right and wrong?

we have always been told to be honest in whatever we say. we have always been told that"honesty is the best policy". but is that really true? sometimes i see people achieving what they want using dishonesty. they achieve success faster than a person who uses honesty..i sometimes ask myself would i deceive my friend into believing her painting is good even though it isint?..so, all these moral rules we learn maybe right as a rule but they can be harsh when they are applied sometimes.
morals and ethics can never be distinguished as right and wrong.one can not say whether honesty is a good thing or bad. it differs from person to person. a robber can deceive someone into believing he is some one he is not and rob all the money. he used deception and dishonesty to get what he wanted. there is nothing wrong in this. he made a conscious effort to achieve it. the only reason people think it is wrong is because they compare themselves to the robber. they make themselves believe that they would never steal. they would use better ways to get the money they want. so at the moment, when they hear about the theft they will immediately call the police and get the thief arrested for his wrong doing. but maybe later when they really need the money and they have no option other than robbery, they might steal it.
hence no one can say what is right and what is wrong. it all depends on what you believe. if i believe stealing is wrong, i must stick to that and no stop any one else fro doing what they think is right.

who is responsible?the environment or the genes?

scientists have argued that both, the genes and environment have an influence of the physical and psychological characteristics of a person. john locke said that each individual was born as a blank slate(tabula rasa) and some believe that it is our genes that it is all written in our genes. and some believe that both the factors play a role. in psychology there have been many researches done on the causes of schizophrenia. some say it is due the family heredity, some say it is due to problems in the neurotransmitters and some say it develops due a stressful life. it has been very hard to establish a relation between the disorder and its cause.
i think that our genes form a basis to what we can learn from the environment. it predisposes us with the abilities to learn and observe things from the environment. the environment helps us enhance these abilities. it gives us a platform to show what our genes have predisposed in us. for example, if someone has the genes of her mother who was extremely pretty, then she can become a model and learn from others. so here she is using her heredity to gain somethings from the environment. another example can be that is someone has the gene for being very aggressive, he or she will show a lot of aggressive behavior and will learn to be violent from his surroundings.
this topic is still very debatable. scientists are still trying to figure out what exactly is responsible for our individuality.

unconditional positive regard

why is unconditional love or positive regard so beneficial to a person?why is it so important to be wanted or to be loved?for example, in psychology it is believe by some researchers that it is important to show unconditional positive regard to a person going through a mental disorder. does this make the person feel important and cared for?for me, this unconditional positive regard helps me unconsciously develop my identity. when anyone praises you, you feel a sense of pride. and this adds a new tag to your existing identity. for example, if you saved a person from a fatal accident on the road, and you were praised for your bravery, it can make you think that you are a brave person. therefore, you are adding the tag of bravery to your identity.people who have mental disorders, feel good when their family and friends show unconditional love towards them because it helps develop their identity. it shows them that they are more than what they think they are. it develops their sense of their identity. and when this happens they tend to feel better as it makes them feel more like a "normal" person rather than a patient and the psychiatric institution. it makes them feel like they are part of the outer world rather than the world that is created for them. even when you see a poor boy playing an instrument on the road for money, if you praise him for his music, he will feel good and this adds the tag of a musician to his identity. so, this basically helps develop his identity and his self confidence.

memories...

memories of certain sounds,smell, events, words, certain times and days evoke a feeling of wanting to go back in time and experience it all again.but we also have painful memories of someone dying or events that made you extremely sad. but,how often in our wanting to preserve the past do we make more out of the past than is necessary? I believe sometimes we enhance the past to make the present more tolerable…that maybe things in the present are not as we would like them to be, so remembering the past and the familiar things associated with the past brings us some kind of comfort. when one is stuck in the past and cling on to in such a way that it inhibits the growth of the present and hence the future, then there is a high price for memories. the past can paralyze you present and stop you from moving further.for example, my friend once went for a summer camp during her school break. the next school break when her parents asked her if she wanted to go she said no because she had bad memories of the camp and she dint like it at all. hence, at the present she is stopping her self from going due to the bad memories she had at the camp. so, it is in some way stopping her from doing something.
from this example i am not saying that memories are bad. memories can be great when we dont cling onto the past. fro example, i remember my grandmother so well. she used to be a great cook and i learned a lot from her. she taught me how to be responsible as a kid, she taught me how to believe in myself and i loved her a lot. she is a role model for me. so my memories of the things my grandmother taught in the past have enhanced my present and will enhance my future too.
therefore, i have learned to move away from the past and move on from the present into the future.

once during a family event back home some people were having a small discussion.one of our family friends made the statment“The goal is the same, but the paths we take are different.” she is a principal of a school. Once a student in her school started smoking and made it a habit. So, she called the school counselor to help him get rid of the habit. After a while he did finally stop smoking. Also, after the counseling sessions he converted himself into a Christian. So, when she called him one day, he told her that she should believe in Jesus. So, she said” to you it maybe Jesus, but for me it is Lord Ganesha. God is the same for all , but we believe in him differently.”
so is it true that we have similar goals?We all have different approaches to reach the same goal. I think all individuals ultimately want to feel peace and wholesomeness within themselves.they want to feel happy. happiness is nothing but and ideal state in which the person desires to be in.for example, a beggar begs for his desire of fulfilling his hunger. and by doing so he does reach some point of peace and happiness.A rich man earns a lot of money in order to be happy at the end. so, one reaches this state by trying to fulfill different desires.we all try to reach this state as far as possible Since, this is so subjective we have different ways of achieving our goals. The difference in approach comes when we see and understand reality the way we want to see it and work towards that goal according to our understanding.

generalisation!.

for my first project week i went to Ahmedabad to work with an organisation called Himmat.we did not work there but went to a place called Ekta nagar where all the muslim victims of the Gujurat riots lived. for the first few days i did a small research with two of my friends. we were told about how the Hindus attacked and how they killed innocent muslims.
after i got back from this project week i realized how people generalize things based on one event. this applies for terrorists. just because the terrorists are known to be muslims, people generalize that all muslims are bad and are terrorists based on some incidents. it's like an easy way out to address people.
i read this quote from The Forgotten Half of Change by Luc de Brabandere,which stated
“Every prejudice is like a pair of spectacles with deforming lenses or like directional loudspeakers. They make us shortsighted or hard of hearing.”
so forming prejudices is like wearing blinders. it makes you short sighted and does not let you look beyond.
i think one should be open minded and should accept things that come in thier way without forming any prejudices. people formed a preconceived notion about the muslims. this might prevent their interaction with them. and one forms these notions based on generalizations made by people earlier. hence, before generalizing or forming prejudices we must look into the situation and then form an opinion.

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“Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently”....this quote made me think a lot about how studying philosophy has modified or changed so many of my beliefs. one of these them is the belief in God
before coming to MUWCI i some what did believe in the existence of God. but after my first year i no longer believed in God. i realized this recently when there was a religious ritual happening at home. when i was taking part in the ritual i did not take part with the same spirit as i would have taken part before..i questioned the methods of worship. i asked questioned the existence of God. and later i figured that all this while i just believed in God because my parents did.
after coming back to MUWCI i was having a discussion about this with a friend. she said that she believed there was some kind of force. and then i thought about what she said. after a lot of thought i came to conclusion that we all have this force within us. there is no supreme power controlling us. these individual forces guide us and keep us going. for example, i once got up and some how got a feeling that a family member was dead. and later my brother comes and gives me the news that my uncle passed away. this was purely on the basis of intuition. how was this possible? this subject still seems ambiguous to me..i believe individual forces or you can call it essence exists.