How Foreign Aid is hurting the developing countries

Sharing this snippet as I found myself agreeing with it wholeheartedly.

"I believe foreign aid is a huge mistake. I don't think it recognizes the sovereignty and responsibility of the peoples who are receiving aid. And all too often, it empowers those who are already most powerful in the developing countries and does not empower the poor who need to be empowered. Very often the problem is a problem of unequal power in the society. And you're not going to help that problem by making the powerful even more powerful, which is what it does. It gives them patronage. It gives them projects which they can control and manipulate. Which the taxpayers in western countries are funding out of the goodness of their hearts, but frankly, it's not doing any good."

--Graham Hancock, in this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMsiTEU6pnI

Companies that own most of the world's consumer products

YES, there is definitely concentration of a lot of power in very few hands.

Click on the image to see it in full size. All credits (and a lot of gratitude) to the people who made it.

HOW TO chat online from older phones, no need to buy android

For phones older than the android touchscreen ones but which have their color screen and can run java apps, there are 2 apps that let you chat using your gmail, yahoo or facebook account.

Ebuddy and Nimbuzz.

It's same kind of live chat as in whatsapp.

So, you can be online and communicate with ppl for free on a cheap 2G internet pack, without having to get an expensive android phone... the simpler java models are enough!

On my phone (sony ericsson k800, 6 yrs old, no touchscreen), ebuddy was able to get me online on gmail/gtalk; while nimbuzz got me online on facebook.

Their websites are : http://www.nimbuzz.com, http://www.ebuddy.com

About whatsapp: well, it was aggressively promoted, made its own network instead of using existing ones, and purposefully stayed off of computers and older phones. Very limiting. It's their choice not to be backwards compatible. Too bad.

Giving back

I got reminded of something shared in the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmitt : If you ask a nurse or a public school teacher or a farmer or a barber to do some CSR, to "give back", to do some pro bono work, they'd scoff at you. Because their jobs aren't stealing anything from society to be giving back. 

It follows that the professions where giving back to society is seriously considered, are the ones stealing from society, exploiting the ecosystem. And the more exploitative the profession, the more honourable it is to "give back", to work "pro bono".

About the book: This book explains the social agenda of the process of professional training. Disciplined Minds shows how it is used to promote orthodoxy by detecting and weeding out dissident candidates and by exerting pressure on the rest to obey their instructors and abandon personal agendas such as social reform -- so that they, in turn, can perpetuate the system by squeezing the life out of the next generation.

http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
You can download an audio version of the book here: http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Disciplined_Minds

a comedian uncovers the nexus between politicians, media and industry at an awards ceremony

Nice read. From this and from earlier articles and videos, I'm starting to really respect this one celeb figure.

"I don't know. I do have some good principles picked up that night that are generally applicable: the glamour and the glitz isn't real, the party isn't real, you have a much better time mucking around trying to make your mates laugh. I suppose that's obvious. We all know it, we already know all the important stuff, like: don't trust politicians, don't trust big business and don't trust the media. Trust your own heart and each another. When you take a breath and look away from the spectacle it's amazing how absurd it seems when you look back" -- Russel Brand

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/sep/13/russell-brand-gq-awards-hugo-boss

Geoengineering, consequences of metals spraying in the atmosphere happening right now

Very serious stuff with compelling evidence... I request you watch the whole video before starting with the dismissals. In any case this calls for discussions. If we can spend so much time discussing corruption then this deserves to be talked about at least.

(And the way problems are solved is : first describe the problem, bring it out, understand it thoroughly, talk about it. You can't solve a problem by starting with or demanding to be given the solutions first : this quick-fix mentality is what caused most of our crises in the first place, with the fixes being far more disastrous than the original problems! First try to understand the problem properly, take in the details, give it time to sink in. Find the interconnections with other problems. If it's depressing then get depressed, pass through it. The solutions will emerge automatically inside you once you've understood the problem in its entirety)

http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/live-updated-presentation-the-most-important-topic-of-our-time/

Dane reports, among other things, on:
• Geoengineering related climate disruptions, extreme drought and deluge
• Ozone depletion
• Methane release
• Drastic reduction in arctic sea ice
• Global oxygen content reductions
• Oceans on the brink of collapse
• Massive fish die offs
• 200 species becoming extinct every single day
• A drastic rise in Autism, Alzheimer's, and Dementia
• Crisis level forest reductions
• The sterilization of soils making it impossible for plants to grow without Monsanto's aluminum resistant seeds
Dane Wigington presents hard data which reveals what these catastrophic programs have done to our planet to date and what they will do if they are allowed to continue. Please take the time to watch this video

How do your beliefs or non-beliefs affect your life?

Saw this spoken in the documentary film "Fierce Light", spoken by Sera Beak:

I don't really care what you call God, or, you don't call God… What I care about is how do these beliefs of God or no God affect your life? Do these beliefs support and make you more open-minded and creative and accepting of people of diverse beliefs and wanting to be of service in some way? Or do these beliefs or non-beliefs in God close you in?

 

Nuclear power: expose how it actually costs MORE than renewable alternatives

See this page : http://www.thrivemovement.com/nuclear-radiation-critical-issue

There's one para I want to focus attention on:

" A comprehensive study found that nuclear reactors are much more costly than other alternative energy sources such as biomass, wind, geothermal, and some solar and conventional fossil fuels.[2] No insurance companies will insure nuclear power producers so taxpayers have to pay to insure an unproven, unsafe option. Why should we insure something insurance companies find too dangerous to insure? The government subsidies that nuclear power relies on come from taxpayer dollars without taxpayer consent. These costs are not included in typical discussions of nuclear viability."

Now I know that economic calculations are not really where the protests against Koodankulam and other nuclear projects in India, are coming from. Unfortunately, that's what gets thrown about when people cite support for nuclear power. Because of their distorted reality, they put economic efficiency over and above health and well-being of people, and it's compelling enough to make them ignore, deny the harms, readily accept assurances of safety. This sucks, is wrong. 

But there's a critical weakness here: nuclear is actually more expensive. The numbers to show it's the cheapest and "only viable" option, are distorted, and that distortion is easy to expose. As one component of the campaign, I suggest to bring out these discrepancies. Attack the one pillar from which the pro-nuclear lobby is presently getting its maximum legitimacy. This discrepancy, the lie of cheaper power, should be exposed in the posters, flyers, pamphlets, petitions, speeches, rallies, street plays... everywhere. By ignoring it we only strengthen the pro-nuclear lobby's arguments. That is what I've seen from talking with friends, uncles who are pro nuclear. To them, both sides of the debate are talking about completely different things, and the anti-nuclear bastion is simply not able to give them any real, positive alternatives. Strategy is as important as heart here.

I feel it will make the movement more impactful if in addition to the horrific damage due to radiation exposure, the target audience also understands how they're being fleeced of their money and paying MORE for nuclear power than other options. Once this is put out there, the whole idea of using nuclear at all, and the motives behind it, is thrown into question. For this, it's very important to get the numbers : all the combined costs, capital, running, security, damages, subsidies, transmission & distribution losses....  of these reactors, pitted against the combined costs of decentralized renewable alternatives.

I don't know how to get the numbers together, but on an international level it's already well underway. Got this idea when I read the article, I'm sure many others must be thinking about it too, and am passing it on; you might be in a better position to get the data together. All the best!

Bangladesh Hits 1 Million Solar Home Systems

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-guay/bangladesh-hits-1-million_b_2293643.html

"The Bangladesh story however, is particularly exciting because Grameen has singlehandedly shattered the energy 'axioms' on which the international policy community has relied for decades: Renewable energy is too expensive: Wrong. Even if solar makes sense the poor can't afford it or they won't pay: Wrong. The grid will come regardless so off grid, decentralized energy is a waste of time, money, and effort: Wrong, wrong, wrong. What Bangladesh does prove is that Carl Pope is right: deploying solar makes the most sense for off-grid areas where the economics are compelling and the need is great.

That's what makes the next phase of the solar revolution even more exciting. That's because today we are talking about 1 million solar home systems in Bihar, but tomorrow we could easily be talking about tens of millions in either Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, Indian states that have off-grid populations larger than most European nations."

What Investment Destination really means

This is what they mean when they talk about India / a particular state in India being an investment destination:

Investment destination = plundering grounds for wiping out rich ecosystems, ripping self-sufficient communities away from the lands they've maintained in pristine condition for thousands of years, extracting mineral resources for free, dumping deadly pollution and socializing the costs.

Throw 1 lakh people out and employ 1000 in cleaning the trash and the toilets.

For every $1 in fiat, fake currency invested in India, there's anywhere between $10 to $1000 worth of real wealth being taken out. That's investment 101. It benefits the investor, not the receiver. No politics, just simple slash-and-burn economics.

Gujarat's been plundered pretty thoroughly, now time for fresher meat.

This was in response to:
"Odisha top investment destination in India, Gujarat slips to 5th slot".

Phones designed to last

This is SO much needed in phones... check out http://www.phonebloks.com/

Change the Game

Ok I know I'm being a fanboy right now, but..

TV Series Community, S03E22

She said, what I want was more important.
She's right. Right?
I mean, guys like me will tell you there's no right or wrong.
There's no real truths.
And as long as we all believe that,
Guys like me can never lose.
Because the truth is, I'm lying when I say that there's no truth.
The truth is.. the pathetically, stupidly, inconveniently obvious truth is
Helping only ourselves is bad, and helping each other is good.
It's that easy. You just stop thinking about what's good for you,
And start thinking about what's good for someone else.
And you can change the whole game, with just one move.

(and I've had a major real life experience that corroborates the last line. Yes, I will brag about it!)

Touch healer in Mumbai

MIRACLE HEALER MOHAN JOSHI FROM MUMBAI

Not drugs -- its miraculously the healing touch of Mr. Mohan Joshi that provides wonderful solution to several chronic health problems that have found no permanent remedy in modern health sciences.

"It has come naturally to me, but I do not have any scientific explanation as to how it works, I only know that I carry within me a strong healing power which I use in curing various chronic diseases," is how Mr. Joshi explains this almost supernatural phenomenon. He quotes a reputed gynaecologist from Mumbai who had said that there are a few individuals, who carry in them an additional "charge" (the energy or power) that can be used for healing purposes.

The 50-year-old unpretentious Mr. Joshi from Akola has made the entire country his home. He started experimenting with his spiritual powers 18-years ago. He is an arts graduate and a former bank employee and has now dedicated himself to his new avocation, not for money or fame, but to use his powers to serve the needy for no selfish gain.

from Empire to Earth Community

This is an excerpt from "From Empire To Earth Community" by David Korten

I read it on "The Soul Of Community", By Carolyn Baker.

We face a defining choice between two contrasting models for organizing human affairs. Give them the generic names Empire and Earth Community. Absent an understanding of the history and implications of this choice, we may squander valuable time and resources on efforts to preserve or mend cultures and institutions that cannot be fixed and must be replaced.

Empire organizes by domination at all levels, from relations among nations to relations among family members. Empire brings fortune to the few, condemns the majority to misery and servitude, suppresses the creative potential of all, and appropriates much of the wealth of human societies to maintain the institutions of domination.

Earth Community, by contrast, organizes by partnership, unleashes the human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and surpluses for the good of all. Supporting evidence for the possibilities of Earth Community comes from the findings of quantum physics, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and religious mysticism. It was the human way before Empire; we must make a choice to re-learn how to live by its principles.

How schools enable consumerism

This is a comment I've posted on http://sangeethasriram.blogspot.com/2013/09/natural-learning-faq-if-your-child.html

With your permission, I'd like to chip in with my two cents to []'s query: School actively promotes living in a dictatorship: doing what's told to you by someone claiming authority without you getting a chance to judge whether that person is deserving of the authority or not. And with love being replaced by strictness, rules and judgement.

It also teaches being afraid of the judgement of one's peers without getting the time to evaluate said judgement.

Next, it teaches that you aren't good enough; someone else is better than you and you need to do what it takes to trump them. These are fallouts of efficient classroom management and focus on excellence. Whether this is done through physical punishment or psychological carrot-and-stick, it's the same (actually from my experience, it's worse with the latter).

Consumerism does not work on whole, satisfied, independently thinking indviduals; it works on people who have internalized the above things. I can understand the natural need for protections in early ages; but once the child's world expands beyond the family, once they are able to be by themselves without a parent present in the room, this independence would develop enough to be able to ward off consumerism, and other than not setting an example themselves, I don't think it's so necessary for parents to be shielding their older children from consumerism - that's a tall order.

I'm not a father yet and I've been thoroughly schooled; but from my own upbringing I can credit my family's democratic (and very chaotic) structure, exposure to real life problems early on instead of being shielded from them, and my regular exposure to people from multiple age groups and backgrounds for making me resilient and never very interested in consumerist activities when I was coming of age.

The Culture of Schooling

This post is copied (freely) from Healing Ourselves from Diploma Disease, a Shikshantar publication.

The Culture of Schooling...

1) Labels, ranks and sorts human beings. It creates a rigid social hierarchy consisting of a very small elite class of 'highly educated' and a large lower class of 'failures' and 'illiterates', based on levels of school achievement.

2) Imposes uniformity and standardization. It propagates the viewpoint that diversity is an obstacle, which must be removed if society is to progress.

3) Spreads fear, insecurity, violence and silence through its externally-imposed, military-like discipline.

4) Forces human beings to violently compete against each other over scarce resources in rigid win-lose situations.

5) Confines the motivation for learning to examinations, certificates and jobs. It suppresses all non-school motivations to learn and kills all desire to engage in critical self-evaluation. It centralizes control over the human learning process into the State-Market nexus, taking power away from individuals and communities.

6) Commodifies all human beings, Nature, knowledge and social relationships. They are to be extracted, exploited, bought and sold.

7) Fragments and compartmentalizes knowledge, human beings and the natural world. It de-links knowledge from wisdom, practical experiences and specific contexts.

8) Artificially separates human rationality from human emotions and the human spirit. It imposes a single view of rationality and logic on all people, while simultaneously devaluing many other knowledge systems.

9) Privileges literacy (in a few elite languages) over all other forms of human expression and creation. It drives people to distrust their local languages while. prioritizing newspapers, textbooks, television as the only reliable sources of information.

10) Reduces the spaces and opportunities for 'valid' human learning by demanding that they all be funneled through a centrally-controlled institution. It creates artificial divisions between learning and home, work, play, spirituality.

11) Destroys the dignity of labor; devalues the learning that takes place through manual work.

12) Breaks intergenerational bonds of family and community and increases people's dependency on the Nation-State and Government, on Science and Technology, and on the Global Market, for their livelihoods and identities

The tastiest cucumber I've ever had

This was on a trip from Ahmedabad to Udaipur, aboard a meter-guauge track train which apparently always has seats available on IRCTC because nobody takes it because it takes 12 hours (the trip takes 5 hours by road). It winds through the forest area. There was none of the usual commerce that we see on train journeys... no one hawking foodstuffs. I was getting hungry and on all the stops there was no fast food like samosas in sight! I had avoided taking biscuits and stuff to avoid having to buy and throw plastic packaging, so was planning to rely on the cooked food sold at the stops. Finally at one stop named Lusadiya...

TED Talks Vs Rupert Sheldrake and others

Discussion here: http://www.highexistence.com/topic/ted-ideas-worth-suppressing/

My input:

Some time ago the logos of various MNCs started appearing in the TED Talks. That's when my suspicions began. Huge funding means strings attached, and ideological subversion is a logical consequence. Even the quality, the out-of-boxness of the talks is going down and down from what I've seen recently, and the TEDx talks are coming way better than the official TED ones. There are several TED Talks in the pile that are downright misled or misguided in many arenas. There's even one TED Talk talking about the dangers of simplifying neuroscience that debunks another TED talk that was recommending 8 hugs a day to be happy.

Fwd: tool most important to humanity's survival?

Here's a dialog from an episode (S02E01) of an awesome comedy series "Community" that I've been watching. Liked the scene a lot so sharing: 

You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRUZK01LffE

"It was a trick question.

The tool most important

to humanity's survival

wasn't any of the nine in the box.

The most important tool is respect.

And the reason I know respect is a tool

is because it is clearly

not a natural thing,

and we forget to use it all the time,

and then we start competing with each other

and exploiting each other

and humiliating each other and controlling each other.

And we lose each other.

And without each other, we'll go extinct."

About the series : A bunch of people from very different backgrounds, all conventionally losers in some way or another, are stuck in a bottom-of-the-heap community college and form a study group.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439629/?ref_=sr_1

We were never supposed to be reliant on import-export for survival

comment posted on an article, "Our cheese has moved, and only we must find it " : http://www.indiatogether.org/2013/sep/eco-cheese.htm

Great analysis, thanks for the cheese analogy, it made a lot of things clear.
While the problem was described well, I think some more digging is needed in the solution phase towards the end. I think the author takes the continued existence, superiority & stability of US dollars for granted and mistakenly assumes them to be the proverbial cheese. They are fiat currency that don't have any long-term real basis. When the illusion ends so will the USD. In the long term, only self-reliance can protect us; not exports-imports. Those were supposed to be the extras! India was never supposed to be reliant on imports-exports for its basic survival!

Better to work in corporates! Really?

After seeing some dubious practices in the NGO sector, a lot of people tell me, “rather than all this shit, it’s better to work in the corporate sector!”

This statement, though bringing relief, is inaccurate, and here I’ll try to explain why.

The bad experiences of people who have worked with NGOs who are following dubious practices, like keeping themselves funded with the appearance of helping downtrodden groups while actually not really doing much, stem from the fact that they were on-the-ground, and got an opportunity to see what goes on behind the scenes. They got a touch of what’s really happening, and so were in the position to be able to judge on the ethics of it.

In the corporate sector, this privilege, of being in touch with what’s really happening, simply isn’t there. Corporations are absolute top-down dictatorships, with vetos practiced at every level. The employee, let’s take an example I’m familiar with… a programmer working for a tech company, is only exposed to the details that are necessary for the job. One is completely insulated from any unethical act being carried out by the bosses or their bosses and so on. While at the same time, one’s work creates value for  the bosses and empowers the bosses to continue or increase exploitation.

Iraq's right to heal

http://righttoheal.org

The Iraq war is not over for Iraqi civilians and U.S. veterans who continue to struggle with various forms of trauma and injury; for veterans and Iraqis who suffer the effects of environmental poisoning due to certain U.S. munitions and burn pits of hazardous material; and for a growing generation of orphans and people displaced by war.

A decade after the U.S. invaded Iraq, U.S. veterans, Iraqi human rights organizations and their allies launched a joint initiative, Right to Heal. Together, they are demanding that the human rights impacts of the war in Iraq be assessed and that concrete action be taken towards

Add your voice to the chorus : Sign the petition

Crazy fundraising / recruitment idea for causes

DISCLAIMER : This is a crazy idea post made in jest. Look away if you don't have a dark sense of humour. I mean it! Don't quote me on this one. Treat it like onion / faking news.

Fundraising idea for social / environmental causes:
1. Set up a suicide hotline.
2. Inform the callers (who are planning suicide) about your cause, tell them how you can really use the help of people who aren't afraid of dying anymore. It'll have to be something genuine, folks. These ppl are dead serious. (pun!)
3. Get the caller to take a large personal loan from the most reckless loaning agency (there's so many now)
4. Encash and collect. Secretly and untraceably. Or just have caller buy whatever's needed and sent to wherever it's needed. Like, say, 10,000 water purification kits, solar panels setups and basic agricultural tools sent to a slum area outside a city where people evicted from a SEZ acquisition have been relocated.
5. Caller commits suicide, with some hard-hitting info shared in suicide letter that might get to go on news to a wide audience.

More : A match-making platform where those who want to commit suicide can browse through and pick various worthy causes and actions which would normally be labelled as suicidal. Examples : filing some specific RTI applications, sabotaging a certain factory that's polluting a river, going to media with some sensitive information, meeting the wife and children of some psycopathic industrialists, bankers, or in-cahoots bureaucrats and telling them what their father's been upto.

How about this : A Citizen's Kill List, with bounties on known enemies of the planet being crowdfunded or financed by some rich people who were going to commit suicide anyways...

Edit: one more...
A list (or a map-layer) of the precise lat-long co-ordinates of all polluting factories, effluent discharge points, refineries, exploitative mines... in the world, or just by country. Just in case anyone ever gets their hands on a drone / cruise missile command center. Or in case someone there flips and decides to do something.

So many things to do once you've transcended the love of living!

REMINDER: This is STILL a post shared in jest. Dark humour. Use own discretion! Publisher not responsible for Shaktimaan-imitation style inspirations.

The real telecommunications revolution is yet to come

Q: What are some defining characteristics that have made mass media such a problematic thing today, from newspapers to radio to TV and to a degree even the internet?
A: It's a one-way medium. The feedback routes are very few and very difficult. Look at control systems theory : any system that doesn't have a robust feedback mechanism, is bound to fail.

Cheating and Corruption

Exam / test / practical : everyone should get exactly the same results.

If you set that expectation then it is a completely logical, intelligent outcome to refer the results of a trusted source. ie, to copy over from your friend who's done the work. ie, to cheat. From the point of view of the student, cheating is a common-sensical tactic to maximize efficiency and get the work done, not an immoral act. The only way the student would think of it as immoral is if it's been drilled in all the way that cheating is immoral. Meaning, you need an external reinforcement to establish cheating as bad. Inherently, there are no problems. From the inside, there's no judgement on cheating.
Is it any wonder then why kids are so confused? In such a stressful part of their lives, there is a complete disconnect between the inside and the outside. It's only natural to cheat on a test or in a practical, if you are anyways expecting the same results out of everyone.

Now for the leap of inference:
Just as cheating is a natural outcome of the factory schooling education system, I would like to assert that corruption too, is a natural outcome of the broader socio-economic system we have established. If there are a set of rules that make normal living difficult, then corruption is a life-saver. Whose point of view are we looking at corruption from? Are we seeing only the tiny minority vying for multi-lakh tenders and contracts awarded by the govt, or are we also looking at the much larger segment of the population "indulging" in corruption, that just needs to get by?

About marriage and patience

This a rant-response to an oft-shared advice. I'll mention the advice first:

"Q: Guru___, if marriages are made in heaven, then why so many divorces happen on Earth?

[Name edited out because I seriously don't have the time to squabble with the loyalist fan-drones who're likely to forget all their Guru's advice and rain fire and stones for daring to say something against him]: Marriages are made in heaven, but divorces are made on Earth! (Laughter)

Lack of patience. Somewhere in our country we are losing patience. We want everything immediately, and we want quick result, and quick changes.

when it's the student's responsibility to learn

I found this article offering a refreshing break from the rigidities, compulsions of standard edu models yet not refuting them entirely... I think this is what's referred to when educationists talk about the critical importance of teachers in one's life... and then they take it too far and mess it up!

" At best, the guru can provoke desire to learn and moments of insight. But ultimately it is the student's responsibility to learn. The teacher is like a river that the student comes to when thirsty. It is not the teacher's responsibility to teach; it is the student's responsibility to learn."

http://devdutt.com/articles/when-teachers-learn-and-students-teach.html

It gets better

This para has been shared quite a lot earlier, saw it again today on facebook:
Soo true
Age of 22-27 is consider as difficult for Boys & Girls. Your ex- BFs & GFs are getting married, Your career has just started, Elders treat you as unproven
theorems, teenagers feel that you are too old to have in there group... You seem to enjoy both cartoon and news.. You can no longer eat whatever you wish without putting on weight.. You are not invited for weekend cricket/­ football matches.. Every Aunt you meet asks 'When are you getting married' while uncle asks 'What have you thought of your career' When the reality is that you are just riding the wave and going with the flow. You have all the confidence in the world but little achievements to show, You already have the first hand experience of the life, You know that whatever you have been taught about the world in schools has been sheer waste of time. You can be denied a job even after passing the test and you could be given a job if you know someone placed high enough.. Politics till now was a dirty word but now you feel it everywhere.. You know now love is not that blind and that friendship has its terms and conditions. You know there is nothing for granted and free lunches are not free. Your overconfidence is now making way for a humble conscience. You now know it is not exactly what we thought it would be."

I put in a response:
It gets better (optionally). After that the expecters tend to give up and move on to harassing other youngsters (or if we're lucky they just die), friends stop only partying and start sharing the pains they have to put up with on a daily basis in the successful life our elders were goading us to aim for. You get more comfortable with yourself. The humbler way of looking at life takes on a richness never experienced before. Connections with people start getting deeper. Cracks in the most sophisticated political clouds appear and the light of hope starts to pierce through. You can perceive better. You get used to being called Uncle and start enjoying the kids' company again, and some even look up to you as you share your life's experiences with them. You fervently want them to live as free, whole beings. The world that they will inherit gets more important to you than the one you have, and a desire to make it happier and more beautiful creeps over your being. Your conscious mind suddenly leaks out of your skull and envelopes everything around you; its focus shifts from your person to everything and everyone you care for. You stop depending on external incentives, and with that the frustration with major problems ends, as you now get greater pleasure from doing things you feel are right, regardless of the outcome. The journey starts to get ever more important than the destination. In letting go, you start to get back more and can appreciate the non-linearity, the counter-intuitiveness of the universe.