July 2020 Release Notes

Karim Benzema and Taylor Swift's Folklore

Published

30 July 2020

Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekanada, Introduction

  • In science, we mostly have what is called inferential knowledge. A scientist observes real world data and draws meaningful conclusions from it. We’re not asked to believe things but allowed to deduce the results for ourselves.

  • In every exact science, there is a universal basis which is common to all humanity; so that we can check the truth/fallacy for ourselves. The question is, does, religion have any such basis? The reason why we have all the religious sects quarreling with each other is because, on one hand, religions consist of various theories. For example:
    • There’s a person sitting in the clouds about whom no further questions should be asked.
    • Others have other ideas, the reasons for which they cannot show.

  • Vivekananda says that there is a basis for belief in religion which spans across space and time. He says that going deep into them makes us realize how they’re based upon universal experiences. I will play my role of a curious student and see if this is true.

  • Religions are divided into two classes, those with a book, and those without a book. Those with a book are the strongest, and have the largest number of followers. Those without books have mostly died out. Yet, in all of them we find one consensus of opinion, that the truths they teach are the results of the experiences of particular persons (which could be wrong, Mr. Datta has not taken this into account, maybe he intends to clarify it later).
  • Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature; what once happened can happen always. The teachers of Yoga state that no man can be religious until he has the same perceptions of the universe.
  • What right has a man to say he has a soul if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he doesn’t see Him? If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. ⭐
  • If you want to become an astronomer, and sit down and cry, “Astronomy, astronomy”; it will never come to you. The same with chemistry. A certain method must be followed. You must go to the laboratory, take the different substances, mix them up, compound them, experiment with them, and out of that will come a knowledge of chemistry. If you want to be an astronomer you must go to the observatory, take a telescope, study the stars and planets, and then you will become an astronomer.
  • In the first place, knowledge itself is the highest reward of knowledge, and, in the second place, there is also utility in it. It will take away all our misery. When, by analysing his own mind, man comes face to face, as it were, with something which is never destroyed, something which is, by its own nature, eternally pure and perfect, he will no more be miserable, no more unhappy. All misery comes from fear, from unsatisfied desire. Man will find that he never dies, and then he will have no more fear of death.
  • The study of Raja Yoga takes a long time and requires constant practice. A part of this practice is physical but the main part is mental. We have very little command over our minds. Therefore to bring that command about, to get that control over body and mind, we must take certain physical help, and when the body is sufficiently controlled, we can attempt the manipulation of the mind.
  • The end and aim of all science is to find a unit, that One out of which all this manifold is being manufactured, that One existing as many. ⭐
  • What I like most about Vivekananda’s writing until now is that he doesn’t ask us to believe in anything baseless. Truth requires no prop to stand. The main advice to the reader is to not believe in anything unless we’ve experienced it ourselves. He keeps saying that anything mysterious in the Yogic systems should be outright rejected.
  • “In the first place there is no mystery in what I preach. What little I know I will tell you. So far as I can reason it out I will do so, but what I do not know I will simply tell you that it is what the books say. It is wrong to blindly believe. You must exercise your own reason and judgment; you must practise, and see whether these things happen or not. Just as you would take up any other science of a material nature, exactly in the same manner you should take up this science for study. There is neither mystery nor danger in it. So far as it is true it ought to be preached in the public streets, in the broad daylight. Any attempt to mystify these things is productive of great danger.” - Swami Vivekananda ⭐
  • The Yogi wants to perceive the propagation of the senses, how a sensation travels, how the mind receives it, how it reaches the determining faculty of the body and subsequently results in action.
  • Here, for some reason, Vivekananda talks about food. He writes that food plays an important role and that you can see this in how large animals like elephants are calm while lions and tigers are very restless. I have no clue what he means by saying all this. He then goes back to speaking sense, “A Yogi must avoid the two extremes of luxury and austerity. He must not fast, or torture his flesh; he who does so, says the Gita, cannot be a Yogi; he who fasts; he who keeps awake; he who sleeps much; he who works too much; he who does no work; none of these can be Yogis.”

folklore

This is Taylor’s best album since Reputation, although I’m not sure if anything will ever beat Reputation. Here are my top tracks, what are yours?

  1. Exile
  2. Seven
  3. Betty
  4. The Last Great American Dynasty
  5. Cardigan
  6. Mad Woman
  7. Epiphany

Real Madrid, Royal Madrid

In the summer of 2009, there were signs of a second Galactico era at Real Madrid, the club that is synonymous with winning. Florentino Perez needed to make those changes, and soon. The genius of Pep Guardiola and the revolutionary tiki-taka style of football played by arch-rivals Barca was winning games and ultimately trophies. La Decima was looking unattainable with Real crashing out of the competition in the round of 16 for six successive seasons. 55,000 fans were in the historic Santiago Bernabeu stadium to see 2007 Ballon D’ Or winner Kaka presented as a Real Madrid player. The most expensive signing in all of history. Anyone remotely interested in football will know what happened next. A week later, Cristiano Ronaldo caused hysteria at the Bernabeu when he walked in the iconic white tee (he would be CR9 for a while until Raul left) and shouted “Hala Madrid” to the fans.

Then came for $40 million, a young star from Lyon, welcomed by a modest 20,000 fans. That has been the story of Karim Benzema all his Real Madrid career. Kaka, Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, James Rodriguez, Toni Kroos, Eden Hazard. Not a Galactico, but more of a Real Madrid player than any of the others, maybe with the sole exception of Cristiano Ronaldo. Kaka’s career at Real was filled with injuries and Cristiano left after doing what was asked of him, Bale and James are still at the club, but Zidane would rather they leave ASAP. Benzema though, is what makes Real Madrid work.

Inspite of what all Madridistas will tell you, Real Madrid’s decade hasn’t been as much of a success as they were hoping for. Mourinho took them to a Liga title by playing the most attacking football the club had ever seen but they fell to Barcelona again the following season. In the space of three weeks, they were kicked out of both the Copa del Rey and the Champions League by Guardiola’s passing machine. In the next season, Real Madrid would crash out in the semi-final to Borussia Dortmund (Lewandowski scored 4 goals in the home tie) and lose the league to Barca. Carlo Ancelotti and Gareth Bale arrived to guide Real Madrid to one of their best seasons in this century, La Decima came home and Bale outran Barca in the Copa del Rey final (Diego Simeone’s Atleti took the league home on the final match day). They would go trophyless the next season and fire Carlo Ancelotti bringing on another mediocre season where they won the Champions League on penalties against a depleted Atletico side. Zidane would continue for the next two seasons winning two more Champions League winners’ medals and one Liga title. Still, nothing phenomenal, no treble, no dominating teams, just that, a trophy in a competition that Real Madrid seem to win no matter what goes against them. Cristiano left in the 2018 summer, leaving behind nostalgia, goals, and an empty left flank.

Trophyless again in the 2019 season. No one to blame here though. Time to move on. Zidane came back, rotated the squad, played 37 different players and got 21 players to score goals. More remarkably, Real toughened their defense, conceding only 25 goals. Its championship has been built on the grit and grind of Thibaut Courtois, Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane and Casemiro, more than anything.

Jose Mourinho, once said that Benzema was not a “killer,” not enough of a ruthless finisher to be ranked among the best in the world. It is strange, though, that Benzema should have needed vindication. He has, after all, survived at Real Madrid - a club where patience is thin and churn is endemic - for more than a decade, longer than all those other stars. For much of that time, he put the needs of others above his own, willingly adapting his role so that the “rocket,” Bale, and the “finisher,” Ronaldo, could thrive in that fabled BBC attacking line. He has won three Spanish titles and four Champions Leagues. He is the fifth highest goal-scorer in Real Madrid’s history; given the names on the list, that is no mean feat. He has scored 248 goals in 512 games, a strike rate of a goal every other game, long regarded as the gold standard for a top-class forward. Benzema, in other words, should have had nothing to prove. And yet, it has always felt that, when it comes to discussion of who the world’s best No. 9 might be, there is always someone shining brighter than Benzema: Radamel Falcao or Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Robert Lewandowski or Kylian Mbappe. It is hard to understand why that is. Much of the criticism does not really add up. Benzema is marked down for not scoring enough and not marked up for the work he does elsewhere, creating space, knitting a team together.

Once Upon A Time in Madrid Benz, Cris, and Kaka

The new breed of No. 9 - led by Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino - are (rightly) praised for that element of their game, while escaping (correctly, in most cases) anything but light censure for a scoring return that pales in comparison. Benzema does both. Only in his case, that appears to be a bad thing. Perhaps the explanation is obvious: perhaps it is as simple as the fact that no forward has suffered quite as directly from the inflation in expectations that Messi and Cristiano have wrought in football. Whatever Benzema did, Cristiano, standing a few yards from him, would always do better; he could only, really, suffer in that context. Or is it that first impressions, in football, really count? And that Benzema has always been cursed by the circumstances of his arrival in Madrid: the afterthought who became not a transcendent star but a stalwart. Benzema, whatever the reason, deserves more, simply for being the player who came as the least of the Galacticos, and ended as the last one standing.

Hala Madrid y nada mas.