| Username |
Post |
| NK |
Posted
on 01-Oct-01 04:11 PM
Just got bored with reading other people's achievement, especially Manjushree's. Maybe I am a little bit jealous. After all I am only a human. Seriously, everytime I open this GBNC page there it is! This Nepali man is so successful, this Nepali woman is making so much money and that the other Nepali Thito is jamming in New York - dazzling people with his sense of design. Stop! I say stop it! Let's celebrate, failure,yes right here, right now some failure too.
Some people might wonder why? Why in the world should we celebrate failure? After all isn't 'celebrattions' and 'failure' exclusive to each other?l. When somebody thinks of 'celebration', 'happy face' , and 'laughter' they think of success, money, beautiful women (if you are a man that is). They don't think of a looser or a failure or a bum. Well, I really think there is some virtue in celbrating failure. First, it gives other loosers like me to feel better of themselves. Hey you are not alone here. you know how misery loves company. Second, if there is no failure then what is the value of success? Y' know Yin and Yang, or something like that. Threre is dark therefore there is light. If you acknowledge darkness then you are aware of light too. From now on I will be celebrating some fantastic failures in the site. Starting with me. Time to time. When the time permits. Unlike some people here I have a living to make. That is one sign of looser. If I were fabulously rich or extremely talented I would not be wasting my time here, writing. don't you agree?
OK, today I am celebrating myself, the number one looser. Bring out the Champagne folks. I have a party hat ready. Join me in my den: the damp, dark, musty smelling dwelling of mine. Only loosers need to come. No celebrity, no published author, no acclaimed designer to come.
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| NK |
Posted
on 01-Oct-01 04:19 PM
read loser whenever you see 'looser'. see how lost i am. i canot even spell myself correctly?
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| Ha Ha |
Posted
on 01-Oct-01 04:22 PM
I thought it was me who moved it..
Now I am thinking it may have been you...
Anyway it moved... it really did... and I felt it...
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| oohi_ashu |
Posted
on 01-Oct-01 10:26 PM
Welcome back NK to the GBNC forum!!
I think most Nepalis are mistaken in their belief that posting stuff on the Web is a waste of time and anyone who does so must be a loser. I certainly did think so myself, until I started gathering solid evidence on the contrary.
I have now realized that whether we like it or not, the Web is the NEW mass medium . . . reaching hundreds/thousands of people . . . sort of what radio was in the 1930s or TV was in the 1960s/70s in the US. More people these days spend more time getting their news/views and info from the Web than from traditional newspapers or radio or TV. This is a FACT. This explains why major US newspapers have invested a lot of money to insure their Web presence.
On a larger note, all things being equal, I have fond out that those who use their own names or even consistent fake-names and sort of consistently 'brand' themselves as this or that are more likely to be ultimately taken seriously (even if their views are disagreeable at times !) by other Web users than those who pop in, launch attacks or share a view and then vanish in the cyber-wilderness. Cheap tricks on the Web are NOT sustainable.
And so, like the stock market, the Web too rewards CONSISTENT, long-term
good 'performance' , and does not put much weight on occasional deviations.
This certainly has been my experience.
As for people having nothing to do but post stuff: I have found out that some of us operate on a very high energy level and can juggle many balls in the air (houh they may drop some once in a while), while some of us do not operate on a very high energy level and are perfectly happy to be doing thns their way. And so, posting suff on the Web is a function of personality than having nothing to do.
As for celebrating failures: I know the word "ego" gets a bad name in Nepali
circles. Gie us a self-confident Nepali, and we are quick to brand him or her as "arrogant" . . . and I have seen this many, many times.
But a healthy sense of ego makes you laugh at yourself, share your mistakes in public and, essentially, celebrate failures as minor setbacks on the road to success. In America, I met a lt of people like that: among Nepalis and in Nepal,
it's really rare to find people who have a healthy sense of ego to things in
strides and just have fun.
oohi
ashu
ktm, nepal
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| But a healthyVillageVoice |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 12:41 AM
Hi all:
Very interesting thread. Hi NK, I am not trying to give you a pep talk. Pls don't mistake me. But why are you branding yourself a failure? I don't quite understand. How would you define failure? And as you said, one best way of feeling great is celebrating yourself.
I have said it before. What the heck, I might say it again. Jean Jacque Rosseau in Confession celebrates everything about himself - his fears, insecurities, ups, downs, childhood, manhood. You name it.
it's really rare to find people who have a healthy sense of ego to take things in
strides and just have fun.>
I largely agree with you, Ashu. Wonder why, though? As a people, do we suffer from inferiority complex? Why the obsession to take every single thing personally, and look for ulterior motive when there's none?
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| VillageVoice |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 12:52 AM
No idea why VillageVoice turns out to be something else, folks. I certainly don't want a third name in two days, San.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 06:28 AM
V V wrote
>I have said it before. What the heck, I
>might say it again. Jean Jacque Rosseau in
>Confession celebrates everything about
>himself - his fears, insecurities, ups,
>downs, childhood, manhood. You name it.
I agree with you.
To extrapolate from our favorite Somerville-based urban planner
Shailesh Nath Gongal's example (explained in one of my past postings)
of MIT professors who admitted to new students (in '97) of feeling emotionally insecure of their (i.e. these professors') being at MIT . . . well, maybe these MIT professors ARE productive and are leaders in their fields PRECISELY because they are NOT complacent, they feel insecure and could accept their sense of insecurity to fuel their drive to be/to do even better . . .
In other words, having fears/insecurities/ups and downs and all that,
and accepting them as such may well make all of us FULLER and emotionally
richer, if complex, human beings . . . and I, for one, see NOTHING wrong with that.
>As a people, do we suffer from
>inferiority complex? Why the obsession to
>take every single thing personally, and look
>for ulterior motive when there's none?
I don't think we Nepalis are innately bad in any sense, but we are
certainly UNDEREXPOSED about the ways of the world, and often
behave as though we were isolated villagers duking it out in some
Dumri Gaun of our imagination.
Thankfully, some possible remedies include:
More travel outside of one's comfort zones. Travel (outside of Nepal and even well outside of the US) makes one see/experience things like nothing else.
More exposure to the arts (movies, paintings, music, literarure), philosophy,
and public debates.
More making of friends who are DIFFERENT from you NOT only in terms of ethnic/social backgrounds but also in terms of thinking habits. (I have learnt that debating with Marxists in Kathmandu makes me understand capitalism better, for instance!)
(By hanging out dominantly with the same set of friends collected or known from high school, most Nepali professionals, I have observed, exhibit a 'herd-like behaviour' a group-think that prizes lazy comfort over emotional/intellectual/social growth, and, hence, they MISS OUT on the richness that a DIVERSE sets of friends with DIVERSE outlooks offer. Well, nothing wrong being herd-like, of course, but, often, these seem to be the ones taking offence at everything
that does not agree with their ESTABLISHED sense of what's right for them.
Then again, we are all different in so many ways, and that's probably a good thing.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| NK |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 09:53 AM
I must say. This vendetta between two well known factions is in the proportion of
Greek tragedy. Who will be the fallen hero? Who will avenge whose (cyber) demise? Who will be take up the flight to the Sun thus die? Who is going to drown looking at his own reflection in the water? I am curious besides being a loser. A curious loser that I am.
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| Sunakhari |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 10:47 AM
Ashu
I would have to disagree to the point you have made about HERDING with the same group of people. I do, however, believe that we should diversify our group of friends. But isn't this something really personal? Some like to stay in one's group, some like to make new ones all the time. No good and bad there.
A friend of mine hangs out with his friends from kindergarten, they are now into their 30s and I must say, it is wonderful that this group has stuck together, they have their own personal views but its so enriching and awesome to watch them interact so comfortably.
How do you make friends who are different from you? Don't we all like to find at least common streak when we seek out friends?
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| XX |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 12:40 PM
Hey NK, I'M GLAD THAT I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS LIKE
A FAILURE EVERY NOW AND THEN.
BY THE WAY WHO IS THAT NEPLESE DESIGNER THAT YOU MENTIONED?
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| NK |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 02:30 PM
Hey XX,
if you were an avid GBNC follower like me you wouldnot have asked me that question. he is some young punk who had a show in NY few months ago. i had even thought of interviewing him but my contact in new york was unenthusiastic.
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| oohi_ashu |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 09:23 PM
Sunakhari wrote:
>Ashu
>I would have to disagree to the point you
>have made about HERDING with the same group
>of people.
Hi Sunakhari,
I appreciate your disagreements.
> I do, however, believe that we
>should diversify our group of friends.
Yes, this was my point.
>But
>isn't this something really personal?
Absolutely. You are right. Who one wants to hang out
with is a personal decision.
>Some
>like to stay in one's group, some like to
>make new ones all the time. No good and bad
>there.
Yes.
>A friend of mine hangs out with his friends
>from kindergarten, they are now into their 30
>s and I must say, it is wonderful that this
>group has stuck together, they have their
>own personal views but its so enriching and
>awesome to watch them interact so
>comfortably.
This is great. I have no comments on that.
But, in general, my impression is that some of them
might be sacrificing growth for comfort. But, hey,
there is nothing wrong with that too.
I guess I was pushing for he idea of hanging out with people
who even think differently rom one so as to enrich the pool of thoughts
regardless of whether they agree with one other all the time or not.
>How do you make friends who are different
>from you? Don't we all like to find at least
>common streak when we seek out friends?
In the US, I noticed that you could sort of 'compartmentalize'
your friends. For example, there would be one set of friends who were in chemistry class together with you, and another set of friends who layed
squash with you, and still another set of friends who worked with you on
a publication , and, still there were other friends you went out to New York
on a week-end, and so on and on. This 'compartmentalization', I suppose,
leads to DIVERSE working friendships as opposed to intense singular friendships.
In Nepal and among Nepalis, I have noticed that we expect the same set of
friends to be in the chemistry class, to play squash with us, to work on the
publication or to go to New York together. You know what I mean.
I am not making judgent here as to which is better an so on. Just pointing
this out. For those looking for comfort, the Nepali "model", as it were, seems to work better. And for those looking for growth, the American "model" seems to work better. Then again, I suppose, one could combine feaures of either
model to craft a happy life for oneself.
Thank yu for yout thoughts. Please feel free to disagree and add to this.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
|
| oohi_ashu |
Posted
on 02-Oct-01 09:29 PM
>I must say. This vendetta between two well
>known factions is in the proportion of
>Greek tragedy.
Hi NK!
Again, please relax :-)
This is no Greek tragedy.
It's a sort of like a Seinfeldian farce,
really, laced, I hope, with ironies that
makes people nod and smile. :-)
>Who will be the fallen hero?
> Who will avenge whose (cyber) demise? Who
>will be take up the flight to the Sun thus
>die? Who is going to drown looking at his
>own reflection in the water? I am curious
>besides being a loser. A curious loser that
>I am.
For some strange reason, you are very harsh
on yourself. Why?
As far as I am concerned, you are NO loser, but
someone who is creative, smart and intelligent.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
|
| NK |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 09:56 AM
>For some strange reason, you are very harsh
on yourself. Why?<
I don't know. what do you think? it is beyond me. maybe reading day after day about all these bidwans, millionaires, or wanna be bidwan, wanna be intellecutal, and what not. it takes a toll on you, y'know?
>As far as I am concerned, you are NO loser, but
someone who is creative, smart and intelligent.<
oohi_ashu,
am i hearing it right? are my eyes deceiving me? is this a dream? pinch me somebody? such a nice word from you!
|
| Sunakhari |
Posted
on 03-Oct-01 04:09 PM
"In the US, I noticed that you could sort of 'compartmentalize'
your friends. For example, there would be one set of friends who were in chemistry class together with you, and another set of friends who layed
squash with you, and still another set of friends who worked with you on
a publication , and, still there were other friends you went out to New York
on a week-end, and so on and on. This 'compartmentalization', I suppose,
leads to DIVERSE working friendships as opposed to intense singular friendships.
In Nepal and among Nepalis, I have noticed that we expect the same set of
friends to be in the chemistry class, to play squash with us, to work on the
publication or to go to New York together. You know what I mean. "
Ashu,
I don't know how long you have been back in Nepal and if you have any expatriate friends there OR if you have a lot of exposure to the expats there. If you do, then you will notice that the expats in Nepal are not as "choosy" there as they are back in their own respective countries. There are so few of them that they hesitate to compartmentalize their friends and hang out with whomever they seem to click with. Some of them tend to venture out and make friends with the natives! Some of them come, "graze" around and then leave, some of them are more adventurous. Most of them, however, tend to stick to their own "kind". They would not/do not tend to be necessarily be associating with the same people when they are back home. I have experienced this first hand.
I think this is human nature. Some are just overtly adventurous and curious while others are not. It has nothing to do with being Nepali or not.
My own personal experience has such been that, I am not as choosy as I was back home and if I were, GOD FORBID, I would have very very few "friends".
:)
|
| oriedsashu |
Posted
on 04-Oct-01 05:09 AM
NK wrote:
> maybe reading day after day
>about all these bidwans, millionaires, or
>wanna be bidwan, wanna be intellecutal, and
>what not. it takes a toll on you, y'know?
Hi NK,
I don't know why you are so harsh on yourself.
but other Nepalis ko success
stories in whatever fields make me very
happy indeed.
I have learnt that the more we celebrate
success (yours and others') while being tolerant
of failures/mistakes, the better off we all will be.
As Peter Drucker, the business guru says in an issue
of Harvard Business Review: We have
to find out what we are good at, and do that thing
really, really well -- and that will the basis of success and
happiness.
I mean, the size of the pie, as it were, is always
increasing for all of us, and one person' s success
does not mean that there is no room left for the success
of another. This is one reason I, for one, like to celebrate
success stories here on the site.
Ashu further wrote:
>>As far as I am concerned, you are NO loser,
>but
>someone who is creative, smart and
>intelligent.<
NK wrote:
>oohi_ashu,
>
>am i hearing it right? are my eyes
>deceiving me? is this a dream? pinch me
>somebody? such a nice word from you!
Yes, I did mean what I said.
You ARE creative, smart and intelligent, though, hey,
I do deserve the right to agree/disagree with you
on issues on a case by base :-)
After all, putting aside occasional heat and thunder,
there IS much we can learn from one another.
As for Sunakhari: I was not talking about expats
in Nepal, but more about Nepalis in the US (based
on my lmited experience).
Let us agree that making friends is a personal decision.
Let us also agree the the more diverse our friends are
in terms of what not, the more enriching our lives will
be.
My remarks on friendships are GENERAL ones; not specific.
oohi
ashu
ktm, nepal
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| Sunakhari |
Posted
on 04-Oct-01 08:51 AM
Ashu,
I was merely drawing up a parallel case. Its a pity you fail to see it :).
"(By hanging out dominantly with the same set of friends collected or known from high school, most Nepali professionals, I have observed, exhibit a 'herd-like behaviour' a group-think that prizes lazy comfort over emotional/intellectual/social growth, and, hence, they MISS OUT on the richness that a DIVERSE sets of friends with DIVERSE outlooks offer. Well, nothing wrong being herd-like, of course, but, often, these seem to be the ones taking offence at everything
that does not agree with their ESTABLISHED sense of what's right for them. "
Your comments definitely did not seem to be general as you were pointing out to Nepalese precisely - therefore I felt you would see why we tend to want to hang around in the same groups.
There are many many factors to why people choose to hang around/socialize with different/similar groups and us Ashu - you and myself - are not above that. We would love to diversify but then we are affected by our geographical locations, nostalgic feelings, etc etc.
Anyway, I will agree about the whole thing being personal BUT do not agree to your first part of this comment - "I have observed, exhibit a 'herd-like behaviour' a group-think that prizes lazy comfort over emotional/intellectual/social growth, and, hence, they MISS OUT on the richness that a DIVERSE sets of friends with DIVERSE outlooks offer. "
Cheers
|
| GP |
Posted
on 04-Oct-01 09:57 AM
Peoples here love more rubbing shoulders than
promoting tolerance and accepting the differences.
James Fredericks in Journal of Ecumenical Studies writes:
"Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honouring
of differences, NOT simply in the enjoyment of similarities".
Its true, friendship with new Nepali at an adult age
requires following points:
1. Same Political Inclination ( very much applicable
in Nepal): one guy in Japan, told to me that he
can be a friend of mine, because we don't have
same political faith. He is extreme communist.
Well, I had several good friends who have
incliniation with extreme left. What makes us
friendship these old like gold friends is that we
criticize each other, but, we have quite good
understanding TOLERANCE and LIMIT. Ek
hatle tali bajdaina, similarly, that idiot can
never be my friend, because he does not want
to make friend with guys who don't same faith.
2. As mentioned before is "Tolerance". How much
tolerant one of you are?If both of you are tolerant,
that creates a great environment for lasting friendship.
3. Sacrifice: How much you can sacrifice for a friend in
need, and how much you are willing to be with him when
needed.
4. LIE: "Aaj time chhian, tennis khelna, bholi kammar
dukhya chha ... blah " might not be real issue but, you
are lying with a good friend. Lying is very easy in
nepal than in other countries, in other countries
instead of lying, they, will straightway deny or
keep silence.
5. MONEY/RESOURCE: In Nepal, peoples have difficulty
with bihan beluka mukh jorna, new friends like Ashu
pointed of different variety means, huge consumption
of money to satisfy each friend. Too many friends mean,
too much frustrating in terms of money and effort, because
how you can travel in KTM to meet all friends friendship.
Its almost impossible. Thus, life with limite friend with similar
interest is enjoying and cheaper. At least, I can not afford
the cost, because I stayed in same hostel for 4 years, had
seen how much resource is important, well, if you are
talent in one area, you will have friends in that particualr
area, but, this property can not be carried over to other
areas like Tennis, movie, bar, disco, ....
6. age factor: as you get old, the family pressure and
time to your family and work load does not allow you to
catch all plans from all types of your friends. So, once you
start missing some, the group will not tolerate your absence
everytime, and finally, you end up with a few selected
friends. So, you have same taste, same status, same
dislikings ....
All other friends turn out to be Hello! Friends. Well, you
end with only two or three kinds of friends:
1. Friends at workplace: mostly formal friends,
and as we call them colleagues. They are something
like you know them, they know you, hardly useful
outside your workplace. Probably, in this forum we
have made each other friend, but, we are just
temporary, hardly a few permanent. We keep
ourselves a feet far, and hardly tolerate differences,
but, silently enjoy the similarities.
2. Family friends:
3. Friends without family.---- Old buddies since highschools
college and university. Most tolerant friend, I guess,
who honor differences and enjoy similarities.
Tolerance is the measure of the level of your friendship,
and it also scales your ability of having new friend.
Nepalis are more tolerant with non-Nepalis compared to a fellow
Nepalis. I don't know why.
GP
|
| amina |
Posted
on 04-Oct-01 02:16 PM
GP wrote:
>Tolerance is the measure of the level of
>your friendship,
>and it also scales your ability of having
>new friend.
This might sound like a cliche, but I think "acceptance" would be a better word here, rather than tolerance. The ability of making new friends at an adult age, think it depends on one's personality to some extent too..just a thought.
>Nepalis are more tolerant with non-Nepalis compared to a fellow Nepalis.
hmm, never noticed that.
About that herd like behaviour mentioned by ashu, I have seen that kind of behaviour not only among Nepalese but other nationalities too. I remember at school, there were a set of Indonesians, and another set of HK students, a set from Thailand and so on. And one thing I found was I would run into the same set of people again and again in different classes, they would even take the same electives together. Maybe if there were enough Nepalese students to herd with in my faculty, I would've done the same too ( fortunately, that didn't happen). As Sunakhari pointed out, maybe that's more of a human behaviour rather than a "Nepalese" behaviour. I do agree that people with such tendencies miss out on some things ( richness , diversity etc) but maybe they prefer the feeling of community they get from belonging to a set group. As agreed upon before by many, it's a personal thing.
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| GP |
Posted
on 05-Oct-01 01:43 AM
Amina,
Well, its very difficult for me to identify which has more
influence on lasting friend: Acceptance or tolerance.
I think "acceptance" as you suggested might represent
good friendship (In friendship, use of word TOLERANCE
might be problematic, because its really a STRONG word
compared to cool word "ACCEPTANCE"). But, the failure
of friendship should be attributed to more "intolerance"
compared to "not acceptable". Well, MS Word's Thesaurus
replaced the TOLERANCE by BROADMINDEDNESS and
it had ACCEPTANCE. So, the choice of word probably
a personal matter, "ACCEPTANCE" is easily acceptable
than the use of word TOLERANCE is difficult to accept
in good friendship. Anyway, TOLERANCE = ACCEPTANCE.
SO, the discussions here are lively because they are acceptable,
or because the participaants are tolerating? Vote it? Just joking.
Anyone has good command of English? Please, enlighten your
understanding.
The quick reference to Dictionary.com gives following meaning
of tolerance:
tolerance n 1: the power or capacity of an organism to tolerate unfavorable environmental conditions 2: a disposition to allow freedom of choice and behavior [syn: permissiveness] [ant: unpermissiveness] 3: the act of tolerating something 4: willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others [ant: intolerance] 5: a permissible difference [syn: allowance, leeway, margin]
Thesaurus.com give
tolerance found in 4 items.
Feeling
Excerpt: "...; suffering; endurance, tolerance, sufferance, supportance, experience..."
[View Entry]
Inexcitability
Excerpt: "..., tranquil mind, dispassion; tolerance, patience. passiveness..."
[View Entry]
Permission
Excerpt: "...; allowance, sufferance; tolerance, toleration; liberty, law..."
[View Entry]
Lenity
Excerpt: "..., leniency; moderation ; tolerance, toleration; mildness, gentleness..."
"acceptance" found in 5 items.
Assent
Excerpt: "..., corroboration, approval, acceptance, visa; endorsement (record..."
[View Entry]
Consent
Excerpt: "...; accession, acknowledgment, acceptance, agnition. settlement..."
[View Entry]
Receiving
Excerpt: "...(introduction) ; suscipiency, acceptance, admission. recipient..."
[View Entry]
Security
Excerpt: "...; parole (promise) . acceptance, indorsement, signature, execution..."
[View Entry]
Interpretation
Excerpt: "... acception, acceptation, acceptance; light, reading, lection..."
[View Entry]
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