Have been contemplating some changes for long now, will talk more about them on further posts.
Felt I got certain on some points, so I must write.
There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that its completely impossible to label anyone of us.
Everyone has an idea of good and bad. What wrongs people do to others, might be inflicted upon you as well by them till you are their image of 'good'.
If I gotta understand somebody, I gotta understand that he/she has a natural though process, emotions and a necessary selfishness.
"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a charm for the weak. That is all that can be said of them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account." (Wilde)
If a promise be needed, you lack trust, and your purpose is all awry.
I promise to not give any promise from now on.
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6 comments:
Oscar Wilde also said “It's a sorry man who can not invent an Oscar Wilde quote to fit his situation.”
Its best he is ignored.
//Everyone has an idea of good and bad.
Mine is pretty simple. Whatever directly or indirectly gives life health and happiness to you AND others is good. Whatever directly or indirectly gives death pain or misery to you AND others is bad. Sometimes the AND part creates some complications. Then I take the intuitive weighted average. e.g. if I have been wronged by a person,thw weightage I give to that person(')(s)(')* happiness reduces. In rare cases it may even get a negative value. People close to me may get a higher weightage than me sometimes. The overall goodness of the action would be weighted average of good/bad it does to all concerned with/affected by the action.
When I say weighted average, it may not necessarily be a linear one. It may be some higher power of happiness, happiness as exponent, higher power of weightage, or maybe that constant person specific weightage as exponential power to the happiness, oe maybe something different or more/less complex! Since I don't know EXACTLY how I assign the weightages, or exact formula. So I call it intuitive weighted average.
Also, the go/no go threshold of the average may not be zero. eg say it brings misery (negative happiness) to my 'enemies' i.e. persons of less or negative weightage factor, but overall weighted average consiering them, myself and my 'allies' is positive, but only a little, I dont necessarily bother with it, thus ending up being 'magnanimous'.
I guess if people would stop having dogmatic notions of good or bad, and maybe judge the goodness or badness of a person based on such weighted average of overall happiness factor of the person's actions, they might not find many people on whom it is necessary to inflict wrongs to make them their image of good :P
Regarding the Wilde quote:
Why do I sometimes (more often than I would tend to like.) find you fixating on negatives?
In fact, this may not even be the true 'final' opinion of Wilde. He was a writer. This is just something one of the characters says in some context. Copy paste this complete url. I am too bored to provide hyperlink:
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Ett09eLWE5oC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=%22good+resolutions+are+useless+attempts+to+interfere+with+scientific+laws.+Their+origin+is+pure+vanity.+Their+result+is+absolutely+nil.+They+give+us+now+and+then,+some+of+those+luxurious+sterile+emotions+that+have+a+charm+for+the+weak.+That+is+all+that+can+be+said+of+them.+They+are+simply+cheques+th%22&source=bl&ots=fUsJ9XzieA&sig=OR2yRhkBIsCgwNP-6RkdQx8TMmk&hl=en&ei=Lv_cS5axOoaxrAfaroHwBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22good%20resolutions%20are%20useless%20attempts%20to%20interfere%20with%20scientific%20laws.%20Their%20origin%20is%20pure%20vanity.%20Their%20result%20is%20absolutely%20nil.%20They%20give%20us%20now%20and%20then%2C%20some%20of%20those%20luxurious%20sterile%20emotions%20that%20have%20a%20charm%20for%20the%20weak.%20That%20is%20all%20that%20can%20be%20said%20of%20them.%20They%20are%20simply%20cheques%20th%22&f=false
Or just search the quote and click on google books link in result.
Attributing this to be Wilde's opinion or statement is absurd. e.g., suppose one of Wilde's book characters says "I think I am going to kill the president. In fact I killed the previous one too!". Can you put it as an "Oscar Wilde Quote"?
Anyways, you started the post with something like a promise, and ended saying you cant give a promise :P
And did you say 'lack of trust'? Yes we lack trust. You made it so. You make statements of future actions to us, but don't follow up. So we lost trust in the statements. So yes, promise is needed, hoping you might give it more importance than statements :P
Umm, why am I feeling more and more that you tend to fixate on the negatives? Anyways its not as bad as
Manu, Stupido,
Wilde is not god for me.
I just recognize those words which resonate with me, and use them since they are better put than mine regardless in which condition they were put down(whether Wilde wrote it as his thoughts or his negative characters etc-)
Wilde's quote was not the inspiration behind my decision either.
and BTW Stupido, yes, that why I'll give no words of prediction from now on too :D since its hard to predict myself
Awesome post.. I never thought about it this way. I do agree with the fact that everyone has their own definition of good and bad and that something white for one person may be black for another person.
This line really made me think - "If a promise be needed, you lack trust, and your purpose is all awry."
I remember one quote.. I don't know where I read it, but here it goes
"Adversity brings out the best in you"
Anonymous,
*Thumbs up * to your quotation in bold.
You got it right mate :)
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