Of the selfish Passions

Besides those two opposite sets of passions, the social and unsocial, there is another which holds a sort of middle place between them; is never either so graceful as is sometimes the one set, nor is ever so odious as is sometimes the other. Grief and joy, when conceived upon account of our own private good or bad fortune, constitute this third set of passions. Even when excessive, they are never so disagreeable as excessive resentment, because no opposite sympathy can ever interest us against them: and when most suitable to their objects, they are never so agreeable as impartial humanity and just benevolence; because no double sympathy can ever interest us for them. There is, however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are generally most disposed to sympathize with small joys and great sorrows. The man who, by some sudden revolution of fortune, is lifted up all at once into a condition of life, greatly above what he had formerly lived in, may be assured that the congratulations of his best friends are not all of them perfectly sincere. An upstart, though of the greatest merit, is generally disagreeable, and a sentiment of envy commonly prevents us from heartily sympathizing with his joy. If he has any judgment, he is sensible of this, and instead of appearing to be elated with his good fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to smother his joy, and keep down that elevation of mind with which his new circumstances naturally inspire him. He affects the same plainness of dress, and the same modesty of behaviour, which became him in his former station. He redoubles his attention to his old friends, and endeavours more than ever to be humble, assiduous, and complaisant. And this is the behaviour which in his situation we most approve of; because we expect, it seems, that he should have more sympathy with our envy and aversion to his happiness, than we have with his happiness. It is seldom that with all this he succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his humility, and he grows weary of this constraint. In a little time, therefore, he generally leaves all his old friends behind him, some of the meanest of them excepted, who may, perhaps, condescend to become his dependents: nor does he always acquire any new ones; the pride of his new connections is as much affronted at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had been by his becoming their superior: and it requires the most obstinate and persevering modesty to atone for this mortification to either. He generally grows weary too soon, and is provoked, by the sullen and suspicious pride of the one, and by the saucy contempt of the other, to treat the first with neglect, and the second with petulance, till at last he grows habitually insolent, and forfeits the esteem of all. If the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved, as I believe it does, those sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute much to happiness. He is happiest who advances more gradually to greatness, whom the public destines to every step of his preferment long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that account, when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to whom it cannot reasonably create either any jealousy in those he overtakes, or any envy in those he leaves behind. 

Adam Smith not me.

I could not get what he said please let me know if you could. By the way that was his theory of moral sentiments, his first contribution before wealth of nations.

Canteen time

After a tiring day from the mundane classes and the hot and humid weather, it was night again. Now it was time to have some so called delicious food at Ravi da. Ravi da the canteen man who likes to be flambouyant but he is inept in this part. Last time he bought a tape recorder which played some crappy old hindi songs, which lead to the downturn of his revenues.

We were waitng for the order we placed which was supposed to come an hour late for no reason.  So we sat there ... we means the balloning Dipa, the bald Forrest Gump, Karkare and me the so called Aapahij. Whenever we met at the mess top, waiting for food, we generated some weird theories or had some discussion on the The blad man's propostion, (let me tell you they are all fart but still he fights for them, we will discuss the proposition part later on) or may be extend our PJ theory (exclusive of Me and Dipa, there are some subsidary theories like partial PJ theory, the OJ theory and why HJ doesnt exists we will also discuss this later). 

So this time we all were sitting and were questioning each other. I asked Dipa, "What you want in your life. I mean what you yearn for ?"He said, "Food, Sleep ........ thats it."That conversation led me think that is there any difference between a life of a cow on the grass of PAN loop, which chews the green grass and sleeps on the same the whole day, yes there is. Both dont take a shower but only one among them stinks.