“Milon hobe koto dine aamar moner manushero shone, Oh aamar moner manushero shone! (When will I be united with the Man of my Heart?). ~ Lalon Shah

Also known as Lalon Fokir (a Bengali word for fakir Or saint), Lalon Shah belonged from Baul community of the 18th century Bengal. However, he’s the most respected personality of Baul community as most of the modern day Bauls are influenced from this great bard. In fact, although Baul sect had declared itself different from Sufi sect, Lalan Fokir organized the entire sect through his knowledge and poetic skills, spreading the real essence of this sect through his poetry only. He established his own hospice,which was known as Akhara that later became a tradition of the Baul sect.

Some of his major compositions are –

• Milon Hobe Koto Dine
• Khachar Bhetor Ochin Pakhi
• Dhonno Dhonno Boli Taare
• Jaat Gelo Jaat Gelo Bole
• Shob Loke Koye Lalon Ki Jaat Shongshaare
• Bhakter Daare Bandha Ache Sai
• Dildoriyaar Majhe Dekhlam etc

However, what’s not known about him is regarding his birth. It’s really not clear whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim. Moreover, an anecdote is there about him, that goes as – Lalon Fokir was born in Bhanrara village in Kushtia district in Bangladesh in 1774,where his father was Madhab Kar and mother was Padmavati. According to another tradition, he was born on 17th October 1772 in Jhinaidah village in district Harishpur ,where his father was Daribullah Dewan while his mother was Amina Khatun.

Furthermore,it is pertinent to mention that Duddu Shah, one of the key disciples of Lalon, claims that his Murshid (Lalan Fokir) had told him not to make his personal details public, but he did so after Lalon’s death. Researchers have generated a doubt over the authenticity of this poem and believe that the poem actually wanted to display Lalon as a Muslim saint.

One story narrates that Lalon, during a pilgrimage to the temple of Jagannath with his companions, got smallpox and was abandoned by his companions on the banks of the river,due to the prevailing superstitions of the era. Later, Malam Shah and his wife Matijan, members of the weaver community in a Muslim-populated village, Cheuriya, took him to their home. They gave Lalon land to live where he formed a musical organisation and composed along with performing his songs, inspired by Shiraj Sain, a musician of the same village.

It was believed that Lalon had left no written work of his songs, as they were transmitted orally to his pupils. Later, his followers compiled all his compositions and preserved them by creating some copies of the same.

Also, Lalon was one of the greatest philosophers of his time and he deliberately criticised the casteism prevailing in the society.

Last year, a three-day programme was held to commemorate the 129th death anniversary of Lalon Shah, at Chheuriya in Kushtia district (Bangladesh). In the modern scenario, a Bengali movie named “Moner Manush” was released to depict the life of Lalon Fokir. Several musicians still create a base to sing his compositions. As a matter of fact, Lalon holds a respectable position in the history of Bengal, who’s in actual sense, a reflection knowledge and philosophy, hence.

Unfortunately, the Baul king Lalon Fakir died at Chheuriya on October 17, 1890 at the age of 116 years. He was buried at his Akhara only (in Bangladesh).

https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/country/lalon-shah-a-bard-a-philosopher-1571154750

The tricky thing about blogging is that there’s always something stopping you. You often stare at the blank page, wondering whether what you will write will be good enough. You get distracted. Or you have this idea that you really love, but someone else is already written about it.

What is the point of blogging if someone has already covered what you want to write about? Well, here’s a thing almost all of my articles are about topics that have been already covered by others, calling them as universal topics. What I blog is the sum total of all that I have ever internalized; a bit of Tony Robins, a bit of Mark Manson and so on. There’s a fact that people cannot get enough of certain topics because they form the foundation of who we are as human beings.

Your uniqueness as a blogger is not about writing something new but it is about the perspective from which you cover those topics. No one can write in the same way as you do. I often pressure myself to be original as in one thousand person original, something out of the blue. To uncover something hidden or depths of the human soul that has been locked since eternity.

And the truth is trying to do that is a recipe of disaster. Besides, inspiration often tends to evaporate under pressure. Trying to be original is a fire way to get bankrupt in ten or less blog posts. That’s why inside of trying some fiery idea, I think about the readers out there, what is that they would like to read about. We humans get inspiration or at least we try to take some by knowing or reading someone’s journey, so I started to add myself in my blogs. It worked many of my readers could relate. You do not read my words for the information they share but the way you can derive a sense of purpose.

Blogging is a simple process. It is us; bloggers who make it seem too terrifying and complicated. A blank page gives you the freedom to create anything you want, as long as you don’t try to create everything at once, or something that no one ever created before. It is about punching the damn keys.  One word at a time.

If you need inspiration, just take a look at what people have been fascinated about since forever. Even books are made out of books, so why not blogs!

The disposal of plastic has been an unsolved problem since humans began using them in large scale. The problem with plastic is it takes more than 1000 years before it disappears to another form, until then it stays as plastic. Some of the disposal methods adopted for plastic are landfills, incineration and recycling. 

LANDFILL

  Landfill is generally a place where plastics are dumped and left there indefinitely. This method is considered as the least GHG(GreenHouseGas) emitting method when compared to incineration and recycling. The landfills require a large unusable land for dumping while space  is a major issue in the urban areas.

INCINERATOR

It has become the most opted option among cities in developed countries as it consumes very less space. Some countries have resorted to utilise the heat generated for electricity production and heat applications which can be used by the residents of the city. Though it may seem to eliminate plastic from ground, it releases highly toxic gases into the atmosphere.  

RECYCLING

Recycling process involves converting plastic wastes into usable form again. This process eliminates the need for new plastic. It is more economical than the other two methods listed above. But the only disadvantage is that it still produces GHG.

Bio-plastic

Scientists tried solving this problem by replacing the conventional plastic with bio-degradable or bio-plastic. But the problem with bioplastic is they would stay intact on-ground, underground and water for several years. Because they needed a suitable environment with specified temperature , moisture and other conditions for their degradation. So, an industrial setup is needed to degrade them quickly and completely. Anaerobic degradation is one of the best methods to decompose them, in addition it produces biogas. However, one cannot use conventional industrial setup that is used for degrading other biodegradable wastes. The bioplastic usually take longer time to degrade compared to other biodegradable waste. 

What is the solution?

“Prevention is better than cure”   

At present, there is no viable solution for producing a 100% eco-friendly plastic. Stopping the usage of plastic is the only solution for our current plastic problem. A significant reduction of plastic usage can be easily attained by adopting simple change in our lifestyles. 

Motivation is a powerful, yet tricky beast. Sometimes it is really easy to get motivated, and you find yourself wrapped up in a whirlwind of excitement. Other times, it is nearly impossible to figure out how to motivate yourself and you’re trapped in a death spiral of procrastination.

So what is motivation, exactly? The author Steven Pressfield has a great line in his book, The War of Art, which I think gets at the core of motivation. To paraphrase Pressfield, “At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.”

In other words, at some point, it is easier to change than to stay the same. It is easier to take action and feel insecure at the gym than to sit still and experience self-loathing on the couch. It is easier to feel awkward while making the sales call than to feel disappointed about your dwindling bank account.

This, I think, is the essence of motivation. Every choice has a price, but when we are motivated, it is easier to bear the inconvenience of action than the pain of remaining the same. Somehow we cross a mental threshold—usually after weeks of procrastination and in the face of an impending deadline—and it becomes more painful to not do the work than to actually do it.

Now for the important question: What can we do to make it more likely that we cross this mental threshold and feel motivated on a consistent basis?

Common Misconceptions About Motivation
One of the most surprising things about motivation is that it often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. We have this common misconception that motivation arrives as a result of passively consuming a motivational video or reading an inspirational book. However, active inspiration can be a far more powerful motivator.

Motivation is often the result of action, not the cause of it. Getting started, even in very small ways, is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum.

I like to refer to this effect as the Physics of Productivity because this is basically Newton’s First Law applied to habit formation: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Once a task has begun, it is easier to continue moving it forward.

You don’t need much motivation once you’ve started a behavior. Nearly all of the friction in a task is at the beginning. After you start, progress occurs more naturally. In other words, it is often easier to finish a task than it was to start it in the first place.

How to Get Motivated and Take Action
Many people struggle to find the motivation they need to achieve the goals they want because they are wasting too much time and energy on other parts of the process. If you want to make it easy to find motivation and get started, then it helps to automate the early stages of your behavior.

Schedule Your Motivation
During a conversation about writing, my friend Sarah Peck looked at me and said, “A lot of people never get around to writing because they are always wondering when they are going to write next.” You could say the same thing about working out, starting a business, creating art, and building most habits.

If your workout doesn’t have a time when it usually occurs, then each day you’ll wake up thinking, “I hope I feel motivated to exercise today.”
If your business doesn’t have a system for marketing, then you’ll show up at work crossing your fingers that you’ll find a way to get the word out (in addition to everything else you have to do).
If you don’t have a scheduled time when you write every week, then you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I just need to find the willpower to do it.”
An article in The Guardian summarized the situation by saying, “If you waste resources trying to decide when or where to work, you’ll impede your capacity to do the work.”

Setting a schedule for yourself seems simple, but it puts your decision-making on autopilot by giving your goals a time and a place to live. It makes it more likely that you will follow through regardless of your motivation levels. And there are plenty of research studies on willpower and motivation to back up that statement.

Stop waiting for motivation or inspiration to strike you and set a schedule for your habits. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals set a schedule and stick to it. Amateurs wait until they feel inspired or motivated.

How to Get Motivated (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)
How do some of the most prolific artists in the world motivate themselves? They don’t merely set schedules, they build rituals.

Twyla Tharp is widely regarded as one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the modern era. In her best-selling book, The Creative Habit (audiobook), Tharp discusses the role rituals, or pre-game routines, have played in her success:

I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Many other famous creatives have rituals too. In his popular book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, author Mason Currey notes that many of the world’s great artists follow a consistent schedule.

Maya Angelou rented a local hotel room and went there to write. She arrived at 6:30 AM, wrote until 2 PM, and then went home to do some editing. She never slept at the hotel.
Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon writes five nights per week from 10 PM to 3 AM.
Haruki Murakami wakes up at 4 AM, writes for five hours, and then goes for a run.
The work of top creatives isn’t dependent upon motivation or inspiration, but rather it follows a consistent pattern and routine. Here are some examples of how you can apply ritual and routine to get motivated:

Exercise more consistently: Use the same warm up routine in the gym.
Become more creative: Follow a creative ritual before you start writing or painting or singing.
Start each day stress-free: Create a five-minute morning meditation ritual.
Sleep better: Follow a “power down” routine before bed.
The power of a ritual, or what I like to call a pre-game routine, is that it provides a mindless way to initiate your behavior. It makes starting your habits easier and that means following through on a consistent basis is easier.

The key to any good ritual is that it removes the need to make a decision: What should I do first? When should I do this? How should I do this? Most people never get moving because they can’t decide how to get started. You want starting a behavior to be easy and automatic so you have the strength to finish it when it becomes difficult and challenging.

How to Make Motivation a Habit
There are three simple steps you can take to build better rituals and make motivation a habit.

Step 1: A good pre–game routine starts by being so easy that you can’t say no to it. You shouldn’t need motivation to start your pre–game routine. For example, my writing routine starts by getting a glass of water. My weightlifting routine starts by putting on my lifting shoes. These tasks are so easy, I can’t say no to them.

The most important part of any task is starting. If you can’t get motivated in the beginning, then you’ll find that motivation often comes after starting. That’s why your pre–game routine needs to be incredibly easy to start.

Step 2: Your routine should get you moving toward the end goal.

A lack of mental motivation is often linked to a lack of physical movement. Just imagine your physical state when you’re feeling depressed, bored, or unmotivated. You’re not moving very much. Maybe you’re slumped over like a blob, slowly melting into the couch.

The opposite is also true. If you’re physically moving and engaged, then it’s far more likely that you’ll feel mentally engaged and energized. For example, it’s almost impossible to not feel vibrant, awake, and energized when you’re dancing.

While your routine should be as easy as possible to start, it should gradually transition into more and more physical movement. Your mind and your motivation will follow your physical movement. It is worth noting that physical movement doesn’t have to mean exercise. For example, if your goal is to write, then your routine should bring you closer to the physical act of writing.

Step 3: You need to follow the same pattern every single time.

The primary purpose of your pre–game routine is to create a series of events that you always perform before doing a specific task. Your pre–game routine tells your mind, “This is what happens before I do _.”

Eventually, this routine becomes so tied to your performance that by simply doing the routine, you are pulled into a mental state that is primed to perform. You don’t need to know how to find motivation, you just need to start your routine.

This is important because when you don’t feel motivated, it’s often too much work to figure out what you should do next. When faced with another decision, you will often decide to just quit. However, the pre–game routine solves that problem because you know exactly what to do next. There’s no debating or decision making. Lack of motivation doesn’t matter. You just follow the pattern.

How to Stay Motivated for the Long-Run
We have covered some strategies for making it easier to get motivated and start a task. What about maintaining motivation over the long-run? How can you stay motivated for good?

How to Stay Motivated by Using the Goldilocks Rule
Imagine you are playing tennis. If you try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become bored. The match is too easy. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you try to play a serious match against a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you will find yourself demotivated for a different reason. The match is too difficult.

Compare these experiences to playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few points. You have a chance of winning the match, but only if you really try. Your focus narrows, distractions fade away, and you find yourself fully invested in the task at hand. The challenge you are facing is “just manageable.” Victory is not guaranteed, but it is possible. Tasks like these, science has found, are the most likely to keep us motivated in the long term.

Human beings love challenges, but only if they are within the optimal zone of difficulty. Tasks that are significantly below your current abilities are boring. Tasks that are significantly beyond your current abilities are discouraging. But tasks that are right on the border of success and failure are incredibly motivating to our human brains. We want nothing more than to master a skill just beyond our current horizon.

We can call this phenomenon The Goldilocks Rule. The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.

Working on tasks that adhere to the Goldilocks Rule is one of the keys to maintaining long-term motivation. If you find yourself feeling unmotivated to work on a task, it is often because it has drifted into an area of boredom or been shoved into an area of great difficulty. You need to find a way to pull your tasks back to the border of your abilities where you feel challenged, but capable.

How to Reach Peak Motivation
This wonderful blend of happiness and peak performance is sometimes referred to as flow. Flow is what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the zone.” Flow is the mental state you experience when you are so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away.

In many ways, we could describe flow as your state of peak motivation. You would be hard-pressed to find a state where you are more driven to continue the task you are working on.

One factor that researchers have found is linked to flow states is whether or not you are following The Goldilocks Rule we mentioned earlier. If you are working on challenges of optimal difficulty, then you will not only be motivated but also experience a boost in happiness. As psychologist Gilbert Brim put it, “One of the important sources of human happiness is working on tasks at a suitable level of difficulty, neither too hard nor too easy.”

In order to reach this state of peak performance, however, you not only need to work on challenges at the right degree of difficulty, but also measure your immediate progress. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains, one of the keys to reaching a flow state is that “you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step.”

Thus, we can say that measurement is a key factor in motivation. To put it more precisely, facing an optimal challenge and receiving immediate feedback about the progress you are making toward that challenge are two of the most critical components of peak motivation.

What to Do When Motivation Fades
Inevitably, your motivation to perform a task will dip at some point. What happens when motivation fades? I don’t claim to have all the answers, but here’s what I try to remind myself of when I feel like giving up.

Your Mind is a Suggestion Engine

Consider every thought you have as a suggestion, not an order. Right now, as I’m writing this, my mind is suggesting that I feel tired. It is suggesting that I give up. It is suggesting that I take an easier path.

If I pause for a moment, however, I can discover new suggestions. My mind is also suggesting that I will feel very good about accomplishing this work once it is done. It is suggesting that I will respect the identity I am building when I stick to the schedule. It is suggesting that I have the ability to finish this task, even when I don’t feel like.

Remember, none of these suggestions are orders. They are merely options. I have the power to choose which option I follow.

Discomfort Is Temporary

Relative to the time in your normal day or week, nearly any habit you perform is over quickly. Your workout will be finished in an hour or two. Your report will be typed to completion by tomorrow morning.

Life is easier now than it has ever been. 300 years ago, if you didn’t kill your own food and build your own house, you would die. Today, we whine about forgetting our iPhone charger.

Maintain perspective. Your life is good and your discomfort is temporary. Step into this moment of discomfort and let it strengthen you.

You Will Never Regret Good Work Once It is Done

Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” So often it seems that we want to work easily at work worth doing. We want our work to be helpful and respected, but we do not want to struggle through our work. We want our stomachs to be flat and our arms to be strong, but we do not want to grind through another workout. We want the final result, but not the failed attempts that precede it. We want the gold, but not the grind.

Anyone can want a gold medal. Few people want to train like an Olympian.

And yet, despite our resistance to it, I have never found myself feeling worse after the hard work was done. There have been days when it was damn hard to start, but it was always worth finishing. Sometimes, the simple act of showing up and having the courage to do the work, even in an average manner, is a victory worth celebrating.

This Is Life

Life is a constant balance between giving into the ease of distraction or overcoming the pain of discipline. It is not an exaggeration to say that our lives and our identities are defined in this delicate balance. What is life, if not the sum of a hundred thousand daily battles and tiny decisions to either gut it out or give it up?

This moment when you don’t feel like doing the work? This is not a moment to be thrown away. This is not a dress rehearsal. This moment is your life as much as any other moment. Spend it in a way that will make you proud.

An iPhone shortcut that allows users to automatically record their interactions with police is gaining popularity.Once installed, a user can simply say “Siri, I’m getting pulled over” or clicks a button on the screen saver to activate.

The shortcut will pause music, turn down the brightness and volume, place the phone in the “Do Not Disturb” mode to block any incoming calls, and start a video recording on the front-facing camera.

An alert will also be sent to a friend or close contact to inform them of the situation and your location. After the video is saved, another message will be sent saying that the user is safe.

The independent shortcut was developed by Robert Petersen and first released on Reddit in 2018.Petersen told Business Insider in 2018 that the app is essentially the “civilian equivalent” of body cameras worn by many police officers.

The developer has added on Twitter that none of the police officers he has spoken to “have had any issue with it all” and that he “has his reasons” behind the technology.

Its rise in popularity comes amid the widespread global protests and anger over police brutality.Thousands of people have marched against police violence since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Video captured on mobile devices shared the fatal arrest of Floyd on social media.The shortcut can only be downloaded and installed from Apple’s browser, Safari, on iPhone, and is not currently available on the smartphone’s app store.

Link to activate this feature :-

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/cc95be30b285469ea22b7cff11ce0737

This also no direct Android equivalent of the shortcut, but similar apps can be found on the Google Play Store to discreetly record videos.

As the covid 19 cases increasing swiflys in india and everyone is under distress during this pandemic it effecting especially the students as many of education institutions are planning to have their regular exams.But how will be it possible ? How will they condect it ? And most important question what are the measures for student saftys?