For the Love of Reading: David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

What is advantage? In our day-to-day lives, we are inclined to believe that studying in small classrooms counts as one. So does being brought up by affluent parents, and in a sheltered, close-knit familial atmosphere. More money translates to better life. An Ivy League degree is the surest way to a high flying career. Having prior experience in the rules of a game and its strategies definitely is a head-start to victory. Being a part of the majority community in situations of persecutions, like that of Holocaust is a ticket to safety. And being a Philistine giant like Goliath is more than an assurance of victory in a war.

Going by this, more of these is desirable.

Here exactly is where Malcolm Gladwell shifts the narrative. 

The biggest millionaires of Hollywood and Wall Street worry that their children have had too easy a childhood to appreciate the value of toiling hard and turning to lateral  thinking for creating or earning opportunities & justifying them. The most watershed moments of alleviating leukemia in children happened courtesy a doctor who was so indifferent of suffering due to his disturbed childhood that he could think through the solution that was much more painful for his patients in the immediate short run, but created room for further successful interventions- and chemotherapy was born. He was "stone" enough to inject the kids with a medicine that was closest to being a poison, just because he could withstand the pain beyond the normal threshold.

While policymakers in the world are raging about having a smaller pupil-to-teacher ratio to improve learning outcomes in schools, evidence from psychological research suggests little correlation between the two beyond a point. A coach who has never played basketball coaches a team of motley schoolgirls to the national level tournament through a winning spree, because he can twist his strategy within the existing rules but beyond the conventional wisdom. Why? Because being a nerdy software programmer, he has no stake in the basketball based social circuit and its opinions. The only community that sheltered refugee Jews in the entire Nazi-occupied France was a persecuted sect that was openly defiant to Nazi diktats, and still went unscathed. Reason being, they had perfected the art of evading persecution by adapting their social structure and knew means to falsify identities, or sometimes, were plainly stubborn of their conscientious stand. Nazis had little energy to waste on them amidst other bigger & more immediate pressing issues.

One of the most counter-intuitive cases is that of the Ivy League education. Turns out, that it is more likely that a top ranking college reduces your chances of pursuing a discipline, especially Science & Economics at advanced levels, if you don't rank in the top percentiles of your class. Beyond the cream, a competitor who is a topper of her class from a much lower ranking college has much higher prospects of thriving in the discipline at advanced levels. What is a "perceived advantage" thus ends up being an impediment due to the collateral psychological damage caused by the top class universities.

Thus, the fascinating fable of a short, relatively frail, catapult wielding Israeli shepherd David defeating the giant Goliath, with multiple heavy weapons and a guard exclusively meant to shield him, and a heavy armour protecting almost every part of this body, should not be surprising at all. The Goliaths of the world focus on their weapons and armours. While, the Davids, refuse to fight with the same weapons and aim their well practiced slingshots to precisely those parts where the armour didn't cover the giant. Not all disadvantages are crippling, some are desirable and some are just "perceived" disadvantages. Playing by their own rules is often the hallmark of the Davids.

The book has important lessons not just for the common man, but policymakers and people in the position of power. The relation between a resource & its perceived advantage follows not a "positively sloping" straight line as expected, but an inverted U shape. Thus beyond a point, the same advantage becomes an obstacle. Too strong laws fail to contain crime beyond a point. Too much heavy handedness by the State in areas of strife and conflict erodes the legitimacy of the power. Too few students per teacher decreases the productivity of discussions in a classroom of wary teens. Just like a heavy, strong armour reduced the mobility & agility of Goliath against David.

It would therefore be fitting to quote Gladwell from the book-
"The powerful are not as powerful as they seem- nor the weak as weak".
Thus, life is much more of what we make out of even our perceived disadvantages.

Spirituality for Dummies 1: Common Misconceptions & Myths

I had initially named this draft as "Spirituality for laymen", but gender neutrality matters, hence the title. I consider myself a dummy as well, just that I am slightly more familiar with spirituality than an absolute novice.  Anyway, before the essence of the message of this post is lost by the readers in the rush to judge and give opinions just for the sake of satisfying one's ego in this new era debate of "trolls" without even trying or genuinely listening to something (and feeling "empowered" by the anonymity provided by internet) let me start with some disclaimers/myths.

1. The concepts of Guru & Bhakti, though highly regarded in India, have of late been maligned by the likes of  Gurmeet Ram Rahim & Asaram. A Guru is a principle, a consciousness, NOT a person/godman, in the Yogic and most Indian/Oriental philosophies. A Guru is different from a teacher. English vocabulary often is extremely insufficient in describing many Sanskrit terms related to Indian philosophies. Bhakti , similarly, can be closely expressed by the word devotion. It does not mean necessarily following something blindly. Acknowledging the presence of Guru (the larger consciousness of nature or "Brahman" as mentioned in Upanishads) simply means that you acknowledge the vastness of something that you do not and cannot know entirely, and see it as a force that answers the doubts (even the silliest ones) and questions that arise in your mind. It allows one to be constantly aware of one's limitations as well as the limitless possibilities despite those "impermanent" limitations. Similarly, Bhakti or devotion is a quality of awareness/consciousness, which translates into love for something higher. In fact Narad Bhakti Sutras designate Bhakti/devotion as the highest form of love.
2. Many of these concepts remain plain intellectual gossip until they are experienced. Yoga is a beautiful way to experience it. So is the company of the wise or seers. Unless experienced, these principles cannot be brought into our day to day life. So if one feels that this is intellectual drama, one needs to focus more on aspects that facilitate your experience.
3. Philosophy in India is called "Darshan" in Sanskrit & Hindi. This simply means that it is what has been "seen" by "seers", who were often practitioners of yoga (not just asanas, but the Ashtanga or eight fold path of Yam, Niyam, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dhaarana, Dhyana & Samadhi OR Bhakti/Karma/Gyaan/Dhyan Yog). If it sounds plain intellectual gymnastics to a person, it is not "darshan" at all because it hasn't translated into experience for him/her. Yoga provides us with the tools to experience those states of consciousness from which these philosophies have emanated.
4. Being intellectual and logical/rational is often seen wrongly as against Bhakti or Guru or "Darshan". Sadly, we revel when our philosophers like Adi Sankaracharya are celebrated for their intellectual theories on consciousness, but forget that he was the same person who exalted the Guru principle through his beautiful verses in Guru Paduka Stotram and sang paeans glorifying the emotion of Bhakti through "Bhaja Govindam". In fact, legend  goes that he composed Bhaja Govindam on seeing the futility of an old man trying hard to understand the intricacies of Sanskrit grammar while he was walking by a Ganga ghat. Singing the praise of Govind was an easier way to salvation "here and now" than mastery over Sanskrit, only for the simple reason that it changes the quality of awareness and hence the experiences of life.
5. Spirituality is for old age- Spirituality is the art of keeping your spirit up. It enhances your experience of life. What is the use of enhancing your experience of life if you don't have enough time to live? Shiva was perpetually in meditation in Kailasa. The sole purpose of the Gods in wanting him to marry Parvati was to bring his knowledge to the world rather than keep it confined to the Himalayas. It keeps you in touch with your conscience and empowers you to make better decisions in life. How can it help if you leave it for the time after you have already made all the important decisions? What use would Bhagvad Gita be of if it were not revealed to Arjuna when he needed it the most- in the unkindest "real" world situation possible, i.e. the war of Mahabharata?
6. "We don't believe in spirituality. We just have faith in basic human values/goodness"- This is an oxymoron. Spirituality IS about basic human goodness. While as a beginner we have faith in human values, spirituality is just about enhancing our knowledge of and enriching our expression and vocabulary of the ways in which these values manifest in real life. To me, spirituality is trying to understand how things/life work(s) in this world and adapt myself accordingly to save my energies by fixing my priorities and being very conscious of how, where and when I invest myself into. My father does not listen to any discourses unlike my mother. He does his job perfectly like she (my mom) does, is kind enough to people to help them whenever he can, is open to interacting with people from views diametrically opposite to his and genuinely learn from them (not just intellectual debating or finding solace in complaining together), and to my surprise, open to Yoga & its sister sciences when its mechanism is explained to him. He is a Karma Yogi in disguise in a sense. And these qualities have enabled him to take some decisions which I think were far more visionary than most people in the society around him. Though he might not use the word "spiritual" for himself, if this is not spirituality, I can't see what else is. I hope I am able to get my point across. Mere calling oneself spiritual is a bad way to be spiritual. The actions need to reflect the quality of consciousness, and they often do.
7. "We are too busy for this"- Well, few people know that Mahatma Gandhi meditated for an hour daily. And on days when he was much busier than other days, he meditated twice. The point is, that if we can enhance our grasp of the basics of how life works, we will find it easier to make way for the things we want without resorting to extremes. The people in most rush often end up doing much less than what they thought they would. Those who have lesser difficulty in their thoughts getting translated into actions & reality often are highly aware of at least themselves. We are not just our body. There are multiple layers of consciousness beyond this "body", which is often discarded as soon as we die. These other layers of our existence (English can only express it as mind/soul, but there is a wealth of terms in Sanskrit for the numerous different aspects) affect the way we work and interact with the world. Their knowledge gives us a broader awareness and perspective of life. It enables us to take more informed decisions and hold ourselves better in crises. It empowers our actions to better stand the tests of time.

Thus, spirituality is just the art of enhancing our awareness of these layers of our existence beyond just the body, i.e., the spirit. It is NOT the end, nothing is. But it definitely is a very powerful tool for watching your own mind and the drama it creates- if one can watch this calmly, the manifestation of thoughts into reality becomes much less painful. This is why Patanjali Yoga Sutras say "heyam dukham anagatam" or yoga reduces the misery that hasn't even come to us yet. Put simply, spirituality is just keeping the spirit alive with naturalness, innocence and enthusiasm. This more often than not, more than makes up for the Machiavellian scheming, with Karma doing its job perfectly in the long run.