Welcome to this week’s 5BF: an evolutionary and
psychological perspective on healing, the vitality of choosing longterm over
short-term, the written values (a collection of maxims) and more...
1 – this week’s articles
We heal one another @aeon – an article which explores the
evolutionary and socio-psychological perspectives about our instinctive
approach towards healing our loved ones whenever they are stressed. A case for
hope, goodness, and love.
Book review: The Anthropecene Reviewed (John Greene)@npr.org – Greene’s first nonfiction book is out, and as this review tells it,
it is even more fun, heart-warming, and explorative than his novels. Talking
about a ‘human-centered planet’, Greene reviews very ordinary things from our
daily lives, and hopes to bring more attention, gratitude, and understanding
through them.
Book review: Aag Ka Darya (Quratul ain Haider) @thewire.in –
I am having a tough time continuing Haider’s multigenerational epic tale of
united India and its separation, yet what has helped me half this book so far is
this particular review of it which explores the importance of geographical
history of both Pakistan and India, which has now become religiously exclusive
countries.
2 – TED-Ed recommendations
The tragedy of the commons @TEDEd – this is the name of an
economic theory by a reknowned economist who talks about how interconnected and
dependant the lives and well-being of common people are on each other. Should
someone act impulsively and take or consume more than what he is required to,
the other common people like him shall suffer because of his action – and him
too in the long-run. What this economic theory of powerfully communicates is
that preferring the short-term benefits over the longterm sustainability shall
create problems for all. This video really helped me understand and name the
unjust things that usually happen around me, like using more plastic, traffic
jams, breaking a waiting line, and so on.
3 – on suicide
Suicide is the saddest thing in the world, indeed, because
it is irreversable and because it was done at will. The one who took his life
did so because he had, to an extreme extent, become hopeless and stuck in this
world and around the people he was with; and no longer do we have the power to
apologize, redo, or make him show the things that really did exist: like hope,
love, and possibilities. A friend of mine attempted suicide a few days back and
hearing about it and finding him in the hospital’s ICU really shocked me and
other fellows. But what an awkward thing to be alive even when you chose and
attempted death; he made cover stories to hide his failed attempt. I hope he’ll
have a courage even darer than one which made him attempt such a definitively
horrible thing to face people’s remarks, criticism, pity, and empathy, once,
hopefully, he is out of the hospital. I have much to discuss with him.
4 - Kindness: a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye
you must lose things
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth
What you held in your hand
what you counted and carefully saved
all this must go so you kno
how desolate the landscape can
between the regions of kindness
How you ride and rid
thinking the bus will never stop
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road
You must see how this could be you
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plan
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing
You must wake up with sorrow
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrow
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore
only kindness that ties your shoe
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread
only kindness that raises its hear
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.