icecandyman’s blog

OMG - what an analysis!!!

–>If they decide that whoever reaches first gets so much land etc, it will just be competetion, not a war. If you don”t define your ownership rights, there will be a bloody war. Look around the world, the most peaceful countries are where there are well-defined property rights. It is not necessary to have a well defined owner for everything at all times. But when 2 or more people may want the same thing, it is better you define it, else you will be fighting over it. And if as you say, you don”t own your life, and nobody else does; who will decide how your life should go?

Frankly Bidisha, what seems obvious to you is not to me. We agreed ownership is a matter of definition. Some supposedly great men said, and many of us keep repeating, stuff like who owns oceans, mountains etc and as if ownership debates start wars. You think animals with all their no ownership issues don”t fight with each other? I have been saying for a lot of time, and I will repeat again, man decided on defining property rights (ownership) to do away with physical force which is the only way to settle disputes in the animal kingdom.

If today (in general) nobody grabs your purse, it is because people acknowledge your ownership of it. If that was not well defined, you will have to fight every corner to retain your purse. The overwhelming majority of human beings are now not involved in any mortal combats (I bet which species has that kind of record). Man will fight over Mars and Moon only if they don”t define how two individuals should share it before going there.–>

Obviously we were not discussing lawful ownerships there, that we apply to our material things or the coastlines or the borders between countries. Those has been created by us for our convenience. But mankind have been around prior to those laws. Who owns the oceans, the mountains, the earth, the moon, the planets, the skies….. Is it necessary there be an owner to everything at all times… or that day is not far away when there would be a real star war for land ownership disputes on the moon, the mars :))

It is getting very long Anyway, you say you don”t own your life. Start with who do you think owns your life? I don”t see how your conclusions follow from the arguments you presented. For example, the manager has no rights that are not assigned to him by the actual owner of the rights. So he is doing stuff at the owner’’s pleasure. In short, he has no right over the property that supercedes the actual owner. Similarly, if somebody owns your life, you have no right over it if it’’s owner wishes something else. And ok, if you try to commit suicide you may not succeed or you might die tomorrow. Ok, there are other factors that affect our lives beyond our decisions, like they do our houses, cricket matches etc. What does this have to do with ownership? What has power got to do with ownership? If I want to destroy my house, but not able to do it because of various reasons, how does this imply I have no ownership of the house?

Another example I cannot resist myself from giving although its making my comment longer I own a book and maintained it absolutely like a new one for 7 years even after reading it twice over. A friend borrows it and forgets. I am lucky to get it back after several months with stains of dal on a few of the pages, colourful underlines and brackets on a few others indicating it had been read well and lovely sketches on the covers and also on the inside by her little daughter. Did my friend own the book or did I entrust the right on her to do so? So, exercising of power or rights has not much to do with ownership. It’s the right to use and how one uses that right that matters. Could it be so that we are just ‘using’ our lives, not owning it. And ‘ownership’ is a definition. I agree.

the means the person undertook for the act was not foolproof so s/he could not succeed :)) But to me it doesn’t appear to be just that. So how much power do we really have over our lives? According to me this life is a gift to us and we may lose it any moment. We are simply authorized to use it judiciously as long as it is with us and keep performing the duties expected of us (which may include aiming to study at Harvard or working for the UN or acting in Bollywood etc) and participate in the sustenance of the nature around us. ……Further I am also not quite convinced that “if you don””t own something, you don””t have the right to do anything with it.” Just think of a manager in any organization. S/he doesn’t own it yet s/he is entrusted with rights and authorized to take judicious decisions for the well-being of the organization as long as s/he is present in the organization. And s/he may at her/his own will, also misuse power to mess up with the affairs of the organization. –>

Sarath, I was thinking from a totally different angle when I thought about whether we own our lives. Freedom, independence from slavery is all fine and there is no doubt about it that we all wish to be independent and be the sole authority to decide on our rights, actions and about our lives. But the mere fact that I have no control over my birth, mind it, I am referring to the capital ‘I’ which keeps thinking I did this, I will do that, I own this, I am the best etc etc, that ‘I’ didn’t come to this world at its own will or power. Its life is a gift to it by nature. Neither it can live at its own will nor die. I may want to live till 100 years, but for a twist of fate that ‘I’ might not be around tomorrow onwards. I may want to die today and plunge into the act, but a twist of fate might land that ‘I’ in a hospital followed by the prison or mental asylum ultimately to survive for another 40 years! No one can kill oneself the day one wishes. Well Sarath, you may like to say –>

As for the suicide law, I think we all know in our hearts, how much sense it makes. Generations down the line, people may laugh. I don”t know. Simply, if I want to commit suicide does anybody seriously think that just because there is a law I would stop it. You don”t commit murder because you don”t like being hanged or spending time in jail. Similarly stealing, cheating etc. But suicide? If you want to stop somebody from doing that, you offer counselling, help etc. Let me make it clear - The day I wish it, I will kill myself. I will cut off my hand or my nail or my leg or my hair. If a society thinks that it has the right over my life and my body, I will fight it - because I am anyway damned - or I will abandon it. Best of luck to the society whose individuals don”t own their own lives.

Come on…don”t we own our life? then why fight for anything at all. Freedom struggle, independence, make choices whatever. If you don”t own something, you don”t have the right to do anything with it. But ownership is a definition. For example, a government can define anybody who has more than 6 members automatically owns a half of his neighbors property. It might seem unjust. But it is only a definition and it is arbitrary, and once it is defined everybody who has 6 members in his family “rightfully” gets half his neighbors wealth. And we define rights for various reasons - for sustenance of society, for personal happiness etc. And that way, I define I own my life. It’’s ownership is not subject of debate for me. That is, I won”t entertain anybody who comes to me and says “I think I own your life because…”. Whatever his reasons, I thought we were done with the concept of slavery, even it is parents that own us or society.–>

See what did I tell you? Now you have to explain it …to others, only if you have taken clue from my blog…and I dont know how I got that intuition that I mentione same thing about you in my blog!

Ok Sarath, am illuminated

We can keep talking endlessly about how our death results in suffering to others and so we “need” to live. But that need still comes from a “desire” that your near and dear ones have to be happy. And when a Buddha talks of no desires, he left everything his kingdom and all that, and he was advocating that. I, of course, don”t know whether Buddha is enlightened or if Prahlad is. I don”t understand how so many people can be so sure of these things - how can somebody who is not enlightened judge how enlightened a different person is, and somebody they never met? is it just a majority vote? how can we be sure that we were not cheated into it?

Bidisha, there is little doubt that I was sarcastic. Given that, I”ll answer each question individually. The super-profound statement I meant was “desire leads to suffering”. I did not mean any of your statements as super-profound. The sarcasm was directed at those misty eyed people who keep saying, “It is very profound. You have to go very deep” whenever a question is asked or go into interpretations and contexts. I never thought of you as “enlightened” and I mean it as a compliment. Even the next one about special class was directed at spiritual leaders, both present and past, and the semi-wanna be spiritual leaders on the blogging world. You obviously can deal with me anyway you deem fit.–>

–> I just used your comments as a springboard to launch a sarcastic attack against spiritual leaders who, I believe, reverse hypnotize people into believing they have problems when they really don”t and make a career out of their imagined troubles. As for your other comments below, Obviously there is no choice in being born as we are not there to make the choice. I don”t see how that equates to having a need to live. Once the mind starts reasoning, we choose to live, every moment of our lives; the conditions changed. I don”t see how you can say because we don”t have a choice over being born, we don”t have a choice over living. Living is the result of a desire; birth is not. That is what separates us from animals. Animals have to live as an instinct. We have to choose life, because we can choose death.

And Sarath, I could not understand your comment over my comment properly. I felt I had put forward some simple lines on difference between ‘need’ and ‘desire’. If conditionalities and contexts were figured in them why did those have to called ‘super-profound statements’ in the first place? Correct me if I am wrong Sarath, but I sensed a little sarcasm there, which I do not understand how or why I invited. And what is this “But, of course, “enlightened” people don””t mean these desires…….I don””t need a special class for that from the enlightened”? Since you are commenting on my comment this seems to be targeted at me. Again, correct me if I am wrong. Or, my idea of Sarath being an objective analyst to every situation, changes. Accordingly will change my nature of future interactions with the person irrespective of how learned or profound in knowledge s/he is.

–> ‘need for birth’ as well. And therefore, I feel, applying my reasoning, we ‘need to live’ according to nature’s processes. With limited reasoning, during times of testing, we might ‘desire not-to-live’. But applying our complete reasoning we would find that, because of our actions resulting from our ‘desire not-to-live’ either of our children, spouse, parents, siblings, friends and/or something else in the nature could be either deeply hurt or in serious trouble or in shame or something more. And so our reasoning mind would then decide that we ‘need to live’, naturally. And if the mind stretches its reasoning further it would find that since it needs to live, it can choose to live with reduced suffering by developing interest in various things under and around the sun and thus convert the ‘desire not-to-live’ or the ‘need to live’ into a ‘desire to live’ and try to be happy.

IC: “desire to live” : Living definitely leads to a lot of suffering. Why does a baby cry its heart out the moment it is born? It suffers the moment it is out of its mother’s womb.. and then the journey of suffering begins. Every time the baby cries when he is hungry or he wets itself, i.e when he suffers, does he express his ‘desire to live’ by crying or simply seeks attention and a solution to his physical discomfort? Can a baby’s seeking for physical comfort be termed as ‘desire to live’ or it is just a ‘natural instinct’? And even if it is ‘desire to live’ it is leading him to a series of suffering for his entire life, until and unless he attains enlightenment, which is also couple of years away, unless he is somebody like Bhakta Prahlad…………. .Also IC, can we ‘desire to be born’? If we cannot, how can we ‘desire to live’? We are born out of a nature’s process. If we are capable of applying our power over the ‘need to live’, we better apply this power over the –>

With regard to Bidisha’’s comment - There is a problem with these super-profound statements. Unchallenged, they masquerade as generalities. Once challenged so many conditionalities and contexts start appearing everywhere. Anyway, I desire and I am happy when my desires are fulfilled, and I am disappointed when they are not, though I reset a new goal. I can think of a 100 environmental desires that can make me happy - watching the Indian team win (or lose based on what I desire then ), Rafael Nadal beating Federer, and when I get an award for something. But, of course, “enlightened” people don”t mean these desires. They only talk of desires that lead to suffering. Well, I don”t need a special class for that from the enlightened. I know when I desire something above my means and abilities, something which isn”t possible by causal connections, it leads to suffering. Besides, I need to know suffering to appreciate happiness. Brilliant post, in my opinion, BTW.

the desires that you”ve classified under ”body” are basically ”needs” and needs are meant to be met. We ”need” air to breathe, we ”need” food to eat, we ”need” clothes to cover ourself and live in a civilised society, we ”need” shelter to protect ourselves from nature’’s fury, and we ”need” rest to energise ourselves

”Desire leads to suffering”.. we have heard this being said since ages by our great grandfathers, grandfathers and now fathers and a lot many others.. in fact we ourselves have begun to echo it The desire that is being referred here, according to me, is the one you have classified under ”environment” which is also but creation of the ”mind”.

Something has happpened to you. Something is unnatural here. Nowadays you have started posting terribly serious things..please