The Backyard Shack

Death over dishonour. Hirakiri (or Seppuku) ,the act of committing suicide is a ceremonial event where a dishonoured samurai incapable to complete his task or failed to do so chooses to commit suicide by disembowelment. The Samurai kneeling takes out a tanto (a short sword) to cut his abdomen. This is said to restore the honour of a samurai. Such is the extent to which Japanese culture places great importance to honour of a person. One goes too unimaginable extend to protect the honour of their name and their family. Such cultural values are common to South-Asian countries. Benedict suggest that this might be because relationships in Japan are duty-based and   one's value is dependent on the how others perceive unlike the west the where morals are guilt driven where truth, justice and individual rights are the vital components of consciousness. But, this is not about the Samurais, their fearless acts and their honour. This is about how the Japanese corporate world wa

In the age of urbanisation, we see a rapid transformations in our lifestyles . If we look at this transition on the timeline of human existence on earth, the change has been too abrupt for our surroundings to adapt to. In this generation fuelled by technology, development has been led by the advances in science. To the greater extent , it has been positive but a lack of holistic thinking has led to us to some adverse mistakes, which we as human have committed. A profit oriented   economic development has unleashed environmental disasters that haunts mankind now. It is astonishing to see that even after so many advances in sciences, our inclination towards a harmonious lifestyle with nature seems very little against the knowledge of our ancestors. Species have an intrinsic instinct to   modify their environment to best suit to their   requirements. There is nothing bad about this because such modification   usually blend harmoniously into the natural surroundings and oft

We sleep for about 8 hours a day. Nothing special. But 8 hours a day implies that we sleep for one third of the day. On a larger span of time what it means is that we sleep for one third of our life. Assuming our lifespans to be 75 years it would mean that we spent 25 years of our life doing nothing but sleeping. In one way or another sleep does have a significant role to play, yet it gets ignored. The prevalent outlook is that sleep is for the weak. We idolize the ones who sleep less, which, to an extent, implies that sleep is an inconvenience. The recent outburst of productivity techniques, mobile applications, gadgets and gizmos have a very narrow vision. We have all our attention to the 16 hours when we are awake and care little about the rest 8.  Sleep is necessary, but is it? What if we don’t sleep? Ok, it is important but what about the 8hr a day rule, does it have to be continuous or can it be broken into parts? We can break it into two parts , 6 at night and 2 du