sci's scribbles!

The 3 goals of my life

2011-11-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

I have always asked myself if i was really lucky. No no...this is not a comparison game where i am trying to see if i am lucky compared to someone else. I am just simply trying to ask myself if i was lucky at some point. More so, i was trying to understand a while back what the term luck meant to me. The dictionary definition of the term luck goes like this:

noun

the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities:With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.

good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance: He had no luck finding work.

a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person: She's had nothing butbad luck all year.

some object on which good fortune is supposed to depend:This rabbit's foot is my luck.

Note all the key terms in the above definition: force, good or ill in a person's life, circumstances, events, opportunities, good fortune, advantage, success, by chance.

Funny as it may sound, for me "good luck" amounts to happiness. That brings me to the next question: On a scale of 1-10 where does my happiness quotient lie? The day i joined one of the finest universities in this country, my first love, my first rejection, the days i was out of job, the day i got a job with one of the best internet brands, the day when my best friend betrayed me, the day when i started my own company, the day when i shut it down too, when i didn't know where to go or stay the first time i reached bangalore, the day when my dad died. At different points in this story, i might have been at negative sometimes and i might been at 9 or sometimes even at zero. Over the last few months and years, the good part is, this number is constant - am i getting content with life? But the bad part is, its not high enough - have i become a sad person?

What i have realized through some of the above incidents is that i get lucky when i stick to 3 simple goals:

1. I want to be happy

2. I want to eradicate unhappiness in my life.

3. I want every day to be as smooth as possible. I DO NOT want any hassles.

That's it. Am i asking for much? I need simple goals. Are the above simple goals to achieve? Most of us may agree these are pretty simple goals....turns out achieving them however is not as simple as it looks(well atleast for me).

There have been multiple times in my life where everything seemed so low that i would not even be able to achieve a single goal on any given day. Months would pass this way and there are many a times i have felt that the world would be better off without me. Other times, i was stuck at crossroads not knowing which road to take. Sometimes i bounced back. Over the last few months, bouncing back had become far more difficult than before - age, lack of motivation, lack of personal excellence, deteriorating interests from existing hobbies and passions are a few reasons for this. So every time i think of going for that long awaited run in the morning or visiting a temple, my only question to myself is: "What is the point?". It has become a negative feedback cycle of negative emotions fueling more negative emotions. Laughter has seriously become a luxury. Bottom line - I have become cynical, as someone pointed out today.

When i am looking at these incidents and points when i was low and i had bounced back, i am coming to realize that there is a common thread. Each time, there were 4 things and only 4 things that somehow helped me bounce back:

1. Physical Existence: Being in shape. Doing some form of exercise(sex included :)). This is not to develop those 6 pack absa or get to a size zero. Its just about staying healthy. They say you can't be happy if you aren't healthy.

2. Emotional Existence: Sometime back, if someone was a drag on me, i cut them down. If someone lifts me up, i brought them closer. Nothing or no one was sacred. Family, friends and people i care about - i was always there when they needed me. But i never got close to anyone bringing me down. Unfortunately, this rule does not exist in my life anymore. Energy leaks out if someone is draining you. And i have never owed anyone an explanation. I have always believed that explaining is draining. Don't get me wrong. This does not mean abandon those who might need you. Its quite the opposite. If you are a clean river, then people can drink from you. If you are dirty water, then people will get sick. Another important rule is honesty. Unfortunately, i am not a great communicator even among the closest of friends. I talk a lot but i am not necessarily good at communicating what i feel or think. Hence, my most honest opinions gets misconstrued most of the times. Should i stop being honest...sometimes i did that. But yet again, i wasn't feeling right about it. I have finally come to realize that this is the person i am. If people have a problem with my honesty, its their problem, not necessarily mine. So if someone gets into a disagreement because i was honest about what i felt, too bad, i don't know how to fix it for them.

3. Mental Existence: There was a time, every single day i used to write down ideas. For example the other day i wrote down about 25 alternatives kids could do beyond engineering, medicine and commerce. The next day i came up with another 10-15. When i started running out of ideas, i started memorizing all the 3 letter words i could use in the game of scrabble. Or just the other day i came up with about 25 chapters that should necessarily go in anyone's autobiography. All of these is like a cheap psychological trick. Most of us get a sense of accomplishment by filling up pages quickly.

4. Spiritual Existence: No I AM NOT talking about god or religion. What i mean by spiritual existence is to indulge in one of the following spiritual exercises:

Pray: Doesn't matter if i am praying to god, or to dead people, or to the empty chair in front of me. Its just a means to be thankful and not taking all the credit for just a few seconds of the day
Meditation: Meditation for more than a few minutes is boring. Sometimes its hard to keep your mind focussed on "nothing". I generally use a simple technique of sitting on a chair, back straight and simply observe how i breathe. I slowly went from 5 minutes on this to about 30 minutes a day at some point.
Being greatful: I try to think about all those people to whom i feel greatful. Then i try to think of more people and more...till it gets really hard to go any further.
Forgiving: Harder to implement and easier to talk. I do tend consciously these days to let go of people who have done me wrong. I try and see if i can visualize greatfulness for them(not necessarily pity).
Studying: Sometimes when i read spiritual or inspirational books(not necessarily self help), i tend to feel good. This is not really as powerful as meditating but its a way to gain knowledge of some kind.

A walk with wisdom....

2011-08-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

In that star studded night,
amidst the beauty of the stars and the stillness of the night,
she dropped by my bed and stood beside me staring.
Her name, well is spelt, WISDOM.

She looked upon me, like a tender mother looking at her child,
She wiped my tears,and she said,
"I am here to comfort you, my child.
When you open your eyes, i shall fill your heart with light.
And whenever you call out to me, i shall show you the way to truth and life".

And i said:
"Who am i, really mother?
Why did i come into this frightening place?
What are these thoughts of hope and despair, that pass me every day, every night?
And these moments, griveous and yet joyous,that embrace me and my spirit?
And what about the sweet music of desire,sung by delight?
This youth, playing with my longings, mocking my desires, forgetting yesterday's actions and mourning about tomorrow's sunrise?

What is this world, that leads me nowhere, nor here, nor there?
Why i am submerged in my own ignorance?
Why am i unable to recognize who is friend and who is foe?
What are these mother wisdom? What are these?"

And She replied:

"When the evening comes, the flower folds her petals, and sleeps waiting for the morning.
At the morning approach, she opens her lips to kiss the first ray of light that might fall upon her.
The life of a flower, is filled with longing and fullfillment, of tears and a smile.
So is the life of a cloud,parting and meeting,with a tear and a smile.

And so does the spirit seperates from the greater spirit,
moving into a world of matter,
and pass over the mountains of sorrows and the plains of joys
to meet the breeze of death and return to where it came from."

(Inspired from Khalil Gibran)

On Search!

2011-08-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

A few days back something had upset me. One of my friends asked me what is bothering you. I said, i can't find something i am searching for. He casually replied "Life is a search". I didn't know the impact of this statement till i started wondering about it. At the outset, it is one of the casual statements all of us seem to have made or heard at some point in our lives. But somehow, this time around, when i heard it, it was having a far greater impact on me. Indeed, life is a search - a constant search, a desperate search, a hopeless meaningless search for something one knows not what. And then there is a deep state of our minds in which whatever we get is not going to give us any satisfaction. Frustration becomes a means to an end because whatever we search becomes meaningless after a few moments(i mean days/months or weeks) after we got we started to search for. Then another search continues.

The search continues, whether you have it not. The poor are searching, the rich are searching, the ill are searching, the well are searching, the powerless are searching, the stupid and the wise are also searching. Sometimes, we try to find our solutions in money, in power, in prestige, and sometimes, we seek it in god, bliss, love, meditation, prayer...but does the search stop?

One of my friends when i asked her what she wanted to do, she said, she wanted to become the richest women in the world. I actually have a problem with benchmarks, though i love perfectionists. Let me explain : when you say you want to become the "best", it essentially means you might need to outdo all the others in the field. Which means, you first need to search and find ways to outdoo them. And even when you do outdo them, you need to retain it. Not to forget, the rest of them will also find ways to outdo each other. So, on the battle of retaining oneself on the "best" bracket, one has to search and find ways to remain there. And the others, have to find ways to reach there. Hence, there is this constant battle happening on who is going to be the "best", thereby opening more doors to "search". This, indeed becomes an endless cycle, because each one of us in the field needs to constantly find(search) for ways to be the fore-runners in the field.

Money, power, prestige and all the others above only satisfy us with a feeling that we are searching for something. That "something" is still undefined. It still seems vauge in most cases. So richness, power, prestige, respectability is not going to help. Is it to do with man's greed to amass more out of life or amass more out of his search for search? Is man ill with search?

Avoiding Fights and arguments

2011-02-21T05:44:00.000-08:00

Some recent experiences have taught me some new lessons on the above subject. Have been trying for a while to sort of assimilate the information. Here are a few tips for avoiding fights and arguments:

1. Delay: This gives you time to think (of the effect of your words) before you speak. Use a niceness filter.

2. Never attack a weak-point : Every person has a shortcoming that he/she is aware of. Never hit the chink of their armour. For example never tease a short guy about his height or a dull girl about her intelligence.

3. Let go of your ego: If you stop caring about your own "importance" then you will hardly pay attention to any "affronts" to you - real or imagined. Then there will be no need to retaliate. This is actually the secret to never having quarrels/fights: Not minding.

1 is hard to do and requires a lot of practice.

2 requires that you know the person well. You might be unaware you are hitting on someone's weakness.

3 is hard even to accept; it is so contrary to what we hold on tightly to. But imbibing it will make you a much happier and friendlier person.

TheAtrix - The real germination

2010-09-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure and the opportunity to watch some of my friends(and well, part of the MISF!T family), perform an in-house play titled "The strangeness of reality". The script was written by amit, who also played the protagonist and he also directed the play...whew! That's in itself a lot. Unlike the traditional MISFIT plays, this was the first time without any involvement from anyone outside the cast. The 35 minutes that the play ran for, went on just fine, pushing the audience to their seats with the right amount of suspense mixed with emotions, that made the evening quite enjoyable.

The story starts with an actor(amit), shooting for his movie, where he realizes that he had actually participated in the shoot even before it had started, in the exact way it was about to happen. Similar incidents follow at home when he meets his wife(rency), so it kind of leads the audience into believing that the actor, has some kind of an ESP. Soon, he realizes he isn't normal and meets a doctor(ankur), who happens to be his friend. There again, he foresees that the doctor is about to get a call from his wife and also tells the doctor the prescription given to him, even before any of these occur. The doctor advises him to consult a psychiatrist, which in a way alarms the actor. As the actor steps out of the hospital, he realizes he sees multiple events that are about to happen at the same time. On one side is his elder brother(praveen), a failed actor, who is frustrated with life and his brother and attempts to commit a suicide. On the other side is his aged dad(praveen again), who is again about to die, due to his old age. Another side, he sees his sweet and innocent wife, plotting a devious ploy with his director(karan) to kill him. Will the actor be able to stop any of this? Will he save his brothe? his dad? Will he be able to save himself? Are all these real? These questions and their realities form the strangeness of reality, leaving the audience in a completely different end(which i don't think i should reveal now, just not to disturb the future viewers).

Now, getting back into the stagecraft and associated mechanics, each and every character, completely fit the part. The cast had a mixed set of actors, 3 of them from MISF!T, who had done the level 1 and the level 2 workshops and 2 others(karan and akshay), who hadn't undergone any formal training. But whether it was akshay playing the DON in the initial scene as amit's co-actor in the movie, who immediately switches to this nervous first time actor when the scene is over, or karan as a very understanding director in the first scene, suddenly switches back into this absolutely devious person towards the end, there wasn't any difference from the rest of the cast. The interesting part to observe is each character had multiple shades to them, which was portrayed beautifully by the actors. Whether it was rency, switching between this absolute trophy wife in the first scene to this devious vamp towards the end and then finally the caring wife or Praveen who switched between the elder brother to the father, so effortlessly, or the doctor, who was caught between being a friend and executing his responsibilities, each one had done their job brilliantly. But honestly, my personal favourite, is the protagonist, simply because he had to handle a gamut of emotions, ranging anywhere between a state of insanity to helplessnes to fear to anger to joy and amit handled it beautifully.

There was nothing to complain about the story or the play, except a few things:

The end came in too fast and a little abrupt. Maybe, the end needs a little more work and maybe a more concrete ending, not leaving too much room for interpretations.
The last scene with the father's monologue could have been positioned better, since the father was lost and the audience could only hear his voice. Also, in my view, the father's role did not add any specific value to the entire script.
The point where amit sees these events at the same time, he was completely upstage. Hence, the focus kept switching between amit and the rest. Maybe, it could have been positioned better.

Besides these minor issues, the play was worth watching. And as someone said, i would have definitely paid to watch the show(Yes! you read it right...it was a non ticketed show:) ). Overall, it was a very very enjoyable experience for me and it kept me completely engrossed. I would love to watch this play getting done once again. In "reality", the play was far less "strange" and far more entertaining. Hats off amit and your team for putting this up. Hoping to see more....

Why are you behaving differently?

2010-09-15T05:04:00.000-07:00

Yes,thats what some friends asked me a few days back when i went to meet them. Well, to give you some context, the topic of discussion at that point was centered around women, attraction etc. And i just bluntly turned around and said, "Well: sex does not motivate me". I got some serious stares right then and there. Then this girl asks me :"Why are you behaving differently today?". I said, well, i am behaving myself today. All these days i was trying to be social and all that. And yes, in that process, it might have appeared very differently. Today, for a change, i am being myself. So is it difficult to accept me this way?

The point is, all this while i have been trying to cover up what i was actually feeling about a lot of things. Just to keep things social, i do not push myself; my joys, my sorrows, my anger, my frustration, my thoughts, my ideas and opinions onto my friends. But again, i am trying to please the people around me, some of whom i know and some of whom i don't know - being etiquette, you see(or seeking acceptance,as i would put it). As far as some of my close friends are concerned, i am most of the time, well, myself. As soon as my comfort zone starts disappearing, i start becoming another person - the put on charming, talk-a-tive jovial self of mine. For a change, i wanted to be myself and the reactions i got were...well, rather interesting:

1. Why are you being suddenly nasty?
2. What, if sex does not motivate you, what does?
3. Are you a even a man? (Well, i don't need to prove that, do i?)

Well, all these reactions did not happen this particular day, but these have happened every time i just wanted to be myself. No no, don't get me wrong, i am not blaming anyone here. I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am no one to pass moral judgements about what anyone thinks. In fact, i was amused that it was becoming difficult for others to accept me the way i truly am.

So i started going back thinking, why? I mean, why was it difficult. Well it all starts a few years back. I, was like any other normal fun loving guy back then in college. I had the same aspirations, same thoughts, same emotions and the same libidos like any other normal 20 year old would probably have. I had great friends(or atleast i thought until then), was in a great place learning my life skills and was having some amazing time. Then, this peer pressure started setting in : "You need to have a girl, thats what makes a true man". But hey, girls are not like apples, who might just fall into your lap. They probably require some work, said a few of my friends. Well, and i think that is where i learnt some really bad lessons, which have sort of become irrecoverable, now.

Lesson #1: You need to either have the looks or the money to attract women
Lesson #2: You need to talk to them well. You need to be social. You need to be fun loving. You always need to have something interesting to talk about
Lesson #3: There are 3 kinds of people : 1. The naturals 2. The learners and 3. The rest. The naturals are born with some skills. The learners learn them and the rest are incapable of learning them.

There were a lot more, but i guess these were a few important ones, given as gyan to me.

Now, i am not naturally an extrovert. I am quite shy as a person and extremely introvert-ish. Now, again, i was constantly told (both by men and well, and a lot more by women) about my lack looks. Fine, i am on the heavier side, but thats me. And i am definitely not the best looking guy around(i probably never will be). And yes, i wasn't obviously a rich dad's kid.

As far as lesson #2 was concerned, I had very different interests then, which obviously weren't lets say, "gelling" with the rest of my peers. In essence, lesson 2 didn't happen successfully.

Now, for the lesson #3, the only thing good about me, which i think holds good even today is that at my core, i am a very nice guy. Yes, you read it right :" Nice guy" :). Which means, i didn't have the skills necessary to attract women. Women could be friends with me, but thats that. Rejection after rejection, spending one of my b'days in the college lawn, stargazing and then going back to the lab, spending overnight there, coding something and then to spending 2 consecutive new year evenings with myself, in my room, watching tv, i had definitely learnt to live lonely. Not that i liked it, but well, my "friends", were entertained differently. As with this guy, who borrowed my dinner jacket to go out with his friends, but didn't even have the courtesy to invite me or even ask me how i plan to spend my new year eve, as if i am going to push myself into his group. Am i that ugly that not one girl even wants to spend some valuable years of hers with mine?, i thought. It affected my self esteem, i thought then, that i didn't have a girl in my life. Self-esteem, is something that originates from within, and i don't know why i placed my self esteem on other's opinions about me. I lost a few more opportunities later when this one girl asked me to go out for a dance with her(lesson #3 - part of the 'skill' training). I said, well i don't know how to dance, i said. Funny, as it may sound, even after a decade, i don't know how to dance. And in this decade, quite a few promised to teach me and a few of them didnt and the rest left me midway stating that it was beyond my scope to learn dancing. Well, i am sure they had their reasons(time, patience, effort required etc). No seriously, again, i am not blaming them. Fine, so be it. If and when the day is right, i will learn, i told myself. I don't wanna become an MJ or something. I will still learn it, maybe to prove a point to myself(or maybe to prove a point to them). And there were others, who wanted me to smoke-up and drink, both of these were a no-no for me. So, then i learnt to create this different self, which was fun loving, joking, and most importantly pretentious and yes, definitely not me.

Well, through these years, i did make some success on this front. But time and again, i have been told and beaten to death with my insecurities, everytime i tried being myself : "You aren't good looking, you don't know how to sweet talk me, you befriend a lot of male friends,so you must be gay, you are boring, ....YOU AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH". Not one, not two, but a lot of them.

Yes, maybe i am not good enough. But this is all i am - "A nice guy".

A Letter from my Past - A letter from my 20 year old self

2010-09-13T22:19:00.001-07:00

I've traveled in life this far, from the year 2000 with some advice. Unfortunately, I can only time travel in one direction: forward. I can't go back and tell myself: "You should have gone out of this country and made a few more bucks than being here".

But perhaps some of my advice will be useful to people who were where I was then: 20 yrs.

Save, Save and Save More: I've always had good jobs, but I haven't always spent what I got wisely. I'm not saying that I should have been a penny pincher, exactly. But there's a big difference between buying everything on a whim, and buying nothing.

I wish I had been a little more conscious of that balance. Catching up later in life is much harder than starting early. Even starting a few years later can have a big impact. A Simple Recurring Deposit of Rs 1L for 20 years(at an interest rate of 7.75%) yields an interest of Rs.155000 + Original. 10 years later, its only Rs. 77500.

I almost wrote a Rs.10 Cr. (back then) check on my name when I was 20 to invest in my retirement -- as a kind of forced savings plan. I was good(or probably scared) at paying off loans quickly, but not so good at just saving money. I've regretted not doing that.

Buy just what's needed: In the movie Fight Club, Tyler says "The stuff you own ends up owning you". That statement has really resonated with me. On the one hand, everything is saying "buy more": TV, magazines, the Internet, buses and bus stops even. Everyone wants you to buy their stuff. Getting stuff is often much easier than getting rid of it. "Just throw it away" I hear you saying... I've found it's not as easy as it sounds to throw away a perfectly good - whatever, even if you aren't using it.

These days I think hard (and probably still not as hard as I should) before I buy something new. I admire the people who are trying to live with less stuff, even though I'll probably never be one of them.The more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to keep organized. The more gadgets you have, the more you need to ensure them and the more you need to protect them.

Follow Your Bliss: This has really made my life enjoyable(or sometimes miserable). I get paid for doing what I'd be doing anyway. For me, it's working with computers. I really, truly, love that. I'm convinced that everyone can make a living at doing something they really want to do. Well then you might ask, who is going to clean the garbage outside my house? Funny you should ask. I had a friend back in high school, his father was a professor at the University. During our summer holidays, he used to call the folks in our colony on every sunday morning and we used to clean our community. Figure out what you really like to do, and spend some effort trying to come up with a way to make money at it. I truly truly believe, that a job you love is worth much more than a job that pays well which you hate.

Follow through, till the end: I love starting new things, and i mean starting. It's easy and exciting to start something. Buying a fancy universal remote control kit is fun! Then you realize there are a zillion little pieces, all similar, that you have to, sand, glue, realize you did it wrong, and fix...

That thing that was so great when looked at from a distance can really become tedious when you're in the trenches doing the work to make it a reality.After a string of half completed projects, it starts to get pretty oppressive...and sometimes leads into severe trauma, that would take years to fix.

I am right now very very careful about starting new projects, be it my theatre, or my music or anything fun, outside my job. If I'm going to start something new, I have to decide what existing project I'll give up on. Or can this new, exciting project wait until an existing project is done?

I really enjoy the satisfaction of having something done, and being able to make use of -- whatever I was working on.

The tool called "Perception": For quite a long while, confused with the topics like "start with the end in mind", in any project, i was only seeing the boring things that stand between me and the completion.Very recently, I have started looking at similar projects and think about how good it will feel to be done with it. This has been instrumental in improving my follow-through.

And this all comes from (and trust me, I hate this cliche) looking on the bright side. So, don't concentrate on having to get up early, deal with the traffic and travelling, spend long hours inside an AC room, starting at your 17inch beast, among other things.... Imagine you are on a miracle flight, that could change things. I know, i know its a very very cheap trick. I know, but like placebos(The placebo effect: http://wn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo), its shockingly effective.

Believe, Believe and Believe that you can do anything: This is almost my superpower. It's not so much that I know I can do anything, it's more the converse; I don't know that there's anything I can't do. And you would be surprised to know that i learnt that just a few days back, in a very trivial circumstance. That attitude has made it so that I pretty much can do anything... This is another cheap trick like the above, but it's one i believe is serving me well now. If you decide you can't do something, you're probably going to end up being right.

Learn to leave your frustrations: This has really been the hard part for me, all these years. The biggest stumbling block to the above idea in "Belief" for me, also stems from here. One thing, if at all, i have to say has been strong in my life, is the belief in God. And someone, recently told me this, which was very very inspiring(or cliche if you are an atheist): "God sends you flowers every morning. Trust me, he is crazy about you. God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but he did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears and the light for the day. If God brings you to it, he will bring you through it". One of my friends recently asked me this : "What is that one thing for which you could give up anything else in your life". I probably didn't have an answer then, and then i realized, that when that one thing wasn't obvious then, why get frustrated about something because that "something" is not all that important in your life, probably.The band, the WeatherThans (http://www.theweakerthans.org/discography/reconstructionsite_content.html) have this song where they say "Throw away my misery; It never meant that much to me; It never sent a get-well card." Just let go of what makes you mad or sad. If you focus on it, you're just giving it power. Let your frustrations go and give power to the successes. I could go on with this, probably even publish a paper or two on this. For me, its more of an internal healing process.

And Finally: Now go forth watch of Bill and Ted (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt096928) who said "Be excellent to one-another." And party on, guys :). Life, is, after all a roller coaster ride :).

The Yin-Yang - Balance disturbed - Part 1

2010-02-06T00:53:00.000-08:00

For my own amusement, and lack of better names, i am planning to write a series of articles on 2 characters , a boy and girl. The boy is called 'YIN' and the girl is called 'YANG'. Anyway, the following is the first of such articles.

YANG : Hi YIN! How are you doing?

YIN: I am..(and before even he could finish...)

YANG: Anyway, i am not doing fine for so many days you know.

YIN: Why what happened?

YANG: Well, i have been having these series of neck pain for the past so many days. And then, i tried visiting the doctor. He came up with some random medical terms for this problem. And i just smoked a couple of cigarettes and slept the other day. Anyway, you were saying...

YIN: Yeah i was saying that I...(YANG cuts him once again)

YANG: Oh! Btw, did you know i got featured on this musical show on TV the other day. Did you see me?

YIN: Yes i did. And i was saying that...

YANG: And also, I have so many things to do in life. I have to handle my boyfriend. I have to handle my finances. I have to do so many things. My life is so complicated you know.Sorry, you were saying something(she looks at her watch and realizes she is getting late)...Oh! I need to rush back now. I have to get out now. I am going drinking with my sister...will talk to you later...and ...(she leaves).

YIN(All to himself): I just wanted to say that i feel like killing myself. I wanted to talk to someone about this. Anyway...i shall consult a psychiatrist.

A fine poetry in tamil vs a Sanskrit Shloka!

2009-05-08T13:11:00.001-07:00

One of the finest & fiercest poetry i have read in tamil....

தேடிச் சோறுநிதந் தின்று - பல சின்னஞ் சிறுகதைகள் பேசி - மனம் வாடித் துன்பமிக உழன்று - பிறர் வாடப் பலசெயல்கள் செய்து - நரை கூடிக் கிழப்பருவ மெய்தி - கொடுங் கூற்றுக் கிரையெனப்பின் மாயும் - பல வேடிக்கை மனிதரைப் போலே - நான் வீழ்வே னென்று நினைத் தாயோ?

நின்னைச் சில வரங்கள் கேட்பேன் - அவைநேரே இன்றெனக்குத் தருவாய் - என்றன் முன்னைத் தீயவினைப் பயன்கள் - இன்னும் மூளாதழிந்திடுதல் வேண்டும் - இனி என்னைப் புதிய உயிராக்கி - எனக்கேதுங் கவலையறச் செய்து - மதிதன்னை மிகத் தெளிவு செய்து - என்றும் சந்தோஷங் கொண்டிருக்கச் செய்வாய்! என்றும் சந்தோஷங் கொண்டிருக்கச் செய்வாய்!

Thedi Chorudhinam thindru - Pala Chinnanjiru kadhaigal pesi - Manam Vaadi thunbamiga Uzhandru - Pirar Vaada pala seyalgal seidhu - Narai Koodikizha paruvam eidhi - Kodum Kootruk Kiraiyenappin Maayum - Pala Vedikkai Manidharaip Pole - Naan Veezhven endry Ninaithayo?

Ninnai Sila Varangal Ketpen - Avai Nere indrenakku tharuvai - Endran Munnai theeyavinai payangal - Innum Moolathazhindhidudhal Vendum - Iniyennai Pudhiya Uyir aaki - Ennaku Yedhum Kavalaiyaracheidhu - Madhithannai miga thelivu seidhu - Endrum Sandhosham Kondirukka Cheivai!Endrum Sandhosham Kondirukka Cheivai!

- மகாகவி பாரதியார் (Mahakavi Barathiyaar)

A very loose translation...(ofcourse this disturbs the beauty of the poetry...but nevertheless...)

As i hunt for food and eat every day - Speaking about past and its good/bad times - heart sunk, shattered - Having done deeds that caused hurt to many - Gaining grey hair in an ageing body - Falling prey to a hurtful pyre like so many foolish men - did you think I would fall like them?

Oh god, i will ask you a few wishes - And you please grant them right away - All the sins i might have committed before, that haunt me now - Allow me to get rid of them, right now - Henceforth, make me a new soul - Giving me peace anywhere - Clarify my thought and mind - Make me gain and sustain eternal happiness - Make me sustain eternal happiness.

The last few lines, especially, "இனி என்னைப் புதிய உயிராக்கி....என்றும் சந்தோஷங் கொண்டிருக்கச் செய்வாய்! remind of this sanskrit quote....

अस्तो मा सद् गमय तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय मृत्योन् मा अमृतं गमय् ॐ शांति शांति शांति
AUM asato maa sadgamaya.tamaso maa jyotirgamaya . mR^ityomaa.r amR^itaM gamaya .. AUM shaa.ntiH shaa.ntiH shaa.ntiH

- Third Brahmana of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.28), that talks about life force(a.k.a Prana)

Which means....
Lead me from the unreal to Real;
Lead me from darkness (ignorance) to Light (knowledge)
Lead me from death to Immortality.
Om Peace! Peace!! Peace!!

A Strange Confession

2009-04-14T12:54:00.001-07:00

I have recently started looking at the world through apocalypse eyes. It usually begins when i start driving down the lanes of bangalore, through the great metro project that is happening in the city. The inconvenience, the delays, the accidents, the heat, and yet, yet..people are busy doing their work and still bustling around in their daily routine. All of this seems so solid, so permanent, so unmovable, so necessary.

As as one of my dear friends keeps talking about it, it would just take one war, a single riot, a dirty bomb, a natural disaster, one ravaging army, a single bottle with a single virus to bring it all down, dashingly! Oh yes..we have seen these before... Hiroshima, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kashmir, Gujarat, Bombay, Hyderabad...hmm..the list is endless when i start speaking about my country.

Sometimes, i wonder what kind of society are we trying to build. My parents and lots and lots of other folks, believe that its built out of "concrete custom". But i think, its just a temporary resting place, a hotel, our ancestors(or lets call it civilization) checked in a few hundred years ago and must one day checkout. How many of us visit the Mayan, Egyptian, Greek and Roman ruins. But, do we ever wonder when is someone going to visit the Indian ruins(apart from Indus valley ruins and Harrappa and Mohenjodaro ruins).

You know...thats how the world looks through apocalyse eyes. You see blanks between a thriving city or state and a devastated one and you start filling these blanks. And as you start filling these blanks, you start imagining its occurrence, its impact, and most importantly, whether you and the people you love could escape from it. Yes, i don't want it to happen! No one wants, i guess. But, for the first time, in my life, i started feeling, there is a possibility it could happen. And that is enough to motivate me to save myself and my loved ones, while there is still time.

No, i don't want to be behind bars, or be tortured like the prisoners in abhu ghraib, or seen fighting with old men and women for some food, or dying of some strange disease in some refugee camp or undergo anything horrendous that i have read in those history books. Hell No! On the contrary, i would rather want to end up writing those history books, on lets say, a nice beach, far away from the mess created by corrupt politicians, Crooked CEOs, and other committed madmen, who make the so called "modern world"! Yes, i just want to get away from all this, and be the grand winner of the survival casino.

But actually, i didn't always think like this. But then again, i was naive. Yes, i belong to the grand Indian culture and history and all that, which made me believe that these things are beyond our control. But thinking about this, nothing as terrible has happened to us, like what has been happening in the past century. Those who came to age in the first twenty years of the previous century, had to either fight World War I(by their virtue of joining the british troops) or fight the britishers , themselves. Then, the next twenty years was spent on the Great Depression(that affected other parts of the world, thanks to non-globalization, we weren't affected too much). But, we had our own enemies to fight - Maharajas, Middle Men, Brokers and above all, the foreign invaders.The next twenty years were spent in World War -II and in gaining Independent India. The next generation inherited our friendly neighbourhood countries and the great gandhian family of politicians.

And then, from the 1960s to the close of the century or even further - Economic and Scientific Developments on one hand and dealing with our neighbours on the other. In spite of several re-defining moments like Kargil War, Bomb blasts in different cities, there was nothing to pull us out of our self centered, solipsistic world. There was nothing powerful enough to drag us , outside our preoccupation, our financial and emotional well being, outside our "comfort zone".

Ofcourse, society wasn't perfect before either. But, the current state we are in - Terrorist attacks, domestic crackdowns, flooded cities, farmers eating dead rats, Rape-Murder and brutal slaughter of a few hundred innocent children and burrying them under the closet - all, all happened switfly, without warning. HISTORY, HAPPENED TO US!

I can't tell you the exact date along the way i lost faith in the system - In every system of every country. And over the course of this gradual awakening, i decided to equip myself with the tools necessary to survive whatever politics and history threw at me next. Preparing myself for hard times has been an incredibly challenging task, because some people, as they say are born tough. I wasn't, probably. In fact, the last time i ever fought and i mean physically fought with someone was when i was taking my martial arts classes when i was 10-12 years. Damn, i haven't been capable enough to pick up a fight with anyone, though i have been mugged once :(.

In short, if the system ever breaks down, there are two useful skills i have(or i think i have) are, (a) To develop software and associated math to build things back or (b) the ability to write about the breakdown. Perhaps, i could probably "discuss" with someone, who has the practical knowledge into helping me out. But what is the guarantee that they aren't going to mug me?

Perfection or Angel of Light?

2009-02-27T03:48:00.000-08:00

It was just the other day i went to this Coffee Shop. All by myself, kind of packed, i sat down quietly in a corner. I usually entice in this habit, just like that when i feel like being on my own.
This place is usually less crowded and for some reason, it was quite unusually crowded that day.
I Asked for my Aztec coffee and slowly started drowning myself into my book, waiting for my coffee to arrive. Slowly, was this strange kind of uneasiness that started surrounding me. I looked around...and...

Amid the flood of faces that waited there,
Unsure of who they are and why I should care,
I saw her move forward, towards where i sat, through the crowd
Glancing, looking, searching ....
Her walk, was a waltz through the crowd..
As i saw her gracefully walking through the place
Her beauty was so much to take, yet so little that was seen,
For a second, i thought i had seen perfection,
But then i believed she was an angel of light.
And then she caught me by the eye, and i, like a fool, pretended to drown myself into my book.
Her face beaming as she greets me there, asking me if she could sit by me, if the place was free.
And as we talked, i saw a sudden glitter in her eye...did she glitter with my joke, i thought!
And suddenly, i see a shadow in front of me, and i look back, i saw him grabbing her.
As i turned, he held her close to him and they moved to another table, that just got free.

Anyway, i had come to have my aztec there, which arrived finally, just without the brown sugar, which was apparently out of stock. Read a couple of pages, looking intermittently at her, and finally finished my aztec. Time to go home! Amen!

The English Girl!

2009-02-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

A woman goes to England to attend a 2-week, company training session. Her husband drives her to the airport and wishes her to have a good trip. The wife answers : "Thank you honey, what would you like me to bring for you?" The husband laughs and says, "An English girl !!!" The woman kept quiet and left. Two weeks later he picks her up in the airport and asks, "So, honey, how was the trip?" "Very good, thank you." "And, what happened to my present?" "Which present?" She asked? "The one I asked for- the English girl!!" "Oh, that" she said, "Well, I did what I could, now we have to wait a few months to see if it is a girl and if she is english!!!"

Here I am...

2009-02-06T07:51:00.000-08:00

Here I am sitting in my office @ night… Thinking hard about life
How it changed from a maverick college life to a yucky professional life

How my tiny pocket money changed to huge monthly paychecks/Credit Cards;
but why does it give less happiness?

How a few local denim jeans changed to some new branded wardrobe;
but then why are there less people to use them?

How a single plate of samosa changed to a full 5 star Buffet;
but then, why is there less hunger?

Here I am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed…..

How a cycle always in reserve changed to a bike always on;
but then why are there less places to go on?

How those small coffee shops changed to coffee pubs;
but then, why don't i have the time to sip a good cup of coffee peacefully?

How, my govt operated landline number to postpaid package;
but then why are there less calls & more messages?

Here I am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed…..

How a 2nd class train journey changed to Flight journey;
but then why it, i have less/no time for vacations?

How an old assembled desktop changed to new MAC book;
but why am i not enjoying those video games anymore?

How a small bunch of friends changed to colleagues
but why do we always keep meeting in conference rooms?

Here I am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed….. How things changed……..How everything changed !!!

What have i become?

2009-01-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

Hmm...yeah thats a question i am trying to answer these days and true enough, i read stranger books and watcher weirder movies. How about people i meet, you ask? The lesser i speak, the better. Anyway, here is something i read and thought sounded apt to this situation:

"I COULD NOT BECOME ANYTHING: NEITHER BAD NOR GOOD,
NEITHER A SCOUNDREL NOR AN HONEST MAN,
NEITHER A HERO NOR AN INSECT.
AND NOW I AM EKING OUT MY DAYS IN MY CORNER,
TAUNTING MYSELF WITH THE BITTER AND ENTIRELY
USELESS CONSOLATION THAT AN
INTELLIGENT MAN CANNOT SERIOUSLY
BECOME ANYTHING; THAT ONLY A FOOL CAN BECOME SOMETHING."

Its appraisal time.Let me get back to some serious work now...

Between Leaving and Moving

2008-08-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

A few of days back, a friend of mine said she was leaving the company she is currently working. So, i asked her,the next logical question, which is where is she going. She said, she is joining a small startup. I asked, so does it pay better. She said, no! She is a bright engineer and so asked her, why aren't you applying to the bigger companies. You know, the natural progression is to move from one good company to another good company. Her reply to that was, she wasn't relocating to another company like a job shift. She said, she is leaving this one and moving to another. I asked, well what's the difference? Her answer was, you see, for most people, job shift appears like a single atomic transaction. I mean, you leave one job and move on to another, thereby completing the circle and finishing the transaction. She said, that is very different from what she was doing. She said, "its not like one fine day i woke up and decided to leave and hence started hunting out for other jobs and finally landed up in another company". She said, "one fine day i woke up and i saw something. I thought it was far better than what i do. I like what i am doing now, but i find this to be far more interesting than what i am doing". So, she said, " I decided, i will give it a shot and see if i can get there, in that new work place. I talked to them and told them what they are doing seemed interesting and i would like to be part of this venture. So, they offered me a position, with a little lesser salary and of the same designation. But, i readily accepted".

This conversation, was a great eye opener for me. I suddenly realized, why some of my friends, are still enjoying their break from work, even though its been more than a year. I am not talking about people who don't work because they are lazy or find working boring. I am talking about people who have worked for sometime and are genuinly taking some time off from work, before deciding what next to do.

My 2 dearest friends, i can completely understand your state of mind, right now and i thought i should codify this new found knowledge of mine :). I have even called you "jobless" at times,when you have sent those long "planner emails". But, now, i completely understand the difference and the state of your mind. Enjoy your break! Amen!

Shall we talk Philospphy?

2008-07-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Its around 3:57 AM, IST, friday evening(or saturday early morning, to be precise), without a drink and writing about philosophy. Sounds strange or sounds familiar? Well, i am not blaming my lack of nocturnal activities of any kind on a friday evening for this, but the fact that these days i am kept busy reading (or re-reading ) some interesting works of plato and aristotle. Anyway, let me get back to the point of discussion : Philosophy.

When i was in school, I decided I wanted to study philosophy, at some point. But then, practical aspects of life and money, sort of made it impossible to take up philosophical studies, as a serious subject in this country. I followed the other sheeps around my school, went into an engineering college and all that. But what is important here is, I had several motives, some more honorable than others. One of the less honorable was to shock people. You know, Schools and Colleges is always regarded (or atleast i did) as job training where I grew up. So studying philosophy seemed an impressively impractical thing to do. Sort of like slashing holes in your clothes or putting a board pin through your ear,belly, and your tongue which were other forms of impressive impracticality then just coming into fashion.

But I had some more honest motives as well. I thought studying philosophy would be a shortcut straight to wisdom. You know, all my friends would just end up with some "specific" domain knowledge, based on their coursework. But, I would be learning what was really what.

I'd tried to read a few philosophy books. Not recent ones; But I tried to read Plato and Aristotle. I doubt I believed I understood them, but they sounded like they were talking about something important. Honestly, I learned a lot in my Real Ananlysis class, but I didn't learn much from these gentlemen. And yet my plan to study philosophy remained intact. It was my fault I hadn't learned anything. Then, i was sugested Berkley by someone(dont remember who). I did give Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge another shot in college. Anything so admired and so difficult to read must have something in it, if one could only figure out what. I still don't understand Berkeley, after almost a decade now. I have a nice edition of his collected works. Will I ever read it? Seems unlikely. The difference between then and now is that now I understand why Berkeley is probably not worth trying to understand. I think I see now what went wrong with philosophy, and how we might fix it.

Philosophy doesn't really have a subject matter in the way math or history or most other university subjects do. There is no core of knowledge one must master. The closest you come to that is a knowledge of what various individual philosophers have said about different topics over the years. Few were sufficiently correct that people have forgotten who discovered what they discovered.

Heard of Formal Logic? It does seem to me very important to be able to flip ideas around in one's head: to see when two ideas don't fully cover the space of possibilities, or when one idea is the same as another but with a couple things changed. But did studying logic teach me the importance of thinking this way, or make me any better at it? I don't know.

There are things I know I learned from studying philosophy. The most dramatic I learned immediately that I don't exist. I am (and you are) a collection of cells that lurches around driven by various forces, and calls itself I. But there's no central, indivisible thing that your identity goes with. You could conceivably lose half your brain and live. Which means your brain could conceivably be split into two halves and each transplanted into different bodies. Imagine waking up after such an operation. You have to imagine being two people.

The real lesson here is that the concepts we use in everyday life are fuzzy, and break down if pushed too hard. Even a concept as dear to us as I. It took me a while to grasp this, but when I did it was fairly sudden, like someone in the nineteenth century grasping evolution and realizing the story of creation they'd been told as a child was all wrong. [1] Outside of math there's a limit to how far you can push words; in fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings. Everyday words are inherently imprecise. They work well enough in everyday life that you don't notice. Words seem to work, just as Newtonian physics seems to. But you can always make them break if you push them far enough.

I would say that this has been, unfortunately for philosophy, the central fact of philosophy. Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free." Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by "exist."

This brings me to an interesting question. How did things get this way? Can something people have spent thousands of years studying really be a waste of time?In fact, some of the most interesting questions you can ask about philosophy. The most valuable way to approach the current philosophical tradition may be neither to get lost in pointless speculations like Berkeley, nor to shut them down, but to study it as an example of reason gone wrong.

Western philosophy really begins with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.There started to be a lot more analysis. I suspect Plato and Aristotle were encouraged in this by progress in math. Mathematicians had by then shown that you could figure things out in a much more conclusive way than by making up fine sounding stories about them. [2]
People talk so much about abstractions now that we don't realize what a leap it must have been when they first started to. It was presumably many thousands of years between when people first started describing things as hot or cold and when someone asked "what is heat?" No doubt it was a very gradual process.Aristotle in particular reminds me of the phenomenon that happens when people discover something new, and are so excited by it that they race through a huge percentage of the newly discovered territory in one lifetime. If so, that's evidence of how new this kind of thinking was. [3] Something similar happened when people first started trying to talk about abstractions. Much to their surprise, they didn't arrive at answers they agreed upon. In fact, they rarely seemed to arrive at answers at all.They were in effect arguing about artifacts induced by sampling at too low a resolution.

Lets just step back to see what really was the goal then. Aristotle's goal, for instance was to find the most general of general principles. The examples he gives are convincing: an ordinary worker builds things a certain way out of habit; a master craftsman can do more because he grasps the underlying principles. The trend is clear: the more general the knowledge, the more admirable it is. But then he makes a mistake—possibly the most important mistake in the history of philosophy. He has noticed that theoretical knowledge is often acquired for its own sake, out of curiosity, rather than for any practical need. So he proposes there are two kinds of theoretical knowledge: some that's useful in practical matters and some that isn't. Since people interested in the latter are interested in it for its own sake, it must be more noble. So he sets as his goal in the Metaphysics the exploration of knowledge that has no practical use. Which means no alarms go off when he takes on grand but vaguely understood questions and ends up getting lost in a sea of words.

His mistake was to confuse motive and result. Certainly, people who want a deep understanding of something are often driven by curiosity rather than any practical need. But that doesn't mean what they end up learning is useless.So while ideas don't have to have immediate practical applications to be interesting, the kinds of things we find interesting will surprisingly often turn out to have practical applications.That's what makes theoretical knowledge prestigious. It's also what causes smart people to be curious about certain things and not others; our DNA is not so disinterested as we might think.The reason Aristotle didn't get anywhere in the Metaphysics was partly that he set off with contradictory aims: to explore the most abstract ideas, guided by the assumption that they were useless.

So, is there a problem?
And since his work became the map used by generations of future explorers, he sent them off in the wrong direction as well. [4] Perhaps worst of all, he protected them from both the criticism of outsiders and the promptings of their own inner compass by establishing the principle that the most noble sort of theoretical knowledge had to be useless.

The Metaphysics is mostly a failed experiment. A few ideas from it turned out to be worth keeping; the bulk of it has had no effect at all. The Metaphysics is among the least read of all famous books. It's not hard to understand the way Newton's Principia is, but the way a garbled message is.

In the intervening years an unfortunate idea took hold: that it was not only acceptable to produce works like the Metaphysics, but that it was a particularly prestigious line of work, done by a class of people called philosophers. No one thought to go back and debug Aristotle's motivating argument. And so instead of correcting the problem Aristotle discovered by falling into it—that you can easily get lost if you talk too loosely about very abstract ideas—they continued to fall into it.

If you write in an unclear way about big ideas, you produce something that seems tantalizingly attractive to inexperienced but intellectually ambitious students. Till one knows better, it's hard to distinguish something that's hard to understand because the writer was unclear in his own mind from something like a mathematical proof that's hard to understand because the ideas it represents are hard to understand. To someone who hasn't learned the difference, traditional philosophy seems extremely attractive: as hard (and therefore impressive) as math, yet broader in scope. That was what lured me in as a high school student.So, whats even worse is, When things are hard to understand, people who suspect they're nonsense generally keep quiet. There's no way to prove a text is meaningless. The closest you can get is to show that the official judges of some class of texts can't distinguish them from placebos. [5]
ecause philosophy's flaws turned away the sort of people who might have corrected them, they tended to be self-perpetuating.

So, is there a solution?
Here's an intriguing possibility. Perhaps we should do what Aristotle meant to do, instead of what he did. The goal he announces in the Metaphysics seems one worth pursuing: to discover the most general truths. That sounds good. But instead of trying to discover them because they're useless, let's try to discover them because they're useful.Lets use, applicability, as a guide to keep us from wondering off into a swamp of abstractions. Instead of trying to answer the question:

What are the most general truths?

let's try to answer the question

Of all the useful things we can say, which are the most general?

The goal is the same as Aristotle's; we just approach it from a different direction.

As an example of a useful, general idea, consider that of the controlled experiment. There's an idea that has turned out to be widely applicable. Some might say it's part of science, but it's not part of any specific science; it's literally meta-physics (in our sense of "meta"). The idea of evolution is another. It turns out to have quite broad applications—for example, in genetic algorithms and even product design. Frankfurt's distinction between lying and bullshitting seems a promising recent example. [6]

These seem to me what philosophy should look like: quite general observations that would cause someone who understood them to do something differently.

One drawback of this approach is that it won't produce the sort of writing that gets you tenure. And not just because it's not currently the fashion.Here's the exciting thing, though. Anyone can do this.

If it seems like a daunting task to do philosophy, here's an encouraging thought. hough the first philosophers in the western tradition lived about 2500 years ago, it would be misleading to say the field is 2500 years old, because for most of that time the leading practitioners weren't doing much more than writing commentaries on Plato or Aristotle while watching over their shoulders for the next invading army. It didn't shake itself free till a couple hundred years ago, and even then was afflicted by the structural problems I've described above.If I say this, some will say it's a ridiculously overbroad and uncharitable generalization, and others will say it's old news, but here goes: judging from their works, most philosophers up to the present have been wasting their time. So in a sense the field is still at the first step. [7]

Hmm... That sounds a preposterous claim to make. Civilization always seems old, because it's always the oldest it's ever been. The only way to say whether something is really old or not is by looking at structural evidence, and structurally philosophy is young; it's still reeling from the unexpected breakdown of words.

Philosophy is as young now as math was in 1500. There is a lot more to discover.

Notes and References

[1] It was harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we can easily imagine. The story of creation in the Bible is not just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's roughly what everyone must have believed since before people were people. The hard part of grasping evolution was to realize that species weren't, as they seem to be, unchanging, but had instead evolved from different, simpler organisms over unimaginably long periods of time.

Now we don't have to make that leap. No one in an industrialized country encounters the idea of evolution for the first time as an adult. Everyone's taught about it as a child, either as truth or heresy.

[2] Philosophy is like math's ne'er-do-well brother. It was born when Plato and Aristotle looked at the works of their predecessors and said in effect "why can't you be more like your brother?" Russell was still saying the same thing 2300 years later.

Math is the precise half of the most abstract ideas, and philosophy the imprecise half. It's probably inevitable that philosophy will suffer by comparison, because there's no lower bound to its precision. Bad math is merely boring, whereas bad philosophy is nonsense. And yet there are some good ideas in the imprecise half.

[3] Aristotle's best work was in logic and zoology, both of which he can be said to have invented. But the most dramatic departure from his predecessors was a new, much more analytical style of thinking. He was arguably the first scientist.

[4] The meaning of the word "philosophy" has changed over time. In ancient times it covered a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our "scholarship" (though without the methodological implications). Even as late as Newton's time it included what we now call "science." But core of the subject today is still what seemed to Aristotle the core: the attempt to discover the most general truths.

Aristotle didn't call this "metaphysics." That name got assigned to it because the books we now call the Metaphysics came after (meta = after) the Physics in the standard edition of Aristotle's works compiled by Andronicus of Rhodes three centuries later. What we call "metaphysics" Aristotle called "first philosophy."

[5] Sokal, Alan, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity".
[6] Frankfurt, Harry, On Bullshit, Princeton University Press.

[7] Some introductions to philosophy now take the line that philosophy is worth studying as a process rather than for any particular truths you'll learn. The philosophers whose works they cover would be rolling in their graves at that. They hoped they were doing more than serving as examples of how to argue: they hoped they were getting results. Most were wrong, but it doesn't seem an impossible hope.

This argument seems to me like someone in 1500 looking at the lack of results achieved by alchemy and saying its value was as a process. No, they were going about it wrong. It turns out it is possible to transmute lead into gold (though not economically at current energy prices), but the route to that knowledge was to backtrack and try another approach.

A mixed Holy Week!

2008-03-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

This holy week has been incredible mixed bag of emotions and surprises. Couple of goodies and one BAD BAD thing.

Goodies
------------
1. A long awaited wait of money return - Yes, finally got the house rent advance from my previous landowner after a desperate struggle for over 2 months now. No extra interest for this large sum given to me.

2. Finally got my internet connection - BSNL finally had mercy on me to give me my internet connection just within 45 days after i requested them. An enormous number of fone calls, emails and not to mention the wonderful redressal cell they have. BSNL was chosen after airtel guys promised to give me a new connection after i shifted to this new residence. Airtel customer care is even more interesting. They never bothered to register my request to change my connection. Then i call them up to figure out it is not registered and they booked a complaint. Never got back to me and after upteen number of calls to their call centers, emails and also to their zonal office, they still have not gotten back to me. So i had to give up all hopes on their so called model of "prompt service".

And now for the BAD PART for this week: I lost the current love of my life. Not that we broke up, its just that by the time i decided to express my feelings to her, she had already found another guy in her life. So, listening to all those sad songs, composing some music and of course spending time with my books and movies. Need to eat some chocolates now to help me get outta my depression.

A few lessons!

2007-05-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

No philosophy lessons here. This is just a summary of some of my biggest learnings working for almost 2 years in a project(not important) in the same company(irrelevant).

Here are they:

1. Results Matter: It does not make a difference whether the company is in deep shit or in its biggest times of glory. What is important is the results you give to your company as an employee, even if your project does not earn them a penny. They have obviously employed you coz they thought your job profile does not require great skills and that's the reason YOU are there working with them, for them. Your results do matter to them. Thats the only way they can say that the project is useless and can be scrapped.

2. Leaders(Read Managers) make choices and you(Read Engineers) are held accountable: Obviously, your manager does not know even the ABC of your job. All he knows is to give you some high level gyan of how to architect systems and build modular, robust components. You might need to undergo an hour long sermon on Scalability, Reliability and all the "abilities" that any system should guarantee. But, when it actually comes to implementing them, the following are some of the things which are told/asked:

"What is the ROI?
This is more of an engineering task, does not have any business value.
Our business is driven by priorities. These are all NICE to have things.
Maybe, we can take it up later. Let me check with the Product Management to see if it matches their priorities.

....

When when the product goes out for production and we see performance issues and shit hits the roof, then comes our leader to smartly ask , "Why could'nt we have been able to catch this apriori? We should ensure we have enough review done before releasing something".

3. Make Right choices : Well, this is probably the outcome of the some of the above learnings. It is easy to get caught up doing the urgent. It takes real skill to do the important.

4. Are you an AssLicker? : Hmm...if you are not, then you are probably in trouble. If you lick your leader 's(read only leader :) and not manager) ass, then you elevate him(or her). This forces him/her to elevate his/her leader(read boss). And the process is transitive enough to hit right till the top. This helps you save time to do something productive and also help build a good raport with your leader and probably RESULTS DO NOT MATTER. My dear friend (again irrelevant) may not agree with this, but Engineering freedom is still a dream far from even being dreamt. The new order of the day:

Your Leader is always right!
You, are always wrong.
If you have any doubts, go back to rule number #1.

Ass Licking(recoining it as elevation of the leader) is the only fast track way to reduce problems at work place, improve productivity and achieve results. Don't think, just act!

Being Single!

2007-02-27T06:42:00.000-08:00

Well well well...i have often debated on the benifits of being single. So..thought its time i document my thoughts...and here they go.

DISCLAIMER
The following are some of my (own) reasons for being single. I am not advocating this to anyone, but perhaps if i(or you) wish to marry, this would be a good source of knowing what i(or you) would "miss" and more important, am i(or you) ready to miss these?
END OF DISCLAIMER

1. Great Sleep: Cruise for a night of delicious slumber in soft, cozy and warm flannel pajamas. Snuggling up to another body is nice, but so is having all the pillows and covers to myself.

2. Morning Raga: I usually dont like someone complaining how i look in the morning. And to be honest i look terrible - fuzzy tongue, wild hair or puffy eyes . When I am single, others see the “after” picture, not the “before.”

3.Being Natural: Hmm..how i hate to use those razors. Well, when i am single, i don't have too many complaining of my rugged looks. It does itch at the begining, but eventually folks will just assume i have become a liberal Democrat.

4. Ca-ching! : I shall be the happiest person at the bank on Valentine's Day as i make(read if i make) a deposit while others grumble as they withdraw money to pay for those over-priced gifts and special candle light dinners.

5. Great Sex: My ex was wonderful and lasted for few minutes. I, on the other hand, can last for hours (of course not with the same ex).

6. Commitments: This happens to be one of the serious reasons, actually. Its very hard for me to remain focussed and comitted on a single activity all the time. Afterall, there are too many beautiful creatures around right?

Hmm..i still have a lot more things to write but running short of patience and time.

I thus turned out friendship

2007-02-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

And the god said "Your friend is your need answered"?
Need? i said, but i have many with different forms!
He said " He is the one which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. "
But what if noneth loves thy?
Thy feed my friend and wait for peace and there is born the seed for deceit.
He said "In friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed."
But all i got was misery from expectations, evil from desires and shared was my mind for their evil deeds and joy unclaimed.
When i parted her, i grieved. When she parted me, she was joyous.
And i realized, there is no purpose in friendship.
Let thy be my best friend. For in me cannot be expectations from thyself, and neither will i be unjoyous with thyself.
And he said "You shall find your friend in due time..."

Who cares who wins?

2007-01-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

Another of those frustrating thingies about celebs winning some shit in some part of the world. Why should "Shilpa Shetty wins Big Brother" be a "Breaking News" in most channels when there are some serious issues in our land. A day or so back was when a hostel collapsed in gujurat while no one seems to showcase it. No signs of any investigation being shown for this while this Big Brother crap seems to hit potentially all channels. What is happening to all those media reporters we had. What becomes more frustrating is when serious channels like NDTV too seem to hype this whole issue.

On an alternate note when racist comments were supossedly passed, the media created a huge hue and cry. Went to the extent of saying "This is a blow to India and Indians". Shilpa Shetty is not Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam or Dr. Manmohan Singh to represent India. She is a freaking film star and coincidentally happens to be born in India. Thats all she has as credits for herself. Lets step back and think about this so called racist comment? Are we indians non racists?
In our colleges, have we not made fun of mallus for their pronunciation? Have we not called andrites as gults? How many bollywood movies have made fun of south indians and sardars. How many santa/banta jokes have we nourished ? And what about our governments? Bombay => Mumbai, Madras => Chennai, Calcutta => kolkatta and the recent "bengaluru". Come on gimme a break. We live in a far more communally diversified environment than any other country. Racism is not just about belonging to different countries. It even stems from all the examples quoted above.

And what about "winning an international event"? Is it like she had to do something extraordinary to win this competition? Whats there to win in an event like this? What does it take? Just staying in a place for a few days? cooking ur own food and washing ur own clothes? My grandparents have done that for over a 50 years or so and no one seems to pay them like 100 thousand pounds for that?

If it was just an indian winnning an international event, every month one or the other Indian wins something for our country somewhere, maybe in sports, maybe in quizzes, maybe in software competitions and what not. But why don't we promote things which actually need promotion like this and promote an overly promoted thing like Big Brother in the first place? Just think about this, we have simply failed in promoting talent while nurtured mediocracy. Lets take sports. Once in a while we promote a Sachin Tendulkar or a Sania Mirza. But is that all we have in this 100 billion populated country?

My question is directed more towards the media? Have we failed in understanding journalism? Or is our news channels just another "sans bhi kabhi bahu thi" sort of an entertainer?

Mafia DON in UP elections?

2007-01-21T02:07:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting bit of news i am reading these days that Abu Salem is contesting for UP elections. Fortunately, for the people in UP, Abu Salem cannot become the CM there as his name is not in the voters list. This is by far the most funniest thing i have ever read in the recent times for 2 reasons:

1. EC approves of a former DON to contest for the UP Polls
2. One cannot become a CM in a state as his name is not there in the voters list.

More news available here: http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/29/stories/2006122918451500.htm

the trees

2007-01-19T11:19:00.000-08:00

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.
The trouble with the maples,
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made.
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled,
As the maples scream "Oppression!"
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
"The oaks are just too greedy;
We will make them give us light."
Now there's no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.
--
rush
(hemispheres)

Children of a Lesser God!

2007-01-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

It was the 31st of dec, 2006. The year was dawning to an end. For the influential in this country, it had been a great year when Indians - and of late quite a bit of the world as well - keep talking about the new India's economic prowess and potential... of its 8-9% growth rate, how India produced more millionaires than China last year, and how India may become the world's largest economy after the US and China in the next few decades. As the rich and the well-heeled made preparations to ring in 2007 in style across a new, shining India, a sleepy, poor housing area - Nithari - almost ruined their party. On the 31st afternoon, the noida police dug the seewage of the alleged Mohinder Singh to find some body parts blocking the drainage. This was perceived by many, just as a scene of mass killings by some imbecile. India loosing to SA was greater concern for the rest. For the police in another part of the country, providing safety in Goa was a greater concern since there were many foreigners expected to party there.For some of them who witnessed nithari on the various media channels, it was like watching a horror film.An initial wave of revulsion swept through the country after details of the mass killings in Nithari village of Noida - a suburb of the Indian capital, Delhi - unfolded like one grotesque sequence.But after a while, most Indians came to see the killings as simply a gory crime committed by one or more sick individuals.In the end, most parties and festivities went ahead as planned. Just a few weeks ago when a rich software company(Adobe Software) CEO's(Mr. Naresh Gupta) son was abducted from Noida - not more than 3 miles (5kms) from Nithari - the case hogged the limelight 24x7 and the police worked overtime to solve it. The result? The child eventually returned home safely.

After weeks, months and years of complaints of missing children, the noida police have been found to give least importance to all the genuine hue and cry. Reason? these were parents who worked in farmlands, nearby mines and quaries, construction workers and resided in slums. No media ever went to look into their conditions or figure out what was happening. The skeletons were also dug in a questionable way to find any DNA traces and without any forensic experts, to say the least. Finally, i thought there was light in this situation when they got in CBI to investigate the issue. All the narco analysis and psycho tests conducted do not seem to give them much clue. It is premature to comment at this point on the findings of the CBI, but yesterday's news was devastating when they said the murder count increased to 40 while the noida police claimed it was 17. But, again, the media had better things to investigate: Abishek and Aish's wedding dates.

What is more drastic was the comment Mulayam Singh's son passed on the incident : "Such things are day to day issues and the police will look into this incident carefully".

What i tried to understand from both the incidents(Naresh Kumar's son's case and Nithari) was this: In the former case, the complaint was termed as "cognizable" offense as it is a reported kidnapping case while in the latter it was "incognizable" as it was reported as "missing children". Never knew an alphabetical soup like this could have such devastating effects.

On a second note, a couple of days nithari, 4 children were found dead in a factory in pubjab. Another case of sexual abuse and murder. And two days back, a child was beaten to death by her teacher because she (the child) did not pay her school fees. What better way to welcome the year.

While it is nice to look at the good side of Indian economy and sesex going upto to 14k and the likes, many Indians are also convinced that is the way the Indian story will unfold and all this growth shall be built on the graveyard of such innocent children. Nothing wrong with this optimism - it makes them confident and proud.But can many Indians say with same degree of optimism that there will not be another Nithari when India does realise its dreams?

On Love...

2006-09-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

...
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires....

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

kahlil gibran

Am I Ethical - Part 3

2006-09-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

Our values are what we prize and our values system is the order in which we prize them. Because they rank our likes and dislikes, our values determine how we will behave in certain situations.The above i discussed in my last post.To make any decision or justify any decision as being ethical, we usually follow one more step. We translate values into principles.This is done subconscioulsy. This we believe helps us in guiding and motivating ethical conduct. For example, honesty is a value that governs behavior in the form of principles such as: tell the truth, don’t deceive, be candid, don’t cheat. In this way, values give rise to principles in the form of specific "dos" and "don’ts."Now, do we we relate these principles to ethics? Ethics is about putting principles into action. Consistency between what we say we value and what our actions say we value is a matter of integrity. That alone determines whether we are ethical in our thoughts and deeds. Consider the following points

Not doing what you have the power to do: An act isn’t proper simply because it is permissible or you can get away with it.

Not doing what you have the right to do: There is a big difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do.

Not doing what you want to do: In the well-worn turn of phrase, an ethical person often chooses to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows.

Ok, the biggest question we should have answered is why be ethical at all? At the end of the day what is that i achieve in this whole tiresome process?Here are some of the reasons i found convincing. You may add your own or disapprove the below. Nevertheless, i found them useful motivations for being ethical:

There is inner benefit. Virtue is its own reward.

There is personal advantage. It is prudent to be ethical. It’s good business.

There is approval. Being ethical leads to self-esteem, the admiration of loved ones and the respect of peers.

There is religion. Good behavior can please or help serve a deity.

There is habit. Ethical actions can fit in with upbringing or training.

But seriously, what stops us from being ethical. Again, i found two interesting points:

The ethics of self-interest.When the motivation for ethical behavior is self-interest, decision-making is reduced to risk-reward calculations. If the risks from ethical behavior are high — or the risks from unethical behavior are low and the reward is high — moral principles succumb to expediency. This is not a small problem: many people cheat on exams, lie on resumes, and distort or falsify facts at work. The real test of our ethics is whether we are willing to do the right thing even when it is not in our self-interest.

The pursuit of happiness.We have often heard this idea that happiness is a basic right of free men. But is this pursuit a moral end in itself? It depends on how one defines happiness. Our values, what we prize and desire, determine what we think will make us happy. We are free to pursue material goals and physical sensations, but that alone rarely (if ever) leads to enduring happiness. It more often results in a lonely, disconnected, meaningless existence. The morally mature individual finds happiness in grander pursuits than money, status, sex and mood-altering substances. A deeper satisfaction lies in honoring universal ethical values, that is, values that people everywhere believe should inform behavior. That unity between principled belief and honorable behavior is the foundation for real happiness.

Now to answer the first question about my friend's policy of pre marital sex. In my world, i do not have any issues. But perhpas in his world, he needs to make an ethical decision and not simply rant ethical decisions tipping down from the whims and fansies of his parents or society.

Am i Ethical - Part 2

2006-08-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

What happens when ethics collide? How to handle this? Before answering this, let me move on to a different but related concept of virtue and being virtuous. Is being virtuous mean being ethical?

Virtue is the sole good, in so far as it is, considered in itself, happiness for the man. Hence virtue should be desired as a virtue and not for the sum of pleasures which can be derived from it. Virtue is an end in itself and not a means to attaining the good. This mean, being virtuous is a conscious decsion which leads to being happy very much what being ethical tries to arrive at. On the contrary, Ethics are more stricter by definition. They do not necessarily talk about the happiness of the individual but about the happiness of environment(or more so people) surrounding the man. Being virtuous may lead to being ethical but the reverse is necessarily not true.

I have grown up in this school of thought that anything which is virtuous but not vice is evil. For instance, gaining a lot of money may give me happiness but if it is done at the cost of other's then it is not vice. Why are children then taught to be virtuous? Well, the stoic philosophy gives a good explanation for this.Atleast this explanation is something i found useful. But just what did the Stoics mean by virtue and vice? Virtue signifies living according to reason. Since reason tells us that all that happens must happen and that it happens, virtue consists not only in not desiring anything except what happens, but in accepting with eagerness anything that does happen. For the Stoic anything which cannot be reasoned represent the irrational, because they tend to turn away reason from that which indeed must happen. In this opposition vice consists. Vice, hence, is everything that tends to oppose itself to reason, every desire or emotion which opposes itself to the natural development of nature. It is in this complete domination of reason over the passions and the emotions that Stoic apathy consists. In a word, the Stoic must be like a god who, closed up in his reason, passes among men without a care for all that happens. Hence, virtue should always be directed towards a reason and not the other way around. This precisely complements my earlier arguement on the fact that virtue may lead to being ethical but not the other way around. More so, when ethics depend on "stoic irrational" concepts like passions and emotions. This also throws another view point that ethics also come by from emotional aspects which need not necessarily be reasoned. This is true for values also. This again reinstances that ethics cannot be universal and so cannot be values.

Before we understand the collision of ethics and values, let us understand what happens if our values themselves collide. How do we react to such situations. It has been found that we internally build a system of values in which different values are ranked. At any point in time, our decisions in situations as above are based on what priority or ranking we have for these values. Let me try to explain this better. Our values are what we prize and our values system is the order in which we prize them. Because they rank our likes and dislikes, our values determine how we will behave in certain situations. Yet values often conflict. For example, the desire for personal independence may run counter to our desire for intimacy. Our desire to be honest may clash with the desire to be rich, prestigious or kind to others. In such cases, we resort to our values system. The values we consistently rank higher than others are our core values, which define character and personality.

Are we in a position to answer the first question now about ethics and values colliding? Well yes, but as my friend says I would reserve that discuss
for later as i am currently tired to write more :). But the next post on this topic shall definitely answer that question.

Am i Ethical? - Part 1

2006-07-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

Well for all those who know me would say.."of course not". Some would add things like "You and ehtics are 2 sides of the coin. You shall never face each other". And what does part 1 mean here? Jokes apart, i was faced with this question sometime back. It all started off like this:

I and my classmate were discussing about pre marital sex. He was saying, it was not ethical and i was saying "ethics is a matter of personal choice". So, he asked me "How do you say that?. Can i be ethical to myself and non ethical to others? What about the values my parents have imparted to me. We cannot afford to do such things in our culture, can we?"

This made me think...and i realized i had a lot to write. Hence i am spliting the discussion into multiple posts. This post is just a start.

Let me first understand What is ethics?

These are some of the answers i got[from friends, folks, surfing on the internet]:

A set of principles of right conduct.
A theory or a system of moral values: “An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain” (Gregg Easterbrook).

The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.

The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: e.g. Medical Ethics

What the above means is that "Ethics" refers to principles that define behavior as right/good/proper. Such principles need not always dictate a single "moral" course of action, but provide a means of evaluating and deciding among competing options. The above basically means there is nothing universal about this. I shall discuss about the universal nature of ethics later. But the question now is, are ethics and values one and the same? Well, not really.

The terms "ethics" and "values" are not the same. Ethics is concerned with how a person who has belief in some morals "should behave", whereas values are the inner judgments that determine how a person "actually behaves". Values concern ethics when they pertain to beliefs about what is right and wrong. In general, values have nothing to do with ethics.

The next issue is in understaning, how universal are my ethics and values. Most people have convictions about what is right and wrong based on religious beliefs, cultural roots, family background, personal experiences, laws, organizational values, professional norms and political habits. For instance, my friend is convicted that pre marital sex is wrong.But unfortunately, these are not the best values to make ethical decisions by — not because they are unimportant, but because they are not universal. Well then, what exactly are universal ethics? Can ethics actually be universal? It seems like there are somethings which can be considered universal.

In contrast to above items which are based on consensus, concepts like trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship can be considered universal. But there is a catch. Personal and professional beliefs on the these vary over time, among cultures and among members of the same society but the basic concept remains the same. It then leads to say that all of the universal ideas on ethics like the ones above are meant for interpretation of the individual and has nothing implicit in it which makes it universal. For instance, lets take responsibility. There is nothing implicit in responsibility that makes it universal.For instance, there is always a continuous disagreement with some of the above concepts and its universality. No, i am not saying people should not have their opinion. NEVER. There is nothing wrong with having strong personal and professional moral convictions about right and wrong, but unfortunately, some people are "moral imperialists" who seek to impose their personal moral judgments on others.And the others are either forced to accept it or choose to accept it by obligation. This by itself is a contradiction to the above principles. For instance, i may argue the following: The universal ethical value of respect for others dictates honoring the dignity and autonomy of each person and cautions against self-righteousness in areas of legitimate controversy. This basically means i do respect ethics and its universality but then including notions of "respect" but then i do not respect your opinion of not accepting my convictions and believing them. This basically leads to collision..collision of ethics and values. How to handle this?...Well i am not answering that here coz thats a seperate topic in itself. I think its better i reserve it for later.

Valluvar and Tagore on Love

2006-07-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

yaanokkum kaalai nilanokkum nokkaakkaal
thaanokki mella nagum.
--
thiruvalluvar ( 31 BC )
kural : 1094
adhigaram : kuripparidhal
inbathuppaal

translation:

when i look, she looks down; when i don't,
she looks and smiles timidly.

adhigaram : Describes an ontology. A semantic classification of the topics covered under this head
inbathuppaal: A collection of topics on love

find it toooooo beautiful and very similar to some lines from tagore's
"the gardener"

if it sets your heart aflutter, i will
take away my eyes from your face.

talk with Talk

2006-07-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly a year since Google launched Google Talk. Like so many of Google's non-search gizmos, it's been tagged as "beta" for an eternity. The rub here is that Google Talk hasn't really wowed the public in its infancy.

That's unusual. Google is used to being either a category killer or a silent killer. Look at the perfect simplicity of its landing page, or its AdWords and AdSense advertising programs. Look at the jaw-dropping beauty of Google Earth or Google Maps.

Google Talk? Eh. It's not exactly shabby, but it's not Google's finest hour. That's OK, though; Google doesn't have to hit them all out of the park. Perhaps Google Talk is like those alien baddies in the War of the Worlds remake, buried in the ground and lying dormant until the time comes to arise from its slumber and strike. Integrating the program with Google Checkout transactions, or tying it to AdWords' recent move toward "click-to-call" functionality, might be the elixir to make Google Talk a real monster.

The 30 min mockery

2006-07-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

Today one of my friends got a strange email from his mgr as follows:

Please inform me if you are going to be away from your desk (office) for more than 30 min.

Regards,
Your Manager

Now suddenly a thought struck me...what if i were in my friend's position and i wish to go the the toilet and also anticipate it may exceed 30 mins? What should i do? Then followed some beautiful mechanisms to tackle my problem. Here goes....

Suppose i am in toilet expecting i shall be back in 5-10 mins and it takes more than 30 mins for whatever reason and let us say i do not have my mobile or something..then what am i supposed to do? I have the following options:

1. Leave a message on YM for my mgr every time i go to the toilet.
2. On the 29th min, come out of the toilet using the following approach:

a. come 29th min and u zip back my pants and decide to flush or leave it open and come out of the toilet. If you had flushed go to step b else go to step c
b. come out after flushing, wash hands(if u need it) and come over to ur cube(waiting and praying for the arrival of the 31st min hopefully praying no meeting is being scheduled in the next 2 mins),and get back to the toilet. Now follow step d.
c. If u do not flush, come out leaving the toilet stinking hoping no one enters the same toilet u used, and follow everything in step b till you get back to the toilet. Now follow step e.
d. If u find that the toilet u used is empty and u wish to use it(inspite of the nuances you had earlier created) Use it till you are are satisfied and come back from the toilet satisfied. Make sure you also time yourself when u enter the toilet. If u exceed 29 mins, come out and go to step a. If u are done within 28 mins come out satisfied and go to step h. If u do not find the toilet empty, go to step f.
e. If u find the toilet u used and u still find it unflushed, then it could be possible that someone else had come in the meantime, used it and left it unflushed too. Or it could have been left unflushed right after you left on the 29th min too. If you are hygiene loving person, you may wanna flush it and get back to your process before the 29th min or else you may continue on the unflushed toilet itself. Once you are done, come back from the toilet satisfied. Now go to step h. If u do not find the toilet empty, go to step f.
f. While(1) {
flag = search(nearer room, same sex, free toilet) ;
if(flag == found){
go forward and continue the process you followed before u left the previous toilet .
exit;
}
}
Now go to step h.

h. You have successfully mastered the art of following guidelines when leaving for toilet. Please document this gyan so that others can use it. File a bug, mark its priority. Also in the meantime, wait for further meetings/discussions on the same. Make sure you also get it prioritized.

The above algo has obvious flaws but is somewhat very close to what i would do given i am in this situation.

3. [ I love this option. My personal favourite] Come out of the toilet and shout in the open saying i am in toilet and will take another few mins on the 29th min.

What i am interested in knowing is which one would be preferred.

Google Condoms

2006-07-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

An interesting read on google's new innovation: Google Condoms

Disclaimer

2006-07-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

Like any other insane creature on this planet who has nothing else to do...i too decided to write a book. Do not ask me about what it was as that is not important. What is important is what i write in it. So i finished up my Copyrights page, Acknowledgements, Prelude and other things. The next section was Disclaimers which looks something like this:

Warnings and Disclaimers

This book is a work in progress. It contains quite a few mistakes and typos. I would greatly appreciate your constructive criticism. You can reach me at :

Reading this book impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery.

This book has been found to cause drowsiness in laboratory animals.

This book contains twenty-three times the US RDA of fiber.

Caution: FLAMMABLE - Do not read while smoking or near a fire.

If infection, rash, or irritation develops, discontinue use and consult a physician.

Warning: For external use only. Use only as directed. Intentional misuse by deliberately concentrating contents can be harmful or fatal. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN.

In the unlikely event of a water landing do not use this book as a
otation device.

The material in this text is fiction; any resemblance to real things, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Finding the typos and mistakes in this book is left as an exercise for the reader. (Eye ewes a spelling chequer from thyme too thyme, sew their should knot bee two many misspellings. Though I ain't so sure the grammar's too good.)

The techniques and methods in this text are subject to change without notice.

This is a chain book. If you do not make seven copies and distribute them to your friends within ten days of obtaining this text you will suffer great misfortune and other nastiness.

The surgeon general has determined that excessive studying is detrimental to your social life.

Now once you have read the above plz leave a comment as to whether i have missed out on something so that i can peacefully go ahead completing my book.

The Socialist Classic

2006-07-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

The lovers sat on the deserted riverside,the full moon above them.He held her close.Their lips met.

'Darling', she said ,'there is something on my mind'.
'Tell me honey',he said.
'Have you read Karl Marx's Das Kapital?'
'I haven't .I have been wanting to.'
He began undoing her blouse.

'Have patience',she said.'Let us read Kapital.I brought it along with me.'

He took his hand off her and said,'As you wish.' They lit a lamp by the riverside and began reading.
'.........................................................
............................................................
...........................................................'

After many months,when they had finished the four volumes of Kapital,he resumed his petting.

'I love you',she said.The moon shone over them.

*

PS : Readers are requested to get hold of four volumes of Das Kapital and fill in the blanks.If they do so,this little story will become the lengthiest Socialist-realist novel in contemporary literature.

*

Some Facts to Ponder!!

2006-06-28T05:07:00.000-07:00

This list is awesome...

1. In an average lifetime, a woman will consume six pounds of lipstick. - San Diego Union, 4/25/06

2. Americans spent $14,300,000,000 on dog food in 2004. That's $10,000,000,000 more than on baby food the same year. - The Week Magazine, 3/10/06

3. India is racing to complete a spacecraft for moon orbit next year. Its space agency employs more people than NASA. - KTLA Los Angeles, 2/12/06

4. A Malaysian man received a $218,000,000,000,000 phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution. - MSNBC, 4/10/06

5. 5 of the United States have more gun dealers than gas stations. - Time, 3/27/06

6. U.S. airlines last year lost about 10,000 bags a day on average. - USA Today, 2/16/06

7. Starbucks says China is their #1 growth market. At $6 a cup, the coffee costs more than the average Chinese worker earns in a day. - Yahoo.com, 2/14/06

8. A 150 watt personal computer left on continuously for a year consumes the electricity equivalent of 100 gallons of oil. - San Diego Union, 12/28/05

9. Cell phone ringtones generate 2 billion dollars in annual income for the music industry. - Fortune Magazine, 12/12/05

10. A Santiago, Chile restaurant named "Car Crash" had to close temporarily because a car crashed into it. - Seattle Times, 7/28/05

11. An Ohio business man spent over a half million dollars opening a sports bar before realizing it is located in a district that prohibits the sale of alcohol. - 19 Action News, 12/11/05

12. Stephen Crawford recently resigned as co-President of Morgan Stanley. He was on the job for 15 weeks, and was paid $32,000,000. Assuming he worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day, he still made $19,000 per hour. - Business Week, 7/11/05

13. If you brew your own coffee instead of purchasing a $3 latte each day, you would have $55,341 after 30 years (calculation includes interest). - Motley Fool, 6/21/05

14. A 24-hour suicide hot line in Canada will only be open between 9 am and 5 pm on weekdays because of budget cuts. - Houston Chronicle, 5/27/05

15. Wal-Mart's profit in 2004 were $20,000 per minute. - New York Times, 2/27/05

16. 28% of all Medicare costs are spent in the last year of a person's life. - National Center for Policy Analysis, 8/02

17. Approximately 240,000 manhole and street drain covers were stolen in Beijing, China in 2004. - CNN, 3/15/05

18. Each and every day, Saudi Arabia receives $500,000,000 from oil-consuming nations, including almost $100,000,000 from the United States. - The Week Magazine, 3/17/06

19. Gillette will be coming out with a razor with five blades in 2006. The "Fusion" will best its own Mach 3 and Schick's Quattro. - Newsweek, 9/26/05

20. According to a recent study, birds prefer their droppings to be on white cars. - WFMY News 2, 6/29/05

The Decision Trap!

2006-06-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

What is constant? No i am not getting into some phisophical thought about human existence and all that. But seriously...what is that one thing which is constant? Our ability to make a decision everyday. I am not talking about the correctness of the decisions we make, but simply the fact that we make decisions. Even, if we do not want to make a decision, it is a decision in itself. Looking at it another way, you may choose not to take a decision everyday, but you will be met with situations (both simple and complex) where you are expected to take a decision. We all wake up every single day knowing fully well that we will have to face such situations.After all, no one likes to be indecisive.

So how to make decisions? How do you know whether you have taken the right decision or otherwise? No, I'm not repeating Robert Frost. I read an interesting note somewhere that the human mind applies different techniques when it comes to making decisions. There are different rules when it comes to taking decisions amidst simple and complex situations. Let me explain.

If you are buying a mobile phone or a laptop (simple decisions), you will use a highly rational and researched approach. You will engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing.

If you are buying a new home or say, you are trying to get married (complex decisions), research has found out that a new technique called "deliberation without attention" works well for such situations. This is more of a "follow your gut" decision than any well-thought-out decision.

So when do you choose to apply "delibration without attention" and when do you take a highly researched decision? For relatively simple decisions, it is better to use a highly rational and researched approach. However, when making a complicated decision, the unconscious in each of us appears to do a better job of resolving factors and making a sound conclusion.

No, this is not a pop psychology and I'm sure many of us will not agree to the stated hypothesis. It's worth a try, nonetheless.

Now that you have taken a decision, how do you ensure that others don't judge you for your decisions. Here is a list of rationalizations you can hide behind; anyday. You can even call your decisions ethical - my favorite, of course. Here is the list. So next time, when you take a questionable decision, rationalize it by choosing one of the following.

If It's Necessary, It's Ethical

The False Necessity Trap (Necessity is an interpretation, not a fact)

If It's Legal and Permissible, It's Proper

It's Just Part of the Job

It's All for a Good Cause

I Was Just Doing It for You

I'm Just Fighting Fire With Fire

It Doesn't Hurt Anyone

Everyone's Doing It

It's OK if I Don't Gain Personally

I Can Still Be Objective

I Did It For Us

Your life will be so easy when you apply these techniques. I haven't yet. But if it works for any one of you, you know how to reach me.

The other side of darkness

2006-06-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we know that stuff kills. Gone are the days when you can talk about having smoked pot, popped and snorted LOTS of pills, speed, E, took some acid, shrooms, alcohol ...

So you think drugs are bad? But that is a sweeping generalization. There are recreational drugs and there are hard drugs. And of course, we also have prescription drugs. Taking any drug runs a risk of harm. Anything in excess is bad. But there are some drugs that no one should touch, like cocain, crack or heroin. Leaving these drugs apart, the world is filled with several recreational and prescription drugs which when taken in excess can leave you as a different person. Even some of the legal prescribed drugs can make you addictive and wasted. How do you know which one is more dangerous than the other?

So why are we talking about this? In this world, no amount of policing will ever stop the illegal drugs trade. It is just not possible. Worldwide, this is an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars. No matter how many arrests are made, this trade can never be stopped. The amount of money involved is too tempting for anyone. All the gatekeepers (police, customs, politicians) get bribed; no one can stand in the way of that much money. The best we can do is redirect it to a least harmful route. Legitimize it. Bring it out in the open, regulate it, license it & tax it.

In my perfect world, a lot of things would be legal, including all drugs and prostitution.

I don't think it's been mentioned, though it might've been, but legalizing all drugs, including heroin, crack, coke, ice etc. has amazing health benefits for the addicts. Right now, someone's in a dark alley somewhere shooting heroin, with a point that's been used by four different people. Right now, a heroin addict is contracting HIV because of unsanitary conditions, not to mention pumping their veins with bathtub cleaner. People die from badly cut drugs and AIDS every day.

If all drugs were legal, and doctors were able to regulate each person's drug use and how pure the drug was, things would be a lot safer.

And the harder drugs aren't the only ones being cut with unsafe chemicals. Ask any weed smoker and they will tell you that it was mixed with something. I'm sure the majority of herb smokers know that you can even request weed sprinkled in coke, or others. God only knows where the coke and pills are coming from, and whether that's what's really on the weed. Even pot isn't safe anymore, especially with the younger buyers who get ripped off more easily.

Weed sold over the counter like cigarettes wouldn't have this issue.

To me, you can't stop people from wanting to alter their consciousness, that's just the way it is. Right now, drugs are illegal and as dangerous as they've ever been, for addicts and users of all ages. And if drugs were legal, I have a feeling the amount of people addicted to harder drugs would be lowered as well.

Legalizing drugs would also take care of the "naughty" factor, and I think less number of people would get into them, but that's not a proven fact or anything.

You won't ever get rid of drugs, so the governments around the world may as well embrace and tax the living hell out of them.

My Family Treasure

2006-06-09T04:50:00.000-07:00

Hmm....last night i was sitting up late and reading a book. I have this bad habit of reading some weird stuff in the night..things like occult science, black magic,metaphysics,quasi quantum models, erotic sex...anything and everthing that is usually not meant for reading in the nights...and there i was completely into the book when my mom came across to my room and said something that kind of shocked my life...

While I was lost in my thoughts, my mom walked in. It is very unusual for my mom to walk in so late in the night and talk to me. She sat near me and put her hand on my shoulder.She said "Son, I have a family secret that I want to tell you ...".

The moment those words came out of her mouth, my whole senses became attentive. I listened. She then stood up and walked the room calmly for about couple of minutes. They looked longer to me. Then she began."For years, our family has preserved a secret. But time has come to pass on this secret to you. We have been the keepers of a major treasure. A treasure so big that big powers will go to fight each other. A treasure so valuable that one will not think twice about killing the keeper. It's time, my son. I want to pass on the treasure to you and your generations forward. ""But mom ... is this really true?""Yes, it is. Why don't you walk with me?"After a little walk, she then showed me a huge iron crest. It was truly rusted. She struggled a little bit and i helped her open it with a huge heave.I then finally managed to pull the lid up.
There it was .. the treasure I have never heard of until an hour ago. Now it belongs to me. I curiously looked into it and to my surprise saw wads and wads of currency notes, lower denominations but large number of notes. All in the currency I want. I turned around and asked my mom ..."So how much is it?""Well, my son .. it enough to take care of 5 generations.""And you
are telling me that it's all mine? " "Yes my son. I was waiting for this day. Now it rightfully belongs to you. "

"Thanks mom. Thanks for everything. "

Well, now I have all this money ... what do I do? Live it up. This year onwards, life is gonna be so different. Time to buy a few cars. May be an isolated bungalow with a jacuzzi fit right next to the bath tub. May be I should live in a different country. How about a little philanthropy? What? home loans? Mortgaging? 2%? 15%? Floating? Fixed? You kidding me?. May be I will call my
friends and find out what they want. It would be a good idea to build a township. Why not buy some property in the Moon? In Mars? Hey, may be I will produce some movies and make more money. Politics? Sure why not?
"Knock Knock"

"Who is it"

"It is 10'o clock in the morning. Wake up. Time to go to office" says my mom!

"You mean that was a dream?That Iron Crest, Those currency notes..was all that merely a dream?"

"Which currency notes?Iron Crest? By the way, there is no electricity supply from the morning. So you need to take bath in the cold water(if u wanna bath that is)."

"What?WTF?"

Friends, Best Friends and Close Friends

2006-06-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

I often hear people calling some of their friends as close friends, best friends and all that. For instance, how many times have we called foo** is my best friend and bar** is my close friend and all that. I have always wondered how best is best and how close is close. Recently, i met with a friend of mine and we were having a conversation on this subject. Not that either of us were psychologists or cognitive science experts, but nevertheless we needed to kill time and what better way to kill time than bitching abt people and their opinions.After about an hour or so of terms like "lets take the following scenario", "consider this" and "consider that", we started summarizing about what we understood on this subject....that usually people choose to have/form friends based on their perception of what is known as their circle of trust henceforth being referred as COT here. A COT is basically a set of like minded people doing similar things. For instance, you might not wish to invite your manager for a movie with your college friends. Neither, would you invite your family members to a pub with your other friends. So the idea is a common belief(or disbelief) in doing certain things in certain ways. On the other hand, you cannot invite your college friend for a team lunch in your company. Neither can you invite ur friend to a family function dinner.

The first thing to note is that we don't have one COT. We form many. Strange as it sounds, it is true so as to support the varied activities in one's life(going to pub, watching a movie, having a team lunch, family dinner etc....). This needs to be explained. Let's understand this through an example....

My friend with whom i was conversing is 24 years. She has formed several circles of trust.How does she develop and manage so many circles? I was curious and i asked her. Her reply was spontaneous and deep. So she says, she has at least 4-6 friends in each of the circle. They are not exclusive though. Some friends are present in more than one COT while others are strictly confined to just one. The circles of trust are merely logical and none of the participants (read "friends") know that they exist. Only she knows. And she plays the circles of trust to her benefit. Then comes the obvious question. How does she differentiate once circle from another? Here lies the beauty....

Every circle of trust (COT) has a set responsibility.The responsibility is sometimes implicit while in other cases, my friend takes the responsibility of assigning the responsibility to the COT.In our case, She has pre-assigned these responsibilities to the COTs and she invokes them when the need arises. This needs to be explained again. We have simplified the functions so that it is easy to understand. Here it comes .. in her own words ...

~ So when I feel like spending an evening by having a cup of coffee, I will invoke the services of COT #1.

~ Wanna watch a movie? That would be COT #2.

~ Oh I met this wonderful guy! I want to talk about him .. The listening pleasures are reserved to COT #3.

~ I'm so drunk. I want to be dropped home. Time to call COT #4.

~ I feel like bitching and complaining the whole day. Need COT #5.

~ I'm feeling low. Feel like crap. Time for some wallowing in self-pity and more. Think I'm lost and eventually slipping into a major depression. Desperately want COT #6.

~ I'm so high today. Everything around me is upbeat. I definitely need to be with COT #7.

~ So I wake up with a strong feeling to travel to some place quite mystical .. I will choose the company of COT #8.

So you see, the whole list is *morally* ambiguous. I used the term morally coz it may not be too immoral according to my friend. The concept of friendship is very superficial and the role you play in her life through these COTs defines who you are for her. I also realized that it is from one of these COTs that the notions of best friend and close friend stem from.Some "friends" over a period of time, come to know of her grand design and they refuse to be placed in certain COTs. So they leave. She and she alone can determine who gets placed in what COTs. Really, it is a matter of what her heart tells her than any planned analysis of someone's abilities.

From all these, one can easily look around and map your "friends" into circles of trust. You are either playing someone into a COT or someone is playing you. As simple as that. So the next time someone calls you his/her best friend just try to see if which COT of his/her do ou fit it. As they say.."Life moves on"...Enjoy the ride.

To die or to be dead!

2006-04-11T04:05:00.000-07:00

Recently i heard this statement " I would die for u". Well not just me, am sure everybody has heard this is various movies and some probably in their real lives too. Well just a thought struck me when i heard it this time..not that i am hearing it for the first time, but somehow i was wondering what this statement could mean...

In a relationship.. when you say "i would die for u" what do you mean? Is it that if u get rejected, you would die for her/him? Or you would die for her to protect her?

There is big differance between the two types.Dying for someone you care about.. is driven by a sense of protection and is a trait to be appreciated since it has benefits for the survival of the species.killing oneself because of being deprived of someone's love is driven by a selfish sense of want, and is a trait that just tends to darwinianly reduce the gene pool

Innocence Cast away...

2006-04-03T06:08:00.000-07:00

...memories of myself as a child
what happens to the light when i point a torch to the sky n switch it on?
what is lying ? Have i lied to anyone?
how/why do ppl forget things?
When will i get all those toys in the gift shop?
sorry mom..i pissed on my pants when i was sleeping last night. Can u please help me go to the loo properly.
can i go to the moon ?
why do i have only one b'day in a year ? Why only one sunday a week? Why are there 6 days of work/school and one holiday?
...why is there a monday and why should i go to the school?
if i dont buy the bus ticket everyday can i save enough for a saree for my granma ?
how many generations can be alive at the same time in my family?
who is eating the moon ?
Why is it so hot outside at some part of the year and so cold at the other time of the year..?
if mary had a little lamb, why doesnt my sis have one ?
..why have i never learnt multiplication tables beyond 12 when my parents could have learnt it far better?
can i mark the stars that i have counted already so i can count them correctly?
playing with water bubbles..those soap solutions i get at the beach, the blue sea, beach maanga badhai(beach raw mangoes), molagai bajji(chilly bajji),injecting water into tomatoes in the garden.., running around beating the cycle tyres, playing goli/gulli dhanda/paandy with street folks, raindrops fallin on puddles resembling pawns in chess....
burning paper by focussing sunlight with a magnifying lenstrying to cut off magnetic fields..
collecting iron filings from sand.. making them dance..*sigh*...

Why did i ever grow up...?

On jealousy

2006-03-28T05:26:00.000-08:00

Envy consists in wanting what someone else has. Though potentially unpleasant,it’s understandable enough, as it follows naturally from a positive appreciation of the object’s value. Jealousy, by contrast, is the purely negative emotion which involves wishing that the other lacked the object of value. (I mean for these definitions to be stipulative.) Such an attitude seems quite thoroughly unreasonable, at least if the object in question is shareable. For rivalrous objects, one might want the other to lose the object solely as a means to one’s own gaining of it. Such “instrumental jealousy” lies in the service of envy, and so may inherit the latter’s reasons. But to begrudge another’s benefit, for its own sake and not for costs to oneself, seems blackly indefensible.

What, then, are we to make of romantic jealousy, i.e. the possessive desire for our partner’s exclusive attention? Is it simply unreasonable? Is the value of one’s relationship necessarily diminished in virtue of its non-exclusive character? Surely not: the value of a relationship is grounded in its deep or intrinsic character, not merely incidental or comparative aspects. (One occasionally hears homophobic rhetoric implying that one’s marriage would somehow be “devalued” if gay people were allowed to marry too. But this is absurd. Truly valuable relationships do not rest their value on such fragile foundations). What matters is your relationship, not any other one – even if the other involves your partner.

Granted, it may just be intrinsically unpleasant to imagine your partner having sex with someone else. But while we can give an evolutionary explanation of why such ‘pure jealousy’ might evolve, that doesn’t suffice to justify it. One can also give scientific explanations of violent anger, but we should resist such pernicious emotions all the same.

What of the concerns about ‘sharing’? They sound to me unreasonably possessive. Your partner’s time and attention may be taken up by any other hobbies or interests that they have, but those are not legitimate grounds for complaint (unless you are being thoroughly neglected). It isn’t clear why an interest in another person should be treated any differently, at least on those grounds.

I take it the real worry here concerns affection. Some may implicitly believe that individuals have a fixed emotional capacity, so that the more they care for someone else, the less they care for you. But when made explicit like this, such a view does not sound very plausible. Consider parental love. Surely nobody
would claim that children from large families are loved less by their parents than is an ‘only child’. But why should romantic love (or its precursors) be any different?

Perhaps we want to be “special”; but it isn’t clear why exclusivity should create added value here. As previously noted, any non-deluded evaluation of one's partner needs to be consistent with the recognition that they’re not uniquely special, i.e. special in a way that everyone else fails to be. Our ‘specialness’ needs to be consistent with other people being special too. So, as noted above, we should look to intrinsic rather than comparative values. We have value for who we are, considered in ourselves, rather than considered in comparison to other people.

That’s all well and good from an objective point of view, but we still want to have a special significance for our significant others, even if it is recognized as a merely “subjective” or agent-relative importance. But we can grant this without requiring total uniqueness. Again, the parental analogy is illustrative: a child wouldn’t want her parents to treat her no differently from all the other kids in the world. She should have a special place in her parents’ world. But she needn’t be the only person in this place; she can share it with her few siblings, without diminishing its value in any way at all. So again: why is the romantic case any different? If someone has two significant others, must they be the less significant for this?

Perhaps I’m missing something obvious, since my armchair certainly doesn’t offer the most comprehensive view of the world. But at least in light of the issues discussed so far, it seems to me that jealousy largely is irrational, so that more reasonable creatures would not get so possessive or hung up on issues of romantic exclusivity. Whether we’re capable of being more reasonable creatures is, of course, another question entirely.

Memoirs....

2006-03-22T02:11:00.000-08:00

I tried to escape all of my life.
Escape from whom I loved the most,
escape from the place that I lived in,
escape from the values that I grew with.
I escaped, went trough a lot of bizarre observations,
felt a lot of indescribable,
saw a lot of unspeakable.
When I reached the end of the way, Sun was setting, and I couldn’t go any further.
That was the end of the way; the red line.

I had grown with my perceptions.
I tried to remember all of the things that I saw, but nothing came to my mind,
seemed like all of it was insignificant stories.
All I could think of was when It all started;
All this chaos in me, all this homelessness.
It all started when I gazed into your eyes for the first time,
and saw the strangest meaning in them.
That made me insane, a glad insane who never lived normally again,
happily though. I escaped from you too, I had to go away.
But I traveled all this way to the end of the world by thought of your eyes.
I wanted to discover your eyes at the end of the earth, on the sun.
This is why I said to you that day, " I feel like I have the same distance with you at each point, each crucial point.”,
and you looked at me as If I was not making sense.
I died right there, right at the end of the way, right at the very moment of sunset.
The air smelled like your eyes, your crucial eyes.

One.Org

2006-03-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

Look at these new fancy things that people have picked up for sometime like attacking global terrorism, communal harmony, helping 3rd world countries in need(of course after waging a war at them and destroying them beyond roots). Interesting enough, i came across this group One.org . Well, as a non-american, how do u react to one.org ?
the declaration goes.. "we beleive in the best american tradition.... blah blah" and you are supposed to sign it if you support one.org so they can get more funds. i'm not the kind of person who likes to be bound by virtual lines but i dont want to sign a declation that clearly boasts abt someone's superiority more than being a declaration calling for help and support. I would wish if they just said, we are a group trying to help people in need and hence folks please join and contribute for having a better world. But no...they had to say they were americans and they are the cleanest of people who have this broad mind of helping others and all that crap. I might be wrong and they might be doing lots of good, but what is the point in doing a favor to the world, if you still want the credit to go just to your country. If the declaration read on the lines of.. "one world.. blah blah" it would have been more credible to me as a further, the idea is to get 1% of the earnings of all americans, to distribute wealth to poor countries. it could sound easy and simple to a bono or danny glover holding millions with a silver spoon up their ass. but have they thought about the poor people in their country and how they will contribute to it ? Interestingly countries like India spend several crores on their armed forces. A recent survey i read claimed that the amount of money india spends in arms and armed forces for one single year could actually feed all the people below the poverty line in this country for a week. I am not sure of the correctness of this statement, but however believe we do spend a lot of money into arms and for what? To have a peaceful better world. Not only us, the whole world does this. How can we have a peaceful life and world surrounded by guns? I simply cannot understand this arguement. Anyway, coming back to one.org, americans have a 60 billion debt on credit cards and imagine an additional 1% tax ripped off their hands every month. Alright so now you got the money, so you give it to the poor. but has any thought gone into why these countries are still poor ? variety of reasons, depending on the country. Religious and cultural reasons in islamic countries, and corruption (almost all countries not just true with India though India Rules the roost). Another reason is illetracy.Havent countries like india prospered even with all these shackles ? isnt it for the country itself to awake itself and grow ? and finally, wouldnt it be encouraging for all these shackles if these funds reach them ? isnt it like encouraing corruption, laziness and poor cultural barriers ? doesnt one.org realise that these countries are poor because of the debt they owe to the west ? isnt it a better thing to do to write off these debts and help these nations grow than give them funds ? definitely fighting the cause is better than fighting the effect. I feel one.org is a good step forward but is just a gimmick to show the superiority of americans and to make themselves feel better in the world arena.

Half Empty or Half Full?

2006-03-06T22:32:00.000-08:00

An optimist is supposed to say half full, a pessimist is supposed to say half empty but a nerd will say...Hey that is a conical glass and vertical bisection will in fact result in two halves of equal volume so you all are wrong. Now the question is ? What am i? What are you...??? Ha ha ha ! Sorry folks, i am currently feeling nerdish, so thought will vent out some of my profound ideas and enlighten you guys!

A Box Full of Choices!

2006-02-24T04:28:00.000-08:00

How often dyu hear people say -

"I am sorry,but I didn't mean to do it"
" I just could'nt help it"
"I so wish I could have"
....

Tons of such never ending remarks ... On and On ...never ever rethinking on what we say. I just began thinking on this, when i passed on such a statement to a friend of mine and then wondered overninght on what i would have done if such a statement was passed on to me by somone. I just began thinking at a larger perspective in general, of such responses from homosapiens (not that I ain't one :), nor am I an exception) consciously. Well of course, it just happened that i also saw "The Matrix" once again in this period and realized how much profound and philosophical the trilogy was than just an entertainer.Not that i am a big fan of techno movies or something, but somehow this movie is worth mentioning in this context.

In this movie, there is a lot of reference and importance to "Choice". As someone said, life is a box of choices! This, we take for granted though we go through it at a subconscious level. All of the above are conscious choices and are not a binding. Words like "Had to"/"Have to" are binding words used to express our choice of acting against that which is expected of you. This is usually done for different things,to mitigate the disappointment to the other party, to avoid confrontation, to be the nice guy, not having the courage to tell the bitter truth,diplomacy and the list goes on.

If you are subject to a bond, you choose to abide by it and not forced to. Why? Because you choose not to face the consequences of breaking it. So these binding words only indicate their choice spoken implicity in a diplomatic manner, something we learn from the society intuitively.

I usually(said usually, not always for people who know me) do not make promises that I can't keep up and would choose to jeopardize more important things just for my commitments. Some people find it too brash (when I am not being all too nice) and stupid (for giving more importance to my commitment over all else). But that again is a choice I made.

Comming back to The Matrix - The Oracle, Merovingian, The Architect and Neo make the choices and govern them. The Oracle and Merovingian belive in choice among similar lines though they interpret it differently.

The Oracle, claims that every individual does what he does because subconsciously he has made a choice to do so, even though he may not understand it at a conscious level. I call this gut feeling or human instinct?Others call it deciding by your heart instead of the mind. But there is another thing that she adds to this when she addresses to Neo (in Matix Reloaded). Our conscious mind follows a choosen path (self choosen, someome making the choice for you, someone showing you the door or telling you what you just needed to hear). But we fail to understand the path that we are taking, and end up wandering aimlessly (typical of those who believe - Ignorance is Bliss).

The Oracle guides those people who try to understand the choice and make sense of it, rather than living out a life. She helps Neo understand the subconscious choices that he has made.

The Merovingian on the contrary believes that - "Choice is an Illusion between those who have power and those who do not". He believes people who have power make the choices and other live by it. His dialogue also gives hint as to what he believes as being powerful - the "Why?" factor, the knowledge. His belief that understanding the "Why?" at a conscious level lends you the ability to make choices.

Which is exactly what the Oracle grooms people into doing but building on right from their subconscious choice. The Merovingian interprets it as Causality while the Oracle sees it as Belief. Two conflicting schools I presume. Two ways to keep the humans under control.

The Architect is an interesting side though, with visibility of choice only as far as to balance the equation at hand. And who believes and makes believe that "the systemic anomaly in an otherwise perfect harmony of mathematical precision" is given to the inalienable human nature to choose (accept/reject). Remember the dialogue by smith "The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from"?

Neo at last is the one who begins his journey by making subconscious choices driven by conscious values. He grows up to understand the repercussions of his choice, and lives by them. And his choice to survive (which the oracle phrases as - "you should have been dead, but you were not ready for that either" in Revolutions). And finally alike our "Gangai Maindhar Bheeshmar" who chooses his time of death, it is at his own choice (after understanding much) that he becomes the saviour at his own cost. Neo is more closer to the common men among us trying to find our way in life.

You might be asking, why all this crap ramblings and put my own interpretations in a post. Well, that's a choice i made to write and its a choice you made to read. But beyond this, its paramount to understand that binding statements are a facade to choices that people make. That people choose something else over commitments to you, and this is being put in a polished fashion afraid of how u'd handle the bitter truth.

What affacted me was the change in attitude I went through when I started saying "I Choose to" in place of the "had/have to"'s. In my world today, I almost choose everything consciously. I avoid the "had/have to"'s as they imply a subconscious choice. At least when I say it to myself I make sure it is a conscious choice, whilst I keep my fingeres crossed and put on the facade to others (honestly is not always welcome you see) :p.

For patient watchers, philosophers, Matrix enthusiasts and other lunatics like me who are incited into this topic - Watch the trilogy with your reception antennae tuned to the motif of Your "Choice". There is more in there than you would have imagined.

Altruism The greatest Ideal

2005-09-14T03:22:00.000-07:00

Altruism – The greatest Ideal

Self sacrifice we drool is the ultimate virtue. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His convictions? The honesty of his feelings? The independence of his thoughts? These are man's quintessential and supreme possessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. These are above sacrifice, any cause or consideration.

Is then preaching "sacrifice being the supreme virtue" not a vicious nonsense? Self Sacrifice...thats an interesting thought. Is'nt it superfluous? It is precisely the self that cannot and should not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that is respected and should be respected in man.

We hear often that altruism is the ideal. An altruist is an idealist. Selflessness is preached in every so called "ethical" text. Not a single one has ever achieved it. A man's every single living instinct screams against it involuntarily.

In the process man realizes that he is incapable of what he has accepted as the noblest virtue, giving him a sense of guilt, of sin, of thy own basic unworthiness. This "supreme" ideal is beyond conviction, beyond the basic grasp of the instinct.

He is obliged to preach what cannot be practiced. One cannot go "good" midway or be honest approximately. Preserving one's integrity is the highest of all noble things.

I want so slightly travel in time and look back at what history has had in store for us. Most great systems of ethics preach the sacrifice of personal joy. They have all had a common lineage- sacrfice, renunciation of thy self, self denial of things that make a man happy. Everything enjoyable from sex, to cigars to ambition is considered sinful. Of course its not said plain, it needs to be dressed up with some alphabetical soup like "Universal Harmony", "Eternal Purpose", "Nirvana'. This is the epitome of internal corruption. We have tied happiness with guilt. That’s how far we have come, throttled mankind's happiness.

What is the world we are striving for the future? To act together. To think together. To have a notion of “society” or “common universe” where we want to feel together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. I am afraid to see where this is leading, a world of obedience and unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the neighbour who will not have his own but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbour who will not have any thoughts. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself but direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbour who will have no desires but to satisy the desires of his next neighbour who will have no desires. This is “society” gentlemen, a collective opinion of people who have no opinions of their own. A world where man will not work for passion, for a lesser incentive called money, but for the headless monster – prestige. The approval of his fellow “human” beings, their good opinion and the opinion of the men who have no opinion of their own. There would be no objective judgement, but only opinion polls. A world driven by collective mediocres where no individuality would be permitted. A single hand, and the hands of a few who know what makes the other man tick by persuasion, power or otherwise. Where men merely become bromides. We will learn ultimate submission to men who have learnt nothing but submission. And we call it “serve”. We will fall over others to see who can “serve” best. There will be no other distinction to seek, no other form of personal enjoyment. When freaks are occasionally born, they would be forced to perish. The rest of us will smile and obey. And what are the skills we need to survive in this new world? To lie, to flatter, to to praise each other and inflate each other’s vanity. Make speeches about people and how to serve them better and not to forget the common good. And this makes us “selfless” for we are so much concerned about our fellow human beings. The men who survive will submit, obey and smile. Have we observed that a dolt always smiles. Man’s first frown is the first touch of thought, the touch of god. But we will have neither god, nor thought. Everything is contained in one single word – collectivism, embrace the group view and forget the individual which forms the group. The individual is held as evil, as an egomaniac and the group as god. Kill the individual, that’s the anthem of the new world. No motive and no virtue of the individual permitted but virtue is seen by serving the mass. We have fixed the coin, heads collectivism, tails society. So how do we appreciate individual greatness. What’s great anyway in a man? We are just a mere combination of glands, flesh and fat. Adding to this are words like “divine institution”, “instinct”, “feeling” etc. Here, man must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason. So how we rule a thinking man? What about nurturing genius? Do we want any?.....

E = MC^2

2005-09-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

I always used to wonder if Einstein's brain was different than normal human brains. I had a recent email which discusses this issue….

In his lifetime many wondered if there was anything especially different in Einstein's. He insisted that on his death his brain be made available for research. When Einstein died in 1955, pathologist Thomas Harvey quickly preserved the brain and made samples and sections. He reported that he could see nothing unusual. The variations were within the range of normal human variations. There the matter rested until 1999. Inspecting samples that Harvey had carefully preserved, Sandra F. Witelson and colleagues discovered that Einstein's brain lacked a particular small wrinkle (the parietal operculum) that most people have. Perhaps in compensation, other regions on each side were a bit enlarged-the inferior parietal lobes. These regions are known to have something to do with visual imagery and mathematical thinking. Thus Einstein was apparently better equipped than most people for a certain type of thinking. Yet others of his day were probably at least as well equipped-Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert, for example, were formidable visual and mathematical thinkers, both were on the trail of relativity, yet Einstein got far ahead of them. What he did with his brain depended on the nurturing of family and friends, a solid German and Swiss education, and his own bold personality. Even at the age of nine Einstein spoke hesitantly, and his parents feared that he was below average intelligence. Did he have a learning or personality disability (such as "Asperger's syndrome," a mild form of autism)? There is not enough historical evidence to say. Probably Albert was simply a thoughtful and somewhat shy child. If he had some difficulties in school, the problem was probably resistance to the authoritarian German teachers, perhaps compounded by the awkward situation of a Jewish boy in a Catholic school. The late bloomer has just left us with his genius to wonder and possibly think....

-- Thanks to this unknown email source….

Melancholic Ecstacy

2005-09-12T01:05:00.000-07:00

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!

William Wordsworth and his sister had visited the Scottish Highlands in 1803. It was harvest time, and the fields were quiet. They passed a female who was reaping the fields alone: she sung in Erse(Goidelic language of Scotland) as she bended over her sickle. Wordsworth describes in his work that this was the sweetest human voice he had ever heard, the song sung in deep melancholy until it was heard no more. Thus was born the "Solitary Reaper". The poetry describes a nameless listener's delight in a young woman's melancholy song in an unknown language. The woman is working by herself in a Scottish valley, swinging the sickle and reaping the grain. What transfixes the listener in song is not its content, but its emotionally expressive music. The listener does not understand why she sings in melancholy but the songs leaves him with what the emotion itself is. The last few lines need a definitive mention:

I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,

Despite its sadness, the song helps the speaker to mount up the hill. On a slightly philosophical note, the capacity to feel emotion and link it to goals makes life possible. The listener’s heart, can go on bearing her music. "The Solitary Reaper" relates an ecstatic moment in which a passer-by transcends the limitations of mortality. Both the song and he go on together.

Existensialism: The Individual defines thy all!

2005-09-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

Every individual is born uniquely, has got a notion of his/her "Unique self" and goes through similar(to other human beings) individual experiences. The similarity of the experience lies in the universe surrounding the individual and the individualism of the experience that the individual derives is due to their own mental perceptions of the experience and what this experience could allow them to experience. The above three factors, the individual(with his supreme "false" ego, his self and his experiences) form the basis for understanding the nature of human existence. The "Existential" philosophy generally reflects a belief in freedom and accepts the consequences of individual actions, while acknowledging the responsibility attendant to the making of choices. It is interesting to observe that this tries to view human beings(or the objective) as subjects in an indifferent and often ambiguous universe.Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Unfortunately, life might be without inherent meaning (existential atheists) or it might be without a meaning we can understand (existential theists). Either way, the human desires for logic and immortality are futile. We are forced to define our own meanings, knowing they might be temporary. Philosophy has always offered Science a different plane to explore. Science has always been important to philosophers, with the first philosophers being scholars in many fields. The theological and metaphysical aspects of “truth” were also important to philosophers. Then came the industrial revolution and a shift towards Analytical philosophy: searching for truth without considering the transcendent.And think about we involuntarily involved this existence…