Why is it hard to trust our instincts?

This is something I've been wanting to write about for a long time.  It is something that I found in the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The movie itself was an interesting, gripping watch, not to mention very violent as well, but this is about one specific scene in the movie.

This is towards the end of the movie in the scene in the basement with Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig) suspended in chains and Martin Vanger (played by Stellan Skarsgard) about to kill him.  Martin says to him:

Let me ask you something. Why don't people trust their instincts? They sense something is wrong, someone is walking too close behind them. You knew something was wrong, but you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I drag you in? No. All I had to do was offer you a drink. It's hard to believe that fear of a offending me is stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is. And they always come willingly, and they sit there, they know its all over, just like you do.

These lines seemed very powerful and stuck with me.  Why?  I realize I often ignore my instincts and act in ways that might make me appear more socially acceptable.  In fact, I'm so used to burying my natural instincts that it is hard for me to even pinpoint what it is trying to tell me.  This is the kind of thing that leads to analysis-paralysis during decision making because the external parameters are often inadequate when capturing the effect of unknowns.

This quote from the movie did two things.  It articulated something which I felt has been true for me and also made me aware that it is probably not that uncommon.

Free online education

Here are some reputable sites that offer free online courses.

• Coursera: They offer the same courses by professors from several universities.  The catch is that enrolling without fee means you don't get credit for the course.  However, in many cases the instructor will provide a signed certificate.
• Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE).  A collection of 10 courses.
• MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW): Materials from many of the courses at MIT.
• Open Yale: Materials from courses at Yale.  Includes a course on Financial Markets by Robert Shiller.
• Khan Academy: Has basic courses for grade schoolers as well as more advanced courses.
• Udacity
• edX
• Udemy: Has a number of free courses and reasonably priced paid courses.

Update 6/17/14 - Macroeconomics @ Coursera

I signed up for a macroeconomics course at Coursera.  The course lasted 11 weeks and required a 2-4 hour time commitment.  I actually completed the course taking all of the quizzes and the timed final exam at the end.  I also signed up for the Signature Track program which, for $49, gave me a verified certificate from Coursera and University of California, Irvine.

Having taken this course, I must say that 2-4 hours is the comfortable amount of time that I'm willing to spend on something like this.  Even with intense load at work during some of the weeks,  it's still easy to put in the necessary time to keep up.  So I plan to look for such courses.

One big negative is that the material is only provided via video and text files of the audio transcript.  What would be really useful is for the instructor to make available a pdf of the slides.  Several students asked for this in the course forums.  A student from an earlier course had taken screen shots from the videos and made them available for the first six or seven lessons.  One of the students in our class made his "notes" available which was a collection of selected screen shots and the text of the audio transcript (the audio transcripts corresponding to each video are provided as .txt files).

Overall it was an interesting experience and I plan to sign up for the companion microeconomics course at a future date.

Much of the material from the course is available at naturalmoney.org.

Update 9/16/14 - Microeconomics @ Coursera

Based on the fun I had with the microeconomics course, I decided to enroll in the companion microeconomics course.   I signed up for the Signature Track program for this course as well.

Here, once again, I was lucky to get slides from someone who had taken the course at a prior date.  I actually got access to those materials during the macroeconomics course and ended up sharing it with the rest of the class.

Much of the material from the course is available at naturalmoney.org.

Update 11/9/14 - Ivory Tower

I recently watched the movie Ivory Tower which is a documentary about the escalating cost of college education.  The movie paints MOOCs in a negative light -- it creates a class structure among students where those who can afford it go to a real college while those who cannot are stuck with the cheaper online option; that MOOCs don't offer the learning help and people interaction that are offered in a traditional college setting; that in experimental studies, the graduation rates with MOOCs are quite low.

It also mentioned two other sites offering MOOCs -- Udacity and edX -- which I have now added to the list above.

Other notable mentions in the movie were -- Deep Springs College, a college in California's Death Valley offering free tuition, room, and board for an associates degree in liberal arts;  and Cooper Union which transitioned from offering free education to charging tuition fees.

Life of Pi

I watched Life of Pi a few months ago.  It was an interesting film and special effects were quite nicely done.  The reason for this post is not because I want to write a detailed review of the film.  It's more because it left me kind of disturbed.

The two key takeaways that I left the film with were:

• The meaning of life is whatever you choose to give it.  In the movie, the main character tells 2 versions of the same story and ask people which one they prefer.  Since there is no way to verify what actually happened, they are free to pick the version that appeals more to them.  In some sense, that is the case with life as well.  Two people, presented with the same circumstances, will interpret things completely differently based on their value system.
• At a basic level humans are not very different from animals.  Throw out civilization, and the need to survive can turn us into cannibals.  Through civilization, we have learnt how live with one another, created laws and rules for socially acceptable living, and, in many societies, by providing access to basic needs, have eliminated the need for a bare, ruthless existence where we kill and consume one another.  Yet, where it is socially acceptable, like for example in the world of business and politics, we see this kind of behavior (in a figurative sense) all the time.

Anyway, that was just my interpretation of the film.  I've talked about it with several friends and colleagues and many of them say based on what they've heard to be the message of the film, they'd rather not see it.

The Yoga Farm: Lineage

In an earlier post, I had written about how I found the Yoga Farm and how I started spending all of my Saturday evenings there.  This evening, being Swami Sivananda's birthday, instead of the usual chanting and discourse following the evening meditation, they showed a couple of short films -- one was on the life of Swami Sivananda, and the other one was about Swami Vishnudevananda.  Swami Vishnudevananda  is the founder of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers, of which the Yoga Farm is a part.  He was a disciple of Swami Sivananda.

The screening of those movies inspired me to write a brief post about the lineage of the teachings at this ashram.  Since I have been going there for many years, I have seen both of the movies several times.  For the purpose of this post, I tried locating them on YouTube.  I couldn't find the one on Swami Sivananda, but this clip on YouTube contains some representative material.  The movie on Swami Vishnudevananda was called In the Name of Peace, and the entire movie is available on YouTube.

Incidentally, I came across this chart depicting A Brief and Incomplete History of Yoga.  I'm no scholar on Yoga and its origins, so I have absolutely no idea how good this chart is.  But, in this chart, Swami Sivanada is shown to be a disciple of Vishwananda Saraswati.

Swami Sivananda founded The Divine Life Society in Rishikesh in the Himalayas in India.  They have made available for free many of the books written by Swami Sivananda.

Here are some ashrams in this lineage:

• Yogi Hari's Ashram in Florida (disciple of Swami Vishnudevanada)

Going green, living healthy

Disclaimer:  I'm no expert on this subject, and for all you know, I may have it all wrong.  Nevertheless, I will write about what I have learned over the years.  If you come across this post and find that I'm totally off, I'd appreciate any insights you may have.

"Going green", eco-conscious living, sustainable living, etc. are terms that are used somewhat interchangeably to express living in harmony with nature.  To some it means the 3 R's (reduce, reuse, recycle), to others it may mean using products made of sustainable materials (for example, things that don't require destruction of ancient forests), some may think of this in terms of "fair trade" and the ethics of the organizations that create the product, and there are some who think of this in terms of being "all natural" and chemical-free living perhaps for health reasons.  Most of the time, living in a way that is kind to nature is also beneficial to ourselves. 

My personal view is that it encompasses all of the above.  We should try and get educated about where everything that we consume comes from and where it ends up after we are done with it (cradle-to-the-grave).   For example, when thinking about this in the context of food I often wonder how many hands a grain of rice has passed through before it ends up in my mouth.  And I have my own set of loose "rules" for all other products.  Sometimes it gets frustrating trying to follow these rules, and sometimes I just have to compromise and get on with life.  But at least I feel that I'm making baby steps in the right direction.  And I try to reason with myself that as I make changes at the micro level, things at the macro level will take care of themselves.

No Impact Man

As I thought about writing this post, a movie that I saw a long time ago -- No Impact Man -- came to mind.  The movie is a documentary about about a man (along with his family) who decides to take sustainable living to the extreme while living in New York City.  While I can't say that I endorse everything they did (many of the things they did would be too difficult for me, or almost anyone living a "regular" life), I did find it very educational and it's definitely worth watching.

Future posts

I'll cover what I've learned over the years in multiple posts.

• Home construction and furnishings
• Household cleaners and personal care
• Clothing
• Food

Movie at the Yoga Farm: Dirt

Today at the Yoga Farm, following the meditation and daily chants, instead of the usual discourse, in honor of Earth Day there was a screening of the movie Dirt.  It was a documentary about soil and its place in the ecosystem, the ills of modern farming methods such as monoculture, and some inspiring stories of urban gardens and community supported agriculture.  Following the movie, there was a brief discussion led by Mike and Susan Kluk, the teachers of the Earth Day Celebration course.

What are we eating?

I recently saw Forks Over Knives which is a documentary about the health benefits of a whole foods plant-based diet over a diet of animal foods. The movie had interesting anecdotes of people that were able to reverse their illnesses such as diabetes and high cholesterol. However, I didn't think it was as well made as some of the other movies that I've seen about food. As a result, I decided to put together a list of movies about our food. So here goes.

• Diet for a New America (1991)
• Super Size Me (2004)
• Fast Food Nation (2006)
• Food, Inc. (2008)
• Forks Over Knives (2011) [website]
• Growing cities (2013)
• Eating You Alive (2016) [website]

Of these, I'd give Diet for a New America and Food, Inc. my highest rating. Those two are an absolute "must see". In particular, Food Inc. was an eye-opener for me on how a few corporations control the bulk of the food supply in the US, get to dictate the way food is grown and labeled, and ultimately control what shows up on the shelves of our favorite grocery stores.

I am

I am a big fan of indie movies and I happened to watch a really fun movie today -- I AM. It's an interesting documentary that tries to investigate what is fundamentally wrong with human nature that we have so many problems in the world by asking the following questions:

• What's wrong with the world?
• What can we do about it?

One of the many thoughts expressed is that we are all interconnected at a fundamental level and the education system that we grow up in teaches us to forget that and instead encourages to believe in, and to celebrate, our separatedness from everything.

The title of the movie is inspired by the following incident. The Times had invited several eminent authors to write an essay on the subject "What's wrong with the world?" Among those authors was G. K. Chesterton and his response was:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely,

G. K. Chesterton.

Here is a Q&A with the author after a screening of the film at Google.  I found it quite thought provoking.