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  1. Ordinary things

    Aug 28, 2006

    What is ordinary?
    According to the oxford dictionary, ordinary is normal or usual. I would say "conventional". But now who’s ordinary?
    -Is the person who’s always a topper ordinary?
    -Is the person with good looks ordinary?
    -Is the person with rhetoric accent (which generally impress people) ordinary?
    Well ordinary is a relative term & depends upon the personal conviction of an individual. Here’s my perspective about "what is ordinary"?
    As stated before, a person doing conventional things conventionally is ordinary. Then the question comes is, are not we engineers & doctors (Or any other existing realm) conventional? - Yes we are. Because most of us just follow the paths traced by our predecessors & hardly try to accomplish anything out of box. As a mountain appears more beautiful to the distant observer than the mountaineer, same is the case with any realm. But this is not my topic today. I’ll take it some other time.

    So let us calibrate ourselves whether we are ordinary or extra ordinary or prodigal.
    Blessed are people who have abilities or eye of appreciation for unconventional realms such as music, art, literature & much more to name. Because he/she is more near to him/her self. - We may say that the Person is spiritual (Note: I’ve used word spiritual and not religious. I believe spiritualism is not the attainment of god but attainment of the purpose of our very being because that itself is god, which is bliss-the ultimate happiness. I would place such people to be of highest order.).

    Coming over to ordinary.
    Ordinary is a person who does the job assigned to him to an apt level but that is the only maximum he can put into it & nothing extra, nothing out of box. & that’s the end of his vision. Or say the upper limit of his horizon. A real life example is: "Getting Placed is the foremost big thing for most of the engineering students". This is what is called a limited vision.
    Ordinary is a person who doesn’t have eye for things worth appreciation (Art, music……).

    Being a teenager I would like to bring up the most discussed subject amongst people of my age group. - Yes, You got it right. I m talking about so called the art of attracting fairer sex (talking about both). I call it flirting & time waste whereas most of us call it as the ultimate happiness. Getting attracted to a person at very first sight (termed as love at first sight & the reasons being conventional ones such as looks, style, size of purse etc. thing in which I never believe) is an ordinary thing for which you don’t need any delicacy of thoughts & perception. We may say it’s just an ordinary thing & such things happen mostly with ordinary people.

    So in a nutshell extra-ordinary is a person with traits such as:
    -Strict disciplinarian.
    -A deep thought of purpose-a philosophical mind.
    -Even mindedness: A person who’s neither jubilant at any achievement nor sorrowful at any colossal loss.
    -The one who is ordinary++= extra-ordinary. For example:
    An engineering student is by default an engineer (an ordinary thing) but the thing which makes him extra-ordinary is these pluses.

    One sure trait about extra-ordinary people is that in spite of fewer in number they are easy to be noticed & I’m proud to have met such rare minds.

    Posted by: Sunil Parashar at 2:09 PM | Tags: , , | 2 Comments | |

  2. Desiderius Erasmus once said: “When I get a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes”.
    This thing holds true in my case also. So today I’m sharing views & memoirs about my all time favorite novel- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
    In the present era, novels are written as an article for any monthly magazine-It looses its importance in a month or so. But when it comes to everlasting literature, THE FOUNTAINHEAD is the name everyone is aware of. Written more than three decades ago, The Fountainhead was turned down by more than a dozen publishers naming it as too intellectual. But a masterpiece can’t be locked & kept in backyard for a long time, one day it’s bound to accomplish the purpose it is made for. After such a fierce competition in the market Fountainhead managed to survive in the all time bestseller list.
    In the words of Ayn Rand:
    “This is the motive and purpose of my writing; the projection of an ideal man. The portrayal of a moral ideal, as my ultimate literary goal, as an end in itself—to which any didactic, intellectual or philosophical values contained in a novel is only the means”.
    “I write-and read—for the sake of the story….My basic test for any story is: Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end in itself?”

    “Since my purpose is the presentation of an ideal man, I had to define and present the conditions which make him possible and which his existence requires. Since man’s character is the product of his premises, I had to define and present the kinds of premises & values that create the character of an ideal man and motivate his actions, which means that I had to define and present a rational code of ethics.
    But neither politics nor ethics nor philosophy is an end in itself, neither in life nor in literature. Only Man is an end in himself.”

    The main idea behind the novel is Ayn Rand’s portrait of an ideal man. -A man’s ego is Fountainhead of all the progressions in world.
    Howard Roark an architect student is thrown out of Stanton Institute of Technology because of his nature of experimenting with his architectural work. With a strong heart and egotist mind he starts his struggle in the professional world. He remains unaffected by the moments of penury & frustration because of his even-minded approach towards life. A twist comes when the woman of his love-Dominique Fracon marries his worst enemy-Peter Keating.
    Each and every piece of architecture created by him is criticized by the newspaper dailies but people with an eye for architectural master piece(only) appreciate his work.
    Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead is a philosophy comparing two kind of people in society, the first kind: Egotist & dedicated towards their work-Howard Roark. Second one: Altruist & could do any thing in order to enjoy pleasures of world, having no moral characteristic-a reprobate-Peter Keating.     It shows that a person of uncompromising wit is the final winner in any walk of life, & the path is strewn with thorns and hardships but finally it’s only the way worth living.

    Answering the internal quest of a common person, The Fountainhead is truly a master piece created not for once generation but entire mankind. Victor Hugo once said: “If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.”
    Philosophical books available today in market are in the form of advices where as the life of the author him self is controversial. Regarding this Ayn Rand quotes: “The essence of the bond between me & my husband is the fact that neither of us has ever wanted or been tempted to settle for anything less than the world presented in The Fountainhead. We never will.”

    There are a rare breed of quality books available in the market today and The Fountainhead is a must read for every individual aspiring to be perfect in whatever he or she does.

    Posted by: Sunil Parashar at 9:55 AM | Tags: , , | 2 Comments | |

  3. Today I’m going to discuss the only golden rule to succeed.
    Here I’ve not discussed rhetoric fundamentals from those bestselling philosophies but presented my own notions about what it takes to be a success.

    This short story justifies my belief:
    Once upon a time a king was to attack his rivalry kingdom.
    But the number of soldiers in his army was very less as compared to the other king. Upon reaching over the territory of enemy kingdom he ordered for the ships which brought them to be burnt down, and just said one line to his army    :
    “Either you win or you perish”.
    And the result was that his army won.

    This story has a very great moral. As par my experience till date there’s only one way to win any war of life: Just burn down your ships. And success is surely yours

    Posted by: Sunil Parashar at 3:51 PM | Tags: , | 3 Comments | |

  4. Many a times you might have come across situations such as:
    Someone spitted on you from bus while you were standing at a commonplace,
    Someone spoiled your brand new shirt by throwing kitchen waste on you.
    Or few times you might have also committed such crimes.
    Now under such condition who’s at blame?-Obviously the person committing crime.
    But somewhere in this whole process don’t you think that we our self are responsible for such incidences.

    Ok!!! Let me explain in detail.
    As the world is progressing & the new technology is replacing the old one, the society is becoming more and more ignorant day by day. But how many times have we realized this?
    How carelessly we spoil the beauty of a common place by throwing wrappers & other waste materials. Our effluents have spoiled the rivers & other natural water sources.
    Ultimately who’s at loss?-It’s us. By us I mean each one of us.
    As far as each one of us is breathing the free air from nature we have debt’s to be paid to the Mother Nature.
    Let’s understand our responsibility and pay our debts by following these simple steps:

    1> Never spoil a commonplace. Keep the wrappers and waste material until you find a proper place to drop it.

    2> At least plant 2 trees a year. If you feel your debt to the mother nature just plant as many trees which shall produce oxygen equivalent to that you’ll consume through out your life time(taking your lifetime to be average of 65 years).

    3> While you smoke at common place you are not only spoiling your internal mechanism & causing pollution but also causing problem for non smokers. So please be careful about smoking at commonplaces.
    And if possible quit smoking.-At least for economical reasons.

    If you smoke a packet of cigarette a day for 65 years, here’s your expenditure stat:
    Cost of a cigarette pack= 20/-(Average)
    Cost of a matchbox pack= 2/-
    Number of days in 65 years= 65*365= 23725 days.
    Hence total expenditure=Number of days*(Cost of a cigarette pack + Cost of a matchbox pack).
    The result= Rs.521950/-(The good news for smokers is that they’ll not have to spend this much amount coz you’ll not survive these many years).

    4> don’t spoil water otherwise someday the status of people shall not be known by their bank balance but the amount of water their overhead tanks contain.

    So if you still don’t feel like paying your debts please don’t breathe the free air and device some other means for your survival.

    Posted by: Sunil Parashar at 3:29 PM | Tags: , | 3 Comments | |