Bookstore of the future- a double expresso

Some time ago I wrote about the disruption that the Internet was causing in the book publishing industry as more and more writers decided to self publish. What was known sneeringly as "vanity publishing" has rapidly become, in the last decade, a burgeoning industry. Not only were books being replaced by e-books that one read on Kindle or Ipad, the content was increasingly being created by writers who spurned the poobahs of the publishing world. No more need for agents or self important publishers who treated manuscripts as a refuse bin and declined to answer queries for months on end. Now the writers could quite simply bypass them and get to the same audience through the Internet bookstores like Amazon. The only drawback they faced were the brick and mortar bookstores who refused to showcase these selfpublished books. But no more. As ebooks have taken off, it is now these very same bookstores that are in trouble.

Last year the Borders chain folded, closing 800 bookstores and removing millions of books from our communities, and so far this year not a week has gone by without the announcement that an indie that’s been around for over a decade is either closing or up for sale. Important stores like R.J. Julia and University Press Books are both looking for new owners, and if new owners aren’t found, University Press Books is likely to close. The downward spiral of the bookstore in America seems to be increasing in speed. Last year, right before Christmas, Amazon urged customers to go to brick and mortar stores and compare the physical store prices to Amazon’s prices. Amazon even paid people for reporting those store prices back to Amazon. Bookstores called the practice “Showrooming” and noted the inherent unfairness in providing an important service for the book community without receiving the actual sustaining sales. With ebooks, pirating, and predatory online booksellers, it seems only an idiot would suggest bookstores even have a future.

It seems clear at this point that the relationship that publishers have with indies has to change, writes Tony Sanphillipo, who is willing to bet that bookstores have a future, albeit in a different form. It is increasingly becoming clearer that  with bookstores closing and libraries cutting staff, hours, and even the number of books actually in a library reducing, perhaps a new approach is in order. A new type of bookstore needs to replace the fuddy duddy places of the past.

Let us begin by focusing on the clientale of people who actually like to read. The old and the retired, the very young and the upwardly mobile. So why not design a bookstore that actually meets their needs.

Let us have a section where one can sit on a comfortable sofa, read the newspapers and magazines and sip a cup of coffee in a brightly lit atmosphere. Another section could be devoted to the very young, who could look at books even as they played with various toys while hired book/baby sitters kept a watchful eye. A third section would replicate a café for the adults but with a continuous parade of shows to keep their interest- new authors promoting their books, some coming from the same community, thus assuring at least a minimum sized audience, periodically sparsed with major names in the world much like Poetry and Prose bookshop in Washington DC.

Adding to these reading places would be a side area where you could actually print your own books for a modest fee. With the books on demand now growing rapidly, these book printing machines, which some called Expresso Book Machines, could be located right inside the book store. If you are a budding author, just bring your book on a usb or cd, and within minutes you could get your book printed and bound, ready for its readers. And that at a price comparable to what you would pay for any other book in a normal bookstore. Indeed anything in the public domain could  be printed and bound for you at roughly the printing cost, and many copyright books can be printed here as well. Or you could simply provide your usb or cd and they could transfer any book you want to it so that you can go home and continue reading it on your favourite IPAD or Kindle.


The bookstore would have a collection of books that readers could rifle through and a few TV screens providing a virtual bookstore where you could search for the latest bestsellers or for long forgotten gems of literature. Booksellers can thus still have shelves of hardcovers for those who want them, but by having titles available for immediate printing they can do exactly what they all say is now impossible—compete with Amazon’s immense catalog.


Pricing in such a bookstore would be simple. You can buy stuff outright as you would in any bookstore or you can rent or borrow books as you would from a library. Or another way of charging would be to get people to buy yearly memberships to the new book store. Members would not then have to pay for rentals, though like non-members, if they don’t return the book eventually, the cost of the book is charged to their credit card and they can order another. But with that membership you can borrow any book in the store for free. In most cases you can also request that they acquire a book for you to borrow and they can also print it for you using the Espresso Book Machine.

The idea of this kind of a bookstore is that it becomes the modern place for getting together for the entire family but with a twist- it is focused on books and reading- a combination of expresso coffee and expresso book machines.

Down memory lane

The recent events in Myanmar reminded me of my first visit to that country some twenty years ago.

In the summer of 1989, I was asked to lead a team to develop an energy sector study for Burma, or Myanmar, as its new rulers choose to call it.  Burma had been closed to foreigners for a number of years as the strongman, General Ne Win, began developing a weird form of socialist government. The country was run by a junta and was in a pitiable economic state. Not many in the Bank staff wanted to stake their career on working on a country that seemed unlikely to attract any international funding in the near future. In the Bank, careers were built on the back of strong lending programs, and Burma had few prospects. I put together a team of consultants and Bank staff to visit Burma. As we met in Bangkok to prepare for the assignment, the directions to visitors were as if preparing a visit to Alice’s Wonderland. We were to bring in torches, insect repellents, 60-watt bulbs and a bottle of Johnny Walker, (the latter was for the travel agent who would, in lieu of this bottle, provide transportation to the hotel). Landing at Rangoon airport, renamed Yangon by the junta, it was like returning to a small provincial airport housed in sheds. We were met at the airport by our travel agent and guide. The first shock came when we changed dollars into the local currency. The official exchange rate was five kyats to the dollar, whilst the real market value was closer to a hundred. We were soon to discover the impact of this distorted exchange rate– a $2 chicken dinner cost 200 kyats for the locals but we ended up paying $40 for it. We now understood the importance of the two Johnny Walker bottles each of us had brought in, as it was to pay for many of our meals in the city. Not only was the currency ridiculously overpriced, it was divided into 90 cents, not 100 cents – the general felt that nine was his lucky number.

We were housed in the Inya Lake Hotel, a nice old villa surrounded by gardens and the Inya Lake. The hotel, which had seen better days, was on the edge of the lake, but no window faced the lake since the general lived on the other side of the lake and any windows overlooking his residence was considered to be a security risk. The rooms were large but poorly lit; now we understood the admonition to bring 60-watt bulbs if we wanted to read or work at night. My room was infested with rats and some of our rooms were flooded each time we took a bath.

We started work the next day with a meeting with Mr. Kitatani, the Japanese ambassador, who was the doyen of the diplomatic corps in Myanmar. He advised us to be careful in our discussions as this was a very secretive government, and information would be hard to obtain. He told us of the US seismic consulting company staff who had had the temerity to criticize the work in the country and hold an opinion regarding the geological reserves of the country, which was less than the official figures. Their passports were not returned till they agreed to change their findings and that too only on intervention from the Bank, which had employed them in the first place, and their own embassy. It was not a very propitious note on which to begin the mission.

A state law and order restoration committee, or SLORC, then ruled Myanmar, but the man pulling the strings was General Ne Win, who had seized power in 1962. He had announced that henceforth Burma would follow the “the Burmese Road to Socialism’. Unfortunately, this was to be a steadily downhill path for the country. In 1966, nationalization policies were extended right down to the retail shops. The retail price of rice had increased nine times in the 1980’s. The maximum government salary was fixed at $15 per month and most Burmese citizens spent almost two thirds of their salary on food, barely eking out an existence. The black market had started to play a big role in the market and most civil servants held two or three jobs in order to subsist. Yet Burma had a literacy rate of over 80% with a population of about 46 million. The largest banknotes were demonetized and Burma’s economy slowly stagnated, leading to massive demonstrations in 1987-88.

Ne Win voluntarily retired in July 1988, but organized a coup in September of that year to install the infamously named SLORC. The government also announced that it was abandoning socialism in favor of a capitalist economy in all but a few industries. In May 1990, confident that it had full control, SLORC organized the country’s first free elections in thirty years. Unfortunately for them, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 of the 485 contested seats. But in October 1990, the military raided the NLD offices, arrested key leaders and put San Suu Kyi behind bars.

The Tatamdaw (armed forces) and their political junta, SLORC, ruled Myanmar with an iron fist, but the behind the scenes, real control remained in the hands of the postal clerk turned dictator Ne Win, commonly known as the “Old Man”. Ne Win was obsessed with astrology and numerology to the extent that virtually every major tactical decision at the national level was based on consultations with horoscopes and obscure number charts. In the late 1980’s K45 and K90 notes were introduced since Ne Win revered the number nine; both are factors of nine and the digits of both add up to nine. Red and white billboards all over Yangon carried communist style slogans. The only attraction in town was a floating restaurant, the Karaweik. This was a concrete replica of an old Burmese floating palace built in the lake. The Strand Hotel where George Orwell and Somerset Maugham had stayed, was another attraction, though it was then rundown and seedy.

U Tin Tun was the undersecretary of energy, but was the de facto Minister. He had been trained in the provincial services by the British and was among a handful of civil servants still left in the country that had any professional training in management. He was amiable and agreed to meet with us and his own team, and to provide the information we needed for our study. Periodically, he would get up from his seat and unravel his lungi (the sarong worn by Burmese men) to air it, retie it and sit down to continue the discussions without missing a beat, much to our consternation. As we visited other ministries, it became apparent that this was a country in considerable trouble. Electricity was provided only to the front row of houses on major roads. Every civil servant was given a quota of gasoline, which he was expected to sell in the black market to maintain his family. No dissent was tolerated.

The energy sector in Myanmar was at a critical juncture. Even accounting for the low per capita income, modern energy consumption level was one of the lowest in the world. There was significant unmet demand because of severe supply constraints. Industrial production was severely handicapped by a shortage of energy. At the same time, the existing sources of supply were deteriorating rapidly for a number of reasons including the use of inadequate and obsolete technology, inappropriate policies and lack of autonomy in sector management. Modern energy consumption had stagnated over the last decade: petroleum products consumption had been squeezed down from 7.6 mmb/yr in 1984 to 4.4 mmb/yr in 1989 and even the use of kerosene had declined from 68.7 million gallons in 1975 to about 2 million gallons in 1990. Electricity growth rate had decreased to only 3.5% per year from the earlier rates of 8%, while the potential demand was far higher than present sales. The number of villages electrified rose from 709 in 1979 to only 751 in 1989.

Yet Myanmar had considerable indigenous sources of primary energy potential, which could in the long term meet these demands.  ....

The heart of the problem was the grossly overvalued exchange rate. The Myanmar government had not changed the grossly overvalued exchange rate for more than a decade, despite a widening gap between the official and parallel market rate. In 1990, the parallel market rate was about 100 kyats to the dollar while the official rate was only 5.88 kyats. Maintaining such an overvalued exchange rate had led to inefficiencies in its use; adversely effecting incentives to produce reduced government revenues, and resulted in scarcities. Even assuming an exchange rate of 50 kyats /US $, official energy prices in Myanmar were extremely low with consequent excess demand and lack of supply....

It was clear to our team that establishing a stable macroeconomic environment had to be a top priority: prudent fiscal and monetary policies were essential for restoring domestic price stability, establishing confidence in the domestic currency and building trust in the government's commitment to the reform program. Without building up this confidence, market liberalization and measures to improve their operation would be undermined. Restructuring and privatization of inefficient state enterprises could proceed more effectively once the legal and institutional reforms were in place and the markets functioning. But in Myanmar, partial liberalization of markets had proceeded till now within an unstable and distorted macroeconomic environment, and it was evident that full-scale reforms were essential to move forward rapidly. The talents of Myanmar's people and the bounty of its natural resources required both capital and technology to produce large income gains. Both could be attracted by the right sets of policies. It was, however, entirely up to Myanmar authorities to decide to adopt such policies so that a comprehensive reform process could begin. This was the message we were prepared to give.

But as we prepared for our final meeting, I was mindful of what Kitatani-san had told us. All the team members were told to have their passports in readiness and air ticket reservation confirmed. As it was, the meeting proceeded smoothly and we were allowed to leave without any fuss. We prepared a blueprint for developing the energy sector in Myanmar. The country had the resources, both physical and human, to achieve it. And it could have become the foundation for its economic revival. But that was not to be. And of course, the team was never called back to Myanmar and the next time we visited Yangon as visitors, we were to see the roads barred with daily strikes.

We left Myanmar with a profound sadness. Here was a country that had the resources, both physical and of manpower, which with better management and prudent investment could easily have become one of the tigers of the Asian economy. But a group of ill trained colonels basically held the country to ransom with undigested and dated socialist theology. If any country could progress rapidly by the removal of 500 colonels, we felt it was Myanmar. Myanmar, unfortunately, was a sad country that the world seemed to have forgotten.

A commencement speech to remember

Remarks of President Barack Obama – 
Joplin High School Commencement Address
Missouri Southern State University
Monday, May 21, 2012

Joplin, Missouri

Good evening Superintendent Huff, Principal Sachetta, faculty, parents, family, friends, the people of Joplin, and the class of 2012. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the honor of playing a small part in this special day.

The job of a commencement speaker – aside from keeping it short and sweet – is to inspire. But as I look out at this class, and across this city, what’s clear is that you’re the source of inspiration today. To me. To this state. To this country. And to people all over the world.

Last year, the road that led you here took a turn that no one could’ve imagined. Just hours after the class of 2011 walked across this stage, the most powerful tornado in six decades tore a path of devastation through Joplin that was nearly a mile wide and thirteen long. In only 32 minutes, it took thousands of homes, hundreds of businesses, and 161 of your neighbors, your friends, and your family members. It took Will Norton, who had just left this auditorium with a diploma in his hand. It took Lantz Hare, who should’ve received his diploma next year.

By now, most of you have probably relived those 32 minutes again and again. Where you were. What you saw. When you knew for sure that it was over. The first contact you had with someone you love. The first day you woke up in a world that would never be the same.

And yet, the story of Joplin is the story of what happened the next day. And the day after that. And all the days and weeks that followed. As your city manager, Mark Rohr, has said, the people here chose to define the tragedy “not by what happened to us, but by how we responded.”

That story is part of you now. You’ve grown up quickly over the last year. You’ve learned at a younger age than most that we can’t always predict what life has in store for us. No matter how we might try to avoid it, life can bring heartache. Life involves struggle. Life will bring loss.

But here in Joplin, you’ve also learned that we have the power to grow from these experiences. We can define our own lives not by what happens to us, but by how we respond. We can choose to carry on, and make a difference in the world. And in doing so, we can make true what’s written in Scripture – that “tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope.”

Of all that’s come from this tragedy, let this be the central lesson that guides you and sustains you through whatever challenges lie ahead.

I imagine that as you begin the next stage in your journey, you will encounter greed and selfishness; ignorance and cruelty. You will meet people who try to build themselves up by tearing others down; who believe looking after others is only for suckers.

But you are from Joplin. So you will remember, you will know, just how many people there are who see life differently; those who are guided by kindness and generosity and quiet service.

You’ll always remember that in a town of 50,000 people, nearly 50,000 more came to help in the weeks after the tornado – perfect strangers who’ve never met you, and would never ask for anything in return. One of them was Mark Carr, who drove 600 miles from Rocky Ford, Colorado with a couple of chainsaws and his three little children. One man traveled all the way from Japan, because he remembered that Americans were there for his country after last year’s tsunami, and he wanted the chance to pay it forward. Many were AmeriCorps volunteers who have chosen to leave their homes and stay here until Joplin is back on its feet.

There was the day that Mizzou’s football team rolled into town with an 18-wheeler full of donated supplies. Of all places, they were assigned to help out on Kansas Avenue. While they hauled away washing machines and refrigerators from the debris, they met Carol Mann, who had just lost the house she lived in for eighteen years. Carol, who works part-time at McDonald’s even as she struggles with seizures, told the players that she had even lost the change purse that held her lunch money. So one of them went back to the house, dug through the rubble, and returned the purse with $5 inside.

As Carol’s sister said, “So much of the news you hear is so negative. But those boys renewed my faith that there are so many good people in the world.”

That’s what you’ll remember. Because you are from Joplin.

You will remember the half million dollar donation that came from Angelina Jolie and Missouri native Brad Pitt. But you’ll also remember the $360 that was delivered by a nine-year-old boy who organized his own car wash. You’ll remember the school supplies donated by your neighboring towns, but also the brand new laptops that were sent from the United Arab Emirates – a small country on the other side of the world. When it came time for your prom, make-up artist Melissa Blayton organized an effort that collected over a 1,000 donated prom dresses, FedEx kicked in for the corsages, and Joplin’s own Liz Easton, who lost her home and her bakery in the tornado, made 1,500 cupcakes for the occasion.

There are so many good people in the world. There is such a decency, a bigness of spirit, in this country of ours. Remember that. Remember what people did here. And like the man from Japan who came to Joplin, make sure to pay it forward in your own life.

Just as you have learned the goodness of people, so have you learned the power of community. As take on the roles of colleague and neighbor and citizen, you will encounter all kinds of divisions between groups – divisions of race, and religion, and ideology. You’ll meet people who like to disagree just for the sake of being disagreeable; who prefer to play up their differences and instead of focusing on what they have in common, or where they can cooperate.

But you are from Joplin. So you will know that it’s always possible for a community to come together when it matters most.

After all, a lot of you could’ve spent your senior year scattered throughout different schools, far from home. But Dr. Huff asked everyone to pitch in so that school started on time, right here in Joplin. He understood the power of this community, and the power of place. And so teachers worked extra hours, and coaches improvised. The mall was turned into classrooms, and the food court became a cafeteria – which sounds like a bit of an improvement. Sure, the arrangements might have been a little noisy, and a little improvised, but you hunkered down, and you made it work. Together.

Together, you decided that this city wasn’t about to spend the next year arguing over every detail of the recovery effort. At the very first town meeting, every citizen was handed a Post-It note, and asked to write down their goals and their hopes for Joplin’s future. More than 1,000 notes covered an entire wall, and became the blueprint that architects are following to this day.

Together, the businesses that were destroyed in the tornado decided that they weren’t about to walk away from the community that made their success possible. Even if it would’ve been easier. Even if it would’ve been more profitable to go somewhere else. Today, more than half the stores that were damaged on the Range Line are up and running again. Eleven more are planning to join them. And every time a company re-opens its doors, people cheer the cutting of a ribbon that bears the town’s new slogan: “Remember. Rejoice. Rebuild.”

I’ve been told that before the tornado, many of you couldn’t wait to leave here once high school was finally over. Your student council president, Julia Lewis, said, “We never thought Joplin was anything special; but seeing how we responded to something that tore our community apart has brought us together. Everyone has a lot more pride in our town.” It’s no surprise, then, that many of you have decided to stick around, and go to colleges that aren’t too far from home.

That’s the power of community. That’s the power of shared effort. Some of life’s strongest bonds are the ones we forge when everything around us seems broken. And even though I expect some of you will ultimately end up leaving Joplin, I’m convinced that Joplin will never leave you. The people who went through this with you; the people you once thought of as simply neighbors or acquaintances; classmates or even friends – the people in this auditorium tonight – they are family now. They are family.

In fact, my deepest hope for all of you is that as you begin this new chapter in your life, you will bring that spirit of Joplin to every place you travel and everything you do. You can serve as a reminder that we’re not meant to walk this road alone; that we’re not expected to face down adversity by ourselves. We need each other. We’re important to each other. We’re stronger together than we are on our own.

It is this spirit that’s allowing all of you to rebuild this city. It’s the same spirit we need right now to help rebuild America. And you, class of 2012, will help lead this effort. You’re the ones who will help build an economy where every child can count on a good education; where everyone who is willing to put in the effort can find a job that supports a family; where we control our own energy future and we lead the world in science and technology and innovation. America will only succeed if we all pitch in and pull together – and I’m counting on you to be leaders in that effort.

Because you are from Joplin. And you’ve already defied the odds.

In a city with countless stories of unthinkable courage and resilience over the last year, there are some that still stand out – especially on this day. By now, most of you know Joplin High senior Quinton Anderson, who’s probably embarrassed that someone’s talking about him again. But I’m going to talk about him anyways, because in a lot of ways, Quinton’s journey has been Joplin’s journey.

When the tornado struck, Quinton was thrown across the street from his house. The young man who found him couldn’t imagine that Quinton would survive such injuries. Quinton woke up in a hospital bed three days later. It was then that his sister Grace told him that both their parents had been lost to the storm.

Quinton went on to face over five weeks of treatment, including emergency surgery. But he left that hospital determined to carry on; to live his life, and to be there for his sister. Over the past year, he’s been a football captain who cheered from the sidelines when he wasn’t able to play. He worked that much harder so he could be ready for baseball in the spring. He won a national scholarship as a finalist for the High School Football Rudy Awards, and he plans to study molecular biology at Harding University this fall.

Quinton has said that his motto in life is “Always take that extra step.” Today, after a long and improbable journey for Quinton, for Joplin, and for the entire class of 2012, that extra step is about to take you towards whatever future you hope for; toward whatever dreams you hold in your hearts.

Yes, you will encounter obstacles along the way. Yes, you will face setbacks and disappointments.

But you are from Joplin. And you are from America. No matter how tough times get, you will be tougher. No matter what life throws at you, you will be ready. You will not be defined by the difficulties you face, but how you respond – with strength, and grace, and a commitment to others.

Langston Hughes, the poet and civil rights activist who knew some tough times, was born here in Joplin. In a poem called “Youth,” he wrote,

We have tomorrow


Bright before us


Like a flame.


Yesterday
A night-gone thing,


A sun-down name.


And dawn-today.

 Broad arch above the road we came.


We march.

To the people of Joplin, and the class of 2012:

The road has been hard. The day has been long. But we have tomorrow, and so we march. We march, together, and you are leading the way. Congratulations. May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Is Happiness always good for you?

In recent years, there has been an explosion of scientific research revealing precisely how positive feelings like happiness are good for us. We know that they motivate us to pursue important goals and overcome obstacles, protect us from some effects of stress, connect us closely with other people, and even stave off physical and mental ailments. Clearly, happiness is popular. But is happiness always good for you? Can feeling too good ever be too bad? 

Recent research in an article by June Gruber suggests that happiness is not always what it is cracked up to be! Too much of it is as bad as too little and being happy in all situations is not necessarily the right thing either.

1. Too much happiness can make you less creative—and less safe. Happiness, it turns out, has a cost when experienced too intensely. For instance, while happiness can open up our minds to foster more creative thinking and help us tackle problems or puzzles but too much positive emotion—and too little negative emotion—can also make people inflexible in the face of new challenges. When we experience happiness, our attention turns toward exciting and positive things in our lives to help sustain the good feeling and  we also tend to feel less inhibited and more likely to explore new possibilities and take greater risks. People in this heightened ‘happiness overdrive’ mode engage in riskier behaviors and tend to disregard threats, including excessive alcohol consumption, binge eating, sexual promiscuity, and drug use. 

All these results point to one conclusion: Happiness may be best when experienced in moderation—not too little, but also not too much.

 2. Happiness is not suited to every situation. Our emotions help us adapt to new circumstances, challenges, and opportunities. Just as anger mobilizes us to overcome obstacles; fear alerts us to threats and engages our fight-or-flight preparation system; sadness signals loss, happiness helps us to pursue and attain important goals, and encourages us to cooperate with others. But just as we would not want to feel angry or sad in every context, we should not want to experience happiness in every context. Illuminating studies done by Maya Tamir found that people in a happy mood performed worse than people in an angry mood for example when playing a competitive computer game!

 Thus happiness has a time and a place—it’s not suited for every situation!

3. Not all types of happiness are good for you. “Happiness” is a single term, but it refers to a rainbow of different flavors of emotion: Some make us more energetic, some slow us down; some make us feel closer to other people, some make us more generous. But some forms of happiness may actually be a source of dysfunction. One example is pride, a pleasant feeling associated with achievement and elevated social rank or status. As such, it is often seen as a type of positive emotion that makes us focus more on ourselves. Pride can be good in certain contexts and forms, such as winning a difficult prize or receiving a job promotion. But when we experience too much pride or pride without genuine merit, it can lead to negative social outcomes, such as aggressiveness towards others, antisocial behavior, and even an increased risk of mood disorders such as mania. 

The bottom line: Certain kinds of happiness may at times hinder our ability to connect with those around us.

 4. Pursuing happiness may actually make you unhappy. Not surprisingly, most people want to be happy. We seem hardwired to pursue happiness, and this is especially true for Americans—it’s even ingrained in the Declaration of Independence. But the more people strive for happiness, the more likely they will be to set a high standard for happiness—then be disappointed when that standard is not met. It is as if the harder one tries to experience happiness, the more difficult it is to actually feel happy, even in otherwise pleasant situations.

It may be that striving for happiness is actually driving some of us crazy.

But how exactly can we attain a healthy dose of happiness? This is the million-dollar question.

First, it is important to experience happiness in the right amount. Too little happiness is just as problematic as too much. 

Second, happiness has a time and a place, and one must be mindful about the context or situation in which one experiences happiness. 

Third, it is important to strike an emotional balance. One cannot experience happiness at the cost or expense of negative emotions, such as sadness or anger or guilt.

Finally, it is important to pursue and experience happiness for the right reasons. Too much focus on striving for happiness as an end in itself can actually be self-defeating. 

True happiness, it seems, comes from fostering kindness toward others—and toward yourself!

Walk to bring smiles to the world

2012's Baccalaureate speaker at the University of Pennsylvania was an unconventional choice for an Ivy League school. To address their newly-minted graduates, aspiring to dazzling careers, they picked a man who has never in his adult life, applied for a job. A man who hasn't worked for pay in nearly a decade, and whose self-stated mission is simply "to bring smiles to the world and stillness to my heart". Nipul Mehta of his 1000 kilometer walk in India and the lessons he gleaned from his pilgrimage. (Here is the full text of his unconventional graduation speech.)

Soon after he ended the pilgrimage, his uncle casually popped the million dollar question at the dinner table: "So, Nipun, what did you learn from this WALK?"  

Here is his reply:

The W in WALK stands for Witness.  When you walk, you quite literally see more.  Your field of vision is nearly 180 degrees, compared to 40 degrees when you’re traveling at 62 mph.  Higher speeds smudge our peripheral vision, whereas walking actually broadens your canvas and dramatically shifts the objects of your attention. Instead of adding Facebook friends online, you actually make friends in person, often over a cup of hot “chai”.   Life comes alive in a new way.  A walking pace is the speed of community.  Where high speeds facilitate separation, a slower pace gifts us an opportunity to commune.  Life is simple again.  A farmer explained it to us this way: "You cannot make the clouds rain more, you cannot make the sun shine less.  They are just nature's gifts -- take it or leave it."  

The A in WALK stands for Accept.   When walking in this way, you place yourself in the palm of the universe, and face its realities head on. We walked at the peak of summer, in merciless temperatures hovering above 120 degrees.  Sometimes we were hungry, exhausted and even frustrated. Our bodies ached for just that extra drink of water, a few more moments in the shade, or just that little spark of human kindness. Many times we received that extra bit, and our hearts would overflow with gratitude.  But sometimes we were abruptly refused, and we had to cultivate the capacity to accept the gifts hidden in even the most challenging of moments. So cultivate equanimity and accept whatever life tosses into your laps -- when you do that, you will be blessed with the insight of an inner transformation that is yours to keep for all of time.

The L in WALK stands for Love.  The more we learned from nature, and built a kind of inner resilience to external circumstances, the more we fell into our natural state -- which was to be loving.  In our dominant paradigm, Hollywood has insidiously co-opted the word, but the love I’m talking about here is the kind of love that only knows one thing -- to give with no strings attached.  Purely.  Selflessly. When you come alive in this way, you'll realize that true generosity doesn’t start when you have some thing to give, but rather when there’s nothing in you that’s trying to take.  

And lastly, the K in WALK stands for Know Thyself.  Sages have long informed us that when we serve others unconditionally, we shift from the me-to-the-we and connect more deeply with the other.  That matrix of inter-connections allows for a profound quality of mental quietude.  Like a still lake undisturbed by waves or ripples, we are then able to see clearly into who we are and how we can live in deep harmony with the environment around us. When one foot walks, the other rests.  Doing and being have to be in balance. 

   

That’s W-A-L-K and remember the importance of traveling at the speed of thoughtfulness.  

How to stay young?

One of the dilemnas of aging is that everyone expects you to be sad and morose.So whenever someone sends me his or some receipe for happiness, i am delighted to publish it on my blog. Here is one from the grand old man of comedy- George Carlin. If you have any similar thoughts, send them on to me and I will be delighted to share them with my readers.

George Carlins receipe for staying young

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height.  Let the doctors worry about them.  That is why you pay 'them.'

2. Keep only cheerful friends.  The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever, even ham radio.  Never let the brain idle.   'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.'  And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud.  Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen.  Endure, grieve, and move on.  The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves.  Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever.  Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health:  If it is good, preserve it.  If it is unstable, improve it.  If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips.  Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Should everything be for sale?

In modern day life, almost everything seems to be up for sale? There is nothing that money can't buy- from a vote in the legislation to the avoidance of jail time for criminal activity, from bribing a policeman on the street to a businessman avoiding penalties for selling illegal drugs. There is a price for everything. Many economists argue that in a free market that is as it should be and that price for any good or service is best arrived at between the buyer and the seller in a free and open negotiation and that this serves the public good most effectively. Or does it? But is the free market really free? Or does it come at the expense of civic values we neglect at our peril? Are there some goods and services that we should not barter in the market place?

Here is a book by Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets" which challenges the conventional wisdom and is a timely reminder that while the market place can allocate resources optimally, not all things need to be in the market place in the first place. 

Sandel examines the implications of living in a time when almost everything can be bought and sold and when market values drive not just all economic decision-making, but all aspects of our individual and collective lives, crowding out civic values, and corrupting our democracy in the process.

• A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California, and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to disturb them.

• Access to the carpool lane while driving solo: $8. Minneapolis, San Diego, Houston, Seattle, and other cities have sought to ease traffic congestion by letting solo drivers pay to drive in carpool lanes, at rates that vary according to traffic.

• The services of an Indian surrogate mother: $8,000. Western couples seeking surrogates increasingly outsource the job to India, and the price is less than one-third the going rate in the United States.

• The right to shoot an endangered black rhino: $250,000. South Africa has begun letting some ranchers sell hunters the right to kill a limited number of rhinos, to give the ranchers an incentive to raise and protect the endangered species.

• Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. A growing number of “concierge” doctors offer cellphone access and same-day appointments for patients willing to pay annual fees ranging from $1,500 to $25,000.

• The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: $10.50. The European Union runs a carbon-dioxide-emissions market that enables companies to buy and sell the right to pollute.

• The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Foreigners who invest $500,000 and create at least 10 full-time jobs in an area of high unemployment are eligible for a green card that entitles them to permanent residency.

What worries Mr. Sandel is that, over the past 30 years, economic imperatives have begun crowding out all other values. He argues that we are steadily moving toward a culture in which our ideals are being pushed aside in favor of the view that we ought to always be maximizing efficiency.  He looks around America and observes all sorts of situations where traditional mores have shifted in recent years, always in the direction of market morality. Today you can purchase your way out of waiting in line for rides at many amusement parks. There are express lanes that allow you to buy our way out of traffic. Many schools now "incentivize" performance, paying students if they read books or do well in school; some schools now sell ads on children's report cards. Cities routinely sell advertising space on public property, ranging from parks and municipal buildings to police cars.  In each of these cases, long-held ideas about inherent worth and common ownership have been displaced by the simple morality of the market.

And it is not just that market values crowd out other values—once introduced, they tend to expand to the horizon. Take the history of "naming rights," the practice of a sports team selling the name of its stadium. In 1988, only three stadiums in the U.S. bore the names of corporate sponsors. By 2010, more than 100 companies were paying to put their name on an American sports facility. Individuals can now "rent" out space on their foreheads to companies for ads!

It seems nothing is beyond the market- not even death. In a grimly entertaining chapter on the history of life insurance, Mr. Sandel shows how a product that was once meant as a safety net for families has become a ghoulish investment vehicle. For centuries, life insurance was prohibited in most of Europe on the grounds that death should not be subject to speculation. In America, it wasn't until the 1850s that it began to gain legitimacy and then only as a product designed to protect a man's family in the case of his untimely death. But the morals of the market slowly overcame the old objections, and today companies routinely take out life-insurance policies on their employees because the policies are an excellent revenue stream, whether traded or held until collection. In recent years there has arisen an entire "life settlement" industry in which investors buy life-insurance policies from the elderly. The quicker people kick the bucket, the higher the rate of return for the investor. Ironically some of the pension funds become unwittingly the buyer of these investment vehicles!

Yet why should life settlement, or other market strategies, bother us? After all such practices maximize social utility and are the ultimate expansion of individual freedom. Proponents of market morality claim that it imposes no belief system. Choosing to place utility maximization at the core of your belief system is like choosing a guiding ideological precept. Every problem has an incentive-based solution; every tension can be resolved by seeking the maximally efficient outcome. Is it efficient? Will it make money? That's all the market cares about. 

But the good society needs to care about more. Doesn't it? Here are a few interesting questions that he raises:

• How do you feel about paying children to read books, or to get good grades?


• What are the ethics of paying people to test risky new drugs — or to donate their organs?


• What about hiring mercenaries to fight America’s wars?


• Or allowing cash-strapped communities to sell ads on police cars and fire hydrants?


• How about outsourcing inmates to privately owned prisons because it’s more cost-effective?


• Or allowing those who can afford it to buy special access to doctors?


• Or buying admission to elite universities when students with better grades are rejected?


• How about selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay?


• Or allowing businesses to advertise inside our schools?


• Is it moral to put a price on human life to decide how much pollution to allow?


• What about buying other people’s life insurance policies to bet on when they’ll die — for profit?

These are all difficult questions and deserve to be disussed.  But the bigger question is why should we worry that we are moving toward a society in which everything is up for sale? Is there anything inherently wrong about a purely market based society?

Underlying the unease with this concept of a society where everything is for sale are two reasons. One is about inequality, the other about corruption. First, consider inequality. In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means. The more money can buy, the more affluence—or the lack of it—matters. If the only advantage of affluence were the ability to afford yachts, sports cars, and fancy vacations, inequalities of income and wealth would matter less than they do today. But as money comes to buy more and more, the distribution of income and wealth looms larger and pervades all walks of life and living.

The second reason we should hesitate to put everything up for sale is more difficult to describe. It is not about inequality and fairness but about the corrosive tendency of markets. Putting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them. That’s because markets don’t only allocate goods; they express and promote certain attitudes toward the goods being exchanged. Paying kids to read books might get them to read more, but might also teach them to regard reading as a chore rather than a source of intrinsic satisfaction. Hiring foreign mercenaries to fight our wars might spare the lives of our citizens, but might also corrupt the meaning of citizenship.

For in the final analysis, Sandel reminds us: “the question about the role of markets is really a question about how we want to live together. Do we want a society where everything is up for sale? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets?”