Anandabazar Patrika - Editorial

Anandabazar Patrika - Editorial

MAX THE WORTHINESS CAT

Max the Worthiness Cat
What a Cat is Max! Every patience does he tax,
At the rise of the sun or the setting of the moon,
Time means nothing at all, only comforts one and all!

A miaow at the door, a gentle scratch of his paw,
'Let me in, it's my wish, I've come home for some fish,
Add some milk and I'm done - a long night, I've had fun!'

More miaows and some prancing, tail moving and dancing.
Expectant - 'I'm here! Don't muck about dear!
I'm famished, with thirst. Attend to me FIRST!'

All his needs will be there, he just knows that I care,
Snappy Tom, milk galore, he knows there is more,
And the world's at his feet. What a cat, so discreet!

Now licking his lips as he wriggles those hips,
'Thanks a lot, it was great, now I'm off for a spate
Of the sun and a rest, I deserve just the best!' Yanis Bayada

THE 65TH SQUARE : CHESS AND LIFE

"The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations. The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess."
H.G. Wells, Certain Personal Matters, 1898

Life is a game, and the only game is real life. - Anonymous

Perhaps it is not just plain coincidence that chess is much more than just a game of 64 squares. There is much more than meets the eye. To an ardent chess player, the game is much more than just a matter of passion. I would rather call it a reflection of life. If you try to correlate between a game of well played chess and the life that unfolds around you everyday and every night, you will be mesmerized by the striking similarities between the two. In fact one can tell your attitude towards life from the way you play a game of chess. The rules that you apply in a game of chess holds true for life as well albeit in a modified manner. Lets go a bit deeper into this . In life we get a second chance most of the time. However grave the mistake may be, we always get a chance to redeem it, to correct the wrongs we have done before, to turn the tables around. But sometimes we fail to take the chance and commit a second blunder which costs us much more, sometimes our life even. The situation is exactly the same in chess. Many a times we make a blunder by misinterpreting a situation, loosing some material in the process. It happens very frequently and in almost every game. But the problem arises when we start fretting over the lost piece, thinking about the loss and not concentrating ahead. That's when we make the second mistake when our opponent catches us off-guard. More often it is the second mistake that costs us the game.

In chess there is simply no room for negative emotions. Anger will not help you; frustration will certainly not help you. Being determined to drive your opponent into the dust will not even help you. In fact, such attitudes make things far worse, as they cause you to rush your judgments, underestimate your opponent, and open yourself to irrational decisions with no connection the board. If you adopt the attitude that you “should” be winning — and that whatever is happening is somehow the universe being out to get you — well, on those days my ratings take a sharp dive.

However, this is not to say that chess should be played without feeling. In fact, a fine aesthetic sense can greatly assist you, by allowing your unconscious to express its opinions through showing you that a certain position “feels wrong”. Or feelings of graciousness can lead you to appreciate your opponent's skill — and thus permit your mind to see things from his side, sometimes making his plans much clearer to you.

In short, chess is best played from a standpoint of subtle and joyful calm: not to be rushed; where winning has little emotional value; and where the game itself is worthy of a complete absorption of heart (in the form of caring about the quality of your position) and mind (by pouring through calculations, rather than ranting why things have reached their current state).

In chess there is a move called "Zugzwang" which is a German term for the obligation to move. All legal moves lead to a worsening of the position. The concept is an important weapon in the endgame, and occasionally arises in the middle game. in simple term it means whatever move you give will hurt your position-maybe lead to some material loss, or worse lead to a position leading to checkmate. In life too, sometimes our moves backfire on us. Just think of the economic crisis that rattled the east Asian economy a decade ago. Many businessmen tried to bail themselves out of this crisis by taking loans from foreign banks. But this fiasco spelt doom for them as the currency further devalued. Many of them went broke, others had to sell most of their businesses to repay the debt.

Or take the move called "En Passant" for example. It is a French word which means in passing. This move has special relevance in this fast-paced world that we see today. We don't have anytime to stay back and think. Trying to get first everywhere makes us more vulnerable as we try to overlook the dangers that await us at some dark corners. En passant is the move by which you can take the enemy pawn when it moves two squares forward at the beginning of its journey. The pawn overlooked the imminent threat and thus got engulfed by the enemy pawn that devoured it at the first opportunity. In real life too, you got to be careful or all of a sudden you will find yourself out of the game.

Benjamin Franklin said this almost 200 years ago....

"The Game of chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of chess, in which we have points to gain, and competition or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or want of it.
By playing at chess then, we may learn:
First, foresight...Second, circumspection...Third, caution...
And lastly, we learn by chess the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs; the habit of hoping for a favorable chance, and that of persevering in the secrets of resources."
- Benjamin Franklin

Playing & studying the game has definitely had a big impact on how I live my life and pursue my goals. Chess has taught me not to live in a reactionary way, allowing circumstances to dictate decisions I make. Many people, perhaps most people, allow life to force them into a position they never desired to be in. Just like a good chess player can overwhelm a novice, forcing him to react to threats, to make moves he doesn't want to. Many people allow life to do that to them.

It might be a career they settled for, or some other situation they feel they are powerless to get out of. I was struggling in a job where I wasn't really happy, with a company that didn't have a clear picture of where they wanted to go. And it was during my chess studies that I decided I needed to apply the principles of the game to my life. I needed to make some clear decisions about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with my life - and make deliberate decisions about getting there. So I did. Now, a few years later, we're living where we want to be living, and pursuing the goals we set out for ourselves.

Of course we can't control everything, chess has something to say on that note as well. You are only allowed to make every other move on the board. Only 50% of what happens is in your direct control... your opponent has his opportunities. A certain amount of unpredictability enters in. But the game teaches you that even with this uncertainty, the stronger you plan, the better the chances are that you will be successful. It may not work out exactly the way you intended, but invariably good things happen. In fact, I've found that as I pursue the general idea of my plan, certain unforseen opportunities often present themselves. True for chess, true for life.

TOTAL RECALL

TNT FOR THE BRAIN

Tired of the repetitive, pointless, run-of-the-mill New Year’s Resolutions like quitting smoking, losing weight and getting fit? These are the most resolved and least achieved resolutions, made in the heat of New Year celebrations. Achieving anything requires you to put your mind to the task - but what if your mind’s simply not up to it? What if your brain has been subjected to years of abuse ? Parental influence. Bandwagon-hopping. Too much FOX News. It’s time to think for yourself.

Here’s a set of New Year’s Resolutions for your Brain. The aim is to develop critical thinking skills and the love of lifelong learning. These things do not come naturally - they need practise. But what they will do is make your life a whole lot more enjoyable and clarify your whole reason for existence. Nobody can clarify this for you, but you.

1. Empathize
There are two sides to every story. Just because one person or one website says something against another, it doesn’t mean it’s right. People fight. More importantly, people have their reasons for fighting. We have to ask “why?” and we have to search for the answers. This powerful Phil Collins lyric demands that people start to empathize if they want to truly work out how to heal:

White man turns the corner, finds himself within a different world
Ghetto kid grabs his shoulder, throws him up against the wall
He says “would you respect me if I didn’t have this gun?”
“‘Cos without it, I don’t get it, and that’s why I carry one.”

2. Analyze
Your parents taught you what they wanted to teach you. Is it safe to expect everything that they taught you to be the truth or to be right? Culture and custom are great for defining a society or even a nation, but we know the ideologies of some nations and religions are questionable. But then again, they probably know your nation and/or religion are questionable. So who’s right? Don’t blindly accept the hand you’re dealt, because life is not a game of Poker. You are permitted to make up your own mind. But to do that, we need to develop the skill of recognizing the underlying details of important facts or patterns that are not always readily visible. Break the cycle. Investigate. Research. Then…

3. Rationalize
Learn the difference between critical and non-critical information. Many irrational concepts will always appear in the mix - that’s the human influence. It is important to be able to identify and filter out baseless contradiction and to give appropriate weight to emotional argument. Based on all of the evidence found, employ logic and reason as the process of drawing to a conclusion. It’s better to be rational than irrational.

4. Realize
It’s one thing to know, it’s another thing to understand. Realization is coming to understand something clearly and distinctly. Understanding is however one of the more complex concepts we face in humanity and it is the lack of understanding that brings about confusion and alternative hypotheses. Man desires answers, but where they are unobtainable, Man readily plays the supernatural card. History has shown us that among humans, this card trumps all others - even when plausible answers are discovered. Always strive to understand, but if you don’t, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I don’t understand that…yet.”

5. Criticize
If you know something is wrong and you know why it it is wrong, stick your head up and say or do something about it. But criticism is only of value if you can show why that criticism is justified. Criticism is not contradiction. Criticism is making a judgment as to the merit, effectiveness, utility or correctness of the object in question. It involves discussing both sides of the argument. It involves helping the one being criticized to realize their mistake. If we don’t criticize, we allow false definitions and concepts to propagate. If you’ve worked through resolutions 1 through 4, you’ve earned the right to 5.

6. Exercise
The human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons, which are electrically active brain cells that process information. Each neuron is linked to as many as 10,000 others. These links, or synapses, are crucial to the biological computations that underlie perception and thought. Just as muscles can be developed then can lose tone and strength without ongoing excercise, neural links are formed throughout schooling and can be lost without ongoing brain exercises. Give yourself the time to say once a month work on some puzzles. By practising solving puzzles, you are obviously improving your thought-processes of retrieving, storing and arranging information in an optimal fashion; finding or originating a set of optional hypotheses which can make sense of data; reducing the options by elimination until the correct or best answer or answers have been isolated; and the communication of that answer. A mind enhanced by a little interesting and enjoyable training helps open your eyes to the solution of everyday problems - of life and the desire for success. Buy a puzzle book or try my Enigma Challenge.

7. Synthesize
Don’t try this one until you’ve achieved the first five resolutions. Synthesis is where you show everyone your well-rounded cranial abilities by combining new information with existing knowledge to form and express an original idea or interpretation. It’s the pulling together of concepts and information to develop a common framework for understanding or to create and share a new idea. If you cannot empathize, analyze, rationalize, realize and criticize, then you’ll probably synthesize some pretty stupid ideas - and we’ve all seen them before…

If you decide to make these resolutions and work toward achieving them in 2007, I guarantee you will have a better life. It’s all in your mind. Have a Thoughtful New Year!

TERRORISM : A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

this is an interesting piece of article written by Galal Amin who happens to be the professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.
Read the article here

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD: THE FALLUJAH MASSACRE

the fallujah massacre:
the words break as i try to utter them-
the tears dry up in searing heat,
the alive huddle with the dead
as guns are raised to celebrate this feet.
the mothers cling to their dead son,
and watch their daughters writhe in pain-
and we only watch this over the net
and think we might go insane!
-saptarshi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwrsNRoyblE
and to get an ccount of the atrophy read the articles published on the net'
http://www.vialls.com/subliminalsuggestion/fallujah.html
incinearating iraqis:the napalm cover up
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9307.htmkilling without conscience: iraq the hidden war
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13420.htm