the situation. Only a fearless and calm mind can say sorry effectively. So now the stage is set for remedial measures and, if any inadequacy remains, which can not be compensated/ re-instated, then one may seek forgiveness for the affected one, and he may become Godly for the one who caused the harm, which the person doing the forgiving may never be aware of!

To continue...

 Good day, All!