I was screening through the shelves of the Library the Other day and came across a book named Roses. A botanica's Pocket -Roses it said. However, it clearly would not fit into anyone's pocket. If it was a novel, it would be the size of two volumes of the Count of Monte Cristo. Over 1000 pages of more than 2000 listed roses. I borrowed the book. Obviously not to read cover to cover, but to fascinate myself with the "Queen of the flowers" in afternoons for a fortnight. So, here are few facts about roses and what amazes me about "Roses" Roses The Rose Map. This is not a specific map of roses, but Hardiness zone maps are the ones which divide the world into "Zones" according to minimum annual average temperatures observed. Roses being sensitive plants, have their own habitats and will be grown in different climates, hence zone maps are used as a guide to show where you will approximately see different kinds of roses and best places to garden them. What fascinated me more was the sheer number of roses. I cannot include them all here, but can list out some of the roses started with letter "H" for you to get an idea. Roses that start with Letter H. Hakuun (White Cloud) Hamburg Hamburger Phoenix Hampshire Handel Hansa Hansa-Park Happy (Alberich) Happy Child Happy Wanderer Harison's yellow Harlekin (Kiss of desire) Harmonie Harry Wheatcroft Harvest Fayre Hawkeye belle headliner Heart of gold Hebe's Lip (Reine Blanche) Heidekonigin (Palissade Rose) Heidelberg Heideroslein Heideschenee (Snow on the heather) Heidesommer Heidi Heinrich Munch Helen Traubel Helmut Schmidt Henri Martin Henry Hudson Henry Kelsy henry Nevard Heritage Hermosa Hertfordshire Hiawatha Hidalgo High Hopes Highdownensis Hilda Murrel Himmelsauge Hippolyte Holy Toledo Homere Honeyflow Honor Honarable Lady Lindsay Honore de Blazc Honorine de Barbant Hot Chocolate Hot Tamale Hugh Dickson Hula Girl Hume's Blush Tea-scented China Hunter Hurdy Gurdy The book of roses The book contained a little chapter on history of roses, to how to garden them. More importantly pictures of these wonderful flowers from all around the world. Obviously one of the most colorful books I have ever seen. It made me ask few more questions. If subject of "Roses" is big enough for someone to write a Book about, (mind you this was just a catalog of roses) how big subject is "flowers". If "Flowers" is just a big subject then How about "Trees" "Rocks" "Gravity" "Water" "Earth". I am sure I cannot finish learning about just "Water" in my whole life. There will be more things to learn and I would start to forget the previous things I have learned about water. More roses How about the subject of "Earth" which includes all these subjects. How about "solar system" or the "milky way" which might include uncountable number of rose species which we can never write a book about as it is beyond our power of documentation. Yet I can still live a reasonable life, without knowing all these facts, as still in my mind roses are just beautiful flowers with, red, pink, yellow and white, which I have to be careful when touching due to thorns. If life is a book, with all the information, we just have read the covers of each book. So, how foolish for someone to call themselves expert in something. The "Queen of flowers" had just made me so humble individual. What about you? What you have been reading lately?

First part of this article is just an AI generated list. Just to show how the self-help evolute over the years. However, in the second part I will write my opinion on these in old school way. Directly out of my mind onto the paper. After all any AI generated content is not to be accepted until we give our own verdict upon it. So, you may comment your verdict after reading. Willpower & Moral Character (Early 20th C.) Success was seen as a result of discipline, virtue, and personal morality. Think : “Build character, control yourself.” Positive Thinking & Mental Attitude (1930s–50s) The mind became central—beliefs and optimism were thought to directly shape reality (e.g., The Power of Positive Thinking ). Goal-Setting & Productivity (1950s–70s) Life improvement shifted toward planning, efficiency, habits, and measurable goals. Success became a system. Human Potential & Self-Actualization (1960s–80s) Influenced by psychology (Maslow, Rogers), focus moved to meaning, creativity, and becoming one’s “true self.” Wealth, Influence & Performance (1980s–90s) Self-help merged with business culture—confidence, persuasion, leadership, and financial success dominated. Emotional Intelligence & Relationships (1990s–2000s) Managing emotions, empathy, and communication became key life skills, not just IQ or ambition. Mindfulness, Wellness & Mental Health (2000s–2010s) Stress, burnout, and inner peace took center stage—drawing from neuroscience, therapy, and Eastern practices. Identity, Systems & Self-Compassion (2010s–Present) Change is framed around identity, habits, environment, and kindness to oneself—not constant hustle or “fixing.” I agree, reading through the above list would not create a practical value to your life. And it seems too complicated list. But I can say that initially people were more focused on controlling their will power, and in the latter parts, more about identifying that it is not possible to fully control our emotions, instead, accepting ourselves as we will ease the burden of over worrying about things which are uncontrollable. In can summaries this whole 8 paradigm shifts into one step. It is not always black and white. Look at the following diagram which explains my intuition. Evolution of self-help summary diagram. In the beginning of the century People were more focused on self-control. Which inherently agrees to the fact that we have a free will. But on the latter part, the deterministic views have become more popular that self-awareness and acceptance have become more popular. On the other hand, we can see, that this idea of self-acceptance was never zero at any point in time. If you go back in time in various eras, you will find philosophical quotes by different intellectuals came into these realizations. However, I would say that was not the popular view about the self, during early years of the last century. "Most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely" - Carl Jung. Another, way to look at it is to see the chronological order of how things happen in an individual's life. First when kids start to learn, we plant a seed of self-control in their brains, so they do not back up when challenges are faces. We encourage them to take challenges, win or lose them. And teach how better tactics, better self-control will ultimately lead to success. It really does work for some time. Then the inevitable randomness of life, makes us meet with impossible challenges. Old age, disease, death are common challenges to any life. Sometimes, even unfair social disadvantages, where no matter how hard some try would not be able to overcome. Now, at this, the self-control is not going to work. Evolution of self help in an individual -> self control - > self acceptance. No matter how much we try we will not be able to "Cure cancer from meditation" or win an Olympic medal in high jump when you're born 4.5 feet tall. It is really impossible to fly into the sky on the edge without wings. In these places, we have to use the latter strategy which is self-acceptance. Self-acceptance that you are a better idiot than I am in writing, and I am better fool at things that you are good at. This happens naturally when people get old. Old grudges go away and everyone heads for the church, when they get old, including criminals and schoolmasters. Then the question of why not use it in the first place. Evolution of self help What if life is about failures, not wins. What if we chose to be failures in life, instead of chasing success. Will minimalism and mindfulness will bring bigger happiness than a pile of money? I would say that is a real possibility and achievable, as longer you observe mind, you realize that the reality is just a narrative of our own minds. So, now I have stopped hoping for a tomorrow without any problems. Life is inherently with its problems. If I chose living as an answer, I have to accept means as obvious problems of it, including death or cessation of this. So, what have been your approach to self-help lately?

Background: Yesterday, I attended a carrom tournament organized by our co-worker's union. It was a friendly night, with lot of them playing the game against each other. There were no high stakes, while the players were at it, I was just being a spectator. I watched my friends playing. I wouldn't say the pair were better than the opposition, yet they gave a good fight. Three matches were played and they lost two of them, the final one was the most exciting as each of the team had many chances to win. They struggled with one piece from each black and white, on the board, as they could not sink the queen and their final peace for a win. By the time they came to five minutes from the finishing strike, all the other matches were finished on other tables (there were four of them) and everyone gathered around their table cheering either one or the other group. Can we not take sides when playing a game? maybe impossible, as that brings the thrill to the life. Thrill of a challenge. However, my friends could not come out as winners. And we had a good post-mortem discussion on what went wrong and what went right. Obviously, not each of them were at same skill level and each one felt that they themselves were responsible for the loss. Playing carrom "I think you would have a better chance if you paired up with someone better than me". That was the ultimate conclusion. I myself thought about this statement and found that there were plenty of things which made the statement false. Maybe the loss was just deterministic, rooted by the reasons that started from the time of the big bang. That is as far as what we can reason out from the modern scientific observation of the cosmoses. I agree that need more explanation, after all I did say that to my friend and he did not understand what I meant. So, here is answer to the problem and the unnecessity of the reasons of the self-doubt that created illogically in his mind. There is no alternate universe while we were playing carrom. I was there when they played carrom. I was just watching; they were just playing. That happened clear as day during the middle of the night. They tried their best shots, best nerves, and best strategies, but they lost. They partnered up with each other in the hope of winning and they tried and lost. There was no shame on it. That was exactly what happened. The mind cannot agree to this simple truth of losing, failing, or breaking. So, it stupidly creates alternate universe about something which did not happen. It creates scenarios, about "Alternate universes" where doing this or that which I could have done make "That" game won. This creation of alternate universes just does not improve. It just creates a self-doubt which is totally unnecessary. While watching, I did not see any other alternate universe that things do go in a different direction. It doesn't mean we should not get the experience to do it better next time. It doesn't mean, you cannot win next tournament by partnering up with someone better. I just mean for "That" night for that specific game, there is no alternate scenario. guilt How to overcome guilt of the past- It is what it is. As you can see, this is not just about carrom. Any game you have lost in your life will come back as haunts to you if you do not identify these alternate universes mind creates. If you want to move, forward take those lessons and apply to the next game. That game is lost. It is what it is. The situations cannot be changed when they are in the past. "It is what it is" was said by Rusell Buffalino to Frank Sheeran, in the Robert de Niro movie Irishman. When Frank had to kill his beloved friend and Boss Jimmy Hoffa. "It is what it is" is what I would say to my friend who likes to do postmortems on a lost carrom game which was played for fun. "It is what it is", that we should repeat like a mantra when the stupid mind brings out alternate universes to the inaccessible past scenarios. Life will drag on, and just like a lobster shedding its old used exoskeleton , we should shed our past and move on facing the vulnerability of shame and guilt, sometimes. You have nothing fancy to do, to overcome guilt. It is what it is, simply accept it as a fact.

What is a correct attitude for life? After a hard working day, when the physical and mental pain is at its high, you might have tumbled upon this atricle. Maybe just random scrolling in google got you here. So, it is my duty to wast no more time yours. So, when i came across following idea about life, i thought maybe i should proliferate it here in the blog as it sounded fascinating. Consider the following quote. Persuit " The more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the act that you lack it in the first place" Alan watts It seems this is true statement for everything we persue in life. It may be happiness -> hapiness monster, it may be success, it may be a satisfyed relationship, academic excellence or trying to colonise mars is your pursuit in life. But if we look at it from where youre today, you will see the truth in it. As you will have to endure suffering of not having that thing you seek. Forget about great things that you want to achieve in life, just take a journey on the bus and do a walk on the most ventured street. You will start to realize you persue everything, from hats, to cars to buildings. Whenever eyes see something pleasurable mind start the game of persuing this. Whenever eyes see something unpleasent mind starts persuing the opposite experience. All day everyday, we are doing this and simply we can call this life. So, from a practical standpoint we cannot avoid persuing things. What can we do for this? How can we get around this problem? What is the correct attitude for life we can generate from above principle? Let's summarise what we have learned so far so we get a better idea about our problem. Fact 1 Whenever we persue things in life we realise we do not have this thing now. This creates an unavoidable suffering in the moment. After all life seems to be a collection of moments, continously becoming another moment. Fact 2 As for living we cannot avoid persuing things as that is the fundemental of living. You have your meal today because you persued that. There was a moment where you craved a meal, where you did not have it in your mough. Potential solution. Choosing your own suffering One potential solution is to avoid the persuing altogether. As you can see it is impossible to do. And even unnecessary as we have the second option. If you chose this as an answer completely then you will be dead in few days as you wouldnt even persue a meal. There is a limit for one can continue non persuing. On the other hand non persuing is another persuing. So if you fail to continue your non persuing you can be sad after some time. Itself can be a suffering. Choosing your suffering Second potential solution is more attractive. I have seen different versions of this given by different philosophers. Some say it is the art of letting go, accepting nature, valuelessness of life, zero of life, etc. Some great people from the past have understood this principle. Here in this solution we can kind of accept that there is no "non -suffering persuit in life" every persuit has to be suffering. On the other hand "there is no life without a persuit". You can see the problem itself provides the answer. Which is to accept the suffering and lean into the least severe suffering for yourself. In otherwords you are allowed to choose your own suffering. Let me repeat this so it sinks into your brain and it comes out later as an answer when you feel the suffering. Coosing your own suffering - means understanding, everything youre going to persue in life will generate some form of suffering. Hence you give up the "no suffering solution" to life altogether. This has potential to bring more happiness to life as acceptance of the current state of affairs in your life is the best thing we can do today. Infact we can call this mindfulness in modern wisdom. I am not sure how far you read into this article. Or whether you underood what i tried to explain in words. Now with this wisdom you can choose any persuit in life, which seems worth for you, with expectation of endurence for suffering. In harmony with it, not with anger towards life. Lets have a great day ttoday.if you do not know how to get inspired read inspiration is perishabl e

I am guilty as a convicted criminal, for pleasuring myself from the world. The penalty for this I think would be the death, as I can see more I am attached to the world more difficult it would be to leave the consciousness function. How, can I not eat the sweet apple of creation, when it looks tasty, it smells tasty and it feels tasty with my perfect senses. Have you ever noticed how delightful the world is? It seems to be just being is enough to give us an enormous pleasure from life. The beach When I was walking on the beach yesterday, I was pleasuring myself as my feet dug in the perfectly milled sand. The sand had no single reason to be there. Sand which might have come from the Mesozoic era, from volcanic mountains, travelling back and fourth. Disintegrated by constant crashes with each other, shredded into perfect powder by the force of waves. Now giving a glorious sensation on delicate free nerve endings on my feet. I just grabbed it, judged it as good, and paid the price instantly when I stepped on the rough tiles of indoors. It wasn't just sand. The waves were rough, but with plenty of drama on the stage with the low singing voice and the bubbles in thousands. Orchestrated throughout my presence on the beach in background. I just had to look if my eyes felt tired looking at the coconut trees or the blue sky. I could listen even when my eyes closed on the hammock hung between the two trees, slowly swinging sideways. I could pleasure myself with the wind which was not stopped by the fishnet on my back which hurts from wear and tear from the long journey of life. The world is remarkably delightful. Sometimes I weep indoors in artificial Life when I know I could have been watching an ant cross a tiny lake made by a Childs hand. I used to be that child. I have outgrown, Outsmarted, and in utter chaos of an imperfect life like every single one of my high school classmates, except a couple who died last year. The world is remarkably delightful still. That, I know for sure, as I can see myself watching happy grass swaying in the lagoon wind in my dreams, like I did in last December. I would watch a tiny octave foot Spider weaving a trap of death in a dodecagonal Shape, without knowing any chemistry, or high school mathematics. Which no matter how much advanced I am, cannot replicate without significant sacrifice of part of my life. Dandelions There is delight in, Watching a spider Dandelions float in summer Listening to the sound of squirrels . Watching the celling from by bedroom. Every dead and dry leaf, if I picked them up and chose to spend my consciousness observing its venation pattern which once used highways by a tree to send a concentrated soup of ingredients back and forth from its cells. World is painfully delightful If you understand this simple truth about life, that just being enough was what the mind ever wanted, maybe just then the content that Jim Carrey talked about at Oscars, is achieved. The world is painfully delightful, being content in it is just a choice. I reminded myself today just before close my eyes, that maybe I can achieve that content, just now when I see the delight of having a sleep. Maybe life is meant to be with whatever the problems it has, and we just make them ours by declaring the presence of ourselves instead of being in it.

I agree, life is all about asking questions. If you are about to go somewhere today, you should be asking the question why? Maybe it is to work, maybe it is for travelling. Maybe it is just the day to relax on a couch on Sunday still I suggest you ask the question why? I am sure trying to answer this question will perplex you at some point as nobody seems to know exactly answer to the "Why?" So, we take the easier route of not asking the question and make ourselves busy with How's. Now, how's are entirely different. About How's Of life. How's make us passionate about things. Imagine a caveman who never cooked meat. And he finds a deer burnt in a wildfire and eat its meat. And his taste buds jump up in joy, and He wants to know How? He will figure out fire caused the extra taste in the meat and somehow develop a way to tame this fire and use his for advantage. But here is the problem. He would not ask why? taste buds in the first place. Why anything at all? Why existence? Tribal man Life of How's is Mediocre No matter what you are doing if you spend a life of How's I would call it mediocre. You can be the professor in your department in the university. But all during the day if you're trying to figure out how, we can genetically engineer some chemical compound to cure cancer, I would still call it mediocre. Even though it saves great many lives in the future this has nothing to do with what as humans we are supposed to do. Even crows have figured out How's. What makes us real humans is the ability to drive our consciousness into whys. Problems of whys There are some problems with whys. Mostly we do not find answers to why. So, majority would stop questioning altogether. But I would say the major problem, or the obstacle to whys is, the devious nature of how's. Some, questions in the form of how's can disguise themselves as whys. These how's also do not have answers, or even unexplainable. But they can mislead you from real questions of life. Consider, doing good things in life. They appear as rational thing to do. After all society will punish you for doing bad things, either financially or physically. And it seem we were taught all our lives about how to be a good person. It seems success as agreed by the society is something we should chase. Why should not anyone chase success when it seems to be the most evident thing agreed by the majority of the society to have a fruitful successful life? This seems like a legitimate question of category why? But as you can see, it is a real How question. We can ask the same question as, how we can spend a successful life according to the consensus by the society. Without even asking a single question of why, we might start to draw perfect circles on the sand like bunch of experts. If one has to get away from these traps and find out truth about life they should stick to fundamental questions throughout. Even during the journey of chasing success. And be willing to give up if it seems success is not necessary. Someone might call this stepping down from the " Game of life ". It is not like suddenly you become a saint. But gradually the mind understands the erroneous nature of the world view about life, that our ancestors taught us. Mind you some of them had similar problems to us. Consider, hunger, thirst and need of having sex. Although we have become advanced in our technology, we are still under the control of these forces of nature. We haven't magically achieved freedom from fundamental problems of life through science and technology. So, I would not waste much time of this life chasing technological miracles. Instead, I will stick to basics when I walk on the beach tomorrow. What a wonderful world Why's of life. I would ask myself again, who am I? Why me? Why birth? Why death? Why all the do's and don't do's in between? Why am I hungry? and why should I eat? Why should I wake up every day and why should I work? Why anything exists and since when? Why should anything exist? I am sure I will not get an answer, and likely whatever answer I am getting is wrong. It makes me just humble and helps me detach temporarily from this painfully delightful world.

Stress According to Naval Ravikant, stress is the pull between two opposing decisions, creating the mental stress on mind. While physical stress is similar to pressuring an Iron bar from two sides, it might hold as long as its intrinsic strength is not overcome by the force. At some point iron bar is going to be fractured. Similarly minds, stuck within dilemmas, can come out in unhappy places like angry or sad or it might survive the stress leading to another happy occasion. But here is the thing, we face such stressors all the time throughout the day. Some are so subtle that we do not consider them as stressors. As an example, when I go to the bakery to buy some snack, I would often look at the various food items, not knowing what to buy. Should I go for a plain bun, or some fancy one. Often, I would make a wrong choice and be unhappy about it. Yet, next time also I might do the same mistake. So much stress for a bun I might chose to avoid going to the bakery at all. Lol. Of course I am extreme in the spectrum. Generally, the people who knows what they want would spend less time in bakery as they do not have that analysis paralysis problem in their genes. Those who have it will understand what I am saying. Paralysis of choice Anxiety and stress - what is the difference? So, what is the difference between anxiety. You can read my previous article on Sharpes ratio and anxiety where I produced that anxiety is a ratio of risk vs return. If we consider above analogy of two factors acting as stress someone can say it's just stress. Anxiety from the sound of it, looks worse than stress. On one hand, a balanced stress might lead to progress. But anxiety seems to be always harmful. Something to be avoided in life at all costs. But the problem is often we cannot. Anxiety seems to be a collection of large number of stressors, acting simultaneously , that the boundary and clarity of the two stressors for each factor is not clearly visible. As an example, you can be having a relationship problem giving two choices of staying or leaving, at the same time you might have trouble with your job, again, staying or leaving. But if both of them acted together, interactions and feelings might be overwhelming, that anxiety and panic is the result for most minds. That can cloud your judgement that you're unable to decide on anything as you do not know why. Grass Turing machines and limits. This modeling of Anxiety and stress have good advantage over the previous model using Sharpes ratio. Although anxiety has variety of reasons behind it, at one moment we cannot tackle everything altogether. Our minds are like Turing machines . One step at a time is the way to do anything. So, that guarantees, although stressors can go away with action immediately, anxiety will not go away. As there are more and more problems to solve. It is better to expect, a reasonable relief once you have tackled enough of these individual stressors. Maybe old school method of going back to a paper and writing each of these problems down is the easy way. Maybe getting help, professional or otherwise is the way. Little bit of mindful awareness practice daily, being with the nature might do better bringing out clarity to solve one of these problems. But my intuition is that we all should have a deeper understanding about life, which is closer to what is actual happening. Not just modelling of anxiety. Then we will be able to solve all our problems once and for all. You can call it knowledge, wisdom, or even truth or even Ride on the asymptote to the limits of infinity.

I have been learning about investments, stock market and human behaviour lately. For anyone who is interested in growing their wealth there are a lot of videos on YouTube nowadays. In Fact it is filled with financial advice that you might find it hard to stick to one strategy. Good luck with that! But as a general advice I would say don't forget basics when you learn advanced mathematics of financial models. When you learn Sharpe’s ratios and variances and Betas you might forget that the values are not in the stock or in business but in human minds. If you forget this you might just become a number man and be fooled by the system at some point. If you know this, at least you will know why you were fooled at some point, by these financial advisers. But here is an interesting fact. Let's look at sharpe’s ratio to understand life. Sharpe's ratio definition Sharpe’s ratio is a mathematical model used to describe the risk adjusted return for an investment. This is a fundamental concept. Any return is associated with a risk. When you have two investments with the same return for a period of time, the pathway they have taken can be markedly different on a plot. Consider the following two graphs. To select the good investment we need to quantify the return to the fluctuations as a ratio. As these fluctuations show how risky the return is. More fluctuations will have less sharpe’s ratio. If you understand the concept upto this point it's good. I will give the formula for sharpe’s ratio below for the completeness of the article. Here’s the graph showing two stocks with equal final returns but different Sharpe ratios: Stock A (High Sharpe Ratio) : Has a smoother, more stable growth curve due to lower volatility. Stock B (Low Sharpe Ratio) : Shows a choppier, more volatile path to the same end value. Sharpe's ratio formula From sharpe's ratio to Anxiety But it made me realise why we behave as we are in society. Consider my article on riding waves of life . Here I discussed how people fluctuate differently although it is the same wave. Consider two people and above graphs show how they behave to external stimuli. Some show a steady response. They hardly change their course of life to external factors. They appear like good investments. Others behave like Apple stock! They fluctuate to stimuli. Their values skyrocket during the day and dip down at night. One day feels good to be alive and the other day is Anxiety prone. But when you consider a period of time the outcome may appear the same. The average return may be equal or even higher than the steady risk free ride. Sharpe's ratio to careers We can expand this idea to individual careers. Consider an actor to a clerk in a private company. The sharpe’s ratio for an Acting career is going to be higher. It's risky. You are going to have parties and shit that makes you feel high, like Mike Posner sang. Next day you might wake up and commit suicide due to stress and boredom without knowing what to do, like his friend Avicci. So for some of the folk who act, risk adjusted return (Sharpe's ratio) can even be less than a clerk!. But it varies depending on individual characteristics. We can consider happiness, fulfillment or containment as the return of life, anxiety and stress the risk we take. An engineer on the other hand has a better chance of having good returns for the risk than a clerk. That is why everyone wants to be an engineer rather than a clerk.  Optimal Sharpe’s ratio for life. But as you can see the optimal sharpe’s ratio doesn't come when we do the work with the highest return. It depends also on our internal characteristics of how much we fluctuate to external stimuli. Or the Anxiety component or the risk. As you can see it's variable with time also. When you progress in your career you might take more responsibilities to make a higher return. You might get promoted in your job. From the outset this might feel like the right thing to do. But it might limit your freedom and increase Anxiety to a level that risk adjusted return is far less than the previous. Nowonder why people are stressed when they become CEO's. Unlimited life. How to achieve Limitless happiness? Now let's look at an interesting phenomenon. Consider a life with zero risk. You do not take any risk. Sometimes we meet these people, in corners of PUBs, rural villages, in churches and In libraries. What do you think about their sharps ratio? When the risk is near zero, the sharpe’s ratio can be very high. Which means proportionately the happiness they feel can be overwhelming. Even having lunch can generate more relative happiness than getting a seven or eight figure bonus. Because the risk adjusted return is better for someone who takes minimal risk. I am sure you had a great deal of thinking and ideas by this time. Why don't you comment on a few and we can have a discussion for aiming a quality life with better sharpe’s ratios and less anxiety? You can read more about modeling anxiety here.

I am guilty as Jonney, eating sugar. My latest hobby has been reading White Fang to steal words from Jack London and post some stupid philosophy/poetry ideas on serious philosophy groups and watch their reaction and read through comments. As someone suggested it closely resembles masturbation in public. Yet I cannot deny the secret pleasure I am getting from it, maybe even more heightened experience than the former blasphemy. Now, do not ask me "Then magical, what is with counting Apples?". To explain, consider following post I sent to one of those public groups. "A world without numbers would be a sight to see. I wonder it would be blissful as nothing to chase." Philosophy of existence- is it flawed? Someone commented numbers are fundamental as, if exist -> 1 , if not exist ->0. It looked an interesting concept. Maybe that is how we figured out numbers. At the core of every child figuring out numbers counting their head, they had to jump from fingers to numbers almost magically. If you do not get my point, consider following example again suggest by another enthusiastic commentor. Sand, is it uncountable? Consider you have an apple. Which physically exist on your hand. And you get another apple. Now you have another existing. exist + exist is two exist. Apples are just one "Thing" exist. But once if we learn to count apples, we can count anything, applying this principle to anything existing. Some are countable, naturally like apple. Some are uncountable naturally like sand, yet we make them countable by putting it into buckets of countable. So, far so good right? Wrong! I believe to answer questions of life we should always start by examining question itself. We must get back to basics, of life, fundamentals like "things" and "philosophy of existence". If we do not, we would be just playing the hunger games for the entertainment of whoever the crazy creator is. I am not angry, just following a logic here. So, when I see an error in our basic counting, I think we should examine it further, as important as it is, as some even would consider mathematics a fundamental "thing" in nature. But what I see, it is just another abstraction, a failed attempt at naming the existence by counting things. In contrast what I can see in an apple is change. And change is opposite of existence. I cannot point out to same apple twice. Otherwise, how come apple gets rotten after some time, if it was not changing moment to moment just like water in a river getting washed downstream. Sound familiar right? " You cannot step into the same river twice - Heraclitus " What is true for the river is true for the apple. And that is even true for you and me. Apples So, nowadays, I see myself as a continuously changing function. No wonder I was unhappy about my circumstances as I was trying to fix myself to a "Success" or a role of success in the past. But, if I can just embrace the change, that would be far closer to what it is natural for this existence. So, we are not actually talking about counting in a discrete sense. Let's be mindful so we can see more and more of these absurd little functions called change in every aspect of our lives. What is truth is most beneficial in a society where majority are blinded by their own believes.

Sometimes lessons are learned in hard ways. Although how much we like we are just creatures of universe made up of stardust. So, one lesson If I have learned anything from the past, it would be to be myself, even when it is hard to do so. Maybe you haven't learned that lesson. This article would be just a reminder when you get your turn to learn it by experience. We all are seeds of nature. Literally a tiny cell when it all happened inside a mother's womb. Few months later we were born equipped with everything necessary to carry on the consciousness. I would say, lot of things were pre-determined by nature. Consider, DNA, your height weight and complexity all included in this genetic material. Of course, our choices do matter, yet choices would make sense only when we align ourselves with nature. It is like a seed of mango. Although it seems same, all the mango trees, never two trees are the same. Even when they appeared first time above earth as saplings, with its dicotyledons, each one would be different from its neighbor. Saplings I used to see myself as this rigid structure, a rocket crafted to reach one target and one target only. That is to race the Mars before anyone else. However, in doing so, I had to prune some of the creativity. A necessary sacrifice in the name of science. But that is past. Nowadays, I have a better understanding on the inner workings of the mind. The mind to go into uninterrupted flow and create an earnest experience on living, it just needs to align its actions with its nature. Suppressing our core identities would work in short term, but not definitely for years and decades. Learning to be yourself, brings best outcomes for life. What is true for me would likely be true for you as well. If you stare inside on a cold day in silence just before bed you would have answers to your deep questions about life. Is the trouble that we face every day worth the course? If it is then, no harm, already you may be living a fruitful life. If not, it is time to change. And when change occurs, let it sweep in naturally like a river. After all, the best contribution you can provide for the humankind is not by doing what everyone asked you to do, but by doing what is meaningful to you. And this cannot be forced. I am sure it is not a pile of money that you are seeking, as I can assure you it is not worth. Seek freedom more than anything After a little bit of free space, and experimentation, now I know, the mind seeks freedom. So, sometimes I let my legs take the brain into the woods, where nobody is there. Away from the artificial race. The moment I step out of concrete roads, into the old fallen leaves, and smell the fresh leaves mind relaxes. It gains more clarity. There is no need to think. Mostly it has dead empty spaces occupied by calmness. I do not disturb this by thinking about work. And that there is the connection I see of my soul with its creator or the nature. Why should anyone deny themselves of this simple happiness. Maybe the life is already perfect, until I disturb its flow to build dams. Maybe it is time you let go of the fear of losing whatever you are holding tight and embrace the freedom which is free for anyone to have. If you just close your eyes, you will know what to do next, and I suggest take that advice from the universe. Do not spoil it trying to be the smart man. Happy mindfulness day.

It was gradually, over the years the duck realized that it was just a Duck. A duck who thought It could beat them all in any game. A duck who thought if it worked hard, trained hard, spent just few hours up, more than everyone else It would reach the top. And it would be some kind of a golden duck that it would be remembered in the duck community. So, just like all the other ducks, it learned. Spent hours and hours memorizing equations, parts of a duck cell, and chemical composition of duck beak. When its friends went down the river to watch the sunset, duck spent my afternoons being anxious about exams, that nobody even knew it was taking. Twenty duck years straight to learn some craft. And when suddenly It was winter, duck found itself stranded in the forest. Alone. It did not know how to fly. A duck in crisis What went wrong. The duck knew all the mathematics of aerodynamics. It knew the ideal food with balanced nutrition that It should take to have enough energy. But its wings were lacking power, as all It exercised was its brain. When others left when duck could not join them so it chose to lie down before asked a question. Who am I? Am I not a brilliant duck? Or am I just another ordinary duck? Why am I a duck? Not a human. An elephant or a deer? Why duck? Just like an ordinary duck It went into an existential crisis. Birth of an Existential crisis duck. As a duck It had never experienced this new realm of existential crisis duck level. It had been sad, happy, elated and even angry. But this new thing was a trap. Every day the duck woke up asking the same question. What now? I can see me as just a duck, with all the constraints of a duck soul. I would feel hungry and have to fish like all the other ducks do. I feel sad and happy fishing day in and out. When I try to speak up I just quack. Although I wanted to sound like a nightingale, that was a dream which will never come true. Should I just embrace being an ordinary duck? Should I just pray to God, so he will carry me to heaven when I'm demised. Every day the duck watched its happiness disappear, crushed by this existential crisis. Going fishing no longer felt happy. Duck knew it cannot sustain. It was just an ordinary duck. It could not paint a sunset with its beak so colorfully as it is, so never tried. What is the point it is just a duck life. Days became weeks and months. The duck knew it was going to end but did not know how or when or why it should. It did not come. But instead of asking who am I? The duck learned to ask different questions. Mindful When the duck was depressed, it would ask who was depressed. When the duck was happy It would ask who was happy? When the duck walked along a path it would ask who was walking? Still, it did not see any answer. But the duck felt alive, just experiencing the depressed, happy and walking. Maybe after all these years the duck had chased a wrong target. Maybe the duck was really limitless on its own tiny experience which it failed to recognize as it was blinded by all the stories of extraordinary ducks. Maybe just being an ordinary duck itself is a profound experience. And key to the solving misery of "who am I?" Is just a matter of observation. So now instead of the existential crisis duck, there is a mindful duck who just watches the existence.

After a tired day of working, I chose to go to a nearby temple on a modest hill. Surrounded by taller mountains, the pagoda, was the main attraction of the temple. I could see the treetops, just at my eye level. There was no wind. The highway was nearby, disturbing the silence by noise of cars at discrete intervals. And mind, spontaneously started to count them. One two three four, it looked natural the counting. Hence natural numbers . But when I looked at trees, I saw them experiencing another world. An analogue world without discrete numbers. I wonder what the world would be like if it is just analogue. Are we heading for this with quantum computers? Discrete This is not just imagination. We just passed an era of analogue world. Few centuries back, when the mathematics was rudimentary, it was considered to be used by people of intelligence. For someone to survive the world counting was not a necessary skill. Being able to see hear and move would be enough. Yet today we have branched out so much that, some of us spend our entire lives just by counting. And My God! some who do not know how to count would pay, a statistician a fair sum of money just for the counting. Numbers are not only important, but They also mean survival. One has to be prepared to shiver in cold when its winter, if they did not learn how to count. So, everybody counts nowadays. Imagine a world without numbers. You would wake up, when it is sun up above the horizon, like you were supposed to do. You would have odd, or even number of pieces of bread, yet you would not count them. Instead, you would be focused on the feeling of your stomach to know what is enough. Definitely you would not know how "MUCH" calories you have taken. Then, once you are ready you would walk out of your house, for work. You will work, for whatever amount of time it takes to finish the job. You would be paid by your work, not by your hour. And the amount you receive would be something which can fill your stomach, enough for some time, as there would be no money without counting. You would be happy even if you get one piece of bread, or ten pieces of bread, as you have no means of knowing which heap is bigger. Except you may remember from last time and think its larger. You may feel happy walking, and each and every day the distance you travel would feel different depending on your level of tiredness. As there is no way of knowing exactly how much you travel. Hence distance although same would be fundamentally different each and every day. Flight of a Kite An analogue world The supper would be when you feel hungry, not at 8. The progress of your life and success would not depend on an imaginary number in your bank. It would depend on what you see, feel and hear during the day. Hence, you will have more time to think about the little pleasures you miss, as you are not bounded by imaginary race to be the "first". Everyone would be considered equal by default as there is no scale to measure against. The height, the color of the skin, the age would make no sense. Ah, of course I am exaggerating. But can you see, some of the burden of our day-to-day life arise from the fact that we are so much obsessed with numbers. Maybe it is time to remind ourselves that we are just trees in the backyard of the creator. The counting is not the natural, but a prison built by our ancestors who failed to see the analogue nature of our environment. Maybe, we might just blow up the planet earth with our superior knowledge on numbers, in a WW3 and then, the analogue world would be inevitable. Ignorance of numbers is a bliss.