On The Ning Nang Nong

The Monitorial System: Madras System and Lancasterian System

And I thought students acting up as teachers on Teachers's day is a plaything.

Education method that became popular on a global scale during the early 19th century. This method was also known as "mutual instruction" or the "Bell-Lancaster method" after the British educators Dr Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster who both independently developed it. The method was based on the abler pupils being used as 'helpers' to the teacher, passing on the information they had learned to other students.

 

Defense mechanisms: Anna Freud

Psychoanalysis has fallen out of favor but the relevant parts of it still sustained, esp. the defense mechanisms stated by Sigmund Freud which were further explored by his daughter Anna Freud in her book "Ego and the mechanisms of defense". I wish I had swept beyond Sigmund and landed at Anna first because this psycho piece is not babble but brilliant.



Let's say, you have noticed an unpleasant situation or turn of events. Rather than confronting it, you resort to shortcuts and self-deception for seemingly quick wins. The techniques range from denial: that's not even a problem to rationalization: that's not my problem.

Here's a summary article: The Essential Guide to Defense Mechanisms

We usually employ 5-6 defense mechanisms in our everyday lives to quickly dispose away the emerging problems.

If you think all the defense mechanisms involve some level of emotional grapple, then you are mistaken. DM#7 is irrationally funny and I have seen quite a few blithe ledgers who shout out: no time to be leisurely sentimental, dire pragmatism rules.

7. Intellectualization. You might also neutralize your feelings of anxiety, anger, or insecurity in a way that is less likely to lead to embarrassing moments than some of the above defense mechanisms. In intellectualization, you think away an emotion or reaction that you don't enjoy feeling. For instance, rather than confront the intense distress and rejection you feel after your roommate suddenly decides to move out, you conduct a detailed financial analysis of how much you can afford to spend now that you're on your own. Although you aren't denying that the event occurred, you're not thinking about its emotional consequences.​

Overall, a good psychological know-how that already transpires as preferential coping strategy in life. However, learning about the gamut of these mechanisms benefits us in reflecting not just on our basal reactions but also on others. You won't be startled with that intellectualization friend of yours you meet for coffee who is rabidly working out finances in the breakdown of his roommate agreement who aggressively convinces you that everything is under control.

 

Will still desire you

It is funny how men like to watch their partners over the most mundane quibbles like conversing or haggling.

Men silently look on with those tender blinks. The below song depicts one such couple where the man looks on at this girlfriend talking. I was watching the first few seconds of this song and chuckling.



Similarly, when it comes to haggling, I could never find out whether men find women so comical or so intense, nevertheless they love watching their girl blow her lungs out to save five rupees and not intervene.

"Why didn't you say anything?"
"You were bleeding that timid man, so I thought after you are done with your victory dance, I will return him ten rupees for your torture."

What's with men that they swoon away to the unexceptional and distant gestures of women but not when she is talking direct to him. Notwithstanding such mystique indulgence, here's my rough translation.

Original Hindi

Tum mere ho iss pal mere ho
Kal shayad yeh aalam na rahe
Kuch aisa ho tum tum na raho
Kuch aisa ho hum, hum na rahein
Yeh raaste alag ho jaaye
Chalte chalte hum kho jaayein…
Main phir bhi tumko chahunga

My translated English

You are mine, this instant in time's arrow
The feeling might blur on the morrow
You will be lost in ways so strange
I may be swept away by a similar change
We part from our known road
We walk away from each other's fold
But I will still desire you.

 

Voice of Reasoning: Neti Neti

The principles of argument are some of the most challenging to acquire and improve upon. How to reason with tact and sense? Growing up, I was a high-strung retaliator who would reason for the heck of reasoning with no intent to derive truth or make sense from that argument.

I am also right!
You are also wrong.
I am fearless and plain-spoken.

That was my wimpy and tactless argumentative skill. Rebuttals were not counter-arguments but counter-accusations. I was a hippie guitarist who produced noise and not music and thought that as long as I was making sound, I stood tall. I could not differentiate between sound and noise and music in my reasoning salvo.




We restlessly grope for role models to emulate their standing. But, I am telling you rather than good role-models, bad role-models reform you quicker. When I had seen my own kind bluffing and paltering as an observer, I realized how unsubstantial and fallacious my reasoning skills were. My learning thereafter was not to emulate from outside but, first, disband within me the jarring approach.

I don't wish to be as un-classy.
I don't want to be that foul-mouthed.
I don't intend to reason so inelegant and tactless.

That's the Neti-Neti approach!

In Hinduism, and in particular Jnana Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, neti neti (नेति नेति) is a Sanskrit expression which means "not this, not this", or "neither this, nor that" (neti is sandhi from na iti "not so"). It is found in the Upanishads and the Avadhuta Gita and constitutes an analytical meditation helping a person to understand the nature of Brahman by first understanding what is not Brahman. It corresponds to the western via negativa, a mystical approach that forms a part of the tradition of apophatic theology. One of the key elements of Jnana Yoga practice is often a "neti neti search." ​

Many times we might not build the right construct of argument and reason but as long as we learn to avoid the bad form of dialogue, who knows, one day we might tune that noise into music in our reasoning aptitude. Next time, when you see someone arguing so unreasonably, don't make haste, but avow that you would never let yourself be such person when it comes to reasoning. Neti-Neti! I don't know what I want to be but I at least know what I don't want to be. Neti-Neti!

 

Ahoy! I intend to start a campaign on how muddled and irresponsible the YouTube videos are. Join me!

Osaka-style pancakes are mixed whereas Hiroshima-style pancakes are layered. Going by that,



is the correct reference ...

But the below is misleading as Osaka-styled batter is not mixed but layered. Jeeves would have lamented such irreverence for nuance, so would I.

 

Eh, this is like taking 'as you like' to the extremes of Feyerabend - anything goes.

The traditional match-making set-up would have been the Elders insisting the girl to sing sakura sakura to vet her acceptance into the groom's family. But now, in the sly process, the aspirant is supposed to rustle up a pancake that too an anarchic pancake with no instructions or methodology to impress the groom or vice-versa. OK, Indian girls have it easier then with modern dating over pizza or traditional sweets from Haldiram store in dekko groundwork with no telltale apron sweat.

I have heard of those cook-n-eat menus though I haven't been to one. Either the chef struts to the table and demonstrates his cooking finesse live or the abekku couple struggles and manages with a charred omelette over giggles and blushes.

I see where this is going. A fussy Indian MIL taking her prospective and naive DIL to a ritzy okonomiyaki table and gently pressing upon - beti, how many different types of dosas can you make for my son? Great potential and growth for okonomiyaki dining in India.

 

Song of the day: Aa Jao Na

Heard it yesterday and loving it.

 

Who am I to them?

I blabber so much on the past and present mates of my life in this thread. People who have reshaped me in ways that I have immense affection and gratitude for them. What was I even before I met them? What would I have been if not for their intervention in my life. Do they remember me? Have I in any form or impression stuck them? I don't know. I could never know though I am always intrigued.

Last month I received a strange call.

"You are the craziest woman I have ever met and will remain so.
No woman comes close to your spontaneity and absolutely ridiculous but adorable huff"

I just welled up, which is very rare for me. Do you remember me?

"Of course, I think of you, at times, when I see something bizarrely inedible and know instantly that you would have gobbled it in a jiff. Thanks for being a part of my life."

I was moved. Because I have these crazy people who have reforged me and to know that though I have not impressed upon in kind I have been of some quirky memory.