Stay Positive!

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I read a chapter from Matthew Dicks’s ‘Someday is Today’ and had to re-write these lines. Hope they serve as a good reminder!

Look at your life as a continuum and see how far you have come. From that perspective your current failure is a mere blip. Don’t look at isolated events.

There are enough people speaking negative about you. You can’t be one of them. You have to counteract them.

Speak aloud only good things about yourself even if you don’t mean them. The unconscious brain will believe it is true and it will make them true

You need 5 positive thoughts to counter 1 negative thought, so never speak negatively about yourself.

Speak well about yourself consciously and purposefully. When you know that you’re doing something is good for you, the benefit will increase. E.g., exercise, but exercise knowing that it will benefit you – in the second case, the benefits increase

Remind yourself of all positive things. E.g., be a sunshine. Tell yourself all the positive mantras e.g., happiness is the key to success, people who complain keep complaining, leave complaining and invite happiness

How to deal with negative people?

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Book: Someday is Today by Matthew Dicks

Years ago, I wrote a post on understanding people. I was 22 years old then, in my last semester of B.Tech. I was ready to take on the world. I had a job six months prior to graduation, so the final semester went by in roaming around the campus, making new acquaintances/friends, and discovering new hobbies. I had recently started writing blogs, and started noticing a pattern with people and documented my thoughts here – https://khannar.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/what-do-they-think/ 

Fast forward almost a decade, I am writing a similar blog post – How to deal with negative people? Since then, I pursued my M.B.A., travelled solo to Europe, travelled across the globe for work, met numerous girls and guys, some toxic and some authentic, fell in love, fell out of it, fell in love again, and recently I got married. It is safe to assume that as I grew older, my life gave me numerous opportunities to make new friends, learn from people, and put me in toxic situations. 

Once a careful person in admitting people to my life, I became close friends with two people who were toxic, toxic to me and my entire existence. While it has been a couple of years since I cut off contact with them, even today, when I think of them, my blood boils for what they did to me and my inability to react appropriately then. I shudder at the mere thought of what they put me through in the name of friendship, damaging my confidence, speaking behind my back, accusing of stealing friends (whatever that means) etc.  

It has been two years since I cut contact with both of them, and two years is not a short time to move on. Yet they bother me to date. For long, I thought I forgave them. I did not know a better way to deal with my memories of them, and telling myself that I forgave them seemed like the easiest way to forget about them in the moment. It is until I read Matthew Dicks’, ‘Someday is Today’, when I realized that not only have I not forgiven them, I do not even empathize with them. I have only managed to eliminate them from my life, and in my mind, it is not over yet. 

How often do you come across people who drain your energy? Negative people, as we call them, come in various degrees. 

Some people make mistakes unintentionally and hurt you. These are not bad people; they did wrong because of their inabilities, situation, and perhaps, unbeknownst to even themselves. Others have a different point of view, totally misaligned with yours. While these people can be a source of negativity to you, you still may(not) value them, but they are not bad people again. Some others will pick on you purposely (I do not understand the reason, jealousy maybe one), and the last set of people is toxic who will go out of their way to harm you/your reputation, your friendships and relationships. They will project their insecurities onto you and continue to do it until you finally push them out of your life. Sometimes, they will speak behind your back even after you have cut off all ties with them, sometimes even after that. 

How do you deal with all these people? Are you able to forgive them? If not, then how do you bring peace to your mind? Fret not, Matthew Dicks has shared a framework to let you get over these negative people. In his book, “Someday is Today”, Dicks writes about a 4-step framework to get rid off the negative people – 

  1. Forgive – Best strategy ever. Sometimes you need to understand what the other person was going through to be able to forgive them. Sometimes life does not give you that opportunity. But whenever possible, forgive, forgive, forgive, and move on.
  2. Empathize – Understand where they’re coming from. You may be incapable of forgiving them for what they did to you, but you still understand where they’re coming from. It will remove the toxicity from the relationship.
  3. Eliminate/Minimize all sorts of contact with the negative person.
  4. Enemy List – Put them on your enemy list. If the mere thought of somebody’s deeds boils your blood and makes you feel helpless, long after they did wrong to you, even after you have cut off all ties with them, they deserve to be on your enemy list. Important to note – Don’t have to act on your enemy list right now. Do not stoop down to their levels; hold on to your moral grounds. Just let it be there, so your brain is not burdened by constantly thinking of them. The list serves as a placeholder to remind you (remember David Allen’s Getting Things Done). The hope is that eventually, you will be able to find ways to forgive them or at least empathize with them. If not, the universe will figure out ways to help you seek revenge. Revenge doesn’t mean doing to them what they did to you. It simply means that perhaps, you will outdo them in your life, relationships and mental peace, and hopefully, one day, you will forgive them. Until then, let your enemy list take good care of them.

As soon as I heard it, I knew I had to create an enemy list and document their names. I sincerely hope I do not make the mistake of admitting more such people in my life, but even if I did, I know I have a place to store them. One day, hopefully, I will forgive them because life is too short to even bother about them. As Matthew Dicks says throughout his book, “Will your 100-year-old version lying on the death-bed be happy about this decision?”

Same or different?

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Are we all the same and yet so different or are we all different and yet the same?

Walking can show you things you didn’t know existed and wanted to see! I have been a big fan of walking, always. Walking gives you immense freedom, keeping the numerous health benefits aside. You can stop wherever and whenever. If you get hungry, you stop and eat. Something catches your fancy, take a detour. Had it not been for walking, I wouldn’t have realised that Gandhi is popular in Mexico.

There is a chain of book stores in Mexico, ‘Librerias Gandhi’. There is a statue of Gandhi along with Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. in the Museo Memoria y Tolerencia. Surprisingly enough, I read “Why I assassinated Gandhi” just before coming to Mexico. The book has had a huge impact on me and while I may not completely support the killing, I see Nathruam’s point of view. Was that the only way to stop the damage Gandhi was doing to India, willingly or unwillingly? I don’t know yet and it is for another day.

Walking on the pathway meant I took a turn whenever I fancied. And when I felt I was getting lost, I would turn back and walk towards the Alameda Park. My hotel is right in front of it.

As I walked through the city, I saw so many similarities with India. A lot of people, their smiling and warm faces, traffic on the streets, the cycle rickshaws, and occasionally, people begging as well. I had tried to escape from India and yet here I was, back in India, just a different kind! Without taking away the Mexican identity, I felt at home. Feeling at home also meant being extremely careful because of the petty crimes, rapes, and violence; it comes to me naturally.

Mexico has had a long history with surrealism, and you can witness it in Museo del Palacio de Bella Artes. I didn’t enjoy the museum initially because it was all in Spanish. But you don’t always need to read something to understand it, isn’t it? As I reached the second half of the museum, I started to understand the theme around surrealism and its foundation. It was a brain opener! After all, humans don’t always act rationally. If anything, they act emotionally, and rationality takes a back seat.

I have always struggled with acting out of emotions. While your emotions are a good way to tell you that something is not right; according to me, they are not the best way to make decisions. In the past, I have often acted disproportionately to the cause, when angry. Gradually, over the years, I have conditioned myself to take the value out of emotions, and not to react in a state of high emotions. It took me a lot of time to condition my system 2 as Kahneman describes in Thinking Fast and Slow, but I am happy with the end result. I don’t lose my calm easily now. By corollary, if I lose my calm now, it surely is a big thing.

Graffiti on streets in Mexico are based on surrealism. While I initially didn’t make much of them, as I understood surrealism, I find the art amusing. Unconsciously, I also realise myself stopping to admire it. There could be a monkey face on a human body. The nude, conventionally “imperfect” paineted bodies serve a subtle reminder of how an actual body is. I see a lot of women in Mexico wearing crop tops even though they do not have washboard abs. In fact, they are far away from it. Not supporting obesity in the name of body positivity, I wish that one day, we will be able to accept our healthy bodies – the ones that are fed with healthy food and regular exercise, even though they have stretch marks, acne, and without sculpted abs.

Everywhere I go, I see a part of me on the streets, just in a different body. The concerns are the same, just said aloud by a different soul. We are travelers of our lives, and while all of us are different, yet it all feels the same.

Jul 1 – The fear is real

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It was a little over 2 years since I had taken my last international flight. 1 March 2020, the day I flew to New York on a project, my dream destination. It wasn’t my dream destination then. It became my dream destination in the hindsight. I tried hard to get that project. I had displayed courage. I reached out directly to the boss of the Vice President of our division. Within 10 days of my speaking to the Senior VP, I got the project, booked the tickets, got the invitation letter, and landed in the US (from India). The project was for 2 months and so was my planned stay, except that COVID happened. I came back to India on 21st March 2020. From 22nd March, the Indian government banned the landing of any international flight on Indian soil and the rest is history.

I was excited at the prospect of taking an international flight again – going to a new place, experiencing new people, and becoming a bit wiser. I was going to travel solo. My first solo trip was in 2018. I went to Vienna, Salzburg, Zurich, and Lenggries (a village in Bavaria). I have always travelled solo outside India. Within India, I haven’t travelled much.

Solo travelling makes you confident, and if you are any less weird than I am, it also gives you a lot of friends. If you’re as weird as me, you know the pain. But as fancy as travelling solo sounds, the fear is real. You are responsible for every single thing. There is nobody to depend upon, you must solve your problems. At the same time, being alone also makes you realise your shortcomings. You know exactly when you need help.

Traveling solo to Europe and USA is one thing and to Mexico another. With no offence to any place, I was travelling from India. My guards are always up. I took a business class flight, for the second time in my life. It was akin to a 4-star hotel. I was well-fed and I slept like a log.

There is also a sense of insecurity you have when you get luxuries as a middle-class person. The 10-year-old kid sitting next to me on the first flight seemed more of a natural at using the different amenities, while I played around with controls and reclined my seat back and forth. I wanted to strike a conversation with him, but he didn’t seem interested. Did he not find me worthy of his time or was he shy?

On the second flight, I had taken the upper deck and it was business class at a whole new level. Middle-class kids study hard and go to good colleges to experience these luxuries only to realise that they are shallow. Or maybe not. Maybe all these luxuries are exactly what some people want in their lives, and what’s wrong with it?! To each his own.

As I stepped on the Mexican soil, I was reminded of Shantaram, even though there were stark differences. Gregory Roberts had escaped from an Australian prison as a terrorist on a fake passport. I had rightfully come to Mexico on a business project with a genuine passport. My struggles in Mexico would be first-world problems whereas Shantaram was all about survival. I was excited about what Mexico had in store for me. But it is Gregory Roberts who has encouraged me to document my experiences. Shantaram is an inspiration.

I cleared the immigration, collected my luggage, and moved out to take a cab to the hotel, except that nobody wanted to serve me. You need Spanish to get through most things in Mexico, and the airport cab service is one of those many things.

Two kiosks of the same cab service provider quoted different prices, the difference being the payment method – one of them allowed me to pay by card and the other strictly wanted cash. I didn’t have pesos. The difference seemed too high to justify the Merchant Discount Rate. I was scared at the prospect of getting robbed.

I went to another service provider, who after much negotiation, told me that she had no cabs. Apparently, all the cabs left during the discussion we had using hand signs, google translate, and calls with a friend and the hotel reception. As we were discussing, a big queue formed behind me, everybody wanting to take cabs. Somehow, I felt that she told the cab numbers to everybody except me.  

I stood in one corner of the airport in a foreign country at 10:30 in the night wondering if I should accept the over-priced cab or if I was going to sleep at the airport that night. I realised how comfortable it is to be in India. My mind wandered to a friend of mine, who had come from Germany to India in 2019 on a project. He was also travelling for business except that he came from Germany, and I came from India. Things are not all organized in India and a lot works on jugaad. I never thought how difficult it was for him. He was in fact duped by a local in India for Rs 6,000 and I had laughed at that incident. How inconsiderate! Sometimes, we only realise the other person’s pain when we go through something similar ourselves. Is that why men at the top don’t make the world better for women? Do they need to experience the pain of being a woman first-hand? But my friend never told me if he found it difficult. Maybe he didn’t want to appear like a cry baby, but haven’t all the protests made it clear how difficult society is for women? Is it just about the lack of first-hand experience or lack of any desire to see women rise? But women will rise and take over. It is just about time.

I wondered if the end would justify the journey. Would my experience in Mexico City compensate for the price I was paying and will have to pay going forward? I didn’t know and I don’t know yet. Time will tell. But now that I am here, I must make the most of it.  

The people at the counter didn’t speak English and a passer-by offered to help. When you’re a lone woman with big bags in a totally new place, you doubt the intentions of even the well-meaning individuals. It doesn’t matter whether the place is rated safe or not. And here I stood in Mexico, with the sight of nobody from the Indian sub-continent around, in a country where I didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand me. I felt uncomfortable in my stomach. I don’t think it is my fault though, it is the fault of the system we have been provided, where a woman never feels safe.

With some assistance from the hotel and primarily from my friend, I could finally manage a cab at a reasonable price. The hotel room is pretty, and even after a smooth ride back to the hotel, it took me 2 hours to feel better and finally go to bed.

The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel

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  • Go out of your way to find humility when things are going right and forgiveness/compassion when things go wrong. Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems
  • There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don’t have and don’t need
  • Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don’t see
  • Manage your money in a way that helps you sleep at night
  • If you want to do better as an investor, the single most powerful thing you can do is increase your time horizon
  • Become OK with a lot of things going wrong. You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune
  • Use money to gain control over your time
  • No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are
  • Save. Just save. You don’t need a specific reason to save
  • Define the cost of success and be ready to pay it
  • Worship room for error
  • Avoid extreme ends of financial decisions
  • You should like risk because it pays off over time
  • Define the game you’re playing, and make sure your actions are not being influenced by people playing a different game
  • Respect the mess. There is no single right answer; just the answer that works for you

Numbers numbers everywhere

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Some of the lessons I learned in the first year of management consulting –

  1. Numbers, while important, don’t convey anything by themselves
    • A number as large as 10 million,12.5% of Germany’s population, can become insignificant when compared with the population of India. It is <1% of our population
  2. Context is important. How to set that context?
    • Always look at the trend of that number. It could be bad but improving. It could be awesome but declining. How was it a year or 5 years ago?
    • See it as a part of a whole. Defining that whole is important. It is not to paint a rosy picture of an otherwise bleak scenario
    • Often, looking at things from a per unit perspective helps, e.g., per person
  3. Even though percentages and trends provide the context, don’t mislead yourself into believing that percentages are everything
    • 2% return on $10,000 equals $200
    • 20% return on $100 is only $20
    • A lot of financial market schemes promise an enormous percentage returns. But they come with significant risk. With high risk, you can’t bet your life’s savings on it and if you put a small amount (depending on how small it is), you may not get handsome absolute returns as well
  4. Lastly, numbers are great! But they should be used as an aide to enhance our understanding of reality. Purely by numbers, US has the highest GDP and is among the richest nations in the world. You would expect people to be rich and lead comfortable lives there. However, I won’t be surprised if we saw poorer people trying to make ends meet. Reported numbers are often taken at an aggregate level to make things simpler and easier to understand. But life isn’t simple always, is it?

The Forty Rules of Love

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Note – I have copied some sentences directly from the book. They are the italicized and in Pink.

I usually don’t write book summaries because I think enough people are already doing a fantastic job at it. I mostly write if something catches my fancy. In any book, usually there are elements, but, as a matter of fact, this entire book has caught my mind. I finished it a couple of days ago and I am still thinking about it.  I want to write about it, but I don’t know what to write about it, even until now. But then one of the rules says – Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what is naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow. Let me take my first step. I don’t know yet how it will shape up.

Let me tell you at the outset – the book is not about “romantic” love. Although if you talk about love, romantic love is hard to miss. There are stories of romantic love in this book, just like there are stories of love a son has for his father, the love for god, the love between Shams and Rumi (mentor and mentee) etc. The book talks about love that transcends religion, age, and gender.

Before starting the book, I thought it was a book on the 40 rules of “romantic” love and I consciously stayed away from it. Having lost in love, I was in no mood to read about romantic love. I didn’t even want to read about it online. But then – love is the very essence and purpose of life. As Rumi reminds us, it hits everybody, including those who shun love – even those who use the word “romantic” as a sign of disapproval.

But something happened on 23rd Jan 2022, that’s when I opened this book. I had some free time, and I was wondering what to do with it. It was cold outside, and I was recovering from COVID. I had watched enough number of Naruto episodes, had done my writing for the week, and had been reading 2 books. I wanted to do something different. After looking at a couple of books, I picked this one off the shelf. You must be wondering where I got it from given my aversion to reading anything on “romantic” love. It was gifted to me by a friend. It had been sitting on my shelf for more than a year. Just now the time for it was right – a year ago, I wasn’t at peace with myself. I had lost in love and was aching. But as one of the rules says – God is a meticulous dock maker. So precise is his order that everything on earth happens in its own time. Neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without exception, the clock works accurately. For each there is a time to love and a time to die.

I read a couple of pages in the evening and then left the book. I wasn’t hooked on to it yet. That night, just before sleeping, I decided to read another couple of pages and that was all I needed. And in the next 7 days, I finished the book. Reading a 350-pages book in 8 days is nothing great, but like I said I have been reading 2 other books, and I had a work week, and it is the fastest that I have ever read and finished a book.

There is time for everything. Shams knew he had to meet his companion (who turned out to be Rumi eventually). Even though Baba Zaman knew the details of Shams’ companion (and Shams was staying in Baba Zaman’s lodge), Shams waited for a year before baba Zaman decided to tell him the details. And he waited patiently. As another rule says – Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to look at the end of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full

The book drives home the knowledge that we have known in one way or the other throughout our lives about patience, destiny, taking a step, treating yourself right, taking the inner journey etc. It talks about fighting your mental boundaries, taboos and prejudices and destroying your attachments to your own self, family, your image, and place in your social circle. I agree to it. For as long as I had a certain image to maintain, I couldn’t be who I wanted to be entirely. But once I got rid of it, I feel lighter and find myself a better person. For those who have known me for a long time and are reading this post, I wasn’t hiding anything. I am only trying to be more of who I have always been.

It is surprisingly calm and soothing in the beginning and tragic at the end. When Shams was murdered, Rumi cried, “They killed him! They killed my Shams!” but then there are always enemies of true love. So were there enemies of Shams. But then, for every Shams that dies, another Sufi is born. Rule #39 says – While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every descent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes. For every Sufi who dies, another is born somewhere.

And Aziz Z. Zahara is another Shams separated by ~800 years who is narrating the story of Shams. Yes, it is a story within a novel. There is the story of Rumi and Shams and a modern-day romance novel on Aziz and Ella. Aziz is telling the story to Ella, who didn’t believe in love and was living a seemingly happy life with her husband of 20 years, 3 children and all the luxuries of life. But destiny had something else in store for Ella. What is destiny anyway? While I have always struggled with the meaning of destiny, the book talks about what destiny is not – Destiny doesn’t mean that your life has been strictly predetermined. Therefore, to leave everything to fate and to not actively contribute to the music of the universe is a sign of sheer ignorance.   

Although you may have some idea about the destiny of Shams and Rumi, (and if you don’t, I encourage you to read this book), I am not going to spill the beans about Ella and Aziz’s destiny.

In another blogpost, I will share The 40 Rules of Love. Keep watching!

Sapiens – Part 3 – The Unification of Humankind

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Note: This post is my notes on Sapiens’ Chapter 9-13 – The Unification of Humankind. The language is the same as written in the book by Yuval Noah Harari. It is by no means a summary and is not exhaustive; it is a collection of excepts and content that stood out for me. It provided me insights into why we are the way we are on a few things. 

  • But cultures also undergo transitions due to their own internal dynamics. Even a completely isolated culture existing in an ecologically stable environment cannot avoid change. Unlike the laws of physics, which are free of inconsistencies, every man-made order is packed with internal contradictions.
  • In other words, does history have a direction? The answer is yes. Over the millennia, small, simple creatures gradually coalesce into bigger and more complex civilisations, so that the world contains fewer and fewer mega-cultures, each of which is bigger and more complex.
  • Today almost all humans share the same geopolitical system (the entire planet is divided into internationally recognised states); the same economic system(capitalist market forces shape even the remotest corners of the globe); the same legal system(human rights and international law are valid everywhere, at least theoretically); the same scientific system (experts in Iran, Israel, Australia and Argentina have exactly the same views about the structure of atoms or the treatment of tuberculosis)
  • From a practical perspective, the most important stage in the stage of global unification occurred in the last few centuries, when empires grew, and trade intensified.
  • For the merchants, the entire world was a single market and all humans were potential customers.
  • Everyone always wants money because everyone else also always wants money, which means you can exchange money for whatever you want or need.
  • Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
  • Empires were one of the main reasons for the drastic reduction in human diversity. Standardisation was a boon to emperors.
  • Throughout the world, more and more entrepreneurs, engineers, experts, scholars, lawyers and managers are called to join the empire. They must ponder whether to answer the imperial call or to remain loyal to their state and their people. More and more choose the empire.
  • Religion can thus be defined as a system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order.
  • A person who does not crave cannot suffer.
  • Suffering arises from craving; the only way to be fully liberated from suffering is to be fully liberated from craving; and the only way to be liberated from craving is to train the mind to experience reality as it is.
  • If the mind of a person is free of all craving, no god can make him miserable.
  • The meaning of life is struggle.
  • No matter what you call it – game theory, postmodernism or memetics – the dynamics of history are not directed towards enhancing human well-being.

Sapiens – Part 2 – The Agricultural Revolution

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Note: This post is the second part of a multi-post series. This post is my notes on Sapiens’ Chapter 5-8. The language is the same as written in the book by Yuval Noah Harari. It is by no means a summary and is not exhaustive; it is a collection of excepts and content that stood out for me. It provided me insights into why we are the way we are on a few things.  

  • The Agricultural revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure.
  • The Agricultural revolution was history’s biggest fraud.
  • The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa.
  • According to the basic evolutionary criteria of survival and reproduction, wheat has become one of the most successful plants in the history of the earth.
  • Cultivating wheat provided much more food per unit of territory, and thereby enable Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially.
  • The currency of evolution is neither hunger nor pain, but rather copies of DNA helixes.
  • This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.
  • Yet why should individuals care about this evolutionary calculus? Why should any sane person lower his or her standard of living just to multiply the number of copies of the Homo Sapiens genome? Nobody agreed to the deal: the Agricultural Revolution was a trap.
  • The discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution.
  • Consequently, from the very advent of agriculture, worries about the future became major players in the theatre of the human mind.
  • It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into ‘superioris’ and ‘commoners’ is a figment of the imagination. Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. In what sense do all humans equal one another? Is there any objective reality, outside the human imagination, in which we are truly equal? Is there an objective reality, outside the human imagination, in which we are truly equal? Are all humans equal to one another biologically?
  • How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism?
    • The imagined order is embedded in the material world
    • The imagined order shapes our desires. Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order.
    • The imagined order is inter-subjective. The inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. If a single individual changes his or her beliefs, or even dies, it is of little importance.
  • There is no way out of the imagined order. When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison.
  • The short answer is that humans created imagined orders and devised scripts. These two inventions filled the gaps left by our biological inheritance.
  • Hierarchies serve an important function. They enable complete strangers to know how to treat one another without wasting time and energy needed to become personally acquainted.
  • The vicious circle: a chance historical situation is translated into a rigid social system
    • Chance historical event à White control of blacks à Discriminatory laws à Poverty and lack of education among blacks à Cultural prejudices
  • Money comes to money, and poverty to poverty. Education comes to education, and ignorance to ignorance.
  • If the division into blacks and whites or Brahmins and Shudras was grounded in biological realities – that is, if Brahmins really had better brains than Shudras – biology would be sufficient for understanding human society.
  • Biology enables, culture forbids. Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while forbidding others.
  • Sex is child’s play but gender is serious business.
  • What’s so good about men?
    • The most common theory points to the fact that men are stronger than women, and that they have used their greater physical power to force women into submission.
      • In fact, human history shows that there is often an inverse relationship between physical prowess and social power.
    • Another theory explains that masculine dominance results not from strength but from aggression.
      • Women can match men as far as hatred, greed and abuse are concerned, but when push comes to shove, the theory goes, men are more willing to engage in raw physical violence.
      • In times of war, men’s control of the armed forces has made them the masters of civilian society, too.
      • One can’t reasonably argue that their physical weakness or low testosterone levels prevented women from being successful mandarins, generals and politicians.
    • A third type of biological explanation gives less importance to brute force and violence, and suggests that through millions of years of evolution, men and women evolved different survival and reproduction strategies.
      • The result of these different survival strategies – so the theory goes – is that men have been programmed to be ambitious and competitive, and a to excel in politics and business, whereas women have tended to move out of the way and dedicated their lives to raising children.