Casual Cognition

I recently read this article that is floating around in Facebook. 

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/article2882340.ece

It was a humbling attempt by two young individuals who returned from US of A and tried to live below the poverty line.   

The immediate thought, after reading this article, that was lingering in my mind was Charity and how closely it is associated with religions.  Again and again, the Hindu Dharma – law of life – stresses the need of Charity. For any and every function, ritual or ceremony giving away things in charity is an integral part.  Grains, Cows, Clothes are most common things given away in charities.  I have heard similar things from my friends from other religions that they have to set aside a percentage of their earnings for charitable reasons.

It was realized in ancient times only that there cannot be economical equality and a certain mass of people will be dependent on other mass. I presume it was also realized that not all the people will be ready to share their belonging to underprivileged. That could be a reason behind Karma concept and the strict rules in all the religion regarding Charity.   

What does one get out of charity? Not just the tax benefits. You get a sense of satisfaction. I have personally felt this though the contribution was negligible.  Probably this sense of satisfaction/completeness is what drove Warren Buffet to donate considerable percentage of his wealth. On the other side, why don’t people willingly donate?  (1)  People want to save every penny for themselves and their dearer ones in this given economic conditions (2) People do not believe that the donated money is put to use properly (3) A feeling that the under privileged could become complacent  and refuse to progress.  I do not know of any universal solution for this. But I would like to quote translations of two phrases in Tamil – (1) “Know the person before you donate” (2) “Donations and charity comes after self”. The latter one means to save sufficient wealth and give away the rest in charity.

Like the child’s reply in the star fish story, the donations that you make might be very little. But it may mean a lot to the receiver. 

Be Compassionate!!

I am trimming the Facebook friends lists. Yes, you read it right! I am trimming it.  Just like a new husband trying to impress his wife, we try to impress others by adding more friends than they can think we could have. Result: Bloated friends list. You add everybody – Your real friends, their friends, your colleagues, their friends,their girl friends, their dogs and their bitches. The problem, you see, you are losing the whole point of networking. Unless you are marketing some product, what is the point in adding everybody in the facebook?

If you use Facebook to stay in touch with friends, only add them. If you are using Facebook to connect with your collegues only add those who you know. Dont add every single of the thousands of the employees of your company. After a while neither of you dont know why you added each other and get a dilemma of whether to remove that person or not. Like I have been debating so long.

I am removing you from my friends list if you fall under one or more of the categories below:

1.  If we have not met even once and neither of us add any value to one other professionally.
2.  If you have not liked or commented on any of my posts for the past one year. At the least, you should have wished me on my birthday (which is impossible because I have not exposed it on my profile)
3.  If you keep liking & commenting on every single post of mine. That is Stalking!
4.  If you are my colleague and I know other ways of keeping in touch with you, like LinkedIn.
5.  If you are my friend and if you don’t care to reply to my messages on your wall.
6.  If you keep tagging me in the posts not related to me. I don’t give a damn about the stray pig stuck in a wall creek when you went out on a trip. Period.