Who we are in reality?!

      "Who can understand the human heart? There is nothing else so deceitful; it is too sick to be healed" (Jeremiah 17:9). We often unintentionally choose good ways to reach evil and evil ways to reach good. Our heart tricks us at times. We are confused between good and evil. Even if our intention is to do good for our society, we usually end up forgetting the society and doing good for ourselves; we make sure that our “name is up there.” Why is this?
The I factor
      We think that if things were done by us, it would be better. This is because we are prone to excessive pride. We become so proud of ourselves that we don't even think about the people around us. We disrespect people and become arrogant. We think that our parents are senseless. Our siblings are dumb and friends are stupid. “When you have a distorted view of yourself, such as through excessive pride or arrogance, because of these states of mind, you have an exaggerated sense of your qualities and personal abilities” Dalai Lama. We forget about our actual abilities and self assure ourselves that we are capable of much more than our abilities.
      Why do we spend so much time in front of the mirror fixing up our hair or putting on makeup? I know a friend who combs his hair at least three times in one hour. Why is he so concerned about himself? His hair has to be in a way that he desires. If not, he would be always worried about going in front of the mirror and fixing it up. We are tuned in such a way that if we "look good," we are confident. We can go out there and do anything. And of course we need this confidence in us. Only if we are confident, our self-esteem will increase and we will have faith in ourselves. 
So we can be "proud" up to a certain extend while we make sure that we don't exaggerate our actual abilities. 
     Pride cheats our heart. "Your arrogance has deceived you. You live on rocky cliffs. You make your home up high. You say to yourself, 'No one can bring me down to earth." (Obadiah 1:3). Thus we have to be aware of who we are in reality and not let our heart cheat us. Our heart is too weak that if we do not obtain the wisdom to differentiate good intentions from bad ones we will never find satisfaction in our lives. 


“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Wisest self

“I think I can” Then why not? What is holding you back? The problem is that you only think that you can, rather than knowing that you can. You do not know your Self. You do not know your potential. Something goes wrong and the first thing you do is ask a friend for advice and not your Self. Why do you feel more satisfied when someone says “O you look good” or “nice dress”? Why do you depend on your friends to make you happy? Why do you feel intimidated when you see someone “cooler” than you? You just think that whatever your friends say about you is who you are. They are the ones you look up to. If they dress a certain way, you also have to dress the same way. If they listen to a certain type of music, you also have to listen to the same ones. Maybe there is nothing wrong with that. But when you give the most preference to your friends you tend to ignore your Self. You forget to see your perspective.

Okay now let’s define Self. But how? All I can say is Self is you; your consciousness. “The highest fences which you need to climb are the fences which you built in your own mind.” You have built these fences with the definitions that your friends have given you. You must climb these fences and explore the true you. Who are you? What is your true personality? Are you trying to follow someone or are you unique in your own way?

“Have you ever taught, counseled, advised, or comforted another person? Have you responded to a child's question? There's your wisest self, speaking out. Your wisdom will never be perfect. To think so would not be wise.” Elaine Aron, Ph.D (research and clinical psychologist)

Don't think you can. Know you can.

Try to listen to the inner You. I am sure you will be surprised.

Real or Fake smile?

 "In a recent issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, they argue that smiles are not simply the expression of an internal feeling. Smiles in fact are only the most visible part of an intimate melding between two minds." Carl Zimmer (New York Times: More to a Smile Than Lips and Teeth). When you smile at someone looking straight into their eyes, (even if they don't know you) they smile right back to you. Why? The answer is pretty simple. When you smile at someone, certain parts (circuits) in your brain are activated. And locking your eyes on the other person will create a similar affect on him/her leading to a smile.

The anatomy of smiling is pretty complex because of the different types of smiles and the different meanings they exhibit. A smile can be fake or it can be real. There are smiles which says that "I am really happy" and smiles that says "I am pretending to be happy." A smile is not what your zygomaticus major disclose. A real smile is from the unconscious part of the brain while the fake one is from the conscious brain (cerebral cortex) according to Dr. Guy Curtis, a specialist in emotions and social behavior. Okay maybe that might be a little confusing. Lets break it down. Imagine your boyfriend/girlfriend just bought you lunch and it is sushi. You hate sushi (YUCK!) but you don't want to admit it. You still smile, you don't show any sign of disgust because you don't want to hurt his/her feelings. In which case you are planning (conscious brain) your emotions leading to a fake smile. Now imagine your loved one just gave you a big surprise. You won't be able to stop smiling. Matter of fact your smiling will turn into tears because you cannot control it. Its from your unconscious mind and you have no means of controlling it. This is a truthful smile.

Fake and real smiles comes from different parts of the brain thus it is also portrayed by different mouth muscles. Lets look at the famous Mona Lisa. In the picture the left side of her mouth tends to curve up a little bit more that her right side. And the left side is associated with the right side of the brain "which tends to be dominant in processing negative emotions and conscious emotions (fake smile) whereas the left hemisphere of the brain seems to be dominant in processing real happiness" Dr. Guy Curtis. Although the validity of this statement is questionable, this example was used only to show how different parts of the brain play key role in determining a real or fake smile.

There might be situations where you have to give a "I am pretending to be happy" smile, but just remember, real smiles give out a positive vibe to the person who is perceiving it. So try to be real. 

A smile comes from the bottoms of one's heart.
That’s the magic of a smile.

Catholic social teaching

The welfare of humanity can be rooted down to the Catholic social teaching which lays the foundation by analyzing the needs of even the “poorest members” of the community. Through the Rerum Novaram (an encyclical issued by Pope Leo Xlll on May 15, 1891), themes such as the dignity of a person, value of family, rights, concern of the poor, value of work, solidarity and the environment are all carefully examined. The Catholic society attributes the highest value for its people and the respect for each person. In this perspective, human life is valuable from the point when the person is formed in the womb to the point that the person dies through natural death. Ethical issues such as abortion and euthanasia are strongly argued as being the immoralities done to life. The respect for each of the individuals particularly form the respect towards a family or community. The catholic church holds account for its principle that family is the basic form of the society. Of the basic societal unit, family, branches off the rights and responsibilities of each person. Catholic church advocates the principle that each person has the right to own property up to a certain extend and also each person has responsibilities of his/her own . These responsibilities also include looking after the poor. The church also teaches that maintaining the social mortgage, one should perceive his poor brothers/sisters as equal to him and has the responsibility to fulfill his/her needs in all ways. The work structural should also maintain its terms of personal equality towards all its workers, without considering the superiority of the person. Through this the principle of solidarity can also be upheld. Solidarity calls in unity all its members to work together as a group to maintain the universal peace and structure. Lastly care for god's creation. Catholic teaching also include the aspect of protecting one's surrounding from his/her own actions. The environment is the gift of God and no human activities which can destruct the resources can be tolerated. All these teachings compose the universally divine tone and peace which is responsible to continue the relationship between the creator and its creation.  

Race and Language

          Language is definitely the source of communications between people but because of the stereotyping and different contributions by racism, language intends to destroy the relationship among people. The definition for race and culture is given by looking at the racial characteristics. Because of the race, the color etc humankind are separated into different ethnic groups and those ethnic groups have been understanding each other through the language interpreted only by the people in the ethnic group. The main reason which lead to the classification in the mankind was the distinction in the racial classification.

          From the context of history, several examples can be seen as a result of racism. Centuries back when there was a system of castes in India people were put into different groups according to the skin color, family background and the different accents in the language they speak. The different castes were the Brahmins, were the high priests and religious leaders; Kshatriyas, were kings and noblemen; Vaishyas, were the businessmen and merchants; Sudras, were workers; Dalits (Untouchables), were the group which was treated like slaves. The Dalits were not to walk through the path of the brahmins or the noblemen. People with a darker skin was considered as the low class people than the people who had lighter skin color. Even though the same language, the people who spoke differently than the high class people were also considered inferior. The Dalits had an accent in their way of speaking the language. They had speak to the Brahmins in a special way. They all contributed to differentiation in class which led to disunity among the people of the same nation.

          A race, or a nation is determined not only determined by the people's physical characteristics but is universally defined through the different ideologies the race share. In simple words, arguments debate that, if the world was entirely limited to one language and culture, it would be more easier for the people to understand each other and they would share the same ideologies. Racism has been demolishing the meaning of relationships through out the world. Racism has been promoting racial segregation and violence. Because there is a variation in race, nations have been struck into unresolved conflicts leading these unresolved conflicts into personal conflicts between individuals. These personal conflicts which can might sustain for generations basically destroy the motives of mankind.  

Does reason and emotion play an equal role in justifying moral decisions?

Does reason and emotion play an equal role in justifying moral decisions? First of all, let’s define what is right and what it is wrong. Something might be valued as right or wrong according to individual preferences rather than a universal “law” of morality. A particular issue might seem moral to some people but to a different group it might seem immoral. When defining what is ‘good’, one cannot show or touch what is good; it can only be obtained by one’s right decisions and right actions that might lead to ‘good’ results. Likewise, doing what one thinks is right or wrong might lead one to define it as being moral or immoral. But, these moral (or immoral) statements might have been made by one’s predisposed assumptions. If these assumptions are once not there, then the expression of the person might be just the person’s feelings; it might be just expressions of what one wants to achieve or gain; emotion. Behind the scenes of emotion, there is a big question – Why? – Why do people do things that we think is immoral? Why are some of our actions not “right” to others? If a person does an action or make a decision, he/she should know the reason behind what he/she is doing. He/She should be able to justify his/her actions. In today’s society, a social group might have a mutual understanding of why something is right or appropriate. But considering the fact that people think differently, this understanding might differ; then and there the crisis of moral issues arise.

To define if something is moral (or immoral), not just the person’s expressions, but also the person’s valid reasons should also be taken into consideration. The person should be held responsible of why his/her actions or expressions are moral (or immoral). Reasons might vary in value. All the issues are weighed as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ based on the validity of the arguments behind it. Also, these moral judgments made by a person should not just be applied to a specific individual rather it should apply to everyone. If these judgments are not applicable to everyone, the validity of the argument being moral (or immoral) is gone. Thus, because the emotions of different people vary, the supporting or opposing argument and the justifications given by the individual should connect with all the justifications made by everyone. When analyzing the reasons behind individual preferences, Lawrence Kohlberg claims that one of the reasons why people chose to do the right thing is to avoid punishment or any sort of external pain. The second claim is that people do an action to serve their own self-interests. These claims (and more claims) along with the individual’s feelings towards a situation aid an action to be justified as moral or immoral.

Emotions are just feelings or expressions of people, while reason is a stronger component that justifies the situation. These roles of emotions and reason can be illustrated through todays on going issues such as assisted suicide, animal rights, cloning, abortion, and feminist issues. These ethical issues are debated all around the world today. Most of the issues are pushed from both sides of whether the issues should be legal or not. As described before, the reason for why these debates still continue is that a social group cannot agree on a same opinion, instead people just take their own stand on a particular issue by only looking through their own perspective (that might be right or wrong), ignoring the opinions of their peers. Moral issues can only be concluded into a compromised agreement if the ‘supporting and opposing’ party step into each other’s shoes and spectate the issue from each other’s point of view.

Now lets look at one of the popular issues going on in today’s world, abortion. This issue has caught in the United States like wild fire because of the contrasting arguments made by the each group. Abortion can be seen as a right of the women’s personal choice or can be seen as denying the right of a human individual. The group supporting abortion argues that it is the right of the pregnant to abort the child or continue carrying the child since the child is part of her body. A controversial argument is that it is the right of every human individual to be born, live and to contribute to this world. Who knows whether the child will be the next ‘Albert Einstein’ or not? In certain countries abortion is permitted if only the two or more doctors approve it and in some other parts of the world aborting is only permitted if the child is defective. Certain religions such as Christianity, opposes abortion by arguing that god has formed the image of the fetus and that abortion is destroying the god given gift or demolishing the god given image of a human being.  

Sexism

         Sexism is a belief that one sex is inferior to the other. This belief creates a hatred towards one sex. Sexism holds beliefs that testify stereotypes about a sex. This is mostly formed because of the hatred towards a particular person which makes one think that the entire sex exhibits the same behavior. A person to person conflict might lead to a gender to gender conflict affecting the entire community. Sexism is most commonly applied to women. Women, back in the days, were considered to be inferior to the men. Women used to do all the house work. It wasn't 'normal' for a women to work in a industry or in any urban surroundings.

         Biology has a major impact in this issue. The 'biology of gender' explains that women are physically capable of giving birth to a baby and are capable of breast feeding. While the men only play a minor part in the beginning process of forming a baby. Strengthening this argument, people (sexists) argue that the women should be the ones who should stay home and help the children in their growth and nourishment. These attitudes towards women gives rise to sexism.

         Trans gendered individuals (male to female or female to male), still in some countries are not acceptable. They think that someone who transgender are ashamed of their sex and are incapable of doing anything. Therefore, it is hard for them to find a job or are less trustworthy in those countries. I am from India where I have seen transvestites (people who have male and female characteristics). Even these people who are not even responsible for their sexual characteristics are also mocked in countries like India. Some of the religious beliefs it is said that one sex is given by 'God' (creator) and is to follow the harmony of the nature. And disrupting it is denying the 'nature.' They say that men and women play a part in maintaining human existence. But, in some countries, like Thailand, men change their gender to be women. They work as entertainers to the tourists and make lots of money. They surgically replace their sex organs and inject hormones. But, the disadvantage is that they die young because of the alterations in their body. I think that it is the choice for a person . One should be recognized as a sex which they are comfortable with. One should not be judged because of their sex, matter of fact no one should be judged for anything.