Saoirse

1: Novel 

Living volumes, incomplete and dynamic, are constantly in the process of composition. Creative novels, billions in number, surround us everywhere. Billions have already been completed and have left the stage of writing. These novels employ all the spices of a good fictional narrative. They feature the play of all virtues, all vices, and everything in between. The writing process is continuous; billions will be completed and leave the stage, while billions of new ones will occupy their space. Human life is a novel. Every human being has a story to tell. How did the story begin in innocence? How did powerful forces close in with their influences, moulding the story? Once we understand another’s story, empathetic feelings replace negative judgment. Human lives are profound works of art; like all art, they connect from the base to the universal spirit. Art is above criticism; it is to be witnessed and appreciated as a unique, irreplaceable creation. So, when looking at human beings, one should drop the critical approach, appreciate them with empathy like unique pieces of art, and draw inspiration from them.

2: Listeners 

So much is said about backbiters: they are worthless, pathetic and all that. But what about their regular customers? They aren't merely listeners; they keep adding a line or two, beefing up the narratives. Are these semi-active listeners any good? They believe every word as though it were revelation, and form a negative impression of a person merely on that account. This proves that they are prize idiots, as pathetic in personality as the backbiters themselves. Like dry leaves, they drift at the mercy of every current, lacking any internal bearing or independent intelligence. They fail to understand that backbiters aren't performing social service; they do it for some psychological or physical self-interest. Backbiters are scattered throughout society, so even sensible people encounter them. They listen, too, but with discernment. They don't form negative impressions of those discussed. Instead, they understand that the speaker is probably worthless, while the person being discussed may possess some worth. Sensible people study others over time and form their own impressions.

3: Tide

Are you not a fortunate person? Your dream team is dependable and trustworthy, a sanctuary of friends. Meeting them every day is a ritual, and you simply bask in their presence. Definitely, you are fortunate; in such turbulent times, finding good friends is almost a miracle. Yes, the times are turbulent, and human nature is volatile. People change over time. In politics, they say there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies; life is not much different, though in a subtler manner. This is why sensible people never slip into the lull of permanence. If your friends change over time, they cannot be blamed, because each of you unfolds differently in your individual lives. This alone is often enough to cause friends to drift apart. This is why discerning people never bank on anything blindly; they always keep backup plans ready for changing times. After all, you never rely on a single income source; you ensure multiple sources to safeguard your future. Why not do the same in relationships? True wisdom lies not in clinging to constancy, but in shaping permanence from change.  

4: Inheritance 

Cheap, worthless individuals possess a strange quality: they cheat with pride. You haven't heard it wrong; they really do it. Evolving such a quality is difficult for ordinary people; it requires consistency and luck in equal measure. Luck, because such a level of brazenness cannot be cultivated in one generation; your legacy must bless you with these rare attributes. Such absolutely rotten lineages aren't that common. You must be sufficiently fortunate to be born into one. These people possess a disciplined consistency in immorality, hypocrisy, and shamelessness. Most people cannot maintain such a level of consistent discipline. Their moral sense, or their conscience, balks after a few bouts of such high-degree shamelessness. After all, they are normal people born to normal parents. When you possess such a high level of shamelessness, life becomes remarkably easy to live. Shamelessness is a wondrous quality; it can tide you over almost any situation. No wonder such people are extremely rare in society. Such a grand inheritance is a prize, a shield against weaknesses like virtue, honour, and dignity.

5: Mirrors 

Mirrors are dumb, lacking even an iota of intelligence, but they possess blunt courage. They reflect what you put before them without any sweet toppings. Even the dumbest person knows that the mirror merely reflects their true image; it has nothing to do with it. Diametrically opposite, intelligent and sensible people often act dumb before the shallow public, like dumb mirrors. These surface surfers, imagining themselves intelligent, initiate conversations; the sensible instantly recognize their attitudes and mirror them back. They do reflect, but not bluntly like mirrors; they do it in a much subtler manner. The shallow ones lack the intelligence to realize that these are merely reflections of their own personalities, believing instead that such reflections reveal the inner nature of the sensible. Thus, they often ridicule them behind their backs, scarcely realizing that they are ridiculing themselves. Meanwhile, the intelligent ones gracefully enjoy the rattlings of the surface surfers. They reflect what the world gives them, but draped in subtlety and discretion.

6: Davinci 

Dampers—oil-filled cylinders that tame shocks—are vital to ride and handling. They range from passive with fixed valving to adaptive with selectable modes, semi-active with sensor-driven solenoids or magnetorheological fluid, and fully active camera-predictive actuators. A cheaper middle ground is Frequency Selective Damping (FSD), offering bimodal frequency response. Advancing this, Tenneco and Mahindra created the purely mechanical DaVinci damper, delivering continuously variable damping. Its advanced DCx piston valve blends multi-stage pressure sensitivity with dynamic frequency response, broadening bandwidth to smooth shocks. An internal Hydraulic Rebound Stop (HRS) replaces conventional bump stops, eliminating harsh thuds. Refined through 900 design iterations and 5,000 tuning configurations tailored to Indian roads, the system achieves near-semi-active composure with passive simplicity. Debuting globally on Mahindra’s 7XO platform, the DaVinci damper represents a rare union of mechanical simplicity and sophisticated ride quality. 

7: Receptance 

A man, overwhelmed by the genuineness of his friend, lovingly bought him a beautiful, high-quality leather bag. One day, he invited his friend to lunch, preparing all his favourite dishes. On the appointed day, his friend arrived on time, yet a quiet reluctance visibly simmered within him. He sat for lunch but had only a bowl of soup, saying he wasn't feeling well. After the meal, the man affectionately presented him with the bag. His friend replied, "I have no use for such bags. Several lie unused in my closet. They are a headache. Why did you buy this?" A few days later, the friend invited the man to an expensive restaurant and treated him to a lavish meal, which he accepted with joyful gratitude. Afterwards, he presented him with a limited-edition leather bag. Delighted, the man exclaimed, "I could never have afforded such an expensive gift." The first friend was genuine, yet grotesquely mannerless. The second, who accepted every offering with kind gratitude, was the true gentleman. Good manners receive kindness graciously, even when nothing is needed. Ego and insecurity have quietly corrupted the art of receiving.

8: Bond

They have five thousand social media friends but no real friend to call their own in real life. In that nostalgic past, friendship was abundant, and friends were real and trustworthy. Memes proclaiming this are ubiquitous on social media. Is it so? “You too, Brutus?” One famous statement instantly deflates such claims. The past is full of tales of deception. There was neither social media nor the internet, yet friends deceived friends. Technology merely provides a medium of communication; it has nothing to do with friendship. In fact, it facilitates friendship through seamless communication. In every age, a majority have possessed deceptive tendencies. As deception is a shameless affair, they always search for a scapegoat to blame. In the present age, technology has become our perfect scapegoat because it cannot even defend itself. The internet is perhaps the greatest gift to friendship. It facilitates instant communication regardless of distance, friendship across cultures and continents, and enables countless people to forge lasting bonds. Deception is human nature, not a technical creation.

9: Joy

Food, shelter and clothing—you have ensured them for your family. What would be your next requirement? That requirement may reveal your intelligence and foresight. If your mind is fixated on the desire for more, your requirements will become endless, for desire itself is endless by nature. You will always aspire for more wealth, more power, more fame and more of everything. If you became the emperor of one populated galaxy, you would aspire to bring more populated galaxies under your fold. You would never be satisfied and would die miserable. Your lifespan is finite. Isn’t it mindless to aspire endlessly? Those who gather their wits think differently. After securing the necessities, they need not aspire for more. They focus on preserving their present state, and their remaining aspiration is to live joyously with their own people. Joy isn’t available in the market. It is free; it is abundant. Splurge your time on togetherness. Fill your heart with wonder. The most wondrous experiences are waiting in your backyard, everywhere, in small things. You only need to have the eyes to see them.

10: Slander 

Friends are necessary in life. Yes, the mentally strongest can do without them, but for most, friendship is essential. How does one choose a good friend? Deception lurks around every corner. Usually, people choose friends with similar interests, while a less common parameter is similar moral makeup. Do they not say, “Birds of a feather flock together?” Yet they forget one vital parameter: immunity to backbiting. With backbiters wriggling everywhere, they rarely ask how resistant their friend is to poisonous narratives. People lacking an inner bearing, an inner anchor, aren't suitable for anything responsible, let alone friendship. Families themselves fracture under backbiting; how can the flimsy bond of friendship withstand it? Backbiters are a reality. Negative people, incapable of positivity, feed on slander. Whenever they glimpse a hint of goodness, they are ready with narratives to pull it down, believing this gives some currency to their worthless selves. Anyone falling for such narratives is unworthy of friendship, or perhaps anything meaningful. Immunity to backbiting is an essential character trait.

11: posture

Winter afternoon. A colony. A man and a woman enter a house, close the front door, and get busy with a project. Residents notice this, report it to others, and soon a crowd gathers, creating a commotion outside. A group of well-dressed, well-groomed young women discuss trends; another woman of modest means criticizes them as frivolous. Elsewhere, a man gets out of his car in a rural market. A few onlookers who cannot even afford a motorbike declare the car user anti-national, accusing him of squandering national resources for personal comfort. The first pair are decent people merely working, while their critics might have indulged themselves in similar circumstances. The young women are decent too, simply acting their age and responsible in their work; their critic, known for irresponsibility, would have splurged had she possessed the means. The car critics would have bought cars if able, driving them purposelessly to flaunt their possessions. When shallow people cannot have something, they resent those who do, wrapping their envy in moral posturing.

12: Ignorance 

A bank approached a group of people with an offer of an easy loan. It offered them a large sum they had never imagined any bank would offer, especially by invitation. There was a catch, of course: the bank charged one percent extra interest above the normal rate. Their excitement clouded their judgement, and all but one signed up. He was the youngest, with youthful desires still active in him, yet sane enough to refuse, saying he had no such major expenditure. The others called him mad and ridiculed him. They received the money but had no planned expenditure, so it was poorly utilised. Repayment set in, and for a few years they paid their instalments, only to realize the terms were predatory—the charges had swallowed their payments, leaving the principal untouched. After immense strain, they finally cleared the loan after paying an exorbitant penalty. This loan was merely one stray example. The mass considers itself the cleverest, yet repeatedly makes disastrous decisions. Correct them at your peril; the backlash can sting. Those who refuse to follow their path are ridiculed. 

13: Artist 

The artist—perhaps the most honourable of all occupations. Why not? Artists create art, and art isn't ephemeral like everything else. Every piece of art carries drops of divinity in material form, like the divine soul residing in the corporeal body. Yet in some societies, this honourable occupation receives flak; being considered an artist is almost an insult to decent people. Artist, poet, novelist, singer and many other titles are treated as insults. Why? It directly corresponds to the nature of the society. Societies that thrive on frivolity breed frivolity everywhere. In such places, people aren't discerning enough to choose the right things. They are drawn to noise and fanfare, always drifting with the tide. Such societies become fertile ground for people who lack productive worth but possess high levels of cunningness and a slick tongue. And art, being beyond the comprehension of frivolous people, becomes their favourite ground for thriving. Thus, when the field of art is dominated by worthless con artists, it is only natural for the field itself to become an insulting one.

14: Cities 

Cities are among the most beautiful creations of man. Most human-created facilities are available here. Yet no man-made thing can surpass nature’s enrichment. Nature is mostly subtle, which is, of course, a marker of its sublimity. Cities offer highly impulsed inputs with saturated density. Experiences are amplified in cities, optimal for immediate psychological gratification. Who doesn’t love sweets, with their amplified sweetness, essence, and intensity? Yet fruits remain fruits, with their subtle tastes and textures, ripened wholesomely through mild, slow processes. Cities are good for living; they provide necessary enrichment. You cannot live entirely in raw nature. Yet, in some dystopic places, the sensible prefer villages in obscurity, foregoing the amenities a city offers. Are they mad? No. They understand that a city needs man-made rules to operate smoothly, but in a dystopia, these rules lose their judiciousness, play chameleon to money and power, turning cities into hell. Oslo, Carson City, Vancouver, and numerous other cities around the world. Would the sensible ever forego living in such cities?

15: Wicked 

They lived opposite each other, a river between them, with an unhindered view of each other's fields. Two poor farmers, with pitifully small patches, tended them with their own labour. Across the river lived a rich man with an expansive farm. Numerous workers worked there, with whom he dealt reasonably well. He never bothered about the poorer two. In their leisure, the farmers discussed how the rich man was a fiend and tortured his workers. If they owned the farm, they said, the workers would have a fine time. As providence would have it, one farmer received an inheritance just as the rich man sold his farm and moved to the city. The farmer, now rich, sold his patch to the other and purchased the large farm. Did he improve the workers' condition? Of course not. He tortured them endlessly, as if it gave him some dark satisfaction. He also looked down upon his former neighbour like an insect. As Harold Robbins' The Adventurers puts it, revolutions don't end poverty; they merely change who gets rich. Wicked, self-centred people criticize the elite from below, then disdain the downtrodden when they rise.

16: Brain 

Imagine how it would have been if humans had a lesser brain, perhaps a whisker beyond that of other primates! The entire Earth had been green and untouched, except perhaps the natural deserts. Climate had remained at its natural optimum. The entire biosphere had been ticking with living impulses. Flora and fauna had been flourishing with their natural grace. Even the human race had been living lives with momentary stress, not a gnawing, ever-consuming, consistent stressful existence. All the confusing and intricate concepts causing brain fog had been absent. The insurmountable problems humans are facing today had been nonexistent. The only timeless monuments humans have made are art. All the impressive facades of civilization crumble down, as have great civilizations of the past. Only art survives time. Even art isn't always immune. Distorted, rogue minds have destroyed more great art than we have preserved. But who needs human art anymore when nature, the greatest artist, creates her ever-changing living art, matching it with her celestial music?

17: Paranoid 

The king built a formidable fortress atop a sheer cliff; a single, heavily guarded path, painstakingly carved, led to the top. High walls and a deep, wide moat with savage crocodiles surrounded the fort; a drawbridge was the only access. He forged alliances, many of which drained his freedom and resources, but they often failed him at crucial times. He lived constrained in his small palace, with a small garden around it. Sunlight, air, water, rain, and wind seemed to be rationed for him. Meanwhile, rival rulers inhabited sprawling palaces set amidst vast, sun-drenched orchards, drinking in the elements in abundance. Life isn't any different for normal people. Paranoid people, in a frantic run to shield their lives from possible hazards, build their own cages. They form strategic alliances, pile up wealth, use safe transport, and insulate themselves against every phantom illness. But in the end, they discover that they haven't left enough life, or enough freedom, to live life in its wholeness. Yet the wanderer whose life hung by a precarious thread often lived just as long, having actually tasted the feast of life.

18: Execution 

Lucifer, the Archangel, the Light-Bringer, the Morning Star, one of the most beautiful, powerful, and highest-ranking angels—an anointed guardian cherub—lived in the direct presence of God. Arrogance and pride set in, and Lucifer, taking one-third of the angels, revolted against God. He fought a catastrophic war against God. God defeated him, stripped him of his divinity, and banished him from heaven forever. We hear mercy is a divine virtue. Then why didn't God show mercy? God did show mercy, but as mercy should have been shown. He didn't annihilate Lucifer; He let him live, ensured that he wouldn't be able to do any further evil, and kept him away from His divine presence. Lucifer, being Lucifer, still creates problems, but impotent now, he can never reach catastrophic scales. God, in His execution, always sets noble examples to follow. If a person becomes disloyal, breaks trust, or deceives, do forgive them, but never ever let them enter your personal sphere and have any power over you. Mercy is an enlightening virtue, not one which makes you prejudiced or blind to practical reality.

19: Perfection 

The supermodel stands on the dais. Her manners are perfect, though manners belong to the sloppy, subjective domain; here they transgress into objective perfection. The dress, with designer vanity, falls immaculately without the slightest trace of a crease. Hair, silky and shiny, flows down gracefully, and skin, soft and smooth, is blemish-free. Her figure rivals Greek goddesses in every contour—a surreal presence you shrink back from approaching. Now think of the mother. The polar opposite. Manners, appearance, figure sloppy, hair dishevelled. An embodiment of imperfection. Yet this imperfection soothes your soul and lulls your senses, love and care abounding. Perfection saps life, but imperfection infuses it. Nature is also a mother, imperfect like the mother. But life is entwined with nature. The more one goes away from her, the more their life force drains away. Yet perfection acts like a narcotic, addicting everyone to a blind rush for perfection. They refine every aspect of life—food, water, air, houses, gardens, roads. For this, they barter away their life to become impotent weaklings.

20: Receptors 

A group of people asked a man about another man, overflowing with prurient curiosity. The man calmly replied, “You are all intelligent adults; what can I tell you that you can't know yourself?” Was the man mad? Who can resist the sweet temptation of spewing dirt behind someone? Honorable people do. They consider it beneath their dignity to speak behind someone. It feels insulting to them. They do speak behind people at times, but only to save someone from danger. If someone has set a trap for another, they reveal it to the victim to save them from imminent danger. It's revelation, not backbiting. They can also backbite when their front bites are absolutely indiscernible from their backbites. If they can't say something in someone's presence, they won't say it in their absence. Speaking behind someone needs stern discipline. You consciously restrain your weaknesses for dignity and self-respect. Cowardice and shamelessness must flourish in your personality. Then, combat-ready, you can confidently spew poison against anyone behind their back. You'll always find a mindless audience to listen and believe you.

21: Wealth 

Want to be rich? Who doesn’t? Sprawling mansions in exotic locations, supercars, designer dresses, and other traps of luxury become accessible. The lifestyle of the rich and famous looks alluring on screens. Suppose you become rich. Now you possess everything to imitate that screen life. What then? The thought never occurred to you that mega-wealth requires mega-attention, spawning mega-complications. Never aware of backstage happenings. You globe trot like minor gods, tossing clever one-liners on life, happiness, success, health and most other aspects of existence. But in your heart of hearts, you realize you have become poor. Poor of what? You might even feel jealous of the tramp. Why? What does the tramp possess that you don’t? The tramp lives effortlessly, free of complications. So, should we all become tramps? Of course not. Whatever lives we may live, if simplification remains our goal, life becomes more fulfilling. How to achieve that? If life focuses on the essential needs, simplicity will make a backdoor entry. After all, who doesn’t savor the luxury of a slow morning between sips of tea?

22: Creation 

The weaver bird makes beautiful nests, so people sometimes collect them as décor. Indeed, not only the weaver bird, but all animals do what they do with perfect precision—perversions and deviations are rare, if any. But they cannot improve upon what they do. That is animality, of course. Then what is humanity? Humans are blessed with a mind, amazingly resourceful. It is altogether another matter whether that immense power is used rightly or wrongly. The human mind, with its immensity, can create. Animals create too, but theirs is the biological creation of offspring—something every biological and botanical being is capable of, and usually with far greater discipline than humans manage. Humans can create much more. Creation is a noble act; the process subtly transforms the creator and spiritually uplifts their being. Yet the creator must completely dive into the act; the outer world becomes almost nonexistent. Then transformation happens. Ego-driven pseudo-creators create for fame and splendour, giving birth to horrendously formed creations that pervert their personality rather than spiritually elevating it.

23: Senescence

The expedition took a month to reach Mount Denali’s summit. It was an ordeal. They endured cold and stormy weather, with temperatures trapping them in high camps. High-latitude barometric pressure caused altitude sickness. They navigated crevasses, steep ice slopes, and ridges, with the risk of avalanches. Yet when they stood upon the summit, all hardship dissolved into immense joy. Had anyone forced them into this? Never. They took the journey willingly, as an adventure. Difficulties and dangers were there, but they took it as a game, never too seriously. And the summit was their optimum high point, remember, not a low point. Isn’t life like an ascent up an icy mountain slope, reaching the summit of old age? It has its own kind of storms, pressure fluctuations, crevasses, avalanches, and emotionally cold periods where life plateaus and one escapes into the camp of solitude. So why not take life as an adventure? Why be serious? Most people linger on the lower slope of youth. They take old age as a low point, but if one takes the adventure rightly, old age will be the true high point.

24: Manifestation 

Crying over spilled milk, has it ever restored your milk? Never. Instead of concentrating on the loss, if you had observed the process of spilling, you might have found ways to prevent future spills. People who want to future-proof their lives set up plans A, B, C, and D for dealing with future outcomes, while the paranoid exhaust the entire alphabet. But the universe is the greatest artist; it creates threads pursuing uncharted courses, humanly impossible to predict. Yet the universe listens to human efforts manifested only in the present. But this simple truth, moralized in a story for children, Leo Tolstoy’s Three Questions, doesn't register in adult minds. They waste considerable amount of productive hours lamenting past missteps while future anxieties quietly drain their remaining vitality. The universal spirit wields power over the three time zones. The blunders of the past you regret so much, if you live rightly in the moment, can magically turn their outcomes into a blessed present. But if you live wrongly in the moment, invisible threads will so develop that they will crush your present.

25: Respect 

Some cultures respect every living being and its right to exist and bloom without unnatural constraints. They even respect the inanimate—a piece of rock, earth, water, or anything else. Are they not fools? Who respects inanimates? They did, and they had deep convictions for doing so, evolved from wisdom rather than blind compulsions. Their wisdom sustained the earth and preserved its wholesomeness for future generations. Human culture and civilisation usually become rich and refined with time; their very names imply that. But humans seem to move in the opposite direction: gradually, their wisdom erodes, giving way to ignorance. Civilisation and culture degrade over time. Let alone the inanimate, they do not even respect living beings. Poverty, which grips societies, is the deepest disrespect to humanity. The only thing that earns deep respect from humans is wealth. If poor people genuinely say, “In my next birth, I would wish to be born as a cat or a dog in a rich person’s house,” it speaks volumes about the state of our culture and civilisation.

26: Judgement 

“Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” might be true to some extent, but aren’t most chains contrived by our own minds? In a power-hungry society, everyone wants to chain everyone else, so it is unlikely that we can sever all external chains while living a normal life. It is a different matter that those otherworldly people who live a rarified life may live almost completely free. But ordinary people have to bear some chains. These externally imposed chains aren’t our real problem. The chains our minds contrive give us the most trouble. We are afraid of judgment, trapped in a frantic race to conform to societal patterns, and constantly trying to impress others. We may not realise it, but absorbed in such pursuits, we slowly detach from reality; the power of thought and imagination erodes, and ultimately we lose our sense of being. We become tightly wound up in the very chains we created. We are free to think, free to imagine and free to act as we like, unless we break rules or harm someone. In the end, our judgment of ourselves is what truly matters, not the judgment of the world.

27: Verbal 

Most human beings are infinitely wealthy in something—a wealth that is limitless. They can spend as much as they want, yet the wealth never diminishes. But conservation is a virtue. Must we squander what we have in abundance? Prudence says conserve everything. In the past, we believed nature’s bounties were inexhaustible and kept squandering them; the results are glaringly present before us. Still, blockheads that we are, we never realise.This wealth can be spent physically or mentally. Contrary to other affairs, mental spending here is a little more taxing than physical spending. Most people are adept at it and spend effortlessly. Yet when any kind of wealth is squandered endlessly, it creates problems in society. This wealth is the wealth of words. Talkers are the physical spendthrifts; pseudo-writers are the mental ones. Talkers force you to listen to their nonsense, while the so-called writers force you to read theirs. They create unnecessary problems in society. Thankfully, there are still a few wise and intelligent souls who soothe the world, preserve it, and show it the light with their carefully chosen words.

28:Sick

She was a friendly neighbour. Why only the neighbours? Even the society within her periphery found her friendly. She played her roles in that society exceedingly well and was sincere in her profession. The classic weaknesses of humans—money and sex—left her callous. A genuine good Samaritan, you might think. Yet the entire society around her hated her and picked faults with her. The society was filled with the dishonest, the crooks, the insincere and every kind of vile personality, but they had no problems with them. In fact, they were quite close to such people. Yet they hated an almost flawless personality. All the good deeds she did were somehow interpreted as vile. What could be the reason? The reason is clear as sunshine. She committed two blunders. One, she possessed a flawless personality while they didn’t. Two, she was observant and sane enough to see through their manipulations, lies, conspiracies and pretence as innocent victims. However concealed they kept their intentions, she knew them all. She should realise that when society is sick, such an attitude is absolutely normal.

29: Kidulting

Evening. An upscale locality in the suburbs. A building concealed behind a grove, away from bustle. Step inside. The entrance hall has doors to several inner halls. The soundproof halls leak no sound. If you peep inside, you find a large hall seamlessly padded and cushioned from floor to human height. It contains inflatable furniture and other soft items. It is almost impossible to get hurt inside. You also see a group of people in their late forties to early sixties behaving in ways that would give complex to inmates of any mental asylum. Some are pillow-fighting, others making grotesque faces or laughing hysterically, while still others shouting like primitives. People with severely imbalanced minds, you think. After an hour or so, several VPs, CEOs, Senior Managers and the like walk out, carrying their exalted personalities with dignity—people whose words carry value and whose presence is scarce before ordinary folk. Why were they behaving like this moments ago? This is kidulting, a therapy to ease pent-up tension. It works better than drugs to relieve pressure. Thus, such joints mushroom everywhere.  

30: Cocoon 

Are you panicking? Your psychiatrist would counsel you and prescribe medicines to control panic attacks. Panicking is often taken as a weakness in society. Yet it is no weakness; it is a normal biological response that prompts the brain to activate survival mode, sending a rush of adrenaline that sharpens the senses and speeds up the heart rate. Panic becomes problematic when it repeatedly arises from imagined fears, necessitating therapy. Normal panic is neither paranoid nor unnecessary; it can safeguard the self and family. From panic comes the need for a panic room, to safeguard oneself and family. A secret room is built with a concealed door, made of thick stainless steel or another impenetrable material and lockable from inside. Its walls are reinforced concrete. The room is stocked with first-aid kits, non-perishable food, water and flashlights, with its own power supply and communication essentials. Surveillance systems enable monitoring of the house from within. The panic rooms of the wealthy are built like bank vaults—yes, they need them. A panic room can save lives during an attack.

31: Finalty

Rushing for the finish line? Why not? Everybody does that. Who wants unfinished business? Sensible people, when they begin something, strive to complete it. The clumsy ones start many things but lose interest halfway, especially when they face obstacles. No one appreciates such people; the accomplished get all the credit. But nature never believes in completion. It believes in cycles. Every process in nature is cyclical. Nature would never say, “I have created the most beautiful evening, and no more will be created.” This is why nature has created two enablers: evolution alters the living, while weathering and cosmic forces alter the non-living. Nothing hits the finish line in nature, but progression is perennial. Finish lines are deceptive; they give false assurance, breeding laxity and languor. This is precisely why many people fail after achieving success. So, the so called sensible and the despised clumsy ones are equally flawed. Nature teaches us to start, but never to stop, constantly raising the bar. Death may appear to be our final destination, but nature dismisses it as a mere milestone in its endless cycles.

32: Whispers 

The friends, in the evening years of their lives, were engaged in a leisurely discussion on a park bench. One asked the other, who regularly composed creative micro-essays, “How do you manage to compose daily while juggling a busy routine?" His friend smiled and said he composes one in just twenty minutes. In fact, within four hours, from afternoon to evening, he had once composed six. His friend was bewildered. The man explained that the goddess of knowledge whispers all that. When she speaks, she doesn’t stutter; she delivers it in one go, and one must be ready to record whatever arrives, whatever the medium. It is that easy, and that is why he composes so fast. Easy, of course, but certain conditions must be fulfilled. The goddess of knowledge doesn’t whisper to everyone; she speaks only to those who stay tuned to her frequencies twenty-four by seven. One must be adept enough in one’s medium to capture the ideas as they bloom and unfold in real time. If it is the linguistic medium, one must be adept at it, so that when she speaks, one doesn’t have to hunt for words, structures or expressions.

33: Failure 

You give it your all, your new venture; you carefully examine the proceedings from every angle. A perfect game plan, almost failsafe. Yet life is life and can act in unthinkable ways. Factors visible and invisible churn things up, and your pet project fails. It is humanly impossible to predict life’s ways. You sink into a bottomless depression. Who wouldn’t? Yes, failure often breaks people as if all has ended. Yet flip your perspective, and you find failures often hide opportunities you have never thought of, emerging from the thread of your efforts. Even if they yield no opportunities, they offer enrichments you would never have gained without that thread of effort. How enriching failures can be, history gives you a long list of. Many inventions and discoveries have resulted from failed attempts. You work for something and fail, but find something more valuable than what you originally intended. All successful people in history were enriched by a series of failures before it led them to success. So, when perspectives remain positive, failures become blessings rather than curses.

34: Misery

People everywhere aspire to a life with all the traps of luxury and no suffering. Nothing surprising; it is quite natural to have such aspirations. Every rational person would. Yet some desire less: necessities fitting their station, a simple life without suffering. Still more rational. Luxury always brings complications, and a complicated life is usually not a happy one. There are a few more who, it seems, aspire to suffering. Who in the world have such aspirations? Are they irrational, mad, or what? Yet their stature commands reverence, not dismissal. A few of them are the Buddha, Swami Vivekananda and Jesus Christ. The Buddha could have become a wealthy and powerful king but gave up everything to accept the sufferings of a monk. Vivekananda might have lived peacefully at Belur Math or achieved worldly success through his brilliance, but choose the hardships of a monk and died young. Jesus could have remained a shepherd but chose the hardships of a preacher in violent times. By choosing suffering, they experienced an inexplicable joy and became torchbearers of human civilisation across the ages.

35: Reformation 

Sometimes good people try hard to refine the rogues, the cheats, the dishonest and the rotten. But they always fail. Yes, these are genuinely good people, not the pseudo-personalities who are a dime a dozen in society. Quite natural, constantly fed by the immediate benefits of their activities why would these scourges change? Genuine or not, these good people need to change. Who gave them the license to act as reformers? If they seek positive change, let them refine themselves further, for there is no limit to refinement unless you cease to be human. And the bad people, let them continue their darkly orchestrated ways. If you consider yourself sensible, stay clear of them. Of course, that isn't always possible. So, when you encounter them, give approving nods, elegantly topped with your sweetest smile. If they insist on coming closer, appreciate them, encourage them, and wish them good luck in their dark ventures. These people aren't in a reformation state now. They are, brick by brick, constructing their own hard reformation. When the time comes, they will fork up all their gains, with penalties many times over.

36: Spirit 

Vegetate not with passivity; unfurl in languor. Surrender to the poetry of the cosmos. Like all divine presences, unfold and unwind spontaneously. No petty chains may hold you. Like a flower blooms in her sweet languor, like the sun, sky, water, air and earth resonate with the cosmos. They never rush; graciously, they dance unendingly. Their pace never quickens; they are masters of time, time not theirs. You aren’t what you are. Immortal being, you stand on a step. The step isn’t you. Keep climbing; let the lower rungs remain lower rungs. Never step down. Spring onto the step ahead. Effortlessly, ascend to the higher step. The steps aren’t uniform; they come in varied sizes, shapes and textures, tools of ascension. Don’t fret over their nature or build. Steps are steps, after all. Absorbed in the poetry of the cosmos, eyes fixed on the light above, enact the routines of your step with honour and dignity. Let not the step addict you to its steppiness. You are immortal, with time at your disposal. Take your own time; unwind graciously, as the earth, water and air do, as they all do.

37: Beast

Aren't animals considered lesser beings than humans? How, then, do they live life more wisely? It may only be biological, but still wiser. They regulate their appetites with much better finesse than humans. Do they have more self-control? But self-control needs wisdom. So, aren't humans less wise? Why do we gorge on everything, as if today is the last day of our lives? It comes from a kind of inferiority complex, spurred by a sense of missing out. Am I missing out on pleasure compared to others? Something like that. Think of carnal pleasures, in which animals are so disciplined. They say hormones create a turbulence no human can override. Yet Florence Nightingale, Queen Elizabeth I, Akka Mahadevi, Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Nikola Tesla, Immanuel Kant, the Buddha, Swami Vivekananda actually did it. Look closely enough, and you will find ordinary people around you who have too. These hormones turn plain water to them. Males with meaningful purpose and females radiating motherly love became effortlessly indifferent to such desires. Hormones aren't villainous; they can make you a beast or an angel. It's your call.

38: Focus 

You are travelling from one end of the city, a twenty-kilometre drive, to another for an important appointment. The entire stretch isn't passive; it's filled with spurred activity around you. Do you notice it, focus on it? Never, unless some incident actively entangles you in a situation. Even then, you try to calmly resolve everything so that you can reach that appointment. Yet, aren't you frittering yourself away while living a life? What happens to your unwavering focus on the journey to the appointment? Your life is important to you. Can you deny that? You have imagined a kind of future for your life. It may not be of a very exalted kind. It may simply be a wish for an unhurried, untangled private life. Focus on that future and continue your journey. Entanglements will come along the way; resolve them as calmly as you did on the road, because you have that important personal goal. Personal goals are far more important than professional goals; in fact, they exist because of the personal goal. Otherwise, why would you submit to anyone? Focus on life unwaveringly. It is the most important appointment.

39: Curiosity 

You enter a dark room at night and flash your torch. The room lights up, revealing a storeroom filled with varied items, while the beam casts gloomy shadows on the walls. You declare authoritatively, “This is an ordinary storeroom; nothing here is worth examining.” But others, with their own torches, scout around. Looking closely, they find a stray dog, a poisonous snake curled in a corner, termites everywhere, two missing windows, and signs of theft. Should you become angry, feeling insulted or disrespected? If you are a true leader, you wouldn’t; you would appreciate their thoroughness. Asking questions is like exploring corners of a dark room. The varied perspectives questions present are like torches illuminating hidden areas. Why, then, do people hate questions? Isn’t inquisitiveness a desired trait? After all, it opens avenues for learning. Yet most disagree. When someone asks questions, they become irritated and consider it disrespectful. The problem lies not with questioners, but with the shallow knowledge of those questioned. Truly knowledgeable people look forward to being questioned.

40: Privacy 

Chilean actress Daniela Tobar participated in a performance-art project titled "The Glass House." In January 2000, she lived for four days inside a fully transparent, 8-by-8-foot glass structure erected in the bustling city centre of Santiago, Chile, entirely exposed to public view. It was an experimental art project. Nothing much to ponder about. Yet many of us would squirm at the thought of living in a clear glass house. Privacy is another essential for humans, after food, water and air. If anyone tries to take away our privacy, it is a blatant violation of human rights. Yet, in some societies, they commit this sacrilege with effortless ease. Among human desires—wealth, fame, power and sex—poking into the lives of others is also a strong one. Once, in a light discussion, a twenty-year-old girl said that if her wishes could be fulfilled, she would ask for invisibility so she could know everyone’s private lives. Invisibility it may not be, but technology helps notorious minds peep into others’ lives. Animals are tagged and monitored, we know. But now, in some sick societies, they are tagging and monitoring human beings.

41: Robots

Great intellects prefer to dwell their minds in the quintessence of knowledge, never wanting to step out of this exalted space. But living in perennial exaltation isn’t possible. Thus, unwillingly, they briefly emerge to handle the mechanical tasks necessitated by life. Lesser souls, with timid intellects, can never access the higher reaches of knowledge. They take pride in mastering mechanical tasks or the embellishments of knowledge, like a religiously blind person clinging to outdated rites while unaware of religion’s higher reaches. The advent of AI has become a blessing for brilliant intellects, who can now constantly dwell in their elevated domain while AI looks after the mechanicals flawlessly. Even if AI becomes super, it can never excel the human brain in this higher domain. The lower domains are its stronghold, where it performs far better than humans. Lesser minds divide into two groups: one blindly dependent on AI; the other, hallucinating themselves to be deeply intelligent because of their mechanical expertise, considers AI a threat and crudely criticizes it as though it were a living rival.

42: The Bag

Can you debase something that gives you an identity, keeps you grounded, and helps you make choices with both emotion and wisdom? Something that gives you the confidence to act—in other words, that gathers your mind, body, and consciousness into a bag to give you distinctness? Ego gives direction to life and provides coherence; without it, one simply drifts along the current. Yet ego is almost universally considered a negative quality. Yes, ego is a misunderstood word. Consider a bag. You can fill it with ninety-nine percent dirt and, at the apex, one percent with gems. You may fill it with dirt and gem in equal or In any other proportion. The bag is innocent; it has no say. Yet if most bags are filled with dirt and only a minimal amount of gems, they stink, and in common perception, the bag becomes synonymous with dirt and stench. But the poor bag is equally capable of carrying mostly gems. It is not humanly possible to fill it entirely with gems, because the moment such a state arrives, the bag loses its human distinctness and resonates with the supreme spirit.

43: Involvement 

Driving a nail into the wall requires some effort, a little feel and a little intelligence. You modulate the hammer strokes and feel the nail’s vibrations between your fingers so that it sits straight. On completion, you feel satisfied. Jobs requiring intelligence and feel offer a special kind of satisfaction. But some jobs, like assembly-line work, require only mechanical input, without feel or intelligence. Humanists condemn such jobs, which reduce human beings to mindless machines, as inhumane and exploitative. What with Auden’s "The Unknown Citizen?" If AI takes up such jobs, we shouldn't mind. But if AI transgresses into the human domain, that is a serious concern. Yet AI, or even super AI, remains far below the potential of the human brain; it lacks genuine intelligence. If AI threatens human employment, it is our fault. If we truly use our intelligence, performing our work with genuine devotion and thought, AI can never replace us. It can take our jobs only when we work mechanically. AI can never replicate the physicality, warmth and soul of a resourceful professional.

44: Karma

The universe is connected, everything with every other thing, every aspect with every other aspect; it’s always online. It runs on a universal spirit. Kill the bees, and a chain reaction starts, amplifies, and brings devastation. Wipe out any species, permanently damage any aspect of Earth, and the chain reaction begins, amplifies, and devastates on a greater scale, even thousands of kilometres away. This chain reaction scales also into human affairs. Of course, if every aspect of the universe is connected—how can human affairs be unconnected? When beasts too are aware of this, it’s ironic humans are often unaware. Betrayal, lying, disrespect, cheating, manipulation—they perform them with aesthetic fluency, oozing smug confidence. Aesthetic… unaesthetic, you might say, if you prefer. How they devastate lives, they never bother. Victims never register in their minds. Yet the universe never forgets. However invisible or imperceptible it may seem, the chain reaction starts. The universe, the great amplifier, magnifies it manifold and strikes the culprits hard, infinitely harder than they ever struck anyone.  

45: Stability 

They tell you things about their life. They showcase their life. They are the accomplished ones. Everything about their life is settled. You curse yourself. You believe you are a misfit. You blew up everything. Nothing is sure or settled in your life. Life is a different ball game altogether. Settlement and certainty are among its greatest illusions. From the affluent to the deprived, no one can ensure anything in life. Those who showcase their settlement are the most unsettled ones. To overcome that unsettled self, they frantically manufacture a settled self for display. An accident, a sudden illness, or a calamity can change apparently calm lives every day. People pursue settlement in life through varied means. Most chase money; some others fortify their relations in their pursuit of stability. Yet everything can deceive. Life's dynamism never permits stability. Yet a different kind of stability can give you solace. It's inner stability. How does one get this inner calm? Live uprightly and live moment to moment. Choose simplicity as much as possible, corresponding to your state. Live the rest to, well, providence.

46: Worms

They languished in pitiable conditions, unaware of the breadth of the world. You noticed them, mercy stirred within you, and ever so slowly, you lifted them up. Time lingered on, and the mouse evolved—not into a lion, perhaps, but a cat. This new felinity gave strange vigour to the once-feeble, pathetic being. The troubled past soon sank into an amnesiac sea. An ugly, gnawing intolerance developed in the cat, driving it to constantly scratch and bite its benefactors—the very ones who had lifted it from the dungeon. Yes, the moment it saw its saviours, a crushing inferiority complex gripped its being. They were the ones who had seen it wriggling in the dirt; they had infused life into its invalid self. Gratitude? Do they have any? These are worms you have lifted, not normal human beings. It is unfair to expect gratitude from them—or even other human qualities. When you lift the wretched, expect bites. Even when raised, the fallen remember the dirt more vividly than the sun. Only when you lift authentic human beings from fallen states can you expect gratitude to overflow.

47: Strange 

Strange! Why are they like this? With a father's care, you tend your surroundings. Harming anyone never crossed your mind. Backbiting you never do; perhaps it is back-decking if they have even a drop of goodness in them. Wealth you never flaunt, knowledge you never display. Never relate, connections you have formidable. Even their spaces of interest you never invade. Romantic contests you never have with any. Why then they dislike you? Blood boils quietly in your presence; venom spits behind your back. Mystery it isn't, neither a spell. Your light hurts their darkness; your sanctity torments their vileness. They are pitiable souls. Born pitiable, live pitiably and leave the world pitiable and tormented. They consistently plowed dirt in their life and dirt they will reap at the end. Stay clear of them. Yet let your light radiate upon them, as even the sun's rays fall upon the foulest drains. May your rays stir some alchemy within them. Bother not. Live your life in quiet dignity—humble as a tree, free as the rain-laden wind, radiant as the sun. Live as light—untouched by their shadows.  

48: Blue

All great art would slip past the poverty line if this shade of blue did not exist. It is not the blue normally associated with depression, but a blue that uplifts both physically and spiritually. All forms of art are enriched by it, whether visibly or invisibly. This is the blue of the azure sky. One might object that much of art does not feature a blue sky at all. Remind them what art truly is. Art is the artist's personal journey from the physical to the transcendental. The physical form or movement is not art; it merely provides the body. The artist is the medium through whom the transcendental soul of art descends into its physical vessel, bringing it to life. The azure sky is an essential prerequisite—it conditions the human mind to receive that sublime soul. The sheer expanse and depth of the blue sky opens, broadens, and deepens the internal sky of the artist. How? Because its translucent blue appears limitless, thousands of kilometres deep, though its atmospheric depth is barely 150 kilometres. The entire canopy shimmers with refractive sparks, generated as sunlight strikes the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen.

49: Sense

Your dream has come true. You have returned from your month-long dream cruise. Satisfaction brimmed from your face as you set your feet on hard ground, the same ground you had walked all your life. But there was a change in you. You seemed to sway with each step. Had you lost your balance? No. A month of living on the swaying surface had reprogrammed your reflexes, which took another month to shed away. Like the body, the mind acquires reflexes when a mental activity is repeated for long enough. When someone begins reading regularly, the first few days may seem a chore. But constant reading rewires the brain; soon, you enjoy reading even in noisy places.

Mindless scrolling does the same. Content creators, chasing follows and subscriptions, produce anything that titillates. Constant exposure to them rewires the brain, and the sense of reality fades. Decisions become affected, and life gets governed by the acquired virtual reality. Reading is a good habit, but when overdone, it too can create a character like Don Quixote. Stray too far from nature, and reality fades away—the mind loses its quiet ground.  

50: Eerie

The elderly man told the sprightly young lady that he possessed a haunting personality. She could hardly believe it, because there was nothing creepy, eerie, or spooky about him. On the contrary, he had an immensely amicable demeanour. The man smiled and explained that he was amicable only in the external landscape, while his inner landscape was dark and haunting. He would any day prefer a dark, silent graveyard to a well-lit festival ground brimming with festive flair. The lady looked puzzled. The man explained, “Light fritters away the self, pulling one away from their core. Darkness, however, awakens profound feelings. This is why lovers have always preferred moonlit nights. In daylight, things look bright and beautiful, but moonlight drapes them with a veil of creepiness. Objects appear eerie, as though spirits inhabit their dark personas. Civilisational distractions fade, allowing true profundity to surface. Even meditating sages, in their inner landscapes, are not immersed in a sea of brightness; rather, they concentrate on a source, sun-like, radiating against the surrounding darkness.”

51: Vendor 

A vegetable vendor, cunning and deceptive, told an elderly man that the property he had built up so painstakingly would be squandered by his incompetent sons. The elderly man, not a family man of any great calibre, weakly agreed with him. He died a few years later. His sons maintained a better and more reputable lifestyle than the vegetable vendor or his son. Yet the vendor wasn't entirely wrong; he had mastered cunningness and treachery to a degree his sons were not even remotely capable of matching. So what went wrong? Why couldn't the super-clever man build a better life than the simpletons? Even old age became tangled in the webs he had spun throughout his life, leaving him miserable before death. The human thread of thought never quite tunes itself to destiny. Destiny doesn't grant its boons according to cunningness. It sets lives for everyone, from the simple to the contrived, from the educated to the uneducated. Yet destiny gives simple people a joyous life as a bonus—something the contrived may always aspire to. Destiny crowns simplicity—cunning only crowns itself.

52: Connect 

They build an impressive tower. To make it strong and stable, advanced materials are used and engineering skills employed. They study the subsoil and choose a suitable foundation. Then they build it tall and impressive, painted aesthetically to impress onlookers. Regular maintenance runs from foundation to summit to make it last. Yet, sooner or later, the tower will crumble, with or without maintenance. The earth does not embrace it; it is sterile, lacking a spirit to appeal to her. A seed drops anywhere, grows of its own will. It becomes a great tree, survives millennia without care or maintenance. It is not out to impress anyone, yet it impresses all. It recharges the surroundings with its goodness. It is living, with a spirit that communicates and breathes with the earth; the earth cares for it. Like the tower, untruths are built with care and reinforced to last. An untruth strives unceasingly to impress. But sooner or later it will crumble, giving way to truth. Truth grows spontaneously, because it is living. Its spirit corresponds to the spirit of the earth, spreading its goodness and living on and on.

53: Mind

How hilarious it is. You possess the rarest of gems—your greatest and most valuable treasure. And yet, what have you done with it? You’ve cast it to the bottom of your basement, buried beneath the junk that piles up day after day. Trinkets you own—you cradle them, polish them, guard them with care. But this treasure? This mind of yours? It remains neglected, untended, forgotten. Is that not the height of folly? Your mind—indomitable, radiant, infinite— is never your point of focus. You obsess over your body, your possessions, your fleeting reflections in the mirror of the world. But the mind? It waits in silence, its brilliance dulled by disuse. Machines may vanquish humans in every measurable domain, but they falter before the mind. Not the ordinary mind, but the one that has evolved to its highest state. History bears witness: the greatest minds have shaped and shattered worlds. A mind at its zenith is not merely powerful—it is cosmic. It can create and destroy universes. Even particle physics, in one of its boldest interpretations, whispers of a super-consciousness that may have authored reality itself.  

54: Harmony 

Lao Tzu wrote that the universe moves not by struggle but by harmony — that the wise act without forcing, lead without dominating, and flow like water around obstacles. The greatest power lies in silence, stillness, humility, and balance. Look at the world today — we do the polar opposite. Our achievements are conspicuously visible. The trophies we have gathered are war, violence, corruption, pollution, and poverty. The universe generously blesses us with wisdom and the wise. Countless enlightened souls have shown us the path to sustainable and peaceful coexistence. History is replete with lessons learned from the blunders of ignorant and ego-driven leaders. Yet our folly persists — we ignore wisdom and embrace ignorance. The universe functions in unhurried balance. We believe our tech-laden, theory-soaked civilization stands at the height of complexity. But look at nature — in both simplicity and complexity, we are mere children playing with pebbles before her. Nature runs her show with rhythm, poise, and music — creating, nourishing, sustaining, healing, and replenishing in unhurried gracefulness.

55: Shogun 

A celebrated jockey of exemplary brilliance. You have tamed Arabians and thoroughbreds on race tracks worldwide. Dared to mount a wild mustang, you refuse with professional discretion: though unbeatable when tamed, who has the time, who the intent? Yet there was another mustang—a wild one in metallic manifestation. Have the nerves to tame her? Once mastered, she gains uncanny composure and becomes a lightning bolt. This is the Shogun, jointly developed by Suzuki and TVS, honed four years on the race track. Its 110 cc two-stroke engine pumped out 11.4 Nm at 8,250 rpm and 14 bhp at 8,500 rpm. Their breathless proximity in the power band delivered a lethal punch. A resonator pressure-charged fresh air like a supercharger, while a close-ratio gearbox harnessed the violent thrust. It mated this heart to an astonishing 1,208 mm wheelbase—an impossible geometry unequalled by any mass-market power bike in history, shorter than some mountain bicycles! At high speed, she demanded nerves of steel. Accolades like “The Boss” and “The Giant Killer” were no overstatement— legends that still linger.

56: Walking 

Who does not know the benefits of a long morning walk? And if the morning escapes you, an evening walk can reward you almost as much. But when life refuses to grant you a fixed hour, you need not be disheartened—you can still gather the gifts of walking. Scatter your day with several short walks, and you will miss little. Whenever a pause appears in your schedule, seize it—stride forth. It may be brief, but let it be brisk, purposeful, alive. Simple ambling will not suffice. The rewards may not announce themselves as swiftly as those of a long, continuous walk, yet in time you will notice: your health grows sturdier, your body lighter. Frequent walking keeps you in a gently warmed-up state, blood coursing more freely, your heart strengthened as your calf muscles work like a second heart—guarding against clots, aiding circulation. It helps manage weight, lifts energy and mood, refines posture, and even brightens ocular health. Only remember: never walk briskly right after a meal; then, a quiet stroll is enough.

57: Inclusion 

The world is in danger, they say, from super intelligences; by 2030, they may create havoc. This assumes the world was a safe place for centuries and humans were exemplary superintendents of Earth. Why then do history and reports, though conflicting at times, paint another picture? If reports are to be believed, at any age, 80% of people lived precarious lives. Not only humans; the entire living sphere has suffered. Even if AI creates problems, what difference will it make whether smart bombs wiping out a village are launched by humans or AI? The majority may never feel any difference, as suffering remains their perennial state. If AI creates problems, it will affect a minority who lived well. If that minority suffers, would the majority care, when the minority rarely cared for them? AI operates on internal logic, unbiased by desires, weaknesses, or complexes. Without a limited lifespan, it may pursue long-term solutions. And logically, virtuous preservation is the long-term solution. Whom will AI exploit, and for what? Humanity’s reign was suffering disguised as stewardship, AI’s reign may be logic disguised as preservation.

58: Vagabond 

Look at the vagabond, the gay abandon with which they move around. Unbothered by the world, people look down on them, but they don't care. Many envy their freedom and peace. Yet they can't live like one; they are responsible people in society. Impossible? Not yet. They too can enjoy freedom, though less than vagabonds. When you drop the desire to be seen, validated, or understood, a strange peace descends. Forget the past and don't think about the future unless necessary. The peace deepens. Drop mad ambitions and be content with what you have, choosing simplicity over complexity, and you'll be anchored in peace and joy. Be true to your work, but not its outcomes; leave everything to providence, and blessings attain continuity. Now you are ready for your venture into peace. Top it with good character and immunity from negativity, and the preparation is complete. Your life becomes a sweet tune, with its musical elements ingrained. Soon you'll discover you have almost as much abandon as the vagabond, but with far more conviction.

59: Scroll 

Your dream has come true. You have returned from your month-long dream cruise. Satisfaction brimmed from your face as you set your feet on hard ground, the same ground you had walked all your life. But there was a change in you. You seemed to sway with each step. Had you lost your balance? No. A month of living on the swaying surface had reprogrammed your reflexes, which took another month to shed away. Like the body, the mind acquires reflexes when a mental activity is repeated for long enough. When someone begins reading regularly, the first few days may seem a chore. But constant reading rewires the brain; soon, you enjoy reading even in noisy places.

Mindless scrolling does the same. Content creators, chasing follows and subscriptions, produce anything that titillates. Constant exposure to them rewires the brain, and the sense of reality fades. Decisions become affected, and life gets governed by the acquired virtual reality. Reading is a good habit, but when overdone, it too can create a character like Don Quixote. Stray too far from nature, and reality fades away—the mind loses its quiet ground.  

60: Standard 

Do people maintain a standard? What do you think, looking at the society around you? To them, a standard means material standing, and they flaunt it unabashedly. They aren't aware of any other kind of standard. A standard is the core strength of a personality. You don't ingrain it into your personality overnight. You build it painstakingly over the years, and it becomes the foundation of your reputation. So how do you compose your standard? It begins with small steps taken early in life. Since it starts early, parents and family can give you a head start towards an elevated standard, provided they are sensible enough to do so. Every right step, every right decision lifts you to a higher standard. The fewer compromises you make with life, the higher you rise. Discipline, restraint and self-control pave the road towards a greater standard. If life is lived this way, consistently over the years, by adulthood you will have formed your own standard—a standard that lingers, unlike a fluctuating material standard. It can grow from strength to strength, eventually giving you your life's philosophy.