The White Underclass

The White Underclass A) What is the White Underclass, and what are the national economic changes and forces? The United States economy took a turn for the worse in 2008, and has been steadily declining ever since. The reason for the financial crisis began with the failing of the financial institutions, which threatened the global economy. The reason for the failing of the largest financial institutions can be debated, but many believe that it was due to the failure of accurately and safely evaluating the risks involved in their lending procedures.Whatever the reason, the recession had a massive impact on the country, and none were affected more than the Americans living at or below the poverty level. These people are known as the American underclass. What defines an underclass? It has been defined as the bottom of society, those who have become victims of a poverty trap. The underclass is largely made up of unemployed, young, single-parent families that are living in destitute strick en areas, areas in which the children lack educational qualifications, good role models, and social skills.This provides them little opportunity to escape the unfortunate situation in which they’ve been placed (www. BusinessDictionary. com/definition/underclass, 2012). The term â€Å"underclass† has been classified in two different ways, according to the article â€Å"The White Underclass† (â€Å"The White Underclass†, 1994). The first, simply put, is classified as areas that contain the extremely poor. The second classification gives a more detailed look as to why they are extremely poor.The second classification is areas that contain a high number of single family households, usually with women at the head of the household, and often dependent on government support. Charles Murray, an American libertarian political scientist, wrote â€Å"illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time – more important than crime, drugs, pove rty, illiteracy, welfare or homelessness, because it drives everything else. † (â€Å"The White Underclass†, 1994) These families are the victims of a vicious circle; the children of these families have a high dropout percentage, which often leads to having children out of wedlock.The absence of these fathers is usually due to crime, drugs, or just a lack of responsibility. Twenty-two percent of children born in 1991 were born out of wedlock, with that number increasing every year (â€Å"The White Underclass†, 1994). Many of these unwed mothers are too young and inexperienced to be more than a burden on society, which doesn’t leave much hope for the children that they give birth to. Many of these young white women that are having children out of wedlock are not in the least ashamed at getting pregnant at such a young age and without being married.They believe that having children will â€Å"give them someone to love† (â€Å"The White Underclassâ₠¬ , 1994). Unfortunately, as seen in the documentary â€Å"Culture of Hate†, our children are a reflection of what we are (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002). Financial obstacles are faced by almost everyone at some point in time, but with those that are part of the underclass, it is a way of life. It’s not poverty that is the issue, but rather the widening gap in economic classes.As learned in the most recent lecture, the median middle class makes between seventy-five thousand to one-hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, whereas the underclass make on or under thirty thousand dollars a year, most often under (Merritt, 2012). This is quite a significant gap. The underclass is under educated, and under employed. Many people don’t think of whites when they think of those living in poverty, but the realization is that the whites are a growing group of those that are living in poverty. B) What is the White Underclass, and what are the regional (Lakeside, C A) economic changes and forces that account for its growth?Here in the county of San Diego, Lakeside California specifically, economic change is a leading factor to the growth of the white underclass. Change is inevitable in life, but that change is not always for the better. This is the case with the controversial East County city of Lakeside. Ranchers and farmers were the first inhabitants in the town of Lakeside, and the tight knit community was the proverbial picture of country living. Lakeside is a â€Å"place of many generations with deep roots, a place of hard working people with values† (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002).Many people want to hang onto the past, but things in Lakeside have changed dramatically. Dry riverbeds riddled with graffiti and litter has taken the place of where rivers once flowed. Sand mining operations have removed precious resources, only to replace them someone else’s trash. A town that was mostly rural, filled with farms and cowb oys, has turned into an urban city with widened streets that are filled with strip malls and fast food restaurants. Economic hard times have hit the working class. With the changes that came to Lakeside, changes in employment opportunities have also been effected.The majority of employment available is in the service industry; low paying, dead-end jobs that have little to no hope of making enough money to help the underclass rise out of poverty. The rate of unemployment is high, currently national rate is 7. 8%. California is significantly higher than the national average at 10. 2% (www. bls. gov , 2012). With the loss of jobs, and the high unemployment rate that plagues the state, poverty is rising and in turn, so are the numbers of the white underclass. Until the economy changes for the better, there is little hope that the numbers of white underclass will decrease.What are some of the social issues and demographic changes facing the White Underclass? America is no stranger to str uggling ethnic groups. Since the beginning of this country, others have strived to cast out groups of people that they didn’t consider equal. In the beginning, it was the Native Americans; next came the blacks. As time progressed on, white European immigrants known as the New Immigrants were discriminated against (Merritt, 2012). Now, though ethnicity still plays an integral part, any group that is at or below the poverty level is subject to acquiring the underclass status.In the mid 90’s, the white underclass were less than 2% of all whites. Black ghettos contained three to four times as many residents as the white slums (â€Å"The White Underclass†, 1994). The numbers remained constant from the 1980’s through the 1990’s. The ghettos of the blacks and whites were found to be very similar in percentages. Both had a high number of men that abandoned the work force and children that dropped out of school, however, the black underclass had a slightly higher percentage of female-headed households than the white underclass.The white underclass, however, had a higher percentage of children who dropped out of school (â€Å"The White Underclass†, 1994). The demographics are changing in the Grossmont school district as well. It has gone from having 95% white in the district, to 65% in the 2000’s (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002). This has brought on racial issues to the area that once gave little reason to worry about. There are a lot of similarities between the ghettos of different ethnic groups, but there are still very distinct differences among them.Though the conditions of the white ghettos are bad, they are still not as bad as those of the Hispanics and blacks. They tend to experience less poverty than the others, and the crimes being committed in their neighborhoods, albeit violent, are far less in numbers to that of other ethnic groups. The main substance abuse in the black ghettos is crack cocaine, whereas the drug of choice for the whites is alcohol, with methamphetamines and heroine on the rise. This is a factor that heavily contributes to the number of violent crimes and domestic abuse cases that plague the white underclass.Poor whites do not tend to face as many problems as poor blacks, and this is because discrimination has caused the blacks to be more likely to live in extreme poverty than whites. In 1990, a census showed that 30% of blacks lived in extreme poverty areas, whereas the white percentage was only 7% (â€Å"The White Underclass†, 1994). Not only are the numbers of white underclass fewer than that of the blacks, but the white underclass are also more likely to leave the slums behind. The white underclass is a growing concern.The numbers are continually raising in the white underclass neighborhoods with no sign of improving. The effects of living in these neighborhoods have ruined the lives of so many. The only hope for the underclass lies with the state of the economy. How does â€Å"White Power† affiliation address the issue of identity for the â€Å"White Power† youth in Lakeside, California? What do the signs and symbols of their affiliation represent, and what do they mean to the â€Å"White Power† youth? We’ve seen the many hardships that are faced by the children of the white underclass.We’ve seen what happens to the youth that grow up in these areas. We’ve seen them set up for failure from the moment that their parents conceive them, whether it be on purpose or on accident. We’ve seen the life choices that most of them are forced to make due to the lack of opportunity, but we’ve yet to take a look at how these young men and women choose to affiliate themselves. In the case of the youth in Lakeside, California, the youth of the white underclass have a large affiliation with â€Å"White Power†. They have â€Å"no place to belong, except in a world of outcasts† (â €Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002).The children of the white underclass struggle with an ethnic identity. What does it mean to be white? According to Randy Blazak in the documentary â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, he believes that these youth have no ethnic identity and struggle because there is no real distinction to being white (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002). â€Å"White Power† group members seem to follow a pattern. They come from broken homes, filled with violence and drugs. They have nobody to show them what it is to be a productive member of society. This fits perfectly in line with the patterns of the white underclass found in Lakeside.The symbols of â€Å"White Power† represent a symbol of belonging to these kids that had none before (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002). Symbols like the swastika, whose meaning has been poisoned from what it once symbolized to a symbol of evil, a symbol of the desire to create a superior race of whites. Other sym bols that have a closer regional significance are the Dago bolts, which are the symbol of the local San Diego chapter of the Hell’s Angels. The Dago bolts are said to be mirrored after the SS bolts of Nazi soldiers, which ties directly to the same lineage as the swastika.The final predominant symbol that can be found â€Å"all around the edges of everyday life†, is the 4:20 symbol, which is widely known as a symbol for marijuana, but is also a reference to Adolf Hitler’s birthday (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002). To the â€Å"White Power† youth of Lakeside, these symbols represent a sense of belonging, even if they aren’t really sure why. In the documentary â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, a young boy talks about a time that he shaved a swastika into the back of his girlfriends head. When he was asked why a swastika, he answered â€Å"Why?Because. Why not? † The girl quickly responded with â€Å"Nothing else to draw. It was the first thing that popped into our heads. † (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002). Many of these youth were students in the Grossmont school district, but were kicked out due to incidents where â€Å"White Power† symbols were involved. These students were expelled from school due to a â€Å"Zero Tolerance† position that the district took, which only made matters worse by pushing these kids closer toward the only identity that they knew (â€Å"A Culture of Hate†, 2002).Disintegration of the traditional family, lack of boundaries, lack of guidance, and an unlimited amount of anger drives these kids toward a life of hate. When combined with drugs and alcohol, as it so often happens with the children of the white underclass, the perfect storm is created. Children learn from their parents, parents who choose not to invest in their futures. These fate of these white underclass children have been set, their lives have been set up for failure before they ever even bega n.

What Is Mindfulness?

Sometimes I think the translation of the word â€Å"mindfulness† is incorrect in two ways. Right Mindfulness is a step of the Eightfold Path and is the centerpoint of Buddhist practice. First, it's not a good translation because â€Å"mindfulness† is kind of an insipid word. â€Å"Be mindful† — what does that mean? It doesn't have the kind of inspiring quality of spaciousness, courage, or living fully.Perhaps if you pronounced it differently and said, mindfulness, that would be a better understanding of the word and its power. But a more fundamental difficulty in even talking about mindfulness, whatever that means for us, is that the mind and the heart are the same word in Sanskrit or Pali. So perhaps a better word would be â€Å"heartfulness† — live in a heartful way. Forget about this mind stuff all together. You could do without a lot of it, if you haven't noticed.The Buddha very often said that mindfulness was the heart or the essence of his practice — to be heedful or aware — that was the road to liberation and to the deathless, to freedom from even birth and death; that is, freedom from being caught in the cyclic nature of things, stepping outside the cycle of things. What does â€Å"mindfulness† mean to us sitting here as a group. We sat for an hour this evening or a little bit less, but for those of you who have attended regularly, we've been sitting here for a year doing something supposedly related to paying attention and being mindful.What does it mean? What are the qualities of it, what are we doing here? We sit, we pay attention to the breath, or our body sensations, or the sounds, or the people walking by, or the various thoughts and images in our mind. To be mindful first means simply to come into the present — to listen with our senses, with our heart, with our physical body, with our ears, with our eyes, to what is actually here in the present; the body, the heart and the min d. It's that thing I've spoken of many times before, the sign from the casino in Las Vegas, â€Å"You must be present to win. In Las Vegas, in therapy, in meditation, it's all the same thing. In order to awaken or to use our life in a skillful way, the first task is to get here, to start to live in the present moment, which means not living so much in our fantasies, in the future, not living so much in the past, in our images and memories, and reliving things that are gone already. The first is learning to be present, which itself is a very wonderful thing, because†here† and â€Å"now† and â€Å"in the present† re the only places that we can appreciate life to begin with. Otherwise, it's kind of second-hand, what happened a few years ago — that's a nice memory — or what we fantasize about. Where can you really appreciate this life we're given? Only in the present. Also, there is something else which interests a lot of people and can only be f ound in the present, and that is love. If you want to love a person or you want to be loved — some of you perhaps know anyway, right? — where does love take place? Or â€Å"when† is a better question.Again, it's a nice memory, â€Å"Gee, I was in love once or twice† — or more in some of your cases. It was very nice. It evokes a nice thing to remember it. Or it's in the future, â€Å"Oh, if only I could meet that right wonderful person,† or â€Å"this person that I live with,† or â€Å"this family,† or whatever, â€Å"if they would change so they would become right, then I could fall in love all over again with them or be happy with them. † The only place that you can really love a person or be loved is in the present. No other possibility for it. All the rest is fantasy.Also in the present comes the possibility of touching our intuition, of creativity, of clarity; all kinds of things. So the first aspect of awareness is simply learning in some way to live more fully here in our present reality. If you learn nothing else from meditation practice than that, you get your money's worth — especially since there's no charge. Secondly, mindfulness or heartfulness mean seeing clearly. It means non-grasping, non-greed, non-hatred, it means not pushing away, and it means not going to sleep, but seeing what is present for us.Bare attention, remembering, being in the present, without trying to change it somehow, which is a hard thing to learn because we're generally planning on what we're going to make this something into next. But then what happens? We end up doing that all the time and missing all the somethings that are here, always waiting for the next one. Mindfulness is really a way of learning to see what is here in a very clear way. People talk about learning mystical things in meditation or spiritual life. There is nothing more mystical, or startling, or bizarre, or amazing, than what is right in front of us.In my days I've done a lot of strange things. I've been to a lot of different countries on this planet, and observed saddhus on beds of nails in India, and strange animals in other parts of the world, and in my early days I took a number of the various kinds of psychedelics and drugs one could take, and have had all kinds of realms and weird experiences, and all kinds of things in meditation. I have never encountered a realm as peculiar, or bizarre, or as interesting as this one. Someone said: The mystery of life is not a problem to solve, or something that you find somewhere else, but it's a reality to experience here.We went to the zoo with the baby on Sunday. If you landed on some weird planet, and then you saw pygmy hippopotamuses or 300 pound ostriches and really wrinkled elephants — Did you ever look at elephant skin? Just amazing! — or the kind of snakes that are there, or sloths hanging upside down, you would say you had come by your spaceship to a really peculiar planet. And yet we forget that. We start to take it all for granted. It all becomes very ordinary, and it's not. If you attend a birth, it's an amazing thing to see a baby being born out of a human body.How does that happen? How does it get in there? I know you know how it gets in there. But I mean, how does it really get in there? Like the ship in the bottle. An incredible thing happens in there, the baby coming out of a woman. And we take it for granted. So to pay attention means to somehow have a newer or a fresher vision, to see clearly. It means to stop our judging and our planning and just see what's here, which is part of what we do in meditation; to stop and not judge a single thing; let it be exactly how it is.Let God take over for a little while and run the show rather than our minds, which get very tired, and very full, and very busy anyway, and need a rest. Someone said: The classic question is: If you pay attention and you don't judge, then how do you live in the world? What part of attention or awareness is that? That's called sampajanna. Sati is mindfulness, sampajanna means clear or right comprehension. It means not only do you pay attention to what's here, but then when you act in your life you also look at the context, at the suitability or the intention of it; what is present.When you act, you first have to see what's here, and then some intuition, or inspiration, or thought arises, â€Å"I'll do this or do that. † It's to pay attention to where your heart is, what motivates you, what the intention and the purpose of your action is, so that you pay attention but you also note the context. The way Joseph, my colleague and friend, answers the question when people say, â€Å"When you just pay attention and note ‘lifting, moving, placing' in the walking, or the in and out of the breathing, how can you live? He said, â€Å"Well, I was doing my lifting, moving, placing one day on a road in India near the Burmese t emple where I lived, just moving my feet and paying attention, and all of a sudden I heard ‘clang, clang' of the bells, and I recognized it. I knew what those bells were. I looked up and sure enough the elephant that lived in town was coming down the road right towards me. I noted ‘hearing, hearing' and ‘seeing, seeing'; then I noticed the intention to move out of the way arise, and then I walked out of the way. † So there are two parts.The first is seeing what is here, living in the reality of the present, and then responding to it wisely, being aware of the situation that we're in. At times this year I've talked in this class about another aspect of awareness which I think is really important to remember in our lives, and that is the very interesting question of why we don't pay attention; why do we go to sleep, why do we drive on automatic pilot, why do we eat three meals a day, two-thirds or three-quarters or ninety percent of it on automatic pilot? Why d o we live so much not here?It's a pretty interesting question, maybe even more interesting than saying, â€Å"One should pay attention or live in the present. † How come we don't? There's a story: When Krushchev pronounced his famous denunciation of Stalin, someone in the Russian Congress Hall was reported to have said, â€Å"And where were you, Comrade Krushchev, when all these innocent people were being slaughtered? † Krushchev paused, looked around the hall, and said, â€Å"Will the man who said that kindly stand up? Tension mounted in the hall. No one moved. Finally Krushchev said, â€Å"Well, whoever you are, you have your answer now.I was in exactly the same position then that you are in now. † Why is it that we don't pay attention? One reason is fear, that if we actually come into the present, there are certain things we have to deal with that we haven't had to in our lives. For some people it's boredom. We're really afraid of being bored. For some it's loneliness. For some it's grieving, something in their hearts that's not finished. So it's better to distract yourself, see a lot of movies, talk to people, keep yourself busy, stay on the phone, and keep yourself working, so you don't have to feel certain things. Another reason we don't stay awake is habit.You could be very peaceful, not have any grieving to do, and be comfortable being alone, and so forth, but it's like there's this huge flywheel inside. And there you are. It's a quiet day, you're just sitting down in the park, and all of a sudden out of nowhere you start thinking about what you'll do next week or next year, making plans, and playing back memories, because there's this powerful habit of thinking. It takes training to kind of release the clutch and let it slow down. That's part of what meditation is about. Also, pain is another reason, because if you live in the reality of the present moment, what do you experience?Up and down, light and dark, night and day, and pl easure and pain. And if you don't like pain which a lot of people don't — understandably — then what you have to do is manufacture some fantasy, to live in a lot of thought and busy-ness so you don't feel it. However, you rob yourself of something very, very important when you do it, which is that you rob your life of living, of heartfulness, of fullness, of vitality, of your existence. To live in the present means that you have to face your boredom and your loneliness when they come. They're not there all the time, and they're not so bad actually when you come to terms with them.They're a little scary but they're not so terrible. And you have to face the fact that there is this habit of greed, and hatred, and fantasy, sort of a machine that spins out thoughts out the habit of it. So you have to be willing to be aware of pain as well as pleasure. But if you are, the rewards are fantastic, because then you can really experience being with anot her person, walking down t he beach, taking a walk in the park, walking outside and seeing the stars. It's really very interesting to start to pay attention to when we go on automatic pilot.If you were to look at something in your meditation, rather than trying to be aware, try to be mindful of when it is that you go to sleep, what it is that's hard for you to be aware of. That is something that is quite interesting to learn about. Use it as a signal. â€Å"I haven't been very mindful today. I wonder what's going on? I haven't been very mindful this week. I wonder why? What's happening? Oh, I'm sad. It's hard to be sad, so I have to keep myself busy,† or â€Å"This thing is coming up that's difficult to deal with, so I think a lot and plan, rather than just notice that it's really hard. We learn somehow to find the center in the moment rather than toppling forward or into the past. If you let yourself do that, then everything stops. And one of the most wonderful things about awareness or heartfulness or mindfulness is that it allows us to come to rest, because there's really only one place to rest, which is in the present. We're householders, we're not monks and nuns. And the question often asked is: In order to be mindful does it mean we have to talk slowly and sit many hours a day and go into an ashram or some monastery?How can we bring mindfulness, heartfulness, wisdom here into our lives? How do you do that? Well, of course, as I said in the past few weeks, sometimes you do have to look at your life and see if you want to slow it down a little bit, if it's crazy, if it's real busy. Because our culture is a little bit mad in that way, you might need to take a look and see, â€Å"Gee, is it time to stop doing a few things, to make a little more space, to slow down? † Fundamentally, â€Å"mindfulness† means to learn to be aware where we are. If not here, where else? If not now, when?Mindfulness is the opposite of â€Å"if only,† it's the opposite of hope, i t's the opposite of expectation. It has in it a certain kind of contentment, not that one might not choose to change the world, but a kind of acceptance that this is really what we get, these sights, these sounds, these smells, these tastes, these perceptions. This is it! Then in another moment, there will be another â€Å"it. † It's not something else. â€Å"I know that this is all it is, but this is it. † When one accepts it, then one can come to rest. Mindfulness in a way is the opposite of grasping, or attachment, or identification.And it can go very, very deep when we allow ourselves, because what we start to see — if we slow down a little bit and pay attention — is how it is a kind of conditioned phenomenon, like a machine, the mind spins this stuff out in a very orderly way by habit — thoughts, fantasies and memories. The world works in certain conditioned patterns, and that's it's nature, and it's all impermanent and quite ungraspable. Wher e is yesterday? What happened to your weekend? Where is it? What happened to 1984, your 20's, or whatever it was — maybe you're 20 now. For some of you, your 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's, where did they go?They all disappeared, gone. Isn't that an amazing thing? It's a very profound thing to start to be aware of life coming out of nothing and disappearing into nothing. A day appears for awhile, and then it's gone. It can't be grasped, it's like a bird flying. You cannot hold time and fundamentally you can't hold yourself. So the spirit of mindfulness is learning to live in an awake way. As the Buddha said, â€Å"I'm not a man, I'm not a God. I'm none of these things. I'm awake. † How can I convey the spirit of this? There are songs from the monks and nuns who lived after the Buddha died that are in these poems.If you readTherigatha, the songs of the sisters, there are many enlightenments that take place while they're walking through the forest. One nun is in the forest ta lking about how happy she is that she doesn't have to do housework anymore and she drops a cup or something like that on the ground, maybe it breaks, and all of a sudden she's enlightened. She says, â€Å"Oh, that's how it is. † Things arise for a while and then they pass away. If you can accept that and see that — each day, each moment, with each person, to experience what's there — and then leave it and go to the next, you can live in a deeply free way.So it really has the spirit of aliveness to it. In the monastery it was beautiful. We had all these rules, 227 major precepts and then some hundreds of minor precepts, and then they told you how to fold your robe, which side of the bowl you should put down, and how you should clean it properly. Even how to pee. There is a particular way monks are supposed to pee. You're supposed to squat down, you can't stand up, and you can't pee into water where there are obvious living things or on plants because you might ha rm them, and things like that. At first when I read this, I said, â€Å"Well, what's the difference if I squat down?Nobody is looking, first of all. These rules are dumb. † But after awhile of living them, in this beautiful forest monastery, where there wasn't anything else to do besides meditating and following the rules, which would drive you crazy initially, what you began to see is that somehow they brought you to see that everything was precious, that everything was worth caring for; that it mattered where you peed, that you could pee on the ground and not on a bush, and not harm it; or that it mattered how you took care of your bowl, which was one of your very few possessions.It was a gift from people who said, â€Å"We want to support you because we think that monasteries and what you're doing is valuable in the world and reminds all of us of something precious. So we'll give you a bowl. † You take care with your bowl, you take care with your robe, you take care with your car, you take care with your house, you take care with your clothes, because to be aware in some way means to remember the preciousness of life and to begin to take care with the earth and all the creatures and things on it.It's to be aware of ourselves and our bodies, of our actions, to be aware politically, to be aware economically, to be aware socially as well. Imagine if you were told that you have some disease, let's say AIDS because there's a lot of it that's happening, and it's both scary to people and very immediate and present, and real important to look at. Someone said, â€Å"Well, at best you have four years, maybe you have a year to go. † How would you start to live that year? Things would change for you, I assure you.Your life would become a lot more alive and precious for you. Or imagine that you've been in prison for a long time, as people are in many, many countries of the world. Amnesty International said that 55 countries have political prisoners who are imprisoned and often tortured because of religious views. The majority of the large countries on the earth imprison people for what they think. It's really painful. And then you were let out after a long time in prison, how would it be just to walk down the street in San Anselmo? What would the trees be like?Just the experience of being free, watching the cars, being able to go into a confectionery store and order any kind of sweet that you wanted, or just seeing the sky and feeling the air and being able to decide whether you're going to go down the block to the right or to the left. It's that spirit of heartfulness, of mindfulness that it comes to. It's not so much that you're supposed to be tedious about it at all, but it's somehow much more the spirit of an appreciation of life and of seeing it in a clear way. I remember when I was seven years old I spent a whole summer in bed.I had this kind of infection and I couldn't leave the house. And then when it ended and I fina lly could go out, I was given something like a dollar, which seemed like a lot of money at that time, and I went and I bought a ball and some bubble stuff, and I went to this big park near my house. It was like being let out of prison for a kid being in the house for a whole summer. I was so happy. To this day I remember the sun was shining, I could blow my bubbles and turn cartwheels and throw my ball and do anything I felt like. It was so wonderful. In some ways, that's part of the spirit of bringing awareness to our life.It also means, as I said, that we have to be willing to face that which is difficult, to open to what Zorba called â€Å"the whole catastrophe,† and to appreciate it in some way. It's really quite a trip. So first it means to take care with the earth, to learn that awareness means to receive, to see the preciousness of things. Secondly, then it allows our world to teach us, to let it teach you very simple truths which are the most important. For example, o ne monk went to his master after a long time of training and begged the teacher to give him enlightenment.The master led him over to a bamboo grove. He said, â€Å"See that bamboo there, how tall it is? See that one over there, see how short it is? † And the monk was enlightened. Things will teach us when we see them afresh, when we see them anew. We see them for a minute, we see the ungraspability of anything, of our own bodies — they change — of our thoughts, of our feelings, not to speak of the people and the things around us. — changing, ungraspable. And that they do. Sometimes they're big and sometimes they're small. That's the way that things are.It teaches us the preciousness of life. When we pay attention we can learn. We can learn from our families. We can learn when our hearts are closed and when they're open. We can learn what it means to be attached, what it means to let go and be freer. We can learn about all the forces in the mind. We can le arn about doubt and fear and anger, through awareness. We can learn about love and kindness through attention. It's really universal. We can learn to play tennis in a better way. To train ourselves to be aware is the gift of the Buddha.He said: Here, I'll give you a gift that can make life come alive for you, that can bring both happiness and freedom. And it's a very simple thing. Learn to train yourself to live more in the present. Do what it takes to do that in your life. How can we do it? Here we are, householders, right; not like we have all day to sit and walk in some monastery. Some hints perhaps. First of all, as I've said in previous evenings, one of the most beautiful expressions of awareness comes from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh where he says: See if you can learn to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes.Usually we wash the dishes in order to get the dishes clean, right, and then we can get on and do something else, right, or talk to someone. Did you ever do anything like that, where you just did it in order to do it? Maybe we let ourselves do that on vacation. You go hiking in the Sierras, and if you're not too driven — â€Å"Can I get to this camp site by this hour,† or something — and you let go of that a little bit, you just walk along the mountains in order to be walking, everything becomes what it is. It's beautiful. That's the first hint, to start to take some things in our lives and do them for their own sake.Does that make sense to you? Another way is to listen with your heart a little bit more, to try to pay attention to what it's like when you're with people, and see if you can let your words come out of your heart, to say really what you feel inside, what you care about, and to listen with your heart rather than your mind. That's a very good way to wake up; especially the people you live with — your kids, your spouse, family, and things like that. People say, â€Å"How can you be mindful at work? I'm a w riter,† or â€Å"I'm a mathematician. † These are some of the questions I get at retreats. How do you do math mindfully? You have to think and ruminate. † Or, how do you write mindfully, or watch a movie? The best I have been able to come to in that is that when you write, just write; when you watch a movie, just watch the movie; when you read, just read. Not writing and also thinking how people will view it when you're done writing, and planning, and seeing how many more minutes you have to write, and so forth. Just be present for the writing. It doesn't mean to think or be in some special mode. Just do what you do. Not so complicated. When you do math, do math.Of course, sometimes it gets a little more complicated than that, and at retreats I've often told the story of Zen master Soen-Sa-Nim who generally teaches his great Zen teachings, â€Å"When you walk, just walk; when you're hungry, eat; when you're sitting, just sit. † So there he was at the breakf ast table eating breakfast and reading the paper. Students who saw this were very upset. â€Å"You know, you're the Zen master. You tell us, ‘When you eat, just eat,' and here you are eating and reading. How do you explain this? † He said, â€Å"Very simple. When you eat and read, just eat and read. The spirit of it is not so complicated. It's not to make something really false or different about it. It's more the quality of being a bit more where you are. I think that comes from Yoda in Star Wars. Another thing is to remember the power of the act of coming into the present. I told the story a few weeks ago of Robert Aitken-roshi who wanted to go to Japan to study Zen during the Korean War. It was considered a war zone and people weren't allowed. When he went to the consul or the ambassador who was a very learned and dignified Japanese man, he was told, â€Å"I'm sorry, we just can't have visitors; it's war time.The American government doesn't want it and the Japanese government is following that. † The ambassador offered tea. It was very nice. He said, â€Å"Why do you want to do that? I mean, there's this war we have to stop. † He took his cup of tea and he picked it up and he drank it very carefully and silently, and then he looked at the ambassador and said, â€Å"Taking a cup of tea I stopped the war. † With that the ambassador was wise and he understood that, and he arranged a visa for him to go to Japan to study. What we do, if we do it with our full heart and our full being, is a way of bringing the planet back into balance.All you have to do is look at the news or read Time or Newsweek; it's crazy. And it's crazy because it's all mind and thought and going in circles and it's not connected with the heart and the earth. Taking a walk you stop the war, taking a cup of tea, sitting a little bit every day, you stop the nuclear arms race because you let yourself get quiet and feel the earth and the air, and then your acti ons and your vibrations and the effect you have on other people, and maybe even the concerns that you act out politically, all come from that connection with yourself and with the earth around you.I have a good friend who is lawyer from Harvard Law School, a very fine lawyer. He sits through lots of meetings. He said he has really learned to work with his breath. Communication is kind of redundant. You could probably tune in on every tenth sentence and get most of the meaning of things. He is really in love. He says, â€Å"I love my breath. It's much better than what goes on in the meetings. † So you can use your meditation in grocery stores standing in line waiting for checkout, or traffic jams. Wonderful times to meditate. I remember sitting at my teacher's cottage.He sort of sat in a little chair, and people would sit around and he would receive visitors. I was sitting there and waiting for him. It was a really hot day. Usually they had iced coffee on a very hot day in the tropics. Iced coffee is first so good because it's so cool and delicious; and the Thai coffee is half sugar. And secondly, since you don't eat except one meal in the morning, to have a big glass of dark iced coffee filled with sugar is like about three or four hours of caffeine and sugar stimulation before it wears off. It's great sitting. It was a great drug for sitting, there's no question about it.I was kind of in the doldrums. â€Å"I've swept my cottage, now I'll go over and I'll sit and I'll wait. † And on hot days like this, if the teacher sees a lot of people sitting around, he says, â€Å"Okay, you can bring some iced coffee for these poor starving monks,† or whatever. So we sat. I kept thinking about how I was going to go back and meditate. I'd get to my cottage and then after I had it, for two or three hours I would be very alert and awake, and I'm kind of sitting there sweaty and hot and a little bit depressed and just waiting and waiting and waiting. He m ust have known it, and I'm waiting and waiting.Hours go by and other people come by and I'm waiting and waiting. I think, â€Å"God, when am I going to get this wonderful coffee so that it will perk me up and I can really meditate? † Waiting, waiting. It never came. Finally, it became real clear after a lot of hours of waiting; waiting to meditate. I was sitting there doing nothing. When are we going to meditate? â€Å"I'll do it when I get to the sitting, then I'll meditate,† or â€Å"I'll do it tomorrow. † Somehow it's to remember that it's here in the present we're talking about. In some way, mindfulness means coming back to our real home, coming to rest in the present.It is our real home. And our real home is not connected with grasping, our feelings, our bodies, our thoughts, our images, or all the things that are changing — but it's the ease that we can find in being with up and down, light and dark, and all of this duality which is changing. With a n open heart, with heartfulness, with mindfulness, being with it as it is, then receiving it and deciding, if we will, what things to choose to respond to in a wise or compassionate way. This is Don Juan to Carlos Casteneda: For me the world is incredible because it is mysterious, awesome, stupendous, unfathomable.My interest has been to convince you that you must learn to make every act count in this marvelous world, in this marvelous time, I've tried to convince you. You must realize that you are going to be here for only a short while. In fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count. The spirit of awareness or mindfulness really means coming into our life, into the physical senses, into the feelings, into the movement of mind, and into the heart, and living each day from our heart. What do we care about?Taking a concern and a care for the preciousness of the earth. In the end what one discovers is that mindfulness and love are the same thing. To be aware, without grasping or resisting or trying to change — to receive what's here — is to love it; that they're not really separate, that the heart and the mind come together. Or as one of my teachers said: The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it. The mind creates distinctions, and coming into the present, into the heart, resolves all of that. The talk in a way is a reminder. Let me ask you a few questions as a way of ending.First of all, what keeps you, what keeps each of us from really paying attention in our lives, from living more fully? Just think about it as I ask. What fear or difficulty in your life keeps you from living here in the present? What illusion or misunderstanding in your life keeps you from living here in the present? What would you have to do to make your life really support living mindfully? What would you have to change to make a real support for this mindfulness or this heartfulness? Wha t would you have to change in your life to allow yourself to love more fully? And the last question is to ask in your heart should you make those changes.See what it said. Generally, it has a good answer. Even mindfulness, however, cannot be grasped. There are days when you're going to be more mindful and days when you're less mindful. And it too, like all things, comes and goes. What you can do is nourish and find ways. That's what we do together here. We sit together, sometimes we have discussions and questions, sometimes I talk to myself out loud and you get to participate, sort of listen to it. It is a way to remind ourselves that there's something really precious. Spiritual life is pretty simple. It's not easy but it's pretty simple.

Online Dating in India

Introduction: The topic of my dissertation is â€Å"taking online relation offline† . India being a nation of youngest population of the world had have very young history of online dating just a decade old but it still have very promising market which have around 25 million estimated online user base with 200million US $ projected market by 2014(Source: industry estimate by stepup. com) this growth is the result of changed mindset of young middle class who want to live in virtual space, which itself is eased by cheap computers and cheaper and faster internet connectivity.Rising income, access to World Wide Web helped Indian youth to finally come out of that traditional bubble which tell then that fraternizing with any women other than their fiance is wrong. We are now leaving back inhibitions; do not care for social norms and anonymity of cyber space act as icing on this cake of dating. We are using online dating to find new friends and partners on this space as it help us to make our new identity and thus bring out real in us.Today, youths are more interested in finding a likeminded person with whom they can share their life without being judged and talk about fluid topics like movies or fantasies rather than ticking off qualities mostly physical through pre-set list given by their parents. CMC partners exchanged proportionally more self-disclosures and questions than did face-to-face partners. Moreover, the questions they asked were about more personal topics than those the face-to-face partners exchanged.At the same time, the deeper the disclosures and questions used by partners in CMC, the more effective they were rated by their partners, in comparison to those who met in Face to Face discussions (Walther, 1993, pp. 147–148). â€Å"Dating culture in India is evolving rapidly. Changing cultural dynamics like the increase in average marriage age†¦ are shifting the dating paradigm significantly,† StepOut co-founder and CEO Adam Sachs This change in mind set had brought change in dating pattern . here in my dissertation I am trying to cover this WHY and WHAT of changing pattern of cyber dating space. ike all space this cyber space is also a result of confluence of spatial and temporal pattern, but unlike physical space it has compression of time and space boundaries. in cyber space there are no geographical boundaries. in this space we can create our own identity’s which can be different from real one. Here my objective is to study this dating pattern and objectives of my research are as follows: 1. To draw regional profile of the users of these dating sites. 2. To examine if these space supplement real spaces for meeting and dating. 3. To identify the sites where users would like to meet in person. 4.Do users found it safe to date online. To study these objectives I had taken sample size of forty people by random method. All of them are students of age between 20-25. Surveys are done by questionnaire meth od which has both open end and close multiple choice questions. Survey is done online by the help of Google forms and personally by interviews.. I had chosen this topic to highlight the social importance of online dating and its effect on real space dating. My title of this dissertation â€Å"taking online relation offline â€Å"lay emphasis on the study of HOW online relations are taken to OFFLI NE meetings and WHERE they are conducted and WHY. y survey is done on small sample of 40 students randomly selected from social networking site Facebook and online dating site ‘indiandating’ . commercial dating sites become increasingly accepted as a means of forming romantic relationships, more and more couples are meeting online (Rosenfeld, 2010). One industry trade report estimated that almost 25 million unique users around the world accessed an online dating site in April, 2011 alone (Subscription Site Insider, 2011). In India 6 million singles have joined online dating s ervices in India. The market is estimated to be worth $130 million USD in 2012.By 2015 it is estimated India will have 115 million users of dating services. (source:www. onlinedatingmagzine. com) Young India provides large market for online dating services. Some statistics of Indian dating scenario are: oBy 2015 it is estimated India will have 115 million users of dating services. o20 percent of current committed relationship began online. o17 percent of marriages in 2012 began on an online dating site. ? WHY ONLINE DATING: Dating is a form of courtship consisting of social activities done by two people with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as a partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse.While the term has several meanings, it usually refers to the act of meeting and engaging in some mutually agreed upon social activity in public, together, as a couple. When we say online dating then it really means dating in cyber space. Online dating (OD) or Internet datin g is a dating system which allows individuals, couples and groups to make contact and communicate with each other over the Internet, usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship.Online dating services usually provide immoderate matchmaking over the Internet, through the use of personal computers or cell phones. It is a form of dating which is COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION (CMC). Here bond created between potential partners takes different path than normal or traditional dating relationship. it is an alternative medium for experiencing new and creative romantic endeavors with few spatial-temporal limits. Online dating promises to offer new possibilities and creativities not found in the real-life world scenario Firstly I would like to define the terms before proceeding further . had use the term dating sites to those web sites that primarily focus on offering the user opportunities to form a new relationship, I had compared this term with co nventional offline dating which denotes various ways by strangers meet each other to form alliance like meeting in some get together, being introduced by some mutual friend, approaching a class mate or coworker . this type of dating pattern had limited success in countries like India where dating is conceived as something un traditional and a trend of west.Here marriages are alliances formed by the family consent with many cases where couples have there their first meeting on the eve of their marriage. It is a country where we cannot hit on a girl or boy in some cafeteria or book shop leave alone the option of bar or pub. Here it is not conductive to use pick-up lines like â€Å"hello, how are things going? I am looking for like-minded people and found u†¦ †but online dating chat rooms allow these lines as ice breakers and even if someone get offended he can ignore that person. verall online research had shown that online daters are more confident then offline daters(sou rce: online dating magazine;2005) A study by BURMASTER (2005) of 3400 adults in Asian sub-continent found that one out of three internet users would opt to go online to meet potential dating partner and that internet is the third most popular mode of getting a date followed by meeting through friend and meeting someone at club or pub. To understand how online dating is better than conventional dating we have to consider three important facilities which are offered by online dating sites.They are : †¢ACCESS †¢COMMUNICATION †¢MATCHMAKING Here access refers to opportunity a user gets to evaluate potential partner which are not easily available in conventional dating. Communication refers to users’ opportunity to use various forms of Computer mediated communication (cmc) to communicate with potential partner before meeting face to face. And matching refers to a sites use of Matching refers to a site’s use of a mathematical algorithm to select potential partn ers for users. Online dating’s these three services had altered the dating landscape all together.As firstly its major element of internet flexible accessibility, creative opportunities and perhaps most importantly, anonymity. These freedoms remove the moral tangles of society and provide a â€Å"free play† . this feature of anonymity make online dating free from the oversight of others and thus do not carry any fear of stigma. The main idea of this dissertation is to provide an insight to the status of online dating in India and do these sites replace the real spaces for meeting and dating (conventional dating). Secondly does the users find it safe to use it and the sites where would like to meet after taking it offline.Ben-Ze-ev(2003) book ‘love online; emotions on the internet’ stated that cyber space provides a private world in which the information that is revealed about a person is the information he wants to reveal. He claims that online disclosure is very prevalent as people feel safer in cyber space than in actual space. He says that shame an important emotion is less common in space which leads to very open behavior of the people. The popularity of online dating is because of Internet’s flexible accessibility, creative opportunities, and perhaps Most importantly, anonymity and new freedoms attending that anonymity.These freedoms remove and disentangle emotions from the moral and social qualms which we in face in the world and thus facilitate a â€Å"free play† with identity and imagination. Today internet dating industry generates revenue of 800$ million in 2008 thus making it forth highest internet industry after online gambling, digital music and online gaming. (Mitchell,2009) Online dating services had altered the dating landscape. in particular online dating, which is becoming important way of finding potential partners had altered both the romantic acquaintance process.For example in online dating person gets a snapshot of potential partner before meeting face to face. He had learned about the person through his profile picture and profile details and other facts before deciding whether to meet them in person or not. Some dating sites also use some mathematical algorithm to find best match based on values, personality, style, interest, race, religion, gender and even pin codes. Though are plenty of places where people could potentially find the love of their life. There are bars, outdoor events, group activities, and even on a park bench as you read your favorite book.Members of the opposite sex are everywhere. They live and breathe among us. However even when surrounded by an incomprehensible number of options that pass us by every day, it can still seem impossible to find that one person that you may want to spend your life with. For a lot of people, online dating websites have become that key instrument in finding the love of their life. Source:http//www. photoillustrationthinks. com Mainly the benefits of all dating are many. In the real world you’d have to go on a large amount of dates to find someone that even slightly comes close to your liking.You may go on a lot of these dates only to realize that you wish you got to know them better before you actually got to meet them. Dates take a lot of time, effort, and money. Going out weekly or even monthly with people you barely know can lead to a lot of wasted and disappointing evenings. When you meet someone online you could move slowly and really get to know each other. You could move from one form of communication to another. Before you actually decide that this is someone you’d like to meet in person, you could move from messaging each other online to instant messaging to talking on the phone.Before going out on a real date and dealing with all of the potential stress involved, get to know someone online. No commitment, it's all about getting to know someone new in a safe environment, at a c omfortable distance without forcing yourself to sit though dinner with someone you have nothing in common with. In Indian scenario though with the help of communication technology world had become a smaller place. We are globalized but it had also increase expectation to perform and communicate in these spaces.We are rooted deep to our traditions but in the same time want to be a part of this large cyber world where there is no inhibitions, moral code of conduct and we have power of anonymity. Today’s youth do not opt for online dating to find someone to have one night stand but they do so to find there soul mate or friend who fulfill their requirement of a friend or partner with the qualities they want (mainly demanded by their family) In this dissertation I am making my all efforts to study the indian dating scenario from a student standpoint. METHODOLOGY: Basically there are four main objectives of this research.They deal with: 1. To draw regional profile of the users of t hese dating sites. 2. To examine if these space supplement real spaces for meeting and dating. 3. To identify the sites where users would like to meet in person 4. Do users found it safe to date online A number of studies have been conducted, both using quantitative and qualitative approaches, to examine the feature of dating which occurs in online environments. They focus on wide range of features, such as the structure and power-dynamics involved in online communities, and how this is facilitated by technology.However, perhaps the most prominent area of inquiry, and the main concern of this paper, is the participant’s view on online dating and how they perceive it when it is taken offline, it also study about how their online identity relates to the everyday offline personality. Method used for collecting samples is: Purposive Sampling: A common strategy for sampling in qualitative research studies, purposive sampling places participants in groups relevant to criteria that fits the research question. Factors that affect sample size include available resources, study time, and objectives.To study this I had collected samples from two sources firstly from online source like Facebook and indiandating. com by the help of Google forms and survey monkey. Out of these forty adult subjects twenty are male and twenty are female belonging to the age group of (20-25) of age and mostly belonging to Delhi. The survey sample is kept short because of prevalence of homogeneous answer of students and also because of shortage of time. They all are student; student sample is chosen as they represent the taste of Indian youth. And they use these sites most.Secondly, ten subjects were again interviewed about their experience of online dating. These ten subjects were chosen from same survey group as they have different experiences and they were ready to share it. Their interviews are transcribed and quoted where they are needed. SURVEY METHOD: Questionnaire method: Survey instrument consist of questionnaire mostly of multiple choice and few being open end questions. They start with enquiry about subject’s sex, age and their occupation. The rest of questionnaire are mixed up to answer the pre-defined objectives. t queried about their preference to date online or in real space or how they assess others profile and decide whom to approach and whom to not. it also collect data about where they want to go out on date and why. An obvious strength is that the research question can be addressed in a relatively short space of time. The questionnaire consist of FACTUAL questions dealing with demographic information, education status or their sex and also some BEHAVIORAL questions dealing with views, opinion ,beliefs and values of the subject. This help to get both qualitative data which helped me to treat the data and check the hypothesis.Interview method: Following questionnaire was used by me to collect data followed by some open end personally interv iewed questions. Which mainly aim at recording subjects experiences of taking online dating offline. These questioned were asked to ten subjects who had admitted dating online and had met potential partner in offline/real life space. There answers are trans scripted to avoid my personal biasness. These subjects were informed that there personal information are used in dissertation. The subjects were also asked about open end questions like ‘what help them to distinguish fake profile from a eal one. ’, ‘why they use online dating or where they would like to meet their potential partner and why. ’ In this following dissertation I had taken subject from two famous dating and social networking sites: Facebook and indiandating. com. I had chosen indiandating . com as it is top ranking Indian dating site catering to the need of whole India. Facebook is also taken even though it is not a dating site but networking site as Indian youth use it a lot to date as there are less chances of fake profile, its free and site itself gives option like ‘people you may know’ so and help in meeting new people.Relevance of study: My dissertation deals with broad canvas of cyber space. Online dating is one of the most important part of it. In Indian context though online dating is not much old still not much work is done on this topic. Ratings of dating sites are not published and net user base is also not know. Material is available only for the sites which have foreign backdrop. Though country has the world's third largest Internet users with over 121 million users (of whom 59% who only access the internet via mobile devices) as of December 2011. 137,000,000 Internet users for June 30, 2012, 11. % penetration, per IAMIA and 62,713,680 Facebook subscribers on Dec 31, 2012, 5. 2% penetration rate. (source: http://www. internetworldstats. com/) still not much research is done to study cyber space by geographers. My study does not deal with region al profile as it is very difficult to trace it in small sample size and quite irrelevant as cyber space compress spatiality. I deal with the hypothesis which state that do these cyber space can replace the real space dating sites and how and why of it. I had also tried to mark out those places where they would like to meet in real space and why.My research aim to know if the reason of using online dating is different among both sex group and do our social cultural traits affect our cyber behavior. My study also aim to find out if these online dating is supplementing real life dating and while concluding I’ll also look at pros and cons of online dating. The rise use of dating sites has been driven by several trends in society. One of these is that people now move around more often for work, distancing themselves from friends and family members who could play matchmakers. Another is that they are living longer, and hence more likely o look for new love later in life. The spread of fast broadband connectivity in many countries has also encouraged people to dabble in online dating. My study is relevant as it is a qualitative research of the online behavior of my subject. It is not based on past trend and neither has it predicted future. It is just an analysis of current dating scenario and how it is taken to real world. Limitation of the study: My research is limited in several ways. First in this dissertation i used a convenience sample that is very small in comparison to vast user base.With small sample size of 40 subjects for questionnaire method and ten for personal interview, a caution must be applied and result should not be universally applied. This small sample size is the result of lack of time to survey. my research is not designed to evaluate the dating scenario of students but to study how and why they bring it offline. All the subjects are student hence my sample also miss a large chunk of online daters who are employed personals ,married coupl es and people above age 25. due to shortage of time the no of interview taken are also less i. . 10 persons and they are transcribed and quoted in examples. Though care has been taken to inscribe personal biasness but at some point I failed to maintain unbiased opinion. LITERATURE REVIEW: My dissertation topic is â€Å"taking online relationship offline† on this topic not much work is done on Indian context. The articles which help me to clear my basics about this topics are : 1. Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science By: Eli J. Finkel1, Paul W. Eastwick, Benjamin R. Karney, Harry T.Reis ,and Susan Sprecher Northwestern University; Texas A;M University; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Rochester; and Illinois State University This article deals with information analysis and synthesis focusing on finding and drawing conclusion from it. This article study and check the claim of the online dating sites which claims th at online dating sites had promoted better romantic outcomes than conventional dating’s and online dating sites are fundamentally different from conventional dating sites.This article start with the history of dating in world and how society the arranged marriages still prevalent in parts of Southeast Asia where two individuals are bought together by the intervention of the third person/party who had a relatively broader social network and power to apply judgments. (Ahuvia ;Adelman,1992) It explain that how with the presence of these three elements online dating are superior to conventional form of dating by a. access to potential romantic partners b. communication with potential romantic partners c. atching with compatible romantic partners The overarching goal of this article is to draw upon the accumulated scientific literature on romantic relationships and other psychological phenomena to evaluate (a) whether online dating represents a fundamental rather than an increment al shift in the process of relationship initiation (the uniqueness question) and (b) whether online dating yields better romantic outcomes than does conventional offline dating (the superiority question). this article had outlined the development of dating leading to development of online dating.This historic trend line help us to understand the development of dating and importance of third party intervention. it also explain the changing view of mass about online dating earlier as it was seen something attempted by people who can’t date in real world and were assumed as ‘nerd’ ‘the desperates†and the socially inept (Goodwin, 1990; Orr, 2004; Smaill, 2004;Whitty ; Carr, 2006; Wildermuth ; Vogl-Bauer, 2007). as it was observed that early adapter of this technology â€Å"a little on the shy side or a little on the sleazy side† (Orr, 2004, p. 29). his article had studied slow and steady early growth of online dating and how it get stigmatized befo re but today enjoying its boom days. secondly it deals with the fact that Has online dating fundamentally altered the romantic acquaintance process? this article deals with famous nine step as follows: This article also deals with the issues that how online dating provides superior access, communication and matching then conventional dating. it finally draw the conclusion that Online dating offers access to potential partners whom people would be unlikely to meet through other avenues, and this access yields new romantic possibilities.On the other hand, the heavy emphasis on profile browsing at most dating sites has considerable downsides, and there is little reason to believe that current compatibility algorithms are especially effective. Online dating functions best to the degree that it introduces people to potential partners they would have been unlikely to encounter otherwise and facilitates a rapid transition to face-to-face interaction, where the two people can get a clearer sense of their romantic potential.Though this reading provide guidance to start this dissertation but it do lack in few aspects as it only cover the spatial and cultural settings of western world (America) this article do not deal with the situations and the reasons stating how online relations survive in offline world. But in a nut shell this article had helped in finding that Online dating is now the easiest way to meet other people who are looking to date or looking for a potential relationship.In addition, some key reasons as to why people like online dating are: * Online dating allows people to cast a wider â€Å"dating net† in search for a â€Å"perfect† potential long-term partner or soul-mate. * Online dating allows busy people to better organize and plan their dating life. * Online dating gives shy people a voice since it’s easier for shy people to initially communicate while behind a computer monitor. * Online dating allows people to see if there is ch emistry before going out on a date. Online dating allows people to filter matches, being able to better sort the type of person they want to date based on religion, interests, political beliefs, etc. * Online dating is the way to date now. Everyone knows a couple who met via online dating and people are no longer ashamed to admit that they met online. Other articals like , paper presented at the Identities in Action conference, Mikael Jakobsson and Victoria Popdan (1999) adopt an auto-ethnographic approach, reflecting on the online interaction that resulted in the development of the friendship between the two authors.Looking mainly at discourse conducted through the graphical chat systems of â€Å"Active Worlds† and â€Å"The Palace†, the study addresses two main areas. Primarily, Jakobsson and Popdan examine the more conventional concerns of the portrayal and perception of identity in a text-based reality concluding, rather generally, that some aspects of personality are emphasized whilst others are de-emphasized. They also argue that rather than encouraging identity play, the barrier of online communication encouraged the participants of their study to behave more openly, to more confidently express their â€Å"true elves†. In this way, the authors observe that the technology offered for online communication can serve as â€Å"A mask that shields the person behind it and in this way tends to make the person more open†¦the saying that ‘the mask does not hide, it reveals’ captures this phenomenon very well. † (Jakobsson and Popdan 1999: 5). Result: After completing my survey and by employing statistical techniques manage to draw larger picture of Indian dating scenario represented by my subjects. I had compiled all my results in single excel sheet thus making is easier to study the data.The questionnaire and interview was set up to validate my objectives of the dissertation. Those objectives were: 1. Trace the demo graphic profile of the users of dating sites? 2. To examine if these spaces supplement real spaces for meeting and dating 3. To identify the sites where they would like to meet in person. 4. Do they find it safe to use it and why? To find answer of these objectives I had divided my questionnaire into sub parts 1. Trace the demographic profile of the users of dating sites? The survey is done from the sample size of 40 people twenty male and twenty females.Mostly in there college. With age group of 20-25. The relationship status of the user is kept into consideration and it is found that: Relationship Status Relationship Status Source: survey result from questionnaire. Source: survey result from questionnaire. The work profile of all the subjects is same. They all are students. I had tried to find out why this subject group uses online dating. I survey this by giving them multiple choice questions to determine why they use these dating sites. In my research I had found out thatI had a lso tried to find out that are people while online dating tried to find if people try to find out their potential partner through regional chat rooms so as to find their date which have physical proximity. It shows result as: Conclusion: My first objective which was to know the demographic profile of the clearly explain the status of randomly picked up sample as * Most of them are below age group of 25 * Females are less actively involved in online dating in comparison to their male counterpart but they are more actively involved in keeping track of their old friends. Their age structure shows that as female are moving towards age upper limit their online dating had decreased. Whereas no such trend is found in male section. May because they are mostly single and get married at older age, hence they are looking for their potential dating partner. * It is seen that mostly male chat in regional chat room so that they find it easier to meet offline whereas majority of girls do not use r egional chat room may be because they want to avoid meeting someone they knew and try to keep anonymity. It is also evident from the data that male generally hit chartrooms because they find it easy to express themselves in cyberspace. For example, a male who is conventionally macho in the offline world may more easily drop his bravado in an online environment or vice versa. This may occur partly because the technology mediates discourse and removes the immediacy of peer group judgment, diminishing the pressure for the individual to conform in socially set manners. Males also use online dating to make new online friends rather than tracing the old friends which is more prominent in females. Anonymity attract female more than the male may be it is because our social structure don’t give girls space and freedom to express themselves and to date the person they like without being judged. * Females had also use online dating to meet new persons but lesser then males. This result shows that our society’s social constrain are loosen up in this cyber space. Participants by utilizing the character-based nature of this cyber world to express qualities and physical attributes that they feel they lack in the offline world.Objective two: To examine if these spaces supplement real spaces for meeting and dating Even in current scenario in India it is difficult to approach a stranger in a cafe or club and extend a hand for friendship or to start conversation with pick up line like ‘hey can we be friends? ’ this situation help in emergence of this online dating. In my questionnaire I had tried to find out that is this hypothesis is true or not. In my studies I had found out that 17 girls out of 20 found is easier to socialize in cyber space where as 14 admitted that they had seriously tried dating through these sites. n boys this result are even more positive. Traditionally in India dating is some phenomena which is carried forward by third parties- religious leaders, parents, elderly women and so forth for centauries but they work in small scale and generally introduce person they personally knew. But in online dating one can browse one’s profile at any time without one’s awareness. Rather than meeting potential partners and then slowly learning various facts about them, Users of online dating sites typically learn a broad range of facts about potential partners (and vice versa) before deciding whether a first meeting is desirable.Access to potential partners, tools to communicate with them and to judge the compatibility of potential partner are the service that definitely mark online dating superior to real dating. This online dating space provides chat rooms where people can chat, share pictures videos, play games and can do other loads of things. Though real space also provide us these facilities but they are different in few means. In real world if we go out for date then firstly it will become public affair and in countries like India it is not looked up nicely.Secondly, from male point of view online dating save their expenditure which can be incurred on first dates. From my interview and surveyed data , I had seen that most of the subjects had tried dating online and above fifty percent of them had met offline. People also share personal information’s and issues online as they feel more safer, confident and as the idea of being judged or mis judge is absent. Example: why you use online dating? Ram:† as I can choose any one from the lot according to my mood,if someone is annoying me I can instantly block her profile .I can chat about many topics without being judged and the best part is that it’s my little secret and I can chat with new girls without even getting in knowledge of my parents and my girlfriend. while online dating I can easily hide my negative aspects I can choosen to sound boring or basketball player and even act like total freak or flirt. † Ra jiv: â€Å"I use online dating as I can do it from my home place at my comfort and at my time. I am free to express as I like and act anyway. I entertain myself, increase my social circle and that too without getting out of my comfort zone . hatting apps had helped a lot in making me addicted to it. aaj kal k anoroid mobile apps. Ne to bore hone ka option he nahi chodha. i just love being online all day in chat rooms. flirting and chatting as feel like† From the above interview transcribe we can incur that online space had supplement offline meeting and dating but it has its other side too. From my survey I had also recorded the fact that most of the people dating online are not serious for relationships. Fake identities, spam pages, frauds id’s are very prominent. ource: http://www. cartoonstock. com/stylesheet. css online predators. Case one: Interviewer: did you ever chatted from fake id and why? Alfa_male :† yes I did it many times I m a girl age 23 but I lik e to chat by posing as male. mazza ata hai ladke ban k girls se baat karne mai alag sa and best part to tab hota hai jab she started taking it seriously its very good prank to play on. † source: http://www. cartoonstock. com/stylesheet. css profile pictures also create dillusions. Case two: Interviewer: had you ever came across any fake profile?Sarita: â€Å"ek baar ek ladke se mai milne gayi usse mai facebook pe milli thee,jab usse mall mai dekha I was soo shocked he weight almost 100kg and height was about 5 feet, I don’t want to judge someone on physical criteria but all his pic in Facebook were either close ups or in large group thus making it entirely different person. From that day I had decided that I would never meet someone in person. † There are people who think that it’s fine to date online for fun but we should not get into serious relationships as most of the time people who are dating are not serious.And if we had find the perfect match then we should take it offline as soon as possible. it is noticed that although users can go directly from dating-site-mediated communication to a face-to-face meeting (e. g. , by scheduling a date through the dating site instant messaging system), most users engage in communication outside of the dating site, frequently via personal e-mail accounts, before deciding to meet face-to-face (Day, Hamilton, Hutchins, Maher, ; Vance,2010). Most of the datings that progress to the mutual mediated communication stage meet face-to-face within a month, frequently within a week (Rosen et al. 2008; Whitty, 2008). Conclusion: It is observed in my study that girls prefer online dating over conventional dating for following reasons: * Ignoring an unwanted date request typically would be considered rude in a face-to-face context, but the relative anonymity at this stage of the online dating process renders it a common and frequently inoffensive strategy, along with the use of impersonal, scripted  "no thanks† messages generated by the site (Tong ; Walther, 2011). * Even if in later stage they find someone annoying they can simply remove them. * Have control over their cyber life and identity. Boys also prefer online dating as they have loads of option to choose from. On the basis of my survey I can conclude that do online dating space had enormous potential to supplement real spaces for meeting and dating. These sites in some cases do supplement real spaces for dating as they provide a platform which is safe ,offer anonymity and choices with the comfort of home place but it is also quite a time-consuming and often frustrating activity as dating sites are swarmed up with fake profiles ,bots ,spams ,frauds . Majority of the users said that they hate fake profiles in dating sites.As it is very disappointing to find that all we know about a person in offline space is lie. 40% of the people feel that people are not serious in online dating may be because they have lot of pro file to choose from and their behavior is subjugated by none. One of the biggest dangers of meeting someone online and then pursuing a real-time relationship with them is the fact that the Internet provides a false sense of security. By spending time getting to know someone via email or IM, you might let your guard down more quickly and divulge more personal information than you would in person.In addition, while you are being deeply open and honest, you have no way of knowing that the other person is really who he claims to be. Abundance of dating sites has a dark side. People intuitively think that having more choices will increase the probability of finding a â€Å"better† or â€Å"best† option, but they often find it hard to make any selection at all when faced with too many choices Safety is also an important issue in online dating. Online stalker, frauds, scammers are common concern of online daters.Some people on dating websites try to get to know people on an i ntimate level for the sole purpose of trying to get money from them, pretending they are having a hard time financially or saying they need the funds to schedule a visit. The intimate information you share online, whether photos, sexual practices or any other sensitive matter, can come back to haunt you. The legal system, unfortunately, does not provide much in the way of remedies for online defamation and the Internet has a permanent memory. Even your efforts to protect your own reputation can backfire on you. It pays to be very careful about what you disclose.All such are the reasons why these sites cannot replace real spaces for dating. But can act as a catalyst to supplement dating in real spaces. Initially online scape do provide safe platform to initiate dating with unknown personals who can be our friends. Objective 3: To identify the sites where they would like to meet in person. This objective aims to find out the real tangible spaces and sites where people want to meet whe n they take their online relationships offline. . Online dating has become a very big part of our society in the last few years, and it seems to have taken the place of meeting people in bars.The biggest part to the online dating process is actually meeting a person face to face for the first time. This can be a little nerve-racking and exciting, as it may put you way out of your comfort zone. It is a big decision to decide about the place where one wants to meet other in the real space. As after the secure platform of cyber space where one is going to finally meet people in person. Well it really depends upon the comfort level of that person. There communication online or on phone helps to select best place. Generally it is a place with quite ambience with comfort to communicate freely in public place.In my survey I had tried to find out such places where people generally tend to meet up for their first date. And after what window period they find it comfortable to meet. Survey res ult: Source: surveyed data It is quite visible that choice of sites for meeting first time is quite different between both the sexes. Girls want to opt for the places which are quite but public like coffee shops or movie whereas boys like to go to places where they can indulge in activities os places which are full of action so as to work as ice breaker. ource: http://www. cartoonstock. com/stylesheet. css In my survey I had found that more of male are interested in taking online dates offline and generally to place or the places of their interest. I had also noticed that seventy percent of girls believe in window period before meeting online or even before changing with option of blocking phone no to avoid taking to a person has encouraged women to exchange phone number and hence they talk over phone for a long period before meeting offline. Objective 4: Do they find it safe to use it and whyFirst dates are always fraught with anxiety, particularly blind dates of any kind. Meeting an online friend face-to-face does qualify as a first date, although you have technically been getting to know them or mildly flirting for a while. As you are already nervous, anxious, and excited about meeting this person for the first time. Depending on the time you have vested in getting to know each other online and/or over the phone it depend if people find it safe to use it. According to my survey: Percentage of subjects finding it safe to meet online. Source: surveyed dataAnd when the question is asked for the reason to feel safe online dating the reply are: Ques: why feel safe in online dating? Source: surveyed data Analysis: as the question of online safety arise girls are more concern about it and even more to be confident about the fact they have power and control to choice, reject and block any one they feel like. They also enjoy the quality of anonymity which internet offers but not as much as males do. The factor of online dating sites that they provide us tool of crea ting identity. We can pose, we can act, and we can fake all these options are soo available.This tool is more used and preferred by females then by males as female identity are generally molded and bended in our society. But internet provide them freedom to explore any aspect of their identity. Interviewed reply: Interviewer: why you feel safe to date online and then bring it on real space? Arti: online dating k bahut benefits hai ek toh nobody knows about it so I can chat to anyone I like secondly its soo safe you can easily share anything, here I have the power to provide or deny access to my profile,jab lage risky ho raha hai sab then I can easily quit bas fir profile name changed and I can chat again. Asma : â€Å"arey here I have block option always open. If someone irritate me I just block his access to my profile. Even if I want to meet that person online e then I can cross check his profile on social networking sites as people generally don’t lie over them and when i t came to dating and meeting I just follow my instinct and normal safety code, will meet him in public place within the knowledge of my friends or family on my turf so if anything wrong happen I can quickly use fire exits† Feeling safe online is one of the illusion which internet provide us.In this cyberspace we tend to drop our inhibitions, fear, anxiety, code of conduct and tend to share our personal information. We should to that as it is seen that many times these small peek in our personal real life or our avatars can lead to serious damage to our reputation in real world later in our life. Internet had great memory it never forget anything. source: http://www. cartoonstock. com/stylesheet. css Profile which you have created years back in your teen can cause bad affect in your future life. It can range from ids like [email  protected] co. n or may be some pics of pajama party or may be some dark sites you had googled in past but by mistake you get tagged in it. Cases of online stalking , With 81% adults in India sharing information online once a week, inter personal communication have taken a beating. Intel Corporation’s study, titled Mobile Etiquette revealed a perception of ‘oversharing’ with at least six out of ten adults and teens saying they believe other people divulge too much personal information online. Nearly 44% respondents admitted that they were embarrassed by or regretted something they have shared online. ource: http://www. cartoonstock. com/stylesheet. css online dating is a safe option or not is an argument yet to be resolved but it is been noticed that with limited information on display and by using basic guidelines about online dating we can avoid the pitfalls of the online dating. The online dating world gives you more options, but finding a date online also presents safety hazards. While many members of the online dating sites are honest and well intentioned, others prey on women or don’t present th emselves honestly. There are guys who will think that this is the perfect ption to fix a date with women and then take advantage of her. You need to be careful. There is no scarcity of perverts out there. Even worse, there can be guys who are pretending to be someone they are not. Conclusion: According to the BBC World Service global poll that surveyed close to 11,000 Internet users in 19 countries, India and Pakistan have some of the largest numbers of enthusiasts for online dating. 59 per cent of Indians and 60 per cent of Pakistanis use the Internet to find a potential partner. Online dating saves time and money; it lets you hide your identity and thereby provides safety.As compared to the old and traditional way of finding a mate, online dating is much better and lets you communicate with somebody sitting on the other end of the globe. My thesis as aimed to trace the way how online dating’s are taken offline by Indian youth. my findings shows that most of the people who d ate are single as female move into relationship or marriage their dating activity decreases but male do not show any such trend. Female use dating to be in contact with their friends but male do it to find someone new to date online.These dating actually cannot replace the real dating place but they do supplement real dating space in many ways as if online relation hit the real road then it tends to be successful. These dating sites help in finding people of similar interest, same location , religion or traits easily as online dating provides choice. But this factor also has its bad side attached to it. Abundance has a dark side. People intuitively think that having more choices will increase the probability of finding a â€Å"better† or â€Å"best† option, but they often find it hard to make any selection at all when faced with too many choices.This phenomenon is called â€Å"choice overload. † This abundance may also result in believing one has essentially inf inite possibilities, which may lead some people to question or devalue their current partner. This is called â€Å"trading up,† and may lead to treating one’s dates as commodities. It is inevitable that, in every relationship, there will come a moment of disillusionment. Having an array of potential partners may discourage any sustained effort to resolve conflicts. Though these dating sites sometimes pose as if they had made dating a fun not a serious affair.Some people find that exchange of information online is not safe and majority things that online dating is easy and safe way to express, as with the help of anonymity trait online dating had become a good choice for Indian youth as they want this dating stuff to be kept as secret as it is still not socially admitted. I had found out that dating online is acting as safer option to date but fake profiles ,spams ,online fraud cases had limited the way in which they want to date. These obstacles make dating bit dangero us as it can cause financial, emotional loss together with bad effect on reputation.It is also seen that sites the people decided to meet offline also varies. Girls tend to opt for public places but with quite ambience. So as to feel safe but also to have enough privacy to initiate conversation. Whereas boys opt for restaurant, movies, disc or lounges as they are not much good in initiating conversation they use such places in defense to speak less and enjoy the company. Some of them give reasons that such places give an comfort zone so act as a ice breaker. Girls avoid disc or lounges for first date as they believe to keep it as simple as possible so as to find it easy if date doesn’t go smooth.They like places like coffee shop or restaurant to keep its duration small. Though online dating has many pros to use it ,it also have its part of pitfalls: When you provide information about yourself online, you inevitably take certain risks. Online dating, perhaps because it speaks to our fondest hopes, opens the door to certain vulnerabilities. It can deceive; can offend you sexually, emotionally or financially. But in end it is just a way to find potential partner now its up to us to follow our instinct and use it tool to help ourself in search of true love.. As said by one of my subject: I believe in love at first site.. XO XO

RISK AND VULNERABILITY REPORT FOR JAPAN Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

RISK AND VULNERABILITY REPORT FOR JAPAN - Essay Example Figure 1: Key Themes The presentation and discussion of results shall be done around these four themes. There shall however be minor areas of consideration such as geography of Japan and vulnerability in Japan. Presentation and discussion of results on the themes shall all be done both qualitatively and quantitatively using figures, maps, tables and diagrams. 4.2 PRESENTATION AND DESCRIPTION OF RESULTS AND FINDINGS Geography of Japan According to JapanGuide.Com (2011), â€Å"Japan's closest neighbors are Korea, Russia and China. The Sea of Japan separates the Asian continent from the Japanese archipelago.† Japan is located in Eastern Asia and within the geographical coordinates, 36 00N, 138 00E (CIA Fact book, 2011). Japan’s total area is 377,835 sq km, 374,744 sq km of which is land and 3,091 sq km is water. Islands in Japan in Daito-shoto, Bonin Islands, Volcano Islands, Minami-Jima Ryukyu Islands and Okino-tori-shrima; out of which â€Å"Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku are the four largest† (JapanGuide.Com, 2011). Japan’s climate varies across the country however; there are four major seasons – winter, rainy season, summer and typhoons. ... â€Å"Environmental hazards are defined as extreme events or substances in the earth and its ecological system that may cause adverse effects to humans or things they value† (NRC, 1996). For the sake of this research, risk and hazards that have occurred from 1980 to 2010 are going to be reviewed. The graph below shows the number of natural disasters that have occurred in Japan from 1980 to 2010. Fig. 2: Natural Disasters in Japan from 1980 to 2010 It is worth mentioning that Japan’s earthquakes are accompanied with tsunamis (Prevention Web, 2011). The data above is translated into a yearly ratio as follows Table 1: Yearly Average of Occurrence of Natural Disasters in Japan Disaster Average Occurrence Wildfire Extreme Temperature Volcano Flood Earthquake Storm 0.03 0.10 0.26 0.71 1.00 2.48 Credit: (Prevention Web, 2011). Human Vulnerability in Japan The various risks and hazards that Japan experiences expose the country and her population to high rate of vulnerability. J apan has suffered both economic and human losses through natural disasters. The chart below gives a summary of such losses from 1980 to 2010. Fig. 3 Vulnerability to Humans per Event of a Disaster - Credit: (Prevention Web, 2011). The concept of Community and its Role in Disaster Most communities in Japan are prone to risks of volcanoes and earthquakes. â€Å"The reason for the high number of volcanic areas is because Japan is located along the circum-Pacific volcanic belt. Of the 840 active volcanoes in the world, Japan has almost 1/10 of them† (AsiaInfo.Net, 2010). For this reason, communities in Japan put in a lot of effort to play active roles in disaster management. In the view of Tatum (2011), â€Å"disaster management plans are often

Conflict Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Conflict Management - Essay Example It was therefore revealed that results were categorized and evaluated according to programme demand under four themes (ubiquity of conflict, conflict competencies, intervention pathways, and preferred uses of conflict coaching) and well as programme composition, implementation, outcomes, and efficiency were discussed. Brinkert (2011) finally revealed that conflict coaching was a â€Å"practical and effective means of developing the conflict communication competencies of nurse managers and supervisees† (Brinkert, 2011, p. 80). The article actually revealed a new technique of improving conflict communication process within the nursing profession using the CCCM. The author disclosed how training nurse managers on conflict coaching could improve conflict communication and management by enhancing awareness on the nature of conflict and the effective strategies and interventions that can be utilized in conflict situations. There were limitations noted by the author including the intertwined role as researcher and trainer for the proposed CCCM. As such, the task proved to be allegedly challenging and daunting. At the same token, Brinkert (2011) revealed and confirmed that there is a still a need to improve conflict communication and management within the nursing profession and to â€Å"extend organizational dispute resolution processes to the individual level† (Brinkert, 2011, p. 90). By learning and applying the CCCM through previously implemented conflict coaching training, nurse managers are able to a ppreciate effective resolution of conflicts encountered within the health care environment. The findings and information learned from the article are valuable for nurse managers in terms of appreciating that the proposed CCCM could assist in managing conflicts in the nursing profession. Since sources and causes of conflicts abound, nurse managers would