Month: July 2007

How I came upon objectivism…

On By PriyaIn Ayn Rand, Objectivism, PersonalLeave a comment

 

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. At least, as the saying goes. But it is not enough as to the reason why I read a lot. My friends think I am such a bookworm. One of them even went to the extent and said that I would probably never stop reading till my grave!

Reading is not an exercise to the mind. It is an exercise for the reasoning mind. I learned a lot from reading. People seek knowledge while reading books that convey vital information. But not all books are of such kind. You have to search for books that interest you. You have to be intelligent enough to look out for credible authors, being able to give you the correct information without any bias, or bad logic.  

Non-fiction books have much to offer to the knowledge bank compared to fiction. If you want a good entertainment for your mind, go for fiction of any kind, romanticism, horror, comedy, suspense, thriller and mystery. If you want to experience some growth of your knowledge bank, go for non-fiction. But whatever it is, reading is a very good way of conditioning your mind. 

As humans, we are very capable of thinking for ourselves. We don’t always have to rely on others and follow the crowd. Instead, we can devise our lives for ourselves. Such individualistic streak can be obtained from reading books critically. That’s because reading requires us to think about the issue or subject written on our own.  Reading is also an endless journey. After reading one book, the book itself will direct you to another similar or entirely different book. Or you may want to pursue similar topics in a different viewpoint. Reading widely, now that’s very important. You will gain more confidence about your intelligence by reading widely. 

That is when I encountered Ayn Rand. When reading was a very important part of my life. My friend directed me to it. I read her fictitious novel, The Fountainhead, and immediately fell in love with her philosophy. It was whatever I had in my mind but didn’t know how to express it. I was only aware that I didn’t agree with what most of the people lived with. The notion that we are born to serve others. I started this blog so as to experience my revelation upon entering this new world of objectivism. I want to live my life for myself from now on. Nothing is wrong with my notion of life until I discovered Rand and her philosophy. I’ll try to post regularly, but that’s not a promise.  

Why I Read…

On By PriyaIn book-reading1 Comment

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. At least, as the saying goes. But it is not enough as to the reason why I read a lot. My friends think I am such a bookworm. One of them even went to the extent and said that I would probably never stop reading till my grave!

Reading is not an exercise to the mind. It is an exercise for the reasoning mind. I learned a lot from reading. People seek knowledge while reading books that convey vital information. But not all books are of such kind. You have to search for books that interest you. You have to be intelligent enough to look out for credible authors, being able to give you the correct information without any bias, or bad logic.

Books are definitely the source of the knowledge I’ve gained this far. And it will be for the rest of my life. I want to write a book, fiction or non-fiction, in the future when I am ready. I have that much passion for books, especially non-fiction. I also read philosophical fiction, detective fiction, in the likes of Agatha Christie and Ayn Rand.

Non-fiction books have much to offer to the knowledge bank compared to fiction. If you want a good entertainment for your mind, go for fiction of any kind, romanticism, horror, comedy, suspense, thriller and mystery. If you want to experience some growth of your knowledge bank, go for non-fiction. But whatever it is, reading is a very good way of conditioning your mind.

As humans, we are very capable of thinking for ourselves. We don’t always have to rely on others and follow the crowd. Instead, we can devise our lives for ourselves. Such individualistic streak can be obtained from reading books critically. That’s because reading requires us to think about the issue or subject written on our own.

Reading is also an endless journey. After reading one book, the book itself will direct you to another similar or entirely different book. Or you may want to pursue similar topics in a different viewpoint. Reading widely, now that’s very important. You will gain more confidence about your intelligence by reading widely.

Well, everything will go fine if you read. But one thing you have to care of is your eyesight. Reading too intensely for long hours is very unhealthy for your eyes. At every 30-minute interval, you have to stop reading and look somewhere far. Relax your eyes. Then go back to your book. Or you can close your eyes at regular intervals for a while and rest. This will elongate your reading time. You don’t have to get tired easily and abandon reading just for that.

100th Post!!!

On By PriyaIn musings, Personal2 Comments

So, this is officially the 100th post of my blog! And so I’m going to change the layout of my blog again. I can’t seem to help it. What can I do? You people have to bear with me. I hate to remain the same throughout. I like changes. I tend to get bored quite easily.

I want to start something new. Like a series this time. Yesterday night I was feeling so excited that I could barely go to sleep. I don’t know why. But it happens to me occasionally. Especially, if I have a lot of thoughts going on in my mind. Or if there is something interesting to happen the next day. So I decided no harm is going to come to me (I don’t care about the others) if I list down the musings of my mind. Well, it’s quite hard to recollect and write the thought flow of my brain (if it has any flow at all!). But I will do my best. I will have to ignore my personal thoughts that are only meant for me. You can imagine whatever that would have been, I don’t care, honestly.

So before I went to bed yesterday night, I was reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged . So here are my thoughts:

“How could Rand put everything in words so properly? And they say that she is not a good writer at all! Like she said, ‘The motive power of man is his moral code.’ How true it is? I have thought about such things but have never found the right words to phrase it up like she did. I don’t know if I should include this in my blog tomorrow. But what the heck? I should not listen to anyone saying that I should stop ranting about Rand. But I should stop because I think that I should. Enough of Rand.”

“I love my family so much. I mean, last time I used to find them a bit off my level. But I realise now they are quite open-minded about me. They give me a lot of freedom and trust me a lot. I don’t feel thankful to them for that. Because parents should only control their children up to a certain age. After that children should be left on their own. Be it parents or anyone, they might have the right but it doesn’t mean that they own the children. My mum is fine with me doing things my own way. But it’s just dad, who is a bit worried me. And I don’t know for what reason.”

“Incidentally, do you think that parents have the right to demand that the children take care of them when they grow old, like they took care and provided for their children? First of all, the parents made their choice to have children and therefore it’s their responsibility to provide for us, no matter of what choice we take when we grow up; to care or not to care. If they provide for us with the expectation that we will help them later in their life, then there is no true affection involved in the parent-child relationship. The couple should have made the decision to provide for themselves only. But as children we have to help the parents in their old age, when they are incapable, both financially and physically, to take care of themselves. I mean, they are our parents who brought us to this world, who gave us life. So essentially, by helping them, you are helping yourself. I don’t know what I am blabbering at this time of night. But yeah. They don’t have the right to demand. But we should help, when necessary, not to earn a good name, or to collect ‘punniyam’ or crap!”

After some private musings…

“Why are my relatives so narrow-minded? Gosh! I can’t imagine how they manage to live in that filthy house with filthy conditions. It’s not like they don’t have money at all. My uncle’s house is very small, enough for just two people to live. They could have used the money to renovate the house, maybe? But they used it to buy a bigger TV. Can you imagine my shock? Why do they draw a line around themselves and refure to come out of it? And my cousins… All they care about are trivial things such as sarees, embroidery, jewellery, cinema and so on. And all they ever think of is marriage. After that, their life is over. That’s all. Full stop. But why should I muse and rant about them. It’s their own problem that they are like that. It’s just that, I couldn’t talk to anyone normally. I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about stuff like that. It seemed so boring. It was like they were just talking for the sake of talking. Just for time pass. Luckily there was Keerti, and we both started off at the same level.”

So then after this final musing, I started to scold myself to go to sleep. Because by this time, I was twisting and turning on the bed! And in my thoughts I do keep referring to someone called ‘you’. Like talking to a person in myself. I guess a lot of people think like that. It’s like there is an person in each and everyone. I guess that is what the hindus call the ‘soul’, made of the five elements and of the five senses. So until next time….

Transformers…a great movie

On By PriyaIn movie reviewLeave a comment
Warning: Spoiler Ahead

Yes! Transformers movie was simply great and a movie worth watching again. The attraction felt towards those steel metals, or simply called the non-biological entities, are definitely long-lasting. It’s a great movie with a truly Steven Speilberg’s touch! ET was such a fascination. The same can be felt with Transformers.

Even Fantastic Four: The Rise Of The Silver Surfer wasn’t that great. The movie’s climax was superb. But it failed to keep the audience glued to the screen. But Transformers was really a feast to our eyes from the moment our butts touched the cushion seats.

The idea of technology, like a car or radio, turning into living and feeling robots is a really wonderful imagination. Even more wonderful thing about this movie are the graphics and the long climax. It keeps the audience at the edge of the seat, eventhough the climax is somewhat predictable. I like the story, because the robots here are not mentioned as just mechanical objects. They have emotions and a personality.

Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots and is responsible for finding the Cube and defeating Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. Bumblebee is the cute yellow car, he’s a bit sensitive and has great pride. Jazz is a style freak, he loves human culture. And so on. The Decepticons, on the other hand, want to take over the universe by manipulating the technology found on Earth.

Between Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, I don’t know which one is my favourite. I like the both of them. The responsible one and the cute, sensitive one. But I like Optimus more. He has a great heart (not literally speaking). When the autobots ask him why should they fight for the human race, Optimus replies that the ‘freedom (to choose) is the right of all sentient beings, including themselves.’

The movie has no lack of humour and comedy. There is a correct balance in this area of the movie. The actors and actresses also did a splendid job. Especially the main teenager character ‘Sam’. He’s playing the main role, because he owns the clue in the finding of the cube. So in a nutshell, the survival of the entire human race is underneath him. All he has to do is to trust the autobots, and not the decepticons. All in all, it’s an enchanting movie. The story is just right, not too complex and not too simple either. But the climax was predictable, the cube being destroyed and all. Graphics, superb! Go watch the movie. I’ll give four stars for the movie.