Windows

an old speech (and some comments) I had to make in School. I was quite happy to find this. Written on 5.12.2004. Forgive the standard of English in places. I did not want to edit.

Good morning! For today, I was asked to speak about windows. While preparing I looked up a lot of books on the architectures of arches, wooden joints, window frames, and so on. Then, one of my teachers came along and gave me a book of zen quotes. Hereby, I will be referring to symbolic windows; those that our minds possess. Not to worry, they are very similar to our house windows and that easy to understand. But think about closing all these windows and sitting inside. The house will become claustrophobic. Now, understand the mind as house, a home that harbours thoughts, feelings, opinions, contemplations, criticisms, emotions and views. Close these windows! Imagine never letting anyone of these getting a breath of fresh air: the company of expression. We're left with suffocated minds. Heads that hurt, and lives that are entwined. Very early in our life, we learn hard to put bolts on these windows when confronted by certain concepts. Let it be politics, friendship, sex, or even music, dance and paint. Then, we keep strengthening these bolts keeping an eye all the excuses that make this right. We refuse to speak to people darker than us. We refuse to speak to people shorter than us. We refuse to listen to people who speak too slow. We refuse to look at people with short hair. However, one has to realize that we are social beings and we have to keep 'interaction' and 'expression' an alive part of our lives. We have to break down these bolts. It is a personal effort. We need to ventilate our minds. We need to use the windows. A person who is 'open' will be able to receive and therefore give better. (And I actually said: to make sure nothing too terrible happens in this vulnerable position we could fit mosquito nets). Windows are basically frames through which one can look. These windows are special. Though open enabling us to look out, it has a reflective quality attached to it. It looks back into the self. Life is a changing path. Both mistakes and successes have to be taken at stride, with openness. If we are insecure, it is because we have suffocated ourself. We need space to think. We need to open this windows to become secure creating a stability and willingness to learn.

A poet named Donovan Holtz said, "Through a window, I watch, windows are, for watching - Square pieces of life, ever changing." These frames provide two contrary needful aspects: confinement and openness. There are times when we have to take the lead, and there are times when we have to step back and wait. One should be attentive and then they can learn to not get hurt, and not hurt. It is very important to create a free space. It gives one a strong choice. But, one will think more, because they actually 'listen' to more versions of life. Then one becomes open to even criticizing statements, just because we waited and listened. It bends everything to make it constructive, and gives the power in the self to construct the truth and belief of life in a sensible manner. It is in our hands to not take advantage or be taken advantage of.

Thank you.

Ego is a funny creature and I attribute a 'he' to him. He has bright blue eyes that blind with simple tears, and that burn with victorious laughter. My Ego is blue, sleeps in my palm, and has very quick feet. We all own him. We all own a kind of him. When he takes his morning run he hurts my thighs and arms. I try to hold him back, but he flies. His wings are ferocious and hard. They hit me when he needs, wants, yearns. Ego taught me love, because he loves wearing pride as a cloak.

Reminder!

Once a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name ho! B. I. N. G. O B. I. N. G. O. B. I. N. G. O. and Bingo was his name ho! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands! If you're happy and you know it, you face will surely show it! If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

ஒரே ஒரு ஊரிலே ஒரே ஒரு ராஜா அந்த ஒரே ஒரு ராஜாவிற்கு ஒரே ஒரு ராணி

suddenly, my head was filled with nursery rhymes and I started to check my planner. I have to study for a Philosophy examination. This happens to excite me in many ways. Fully engrossed in a random book, drawing and sticking papers in some notebook, I fail to think that I have to sit and learn some definitions. So, what is philosophy?

Assimilation of Religion

After shunning the pagan approaches of Indus Valley culture, the subcontinent has followed eras of religious fundamentalism. The same stubbornness caused many romantic revolutions, like the French Revolution. This document is not a biased account of one religion's history, but an assimilation of what thoughts conspired after an afternoon lecture. Vedic Brahminism roots itself as the first institutionalized religion, in the subcontinent. It draws its parallels to Persian culture, focusing on the existence of a Fire God. Zaratustra becomes the linking stone. This Brahminism laid the foundations for the caste systems thus, dividing the society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras. Initially, this occupation based definition brought about the problems of hierarchy*. The Kshatriyas could not tolerate the subjugation. The Kings became the people with the divine right to rule. From 600 B.C. to 400 B.C. Jainism and Buddhism, owing their origin to two thinkers of Kshatriyan caste, emerged and brought about a new thinking. Daringly, the Kshatriyas, both at different times and with different methods, brought the concept of ahimsa. The religions spread far and wide. However, Jainism died slowly because of not using a vernacular language and avoiding the missionary approach. Buddhism was spreading fast, becoming the religion of South-East Asia. Hinduism could no longer take this blow and retaliated with its famous strategy – the spinning of mythology. Buddha became an avatar of Vishnu! “Hinduism is like English. It has a tremendorous capability to assimilate.” *post on Kingdom of God awaited.. **to be continued… courtesy: Value Education Prof. (S.S stream)

Question

"Why did God create Man in his own image?" - Have you ever been stopped on the roadside to answer such questions? As a history student, I should ideally be trained to pause and ask - Why did Man create God in his own image?

Generally, Foucault

Generally, my whacko emails!! Nerd!

Well, here you go! Who is Foucault?That is all I asked my Dad, and the whole story of knowledge, concept of historicizing, and human sciences landed on the platter. I thought I might as well share a bit I know about Michel Foucault with you as just an aspect of curiousity.

If you have read Wittgenstein and Kant then Foucault falls in place immediately. I'll try to keep away from giving too much of his history (the past is a strange obsession for history students).Paul-Michel Foucault was born on June 15 1926, next to Paris. He roots himself in a well-to-do bourgeois family. He had parents strong and determined in their own ways, and abiding by and defying systems in their own ways. He was a very thin boy with bad eyesight, and he was repeatedly teased in school. At home he led one of those normal clichéd lives. As a kid, he dreamed of being a goldfish. His favorite subject, till he passed away, was history. =)

Later on after all the academic ups and downs, the complications of identifying a gender, and a sexual preference played a role in his life. He struggled to come in terms with his own homosexuality. The concept was illegal and unacceptable in the society he brewed his early years in. He went through a stage of self-violence, suicidal instincts, alcoholism, depression, and drug abuse. He almost fell to psychosomatic illness.

His interest in history and thought processes nevertheless remained in the picture. He started reading Hegel. Hegel focused much on the coherence, order, purpose and meaning of history. History and philosophy starts to merge in thought. He says history has its hidden structure that delves into what was and what is. Philosophy does not limit thought to a time or event, past or future, and not simply with what was, but what is now and eternally, bringing reason into the picture. And that is the process of history. The series of events is a long-process ultimately delving into a reality of reason and self-consciousness. Foucault pondered on Heidegger's thoughts on the human predicament. He says it is based on deeper elements, than just mere reason.

If one historicizes philosophy itself we come to understand that the question of existence, life, and being transcends from 'What?' to 'How?' From, 'What is the earth made up of?' to, 'How do we know we exist?' This is the world of an open-minded philosopher, because the moment on asks, 'What?' they already have a pre-determined directions and answers to go towards. How? Ask this and the direction, the passer-by thoughts, and the further questions, all become discoveries.

This interestingly lead to a fabulous night-time weekend conversation with Dad, and I think since I have already rambled a page, I might as well take a deviation to what it brought us to. We all know the struggles of the generation-gap. Especially, those of the sixties to eighties are from a period of wonderful history. So, for instance when the world of 'tripping' or drugs is discovered by us of the 20th century now, many of that age of history look down at us as kids. Yes, they have transcended the hippie culture. Yes, they may know more about the routes, but an open-minded philosopher would allow each individual to handle their own discoveries. Well, back to Foucault…Sartre says the essential humanity or subjectivity is created by the manners with which our societies have existed. It doesn't exist by itself; it is created as a result of the lives we lead. Foucault constantly draws from Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre. He understood his homosexuality, and reached a remarkable level of maturity. Foucault widened his academic interest and understood history as a process of thought, philosophy as an object of reason, and further jumped into psychology –"knowledge of self". He specialized in philosophy and psychology and tripped upon various landmark questions – "How could one study 'experience' scientifically?"

Ah, now I think I am running around a tree, and I will try to get to the essence of Foucault, as I understand it. Yes, it does have to do with the concepts of post-modernism and post-structuralism. He is well known for his critical studies of various social institutions, the institution of gender and human sexuality, the human sciences (philogy, linguistics, etc), the prison system, power and knowledge. "How is something an object of knowledge?" The little I have read of him bring me to some of his quotes that starts a various streams of thoughts in my head.

In Archaeology of Knowledge, an Introduction he says: "In short, the history of thought, of knowledge, of philosophy, of literature seems to be seeking, and discovering, more and more discontinuities, whereas history itself appears to be abandoning the irruption of events in favour of stable structures."

Michel Foucault. Discipline & Punish (1975), I. Torture: Among so many changes, I shall consider one: the disappearance of torture as a public spectacle. Today we are rather inclined to ignore it; perhaps, in its time, it gave rise to too much inflated rhetoric; perhaps it has been attributed too readily and too emphatically to a process of "humanization", thus dispensing with the need for further analysis. And, in any case, how important is such a change, when compared with the great institutional transformations, the formulation of explicit, general codes and unified rules of procedure; with the almost universal adoption of the jury system, the definition of the essentially corrective character of the penalty and the tendency, which has become increasingly marked since the nineteenth century, to adapt punishment to the individual offender?

Our discussion ended with a question I posed, "What about philosophy as an object of knowledge?" My understanding stands at this door way, and I'll let you know as it travels. This is what I have heard and read about Foucault, and I think I'll offer a better stance or explanation, once I strive to get his own words into sense. Maybe even understand, Foucault as an object of knowledge… =)

p.s. If this email has somewhat posed what he was about, I am glad. If it has created confusions, I am happy. Well, as a matter of courtesy, sorry if I don't explain very well.. =)