IDEAS ARE COOL

  When Charles Darwin had first proposed the theory of evolution, he received much flak from the Christian conservative society. He proposed in a general sense that, humans are not the divine creatures which society believed to be the truth, rather, we are just another biological species fighting for our existence. We are a product of constant genetic mutations and we have inherited our current biological structure from primates who were successful enough to survive and procreate. In fact, we are not distant from our closest relative chimpanzee: humans share 98-99% of DNA with them. Such a revelation was considered blasphemy at that time and even disputable but today (many religious theorists propose their version of the question about the origins of human beings), we have sufficient proof to conclude that evolution has played a considerable role in creating us biologically and psychologically. We have trodden upon a gritty road for millions of years before reaching here. He also s...

  If you are a college student, especially if you are studying out of home town, then you most probably have to constantly grapple with money related issues in your day-to-day lives. Being situated out of home, receiving a fixed pocket money, the conundrum to spend it on livelihood or study related expenses, questions like: how to regulate spending, saving, the desire to do part-time jobs and internships are all which frighten college students like yours. Apart from academic expenses, many students also require some portion to be spent on recreation and exploratory activities too. However, such a desire becomes seemingly impossible having the shortage of money in sight. But, there is a great way to regulate your expenditure and align it with your academic goals; it just requires that you learn the personal finance skills which I have explained in this topic for you tailored specially for college students. Understand how money works, and you can make money work for you. THE BASICS...

  The purpose of religion and religious institutions in medieval times was primarily to decipher the reality, separate truth from the mélange of information around us and, provide a course of action for human beings or the society to tread a path from which they could optimise their behaviour; the behaviour which should be aimed at attaining the “best” life which is consistent with the following terms which religions all over the earth delineated : morals, god-fearing, karma-fearing persons. The aim of these religions was to organize the agricultural societies and provide a broader course of action for every member living in it. The contemporary notions such as ‘ambitions’, ‘success’ and ‘achieving something’ were reproved as they were considered to be a course of action swerving from the greater design of the God or Brahma, and rather motivated its adherents to follow a ‘holy path’, ‘pray’, ‘devoted to the glory of God’ etc. These were considered to be the paths through which huma...

  Have you ever attempted to push your cognitive process to the point of exhaustion? It is a weary process but it wields an opportunity to dislodge reality from information. I might sound fatuous but I can conveniently exemplify my proposition. Do you ‘think’ that you ‘know’ your reality? An immediate confirmation pronounces that you have a sufficient repository of information to distinguish aptly what constitutes ‘real’ world from the welter information surrounding your sense organs. You have a name, parents, nationality, caste, class, and other tags which help you delineate the idea of ‘you’. Afterall, without having a strong idea that you exist, you are just a loose mass of bones and muscles. These identities buttress our attempt to navigate the world adding meaning and purpose to our lives. They are the very rubrics of our existence, hence; we can’t hurl them out them from our lives. But still, is our reality limited to this constant interplay between identities and the drama o...

  I have always wondered what drives people to purchase things that are pricey on a cosmic level, behave in an quaint disposition whether that be posting exuberant images on social media, flashing how they read “The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*ck” although they do, using a gratuitous and esoteric vocabulary, behave like a hipster, the rage to appear ‘cool’ in social gatherings etc. – all alluding to something which we are going to explore today. Let’s recourse to the most familiar example – What makes people spend exorbitant amount on an i-phone? Well, you might already know this. ‘Status signaling’ is the term we all are thinking of here. This was intriguing to realise how capitalism has commodified intangible abstract nouns such as ‘status’. You want to attain a higher status, then just purchase a newfangled smartwatch, buy a fancy phone etc. and ‘pay money’ and your status will be delivered at your doorstep. Interesting right? It is reflective of the changing culture where the...

  I have encountered a general lament from a slew of people that they aren’t happy, or “it is life”, and to placate their misery, they affirm another adage that nobody in this world is happy. It is true and we all can attest to this behaviour. We desperately wish to be happy but the larger question is – Is it at all possible? Happiness is intrinsically an emotion facilitated by hormones namely four of them: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphin. Whenever you feel ‘happy’ it is the result of these chemicals at work. Our brain’s abstruse structure is in a manner which can decipher our ‘reality’ and command our glands when to release these hormones at relevant situations. Thus, when you are gifted something on your birthday, purchase a new-fangled device, have sex, kiss, cuddle, hug your partner, perform a workout, achieve a goal or simply have a semblance of ‘achievement’ as expatiated by canker of social media usage or porn addiction, smoking, weed etc. your brain is inundat...

The fundamental biological built of human body is purposed for only for two objectives– survival and reproduction. Our body’s functions, anatomy and the tools we use to comprehend reality (5 sense organs) have a predestined biological purpose which is to ensure survival and procreation. Hence, every aspect of our body which we currently decipher is genetically constructed to keep us alive and further our species. But a rudimentary wedge between human beings and other organisms is that we decipher reality using our brain which is capacious of collating information from our surroundings and make us efficient in the two aforementioned purposes. Here, our intellectual capacity is superior to that of other organisms because we are able to ruminate and come up with quick solutions keeping in mind the various variables we gather from around us. We are able to solve ‘problems’ radically better than any other species. It is imperative to note because our brains and psychological make-up is weav...