View Video By Clicking Here -> Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about The Black Swan

Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Unpredictability, 9/11

Randy Pausch passes on.

Randy Pausch

Iran, Persia, Cyrus, Darius, Jews

Sami Yusuf, Try not to cry, Palestine, Children, Oppression

It was my first time celebrating Naw-Ruz with friends and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

It was like a dinner hosted by the United Nations with beautiful people - men, women and children - from diverse religious, ethnic, national and age groups celebrating the beginning of a new year.

Looking forward to Maulid-ur-Rasul next week.

Naw-Ruz

1 billion or so people don’t know something they are supposed to know about someone they claim to know.

Go figure.

Many so-called ‘developed’ countries only go so far as to talk about social entrepreneurship and human development and then implement lacklustre projects with hidden commercial-capitalist agendas, but these Ugandans took action. Watch this video to see how Unifying Social Dynamics is already taking root in Uganda, where Jew, Christian and Muslim work together to make quality coffee and raise economic standards:-

social entrepreneurship, human development, Unifying Social Dynamics

Figure out the head fake here.

head fake

I recently came by a group blogging project called “How I Want To Be Seen” started by a friend of a friend (so I guess he’s my friend too), a Mr Abu Aremu. My friend’s name is Shafie, although he’s not become as (in)famous as me online yet, he’s been helping me with my Ultimate Secrets of Success business.

Anyway, the project requires bloggers, especially those into personal development stuff or anything at all to do with Life and its betterment, to explain how they want to be seen by people, how they want to be known, what they want to be remembered for. I think that’s the gist of it. After I write my share, I’ll then “tag” someone, a fellow blogger, a friend, to do the same and pass it on. If they fail to pass it on, the blog-police will come and arrest them for negligence of duties (just a lame joke - ignore me). I think I already have someone in mind - so watch out whoever is reading this!

Do I Even Want To Be Seen?

Hmm… Let me think.

I don’t think I want to be seen if by being ’seen’ means only to be perceived, labelled, ‘tagged’ or described by people to be someone who’s done this or achieved that, said this or uttered that, was responsible for influencing the course of entire populations’ lives, done some good and done some harm, etc.

Some people believe that we are what we do - like in Batman Begins, one of my favourite lines is, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me” - to an extent I find that true.

I also believe that we are who or what we think we are, as a person, as a character, as a soul. There has to be both sides to the equation.

If we define a person only by her deeds, we know nothing of her inner life, her inner world, her thoughts, philosophies, world views, the intangible things that drive her in life.

If we define someone by what he thinks he is as a person, then practically nobody will know what he is like, what his ‘true character’ is (according to his views), unless he expresses himself either through his words or his deeds.

Therefore both are needed.

How I Don’t Want To Be Seen.

I don’t quite care how I don’t want to be seen. People have their own perceptions. For example, to me, the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, upon whom and whose family be peace, is indisputably the greatest, noblest, most successful human being to have ever lived on Earth (and beyond), and my view is shared by billions of other people - even those who don’t follow him - but there are some who either don’t concern themselves with a person who lived about 1,400 years ago or those who hate him outright as a violent warmonger, etc. That is their view. It is the job of objective scholars of history to shed truthful light on him.

How I Really Want To Be Seen (Finally!).

Okay, let’s say what I’m doing and what I achieve from what I’m doing just can’t help but attract people’s attention to the point that they see me as being responsible for this or that. So let them see what they want to see. I won’t concern myself with what people want to see of me. If what I’m doing is good and they see me in a bad light, then it’s their loss. If what I’m doing is bad and they see me in a bad light, then it’s their gain, because they’d then have to avoid me at all costs. But if what I’m doing is bad and they see me in a good light, I’ll have to be very worried.

I shall concern myself - not with what others see of me - but with what I want to see in other people and what I want to see in the world.

I shall see to it that my ideas, my beliefs, my thoughts, my actions, my enterprises and my brainchildren have the most significant and maximum impact upon humanity and its destiny, for the better.

I seek to be as wealthy as possible - not just in financial terms, but in the dimensions of knowledge, creativity, relationships, love, wisdom, courage, all the good intangible values, as well. But if being financially wealthy does not serve me and my self-defined life mission, then I shall just make do with a modest but stable life.

Anyway, I am the one who seeks to eradicate the monetary economy and replace it with a technologically advanced, holistic, ecological and egalitarian knowledge and resource based economy that makes poverty, deprivation and suffering irrational and impossible.

I want to see a world in which every child, woman and man are freed in the truest sense of the word ‘free’ from every unnecessary or undesirable chain, prison or shackle imaginable. No person shall ever have to work on something they hate just to put food on the table, but are free to pursue whatever gives them the healthiest, fullest pleasure and passion.

In the same way that we now breathe freely of the abundant air around us, so shall we see that every basic need of human life - healthy food and water, clean air, decent shelter, protection from preventable (and what seems to now be unpreventable) diseases, holistic education, etc - are available in abundance without monetary or other barter forms of obligations.

The worth of a person, although human beings are intrinsically beyond valuation, shall no longer be defined by material wealth, monetary value, possessions or other physical-based factors, but by one’s intangible, intellectual or aesthetic achievements, one’s use of the freely and abundantly available resources to fashion something better, one’s discoveries of new conceptual or real vistas, one’s selfless service rendered to a fellow human or to life or to a good ideal, etc.

Of course, a transcendental revolution of such epoch-defining magnitude cannot possibly be the work of one person. In fact, I claim no exclusive credit for my ideas. There are other more brilliant minds who have seriously looked into these possibilities. I shall strive to be a significant contributor to the realisation of this grand vision.

That is all.

I now tag my friend, Ganesan, to perpetuate this “How I Want To Be Seen” project in his own unique way.

How I Want To Be Seen, Abu Aremu, Ultimate Secrets of Success, personal development, Batman Begins, Ganesan