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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

When choice becomes stressful

There is an inherent limit to the value of choice. In other words, negative return sets in beyond a point. Everyone finds the idea of having a basket of alternatives to choose from quite comforting. This probably works at two levels. One, it soothes our ego and provides an illusion of free will. Second, it gives us a datum to compare with. Good is not enough. It needs to be better. Better than what? The alternative.

If someone were to say the price of an item is $100, the human mind needs to estimate two things. The intrinsic value of the good as well as the value that good holds for them. When there is no comparison to look at estimating the value can become very difficult. On the other hand, if the price of an item is $100 and another with very minor value addition is $150, we can immediately perceive the first item to be a clear winner. Likewise, if one item offers something we like better than another, we can clearly see the differentiators. In a way choice makes us feel good about making a decision. It gives us the confidence that we are taking the right decision. That we are picking something we really want to.

So this should mean that having more choices is a welcome thing. But it is not. The reason being cost. There is a cost associated with evaluating choices. Choices are comfortable only so long as the alternatives clearly provide processable differences. As long as the choices are limited in number and variety, the mind can pick attributes from various alternatives and weigh their relative value. This ultimately results in picking out the item with the highest relative value among the alternatives. But this cannot go on forever. Beyond a point, the ability to hold onto the differentiators become excruciating and the mind feels cluttered. Suddenly, the problem of too much information overwhelms us and makes us feel insecure about our evaluation of choices. Many alternatives are quite similar in their value and the mind can no longer bucket the alternatives in compartments. It rather becomes a continuum. When this happens, there is an associated anxiety with picking the wrong alternative.

In other words, when there are choices, they also need to be accompanied with significant differences among themselves. Not just that, the differences need to find traction in our mind. The ability to process those differences reduces when the dimensionality and size of choices grows. The frustration of not having choices gets replaced by the frustration of not being able to choose from the available alternatives. This is also accompanied by fear of making a wrong decision. This is when choice becomes stressful and dreadful.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Life's tunes!

There is a tune for everything. Have you ever wondered why certain tunes are more appealing sometimes than the others? Emotions play a part in that. There is a tune for a new beginning, one for inevitability, one more for redemption. There is one for joy, another for sorrow, one for a shade of indifference and numbness. It's not the tune which is good or bad. It is how we feel then which determines what we make of that tune. Some evergreen tunes never fade out. There are somethings in life which don't change as well. Maybe the next time you are listening to a tune, you will attach an emotion to it.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

I am an archer in pursuit and I am going after a beast which is elusive and impossible to capture. Maybe I will tame it. If not, I might become the weary traveler who has seen many things on the way. Perhaps i would end up finding my destiny en route. No matter what happens, I will still be better off than who I am now.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Ramblings of an unstable mind!

  • Information visualization can reveal stunning insights, some of which are quite contrary to intuition. They reveal the world as is and help us frame theories based on facts
  • A reference or datum is very essential in understanding and perception. The question of 'so much' as compared to 'this' is more important than just 'so much', which can be misleading sometimes
  • We tend to overfit one cycle and thereby lose on accuracy to predict other cycles. Connecting the dots needs to balance the ability to weave a story against the long term play of nature
  • We are good story tellers because of our evolutionary trait to create rules to compress data in the brain. We are not good at anticipating disruptive changes precisely due to this ability.
  • The law of cause and effect tends to go out of sync with the passage of time. There is always an expiry date associated with the theories of cause and effect
  • Order and chaos are both intrinsic to the design of nature. Order is the portion of nature where we impose 'understanding' on and consequently Chaos is the portion which cannot be understood with a consistent explanation
  • Order and chaos are intertwined. They emerge from and dissolve into each other.
  • There are two sides to a coin. The unseen can be inferred from what is seen. What is not spoken tends to carry more important messages than what is spoken.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Of Rehearsals

How often do you come across a situation where there is a requirement for rehearsing something? At some point or another, we all rehearse for that important speech in front of a distinguished gathering, we make that dummy presentation pitch before a crucial client delivery and we do a lot of preparation before that actual talk. I have on many occasions spent time working on a write-up or a short talk. I have found it helpful to go prepared beforehand. Sometimes I ask myself this question as to whether I am being honest when I rehearse for something. Very often, the act of rehearsal involves posing hypothetical questions, framing suitable answers and forming strong positions to defend a point of view (sorry, if it sounds like a chess move;)).

The point being, does a rehearsal hide my true self at the cost of showing my best/ better self? Here, I feel, it is upto the person to decide what they want. It is quite possible to put up a facade which is genuine enough with adequate practice. Likewise, it is also possible to put the true feeling or thought in the best possible way, by working on it. I am fine doing the latter because I believe we are eventually trying to place our opinion for consideration in the best possible manner. There is nothing wrong in portraying your true self in the best possible manner. What I have issues with is in trying to pass off what is not genuine with an honest face mastered by the art of rehearsals.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Online Book Shopping!!

Welcome to the era of online shopping! I am quite excited about the arrival of e-commerce in India. I am already hooked onto it for buying books. There are a lot of benefits when it comes to online purchase of books:
  1. There is a clear display of best-sellers, new arrivals, classification of books by various genre. This enables you to quickly narrow down the search to what you are specifically looking for.
  2. The book review can be read in parallel from review sites and you get the idea of whether the book is of interest to you or not
  3. The book is typically available at a 25% discount to the cover price, which is a significant saving of cash in your wallet. You can now get a lot more books for the same budget.
  4. There is no need to stand and wait in long queue's at the billing and checkout counter (also add the time wasted in traveling to a bookstore, waiting in traffic, walking through a maze of crowded shelves unable to get what you are looking for)
  5. The book is delivered to your doorstep (typically, free of shipping charges) in a neatly wrapped cover. So far I have not faced any issues on this front
With all these advantages, I am now a complete believer in online shopping when it comes to buying books. I would suggest you to try buying books online. There are a couple of good sites which I have found to be reliable. I usually compare prices and delivery options across:

www.flipkart.com and
www.landmarkonthenet.com

Friday, July 23, 2010

The Immortals of Meluha

Just finished reading this book called - The Immortals of Meluha. I liked the simple and yet engrossing style of writing of the book. The author doesn't hesitate to use contemporary ideas, culture and language while describing the characters set in 1900 BC India. This makes the plot interesting and understandable to a person unaware of ancient Indian history. The main theme of the novel seems to be a search for meaning. Meaning as conveyed by concepts such as good and evil. The author suggests that varying from the norm is often considered or portrayed as evil. He brings this idea to the fore by delving into the root cause for war between the two sparring tribes, each of whom are counting on the same legend to redeem their way of life.

Another undertone in the novel is about the makings of the present day Indian society. The author explores the two ways of life which have interwoven themselves into the Indian society - the stratified society bound by systematic laws and a democratic society founded on individual freedom. The idea is to provide an explanation to the emergence of the present society from two distinct social orders, each with their own advantages. The book is the first in a three part sequel and so the story doesn't end with this part. The author leaves the audience guessing in the end. The protagonist Shiva and his consort Sati are under attack by the Nagas. Have to wait and read to know how the plot unfolds :)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Dehumanization and Web 2.0

The advent of online social networks, text messages and instant messages has lead to dehumanizing emotions. I have decided to go all out against this kind of attitude because it risks breaking all essential human bonds by making bonding a big joke.

Today, the youth are particularly inclined to live efficiently rather than effectively. By efficiently, i mean going through the daily motions of life as optimally as possible. This is ok as long as it's for paying bills online or getting work done. But it has become a fad to stretch this to unbelievable proportions.

I hate it when I see my name as part of a group wishing list, be it in mail or on text messages. Group and bulk SMS's irritate me and when i am lumped with everyone else I take it to mean that I am just a part of a group of people who need to know something as a formality. WTF! I would rather wish a few people personally than make it a show of sending 100 sms' and receiving so many, knowing fully well that it means nothing to the sender or receiver.

Moving on to instant messages. When the instant messaging service was first conceived, it was probably meant to be for quick hello's for those living on two different continents. Today it has become an escape route for making life 'efficient'.

What is more, most of them need to be prompted to say about what is happening in life. It is as though everyone is living a secret life, closed and hidden. I believe that when people behave this way, they think too much of themselves. And everyone does this following one another, resulting in the - 'Hi, how are u?' syndrome.

Hi, how are u? I am fine

How are u? I am fine

When I see this, it reads to me as:

Hi, I am alive, are u?
I am alive too, how alive are u?

Why should I say anything more about my life, when you cannot say something about yours. Something which is different from the list of status messages you have already put elsewhere.

What can you really make out from text? Can u understand what is 'I am fine' or 'i am ok' when you don't even hear a person's voice? It is just a formality for the sake it. As if this was not enough, the inability to know one's emotions on messaging has made it almost mandatory to include an emoticon. Imagine saying 'get lost' with a :D smiley and without it? It can reflect two entirely different emotions. More often than not, lots of misconceptions arise because of emoticons alone.

I strongly believe that if you value someone, you should make it a personal gesture to remember or uniquely identify them. There should some meaning in communication. Not in a manner of a sham where everyone is treated the same. You will be treated in the same way as you treat everyone else. And this results in what can be termed an 'attention deficit syndrome'.

Those who matter and would have cared for you, have been cast away because of impersonal behavior. Those who don't care will only send bulk messages. What happens when you desperately want someone to pay attention to you? There is no one left and you start putting up status messages online. It is a sign of desperation. The individual wanting the recognition of identity over collectivism. The same individual who dissolved the identity by making everyone equal wants to be attended to. The notifications and status messages hoping to catch the eye of one in a hundred who will ask you 'what's wrong?' and go beyond the 'hi, how are u?'

Nothing extraordinary needs to be done to recognize people as individuals. Just be normal. Don't try to optimize and make human relations an efficient process. In the end what will happen is that when you feel human, everyone will treat you like a robot, sending notifications and nothing more that that. No point ruing over loss of human touch then!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

A place called home

There is a place called home. It is the only home we have ever known. It is our planet Earth. Earth - Home to all forms of life. We, the humans, constitute a tiny tiny part of the diversity. Yet, it is we who are causing the biggest impact on the planet.

Through our actions, inactions, mistakes and ignorance, we are destroying it. It is not a slow death by any means. Nature is dying. With it's death, the environment we have so long been used to will change, accelerating the extinction of life forms which thrive in these conditions. When nature goes, so will man.

At the twilight of our existence, I want to quote Carl Sagan's profound message about the Pale Blue Dot our dear Home (see that tiny blue dot caught in the picture of the sun beam taken by Voyager from 6 Billion kilometers)

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Time to Win!!

This is one poem I had read a long time ago and it motivated me big time. Rediscovered it today during random browsing. Life does come a full circle.

The Victor - C. W. Longenecker

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will.
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But soon or late the man who wins,
Is the man who thinks he can.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Frustrations of a weird kind

I am frustrated. Nothing more needs to be said. I have been for a while now. It has to do with delays. Everything pertaining to what I want to do or what I hope will happen, gets pushed back. This thing is a perennial occurrence in my case. When I yearn for something, it goes one step away from my hands. Then I lose interest in it. And as if fate could read my mind, I get the object I had desired for. But there is a small problem. I have moved on in search of something else. And the same thing repeats over and over again in an infinite loop.

Is it because I lose patience at the last minute? Or is it just a characteristic of my life? Whatever the hell it is, I am tired of it. I just wish sometimes things happen in a normal way. Like it does for others.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Subjectivity

There are two groups of people. They are the only people who exist on this planet. One group is outside in the open, sitting in a park ground. Another group is sitting in a completely darkened room, watching a day long horror movie. They meet after one day to talk about what happened in the last 24 hours.

First Group in the Park: We were having a good time at the park until it started raining and we had to huddle under a tree for shelter.

Second Group: Rain? There is no evidence of rain. The ground is dry. The sky is clear.

First Group: It did rain. And after that there was a rainbow.

Second Group: We disagree. We did not observe the rain. There was neither rain nor was there a rainbow.

Question: Is existence only possible by the act of observation?

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Forbidden Friendship

For some reason this music seems to pacify-soothe-placate-control my anger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM0sOrwocCI&feature=related

Saturday, April 3, 2010

What is going on?

Each time I start to write something, I feel like I am missing an essential ingredient. I am unable to understand what it is. I am not going to attempt to post something when I don't feel right about it. Let me wait for some more time and figure out what exactly is missing. Until then, this space will be without a post. This is really sad. I have so much time but no will to write.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The semantics of Duality

The concept of duality is an ingrained thought in us. We can seldom go outside the matrix of opposites. To every aspect described, there is a contra. So, what exactly is duality? This is a question I have asked myself a lot lately. It is something I strive to understand, because of the fundamental position it occupies in the way man has come to see everything. Think about it.

Man and nature; mind and body; spirit and man; self and man; good and bad; pleasure and pain; knowledge and ignorance; system and environment. The list goes on. In fact it is endless. Take any aspect and you can always create its complement. In my thoughts about duality, I have come to see there is a bias in the way we see things. When we refer to a pair of opposites, our thoughts compress it into a binary logic. That either something is present or it is absent. There is no middle ground. The deterministic view of things. The Newtonian way of understanding. The world at the scale we see.

But is the world 'organized' as such? Personally, I am beginning to think the whole idea is flawed at its core. My reason for such an argument is ground on the presumption that duality is a simplified view of a more fuzzy world. We don't deal with 0 and 1 in reality. We have a spectrum ranging from 0 to 1 passing through everything in between. There is a continuum. The problem of duality is centred in the act of communication and is not a reality in itself.

Take the case of an important human emotion, viz. happiness. Our intuitive understanding of such a feeling is binary. When I say I am happy, it precludes the possibility that I am sad. That is because we see happiness and sadness as two binary states. But if such a case were true, then what is the meaning adjectival qualifiers like very happy, delighted etc. Certainly they do denote a greater or lesser happiness. Another duality? This would only result in an endless regress.

What I want to say is that when we deal with duality, there is a degree associated with it. For eg. Happiness is not merely a state. It is a state with a degree or extent. Happiness then is not a pure quality. It is rather an admixture where the quality of 'happy' is more than 'sad'. I might then go on to add that when we are neither happy nor sad, it is a case where the two qualities are in equal proportion. The state of indifference.

The key idea here is that there is no boundary in duality. The perception of duality is the passage of the aspect from preponderance in one end of the spectrum to the other side. Both qualities exist at all times nonetheless.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Insanity attacks :|

Causality, Spontaneity, Evolution and Interdependence.... i am going in circles now :(

This is driving me crazy. It's official. In the event of my madness turning into a chronic disease, i hereby attribute the result to the Universe (if it exists), to myself (if it were my dream), to the lord (if it were it's dream), to the void (if nothing exists)

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

To the Unknown Woman

there is this connection with you,
i've not felt even with the closest few,
the freshness of the morning dew,
reminds me each day of you

there is a mystery surrounding you,
everytime, it's something totally new,
i've tried hard to think it through,
but it remains an unsolved clue

there is a certain charm 'bout you,
it shakes me up, out of the blue,
i'm frozen, i know not what to do,
do i've to say anymore, take the cue

i've wanted to say this all along,
when you're with me, i'm brave and strong,
without you, i'm like a lyric without a song,
for your love, i shall wait forever, eternity long

Universal Confusions

I am going insane. It has to do with this damn universe. Seriously. It taunts me with impossibilities. It makes me see inherent contradictions in its existence. And yet, here I am, typing out mumbo jumbo about it. I cannot sleep properly. My head spins trying to figure out what stuff this universe is made of. Cosmology has the answers. But the problem lies in asking the right questions. And I am stuck here. What do I ask? What is it I want to know?

Is it how big is the Universe? The Universe can be as big as you want it to be. Multi-verses stacked upon a solo universe floating in vacuum. The ad infinitum progression of universes to perpetuity. Who can ascertain if the Universe (i.e. the mother of all multiverses) is finite or not?

What exists on the other side of the point-sized Universe at big bang? Does the other side have a meaning at all.

Where did it all begin? Did it begin at all? Is there an 'it' in the first place?

There must be some way all the contradictions are reconciled in an underlying substratum. The Ouroboros keeps frequenting me. It is floating in my mind. The head trying to bite of its tail and complete a cycle.

Suddenly the question 'why' seems to be a totally wrong question to ask. Causality is at the scale of the Universe where Newton rules. In Einstein's world, does 'why' have a meaning? What happens when the Universe has an Einstein world size and a Newton world density.The head meets the tail. The beginning meets the end and everything goes haywire.

What is space? Is it a positive entity? Or is it nothingness. But then what is nothingness. Is nothingness infinite. Then again, another contradiction.

How do i frame the right question? Do words retain their meaning in those questions? I don't know what to ask. All I am left with is silence. I am in awe. I live in an Universe which defies imposition of any kind of rule over its existence. I can hear it say, "I am here to break all the rules you pesky humans make. You can never figure me out. Good luck with that."

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

It's not what you think ;)

The decision had been pending. With breakfast out of the way, I turned my attention to settling a more important matter. It was time to take a decision. I started weighing the pros and cons. The first one was quintessentially a native of Hyderabad while the second one was a pucca Southie and largely a product of Chennai.

I was torn between choosing from the two. Which one would be THE ONE? A matter of great importance, I am sure you would all agree.

My mom was more amenable to the one from Chennai, while my dad felt the other one was better. My sister liked both of them equally. More than all that, I had known each of them personally, from childhood. The neutrality of the situation should explain why I was facing such a dilemma.

Time was running out and everyone around me was getting impatient. I had kept everyone waiting long enough. It was time to choose.

Eventually, I placed the order for filter coffee at the counter. Tea would have to wait for another time.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Winds of Nilgiris - Concluding Part

This post is actually the combined work of two friends :) The first part was written by Vasumathi and I have tried to complete it.

The first half of the story is here: Winds of Nilgiris - Part 1

For what seemed like an age, the two of them sat dazed, too shocked to respond to what was happening. The car brushed past the trees and foliage as it careened down the fateful slope. Sajan and Anjali pushed hard against the door lock only to find the doors jammed. As fate would have it, the car's impact with the trees had dented the car doors severely. It was impossible to open the damaged door. The window glasses shattered as the car scraped against the last few trees that could have halted the car.

Life flashed in front of Sajan's eyes as the car relentlessly rolled down the steep slope. Beside him, Anjali was staring ahead, horrified, at the approaching abyss. Sajan desperately tried to force the car to a halt. The brakes were to no avail. Heavy rains had loosened the soil on the hilly slope. The flowing soil was dragging the car down, and with it, the two passengers. They watched helplessly, as the car was being pulled into the world of death.

Anjali squeezed Sajan's palm tightly. Tears were flowing profusely from her eyes. She had not cried so much in a long time. The dreams of a rosy future, all the plans for a happy life were now on the verge of being destroyed. "Everything that has a beginning has an end", she remembered the lines she had read somewhere. It was coming true. She could see the valley below, dotted with houses. "Where is that miracle that I have always believed in", she wondered, looking ahead at the sky.

What came next, they would remember for all times to come. Ahead of them, to their left, a telecom tower stood precariously, over the loosened soil. With much of the soil under it washed away, the tower was beginning to tilt, dangerously close to falling down. All it took was a gust of wind to set the tower falling. The two of them watched, horrified, as the tower started to topple. It looked as though the tower would crash into their car. But then, they got lucky. The falling tower missed them by a few feet and fell across the path of the car. This stopped the sliding car from going further down the slope. Somebody had heard Anjali's plea.

The two of them sat still, not knowing what to say. Their lives had been changed forever. As they waited for help to arrive, they watched the dark clouds clearing up and giving way to sunshine. A gentle drizzle continued to come down, even as the sun shone brightly. There was a spectacular rainbow on the horizon. It was a new beginning for the both of them.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Pattern Recognition Bias

If i gave u a sequence of numbers: 2,4,6,8,10,12,.... what can you predict about the rest of the sequence?

The most obvious answer coming from our long education history would be that the given sequence is that of even numbers. This is an example of pattern recognition bias. Our left brain which is responsible for logic (nothing but pattern recognition) makes us connect the dots in such a way. Sounds familiar? Occam's Razor, the principle of parsimony, crudely states that the simplest explanation to a given problem is the most likely of all possible solutions. That is how our brain sees this sequence. We store rules that can be used to generate specific instances. A very powerful data compression principle employed by the brain. In a largely random world, we breakdown data into pockets of order and define a function to impose order on the limited sample space. Are there consequences? Yes. Since we assume a linear and logical world, some of the events appear to come out of the blue, unexpected or rare.

Let me take the earlier sequence itself: 2,4,6,8,10,12.......

Lets say we know more about the sequence: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,19,20,23,28...

Until 12 what we had was the past and the present. Beyond 12 is the future. When at 16 we see 19 emerge, we are taken by surprise because the expected trend of 'even numbers' is no longer valid. Instead, the sequence turned out to be an ascending sequence. Our expectation of the unexpected is tempered by our expectation of a linear, orderly expected world.

It is possible to superimpose more than one type of pattern on an unfolding event while giving a very coherent and consistent explanation of the past and present. But there is an inherent bias based on our tendency to assume known patterns. If you noticed, I re-interpreted the sequence to be an ascending sequence from an earlier assumed even number sequence. I have made another likely error.

What if the sequence were: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,19,20,23,28, 27,18....

Most of the times we try to confirm and assert a post-hoc explanation. History appears to be logical, business cycles appear to be logical, wars appear to be logical, rise and fall of civilizations appear to be logical. But if we were to ask people of those times, if they expected events of such scales, it is very unlikely that they would have seen it coming. In effect, the logic is to suit our needs. This logic however cannot be expected to hold reliably to forecast the future.

Coming back to the sequence 2,4,6,8,10,12,

The most obvious and probably the only truth that is confirmed is that the given sequence is not a descending sequence. From the start and middle, what we can reliably say about the 'full picture' is not what it is, rather what it is definitely not. We can rule out a pattern based on what we know. We can never confirm a pattern using the same premise.

“We now know a thousand ways not to build a light bulb” - Thomas Alva Edison, on his failures before finally inventing the Light Bulb

Saturday, January 16, 2010

An Autobiography of Time

I am the chaos that surrounds your life. That uncertainty which throws a spanner in your works. I am that thing which Murphy talks about. I am not cruel. Nor Am I insane. I am just playing a game. A game to make your life worthwhile. I am your ego buster as well. For if everything went according to plan, then you would believe yourself to be God incarnate.

Some say I am fate. Some call me destiny. Others refer to me as fortune. I am all of these and more. I cause the unmanifest to become manifest. And in due course, for it to become unmanifest again. I am death. I am nature's controller. The world's arose from me. So did the deities and the forces of nature. Knowledge came from me. From me came the seven sages, the seven steps of heaven, the seven rivers, the seven swaras and all that is known and will ever be known to man.

In me rests the experience of man. I prevent things from being undone and hide those which are yet to come. I am the divider of experiences - the past, the present and the future. I hold sway over everything that goes on in the world. I am time. The reckoner of all.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Cogito ergo dumb?

Everything happens for a reason. Really, Is it so? I want to ask. This is one of those very convenient phrases used to provide an answer to everything. Let me see. I failed. It happened for a reason. I succeeded. It also happened for a reason. What in the world does not happen for a reason then? It is one of those words like "gen" where the answer to everything in this whole wide universe is gen. Why did God manifest this Universe.Gen.

Humans like to believe in their ability to ratiocinate. It is a matter of pride for us. Ah look at that donkey there. I bet you a 100 bucks it cannot think like me. We are smarter than all the species that have existed so far. Oh really, how do you deny the existence of anyone smarter than us. Simple. I don't perceive. Nor can I prove. Hold on. In the perception of an ant, whatever that may mean, do we"humans" exist? Can't say. A blow lands on an ant and it goes into deep sleep. We are struck by an earthquake. We goto sleep as well. Wait. Was a man or supernatural involved in those two cases respectively? Eh, it was an act of nature. Of course it was.

But seriously, are we rational or rationalizing. Is reason a tool for justification or does it have any intrinsic value by itself. I believe reason is merely a pattern recognition software meant to compress data into rules which makes us store information much more easily. A genetic benefit to mankind. The "reason" i say this is because if reason really had a value, we would have the ability to predict the future. Why is that reason can so easily explain the past but not the future?
Evidence. There is evidence in the past. A set of points through which we can loop an explanation to make it consistent. More like story writing having a few pointers for the plot. Whereas future is chaos until it manifests. No reason can explain chaos. Although one can "create" order pockets within chaos.

Nature has endowed different species with multifarious pattern recognition softwares. For humans, it is reason. It is nothing special in so far as nature's scheme of things are considered. Remember, the dinosaurs lasted a 100 million years even without such a thing as reason. We, the humans, have been around for a few million years. Can reason save us and help survive longer? If it cannot, some other species, a few hundred million years from now, will be learning about how "reason" resulted in our eventual destruction. Oh that is, if their biological evolution is also premised on reason!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Lost in Paradise - My New Year Experience !

The trail ended abruptly. The eight of us were at the gates of a lighthouse, which stood at the edge of a cliff, facing the expanse of the Sea. We looked around to see if there was any help at hand. No one was inside the lighthouse. The early morning breeze was giving us a much needed respite from sweat and tiredness. Below, the waves splashing against the rocks produced a steady symphony. The near full-moon was high up in the sky and the entire shore was basking in its silver light. At some distance, there were lights at the shore. Was it the same place we had originally planned to goto? No one knew. We were lost. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, with dying cellphones and little signal. It had all started with an innocuous, "What plans for the new year weekend?"

The entire day, we had been staying at a beach front, splashing in the waters, eating and gazing at the splendor of the sea, rocks, cliff and sunset. We had gotten to this secluded beach named 'paradise beach' by boat because there was no land access. In the course of our unhindered merriment, we had missed boarding the last boat out of the beach and were left behind without any night clothes or tent. Our initial plan was to get through the night, sleeping in haversacks and makeshift mats. However, as the night wore on, the prospect of getting any sleep at all, got dimmer. A combination of wet clothes, mosquitoes and the blistering chill of december got us thinking.

We then learnt from the beach-restaurant owner of a trekking trail which would lead us to a village. Our plan was to call up our cab driver and rendezvous at the village, from where we could head back to denser human settlements. The cab driver reluctantly agreed to meet us at this village, and after intense bickering within the team, it was decided that trekking at midnight through the wilderness would be the way out. Most of us were apprehensive about the whole thing. The hill we were to trek through looked quite densely foliated. The most voiced about concern was of encountering snakes and possibly some wild animals. However, by the account of the beach owner, the trek was supposed to be a straightforward thirty minute one, with little scope for getting lost. But it wasn't. Something was different, as it always happens to be. Will come to that soon enough.

We started our climb at 1.30 AM. The moon was casting a brilliant swathe of natural light across the entire beach. The trail was clearly visible in that light and we started out quite confidently, without carrying a torch light. As we went deeper into the hills, the path got narrower and steeper. Rocks and loose stones were jutting out every now and then and some of them kept coming off. The canopy of trees became tighter. The clear light became a haze of dancing shadows produced by the foliage. The place was engulfed in a foggy darkness. We were soon chanting, "all izzz welll" and occasionally taking roll calls. It was the kind of setting which would make a good plot for the-last-person-in-the-line-disappears type of ghost movies. We tried to quicken our pace and get through the deeper hills in good speed. After a while, we were out, into a clearing and along the shores of the sea.

We could see street lights emerging at a distance. Satisfied that we were not lost, we closed the gap between us and the light in rapid strides. We were pretty close, the next turn and we would be at the lights. Or so, we thought. When we took the turn, we came to a point where from the trail turned into a steady up climb having a cemented road. The lights we had seen earlier was now seperated from us by a stream of water, perpendicular to the trail. It had been over 45 minutes since we had started off. All along we believed those lights to be our destination. Now, the water separated us from it. And there was a road ahead. Where were we to go? The presence of a good road, made us infer that we had to go along that road to reach the "village". And so we took it. We were baited. For the next 30 mins, we trudged along a steep climb until we reached a dead end. The lighthouse.

A while later, we were sitting in the car, thinking about what had gone wrong. Someone mentioned that it was a bad idea to trek at night. Another rued about the guide not giving us specific details. Yet another said, we should have taken a torch light, which would have saved us from getting lost. I believe that the charming moon had pretty much ensnared us that night. Sure, it did give us the light. But we had not thought of one important thing. A full-moon is a high tide period. And we were probably trekking at a time when the moon induced tidal action was at its zenith. The water that had separated us from the other side was probably the making of the high tide which the beach owner might not have anticipated. And without a torch we could not gauge the depth of the water.

While at the lighthouse, we called our cab driver to inform him that we were lost. By then we had lost all bearings and the belief that the the lights were our destination had faded from confidence to confusion. It was then, that we got lucky. Our driver told us that he could see the light beam coming from the lighthouse. We asked him to tell us whenever he spotted the beam, and that is how we regained our direction. This took us back to the original spot where our confusion had begun. This time we were sure that we had to cross this patch of water. We walked along the water's edge, which took us inland and to a patch of fields. The fields had boundaries and dikes preventing the intruding sea water. We walked over those boundary walls until we crossed over to the other side. From there, getting to the car was a cake walk, literally! This was the way, my new year started. Lost and found at Paradise Beach, Gokarna.