Minds on Platter

We could really make the world a better place to live! Quote created by Author in YourQuote A few months back, I was enrolled in a personal development workshop . When the topic hovered over to the Universal Principles of Morality, the participants were prompted to ponder over what "compassion" meant to them.   To my utmost disappointment, I realized I had failed to come up with a definition - not even a preliminary one - despite being a staunch believer and promoter of the idea! I also realized that probably all of us have done the same to this vast, beautiful concept. We each tend to hold on to an abstract idea in our heads, not clarifying it for ourselves, or for others. We don't talk about it. We rarely encourage it. Worst of all, the world seems to continue to pretend it doesn't need this fundamental quality that human beings were gifted with, and is functioning as perfectly without it as it would have with it. As yet, I have identified two broad categories of ...

Did we even learn anything? Quote created by Author in YourQuote It has been almost two weeks since physical classes resumed in full swing, and it still feels guilty, as if we're enjoying an unearned privilege, or sucking on a very sweet toffee only to get a toothache later. Every time I see the lecture hall flooding with people, it takes me back two years, to the time we last enjoyed that luxury so carelessly and ungratefully.  It makes me think how often we spend most of our time sulking over things that aren't going right, only to find out later that they could have been much worse.  The pandemic should have been a rebirth of the human population, for those who came out of it were lucky to have been scarred in some way, but not damaged beyond repair.  The world, and every individual in it, had time to rethink their ways, such that had never been granted before (at least not in this ultra-fast age). It was as if the entire world had stopped, and not just us, so that th...

That came along uninvited with the COVID Quote created by Author in YourQuote 2020 was not a good year, because its beginning was scarred by the origins, and then the spread, of COVID-19. While for many it proved as a time of relaxation and a long-craved break from their hectic lives, for others it proved as a carrier of even more worries, troubles, and financial constraints. For however different reasons, though, it was - and unfortunately continues to be - a time of tension and anxiety, which has further smoothed the path to mental illnesses. For those who craved the break, the Lockdown period seemed to be stretching on and on, and while the break they dreamed of was supposed to be filled with fun, entertainment, and meeting long-lost friends and family, all it turned out to be was days of idleness, with no outings and nothing to do inside the home, because, after all, they were used to an outdoors busy life, had never expected such a drastic turn of events, and hence weren’t prepar...

How exactly "broken" can a child from a broken family be Quote created by  Author  in  YourQuote A door creaked. Hassan got up from his uncomfortable bed. Halfway through, he remembered that the door was already rusty. Slightly relaxed, he lay down again. He was beginning to wonder if it was him getting merely paranoid, or the room really seemed to be haunted by creatures that bothered him every night. Then there was also the fact that the noises only came at night, and died down by morning. It wasn't that Hassan was not aware since he left early for work; they really did not exist even if he was working from home. That is, if one could call a small, shabby, deserted room, devoid of humans, home. Morning seemed to arrive pretty soon. He woke up with a headache and tired eyes that resisted being opened. He recalled vaguely having yet another nightmare that had seemed almost real, but he did not remember the details yet again. Nevertheless, he had to get to work on time. M...