Soothing with a Smile

We all know the benefits of happiness and a smile. But your smile needs to be genuine, doesn't it? Growing up in India in the 90s, I strongly believed that emotions and expressions need to be genuine. Then, I moved to South Africa in 2011. I have lived abroad (in the UK and Australia) before. But, nowhere before was I greeted by so many smiles and greetings! My first exposure to this culture was while taking the lift on my first day at work. There was a woman in the lift who greeted me "Hi; how are you?" I was so lost! I was thinking, "Do I know this person? But that is impossible. I just arrived in this country and the only person I know is not this person!" Being an introvert, I did not tell these things aloud. Within a year or so, I picked up the habit of smiling at and greeting strangers. (It took me a decade to accept the casualness with which people ask "How are you?" in South Africa and I still can not do that myself!)

But greeting and smiling I could; and soon I saw the effects. When I used to travel to India, I saw its effect distinctly in customer-facing places like malls and airport check-in counters. Customer-facing jobs are tiring in general. They are more so in Asian countries where people are often on the edge. No one smiles at the guys or girls doing check-in in airports. The effect of a smile is magical. Most of the time they would look surprised at first. And then they would give a meek and shy super-genuine smile in return. So, you see, it is a two-way thing (or win-win as a business expert would term it). 

Fast forward many years, in 2024, I moved to Abersywtsyth a small coastal town in the UK. Over the past two years or so, I have also been practicing mindfulness meditation "pretty" regularly. This means, most of the time, I do smile with a genuine feeling of Metta. A few weeks back, I was walking and came across an elderly woman walking past who looked visibly distressed. I smiled and she smiled back. I was a bit mindful and noticed that the return smile she gave me (which was mostly a fake smile) lingered on her lips for a while. And just some time back I read a piece of research that showed that smiles (even fake ones) can positively affect people's mental and physical health! So, just by smiling at strangers, I can improve their health. I felt like a small but powerful demigod 👻. But it is true. We all have immense power in ourselves. A smile is the easiest thing we can give out to the world in general without expecting anything in return. It can literally heal people while healing ourselves! 

Let us keep smiling and keep healing and getting healed. The world is a tough place and it can do with all the healings and hugs you can spare.

(Image courtesy MetaAI!)
    

        

Free Will: A Newtonian and Oriental Perspective

"Free will" is one of Christianity's biggest philosophical contributions. It has biased people from all religions and regions. This short analysis will analyze it from a Newtonian and Oriental point of view (POV). Let us start with the simple question, "Is a criminal not responsible for their actions?".

The Newtonian POV suggests that every action has a reaction and a cause. By this logic, we can establish a chain of events/actions that has caused the crime to be committed. Every person is driven by nature and nurture, i.e. their genetic makeup and their circumstances. The circumstances are not under their control; nor are the genetic materials. So, a crime is a culmination of a chain of events that can be linked to the Big Bang! In a way, the whole universe is responsible for that action if at all the word "responsibility" has a place.

What about the choice that the criminal made? Choices are made in human brains. Choices are mere chemical reactions of ions and hormones. Each of these is deterministic and, hence, not under the control of the person. Let us not go to the quantum effect. Yes, we use random processes to describe quantum effects. But that is a limitation on our part. It does not, necessarily, prove that things are random.

So, are all our actions pre-determined? Now, here is where I will mention the Laplace's Demon! Laplace mentioned that if there is a demon who knows the precise state of the current state of the universe and this demon has infinite computational power THEN it can calculate the exact state of the universe in the future. Such a demon is hypothetical. Hence, the future is "predictable" (if we have a Laplace's Demon) but not really "calculable"! This is a tricky thing to understand. So, the future is deterministic but we can not know it. The good news for the theists is that this also gives a place for an all-knowing God!

Now, that was the Newtonian POV. Let us look at the oriental perspective. We will look at the question from Buddhist and Hindu principles. In gathering shreds of evidence from the Hindu scriptures, I will limit myself to the Bhagwat Gita (BG) which is kind of a summary of a range of Hindu scriptures. 

In the BG, the Godhead tells in multiple instances how human action is controlled by three gunas. Gunas are the basic aspects of human nature. Another meaning of guna is strings. So, in a way, we are puppets with these strings. For example (BG 3.27) 

प्रकृते: क्रियमाणानि गुणै: कर्माणि सर्वश: |
अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते || 27||.

It means all are driven by nature through the strings of gunas. Through the illusion of "I" or "self" people think that they are the doers. And again (BG 15.14),

अहं वैश्वानरो भूत्वा प्राणिनां देहमाश्रित: |
प्राणापानसमायुक्त: पचाम्यन्नं चतुर्विधम् || 14||.

 This means that God is also the fire of digestive energy that digests food in the stomachs of people. The deeper meaning is that even a mundane and involuntary action like digestion is done through the divine power, the same power that controls and performs every other action. 

Now coming to Buddhism, a crucial principle in Buddhist understanding of the world is Pratītyasamutpāda or dependent co-arising. In simple terms, everything is strongly linked with each other, beings, things, and events. This is because that is; this is not because that is not. There is no position for the independent existence of any being, thing, or action. 

So, how do we answer the question "Is a criminal not responsible for their actions?"? Should we not punish criminals? This is where I can borrow a metaphor used by my father. If we believe in the justice system then a criminal, once convicted, should get the punishment they deserve. If a child playfully goes and holds a burning charcoal, would the charcoal not burn the child's hands? Of course, the child did not mean to make a mistake. It is just a naive child. These things do not affect the natural action-reaction chain. Hence, if we believe in the action-reaction chain and hence consider that the criminal is not responsible for their action then we should also believe in the action-reaction chain of the judicial system and let the criminal get the justice they deserve by the laws of the land.

PS: To be fair, the idea of "crime" is our own mental construct. The ideas of morality are not laws of nature. 

The Laplace Demon (a caricature, not the real demon 😈 ).