Category: Worldly Wisdom

Odysseus

Odysseus (wikimedia commons)

I find mythologies fascinating for various reasons the most important of which are that they help one make sense of the world and also learn how to navigate it.

Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies are all great sources of delight and edification but the best of all is Indian mythology. Of course I am biased but it is nevertheless true that Indian mythology has no equal.

Homer’s epics Illiad and Odyssey are great mythological works but Ved Vyasa’s Mahabharata is the pinnacle of human achievement in that domain. The Mahabharata was complied between the 3rd-century BCE and the 4th-century CE. It is so good partly because it evolved over several centuries. Continue reading “Odysseus”

What is Socialism?

Robert Heilbroner (1919 – 2005) defined socialism as “a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production.”

Why is Heilbroner worth quoting on this matter? Because he knew what he was talking about. He was a committed socialist all his life. He was a best-selling author. His book The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (1953) sold over 4 million copies. Clearly he was not stupid. And when he could not deny the evidence, late in his life he came to recognize that socialism had failed and was honest enough to admit that he had been wrong. Continue reading “What is Socialism?”

Getting There from Here

You can't always get what you want
No way, Jose.
James Burke tells a story about a time when he and his team were lost in some place in Ireland. This was before Google maps and mobile phones. They asked a local for directions to some place who replied in all seriousness, “To get there, I wouldn’t start from here.”

The humor in that statement arises from the fact that to get anywhere at all you have to start from where you are, and not some ideal place that you are not at. You have to make do with what you have, and not what you should ideally have to get the job done but in fact you don’t. Continue reading “Getting There from Here”