CDOQ

Watch The Artist to see what it means to love and to learn how words can be futile. 

I see beautiful palaces and castles and I see years of oppression.  

The world is facing a crisis of integrity. - Sylvia Edwards Davis 

Who I am is not written in stone. Who I am today is different from who I was yesterday and who I will be tomorrow. 

Increasing literacy did not only mean the production of philosophical works. In 1130-36  Geoffrey of Monmouth assembled his History of the Kings of Britain , containing stories of King Arthur based on Celtic legend. A few decades later Chretien de Troyes used the same material to tell the story of Perceval , which linked the Arthurian romances to the search of Holy Grail. These stories captured and helped to create the culture of chivalry, of courtly love and Christian romance that became the ideal self-image of European nobility and gentry for centuries to come. The key elements of this literature were bravery as an ideal end in itself (the knights were not fighting to defend heir homeland but were going out to seek adventure), and the idealization of love between a man and a woman. In a clear urban alternative to boorishness of rural warrior barons, the restrictions of church literature, love became exquisitely refined, and was often adulterous- Lancelot , the principal hero o...

Manon offers good insights into human nature - desire, moral indecisiveness, and lack of self-awareness.

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. - Buddha  

Yesterday, I went to a writing workshop at the  Shakespeare and Company . Just being there feels like being in the company of great minds of the last century. It was cool! The workshop was given by Fred Leebron  who was very patient with me:-). Following are my random notes:  1. Most dramas follow the  Freytag's Pyramid structure. According to Freytag, drama is divided into five parts:  i) Exposition  ii) Rising Action iii) Climax  iv) Falling Action  v) Denouncement  2. A good drama always has conflict. There are four types of conflicts:  i) Character vs Self (internal conflict)  ii) Character vs Others  iii) Character vs Nature  iv) Character vs World  3. A good drama always has something at stake. That something could be:  i) Birth  ii) Love iii) Death  iv) Friendship v) Family  vi) Money vii) Liberty  viii) Spiritualit...

The search for happiness is causing a lot of pain and misery in the world. A mind that is not seeking anything is very happy. 

I am amazed how 5,000+ year old ideas still influence my thinking. Do ideas become part of DNA and are passed on to the next generation? Is it related to my survival? Or, is it just the current society, which itself is influenced from the past, affecting my thinking? Or, is it what I want that creates a thinking bias that serves me?  Well, then why do I want what I want? If there is no past and no influence from the society, would I want the same things? And, why do I want anything?