My Readings: What I Believe, Bertrand Russell

What I Believe by Bertrand Russell (1925)

I have just finished the book, it is a little book but a to-the-point book. I have always loved the ease with which we read Russell’s books. His words and language structures are just genius in their meaning and their ease. He knows how to get to your heart and your mind without an effort on your side or his.

The book is little guidebook on what Russell thinks is a good life.

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”

The book has five chapters
I.   Nature and Man,
II.  The Good Life,
III. Moral Rules,
IV.  Salvation, Individual and Social, and
V.   Science and Happiness,

and they are all worth reading.

The philosophy of nature versus the philosophy of value is discussed in Chapter I. The philosophy of nature is much bigger than the human and his happiness or unhappiness. Nothing is good or bad there as opposed to the philosophy of value where everything is appraised by us with no outside standard.

“It is for us to determine the good life, not for Nature — not even for Nature personified as God.”

Knowledge and love are both essential for a good life, and missing one of the causes a lot of harm not just to individuals but to communities. His arguments are always related to logic and scientific justification.

It was interesting to read his views on the justice system and criminals treatment, in the Moral Rules part.

The idea of democratizing courage by events in the 19th century after being an exclusive characteristic of a social class or cult, is interesting.

“It has been physical science that has had most effect upon our lives, but in the future physiology and psychology are likely to be far more potent. When we discovered how character depends upon physiological conditions, we shall be able, if we choose, to produce far more of the type of human beings that we admire. Intelligence, artistic capacity, benevolence—all these things no doubt could be increased by science.”

This was a wish and a forecast of what he thought future science will accomplish. And his closing paragraph was,

“Nature, even human nature, will cease more and more to be an absolute datum; more and more it will become what scientific manipulation has made it. Science can, if it chooses, enable our grandchildren to live the good life, by giving them knowledge, self-control, and characters productive of harmony rather than strife. At present, it is teaching our children to kill each other, because many men of science are willing to sacrifice the future of mankind to their own momentary prosperity. But this phase will pass when men acquired domination over their own passions that they already have over the physical forces of the external world. Then atlast we shall have won our freedom.”

We as his grandchildren, in the age of the internet and with an unprecedented amount of information did we succeed to live a good life? Do we have enough knowledge to achieve that.

In my opinoin, we have not. Until this day, man still runs after his desire for power over others, trying to gain strength to weaken others and achieve his own momentary prosperity.

I wish to know what other people think is the answer to this question.
If anyone really reads my blog, I am waiting to know your opinion.


This is what jWoman has to say today.

Moving Thoughts

I am moving.....
I am finally moving out of the student accommodation, where I have lived for three years. Three years that is a bit of time. I am so used of the intimacy of the small space. Small spaces makes me feel more in control and thus more safe, and that is what I experienced for the last three years feeling in control.

Now my new rental place has so many doors and windows, it has a car garage too and this is too much on my senses. I have to take control of all this space to feel safe and secure. I still cant feel intimate with my new place. It feels like a new boyfriend, who you are still getting to know 😂. It seems I still ca’t get over my ex 😂.

When I look around the place as it gets empty and everything that is me is getting erased bit by bit, I feel weird. I keep thinking when I am not there, when my awareness is not there, do it even exist. That little apartment how can it exist when I am not there. It’s a strange feeling.

I know, that as I close that door for the last time, and give up the keys, I am living behind a piece of me. I will still be me but yet a different me. I have grown a lot those three years, and I still am. Life never stops teaching us lessons, and it is our choice to learn the lessons the easy way or otherwise.

This is what jWoman  has to say for today

Missing you

Everyday, 

I start missing you ............ the moment my brain wakes up. 

And I am still missing you when I fall asleep. 

And in between, ..............

I just miss you insanely. 

Deep into the night, .........

I fall into sleep and ...

                      I dream of you. 

        Then only do I feel complete.

Something that never change

Days, weeks, months and also years had passed. Time passes, things change but there are things that never change. The same applies to her. She has changed, grew quieter, calmer and older but in her heart there is something that never changed and never will.

The turbulence had grew quiet and calm and out of the chaos she created order. Daily life and habits started to form around her. She has a new life now that had nothing in common with what she had before, or maybe just a slight bit of similarity. When she thinks back, it feels as if it was another life on a parallel universe.  However, something inside her is the same. There is a knowledge, a deep awareness of her heart that never changed. Learning to live in the silence of chosen aloneness, helped her learn to quieten the noise of everyday and listen to the silence of her heart.

We all need that moment of silence each and every day. She learnt that the hard way. As she sat down early in the evening, in her comfy PJs, she closed her eyes and looked inward attentively. She listened to the silence of her heart. And he was there, waiting for her to come. He was always there, every evening.

They never shared a word. And who needs words, when the language of our souls is love, unspoken love. She sent him her love and he sent her more and they smiled.

Some nights as she lay in her bed alone, she would wonder where on earth is he, what he is doing at that moment, is it day or night, ............... and a lot more. Then, she reminds herself that all this materialistic details means nothing. She has his love in her heart and that is enough. It was enough for her to know that he existed once in her life and he gave her the most precious gift of all, the gift of love. And love conquers distance, time and everything. Love conquers all.

So she closes her eyes and sleep. She has a life to attend to in the morning. She is hopeful, full of energy, enthusiasm and she knows there is still a lot to achieve. And she looks forward to tomorrow evening when she can feel him again and send him her love.

This is what jWoman has to say today.

Be AWARE what thoughts you create.

There are days more difficult then others. Yesterday was one of those difficult days where you see no light at the end of the tunnel,  because all you are looking towards is backwards. I was immersed in my past, enclosed in it that all I can do was self-pity and victimising myself.

The only thing that got me out was the thought that no-one will help me, I am the only one who can get me out of that. So, I woke up today determined to get active and face life. Live now, live TODAY and go on.

We create our destiny, our life with our choices. I have to chose to live and I have to be aware of what I am choosing and what I am looking for. I can see that God, indeed give me what I really ask for. When I lay on my couch immersed in self-pity and upset with everything and everyone, I am giving out negativity into the world, I am looking for more failures to feed my self-pity and prove to myself and everyone around that I am a victim of life and circumstances. This is the easier path.

But I chose to struggle and get out of bed with a smile, even if it is forced at first. With time, I will smile on my own without willing it. We all need to be aware of ourselves, our thoughts. We are in control of our thoughts, we are not defined by them. On the contrary, we create them and we can change. This is the only way to change our lives and make a difference.

I still feel my aloneness and yearn for human touch and human intimacy but the lack of this don't make me miserable. I am whole on my own. I enjoy the sky, the sun, the moon and the clouds. I can walk alone and be alone. It is in my head where I create this miserable loneliness disease and cry over it.

Today, I woke up determined to cure myself of the disease and I did. I walked alone happily and met friends also happily, knowing that I know how to exist on my own. I am okay with being single, I am not scared of being single for the rest of myself. I am open to possibilities and I am aware that I create my thoughts.

This is what jWoman has to say on this Saturday morning

Am I pathetic?

Sometimes all you can think of is what next?

How can I go on?

I am 37 years old now, and I feel just how I felt when i was an eighteen year old confused teenager, wanting to be loved, looking for something. The main difference is that when I was eighteen, I did not know what I want or what I do not want. All I was looking for was the act of being in love. Now, I know, who I am, partially at least. I know what I can't tolerate and what I yearn for. What I can live with and what I run away from. And that is something accomplished in nineteen years, something better than accomplishing nothing.

But, after turning my life upside down and leaving behind all that was familiar. Leaving my school sweetheart and husband of 7 years, I am now a middle-aged divorcee. And to get that I lost friends, family members and my church membership, just to get my freedom, to regain myself and stop a marriage that was draining my soul and turning me into a desperate depressed person.

I left behind my family, my life-long friends and my job, which I loved dearly. And I left my roots, my country to travel to the other end of the earth, to the new land. I always wonder whether the distance helped me get rid of all ties with my past or indeed just increased my attachment to everything and everyone I left behind. I had hope for a new life, a took with a dream that just turned into a nightmare that I had to struggle to give up. I might have been a naive dreamer that soon had to face reality, tough dry reality.

In the new land, I started everything new, stopped being the boss and turned into a student doing her PhD, a student learning more about life through aloneness and loneliness. I chose my aloneness but was hit with sever loneliness. It is weird how I get used to being on  my own. It is okay most of the time, till I am hit with a severe low episode where I miss human contact, I miss a human touch.

I know it sounds pathetic but there are times when your loneliness hit you so deeply that you wish an empathetic human being will sympathise with you and hold your hand or pat your back and that is all you dream of. Pathetic you!!!!

There are days when I feel I cannot go on, days when I am so scared that I am so close to suffering a panic attack. I am scared of dying alone, of growing old alone, of never knowing intimacy again. Maybe a legitimate fear maybe a pathetic attitude.

But I try to convince myself that the best is yet to come. That I still have a lot to give and a lot to live for. As long as we breath in life, all possibilities are open.

This is what jWoman has to say today.

"I am a false alarm"

Walking through the shopping center, trying to feel a part of it, trying to mix in and not just be an audience. The more I try, the more isolated I become. My loneliness is my only reality. And it hurts, I need support, a hand to pull me out but it is not available.

Life passes, the fake smile fools everyone but the truth is I am not OK!!

I have always preached about strength from within, I have always told others that everything starts in their minds. But it is something else to act accordingly.

Gibran once said: "I am a false alarm.", describing himself when he couldn't be what he preached. So that's what I am today, a false alarm.

It's so difficult to control your actions and reaction, leaving aside controlling your thoughts. It is a learning process, training that need resilience and patience. I might get there one day but I might also die before reaching anywhere near that point. However, I will die trying. Against all odds, I don't fear death but fear loneliness.

Que sera, sera; what will be will be.

This is what jWoman had to say today.