Remember when children’s books weren’t allowed to contain anything imaginary? At least according to recommendations of child psychologists. We’re talking about the 1970s and well into the Eighties. No fairy tales allowed, no tooth fairy, no Santa, and above all no imaginary friends, because one wouldn’t want children to grow up with a bunch of illusions that life could never measure up to, would one? So instead they wrote children’s books about parents divorcing, Fluffy the dog dying, and other realistic in-your-face topics, to train kids for more in-your-face adult hardship. Oh joy! That wasn’t much fun, was it? And I suspect that magical thinking just never went away, it just went underground—and resurfaced in graphic novels. So for a while we’ve been used to Superheroes being part of the Collective Unconscious of kids. But now we even hear from psychologists that it is downright healthy for kids to not only be exposed to fantastic tales, but even to make up stories themselves. Imaginary friends are to be encouraged and welcomed into the family! Apparently, children’s cognitive powers thrive by being exposed to, and learning to be comfortable within an imaginary universe.

Psychologists like Jacqueline Woolley, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, are studying the process of “magical thinking,” or children’s fantasy lives, and how kids learn to distinguish between what is real and what isn’t.

The hope is that understanding how children’s cognition typically develops will also help scientists better understand developmental delays and conditions such as autism. For instance, there is evidence that imagination and role play appears to have a key role in helping children take someone else’s perspective, says Dr. Harris. Kids with autism, on the other hand, don’t engage in much pretend play, leading some to suggest that the lack of such activity contributes to their social deficits, according to Dr. Harris.

…It is important but not necessary for parents to encourage fantasy play in their children, says Dr. Woolley. If the child already has an imaginary friend, for instance, parents should follow their children’s lead and offer encouragement if they are comfortable doing so, she says. Similarly, with Santa, if a child seems excited by the idea, parents can encourage it. But if parents choose not to introduce or encourage the belief in fictitious characters, they should look for other ways to encourage their children’s imaginations, such as by playing dress-up or reading fiction.

For a narrative ethicist like myself this is of course fun stuff: psychologists advocating magical story-telling as an enhancement of social skills! That’s what narrative ethicists call a moral thought experiment. All over the world, raconteurs of children’s stories have always engaged in such mind experiments, but it is encouraging to see such an activity being promoted by psychologists. However…there’s got to be more to the study than that. Exactly how, and when does the child learn the difference between what’s real and what isn’t? Where is the built-in reality check? How far is the encouragement supposed to go? And is there an upper age limit? Are we supposed to engage in magical thinking into adulthood? (Which of course brings up the whole question of religion, and numerous anthropological studies.) This could be the flip side of the austere no-fairy-tales attitude: an indiscriminate acceptance of fantasies and magic, and I’m already beginning to yearn for stories like “When Mom and Dad Split Up.” Storytelling as a cognitive/ethical device has to include a measure of moderation, and a clear understanding that fantasy only “works” when contrasted to reality. And the studies referred to  surely must include just such an understanding—it’s just not apparent from the article.

Be that as it may, there is another aspect that fascinates me: the similarity to the old discussion between Plato (who discouraged an interest in fiction) and Aristotle (who encouraged it). Arguments that were presented 24 centuries ago are still valid today: Plato’s concern that exposure to emotional fiction (in the theater) can make the audience forget the all-important self-control provided by rationality, contrasted with Aristotle’s enthusiasm for the moral and psychological cleansing provided by a good, emotional drama. But both Plato and Aristotle lived in a world where moderation (Maeden Agan) was a moral and aesthetic ideal. So if we go down the Aristotelian path and encourage an immersion in dramatic fiction we should remember that he never meant for it to replace our sense of reality, but to enhance it. Some imagination is good, and even necessary in order to understand other minds, and other possibilities. Too much of it is not a good thing!

So, getting back to the imaginary friends: since this is Christmas Eve, is our imaginary friend Santa a plus or a minus in the cognitive development of a child? You decide. I never had a problem with Santa, not even when I realized (around the age of 5) that he was my granddad. And I was very careful not to let on that I had figured him out, because he was so jolly, and I didn’t want to ruin his Christmas…

Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.

To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.

Avatar and friend

The process of making an argument by stating an assertion and supporting it with a reason seems to bewilder many university students—doing so in writing, at any rate. “Let’s see Avatar instead of Invictus because James Cameron has surely learned to make a great movie by now.” We  make arguments all the time. “Besides, everyone is seeing it.” Some reasons carry more weight than others. “Because,” to many peoples’ surprise, means “for the reason that.” As soon as one says, “Let’s do this because that,” one has unwittingly made a formal rhetorical argument. 

Titanic. Obviously James Cameron knows how to create trivia. Titanic defines melodrama. “Melodrama” means (according to Dictionary.com): 

A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts. 

My favorite website, Online Etymology Dictionary, gives the history of “melodrama” as: 

1802, melodrame, “a stage-play in which songs were interspersed and music accompanied the action,” from Fr. mélodrame, from Gk. melos “song” (see melody) + Fr. drame “drama” (see drama). Meaning “a romantic and sensational dramatic piece with a happy ending” is from 1883, since this was often the form of the original melodramas. 

Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.

That a bipolar epileptic would find such exaggerated emotion cloying should not, I suppose, surprise anyone. In Titanic we find a young woman (now an old woman) who sees in her dreams (every night for sixty years? come on) the love of her youth, and sings a song about seeing the young man in her dreams every night. He died in the most sensational way possible—saving her from drowning in a hideous seafaring disaster. The entire affair has a happy, tear-jerking ending, when the young (now old) woman tosses her most prized possession into the ocean to be with her boy friend. I emphasize “boy” because, obviously, if she sees him in her dreams every night, he doesn’t age. She’s ninety and he’s still twenty. A match made in heaven. 

Oh, I know—don’t get all huffy with me—one must “willingly suspend disbelief” (2) in the theater. A common myth floating around in the world of narrative art is that Aristotle created this phrase. I’ve read the Poetics. He says no such thing. The phrase, as far as I can tell, comes from my old friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge of the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” (3) 

So why, you might ask if you’re paying attention, bother to write about an old movie I don’t like in order to talk about a new movie I haven’t seen? 

Last night I had dinner with a group of friends. One of my favorite young couples, in town visiting family for Christmas, invited a group of us to dinner, and they included this old fart in their celebrating, for which I can hardly express my gratitude (that’s not a sarcastic comment, by the way). They live in San Francisco, of course, but they inhabit a world of electronic gadgets and popular culture and fast change that I cannot (and don’t think I want to) imagine. After dinner they went off to see Avatar. 

Later, while talking with another friend about the experience, we fell into conversation about telephones. I need a new one. And my “plan” allows me an update at this point. Several of my friends think I should have an iPhone. I resist. I do not need all those Aps. No one has yet made a telephone big enough for me to read texting on the screen. I will soon write about the impossibility of my remembering to make (much less follow) a calendar. And I have no interest in putting all of my CDs either on a tiny device stuck in my ear or on my telephone so I can hook it up to my computer and play any piece of music I want to hear over its speakers.

Call me old fashioned, but when I want to hear music, I play it or go to a concert. 

My friend warns me that not keeping up with the latest technology and pop culture will make me soon a fossil, a lonely old man who cannot stay in touch with the world. I will soon have no way to communicate with anyone—especially people younger than myself. 

I have news for him. That already describes me. 

Krishna and Me

I live in a world pretty much by myself. I live alone. I eat alone most of the time. I make forays out into the “real world” to go to meetings, to go to work, to go to church. I use this computer for hours on end (I bought the poor thing seven years ago—a fossil like me). I have a laptop only two years old that I use when I need to grade student papers written in Vista instead of XP, or when I travel and can’t be without a way to write. I very seldom have a “date.” I certainly do not have a lover (my young friends will soon celebrate ten years together, thereby, obviously, destroying marriage). 

The world has already passed me by, and if I live out the genetic pattern I have inherited, I may well have thirty years left on this planet. 

I wonder if Cormac McCarthy Tweets or Twitters. I wonder if Senator Robert Byrd has a Facebook page (he probably does, but one of his staffers writes it for him). I wonder if Toni Morrison texts (she probably does, remaining much more relevant and au courant than most 78-year-olds). Daniel Barenboim probably does all of those things even though he belongs to my generation. I wonder if Joan Sutherland has an iPhone. I wonder if Bishop Barbara Harris uses Skype.  

My claim: Old farts ought to keep up with modern technology because being irrelevant is the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Supporting reasons: 
Irrelevancy will almost certainly render one uncreative.
Irrelevancy will prevent one from making small talk about Lady GaGa.
Irrelevancy will destroy one’s ability to make an argument.
Counter claim: who gives a rat’s behind?
Rebuttal: James Cameron’s movies follow the Aristotelian model of the evocation/purgation of fear and pity in the audience through plot, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle—especially thought—so one ought certainly to see them. 

“Avatar” in its classical sense refers to the incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu in human form (most often as Krishna). I’ve never read Snowcrash, but apparently that novel started all of this computer “avatar” business (even I have an avatar—my snowshoes cat). So I wonder if the movie centers on incarnate gods or a bunch of symbols standing in for the people. As a fossil, I’d rather read Suzanne Langer to find out about symbolic transformations than suffer through another James Cameron melodrama.(4)

Dame Joan, Avatar (Semiramide)

_____________   
(1) http://allspirit.co.uk/heart.html

(2) Safire, William. “Suspension of Disbelief.” On Language. The New York Times Corporation. October 7, 2007. Web. 20 December 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/magazine/07wwln-safire-t.html>.

(3) Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. 1817. Ed. George Watson. London: Everyman, 1965.  p. 169.

(4) Aristotle: “There should be nothing irrational in the events themselves, or failing that, it should be outside the play, as for example in Sophocles’ Oedipus” (Poetics 8.1, 25). Quoted in: Ryan, Marie-Laure. “Cheap plot tricks, plot holes, and narrative design.” Narrative 17.1 (2009): 56+.

Cases of “Historical Dialectics” of human and knowledge development; (Dec. 23, 2009)

            Dialectics is not only used to comprehend historical development of human or knowledge development but is basic in discussions and effective dialogues. Hegel was first to introduce “dynamic logic” and used the term of historical dialectics as the interaction of an extreme opinion (thesis) that generates an opposite extreme counter opinion (antithesis) which results in a consensus (synthesis).  Historical dialectics is a macro method for long range study and it does not explain the individual existential conditions (survival situations).  Hegel offered dialectics as a method for explaining how human knowledge developed by constant struggle between contradictory concepts among philosophical groups. The purpose of his method was to demonstrate how the “universe of the spirit” or ideas managed to be raised in human consciousness.

            Before I offer my version of knowledge development it might be useful to giving a few examples of historical dialectics. In Antiquity, the pre-Socratic philosophers were divided between the Eleatics or philosophers who claimed that change of primeval substances was impossible: we cannot rely on our senses.  Heraclites reacted with his position that we can rely on our senses and that everything in the universe is in a state of flow and that no substance remains in its place.  The synthesis came Empedocles who claimed that we can rely on our senses but that what flow are the combination of substances but the elementary particles do not change. 

            The Sophists during Socrates were the paid teachers of the elite classes and tore down the mythological teaching of the period and focused on improving individual level of learning.  They were in effect in demand by a nascent City-State democracy of Athens that relied on a better educated society to participate in the political system. Socrates reacted by proposing that there are fundamental truths and knowledge is not an exercise in rhetorical discourse. The same dialectics worked between the world of ideas of Plato and the empirical method counterpoint of Aristotle.

            In the Medieval period the Catholic Church set up a barrier or distance between God and man and forced people to believe that all knowledge emanates from God.  The Renaissance man (wanting to be knowledgeable in many disciplines) reacted by promoting the concepts that God is in every element, that man is a complete microcosm of the universe, and that knowledge starts by observing nature and man.

            Another example is the position of Descartes who established that rationalism was the main source for knowledge.  David Hume responded by extending that empirical facts generated from our senses are the basis for knowledge. Kant offered the synthesis that the senses are the primary sources for our impressions but it is our perceptual faculties that describe and view the world: there is a distinction between “matter” of knowledge or the “thing in itself” and “form” of knowledge or the “thing for me”. Kant became the point of departure for another chain of dialectical reflections.

            Many philosophers used the dialectic methods to explaining other forms of development.  Karl Marx wrote that Hegel used his method standing on its head instead of considering human material conditions. Marx claimed that “philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it”; thus, he defined three levels as basis of society: condition of production (mainly the geographic, natural resources, and climatic conditions), means of production (such as machineries and tools), and production relations (such as political institutions, division of labor, distribution of work and ownership). Marx claimed that the main interactions are among the working class (the new slaving method of production) and the owners of the means of productions or the ruling class: it is this struggle that develop the spiritual progress.  Another dialectical process is the extreme feminist political claims of equality between genders which brought about a consensus synthesis for a period.

            My view of progress is based on the analogy of combination of two schemas:

            The first schema is the coexistence of two strings of evolution (picture a DNA shape): the knowledge development (mainly technological) and the moral string (dominated mainly by religious ideologies).  The second schema is represented by historical dialectic evolutions in the shape of helical cones. The time lengths of cycles for the two strings are not constant: the technological progress phase has shorter and shorter cycles while the moral string has longer cycles.

            The two strings are intertwined and clashes frequently.  When one string overshadow the other string in evolution then there are a slow counter-reaction culminating in stagnate status-quo phases between the two forces. Technological or level of sustenance period has time length cycles that is shrinking at the top of the cone before the cone is inverted on its head so that the moral time length cycles start to increase and appears almost invariant (that what happened in the long Medieval period that stretched for over 11 centuries in Europe); then the cone is reverted on its base for the next “rebirth” cycles (for example the Renaissance period that accelerated the knowledge string ascent).

When I catch myself daydreaming or skipping ahead of the speaker, can I stop and repeat his or her words to get back on track?

“If you know what you should do and don’t, you’re no better off than the person who doesn’t know.” Aristotle

We’ve all have trouble listening intently to others. Some of our minds are whirring with dozens of “To-Do” list items while someone is talking to us. Whether you’re on the phone, in a one-on-one, or in a big meeting—this technique is guaranteed to bring you back every time. Silently repeat the speaker’s words. (Remember to do this silently, or you risk getting on someone else’s nerves!) You’ll be tuned in to the conversation, and meetings will go faster and solutions will come more quickly.

First “mathematical” philosopher: Descartes; (Dec. 20, 2009)

            Theoretically, Descartes started by doubting all previous knowledge handed down since Antiquity. The philosophical structures of Plato and Aristotle were good historical knowledge but were of no use in comprehending the universe, the natural world, and the connection between body and mind.  Obviously, the mathematician Descartes of the 17^th century could not doubt everything, otherwise, he would have no ground to start his modern “philosophical system”.  Philosophical systems, like mathematics, must be constructed from fundamental building blocks or propositions that we are certain that are real and exist. A few fundamental evidences or axioms had to be established:

            The first evidence was that he doubted. Since he doubted then Descartes proved that he was a thinking man: “I think, thus I exist”

            The second evidence is that we cannot trust our senses for certainties: Since our dreams are more real and more vivid than our waking impressions then the conscious senses should not be trusted.  This evidence was known by most philosophers but they failed to go any further in their investigations.

            The third evidence is that Descartes had a distinct idea of a “perfect entity” since childhood. His question was “how can an idea of a perfect entity be generated by an imperfect man”?  (I would be interested if someone can mail me an experiment that shows at what age a child construct an idea of a “coherent world”.  For me, that would be the stage when the brain has already built the main structure for perceiving the universe as a perfect entity.)

            The fourth evidence “what we grasp with our reason is more real and tenacious than what we grasp with our senses”: we know that, as individual men, we are more real than the material world since we feel and sense a wide array of pains and emotional experiences.

            The fifth evidence is that the outside world (example, sun, moon, and stars) is real when we can quantitatively measure the properties and characteristics of the outside world which is the realm of reason and not of perceptual senses. Galileo was the first scientific empiricist when he wrote “Measure everything that can be measured. What is not measurable then make it measurable”

            When you work out a mathematical problem you are guided by rules of thinking that symbols help redirecting the correctness of our logical system.  In philosophy, there are no symbols that can be used mathematically. Descartes started coherently but got diverted from pursuing his logical reasoning out of loss of patience or because he died at the age 54 and could not re-think his system: he jumped to the conclusion that God exists and he is the reason why we recognize the universe as a perfect entity. From then on, Descartes was just stating corollaries; for example that mind is a distinct substance than the body.

At the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes the following, very democratic observation:

Persons of low tastes (always in the majority) hold that happiness is pleasure … The utter vulgarity of the herd of men comes out in their preference for the sort of existence a cow leads. Their view would hardly get a respectful hearing.

And so he dismisses the perceived view of the majority and focuses on ethics for the well-born, i.e. the propertied class.

If you’ve ever listened to The Verve, you know there’s one epic song titled “Bittersweet Symphony.”
Truer words never spoken. For example, the following lyric:
“’cause it’s a bitter sweet symphony this life… Trying to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money then you die.”

Life is a symphony. An ordered symphony that moves at a predicted pace. Human beings today are ordered to work for their whole life. Even childhood isn’t as great as it can be. Children are sent to school, and study to get a job that makes good pay. There is nothing more to education than just that. What happened to Plato’s ideal world? Where there is no foolish currency, and  society is brought up through intelligence. Studious. Hypothetical. Philosophical.

It’s silly that all we do is study and study and study, and there isn’t anything more to that. Studying does not, I repeat, does not equal intelligence. Intelligence is properly characterized by the mind thinking quickly and rationally, while being in the calm.

A philosopher is intelligent. Philosophers reflect on every possible motion through logic and reality. What is after life? We don’t know. Whether there is a Heaven or a Hell, or neither, is it really worth working ourselves to exhaustion and not accomplish the basics of life? What do grades and yearly salary matter after death anyways?

Think about it. Sit down and think. Just for an hour, or ten minutes even. Just think. Reflect on everything you have done for the week, or reflect on your whole life. Forget your mistakes and concentrate on what you have done to make yourself an intelligent being.
You’ll realize some things you never imagined.

The second part of my weekend’s trip down memory lane was my college reunion. The classes of 1984 and 1985 of the Queen’s College, Oxford University were brought together again after a 22 year break.

To be honest, if I had not been “pressured” into attending by my three closest friends who had attended university with me, then I would have taken the coward’s way and ignored the invitation to the Boar’s Head Gaudy. As the date grew closer I have to admit to anxiety dreams. I was taken back to feelings that had preceded my attendance at Oxford – I was from a working-class Birmingham family and feared that I would not fit in and would be looked down upon by the posh, pompous, public school prodigies that were sure to abound. The reunion was bringing back the feelings of inadequacy.

Why the Boars Head Gaudy? It is a celebration held every Christmas, when the students from 25 years earlier are invited back. The highlight of the celebration is when the Boar’s Head is paraded through Hall – much like the Scots when they honour that great King of the Puddin’ Race at Hogmanay.

The legend goes that one John Capot, a Queensman of the fourteenth century, had been studying Aristotle in a nearby forest when he was charged by a wild boar. He threw his copy of Aristotle at the boar who swallowed it, choked on it, and died. Aristotle remains, in my opinion, somewhat difficult to consume event today.

To be honest, my anxiety had been misplaced. I spent a very enjoyable evening trying to match names to faces and faces to names. Many of my fellow graduates had changed very little, clearly having sold their souls and/or keeping ageing pictures in their attics. Some had worn particularly well – mostly the girls. Others had worn particularly badly – again, mostly the girls.

At College I had left a skinny, pale, youth and so my newly found manly frame and Clooneyesque looks seemed to cause quite a stir. I was considered by many to be the one “most changed”. And, while I had been flattered by one description as “a silver fox”, I was less pleased to hear of my change as “he’s gone all Kenny Rogers”……..

It was a pleasure to meet my peers once more. There were successful QCs, academics, bankers, medics, wine merchants, businessmen, full-time moms, tour guides and theologians in abundance, and, of course, the man behind Boris, Guto Harri himself – although he was not the only person used to TV cameras in attendance. I am very glad to say that the ones I had hoped would not have changed hadn’t, and, thankfully, the ones I’d hoped had, had.

And College put on a great show. Tea and Christmas cake in the Junior Common Room before we donned our DJs and tried to remember how to tie a bow tie and turned up in Chapel for a “Recital of Seasonal Music”, the Boar’s Head Ceremony, pre-dinner drinks in the Upper Library (the most beautiful room in Oxford), dinner in the Hall followed by the Loving Cup (a secret mead-like recipe handed person to person in a huge cow’s  horn – I had been surprised the practise had not been banned in this time of swine flu), and post-dinner drinks in the Senior Common Room.

It was as if we had never left……..and, certainly, student accommodation had not moved on much in the past twenty five years:

The shower was 6 floors down. The toilet was down the corridor. There were no posters of the girl with the tennis ball or Madonna (Like a Virgin). But, thankfully, there was still a sink to piss in. It had been a late night and the drink had flowed. Somehow I had forgotten that the College clock chimed every fifteen minutes for 06.30. I was rudely reminded in the morning. But, it did not dampen my memories of a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

I am glad that:

a) I still remembered which knife and fork to use

b) None of my former girlfriends were in attendance (although he with whom she had the affair bloody was – I had been tempted to send her his photo. He is not wearing well…….)

c) I am blessed with good friends.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

If I say, “I know something that has already happened in the future.” then you may think I am wrong but many philosophers and physicists believe the possibility of such statement being true.

Present, past and future are relative terminologies used with the events occurring in a particular time. Then question arises what is time? This is one of the burning questions with many contradictory answers.

“A successful unification of quantum theory and relativity would necessarily be a theory of the universe as a whole. It would tell us, as Aristotle and Newton did before, what space and time are, what the cosmos is, what things are made of, and what kind of laws those things obey. Such a theory will bring about a radical shift – a revolution – in our und2erstanding of what nature is. It must also have wide repercussions, and will likely bring about, or contribute to, a shift in our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the rest of the universe” (Lee Smolin)

Physicists define time as what the clock reads. But this is not simple as it looks, this statement it self opens another series of confusing questions like what is the starting point of time? Does time has a start? Is time finite? Is time always real?

Many of the scientists consider time has roots leading to the Big Bang. But on the other hand another argument waits what was Big Bang and also whether there was any Big Bang ?
Time is also considered to be relative with respect to space that’s why we use the term space time coordinate. This can be understood by a simple example:

If I say a point was on x=0, y=0 and z=0 position at t=0 time and then moved to x=1,y=2 and z=2 at t=1 time means in 1 unit of time the point moved 3 position units (using difference formula).

Another question arises is the time same or the clock same for every observer? Einstein’s special theory of relativity did away with the idea that events can be simultaneous if they are in different locations. The difference in time between two events depends on their difference in distance and how fast the observer is moving.

Time is considered by some as linear such as Newton and Bacon who considered time as one way with no coming back but in the twentieth century, Gödel and others discovered solutions to the equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity that allowed closed loops of proper time. These causal loops or closed curves in space-time allow you to go forward continuously in time until you arrive back into your past. Which means we can go to our past meet our childhood self. On the other hand time dilation concept allows you to see the future.

There are other terminologies we use which are related to time such as duration, occurrence of events, instants. Events occur in a particular duration of time. Time is also defined as the collection of instants and instants are said to be the boundaries of durations. Durations are considered to be an ordered set of instants means instants are not part of duration but a member of duration.

Now at the end of my article I quote Albert Einstein who once said, “The development during the present century is characterized by two theoretical systems essentially independent of each other: the theory of relativity and the quantum theory. The two systems do not directly contradict each other; but they seem little adapted to fusion into one unified theory. For the time being we have to admit that we do not possess any general theoretical basis for physics which can be regarded as its logical foundation.If it is true that the axiomatic basis of theoretical physics cannot be extracted from experience but must be freely invented, can we ever hope to find the right way? I answer without hesitation that there is, in my opinion, a right way, and that we are capable of finding it. I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.”

I hope we will be able to find the right way.

See Also:http://syedfaisal.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/my-articles-and-tutorials-for-ieee-nuces-karachi-e-newsletter-on-different-topics-2/

(This is something I wrote in University days some of you may find it a real basic intro of the topic)

Sometimes the best way to say something is the way someone more literary than you has said it.  In that vein, here are some relationship quotes of note:

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
-Oprah Winfrey

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” -Anthony Robbins

“Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never ever the same.” -Flavia Weedn

“The act of forgiveness is the act of returning to present time. And that’s why when one has become a forgiving person, and has managed to let go of the past, what they’ve really done is they’ve shifted their relationship with time.” – Caroline Myss

“Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” – Mark Twain

“Well, it seems to me that the best relationships – the ones that last – are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is… suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with” ~ Gillian Anderson

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Aristotle

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

“Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl – no superior alternative has yet been found.” – Winston Churchill

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.” – Kahlin Gibran

“To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.” – Eric Fromm

“Man is a knot into which relationships are tied.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“You can’t stop loving or wanting to love because when its right, it’s the best thing in the world. When you’re in a relationship and it’s good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete.” ~ Keith Sweat

“Our greatest joy-and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others.” ~ Stephen R. Covey

“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made – like bread, remade all the time, made new.” – Ursula LeGuin

“Once the trust goes out of a relationship, it’s really no fun lying to ‘em anymore.” -Norm from Cheers

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oh, God. oh, God. I’m a homosexual. I’m a minority. That man that I hugged, who I thought I was so much better than (at first) is more loved and more accepted in this society than I. Maybe not on the surface because I don’t have a patch that some Nazi’s force me to wear proclaiming what I am, but I’m still a minority. An invisible minority.

(until I hold her hand. And kiss her lips in front of children in the park. until my body lingers against hers after we embrace. until…)

oh, God. oh, God. I’m so scared. What if people hate me? What if people call me names? What if my family disowns me? What if people think I don’t love God anymore? What if?

~~~

I lost everything this year. Everything. My friends, my family, my reputation, my GPA, my love for life, my innocence, my belief in what is good and what is beauty. And now I’m on this path that I didn’t really choose. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know how I got to this point in my life. A point that vanishes like it does between Plato of the real that is unseen and Aristotle and the real that is before our eyes being experienced. Aristotle points at boundaries of society and things that can be touched, tasted, smelled, and seen. Plato points at things of the mind and heart, of faith and something about God, the real that is forgotten and only vaguely felt or understood.

And I was quietly taken; I vanished into a world of between.

I know no longer who I am or what I love or have loved. It’s the age old question of “what is?”.

I have faith about who I am and what I believe. But now it’s questions of what is in this world. A world of reason and borders, fences you do not cross, and paths that always lead straight. But I’ve been curious about the bends in a road and the seductiveness of their curve.

(And that path that curves so seductively is the path from hip to breast. Her breasts.)

oh, God. oh, God. What am I going to do? How am I going to live?

This is a true story: Three thinking  giants, an old teacher, his adult student, and his young student, got together twenty-four hundred years ago in Athens. The old teacher, Mr. S said, “Future communication between people on this planet depends on what we decide tonight.” His adult student, Mr. P asked, “Are we going to publish a dictionary, Master?” His young student, Mr. A said, “I don’t think so. P only wants us to establish the sources for future philologists where they can get information about the meaning of words.” S and P looked at the young student, “That was very good, Aris,” bursting out with appreciation of the young mind.

The young man’s confidence soared, not that he had come to the meeting with lack of it. Aris was an independent thinker at a period in Athen’s life when philologists were were not.

“My dear teachers, the meaning of words would always be based on how they are used by the people,” he said.

“It appears to me that you are proposing a new concept,” Plat said in visible discomfort.

“Yes, my teacher, I call it Community Standard of Language.“

“What about the essence of words, my son?” Soc questioned.

“Words have no essence, Master, only local meaning.”

Socra and Plat gave Aris a disdainful look, “If what you are proposing is true, future dictionaries will be a source of discord and not a source of consensus in the world.”

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, words have no true meaning. Take, for example the word ‘love.’ Do you really believe that men and women could ever mean the same thing when they communicate love to each other?”

Socrates and Plato started crying. Socrates took a deep breath and said, “Then language will kill. Think of all the wars that misunderstanding will cause.”

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but culture decides the meaning of words, not philologists.”

Socrates said, “You have a point, my son, I was condemned to death last week for teaching our youth that language has an inherent meaning, different from what is taught in Athens.”

The  above story has a profound meaning in my life. I presented a research paper on the above topic at the 69th Annual Meeting of the California Educational Research association, 1990. There was silence in the room. 25 PhDs shuffled their feet out of the room in silence, not a word, not a question, just looks, you know, the kind of looks people give you when they think you are a weird killjoy.

Readers, I want you to retrieve my reasearch paper, It is called “Critical Thinking Skills” by Dr. Elior Kinarthy. You will know why so many people in your life disagree with what you say!