Rohit Mahale

Mr. Toot by Ylvis – What makes an art and its creator successful?

Even though “the best” art creations in the world are better than the average creations as in they stand out of the rest creations thereby making them highlighted, it is also very difficult to point out or to predict what makes these things stand out. It is some sort of paradox. But that is what also reveals what an art really is. This paradox actually restores the uniqueness of every creation. That is why you can never know whether your creation is going to be popular or crash like hell before revealing it to the society.

What makes a certain piece of art – “the art”?

One simple activity; think of your favorite song. The song that gives satisfaction to your ears. Now think why is this song your favorite song? It is very normal that some people (and most of the people) will get confused when asked for a particular song – they will generally have a set of songs in their favorites list, some people are really particular about the genre, some people prefer the singers, some people prefer certain musical instruments, some people love the song because they loved the movie, the game that song was in, some people like that song because they love the fashion sense of the artist. In nutshell, there is no hard and fast formula to a popular, successful song or any art that we love.

Now ask this to yourself – what would happen if you found out the artist that created your favorite song, your favorite painting, your favorite movie, your favorite series, your favorite book is accused of certain misconduct, misbehavior or some unconventional, antisocial, inhuman behavior? Would you still like that song, that piece of an art, that creation?

The answer to this question is somewhat complicated but you know what they say – “it is the poetry and music which have the power to communicate complicated feeling in simple words and melodies.” I have a song to recommend which was exactly created (maybe) for answering this question on our preferences with any creative ventures and their symbols.

The song is called Mr. Toot by the famous creator duo called Ylvis (“What does the Fox Say?” fame duo). The song is so underrated and hidden in the abyss of at least 8 years from its creation. One would think that people have forgotten this song and make question why a song of such timelessness has not received the recognition it deserves. The vibe this song gives at first is like a silly ballad one sings to make children happy but it has some of the best and simple lyrics, musical hooks and also an impeccable visual story.

Let’s begin and dissect. It’s a simple story told through a song –

The song and the lyrics

An musical feast from Ylvis called “Mr. Toot”

Come with me to Istanbul, 
Land of turbans, spice and carpets 
This is the tale of Mr. Toot, 
Legendary music man 
Up on the roof he played the Toot,
 No one could resist his rhythm 
Slave and Sultan side by side, 
Dancing dance of Mr. Toot 
What’s that sound? Is it him? 
Did you see a shadow moving? 
Everybody - Quiet, quiet,
 can you hear him? - Mr. Toot! 
Play it, Mr. Toot!

So the out storyteller takes us to Istanbul where a Toot player is very famous for his instrument. People adore him for his command on this musical instrument “Toot”. This Mr. toot is such a skillful and creative person that his music tempts everyone in the area to dance on his music. It is the equalizer in the city because Slaves and Master dance shoulder to shoulder on his music. People encourage him to play his toot.

Ladies kissed him on the belly, 
Children dressed like him in school 
He ate caviar and jelly, 
Bought a modern swimming pool

Soon Mr. Toot became popular, ladies always appreciated him. He became idol in the area, children admired him. He started enjoying exotic foods and did some “pool parties”.

Yes, Mr. Toot got greedy, 
Wanted even better Toot 
Threw the Toot from highest tower, 
Bought a fancy MIDI Toot 
Then a poster in the city, 
Mr. Ibanez tonight Modern show with modern music, 
Smoke machine and laser light 
Play it, Mr. Toot!

With this popularity, Mr. Toot became more ambitious. He wished for more advanced instrument where he could create new music and please his audience. He made all the publicity in the city with new name, new branding, new visuals of smoke and lasers. People came to listen to this new version of Mr. Toot as Mr. Ibanez but when he started playing with his “Fancy” MIDI Toot, people disliked him. Nobody liked what he evolved into. Turns out people actually loved the old version of Mr. Toot!

That was the end of Mr. Toot, 
He was never to return 
Though you can kill the man, 
You can never kill the Toot 
Play it, Mr. Toot!

This is how the story of Mr. Toot (now greedy Mr. Toot) ends. From visuals of the song, you will see that someone from his admirers – a children in the city again picks the Toot and starts playing, people appreciate him. That is when we realize that it was the toot and not the toot player that people loved. So, play it Mr. Toot (the brand new Mr. Toot) People have assigned new king on the throne of their hearts now – that kid with Toot – the new Mr. Toot!

The background of the song

Ylvis is a duo of Norwegian brothers – Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker. They have very comedic presence in popular culture and are known for one of the weirdest but catchy song called “The Fox (What does the fox say?)” This “The Fox” song has such nonsensical lyrics and equally nonsensical music composition that one would really question their choices for a while but the same person will appreciate the “vibes” it creates. One cannot resist grooving to that song. Mr. Toot song’s musical composition is largely based on a song called Adir Adirim by Israeli music group Balkan Beat Box (BBB) with Victoria Hanna. Adir Adirim in simple words is the praise of the Lord Almighty (Link in references).

The song Mr. Toot adopts only the music from Adir Adirim and builds a story through its independent lyrics. When there is this moment of Mr. Toot experimenting with MIDI toot, the music gives some fantastic melody with improvisation which sounds good but, in the video, you will find that people disliked that improvised melody.

Toot world is derived from an actual musical instrument called Oud – one can call it the Arabic or Persian version of Lute.

The hidden meanings

The song Mr. Toot may seem very simple while listening and an “ear candy” due to its catchy music but it is some sort of dark humor.

There could be multiple interpretations to this song and there is a reason to it.

First –

It is a story about how an artist suddenly becomes overconfident about his skills and under calculates the role of his/her followers in his overall success. The artist clearly forgets importance of the auxiliary supporters (in this case “the musical instrument toot”) in his journey to become a legend. You will find many real life examples in music industry or any art industry on this.

Second –

The other interpretation is about the labors of creating a piece of art. How risky is it? An artist has to always reinvent himself otherwise he/ she will become irrelevant in the time of change. This is extremely sensitive with the artist who are insanely famous. It is always unknown, ambiguous about the response of the public and their “die hard” followers to such reinvention. The artist misjudges what his target audience is expecting from him/her.

Third –

The artist clearly forgets his/her creative pursuit which was what his audience liked about him/her and indulges him/herself in distracting pleasures which actually do not contribute to his art in a constructive way

Fourth –

People don’t like the things they love to change drastically. The comfort that certain artist provides for certain art is what people actually love about it in totality. When an artist makes sudden creative change, people consider it no different that a betrayal or a personal attack

Fifth –

This one is actually the most distant interpretation but it deserves a mention here. When people realize that the artist whose creation they adore is actually a hollow person from inside or some commoner similar to a normal person among them (a person with no real talents) – do they reject that piece of art that he/ she created? That is where “boycott culture” or “cancel culture” comes in picture. We have many examples where artists, actors, creative people, production houses have behaved in a certain way to redefine the morality in the society. So, does that reduce the love we had for their creations? The answer is unsurprisingly unclear!

There is a reason why there are many interpretations to this song and why people will always have mixed opinions about their close to heart but immorally sourced/ created pieces of art. As if these are moral guilty pleasure for many of us.

Experimental evidences from Sociology

One experiment was done by a Professor of Sociology from Princeton University – Prof. Matthew J. Salganik and his team on what make a popular creation “popular”? what makes a creative piece – “the creative masterpiece”? In this experiment, they created a website for downloading songs (exactly 48 songs from 18 bands) for some set of people (exactly 14,341 people). These songs were unknown to them, nobody had listened to them before. What they did next is that they created independent eight “worlds” in these groups where only specific information was provided to certain world while downloading the song.

The researchers point out in this study that the information from the “independent world” where no information regarding the songs and the bands where given would create a baseline reading about the quality of the song (Also songs are ordered randomly in this independent world). As nobody in this independent world knows – “what the band is?” or “what the song is?” They will have to actually listen to the songs and then rate it as good or bad. As the listeners of this specific independent world have rated the songs without any influence, this creates a good judgement about the quality of the song which is the baseline of the experiment.

Now researchers provided some preconception about the bands and the song for the other worlds. They included top chart lists, most downloaded lists, most popular bands list to other worlds, songs were ordered by downloads count. Then researchers asked the people to choose their favorite song. In some sense they influenced these people with some social opinions already established.

Upon comparing these top-charts from socially influenced worlds with the uninfluenced independent worlds researchers found out that social influence always plays important role in deciding the success of certain song, certain piece of art. In terms of popular arts, cultural markets – our choices, preferences are always influenced by social influences. We are always driven by such choices of others while deciding the popularity of a creative piece.

Important thing to understand from this study is the randomness and unpredictability in determining the success of the song. When such social influences interfere, it becomes very difficult to find what made that certain song top in the charts. The opinion of every person is influenced by the last one which keeps on building. Researchers also comment here that it is not the inability or incompetence of judges that makes it difficult to find that “WOW!” factor in the popular song, it is the influence of surrounding society which randomizes their preferences.

From this study one must also understand how important it becomes to create the story, the brand, the image for making anything popular and successful. How word of mouth can create an overnight success. No wonder the business of social media influencing and profession of influencers (aka Social Influenzas !!!) has became pivotal to built popularity.

It is also important to note that how the popular arts of certain era are actually the reflection of the social constructs of those times, which is fascinating on so many levels. Retro era’s, the 70s, the 80s, disco era are some best examples to prove this. Even in the history of art Renaissance Period – one notable revolutionary period reflects how society at that time was.

It also highlights the importance of popular arts as the cultural footprints in the history of humanity.

Philosophical implications of art and its creator

It is also important to understand that there were some popular pieces of art whose artists were famous for some really bad reasons. So, the moral question posed becomes important here – should society reject the popular art of a notorious artist? Can a great art be separated from its bad creator?

Plato in his famous book “the Republic” threw some light on the morality of the art. He argued that art is always influential; that is why it invokes certain feeling in people, it creates an imitation of reality which can be totally different from the reality sometimes. This makes the creation of art misleading to people and can inspire them in negative ways too.

Seneca – a philosopher known for stoicism clearly establishes that it is the out-coming influence this art creates which will decide whether it is good or bad independent of its creator. It is always the end effect, last influence of art (which is unpredictable due to the randomness generated from social influences)

Conclusion

Important thing here is that there are many factors, many ways in which an art can influence people. As it is really difficult to pinpoint the “WOW” factor of the popular art; it is equally difficult to predict what part of an art would trigger the social construct.

In other words, there is no correlation between the person who created the art and the art itself even though it was created from him/her. (I know it is paradoxical.)

It becomes very difficult to predict whether people will accept a song, a painting, a book, a creative piece made by a hardcore criminal with really dark history which could shake humanity to its core. Sometimes the art itself becomes so self-reliant, self-supportive after its creation that people detach its creator from it, sometimes the art is truly worthy of recognition but people “cancel” it due to the character of its creator. (Again, I know it sounds counterintuitive.)

This is one of the very hard nuts to crack which can be supported by the sociological experiment done by Prof. Salganik.

These ideas also highlight how unique, recurring and non repetitive it is to create a true and remarkable piece of art. How difficult it is to create a true piece of art due to the inherent ambiguity of perception after its reveal! You can never know what good is going to get presented through your art in front of the world. That is also why a true artist needs to believe in his intents, his delivery and his style. This rediscovery, redefining of a person as an artist on personal level with society as a unit of human history to a new definition, new perception through such “special/ popular/ famous art” maybe is the purpose of the art.

References and further reading –

Mr. Toot by Ylvis – Fandom
Adir Adirim by Balkan Beat Box (feat. Victoria Hanna)
Salganik, M.J., Dodds, P.S. and Watts, D.J., 2006. Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. science, 311(5762), pp.854-856.
Epstein, Z., Groh, M., Dubey, A. and Pentland, A., 2021. Social influence leads to the formation of diverse local trends. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), pp.1-18. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Media Lab USA
Plato’s The Republic

Halo in F1 – One simple hoop design to save them all

A simple hoop design of HALO saved many precious lives in adrenaline filled, thrilling motorsport like F1. The story of evolution of halo in F1 tells us about the minimalist and functional design for safety. Not even single part of halo is in excess, unnecessary or unwanted. The designers and engineers deserve special recognition for saving important lives and maintaining the spirit of the sport.

Formula 1 is the pinnacle of the motorsports on the planet. It is the most intense, most tech-intensive, strategy packed and the richest sport in the world. Important thing to understand here is that Formula 1 is not just about driving fast cars and securing the first position on grid out of all the competitors. There is a reason why it is called “Formula” One. All the cars and teams competing in this sport must abide to certain set of rules on car design, sporting conditions and (now) stringent budget restrictions. The cars are supposed to be “formulated” thus designed within certain rules defined by FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile as in International Automobile Federation) to ensure that no team gets an unfair advantage. Now with the technological advancements the complexity in this motorsport has touched new heights.

Here is an excerpt from Walter Koster – famous F1 Journalist in his world famous “short” interview question to explain the complexity and F1 drivers dealing with it –

The question posed here is very important. Many of the innovations and technologies we see and use in our routine motor vehicles have emerged from the competitive motorsports like Formula 1. The technologies well known and common today like ABS (Anti-Lock or Anti-Skid Breaking System), Traction Control, Active Suspension, Advanced aerodynamics to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of power from power units, Hybrid power units, Incorporation of various sensors and using the data from such sensors to optimize the vehicles behavior are some of the notable examples. As newer and newer technologies are developing, F1 is getting more and more complex. Real F1 fans want exactly that in some sense. In this way the game is not only about racing on the circuit rather now it encompasses the initial car design, machine building, people management, policy management, finance and strategy on and off the racing circuit.

In this whole organized chaos what one must understand is the risks F1 driver faces while driving at such high speeds. One must understand that F1 cars are totally different from the cars that we use in our day-to-day life. The RPMs of F1 cars operate generally above 10000 RPM (for normal cars even the RPM of 2000- 4000 is really high), the highest speeds an F1 car can achieve is around 350 km/h to 390 km/h. The power rating of these F1 cars is around 1000 HP. The current engines used in an F1 car is 1.6L V6 engine. You must understand that a normal car with 1.6L engine has power rating of roughly 150 HP which is used in medium sized SUVs and family hatchbacks. The engineering marvel with which this high performance is extracted is one interesting topic in itself. With such machine and top speeds, for an F1 driver any moment missed during the blink of an eye can lead to a fatal injury, permanent disability and even instant death. F1 is also known for some serious injuries and fatalities. Hence, maintaining and improving the overall safety of everyone involved in the sports is important for FIA.

We will see one such simple yet effective design decision that FIA implemented in F1 which has saved many important and invaluable lives of the drivers in the recent times. That is the incorporation of Additional Frontal Protection (AFP) also known as Halo. It may sound exaggerated, but one can say that after the usage seat-belts, Halo is the second-best innovation which can be credited to immediately save many lives in F1 and its equivalent motorsports like F2, F3, IndyCar racing. It is also important to note that the incorporation of Halo was not an instant decision, rather FIA has always evolved and taken many decisions in improving the safety of the drivers in F1. Detachable headrest and padding and HANS are two notable decisions of them.

Formula 1 and Safety

If one looks back at the incident histories in F1, they will immediately realize that instant dangers are deeply rooted in the sports format itself. Ayrton Senna – 3 times world champion known as the greatest F1 driver in the history died from an accident in 1994 which triggered many safety decisions in F1. Senna’s Williams F1 car crashed into the concrete barrier at the speed of 304 km/h at Tamburello Corner of the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. The lateral crash resulted in severe injuries and complete disfigurement of the car in crash. Stricter standards for helmets, changes in circuits to eliminate dangerous corners/ turns, changes in the circuit barriers, stringent impact tests with stringent tolerances, speed limits in the pit lanes and practice sessions were incorporated after this incident.

The story does not end here. In order to improve the safety further, in 1995 lateral crash tests were incorporated, by 1999 high cockpit heights to save the head injuries and wheel tethers to avoid the lose wheels flying off in crash were incorporated. By 2003, Head And Neck Support (HANS) device was made mandatory. Senna’s accident completely changed the safety regulations in F1 and this can also be seen in the reduced number of serious and major accidents in those times.

Need for Halo

In 2014, one incident shook the whole motorsport world. Jules Bianchi – an emerging F1 driver lost the control of his Marussia F1 car on Suzuka Circuit during 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. Due to unfavorable weather conditions – heavy rainfall his car lost grip and he crashed into a recovery vehicle which was trying to recover another crashed F1 car. Jules went into coma after suffering a diffused axonal injury and could not win the fight with death. After Senna’s loss in 1994 the world shook to the core with the loss of a young driver in 2014. The incident investigation demanded various changes in whole system and FIA realized the need for a closed cockpit-like solution to save the lives of drivers from frontal collisions.

FIA evaluated a closed canopy design like fighter jets and some tests were already ongoing in 2011-12. But the closed canopy had some practical limitations which prevented their immediate implementation in the F1 cars.

Limitations of the Closed Canopy-

One can accept that the closed canopy will prevent the direct contact of projectiles from front on the drivers. The closed canopy will also relatively interfere less with the aerodynamics of the car. But when there will be need of instant extraction of driver during crash or internal fire, the canopy will increase the extraction time and would make the job of fire/ emergency marshals more difficult. According to the standards, driver should be extracted from the car within 7 seconds.
An F1 car is just a machine, a wild animal with humongous power. Human controller brings that discipline, that life into such beastly machine. Driving in such extreme machine tests the human limits of the driver. The closed cockpit would limit all the airflow through the driver thereby making him more uncomfortable which would further increase the probability of incidents.

Closed canopy was tested in IndyCar designs with the help of Red Bull designers and engineers. The issue with the extraction was solved by keeping the canopy open from the top. But that does not address the issue fully. Even after keeping the canopy open from the top the airflow would anyways will be restricted to the driver. This issue was solved by nostril design of the canopy. Air intake gaps on the canopy’s leading edge would allow air inlet for the driver. Even some dedicated air channels were designed through the driver’s helmet to allow the airflow to ventilate driver sufficiently. IndyCar adopted these designs at first and there was still a long way for F1 to adopt these changes in their format.

Problems and Challenges

The closed cockpit design faced big resistance in F1 due to some really obvious reasons. You cannot completely have a fully closed cockpit for immediate extraction of driver from cockpit. If one goes for top open i.e., aeroscreen cockpit, driver ventilation is one issue.

When dedicated ventilation is incorporated it will add extra weight and devices/instrumentation on car. Please note that F1 car designers are accounting for single gram of the extra weight of the vehicle. It is very common to go for the fastest lap attempt in the last lap of F1 racing only for the reason that the car bears lowest fuel weight and thereby lowest overall weight in the last laps providing more horsepower per gram to the car (now the cars are fueled only once in the whole race).

One more and the most important problem with the aeroscreen is the interference it would create in the aerodynamics of the car. The air intake of the F1 car engine just lies to the back and over the head of the driver. The aeroscreen canopy would not only affect and reduce the air input to the engine but it would also create the “dirty air” which results in the net performance reduction in the car.

To understand this, one should know that F1 car is not just about putting a high power unit in the low weight carbon composite car. When a car is running on the track with high speeds the air resistance is significantly higher, the car is literally punching a hole through the air. The car cutting through such high speeds bears the ability to literally get lifted and fly in the air with the same principle the an airplane takes off. According to Bernoulli’s principle if one creates net difference in the velocities of a fluid over a body it results in net pressure difference over the body. When this pressure difference becomes significant enough with the weight of the body it can provide lift to the body, it will cause the body to fly. As airplanes are designed to fly up, the F1 cars are designed to not fly up and remain glued to the track. This is done by creating down-force in the car. Simply put, its like rotating the wing of an airplane upside down to keep it glued down to the track instead of lifting up. More the down-force, more the car will remain glued to the track, more traction it will have which will make high speed turns on the cars possible. But down-force generation also comes with one design challenge called drag. When a continuous, uniform airflow is traveling over the car imparting net down-force the moment this steady-like airflow gets detached from the surface of the car it gets disturbed, turbulent air containing relatively high velocity loops of air or “eddies” are generated. This air turbulence is known as “the dirty air” in F1. Due to this, the air velocities at the back of the car become higher than the air velocities to the front of the car which creates net pressure difference thereby net low pressure zones are created behind the car. The car experiences a resisting force called “drag” which reduces the speed of the car. So, design of a good performing F1 car is always about finding that sweet spot of balance between down-force, drag and lift.

Now back to the cockpit design. The fully closed cockpit design ensures streamlined airflow over the car but it also compromises the extraction of the driver in emergency. If one puts aeroscreen cockpit in the car, the streamline passing over the would be disturbed before it even exits the overall car’s body. It will create a “wake” of air which will not be dense, streamlined thereby adding the drag to the car. It will reduce the speed of the car substantially. Please note that the differences of speeds and lap times in F1 are really close to the 10^th of a second.

The biggest problem with incorporation of cockpits was related to the chaos in the aerodynamics of an F1 car which is one of the only things F1 teams can have larger overall control on.

If such design standards are related to safety, then they are supposed to be mandatory to every team which would reduce the net speeds of all F1 cars thereby removing the thrill of the game, the soul of the sports. Hence everyone opposed this idea of open canopy cockpit – aeroscreen design.

The Emergence of Halo

After the tragic death of Jules Bianchi in 2014 FIA realized that the front-end protection is also important aspect to improve the overall safety in the motorsport. As FIA were already in the process of frontal protection from 2011-12 testing fighter jet level closed canopies, it became apparent that some immediate and more practical solution is required for the F1 cars. This resulted in the design of Halo.

A halo also known as additional frontal protection (AFP) is a hoop made from aerospace grade Titanium alloy – Grade 5 Titanium (an alloy of titanium with aluminum and vanadium) with has 3 joints to enable connection to the car. It was designed by Mercedes.

The parts of Halo (FIA Standard 8869-2018)

The halo weighs just 7 kg but can handle the loads of 12000-15000 kg (yes, those are 12-15 tons). Precisely speaking, according to FIA standard 8869-2018, a halo is made up of Ti6Al4V Grade 5 alloy weighing 7.0kg, +0.05kg, -0.15kg and should withstand quasi-static (simply put – slow and steady enough to seem unnoticeable movement) load of at least 125 kN with deflection less that 17.5 mm in Test 1 and deflection less that 45 mm in Test 2. (125 kN = 12.7464 metric ton, average weight of a Double-Decker bus). You have to understand that its not just about the integrity of the structure of halo. When halo is attached to the F1 car, the car chassis should also be able the withstand such loads transferred from the halo. Otherwise only halo would withstand the impact but the whole chassis may fail, resulting in many complicated failures, damage, injuries even fatality.

Test 1 with front load (Source – FIA Standard for AFP 8869-2018)

Test 2 with lateral load (Source – FIA Standard for AFP 8869-2018)

Halo is a standard supply part meaning that everyone must have the same part in their car obtained from the FIA certified and approved manufacturer. No modification is allowed on halo.

Mercedes AMG W08 F1 car in 2017 without halo

Mercedes AMG W09 F1 car in 2018 with halo

Challenges with Halo

The biggest outburst from F1 fans, F1 teams, F1 designers/ engineers and even F1 drivers for halo was due the reason that it is the ugliest part of the F1 car. Many said that it destroys the whole look, beauty of the car.

Second and more practical reason to resist halo was the disturbance in the aerodynamics of the car. Though the disturbances in airflow are lesser than the canopy it still meddles with the performance of the car in total. The top hoop of the halo disturbs the airflow creating a wake of dirty air over the rear wing thereby increasing the drag on car and reduced speeds.

Drag Reduction System (DRS) became less effective due to incorporation of halo. DRS consists of a moving flap on the rear wing of the car which alters the airflow over the rear end of car thus when this flap is lifts up while the car is on straights the down-force thereby drag on car is reduced hence gaining the speed.

When the DRS flap lifts up the drag on the car is reduced.
(Source- See reference 8)

Now due to the incorporation of halo, the streamlined airflow which was expected to get extended over the rear wing of the car during the DRS was already getting disturbed thereby making the DRS less effective. (F1 fans know the madness and thrill of chase upon DRS activation on straights of the circuits)

Halo messes with the streamline flow over the DRS on tail and engine intake. You can see in this image the streamlined – parallel airflow lines are disturbed due to halo’s leading edge causing eddies (Source- See reference 7)

Third reason for resisting halo was the obstruction in the vision of an F1 driver. The central pylon of the halo connects just in front of the eyesight of the driver. Such immediate frontal obstruction in vision is big red alarm for everyone. The implementation of halo was tested in 2017 free practice session and every driver hated it as it was the immediate blockage in vision. Still the updated 2018 FIA standards mandated installation of halo.

One design to save them all

Despite the negative reception, halo has proved its effectiveness right from its year of implementation.

In 2018 Belgian Grand Prix on the circuit of Spa. Fernando Alonso’s McLaren car rolled over Charles Leclerc’s Sauber F1 car. The possible direct impact of rear tire and read wing would have caused permanent neck damage or possible death to Charles but it didn’t happen due to the protection from halo. According the simulations from the data of the accelerometers and other sensors from the cars, the impact force was of 56 kN (5.7 ton of weight)

Damaged air fairing in inset, halo remained undamaged during the crash. Simulated tire contact from Alonso’s car on Leclerc’s helmet eye-shield that halo saved in second inset image

In the same year in an F2 race in Catalunya, Spain Tadasuke Makino’s life was saved during the accidental crash landing of rival car.

Halo prevented the contact of sweeping rear end with Makino’s head

In 2019, F3 race in Monza, Italy Alex Peroni’s car went airborne, flipped in the air, rotated thrice and car landed upside down on his head. If it was not for halo, Alex would have been dead, the impact was directly on his head if halo wouldn’t have provided the barrier.

We do have flying cars. Peroni’s car landed on the halo part during crash and saved him from severe injuries

In 2020, Romain Grosjean driving Haas F1 car directly crashed into the barrier in Bahrain Grand Prix. The crash was so dangerous that it split the car in two pieces which was nearly impossible for a modern Formula 1 car. The collision was head on from the front end of the car. Romain experience 53 G force when he crashed through the barrier at the speed of 250 km/h. The halo protected his head from such intense front collision. People called it a miracle of god but it was one safety decision evolved from simple yet effective engineering solution which saved a man’s invaluable life from an unimaginable incident.

The impact so powerful that it split the modern F1 car in two. The halo saved Grosjean’s life from from powerful front crash into barrier. The man on fire emerging from the yellow fire can be seen here.

In 2021, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull F1 car crash landed over Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes F1 car. The Red Bull car’s rear tire (or tyre) literally traveled over Lewis’s head. The halo prevented this direct contact otherwise it was definitely for 7 times world champion’s neck and life.

The halo that saved 7 times world champion

In 2021, in W Series qualifying session at Spa, Belgium a really weird accident caused 6 cars to pile up within few seconds. In this multiple collision pile up the halo of Sarah Moore’s car deflected a flying wheel saving her life from instant impact. In the same incident Beitske Visser’s car landed on the halo upside down which saved her life. Belen Garcia was also saved from frontal impact in this crash.

Moore’s head saved from loose tire contact

Garcia saved from the contact with loose tire from front

Visser saved from multiple flips and dangerous landing on head

In 2022, British F2 race in Silverstone the car of Denis Haugher’s car went airborne, just like a vehicle jumping off a ramp on a corner and it went cross through the car of Roy Nissany’s head. The halo experienced side impact and only because of the implementation of halo Roy Nissany was saved from literal decapitation. It was a great save only due to halo.

Nissany’s stars were bright on this ramp flight contact

In 2022, British Grand Prix at Silverstone, in the start and the first corner of the first lap Pierre Gasly’s Alfa Tauri F1 Car touched George Russel’s Mercedes F1 car on rear which resulted in his crash with Zhou Guanyu’s Alfa Romeo F1 car. The crash caused the Zhou’s car to flip upside down and in the same orientation the car went off track skidding only on the support of the halo over the gravel till the barriers. Zhou did not suffer any injury and was safe in all this accident, as if nothing happened.

Guanyu’s crash tested halo from all possible angles. Halo was the angel which brought him back from the doors of death.

Are design decisions all about aesthetics?

Here are some highlights of halo-

Halo solved most of the problems related to the closed canopy and aeroscreen.

There is no moving part in halo thereby eliminating the unpredictable failures in extreme cases.

The problem of visual obstruction was more related to the development of habit in drivers. We can see our own nose with our own eyes (which is relatively easy to check for people with big and pointy nose) when we make a conscious attempt to see it. Our brain is normally ignoring our nose in routine vision. When you hold a pencil in front of your face and close, if you try to focus on distant objects the eyes can see what there is behind the pencil too. As if the pencil doesn’t exist. In the same sense drivers became comfortable with halo’s obstruction after some learning curve.

Regarding the aerodynamics, FIA is always in development to establish new design standards to maintain competitiveness in the sports. FIA in 2022 established some design changes to enable close chases between cars. Air fairing is allowed over halo, so teams have found out the ways to minimize the dirty air created due to halo.

FIA allows air-fairing to reduce the dirty air from halo

The implementation of halo was one of the most resisted decisions of the famous and important motorsport like F1. The reasons behind halo’s rejection seemed fair until it proved its effectiveness. Halo saved at least 10 lives in three years immediately. FIA simulation analysis predicted that there would be 1 incident in 1 – 2 years where halo will play key role. After such incidents in series, it became clear that halo is the life saver.

The major backlash for halo was for the reason that it would mess with the aesthetics of the F1 cars. F1 cars are known for their slick aesthetics. But there is more to it. The slickness, sophistication in an F1 car is not just about its design looks or its visual beauty it is also about the functional design. For a design to become perfect, there should always be some intent for certain part to remain there. The implementation of halo and the developments that resulted it show us some really interesting ideas about what a design should be. Development of halo also shows that the process to design a simple yet effective engineering piece is really complex, rigorous, thoughtful, precise and continuously evolving process.

The story of evolution of halo in F1 tells us about the minimalist and functional design for safety. Not even single part of halo is in excess, unnecessary or unwanted. The designers and engineers deserve special recognition for saving important lives and maintain the spirit of the sport. Maybe halo is truly the best design and safety decision after the design of seat belt. And there will always be scope for evolution and improvements. Given that the simplest, most effective design of halo is to stay forever in motorsports like F1, whatever comes after halo will be and has to be groundbreaking.

The precious lives that halo saved:

The story of evolution of halo in F1 tells us about the minimalist and functional design for safety. Not even single part of halo is in excess, unnecessary or unwanted. The designers and engineers deserve special recognition for saving important lives and maintain the spirit of the sport.

Starting from left – Charles Leclerc, Tadasuke Makino, Alex Peroni, Romain Grosjean, Lewis Hamilton, Sarah Moore, Beitske Visser, Belen Garcia, Roy Nissany, Zhou Guanyu.

References and further reading:

Ferdinand Porsche
FIA Standard 8869-2018 SINGLE-SEATER ADDITIONAL FRONTAL PROTECTION – HALO
2018 FORMULA ONE TECHNICAL REGULATIONS
2023 FORMULA ONE TECHNICAL REGULATIONS
Technical F 1 Dictionary
A Critical Review of the ‘Halo’ Device in Formula One by Charmian Monroe – Oxford Brookes University
Effect of Halo Protection Device on the Aerodynamic Performance of Formula Racecar by Mark Lin, Periklis Papadopoulos, International Journal of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Vol:14, No:1, 2020
Aerodynamic Study of a Drag Reduction System and Its Actuation System for a Formula Student Competition Car, Loução, R.; Duarte, G.O.; Mendes, M.J.G.C., Fluids, 2022, 7, 309. https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids7090309
Crash images from telecasts of F1, F2, F3 and W series

The Existence – Why? How? And What?

Logotherapy is not intended only to search for the purpose of life. It justifies and dignifies the human life for its capabilities to remain in the ebb and flow of existence which is the only real thing amongst the infinite yet unrealized possibilities in the universe.

Part 2 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

“Was du erlebst, kann dir kein Gott mehr rauben.”

(No god can rob you of what you experience.)
Robert Hamerling

Answers from Logotherapy

In the Part 1 of the post, we tried to touch some ideas like – “three schools of psychology”, Freudian “will to pleasure”, Adlerian “will to power”, Viktor Frankl’s “will to meaning” as in Logotherapy, “existential vacuum”, “Noö-dynamics”, “determinism according to Logotherapy”, “Freedom according to Logotherapy” and “the responsibility that comes with the freedom”

In summary, Viktor Frankl a holocaust survivor, psychiatrist by profession witnessed and experienced the extremes of the human psyche leading to the creation of the concrete foundations of Logotherapy. According to logotherapy, it is the meaning, the purpose – which makes a man to survive through any situations in life, especially the worst ones. When there were not chances to become powerful, when there were no means to gain pleasure even then people chose to go through the hardships/ sufferings – they chose life. Not only to survival but even upon the realization of death, people accepted that death in same way one would have accepted the life. They had something inside them which made sense out of the sufferings, pain, life and even death. This “sense” was the purpose they had identified for themselves to serve. This purpose, this meaning to their own life justified the sufferings they endured which created the hope for their survival and justification to the death for the people who accepted it with dignity.

Noö-genic neurosis is that existential blockage rather vacuum where a person’s mind itself is unsettled because it has no justification, no sense, no meaning behind the activities, decisions to live through the life. Upon realization of the real freedom, a person (and not the conditions, the objects around him) can determine his fate even in worst conditions; the person can still have that “optimal behavior”. This realization of freedom is possible because human psyche seeks for the sense of the things, the meaning, the purpose. This freedom also calls for the sense of responsibility because human life practically has limited span, is perishable which brings that urgency to achieve the best possible outcome, the optimal outcome out of the only life one has. Responsibility brings the best out of the freedom one has; without the sense of responsibility, freedom degenerates into arbitrariness, a diffused state where the outcomes of the event have no significant impact. In simple words, freedom with responsibility gives focused and optimal outcomes whereas freedom without responsibility (still) gives results but are diffused as there is no intent to achieve anything.

Why? Why does the life bear “a meaning”, “a purpose”?

Upon understanding what actually lies under the human psyche and the human life (i.e., the purpose, the meaning), it becomes apparent to ask the same existential question – Why does life seek for meaning only as there can be other uncountable possibilities, uncountable factors which drive the psyche, the life, the existence? Why nothing in the world – the universe but meaning only?

Viktor Frankl has excellently given the theoretical and practical proofs for the importance of meaning in a person’s life. Theoretically proof – if a person is always driven by pleasures and power then why there are examples where people chose sacrifice, where people died for their honor, where people stood fearlessly for their morals, where people rose against something really powerful, where people accepted the hardships even when there was no guarantee for them to end? These are not the exceptional cases in a human behavior. Rather when human beings are stretched to their extremes these behaviors are more common. So, unlike the pleasure and power the awareness, the urge to find the meaning is not just a secondary drive of the human life. The urge to the meaning, the purpose will always be present even in the absence of pleasure and power.

Practically Viktor Frankl presents a study to prove his point here. 89% people from a French public opinion poll and 78% of the people in an American students’ statistical survey indicated that people want “something to live for”, “finding a purpose and meaning to the life”.

I think, it is the omnipotent nature of the infinite possibilities which the real freedom grants to every person. Out of those infinite possibilities very few become realized to reality from where the freedom loses its ideal nature. Then the superposition of realized possibilities create the “real” reality which has been brought from chaos, an inconceivable, an un-understandable situation to a familiar, slightly better predictable state. This better predictable, the one “out of which some sense can be made” state is the fundamental state required for the human life to thrive upon. This urgency for predictability, for sense, for meaning, for purpose is solely because of the limited nature of the realization of life we have.

(The word predictability is not used here to imply that man wishes for everything to happen according to his wishes, rather the predictability is used in the sense for how a person will always know how he will react to the events presented to him even when they are not predictable.)

Does that mean that if a person becomes immortal, will the urge for purpose – the will to meaning ceases to exist? That is where responsibility comes into picture which Viktor Frankl has posed while defining freedom’s role in human life. Only with responsibility can the freedom be brought to the realization to possibilities out of the infinite unrealized possibilities.

In single sentence I think, a single realized possibility is more powerful than the infinite unrealized possibilities. The extraction of this power is only possible if the there is freedom with a responsibility. That is why the life exists; it exists to create the realized possibilities out of the infinite unrealized possibilities (which the universe holds or whatever ultimate there is can generate).

How? How one discovers the purpose

The profoundness of Frankl’s logotherapy is not just about the depth of the ideas and the practicality of the experimental results. He also explained how one gains this meaning, which are as follows:

Ways to discover Meaning of Life-

Creating a work or doing a deed
By experiencing something or encountering someone
By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

1. Creating a work or doing a deed

It is very similar to figuring out what you actually love doing and how you can also benefit others (obviously including you) in the process. (Some call it following your passion, answering your inner calling to create something that you and others value)

2. By experiencing something or encountering someone – Power of love

“The second way of finding a meaning in life is by experiencing something – such as goodness, truth and beauty- by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness- by loving him.”
Viktor Frankl

The meaning of Love itself became very “meaningful” to me when I understood what the logotherapy stands for. Before stumbling upon the ideas of Viktor Frankl on “the meaning”- for me love was a selfish idea to gain pleasure, to have that comfort for ourselves. Something which goes like this:

“We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It’s our own concept – our own selves – that we love.”
Fernando Pessoa

Love is very selfish idea if we go by this statement. For me here, Pessoa meant that love emerges from inside, hence it is very “egoic” It gives us pleasure to love someone, to do everything to make them happy which ultimately will make us happy, thereby becoming selfish in the end. But then my perspectives changed. (I haven’t studied and understood the premise and the intentions behind the Pessoa’s comment on love here, which can be reserved for discussion somewhere else.)

Upon going through the ideas on Logotherapy, we become aware that there are examples where lovers (not the romantic ones only) have crossed the limits of life for other people or other things, where (again) pleasure and power were not guaranteed.

Love thus becomes a medium to realize the possibilities of the life experiences. If we are so obsessed to find the meaning of our life, then it equally becomes very meaningful to have someone who understands the same urge for meaning in you too. This love is not just a person-to-person possibility, it can also be for things and experiences.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value: rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
C S Lewis

This is the reason you will always see why almost all the events, experiences, art forms, philosophies, cultures, religions and whatnot are immediately linked to the concept of love. It’s on a whim where things not making sense are illogically explained by love, it is innate fact in everyone which logotherapy makes apparent.

3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

The third way one can realize the worth of life is by going through sufferings. Sufferings stretch a person to his extremes where there are clear boundaries between the existences of life and death. The urgency to make the existence of some worth becomes eminent here. The meaning discovered in such situations pushes the person to bring even the hopeless situations to his benefit by developing an attitude of optimism. The inability to change the situations makes the person change himself to bring the best out of the situation. It the way in which the person finds the meaning to his suffering.

“Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”
Viktor Frankl

It is also important to understand that if suffering gives the person meaning for the life that also does not mean that everyone has to suffer to find the meaning in his own life. Viktor Frankl was very clear in these terms. Hence, he clarified the earlier two ways to find the meaning in life. The ideas communicated by Viktor Frankl are very similar to the ideas in stoicism which also discusses about focusing on things which you can control.

What? What is life according to the logotherapy?

The logotherapy explains that life is all about the tragedies, in Viktor’s words the tragic triad of three things namely pain, Guilt and Death. Why tragedies are considered to represent life is important here. It is very easy for life to exist when these three things (pain, guilt, death) are not there, but the life still remains existent rather becomes more meaningful in the presence of the same hostile aspects. Logotherapy thus discusses that even in such hostile conditions, one can find the meaning, one can have the “optimal behavior” by following ways in the words of Viktor himself as follows:

Pain – Turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment.
Guilt – Deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for better.
Death – deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.

1. Pain

Logotherapy made a successful attempt to justify what is the real nature of pleasure and pain. It established a fact that life is not just a set of tragic events of sadness for someone and a series full of happiness for others. Life is about how we as a person create meaning out of our sufferings, even when they are not in control. This is the real victory over those sufferings. Logotherapy actually balanced the concepts of happiness and sadness which both are the inseparable aspects of every life. One of them is always favored (happiness) but the realization of meaning makes the least favorable yet existent (sadness) a reality. This is very effective when people are sad even in their pursuits of happiness. They expect that doing one specific thing will bring them happiness, make them feel accomplished. After doing that thing, achieving that thing they again become clueless and sad that it was not what they expected.

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. A human being is not in the pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.”
Viktor Frankl

When people get overwhelmed upon the realization that happiness is not consistent for their whole life the existential vacuum peaks in and again this meaninglessness becomes dominant. Frankl effectively established that this forced urge to become happy is one of the major reasons for the depression, aggression and addiction in the newer generations.

2. Guilt

Frankl here gives one of his professional experiences with the convicted criminals- the guilty people of the society. According to his ideas from personal experiences which are really powerful- every crime cannot be traced back to single point event, single person, single cause, single behavior. If it is impossible to pinpoint and press conviction on such singular aspects, then how can a person be considered completely guilty for the crime. For such human beings rather every person feeling guilty about something life is about rising above it. Even though Viktor’s examples are based on criminal and convicted human beings, it will be an understatement that they are not applicable to everyone of us. Every one of us considers themselves guilty for at least one thing, one mistake in their life. Finding the purpose, the meaning can help us to rise above this guilt with the feeling of responsibility. What a powerful thought!

Humanness in everyone is one important aspect of logotherapy. Rising above guilt through realization of meaning reflects that. It made the psychology more humanitarian rather that a mechanistic interaction between humans and their drives.

3. Death

We have already discussed that the perishable nature of life creates the urgency to meaning. The sense of death brings in the responsibility to optimally live the only life one has is an important aspect of every human life rather every life.

“The opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives.”
Viktor Frankl

This is where I think we can understand what actually lies under the existence of life. Our existence as a conscious life is destined to create the realities from the infinite possibilities that universe has. We are the means to bring the intangible possibilities into the reality through our lives which makes every life meaningful. Every life is meaningful and hence deserves dignity. It is dignified because by its mere existence it has successfully created the realities out of the unrealized and intangible possibilities. Our existence itself makes us dignified of the life we have even if it may not be useful for others.

“An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being.”
Viktor Frankl

This is also the moment where Viktor has highlighted on creating real possibilities in present rather than dwindling on to past and future. Past is more important because it is where the reality existed, it is where the meaning of actions from the present are justified.

The Super-meaning – why does the meaning exist?

“What is demanded of man in not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. Logos is deeper than logic.”
Viktor Frankl

It is also very important to understand that Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy is not just about finding the sense to the life, the meaning the purpose of the life. It also makes one important argument about the limitations of human understandings. When we will go on asking “why?” to the answers of every “why?”, we will end up into some abstract idea of meaning which won’t even make sense to our existence. (And again, the same spiral of existential vacuum will start thereby rendering the question useless itself) even though there are some things which are beyond your understandings that also does not mean that your meaning should always justify unknowns, rather it is paradoxical. If the purpose of life is to create the realities from the intangible, unrealized infinite possibilities then it is very important to understand that the meaning need not to be some abstract meaning in order to justify every possibility in the universe. Logotherapy thus becomes very powerful to create a practical, real picture and purpose of human life. Logotherapy thus justifies and dignifies the human life for its capabilities to be there even in the ebb and flow of existence which is the only real thing amongst the infinite yet unrealized possibilities.

For more, read Part 1 of this blog post- Answering the questions on existence of “the existence” – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity – Part 1

Featured Image – Jewish Museum Berlin

Answering the questions on existence of “the existence”

Attempts to solve the mystery behind creation and existence is one the futile pursuits of humanity. Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy tries to establish the what, why and how of humanity’s existence.

Part 1 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

The existential question and unsatisfactory answers to it

Almost every one of us have stumbled upon the question about their existence in this big world full of people and things – at least once. “Why am I doing this?”, “What am I doing with my life?” – while listening to that boring lecture/ meeting. “Why does life not make any sense?”, “What should I do now that I have no options left?”, “Why should I help others, when nobody’s helping me?”, “If we are nothing but a speck of dust in this whole universe, then what is the purpose of our creation?”, “Why in first place universe was created and why we exist in this chaotic universe?”, “What is the purpose of creation?”, “Why does bad things always happen with good people only?”, “Why couldn’t I achieve something great even when I am putting more efforts than others?”

Questions like these and their many more extreme versions are one significant part of our life where we are always questioning our existence in this universe. The answers to such questions are also very poetic rather philosophical in a way. “You exist in this world to love”, “You exist in this world to suffer”, “You exist in this universe because someone (especially the God) wants you to experience the beauty of his creation!”, “You exist to establish the Truth and Justice in the society”. Some answers are really practical (but believe me more true) like “You exist because your parents had sex that night”, “You exist because who else would bring drinks from the fridge for me!”, “You exist because someone has to pay the bills”. Some are technical answers like – “You exist because of the consequences of the existence where some ape evolved in order to survive the extremities of changes in nature”, “You are just an accident in this never-ending path of an entropy increasing universe which started from nothing and will end into nothing.”

But, out of all such versions of questions and their answers we never get one satisfactory argument as to understand the real justification behind our existence. One thing is pretty sure about the answers to such existential questions that is –

“There is no absolute version-ed answer to the existential question”.

The human existence is more than just the body. The entity creating the awareness of this physical body, the entity which enables this existence through awareness – “the psyche” is one important part of our existence. Also, understanding who we are can make a successful attempt to signify our existence in the universe. That is where and why psychology provides some answers to existential questions.

What makes any human being “the human being”?

In psychology, there are two very famous schools of thought. The first one was established by Sigmund Freud who posed the important concept of “id, ego and super-ego”. In very simple words, human beings are “driven by pleasure”. As they are a part of evolution, their primitive part of the brain – “id” always seeks for something pleasurable in order to continue, remain and sustain in this evolution. The super-ego is the later cultivated part of the brain where human beings are made more cultural by the conditioning from their parents, guardians. And the ego is the current version of the mind which acts under the influences of id and super-ego.

Alfred Adler later introduced the second school of psychology where he considers man as a social being. Again, in single line what Adlerian psychology says is that, all the actions, decisions, behaviors of a human are driven by the society around him where the biggest motivation is to be strong and powerful in the hierarchy of the society. Adlerian ideas indicate that the humans are “driven by power/superiority”.

Now that we have some rough understanding of the two schools of psychology, when we ask the existential question to Freud or Adler the expected answer will be-

“We exist to experience pleasure; we exist to become superior”.

Then the next question is “So what is the difference between animals and humans?” where these two schools fail to justify their answer.

Logotherapy – the satisfactory answer

Viktor Frankl – a holocaust survivor and an Austrian psychiatrist/neurologist experienced the extreme ends of human sufferings and human behavior in Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz, where he observed and personally experienced the limitations of traditional schools of psychology. His experienced presented in his world-famous book “Man’s Search for Meaning” creates an unimaginable picture of suffering, cruelty, hope, survival which is an epitome of what it means to be a human.

Viktor, in the concentrations camps realized that some people lost that “emotional aspect” of their personality after undergoing so much cruelty and suffering – literally becoming animals; some held on to their core emotions and hoped for survival and survived successfully after all the sufferings – both mental and physical. Some people – even after becoming aware of their death, embraced it with dignity (that too under very inhumane environment).

The important thing to understand is that there was no “drive for pleasure” or “drive for superiority” which made the survivors survive through the concentration camp. (You will find moments in Frankl’s life in concentration camp where only getting a small piece of bread was a luxury. Becoming the leader – “capo” of the prisoner group was the only possible superior position in such camps, one should read the experiences of Frankl to understand what it meant to be a “Capo”. Leader – but finally a prisoner in the end.)

The gist of the whole is that there was no chance for achieving pleasure or power in any ways and still people survived through this camp; many people embraced death without any regret, fear. The main thing that made them endure all these sufferings and mental/ physical hostility was the hope. After surviving through the concentration camp Viktor Frankl made all the efforts to establish the third most important school of psychology called “Logotherapy” which is one important part of Humanitarian Psychology. “Humanitarian” in the sense that human psyche is not just a result of some actions and reactions or influences. It is an independent entity in itself rather than a mere result of interactions, influence of things. Human psyche is not a machine where pressing a key will generate some result/ reaction, it is more than just a machine.

Viktor Frankl coined the word Logotherapy from the Greek word Logos which indicates “meaning”. Logotherapy says that human beings have will for meaning. This meaning drives their course of psyche and ultimately their life.

We will try to touch the fundamental ideas explained by Viktor Frankl in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” to understand what lies behind the existence of humanity. Interesting thing is that Logotherapy has some plausible explanations to those grand philosophical problems and even those tiny yet peculiar real-life problems.

Nihilism and Noö-dynamics

One of the biggest things that Logotherapy has achieved is to explain the nihilism. When a person doesn’t find a satisfactory answer for the existential questions (the questions in the earlier part of the discussion) he assumes the world around him as a chaotic one, meaningless one. Nihilism exactly means that life is meaningless. Viktor Frankl solved the problem of nihilism by establishing how one becomes nihilistic. It is the “existential frustration” originated from the mind of the person which sometimes is unable to grasp the big picture thereby rendering the life and the existence itself as an entity making zero sense – meaningless. This frustration later on takes the shape of an illness. Remember that no external entity has created this illness; it is the result of the inability of our own mind to solve the “meaning”, the “purpose” of its being. Frankl calls this as Noögenic illness.

Many people yet loyal to their professions, jobs still are not satisfied with what they are doing. Many people doing the bare minimum to survive their weekdays only to crash into their weekends and getting further sad that it passed in a blink of a moment (the famous “Sunday neurosis”) are the people who are frustrated with what they are doing without actually realizing its purpose. They are just passing through the things, events, interactions due to this frustration of not understanding their existence – thus becoming a nihilist. Some will argue that there are other limitations like social, financial, physical which bind the person to this existential frustration; but there are examples where people came out of some really extraordinary situations and made something great out of those limitations too. What they had was the awareness of their existence, they had found the meaning, purpose of their being, their existence.

Frankl takes support of Frederich Nietzsche’s statement here –

“He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how’”
Frederich Nietzsche

One interesting and genius note Frankl made here is the nature of one’s life. An ideal life especially ideal mental health is not a state of an equilibrium rather it is state of constant tension between what one has already achieved and what one has to achieve yet. That is how we evolve and that is also what gives sense to existence as it itself is an epitome of evolution.

“If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. ”
Viktor Frankl

Significance of determinism and freedom in human life

Now take one completely opposite case of a human being where he is not limited by anything. He is free to do anything and everything – the omnipotent. Will that make him really happy? Will that solve the existential problem? The answer is obviously “No”. When presented with all the possibilities the first thing that will happen to that person is that he will get completely overwhelmed with the expanse and counts of the possibilities and will end up in doing nothing. Some will try to do everything and still will be confused for what they are actually doing with everything as the possibilities are endless. After some time, there will be two categories. The first one will be bored and overwhelmed because they are confused with what to do with everything and anything presented to them and second one will be bored and confused because they are doing everything and anything presented to them.

Thus, Viktor Frankl through his Logotherapy argued that even though freedom is important aspect of human life – it is not the complete truth. The earlier schools of psychology (Freudian and Adlerian) were based on the “mechanisms” present in our lives. When pleasure will be presented the person will react to achieve that, when strength and survival will be presented the person will kill to achieve that superiority. But that is not what always happen; history has examples where people starved themselves for something which would seem meaningless, worthless for another people. People gave their lives for someone who was not even worthy replacement for their sacrifices. The logotherapy actually highlights that humans always have the power to choose their next step, the next best step even in the worse possible case. This breaks the deterministic model of human psyche. Frankl explains that you can predict the behavior of a group as it has its limitations, but it will be always difficult to predict the behavior of single person based on any psychological analysis of theory. (It’s like quantum mechanical theory of psychology!)

Frankl further argued that even when the freedom to choose the actions is realized it eventually will lead to “existential vacuum” thereby posing freedom as rather negative part of human psyche. Freedom to do everything will eventually end in meaninglessness and existential crisis unless it is not supported by responsibility.

With great power…

To explain why it is almost impossible to predict behavior of single human being/ a single human psyche Frankl gave an example of a doctor called Dr. J who was exactly the definition of “the Satan” – “The Mass murderer of Steinhof” (the large mental hospital in Vienna). Frankl explains that when the Nazis initiated their euthanasia program, Dr. J with all power granted to him made sure that every psychotic individual goes to the gas chamber. When the war ended and when he was caught by Russians Frankl assumed that he might have escaped cunningly from Russians prison. Later on Frankl found out that Dr. J was diagnosed with cancer of urinary bladder and died in the Russian prison. In his last days people remembered him as the best comrade, the best person. The person with highest moral standards even the best friend.”

What made Dr. J to completely change his behavior his ideals?

Only upon the realization of the finiteness – the limitedness of his life, Dr. J understood what he could have actually created out of the power and authority he had. And hence Viktor Frankl highlights the importance of responsibility with freedom in human psyche. Dr. J realized the purpose of his life only when he realized the finiteness of his life that made him the real free person.

In Viktor Frankl’s own words-

“Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the east coast be supplemented by a Statue of responsibility on the West coast ”
Viktor Frankl

We already have the legacy of Stan Lee in similar words:

Logotherapy is not just an answer to the question of “why we as a human beings exist?”, “what actually drives us?”, “What is the essence of freedom in human psyche?”. Logotherapy in itself makes successful attempts to make sense of the all the chaos happening around us. The best and most important aspect of Logotherapy is that it considers human beings as a “self-driven entity” instead of the “external-driven” entity. Man is more than the things around him. Human psyche may get influenced by the “dynamics” around him but that not what completely defines what being human is. A human can always choose the best even in his worst condition.

Viktor Frankl also made successful attempts to answer the question “Why Logos – the meaning/ the purpose is needed?”, “What it means to be a human being?”, “How one can realize his own being?”.

Logotherapy itself is a vast subject of which I am not an expert, but it definitely solved some unsolved existential doubts I had. We will see how and why Logotherapy might actually lead us to more fulfilled life in the next part. We will also see how Logotherapy can provide answers to modern problems in the Part 2 of this blog post.

Reference:

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Read Part 2 of this blog post – The Existence – Why? How? And What? – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity – Part 2

Biases and Delusions – Steering on the borders of rationalism and insanity

Humans and the longing for eternal existence

There are these moments in many popular stories where our protagonist – the hero is feeling hopeless – depressed, is fed up by the cruelty, hardships, failures and some age-old character, a well-seasoned teacher or ‘that life altering event’ which give him the hope to continue against the antagonist – the villain of the story; obviously our hero wins. There are very common examples not only in pop culture, cinema but also in real human history and literature. It is very important to understanding that the qualities demonstrated in such exceptional times by our characters seems very illogical. (Remember the explanation of “The power of true love” or “the power of Hope” at the climax of your favorite movies, stories) In simple words, the reasons for such events are justified by the realization of something beyond the reality we experience, something supernatural – something which cannot be justified by a rational, logical thought. The explanation in these cases seems more spiritual and less practical or rational. Today we will see how one can differentiate between practical irrationalism (i.e., hope) and impractical irrationalism (i.e., delusion)

They say that “the death is the ultimate equalizer” which highlights how everyone of us considers their own existence as the most important part of our being. It is the most real and rational part which enables us to experience our life in reality. We are aware that all real and rational things are perishable, end-able and yet we are always making some attempts or at least thinking of prolonging our existence for eternity. This seems very irrational, impractical and still our mind always tries to falsify the thought that our life has an end somewhere. (We plan what we are going to eat/ wear/ do tomorrow, plan that trip, make new year resolutions even after the uncertain nature of our life and with the optimism/ hope that we will live to do those things as planned.)

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar
The human urge to improvise, do something unconventional at the last moment of life is often epitome of all extreme survival stories. (Not only in movies but also in reality)

Our basic survival instincts are always aware of the chances and ways in which we can die. A healthy person’s subconscious mind is aware of the death and its consequences. Our immediate involuntary responses to life threatening events are examples of that. (You immediately remove your hand from a very hot thing because you know that it is going to hurt you.)

Interesting is when these such feeling for the longing of survival gets highlighted in some extreme and abnormal conditions. The conditions which are not generally faced by normal human beings.

Victor Frankl and The Delusion of Reprieve

Victor Frankl an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist in his days in Auschwitz observed a very extreme and irrational behavior amongst the victims including himself. When the newly admitted Jewish prisoners were torn off of their own identities, the only thing they were left with was their hope for surviving through the tortures wishing that they have some things to finish, some purpose of life to fulfill after living through that real-life hell. Frankl in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” creates a lively and horrifying picture of what a living hell looks like. Not even the greatest empath in the humanity can relate with the pain that these prisoners went through.

Frankl in this book explained the whole process when the Jewish prisoners were admitted to the concentration camp. At first, the prisoners went through the shock that they were being taken to Auschwitz – a place infamous for ruthless deaths of Jewish people. Then the hostility of a deserted, dry, barren land maintained by people with similar dried emotions amplifies that shock.

In this exact moment, Frankl noticed a group of people who looked much healthier and with some wit/ humor which highlighted the sanity of their minds even in such hostile environments; maintaining that snobby “attitude” even in this deserted, unfriendly environment was one relief for him.

With this observation, Frankl concluded that he too will be able to match with these people in order to survive through this hell with relatively lesser pain. One has to understand that this urge to have a lesser painful life in Auschwitz was not even closer to the reality, even the word “exception” would fall short for this. And still, even after knowing the fact that there is no escape from this hell, even after knowing that almost all of the people in Auschwitz die from inhumane mental and physical tortures, hard labor, starvation, diseases, internal disputes, favor-ism, unfairness, Frankl thought that there is a chance that he can climb up this ladder and become part of this “snob party”. One has to understand that the thoughts Frankl is having here are totally irrational. Frankl was already aware of the consequences of being sent to Auschwitz but even after that his mind chooses an irrational idea of facing less pain in Auschwitz. Frankl justifies this irrationalism by the “inborn optimism in him” and calls this condition in psychiatry as “delusion of reprieve”. He explains this in following words:

“The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. We, too, clung to shreds of hope and believed to the last moment that it would not be so bad.”

This “delusion” of being “pardoned” at the very last moment becomes the very first stage in the psychosis (a mental disorder of getting detached from the reality) of the people exposed to extreme ruthless environments of Auschwitz. This is totally different from the stories of conventional heroes and villains. Here, the person has completely lost the sense of what is a real possibility and what is an unrealistic demand. The conscience – ‘mere rational’ of the person gets broken in the hope that there is still something good and some chance of survival through this.

Biases, Delusions and Apathy

In psychology the biases and delusions are closely connected and highlight the tipping point from where the psychosis starts. First of all, it is very important to know that we all have biases. Biases are our favored, prejudiced opinions for someone or something. Biases are some sort of mental shortcuts to avoid the energy loss for processing huge amount of information. Here are some examples of cognitive biases (a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment):

Availability Heuristic Bias – People do not make decisions based on the data and statistics but on the stories and the stuff they hear from other people. You would want to easily trust what news show than to actually check and cross check fact with real data.

Choice Supportive Bias – People defend themselves because it was their choice. Because, if they made the choice, it must be right. You could be never wrong because you feel so is common scenario. Remember the time when you don’t even care to google what you just assume to be right because you think so.

Confirmation Bias – We tend to listen to information that confirms what we already know. Even after knowing that you were wrong you support and believe only that information that proves your thinking. Remember the flat earth conspiracy?

Ostrich Bias – Subconscious decision to ignore the negative information. Remember (again) the flat earth controversy?

Placebo Bias – Belief will help you recover. Loosely speaking, it can be explained by the idea of fake it until you make it. Your mind will make decisions based on the illusion that you are rich thereby ultimately making you rich. Placebo drug therapy is also the best example (but repeated words won’t explain the meaning)

There are many types of cognitive biases which actually throw light on our belief systems. (This could be a good discussion for some other times). The point is that when such biases start having a strong hold on a person’s mind, the person becomes delusional, leading to delusional disorders. This is triggered by some abnormal and unexpected situations. Victor Frankl actually observed and even went through such experiences where he establishes the “emotional death” of a person.

Due to constant shocks and bombardment of unconventional cruel treatments, the mind of person becomes numb to the extremities of the experiences and their response to such cruel, extreme and abnormal things no longer remains reactive as if these are normal situations for them. This is the “emotional death” Frankl is referring to. They became detached from the reality and thereby the humane emotions and responses to the cruelty around them – they became apathetic. Neither positive nor negative emotions.

Fine line between biases and delusions

Carrying the hope of having some moments of escape is also one example of the biased thinking the prisoners carried. Even after knowing, seeing and experiencing the cruelty in Auschwitz, their minds were not ready to accept the reality that it is close to impossible to escape this hell. Frankl’s well explained ‘delusional behavior among prisoners’ is one important part of Humanistic Psychology and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Delusion disorder are classified as Bizarre (realistically impossible) and non-bizarre (possible but wrong in nature). Jumping to conclusion bias is one of the most researched bias connecting to delusional disorders.

Jumping to Conclusion Bias (JTC Bias) – A bias where something is assumed to be true without collecting all the information/ data. It is also known as inference-observation confusion.

You can find in Frankl’s description of their admission in Auschwitz where he explained “those” healthier group of people. The optimistic urge of Frankl to be in level with them is an example of jumping to conclusion bias. With very little information and an unrealistic urge to survive Frankl unknowingly became victim to the delusion. (Although his profession helped him to distinguish such behaviors and work over them leading to strengthening and establishment of Logotherapy) There are some studies which have also highlighted that jumping to conclusion is one of the biases closely related to delusions and psychosis but it not the only reason, rather it is very unclear that how delusions form. Studies show that there are two possible reasons to why JTC Bias and delusions are closely related. One is “the intolerance of uncertainty” and second is the “impaired working memory”. In simple words, firstly – the fear of unknown, ambiguity in the outcomes of the things makes the mind to take shortcut and create a simple conclusion to settle the chaos of the data (which already is limited) thereby making an unrealistic expectation from the event and secondly the incapability of one’s memory to handle the routine tasks makes it impossible to derive conclusions from complete data thereby restricting the flow of information as minimum as possible to make the conclusion which then become unrealistic. These two reasons possibly indicate the connection between JTC and delusions. Please note that JTC is not the only bias which can cause delusions.

Although delusions are very extreme part of human psyche, it is very interesting to understand their link with the biases almost every human being has. Given that such types of biases are always there within us representing some short-lived illusions from truth or I would say “quasi-delusions”, it becomes very important to notice such patterns and immediately work over them. Being mindful, being aware of the thoughts we are having and the coherence of the conclusion we are drawing from them is one of the most important way to remain free from the biases and delusions.

The Metacognition therapy, the logotherapy thus are the important branches in humanistic psychology which contributed in this field. The psychology of hope is also one important aspect of delusions related to survival; especially in the cases resembling to Viktor Frankl’s experiences.

References and Further Reading:

Hometown by French 79 – The song of evolving patterns penetrating through chaos

Patterns and their awareness are one integral part of our daily activities and are deeply rooted in our personality too. Most of the time their influence goes unnoticed. What could be a better example than a good song to highlight the significance of patterns in our life. This is about a special song which may highlight the significance of creating new patterns in every instance of life that we live. This is about a song which embodies the patterns and evolution in them to create meaningful life out of chaos around us.

Music – magic of patterns

Some songs are such a work of art that you don’t want others to discover that treasure for the feelings it creates within you.

They say music is the last magic left in this world. It transcends the boundaries of language, religion, nationality, wealth, cultures and what not. Music, technically speaking is nothing but a harmonious, a systematic pattern of vibrations leading to the formation of difference in the density of the medium like air when sensed by our ear invokes some emotions. In this whole mechanical definition of music there is a part called “emotions” which actually becomes the bridge between the physical world (that can be sensed using our sense) and our mind (which is just there and cannot be sensed by our physical senses). Thus, it is safe to say that music lies as a bridge in a grey area between physical and non-physical (some call it spiritual) world.

The most important thing about “your” favorite music is that “hook” which recalls specific emotions in your mind. Even though the lyrics is also one important aspect of a good music that does not mean that it is everything. Every one of us can list down their favorite music which doesn’t contain any lyrics. In whole and sole, it is this hook or a specific repeating line in a song which connects you to that song and then you have this urge to explore the whole song thereby that becoming your “favorite song”.

I think our association with music has a deep-rooted link with who we are as living things (It is also present in non-living things but as there is no person alive to tell how it feels after death, we will limit our discussion to living beings only!) The only reason we can deeply associate music with living things especially with humans is due to the response generated to this stimulus. We already know that animals, plants and even insects react to music but the changes it can create through human beings are more intense and significant. (It can be loosely explained by the crowd control music in Trance Concerts, Instagram reels music trends)

Today we will discuss a song which can possibly point out what is “that” thing that we actually love about a music or any song. The music and lyrics both possibly point out to the same thing which we will discuss here.

Hometown by French 79

Hometown by French 79 – The lyrics

Every time the lights are turning blue
Then I tried to close my eyes to see my hometown
I don’t wanna change my life
Flying to the back in time
I feel like a child Wearing his golden crown
I don’t need a purified mind
“Hometown” lyrics by Simon Henner (French 79)

Looks like the songwriter- the poet from hereon has a feeling of unhappiness. Whenever he feels sad, he tries to recall the memories from his hometown. Here, hometown in broader sense are his childhood memories, the feeling of nostalgia, the feeling of familiarity. The happiness he gets from these feeling is due to a sense of familiarity.

The poet doesn’t want be become child again but he loves those memories of his childhood. That is what he expresses in the next lines. The poet here, is aware of the reality he lives in. He just wants to make sense of the chaos around him. There is no such pivot from which he can make sense of the things around him right now. That is why the feeling of sadness have kicked in due to the unfamiliar – hostile conditions. The feeling of a child with a golden crown is the feeling of a king who has control over everything. This exactly depicts how things explode in proportions when we transition from our childhood to adulthood, this explosion of everything seeming “simple” in our childhood brings in extra dimensions which are beyond comprehension. This is the reason why adulthood and every new experience thereafter feels more chaotic and unsettling. Maybe this is also the reason why our childhood memories are so precious to us. The childhood is full of innocent and simple feelings which have this sense of predictability, controllability. Important to understand here is that our poet doesn’t want that purified mind, that innocent child from his childhood. This shows his maturity towards the unsettling feelings due to chaos around him. He wants to use the pivot of familiarity of feelings from his childhood to tackle the unsettlement of his mind at this instance. He is searching for a comfort, a familiarity, a pattern in this chaos.

The future and the past are really confusing
But I keep my feet on the ground to keep trying
I don’t wanna change my life
Flying to the back in time
I feel like a child Wearing his golden crown
I don’t need a purified mind
“Hometown” lyrics by Simon Henner (French 79)

Our poet can be attributed to an adult or an old age person who is unsure about how to handle sad feelings, the unknown situations, the discomfort they bring. The past experiences are not that helpful to make sense of the new challenge he is facing. If the past would be that helpful then the situation would have been already made sense to him and could have been solved already which is not the case; hence it is already confusing to him. If it is not solved properly then the poet also has a worry for his future because of the more unpredictability, more things going out of hands. In short, he is stuck between indecision leading to not acting on things. The next most important thing the poet is thinking is attitude to keep on trying while remaining on the ground. Our poet wants to make sense out of the unsettling chaos by some practical understanding of reality. In simple words, the poet is thinking of not getting overwhelmed by the indecision – analysis paralysis and taking control on things by realistically acting on things in his life. This is his wish to evolve through this chaos while keeping the child in him alive with the wisdom of an adult. What a thought! This is his urge to evolve in the new chaos presented to him.

The music and the video

The music is the most influential part of the song “Hometown”. Blessed by the talent and legacy of French Electronic music, the song stands out for the evolving pattern – loop of synth which goes on and on throughout the song. The creator of the song is Simon Henner named here as “French 79” (Simon was born in 1979) creates an addictive hook which goes on evolving as the song progresses. The best and the smart thing about the song is that it really resonates with the idea of breaking out of the comforts of repeating patterns to make sense of the new challenges in life, to create new patterns and evolve ahead.

The video is also very interesting and quite open ended which depicts stories of people from different stages, phases in life who come out of the comforts to evolve. You will see that everyone in this story discovers a pattern in a characteristic way in their lives which inspires them to come out of their current situation, chaos and create new evolved pattern, new sense to the surrounding around them just like the lyrics and the music of the song. You will find every character transitioning from the state of rest, comfort, familiarity to the state of acting on things for actually creating something new and rediscovering themselves to a newer version of themselves.

Simply put, Hometown is the song of our evolution especially our emotional evolution

The patterns and humans

We as human beings and also animals thereby love patterns. Our favorite songs, the Instagram reels songs, the famous dialogues in the movies, the pop culture references, those callbacks in the web series, TV Series, the childhood nostalgia, our close friend circle, our family, our favorite office colleagues, our favorite memories and what not – all these things are prime examples of how much we are obsessed with the patterns in our lives. An important thing to understand about our love to these hooks, these repetitions, these patterns is the feeling of familiarity, feeling of predictability that settles our mind to an environment of known variables. It is also important to understand that a when a pattern gets continuously registered in our brain our brain automates it to save its energy. (that’s how habits are formed) The situation becomes challenging when something out of these patterns emerges; that is where we feel chaotic about our environment, we have no pivot to make sense of the things. That is our moment of evolution, that is where we would also evolve our preexisting patterns.

[Or maybe this is just a song about how the poet loved his childhood in his hometown and the memories which now console him while tackling his adulthood problems]

Image reference:

Featured image – Penrose Tiling from Wikimedia

The American Scholar – Man as a University

Part-3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous speech called “The American Scholar” was delivered in 1837 in front of the American youth. Emerson wanted the youth of that time to understand what it takes to create new knowledge and breakthroughs. The origin and legacy of knowledge, importance of past knowledge through books, importance of bringing and testing ideas into the reality to find the absolute truth, the greatness and vastness of we as a human-beings and the life we live are some important aspects of Emerson’s speech. His sheer vocabulary rather choice of words is more than enough create an impression which will last for thousands of years. Emerson’s ideas in this speech are based on very fundamental ideas of knowledge, biases in human thought processes, loopholes in human psychology which are still relevant with 21st century.
There are Part 1 and Part 2 which have dived deeper into these important parts of The American Scholar.
We will see in this Part 3 what were the closing thoughts and advice, instructions Ralph Waldo Emerson gave in his The American Scholar speech. The closing parts of this speech covered the idea of Man as a University. It is the beauty of Emerson’s thoughts which attributed the vast sources of infinite knowledge to each every person’s life. This not only gave importance to every person as a human being whose soul, mind themselves are the nature but this also brought a sense of responsibility as an original and objective thinker in every person of the nation. The speech truly transcended the eras and generations. The revolution in the field of knowledge by considering Man as a University itself is one of the core idea of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thoughts in his speech The American Scholar.

Objectivity – The Job of A True Scholar

“The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson has simplified the jobs of a true scholar in the last sections of his speech. The only job of a true scholar is to guide the humanity through his observations. Emerson pointed out that during the process of becoming overly attached to their own vocation, people have forgotten, have lost the awareness and greatness of the nature thereby their own souls. A scholar’s job is to observe the nature, put those observations before the humanity and inspire people to continue this pursuit for the absolute truth.
Emerson has attributed this task as “the highest functions of human nature”. But, this task, this journey has its challenges, it demands some sacrifices. One of them is the influence of popular opinion and the expectation of materialistic benefits. For explaining this Emerson gives example of John Flamsteed and William Herschel who incessantly observed the sky for star cataloguing. Their observations proved important for the discovery of planet Uranus. While observing the goal was not to become famous and get rewards and recognition for the discovery; rather the job they were doing was one of the most boring and mundane tasks of humanity. Flamsteed and Herschel were observing the sky and noting down their observations with only goal of understanding what is happening in the universe where they exist. The times of Herschel were the times of debates on the center of the universe. Popular opinion was that the Earth was the center of the universe (Geocentric Model of Universe); another popular opinion was that the sun was at center of the universe with earth revolving around it (Heliocentric Model of Universe). Today we know that we are not even at the center of our own galaxy milky way and it is near to impossible to ever find the center of the universe! The jobs of Flamsteed and Herschel if would have been influenced by the popular opinions surely, they would have received those accolades, prizes, fame from either of the groups promoting their own versions of truth. Instead of having that influence of opinions/ having those biases, they honestly presented themselves to the task of objectively observing the universe. And these objective observations took humanity to completely new understanding of the universe that even they wouldn’t have thought about. (See P.S. for more)

The point is that that most of the times a true scholar will be heavily influenced by biases, popular opinions, expectation of “immediate fame”, money, company of famous and influential people, hero worship; but he has to move away from these pleasures and only commit himself to this highest function which is to objectively observe and interpret the nature. Sometimes poverty and solitude will be his only companions.

“…He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is one episode (S01E09) in Rick and Morty where Rick’s Dad is getting honored by the high class aliens of Pluto to name Pluto as a Planet so that they can continue their self benefiting activities thereby degrading the Pluto. For the good of Science Rick’s Dad comes out of the bias and the false praise, prizes, popularity from high class and renounces Pluto as a Planet.

Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s Rick and Morty (S01E09)

Emerson beautifully told what has to be done but he also told how it is possible.

Confidence and Bravery of Self Expression

For understanding the things ahead, one must not forget that Emerson established an observation that our soul is the impression, the reflection of nature around us. The limitations, boundaries of our soul are the limits of the nature around us – our understanding of it. (Emerson already established that “Know Thyself” and “Study Nature” mean nothing but the same- See in Part 1)
Emerson talks about confidence of a scholar in his job, in himself. When a person will truly engross himself in his own objective studies free from all the influences, then only he will discover that absolute knowledge. Emerson attributed all such influences as mere appearance and tells everyone to look underneath them. When a true scholar will approach this job of observation and study of himself with confidence the nature will reveal itself. When this scholar will discover this truth about himself, he will literally find the truth of all for all nature resides in him.

“He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson again highlights that the journey of understanding the universe, the nature is not outwards rather it is inwards. One only has to be confident and honest about his intentions. After conquering this self-doubt, a true scholar will have to dare to present his objective observations to the biased crowd.
The following lines by Emerson are uncountably powerful and very motivational for every person (not only artists) of every generation who has embarked on such journeys in their lives.

“The poet, in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording them, is found to have recorded that which men in cities vast find true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses, until he finds that he is the complement of his hearers; – that they drink his words because he fulfills for them their own nature; the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every man feels—This is my music; this is myself.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson informs that the scholar is not inherently protected like women and children. Once he gathers this bravery to challenge the conventions, the people who were resisting him at first will also accept his ideas, the falsehoods they were carrying as their truths will shed down as his ideas are originated from the pure and absolute knowledge; people will find the connect to his communications from his ideas of his soul thereby ultimately the great nature itself.

Fluidity of thoughts

Even though we are unable to understand the whole picture of nature in single glance that should not stop us from updating that picture. Emerson understood that the knowledge which humanity has gained till date is not complete, there will be always something missing hence it cannot be trusted completely but that also should not restrict us from challenging hat has been established already. Emerson is expecting fluidity of thoughts, ideas here as is the nature.

“Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the momentum of figuring out our individual lives, everyone has intentionally ignored this imperfection of knowledge and has forgotten to challenge the conventions. There is no one to blame for this ignorance but a true scholar’s great job becomes important in this situation.
Emerson has also established his worry for conversion of humanity into a herd, a group of blind followers, blind worshipers. In order to simplify our lives, we have chosen to follow the paths created by our ancestors instead of challenging them to refine the knowledge further. This simplification of life is closely related to the search for money and power for they are the most influential means to ease the lives. Emerson here suggests for the revolution through “the Culture”.

“The main enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the up-building of a man.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Through culture Emerson actually expected the richness of individual lives. The lives where materialistic means lie to the bottom and the search for knowledge, up-gradation of knowledge, philosophical up-gradation of humanity is at the top. Humanity should not limit its limitless mind, soul to some materialistic thing or a person to worship – history has many examples that we have already done that many times.

“The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, unboundable empire.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Age of Revolution – Inner Development, Relevance of Knowledge and Man as a University

Emerson is expecting amalgamation of all types of ideas in the current age through the scholars. For that he gives references of the different ages in history like early Classical Greek Era known for developing foundations of knowledge, Romantic ages and Philosophical ages. Here he establishes that even though these ages are independent of each other ad existed in different timelines; according to Emerson they are always getting reflected in different phases of every person. All these eras actually exist in every person. Thus, Emerson wants to bring all the streams of knowledge, all the poles/ the extremes of different streams of knowledge in front of each other.
The aim of bringing everything and everything contradicting on a common table is to create relevance of knowledge for humanity. Through this, the knowledge will serve at its highest capacity for the betterment of humanity. Emerson wants to bring all so called “Hi-Fi” knowledge stream to a simple test of “relevance” because if it is not relevant then what purpose can knowledge serve for the people, for the humanity?

“Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

These ideas were revolutionary for the times when the pursuit of knowledge was limited to high class people and not to the people working for the soil.
Emerson closes his speech with one important thought of development from inside. He expects every person to play a part in the development of humanity as a whole. All the ideas presented by Emerson represent decentralization of power and involvement of people from grass-root level; it is the only reason for which every life gets uniqueness and importance. Emerson’s important idea of a man as a society and a society as a man gets concluded in the closing sentences of his speech. Emerson expects every person to contribute to the new revolution of the society by starting the inner journey. Patience is the final virtue which he instructs everyone to have to start this journey.

“The world is nothing, the man is all”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

One has to understand how all the ideas given by Emerson are still relevant today. The ideas to highlight are confidence in self, search for real freedom, bravery to present and interpret the objective observations against the conventions, remaining free from popular and materialistic influences, fluidity of thoughts, importance of inner development, creating knowledge of relevance, and patience.

-The End-

(P.S. – The observations made by William Herschel were majorly intended for mapping the Universe so that its center can be located. Later on, the objective observations led to discovery of Universe. After a century the observations became important when scientists found an irregularity in the orbit of Uranus around the Sun. This irregularity of meant that either Newton’s Law of Gravitation is wrong or there is one more planet whose mass is affecting the orbit of Uranus. After additional observations, a new planet ‘Neptune’ was discovered by scientists thereby proving the indirect and valuable legacy of knowledge created by Herschel and Flamsteed.)

Read Part 1 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 2 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The American Scholar – The Books, The Actions, Intellectual Humility and The Dictionary of Life

Part-2 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay called “The American Scholar” made an attempt to move people out of their immediate achievements of separation from the English Government and inspired them to create something new, create and value the processes for building strong future generations and deep knowledge of nature. Even though this essay was more relevant for the American generation which was largely dependent on their English legacy, it still remains relevant because of the crispness of truth it holds for every new generation of humanity. The speech/ essay will always transcend the understandings of every generation. See Part 1 to understand how Emerson sets up the ideas of the nature, the knowledge, the purpose of education system and the true scholar in the starting part of his world famous essay.

Now, moving on to Emerson’s advise for a true scholar.

Books – The Mind of the Past and its Blind Worshipers

Emerson wants to establish the ways in which the past wisdom was transferred to the next generation. He refers to it as a distillation process. Over the period of humanity, the crude things in experiences, events lost their unwanted parts and went on to become concise, crisp through books. This process created the truths, the facts. The cruder the event, the experiences the less crisper the truth. Emerson explains the imperfections in this process of truth generation by giving analogy of Vacuum Pump. As no vacuum pump can generate the perfect vacuum, no machine can give out exact amount of work to the exact amount of energy input, the process of creating the truth is also not completely efficient. Thus, it is absolutely impossible to establish the ultimate truth in a single attempt, in single past. The best version of the truth we have today is the truth that has stood the test of time, the truth which has been upgraded over the time. It is very interesting to understand how Emerson thought over the ideas of the books and the evolution of truth through them. He connected a very technical idea of efficiency of any mechanical system to a more abstract idea of the extent of the truth value of knowledge.

Emerson also highlights that the age-old books will not stand the test of today’s truths as there will be may stages of evolution in between which will lose their footprint over time. For example, the idea of the earth being carried on the back of the turtles, the elephants, the snake’s head the earth being flat is lost to the ideas of eclipses, the seasons and the actual images of the earth (even though there are still some admirers to these ideas! And it is also important to understand how people interpreted them)

Thus, Emerson in a sense warns every scholar, every person to not become just an admirer, a follower, a worshiper of the book. Because, the understanding and the experience with which the book was written, the truth was conveyed will not exactly be the same experience, the same understanding for the reader. The inefficiency of the system is the boundary of the reader which can only show him the limited understanding of the truth.

“Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and soul. Hence the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees. This is bad; this is worse than it seems.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson expresses his sorrow for the fate of the books. He calls the people who blind worship the books “the Bibliomaniacs” and “the Emendators” as in the editors of the truths who create their versions of the truth. Emerson expects a true scholar to not become a book worshiper or a past worshiper. Worshiping the past is the death of the evolutionary thinking thereby restricting the flow of generational distillation of true knowledge. Emerson wants a true scholar to lose the idea of a book lover, book worshiper and become a genius. In some way Emerson tries to define a genius. For that he uses the idea of “an active soul”. An active soul is free from the blind influences of the past and thereby the books. It is not following a defined orbit around the truths from the books, rather an active soul itself is capable of creating a system around which others will orbit. The teachings of the schools/colleges, the subjective truths of past from books are questioned by this active soul further called as the genius by Emerson. This Genius is responsible for the creation of the next version of the absolute truth; there is a sense of progression this genius brings. For that he should break out of the past, come out of merely following the books, look forward to the future. Emerson mentions how mere worshiping of Shakespearean pieces killed the future creative progression of English literature. Many creators became over influenced by Shakespeare thereby nothing original happened for 200 years in literature.

Someone might think here that Emerson is undermining the importance of the books, rather he further explains the impact of books in the hard times of any true Genius, any true Scholar. Books serve as the best companion anyone can have in their idle time, they are the kick starters of every genius mind, they are there to initiate the spark in every creative mind but not to drive it.

“When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must,—when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars withdraw their shining,—we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson gives the examples of some great English poets like Chaucer, Marvell, Dryden. He says that even after passage of many long years the ability of these poets to connect with our minds is really fascinating which is possible only because of the books. This also means that these ideas of poets wee futuristic, visionary enough that they are relevant after hundreds of years. Books are the best option to carry this vision.

Innocence of Knowledge and Awareness of Media

Emerson warns every person of the books they are consuming. He explains this with the analogy of survival of human body. The very innocent nature of human mind and the knowledge both can be conditioned with any thought from the book leading to the fact from the book to become the ultimate truth for the person. Emerson wants everyone to not accept the truth of the books for the truth of life. He wants every true scholar to become a selective reader and follower of the books. Emerson explains that the books display only that part which its creator wanted to show to the readers, this also means that whatever we are reading is just a small part of the authors life not the whole. Thus, when a powerful person, scholar (mentally and physically) encounters books, he holds the power to materialize, personify any and every thought from the books. It is the skill of a true scholar to selectively find the ideas and the versions of the truth, instead of going full on literal and thereby accepting them as truth. In simple words, Emerson expects every reader to get the hold of the ideas and inspirations from the books and not blindly follow them word to word. A genius, a true scholar thus knows what to pick from every book.

In our daily lives today, books are not the only source of information. Emerson’s warnings have become more real in today’s times. We must understand that every information we get from media is not a knowledge hence we must be selective and aware about the content we are consuming. Emerson was not highlighting only the academic noise of knowledge in schools and colleges; he was also highlighting the overall noise of information around us in our daily routine. This noise has become more effective in our generation through social media, portable/digital media, user selective media. Beware of the media you are consuming, try to find the pattern in your content and break out of it. Otherwise, your “curated content” will keep on narrowing your perspective.

Building on this Emerson shifts his focus to the educational institutes. He clarifies that though books and learnings from the past are inseparable and important part of learning and educational institute have done a great work in executing this part, they have completely exploited this part to worse extents. Educational institutions have also established a business on these tools of knowledge to grow rich in materialistic forms. Hence, Emerson also reminds the policymakers to realize the truth that even single part of the absolute truth, the knowledge is powerful enough break this whole commercialized system of education.

Emerson also predicted the future that if the educational systems keep on commercializing the book following, past following, mugging/ cramming up the books culture, create an assembly line of scholars and professionals, even though these colleges will have fat bank balances, funds, even though they will grow richer and richer, their importance/ quality of the education they provide will go on degrading; these institute will lose their public importance.

And look what is happening with most of the education systems of our generation.

Action Speaks Louder Than Words (and that is not the end of the story)

“There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian, —as unfit for any handiwork or public labor as a penknife for an axe. The so-called “practical men” sneer at speculative men, as if, because they speculate or see, they could do nothing.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson never fell short while explaining the importance and power of new ideas, knowledge they create and the legacy they leave behind for future generations. But he made sure that people wont’s god worship the ideas they have. He wants every thinker to execute their ideas, convert them into actions.

“(The action) It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson has identified one common trait that scholars of all generations hold. All scholars, intellectuals are known to be recluse, always in their own mind and there is nothing wrong about it. The ideas sometimes can carry them far away from the reality. Sometimes new and original ideas are so rare and powerful that one has to embark on a solo journey to discover them completely. One has to understand when this pursuit over-influences their mind, it takes a toll over their minds. The separation of our intangible mind from reality eventually has a bad ending. The neuroticism, the inability to communicate such feelings to others, conversion of such thoughts to some extreme explosive actions and consequences thereafter are one part of intellectual society. The mad geniuses, super smart but cunning villains in our pop culture and real-life stories of smart criminals, smugglers, murderers, sociopaths are the exact reflection of such people in today’s society.

Emerson wants every scholar to come out of their overthinking and the comforts of the world of their own ideas. Emerson knew and made others aware that anything is possible in your own world and as it is created by your own ideas, you get attached to it. You will never want it to disappear and will avoid to test them with the reality. This goes on and on and your mind will be full of many new ideas. They will keep on expanding but they will never become real.

Emerson wants every true scholar to test their ideas in reality and break out of the comforts of the world in their own minds.

“Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson gives advice to future scholars in advance that this fascination of their own beautiful ideas, the comforts of the worlds in their minds may seem beautiful but it is addictive and never-ending- it’s like analysis paralysis leading to inaction.

We always fear that our beautiful ideas will cease to exist when tested with reality, it feels like a part of us is died and deep thinkers, over-thinkers can connect with this on different level. But one must also accept that the death of such non-real ideas is one integral part of the process of the discovery of absolute truth. Death of “wishful thinking” is also one important aspect of every true scholar rather every person’s character development. Emerson instructs that this process of testing ideas through real and concrete actions will be boring, more problem creating, anger generating-frustrating but one has to endure through them. One must not lose the opportunity to test their ideas in reality.

“(Action)…It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson gives the example of our childhood events and how they made us who we are today. We are what we did and what happened to us in our childhood. We are not what we used to think in our childhood. (Like how most of us wanted to become a Pilot and Astronaut and look how many of us really want that today).

The ideas not converted to action lose their existence in two ways. Either (and most of the times) they change instantly into new idea, something else due to their fickle nature or they get rotten in a corner of our mind thereby indirectly disfiguring our adult mind. It is very interesting observation by Emerson; he identifies that our behavior, habits, inspirations are rooted in our childhood. Further on and most importantly Emerson points out that it is not our whole childhood that gets carried over in our adult behavior, habits, inspirations; it is the events and our actions, our responses to events in our childhood that shape us in future. Childhood thoughts, ideas converted into actions are actually etched on our personality forever. And only thoughts and ideas limited to our minds are lost forever. Same is happening with us every day, it is just that Emerson makes everyone aware of the importance of converting our ideas into actions by presenting a very intimate and common example.

“The new deed is yet a part of life, -remains for a time immersed in our unconscious life.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson puts one excellent insight in front of everyone. The actions and not ideas become the subconscious part of our life. These actions solely initiate the cascades of event which are always unfolding in our current life events.

“Cradle and infancy, school and playground, the fear of boys, and dogs, and ferules, the love of little maids and berries, and many another fact that once filled the whole sky, are gone already; friend and relative, profession and party, town and country, nation and world, must also soar and sing.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Dictionary of Life

“Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions has the richest return of wisdom.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

The great thing about Emerson’s persona is that not only he instructed the scholars but he also gave the directions to start from. Emerson makes everyone aware of the types of actions they can take and their consequences. He wants everyone to understand the nature of outcomes from the action we will take to bring our ideas into reality. As actions will be driven by ideas, there will be times when actions following one wrong idea will not yield good and favorable results. Some actions will feel worthless, unidirectional, single faced, niche and they will only reveal their nature after we see their results. So, does that mean that if actions are more important than ideas and if actions are anyways most of the times going to be worthless then why actions should be one important part of a true scholar? After all most of the times, they are not proving the point of their superiority over the ideas. At least ideas give some type of comfort to our mind.

Emerson says that a true scholar’s life is not only about thinking beyond limits and taking actions on it. If thinking and acting on them was the only purpose of life then everyone would have craved for acting on the ideas which is not the reality. Systematic thinking and bringing them into reality through actions is just one dimension of being a true scholar. Before being true scholars, we are human beings, we have lives.

“If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Actions, Pasts, Ideas are part of that bigger life. Hence, Emerson focuses ono living the life, which is possible through having different types of experiences, be mindful of each and every experience in your life. Hence the concepts of Actions, Pasts, Ideas are just “vocabulary”, where life is bigger than that, life is a “dictionary”.

In simple words, the things that we are trying to learn and think beyond and bring them into the reality are a just part of bigger reality that is life. So, Emerson wants every true scholar “to be alive” to live through the life they have. Emerson wants everyone to have a life relevant scholastic aptitude, which anyone can have (though it sounds “sophisticated”)

Getting things done for proving worth of ideas is not the final job of a true scholar. Life is bigger than ideas and their execution.

The Great Principle of Undulation in Nature and Influence of Popular Opinions

When Emerson suggests every true scholar to live a live of rich experiences, be aware of the reality around them – he gives everyone the idea of one confusion that will always tempt them to have a bias. Emerson says that the “Polarity” is the law of nature.

In his own words-

“…inspiring and expiring of the breath; in desire and satiety; in the ebb and flow of the sea; in day and night; in heat and cold;”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

These extremes in every natural phenomenon creates a wave, an “undulation” in nature. Which is one inseparable part of life thereby every human soul. Every idea, every action a scholar takes will have a wavy nature, there will be some part of idea, of actions which will dominate over their opposite one for a time. Emerson says that actions, ideas, knowledge, thinking these are just the resources for a true scholar. Even after losing these resources a true scholar will not lose his character, he will not lose who he is, his identity.

“Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson establishes this to warn every true scholar and remind their real pursuit in life. Emerson through this wants to communicate that there will be times when a scholar will have temptation to follow a popular opinion, he will feel bad for not getting proper recognition for his/her achievements. Things will happen which will force them to give up on their lively pursuits, to give up on living for some materialistic means. In such moments, a true scholar should never give up on his character.

“Character is higher than intellect.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson actually removed a fine line which used to exist between the uneducated, working class and the studying class or so-called scholastic class – educated class. Emerson clarified that a scholar is not the one who joins one institution, secures a diploma/ degree, attends office, decides actions, creates policies and drives the “less intellectual” life around him. What is important to become a true scholar is “the character” – “the attitude”. Every person can have that; hence Emerson instructs every scholar to have that intellectual humility and not get fooled by the popular opinions of “white collar jobs” of scholars. He indirectly establishes that people who did not come from the system have more power to create a disruption in the system, to create a new and positive change in the system.

“Not out of those on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature; out of terrible Druids and Berserkers come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

This really holds true in today’s times too. There are many proofs from famous startups, fortune companies, literary and art schools that formal education is not the indicator of creative disruption in our society. Revolutionary people were never dependent on the systems to create new ideas and bring about new change. Thus, Emerson’s age-old ideas resonate with the facts of today.

A true scholar according to Emerson is the one who has this intellectual humility; who understands that having and creating great ideas, executing them to reality is just a part of life. A true scholar is not limited to thinking, executing and learning only. A true scholar has the purpose of living a life beyond the system created; a true scholar being an active part of his society and can come from any part of it. This idea itself is very powerful.

There will one last – third part on how Emerson closes his ideas, requests, guidance to the scholars of every generations.

– End of Part 2 –

Read Part 1 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 2 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The American Scholar – The Scholar, the Nature, the Origins and the Legacy of Knowledge

Part-1 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

The success of any society can be easily attributed to the success of its young generation thereby the institutions that develop them. There will be some moments in everyone’s life where we might have questioned the failure of the education systems from where we “passed out”. We realize at these moments how mechanical the systems have become. Even after realizing this fact, we are always on a search for a tag, a dream career, a dream job to which we wish stick forever till death (sadly, in some cases that is the only option). There are many examples where people in their last moments wished that they would have done things differently, explored some new ventures, dared for some things and would have taken that risk but now they don’t have enough time to do so. The idea of a death with no regrets is strong in today’s times; ideas like YOLO (You Only Live Once), FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), FIRE (Financially Independent to Retire Early) are the examples of this ideology, there is nothing wrong in it. It is the result of what recent generations have experienced. Also, this is not new in history. After a horrible black death in Europe people appreciated the value of life and their body which is always reflected through the arts, literature and creative ventures from the renaissance era.

The thing is that when a large group of people try to follow an ideology on a significantly larger scale, there comes a time of saturation, a plateau of losing momentum which sustains forever and becomes the habit of generation, a trait of that generation. We lose the sense of the processes in order to achieve some short-lived pleasures, short living achievements. And after achieving that thing we lose the sense of our being, although there are many exceptions, there always are. The main feeling of clueless-ness after achieving something is the exact reflection of our one-dimensional pursuits for something, it is the proof that in the pursuit of something valuable to us we lose the importance and intricacies of the process we are going through. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay called “The American Scholar” made an attempt to move people out of their immediate achievements of separation from the English Government and inspired them to create something new, create and value the processes for building strong future generations and deep knowledge of nature. Even though this essay was more relevant for the American generation which was largely dependent on their English legacy – the one from which they were newly separated, it still remains relevant because of the crispness of truth it holds for every new generation of humanity. The speech/ essay will always transcend the understandings of every generation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson- one of the greatest philosophers, essayists, writer once gave a lecture in an American University which still seems relevant even after the passage of almost 185 years. The thoughts are so absolute that they have stood the test of time. The lecture or speech called “The American Scholar” by Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the important parts of English literature which highly focuses on the necessity and importance of originality of thoughts, their implementations through actions and the legacy/ virtues a person should leave behind for future generations.

The lecture is famously segregated into three parts. Students of literature follow following partitions to understand this essay.

The origin of knowledge, science and the influences on a scholar
The responsibilities/ duties of a scholar
The daring to create the knowledge relevant to the time

Instead of splitting this into conventional parts I will try to touch the core of Emerson’s ideas for its relevance and importance for our generation.

Origins of “the jobs” in society and The Man of Thinking

Emerson in the starting immediately establishes how the youth has become comfortable on the older foundations, infrastructures left behind by their rulers. They are just feasting on the remains of what has been left behind after victory. Emerson uses the words as “Sluggard intellect” as in the intellectuals who have become comfortable with what they have to highlight this fact. He further calls their jobs as “the apprenticeship to the leanings of the other land” to signify how there is no excitement for the breakthroughs throughout this new born nation. Every scholar has assigned themselves a tag of their “jobs” – the scholar word is not limited to the students only. Emerson is calling scholar to everyone performing their skills in a mechanical way – with some donated, left-over resources from their rulers. The message is not restricted to students only, Emerson is actually summoning every working class of people. He wants the youth of the nation to come out of the mundane tasks and the mechanical nature of the work they are doing as a scholar. Emerson wants the youth to come out of this calmness, boring mentality of doing what is assigned to venture into the endless possibilities the nature provides. He explains the unbounded nature of “The Nature”, the origin of society existing in it and the ways to come out of the mundane-ness of the jobs in this society to evolve further. For this, he starts with the origin of society and “the jobs”, “the tags” and dehumanizing, “mechanicalizing” of the field of knowledge.

Emerson puts some light on the purpose of creation of different labors, different fields of knowledge. Emerson explains that in order to function properly a man was divided into many men with certain skills, domain expertise which made the society multifaceted. But, the process of separation was exploited to extreme where it lost its real purpose. The purpose was to handle and comprehend the boundless nature but it was lost to mere sustenance and separation of humanity into materialistic classes.

“…Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The fable implies that the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers. But, unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and strut about so many walking monsters, -a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

The division and high focus on labor has divided society into so many parts that it has become difficult to bring them together to unite the society, the humanity. Emerson’s analogy of fountain is so powerful here. Not just American society but the whole world now has separated to such extent of cultures, borders, colors, races, histories, faiths, religions, ideologies, prejudices, resources that it is really difficult to bring them together for a greater common cause. Emerson wants everyone to lose these borders, these tags mentally in order to understand the boundless nature.

Emerson expects every person who is actually a scholar but associated themselves to a tag, a job a profession to strip off of their titles and expand their vision beyond their assigned skill. He wants everyone to transcend their own designated skill.

In today’s world, jobs, titles, posts are killing the people for who they are. No wonder we worry of AI taking over our future jobs. As AI is efficient and fast in doing such “tagged” jobs, the “repetitive” jobs many people who are doing these mundane jobs fear that AI will take over the humanity and before humanity their jobs in future. We forget that the knowledge from which we created these boring jobs is actually boundless. It is our over-simplification of life journeys and our negligence towards the process of living for the sake of the comforts of life that we decided to stick to such mechanical nature of our jobs. He gives very simple example of a farmer – how a man with knowledge of different fields of knowledge like hydrology, geography, meteorology, biology, economics, finance, mechanics, technology got converted to mere a man of profession.

“He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

He calls this process as “the Metamorphosis” with similar cases with trader, priest, attorney, mechanic, sailor.

“In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson wants for everyone to come out of this oversimplification of our lives. Hence, he establishes the difference between “a thinker” and “a Man thinking”. Before becoming anything possible every scholar must understand that they are a man first, a man from the boundless nature.

“Is not indeed every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student’s behoof?”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

You should understand that though at the very start of his speech Emerson addresses the American Scholars by calling them so, it is very wise of him to state every man a student, a scholar at this exact moment. This is where his speech becomes open to every man. Though the address was given to the American students, Emerson wants every man to understand what he is trying to convey through this speech. Here, Emerson’s speech has actually transcended the boundaries of a country and time. Emerson worries that during this powerful time of every person as a scholar, the scholar mostly chooses the wrong side of knowledge that is to stick to some tag, profession and loses the privilege of vast possibilities which might have granted by the same multifaceted knowledge from its source “the Nature”.

The Nature- The idea of classification and the origin of knowledge

The curiosity to understand the nature is the origin of knowledge. Every person wants to assign some value to the things happening around him which are reflected through nature around him.

“There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

“…Nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

In order to understand each and every phenomenon, the “young mind” assigned some value to them and then classified them; Joined things into one when seemed similar. The concept of “individuality” in the early scholar actually segregated knowledge into different parts. The words “Diminishing anomalies” by Emerson explain how a paradox at the end of every branch of knowledge gave rise to completely new field of knowledge. This development of new field of knowledge helped to connect some really remote fields of knowledge. For example, see the revolution in physics happened after Einstein explained and proved the theory of relativity. Also, most importantly the quantum mechanics and the problems about the nature of our reality which itself is paradoxical in its behavior for us today, when solved will connect many dots, far more and completely different fields of knowledge which seem very distant today.

“…science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson highlights the purpose of classifying things in nature was to handle the chaos of the events. Classification created a pivot around the human mind which enabled systematic segregation and relationship development to understand the nature. Use of the term “The law of human mind” actually shows that we have never understood the nature for what it is, we have developed a system of knowledge to organize the chaos where some of the things are making sense to us and the things which don’t make sense is the challenge for today and tomorrow. The challenge is being handed over to the men of science who will try to connect these remote dots.

“He shall see that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

The analogy of the seal and print is such a beautiful analogy given by Emerson to the nature and the soul. Emerson takes a spiritual point of view to understand the nature. He explains that though the soul and nature are “boundless/ center-less”, the nature becomes limited and bounded to the extent of the bounds of the mind. Emerson says indirectly that certain thing won’t exist in nature until you ask nature for its existence. Thus, if it is created by your mind, if it is present in your mind and you try to establish it by studying yourselves then you will definitely establish the same thing in the nature. If it is not in you then it definitely is not existing in nature. Your limitations of the understanding of yourselves will be the limitations of the nature around you. Hence, if you widen your understanding, become limitless then only you will understand the limitless form of the nature.

Max Planck one of the greatest physicists of all times and who came far later after Emerson had similar opinions about the nature of our reality and the limits of our understanding about it.

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
Max Planck

Emerson thus fuses the two distant dots called “Know Thyself” and “Study nature” into one based on this spiritual foundation. Reading, listening these sentences and realizing this idea itself is so powerful. This also shows that Emerson himself was a master of connecting different and distant dots in the fields of knowledge. No wonder he was successful in actually defining the origin of human understanding. In this way he recalls the importance and significance of nature on a mind of a scholar.

-End of Part 1 –

There is a Part 2 to understand how Emerson further suggests the “potent” tools, “the weapons” and responsibilities which come with them to really transcend the boundaries of our existence and become a true scholar. We will see that in next post.

Our identity is one inseparable part of our existence. It is the very first pivot that we have in this boundless existence. The name given by our parents/relatives symbolizes the very first dimension of our identity. Then we build upon it as we grow. Many factors like our family, the people around us, their and our financial conditions, their and our emotional states, their and our habits, inspirations and what not directly and indirectly gives us many facets. They become part of our identity. As we grow up in most of the cases our jobs, professions become our identity. Actually, we are conditioned right from our childhood to become doctors, engineers, social workers, bankers, brokers, pilots, writers, dancers, teachers, firefighters and what not. Our job becomes the largest chunk of our life and our identity. These identities which we hold for our lives are mostly rooted in our young times, college days and the immediate days after we leave the educational institutions. No doubt that these are the turning points for most of us. That is why the success of educational systems and institutions is very important in the development of the whole society. And, Emerson tried to question the materialistic identity these systems granted at such turning points to the young scholars of his time. But as history repeats itself same is the case with our recent generations. This is where the absolute ideas, the great wisdom of Ralph waldo Emerson stand the test of time.

There is more to come…

Read Part 1 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 2 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Last Lecture – How to break the cycle of birth and death?

Realization of the limitations of life

Here is a quick question-

“What will you do when you realize that you are going to die within few weeks, months?“

The question is really difficult to answer for everyone but the most basic answer would be to live the moments you have to the fullest. I have realized through the experiences and examples around me that the awareness, the realization of death itself is a new birth. One would be never the same as he/she were after having this realization.

The realization brings in two basic questions (actually there would be infinite number of questions in such scenario but they all boil down to a few):

One – What should I do with the time that I have? and Two – What would/could happen after the end of my existence?

In most of the cases, the first part consumes most of the remaining life one has- as it is the part where the person has most of the control and there is nothing wrong with that. But those who conquer the second question kind of win with the first part of the question and the game of life and death itself to some extent.

This reflects the most important part of us being the human species. We always want to cheat the death. We always want to make sure that we will remain around even when we are not physically there. We want people – especially our loved ones to remember us in their lifetimes.

It all boils down to your legacy.

The Last lecture by Randy Pausch – The lecture and the book

One smart person went through one such event which changed the way people around him and people who will be exposed to his legacy will remember him. Randy Pausch – a professor in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon gave a lecture which is sufficient enough for every human to have a perspective towards life. The lecture soon turned into a book which has interesting ideas, events, thought processes from his life which show us why he thought so, what inspired him to say that exact line in his last lecture. It should be on every person’s read list, watch list.

Every simple thing becomes special when one becomes aware of its backstory, its origin. “The Last Lecture” by Randy was special not because it was his last one (supposedly), it was because of the ideas that inspired him to deliver that lecture. At the age of 45 in September 2006 Randy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told that he has time of only three to six months to live. Inspired by the ongoing lecture series in his university where he worked and being a teacher/lecturer to heart, he decided to deliver one such lecture that will help others to achieve their dreams. He named the lecture – “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. The lecture was Randy’s learnings and life experiences boiled down into some slides of a presentation.

The book called “The last Lecture” came after the lecture and became the bestseller. The lecture is a great phenomenon in itself but the book is more insightful and also dives deeper into Randy’s life events. The book has literally added more life to every word in Randy’s lecture. While reading the book you will understand the events and motivations held by Randy while he was delivering this last lecture.

The need for the lecture and the book

It became apparent that Randy has very less time left to spend with his family (his wife Jai and three children Dylan, Logan and Chloe). Randy realized that he won’t be there to experience the upcoming events with his children. That was one of the motivations to deliver this last lecture. This lecture is not just a one and half hour of knowledge or wisdom blurted out because he has very less time on earth. Randy could have done other valuable things than delivering the lecture but he didn’t. Actually, for Randy this was his masterpiece lecture and it truly is a masterpiece. This lecture by Randy Pausch is actually who we are as a true human being. We want to cheat death in some way. We want to create that legacy for the next generation, we want to fool the time and its flow.

The highlights of “The Last Lecture”

Every word in this book is a drop of the elixir of life. The lecture, the book, the very sentences are treasure chests of lifelong wisdom. There are many parts in this lecture which will make you reflect on your own motivations for life, dreams.

The brick walls

You will find all types of brick walls in Randy’s lectures. Randy makes a point clear that there always will be brick walls, hurdles in your life. How you strongly want something will either make you break the wall or leave it as it was.

“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
Randy Pausch

Randy also points a beautiful idea about the brick walls which I loved a lot. Randy says that the brick walls are there to actually help you have the seriousness for your real desires and reduce the distractions.

“The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
Randy Pausch

There is one “Romantic brick wall” Randy discusses, which should be left for personal experiences of readers and listeners (believe me it is worth reading and contemplating) It makes a good point on lifelong love and relationship we develop with our partner.

The concept of head fake

Randy gives one interesting trick for lifelong teaching and learning. What is a gift of the greatest teacher? It is the ability to create the interest of students into his topic and make them aware of the magic this knowledge can do. Randy establishes with many examples that you can teach anyone anything if you divert there focus from the target/destination to the actual process/journey. Randy calls this trick of diversion as a head-fake. The student won’t even realize what they will be approaching while learning but when reached to the target – when learnt something, they will truly appreciate the process and the teacher himself. It is more enjoyable in the book. Randy makes sure that this head-fake keeps bringing its head up throughout the lecture and the book.

Intellectual Humility

Even if you are right all the time that does not mean that everyone will accept you all the time. While being intelligent we humans are emotional creatures too. Most of the time the emotional part is heavier than the intellectual part. Randy tells a story of his “Dutch uncle” who subtly pointed his arrogant behavior with the people even when he was smarter than them.

Value of time

One of the most interesting things about the last lecture is that how Randy thinks about time management. The ideas conveyed through the lecture are unconventional- like these are some of the most practical advices on time management. Questioning the things on which you are spending time, having a to-do list (even if you might think of changing it later), discipline of handling random things to save the time lost in searching them at the last hour, delegating the tasks and trusting people with these tasks can free your hands, taking breaks are some of the most practical and doable things Randy suggests about time management.

Collaborate with different types of people

Not restricting yourselves to one stream, ideas, group of people can do a great value addition in your personality. Randy asks everyone to work in a team and not only in a team but in different types of teams, different types of people. In many parts of the book, you will realize how Randy’s teaching techniques always were connected to group learning and Randy gives some of the best examples on the success of this method. Working in teams and power of multidisciplinary learning is one key takeaway Randy provides.

Sustainable and long-term thinking

Randy has also highlighted the importance of long-term benefit over a short-term pleasure. He makes everyone aware of the value of being earnest person – a person with a core rather than being a hip who is just on surface trying to impress everyone.

Contingency plan – “All you have is what you bring with you”

Randy gives optimism a different dimension called practical optimism. Even though he knows that he has to enjoy every moment in his life, Randy does not run away from the reality of disease and the death closing in and he proves that with many examples from his life events. Practical optimism is thinking about the limitations of the situation and getting ready handle those worse conditions. Randy gives a quick disaster management lesson through one such part in his lecture.

Get a feedback loop; and listen to it.

One important part of intellectual humility is feedback and taking actions on this feedback. Valuing the feedback can create wonders in your personality and help you to connect with other on deeper levels

Create a legacy, Cheat death

Randy wants everyone to have a sense of giving back to the society. On a personal level it becomes, your duty to put your trust in someone to transfer your wisdom in the development of that person. That is how humanity has evolved and made breakthroughs. Randy tells about many of his students and colleagues to prove his point and his motivation behind it.

The lecture, the book is the legacy that Randy wants to give to the society.

At the end of the lecture, Randy has kept a surprise for every reader, listener which will again prove the point that he is one of the greatest persons, teacher, father humanity has ever seen.

You will also realize that every human life is so special in different aspects when you closely inspect the life events from Randy’s Last lecture. These are life events which are common to every human being in every way. I think Randy’s thoughts, life events actually celebrate the meaning of being a human being.

Legacy- The cycle breaker

We are constantly chasing something over our entire lifetime- money, fame, peace, satisfaction and what not. We always have some goals even though they are not called as “goals” but they are always there in the form of our desires, wishes, expectations.

Either you achieve them or you don’t. So, there are always two possible outcomes for every pursuit of desire- goal:

You did something today. Things turned out to be great – Congratulations! Now move ahead with greater task to benefit yourselves and others.

You did something today. Things were not so good – Sorry for your loss (prepare for the punishment in worst case!) How will you work on things to cope with this and get out of it.

The thing which remains same in both cases is that you will show up on the next day. There is 100% chance that you will live tomorrow to celebrate/ build further or to work things out/solve the problem. The goals dictate this direction, the modus operandi for what should be done next, to achieve what you want. It tells you to have a vision, a future outlook.

But what happens when there is no future for you? Do your goals- short term, long term your true calling matter? What if someone tells you that you have only few days in your life. What will happen to your long term and short-term goals, your inner calling? For me dying in a blink of a moment would be far easier than going through such a dreadful time with the information that the death is waiting for you just in the next corner.

This becomes the moment when we realize the things which we were striving/ fighting for. We become aware of the worthlessness of the things thereby valuing the life experiences in a wider sense. And things that we were chasing become worthless in front of the life experiences we had Which actually inspires us to create an awareness, a sense of value in the eyes of people we love. That is when we become self-less and seek for a legacy. The purpose of legacy and even legacy itself can sometimes be selfish, but a true legacy is always self-less.

Even though Randy wanted to create this legacy for his children and he highlights same intentions through his last lecture, one should remember that the life events he shares in this last lecture actually show how self-lessness can impart greatness to a simple human being. Thus, even though Randy’s intentions were selfish, the legacy he created becomes the greatest legacy – the selfless legacy humanity can have forever.

The legacy is what makes others after our time to build upon something to advance further and which lives there even when you are not around. We humans have this gift of legacy which ultimately makes us aware about the worthlessness of the things in the cycle of life and death and actually helps us to value the experiences in our lives in a greater and deeper sense.

For further exploration:

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
The Last Lecture – by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow

Image Reference- Death and Life by Gustav Klimt from W i kimedia

P.S. – One of the most important and experience shared by Randy that I loved was his quote in the early part as follows:

Every quote from hereon belong to The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

“If you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it: if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

This also reflects that even after being a great teacher/ educator, Randy practiced intellectual humility to the heart and he was really master of his art.

There are many great lines which deserve separate attention and they should inspire you to visit this lecture especially the book for once in your lifetime.

“Engineering isn’t about perfect solutions; it’s about doing the best you can with limited resources.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it; if you offer your wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Never make a decision until you have to.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you can find an opening, you can probably find a way to float through it.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because the fancy stuff is not going to work”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Tenacity is a virtue, but it’s not always crucial for everyone ho hard you work at something.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

People are more important than things.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

If she doesn’t really love you, then it’s over. And if she does love you, then love will win out.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Not everything needs to be fixed.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Don’t complain, just work harder.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Never lose the child-like wonder
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Start by sitting together
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Go out and do for the others what somebody did for you.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

A good apology is like an antibiotic; a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

There is more than one way to measure sure profits and losses. On every level, institutions can and should have a heart.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

If you can find your footing between two cultures, sometimes you can have the best of the both worlds.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

When we’re connected to others, we become better people.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

All you have to do is ask.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Be good at something: it makes you valuable.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Find the best in everybody; no matter how you have to wait for them to show it.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

What makes a certain piece of art – “the art”?

The song and the lyrics

The background of the song

The hidden meanings

Experimental evidences from Sociology

Philosophical implications of art and its creator

Conclusion

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Formula 1 and Safety

Need for Halo

Problems and Challenges

The Emergence of Halo

Challenges with Halo

One design to save them all

Are design decisions all about aesthetics?

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Part 2 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

Answers from Logotherapy

Why? Why does the life bear “a meaning”, “a purpose”?

How? How one discovers the purpose

1. Creating a work or doing a deed

2. By experiencing something or encountering someone – Power of love

3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

What? What is life according to the logotherapy?

1. Pain

2. Guilt

3. Death

The Super-meaning – why does the meaning exist?

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Part 1 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

The existential question and unsatisfactory answers to it

What makes any human being “the human being”?

Logotherapy – the satisfactory answer

Nihilism and Noö-dynamics

Significance of determinism and freedom in human life

With great power…

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Humans and the longing for eternal existence

Victor Frankl and The Delusion of Reprieve

Biases, Delusions and Apathy

Fine line between biases and delusions

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Music – magic of patterns

Hometown by French 79

Hometown by French 79 – The lyrics

The music and the video

The patterns and humans

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Part-3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Objectivity – The Job of A True Scholar

Confidence and Bravery of Self Expression

Fluidity of thoughts

Age of Revolution – Inner Development, Relevance of Knowledge and Man as a University

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Part-2 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Books – The Mind of the Past and its Blind Worshipers

Innocence of Knowledge and Awareness of Media

Action Speaks Louder Than Words (and that is not the end of the story)

The Dictionary of Life

The Great Principle of Undulation in Nature and Influence of Popular Opinions

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Part-1 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Origins of “the jobs” in society and The Man of Thinking

The Nature- The idea of classification and the origin of knowledge

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Realization of the limitations of life

The Last lecture by Randy Pausch – The lecture and the book

The need for the lecture and the book

The highlights of “The Last Lecture”

The brick walls

The concept of head fake

Intellectual Humility

Value of time

Collaborate with different types of people

Sustainable and long-term thinking

Contingency plan – “All you have is what you bring with you”

Get a feedback loop; and listen to it.

Create a legacy, Cheat death

Legacy- The cycle breaker

P.S. – One of the most important and experience shared by Randy that I loved was his quote in the early part as follows: