tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793460022026510682024-03-19T09:07:44.531+05:30RelationshipWe humans are related to each other and to other creatures and objects in so many ways. The relations play an important role in our evolution as an intelligent speciesHarryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-1787648201560842912009-12-20T12:32:00.002+05:302009-12-20T14:15:00.225+05:30What is the Driving Force? Can Our Actions Change Our Mood?We all go through lot of emotional changes in our day to day life. We are happy when things work according to our plans, we are irritated when things go out of way. We face situations that make us believe a particular incident changed our mood. Imagine you are working on a report and suddenly there is some telephone call, which turns out to be a wrong number call. You forget it and resume your work, then, when you are busy with your work again, doorbell rings and you find out a typical salesman selling something that is of least importance to you. So, you are irritated by these distractions. What was the cause of your 'ok' mood changing into 'irritated state'? Distractions, you believe. Another example, imagine yourself not feeling that good, you are lonely and all thoughts playing in your mind are more or less negative. Then, suddenly you receive a call from an old friend and he tells you some good news. Your mood changes instantly! Right? Good feelings and thoughts seem to appear out of nowhere! So, in this situation again, you find out the 'reason' to be that phone call from friend, that good news. So, is it true? Does our emotional state really gets affected and influenced by external influences?<div><br /></div><div> Most people think it does and they believe external factors do influence our state of emotions and are responsible for changes in our moods. If it is the fact then let us consider few more situations. When you have an awful day and things look quite bad, does an action like watching some comedy, reading jokes etc change our mood? Do we start feeling better? Always? May be not. Remember like incidents and you will agree that sometimes external factors do not at all change our basic state of emotions. Take another example. You are happy and enjoying and then out of nowhere something bad happens. You may be playing football and then suddenly it starts raining. But, instead of getting irritated you change your action and start doing something else and continue your good emotional state. </div><div><br /></div><div> So, what does it mean? Is it that external factors are really that important and influential on your basic emotional state or not? Some believe this is a very subjective issue and the causality of external factors on state of emotions of a person can not be determined in way that could make it a rule. There are so many things to consider - intensity of prevailing emotion, importance of external factor(s), basic psychology of the subject etc. If the prevailing emotion is intense enough and external factor is not that big an issue in terms of importance, then the subject may not have his emotional state affected at all. If external factor is big enough and basic state of emotion of the subject is weak, then he may be affected more. Also, a person who is by nature cheerful, may not be affected easily by those events that may be 'irritating' to others. </div><div><br /></div><div> Well, this may be true that influence of external factors on a person's emotional state are subjective and depend on various things, but, there is a lot more to it. It all depends on our mental toughness, the trait which separates 'weaker' people from 'stronger' ones. Someone who is mentally tough is not affected by external events so easily. This is something that was developed through evolution of memes which follows the basic idea of 'survival of the fittest'. Those who are mentally tough find it easier to cope with difficult circumstances and through natural selection, their genes have stronger chances of survival. </div><div><br /></div><div> It is actually tough to be mentally tough. Do you also think so? I think its a feedback cycle kind of thing - if we are tough enough then chances are we don't find it tough enough to be mentally tough. Oppositely, if we are weak enough then chances are we find it tough enough to be mentally tough. So this cycle goes on in this way. Its our perception that needs to change, we need to believe first that we can be mentally tough and this perception will change our ability to better our basic psychology. Attitude is basically what matters and if we have right attitude we can become stronger individuals who are not easily influenced by external factors. The causality of external factors to change our prevailing emotional state is established only if we are mentally weak, otherwise, we are not influenced by external factors.</div>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-66276111120034398732009-10-02T13:13:00.005+05:302009-10-02T13:40:18.617+05:30Gandhiji - Let Us Celebrate Birthday of Non-Violence<span style="font-family:verdana;">Today is 2nd October, the day A Great Leader was born - M K Gandhi. Last year </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://relationviews.blogspot.com/2008/10/long-live-gandhiji.html">I published a post</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> on same day and this is my another yearly tribute to The Epitome of Non-Violence...</span><br /><br />The nice thing I noticed today is seeing Gandhiji on Google India search page. Let me post the nice image from that page, right here:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.google.co.in/logos/gandhi09.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 325px; height: 127px;" src="http://www.google.co.in/logos/gandhi09.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Long Live Gandhiji...</span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-71291644017637472462009-09-06T12:34:00.003+05:302009-09-06T16:28:39.931+05:30Are We Friends? I Didn't Know That!!!If you are reading this post then chances are you already have many friends, some of them from school days, some from neighborhood and some from office/work. But, how many times we thought about the very process that resulted in our mutual friendship? Do we ever think what happened exactly that transformed our relationship of simple acquaintances into friendship? Do we remember when did the status of that person was changed in our mind? Some would say yes. But, in fact, we have very little knowledge about this actual process of converting acquaintances into friends.<br /><br />The process of meeting a stranger and then successive meetings or other interactions with him/her which transforms our relationship is a complex one and we very seldom think about it using our conscious mind. The fact is we may not even know if someone is our friend or still a good acquaintance!<br /><br />Social scientists struggled to find out the answer, the reason being - first, surveys are expensive and second, people are error prone when they try recalling their own behavior. If data can be available cheap and recorded, then it would solve this mystery. So they used cellphone usage data!<br /><br />Researchers have used such data to map out people's social networks, utilizing the duration and frequency of calls between pairs of people as a measure of the intimacy of their relationship. Doing so has revealed patterns of people's contact with each other both in time and space, which is crucial for modeling everything from gossip to how flu viruses spread across populations.<br /><br />But the question that arises is how accurately do call patterns reflect the intimacy of relationships? After all, so many times even very close friends rarely call each other, while some people who are talking kind call just about everyone (even if not a friend).<br /><br />A team led by Nathan Eagle, an engineer at the MIT in Cambridge, gave mobile phones to 94 MIT students and faculty members. For 9 months, software on the phones kept track of the volunteers' location and logged all calls made between these phones. Over the same period, the researchers also gathered social data from the subjects in the traditional way, asking them whether the other subjects were friends, acquaintances, or strangers. Finally, the subjects rated their job satisfaction, which has been shown to strongly correlate with the number of workplace friendships.<br /><br />Just by analyzing the calling patterns, the researchers could accurately label two people as friends or nonfriends more than 95% of the time. But the results, published online in the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/14/0900282106.abstract" target="_blank"><i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i></a>, show that the mobile phone data were better at predicting friendship than the subjects themselves. Thirty-two pairs of subjects switched from calling each other acquaintances to friends in the traditionally gathered survey data. These are most likely new relationships that formed during the course of the study, say the researchers, and they left a clear signal in the mobile phone data. Friends call each other far more often than acquaintances do when they are off-campus and during weekends. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The pattern is so distinct that the researchers spotted budding friendships in the phone data months before the people themselves called themselves friends</span>. This is the surprising thing and shows how complex our social behavior is!<br /><br />Finally, the team compared people's self-reported job satisfaction with their networks of friendship at their workplaces. Because the mobile phones kept track of people's proximity to each other, the researchers had a clear measure of people's daily contact with friends at work, not only through calls but through physical proximity. As predicted, the more contact people had with friends at their workplace, the more highly they rated their job satisfaction. And conversely, the less face-to-face contact people had with friends at work, the less they said they enjoyed it.<br /><br />Source of the study : <a href="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/" target="_blank">ScienceNow Magazine</a> and <a href="http://www.pnas.org/" target="_blank">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>. The link to the study is given above.Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-45078714048656185942009-05-10T22:33:00.004+05:302009-05-11T00:24:21.498+05:30Gemeinschaft returning over GesellschaftYou will find a lot of people complaining how "deteriorated" modern society has become and how bad the consequences are. Although most people think they (people who complain) are nothing more than a bunch of pessimists who love the "good old world" and reject progress, the fact is totally different.<br /><br /> In my days of growth from childhood to adulthood I found many such people. They complained and rejected the "growth" of society which was more and more inclined to physical luxury and getting rid of community feeling. One uncle was particularly angry the way more and more individuals were turning into "selfish, not-caring-for-community" kind of people. I had different understanding of what he said at different age slots of my life. When I was a child I did not understand a word he used to say. When I was a teenager I thought he had some mental problem and laughed at him. When I matured I had a very different feel for his concern. I started to learn what he meant - his concern was not that much odd at all and there was a case for deep thinking on the issue. Then one fine day I sat and pondered on his main points -<br /><br /> He complained how the modern individual cared about himself, the height of selfishness, according to him. He gave an example of power outage problem, people buy backup power inverters in their houses to counter the problem instead of finding a solution for their entire community. Then there were other examples of the kind.<br /><br /> Unlike my peers who shrugged off these things, I thought about them at every incident that struck my radar. There was a real "crisis" and it was only getting worse. Later, when I learned about the concepts of German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies who gave the idea of two social systems: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, the root of the issue became clear. It was economical betterment of society that led to the downgrade of Gemeinschaft.<br /><br /> Gemeinschaft ("community") refers to a small, rural, low-technology, face-to-face community that is relatively poor and based on informal education at home.<br /><br /> Gesellschaft ("society") refers to a large, urban, heterogeneous, high-technology society that relies on electronic communication and formal, school-based education.<br /><br /><p> The economic boom in past decades has benefited Gesellschaft to the limits. The recessions in these times could not show a case for "community" centered approach but this ongoing Depression has turned things, at least it seems. The Global Economic Meltdown is changing course of the social behaviour and Gemeinschaft is in vogue again! Many of those who have lost jobs or those who have suffered because of this ongoing crisis, have become community centered and are more involved in community work. If this <a href="http://indexviews.blogspot.com/2009/05/depression-climate-change-swine-flu-and.html">Global Depression</a> has one big positive, then this is it.<br /></p>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-43073044557334314912009-03-01T22:44:00.003+05:302009-03-01T23:49:36.174+05:30Co-operation - an open operationCo-operation is something we humans have learned as an intelligent species as well as result of our growing intellect. There are reasons we can term it as a manifestation of our selfish attitude but the fact is we can not survive without co-operating with each other. Imagine your colleague sitting next to you in your office needs your help for some work which you are more familiar with, imagine what will happen if you don't help him/her and imagine what will happen if nobody helps / co-operates with each other. In order to survive we all need each other's co-operation almost always.<br /><br />Now imagine the same scene with a bit different requirement. Think about your colleague in need of your co-operation - not that there is something you can do related to his/her work - but, he/she requires you to NOT do something that is creating troubles to his concentration (e.g. you may be listening to hard rock when he/she needs complete quietness). You may not be bound by your office rules for such an occasion but being a human we somehow know this fact that our actions should never be an act of obstacle for our close ones. Sometimes this is just a mutual understanding, other times it is a binding and rest of the times it is our conscience that makes us co-operate.<br /><br />In last four months I had been extremely busy with a project and that made me a villain in the eyes of my dear wife. When I was working hard day and night my dear wife was unhappy at best. Then, one fine day I asked for her co-operation. I explained her why that thing was important to me and how my success or failure could affect our future. She understood and since then she did her best to co-operate with my work. Things changed suddenly. The workload which looked like a mountain transformed into a small sand rock and today when I have finished the project, I owe a lot to her co-operating nature. I tell this story to demonstrate how easy things turn when we in our relationships learn to co-operate with each other.<br /><br />Co-operation is not unique characteristic of humans alone. Ants and bees are bigger examples of co-operation and their very survival is dependent entirely upon it. The conclusion is we have to respect co-operation and co-operate with each other in order to survive.<br /><br />After posting my thoughts, let me not forget what I promised to my friend Alec of <a href="http://www.learnlovemakinglessons.com/">www.learnlovemakinglessons.com</a>. His blog is a must read for those couples who want success in their relationships.Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-30173447320111579092008-10-19T13:21:00.002+05:302008-10-19T14:06:14.747+05:30Communifaking, Right Or Wrong?<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">In the new age of instant communication one thing that is very popular is cell phones. I don't think a single reader of this post doesn't have a cell phone. Since the time it was invented, we have made it a habit to use cell phones on the go and that is not the limitation. We found out a lot many things associated with cell phones - sms, games, diary, calendar, clock, calculator etc are some of the additions that have been there from almost the start of this revolution. As time passed and technology grew we had many more things - internet surfing, email, music, videos, feed readers etc and now even instant messengers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Apart from so many applications we also discovered some hidden usage (in fact sms was also discovered by chance). We also had some significant changes in our lifestyle some good some bad, like dependence on "always on" communication, lieing where we are etc. One particular lifestyle change that is the center of discussion in this post is COMMUNIFAKING.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Communifaking is the term we have assigned for a behaviour by cell phone users according to which they "fake" a communication. To put it simply when a person pretends to "talk" on cellphone, he/she is communifaking. According to a recent survey, the number of cellphone users who communifake outnumbers those that don't. The research by British mobile operator 3 has found out that 74% of people from 18 to 24 age group admitted to communifaking. The reasons mostly told by communifakers are either they want to avoid someone nearby or they find it useful when waiting for someone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The psychologists have more reasons though. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" ><span style="text-align: justify;">According to Patricia Wallace, a psychologist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, following are important reasons :<br /><br />Demonstrating Connections: If we are sitting lonely at a place like a pub, we communifake in order to show we are not alone.<br />Show off: Many of us show off our handsets just to impress others. Mostly boys do this to impress girls.<br /><br />In my personal experience, I saw few cases when someone communifaking was caught red faced when in the middle of "conversation" actual bell rang and exposed the communifake. Even I have communifaked few times and I admit sometimes it was just the feeling of insecurity. I remember an occasion when I had to "do" it just because I had nothing else to do and it was a place full of strangers.<br /><br />If you are one of those who communifake or feel the need for it, there is nothing wrong as long as you don't use it for show off. Communifaking when you are waiting can be an innocent behaviour and you should not feel guilty if you do it for this reason. However, I would like to utilize "any" spare time like waiting to do something creative.<br /><br /></span></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-89556590718908342662008-10-13T16:58:00.003+05:302008-10-13T17:31:51.268+05:30Giving Away To Others<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">We humans are thought to be an intelligent species which has the best of brain enabling us to perceive things like none other. Gradually through evolution we have developed sense of "giving" something to our loved ones. And, we do not stop there, we not only have this "give away something" for our loved ones but also many of us are philanthropic and give away to unknowns. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Charity, donations are good part of modern day world despite the inter-human competition getting bigger. I do not mean it is "only a modern" phenomenon but I mean even in today's world of cut-throat competition, there are good stories of people donating their money and resources to the needy. Its our relationship of a very different kind, where a feeling of pleasure emerges from inside and directs us to help others who we don't even know. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A person ready to sacrifice his / her life for the cause of his / her society is understandable but there can be incidents where someone does this for totally unknowns. However, such incidents are rare and general attitude of a common person is being selfish.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Even a terrorist who has been brainwashed into doing "anything" for a "cause" might get into the act of laying his life. He may be doing a foolish act which is in fact against civilization but in his understanding he does it for "his" people's cause. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The sacrifice for the cause of one's own people is not limited to humans and their are examples from animal world which tell us that this characteristic is prevalent in as mundane a species as an aunt! The Brazilian ant </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Forelius pusillus </i><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">is one of that kind. The ants need to seal off the entrances of their nest with sand after sunset and in order to do that, some of them have to remain outside to complete the job. Scientists have found out that they do this willingly. They sacrifice their lives for their society !</span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-61819225330704084452008-10-02T19:08:00.004+05:302008-10-02T19:21:17.376+05:30Long Live Gandhiji<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="postbody">The 2nd October, Great Gandhiji's Birthday. I know people may ask the relevance of Gandhiji in today's world but then he wasn't relevant in his contemporary times either, if such a logic is considered. But if sanity is to prevail, Gandhiji was relevant and is still relevant today.<br /><br />Gandhiji, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi">Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi</a>, was a person who defied general logic of armed confrontation and revolts and put forward the concept of NON-VIOLENCE. He not only proved it was right, he also proved it could be effective and much more than violent means. Gandhiji was a leader above leaders. When he used to walk on street, people would just come behind and follow him. Millions of people who followed him were ready to face bullets all without any weapon. He was in a sense above humanity, a person who left all luxury and lived life of a "poor Indian" all his life. He belonged to rich family and could chose to remain a lawyer which was his profession before he jumped into freedom struggle. A person who could afford to live in luxury spent all his life wearing only a dhoti, just because he once saw poor farmers wearing only a dhoti in a south India rally and then pledged to remain in one piece of cloth till the time all Indians afford to have cloths.<br /><br />There have been great leaders but Gandhiji was greatest, beyond comparison. He might have lapsed in some policies as many argue, but no one can be perfect.<br /><br />Let me recite following lines which are from an Indian movie song, in his memory:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">De di humen aazadi bina khadga bina dhaal, <br />Saabarmati ke sant tune kar diya kamal,<br />Aandhi me bhi jalti rahi Gandhi teri mashal,<br />Saabarmati ke sant tune kar diya kamal.<br /><br />(you brought us freedom without using any weapon,<br />The Saint of Saabarmati - you </span> did magic!,<br />your torch had fire even in storm,<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Saint of Saabarmati - you </span> did magic!)<br /><br />Gandhiji Amar rahen (Long Live Gandhiji)</span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-61936336358142786142008-09-27T23:55:00.004+05:302008-09-28T00:27:35.615+05:30What we want from the one we have a realtionship with<span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" >When I say - what we want from the one we have a relation with, I sound somewhat selfish. Isn't it a common characteristic of us that we "want" something from our relations? Selfishness is a common trait that we all share. All. The difference is quantity and quality of selfishness. This is not to say there are only selfish people on the planet, in fact, the word itself is little too strong.<br /><br />There is this phrase "returning favour" which in itself is based on some sort of selfish attitude. Just look at the structure of a relationship and you will find there is always a kind of reciprocal element in most of them. The relations that are mutual in nature are also in some ways dependent on this "reciprocal" element. Consider a mother-child relationship, which I think is one of the strongest relations we have. A mother cares for her child no matter what the child does. Some call it divine and others call it natural (essentially both lead to same thing). Even if the relation is divine, their are certain expectations the two have from one another. A child "wants" his/her mother to feed him/her, which if not done may change the equation of their relation. What did you say? this is not selfishness? well, I agree. This is not the kind of selfishness we generally know, but it certainly is one of its kind.<br /><br />My post is not about proving we all are selfish people. Not at all. What I want to say is there are some expectations from relations and this understanding is very helpful in managing our relations. Expectations are there even if there appear to be no relation at all. For example, my friend Jaunesk posted "<a href="http://blog.successdynamic.com/communication/questions-are-the-answers/" target="_blank">Questions are The Answers</a>" on his blog, in which he highlights how a salesman needs to be a good listener. I put that in this way - the relationship of a sales person and his potential customer is dependent on how good the sales person fulfils what the customer "wants" and the better listener the sales person is, the better he satisfies the requirement of this relationship.<br /><br />If we focus on what the other person in our relationship wants, we are not serving the God of Selfishness but just managing our relation. They say expectations are the root of our sorrows. They are right. But, the fact is we just can't be machines and if we are humans, we got to have some expectations. So do the ones who have a relationship with us. Like anything else, too much of it can be as bad as the lack of it. It has to be balanced - both the expectations as well as our desire to fulfil them.<br /></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-77468645970167024702008-09-15T15:52:00.002+05:302008-09-15T16:43:57.918+05:30Who You Chose to be Your Partner<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">When it comes to the choice of choosing our partner for love and life we look at a lot of options ranging from looks to physique to skills etc. Most people will agree there is not one final formula of attraction and it varies from person to person. Some people want good communication skills in their potential partners while others are just satisfied by the looks. Some like well built and physically sound partners while others would not even look at these factors.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">We human beings though a lot different than other species still have the natural forces at work and there is always a lot more to choosing our partners than to what meets the eyes. The theory of natural selection and its supplementary - theory of sexual selection have most of the answers when we research into the issue and these theories have some general criteria like - the partner should be healthy, attractive and dominant in the group. Also, for women the one must quality they look in their potential partners is - caring. When it comes to natural and sexual selection, at the core of all conditions is need for healthy and survival genes. A symmetric face, for example, implies a healthy individual who has better genes. The original motive behind all this is to have offspring that can survive.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Oddly enough but there is a new finding by scientists that says a woman is attracted to those men who resemble her father !!! Same for a man but here mother replaces father. How unbelievable that sounds ! Well, a woman likes someone whose face is similar to that of her father, whose body odor smells like her father's and many more things. This is also probably related to our choice of seeking better genes. For more details about this, visit the following link where you will find full text of the story:</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/903/1">http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/903/1</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">As we humans are different than other species, we have more options that are somewhat different than the purely biological ones. I told about </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://relationviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/essence-of-relationship.html">memes in my past post</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> and this has to with it. Yes, being an intelligent species we need to look beyond genes and then memes come into picture. As evolutionary biologists put it memes are the memory elements as genes are genetic elements. So how do they work? Well, when we are impressed with the wit of a person and are attracted, its our memes at work. The recognition of intelligence is a function of memes however, as a matter of fact, the evolution of memes is itself from genes as by the time we evolved into a "thinking" kind of species we are said to have started having memes. Unlike genes, memes don't have a physical presence and are more an intangible aspect of our personality and bio.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Reading this you can ask this question - what if a woman's father has unhealthy body or if he is not intelligent enough to be attractive in consideration by memes? Well, my answer is - again its a battle between various considerations and the one that is stronger should win. For example, such a woman would go for a person who has the best of combination required by both her genes and memes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">If you have your arguments on the topic, kindly leave your comments by clicking on the comments link.</span><br /><br /></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-3930544244433528882008-09-08T15:59:00.004+05:302008-09-08T17:00:25.112+05:30Why Men Cheat<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">For long it has been said that men pathologically promiscuous and most are always ready for extramarital relationships. Well, this may not be entirely true for all men but many of the male sex are promiscuous - it is said. There are a lot of theories on this and a lot of research is being carried out on the issue by psychologists and biologists.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Biologists, yes, if it is pathological then biologists have better chance of decoding it and they have found one clue ! Scientists have recently found a gene - AVPR1a, which governs a receptor that regulates the production of a hormone called vasopressin produced by brain and this hormone contributes to attachment behaviour with mates and offspring.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">My source of the above is www.sciencemag.org which has the following article. I express my thanks to the scientists who have found out this research and the people of sciencemag.org to publish it. You can find the article with complete text here:</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/902/1?etoc" target="_blank">http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/902/1?etoc</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Please read the entire article as it shows good insight into the matter.</span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-5927222384700826992008-09-04T14:44:00.003+05:302008-09-04T15:10:00.793+05:30Relationship - Make It Simple<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">In our daily life there are so many things to do, to think, to understand and take note of. We have to deal with so many situations that sometimes we get so puzzled and ask this question – is there any end to our problems? Very simple things look like mountains of trouble if we fail to understand the concept of keeping things simple. Same happens with our relations. If we understand the fact that relations need to be strong and not complex then we can enjoy life to the fullest.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A friend is someone with whom we can have good time, chat, share, enjoy and cry if we are sad. A friend can be anyone – a classmate, colleague, room partner, family member, anyone. Friendship is a relation which can be there along with another relation. For example, a father and son can be friends along with their father-son relationship. It’s the understanding of relations that has to be there, simpler we keep it, better we handle it. A father has to be father when the situation demands it. If his son is in bad company and having trouble then he needs to act like a father and do his best to see that son doesn’t get into trouble. But if he messes up the two relations there can be chaos and more importantly he might not be able to convey his message to his son. This understanding of keeping the sanctity of relations intact is not that complex – we just need to act simple, respect the boundaries and do not mess up two relations.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Another example is of a relation of a teacher and student who are <span style="font-style: italic;">otherwise </span>friends. I deliberately emphasize “otherwise” as the two relations do have the potential to mess up with each other if not handled properly. The teacher’s act as a teacher sometimes requires that the friendship between them doesn’t act as an obstacle.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">These are simple things but still people manage to understand the basics and fall into totally unnecessary mess up. Keep your relations simple and understand the boundaries and you will enjoy them to the fullest.</span><br /></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-3984011980574688282008-08-31T22:23:00.007+05:302008-08-31T23:10:31.384+05:30Relationship Sans Trust<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">First my disclosure about the incident I am going to tell here - My intention is not to tell a story and not to laugh at what happened. I post it here so that I could express the importance of trust in a relationship.<br /><br />Last week my neighbor's daughter eloped with a boy living just few houses apart taking all the jewelery and some good cash along. The interesting thing is both families were good friends and had the girl told about her relation to her family, they would be just happy to marry the man of her choice. In fact, the boy's family was very happy on the "decision" and were rejoiced. The girl's father was not and consumed poison on hearing the news, later he recovered and next day - yes, the very next day shifted to some unknown place ! Before leaving he told all of us one thing - you did not stand with me. His lament was why the girl chose to elope? when it could have been a happy story.<br /><br />Well, do not think I am narrating some story here. This is a true and fresh incident. What I want is to demonstrate few things for the purpose of thinking for all my readers.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">When both families were friends and there would be no opposition to their marriage, why they chose to do this? One possibility is the girl "knew" something that we neighbors don't know - perhaps her father did not like the boy despite being family friends. OR, the boy would have thought for some reasons her father will oppose it. The third possibility is the boy would have thought he wouldn't get a good gift from her father if they married with their consent.<br /><br />Whatever be the reason, one thing is certain - the weakness of their relations. Despite their very good family relations the trust was simply not there. The girl did not trust her parents, the two families did not trust each other, the boy did not trust the girl's parents. I am myself eye witness to the "warm relations" of the two families and could not believe eyes and ears on seeing and hearing the incidents. It made me focus on relations again - trust is the basis of a relationship and if it is lacking then even the biggest empire of relationship can not stand and will collapse one day. This happened in my neighborhood and can happen anywhere where there is relationship without trust.<br /><br /></span></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-39757951736699555692008-08-27T21:38:00.002+05:302008-08-27T21:49:22.183+05:30Relationship is Important<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">When a friend calls and we see the number flashing on our phones we have a different gesture on our faces - depending on who is the friend, what is our mood and how good our relations are with the friend (caller</span></span>). <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Imagine you are thinking about the latest assignment you have from your work and a million calculations and computations are going through your mind, and, suddenly a good friend calls, even before you pick it up, you forget the assignment and for few moments all the stress is gone ! It may be for a few moments but it refreshes you - the power of relationship works here in the positive way. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><br />The emphasis of the above imagined situation is on the ability of a good relationship doing something that even costliest drugs and therapies are unable to do. A good relationship is a huge positive for not only an individual but for the society as a whole.<br /></span></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-25118394333802332162008-08-23T17:07:00.003+05:302008-08-23T17:38:13.031+05:30Essence of Relationship - Part 2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd9OFuIxGWRUSAEPuMsv7leyayUzW8i1UVBC7cYTuHJU9pU2V4Ewf9QTEg5UOOAxUJU-xTEp0361-nrChUP8DG1SlHOtTWG0PjFgJlsMoV6AS5a3ZSk9bxWc6NJa5pefMKTRo7sSceMTL8/s1600-h/Squirrels.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd9OFuIxGWRUSAEPuMsv7leyayUzW8i1UVBC7cYTuHJU9pU2V4Ewf9QTEg5UOOAxUJU-xTEp0361-nrChUP8DG1SlHOtTWG0PjFgJlsMoV6AS5a3ZSk9bxWc6NJa5pefMKTRo7sSceMTL8/s320/Squirrels.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237680331448286002" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The issue of my last post was to tell a thing or two about how as human beings we have a far bigger and vital importance of relationship in our lives than other living beings. A person's relationship with others is a deciding factor to his/her success in life. One's relations with their parents, family, friends are important for the quality and amount of happiness one can possess in the life.<br /><br />In my posts I will throw light on the various aspects of relationship, problems in relations and simple and effective solutions. I hope my readers will immensely benefit from my work and share their experiences with others in order to achieve the larger goal of a "Happy World" (सर्वे भवन्तु <span>सुखिनः)<br /><br /><br /></span></span></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379346002202651068.post-34030726157127378542008-08-22T14:23:00.000+05:302008-08-22T14:58:28.021+05:30The Essence of Relationship<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" >Homo Sapiens. This is what biologists call us, the animal that evolved from Homo Erectus (not all agree though), the animal who could walk upright. When we talk about an animal of Homo Sapiens type, we say Human Beings. Yes, we are human beings - an animal that differs from animals. When someone utters words like these many get angry and annoyed - they just don't want to be called animals, whatever reason or context may be. They think we are not "animals" we are "humans" and a superior race !<br /><br /> Well, my post is not to debate what some or others think or dislike. Whether you think we are a superior species or you think we are superior "animals" the point is same for me - We are vey different than other species all grouped together. Yes, we think and have intelligence and communicate and so on... We relate. We relate with each other, with others, with things and what you say. This is one trait we have as well developed as communication/language, bipedalism, thoughts and other things that make us a superior species.<br /><br /> Relationship is not limited to our race, in fact, any living thing is in some or other relationship with its own species or its surroundings, but its certainly a well evolved, utilized and powerfull trait which is vital for our existence as human beings. The evolutionary bilogists tell us that its the genes (genetic elements) of a species that keep on evolving with time but the difference between us and other species is we have also developed "memes" (memory elements) and these memes are also evolving - that's why we are developing constantly despite the limitations of genetical evolution. Our memes have taken us to what we call today's modern and civilized society as a whole.<br /><br /><br /></span>Harryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18298597316683577776noreply@blogger.com1