Adopt a Tree

‘The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.

The second best time is NOW!’ – Anonymous

The above lines outline the purpose of Chandrakant Shinde and his colleagues. They are preparing for this year’s Environment Day by asking Goans to adopt a Jamun Tree. They are using varied media to involve more citizens to their circle of commitment that looks beyond now. They want participants to not just plant a tree, but to take care of it so that it can bear fruit for the future.

Shinde and his friends, belong to Vivekananda Environment Awareness Brigade, Keri, Sattari, in Goa. Over the years, they have nurtured their love for Mother Nature with consistent and committed actions. They have kept away from lucrative career trails. They have charted their own journeys to create a legacy that will endure beyond their lifetime.

Planting a tree is an activity that has become fashionable. But adopting a tree requires the resolve of greater and consistent commitment. It is a choice made by those who connect totally to what they believe is a common good. They look beyond to become the creators of a desirable future. They do not seek immediate benefits for themselves. They are seized by selflessness.

So often, we are seized by an emotion that is well intentioned and sincere... whether planting a tree or an idea. But, the best of intentions can come to nought, if we do not back our initial act by as series of appropriate actions to nurture that tree or even that idea. So while it is good to ‘plant’, it would be better to ‘adopt’ and nurture that tree or that idea!

To BE BETTER at creating a legacy...

Do not just plant... adopt the tree!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Variable Vision

In less than ten minutes, the 1977 short film ‘Powers of Ten’ depicts the relative scale of things in the Universe using factors of ten. The film, made by Ray and Charles Eames, is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke.

It begins with a view from a meter above (10⁰) a man resting on a blanket. The camera then zooms out to a view ten meters above (10¹) to show that the man is at a picnic in a park. Then it pans to a view of 100 meters (10²) to show that the picnic is taking place on Chicago's lakefront. Further on we see on the way the views of Lake Michigan, our earth, our solar system, the Milky Way… the zoom continuing to a view of 10²⁴ meters - the size of the observable universe.

The camera then zooms back to the man's hand and moves on to zoom into views of negative powers of ten (10⁻¹) (10 centimeters), and so forth. The zoom moves the range from the surface of the skin to the inside right up to the proton in a carbon atom at 10⁻¹⁶ meter. The film thus travels two extreme extents of our universe.

However, the lessons go beyond the attempt to understand the universe… they guide us on how to be better at understanding our situation. We need to be better at seeing, both, the larger-picture and the smaller-picture... to see self and situation from a perspective that moves from a wide-angle outlook to a deeper insight into our predicament.

So often, so many of us are seized by a myopic vision that connects only to peripheral considerations. We need to apply the variable vision to see the larger consequences as well the minute intricacies of the situation that surrounds us. We need to be better at zooming out to the larger context as well as zoom in to the diminutive but crucial details.

To BE BETTER at understanding the real situation…
let’s zoom in and out to the entire variable vision!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India

Avert the Negative

‘If anything can go wrong, it will!’ – Murphy’s Law

Often, when things go wrong, we use the crutches of what is popularly known as Murphy’s Law to justify unanticipated failure. Thus, we shift the onus of responsibility from ourselves and condemn the fiasco to the vagaries of the unknown. Some call it fate, some call it bad luck and others employ other words. But Murphy’s Law is really something else...

This modern hypothesis is credited to Capt. Murphy, an engineer at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949. One day, on finding a wrongly wired transducer, he cursed the technician responsible by saying, ‘If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it.’ The project manager added it to his list of ‘laws’ and called it Murphy's Law thus giving name to an ancient pessimism.

However, the articulation of the negative was put to positive use by the Air Force. In fact, they went on to describe their good safety record as due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it. Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it became part of modern metaphor.

Murphy’s Law is not about cynical logic about our perceived vulnerability. The law’s effectiveness is in first envisioning the most remote of possibilities for ‘things going wrong’, and taking remedial measures. While it is good to do the right things; to be better we must be able to anticipate what can go wrong. Doing so is termed risk analysis in planning parlance.

Murphy’s law inspires us to BE BETTER at the affirmative…
By first predicting and then averting every plausible negative!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Learn by Doing

‘For things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing’ - Aristotle

In ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, Aristotle’s makes the distinction between capacities acquired by nature and those acquired through exercise. Natural capacities are those in which ‘we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity’ such as hearing or seeing. According to Aristotle, we do not develop our capacity to hear sounds and see colours through repetition or practice. Rather, we simply see and hear if we possess functioning eyes and ears.

In contrast, some of our capacities, such as distinguishing musical themes in a symphony or spotting a fracture in an x-ray, are skills acquired through exercise. He writes that just as ‘men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts’. He further mentions that ‘it is from playing the lyre that both, good and bad lyre-players are produced’ and that ‘men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly’.

So often, we insist that there are things we cannot do because we have not learned them. Aristotle’s assertion makes it obvious that both, arts and virtues are such skills learned through practice. We acquire competencies by conscious and consistent actions. Just consider how we learned to walk as toddlers... we learnt by doing it, again and again.

However, it is also pertinent to note that just practice will not make us perfect. In fact, practice can make us better or worse. We must ensure that the focus is on doing things right... practicing the right way. Again, not everyone who learns to walk walks well! To be better at developing skills we must learn them by doing the right things in the right way...

Do not wait endlessly to learn before doing
we must BE BETTER at learning by doing!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Listen to Learn

In Jamie Sam's ‘Earth Medicine’, the animals came together to sort out the problems caused by the latest migrations of their northern neighbours that were affecting their food supply. While some were chattering away, others would intervene to make suggestions and offer solutions. Only the bear had not said a thing. Finally, asked why he was so silent, the bear replied, ‘I'm listening and learning. I don't need to talk; I already know what I know.’

We spend a large portion of our waking hours conversing and listening… more of the former and less of the latter. In fact we are conditioned to believe that effective speaking leads to success. But the reality remains that good listening skills are a pre-requisite to good communication skills and subsequent success.

It is important to note that good listening is victim to not only external disturbances but also to internal ‘noise’. We must learn to be better at overcoming this ‘noise’. We must learn to be better at cleansing our minds of prejudices and seek to understand afresh, each time.

A good listener is not the one who swears that he is one. Rather a true listener will display tolerance, patience and an open mind, at all times. At its best listening involves understanding the information, understanding the emotions, checking our understanding, seeing it from the person's viewpoint, without necessarily agreeing.

In our quest to escape the omni-present ‘misunderstanding’, we seek to explain, educate and emphasise our position. However, we need to listen and understand, before we can be understood. For others too are like us… we may be equipped to hear, but we may not have learned to listen…

Learn to listen and listen to learn
BE BETTER at paying attention!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Wanderlust

‘For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move’ - Robert Louis Stevenson in Travels with a Donkey,

Stevenson statement is a case of wanderlust. Those with ‘wanderlust’ don't necessarily need to go anywhere in particular; they just don't care to stay in one spot. The etymology of ‘wanderlust’ is very simple: ‘Wanderlust’ is lust (or desire) for wandering. The word comes from German, in which ‘wandern’ means ‘to wander’.

The film ‘Motorcycle Dairies’ captures a famous case of wanderlust. Four years before he led the Cuban Revolution, a young Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and his friend, Alberto Granado covered 5,000 miles, on a rickety old motorcycle. They had no fixed schedule and they were able to immerse in life transforming lessons picked up on the way while wandering.

So often, so many of us are seized by the travel bug. But the experiential scope is limited by a schedule crammed with things to do in a hurry and haste. We zoom across the planet leaving no time for soaking in the experience. The lust is for labels, not for true wandering. To be better at enjoying the real facets of Mother Earth, we must empower the desire to wander, rather than merely embark on hurried and harried travel.

We must invest unlimited time in wanderlust to receive greater returns in terms of unlimited happiness. Not just environment enthusiasts, every responsive human being must wander around Mother Earth to understand it better. And it is pertinent to note that the ones who celebrate their wanderlust find bliss. It is well worth the time!

Mother Earth extends an unlimited invitation to set sail

let’s BE BETTER at wanderlust by walking the slow trail…

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Distractions

One of my successful unlearning activities was triggered by a speech by one of my mentors -   John Silveira. I play the video of the song from the Hindi film Munnabhai MBBS, ‘Dekh Le… seekh le’ (C’mon see... c’mon learn…). Then I ask ‘You have SEEN… you have done DEKH LE… now tell me what you learnt… tell me the SEEKH LE you have done…’ Very few attempt an answer… The meaningful words have not been absorbed…

So often, we may not truly listen as we are distracted by the visuals. The song is filmed on a dancing-bar-girl sensually provoking a terminally ill patient to look at the positive side of life. The song exhorts to enjoy the journey of life while it lasts instead of wallowing in the despair of an impending death. The lyrics are truly inspiring. However the visual glamour of the girl takes our attention away from the powerful message contained in the song.

Even while listening to a song, many of us get caught only in the melody and miss the message. Although we possess the ability to simultaneously enjoy the multiple dimensions of countless beautiful songs, many of us pick up on only the most appealing and play blind to the rest. The conception of that song itself is a fruit of the many creative dimensions of different abilities.

We must be better in our ability to see and hear and understand all these dimensions. We must be better at overcoming the disruptive influence of distractions. As learners, we will prosper when we are able to listen despite the distractions. That is exactly what John sought to tell his audience: that the onus of learning is on the learner... not just DEKH LE we must also SEEKH LE…

Do not be sidetracked by disruptive distractions...

let’s BE BETTER at connecting to real connotations!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.