Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Self-actualisation is the only motive that drives an organism.  Psychologist Kurt Goldstein said that. Self-actualisation, in simple words, means being (or becoming) what one can be.  What appear to be different drives such as hunger, sex, power, achievement and curiosity are merely manifestations of the ultimate purpose which is self-actualisation.  When a person is hungry he actualises himself by eating.  Even a rapist is actualising himself, but in the most pathological way possible.  Pathology is too complex an issue to be discussed here.  So let’s get back to our topic.  For the psychologically healthy people, self-actualisation is the organic principle by which the individual becomes more fully developed and more complete. Every individual has various needs.  The fulfilment of each need takes the individual a step forward in the self-actualising process. Some people read and acquire more and more knowledge, thus fulfilling the need for knowledge which for them is

The above illustration is from the book  Introducing NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) byJoseph O'Connor & John Seymour. A quote from the book: "Acting wholeheartedly with wisdom means appreciating the relationships and interactions between ourselves and others." We live in the age of the WorldWide Web and the Internet.  Web and Net.  Very evocative metaphors. They bring to mind images of relationships.  They do build up a lot of relationships too: on social networks and chat sites and so on.  Yet why is hatred increasing in the world?  Why more and more of egoism, cruelty, and one-upmanship? Maybe, we have relegated relationships to the virtual world altogether.

Fiction It was years since I had left Kochi.  Sitting on the shore of the Vembanad backwaters sipping beer with an old classmate, I remembered those days of my life as a college student.  Professor Leela Menon wafted into our conversation as naturally as the breeze from the lake set the coconut leaves nodding gently.  “She retired more than ten years back,” said Mohan.  “She now lives all alone in a villa facing the Vembanad.” I decided to visit her.  I was one of her favourite students.  I adored her poems as well as her lectures on literature.  I participated in every essay competition to which the college was invited; I participated more to please her than anything else.  Professor Leela Menon was a poet and a social activist.  She did not marry; her life was dedicated to social causes.  She was bitterly opposed to the kind of development and that was overtaking the city.  She hated people cutting down trees in order to widen the roads.  She deplored the roar of the tr

She died a few days back and I got the news today.  She was a nobody in the village.  For me she was a symbol of fortitude. From the time I can remember anything about my life she was an integral part of our household.  I remember her carrying things from our house to sell in the market four kilometres away and bringing things back we needed at home.  I remember her bathing my little sisters when they were infants.  I used to watch her bathing the infant.  In the leaf of an arecanut tree.  I remember being astounded by her dexterity.  The infant would laugh at her touch.  Even when she poured cold water on the body, my little sister would laugh.  I used to be fascinated by the sight.  My mother couldn’t extract that kind of laughter from her children. My mother cannot be blamed.  She had too many children to look after.  Too many servants too.  Workers of the fields were numerous and I can’t recall the names of any one of them.  Mother had to prepare food for them in a kitc

The primary objective of power, particularly political power, has seldom been social service.  A peep into the history of political powers of various types will convince us of that without any doubt.  Political power is an intoxicant: as good as a drug is to the addict.  People don’t capture power by spending billions of dollars or crores of rupees on image building and propaganda in order to render service to anyone.  People ascend the rungs of political power because the heights intoxicate.  Putting it in a more acceptable way, success gratifies or gives one a sense of fulfilment. The Hindu Self-actualisation is the highest goal for any individual, according to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s theory. Alexander the Great had as much right to make his conquests as Diogenes had to sneer at those conquests.  Albert Einstein would have been as out of place on a Prime Minister’s chair as a Prime Minister would be in Einstein’s shoes. So, let each person gratify himself.  But let

Book Review The Cellist of Sarajevo Author: Steven Galloway Publisher: Atlantic Books, London, 2008 Pages: 227 War is madness.  It takes human civilisation back to savagery.  It dehumanises people and makes of them cowards that hide themselves in holes like rats or ravenous beasts that ferret out the quivering rats from their holes.  It strips people of their dignity as human beings.  Food and water become scarce commodities.  Famine and diseases replace the zest for living.  Friends become foes.  Hatred spreads like a plague. Steven Galloway’s novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo , explores the theme of war through the eyes of four persons: Dragan, Kenan, Arrow and a cellist who is taken from the history of the civil war that rocked Sarajevo in the first half of the 1990s.  The disintegration of the former USSR in 1991 led to a brutal civil war that caused almost a quarter of a million deaths, the worst violence in Europe since World War II.     “At four o’clock

If there is one starving person in your country, your country is not independent. That old man called Gandhi said it.  May he rest in peace.  I live in a country of beggars.  The helpless beg, the slightly less helpless steal, and a few are billionaires.  Quite many others are our leaders in the Assembly Houses and the Parliament Houses.  And a few others are religious beggars, a very fascinating lot they are: they provide us with our daily sustenance of fun. Five individuals in my country possess assets worth Rs 5,23,897 crore rupees.  Mukesh Ambani's wealth amounts to Rs 1,49,474 crore rupees.  But he will sell our petroleum abroad and not give it to us.  That's called "the Gujarat model of development".  For more about India's wealth and beggary, read the report by Wealth-X . "Don't be a spoilsport," says M.  "Let us celebrate our Independence." OK.  I don't want to burst the balloons on Rajpath.  Quite a few crore rupees of