two minds

I have been born with two minds - one rational where all roads are connected and lead somewhere, where there is a beginning and an end, where 2+2 is always 4, where up is up and down is down. The other, that other mind thinks in riddles and feels in circles which never end, clouds which never rain, songs which never die.

How did they ever come together, those two minds? and why? to torment each other? or to help each other navigate life's mysteries? Whatever their fuel may be, they tease each other and play games, in constant mixing and melting and molding, miming, saddening and rejoicing in an eternal gasp called life. What am I to make out of it? Well, go for a ride and write home frequently.

reminiscing

I took my last war-time trip to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in May 1994. My mother had passed on in January, my daughter started living a more normal life in Osijek, my good friend Mira had been out of the nightmare of the war for a few years now, but I still had friends and family in the city. So, I undertook this last trip meaning to visit and bring a few goodies from the outside world to those stuck in Sarajevo.

It is not hard to understand what it meant to those inside to be visited, to be assured that they were not forgotten. I visited with my cousin (I wrote a little story about that experience - "The Other Side of The Mirror"). On my way back, I boarded a military plane (I had a press pass), took off from Sarajevo airport where just a year and a half before I ran for my life under fire to get into Sarajevo and landed in Split in Croatia short 20 or so minutes later.

What caught my attention was the contrast between the two cities so close but yet so far. Sarajevo, a city under siege and fire, and Split, a city in the swing of the oncoming summer with sidewalk cafes and lightweight fun seekers basking in the afternoon sun, sipping their cappuccinos. That contrast brought home the understanding of how easy it is to ignore the suffering of others when they are not seen, not close.

Purpose - part 1

During my second year of a rigorous graduate program in the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University in late 70s, making my way through numerous contentious jousting with my fellow students while presenting cases, working on various projects, studying, taking exams, and feeling all the ups of triumphs and downs of defeats which left me feeling mostly empty, I started questioning it all with a fundamental question, what is life, and followed by even more significant question, what is the purpose of my life.

The struggles of my daily graduate student life just did not make sense to me since they only lead to more such struggles to follow during my supposed career after graduation. When I questioned the borderline brutal treatment encouraged and dished out by the faculty, I was told that it is in preparation for the "reality out there." Well, I thought I did not like that "reality out there." I just was not getting a stable satisfaction of doing what I liked to do as I thought I should. Stress seemed to be a prevalent state of being.

Thus those questions of life and my purpose in it were pushing themselves front and center, beckoning for attention. I started asking around, reading, thinking, discussing my nascent ideas with others. But, central to that process was a conviction that I must come to answers to those questions on my own, without subscribing to any existing ideology or theology, as a result of going as far and as deep as I can go with derivative questions, making sure that my conclusions maintain inner integrity and self-consistency, until such time I came to a place where I could not develop further answers. I was continuously pushing that boundary and testing my evolving system against new information.

The results are quite simple. My purpose in life is to discover and develop my distinguishing abilities to their maximum, apply them in my daily life and experience the process. Quite simple. Coincidentally, I believe that all life has that same purpose.

Now, I can take a U-turn and touch the first question – what is life.

love and fear

In addition to the purpose, interests, and rights from the other post, I also conclude that all actions are motivated by either fear or by love as the evaluation base. I would also propose that love and fear are two fundamental emotions of which all other emotions are derivatives.

purpose, interests, and rights

For a long time I thought about these and came up with the following conclusions:

• purpose of (my) life is experiencing life itself to the maximum as I fully develop and apply my specific abilities to it,
• nothing but my interests should guide my behavior, and
• there is no such thing as inalienable rights.

I know that this would surprise and even shock some of those who think they know me. I will elaborate later - it might make sense to you as well.