Moby Dick is all about whales and whaling and everything else. If you find anything connected to a whale you will find some mentioning in the Moby Dick. Consider it to a dictionary on whaling. In a time of scarce resources like 1800s, I wonder how Herman Melville gained all the necessary information, from where? From a library? From newspapers? By interviewing people? Maybe majority of his novel is fictional, yet I am sure at some point he referred to history books when writing chapter 55: which is about artwork of Whales. There he lists out all the places where you can find a picture of the Levithan, from ancient Indian culture to illustrations in old scientific books. A whale: Illustration by MML Resources he mentioned. Ancient Hindu sculptures Ancient Egyptian sculptures Ancient Greek sculptures Elephant Caves, India Guido’s painting of Perseus Rescuing Andromeda William Hogarth’s Perseus Descending Robert Sibbald’s Prodromus whale illustrations Jonah’s whale in old Bible prints Whale illustrations in old primers (children’s textbooks) The bookbinder’s whale — dolphin and anchor emblem Whale illustrations in old scientific books Shop signs depicting whales He uses these resources to discuss about how art imperfectly represent the reality although the artist is supposed to do that correctly. Although illustrations provide some information, most of them are erroneous due to various factors. Such as not being able to see the whole extent of the whales, at an era where underwater cameras are not there this was a major obstacle. To him even scientists can make mistakes, and the complete whale is not a creature which can be fully represented in drawing. So, our representations of reality are not necessarily the reality itself. What is reality? Melville's conclusion about reality, still applies today. Even today scientists discover "new" theories and discard old ones. Even today artists make mistakes, deliberately on canvass. Knowing that it is nothing but a distorted reality. Consider impressionist technique. But now we are better at our technology to capture a moment. We now do have underwater cameras, to capture full extent of a whale. We can record videos and sounds that they make. If you really want, you can even picture inside a whale with a video endoscopy. Use a thermal camera to map its temperature. All these provide valuable information about a whale. The question still remains; do we now know what is a whale better than what we knew 150 years ago? Why Reality is ungraspable Although our technology has improved, still reality is ungraspable. As everything not reality is not reality itself. So a picture drawn about a whale is not a real whale. A video about a whale is not a real whale. An Xray of a whale is not a real whale. How about an experience about a whale? A memory about a whale? A sight of a whale? Is a sight of a whale a real whale? It seem all these things are related to subjective reality. We always see a part of the whale, no matter how much better our cameras are our eyes are not capable of seeing everything. It only sees a tiny area of the reality at a time. Even this is just a representation in our brain which appears to be tangible only when connected with past experience of a whale. A good question to ask here would be has anyone seen a real whale ever? If you would like to explore this idea, you can read the article Thing1 and Thing2, these are characters of Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss. As a conclusion, we can say the more we are aware of our experience, more will question the reality we see. And better our understanding about it. And we can thank Herman Mellville for this ageless wisdom in his classic MOBY DICK. Moby Dick chapter 55 conclusion from Moby Dick chapter 55 as given by Melville "For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan."

Disclaimer: This article discusses death and holocaust. Selfish gene I am a selfish person. There is no doubt about that. So is everyone else. We are moved on this earth by a will which is hardwired into our brains, which has only one objective called "SURVIVAL" of the individual. As today, survival is generously easy, we do not find much conflict with my survival to your survival. But it is during hard times that survival matters, and our greed become apparent. In Tsunamis, wildfires, and natural disasters like Nepal Flood, we run for our lives. We do not wait to fetch others, except our own children. But we cannot consider our own kids as a separate entity, as it is engraved by nature that survival of the kids means survival of part of you into the future. That fact cannot be erased as we do not know where the memory location of that is. World Food program : Unsplash Once I read a book about Auschwitz, in the concentration camps, when the gas chambers are activated with thousands of people inside, at the end there would be a pile of bodies in a shape of a cone. As the gas is inserted from the below, to fresh air would be progressively rise up. So do the people. On the bottom of this pile of bodies would be the weak. Elderly and children, more and more stronger people would be on the top. This is just an extreme example to show that we do not care for our elderly and children when it comes to life or death. Weaker one will perish, and that would be the brutal natural law. But the human mind is remarkable. It can override this default setting of the human brain. It is hard but not impossible. It takes years of practice unless there is a tendency. When we consider a virtuous life- some people think of it as a meaningful life. As there is no default meaning in life, often we find ourselves engaged in activities which provide different meaning for us. This version of virtuous life is easy, and what is commonly found. Consider the following list of items which commonly attributes to the virtuous life. What do they all have in common? Honesty Telling the truth even when lying would benefit you Courage Doing what is right despite fear Compassion Taking another person's suffering seriously Humility Admitting that you may be wrong Justice Treating people fairly, including those you dislike Temperance Knowing when enough is enough Wisdom Considering consequences before acting Integrity Acting according to your principles when nobody is watching What is a virtuous life? These characteristics of a person, specially shows how they act in an interaction with others. Simply put, a virtuous life means, not a meaningful life. It simply means a life which is devoted to others overriding the natural tendency for our own survival. When you look back at your memories you would understand that what remains as pleasant and happy are the times you have spent caring for others. Genuinely, without expecting anything in return. Because you are moved by unknown reason during such times. We can harvest this wisdom and put it into routine of our lives. A kind deed done for others despite your own disadvantage will make you smile in a long term. Because that action do need your consciousness to override your subconscious you will remember it longer. You might say, after all it is just a memory. However, memories we cannot just think of them as memories. A life is nothing, but a dream filled with memories. And the most beautiful are the ones where you have sacrificed yourself. So how are you going to create a virtuous memory today? I am sure there would be a lot of ways. How about keeping some exchange in your pocket to buy a meal for some unknown person?

Traditional Games we play Games that we play in life are many. From baseball to cricket, and from the Olympics to the Diamond League. It was not recently that I wrote about the Tour de France. However, this article is not about traditional "Games". There are some games in life we play by default, mostly without an immediate audience. It is important to recognize these games, as our happiness does depend on them. To be honest, one of my friends suggested writing about this article a year ago, but I did not know how or why then; perhaps this answers her question. Wealth Game The wealth game is easy. The medium is money, and we play this by creating value. Those who create value for themselves are "self-employed," and those who create for others are "employees." Those who own other employees are employers or entrepreneurs. Guess who is on top of the wealth game? Learning about leverage, compounding, and money is essential in the wealth game. It will solve all your financial problems. Games: https://unsplash.com/@seabas Status Game or Stardom Some people think the wealth game is evil, mostly because it is hard to figure out how to create value and, more importantly, sell it. It is like the fox who tried to eat grapes and failed. However, they are not entirely out of games. They play a different game called status game. Hollywood actors by profession are masters of status game. They rise up to stardom, and once their star is permanently carved on the pavement, they can start charging any amount from filmmakers for their star power. By refusing money and showing you are spiritual, you play the status game. The status game is subtle. We all play this in the office, in the supermarket, with our neighbors, and in our families. While in church, we try to be recognized as unique. Why humans value this is unknown. Probably it is evolutionary, as being in a group always wins the survival game more than being single. As you can see, this is why being alone is the easiest way to lose yourself. But I would say it is a courageous and almost necessary path in self-discovery. Being religious, being generous, or becoming a philanthropist, being in a cooperation, having a family—all these are essentially various combinations of the above two games. As an example, by being religious, you achieve status in your community, and this will make you feel safe about your future. If a million people share your faith, how can you be wrong? Even if you do feel wrong about afterlife assumptions, you still "gain" status by being religious. Family is perhaps one of the oldest conformations that we used to help play our games. By marrying someone, we play it fair by not having affairs with any other party. We create more opportunities for everyone to be satisfied. And we work as a team to fight for status and money. In earlier days, we used to play hunger games as families. Food and shelter for survival were our main targets. Nowadays, as food and shelter are abundant due to technology, we play different games, even a round of cards when everyone gathers for Christmas. Essential Component of All the Games The essential component of all these games is the imaginary nature of it. Games that we play are not natural. They were created by humans by establishing rules and law. If you see any religion, there is a basic set of rules. If you see a cooperation, there is a set of rules too. If you see a country, there is another set of rules. We have to follow them by default as we are born into these games. However, the rules are imaginary and man-made; always that is the case. You might say, wait a minute, is that true? Once you see every game is imaginary, you would label it as a rat race and start playing a different game. A game of truth, perhaps with a bunch of philosophers this time around. Who stepped Out of every Game? Anyone who makes rules is at the top of their game; in this sense, a politician and a monarch are at the top of the political game. Shareholders with votes are at the top of the co-oporate game. The regulatory authority of FIFA is at the top of the football game. Anyone who doesn't play by the rules is eliminated. A criminal, a robber, doesn't play by the rules, but they still play the game by their own rules. They are eliminated by the system. I wouldn't consider even a beggar as someone who is not in the game. However, I have some idea of the characteristics of a similar person. They are called non-players. Characteristics of a Non-Player A non-player is a solitary person, perhaps a monk, who has seen the truth about all the games we play. He would know a game as a game. He would not fall back into the "game-playing mentality." He would not make rules on his own for his own living, as there is no point in creating another game. He would eat when hungry, walk when it is needed, and speak when it is essential to do so, not because he wants to gain "status" by informing others what he knows about the stupidity of life. He would find no meaning in the games that we play all our lives and would not find meaning by not playing any game either. He would stay right in the middle of awareness so there is nothing gained or lost from the experience. Actions done by such a person are completely pure. I would not call them living, but just a tree.

I am sure you have heard about the 80/20 rule or Peretto principle which states that 80% of the outcome is achieved by 20% of actions. However, there is more to this simple rule and more and more context which it is applied. You might be a student and say 80% of your exam results are due to only 20% of your work. If you are an entrepreneur 80% of your profit is gained by 20% of your operations. Obvious question one would then ask is AM I WASTING MY TIME? Am I wasting my time? It appears so. Imagine what it means by numbers. If only 20% of your actions made 80% of your results it means 80% of your actions were not productive actions but only contributed to 20% of your results. Can you cut off that 80% of your wasted time? Can you just replicate 20% of your action which was productive and spread it all 100% and then achieve an outcome of 400%? (20%->80%, 20x5 -> 100% -> 80x 5 ->400%) Or does this mean, that you can double your 20% of actual work get 160% result and enjoy 60% of the remaining time surfing YouTube or surfing waves in Hawaii? There seems something wrong when we think about in this way. Pareto Principle : Unsplash Myths About the Pareto Principle It is true, there are math equations supporting this principle. However, when you consider a productive activity, this is almost impractical. It is just an observation about past actions and past results. Imagine the 80% of your wasted time as information. Or "FALIURES". As I mentioned earlier, tolerating failure and moving on is one factor necessary for the success in any field. If you treat your 80% as wasted time, that is just making a blame on yourself. Maybe the 20% of your work is the result of 80% of your wasted time. On the other hand, you might not be able to pinpoint the exact 20% of your actions which made 80% of results. More importantly what about diffuse mode of thinking? What if the 80% of your wasted time is where your mind wandered surfing YouTube but created strange connections between ideas and came as creative revelations while you are working at your desk 20% of your time? Pereto principle makes us believe we can be more productive by cutting off 80% of your workload without a reduction of significant outcome. As you can see this is not true. The 80% wasted time matters in your work, and principle itself says it matters for 20% of your results. We need better framework just to apply this principle. Following may be helpful. How to apply Pareto Principle If you need to priorities your work like the principle suggests, you can use Eisenhower principle instead. It gives you a simple framework to engage in activities with delayed reward, as a part of your system. If you need an optimal functioning system with self-iterate, you might need to build it from scratch considering all the factors. Mandala technique would be a good way to do just that. If your work is lacking creativity, novelty and authenticity, the best way is to collect ideas throughout your day. Yes! you need a way to collect all those 20% of your thoughts so that is not added to the pile of wasted 80%. Either act on it immediately or make a physical note. Learning about Pereto principle doesn't make one suddenly a genius at their own line of work. I have learned about it15-20 years ago. However, I did not feel productive, at least most of my adult years. Feeling of productivity needs more ingredients than a simple principle. I would say it needs a very personalized knowledge, about yourself which cannot be gained by reading a single book. But knowing 1000 Peretto principles can make your life slightly better. A personal philosophy, learning about values, and identifying your own talents would help. Being in a field which makes you replicate your 20% productive time, 3 times per day would help. So, I guess there is no easy way to productivity and living a lazy life. A good quote from Mark Manson would summaries it here. "Life is a suffering, once you know it, chose your suffering, which you are willing to endure the rest of your life"

Why do social Hierarchy exist? Social hierarchy is something exist for the natural purpose of command. It is not just a structure which occurs in human interaction. If you look at any group of animals, you will notice a hierarchy. A group of elephants, a pack of wolves, a family of rabbits. Generally, the ones who are more powerful, and more capable of survival with unique advantage are at the top. In the case of elephants, that would be the mature elephant with a lot of memory. And you can see the similarity between the social hierarchy of humans. Imagine an army without a hierarchy of command. There would be utter chaos when they try to perform a simple command. Everyone will run around everywhere and argue with everyone about whom the actual work should perform. This doesn't happen in armies as there is a command. Social Hierarchy: AI image What comes with status is power. What comes with money is leverage. What comes with status is power. More you have people under your command more you will have power. The money, the power and leverage they have amazing nature of working as a positive feedback loop. Where there is more power that is where more money tends to accumulate. Hence your boss will be paid more as many are working under his name. Owners are paid most as they have leverage with capital, and human resources. This is very good structure which can produce "Miracles" for the capitalist society. However, when it comes to ethical and more futuristic society this would no longer be valid as there are problems. Social Hierarchy creates problems of abuse. When someone is under someone else's command there would be a rule saying "Follow orders". As these orders are in line of the ethical standards this is fine. But what happens naturally is the greed of the people will take over when they climb the ladder of hierarchy. At least some of them will try to abuse the power. They would command to do things to be done which only benefit their personal gains, let it be money, more social gains. The employees would be unable to refuse their commands, unless they are willing to rebel against the system. Most likely they will be treated as outlaws by the system when they do that. So, the ethics where the hierarchy of command exist matters. As a person with certain amount of power in any social construct, we should ask ourselves, am I abusing power? How can I best treat some other person under my command? The best way to treat someone is like a colleague. When you consider this the best way seems to treat the other person as your colleague. This is true for both the boss and the employee. From the perspective of the boss, if you do not treat employees under your command as colleagues, you restrict their behavior. You might blunt their creativity and ability to come up with solutions. You might accumulate a power and status which you might abuse along the way, even without knowing. It might feel good for a decade, but not very good when you lose that power, which inevitably would happen to you. As every system replace their players from time to time. From the perspective of the employee, if you cannot treat your boss like a colleague, you would be giving an unnecessary power over yourself to them. And even if you do not know this will restrict your personal growth as a person. You will forget to realize when unclothed everyone is only a slightly advantaged Monkey. And by design there is no difference between you and anyone who has climbed the social hierarchical ladder. Maybe you should become a boss one day and learn to treat your team members as collogues which is the best way to treat someone without jeopardizing your or their dignity. How about starting from the family?

Creativity comes in bursts. If you work in a creative field, you may have noticed that. Creativity has this special character; it comes in bursts. Lately it made me wonder why? Sometimes it is really annoying when a creative outburst happens when I am in the middle of a serious project working together with my Boss. What am I supposed to do? Stop everything I am doing and start writing poems during a cooperate meeting? Why doesn't creativity occur when I want it? Like during the afternoon, when I am bored and wanting to watch NETFLIX? What else in life have this character of coming in Bursts? What else in life comes in bursts? Of course, troubles come in bursts. Sometimes so pathetic we wonder where we got that unlucky gene from? Is it from father? Or mother? Forest Fires comes in bursts, if you ask a firefighter, they will tell you why it is important to let controlled small fires burn parts of the forest from time to time, as it would prevent an uncontrollable fire happening. Bull Markets happen in bursts. Suddenly everyone wants to buy, and stock market gives you ridiculous prices. This not only happens in stock market, any auction market, from time to time have this tendency to sell for stupidly higher prices. Compounding happens in bursts, and you can learn a lot from nature. Growth of a bamboo happen in bursts, and even growth of a human comes in bursts One at mother's womb and one at puberty. Creativity: https://unsplash.com/@jakobokai What underlies all these bursts. Closest I have come up with is the "Power Law" Which I have written an article previously. It seems creativity also stems from some underlying power law, although I cannot see the entire process from outside. So, what can I do to enhance this process and really what should I do when it happens when I am in a middle of nowhere? Things you can do to increase and capture your creative outbursts. If compounding is the underlying mathematic behind creative outburst, and creativity matters in your life, I suggest you start doing all the tiny things which doesn't mean much today, but have the potential to push your creative work in a positive direction day after day. Maybe a tiny practise you do after your lunch. Maybe a line of code you write, a half an hour of self study. A brief moment of awareness. A walk in the nature in the afternoon, contemplating your thoughts. Turning pages of a dictionary. As long as you have a system of habits, you will have those creative outbursts. More importantly you should have a method to capture your creativity when it happens. There should be a book with empty pages, a voice recorder, a note app, a canvass, a camera or any tool depending on your creative activity. Pre prepared and ready just to capture your thought in the moment. As you can see inspiration is perishable, and if you do not capture that you would loose the ideas. This is not just my idea, Jean Micheal Basquest, the famous painter in 80s in NYC happened to be exactly knowing what a creative outburst is. He would run away from whatever he was doing, in the middle of a conversation or during a meeting, just to be in his studio and start creating something just popped up in his mind. Someone needs to be very aware of their own thoughts just to do that in real time. No wonder, many people nowadays are not creative, as their attention is eaten by moths.

Impressionist movement. Impressionism was a movement created by a group of artists in modern Paris, where they were trying to break free from traditions. In traditional art, during bygone era, people appreciated paintings which closely resembled what they saw in real life. In a time where photography was not an art this really makes sense as perhaps the drawing was the only way of creating what eyes could see. However, artists including Cloude Monet, Edgar Degas and Camillie Passerio, did broke free from traditions by painting what they could see instead of drawing what their minds wanted them to see. By doing the former they achieved the latter goal anyway. So, impressionism was closer to a meditation than painful replication of reality in academic painting and realism. A sunset: AI generated How impressionism art is created. It is really interesting to watch an impressionist artist at work. Imagine you are trying to paint a tree. If you are an artist of the past, you would try to replicate the tree, like a photograph by creating each individual leaf closely resembling the actual tree. So there would be only greens and browns in your painting. But impressionist would approach it differently. They would ask questions like, what am I seeing? Do I see a tree or light and dark areas, with little bit of green + violet+ yellow and white areas? Do I see some orange on the trunk of the tree? How does orange changes to light green of the background? They asked what does this moment and piece of bark of the tree look like Instead asking What is this object look like as a whole" There is a subtle change in these two questions. In the first case we paint our observation, without giving a name to the object we see. Instead of a Ballerinas, in the case of Edgar Degas or lotus in the pond in the case of Coude Monet they created light and dark shadows. And this is clearly visible as when you look very closer to these paintings, they make no sense as there are only thick brushstrokes with different colors. Only when you observe them from a distance that you would see a Ballerina or lotus in a pond. Instead mixing colors yellow and blue on the palate they would paint these colors alternatively on the canvass and use Optical Mixing which happens in the eye of the observer, to create a shade of green. Just like in a way the modern LCD screen works. The art of disappearing This is the name of the book by Ajan Brahmavanso, a Buddhist monk from Australia. He describes how observing the nature is like an art and how mindfulness would make oneself understand their own nature, like an impressionist artist understand the object they are painting. Not just by looking at it as a whole but by carefully considering what things are composed of, we would see, in mindfulness, the ordinary observations become less meaningful but just a work of the brushstrokes of an artist who is living behind our eyes and between our ears. Ultimately describing how to dissolve ourselves in the experience of the now moment. English cottage Now consider the quote "one must know how to lose oneself in order to find oneself". This quote attributed to Edgar Degar captures the essence of the impressionist art as well as mindfulness practice. I could not stop seeing the remarkable resemblance of this quote to "The art of disappearing" by the mindfulness teacher. Really speaking, in impressionist art we are losing ourselves in color, light and dark shadows, in order to rediscover a tree, a ballerina or a man sitting in a boat. But in that moment of each brush stroke the artist does not see such an object but just tiny part of it with specific interaction of color which she replicated on the canvass. In mindfulness we live with the experience moment to moment without making stories out of it. Without crying when you dropped your favorite meal on the ground, you observe your greed which made you buy it in the first place, you observe the pieces of food on the floor, once which looked tasty now looking disgusting when mixed with dirt. You see the attachment which turned into dislike in a matter of seconds due to composition of the experience. You observe the reaction of the observer to whole situation, and the grief. Once done move onto the next experience of cleaning out the mess. In this sense, everyone could be a possible impressionist artist and master the art of disappearing into the experience. Would you try that?

Luck is just an oversized corn in a cornfield. Luck is not without reasons. This is something which we forget whenever we see a lucky person. Imagine your neighbor wins the lottery, and he became a millionaire overnight. You will think, why not me? I am always unlucky. But you forget the fact that you didn't buy a ticket. Anyone could buy a ticket, right? Anyone could go to a casino and win a jackpot, become lucky, if they are willing to bet a horse. As you can see luck doesn't happen automatically. There are series of things happen before luck, and this article is about them. What happens after luck? Imagine you win a lottery same time your neighbor wins a million. He buys some fancy car and a house by the beach and lives a lavish life for a while like Millers on the street. I bet his luck would run out after a while. To keep on living his dream, either he has to gamble away or steal. Compare this with you. You have only got 100000 dollars, and this is not enough for you to expend lavishly. So, you just ignore this, divide the sum into 20000 dollars and invest in 5 firms. Life just carries on normally. But each and every day you follow up your investments and see one is doing remarkably well, so you invest more of your money in it. After a decade suddenly the company you invest become a second "Apple company" and you would be named as this incredibly "Lucky" person who invested in the greatest company of 21st century. Nobody would be able to replicate your luck. But you know that was not entirely the story. Luck: Unsplash Luck is a retrospective label Life we live make sense only in retrospect. Connecting the dots and making a meaning out of it happens only at the end of it. There are plenty of small actions you can take every day, to change the course of your life in tiny amounts without worrying about goals and outcomes or even luck. You can call this the secret of success. And this is not a secret at all, in every culture, there is a concept about living life day by day. In Japan it is called Kisen, in Indian culture, it is written in Bhagavat Geeta, in modern world Mr. Beast talks about it in his Channel. So, how exactly are you able to create luck? What are the steps? Cornfield analogy. A cornfield is an empty opportunity. After each and every harvest, it will be just ground exposed. There is no luck of a harvest as there is nothing planted anymore. But if you start digging up the ground and there will be a lucky rain for you to start sawing some corn seeds. If you work every day and protect your garden these corn plants will grow and will blossom one day. And if you keep on caring for it, field will survive until they develop corn, and you might be lucky enough to witness the biggest corn you have ever seen in your life. When it does, your neighbor will say you have been lucky. But you will smile to yourself as it wasn't about luck. You just followed a lucky formula in a power law field, consistently. So, what is this synthetic luck formula? Formula for synthetic luck You get exposed to experience -> You are being aware and present to see opportunity -> Your mind interprets this as an opportunity -> You take necessary action -> You consistently take action without thinking about outcome -> Something Lucky happens. If we think about it, everyone gets lucky every day. Just some choose to doom scroll, and others try to improve their skills or enjoy a sunset instead.

Folk tale of seven Merchants. Once upon a time there were seven merchants. They were carrying goods from place to place on their backs. They lived in seven villages nearby. One day they were on a quest, and tired of walking all day they met at an abandoned house by the road. As they knew each other, all were happy to see everyone else, and they were hungry. M1 : "Hmmm... what shall we cook today?" M2: "We can make a porridge for supper." M3: "We shouldn't cook separately, as we all know each other, we can cook in a one pot today." M4: "Yes, that is a good idea. That's easier and faster and more rational." So, they started cooking. And while the water was boiling, each one was supposed to put a handful of rice from their bags into the water. First merchant: "Ok I go first. This is my handful of rice." He put his hand into his bag and pretended to take a handful of rice and drop it in the pot. "This is my handful" he said it loud and clear. Second merchant: "This is my handful of rice." And did the same. Third Merchant: "This is mine!" went the third one, and everyone else followed. All of them one after the other shouted in the dark, making an empty fist and pretending they are putting rice into the pot. As you can see, this didn't work very well. Although each and every one tried to fool the other, there was no single handful of rice in the pot to cook. So, they all were ashamed of the end of it and went back to cook their own meals. Co-operation AI image Game Theory and Accountability: The essential component of co-operation Perhaps this is the oldest story about game theory. In game theory, the best outcomes arise when everyone is cooperative. However, in actual life, this is far from the truth. Not everyone cooperates with everyone else. Instead, they try to trick one another in cooking a porridge pot. They do not play a NICE game; instead, they try to cheat and win. To overcome this, you need to play a different tactic, or Tit for Tat game. You can be a nice player as long as the other party plays it nice, and there needs to be punishment for trying to cheat. And if they started playing nice again, you forget the grudge and play nice, so you both can have great outcomes again. Apart from the best strategy to play the game of life, this story tells us what glues a cooperation together, and it is TRUST. When there are circumstances where there is no transparency, trust will be broken. Transparency is the way to create trust. Most of the time, transparency is created inside a cooperation by law. When people do not adhere to them for their personal gains, that will generally start a cycle of doom. If there is no trust that a cooperation would meet your expectations, everyone will sell their shares and leave for a better place to start over. In life, it is always better to work with a few trustworthy people or do it alone than trying to build something with a thousand liars. And if people do understand the benefits, they would cooperate more. Especially if you're a CEO, your greatest asset would be your accountability built over the years, the essential component which holds the co-operation together. Trust if broken it is hard to gain back, like a broken glass. Maybe you should start doing something else than wasting time rebuilding it!

Knowledge curve Imagine development of human communication. About 5000 years ago there were barely literate people. Very limited documentation, in the form of cave paintings, and clay plates. Even carvings on stone. It took few more millennia for humans to develop a system of written communication. Printing press was made 1450. But newspapers became into circulation in 1600s, Radio 1920, Television 1940 Internet 1980s Smartphone 2000. And communication is one of the fast-growing knowledge areas in human history. Can you see its growth is somewhat exponential by just looking at products we use to communicate we can see that. AI generated image of the knowledge curve Every field is advancing faster and faster. It is not smartphone; everything seems to be getting faster and faster. Every knowledgebase seems to be advancing faster simultaneously. Consider mathematics, consider chemistry, consider art and literature. There are more labs, more calculus classes and more artists than 20 years ago today. And they are vastly interconnected by smartphones, sharing knowledge, which have become a positive loop to drive the speed of the knowledge like a propelling rocket just out of atmosphere. Have you ever wondered how this is going to end? Is there unlimited knowledge? Will there be an ultimate answer to our all problems? Perhaps a M theory. Where do we stand today? Edge of the knowledge. Where we currently stand on this exponential knowledge curve is our edge. We can call this the edge of the knowledge. This is true for any domain. More and more scientists, artists and humans are working at the edge of the knowledge trying to expand it in a positive direction, every day. And it seems they are remarkably successful, in keeping the momentum. Like a group of hunting dogs, looking for new territories, they do discover something new every day. Co-operation is their tool, and paradoxes are their enemy. Limits of the knowledge and nothingness Paradoxes uncertainty principle and probability of truth. These are some of the hard problems that we have encountered along the way. Perhaps they make us humble to look at our knowledge base holistically. Will us ever reach the limit of our knowledge? Is there any meaning at this point? Consider the probability of truth. It is conventional wisdom that any truth is just a probability, quantum or not. So, there seems a limit for us to find 100% truth. As a species we can make more effort to reach higher speeds of knowledge by scientific method. But if we really want to jump into the asymptote of the knowledge we need entirely different approach. Perhaps the key is mindful awareness of the now function, which gives momentum to all these. There we might find "nothingness"

Productivity is not what you think. Productivity is not when you work hard to produce lot of things valued by your boss. Productivity doesn't mean writing more articles, if you're a writer, or doing more paintings if you are an artist. It doesn't mean finding solutions to difficult math problem if you're a mathematician. All these things make sense in a real world to earn credit, recognition and many other things and they do push you towards positive outcomes and brief happiness. However, you will soon be back to your desk just to start another "Productive" task, unless you figure out what productivity means, you will burn your years being "productive". Being productive is a myth that we were taught to believe in. Pre-requisites for productivity. Even if you liked or not, even if you knew or did not, at the heart of productivity there is a belief, that life itself is some positive game, where you reach some, imaginary random number. So, we measure our productivity by a positive number. We evaluate lives of Charles Darvin, Leanardo da Vinci and Sir Issac Newton and call them productive lives. It is true what they did greatly changed the course of modern's civilization. However, where are all these productive people now? They all stopped being productive after being dead. From our perspective their lives are productive for "US". From their perspective, their lives stopped being productive after being dead. We can call this phenomena ground Zero of life, or contemplation on death. So productivity seems to be an illusion when we consider the finite nature of the life, from the perspective of the person. On the other hand, even if we agree there is value of life when one is not dead, the time he or she spend may be productive according to mental value they give to whatever the task they are doing. As human values are human made and only occur in specific human minds at specific times when they are brought into memory, we can give arbitrary values to anything we do. Being productive : AI image You can choose to be productive taking a sh..t early in the morning, humming your favorite song, if you give a mental value to it. If you chose to give less mental value to money, you could live a productive day just watching birds looking for worms in your backyard. You can be productive just sweeping the floors, while at home, looking at dust rising off the ground, being illuminated by the golden sunlight. You can be productive thinking about all the books you have read last year, and even reading the newspaper. As you can see, it is very easy to spend a productive day, as long as you choose to be just aware of what you are doing. Children do this all the time. Their days are full of productivity all day along! Being productive is a myth. Instead, be present. In life, there are no destinations to reach. It will stop just the way it started, without asking the owner whether it is right time. So, you have no choice on your birth or death. In between these two extremes, there will be a chaotic flow. Can you really call this productive? Whatever imaginary problem you try to solve day in and out I just see this a futile affair. Only productivity, if you really need a label to put somewhere, I will invite you to be aware. That's all we can do to live a happy, fulfilled day. In this sense following are productive lives. A driver is productive, if he is aware throughout his driving journey of the day. A fisherman is productive, if he is aware during his fishing trip, without wondering about the land. A trader is productive, if he is aware of his body and mind, during a day of trading. A student is productive, if he is watching films all day but knows what he is doing each and every moment during that time, and does it with a choice. A grandfather is productive if the stays home due to his painful knee, but just has a brief walk in the garden listening the sound of crickets. There is no rush, As there is no winner in this life, so walk in your own pace from zero to zero in any route of your choice is "PRODUCTIVE"

Homework It was a rainy day. The sky was pouring down like it was sad for something, all afternoon. Lily White was watching the raindrops through her window all morning. And she started her homework in the afternoon. She was doing English homework. And she was filling a table of things and places, persons and animals. She had to choose which goes in which box. It was easy, could you do that if you were given? A tree: https://unsplash.com/@jmacca88 This is just a part of her list. Ant -> animal Uncle -> person School -> place bird -> animal chair -> thing monkey -> animal Rose -> thing Tree ? "Well, that is strange. I do not know whether a tree is a thing or a place?" So, she asked her father. "I see, it is easy Lily. A tree is a thing !" Father said. "But father, an ant lives their whole life on a tree, birds nest on a tree, I have seen some monkeys just having a nap the other day on top of the tree! It is a place for them, and it is my favourite place to be in the garden too." "hmmmm.. I cannot disagree, Perhaps it is both?" "So, which box should I put it in? the Thing box or Place box?" "Put it in the thing box" "But, that is wrong. If I put it in the thing box, I should also put it in the Place box" "Why this is so hard" "Ah poor Lily, don't think about it too much. Sometimes there are no correct answers to some questions. We just have to select one which seems right." "Why is that?" "Its because.. " "Its because..." "hmmm... They are just imaginary!" Hmmmm... Lily was thinking. "What did he mean by its imaginary?" She finished her work and thought about everything imaginary during all afternoon. And before bed, she put a note in her book. Lily White's diary -Imaginary things and places. Today I learned things can be places. If I imagine myself an ant, a tree will be a place. If I imagine myself a giant, our house will become a thing. Like my father said, it is all imaginary. Guess I am really good at imagining things and places. So, a tree is a thing just because I chose it to be.