Author: S K Ditta
An eye for potential vindicated through actions
The ability to perceive, and to look deeper than mere appearances is a truly wonderful gift. Deeper insight is in the very constitution of some from birth. For others, it can at best be a gained skill. While for the former it comes effortlessly and naturally, for the latter it comes as a labored, deliberate…
Discovering optimistic individuals and their contribution to our world
In this interconnected modern world, there are possibilities like never before. The possibility of discovering optimistic individuals who can contribute positively to our world is definitely there. It is with optimism for such a possibility that enormous efforts have been made. From a local level to the global, this possibility drives so much human communication.…
John Steinbeck about understanding people
John Steinbeck is a great writer, as the Nobel committee seemed to have suggested. He answered the recognition in his own way. It is a pleasure even reading his quotes. As he says, understanding other people – that would seem rather obvious to be the cornerstone of communal living, of individuals co-existing in society. While…
Working with artists on Twitter – a privilege, a pleasure
I was just recalling in the last post about how more of my time was spent engaging with others. A lot of that engagement did come through Twitter. As many have found, it is a medium that allows for speed and brevity. Brevity, too, is not so much an issue now because it is easy…
Returning to writing after a gap
There is the possibility for greater communication through writing – much of it finding efficacy and peace due to privacy. Social networking seems to have put all that used to remain private out in the open. Maybe, there is still a getting used to this and a regaining of balance.
Creators’ Lives: The Need to Turn and Change
To the many creators among us, David J Rogers has these words of encouragement, coming from his experience and observation. He wants to encourage realization coming from within the creator’s mind itself. This ought to be recognized, and commended. I’ve met many quietly magnificently gifted people who frustrate me and whom I’ve felt like shaking…
We have the basis, the infrastructure to develop upon – further thoughts from Jeff Bezos
We have the basis today for a life hardly conceivable even a few decades ago. Great strides have been made, thanks to science, architecture, and the development of the arts through its expressions. A young person today can work at home, and then, walk to the nearest coffee shop. There he can sit alone or…
Jeff Bezos’s view of the world and his understanding of the future
Jeff Bezos, like others, has a worldview. A view of the world, or also called worldview, is such a fundamental part of our thinking. As one approaches toward the end of one’s expected life, one finds that it is this view that was guiding him as a person. Jeff Bezos’s view of the world would…
Solitude to sustain and nourish “The self”
The self is one of the earliest realities a person becomes aware of. Right from the time a child is born, he becomes aware of his own self. He senses and responds to his environment. He feels hunger, pain, and also the pleasurable sensations of being held and fed. In all of this, the child…
The adaptable self through the connections
The idea of the self is important and very clearly seen in human thinking. It is because humans are intelligent and aware. This consciousness we have through the workings of instincts, as well as very complex emotions, leads to the self. What the self is, becomes clear as it continues to be defined by experiences. …
Edward Hopper – The Book of Life
Edward Hopper is a painter of gloomy-looking paintings which don’t make us feel gloomy. Instead, they help us to recognise and accept the loneliness that so often lies at the heart of sadness. In his Automat, a woman sits alone drinking a cup of coffee. It is late and, to judge by her hat and coat,…
The continued need for writing
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”— Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the…
Ineffable
“Ineffable” is a post from the Renegade Press. The writer, Chris Nicholas, admits to his feelings of inadequacy and the later surprise at his own success. Presented below are three excerpts from his post, followed by the chance to buy his book, You. I’m thrilled about my future as both a writer and a man.…
Realization and changes
There is a lot in life that depends upon realization. We have the information before us a lot of the times. The judgments as to whether that information is correct or not are important but remain secondary. The more important factor is to move from interacting with the information and move on to the point…
Keeping some confidence in other human beings
It is difficult to communicate with others if you do not have any confidence in them. One of the things that make being a human special is the ability to communicate. It is the ability to put thoughts into words that make us unique. It is also, thus, reasonable to conclude that we alone are…
A fascination with wrist watches
I remember, as a young boy, this fascination with wristwatches. At the time, there was no deep philosophical reason for it. Watches simply were machines to be fascinated with. The way these were designed; how methodical and systematic was the movement of the hands to show the minutes, hours, and seconds! Specifically, some of the…
The notches on tools and the end of the world
We are surrounded by tools. From the ordinary nail cutter to the kitchen knife, to our smartwatches, mobile phones, Wi-Fi routers, and computers. Tools of all different kinds are all around us as evidence of human ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Somewhere, someone saw a need and decided to create a solution for it. In that creating…
Myths give us power – The Power of myth
Source: Myths give us power – The Power of myth When we think of a myth, we tend to think of old stories. Those stories may be real, or at least what we have come to think of as real. Or those stories may be so far removed from how we understand life, we may…
My own quotes and short thoughts on Twitter
I have created this page to put together all the quotes I have tweeted. On Twitter, I have tweeted several authors like Bertrand Russel, William Blake, Plato, Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzche, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore and others. This page, however, has only those quotes and short thoughts – with or without picture arrangements –…
The story of the deaf stonemason
In sharing this story, I take a particular pleasure. What this man did for us is of truly lasting value. He worked diligently at our place for just a few days. In those few days, he endeared himself by the way he worked, his mannerisms, how he paid no attention to supervision, and in all…
“The perennial fibre of truth” – Thomas Carlyle. What is it?
There is something inherently easy, comforting, and natural in reading what Thomas Carlyle has written. Insofar as I reached the point of his writing about “Worship” and the “devotion” that mankind has been familiar with, these words have been outstanding: Worship is transcendent wonder; wonder for which there is now no limit or measure; that…
Assumptions regarding the maturity of the self
Maturity isn’t a quality of only the mind. The simplicity of this understanding can have a transformative effect on an individual. It need not have any such effects on society. It might even be childish in itself to consider those ideas that can bind societies and lift them up. There have always been individuals in…
The vegetable vendor and his story
I would like to share with you today this short story. It’s true and from this morning itself. This morning, though, is only a passing moment in the story of this vegetable vendor. In this city of New Delhi, on this day after an early morning rain and now the sun shining through brightly, this…
Certain kinds of knowledge and the preservation of sincerity – with some thoughts from Thomas Carlyle
At a certain time in life, and not necessarily as a cause for or a result of an existential crisis, one might be confronted by certain questions. Those questions are about what one perceives of this world and his own attempts at making sense of what is the reality of our personal and collective existence. …
When attention is sustained, a small change can hold the potential for a major shift
Could it rightly be said that small things can hold the potential for a major shift? It is possible that you already understand the possibilities. It is possible, you have seen by way of observation, or experienced in your life when such a thing happens. A very simple, innocuous-seeming conversation, reading a passage in a…
Identity and self-expression; with some ideas from David Hume and Swami Vivekananda
The act of writing, as one does in one’s own journal or a personal diary, brings a person into a unique state of mind. It is the same state of mind as one has when one is talking to himself. These peculiar practices of writing to build a self-record and the talking to oneself are…
Think Big Sunday with Marsha
For the past few weeks, I have been participating every weekend in a campaign organized by Brand Influencer, Marsha Wright. It goes by the hashtag #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha The experience of interacting with others, the opportunity of sharing some ideas valuable to me, seeing the contributions of others, and at the end of it all being able…
The experience of engaging with people – how a change in views is a fundamental need and also beneficial?
There isn’t a greater art and more of it needed at this time than of engaging with people. Engaging with people should be considered the end of all philosophy, systems of belief, or even the systems of society. When a person engages in thinking out solutions to issues or attempts to foresee the end of…
Peace is the slowing down of contradictions
It has been observed in recent times, how the more we discuss matters the more we move away from peace. This cannot possibly be created by any one person or group of persons. The masses of millions of people who take out a portion from their own time to engage in arguments and debates have…
Remembering what my father said about belief
I remember my father as a wise man. He acquired a wisdom that comes from doing work with his own hands, tinkering with any machine for hours and finding a fix when many others would simply give up. And he had the gift of interacting with people face-to-face with an uncommon familiarity. I don’t know…
