Sunday Musings With Dad

My dad Kishore V Sonpal, was just short of 82, when he breathed his last on June 12, 2020, 01:24am. He built the habit of maintaining a diary right from his late twenties, when he took up his first job with Indian Railways, way back in 1964. His writings have stood the test of time. They are as relevant today, as they were, when he penned them down. I am sharing third of these diary entries. Just like me, hope you will also find subtle meaning in his writings.

Here is the Ninth share. 

Transcript of the Image:

Understand means to be conscious of it -not necessarily that one has to act definitely in certain manner on outward things. But to be conscious of them, aware of them, to know their content, meaning and significance.

Observation is an art. To learn one has to be observed.

Intelligence is not knowledge. Man who has read a lot, has accumulated knowledge is not necessarily intelligent. By the word Intelligent, I mean capacity for insight, to see immediately what is true and to make out what is false as well and deny the same. That requires intelligence which needs to be cultivated. The act of observation requires discipline.

You cannot learn if you are accumulating.Then you belong to the past, you are a dead human being.

You only learn if you are living, moving, running, flowing and that demands your complete attention.

The key words here are ‘observation’ and ‘flow’.

Dad was a strong advocate of observation. He would always say, don’t trust what you can see or hear or see/hear. But always trust what you can OBSERVE. 

Reading alone a lot does not help if it is not followed up with ways to test out the knowledge/hypothesis gained and executed in form of some section. The ones’s who do are the ones who are genuinely intelligent.