The confessions of a clueless mind

  One observation I have made is that individuals who have had limited exposure to roles requiring sustained selflessness, long-term commitment, or responsibility toward the needs of others may be more susceptible to developing certain toxic relationship behaviors. Examples of such experiences might include: Raising children. Caring for elderly family members. Maintaining a long-term partnership that requires sacrifice, compromise, and emotional stability. Assuming responsibility for the welfare and well-being of others over an extended period. The common element across these experiences is that they often require a person to regularly subordinate their immediate wants, emotions, or preferences in service of a larger objective, relationship, or collective good. Without such experiences, an individual's worldview can become excessively self-referential. Interactions are frequently filtered through a lens of personal validation, personal grievance, and personal expectations. As a res...

Continuing with the Independence Day fervor, my good friend Maverick has an interesting list of things that will make India an icon in the next 60 years. Click here to read the article. While I agree on all of those, I also have a few other points that I think are equally, if not more, important in curing India of its ills. 1. Ban Caste/Religion based politics and policy making This has been the bane of our system ever since independence. The country has not been able to overcome the strong caste/religion divide, and politicians, in their vote-bank appeasement policies, have exploited this to the hilt. Minority appeasement, for example, has reached such sick proportions that one wonders if it is a crime to be born in the majority community. Further, the lack of a uniform civil code has reduced our secular credentials to a farce. The so-called intelligentsia has always turned a blind eye to such critical issues as these, but pounces upon irrelevant issues to garner press and mileage ...