The Eternal Myth

Dear Sri Sir
I am amazed at how well read you are! Every time I visuallize my father I see him in the chair with a book! I visualize you in the same frame too!
Yes, reading your articles and visualizing you in the above manner I now automatically think that you will also think like my father and behave like him. But I am sure you will be very different from my dad in many ways!
My husband always quotes this Tamil saying, "Marathai maraithadhu maamadhayaanai, marathhul marainthadhu maamadhayaanai!"

 

My dear Anna

This is a topic which has become my world now. Cyber world has really helped me to keep in touch with my children as well as friends who are able to use the computer.

Like when we get an award we have to thank so many people. I have also to thank many people for introducing me to the Cyber world and also to Indus ladies. I have to thank my parents for allowing me to work, because of which I could learn computer. My children who taught me to use the yahoo msngr and gtalk . My daughter for telling me about Indus ladies.

If not for Indus I would have been depressed in my retired life as children are away from us. My husband being busy with social work sometimes I am left alone. How long to watch TV in which I have to also cry with the actors sometimes and after retirement I am not able to concentrate on books , which was my good friend when I was working.

Thanks to Jey and Malathy for this wonderful site. I have a family here in Coffee Mornings and so many virtual daughters and had the opportunity to meet so many ILites from different parts of the world. After joining IL had not gone to Chennai ,otherwise would have had the pleasure of meeting you and other ILites. Though many ILites are here but still got an opportunitty to meet only two ILites

Sorry for the long post, hope you enjoyed reading it.

 

dear cheeniya sir,

Most of us want to be very idealistic here and take extreme care to ensure that our negative points do not get exposed. We are always more anxious to impress our faceless cyber friends than our real life buddies. We care a damn about what people think of us in the office, in clubs and families but we are very concerned about our image with our cyber friends.

really??? somehow the thread made me feel quite depressed as I had a lovely time with a cyber friend today. and frankly I always thought that I was being the "real me" only here...thats why IL friends are very special to me.. they like Mindi just the way she is without even knowing her real name.... I don't have to pretend here and those who don't like me are so polite that they don't even let me know that fact ,which suits me just fine.

similarly what I think of everyone here... they are what they write.. that you say it is otherwise is quite a scary thought for me....

 

My dear Anna

what a surprise today only I was thinking should tell Mindi about the threads of yours which she has not visited. I think telepathy to see Mindi here already.

 

Dear Sri:

How wonderfully said! The venerable philosopher takes me back to my favourite theme at IL, one that people, if they exist, should be sick and tired by now of. The theme is: How on earth would I know if I ever existed in IL? Clearly, the best proof of my existence would be fb’s from others. That alone could prove that I was observed, even if ‘observation’ itself is difficult to define as you sit in an empty room with the computer alone for company.

But then, do we really need external impulses to be assured of our own existence. Go back to Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum”, or, “I think, therefore I am”. Even if nothing else exists in this world, I surely must exist. I exist by virtue of the fact that I can ask the question: Do I exist? The logic is simple enough. Who is this “I” whose existence is being questioned? For the question, “Do I exist?” to carry any sense at all, someone needs to exist, or else who is asking? Call that someone “I” and we are done. QED.

In other words, if Descartes was correct, then one exists merely because he is capable of asking if he exists. This existence need not have a social connotation I suppose, such as “being observed” by someone other than oneself, or one’s computer for that matter.
Ontology, or matters concerning questions of existence, has kept on fascinating me ever since “cogito” invaded my life. I understand, without understanding of course, that people like Camus and Sartre were supposed to have wasted themselves over issues relating to what they called “phenomenological ontology”. Now, I have already told you that I don’t know what this means, so don’t bother to ask. It could do me infinite damage if you did ask. I might even commit suicide ashamed of my utter ignorance and then you, in case you exist, will need to carry inside your soul, should the soul exist in turn, the sinful thought of having caused my non-existence.

By the way, this could be a good time for me to share a handful of fungi with you. Every afternoon I go out for a 3-4 mile walk here and part of the route goes through a beautiful park. One day I came across this tall tree on which shone a fungal growth. The thing was so pretty that I took pictures and am uploading one for your benefit. In case you exist, you will observe the phenomenon, thereby bestowing on it the stigma of existence. I say stigma because a fungus need not be a friendly object. However, friendly or not, I stop by it each afternoon, caress it and ask how it’s been doing. It’s not attacked me so far. Perhaps it has recognized me to be one of its own kind. Something that need not have existed at all, but came to exist all the same by turning into a parasite. Like me, as I said. By writing comments on your posts, I am almost sure that I shall be observed, if by no one else, at least by you. But then you have created a puzzle for me, by suggesting that you might not exist after all. Of course, I know that you have been observed by me. Yet who has ever observed me? Perhaps I don’t exist, Descartes or no, and you are merrily announcing from the roof top that you exist by virtue of the fact that I, who probably doesn’t exist, observed you!

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By the way, I think the Upanishads too had raised deep dark questions about our respective existences. In fact, it viewed you as a parasite as much as me, both being classified as part of the whole, or Brahmanda if I am not confused. Ha, ha, my friend, we are both nothing but fungal growths, feeding on the universe for our subsistence.

oj​

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Dear OJ da

I also observe you and I want you to come back with your write ups . Your write ups and fbs are a pleasure to read . I can virtually see you