This article was written for my official blog on January 10, 2009
What is the definition of Pleasure?
It may be a matter of opinion, like in any other definitions.
Pleasure is the result of an act – or a combination of acts – that makes one feel as light as feather and elated as high and close to the edge of heaven, congruent with moral and social ethics, and one in which all who are involved shares a reasonably same proportion of joy, and one that can be remembered as an event or series of events that years later will still bring smile on one’s face...; pleasure is something that you experienced or visualized as experienced, and that the experience can be shared with your sons and daughters, with joy and laughter, like you read a bed-time story...
...in having pleasure, integrity becomes the corner stone; values become the key driver; it can be as simple as weaving a garland of jasmine flowers and as rich as having an explosive orgasm with the person of your dream...; it could be as simple as a stroll in the woods on a Sunday morning; it could be as personal as a night spent on the river bank...and often derived from even an act as small as the attempt to define pleasure.
The CEO and board of directors of ENRON in United States, Sathyam Computers in India and many more failed to define pleasure beyond their sight of individual joy and personal greed heedless of the human creed!
That may be the bigger version.
What parallel can we run from the corporate catastrophe of ENRONs and Sathyam’s to our personal life?
What is it that we can improve in our daily administration of life- replacing Corporate Governance with Personal Governance? Are we too perhaps fudging and skirting our emotional account books of behaviour projecting its non-existing credits to gain merits by stepping over the shoulders of our colleague or a neighbour or a... family member?! Are we too perhaps hiding within us facts and events that perhaps if audited by SEBI (System of Ethical Behaviour Internationally – my version, of course) will expose us to shame?
If we were to go blue or our eyes turn red or our hair stand up every time we think or behave unethical - from lying to gossiping to all the other shapes and forms of it as we know for now... what a different world we would be living in!?
The streets would be a sight to see....; the offices would be a place to be!!
And what about a “wonderful family” watching TV at home?!!
It all depends on how we define “pleasure”..
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
Merchant of Death is Dead
This article was published in my official blog on January 02, 2009.
When in 1888 a French Newspaper published a premature obituary of Alfred Nobel titled “Merchant of Death is Dead” virtually condemning him for his invention of Dynamite...! In that article, the news paper wrote “...Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday....” and published it by mistake while he was still alive.
That triggered the thought in Dr Nobel’s mind to live a life and leave a legacy for which he will be remembered for. He signed his last will and testament and set aside major chunk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prize...
If you were to see your own obituary printed in the Daily Newspaper that you read this morning, what would be its title, and what would be its content? What is it that you will be known for among your families? What is it that you will be remembered for among your closest friends? What memories of your actions will be cherished in the community halls of your society? What is it that you will be missed for in the mezzanine floor of your organization?
[I asked a closest friend of mine to write for me an obituary ; I chose a close friend not because I want to hear the few good things I believe I possess but because of the transparency we claim in our relationship through which I can be seen neutrally. I am yet to read them...it is not written yet because it may have carried for her an emotional dilemma of what can I write ‘in past’ about him who lives before my eyes ‘in present’.]
The emotional dilemma aside, this introspection is perhaps important at some point in life because that’s when we understand the temperature of our existence. Are we aligned to the true north of our values, or are we floating like a log moving but for neither a cause nor a destination? In the cruise towards the unseen but hopeful future, who are being left behind in the oblivion of past, or are pushed aside to the pathways; who are those we don’t hear as craving for us to slowdown to hold our hands and who are those ahead in the distance waving at us to move fast to reach where we must? What are the chances of us becoming the ceremonial memory in form of dancing flames of a candle or solemn hymns of a choir in an annual remembrance day, or the opportunities to be living in the hearts and minds of the few whom we were to influence through the resources that we are privileged to have that we at times hold on in an embrace like a little girl would to her teddy bear!
What are we doing?
What are we yet to do?
How can we inspire?
What can we deliver?
How can we enable everyone in our circles to achieve?
.
When in 1888 a French Newspaper published a premature obituary of Alfred Nobel titled “Merchant of Death is Dead” virtually condemning him for his invention of Dynamite...! In that article, the news paper wrote “...Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday....” and published it by mistake while he was still alive.
That triggered the thought in Dr Nobel’s mind to live a life and leave a legacy for which he will be remembered for. He signed his last will and testament and set aside major chunk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prize...
If you were to see your own obituary printed in the Daily Newspaper that you read this morning, what would be its title, and what would be its content? What is it that you will be known for among your families? What is it that you will be remembered for among your closest friends? What memories of your actions will be cherished in the community halls of your society? What is it that you will be missed for in the mezzanine floor of your organization?
[I asked a closest friend of mine to write for me an obituary ; I chose a close friend not because I want to hear the few good things I believe I possess but because of the transparency we claim in our relationship through which I can be seen neutrally. I am yet to read them...it is not written yet because it may have carried for her an emotional dilemma of what can I write ‘in past’ about him who lives before my eyes ‘in present’.]
The emotional dilemma aside, this introspection is perhaps important at some point in life because that’s when we understand the temperature of our existence. Are we aligned to the true north of our values, or are we floating like a log moving but for neither a cause nor a destination? In the cruise towards the unseen but hopeful future, who are being left behind in the oblivion of past, or are pushed aside to the pathways; who are those we don’t hear as craving for us to slowdown to hold our hands and who are those ahead in the distance waving at us to move fast to reach where we must? What are the chances of us becoming the ceremonial memory in form of dancing flames of a candle or solemn hymns of a choir in an annual remembrance day, or the opportunities to be living in the hearts and minds of the few whom we were to influence through the resources that we are privileged to have that we at times hold on in an embrace like a little girl would to her teddy bear!
What are we doing?
What are we yet to do?
How can we inspire?
What can we deliver?
How can we enable everyone in our circles to achieve?
.
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