Dark side of the Internet

Imagine you are in a room with a fly. If you are a spiritual person like me, you would probably mediate during some point in a day. Can we agree then that meditation is a process of gaining peace with the mind? The whole idea of meditation is to focus (on objects or things). Let us move forward, this time we are really meditating. Imagine now that now and then a fly comes along and sits on your lap. You are not disturbed; you still meditate. However, this fly is enjoying a room, searching for food; aimlessly moving around, having fun. Will you get irritated with this fly or not?

An ordinary person is most likely to get irritated because the primary function of the person in a room was performing mediation and not thinking about a fly. This is what the Internet is for the present day society. I am not saying that the Internet as a technology is bad. 

Like a fly, the Internet is not bad or good. It’s all in our 

mind. Some people might 

think this is bad for them because they were focusing on something else (e.g. meditation) and not on a fly itself. 

The Internet with various web services (e-mail, spam messages, viruses, security vulnerabilities) is like a fly that will constantly interrupt you. For example, if you have your social networking site notification active, imagine receiving notification e-mail of every activity that occurs. Like a fly interrupting a meditating man, we might also constantly get interrupted on the Internet. 

Remember clicking on social networking sites ads? Recently, one became public and there is amazing data which showed it earned $9.51 per user in US and Canada alone. From Asia and other parts of the world, it earned around $2 in ad revenue. Multiply this amount with 900 million active users on monthly basis that is the money companies like this social networking site are making out of the tiny sips of online conversation (our virtual friendship). How is that?

This is not a big deal for an ordinary user. We all want to be feel connected. We don’t care much how companies make profit out of our friendship activities online (from the realms of our friend’s activities, our posts, likes, photos, videos, comments and status updates). Furthermore, the world of social media and the Internet generally has become crowded maybe too crowded, and my intention is not to say that this crowded “Internetosphere” is bad or good. 

My intention is to remind you in your room with a fly, remind you that now you are again meditating with not just a single fly but tens of them, hundreds of them, and even thousands. I don’t know what you will do, but I am still meditating.


Source: The Himalayan Times

Blue Dot

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

On studying abroad or not

My very close friend went to UK for his undergraduate studies very recently. I had mixed reactions over his departure. First, I felt sad, simply because I lost one very close friend from my neighborhood. Secondly, I felt happy for his future career and cognizance that he might gain from foreign studies. Thirdly, I too felt like doing the same.

A very recent news report cites that more than one thousand people depart for foreign countries every day from Nepal. Well, that is a huge number, isn’t it? Maybe my friend is one among them. Given the situation in Nepalese villages, nobody seems to want to stay back home. Everybody is searching for safety, security, high-paid jobs, and various services (with no power-cuts, water problem, lack of security, privacy, and medical or health benefits). Therefore, I would rather not decry ordinary people or my dear friend. In-fact, such a trend seems to be growing more each day.

Twenty years ago, people use to ask their children, “What will you do, when you grow up?” They were much likely to choose a high adept profession such as “doctors and engineers”. Today a kid replies, “I would rather study abroad in UK/USA.” Based on my informal observation, apparently a trend of sending your kids abroad for study is also rapidly growing in my poor little neighborhood. The only downside is that I am left alone with very few friends to play cricket with. There is no such thing called, “free-lunch.” 

To study in US/UK, one has to pay large sums of tuition fees/college fees, in pounds and dollars. I think, it is like gambling with one’s life. If you are successful, then you will be rewarded with a foreign degree, which might provide you a secure job for your lifetime. However, not all this works in your favor. In my neighborhood, as I see it, some uncle and aunties are building their backyards/ homes. They boast that their children have sent a handful of cash in US dollars or pounds, which are many times more than the Nepalese currency, how is that?

My grandfather used to say, “Money can’t buy you happiness but it buys you some luxury which in-turn bestows some limited pleasure.” Well, I do not know whether I too will join my very close friend to study in UK but I do know for now that life is not like “bed of roses.” To be honest, my dear friend, I love my neighborhood so much so that I will not be able to join you in UK. There may be an inner desire but weighing the pros and cons it would be better to stay back in this humble setting to be near with the family. Good luck to you my dear friend, and all who are thinking to travel abroad for pursuing further studies.


Published: The Himalayan Times

Trayvon Martin and Limitation of Man Made Law

Don't you ever judge people with color, creed, race, clothes, behavior, lifestyle, and whatnot? We as human beings are very quick in judging our fellow humans. We can get trap into dogma and believing that everything what we do is good and what others are doing to us is bad. Before making any political judgment about others, we need to understand where do we stand. There have been recent examples of political pundits all fighting over the case of Trayvon Martin.

I don't know whether you have heard about this case, but this case has bought national outrage in United States (A country where they feel proud of their judicial system); but not anymore.

A black teenager gets killed by some local watchdog. How? Why? When? Where? All these questions are based on human curiosity. Like everybody else, I too was curious to find out the answers. The most curious are the parents of the 17 yr old teenager. They have not had an answer yet simply because the law that human made is under close scrutiny ("stand your ground") law. Under this law, a person has rights to kill anyone and claim that he was defending himself/herself. What a law? Wow. The borderline is if someone comes to attack you inside your house, then you might defend yourself by using this law but if someone goes outside to buy "bag of skittles and iced tea" then you are not allowed to kill that very person. But, this can only happen in "United States of Amnesia."

Come on dudes, we all are human beings and someday we all have to die. There is no point to deny the fact that we shall live forever. There is also no denial of the fact that it will be hard for the killer to sustain living because the dead is already gone. Here, the living person (George Zimmerman) will have more nightmarish life then a dead (Trayvon Martin).

The country which proclaims to be the land of diversity and great nation has fallen apart. This case is nothing. There are many other cases where the racial divide is bought to popularize the human syndrome of injustice, divide, and so-so.

Our 15 minute fame syndrome has become reality nowadays. Thousands of YouTube videos have been created and thousand of article have been written here. However, I think this case and many other only suggest that "we are limited in our own understanding of making man-made laws"; we are limited in appreciating the human life; we have become morons; killers (They have taught us to love violent video games and kill enemies besides that we see the examples of this in real life). As a human being we must be responsible for our "action"; whatever we do, think, feel, love,... we must be responsible for that. If we are not responsible for our action, then we are slowly and gradually changing ourselves into devolution (we might go back into our caves, someday).

In a country where there are large ammunition and gun industry run, undoubtedly this is just a beginning of new era (where people will stand their color, clothes (e.g. hoodies here has been popularized), and whatnot.

Do we stand in the top of mountains? Of course, we do not stand on the top of mountains. We stand on the top of this mother earth. On this very earth, we are never alone. There is the wide range of diversity all across our borders and throughout us. There is variety in what we do; there is variety in what we wear; there is variety in what we think; or the way in which we spend our lives in this planet. Now, you see the man-made law is falling apart. This has to change.

Even if the teenager were responsible to scuffle with this neighborhood watchdog man, he has no authority to take someone's life. Who gave him such authority? This neighborhood watchdog overestimated and thought that, "This teenager looked suspicious." What for? Looking suspicious is the sign of judging (without an authority and killing contemporary human being is brutal crime).

Stop killing and start loving each other. Stop judging and start appreciating. Stop giving personal judgments over a human death and start reflecting on human soul. Stop being a victim of power control and "military-industrial complex."

Facebook addiction

Like it or not, this is going to be terrible few lines that you are going to read Not because I don’t know how to write But, because you don’t feel like it, do you? (I don’t think so) Like a sleepy young man typing in front of his computer In late Easter spring morning Like a lonely wife awaiting for his man to arrive And is begging that he should someday develop hate-hate relationship With [this] tiny screwy machine of some sort But, you know this is not going to happen, right? Yes, you know this is not happening since this young man is  Suffering, maybe each one of us are also  from:

The Secret

I saw an empty box, inside another box

Ten thousand miles, scribbled on its top;

And to my amaze ’twas greenly washed out

As I started to touch it

’Twas sighing away from me

Like a mystery showering machine of some sort

Revealing herself

Robert Pirosh wrote on wanting to become a Hollywood screenwriter

A letter that copywriter Robert Pirosh wrote on wanting to become a Hollywood screenwriter.

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words,such as Svengali,svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went toEurope for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?


Source: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/ggu6u6 

Phobia of a sort

Each morning, when I wake up, there is a passionate desire and energy in my veins to improve the world and enjoy zillion moments of so-called simple human life. But, it is extremely difficult to make successful plans on any given day and not everything is in our control.

It was bright, and sunny, clear blue sky above somewhere very high in the sky. Looking outside my glassy window, I was just thinking if I would ever make it to the earth and, whenever the whisper was “maybe”, I felt much more terrified. 

This morning was different as I woke up thousands of feet above the ground level hovering, within my airplane’s back seat. There was a flight entertainment system that displayed distance to destination and estimated arrival time, and I was simply looking at it. As a Nepali engineer, the problems that I am trying to solve might not create ‘ripple effect’ in the entire universe, nor will it be covered by major media outlets, and who cares if I am simply terrified 5,000 feet above the ground level. 

I know nobody cares, but I do care about my fear. While flying, I cannot simply hover around and look at the scenic beauty of clouds, but I always find myself mixed between these non-linking thoughts. There is a sense of anxiety while flying, which I was trying to smoothen with my life’s uselessness. Not only am I filled with ‘what if’ questions but also with the sense of tremendous fear and lonesomeness. Some alarming questions that pop-up in my mind: what happens if I die flying; what if I will never land on the ground; what happens to my life’s earnings; what happens to my poor family; who will take care of my beloved wife and what not.

No way, it was not my first flying experience. Many people suffer from the fear of flying. People say that they are fearful when they are inexperienced and when they travel more, it just transforms into a habit, and then they feel less anxious. However, my journey into the air has always just been the opposite. Unlike those who never fear flying, I have been most fearful while flying. There are unnecessary thoughts and feelings that are extremely difficult to eradicate. No one is left alone, either in the sky or on land. Everybody is part of this big Mother Nature, and we have to adjust our feelings based on the changing circumstances and requirements. Some consolation comes from reading recent flight traffic data: more than 30 million people fly every day. Indeed, I am not alone. 

Roosevelt once pointed out that the “only thing we have to fear is the fear itself.” But every time I think of flying modern commercial airlines, I feel humankind has transformed.

Published: The Himalayan Times

Life’s like that

JAN 03 -
When I was a child, they told me that Nepal had big potential in hydropower. Now when I am adult, I realise that what they teach in theory and what is realised in practice are quite contrary. In a country where there the sun smiles all around the year, power cuts and load-shedding have aroused only problems for all. I am frustrated with power cuts. My resolutions are like dark empty muddy vessels. They contain neither water nor air; they are filled with subjective experiences of humankind such as dreams, hopes and aspirations.

Some of my friends have said that they may give up smoking or alcohol, which seems to be rather good news. They also wish to visit luxurious holiday spots like Pokhara or Chitwan. As far as I am concerned, I do not necessarily have any plans. What would I do with my personal plans when problems associated with me and my country are increasing every day? Many can use power backup systems such as inverters, batteries and generators to solve the energy crisis. But for those who cannot afford them, they just have to wait patiently and pray for a miracle.

If you go over religious books, darkness in every scripture is regarded as evil. Darkness is not only mere absence of light, it is presence of light unseen by our eyes. Moreover, what our eyes do not see is always hard to believe. How am I supposed to believe that someday my motherland will have no crisis? Many scholars, scientists and researchers have taught us to live on a moment and enjoy life. The Buddha taught that suffering is inevitable; no one escapes from the burden of suffering. Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

I think I should go rather easy on whatever comes along in my life. In my opinion, problems and people associated with one’s country are the same. It is important to note that we are not only facing electricity problems but also many social, economic and technological problems. We cannot avoid the problems of our country or our individual problems. I hope that during the year that has just started, we can see some light in the darkness.

A friend asked, “What do I wish for the new year?” And I said, “I wish to learn effectively that life is short so that I will love unconditionally, smile regularly, regret nothing, listen carefully, laugh aloud, live strongly, burn candles, share happiness and waste no time. Most importantly, I also wish the same for everybody and their motherland.”

Posted on: 2012-01-04 09:59

Published: The Kathmandu Post

Writings of Andre Dubus II:

All these truths and quasi-truths…about publishing are finally ephemeral…What is demanding and fulfilling is writing a single word, trying to write le mote juste, as Flaubert said; writing several of them, which become a sentence.

When a writer does that, day after day, working alone with litter encouragement, often with discouragement flowing in the writer’s own blood, and with an occasional rush of excitement... the treasure is on the desk. 

If the manuscript itself, mailed out to the world, where other truths prevail, is never published, the writer will suffer bitterness, sorrow, anger, and more dangerously, despair… 

But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, and hatred,; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another.

This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer’s soul.

My First Novel

I just finished writing my first novel named, "The Monk Who Changed My Life..." will be published by Mahaveer publishers in near future. It was nice experience to talk with the character in the Novel.

I do hope that the publishers will do their part of editing, proofreading, structure, and cross-checking appropriately.

I don't know when the book will be available and when they will finalize it but I know for sure that they should publish it.

So thumps up for finishing my first novel. I do hope that my readers will enjoy reading this novel. Let us see how this journey follows.

Weep not for me

Do not weep for me when I no longer dwell
among the wonders of the earth; for my larger
self is free, and my soul rejoices on the other
side of pain…on the other side of darkness.
Do not weep for me, for I am a ray of sunshine
that touches your skin, a tropical breeze
upon your face, the hush of joy within your heart
and the innocence of babes in mothers arms.
I am the hope in a darkened night. And, in your
hour of need, I will be there to comfort you.
I will share your tears, your joys, your fears,
your disappointments and your triumphs.
Do not weep for me, for I am cradled
in the arms of God. I walk with the angels,
and hear the music beyond the stars.
Do not weep for me, for I am within you;
I am peace, love, I am a soft wind that caresses
the flowers. I am the calm that follows a
raging storm. I am an autumns leaf that floats
among the garden of God, and I am pure
white snow that softly falls upon your hand.
Do not weep for me, for I shall never die,
as long as you remember me…
with a smile and a sigh.

iRIP to Steve

Couple of weeks ago, I was reading the biography about Steve. Forget about couple of weeks ago, I was just checking steve’s biography in itunes store for pre-order and after just some 7 hours, I hear this sad news that steve is no more. 

Today is great day not for his death. This is the day when biggest festival is observed in Hindu called, Dashain and on today’s day, one of the greatest iconic figure of computer world is dead. He has reserved his place in the heaven, right from the beginning of his era. A great showman in geeky world, a genius in innovation and informatics, if you will

A man who will not only be remembered for his mind boggling innovation such as, iPod, iTunes, iTouch, iPhone, iPad, iDeath, and iRIP.

Everybody born has to die someday and steve said it right when he said, 

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Good bye Steve, hope to catch you someday…

iRIP.

Earthquake Disaster—Prevention or cure

I am really sorry for all those people who have been severely affected from the very recent 6.8 quake that hit in the capital, as well as in northern Nepal- India border. As, we are all aware from the world news that natural disaster (for example, tsunami in Japan, volcanoes in Iceland, tornadoes in America and whatnot) is happening all over the world.  Millions of people all over the world have been affected with the natural disaster. The bad news is that we cannot do anything about them. But, the good news is that we can take steps to reduce the casualties and injuries caused by them. 

Earthquake does not necessarily cause damages. It is just a shifting of plates beneath the surface of the earth.  What causes damage are the objects that are build on the top of it, and the ways in which, they are designed or build.  The damage is more severe when people start to feel fear and lose their night’s sleep.

In Kathmandu, we have build houses like stray dogs. There are no empty places even for pedestrians. The scattered arrangement of houses and buildings can be best seen from the window of a domestic airliner. Anywhere you go, you can find just materialistic buildings, ranging from small hut to big bungalows. There are old, traditional houses that are not repaired for several hundred years. 

One thing that worries me little is the influx of people from different parts of remote villages to the capital, is rapidly growing daily. We have started to live more, with the less, and there can be great debate on this topic on our expectations from the city, or from Kathmandu-ties living morality. 

Another thing that worries me little is about the recent news on “the end of the world” in 2012. But the NASA scientists based on their scientific facts and understanding has clearly reported that earth will not end in 2012 so we can firmly believe them.  However, scientific knowledge is always limited and we cannot make righteous prediction on the Nature or, the happenings caused by the mother earth.

To minimize casualties of natural disaster is not easy. Since we have limited scientific instruments, and we are lot busy in our own political quagmire—a change in political leaders, an indecisive meetings, providing zero outcome, war of various ideologies, ethnicity and dogmas among different political leaders and pundits. If only we have knowledge prior to natural disaster (e.g. earthquake prediction system) then we can minimize casualties and moreover, we can prepare for it, well-in-advance. 

Some wise man has rightly said that “prevention is better than a cure”. Therefore, being a cyberpunk and reporting a casualty in social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+) is important, what is more important is, to take measures to reduce casualties by making appropriate decision while designing or building your sweet homes.

Center for Internet Addiction: Internet Addiction Among College Students: 10 Star...

Center for Internet Addiction: Internet Addiction Among College Students: 10 Star...: It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a college campus that doesn’t have Internet. College students use the Internet for resea...

The Broken Heart

The good news for Nepal and Nepalese is that we have recruited new PM—again, this time an intellectual PM with a doctoral degree. The bad news is that only three months of extension is given to our new PM to draft a constitution of federal democratic of Nepal.  Like many ordinary Nepalese, I am, too, hopeful that Dr. Baburam Bhattarai will live-up to the people’s expectation.  In the midst of political quagmire, I am writing this for all the broken heart people who fall in trap of being in love and later are heartbroken. According to one simple belief, everybody falls in love once in their life-time.  Some fall in love with politics, other fall in love with religion. Some may also fall in love with literature and some may just never fall in love, like me. It seems that falling in love is quite easy. But, to remain falling entire life-time, is difficult. Pardon me for my not-so-open feelings on love. It is extremely hard to remain in love for longer period of time. Scientific experiments on large number of couples have demonstrated that a stronger relationship may not last more than two years of time.  Like just-living, just being in relationship is not enough. Why? Simply because if you are just being in relationship then there is higher chance that your relationship will break at some point in time. The current data suggests that majority of the people get divorce in later part of their lives, especially in West. The same fact is trending in our developing world, as well. People are starting to live independently. One person loss is another person’s gain and another person who is gaining popularity these days are self-help authors. Thousands of self-help books are sold on happiness, love, relationship, sadness, despair, anxiety, addiction, and dog-mantra and sex guru. However, not everything that is written is based on scientific merit and truthfulness, not everything that we trust can be trusted in our modern tech-savvy society. As our present day activity swings from Facebooking, Tweeing, and YouTubing , every passing seconds many relationships mode is changing from “In a Relationship” to “Single” and vice-versa.  Many news-makers have written on heartbreak, they all report that “escapism” is the good way to deal with the problems of broken relationship but, I don’t agree. Based on my personal experiences, I feel that the problem with the broken-heart lies not merely on psychological level but also on neurological level resulting in depression, anger, frustration, anxiety, stress, suicidal-thoughts, hatred, anguish, loathing etc.  If your heart is broken once, you can try fixing by loving with another person. But if your heart breaks, repeatedly, what solutions do you suggest? Live, die, commit suicide, try more, forget it. Unlike romantic love and heartbreak, in our national politics also, many PM have broken our heart by not drafting the constitution on time, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai is yet another hope, hopefully not the last.

Hope you will come back soon...

Since you are gone, my world is black; I can see only grey
how can human be killed by her heart?
I don't feel like crying, I don't need to pray,
because I don't believe in Jesus or God, and I never will
Everyone got their problems, mine is so far away
how she can still be so close on me?
I miss you, but only for a while
I have felt lot of pain and sorrow,
maybe I'll become numb tomorrow,
'cause there shouldn't be so much feelings.
I've seen these spoiled souls, around me,
but you were never one of those
you don't need to bring me Mountains,
gifts or anything
Just bring yourself back to my arms,
that is more than enough, my only love, my soul
where are you gone all these days?

David Foster Wallace commencement speech

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete ...

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues". This is not a matter of virtue - it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centred, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home - you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job - and so now, after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: you have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your cheque or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etc, etc.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people.

Or if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just 20 stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks ...

If I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do - except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: it's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible car accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a much bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am - it is actually I who am in his way.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line - maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible - it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."

· Adapted from the commencement speech the author gave to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction