Delighted humans

The quarantine "season" saw the telecast of many mythological shows and this trend was started by Doordarshan. People started watching Doordarshan and this "mythological" trend was continued by other channels too. So I thought of doing a post revolving around mythology.  Fun fact :  Some characters of the Mahabharata have temples dedicated to them - the temple of Eklavya is situated in Gurugram ( Gurgaon) , Haryana ; the numerous temples of Draupadi are situated in Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states and similarly, the temple of Hidimba or Hidimba devi is situated in Manali , Himachal Pradesh. Hidimba was actually a rakshasi or an asur as you may call her, then why is she worshipped? Why is a temple dedicated to her? Hidimba married the mighty Bhima , one of the Pandavas after the Varnavrat incident where Duryodhana tried to burn them alive in a lakshagrah or a wax palace. Accidentally , the Pandavas landed in a forest which was dedicated to the a...

Different people have different expectations from the society and the government. The expectation , however might be RATIONAL or IRRATIONAL. Considering the present scenario , different groups want things to happen differently - 1. The daily wage workers are worried about their wages. 2. Factory owners are worried about the high maintenance costs that may arise after lockdown. 3. Business owners are out of business. 4. The online classes for school and college students are NOT as effective as they seem. So , how do we decide the course of action?  Let me give you a philosophical point of view. John Rawls , a philosopher gave the idea of the "veil of ignorance".  The veil of ignorance is an idea that talks about how we should FOR ONCE not recognise ourselves with any group , circumstances and IGNORE who we are. We should sit behind the VEIL , the veil of ignorance and look at the situations. It is then we would be able to see a rational point of view. By being IGNORANT about o...

From the very beginning of time , several philosophers tried to comprehend what being happy was. Aristotle defined it as the state of achieving health , wealth , friends , knowledge etc that lead to the perfection of human nature. Several people have several perceptions on the concept of happiness. However, I haven't met a single person who believes that he leads a happy life. It's probably the way we were conditioned ; we were told to run behind success , fame , money and we hardly spoke about being happy. I recently read about the Japanese formula for happiness which they call ikigai or the reason for existence. We can be happy only when we feel we have a reason to live , a purpose to fulfill. It involves finding something that makes us happy. Ever wondered why people like creative jobs more ? It's because they feel a state of bliss in what they are doing and they believe they are making a difference by creating something meaningful. On the other hand , people in...

I have philosophy as one of the courses this term and though it is a common opinion that philosophy "doesn't make sense" , I realised that a few concepts do really answer the common questions that pop up in the human mind but are actually ignored.  Deontology Vs Utilitarianism What is right ? What is wrong? According to Utilitarianism, anything which produces happiness or pleasure is RIGHT while anything which leads to pain is WRONG. It is basically based on maximizing the HAPPINESS for the most number of people. Say, you have a substantial amount of drug which can CURE 5 people but the same amount can SAVE the life of one. What would you do?  Mostly, SAVE 5. Basically, you selected the happiness of 5 over one. ULTILITARIANISM. Then there comes deontology wherein you are RIGHT if you follow RULES , WRONG if you don't. These rules could be general rules , Religious rules or other.  Let's take an example,  YOU SHOULD NOT STEAL. But wait, if yo...