"thoughts" Archive

Nonviolence and Violence

Sep 26, 2001 >> Back

Nonviolence and Violence

From Alexander Solzhenitsyn's acceptance speech of his 1970 noble prize for literature. He is talking about the "spirit of Munich", referring to the way that the world handled Hitler before the outbreak of WWII:

"The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people--and there are many in today's world--elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today-- and tomorrow, you'll see, it will all be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.)"

>  i would really appreciate your perspective on these words

Nice quote. And it makes sense. Some more thoughts (perhaps too many :)) ...

Gandhi once said that if there was a choice between violence and cowardice, he'd pick violence anyday. There is no excuse for cowardice, which in its essence just results from serious attachment to oneself. However, that is NOT to say that courage implies violence.

While violence maybe better than passivity, retreat, and cowardice, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Non-violence comes from a space of power, strength and inner resolve that love will transform the anger of the oppressor. It is not to say that when someone hits you, you don't hit back. It is, rather, to say something much more powerful -- that when someone hits you, the strength of your love will shake the foundation of anger and negativity that resulted in the oppressor's action.

Gandhi's salt march is an excellent example. One by one, people lined up to get whacked in the skulls, get bloodied in the face, get wounded like never before in their lives. That is hardly passivity, retreat or cowardice. They took a stance and stuck to it. But that's just one part of the story. Gandhi told everyone very clearly that you are to look the oppressor in the eye, summon all the compassion your heart can gather, and wish well unto them as they hit you. Thousands and thousands of folks lined up for this. For three consecutive days. Until finally, the oppressors were transformed with the changed conditions.

Years later, Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrated the power of compassion in a similar way. And even in this day and age, Dalai Lama is doing the same with the Tibetan struggle for independence. What these revolutionaries have shown and are showing is that victory is not when you suppress the oppressor; it is when you transform the oppressor. Their view of the world is not about my people, my country, my well-being -- they are concerned with all of humanity. They fully understand what Gandhi said so eloquently: "Eye for an eye and the whole world will be blind."

Having said that, though, I don't think that refusing to fight is always the right answer. Krishna helped Pandavas fight a war in the India epic, Mahabharata. In almost all scriptures, "demons" are fended off with the metaphoric use of violence as well. But first we must identify the demon properly. In our own ignorance, unruly reactions to seeming injustice and oppression just add fuel to the fire. However, if the intent serves the whole with compassion, it dissolves the gap between the oppressor and the oppressed. If your fight is a reaction to internal anger and outrage, you are getting sucked in, deeper and deeper into the tornado. If, instead, you are fighting for the benefit of all, you will fight a different fight, even if it involves violence.

It has been argued by many critics that had Gandhi been a Jew going up against Hitler, he would've been dead in a second. That may be but I don't think those circumstances would've manifested for Gandhi since it wasn't in line with what he had to do, for himself more than for the world. We can't superimpose the manifestations of Gandhi's movement in 2001, or for that matter in 1948.

Every moment has its own truth and we need find that; if Gandhi was alive today, his truth could've manifested differently (or it could've been the same). People are often too lazy to find out the Truth so they just want to sit there and draw from stale ideologies, concepts and theories of the past, of which they have no experience. If not anything else, we can certainly draw inspiration from Gandhi's relentless drive to find that truth. That seems to be the main thing. The endless rat-race, pursuit after some convoluted concept of success which means absolutely nothing in face of death, should be transformed into 'experiments of truth'.

To me, non-violence is about the victory of love over hatred, peace over turmoil, wisdom over confusion. How it manifests is a different story but until we are in synch with those fundamental tenets of nature, we will suffer. And for me, I can honestly say that I am bringing suffering unto myself because I am not nonviolent in every single moment. Furthermore, that personal suffering is contributing the continuous external war that has been continuing for a long time now (we only notice it when buildings blow up and people die) and until we are determined to stop it, within ourselves, we will continue to experience it again and again, in different ways.

Before responding to the situation, let us place emphasis on fully understanding the situation. People are talking about peace without having any concrete experience with peace; others are talking about war while totally oblivious of their intent. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this is not a mere exercise in rational intellectualization. This requires some 'experiments with truth' and demands that you 'be the change'. Those with passivity, retreat, and cowardice need not apply. :)

Be the change,

Nipun

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 26 '01 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Bodhisattva Benevolence

> How to be compassionte to uncompassionate folks?

You want to be an example of compassion yourself. This doesn't mean lie low but it means that you clarify your internal reasons for doing this. You want them to know that you don't view volunteerism as a trade but a selfless gift of service that wants nothing in return, that you didn't have a positive experience in giving with B&B and that if they hope to build one bridge by burning down five others, the math won't work out in the long term. But you also want to understand yourself, that there is a liberating freedom when you drop the expectations, that winner of rat-race is still a rat, that the biggest opponent in the fight is your own restless mind, that on your death bed, you don't want to take such quarrels with you, that the world will eventually reflect what's in your heart, that the greatest response to every situation is love. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Aug 20 '02 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Nonprofits and Forprofits

I often think of your escape, or more accurately - graduation, from the corporate culture. I don't know if it's capitalism, corporations, or just human nature playing out in organizations, but my tolerance for it all is getting very thin these days.

From your experience, do you think it's much different working in a nonprofit organization?

Quite honestly, I would have to say that nonprofit organizations are much the same. The rat race really is in the mind. While for-profits go after venture capitalists, non-profits go after philanthropists; while for-profits burn bridges to turn monetary profits, non-profits burn bridges in hopes to achieve a social profits. The concept of profits has to be dropped from the mind for there to be any deep transformation. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Aug 31 '02 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

The Root Cause

do you not think that it would be more important to focus on the harsh realities that NPOs grapple with

Take an example of a tree that needs to be uprooted. You can chop it off from the ground level but it is soon to sprout again. The only solution is to take it out from the root. The question, then, become, what is the root cause? And again, it's not that simple because your view of the root cause is limited by your view of the world -- a person who has been abused will have an affinity towards related causes when there are people suffering from so many other causes, an Indian will have a soft corner for problems in India when countries like Africa have epidemics that are much worse, and so on. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 12 '02 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Recipe For Successful Project

my recipe for a successful project includes three ingredients: idea, implementation, and timing.

Idea formation take a creative bend, sometimes an out of the box mindset. Perhaps this is an "innate" trait, perhaps inspired by non-rational forces :), perhaps a heightened degree of common sense. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Feb 20 '03 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Boundless Energy in Face of Apathy

> What I'm really saying is that the fact that there exist
> people who have the capacity to be unmoved by the
> journey, it makes me feel disconnected. I notice my
> enthusiasm dampening.

I have found it useful to notice the arising and passing of emotions. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. In the same way, the feelings of disjoint often are leading us to a greater presence. Important thing is not try to escape from it. Just be with it. Suffer. It seems like suffering to the ego but it's not because the ego never existed.

> where do you draw your boundless energy in the face of
> (percieved) apathy, disconnect, don't care, not
> interested, so-what, big deal, who-cares, that's-dumb?

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 9 '03 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Off By An Inch

> can you explain something you said earlier:
"off by an inch, off by a thousand miles"

Off by an inch in the beginning, off by thousand miles at the end. Every single decision we make creates an incredible ripple effect that eventually shapes our destiny. Unfortunately, due to our lack of awareness, we catch things when they are off by a thousand miles, when buildings blow up, when we are completely agigated inside out, when our life falls apart. But as we tune in more, as we listen loudly to the present moment, we see that all of what we face now, individually and collectively, is a result of past actions that we had set in motion. Furthermore, all those past actions were seeded by subtle thoughts and those thoughts were possibly triggered by negative habit patterns fueled by ignorance. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Feb 7 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Beginner's Mind, Infinite Possibilities

After almost a year, I met Ashish's daughter -- Anha. Big, innocent eyes, sitting quietly next to Dad, tasting everything that her hands could grab onto. Observing her innocent sense of awe for all that she encountered, I wondered where "adults" lose that beginner's mind.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there a few," Shunryu Suzuki says in his book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Suzuki Roshi's book titles, by the way, always seem to grab my attention. His autobiography was Crooked Cucumber.

by Nipun Mehta on May 15 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Knee Deep in Grace

I got a book in mail yesterday, with an elegantly written post-it note on the cover: "Dear Nipun, please meet Dipa Maa." It was signed with smiley face. Something about it was deeply appealing.

Knee Deep in Grace is story of Dipa Ma, a householder woman who found true peace. The book is peppered with her simple yet profound quotes:

• Your mind is all stories.
• There is nothing to cling in this world.
• You can do anything you want to do.
• Let go of thinking, and you faith will come from within.
• The whole path of mindfulness is this: whatever you are doing, be aware of it.
• I can do anything a man can do.
• Your heart knows everything.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on May 28 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

One Four Letter Word

Everytime I spend some time with Larry Brilliant, I hear all kinds of interesting stories. Most recently, he gave a commencement speech at Knox College in Illinois and it was no surprise that he got a ten minute standing ovation!

The only thing that will prevent terrorism, if I may use a four letter word, is love.

I’m not speaking metaphysically about brotherly love. I am speaking practically. The Al Qaedas of the world cannot recruit and plot in secret in villages far away if half the people love America or, better still, what America stands for. That is why it is so important for America to stand for something worthy of love.

Terrorism is like an epidemic. Hatred is a virus, love is the vaccine. A community immunized by love and tolerance can ward off occasional preachers of a message of violent hatred. When there is no one in the village who loves America, we lack eyes and ears and friends and the Al Qaeda’s of the world have found fertile breeding and recruiting grounds.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Jun 11 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

My Struggle With Joy

My cousin was one of the top ranked billiards players in India. So when Venkat Krishnan -- the inspiring founder of Give -- sent an email with "Geet Sethi" in the subject line, I was intrigued. Geet was one of my cousin's role model growing up and also one the top ranked billiard players in the world.

After "about a hundred thousand hours of attempting to align himself with his natural being", Geet Sethi writes about "My Struggle With Joy":

The fifteenth century Italian genius Buonarroti Michelangelo was less than 24 years old when he carved the historic "Pieta" depicting a seated Madonna holding the body of Jesus Christ in her arms. Every muscle and nerve was sculpted to perfection in this amazing work of art. Michelangelo was once asked how he could create a Pieta out of a single block of marble.

"Simple," he replied, "I chip away everything that's not Pieta."

If you want to achieve excellence you have to chip away at everything which is not right and you can realize this only by hitting the metaphorical 500 balls a day.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Aug 5 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Robinhoods of Cyber Age

Whenever I think of Robinhoods, I am reminded of a quote by Master Hua: "Off by an inch in the beginning, off by ten thousand miles at the end."

But when my cousin sent me an article from Times of India today, it made me realize how hard it is to figure out if you're off by an inch or not. :)

Samirtan Six was a team through thick and thin, bound by a zeal to help the poor and downtrodden. They hacked into company ledgers and stole crores of money and gave it out to the poor. When they got caught and went to jail, they went on a hunger strike when they saw that prisoners weren't getting their due rations.

Full story is listed below. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 2 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Supernova is Coming

At the video store, I ran across Angels in America by Tony Kushner and I was reminded of his 2003 commencement speech at Columbia. He ended with this poem, after which he said: "The supernova is coming, but let's not rush things. Go forth and be powerful. Change the world."

The universe exists because of opposites and tension,
a fact we sometimes overlook, but here deserves a mention.
For every action there's another action to oppose it:
It's common sense, for life is tense, and everybody knows it.
The white-hot heart of every star, its radiant extrusion
explodes as atoms, cracking up, cause thermonuclear fusion.

Hydrogen to helium -- a force that pushes out:
Ten Billion Years Of Blowing Up is what a star's about.
The star could not exist, it would be blown to smithereens,
With so much inside pushing out lest something intervenes,
And something does, for pulling in is gravity, of course,
Which does the trick of holding in the thermonuclear force.

So one force pushes out, while one is pulling in,
And let's all thank our lucky stars that neither one can win!
For when the tension ceases and the totter doesn't teeter
We'll all be painfully aware we've lost our solar heater.
We will either freeze to death or get blown to Jehovah –
Depending if the sun becomes a Black Hole or a Nova.

And on that day I'm sad to say all life abruptly stops;
but there's five billion years before it shrivels or it pops.
So don't despair; instead reflect upon the stellar state
and on the fundamental fact that stars illuminate.

From grains of sand to giant stars all things share one condition:
the world we see would never be, except for opposition.

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 12 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Movement From Me to We

One of my cousin's friends in Chicago got published in a book with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Nelson Mandela. In her excited letter announcing the news, Lindsay said 'Me to We' "is the first ever "Anti-Self Help" book meaning that it is trying to show that the only way to really help yourself in a time of need is not by losing weight, making a lot of money, etc. It is by helping others."

From their website: "The Movement from Me to We means living our lives as socially conscious and responsible global citizens, engaging in daily acts of compassion and kindness, building meaningful relationships and community, and considering the impact on We when making decisions in our own lives. It challenges us to see ourselves as part of a larger community, and to live with the realization that all of our actions or inactions affect not only us, but also others in our world. We invite you to live the Me to We philosophy. Volunteer. Become socially involved. Help others and, in doing so, help improve your own life as well."

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 16 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Art of Business

A very dear friend, Dr. Ray Yeh, has just come out with ' The Art of Business'. It's an intriguing book about how the great leaders of business embody the five celebrated strategies -- possibility, timing, leverage, mastery, and leadership -- from Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Q: How did you go about selecting the "giants" featured in your new book, The Art of Business?
Ray: I studied over 30 top organizations and eliminated them one by one until I had the organizations I wrote about in the book. Lots of factors were important, but compassion was the key. For instance, GE was initially on my list, but after studying Jack Welch, I discovered that Jack rules by fear, so I eliminated GE. The true giants really have compassion for their people. Gordon Moore of Intel told me that one of the most important things a leader can do is to remove the stigma of mistakes. That’s completely contrary to ruling by fear.

Ray motto -- "The art of possibility is really the art of impossibility."

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 17 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Now, Go Kiss the World!

Nisha, who does daily news anchor :) of ProPoor forward this inspiring speech by Subroto Bagchi, COO of MindTree Consulting, to the incoming class at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!

I'm attaching the full speech below. [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Sep 23 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Today, I read a book report on a book I had read and enjoyed in my teens -- Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull! It was forward, so don't know who to give credit to but it did say that the report was by Sangeeta Kumar. It ends with this powerful sentence:

"He became enlightened in the process of enlightening others." [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Oct 10 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

The God Gene

Today's quote talked about the "God Gene". In addition, the 'Be The Change' section mentioned talking to a friend about these stats:

95% of Americans believe in God, 90% percent meditate or pray, 82% say that God performs miracles and more than 70% believe in life after death.

So Matt Henning writes this insightful email to me: [ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Oct 18 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Optimism of Uncertainty

Howard Zinn eloquently writes about why he stays optimistic:

In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy?

I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Oct 29 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Weaving a New Fabric

Found this in my Inbox from a friend who lost a loved one:

"a new fabric ... the old one is torn with a huge hole in the middle ... what fell out .. taken away by those nasty cells was wonderful and unique ... full of love and compassion ... bursting with giving and caring ... and all we have are memories to fill that huge vacant hole ... but memories are not enough ... they don't talk back ... they don't touch back... they don't smile back ... they are just there ... set in our own memory banks ... and stored in a special place in our hearts ... protected ... honored ... but they are not enough ... but they are enough ...they must suffice ... "

"and each of us, with our own needle and thread will weave a new fabric ... it will be different ... and we will learn to wear it ... it won't fit at first ... feel clumsy and odd...but with time it will fit ... be it a different shape and color ... and the memories wrapped and woven in it will give us comfort and peace ... we love you ... we will miss you ... but you will not be forgotten ... you are in a safe, loving and secure place within the hearts of all you touched..."

by Nipun Mehta on Nov 10 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

Quote by Debbie Ford was a part of my Inbox this morning, where I substituted prayer with meditation. :)

Today I choose to look beyond my petty human drama and instead to meditate and give thanks for all that I have.

Meditation gives us the ability to raise our consciousness, transcend our mood, let go of our fears and anxieties, and connect with our higher selves. Meditation lets us and our creator knows that we are keenly aware of the blessings that are everywhere, when we are willing to look for and acknowledge what's right. Meditation allows us to see what's right about ourselves, our bodies, our circumstances, our friends, our families, and most importantly our world. When I meditate, I like to close my eyes and stand in the presence of my prayer like it already exists. For a few moments I concentrate on my breath, consciously choosing to bring my highest self into my awareness, and then I set the intention to have my prayer penetrate every cell in my being. Here is my Thanksgiving prayer. I invite you to join with me in this meditation, or to offer up one of your own.

Thank you for all the people who are in my life. Thank you for giving me my body, my hands, my feet, and my heart. Thank you for giving me the ability to love, care for and contribute to others. Thank you for allowing me to grow and evolve, to shed the old and make room for the new. Thank you for my ability to see new opportunities and to explore new paths. Thank you for giving me the ability to think, and most importantly, to choose. Today I give thanks for my right to choose new perspectives, new beliefs, new interpretations, new behaviors, new habits and a new attitude -- all God's gifts to me, all free, all accessible at any moment. Thank you God for waking me up to how blessed I really am. May the love that fills my heart right now go out and enter into the hearts of all the people that I love - the ones that I know and the ones that I don't know. May it go out and enter into the hearts of the hungry, the lonely, the sick, or those that are hurting in any way. May they know that on this day, they are loved and cared for by me. So be it. So it is. Amen.

by Nipun Mehta on Nov 25 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Aliens Cause Global Warming

Aliens Cause Global Warming. At first, I wasn't going to a read a speech by that title, but then I saw it was by Michael Crichton, so I checked it out. Turned out to be an insightful commentary on the politics of science.

I remember being very impressed, in my teens, with his autobiographical book -- Travels. That's the only one I ever read of his, but I came away inspired to explore life. But maybe that was just me. :)

by Nipun Mehta on Dec 15 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Knock, Knock

I've been naggging my brother, Viral, to blog. Till he gives in, you can find his inspirations here. :) The latest is a tale from Attar of Nisharpur, by Anthony De Mello:

The lover knocked at the door of his beloved. "Who knocks?" said the beloved from within. "It is I," said the lover.

"Go away. This house will not hold you and me."

The rejected lover went into the desert. There he meditated for months on end, pondering the words of the beloved. Finally he returned and knocked on the door again.

"Who knocks?"

"It is you."

The door was immediately opened.

by Nipun Mehta on Dec 17 '04 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Cause of Poverty: Greed or Ignorance?

One of my friends recently asked me:

What do you think is more responsible for poverty, greed or ignorance? And no cheating and saying greed is a form of ignorance. :)

If the question is, what causes poverty, we first have to start by defining what poverty actually is. Broadly speaking, there's material poverty, emotional poverty, and spiritual poverty.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Jun 16 '06 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Organic Organizational Growth

[One of the organizations I volunteer for was recently looking for leadership. Lot of people felt that the organization needed to spend more money to grow more, attract more talent, and work wonders in the world. I felt a little differently and wrote the following note about growth.]

Growth has to be natural. You can't look to an apple tree and say, "Here's an extra bag of fertilizer and I'm expecting 1000 new apples this season." When we project our mental impressions onto our organizations, we interfere with natural conditions and "externalize" the costs to someone else in the world. In recent years, we've seen this problem climax in the corporate world. But this isn't just about global warming or recycling: it's also about the subtler costs of anger, greed, jealousy, mistrust, insecurity, and dissatisfaction in our very own hearts.

The skillful approach, I believe, is to focus not merely on the tangible outcomes but on the process of cultivating the soil and watering the plants and patiently finding joy in the small things. No matter how many professional doctors you hire, a mother will take nine months to deliver her child. You can't rush it. Similarly, you can't determine your growth rate by how much you pay the ED, how many people are on your development staff, or how many unrestricted checks you get. If we don't have active board participation, or if we have high staff turnover, or if all of us aren't fully aligned with common values, we will struggle. And that's OK -- what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. We have to be careful about the pain-killer effect of transient resources (like money) which often desensitize us to the pain we ought to feel.

The strength of an organization lies in the commitment of its constituents to its guiding principles and vision. If we are to have any growth, it has to be in proportion to -- and in line with -- that organizational strength.

[ read more ... ]

by Nipun Mehta on Jun 16 '06 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Burning Questions

I was invited to spend a week to 30 interesting folks to discuss the "role of philanthropy". Everyone is asked to submit a bunch of "burning questions" and I penned down a few that have created some good conversations:

• Is philanthropy creating more problems than it's solving? To "help" is to see life as weak, to "fix" is to life as broken, but what happens when we see life as a whole? Is it possible to serve without pre-conceived solutions in our head?
• What are the design flaws in man-made institutions that encourage fear, competition, and scarcity? Upton Sinclair once said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." How do we address the design flaw so deep into the game?
• Who has done more good for the world: Mother Teresa or Bill Gates? After much analysis, Forbes magazine concluded it was Bill Gates. How exactly do we measure the "good"? Can we count what really counts?
• How do we shift from a transaction oriented society to a flow-based society? If 15 still frames can create an animation, how many transactions does it take for real life to flow? Divorcing technology isn't an option anymore; how can we steer it towards flow?
• In our current "attention" economy, eyeball time is money -- seconds of SuperBowl time, click-thrus on Google, placement in Time. But can we go a step further and create an Intention Economy? Instead of marketers constantly interupting consumers to sell unwanted products, can we create a consumer-driven, demand-pull system based on communities of intention?
• How does the online world relate to the the offline world? Are they diametrically opposed and can they be weaved together for positive social transformation?

by Nipun Mehta on Jun 16 '06 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'

Birth of Gratitude Blog

Jean sent me an eCard with a sentence I had once written to her:

So many times each day, I am in a state of extreme gratitude. Oddly enough, most of the time it has nothing to do with circumstances of the day; sometimes I'll just be sitting there in silence and there'll be a surge of energy coupled with incredible gratefulness. Although my mind tends to attach that gratitude to something or another that's immediately relevant in my life, my hunch is that it's a natural spring that sprouts without a rhyme or a reason.

A while back, I had a thought of writing a note to gratitude every night before I sleep … to honor the deep connections that I cherish.

In our networked, information-heavy world, we are suffocated with lots of superficial connections – MySpace or LinkedIn, or it's an email from your co-worker's neighbor whom you met once or an interesting blogger that your sister has been reading for a year or an artist whose photos are up on Flickr. Yes, your addressbook has a thousand email addresses but really, how many of those people would wake up at 1AM to help you out?

And it's not just people. Our connection to ideas is also superficial. We will watch 'Inconvenient Truth' and talk about sustainability but we'll still use plastic, not change the light bulbs in our house, and secretly admire SUV's. We will donate to a homeless shelter or sponsor a well in a developing country, but we will ignore a homeless man on the street and indulge in long showers everyday. We will read spiritual books and quote scriptures, but we can't get along with those closest to us and we never practice being still.

Such paradoxes are a reality, for all of us, not because we don't believe in things but because we're confused about what to believe in. Hedging, weighing in the opportunity cost, cashing in for the quick fix, we sink in the quicksand of information, mis-information, dis-information.

And that's where gratitude comes in for me. Gratitude creates that stillness that allows truth to arise, clears out the lens through which I look at the world, and gives me that extra umph needed to make my life my message.

All to say, that from this point, I hope to write entries of gratitude on this blog.

by Nipun Mehta on Aug 9 '06 | add comment | permalink | more 'thoughts'