March 09, 2016

THE STORY OF OSCAR WILDE



OSCAR WILDE




THE STORY OF OSCAR WILDE



A writer is shaped by his nature and the nature of a writer is shaped by the basic beliefs that he deeply holds. From childhood, Oscar Wilde had a wonderful influence both because of his mother and father. His mother was a poet and a linguist and his father was an acclaimed medical practitioner.

Hence deep thought and learning became a part of Oscar Wide. His nature was formed then. But this nature was very first handed. He actually developed a wonderful feeling for the beauty both of language and ideas. In him, the two became one actually. 

This pitted him against the world and his originality became his trademark. H was thus arrogant, confident and looked as if he was not serious. But in fact, he was very seriously in love with language, its beauty and its power to communicate the soul.

His writings thus completely express this fact. They are beautifully written, are sensual with lovely use of word combinations and expressing a light hearten view of life, born of deep wisdom that is above the triviality and pseudo seriousness of contemporary life then.

It was a bold and beautiful life, lived richly with literature and language mastery and brimming with laughter, freedom and carefree outlook!!!

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW



GEORGE BERNARD SHAW







GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

George Bernard Shaw was one of the greatest dramatist the world has known. He was a prodigious writer and wrote nonstop all his life. He had a great struggle initially and the novels that he attempted were not a success with critics and publishers. 

But by 40 his life changed and he reached the greatest success both in terms of quality and fame. He is the only one to have won bt the Nobel and the Oscar. 

He was a sharp observer of events of the world, of human beings and ideas that ruled human beings. Nothing missed his brilliant eyes and mind. 

Thus, he could see the stupidity and the follies of both ideas and men and even grasped how ideas shaped men. He was also active in life not sitting n an ivory toer. He wa a critic in a magazine and also was active in politics. He was a professed socialist but as an artist and thinker he was way beyond politics and was primarily a seer interested deeply in the affairs of the world and men. 

Thus came out some magnificent plays each executed to perfection. 

His plays had satire, intelligent wit, sympathy, deep observation, expose of false and ridiculous ideas. Hence the full, whole effect of the plays was sheer engagement and entertainment. His plays became hugely popular and he lived on to the ripe age of 94 and was writing when he passed away. He wrote prodigiously and his was a mind that had so much content and the greatest talent to express it all in the most serious and yet the most entertaining.

AYN RAND

AYN RAND





AYN RAND (1905- 1982)

Ayn Rand is one of the most popular novelists of the 20th century and her books have sold around 40+ million copies as of 2016 and her sales increase year by year, astonishing the publishing world.

She was voted also as the second most influential author after the bible, in the US.

She is championed by countless people who are convinced of her OBJECTIVIST philosophy and strive to lead a far more meaningful and happy life.

Most of the great leaders whether they are business magnates, inventors, actors, directors, musicians, politicians, writers etc have been greatly influenced by Ayn Rand according to various surveys carried out.

The greatest of thinkers and the commonest man have been influenced by Ayn Rand.

Who is Ayn Rand?

What is her philosophy and why did she capture the minds of millions of people?

What did she really stand for?

Ayn Rand stood for man at his highest possible.

She believed all the good things that any one would believe. She said that Man should live for himself, not sacrifice himself to others nor sacrifice others to himself. She said that faith is not good as it tampers with thinking and she knew that reason, our supreme tool to live and function was man’s greatest asset and value.

She was an atheist but not a militant one; she was an atheist by implication because she did not posit a super nature above the evidence provided by the senses. For her Existence was absolute. Existence exists and only existence exists. The nothing is literally nothing.

She said that Man is a value and his own life is the standard of value. Thus she being a supreme individualist championed Selfishness and Capitalism, the simple deep, egoism of the rational kind.

Man should live his whole life with a purpose and practice rational self interest. She held that reason, purpose and self esteem were supreme values for which thinking were the means.

Thus, she advocated man’s inalienable rights and loved the American Founding principles. All this she held with a blinding and binding certainty and she explored every single issue that concerned life, here on earth.

Who can deny any of the above?

But Ayn Rand’s distinction was her courage to uphold the above as absolute, to fashion the above in beautiful life affirming stories with deadly conflicts and man emerging as the hero and winner.

She believed that man was a heroic being with reason as his tool and his own purpose as the rule of living.

Thus each of her famous novels were received with shock, deep admiration because each of her novels, whether it was “Fountainhead”, “Atlas Shrugged” or “We the Living” etc, had in it plots that were interesting and exciting, value conflicts that were deep and significant, and the writing part was a full expression of a mind that thought and valued at the same time with seam less integrity, clear and deeply passionate together. Her mind went on and formulated a whole philosophy of living on earth and she named her philosophy OBJECTIVISM and wrote and taught that through many landmark non-fiction books too.

Her certainty stung the reader and that “Ayn Rand Effect” would leave you a completely transformed person.

The full Ayn Rand inaugurated a way of thought that has the possibility to bring complete peace to the world, solve each of the problems of the world and the exposing of the ills and madness of the word would pave the way for that ideal that is the practical- each man living for himself with 100% rights, each happy and productive working to the best of ability and each free, the government merely an agency to protect man’s rights.

Thus Ayn Rand is the future world which can be, should be and must be if we love Life and Man.

March 07, 2016

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (OLD)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SHAKESPEARE (1564 – 1616)

Shakespeare was born in 1564 on the 23rd of April. He remains an enigma as very little evidence remains of his life, except the extraordinary poems and Plays he wrote. All that we can do is to take the bare facts of his life and reconstruct his life in all its passion and glory.

Shakespeare lived his childhood in Stratford, a small town near London. He must have been a keen observer of people because the kind of observations that he brought into his plays in later life are so universal and cannot come without deep seeds laid in childhood. 

In 1582, at 21 he married Anna Hathaway. 3 years later he had his first child Susanna of whom he was very fond.

In the early 1590s he struggled to make his mark in theatre in London and by 1598, he succeeded in establishing himself as a producer, playwright, and actor. 

From here he flowered and all his native genius poured out in three major phases, first of the histories and comedies, then the deep tragedies and finally the tragi-comedies. 

Shakespeare excelled himself as a supreme entertainer of his times, but little would that world would have known that he would be played by every single community and culture across the whole world in the future.

Today he is widely recognized as the supreme literary giant who could create stories from the most ordinary person by giving a universality, depth and shocking familiarity that could entice any audience anywhere, anytime.

This ability came from his deep observation of people and the world around him and even in history. He understood the core, flawed nature of human beings and could see with stark clarity where it would take them. He could see drama and comedy and tragedy from all the real people he observed. 

The comedy was the flawed and foolishness of people and the tragedy too was the same. Shakespeare had a simultaneous ability to craft DRAMAS from that material that required a special genius. 

Thus you see Shakespearean characters, and they are not out of this world, they are all the people whom you know and recognize, the common fears, insecurities, jealousies, attachments, loves, betrayals, the tragic-comic flaws…

Shakespeare is the common man’s world but taken to a universal stage.