Captain Nemo, Nataulius And the Search for the Good and the Transcended

Google doodle of a few weeks ago reminded me of Jules Verne's birthday. I began reminiscing about my experience reading him. I read Jules Verne's "20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" and "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" during my teens. I liked the former better. The appeal to "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" is Captain Nemo and the indestructible "Nautalius". Captain Nemo is the Robin Hood of the seas. Nautalius is his submarine that becomes his instrument of mercy and justice.

When I was reading "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", during my more impressionable years, I couldn't help but believe that Captain Nemo and Nautalius were actually real. I thought and earnestly hoped that they existed somewhere deep in the world of the unknown.

I think there are two reasons for my incredulity. One, I saw the story as a validation of a strong urge to believe that there was more to the world than meets the eye. Two, a brave man using his brilliance and industry to outwit tyrants and help the poor was too good a story to not want it to be true.

At one level, the story is about escapism from reality above the surface of earth. At a deeper level, it is a story of transcendence beyond the mundane reductionism of life above the surface. When much of modernism is reductionistic in its outlook, believing only that which can be touched and seen to be real, Nataulius gives  hope for man to enlarge his vision to give credence to 'fantasy' - the unseen as part of his reality of life. In essence, my teen fascination with Captain Nemo belied a deep need for that which is good and that which has an element of transcendence beyond the qutodian.

But then, the naive admiration for Captain Nemo turned to horror when I came to the part of the story where Captain Nemo cold-heartedly tropedos a cruise ship belonging to the tyrant Nation he hates. Jules Verne describes in revitting language different states of animated drowning of the innocent passengers of that ship. Then I realized that Captain Nemo was really a tyrant in his own right and my fascination turned to disappointment and sorrow. Captain Nemo was too good to be true that he couldn't be true.

The very reason why we have the phrase 'too good to be true' is because there is none who is truly good. Even good people have, deep in them, evil urges which surfaces at some point. At that point the dreams get shattered. After all, we live in a FALLEN world. History is replete with such shattered dreams, from the Enlightenment driven French Revolution becoming a blood bath to Van Gogh committing suicide because he was too sensitive to tolerate the materialistic world around him. 

Disappointments not withstanding, man still has the deep urge to pursue that which is good and that which gives him a taste of transcendence. C.S.Lewis says, "that I am hungry probably means that there is some real thing called food." That we deeply hunger and thirst for goodness and transcendence in life probably means that there is some real Thing that is Good and Transcended.

My fascination and hope that Captain Nemo and the Natualius were real, was really my yearning for the Real Good and the Truly Transcended - God. Ultimately it is in the fascination, adoration and worship of God that man's need for the really Good and truly Transcended satisfied. 

My Valentine Meditations - On the Missing Valentine

Saint Valentine married people off and got killed for that. In a poll among young urban Americans one the questions was, 'Do you think marriage is obsolete?'. Majority said 'Yes'. Another question of the same poll said, 'Do you want to get married?' Majority said 'Yes'. Most want to marry, but aren't getting married. We live in a world of delayed marriages, if at all people marry. Modern times is missing its St.  Valentine.

The idea of obseletness of marriage is not a problem among just among urban elites. I was reading an article where a school teacher writes about the struggles he has in understanding the mindset and the maturity of the a few of his students who are pregnant in their teens. He discusses a bunch of questions two of which caught my attention. He asks the pregnant teen, "Do you think the father of your kid would marry you?". The pregnant girl answers, "I don't think so". "Do you think your having this child will affect your future marriage?". The girl answers, "I don't know". The girl sitting near by asnwers, "Nobody marries anymore, Mister". The whole class bursts out laughing. 

Where is the St. Valentine of this age who helps those who want to get married, but don't know why it isn't that simple as it once used to be? Is he in hiding? Have we lost him? Has he matyred again?

I was reading another article about some controversial debates about the implementation of the new Healthcare ACT in the US. The question on the table was about whether birth-control pill had to be made freely available in College campuses as part of the Healthcare mandate. The article also had some snippets about what students in college thought about the plan. One of the girls supporting the free distribution of pills said, "I am an adult. None can stop me from having sex. The only question is whether or not I am going about it in a healthy way."

Today, I read an article about how women in military are sexually abused by men. Last year alone there were 3200 reported cases of sexual abuse in the US Army. Most go unreported. One of the ladies said that when she complained about abuse to superiors, she was told to "things like this happen, suck it up".

The fundemental premise in the above statements is the idea that 'sex is a fundemental right'. The belief is that, "None can deny me my right to sex". It is almost has the primacy of the First Amendment right. What is missing there is the idea that 'sex is right, only when the season is right'. 

God created life to have different seasons. In one season, we are kids and then we become adults, then we become parents, then we become grandparents. Then we die. All of these seasons are held together by the 'bonds of love'. Love has different manifestations in different seasons. If we try to mess with the appropriate manifestation of love for a season, we end up marring that season itself.

Marriage is an important season in a person's life. When God instituted marriage he clearly defined the need for a new manifestation of love. He said, "for this reason man shall seperate from his father and mother and 'cleave' with his wife, and they shall be one body". Marriage ushers in a new season which is manifested by new expressions of love in the romantic and erotic forms. As long as the romantic and erotic forms of love are expressed towards the purpose of becoming one with the spouse, the God ordained manifestation of love brings joy to the season of marriage. 

Our modern society is trying to reengineer the manifestations of love and decouple it from its appropriate season so that people will have the individualistic RIGHT to gratify themselves with any form of love they want anytime with anyone.  The lines between the seasons of adulthoood and marriage gets blurred because people try to enjoy the marital manifestation of love before marriage. When the lines get blurred so much, eventually the season itslef finds no reason for existence. We are left with, "Nobody marries anymore, Mister". 

Premature experience of profound love forms can be very detrimental to love itself. In the movie 'Blue Valentine', the wife says that she has been sexually active since 13 had more than 25 partners. Still carrying the baggage from her old relationships, she is not able to enjoy sex with her husband. She is unable to make the transcition from 'lusting sex' to 'loving sex'. In the movie, this inability of hers becomes the breaking point of an already strained marriage. 

Marriage, kids and a stable family is the basis for any civilization to thrive. A civilization that does not have thriving marriages will die. The root cause of this predicament is the unwillingness to submit to Truth. The Truth as God instituted is for different life seasons to be coupled with appropriate manifestations of love. God joined sex with marriage. Let man not separate what God has joined, for if he does will end up destroying both of what he seperated. As the author of the book 'Unhooked' says, "we delay love to enjoy sex and end up losing both". 

St. Valentine stood by God's Truth to multiply and be fruitful. He supposedly stood against the edict of a selfish tyrant to the point of death. Our civilization needs, many who imbibing the spirit of St. Valentine will stand up for Truth of God and take a stand against their own selfish desire for gratification. God's Truth sets us free to experience life in 'all of its fullness' that spans across life's seasons, bonded in love. Sacrificing God's Truth in the altar of self-indulgence is the problem of the missing Valentine. 

Rabbit Hole - Small 's' science and Small 'g' god

Rabbit Hole is a moving account of how a young couple deal with the loss of their little son. The movie is real depiction of complicated emotions accompanying grief and guilt. The husband and wife have different ways of dealing with grief which cause them to drift apart from each other. The husband relives the memories of his son whereas the wife wants to erase anything that would remind her of her son. The husband religiously attends trauma management classes, whereas the wife avoids them and withdraws into herself.

There are multiple levels at which the movie is emotionally complex. As the husband and wife drift apart, the husband feels attracted to another dovorciee. The wife, Nicole Kidman, develops an affection for the teenager. Kidman's mother too lost her son. She found her comfort in the Church and tries to get Kidman to go and find solace in religion.

God-talk enervates Nicole Kidman. She thinks people who depend on God for comfort are weak and naive and delusional. In one of the trauma  management classes, one of the other couples says, "God took our daughter because He needed a little Angel". Nicole Kidman spits out a reply, "If God wanted an Angel, why couldn't He make one for Himself". The couple look confused as though that thought had never occured to them.

Kidman resists every attempt made my her husband and mother to help her get over her reclusive self-destructive proclivities. After much emotional wrangling between the husband, mother and sister, Nicole Kidman realizes she needs some kind of novelty to relieve herself. She finds a sense of novelty in a complicated friendship with the teenager whose car had run-over her son, while he was chasing their dog across the street.

Friendship with this teenager gets her introduced to the idea of 'Parallel Universes'. 'Parallel Universe' is a scientific hypothesis that just like this universe that we live in, there are other parallel universes where events may occur in a different way. The teen explains that Nicole Kidman's son may still be alive in another parallel universe. This thought that her son may be alive on another universe gives her the comfort she was seeking.

She asks the teenager if parallel universes were true. He replies, "it is basic science, it is about whether you want to BELIEVE in it". There is no 'hard' proof for the existence of parallel universes. But if one wants to 'believe' in them one can. She believes in the theory of Parallel Universes and feels her burden lift. One may ask what difference does it make if one were to believe that the dead kid lives in a Parallel Universe or in Heaven. From a scientific perspective, not much, actually. Both in one sense are unfalsifiable theories.

The movie highlights a poignant irony. Some people find comfort in god others find comfort in science. But the kind of God  and the kind of Science they believe in is small 'g' god and and small 's' science. It is something that exists 'only in the mind' of the 'believer'. They get themselves to believe in whatever they want, whether it be their small 'g' god wanting little kids for Angels or their small 's' science creating parallel universes where dead kids live. The only criterion is whether or not it gives them comfort in facing the painful questions of life. They are just 'personal truths' which aren't universally true. 

In the movie, after finding her comfort in small 's' science of Parallel Universes and realizing that her novelty with the teenage was fleeting, she goes back to her husband and decides to start DOING SOMETHING to get involved again in normal life - hosting parties smiling at people and playing along.

This movie reflects the mantra of this age - Existentialism which says, "BELIEVE in anything that makes sense whether it is small 's' science or small 'g' god to quell the sense of loss. Then, DO SOMETHING that gives you a sense of novelty and self-worth and tarry through the pain of living this absurd life with as much sense of normalcy as possible".

The lead-up to the last scene of the movie is a party hosted by Nicole an her husband where there is much activity and everyone is smiles. As the party and festivities fade, the final shot of the movie is the emptiness and the unanswered angst in the face of the couple.

Existentialism can never give real answers, it can only give a temporary relief. Real answers can only be found in big 'G' God and big 'S' Science' which are not 'consoling figments of imagination' (personal truths) but are a part of the disturbing REALITY out THERE that has been revealed and discovered. Belief in 'G' God and 'S' Science implies that THERE is Truth out THERE which one has to submit to it. Most people find this submission disturbing and would rather live in the meaningless pain temporaly comforted by 'personal truths', rather than submit to the Truth out THERE and re-orient their life to the transcended Vision depicted by the Truth.

The Fighter – From Futility to Freedom

The movie, 'The Fighter' is intense, cruel, depressing, uplifting and well made. It is based on a true story of human depravity, futility and redemption with a very subtle but pervasive dose of Irish Catholicism and piety. It is based on the autobiography of the boxer Micky Ward whose life as a boxer had a remarkable turnarounds.

Micky has the family which is a bunch of lazy step-sisters and a junkie step-brother Dicky (boxing trainer junkie) and a shrewd step-mom and dad none of whom really have much of a livelihood except to live off the money Micky makes fighting. Micky's step-brother , Dicky, was himself a boxer once and taught Micky boxing. Step-mom sets up matches for Micky whenever the family needs money, sometimes knowingly sending him to matches which are bad for his career and health. Dicky is Micky's trainer. Dicky seldom shows up for training because much of his time is spent in a crack-house with his junkie friends, almost always high with dope. Dicky a one time boxing champ, is now a dope addict and has a 5ish son who lives with step-mom and sisters. Micky has a daughter who lives with his ex-wife and her husband. You couldn't find a more broken family.

Micky's family is emotionally manipulative in living off Micky. Do their best to give an impression that they are a dotting family and are doing everything for Micky's best interests. Micky gets a new bartender girlfriend who fights (literally) against his family to extricate him from them and help him get on his own. Micky ponders detaching himself from the family much to the chagrin of his step brother Dicky, step-mom and step-sisters. Dicky's dope gets him in trouble. Micky in trying to help Dicky, gets his hand broken. Dicky lands in the prison. Micky’s career seems over.

With Dicky in prison, with his girlfriend’s support Micky gets a new start. There is a sense of normalcy and hope. But Micky realizes that as broken was Dicky was he was his best trainer. Dicky comes out of prison, and the destructive family dynamics return. Micky's step-Mom, Dicky, Micky's girlfriend take it on each other. Each of them tries to prove how so important they have been to Micky’s life and how they did what was best for Micky. Being unable to really prove their point, they get angry and indignant with each other and they all of them desert Micky.

Then comes a seminal moment when Micky's step-mom, Micky's brother, Micky's girlfriend get to see the utter depravity in their own selves. They realize how they in trying to appear to help Micky were really only trying to get to achieve their own selfish ends. Dicky only sought to re-establish his boxing career upon Micky’s accomplishments. Micky's step Mom supported Micky so that through him her dope addicted real son Dicky would have a second chance at life. They also wanted money from Micky’s fights. For Micky's broken 'treated-like-s***' bartender girlfriend, Micky was her best shot at life. If he failed, she too would lose her only chance for a better prospect in life.

This self-deprecating introspective realization starts with Dicky kneeling down in a dark passage in the prison and praying to God to give him a second chance. The introspective turn of events help each of them see their utter depravity, see how broken and in need of redemption they themselves are. Knowing who they REALLY are, they become more humble less overbearing.  Thus they become 'free' to try to do only their ‘little’ part to help Micky. Micky gets freed to be the best he can be. The rest is history.

Just like the Orwellian 'double-speak' human beings do a 'double-think'. They can really get themselves to think that they are helping someone when in truth they are only trying to help themselves. Their conscious mind thinks one thought (which makes them think they are selfless), but the unconscious thinks another 'repressed' selfish thought that serves the opposite interest. This unconscious selfish thought is repressed by another thought - that they are basically good people who have good attractive qualities which they think they can use to help others. They cannot see the duplicity in their seemingly selfless motives, unless they are willing to acknowledge the truth that there is nothing about them that is really good or attractive.

This is a deeply Christian principle that man is so deeply marred by the Fall and that he is so broken that even his best intentions and motives are colored by his deeply selfish nature. Christian theology calls this 'total depravity'. Only when man realizes that he is 'totally depraved' and so really needs help from God to become righteous, he is freed from his depraved self-seeking self and his redemption starts.

'The Fighter' depicts this cycle from futility to freedom so beautifully. There is initially the phase of 'double-think' and accompanying clash of selfish interests and self-exalting attitudes ultimatelyresulting in futility. Then there is a phase of realization of the deep ‘total depravity’ and submission to God following which is redemption and truer love, better community and gratitude towards God and life.

Thoughts on NTY Marriage Story Feature

New York Times has a weekly section on marriage which features the best marriage story among the ones submitted. Except when NYT wants to get some controversy raising attention, the marriages couples who have warm fluffy love stories are featured. Last week's feature unleashed a tirade of comments across the blogosphere about how despicable the feature was. It was the marriage of a former NBC anchor Carol Anne Riddell and the handsome president of media sales John Partilla, President of Global Media Sales.

It is a case of two divorcees gettting remarried. Divorcees getting remarried is a good thing. Sometimes, people get married to the wrong people and it would do much better for them and their kids to seperate rather than to be abused. But what was really noteworthy about this divorce and remarriage is that there was no history of abuse or ostentatious incompatibility in their original marriages, the reason why they divorced is because after having been married to a person for more than 10 years and having kids, these people suddenly realized that they were in love with someone else. But this is not the cause for the anger unleashed.

The story goes like this... Two families were friends who were going places from Restuarants to Vacations together for a few years until one of the spouses in each of the families get 'hitched' with each other and decide to dump the other spouse. The four people have 5 children between them. Basically Mr and Mrs. Ennis and Mr. and Mrs. Partilla are good friends until Mrs. Ennis and Mr. Partilla decide to get married and then dump their respective spouses. The dumped Mr. Ennis is himself a media executive who has held high-level jobs at IAC and News Corp and is now head of the digital media practice at the investment bank Petsky Prunier. The Ex Mrs. Partilla is a high level media executive as well.

We live in a world were somewhere between 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 marriages end up in divorce. I am sure this sort foursome scandals has happens quite a bit. But two reasons make this news feature infamous. One, the gumption that this couple had in sending their story to be featured the New York Times unmindful of the hurt it may cause their their ex-spouses and kids. Two, the notorious decision taken by NY to post it without even fact-checking with the ex-spouses. I don't intend to analyse NYT's motives, afer all the media loves to grab attention, besides NYT has a liberal worldview.

What stuck me most was the justification given the couple for their childishly selfish behavior. I wonder what made them think their story was an exemplary case of courage and bravery as exemplified in the comments below. I wonder what gave them a sense of entitlement to admiration of the readers.

Partilla says, “I didn’t believe in the word soul mate before, but now I do". Caroll says, “He said, ‘Remind me every day that the kids will be O.K.,’ I would say the kids are going to be great, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives making it so.” She adds, “I came to realize it wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift,” she said. “But I had to earn it. Were we brave enough to hold hands and jump?”

Having assumed that they have earned the readers admiration for being brave, they now indulge in quite a bit of self-pity feeling entitled to empathy.

NYT says, "As Mr. Partilla saw it, their options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly. “Pain or more pain,” was how he summarized it."

It is incredible that it was lost on them that they acted like kids who want to 'feel good' play and dont want to work hard at homework. They shun pain and want to do what makes them feel good with a mypoic view of only their own self-interest, causing pain to their ex-spouses who did not abuse them and their kids who were not abused in their original marriages either. They want the world to applaud them for yeilding their childish 'feel good' proclivities.

Caroll says, “My kids are going to look at me and know that I am flawed and not perfect, but also deeply in love,” she said. “We’re going to have a big, noisy, rich life, with more love and more people in it.”

Actually, in the photograph of cake cutting at the reception where the five children are pictured, the face of the eldest girl who is probably 12ish is void of any clear emotion except may be angst. The stark fact is that Caroll's sentiment of 'deeply in love' is directed at none except her own feelings of love. This is the kind of immaturity that Shakespeare describes as 'love loves love'.

Mr. Partilla feels that "...options were either to act on their feelings and break up their marriages or to deny their feelings and live dishonestly".

It is intresting that the couple associate dishonesty with a feeling rather than their 'unprovoked' betrayal of their original spousal commitment. When there was no abuse in their original marriage, that they betrayed their committment to their spouse isn't seen as being dishonest by these 'blind lovers'. It is incredible that to excersice some 'self-control' over their 'frivolous' feelings is seen as being dishonest. Aren't self-control and honesty virtues which go hand in hand?

I wonder what they tell their kids when the kids 'feel' like they want to always play pingpong video games and eat french fries and avoid the pain of doing homework and eating healthy. Would they encourage their kids to just be 'true' to the feelings and avoid all hardwork so that they wouldn't be dishonest to the way the feel about things??? Or would they teach them the virtue of self-control???

Interestingly, they are not alone in their skewed idea of dishonesty which is contained only within the realms of their feelings and has nothing to do with their commitment to a person. One of the very few bloggers who supported them said, "...I feel encouraged to see that they are loyal to how they feel".

Until quite recently, Loyalty was something that can only be attributed to people. Would loyalty have the same meaning even if it attributed to non-personalities? Perhaps, it seems only right that after  having desecrated the virtue of honesty, in the same vein, they should extend it to the other age-old virtue like loyalty. Of course, unsaid, the virtue of love has been desecrated the worst of all. When 'feelings' takes precedence to Truth there is no saying where it goes.

This is a malady of the age we live in - The Age of Sentimentality. It is an age where we give an inordinate importance to how we feel about things. Unlike our ancestors, our greatest goal in life isn't aligning our life to the Truth of life, rather we pursue a 'feel good' factor about life. Steve Jobs in one of his interviews said it best, "I don't care about what is right or wrong, I care about success". In fact, the reason (apart from rigid i-phone protocols) why i-phones aren't used it the corporate world is becuase they aren't robust equipments, they just 'feel good'.

Back in those days when families were still stable and psychatrists weren't in much demand, people had a sense of what the Truth was, they tried to align their life to the Truth. Self-control was a virtue because it helped them align their life to the right way to live. But now, we live in a post-modern (hyper-modern) world and so Truth is relative. When Truth becomes relative, feelings take precedence. The result is the 'abolition of manhood' and move back to 'childishness'.

C.S.Lewis said in his book, 'The Abolition of Man' says that our generation is creating men without chests. Humankind has a chest and a spine so that they can go against their basal instinct and put the interest of their kids and spouses above their own and be truly loving and develop character. Once we loose our handle on absolute Truth and relegate right and wrong to the realm of frivolous feelings, we are sowing seeds for decadence of our civilization because none of the virtues that make man a man means anything anymore except how they make you feel at different points in time. I believe it is in this vein that G.K.Chesterton said, "A civilization can stand in one angle, and fall in every other. We are now testing angles."

The entitlement that this couple have to be admired and empathized with after having acted so immaturely following their feelings, is symptom of a decadence that has set in our civiliation. When sentiments and feelings to take precedence over Virtues and Truth, man loses his manishness. When man loses his God given manish nature, the civilization he creates begins to die, albeit a slow death.

Secretariat - The Dilemma between Family and Legacy

I admire horses. In fact the very reason why I ride the Motorcycle is because the Motorcycle is the closest modern man can get to riding a horse. It is common probably knowledge that 'Secretariat' is an excellent movie about the most legendary Horse that ever lived. Here, I do not want to write about the obvious. I want to write what the movie has to do the dilemma that most people face between caring for family and following life's passion.

The movie has a spin that makes the viewer realize that the real hero of the movie is not the horse but its owner, Debbie. The movies starts off showing her as a home maker with a successful attorney for a husband and four kids, two of them adolescent, one of them almost outright rebellious, all of them still in school. Debbie is at a stage in a woman's life where the demands of the family is more than the demands of any full time career.

Unexpectedly her mother dies, and she goes back to her parent's ranch . She remembers the tender memories of her childhood with the horses and how her father loved them and was so proud of the legacy of having bred the finest horses. Her brother suggests that they sell off the horses with the ranch, pay the taxes and continue on with their own lives. Being a Harvard economists, he sees liquidation of assets as economically most sensible. Debbie a plain a simple homemaker, with a heart for horses, is unwilling to let the legacy of her father fade into oblivion.

She remembers her father telling her about horse racing, "it is not about whether others think if you have won. It is not even about whether you think you have won." She wants to attempt to build upon the legacy of her father. This means that she has to spend time in the ranch away from her family. Her dilemma is between catering to the demands of her family and building upon her father's legacy.

She chooses to make her father's legacy her own. Consequently, she shuttles between the Ranch and her family for many years. The Ranch looses money, the horses do not have a good trainer and she misses not being with her teenage daughters who are becoming more beautiful by the week. She cries over the phone, she cries in her bed alone, for missing the most important moments in her kids life. But her passion to keep the legacy alive keeps her going.

Her husband tells her that she can't have her spending his money on something that seemed only to be a huge drain. She hangs up the phone. It is at this stage that her brother makes a second attempt to convince her to sell off the ranch and the horses and get back to her "long neglected 'duty' as a mother and a wife". She replies, "Next time you talk to me about my duties as Mother and a Wife, you'll be a stranger to me".

Her life is split between her home and the Ranch for about three years and she against all odds, breeds the most legendary Horse that ever raced in recorded history. Her 'Secretariat' becomes a National Phenomenon. I was talking to someone at Church and he told me that he remembered the horse 'Secretariat' when he was a kid.

As I was watching the movie, I realized that the suspense wasn't really about the horse. I knew the horse would win, after all there cannot be a movie if it didn't. I was really curious to know how choosing the tougher option between family and her legacy affected Debbie's relationship with the family.

Her husband loving as he is, is getting impatient. I was brazing myself for a confrontation and a breakup in that family, similar to the one that happens  in the movie, "Nothing But the Truth", where a female reporter takes a stand upholding a journalistic principle and pays a huge price. She gets pilloried for sticking too much to her passionate principles and being a unfit mother and wife. Eventually, her husband dumps her. But this never happens in 'Secretariat'.

What happened in 'Secretariat' is beautiful. The result of her choice and shuttling between priorities, initially appears to have the effect of being estranged from the family but as time passes, her passion and legacy gets 'inherited' into her family. Her husband and children 'share' into the legacy she is building. The kids are overjoyed about the 'Secretariat'.   They are proud that their mother was bequeathing to them a great legacy. Her husband is at her back. Even her brother realizes that she made the right choice. She is known in the racing circles as the most attractive owner any horse ever had.

I think, herein lays the answer to the dilemma that many face when it comes to being with family and following ones passion. The essence of family is 'sharing'. All our successes, joys and sorrows are 'shared' and that sharing is what gives meaning to life. There are times when someone in the family feels a deep passion for something, at such times, a family that is true to its essence of 'shared experiences' can be a source of strength and meaning (not a liability) to helping that person to 'move out' achieve that which is passionately pursued and make that a part of their 'shared' legacy.

I believe family has this unique characteristic because the family was created by God to be a well-spring of joy and strength that results from shared experiences which becomes the 'bedrock' for men and women to 'move out' into the world and exercise their dominion over it making life more beautiful and more cherished for many, and most specially for the family itsef.

God Himself has His essence in the 'shared' experiences of His Triune nature (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Triune fellowship is His well-spring of joy. In fact, when God created the world, He did not just say, "I created the world". He rather said, "Let US create...", true to His Triune shared creative experience. He 'imputes' into the family, a part of the divine nature of being strengthened by 'shared experiences' and 'moving out' to create a legacy.

The family is thus a reflection of God's Triune nature of shared experiences and creative legacies. That is the reason why God wants family and procreation to be sacred rites. In as far as a family reflects the 'shared' experience within and 'moving out' - the creative legacy of the Triune nature, it shall be the most beautiful transcended experience of life. One does not have to chose between family and legacy. Rather, they mesh with each other and enrich each other as a true reflection of the Triune Creator's nature manifested through creative legacy strengthened by shared experiences.

Narnai - Voyage of the Dawn Trader

Just watched Narnia - Voyage of the Dawn trader - midnight show at Marquee - the first show in Houston theaters. In the first few minutes, I was a little disturbed that the screen writers had excersiced their artistic liberty quite a bit and I was afraid which part of the movie they would end up butchering... Now that I have seen the entire movie, I can affirm that my fears were unfounded. Indeed, the screen play writers have done a really good job in striking the balance between making the movie exciting and still holding on to the spirit of the Narnia Seriese.

I do wish the screen writers had not meddled with Aslan's stealthy appearances depicted in the book, but not much of a reason to be disappointed. I think the part where Edmund and Caspian turn against each other and how Aslan makes his fearsome presence felt shouldn't have been taken out of the movie. On the other hand, Aslan appearing in the mirror in Lucy's dream was quite a bit of digress from the book, but was most welcome.

The movies portrayal of the 'green mist' exposing human vulnerability was a brilliant improvisation of the book's 'darkness', which really tied the narrative together in a way that I think book does not. The 'grey mist' representing evil brings back the traitorous ambition of old evil witch into Edmund's conscience and the wanting to be 'materially' valuable into Lucy's.

I was glad Aslan's parting words, "In the other world I am known by a different name. The very reason you were brought into Narnia was so that you'll know me a little here, and better there.", was unaltered. After all, at the end of the day those are the words that give the Narnia the meaning that makes it eternally beautiful and true, Right?

Next Three Days – Love of God

I just saw (actually 4 days ago) the newest Russell Crowe movie ‘Next Three Days’. It is a intense thriller. After watching the movie I drove around the 40 mile 610 loop, among other things, reflecting on the movie and how it depicts the love of God.

In the movie, Russell Crowe’s wife gets arrested for a murder. She gets incarcerated because all evidence is against her. Russell is the only one who believes in her innocence. Incriminating evidence seals her doom. He vows to bring her out of prison. The wife, already suffering from a bit of inferiority complex goes into a self-destructive cycle. The more her tries to help, the more she resists and is spiteful. But still Russell perseveres believing in her innocence and tries to free her. She attempts suicide. He does not give up, he is at her bedside. 

This is amazingly similar to the love of God. In the Bible, God relates with man in a Father-Son relationship. But there is another very important, but less talked about, facet which is the Groom-Bride relationship. God is the Husband, human being is His Bride. He loves His Bride with an everlasting love. Even when we are spiteful and angry and allow our feelings of insecurity and inferiority to destroy us, He never gives up on us. Even if we decide to give up on us and attempt suicide, He never gives up on us. No matter how much we resist His plans for our freedom, He’ll not give up on us.

The wife has accepted her doomed life in the prison. She then realizes that only way to get him off his pointless endeavor to free her is to lie to him that she committed the crime. She does that. He does not flinch. He trusts her so much that he reaffirms her worth. He says, “I will not allow this prison to become your home”. 

The prison which the wife thinks has become her home, points to another metaphor in life - people thinking that living in chains is normal. Roussea said, "Man is born free, but every where he is in chains". Prison is bondage. Sin/hopelessness is bondage. Most people live in the prison of sin/faithlessness and think it is their home and that there is no hope for real freedom in life. They make a home of the prison of sin/hopelessness. But God does not want us to settle for a life of faithless  bondage. Jesus Christ says, “I have come to show the Truth. I am the Truth and Truth shall set you free.”

In the movie, to redeem her, Russell stoops down to the point of becoming a criminal himself. Till the end she does not see her worth and tries to jeopardize his carefully laid plans for her freedom. But he keeps on loving her and trusting her to redeem her to himself and start a new life in a new home far off in distant shores.

In real life, God allowed His own Son (Jesus Christ) to be killed in order that through Him, no matter how much we self-destructively jeopardize His plans for our everlasting freedom, we will not succeed. His Truth will set us free, because He will not give upon us. He loves us as a trusting Husband loves His self-doubting wife. No matter how much we resist, He’ll make us find our freedom and journey to the new Home He has prepared for us a on the distant Shores where we’ll live as free people fully redeemed and happy in Him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.(Rom 8:28-39).

A Joyful Thanks Giving with Adam's family

In a world of increasing globalization and folks move far away from family into new places and they face some dreary dynamics during festivals. During festivals, when people usually huddle together with their families, some of the products of globalization staying in alien places, like myself, end up falling through the cracks. My experience this time with Thanks Giving was pretty close to falling through the cracks. The family that I usually fellowship with during Thanks Giving was vacationing elsewhere. My other plan was to visit my old pal from college living in San Antonio. That too did not work out. 

So yesterday, with nowhere to celebrate Thanks Giving, I was looking back and wondering why I was finding myself falling through the cracks? I told myself that I was going to be cheerful and went to watch the newly released Disney's animation movie 'Tangled'. The movie is well-made. Coming out of the movie and riding back home, I still had the nagging feeling of falling through the cracks. I had to have the Thanks Giving meal somewhere. I figured that the only option I had was to celebrate Thanks Giving at some good restaurant in Houston and have a good Thanks Giving meal. So I made a mental note that I needed to get on Google to find a good Restaurant. 

On the way home, I stopped at the chapel to pray. I think God’s answer to my wonderment was, “Well Dude, life has many ‘seasons’. You are in one. There are advantages and disadvantaged in each ‘season’. You are now experiencing one of the few disadvantage of single life, so don’t sulk. Be of good cheer”. I was happy again. After all, single life does have advantages - I wanted to see ‘Tangled’ and in 10 mins I was in the theatre getting movie tickets, how many family guys can do it just like that? :P Every advantage in life has an equal and opposite disadvantage (on a side note, when one is Redeemed, the disadvantages workout for the ultimate good Rom 8:28).

Back home, I flipped open my laptop and Facebook stared back at me. I stared back at it like at an old friend who can’t really help. Facebook helps me make friends and keep friendships alive. Facebook can be everything cool, but it can't help my feeling of falling through the cracks, can it? No. Just then I saw the chat bar 'blinking' and it was my friend from Church, Adam. I thought, "Well this is unusual, why would Adam try to chat on Fb when we just met each other a couple of days earlier?” Anyways, I replied ‘Hey, Adam” and he asked me if I had seen the email he had sent. I checked yahoo and found his email asking me if I had plans for Thanks Giving. I said, ‘No’. He invited me to go with him to his parents place to celebrate Thanks Giving. Wow! the crack just closed beneath my feet. I was going to have a real Thanks Giving! Thank God!, I thought. I didn’t have to google a restaurant after all. Hmmmm… Facebook is kind of helps doesn’t it, of course Yahoo too!

I am glad I have Adam for a thoughtful friend. Adam is a cool chap who brings with him a contagious cheeriness and spreads it around freely. Within 10 seconds of getting into a group, he’ll have someone laughing over his funny and timely quips. He is a uniquely gifted guy.

So today morning I was up and ready by 10:00 AM. Adam picked me up on the way to his parent’s place. When I met his Mom and Sister, I knew where he got his sense of humor from. His Mom and Sister had loads of it that even his Sister’s dog was infected with cheer. Even the sight of dogs on the television excited him. I have never seen a dog wag its tail at dogs in the television. That was the first time in my life, I witnessed something worthy of a youtube video. Soon we had the extended family come in, and folks from Adam’s Mom’s and Step-Dad’s Church as well. We were a total of 16 people. One thing Adam posts on facebook more than any other topic is about his runs around memorial. When I met his family, I understood why it was so. One topic that got everyone of them enthused was running. I wasn't conversant on topics of running, but it was fascinating to watch their enthusiasm. Another aspect that was special about Adam's family was how they all did work almost all the time and cracked jokes and had fun. It was great just to be in the midst of people of good cheer, especially on Thanks Giving day. Gosh! I can’t imagine what I would have done in a restaurant, sitting alone. Thank God I didn’t have to.

Oh, I love the Thanks Giving meal. Every year, black Friday onwards, I look forward to the next Thanks Giving meal. My plate had Turkey, mashed potato, sweet potato, casserole beans, creamy carrots, cranberry sauce, garlic biscuit and a side that is made with bread, vegetables and chicken broth. I start with Turkey and then have a little potato and then beans and then bread and biscuit and then carrots and cranberry and then I’ll come back to the Turkey and repeat loop until plate is empty. And then go back for seconds… My taste buds tickle even now…

Oh, do I have to wait for another year for my next Thanks Giving meal? Yeah, I guess… God made life to be lived in ‘seasons’. One has to wait if one needs anything ‘special’. If I wanted, I could go to some restaurant right now and have a Thanks Giving meal, but if I did that then when the real festivities of Thanks Giving comes, I think it wouldn’t be as special anymore. It is important to wait for God’s timing on seasons, and not preempt Him, so that when the new ‘season’ turns up, it would really be special.

Speaking about something being 'special'... There is something special about festive foods. Does the food give the festivities the special flavor or is it the festive spirits that give food a brilliant taste and a sense of fulfillment? I think my Thanks Giving meal was tasty because of the hard work done by the Reeds, Adam’s Mom and Step-Dad. The food was fulfilling and special because of the festive spirits of people sharing the meal.

God make human beings in such a way that human beings can cherish special occasions. These occasions do not have survival value of their own, but they give value for survival. For example, if I had had my Thanks Giving meal in a restaurant I wouldn’t have died or anything, I would still have survived through the weekend, but it wouldn’t have been as meaningful. On the other hand when I have my Thanks Giving meal with a family, it gets to have a special meaning because of the thoughtfulness and love and affection that is extended to one who falls through the cracks. Such meaning gives value to survival itself. The moment such special occasions cease to be, ‘bare’ survival may not be valuable anymore.

So, what really makes Thanks Giving special is not just the sensation the nerve endings have when the turkey touches the taste buds. Rather, what makes Thanks Giving special and even gives the Turkey its flavor is the relationships that are built around this special meal. If I had had the same meal in a Restaurant, it would have had the same taste, but not the same meaning. It wouldn’t have been special at all. At the end of the day, it is the relationships that matter. What made my Thanks Giving special was being with the cheerful family of my friend Adam - his sweet Mom, pretty Sister, affable Step-Dad, most lively Uncle & Aunt, jovially conversant Step-Dad’s Mom and Pop and the ebullient family from Church. I am thankful to God for having  Adam for a friend. I am thankful to God for putting it into Adam’s heart to invite me over. I am Thankful to God that even half-way across the world, I have folks to celebrate Thanks Giving with. 

Teen Pregnancy Center - A Opportunity to be Drawn

God made life as a very beautiful experience so that He would be glorified through His creation. But because of the Fall, man possessing only a ‘dimmed’ image of His creator, lost his ability to appreciate the beauty of the created world as Originally intended. Fallen Man began to ‘twist’ the beautiful experiences God created into something that would serve his need to validate himself in his craving for selfish pleasure. One of the most beautiful experiences of life - procreation, has been immensely ‘twisted’ by fallen man. Consequently, the blessing of legitimate-sex, pregnancy and family has been twisted into a curse of lust, abortion and ‘radical’ individualism. Teen pregnancy is one of the effects of Fallen Man’s ‘twisting’ of the good that God created.

Thanks be to the Sovereign Lord who also created ‘Saving Grace’. Every time the Evil one tries to twist God’s good gift into something it was not meant to be, God who is Sovereign creates within that ‘twisted world’ an opportunity to ‘draw’ man to Himself and ‘untwist’ the effects of the Fall and turn the curse into a blessing. Even before Adam and Eve sinned, God created within the ‘twisted world’ the possibility of the Cross to ‘draw’ men to Himself. Every time man/woman finds himself/herself taking the brunt of the ‘twisted’ world, God creates within fallen context, a window of opportunity to ‘draw’ people to Himself. It is the mandate of the ‘born again’ Christian, to position himself/herself in that window of opportunity and be used as an instrument of God’s Sovereignty in untwisting the twisted and ‘drawing’ the fallen man to Himself. (This born again Christian should through the ‘Saving Grace of God’ endeavor to live life in its ‘untwisted’ Originally good form as seen through the ‘lens’ of the Scriptures.)

The Teen Pregnancy Help Centre creates that window of opportunity to those who feel Called by the Sovereign God to serve among those who are abortion minded. Last week, I completed a 12 hour training course at the ‘Teen Pregnancy Health Centre’. Even though I have always felt passionately for ‘pro life’ causes, I never did anything about it except may be attending the Lou Engle ‘pro life’ Fasting prayer which actually had  lasting impact on me. Then the issue moved to the back-burner, except whenever I came across something that has anything to do with pro-life message and I felt inspired to write about it.

The Sunday before last, when I was sitting at Church and someone announced that volunteers were needed at the ‘Teen Pregnancy Health Centre’, I felt impelled to volunteer even though I was apprehensive about how a man could help with something that seemed like woman’s business. Then in my interaction with the folks involved with the Centre, I realized that there was a lacuna for men peer counselors to counsel the gentlemen that walked-in with the damsel in distress. Being the only guy in the training room, I really appreciated every opportunity the trainers took to highlight the situations where a man can really add value to the mission at hand.

Our mission is really to help the people in crisis to see within their fallen situation, the beauty that God wants them to see and be ‘drawn’ to Him. Or mission is to reclaim to the glory of God that which the Evil one has ‘twisted’ to keep men blinded to the Truth of the Beauty of life God created. The Teen Pregnancy Centre is a place where the evil caused by men with ‘twisted’ perspectives of selfish-pleasure, is untwisted, healed and reclaimed for the glory of God.

The most beautiful experience that brings the great joy in life is a kid. But when a kid is formed in the womb of a woman in a context that is outside of God’s original intended framework for conception, the kid is often seen as burden because the (lady and in some cases the man as well) victim’s perception is colored by the Fallen circumstances. In such cases, the impetus is to just do away with the child.

The only way the child can be saved is by helping the victim see the child with the ‘unfallen’ eyes that the Saving Grace of God makes possible, in spite of the ‘twisted’ circumstance. The ‘Saving Grace’ of God ‘draws’ the victim close to the heart of God and strengthens him/her to break the cycle of victimization and untwist the twisted perspective and heal the wounds and help the Soul see the beauty He originally created in a child for man to cherish and enjoy.

During the training, of the many examples shared, one that I vividly remember illustrates this healing within of the fallen situation. A girl to be married in a few months gets raped by an evil stranger. The girl and the father come to the Pregnancy Centre ‘abortion minded’. The counselors advice against abortion and pray much. Miraculously, the girl’s fiancé agrees accept the kid as his own. The family decides not to abort. The kid is now 4 years old and much loved. Looking back, the child was a blessing to the family in more ways than one. Prior to this ordeal, the girl’s Father and Mother had been planning to separate because of irreconcilable differences, but this unexpected kid forced them to huddle together to support their daughter and this reignited their love for each other. A decision to stop the cycle of victimization and not abort was the greatest Blessing to that family.

This is one of the many stories of curse of the twisted world being turned to Blessings at the Teen Pregnancy Centre by the ‘Saving Grace’ of Jesus Christ. Much prayers and work is needed for someone to ‘stand in the gap’ and guide everyone who walks in the door into the window of opportunity to be ‘drawn’ to the beautiful God and be redeemed into the untwisted world He wants to Bless Fallen Men with. 

The Social Network - All about a Relationship!

The last line spoken in the movie ‘Social Network’ is "I don't think you are an a**hole, I just think you are trying hard to be one", the intern of the attorney speaks to Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook. In fact, that one line ‘says it all’ as far as the movie is concerned. But I think the movie also has another angle which gives the pithy observation an interesting meaning.

In the last scene of the movie following this astute observation, Mark, flips open his laptop, sends a Facebook friend request to his college sweet-heart whom he flippantly had humiliated for rejecting him, but still was deeply enamored about. He sits, 'refreshing' his Facebook page waiting calmly for a response, with a smile of a kid watching the rain, waiting for the bright sun to show up and lighten up his sullen afternoon. The movie ends.

In fact the first scene of the movie is in a bar where Mark is trying to convince this sweetheart into being his girlfriend. He says if she was his girlfriend she would have access to an exclusive club which she couldn’t otherwise get to at all. She doesn't seem impressed. He then foul-mouthedly shoots-off about how she, who would sleep with a door keeper to get to any club, was acting up as though she did not care to get into this exclusive club. She tells him 'go to hell'. Mark goes to his room and writes a scathing blog disparaging her about many things, one of which had to do with his opinions on her lack of features.

A casual viewer of the movie may say that Mark comes of as an a**hole. Yes, true, but I think there is also something else going on there. I think he really liked her and wanted to be with her. But being a nerd, with a brilliant analytic mind and challenged social and relational counter parts, he does not know how relationships work. In an effort to try to impress her into having a relationship with him, he blurts out about she getting access to exclusive clubs through him, which she could otherwise not even dream of getting into, all the while not realizing how much he was denigrating her sense of self-worth. Even when she is appalled by his analytic rationale, he does not still get it. He tries to justify his rationale by saying that she wouldn't get access to even into a less privileged club, if she wasn't willing to sleep with the doorkeeper. As horrible as it sounds, in his mind, he is only making an analytic argument to prove to her that he was worth a shot. Even though his rationale is odd, to say the least, his intent is to prove to her that he can provide for her something that makes her happy. She says 'go to hell'. Now, he is in rage, and pours his anger on the blog, dooming any possibility of reconciliation.

In venting out his rage at having been rejected, and wanting to salvage his sense of impressiveness of himself, he quickly creates a website that get so many hits within the first hour, that it brings down the Harvard computer network. He wanted to prove to himself that he as impressive enough win her back even after snubbing her. Creating a website in 1 hour and creating enough hits to bring down the network is awesome. In fact, it is this tryst that eventually leads him to create Facebook.

Someone may say that Mark comes off as an heartless a**hole. But disagree, I think he appears so because he is relationally and socially challenged. There is a scene where he meets her again by this time, now he is already a minor celebrity with a fan base at Harvard. Facebook has already made him a name. He with his impressive accolades walks to her and sheepishly asks to speak to her. He tries to tell her about Facebook. She refuses to even listen to him. Mark has the most perplexed look on his face, ever. He has hit a wall but he does not know how to get through it. He walks off confused and tells his friend that she refused to speak to him. His friend asks, "Well, did you apologize to her". His face registers, if only for a short while, the look of a guy who threw a million dollars into trash can because he did not know how dollar bills looked like. He was so relationally challenged that it did not even occur to him that he really needed to apologize, just as an analytically challenged person would read a sentence like this 'when A is not equal to B and B is not equal to C, then there is no way one can say that A is definitely not C', more than once but still find it confusing.

Mark's longing for his sweetheart does not stop here. Facebook is growing. He is famous. He meets with Sean Parker who created the infamous yet iconic phenomenon of Napster. Sean tells Mark that he created the prototype for Napster when his girlfriend dumped him and he wanted to prove he was valuable. Mark brightens up. He sees the parallel. Mark asks Sean what happened of that girlfriend after he became famous, “Did you two get back?” The question does not even register in Sean's mind, he is already showing off to his umpteenth one-night girlfriend. Sean is who I call 'a complete a**hole'. Mark is lost his heart still longing for his sweetheart.

The other high point of Mark's longing for his sweetheart is depicted at the seminal moment of his phenomenal achievement when Facebook crosses 1 million users for the first time. Everyone is at a party enjoying. Mark is sitting alone in his office thinking about the one he is missing. His hour of greatest achievement, on the road to becoming the youngest billionaire ever, was the lowest point of his life. He did not have his sweetheart to share his achievement with.

Then we move to the last scene where Mark is grilled by attorney representing his Rich-brat Harvard-mates who are suing him, with wealthy attorneys that their Father’s deep pockets could buy, to get a share on Facebook. Mark is indignant. His rationale is that Facebook is his because he invented it. Once the grilling is complete and everyone has left. He is alone, and hasn't had any food all day. You would think he would be totally pissed of. And he is. But he remembers that his pursuit wasn't really fame or money, even his closest friend who was suing him says on testimony, "Mark never cared for money". Right from the night that he brought the Harvard Network down

it was a Relationship that Mark was pursuing . If Shajahan built the Taj Mahal as a momument for the celebration of his love for Mumtaj, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook as a means to impressive before his sweetheart and to win her back.

The real problem was that being relationally challenged, he did not understand the basic tenet of relationships. Real lasting relationships are built on the ability of a person to love, not on impressiveness factor. His analytically brilliant, relationally challenged mind did not understand that a man who tries too hard to be impressive ends up becoming an a**hole.

Ps: This spin in the moive is entirely fictional. The real life Mark Zuckerberg is perhaps relationally challenged but he has had one girlfriend since his Harvard days and they have been together all along. Commendable!

The Town – Modern Morality – Betrayal better than beating!!!

The movie 'The Town' is a well made. There is subtlety in the script, pace to the story and intense realism. The movie is a realistic depiction of modern lifestyle. It impels me to critique the modernistic worldview that undergirds the idea of the good and the bad in this movie.

A bank robber, Ben Affleck, falls in love with the victim of one of the heists. Among the gang thieves, Ben Affleck is portrayed as the good gentle hearted guy and his childhood buddy, Jeremy resorts brutality too quickly. You get to hate Jeremy’s guts and love Ben Affleck who is powerful yet avoids hurting people 'physically'. What struck me about the movie was the sense of stridency with which the movie upholds goodness as having more to do with the physical than the spiritual. It is a movie true to the materialism of this age where morality is confined to the realm of the 'material' - only that which can be touched and felt.

Jeremy is shown as a bad guy because he hurts people to intimidate them. He does not mind killing friends if he knows that they'll betray him to the FBI. Ben is shown in good light as a guy with a conscience who has become a thief because of inexorable circumstances. Ben does not hurt people physically, but he hurts them emotionally. Strangely, in the movie’s depiction, that he hurts people emotionally does not factor in as moral bankruptcy.

Ben uses a woman, Jeremy’s sister, for his sexual pleasure and then shoves her off when he finds a new one, the victim of the heist, all the while maintaining the facade of a good guy trying to be the best he can be, given the unfortunate circumstances of his childhood. When Ben Affleck falls in love with his victim, that he already has Jeremy’s sister for a lover whose daughter she says is his does not pose a moral dilemma to this guy with a golden heart. Having decided to elope with his new lover, he just shoves her and the kid out of his apartment.

My problem with the movie is that it makes it appear as though he is 'justified' in cutting lose from Jeremy’s sister, now that he 'truly' loves another. The painful scene of the shoving-off is entirely depicted from Ben Affleck's ‘alpha-male-to-be-pitied-for-a-broken-childhood’ perspective. In the scene of separation, you hear the kid crying in the distance when he and the kid's mother are having an altercation. He lifts the kid, walks out the door, leaves her outside the door and asks the mother to follow. Period.

The scene is shot in a way to make the viewer oblivious to the horrid pain he, the guy with a golden heart, is causing the weaker ones. I would have had a better appreciation for the scene if it faithfully depicted the horrible pain this guy was causing the lady and the little three year old. That would have been more realistic as it would have showed that Ben Affleck, who is portrayed as a good-natured victim of his circumstances was himself, a horrible victimizer.

The movie instead of showing him as the victimizer, somehow justifies his spiritually hurting his girlfriend and her daughter now that he has 'connected' with a new girl. That movie does not call a spade a spade and depict Ben to be as much a victimizer as was Jeremy. It is just that methods of victimization are different. Jeremy hurts the body, Ben kills the soul.

The reason why the modern man is often morally blind to hurting the soul, and the reason why Ben is portrayed as a better guy, is because modern morality does not transcend the ‘material’ bodily reality of life. Modern morality, relative as it is, says beating a person is wrong, but betraying the person’s love isn't. It says one can keep eloping with new a lover as long as there are no strings attached and one does not physically abuse the ex.

Even if there are strings, if the pull of new love is strong enough modern morality 'justifies' the snapping-off of the commitment that holds one back from reaching out for the Modern Dream of a finding a sexually fulfilling relationship with no strings. The only problem is that God did not create sexual relationship to be cheap, whether one likes it or not there will always be strings that bond and bind.

In fact, once Ben’s true colors are apparent to the new victim-turned-lover, she asks, "wasn't it enough that you messed my life already (through your heist and the following FBI harassment), did you also have to f*** me?” She asks him to get the hell out of her life. Even here, the guy is depicted to come on top, as a guy with a sensitive heart, he gives here all the money he made in the heist and then says an empty platitude that goes something like "I'll meet you again in this life or the next".

In depicting such partial alpha-male centered materialistic reality, the movie is a lie. But the movie is a true reflection of the lie of the modern lifestyle. It is a faithful reflection of the twisted reality of life as perceived by modern man. If the movie and the depiction of the scenes depict anything it depicts the problems with the modern worldview of life which is preoccupied with the material at the cost of discounting the spiritual and paying a costly price for that. After all, man is not just flesh and blood, he is also mind and spirit.

Poem Inspired by a Survivor

(Inspired by the speech of an abortion survivor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ) 

Wisdom cries from the lectern

Pours out a deep anguish of the soul

In a fiery sermon that pierces hearts.

A pretty face and a sweet smile

'Planned' by a Mercenary

To be emulsified in the womb.

But 'Destined' by the Redeemer

To see the light of day.

And Become the light to the dark souls

Bringing fire down from the Heavens

Setting ablaze those feeling snuffed-out

By the militant opinion-makers.

The spectacle of spell-bound admiration

Of the strong for the weak

Of the fit for the mis-fit

Of the complete for the challenged

A reflection of the ‘Image of God’

Making strong the weak,

Fit the mis-fit, complete the challenged.

For such is the glory of God!

A Super Handsome Jesus???

Malcolm Muggeridge in his book ‘Christ and the Media’ in which he was damning critical of the Media, said that the Fourth Temptation of the devil to Christ was to offer to give him a Worldwide TV channel. I doubt that that TV channel would have been a good idea, even if the Media was good per se, because the Truth about the greatest Man that ever lived is that He did not have a photogenic profile, not even to the prophets of more than two millennia ago.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Isaiah 53:2b

This is a prophecy about Jesus’ appearance. With creation of the cosmos, God created beauty, yet He chose for Himself an ugly profile because I think He wanted to show that He would win people over not through their eyes but through their hearts. 

Some theologians say that a credible reason why the Jewish Priests of that age found Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah to be unacceptable is because the Jews were used to having 'handsome' and charismatic God appointed leaders. Their Matriarch, Sarah was an astoundingly beautiful lady. Moses was very beautiful even as a kid. Bible speaks good of David’s handsomeness. So the expectation of a handsome and charismatic Messiah was ingrained into the psyche of the Jewish Priests. “How could perfect Man, the Messiah, look so imperfect?” Isn’t it ludicrous that a Man who was to reverse the fall would in His very body be an epitome of the ugly consequences of the fall.

Jewish Priest made the mistake of miss-attributing value to Jesus, our mistake isn’t much different either. We envision Jesus as a 6’2 lean-muscled male with sharp Caucasian features and flowing hair and neatly trimmed beard. In picturing Jesus as a guy who’ll give our most handsome models a run for their money, posterity has done the most disservice to the image of Jesus Christ.

This photogenic image misrepresents what Jesus's essence is, in the state of His assumed humanity. What made Jesus special was not His pleasing disposition or pleasant looks. He had neither. Jesus Christ’s essence was derived from the ‘relationship’ He had with the Father. The long lonely hours He spent praying to His Father and enjoying His presence is what made Him special in His humanity. When Jesus’ disciples couldn’t exorcize a guy, He exorcized the guy said to the disciples that failed because they did not pray ‘much’.

When Jesus’ Godly value is predominantly envisioned by modern man as being a peaceful good looking dude, and not as a prayerful God who took the form of man to show man how the life of a perfect man should look like, it is not too surprising that many modern Christians too derive their ‘personal value’ from their good-looks as seen by others as ‘religious’ or/and ‘sexy’, suiting ones personality, instead of deriving their value from their prayerful ‘relationship’ with the Father in Heaven.

A regular concerted daily Prayer time is a lost virtue among many modern Christians who pursue their happiness through their eyes, in the TV, rather than through their heart, in the heavenly Relationship. Both the ancient Jews and the Modern folks miss Jesus because they see Him as He is not, through their eyes and not through their hearts. Even God may not help a person who does not find his/her pleasure in prayer. 

Are we predestined to feel frustrated?

I seldom chat on FB. But yesterday, a friend from Church and I were chatting about the frustration in going through the cycles of applying for jobs attending interviews and going through this almost endlessly repeating loop. I commented, “God sometimes predestines us to be frustrated so that through the frustration when we look at Him, we see a different aspect of Him and ‘cherish’ Him for who He is”. I was trying to think of a good analogy to explain this… then I remember something. When I was a kid, I used to cry sometimes and that was when I would long for my mother’s countenance. When I was a kid, probably 7 years old, one afternoon, I was crying at school. My mother to my surprise came to school and the moment I saw her all my fears disappeared and tears were gone. My mother is many things to me but I specially cherish memories of my finding rest in my mother’s embrace only because there was an opportunity for me to get frustrated and I was willing to look up to her countenance for comfort.

Likewise, life gives us opportunities, through the frustrations, to look up at God and ‘cherish’ a unique comforting aspect of that relationship. God is glorified when we find Him the utmost comfort. So I think we are predestined to be frustrated so that we’ll have an opportunity to experience the comforting nature of the Blessed One. Our every day frustrations are not pointless irritations of an otherwise tolerable life, they are rather pointers to a need for a cherished countenance in a special Relationship. These enervating frustrations find its lasting meaning in that ‘cherished’ Relationship.

When we go through frustrating experiences, the challenge is to ‘truly’ look up at Him. We are perhaps more like Peter, we start looking up at Him, but soon are looking at the perilous waves come at us.  We get lost in our frustrations until we are pulled up and embraced into His bosom. Then looking back we have a greater appreciation for seeing Him in a different light and love Him all the more. But, we should be better than that. We should strive to be viscerally conscious of Him so that even as we are going through the frustrations,  we can ‘look up’ and delight and rest in His loving Countenance instead of having to ‘look back’ after the frustrations are over and retrospectively appreciate Him.

Blessed are the frustrated for if they look upwards, they can see God.

Galveston Mission Trip - Help with Home Building

A bunch of us went to Galveston from our GBC growth group. On Friday evening, when I left my home to carpool from George and Rebecca’s home, time was 6:00 pm. The next time, I looked at my watch, we were sitting on the Galveston Bay with burger and smoothie from Sonic, some of us with a beer as well, looking into the dark sea, white waves, jumping fish, bright stars and the lights from the distant ships, the time was 12:00 am. 6 hours had past. We had done a bunch of stuff. Only, I didn’t know when what started and ended. At 6:00, I was at Burdette’s place. We had some Chic a fil sandwiches and chit chatted until whatever time. Being a man of few words, I did not talk much. Sometime later, we started for Galveston. George and I were in his car. I got into one of my passionate topics, 'Gospel and Civilization' and spoke long monologues about the gospel being the foundation for a lasting civilization and also being the reason why the British revolution was bloodless and the French was blood, and about what the gospel said about the political elites. By the time I was done we were in Galveston. I did not look at my watch, least I should be aware for how long George had to suffer my soliloquy.

Once we reached the mission center, we refreshed and were getting debriefed about the mission by the folks that were running it. They gave some astounding statistics about how many people were affected by Ike and are still hurting because of general apathy. Their live stories and commitment kept us spell bound for however long they were talking… I have still not looked at my watch, this time either, but because I was truly in a timeless world enraptured by the joy and commitment of the people running the mission centre. We were told that we will help repair the house of one Ms. Lopez whose house was damaged in Ike was inhabitable for the past 2 years. We were told that during lunch break, we will also get a chance to play with the kids at the neighboring public housing and ‘connect with the community’. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of buying some play things for kids. We went to Walmart and bought a bunch of stuff for kids form chips packets to sidewalk chalks to water balloons. We got something to eat at Sonic and then sat on the ledge on the Galveston bay. I was filled with my cherished memories of sitting on the Thiruvanmiur Beach in Chennai, watching the sea, the moon, the stars, munching some snacks and reading a book in the most pleasant breeze ever. We talked about a bunch of stuff from relationships to postmodernism.

The conversation dispelled some stereo types about men and women. Stereo types say that  men were visual beings and that women were emotional beings and that men would be more attracted by the visual quotient and women would be more attracted by the emotional quotient. For example the stereo types dictate that some men would like the skinny-looks kind and some would like the chubby-looks kind… and women care little for looks and are are essentially looking for men who are ‘truly’ kind to them. Someone said, ‘I like a guy with nerdy looks’. Someone else said, ‘I like guys with preppy looks’. Someone liked some other look which I had never heard about before. Being a man of few words, I did not say much… it was a time for thinking than talking. I realized that in one sense, even this enlightenment by the Galveston bay did not break the stereo types after all… though men and women are probably equally enamored by looks, skinnyness and chubbyness has more to do with the physique and nerdyness and preppyness has more to do with one’s psyche. At the end of the day postmodernism or hyper modernism notwithstanding, men are men and women are women. Period.

I had done enough thinking, half-baked as it may have been, I looked at my watch… it was 12:00 am. We went back to our mission center to get some rest for some work the next. Little did I know then what type of work I was up against. I read Stott for a while and slipped into a slumber at about 1:30 am.

We got ready at about 8:00 am. After the morning devotion we loaded the tools to repair Ms. Lopez’s house and the toys to play with kids. I can’t use words to describe how tough the job was. Being a guy who isn’t that dexterous with hands, I found it doubly tough. It just did not make sense to me building a house should be so difficult. Apparently it is. No wonder poor Ms. Lopez couldn’t get easy help. We had lunch and then went to public housing facility to play with the kids. The temperature was probably in the 90s. I wondered why the folks at the mission centre sent us at such an errand. ‘Community building exercise’ they called it. Not a soul was in sight. Apparently everyone was staying cool within their homes. Rebecca and Holly took on the role of ‘community organizers’ and went about the houses giving juice packs for kids. Soon we had the kids coming out. If only they could be ambitious and lucky enough to win a not-so-tough contest to become a junior Senator, I guess they would be qualified enough to run for president (sorry, couldn’t help that).

Most of these kids were in single parent homes. Rebecca had a bruise in her leg. One of the little girls asked her if her husband beat her. What kind of a life would a person have to have been exposed to have such a question pop up in one’s mind. Another little one was crying for no reason at all. Holly had to carry her with her for quite a bit to calm her. Apparently the little girl just wanted to be carried by someone. Some of us played basket ball with the bigger kids. Some of us were having fun with side-walk-chalk drawings. Some of us threw ball. George taught me how to grip the ball and throw it the right way. I learnt something new. There was a stumpy looking 8 year old who was built to be a NFL hunk. I asked him what he name was. He was too shy to answer. I asked him three times, never got an answer. I asked him if we went to school. He nodded his head. I knew I was in good company. He too was a man of few words. He and I threw ball to each other. That guy enjoyed that a lot. I enjoyed it even more.

As we went about this, David and Jackie somehow managed to get the water balloons filled with water. Oh! My Gosh!!! The kids had a BLAST!!! My pal of few words was the guy who made most people wet. By now, some mothers had gathered too. They too joined the water balloon game. One of them even got Angela on her back. Soon, it was time to say goodbye…

We walked back to our construction site. I was thinking... it occurred to me that in every community it was the kids that were the connecting link to the community. Even in India, when we went for village outreach, the first thing we would do in a new village would be to go to a street corner and do something to attract the kids. The kids would come and sit and watch with glee at the funny theatrics we performed. Then the mothers of the kids would come closer. The men folks were always distant. It was no different here either. Human nature is always that same. The children are the most trusting and least prejudiced. Mothers, once you win their trust would be welcoming. The men folks always are wary of anyone encroaching their territory. No wonder it was the kids who went up to Jesus and touched Him. The one scene which I don’t remember seeing in any of the many Jesus films is him holding a child. But I would think that if we had the paparazzi those days as we do today, there would have been more pictures of Him holding a child than healing the sick.

We worked till 5:00 pm. I had never been more exhausted all my life. I got to travel in the back to the mission centre in David’s truck. We prayed and then dispersed from the mission centre. Some of us decided to have more fellowship over dinner. We went to a restaurant ‘Salsa’. I had the best Mexican seafood. Next time I go to Galveston to watch the bay, I know where I’ll have dinner. The food was doubly tasty because George and Rebecca were kind enough to pick up the tab. A loss for those who did not want to fellowship into the evening. :P For some reason free food is more fulfilling. I never knew why…

I was impressed that Stephen brought (his long-distance) girl friend to toil a whole day in the sun and the sweat, helping Ms. Lopez, when they themselves had little to meet each other. Just as we were wrapping up, we got to meet Ms. Lopez. With hurricane Ike she lost her job, her home, sometime later her husband then her mother. She was at the end of her wits. She said that our Christian concern renewed her faith and hope in life and in God. Looking back if there is one word to describe the experience it is ‘fulfilling’. True love is that which seeks for the other, that which it seeks for the self. We don’t expect life to be devoid of any pain or suffering. But we also expect some empathy from our fellow Christians. When that empathy becomes apathy, the pain and suffering would take its toll.  

As we drove back to Houston, I couldn't help making the connection between what we had just done to Ms. Lopez who was left in the lurch by the wrath of Nature and the over-extended-but-intangible Government aid, and what I spoke to George about the Gospel being the foundation for any long lasting Civilization. After all empathy and love is the MARK of a Christian. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35). 

Inception - Will Blow Your Mind!!!!

Inception is one of those few movies which not only offer the pleasures of sight and sound but tops it off with the intense pleasure of thought. It is a movie that will enthrall you if you enjoy ‘thinking’ the movie as much as ‘seeing’ the movie. If you thought Matrix was based on a complex idea, Inception will probably blow your mind. It is a movie which having prior about the underlying thought the movie is based on will help some folks to sit back and enjoy the movie without having to tax their brains trying to understand ‘what the heck’ it is all about.

The movie is not just about dreams, the movie is about an idea, as Mr. Cob (DiCaprio) says "the single most potent thing in the world is a simple resilient idea that will not die". The sub-conscious human brain is so powerful that if you can get it to believe one very simple resilient idea, that idea can ‘define or destroy’ the person. ‘Shared dreams’ is just the media through which the idea is implanted into the mind of a person. The ideas implanted deep in ones ‘sub-conscious’ mind, if it is simple and resilient enough, will have consequences in the real world outside. The process of implanting this idea into the mind of the subject through multi-layered world of dreams is called ‘Inception’.

Mr. Cobb’s expertise is ‘Inception’. In the movie Mr. Cobb tries go into the world of ‘shared’ dreams to implant an idea into the sub-consciousness of an heir of a business empire that would ‘redefine’ his outlook and impel him to break-up his empire. A breakup of that business empire would benefit Mr. Cob’s client’s business conglomerate which otherwise would get swallowed up by the monopoly that the heir is trying to create. The problem with Inception is that once a person enters into the Freudian world of the sub-conscious, controlling the realities of that ‘shared’ dream world becomes difficult because the sub-conscious mind of the recipient reacts violently to the idea that is being implanted into it.

As Mr. Cobb’s mind dreams a reality where he can make the heir's sub-conscious gullible enough to allow him to place the idea in the heir’s mind, the heir’s sub-conscious mind works against Mr. Cobb’s to resist the control Cobb is seeking over his sub-conscious mind. So Cobb has to create a reality in the ‘shared’ dream world where the heir will make his own sub-conscious mind implant the idea into itself. To do this, Cobb needs to go into ‘nested dreams’ - multiple dreams within a dream. He recruits a team that will work with him in the new realities of the nested dream world. Controlling the complicated world of multi-layered dreams makes the movie super-exciting and original.

Though the concept of inception may seem alien to us as it involves manipulating dreams, it really is not. When Cobb and his team plan Inception on the heir, they strategize that “the idea needs to be implanted deep within the sub-conscious in such a way that the recipient believes that idea was actually his own…  so when we plant the idea, we need to give a ‘positive’ feel. We need to give him an 'emotional' connection” and make it appear that the 'positive' idea is his own. Doesn't this happen to us everyday in the TV ads? Don’t advertisers aim to implant brand names and images with a 'positive' feel about them? Don't these positive images have a big role to play when we do to the movie theatres and say, “hmmm I need a coke”?

The movie novel as it is, has so many aspects which are manifestations of the deeper truths and questions about life and human Nature. It delves into questions about advertising psychology to Freudian guilt complexes to Metaphysics of life. One of these questions I think is worth some appreciative contemplation… What makes the movie super-complicated and worthwhile is that Cobb has his problems with his own sub-conscious mind. Mr. Cob goes back and forth between the dream and the real world. When a person is in this business, he loses his ability to recognize what world is real, the dream world seems just as real. Mr. Cobb and Mrs. Cobb are a great loving couple, but they have a major difference of opinion. They are not in agreement about which world is the real one. Mr. Cobb thinks the world outside is real. Mrs. Cobb thinks the dream world is real enough. Mrs. Cobb actually gets back into what Mr. Cobb thinks is the real world, but kills herself thinking that it isn’t the real world, hoping to enter into another level of reality which would be more real. As Mr. Cobb goes into different levels in the dreams to implant ideas on behalf of his clients, his sub-conscious mind can’t help recreating Mrs. Cobb. The version of Mrs. Cobb his sub-conscious creates works against him to spoil his inception plans. The complicated love between the two adds a whole new level of mystery.

In the dream world, Mr. Cobb and Mrs. Cobb argue about what reality really is. They dabble over the question of Metaphysics. Mr. Cob says that though he enjoys playing God in the dream world creating his own realities, he can’t go on that way forever. Mrs. Cobb thinks differently. When Mr. Cobb says that the dream world they live in is not real, she replies, “You are talking about what you ‘know’, I am asking you to ask yourself what you believe and what you ‘feel’. Don’t you feel happy in this world”.

At a very deep level, the struggle between Mr. and Mrs. Cobb is a struggle between the modernists and the postmodernists and the pop-culturists. The modernists are rationalists. They believe there is ‘one’ truth which needs to be rationally pursued. The postmodernist believes that truth is what you think it is or make it to be, there is no ‘one’ truth to be pursued. The pop-culturists don’t give a hoot about reason or truth they want to have the ‘Black Eye Peas’ kind of ‘good time’. Mr. Cobb is the modernist who thinks there is ‘one’ real world where their children really are waiting for them. He thinks, 'where Truth is there his real Home will be, for his children will really be waiting there'. Mrs. Cobb is a postmodern pop-culturalist. She has a ‘good time’ in the dream world and is satisfied with the version of children her sub-conscious mind has created for themselves in the dream world. After all, it does not matter whether it is real or not as long as it is ‘feels’ good right? Or, maybe not?

This is the central but unstated dilemma of this movie. What is real? What really matters? Knowledge or Feeling? Truth or Perception? Playing God in an unreal secluded world or being human in the real shared world? In a brilliant piece of cinematography, the movie leaves that question open-ended. It will blow your mind off. I would wish there is a sequel to this. If there were an Inception II, I would be the first guy in queue for the 1:30 AM show, just as I was on the day Inception got released.

Hurt Locker – Why is war a Drug?

There are some movies which do not make much sense unless you see the first scene of the movie. One example is 'Saving Private Ryan'. When I first saw the movie, I missed the first 10 minutes and the rest of the movie seemed very depressingly violent. I wondered why folks were so appreciative of the movie. The second time I saw the movie, I started at the very beginning where the old Private Ryan visits the grave of his saviors, and then the gory and the violence took a new 'meaning'.

“Lock Hunter” is as violent, gory and real, but different in that this war movie will not make sense until the last scene of the movie. The movie begins with the tag line ‘War is Drug’. This tag line gives a context for you to help make sense of the rest of the impassioned depiction of mindless violence. But the tag line does not answer the question 'why man needs that ‘war drug’ in the first place?' The last scene gives the answer. 

The movie starts with a bomb defusing operation that goes south, leaving the bomb defuser dead. He is replaced by a guy with great expertise who has a flamboyant, even daringly flippant way of defusing bombs. He does not give a damn about taking inordinate risks or about dying. One of his teammates asks him why he keeps doing what he does even though he knows that it is the roll of the dice every time he straps up his protective attire. He could die anytime. He replies, "I do not know". It gives an impression that this he is inexorably being drawn into war by something much deeper within him which he himself does not understand.

The pressing question in the mind of the movie viewer is, Why do some people love war so much even though they know that they could possibly die? Why does war have this power? Why is war a drug? And more importantly, why does man need that drug?

I believe the answer is at the end of the movie, when he is on a break and spending time with his one year old son who is playing with some toys. He is talking to his son… “You love playing with that... you love mama you love dada, you love your pajamas… you love everything. Don’t you? But you know what buddy… when you grow older some of the things that you love will not seem special any more, you’ll realize that ‘jack in the box’ is really a piece of tin and stuffed animal. Then there will be fewer things that you’ll really love. By the time you get to my age there will be only one or two things you’ll really love… to me I think it is one”. He is actually talking more to himself than his son.

In the very next scene he is back at Iraq defusing bombs with a gleam in his eye and the usual feistiness in his stride, as he walks strapped-up towards the next bomb. The heavy rock band music starts. The movie ends.

The quintessential truth of the poignant introspective dialogue that he has with is one year old is that as a man grows, his propensity to be satisfied by what life has to offer reduces. A young kid would be satisfied with a cookie. But a grown man may like a cookie, but that is not something that will satisfy him. He may need a jar of beer or a peg of wine. Even that may not satisfy him as much as it did in his teens when he first developed the taste for the stronger drinks. A yogi does meditation on a hill top and a hedge fund manager mints money sitting in his corner office. Both of them pursue what they think gives them satisfaction. Some people have sex because it gives them satisfaction. Some people watch TV because it gives them satisfaction. Some people got to war because it gives them satisfaction.

At that point, war becomes the drug. As for that matter anything can be a drug for the grown-ups, money, alcohol, sex (remember Woods), fame, books, TV, social service (self seeking), religiosity (without God) etc… Most people try different things at different stages in life seeking that which satisfies them. They are always looking for the next higher level of satisfaction. They are looking for something that is BIG enough which will satisfy them. If there is a God, then the only experience that can be BIG enough to satisfy man will be the experience of God. For, if God is indeed God, then there can be nothing that is more brilliant and beautiful and exciting and consequently more satisfying than Him.

How to Train a Dragon? – Something I did not like about the movie

I saw ‘How to Train a Dragon’ sometime ago. This is the movie which to my knowledge has got the highest rating (98%) in the ‘rotten tomatoes’ website which is highly critical of movies. Robin hood has 44% rating, Shrek 52%, Prince of Persia 40%, Iron Man 74%. So the 98% says a LOT. I suspect blogs are overflowing with praise for this movie. This is the reason why I want to say something I did not like about the movie. On the record, I ENJOYED watching the movie, but for the sake of the review, I want to take a counter perspective. So bear with me, in case you think I shouldn’t take a counter perspective just for its own sake.

The story is about a little boy in a Viking village who does not have the physical make-up required to be a warrior which is the defining attribute of a true Viking. He is made fun of by the whole village. Little guys and girls his age shun him. Though physically inept, he is an intelligent guy who eventually finds his own intelligent way of winning the Mother of all battles almost single handed, much to the amazement of other Vikings. I liked the meta-narrative of the movie. I like the fact that the movie valued passionate individual ability over a cowering conformity to the societal expectations. What I do not like about the movie is in the way the meta narrative was setup through the characterization of the little kids.

The story revolves around a few kids and their training to slay dragons. There are three boys and two girls (I may not be right with the numbers). The kid who is portrayed as being dumb is an overweight dude. I often wonder why almost every movie for the kids needs to have a fat dude who almost always messes up and is made fun of and is made to feel unworthy. He isn’t even considered worthy of a date. Why should little kids be infused with blithe assumptions that to be fat is to be dumb and unwanted? It does not surprise me that often in schools, it is the unshapely kid who gets bullied and shunned the most.

We do not allow our kids to see movies with explicit violence and sex because we do not want their impressionable minds to be corrupted. How much more should we be careful when some ideas enter their minds through the apparently good channels but maim their ability to rightly value the other people? If the media should subtly encourage young ones to think is not wrong to make ones physical appearance as a criteria in judging their self worth, who can help them make right value judgments.

The same problem with wrong values is exemplified in another character. In the movie, the skinny kid who is the hero is shunned by the girl whom he is attracted to. I did not like the characterization of the girl. When other kids in the group ridicule him, she too joins the jocks and makes fun of this nerd. Later, when she realizes that the skinny kid is an impressive in his own right, she treats him with special affection which later blossoms into love.

The problem here is this. This dynamic of how the antagonistic relationship turns into one of love when the guy proves himself to be impressive alludes to a belief that for a girl to be attracted to a guy, the guy has to be impressive in some way. Looking at this another way, it also appears to allude to the idea that for a girl, it is cool only if fall in love with impressive jocks or impressive nerds. I think this ought to be a huge myth. When I look at successful marriages, the impressiveness of the male is hardly a criterion. In fact the more impressive the male, the less successful the marriage is. The families of famous guys from NFL players to Golf proves just this. Unfortunately, the movie exudes the idea that it is not wrong to value a person based on the person’s impressiveness. Kids learn quick.

Just because there is no violence, no occult magic and no sex it does not mean that the movie is good for kids. Giving kids the right framework for values is primal. In the last few months I read in the news about at four or five kids committing suicide because they did not like school for some reason or did not like their grades. I am not surprised that a kid who see movies where he is not taught to value life the right way, will pass his own skewed judgment on life and will deem that it is not worth living.

Unfortunately, this truth that not teaching right values to kids is a costly mistake is completely lost on the movie makers and the movie viewers. After all, our generation is permeated by the nihilistic secular worldview. When God who is the ultimate value-giver is jettisoned out of our secular worldview, we lose our ability to rightly value things. How dare we blame our kids for committing suicides when our culture does not give the right framework for values? The kids are just taking our values or the lack thereof to its logical conclusion. 

Aspiration and Transformation

(I have submitted this essay for a competition in our company)

Transformation happens when old conventions are broken and a new standard for conventions are set. When Americans were making the best Motorcycles, it was taken for granted that there will be frequent oil leaks, but when the Japanese bikes came into the market, it was taken for granted that oil leaks were unacceptable. Transformation happens when there is an aspiration to make something better that it is. The journey from aspiration to transformation is often a counter cultural process needing a catalyst.

In Jim Collin’s seminal work, ‘From Good to Great’, he questions conventions, “We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the 'right' people on the bus… then figured out where to drive it”. Peter Drucker supposedly said, “At the end of the day we do not bet on ideas, we bet on people”. Transformation requires a right start. Transformation starts not with ideas, but with people. In fact, transformation starts with the person whom we look at every day in the mirror. Transformation starts with the aspiration to make oneself better than one is.

Back in the days of the great Socrates, the father of philosophy, the famous inscription at the temple for the Oracle of Delphi supposedly said, "Know Thyself". In fact Socrates said that he was deemed wise by the Oracle of Delphi because he was only one in Athens who was ‘aware of his own ignorance’. He knew who he was, ‘an ignorant man who ardently pursued wisdom’ and he transformed the world of ideas for generation to come.

The first step in the journey from aspiration to transformation is to aspire to ‘know oneself’. The irony of our society is that we presume to know other people and things far from us but we do not know who we are. A literate person would know why Steve Jobs is named the best CEO by Forbes, he may even know the surface temperature of a star that is a billion light years away, but he would likely be lost if he were asked to write an essay about his passion, strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the corporate culture often seems to work against pursuit of the truth about self. If a person is attending an interview, he is expected to sell himself as someone having Narayan Moorthy-like qualities. He is expected to not expose his real passions. He is expected to showcase his passions reconfigured to suit the job description. He needs to talk himself up and sugar-coating weaknesses. We are too eager to emulate someone else without knowing who we are. Genuine transformation cannot start where one does not aspire to 'know oneself' for who she is. The aspiration to know one’s passions, strengths and weakness is the first stage in the journey from ‘aspiration to transformation’. The second stage of the journey is where having already known who we are, we aspire to make ourselves better than who we are.

In the book 'Type Talk at Work' the authors say that leaders are people who clearly understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. The authors go on to say that a person develops into a successful leader if she, while naturally being strong in her strengths, is able to go the extra mile by aspiring to work on her own weaknesses to make them her strengths.  In a culture where one is constantly expected to mask ones weakness, to acknowledge the weakness and pro-actively work on ourselves is often counter intuitive to our 'corporate conditioning'. This is why we need a catalyst.

In the book 'What is wrong with the World', G.K. Chesterton says that for a doctor to set the broken hand right, he needs to know how a good hand looks like. For us to transform into people better than ourselves, we need role models whom we can observe and emulate. Transformation cannot be a self-centered individualistic effort. C.S.Lewis says, “We are but pygmies, who stand on shoulders of giants”. We need help to become better than we are. We need real-life role models who are willing to be vulnerable and encouraging coaches acting as catalysts in our process of transformation. I would learn more from observing my mangers at who are such catalyzing role models than by reading biographies about distant Charismatic business leaders.

An organization that does not aspire to bring about transformation through top-down catalyzing role models, will turn destructive. This was apparent in the recent collapse of the financial industry in the west. There was too much self-centered aspiration, but no role models who exemplified the true meaning of 'collective' transformation for the betterment of the world. The wall street instead of being the transformational industry doing the 'work of God', as Lloyd Blankfein CEO of much reviled Goldman Sachs claimed, had become a 'den of robbers' facing criminal charges, for having made millions off  a bubble created by misleading the public, in-turn causing pain for millions of common folk.

A great example of true transformation in the financial industry is the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’ Micro Finance enterprise the ‘Grameen Bank’. Yunus knew his passion was economics. His heart was with the poor. His strength was in setting up corporate enterprises. His weakness was being a man of ideas too ahead of his age in a society entrenched with old conventions. He supplemented his situational weakness with a 30 year iron-like resilience. He pursued to bring about collective transformation by doing what can truly be deemed the 'work of God'.

The impetus for transformation is an aspiration to make things better than they are. Transformation starts with aspiring to 'know oneself' and progresses through aspiration to make oneself better than one is and then consummating transformation by helping each other achieve collective betterment that results in organizational transformation which in-turn makes the world a better place to live in.