Sampath-Musings

  FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:       FEARS, WORRIES, AND PHOBIAS     Fear is a spirit dampener if not a destroyer. Phobia is an anxiety aberration and many have it in different forms and degrees.   On a lighter plank - children in the house have an inherent fear for parents in general, and father in particular. In the absence of the father at home, they would do all naughty things including indulging in mischief and playing indoors littering here and there, and even in-fighting among themselves. Once they sense the arrival of the father, they calm down, take some book(s) in their hands, and quietly sit to make it appear as though they are reading and studying all the time, even in their father's  absence.  Of course, the father knows very well that it is all a drama, as, after all, he had once passed through his boyhood days.   Fear is a basic pessimistic human instinct and/or emotion, either suppressed within the mind or react...

  FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:       BEYOND THE DOMAIN AND NEED   Psychology - human beings vis-à-vis non-human beings!   The Divide between Need and Greed     There are a few trees around my house in Chennai where many birds live. They (parrots and sparrows specifically) would set out in groups in the early morning between 5.00 and 6.00 AM for their destinations for food and other activities chirping, screeching, and buzzing. In the evening, they would return joyously screaming ‘We are back home.’ They perfectly remember their way forward and back. They restrict themselves to their respective territories and domains and never drift away. None in the flock would deviate, sidetrack, or go astray.     Animals in the forests also don’t venture out too far from their traditional wild habitats unless and until they are seriously disturbed to leave their headquarters in search of greener pastures by compulsion at times of floods, droug...