Tag: Truth

Albert Einstein On The Ideals Of Life

Arshan Dhillon

My grandfather happens to be a great admirer of Albert Einstein, as many people are, and I had a conversation with him about Einstein and I learned many things about the man, Einstein and not just the scientist. I was surprised to hear about how much Einstein wrote on subject matter like tolerance, kindness and the importance of art.

This got me curious to learn about this important figure in human history. I wished to learn more about Einstein the man, what his thoughts were, what did he like, what did he believe in, his dislikes and worldviews.

And to my great pleasure, I came upon a book that was conveniently called Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein. The book is a compilation of his essays, letters, and speeches which range from topics of politics, science, religion, the meaning of life, education, friends and many more. The contextual thought that I found interesting was that many of these letters, essays and speeches were written between post World War I and post World War II. I am sure the experience of that horrific time period played a role in what I wish to quote in this post. The section in the book is called “The World As I See It” in which Albert Einstein discusses the ideals of his life.

To inquire after the meaning or object of one’s own existence or that of all creatures has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view. And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgements. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed to me empty. The trite objects of human efforts – possessions, outward success, luxury – have always seemed to me contemptible.

These three ideals seem to be lacking in the public at the moment. Constantly we see how volatile social media can be, how easy it is to spread hate and leave hateful comments. Truth itself is a virtue that isn’t respected much. People fake their own images and lives in order to garner some type of following or blatantly spread lies in order to push their own agenda. Beauty, on the other hand, seems to go unnoticed as in the arts, whatever makes money is pushed forth rather than true beauty and in life, people rarely acknowledge or attempt to see the beauty that surrounds us.

One reason why such ideals developed in the mind of a young Einstein was due to a quote from Schopenhauer.

Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer’s saying “A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants,” has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing well-spring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people all too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in particular, gives humor its due.

Free to do what we want but not free to want what we want. That’s a conundrum. So, I suppose one should be tolerant towards others because there is a certain restriction in people’s movements and decisions. Recognize the limitations of man and be patient. See the humor in the ridiculousness of life and try to achieve more than just immediate satisfaction. That seem to be three practical ways to behave. It does not seem too absurd to live by ideals of kindness, beauty, and truth. It seems definitely better than the alternative.

Youtube: Learned Living

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/learned_living/

Poem: The Many Yous

Article: Stoic Lesson: Aim For Internal Growth

Short Story: Everything Work’s Itself Out

Lessons From Stories: The Things They Carried And The Implication On The Truth And Storytelling

Arshan Dhillon

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a novel that chronicles several short stories where we follow a platoon of American soldiers. Most of the stories take place during the Vietnam war but a few also explore events pre and post-war. Many aspects of storytelling are examined in the novel, including whether or not a fictional truth can be greater than the real truth and also, what the point of storytelling is.

The storytelling technique Tim O’Brien uses blurs the line between what really happened and what is simply a story. This is achieved by naming the narrator of the story after himself. With this, the text can be read almost like a memoir instead of a fictional piece. For instance, the narrator, Tim O’Brien, considered his participation in the war to be cowardly because he did not want to be shamed by his parents and neighbors and other people in his town for avoiding the war. This notion is expressed in the story called “On the Rainy River”.

This raises the question if the author, Tim O’Brien, felt the same way and if not, then does that take away from the narrator’s feelings or do you simply accept the fact that similar notions of cowardice must have circulated the minds of other soldiers who ultimately accepted their enrollment in the army, hence, the truth in fiction.

The narrator also goes through a transformation, from being an anti-war student with the hopes of going to Harvard, to wanting revenge on a medic who he felt wronged him in the story “The Ghost Soldiers”. No matter who you were prior to the war, you were going to be someone else afterward. This transformation is made more real because of the author’s choice to blur the line between fact or fiction. This draws attention to the generations of men who have suffered the consequences of war. Almost a devolution or regression in character that is caused by the stress of combat. The narrator was a student who had no desire to fight and now he was planning revenge on his own comrade. The novel does a good job of eliciting emotions that perhaps only a memoir can do.

When the narrator Tim O’Brien describes his first kill and the disfiguration of the Vietnamese soldier in the story “The Man I Killed”, one cannot help but feel sorry for not only the individual who has died but also O’Brien himself because by killing the soldier, he kills a part of himself. However, it is then revealed that the narrator never killed the man but rather he walks up to a corpse of the disfigured individual but to him, it was the same thing. He had played a role in the killing by participating in the war. However, by having described the scene as if he was the one who had killed the Vietnamese soldier, it adds an extra layer to the storytelling, a realistic coat and although we have two accounts of what happened, they both still feel real and both are believable. A soldier did kill that Vietnamese soldier and a soldier did wake up to find the disfigured body and have feelings of guilt and sadness.

This leads you to wonder if a story can be truer than what really happened? Or that if it didn’t really happen does that mean it isn’t true? The feelings evoked by the stories seem to be real.

The narrator suggests a true war story cannot be written, which calls into question the point of this war novel. Perhaps this is why certain passages are exaggerated, stories that come into the realm of surrealism, maybe that is the only way to actually tell a true war story. One such story being the “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” where a soldier flies in his girlfriend from America and in the course of a few weeks, the girlfriend transforms from an innocent girl from the Midwest to a savage soldier who disappears in the Vietnamese forest. Such a thing may have never happened however, there were countless soldiers, innocent themselves, who fought and got lost in Vietnam. In that sense, the story about the girl is as true as anything else.

Or perhaps the only way to tell a war story is by shouldering the responsibility of the war and with it, the death of the soldiers. This can be seen with the death of Kiowa, their comrade, in the story “In the Field”. Several soldiers believe that it was their fault that Kiowa died. In the same way, the narrator believed that it was his fault that the disfigured Vietnamese soldier died. By assuming responsibility, one may be able to explain what happened, why it happened, how it happened and this can give them a sense of closure even though that individual was not at fault. In this way, a different truth than what really happened is accepted but this truth still has the effects of real truth.

Furthermore, the narrator explains why he is writing this story. The narrator’s explanation seems to be the explanation of the author, Tim O’Brien for the reason behind the novel is that through storytelling, one is able to capture the soul of the individual who is not there anymore. In the story, that individual gets to live. This notion is expressed fully in the text “The Lives of the Dead”. The story keeps the soul alive. Which may be the reason why the author decided to name all the characters after people he knew. The soldiers that passed away were still alive in this text. The girl that he loved when he was a kid is still alive in this text because in the story, she is dancing and laughing and the two of them can talk to each other. Perhaps the reason why the narrator is named Tim O’Brien is so that after the author has passed, his soul still lives on through this story.

Storytelling can then be thought of as a way to cope with our past. To explore and understand our experiences. To unpack the hidden truths and come to terms with them. To keep alive a part of yourself or someone else as time goes on and erases everything that has been and will be after.

Socrates & How To Think For Oneself

Arshan Dhillon

To think for oneself can be a difficult process, especially if you harbor self-doubt, as many people do. Self-doubt causes us to conform to the opinions of other people. When you are unsure about yourself and your own reasoning, you naturally flock to the group consensus. Such actions are even stronger when the group consensus is what is considered being the norm or “common sense”. The sheer number of people supporting one argument is enough for you to doubt anything contrary.

However, if one is to have an “independence of mind” as Alain De Botton puts it, we cannot take what we are told without critically examining it. It is the reason behind a statement that is supreme and not the number of voices speaking. It is reason that allows us to oppose socially sanctioned practices and ideas.

Many people adopt the beliefs and opinions of others without reason.

Other people may be wrong, even when they are in important positions, even when they are espousing beliefs held for centuries by vast majorities. The reason for this simple: they have not examined their beliefs logically.

How does one examine beliefs logically?

The answer lies in the life of Socrates. He was an individual who used his love for wisdom, for philosophy, as his guide. Such love put reason at the center and not traditions, norms, opinions, popularity, etc. His process was simple, but it required a disciplined individual to practice it daily, hence why so many people rather divert such responsibility and adopt other people’s beliefs. But in order to be an individual, one must examine life for him/herself and see what they believe to be right and what is true to them.

The following method is known as the Socratic method of thinking and it can help one to examine the commonly held beliefs, not just of their own but those of the society they are living in as well.

  1. Locate a statement confidently described as common sense.
  2. Imagine for a moment that statement is false. Search for situations or contexts where that statement would not be true.
  3. If a situation is found, the definition must be false or imprecise.
  4. The initial statement must be nuanced to take the exception into account.
  5. Repeat the process if new statement also has an exception.

(The Consolations of Philosophy)

Often times the truth is discovered by finding out what something isn’t. What statements are not true, what beliefs have exceptions, what opinions are based on falsity, and so on. Through such critical thinking, you begin to formulate your own thoughts and understandings and, hence, think for yourself.

For more daily updates follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/learned_living/

Perspective On What It Means To Lie

Arshan Dhillon

Lying comes easy to me. It’s almost like a reflex, the initial reaction is to lie. Even to a conversational question like “What are you up to?” we may lie and tell them we’re busy doing something important or about to do something productive or perhaps its the opposite, lie and say we weren’t doing anything when in fact we were in the middle of work. All of this is ego-driven. We want to seem important or seem flexible, it’s our image we are trying to protect. It’s this reflex we have built over time, years of lying, honing a skill that no one wants.

Just the other day I brushed off hanging with some friends because I was too lazy to do so. Instead of telling the truth, because that would hurt the ego, I told them it was too late, I was too tired, that I will see them some other time.

I used to never think about such lies. After I told them they were out of my head because I thought these lies to be harmless. This was my way of thinking until I read Lying by Sam Harris. This book brought a perspective change to the way I thought about lying and the importance of being truthful. Of course, I’ve always understood big lies to be bad, those lies that bring a level of shame and guilt after you have told them but the book helped me understand the harmful nature of what we call white lies as well.

There are three things I learned on the perspective of lying and what it means to tell a lie.

1. When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives—about how they appear, their reputations, or their prospects in the world. This is an extraordinary stance to adopt toward other human beings, and it requires justification. Unless someone is suicidal or otherwise on the brink, deciding how much he can know about himself seems the quintessence of arrogance. What attitude could be more disrespectful of those we care about?

By withholding the truth from someone we feed our ego. We act superior under the guise of being helpful. There is a level of arrogance attached to our actions when we tell a lie in order to protect someone’s feelings or emotions.

2. Lying is the lifeblood of addiction.

This is so true. How many times have you cheated on your diet? Lying to yourself that it’s okay, you’ve earned it or that you’ll burn off the extra calories later. How many times have you said just one drink isn’t too bad? or procrastinated by promising yourself you’ll do something later instead of right now?

The lies you tell yourself in order to feel immediate gratification only strengthen the poor habits you are trying to break and those are the habits which are holding you back from being your best self. So this addiction to lying is holding you back. You become an addict by either lying to yourself and/or telling lies to others.

3. Think of all the opportunities for deepening love, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding that are forsaken by white lies.

Lying deprives you of honest communication. It is only through honest communication do our relationships with other people deepen. Often times we lie to save face, it’s an ego thing. By telling the truth, instead of lying, we allow the other person an opportunity to forgive you, to accept you despite your flaws and in doing so, build a stronger relationship.

As Sam Harris says:

Being honest is good to avoid long term problems but at the cost of short term discomfort.

Discomfort is the root of many human vices. We all want pleasure, we all want comfort, we want that immediate gratification but by seeking these things we put a limitation on the growth of our relationships and also our own personal growth.

It isn’t as easy as telling yourself to never lie again. Just simple reminder won’t work, it’s not the same as telling yourself to get milk before you go home. In order for you to be a truthful individual, you have to look into your habits and actions which lead you to lie. The process is a difficult one which requires a lot of self-reflection. You have the change as an individual. Just as lying can be reflexive, telling the truth must also come without a conscious effort to do so. Only then you become a truthful person.

Tell Your Truth Through Writing

Arshan Dhillon

I am one of those people who is constantly daydreaming. It’s almost an ailment because I am always thinking of different “what if” scenarios. I’m sure I am not alone in this. In fact, I’m positive that as a species, the ability to wonder and to allow our minds to create possibilities is one of the ways we have evolved to this point in history. I say this because one of the things a writer attempts to do is to put into words these “what if” scenarios and different possibilities.

And that is where the problem arises. If only it was as simple as copying what is in our heads and pasting it on a sheet of paper. Not to mention the greater issue which is that these words feel lifeless, these scenarios that excite our minds are rarely ever as exciting on paper perhaps because the act of writing requires one to flesh out the idea, to fill in the gaps which are bypassed by our consciousness and through this tedious act of unpacking a scene, we are left with something that is dull, bland, without wonder because our original aim was sensational pleasure rather than an attempt to say something that is truthful.

To say what is truthful to you takes courage because you open yourself up to the scrutiny of others. Yet, it must be done. One of the pleasures of writing is to discover who you are through your writing. By not aiming for the truth, you deprive yourself of this pleasure.

As Anne Lamott says in Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life:

Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are.

The natural question that arises from this is how do we go about doing this? How do we tell the truth? Where to start?

For Lamott, the process starts at our childhood.

Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can.

This task can seem overwhelming because there isn’t a clear direction, nothing to focus on. So, you must create your own boundaries so you can zoom in to a specific time period of your childhood and get a truthful picture.

So you might start by writing down every single thing you can remember from your first few years in school. Start with kindergarten. Try to get the words and memories down as they occur to you. Don’t worry if what you write is no good, because no one is going to see it. Move on to first grade, to second, to third. Who were your teachers, your classmates? What did you wear? Who and what were you jealous of? Now branch out a little. Did your family take vacations during those years? Get these down on paper. Do you remember how much more presentable everybody else’s family looked? Do you remember how when you’d be floating around in an inner tube on a river, your own family would have lost the little cap that screws over the airflow valve, so every time you got in and out of the inner tube, you’d scratch new welts in your thighs? And how other families never lost the caps?

Write down everything you can remember about every birthday or Christmas or Seder or Easter or whatever, every relative who was there. Write down all the stuff you swore you’d never tell another soul.

This exercise is useful because it makes you unpack your own life, your own thoughts, opinions, beliefs and most importantly, your own truth. It is not so much about the event that is being described rather it is the perspective of the individual describing the events that make the writing unique.

So, you must sit down with a piece of paper in front of you or a laptop screen or even a typewriter and write as honestly as possible. You must do this every day, around the same time, creating a routine which allows you to be open and vulnerable but more importantly, truthful.