Wisdom & Quotes

It used to be that you read a great book or piece of poetry and quoted from it to underscore a point.  Now you just google "famous quotes by xyz or for an abc occasion"

Going by the amount of wisdom being spouted and re-circulated by people on Facebook, I'd assume we'd be a happier lot, and possibly that the collective wisdom today far exceeded what the Buddha had at his time. Yet we see him as enlightened.... I wonder why ?.... Perhaps we don't take ourselves seriously enough ? We need to be "told" ? 

Is the concept of original thought a misnomer ? 

  

Violent Entertainment

"We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives." - Tyler Durden

My thoughts this morning were about :

How possibly in the days of old, violence and gore on the battlefield was common place, and mere activities like obtaining food (the hunt) were in themselves fraught with danger. Even if you had a farm, you still had to slaughter and prepare the chicken / pig / sheep for consumption.

So when the average peasant got home, his need of rest & relaxation possibly aspired to ideals more lofty, such as poetry, music, art & sculpture.

Today however, we lead an emasculated existence and operate within our commercial & societal frameworks with greater decorum and civility, which possibly leads to a pronounced need to vent. And so we have TV programmes and films that give us the blood and aggression that we  -- perhaps secretly crave ? 

Day Trip to Chekittimammedi

Chekettimamedi is a small village about 30 Km NE of Hyderabad. We went there on a day-trip to explore what seemed like interesting terrain. We got there in an hour, and after about half an hour of trying to figure out a path to the lake with the car, we ditched it midfield amongst some brick kilns and slushy soil. Gathered up our gear and began the kilometer long walk through the countryside with poor visibility of the trail and a meandering dirt path. After about a 20 minute walk we entered a wide open space and could hear some kids voices much before we actually could see them. There were about half a dozen of them taking a dip in the lake as their mothers did their washing. We were something of a curiosity to them, as they quickly got out of the water and followed us to the other side of the lake to see what we were up to.

A quick lunch, and we began our climb up the hillock which was quite scenic and fairly easy for the kids. It took us about 30 minutes to find the peak as we circumnavigated the path. Alisha led the way, and found us a nice track using her good instincts.

Coloured Pencil Illustration