CDOQ

How do you learn to love? Is it possible to love truly if you have never been loved? Can you sustain love if it is not reciprocated?

Sleep is a wonderful thing.

You say you love your wife. In that love is involved sexual pleasure, the pleasure of having someone in the house to look after your children, to cook. You depend on her; she has given you her body, her emotions, her encouragement, a certain feeling of security and well-being. Then she turns away from you; she gets bored or goes off with someone else, and your whole emotional balance is destroyed, and this disturbance, which you don't like, is called jealousy. There is pain in it, anxiety, hate and violence. So what you are really saying is , 'As long as you belong to me I love you but the moment you don't I begin to hate you. As long as I can rely on you to satisfy my demands, sexual or otherwise, I love you, but the moment you cease to supply what I want I don't like you.' So there is antagonism between you, there is separation, and when you feel separate from another there is no love. But if you can live with your wife without thought creating all these contrad...

We learn how things were and how they should be but rarely how things really are. This causes a lot of misery and pain because things are never how they should be. Now, where does "should be" come from? "Should be" is based on religious or some other ideals or on the memories of the past or on anticipation of better future. All of these "should be" concepts are never fully realized and hence we spend our lives in conflict with the present.

Is it possible to have thought without memory?

Why is people watching a popular time-pass around the world?

I often wonder what the best life strategy is. Complex Systems and experience taught me that tit for tat is the best survival strategy. However, it is in direct conflict with what I learned from Gandhi i.e. an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Do I have to raise my consciousness to the level of Gandhi to live by "be the change you want to see in the world" (another lesson from Gandhi)? What do you think?  

An independent mind is a rare thing.

The basic human nature is same all over the world - reproduce, continuously satisfy senses, and pursue self-interest, all with the least amount of effort.

Smart people manage. Smarter people invest.

Context is not a well understood concept in context of decision-making:-) By context, I mean a set of conditions (mostly interconnected) under which something works or occurs.  We go to school (higher education) and learn theory which tells you how the world should work and not necessarily how it actually works. Subjects are taught in universal terms and not in relative (or context-specific) terms. How many classes have you seen on mastering context? So, how do you learn context? Mainly, by experience and thinking. However, most people are mentally lazy and they don't think about why something worked. One of my heroes, George Bernard Shaw , famously said, " Few people think more than two or three times a year . I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."  We tend to think that success was because of our actions and failure was because of others' actions. We like simple rules of thumb which don't require us t...

My dear friend, Jens-Uffe Andersen, passed away on May 26th, 2011. Jens-Uffe was a great man and I admired him. He spent his life being a productive member of the society and made significant contributions to the success of SIEMENS in Denmark. Jens-Uffe taught me valuable lessons in business, specifically: In a big centralized corporation, when managing a big account, one has to spend more time within the organization aligning various entities than with the customer.    Internal alliances are necessary to get anything done in a big organization.  People like to do business with with people they like even if it costs a bit more.  I am sure that I am not doing justice to wisdom of the man by just listing three things I learned from him because the list is very long. May Jens-Uffe rest in peace. My condolences to his family.

Charlie Munger , my hero, answered questions from his fans at " A Morning with Charlie" in Pasadena, California on July 1, 2011 (formerly, this annual gathering with Charlie was known as Wesco Financial Annual Shareholder meeting).    Just like all the other meetings with Charlie, this one offered wisdom, humor, and admiration for the man. I could not attend the meeting and am thankful to Morgan Housel  who complied the notes from the meeting for the Montley Fool. [click here for the original post]. Following are the notes: ----   On the Wall Street meltdown: It all started with an asinine bubble. The cause was a combination of megalomania, stupidity, insanity, and I would say evil on the part of bankers and mortgage brokers. And it was widespread. Alan Greenspan was a smart guy, but he totally overdosed on Ayn Rand when he was young. You can't give bankers the freedom to create gambling games. That's what it was. Wall Street was a gambling house, and th...

Charlie Munger , my hero, handed out the following parody at " A Morning with Charlie" in Pasadena, California on July 1, 2011 (formerly, this annual gathering with Charlie was known as Wesco Financial Annual Shareholder meeting).  The parody identifies the causes of the recent financial crises in the US. Most "experts" have not been able to do that. Furthermore, it offers valuable lessons in human behavior, economics, accounting, and morality. I am still laughing after having read the story twice:-). Enjoy!  --- In the country of Boneheadia there was a man, Wantmore, who earned his income as a home mortgage loan originator. Wantmore operated conservatively. All his home loans bore interest rates of 6% or less, and he demanded of all borrowers large down payments, documented proof of adequate income and an immaculate credit-using history. Wantmore sold all his loans to life Insurance companies that, before closing purchases, checked loan quality with rigor—th...

Taiwan is a fascinating place. We would be living in a very different world today if Taiwan had not found a way to mass produce consumer electronics (TV, laptops, Smartphones, etc. etc.) at low cost.  Taiwan used to be a Japanese colony and received its independence after WWII. Now, the political status of Taiwan is disputed. Commonly, Taiwan is also known as Republic of China (ROC) which is different than People's Republic of China (PRC) commonly known as China. PRC claims ROC to be part of PRC after PRC was established by the communist party in China in 1949. The Taiwanese people speak Mandarin but are closer to the Japanese than to the Chinese in terms of culture. Taiwanese do not have animosity towards the Japanese because they built the infrastructure in Taiwan. And, Taiwan is one of the top tourist destinations for the Japanese. The relationship between the Chinese people and the Taiwanese people is still not trustworthy. Because of its history, Taiwan culture is unique. ...

Thought varies more widely among women. 

I just finished reading a fantastic book- Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger  by Peter Bevelin. The book offers a systematic approach to becoming a better thinker and a better decision maker. It synthesizes thinking of two of my heroes- Charlie Munger  and Charles Darwin.   The book gives you fundamentals from various disciplines- biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and psychology and then shows you how they are applied to reality. The core idea of the book is to understand that there 28 common misjudgments  people make, why we make them, and if we just learn to avoid them, we will be much better decision makers and will live better lives. And, it also outlines guidelines to better thinking.  One of the guidelines of better thinking is better attitudes. I think that changing attitudes can do wonders for people. Following are the attitudes for better living adapted from the book:  1. Life is long if we know how to use it....