Crossing A River

The other day I came across a guy at a bar who seemed to me a nut job. He talked about different stuff but the one that most appalled me was his description of religions by means of a story. It goes like this:
Persons of different religious background come across a river while on their way to somewhere and what do they do according to their belief system.

The Hindu brahmin sits down by the river and imagines 51 gods and derives 102 elaborate rituals to worship them and hopes that some day god will come and help to cross the river. Every night he goes to sleep crying to God to rescue him from this painful life.

The Christian brings 12 of his friends and dares to swim across the river but none of his friends follow. Before crossing the river, he explained the techniques & methods to his friends. But, they all wrote books(which sometimes became inconsistent) about how he used magic, help from God as the chosen one to cross the river.

The Muslim gathers wood and gets a friend and builds a boat. Once completed, they start fighting over who is going to sit at the front of the boat and ultimately the boat breaks down.

The Jewish gathers wood and gets a friend and builds a boat. They cross the river and drops his friend on the other side who gets people to the boat and makes money by charging them to cross the river in the boat.

The Buddhist gathers wood and builds a boat by himself. After crossing the river, leaves the boat tied to a pole on the other side for people who needs to cross the river. But, while coming back to cross the river on the other side, gets stopped to pay for the ride and gets beat up for asking for a free ride.

PS: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely co-incidental.

Basic Principles of Gardening

So obvious, but, felt like worth noting the basic principles of gardening:

1. Weeds grow faster than plants/trees
2. Plants/trees need care to grow, but, weeds don't
3. If left alone, weeds take over the plants/trees

PS: Perhaps one can extend this concept to other aspects of life

Thoughts on recent shooting and hate crime related

The root of all hate crime, racism, and bias stems from our tendency to label people. Due to the millions of years of human evolution our brain is trained to create and maintain two boxes inside our head. One is labeled, 'Us' and the other as 'them'. There are properties associated with each. So, as we meet someone or something new, our brain immediately does a calculation and categorizes it in one of those boxes and applies it's associated properties even though that may or may not hold good for the person concerned. Organized religions , our belief system and the society in general only allows to strengthen these two boxes.

Probably it can be traced back to this event(borrowed from Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain). Many many years ago when the alone caveman went out in the savannah to hunt for food, the fluttering of the tall grasses in the breeze made him to conclude that there is a dangerous animal lurking behind because if he had assumed it as no danger and it turned out to be a dangerous animal it could have cost his life. It was always better and made sense to assume the worst and be prepared for it.

We live our life as a slave to this evolutionary mindset. Hopefully, someday we can break free from this dichotomy and free our mind and spirit. So, effectively, the more you fill up your 'us' box, the more you are in someone else's 'them' box.