Becoming Socially Sentient Now

For centuries mankind has been culpable to a way of life through enormous contributions in augmenting the society’s potential to his best interest. From as is to as it should be, humanity’s disposition has characterized a constitution that we call society. On route to action, learning & development, ideation, communication and implementation in a sundry of subjects, man has revealed social behavior. In his lifespan of understanding the essentials for existence, man has consciously and willingly fevered social settings with an acceding eye or by fulfillment through belligerence. In his longing for satisfaction through a coconut of desires, peace has hardly been man’s drive to improve and sustain social camaraderie. Abuse and antagonism on the other hand have been his motivators to an uncanny change. Be it fallacy and extremism, transgression and despotism, befouling the nature for mercenary or modern day warfare and nuclear proliferation, all have been illustrations of an injurious mind.

Over the passage of time, in the darkness of night and through the shining sunlight, man has each day grown cruel to himself, only to get farther away from his inmost self, which is his sole identity. Someone has rightly said that time never stops for anyone. It only adjudicates man’s actions as vigilant pastor of the supernatural power. In hue and cry or happiness and joy, time conveys myriad meanings in its musical tick-tock. It is for man to gather time’s lessons and learn to decipher his actions and reactions to make reparations in himself and his surroundings. Evolving such astuteness now is being sensitive to social needs and trying to become sentient to blazing social issues. Today our society is not just an identity of a particular community but a global abode that is sending SOS each day to man to stop, save, sustain as a chamberlain of humanity. It is for man to use his mind’s wisdom and his heart’s benevolence and compassion to contribute incrementally to set forth an example for the entire fraternity to follow. 

The recent BP oil massacre in the Gulf of Mexico is a fresh example of how man is daunting his own soil. Not surprisingly enough this incident took place just few months later when United Nations declared the year 2010 as the year of Biodiversity. Affecting a large number of plant and animal species deep in the ocean, this episode is a reminder to man to be alert to the sensitivities of his habitat. This incident and many others over the years are stimulus for man to transform his behavior before it becomes overbearing for creation to nurture life. It is like the saying, if you give some, you get some. For some people such outlook becomes precept of life. The significance of contribution however differs from man to man. Ed Stafford, the British explorer who is currently walking the Amazon and is scheduled to finish his expedition this August is a unique example of human endeavor for conserving nature. Today he is a role model and an inspiration for thousands, many among them are young school children whom Stafford helps aware of the life in rainforests. His Amazon’s adventure blog for kids is part of the Prince of Wales Rainforests project for schools that is leading a social cause against tropical deforestation and climate change. With two most recent instances of how man can lead change through his actions and intentions shows his exceptional strength to cue social change. 

Also, in this process of being (what we really are) and becoming (our potential to be) socially conscious, man has the power to self-motivate or get inspired by good virtues to end this war against survival. He has the key to all those locks that fasten free passage for positive human relations, which are the building blocks of the society. Most importantly man has the gift to perceive through his senses that if he has to begin such transition, it has to be now. Leaving things for the future may only account to more problems; it wouldn’t fix the ones that we are facing today. Learning to act now and voluntarily contributing in crisis intervention at individual or group level, in family, community or national level can save mankind from further regression. It shall serve as a turning point in man’s nature for nature. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” 

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The Great Socrates

A savant of western philosophy in ancient Greece, Socrates’ quest for life is beautifully versed as, “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us”. Today such enlightenment is a treasure for those who believe perspicacity of the surroundings to be paragon of the self. Applying Socratic art of discernment is like an internal compass that can draw our true north, while awakening us to quandaries and solutions through reasoning and rendition. What Socrates always believed in, was questioning about things, what, how and why the way they happen. With an unfastened vision on life, Socratic teachings are like a phenomenon, that if observed can leverage life’s blueprint. As a philosopher he wandered for the unknown, which according to him could be derived from the known. He wasn’t a Management guru, relationship expert or diplomat but his back in the day social prognosis can be an invaluable diagnose to our apprehensions, perceptions and actions in the present day. Socrates’ idea of truth and knowledge was not hearsay but testimony of the actual. Realizing and implementing such insight into practice is one way we can ease our adaptation to change in our own life, lives of other people and the macrocosm. 

If we habituate to Socratic state of mind by putting ourselves to test through open-ended questions related to our thoughts, feelings and actions, or even engage in genesis for our problems and situations, we in a way initiate self-management. Being conscious through such SWOT, we liberate ourselves of fears and biases, attempt at unlearning old practices and learn to be part of a distinctive genre. Such avant-garde exploration of the unknown through self questioning and rumination for the way we are, the way we act, the influence of other’s behavior on us and the means by which we construe the creation around us, we can build acumen as a competitive advantage only to contribute mindfully and intently to the society. This Socratic love for wisdom and intellectualism in each of us can further shape our acuity to live life differently by learning to focus on cause rather than just the effect. So if we relied on grapevine communications more often at work or felt productively occupied with gossip in familial relationships, we will realize that such information spreads like fire, it may have good or bad effect because it’s just a rumor but its cause most of the time remains uncertain as such communication carries partial information, which only astounds problems and gaps and does not improve these.   

Elucidating admiration for Socratic logic and synthesis further, if we feel exhilarated and secured with material wealth, cash on over ambitions to prove our net worth, why do most of us feel stressed out and empty inside-out ? Possibly here too we emphasize on effect, forgetting the cause for such consequence. Why it is that ego, false prestige and greed makes one counterfeit themselves at the cost of sensitive relations? Why jealousy or one-upmanship among parent-child relation leads to clashes? Besides why do often people camouflage in public, while uncovering there real self privately? Also, are ethics and moral values precepts that only a few of us need to follow? Or is our society undergoing an intimidating phase of double standards? These are some questions that as direct dialogue can head start self examination and aid analysis of situations in one’s life. Settings, station and level of understanding of life, ourselves and of people around may differ though. However developing such sagacity is what Socrates called wisdom to answer the enigma of life. 

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Adoption Is A Detour Of Love

As a little girl holding a newborn in my tiny arms was just as sufficing as playing with a new doll. Years later being a mother I felt the joy of million bucks to caress my son to feel his silk in my arms and his chaste in my heart. The weave of emotions that bonded us together was stronger and tighter than the umbilical chord that connected us for nine long months. Since then my home has the aura of my baby’s love and his soulful hugs. Parenting in my view is an enjoying endurance that enshrines us with blessedness. It's a developmental process that consecrates us with positive energy to rear children with love, no matter if they are birthed or adopted. Besides, motherhood being a poignant quality in parenting is like a divine endowment to every woman on this earth who can vent her maternal instincts to simulate colors through sweet lullabies. As a nectar of the spirit, motherhood is every woman’s yearn to cradle life in buoyant emotions, which in a way defines maternity as not just the joy of placenta but the state of motherliness in a woman. The eyes that see a child grow each day, the hands that imbibe faith in religion, peace for humanity, and the heart that seeks these values bud into strength of character, indeed is karma incomparable.

Maternity be it naturally or through fosterage is sharing fervor for raising a child with enriched opportunities. Maternity is also maturity to appreciate the inner wisdom and the power of expression that foments relationships irrespective of the ability to gestate. Like mother Mary who chose to rear Jesus as her own flesh and blood and Yashodha for whom Krishna’s pranks were more enchanting than the whole universe, there is cosmic momentum in any foster relationship. Besides a legal formality of entering into a new parent-child relationship, adoption is also celestial that unites souls across boundaries and beyond destinies. As a process of progression in nursing and nourishing a child, adoption facilitates felicity and fruition in the lineage of humanity. Couples who adopt children to raise them as their own express resilient emotions and rectitude of mind. Their adoptive effort goes a long way in contributing to a humane society where love is not bound by blood. Such unrelated yet unconditional involvement through adoption becomes an apostle of divinity in the society where thoughts and feelings are sometimes fabricated through superficial relationships. 

Adoption in a way is also karmic intervention that fills up vacuums in lives through spreading uncountable smiles. Such sensibility to embrace change in perception and action gives way to happiness over melancholy. In such elucidation, adoption becomes an endorsement of hope and feat that unfolds a child and an adoptive family to a distinctive semblance in life. With a nest of joy and serendipity that has familial security and happiness of home for a child shows the infinite power of adoption that accredits a couple  with compassion, abandons negativity and fears, and empowers a woman while making her capable of motherhood to save her from an emotional erosion. On opening up to such an ethereal vision, we adept ourselves to realize God’s ubiquitous power and his unique ways of making one a mom, ma, ‘la-madre’ or ‘amma’, an identity not through anatomy but the capacity to bestow love and honor a celebration called adoption. 

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Goldman Sachs And CEO Blankfein's Bleak Charm

It was only before the Securities Exchange Commission's civil suit over the Abacus 2007-AC1 deal that Goldman Sachs was CEO Blankfein's talisman. Today that juju seems far away from performing any more miracles to sustain Lloyd Blankfein's narcissism and charisma on the Wall Street. Born in Bronx and raised in Brooklyn's linden houses in a neighborhood with vast majority of occupants as working class, Lloyd Blankfein's salesman acumen and trading acuity shaped his destiny. From a commodity salesman in 1981, Blankfein rose to Goldman's hot seat in 2006. At a time when Goldman was acclimated to a banking style leadership at the top with Henry Paulson, co-COOs and Presidents John Thain and John Thornton, Blankfein was at odds to rein the company with a trading mindset. Blankfein's adeptness for profits through insistent style kept Goldman's bankers spellbound to his luminous spark even during the astounding credit crisis that quivered the global economy. Blankfein's leadership and modus operandi kept Goldman buoyant when sentiments on the main street were capsizing due to foreclosures. During this turbulent storm of emotions that had people's homes and hopes in its stride, Goldman was encapsulated by nobility in greed, a psychology of investment at the Wall Street that influences the financial and business environment at large.

With overconfidence as market maker and Abacus as smart money campaign, Goldman traded abnormal profit opportunities for plunge above and beyond fundamental risk. Creating and trading derivatives which were sub-par and certain to shake market sentiments through an incendiary bet, was like risk-return marriage that was sure to end in a divorce. For Goldman endorsing such malignant campaign to its customers certainly was a gambit on its 140 year old reputation. More than just a financial instrument, Abacus was a transactional loop for Goldman's investors that made them pay through their nose. A fallacy though but for CEO Blankfein, Goldman was doing 'God's work'. Today however the whole episode in substance appears to be not a question of numbers but an infringement of Goldman's customer sentiments and trust and violation of Wall Street's most valuable commodity called Information. A step further, this interlude post crisis seems to be a silent sin of abusing the legacy and hegemony of Wall Street as America’s economic and financial heart. 

On closer look, Goldman's status quo is a wake up call. For now, it is just litigation that neither has so far proven Goldman guilty nor seems like a situation of using Goldman as goad to financial reforms. However, somewhere midway the Goldman-SEC plea should be an elemental intention to restore the public confidence in operations at the Wall Street. The case should be a cardinal assessment of Goldman’s business practices and of similar other companies on the Wall Street that nurture hyper-competitive high fliers who desire to win at the cost of integrity and corporate morality.  CEO Blankfein's testimony before the congress in April had a different tune of Goldman's moral obligation to its customers. It somehow fails to conform to the company's corporate values and business principles that puts clients interest first, talks of reputations as asset and puts integrity and honesty at the heart of Goldman's business.

The questions that Goldman saga begets are strategic to common man's understanding of how the Wall Street operates in a scenario where each day, each bet is a scale of money vs. morality. Moreover, are corporate values today just an adornment for a company to attract Ivy League talent? Or is the CEO's role slowly drifting away from a corporate steward and leadership led by conscience to just a political and celebrity status? Goldman's catechism may take several months before we have exact answers. Meanwhile Goldman's board will have a tough run in its face lift against its customers for whom the company once represented long authentic innings in financial business. This would also impact the company’s current and near future ventures, one of them being the target date funds that would provide secured income in retirement years for middle class workers with 401(K) investments. Driving business in a sensitive target market, no doubt today will be challenging for Goldman, given the increasing skeptics of its reputation at the Main street.  These are few concerns for Goldman that serve as prelude to a financial reform at the Wall Street.

Also, at this point Goldman’s current corporate governance may sound like a safe bet for shareholder interests and value but may be predatory for a greater financial and societal good in the long run. Being the big daddy at the Wall Street, a better approach for Goldman may be to rethink its clout at the top. This is also in view of the watchdog set by the proposed reforms, which put consumer protection as a priority, shows implications of imposing the Volcker rule and tighter regulations on The OTC derivatives market which are the cash cows for big firms such as Goldman Sachs. While as it may take some time before the strife between the house-senate dynamics on financial reforms is actually framed into law, Goldman Sachs meanwhile should strategize for a shared responsibility at the top with clear distinction between leadership for business and guidance on regulatory affairs. It is imperative to understand that even if lawmakers are striving to groom Wall Street to a more ethical and economic friendly rearrangement, the big firms at the financial district need to resurrect and revamp their own governance for a better cohesion of what the government expects them to do and what the common man believes of them. More importantly, amid a hot debate on the viability of the financial reforms to bail out an ailing economy, we should not loose focus on Goldman and the aggregate of bungles that led to the current global economic milieu.
  

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A Blue Ribbon For Yemen

With a geographic location in Southwest Asia at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is a country that most may know of as third world. In its topographic terrain lie colossal poverty, indigent economy and grim possibilities of a social and a cultural transition. An impending plague of child marriages leading to physical, sexual and psychological abuse of the girl child is this country’s incessant social menace. Haley Sweetland Edwards’s crisis report about a 13 year olds death due to internal hemorrhaging from sexual assault by an older husband is a symptom of Yemen’s parasitical social and cultural outlook. How callous are the Yemeni men who treat little girls as cash reaping cattle and barter innocence for an eclipsed life. With dearth of resources, lack of education, Yemen’s social facelift today seems feeble and impervious, given the religious and stringent Sharia law that favors child marriages.

At an age when dolls are like desires and physical and emotional maturity is raw, an unwanted relationship is like sailing in deep sea without navigation. From the thrill of getting a new dress and some bridal jewelry, the exhilaration and efflorescence of these young child brides turns into rage and sexual drudgery overnight. A sprout of chastity and childhood in naive Yemeni girls turns into a forced and aggressive invasion of their virginity and demure. It is not only pitiful but also shameful for a civilization to act brutal and insane against the  impeccant emotions of these little lily-whites. Tormenting as it may sound but this truth is like a dark dust that covers Yemeni clouds and sand castles with its dogmatic mores. According to UNICEF’s data on monitoring situation of children and women, as of Feb 2010, Yemen ranks No.1 at 32% in terms of marriage before the age of 18, which is highest compared to its middle east counterparts in Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Morroco, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Algeria.

For Yemenis child marriage may be a traditional habitude and a religious precedent. But how apostolic is this cultural practice that changes marriage into slavery and adolescence into apartheid? It is important to understand that what may have been applicable in ca. 570/571 or after (the early Islamic era) cannot and should not be same in the 21st century. With a critical perspective, we would realize that if man had survived on prophecies and prognosis alone, space exploration and technological advances would have been impossible. Moreover, implementing social change through education, liberation from injustice and emancipation through equal rights would also have been Utopian.

In my opinion, child marriage is an abuse not only of child rights but also of kinship. A father selling his daughter for few thousand dollars or for an exchange of a new bride for himself in no way is veneration for religion. It’s a question of attitudes and avarice for all those who preach and perform such practice. Calamitous for any society yet true, it is man’s stereotypical nature to use religion and the Holy Scriptures to shield any conservative thinking, misdeeds or sin. Besides, all religions stand alike in their humanitarian philosophy. So what could be more benevolent than letting little girls bud into maturity before they fear of marriage as rape? The Yemeni parliamentary subcommittee’s decision that is scheduled for May should be an echo of such change. 

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Social Conscience, The Bedrock for Universal Healthcare

As the CEO of a nation that vividly embraces multiform, President Obama and his cabinet’s egalitarian march on universal healthcare has been grandeur for the common man. The healthcare summit, which was an apex of emotions throughout United States, has been a spectacle of leadership led by conscience. A universal healthcare plan indeed has affirmed the capability of morality in governance amid excessive political maneuvers in the Congress. At macro level this impugning against social conscience in senate has redefined healthcare as radical social issue and a resolution in the pursuit of Americanism.

Obamacare undoubtedly has been palliative to the main street where health insurance has always been a catch-22. A comprehensive health care reform for the first time ever has given Jane Doe and John Doe living down the street a taste of triumph amid troubles and an inspiration to succeed and soar high to their dreams. It has given them a right as fundamental as the right to elect a president whose leadership exalts the moral consciousness of this nation and whose presidency has been percipient to change. Critics may still try their best to write off this metamorphosis that America shall witness in the form of affordability by questioning its economics. But should change always be measure of economic indicators, an only might that a county could postulate? If so, then shrewd capitalists and power hankering politicians should carry on with their gross manipulations and narcissistic manifestations. But if your opinion is otherwise then average American should be accredited to his rights and given the opportunity to sweep the benefits of fair play and justice.      

Obama administration’s universal health care is not a pandemonium like it is still made to believe by few. The  health care law rather is a circumspect of the oligopoly created by health insurers over the past decades. It is  a conscientious intention to pull out the common man from the insurer’s reticent pang of penalty, price hikes and audacious regulations. Refusing to cover pre-existing conditions or chronic illnesses is a mute sin that has been tyrannical for the overwhelmed and the devastated to be racked simply because of a business norm. How ethical is such business practice that is more like a silent harassment? Thankfully whoever advocated for universal health care has certainly earned themselves a memento of unflagging social conscience along with the President and his team in the white house. A health care law essentially is making our future generations wealthy through virtues by exercising conscious wealth maximization, business ethics and morality in politics. It is saving our future from being bankrupt of scruples by means of sharing wealth and wisdom of prosperity.  

As a poignant political, economic and social campaign of 21st century America, health care law’s liberal and unprejudiced approach seems equivalent to President Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation. More than political motivation, the proclamation became a social transformation that conquered the hearts of the oppressed and identified liberation as instrumental in propagating equal rights. Similar to this social amalgamation of the past, health care overhaul is conspicuous to economically uplift the under-privileged and the vulnerable to make health insurance not opportunity but dire amenity. Setting an embargo on the current Cadillac plans is a decision in such light.

Implementing the health care law unquestionably shall relieve an average American of mental stress and material crisis to redeem the benefits of an optimal and unobstructed social change. Getting insurance affordable would mean a more secured future for everybody, meager chances of risking a healthy lifestyle, patient optimism and assurance for chronic care, lesser emotional stress, depression and anxiety among families and communities hit hardest by the recent economic recession. Overall it would mean social and moral improvement as a nation. Besides, it would revolutionize health care sector with higher competitiveness in quality, service efficiency, health center expansions and cost benefits in the near future. Prevention is better than cure framework of the law would certainly infuse fresh blood into health care transforming it from its current medical model to a new age physical, mental and emotional wellness initiative. In a constitutional sense, it would mean grappling a social impediment through shared responsibility and facilitating democratic treatment not just by charter but by the dictates of conscience. For the critics however, it’s time to bid farewell to their political resurgence against America’s opportunity for a wholesome Change. The most important step now is to execute the law without a hiatus. This shall certainly mean rising above legislative contests for November elections, personal inhibitions and prejudices to touch base with a sense of prudence as one distinct and discreet nation. 

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Route to Tranquility - Barkha Dhar - Hindustan Times

My latest article Route to Tranquility has been published in the Inner Voice section of The Hindustan Times,India's leading Newspaper.

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