Class 2

I really enjoyed the lecture today, although it was different than what I expected. The lecture was supposed to be ethic discussions, but it turned out to be very philosophical. Anyhow, I had easier time processing the information that Professor Subramanya was talking about and I found a lot of interesting materials too.

Professor Subramanya began the lecture with some form of prayer statements, which stated that we all want to be happy. On the second slide, he mentioned that "wealth adds an edge to beauty, family prestige, as well as to education". And wealth should be your duty. I was working on a paper last semester titled "Happiness and Duty", and I do not believe that wealth will contribute to happiness because wealth is external factor to an individual's life while happiness is internal.

However, Professor Subramanya offered a different perspective today. He argued that wealth is necessity for you to pursue happiness because it will meet your basic needs to survive and it allows you to take care of your family and friends surrounding you. He also claimed that we need to position ourselves to where we wanted to be. I don't know if I will agree with him completely. Although meeting the basic needs in life is important, but taking creation of wealth to be your duty does not sound right to me. I think this may explain why Indians think that corruption is good only if you get the ends you asked for.