When a basic collection of alphabets of a language can result in a complex literary work like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, would it be a leap of imagination to think that life emerged from a source which was simple and had the potentiality to become complex? Would a transformation towards a complex system need an intelligent hand or could that be achieved through randomness, provided sufficient time is allowed to pass?

Actually, it is true - Everything happens for one's own good :)

The Moving Finger Types and Erases....

My hand begins to type what is on my mind and then a finger starts working on the 'backspace' button. And now I wonder what Omar Khayyam would say to that! :)

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

~ Omar Khayyam

Idiotic Economics

Ok. Inflation sucks. Guess what they are attributing inflation to? Food demand and a growing class of consumers whose per capita consumption is growing faster than supply. Sounds like a reasonable explanation no? Actually, it is all hogwash. Demand growth is not the culprit in the current inflation equation. The problem is a supply-side one. And the supply side issues have been created by esteemed idiots sitting in the ministries of economics, agriculture and other defunct organisations. At this point let me slip into a story.

Ramu was a village simpleton and a labourer employed in agriculture. His master was a landlord who grew rice and paddy. For many years, all the landlord had to grapple with were unreliable monsoons, pests, price for his produce and of course the shark moneylenders. Then came a new devil. It was called NREGA. The government's new agenda to prove it's retardedness. Not to mention a new revenue stream for the corruption portfolio. Meanwhile, all was well for Ramu. He stopped working in the agricultural fields. Why would he need to? NREGA was providing him with a better source of income for digging up the soil and creating empty pits. He always wondered what those pits would be used for but never understood the purpose of making them. The landlord offered other labourers even more wages to stick to the farm but not too many were interested when there was NREGA to fill their pockets. Those who stayed back got more wages for their work. The prices of food commodities went up because of wage inflation and reduced supply. Monsoon was blamed. Moneylenders were blamed. And the black cat which crossed the landlord was also blamed for pushing up inflation. The NREGA policy makers realised the damage under NREGA was not enough. They felt linking the wages under NREGA to inflation would speed up their goal of looting the public even faster. Now wages would rise faster in rural farmlands, pushing prices higher and reducing supply even more. Masterstroke. So, in this way, the food inflation got out of hand. Now the Government is looking at grappling inflation with serious intensity. It has resorted to PR and confidence building statements to reduce the inflation menance. They are also considering re-indexing inflation to show a lower % change. Very ingenuous ways to tackle inflation. Polcy makers all around the world have an important lesson to learn from the Indian experience. Letting inflation slip out of hands is not the important part in all this. At the end of it all you just need to make positive statements which are farthest from the cause and also issue impossible inflation reduction targets for the future as outlooks. Neat work!

Why does it always have to be fundamental and never superficial or trivial? I am not trying to be cryptic for halo effects.

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.

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.