Compassion - Suresh Dinakaran's Blog

How Steep Is Your Love?

Please pardon me if the caption of this blog post sounds comfortingly familiar to the Bee Gees classic single ” How Deep Is Your Love “. Inspired? Yes, absolutely.

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

It shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to do, but, yet it is.

How to love yourself.

One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others.

There will be times when you will be feeling lousy about your state of mind, your over-fifty body, your hair, you see yourself as too fat, too this or too that..it’s a rabbit hole that we all go into.

Yet you fantasise about finding someone who would give you the gift of being loved as you are. Contrarian, isn’t it?

It is silly, isn’t it, that you would dream of someone else offering to you the same acceptance and affirmation that you are voluntarily withholding from yourself.

The word ‘ love ‘ is most often defined as a noun. But, it is worth altering the trajectory. We would all love better if the word love is used as a verb, rather than a noun.

The ask here is: could we proactively offer a new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness– not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, unity ?

People are divided by our society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love.

Should we be razing the cultural paradigm for a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and society?

Definitely so. Count me in!

As Katrina Mayer puts it, ” Loving yourself isn’t vanity, it is sanity “.

ENDS

Curiosity Skilled The Cat!

Curiosity is that strange human trait that got us out of the cave, across the globe, and onto the moon. A trait that has led to communication and collaboration.

It is why children ask: ” why?”

And as we get older and life becomes more complicated, many of us forget to keep asking that question.

” Why?” requires work and critical thought. It requires the openness to learning answers that don’t fit into our existing world views. The brain is hardwired to be lazy. So default meets comfort zone where there is no room for ” why?”.

And sure, if we need to ask ” why?” every time we get a push notification on our phones, it will mercilessly take over our lives.

But ” why?” is also the most significant tool in combatting disinformation. And decoding the true intention of certain governments, organisations, brands.

Curiosity might help us better understand the others.

Their intentions.

Their feelings and fears.

Curiosity might help us understand ourselves.

Our intentions.

Our feelings and fears.

Certain meditation techniques encourage us to approach our emotions with curiosity. We cannot control when and how those emotions arise within us, but we can control how we react to them.

The ancient principle of Occam’s razor invites us to – when presented with competing hypothesis about the same problem– select the one that requires the fewest possible assumptions.

This might benefit us in our external and internal lives. The truth is we need to cultivate curiosity.

Curiosity will help us disregard ‘ human pollutants ‘ like opinion, agenda, power and greed. These pollutants are present at nearly every turn of capitalist transactions, sticking to us like grease from an oil spill.

We need more stories of compassion , and fewer stories of conflict. What’s extraordinary about our story is that it is never complete. It is never finished. It is being written and rewritten every moment in every corner of the world.

For example, it is up to us to confine conflict to our books and films. Because for THE GREAT STORY to succeed, we need to course-correct away from conflict toward compassion and cooperation.

We need to start shaping new stories for ourselves and future generations. And that narrative, in its most basic and simple form might be this..

Human(therefore)kind.

It seems pretty simple: We have to accept our insignificance. Which is significant.

Disinformation has always been part of the political and corporate playbook. However, algorithms, feedback loops, and political polarization have dusted off that book and put it on the main display next to the gummy bears and ChapStick.

This is complex stuff, and only a few people in the world seem to truly comprehend the scientific underpinnings of the madness we’ve left ourselves be swallowed up in.

If the medium is the message and the medium is a giant tangled ball of fiber-optic cables, doesn’t that make the message, well, a giant tangled mess of messaging?

Now, ” why?” did I write this? Curiosity is getting the better of me. And I like it.

BEGINS

Just.Being.One

COVID 19 could be civilisation’s newest curse..

Or is it?

Can we see this as a blessing..

Realise there has never been a better time to come together.

Spiritually, emotionally..

While being distant.

Socially, physically..

To rise above prejudice, politics, profits..

Caste, colour, creed and..greed..

And bow to compassion, empathy, understanding..

See the grace in being part of the human race..

With no fault lines. Or finish lines. Only a start line..

Offer a helping hand..to sanitise the soul, the mind..

See the opportunity..in this crisis..

To be human..there has never been a better time!

Looking beyond getting ahead!

We have galloped on from an industrial economy to that of knowledge and intelligence(artificial & otherwise). Getting ahead is an industrial age concept. Based on scarcity, lack of access, secrecy, connections etc.Everyone can’t be first (the thinking goes) so you better work harder, make do with helping fewer people, and look for shortcuts if you want to win.

Today, we live in an always on,connection, collaboration sharing economy, in a long-tail world where being remarkable is far more important than being normal, where mattering is what matters and what we ideally seek. But the void is still there. It’s a gap between where you are and where you could be. Where you desire to be. A gap between the impact you can create and what you’ve been able to do. Mostly, it’s a gap between you and the change you can contribute to those around you. As they say, what got you here, won’t get you there.

To propel from your present state, to being a ruckusmaker, a toastmaster, a change agent, a denter, a doer, an enabler. A person who notices, who seeks change and, above all, a person that leaps. Takes the power in her hands, to assist the powerless, the privilege dark community. (Read how 3 designers from Ideo.org are trying to fix the refugee crisis in this BrandKnew article here http://www.brandknewmag.com/from-ideo-org-3-ways-designers-can-help-fix-the-refugee-crisis/ )

To have the spirit to care for the have not. Lets walk the torque. Devoid of the void!

ENDS

Image: Plays In Business

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