Is crisis an opportunity for growth,
or is growth an opportunity for crisis?
Thoughts, interesting facts, hopes, observations, quotes, etc. May you find something here that stimulates you and resonates with you. Email me at roshan.bharwaney@gmail.com
9.30.2005
9.28.2005
9.27.2005
9.26.2005
Hiding from someone inside a closet. Crawling through pipes coated in tomato sauce. Emerging in a chamber called a "pestillery" containing insects, multi-headed turtles, and small monkeys and tapirs with bright, waxy fur (which were for sale).
A fragment of one of my dreams. A glimpse into one of my many alternate lives.
A fragment of one of my dreams. A glimpse into one of my many alternate lives.
9.22.2005
How come the dove gets to be the symbol of peace? How about the pillow? It has more feathers than the dove and doesn't have that dangerous beak.
- Jack Handy
I think a pillow doesn't look as inspiring as a dove in flight. Seeing a pillow might just inspire people to sleep. Also... the secondary use of pillows is for pillow-fights.
- Jack Handy
I think a pillow doesn't look as inspiring as a dove in flight. Seeing a pillow might just inspire people to sleep. Also... the secondary use of pillows is for pillow-fights.
9.20.2005
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
Zen Poem
The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
Zen Poem
9.19.2005
A recent study has indicated that 40 percent of nine- and ten-year old girls claim to be on a diet. Like adults, kids have food fads that come in and out, and sometimes they may be "on a diet" simply to imitate something they see on TV or at home. (From abcnews.com)
While they may not actually be dieting... I find the very fact that they say they are quite alarming. I don't think it's a healthy mentality. Health should revolve around an active lifestyle and balancing the foods we eat - not dieting/deprivation. As long as they're eating a variety of foods to get all the necessary nutrients, and they aren't obese, kids so young don't need to worry about their food intake.
I keep hearing negative trends among the youth. Girls are wearing makeup at progressively younger ages. Younger and younger children are trying cigarettes and drugs. Are there any positive trends? Is ANYTHING getting better? What about transmission of AIDS? If someone can console me, please do.
While they may not actually be dieting... I find the very fact that they say they are quite alarming. I don't think it's a healthy mentality. Health should revolve around an active lifestyle and balancing the foods we eat - not dieting/deprivation. As long as they're eating a variety of foods to get all the necessary nutrients, and they aren't obese, kids so young don't need to worry about their food intake.
I keep hearing negative trends among the youth. Girls are wearing makeup at progressively younger ages. Younger and younger children are trying cigarettes and drugs. Are there any positive trends? Is ANYTHING getting better? What about transmission of AIDS? If someone can console me, please do.
9.17.2005
9.15.2005
9.12.2005
A piece of paper was sticking through my door when I got home. I unfolded and scanned it. The heading read "Hearing" and I thought to myself, do I have to go to court for something? Upon looking at it again, it actually read "Healing"... it was a religious document.
I liked the language and what it was saying until it started proposing that the cause of my present situation/predicament is sin. Whose sin? Not mine. Relatively speaking, I'm very decent. I think the Hindus have a better argument: your problems are because of your bad karma in this OR previous lives. At least that way I can't refute how deserving I am of my challenges. But all this reasoning seems so empty or circular. I prefer to believe that situations and conditions we face that we aren't directly responsible for are arbitrary and/or the result of powers out of our control (which we can identify if we ponder them). That makes more sense to me.
Here's an example. Why does one person develop cancer while another one doesn't? There's probably a genetic component, which is something out of their control. They didn't choose which family to be born into. Then there were certain things in their environment which could have triggered other components - diet, stress, the quality of air and water, exposure to radiation, etc. While these things can be controlled, largely they aren't moderated much. Do we really bother to control what's in the air we breathe and the water we drink? If two people are exposed to the same environmental factors and one develops cancer while the other one doesn't... doesn't it show that the onset is pretty arbitrary and/or out of our control?
I think sin and karma are useful tools for people to help explain problems and difficulties. The concepts provide a solid answer, a certain reason for suffering. Something for people to hold onto and work from. I think the belief that there's no underlying reason for suffering makes people uncomfortable. By accepting that suffering is due to our sin or karma, it allows us to disown a lot of the anxiety.
I liked the language and what it was saying until it started proposing that the cause of my present situation/predicament is sin. Whose sin? Not mine. Relatively speaking, I'm very decent. I think the Hindus have a better argument: your problems are because of your bad karma in this OR previous lives. At least that way I can't refute how deserving I am of my challenges. But all this reasoning seems so empty or circular. I prefer to believe that situations and conditions we face that we aren't directly responsible for are arbitrary and/or the result of powers out of our control (which we can identify if we ponder them). That makes more sense to me.
Here's an example. Why does one person develop cancer while another one doesn't? There's probably a genetic component, which is something out of their control. They didn't choose which family to be born into. Then there were certain things in their environment which could have triggered other components - diet, stress, the quality of air and water, exposure to radiation, etc. While these things can be controlled, largely they aren't moderated much. Do we really bother to control what's in the air we breathe and the water we drink? If two people are exposed to the same environmental factors and one develops cancer while the other one doesn't... doesn't it show that the onset is pretty arbitrary and/or out of our control?
I think sin and karma are useful tools for people to help explain problems and difficulties. The concepts provide a solid answer, a certain reason for suffering. Something for people to hold onto and work from. I think the belief that there's no underlying reason for suffering makes people uncomfortable. By accepting that suffering is due to our sin or karma, it allows us to disown a lot of the anxiety.
9.10.2005
Someone older and close to me said that it's good to have an image of the person you are looking for as your partner/companion. That way, you have something to be attracted to when you see them, something that will beckon you to them and them to you (since you're sending that energy out to them).
Last night in a dream I visited the room of the person who gave me this advice. Through a mirror I saw a framed portrait of the image of the man she was looking for. I turned my head and approached this portrait. It looked like it was done by Picasso! It was rather abstract, and had a red background. To make things more bizarre... it was actually a completed jigsaw puzzle!
I guess this means we can have some general ideas of who we want to be with. But the truth is that the person will always be more complex and multi-layered than our ideas. Our ideas are doomed to be ephemeral, since we cannot really control or create characteristics of the people we meet. People will always exceed our impressions of them, in ways that may or may not be desirable.
Last night in a dream I visited the room of the person who gave me this advice. Through a mirror I saw a framed portrait of the image of the man she was looking for. I turned my head and approached this portrait. It looked like it was done by Picasso! It was rather abstract, and had a red background. To make things more bizarre... it was actually a completed jigsaw puzzle!
I guess this means we can have some general ideas of who we want to be with. But the truth is that the person will always be more complex and multi-layered than our ideas. Our ideas are doomed to be ephemeral, since we cannot really control or create characteristics of the people we meet. People will always exceed our impressions of them, in ways that may or may not be desirable.
9.09.2005
I was cooking a couple of pieces of chicken in my wok-pan. I tested how much longer I needed to cook them by cutting into one. Blood squirted out. It was no ordinary squirt... It sprayed across my stove and the wall of my kitchen! For a second I thought of the gratuitous amounts of pressurized fake blood spraying in the "Kill Bill" films. I've cut into chicken as it was cooking before and have seen small amounts of blood seep out. You wouldn't think that something dead would have blood pressurized! I figure it's because the pan was very hot.