The old chicken - egg question

I have talked a lot about agnosticism before but today I feel like doing a case by case analysis. So there are n no of religion, with each saying that their God, Bhagwan, Allah etc is the creator of everything etc.

Now let us hypothetically assume it to be true - so that one or more gods either separately or jointly created the universe and humans and everything. Or perhaps there is only one true god and maker and the rest are imagination. Now the question for all people agreeing to this is who made this hypothetical God or Gods. I mean is there a hierarchy God makes man and Earth, God's God makes Gods and heaven. So where does it end? Now there can be no meaningful end to this side of the discussion.

Then comes the idea that there was no God. Well ok then how did we come into being ? Scientists talk of a Big Bang theory, but that hardly is an argument that applies here. How did the matter to go through this Big bang come from. There is no valid argument in either case. I saw this side of no sides a while back and that was the day I became a peaceful agnostic, I respect the problem and have no shame in accepting that  I am not upto finding a solution for this.

P.S. This is basically the same reason I am never afraid in air travel - reason tells me that if there ever be a problem mid air it is only the pilot who can do anything about it and my worrying over something that I have no control over is not going to help in any way.

Pakistan .. why is it what it is ?

We all have been watching from the fence as Pakistan is being ripped apart by a monster of it's own making. But how did it come to this.. at the time of the partition Pakistan tried hard to get a lot of territories to accede to them but they were defeated largely - in the name of leadership they had just Jinnah while India on the other had Patel, Nehru and Gandhi to contribute in different ways. While Patel was the action guy, Nehru was the public face and Gandhi was the mass leader .. Jinnah had to do all these roles by himself. So while Jinnah could hardly match Patel's acumen and planning he also was definitely way behind as the loved leader of the masses - Gandhi was after all 'the father of the nation'. Also due to the tendency to align with the stronger side, most rulers wanted to accede to the seemingly more moderate/considerate Indian leadership and at the same time wherever public opinion counted Hindus (the majority) didn't think of going to Pakistan. There were two critical states that created all the mess that is here today. While Hyderabad had a Hindu majority with a Muslim ruler, Kashmir had a Hindu ruler with a predominantly Muslim population. Now these were vital and India could not afford to lose either while Pakistan was dying to get them. Patel eventually outsmarted Jinnah and wrested both of them out of his hands. Given this humiliating defeat, Pakistan was never bent upon being a friendly neighbour. Also with India's pivotal role in the Independence of Bangladesh - animosity between the neighbours was sealed. Now while India and Pakistan were both in poor shape in terms of technology, finance and defence while India took help from the erstwhile USSR to build itself to what it is today Pakistan for some reason sought to be under the umbrella of USA and never tried to build its own factories, infrastructure or technology etc.. It's leadership was more bent upon wresting over Kashmir from India. Even if they were successful  or are in the coming future - what is the result of it all going to be. Is it going to help even a single person on either side of the border or even in Kashmir? Not really... 
But regardless of basic logic Pakistan continued to fund insurgency and foment terrorist elements in the name of 'liberation of Kashmir'. Well it forgot one basic thing - terrorist are not patriots .. they are professionals. Just as any other professional they want to be employed and they would gladly turn back on their own master rather than be jobless. So now with Pakistan trying to be good and helping USA in the fight against al-Qaeda etc.. the taliban has nothing else to do but turn their AK-47 and bombs to Pakistani cities. I wish I could say 'As you  sow, so shall you reap' but such is not true in case of countries, for leaders mess up and the poor public suffers. 

What's wrong with India

India has over the years proved itself the best place for corruption, inefficiency and incompetence to thrive. Why is it that the law in the country seems so decorative and perhaps even a tool for the rich to wield against their enemies and not one for justice? Numerous events in the current news have made me realise that the worst thing and the root of all the problems in India is none other than the lax judiciary in India. Like a parent that spoils a child and never punishes the brat for mischiefs, so are the officials in every department in India. Just yesterday the pitch for a cricket match was made so poorly that the match had to be abandoned. How is this possible in a country that invests so much in the sport and is a world leader in it? How is it possible for a stadium in New Delhi to fuck up when even countries like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh can manage well every time? And if it is not acceptable why are we seeing just a blame game, possibly an enquiry and no heads on the table ! And the funny and sad thing is that the people are satisfied with just shouting (pelting bottles on the ground in this case) and then going home to crib more on the state of affairs. There is no interest in the public to see the culprits / incompetent officials punished.
The Ruchika case under so much media hype is another sad example of the same. The attention is on why was the accused given so mild a punishment, there is no focus on why did it take 19 years and when there are public statements proving a motley of politicians and civil servants involved in shielding the accused, there is no move to prosecute them. At least suspend them for the time being !!
Such is the sick state of affairs that there is no sense of pride anymore in living in what we call 'Saare Jahan Se Achcha'. This seems to have acquired a sarcastic tinge in such circumstances for me at least ! All I can say is that I will still say 'Saare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan humara' but without conviction and with a hope that it someday becomes true.

Preconceived notions and discrimination

We may try and say that we do not discriminate, but we know that we actually do have some pre-conceived notions and may at times discriminate. First of all what is discriminating - nothing but unfair treatment to a fellow based on our prejudices and obviously this includes rascism, casteism, sexism etc. I don't think there can be a valid argument towards any kind of discrimination as it comes out of neither logical nor compassion. What, on the other hand does having preconceived notion mean. It is a lukewarm feeling towards a thing you are not very sure about. As I see it, it is nothing but applying probabilities. If you have been many-times lied to by a person, you will have the notion and natural instinct to not readily believe that which this person says. This is very much understandable and this behaviour comes out as a natural defence mechanism and seems to come from logic. But there is a certain blur, a muddiness in the meaning of preconceived notions. This does not include that you act on those notions - notions are just a means of putting you up on your guard. To have doubts about the certain facts/people etc.. and not to have a negative opinion. It is this blurriness which make people act more as discriminators than they really are. So the idea is simple doubt from past experiences/statistics, but verify and then believe

Holocaust - The greatest tragedy ever ?

The topic is pretty vast and disputed and needs some background. I am afarid I will digress quite a lot. First of all what is the holocaust - it basically refers to the genocide of around 5 million people of Jewish religion by Germany led by the Nazi leader Hitler in the early 1940s. Then another important thing is the creation of the state of Israel. Since biblical times Jewish were promised a state of their own called the 'Promised land' and Moses led them from their enslavers in Egypt to this land through a horrendous and painful journey over vast deserts. In modern times the Jews, being tradesmen, had immigrated and spread around everywhere specially europe. Now with Hitler coming after them baying for their blood in such a way as he did, made fleeing the only option for the ones that managed to escape the gas chambers. Some fled to the American continent and others saw this as an opportunity to return to their 'Promised land' which is now Israel. At the time Jews were being turned away by almost everyone. The european countries did not want the refugees to return to their homes and Palestine - the site of the 'promised land',  which was ruled by British at the time did not like the million odd Jew refugees settling there. They finally managed to establish an independent state carved from within Palestine and called it by the name of Israel and thus ended their suffering - well at least temporarily.

Now what did the holocaust actually mean. The number of Jewish deaths is a huge figure and the intolerable Nazi cruelty make this period of time one of the most shameful in the annals of mankind. But does that mean that it be a bargaining chip for all future generations of Jews? There are now elements in the Jewish society just exploiting the holocaust memories to get away with just about anything. Now it is a well known fact that USA is one of the strongest allies of Israel and has been strengthening its arms by fair and unfair means and even looking the other way as Israel continues to wreck havoc on Palestine. I can't pass a ruling as to which side is right/just and which is not, but Israel is definitely the stronger one; and it has time and again used it to do some cruel acts on the relatively weaker Palestinian state. Now what is the reason that USA, which is the self acclaimed messiah of all the world, has not tried to set things right and does in fact support a strong nuclear armed state? The obvious reason is that the diaspora of Israel is one of the most powerful sections of the american community. In fact it is more powerful than the majority christian community I would say. Money lending was a traditional Jewish occupation since long back and even now the majority of banking families are Jewish. The Rockfellers, Rothschilds and many others who run the financial institutions, banks and media worldwide are Jews. So their influence is definitely worth quite a bit. Now there is a lot of noise in the conspiracy community that these Jew banking families have a plan to enslave the world etc etc.. I do not subscribe to that in the face of no definite proof - but still the fact remains that there is an imbalance of power and power is not something that humans have been build to absorb without causing a lot of collateral damage around them.

So the overall fact is that with the backing of the powerful financial strength and using the memories of holocaust as an excuse and baraining chip Jews have done whatever they wished to and gained power in all forms. There are I would guess anything from 5-10 movies made on the holocaust and there seems to be a concerted effort to never let this awful piece of history to fade away into distant memories and to make the Christian community sorry for their 'atrocities'. I fail to understand why are other such horrible tragedies not as bright in the spotlight of our memories? The US bombing of the two Japanese cities for example though not equal is number is an equally brutal crime - both the genocides targetted the innocent civilian population yet the Japanese tradegy is a distant memory now. The Armenian massacre of  1915 left more than a million dead. As I see it the idea is to keep this very much alive and project the wrongs on their society to enable them to do wrongs of their own. Holocaust may or may not be the biggest tradedy of human making but it certainly is the most appaling misuse of a tragedy.

Bumps

Bumps in life, by this I mean the bad times that come ever so often in small measures. I won't say we should enjoy them - that will sound like a lie because I myself never did enjoy my bad times. As I see it life is a very complex thing and there are too many things and people intersecting in it. Our goal/aim is of course to make life better for us (and the ones we love) but then as it is such a complex thing it is not always possible. There are times when we just can't make a difference. Like for example - if I am in a plane that might possibly crash, I would not cry and fret over it - not that I hate my life, but I know I can't do anything about it. But here lies the beauty of life - we may not be able to make a change in the world at times, but we can always see life in a differnt shade - from a different perspective. This freedom that life affords us makes things so much better. So instead of choosing to see those bumps as disturbances, see them as variety in life - basically something desirable or at least less odious. If we can we should make a difference or an effort to that effect, but if that is not possible I would rather than suffer and cry over 'fate' see it as a reason to be better in the future. To make sure that there is no repeat of what happened this time.

I hate using trites but this is very apt - they say a hero is a hero only because there is a villain. So basically a villain's existence is important in order to appreciate a hero. So transposing this to our point of discussion - bumps are but villains and the smooth sailing life ( and everything to be happy about) is the equivalent of a hero. So in order to appreciate the good in life bad is required. Well I would personally don't mind if the bad was just mythical but if I have no hand in deciding it, I would see it as something good, something helping me appreciate the past good times. Well if life doesn't give you reasons enough to be happy - who is better than yourself to go and find some (reasons to be happy)!

Simplicity, an excuse to non achievement?

Firstly I need to acknowledge - this is not coming from my insight, but that of someone else. That should suffice to absolve me of my sins of plagiarism. So simplicity.. seen by most people a quality, a model way of behavior that some of the most selfless and pure amongst us have. But perhaps it is not all that good - for there are fakes amongst them as everywhere else. These counterfiet people obviously reduce the value of the other genuine ones. There are very few people who are genuinely simple with no other reason for being so, than their strong belief that it is the most sensible and honest way of being in existence. There are a lot of incentives towards appearing simple, you get a lot of leeway to excusing yourself and non-achievement and of course admiration/respect of a lot of people. People following the idea of - 'I can do this but I don't want to' are hard to differentiate from a person who actually cannot do anything. The reason being that this can be explicitly tested only in the time of a need and till then everyone looks the same (on the outside at least). So the need to differentiate the fakely simplistic people and the really simple minded people is important. One are the weakest members of our society and the other perhaps the most mature and sensible ones.

Also, perhaps we, as men, being so egoistic creatures, tend to give ourselves too much air. We make ourselves believe that we can do a lot, just that we are being modest/simple in not doing everything. Sub-consciously we tend to take our weakness to the other side and count them as a show of restraint. It always feels good to cross off a missing part in you. So there is a need to be self evaluating on a regular basis, so as to not give ourselves false airs and know ourselves and our true capabilities. This should in no ways diminish our self confidence, you rather reiterate it and instill a sense of conviction in it.

Not only that, there are many who are capable enough to do a lot but would rather choose to rest on this knowledge, and do nothing. For them their ego is a dreamy bed for them and their talents. They are so lazy that they are happy achieving nothing and choose to find excuses for this instead, simplicity is just one of them. If ever it is possible to make these people realize this and make them stand on their feet again, they could do a lot of good work in this world - just the motivation needs to be found for doing that.

Lying

Lying, finally something we all can identify with. There is perhaps no single being who doesn't ever lie. I hate lying in general, but there are times when I myself lie. Some people do it more often, for them it is not a big deal and they can lie just for the heck of it. So there is a major difference in liars - the intent to refrain from lying. As I see it, if you are lying to a person not as a defense, but just for fun or well just because you can - you are showing the most disrepect to him/her that you can. You show that you don't really care a bit for the person and have a trust in his/her lack of intelligence - so that you can lie away without the other person knowing it.

But who do we lie to. A person who doesn't really want to lie, still has to lie to people he is dependent upon, the people of authority in his life - like your parents perhaps, your boss etc. This well though avoidable needs a lot of courage and willpower, for the consequences of being truthful can be, at times, drastic. Then there are occasions on which we lie just to be polite, we don't want to say "Your house looks aweful" or "No, I don't think you can really get this job". Those are what I believe somewhat harmless lies and well they can't be avoided at some times. Where do love and lying meet. Well when you love someone respect is paramount, and that means there is no room for casual lying. Of course you need to do those "Hey, you are looking amazing" compliments even when your partner has had the worst day and looking like aweful.

There are some special people in your life that you feel like not lying to - to put yourself open in front of them and show them what you really are. With those people there is no reason to lie even for defense. You know that they will understand whatever it is that made you do what you did - they accept you as a whole - like you do them. Having such special people in your life is a rare thing and not all have such people. As naive as I am, I believe your lover should be one of these people.

Vengeance with a Debt

We have all had a hand pull us up on occasions when we fall. The hand is something we grow to love. And of course we tend to ignore it's faults. But sometimes there comes a time when you realize that it isn't just working out. What to do then. Here is what I think:

Good deeds done in the past,
do not bound me forever,
my heart they do not deserve,
a heart felt thanks is all they get.

Heart Break

Each time a heart is broken, it survives for survival is the only option. But to survive a part of it dies and even after taking a long time to recover, it never recovers fully. It can love less each time, a part of it is still with the one who broke it and there is less to give to the next one if there ever is one. So what is the answer to this, should you instead not give your heart to someone and just stay oblivious to the world - just a face with no heart, a body without a soul? Not really, but perhaps being more cautious about choosing the people before you care for them enough to give them the power to hurt you.

Practicality in 'Love'

Being practical is a cold thing and sometimes even fraught with not having principles. Love, on the other hand, is the most warm, mushy thing. They don't ideally have anything to do with each other. Alas, so is not the case - the problem is that love cannot survive in a vacuum. It needs to coexist with this world and the world runs on practicality and so love needs to come to terms with practicality to survive. Now it is very much given that for people to be together love should be the reason. But then there are other reasons by way of need that bring people together without any love. Also, it prevents all people in love from being together - money, status, religion etc there are too many factors. So the question is what is the correct mix of being practical and being guided by love. I would say be greedy - want both, don't settle for one. Love should be the only reason for being with someone but then again other factors are important to the survival of love in the long run. So there should be a minimum cut-off level that you should expect in all matters practical and materialistic. So probably a girl going with a guy with love but no career whatsoever is as unlucky as a girl going with a guy with all the riches to offer but no love. The hopeless romantic that I am, I always believe that you can get both, just wait your turn and be patient.

Confidence as a privilege

Confidence is the bridge from talent and hardwork to success. People with confidence can many a times very easily get away with a lot of shortcomings. I am not to say whether it is unfair, that talented people are left behind just because they are lacking in confidence. This is a reality of life and this world and there is no sense in debating whether the significance accorded to confidence is justified or not. Now, what brings this confidence and what is a reasonable / moral source for it? Money, beauty, fame among other materialistic things are some things confidence follows very commonly. It is very easy to be confident if you are rich, powerful, beautiful, famous. The people who are not any of these - the populace, are obviously and perhaps justifiably annoyed. They do not have the luxury (confidence is surely a luxury as it makes things in life easy) that they see others enjoying - that sounds a lot like jealousy. Then again who ever said that the world is fair, it is quite obvious to be compassionate to the cause of the poorer / weaker side - but then, the other side is not really one with any malice.

So I would say the practice is wrong but it does not mean that those benefitting from it need to be made a scapegoat. Now for example being a person of beauty does make you the centre of attention and you feel a sense of power through this. This in turn makes you confident to face the world. But the fact remains that within that person is a regular person who has dreams, aspirations, talent and fears. The problem is that they walk through their life focusing on other things and let their fears be sidelined. So they are not as mature to face challenges that are thrown their way. This in no way means that they are not deserving. They are just as deserving as anyone else. And the fact that they have had that help so far and had chances plentiful should in fact make it easier for them to do anything without needing to rely on their beauty. It is alas a bit too easy, in this case, to be oblivious to other things.

The more important thing is that everyone should be confident of his/her abilities. No matter what other gift have been bestowed upon them. If confidence is a chain reaction that eventually leads you to achieve something, it does not actually matter if the start of the reaction was from something fake as long as there is enough substance in you to keep the reaction going forever. The idea is not to think where the confidence comes from, any source is a good source, the bad thing is over-reliance on it. It is always better to have something, but having the ability to survive without it is important. Once you get there, there is no harm in enjoying all luxuries that come your way.

Cosmopolitan

First of all who is a cosmopolitan. A cosmopolitan is basically a being who is not tied down by stereotyping, he is not the expected - more tangibly not tied to a particular regionalist behavior/characteristics/beliefs. I call myself a cosmopolitan and am proud for some reason that it is mostly true.

Now the second thing is why is being cosmopolitan good and what does it encompass. Well I think being cosmopolitan means being self-thinking, you don't let the predefined notions make up your thoughts - it's about being more independent. This makes it just more difficult to stereotype you. Stereotyping is akin to wearing blinkers (things that horses are made to wear to let them see only straight). You don't get to know the person, you take it as given that an Indian guy is a geek, an Afro is useless, an Arab is dangerous, a Jew is a penny pincher, a Brit is a snob or whatever notions you came across in your past experiences. It is hard to not have any notions about people based on their background. So basically by not being evidently a Brit, a Jew or an Arab you do not let people make pre determined notions about you - you start with a clean slate. I am obviously always seen as an Indian and can't possibly do anything about it - that's evident from my physical appearance. But yeah my provincial, religious and all other background need not be paraded in front of everyone and I take care that they are not. It does not mean I am ashamed of what I am, I just don't want that to be a factor that people judge me on.

People who spit their religion on your face have always annoyed me, so do (after a limit) people who parade their regional descent. Still it doesn't make them these people any lesser of a being, just that they are sometimes a little unrefined at the very worst and obviously think with a different perspective.

As always there are things that people fuck up at and which make the whole group appear in the wrong. For example people with certain ethnic backgrounds tend to stick together (which is good) but at the same time close that group and all others (which is rather cheap/mean). Being a cosmopolitan you basically end up not making the whole group associated with you (racially, religiously etc) to be associated with your actions. So are cosmopolitans ultra beings? Not really - a tad more mature than others possibly; but otherwise nothing more, nothing less.

Finding Love

Why is finding love so hard? Companionship is something that money or other materialistic things can get you. Partners are not as easy to find but still circumstances are an incentive for people to become partners and partnership can be attained by everyone. Love on the other hand is not bound by any compulsions and needs and cannot be easy to find. Perhaps that's the reason most people never find love.

No two people are absolutely the same, they can be alike to certain extend but never the same. It is not as if love can only be among two people that are the same. Luckily love, like a chemical reaction, can happen between any kind of a match or mismatch. It is a magical formula that no one knows and probably thats for the best. But there way too many problems that stop love from blossoming. First of all our behaviour is not uniform. People have different facets; and different people, that we know, get to see different facades of our personality. So it is not just something in you two but also a lot is left to chance. After that comes the perspective - you can be nice to someone, care about them and do all you can but possibly the other one might not see it for what it means or even worse see it in a negative way. The there are various social issues which I club together and call practicality - there are so many things that happen in our lives that make us unable to do what we want, then there are social differences too that stop us. I won't elaborate, but obviously there are various issues here.

As a joke I devised a 7 layer mechanism on what stops us from finding a partner. It doesn't exactly apply to love but in some way it might. First you should be geographically co-located, then you should also chance to meet. Third is that you are looking for someone at that time. Fourth is the your hypothetical partner is looking for someone at that same time. Fifth is that you like someone (which is not very easy for some people). Sixth is of course that your hypothetical partner likes you. Seventh and last is that mystical luck factor - for every factor that I forgot/overlooked/can't express.

Anyways that's enough digression - the point is that there are enough obstacles in your way to finding love and you should not be adding any more. Your disposition and your ego are things you have control over and they should not be allowed to before another set of walls to your soul's search for the elusive soul mate.

Book Review - Fountainhead Part I

Fountainhead is probably the most amazingly life and perception changing book there is, at least amongst the ones I have chanced to come across/read. There is so much of exquisite work that my review just never could do justice to it but perhaps I should try. Fountainhead seeks to (with clear success) shatter an inherent thinking that we all have - that no sacrifice is too high for the greater good of mankind. It is very hard to explain but when you read it you realize that perhaps what we had taken for granted for as true isn't quite so right. It shows how every man is selfish and rightfully so. There is no shame in bring selfish - infact the selfless devotion to ones desire is the most pious deed. The notions that we are taught as we grow in this society are not the final word - every man has the right to pursue his happiness and that for Roark in Fountainhead was his work. The desire - be whatever it might be - the ultimate crux of the matter is that there is no principle which is greater than the pursuit of your desire. You are in no way indebted to the society and sacrificing yourself to pay it is hence senseless. The biggest debt you owe is to yourself and to pursue your desire is the only way to repay it. Howard Roark was a talent par exemplar and it is rare to find such people and they when allowed a free hand can unknowingly give to the society that they never took anything from. The fact that these very folks are often sidelined and not even given the recognition that the most undeserving amongst us recieves is sad. There are numerous true stories of geniuses rebuked by the society - well the rebuke is not cared about mostly. But even worse is that it impedes their selfless efforts which will never take anything but give to others.

..to be continued

Desire

An austere sage teaches us that desire is the root cause of all evil. But to not to desire is to not to live and we are not interested in dead/suicidal people anyways. The problem needs to have a more granular solution. The problem is not in desiring but in desiring without limits. Man by instinct is such a greedy animal that it desires not one but a host of things in every domain. It's thinking is not simple as that of a animal. Animal just wants freedom, limitless freedom and to be well fed - a forest has everything it wants to live. Man on the other hand is a confused about this, he wants freedom but wants also wants chains that allow him comforts that they provide. There is this whole well-known debate on whether moderization/development is actually helping man but that would be digressing from the theme. So the limitless greed is what we think is the root for all evil. Take for example a popular business family and you will find people with billions of dollars each fighting over - of all stupid things - money. Now that might make some sense if they were poor and lacking in that area. But all they ever want is more, which as I see it is insane. Desire for anything to any amount is not bad till it takes over you. Till it takes control of the way you see, interpret thing and makes you do things you wouldn't want to do were it not for that greed (bad things obviously). It is basically the evil twin of determination. One leads you to achieving your goals in life and the other does the same but at the cost of your principles and morals. Greed and desire are divided by a thin line and the idea is to try and keep to the good side as much as we possibly can.

Under the yoke of mediocrity

Some part of all of us wants to be excellent, the best rather. Determination and hard work can help achieve a lot but still there are never millions of places at the top - only a few. There is a fight for those few places. But sadly the law of numbers prevails and numbers matter more than being the best. The multitude is, as expected, most aptly described as mediocre. This notion of democracy has been extended to mean that even this mediocrity of talent (in whatever field) is a desirable thing. Whatever this large proportion of the audience interested in, is sure to find lots of people fighting to get in providing. Thus we have a lot of mediocre products - be it movies, art, music, food, clothes, educated professionals or anything else for that matter. It is as simple as the business adapting as per the market requirements. Thus we see that a lot of mediocre stuff being pushed in - of these inferior things getting precedence over the better ones. People who actually have an eye for the excellent, the best of them are left out in the cold. Let take a practical example - say there is an exam on some logical subject. This is something where you should have people think over new/original problems - but the exam ends up testing attendance in class instead of logical reasoning, it has all the questions that have been 'taught' earlier. This is done to accommodate the majority of people incapable of coping with an intellectual test. In this way people who mug up achieve higher than people who actually think logically and have an understanding of the course material. This is the way that medicrity of the entire society stifles the better ones.

The reign of mediocrity was beautifully portrayed in Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. It remains one of the best pieces of literary work till date. There is a Howard Roark (the protagonist, defender of excellence in himself) in many of us, just the fact that most don't take up the battle of excellence and mediocrity - for it needs you to risk everything in your life at times. Thus the being who is a bearer of some form of excellence - under the slavery of practicality is forced to hide his talent and live intermingled and tinged with the poisoned of compelled mediocrity. And thus mediocrity begets more mediocrity and even stops the mushrooming of excellence.

But where do we see hope - there is always supposed to be some hope! Well in this case the only hope is going to come from individualistic strength to challenge the promotion of sub-standard things in any walk of our lives.

Why IQ tests are not to be taken seriously

Intelligent Quotient or IQ tests are ingrained in our society to a large extent. Though our society is not a meritocracy but we like to fake it anyhow and give the impression that merit alone is the factor for all appointments. SAT, GRE, CAT, IITJEE are some 'aptitute' tests which millions of people give every year and the toppers are certified to be among the best brains of our time. Given the track record of these over the years, it is hard to say that these tests have failed to bring out the intelligent people from the regular ones. But the problem is that they are not as accurate as their importance necessitates. First of all making a test though theoritically makes sense but as in any real world implementation there are too many assumptions that need to be taken. Things like native language, age, opportunities etc are some of the factors that matter, so that the people with the same score and differing on these factors may have different intellectual capabilities. Another fallous assumption is thinking of the human as a machine. No human has a 'technical specification' or a specific 'mental capacity'. The human brain is more of a moody equipment, an artist you may say. It may or may not fire at a particular time. So the test scores do not seek to reflect the capability of the mental equipment a person has but the capacity at which it was working that particular day. All in all, the IQ test (or apitude test as it is often disguised today) is more of a rough filter and the ranks don't mean as such as they are made out to. For example people with say 90%ile - 99%ile on CAT or say 2000-5000 ranks IITJEE are very likely to be of similar capability and making this as the only basis for selecting the one at a higher ranking is not the best policy.

Theism v/s Satanism (v/s Atheism v/s agnostics) ?

We learn progressively. If my parents had their way I would have heard of only theism. But I learned atheism, liked it and converted to it as a youngster. Then eventually I came to know of agnosticism and realized that this was more agreeable to what I believed in. I recently came to know of another theory, the theory of Satanism. This is enshrined in 'The Satan's Bible'. The name has a devilish tinge to it and that is what attracts the rebelious amongst us, my interest though was solely academic. Now Satanism is not the worship of devil as the word may sound like to most. It is basically the non existence of inhibitions, restrains that bind you. It talks to freeing the man enslaved by the various conditions of being good put on the behavior of people by the church (satanism for some reason chooses to take a stand mostly to the Christian church). Basically it is the recognition of everyone to seek his fulfillment and to enjoy everything he or she possibly can on this earth without being judged by some moral judge, that no man's salvation should be dependent on his self-denial. They do however respect the fact that such fulfillment should not harm anyone. To me this sounds fair enough. I didn't find the motivation to complete the book as it goes on a somewhat unintelligent attack on the church at times. Reviews though speak of the principals in depth and that made me realize that Satanism is a credible alternate to Theism. I do not think that Satanism is in any way opposed to Agnosticism or Atheism, in fact many Satanists might belong to one of these categories. Satanism didn't seem wrong in it's teaching but didn't really appeal to me either.
My basic point is everyone should be given a choice before being told to follow something or the other. The de-facto way of following your birth religion is not something which helps in the spiritual uplift of a soul !

The seed of religion was something good, the fruit is something else

A religious man is perceived as one who follows the edicts of his religion and in doing so does good. What, may we ask, is the reason for being good, is it not the promise of Valhalla, Paradise or Jannat. Now why is that - the founder of the religion did not mean to entice his followers into following his ideas, and doing what 'He' defines as good, with the lure of an after life of richness and pleasure. The excuse for this is (though not explicitly expressed) the fact that you need some abstractions to capture the mind of the beginner, the somewhat superficial thinking populace. We as children were taught things (even wrong ones) in our primary school for the simple reason that the young/'weak' mind cannot take any learning in it's entirety. For the same reason we have such false notions such as of paradise introduced to take the pupil in the general right direction albeit with a false goal. They were invented to be, I believe, deviations to falsehoods to ultimately reach the truth. The paradise promise is just an example, there are surely many other such deviations from the truth. Perceiving it a different light you can see that running a religion or being its guardian is supposed to be somewhat of an academic profession. But the only problem is that the leader is not physically present and 'His' representatives are not truthful and strong enough to steer in the right direction. So what was supposed to be a deviation has become a more permanent destination for the meek and impressionable followers. This is a thought I read somewhere and I need to quote this -
"The gods of the past have become as their own devils in order to live. Feebly, their ministers play the devil’s game to fill their tabernacles and pay the mortgages on their temples. Alas, too long have they studied “righteousness,” and poor and incompetent devils they make."
Like all things the failure of religion is nothing but a great idea being crushed under the massive forces of reality, a entity of the utopian world developing cracks in when brought to this real world.

The Power of Indifference

Humans as a rule have a natural tendency to comment and criticise on every topic, whether it is beyond their domain of expertise, interest or anything. We comment on stuff which we often know is dumb, that is why we would not venture saying most of them aloud. How do you defend/justify commenting on the accent, dressing sense or what not of a guy who is unknown to you, not interacting with you and thus not affecting you adversely in any way! What gain do we get out of it, nothing beyond a sense of satisfaction. True not all do it regularly but it is a very common tendency and we all do it to some extent. Ya but lets look on the other side. Look towards an alternate way - the power of indifference, if I may call it. Indifference to matters that we know not enough about and which in no ways affect us. The matter which we should really not care about. We do have a responsibility in principal to not turn a blind eye to anything wrong. But with a practical perception there are many things which we would do better leave as they are, in the hands of equally able people who aren't actually helped by our meddling.

Agnosticism yet again

Had a interesting observation today. People may be great in all aspects but not in all and when you see (or at least feel) them a bit behind, is it your responsibility to nudge them forward? What if it is about 'religious' philosphy? As everyone knows agnosticism is not a very well known being a substitute to religion that it is. The reason being that agnostics do not believe in converting others. Almost all religions have elements that have evolved to converting or obliterating people with beliefs contrarian to their own. But then if we believe that such questions are not of such paramount relevance (which is a concise definition of agnostics) we certainly do not want to preach our beliefs. Yes, in a sense it does not appear to be very altruistic but that's the way it is. So what I finally saw as the best option was the middle path. To nudge in the right direction but in an abstracted way, not to bring it out in the open. Just show the formula and let him apply it to other things including 'religious' philosophy.

Goal Of Life

Since time immemorial pursuit of your dreams is the noblest of endeavors there is. Whether it was the warrior ready to shed his blood to fight his enemies, a sage immersed in finding eternal peace or artist drowned in their worship of their art; men have given all and staked all to protect their country, their families their passion. Today the situation is not so dramatic anymore, the life has the same challenges but masked in a more subtle way. The race now is more brutal I would say and it is towards education, trade, money and relationships to name a few. The intent of men has now evolved towards inching out others to get yourself a place on the pyramid and as high a place as possible. It is not about you, it is about your position with respect to others. The reason for running in this race is just because the society says so. The goal of life cannot be just trying to fit in with the society, it has to be more than that otherwise the existence of the human race server no purpose and makes no sense. The funny part is that while men pride themselves for achieving goals they very often do not even want it. I have of course never lived in any other age but from my perception it seems the people were more friendly, accomodating and less brutal towards competition. Competition was about the best and not who wins by any means. That is why I have always longed to live in those times. Yes the facilities today have improved but I would say the cost is too dear if you lose your gentle soul to get a bigger car than your neighbour etc..I cannot say that you can be isolated from this and be a saint amongst the evil.. this evolution of man and society is beyond any one to change. All we can do is save ourselves and be one amongst the few who are still resisting the evolution and be considerate and sensitive to others - run the race but the one you want and with your principles intact.

Windows 7

I have tried to keep my geekiness out of this space but I will make an exception this time. So widows 7. It has not been released as yet but microsoft has given out a pre released evaluation version to academia. So first question - is window any good. I would say yes quite. It offers not much in terms of features over and above vista as such but it cures most of vista's annoying fuck ups. Also they recognize that the hardware today is fast enough to warrant some cool snappy graphics and the overall aero themes and theme management and setup etc are way cooler than the xp ones. My grouse with vista was that it also had some graphical improvement over xp but that came with a cost in performance, not in the case of win7 though. Thats what makes me give a thumbs up to it. The vista version was actually not a preplanned release, the initial plan was to go for win7 directly from xp but with several events and economic considertions microsoft made a detour by way of vista.

Another thing really cool was that the upgrade from vista is auto driven and comprehsive. So I just pop in the disc (a virtual disc actually!) and just click upgrade on autorun. I come back after 3 hours and everything is done. No files/settings lost and everything on my desktop preserved (even my browser session and my stickies which I always forget to backup). Only thing in disarray was the taskbar.

So question is will win7 be a success, I doubt it. The reason being people would try to compare it to vista as paying customers should. Plus they have recently made a shift and with the economy as it is they wont be too happy making a seemingly non-essential IT expenditure. In terms of hardware its requirements are somewhat lower than that of vista (thats a hunch cuz it runs faster on the same machine.)

So all in all if you get a free copy dump vista as soon as you can, might even consider buying.

Corporaticracy

The point I want to discuss is the taking over of the world and it's people, its resources and everything else there exist through control of economy by the privileged few best described by the neology corporaticracy. I won't say that I figured it out myself, there are a lot of documentaries out there that tell you this, but the problem with them is constraint. They tend to not control their ideas and this makes their interpretations incredulous, but yeah we can see that there is some truth in the conspiracy theories. Have you heard of the saying that the biggest deception of the devil is making people doubt his existence.

Well the thing is that the reason a man worked in age of prehistory was to feed himself and perhaps his family. It's the same for animals. They didnt have any comforts of transport, accomodation, entertainment, food, medical care etc but they didnt have to work unless required. Compare this to the modern state of affairs. We are slaves to an invisible entity. This entity is the corporates and the people in control are what I call corporaticracy. These are the people who with limitless wealth generated and power generated wealth are pulling strings of every thing that effect us. We feel that now we are free and live in a democratic world, but none but a 5 year old will believe it to be true. Democracy is just the form of government election we have, but ultimately it is all a big show. The banking system that we have is not something that any independent group of leaders would have let take form. Taking for instance the recent recession/depression, the reason was no doubt the greed of these bankers. The credit market was stretched out and loans given like false cheques (ultimately that's what they turned out to be, given that bankers didn't have to pay for them) and then getting humungous amounts of money from the governments as support to prevent these greedy corporates from falling. True that at the position the economic world is/was the role of these corporates was too important to allow them to be diluted, but the question is why were they even allowed to assume such a role when they clearly lacked the credibility and responsibility that was expected from them. The reason is obvious that the government heads are (if not a marionette in their hands) very much associated with their shady operations. These can of course never be proved though all reason points to this.

Eliminating Poverty !

Poverty is the bane of this world. Contrary to popular (and ignorant) perception even the western/developed world has loads of poor people. (I define poor not in the relative sense but in the sense that food and shelter is a constant worry and seldom attained.) But yeah this is a more ugly and visible problem in the 'developing' countries. The whole political game in our country has revolved around the promise of removing it, but have we ever thought on it with a sane mind. What will be the consequences of eliminating poverty, can it be realistically done? As a kid I wished that there be food for all, living conditions and opportunities like what I was blessed with and all other things like health and education. We argue that the world has enough resources and it is through our insane bickering that we have created a virtual scarcity of every basic resource. People find it convenient to blame people/conditions on the state of affairs but ugly reality is that there is no immediate solution. I am not able to come up with any magic solution either. There are two things that I understand that people do need to look into. First the government can/will do only so much, the rate at which problem come up can not be tackled with the resources of the government or a few super rich philanthropist. All the people who have made good of the opportunities have to contribute and help the unfortunate. It does not mean to leave your work or go to educate kids in slums, that might be good too but maybe it is not for everyone. The problem is that this is like killing a few viruses but does not stop their multiplication process. Our efforts should be to eliminate the growth of these problems. I see the role of technology today as something that can reshape the life of numerous. We can help boost the research and help the students and young researchers, provide funds and expertise, help make collaborations. Indians currently spend ~15 bn USD yearly in universties abroad, and a large portion of these students are in such a position to help do this economically as well as providing expertise. If out of millions of us everyone helps one researcher/student we can make India into a educational/technological powerhouse. This as I see it can be the only route of elevation of poverty. Second is to have realistic targets, eliminating poverty has to be defined properly, we have to face it that we cannot have a level field. That would be akin to having a level earth with water (wealth) distributed all over it, submerging the whole of it. It would be both unrealistic, and harmful. But what we can realistically attempt is to bring up the fallen back ones, so that they too can rejoice in the facilities possible today. The solution lies in unity and not just economic measures or schemes.

Perfection

Perfection, the ever eluding, the ever so alluring dream that remains unattainable for almost everyone. Well have we ever thought about how it feels being in that state. Perfection is perhaps invaluable since it is rare and the reason it is rare is that it is a state where even a minor deviation is read by the ever focused eyes trained on the entity in that state. We see an analogy in a pyramid, the tip represents perfection and getting on it is difficult enough, staying on it impossible. The question we need to ask ourselves is what is the need for perfection. We are after all perishable items, we were not built to be perfect and there is no real long term use of attaining this either. The only purpose it serves is perhaps our vanity. The whole problem as I see it is the sheepy nature of mankind, the tendency to follow. The will is not strong enough in most to be able to make sensible decisions and this is the reason that we seek goals which we don't even want for ourselves. Goals which don't affect our happiness are not the ones we should be after and Perfection is one of them.!

Racial Blackmail

White people are deemed rascists and have now been made to believe so and even mortally scared of it. It is a sick thing to do and most white folks are now scared of being associated with it. What they don't realise is that rascism is not a characteristic of a particular race, it is more of a cultural thing and more importantly every race today has elements of it. The world is no more global than it is secure. The people are rascist as a rule rather than exception. Indians are from my experience a rascist lot, we take this to a step further discriminating even within our own race and based on every difference we can find. So are chinese and other folks. The only thing different about white people is that they are industrious and determined. That is the major reason that the white world has made most of the strides for humans and responsible for most technological advancement. They thus are the richest and most powerful lot in general. That being said, it is not as if they are a race that has been wrongly accused, they have plundered the world over and collected resources from them, people as slaves and money among other things. The black or African American community has been wronged by them being made to work as slaves all these years. But if i know my history right, officially changes began in removing slavery in the US as early as 1865 and from early 20th century blacks have had equal rights. Even so more they are being awarded in form of special scholarships, funds and programs. But still there is resentment and a lot of what i would say 'racial blackmail' associated with the situation. Take on the other hand, the slavery in India. The British government took steps towards abolition of slavery as early as 1833, but excluded India from the laws, where slavery and exploitation of it's resources and people were in full flow. Even when they left (being left with nothing to loot and no ability to do so either) there was no real helping hand to help up the one they had trampled so mercilessly. It is a miracle that India has managed to reach the stature it has today. Now even after being dealt with such a poor treatment, I have not seen any resentment in Indian people towards their former oppressors even when they prouldly showcase many of the most precious pieces of our art and wealth as trophies of their exploits. Thinking without a bias, returning these possessions back would be a beginning of compensation for the years of oppression. But Indians have no hope of that and we haven't really pursued that with much vigor mostly. How do you compare the two situations - how were the excesses on the blacks more inhuman to warrant this resentment even after an attempt to compensate them. Or are Indians just meek.

Another example : Come to think of the Jewish use of the past excesses on them and reference to holocaust to get away with their excesses on the Palestinians. Compare that to the Japanese. The Japanese have chosen to rebuild after the bombings and are helping others even rather than use the past as a leverage to get favours and get away with crimes. We have to realise that past has to be forgotten and attempts to help undo the mistakes and help in the recovery is the only sensible thing that can be done. Using this as an excuse for further misdoings will not really help in any way other than bringing the world closer to it's end.

Chinophobia

Chinophobia is not chionophobia, it has nothing to do with snow or ice cream. It is a new term coined by yours truly in the face of the dangers and fears that I sense. China is a big country and has been known for its impervous nature in the sense that the world has never known (for most of last century) about the goings on there. But now with so much exposure to the present world scenario I see/ know more of china now. China is largely thought of as a oppressed country by many, they consider that china is powerful but have no idea largely of the extent. Here I intent to state some facts to bring in the cold truth. US has been wary of the growing influence/power that china has been gathering over the past 2 decades. Not only does it hold the largest value of usa t-bills (external debt) - almost a trillion, but also its military power is beginning to challenge US. And for Indians who wish to believe that whatever power China may have should not affect India - well China is interested in expanding and for a country that is a dangerous thing for it's neighbours. China lays claims to Arunachal in NE India and it is not interested in the Hindi-Chini bhai bhai crap. It has shown that it is determined to oppose and hinder India at all possible points. The security council seat or the recent veto of the 3billion ADB funding to India. It has come to light that China has been trying to malign Indian industries - selling goods (spec garments and medicines) with fake 'Made in India' labels in countries where India's most export go to. Such is the determination of China in breaking India. What is going on is perhaps a cold war of sorts that has not been acknowledged by either side as yet.

Also it is a well known fact that industry in US is dying and china has become as the manufacturing centre for the whole world. It operates factories in 'inhuman conditions' and can obviously mass produce goods at - often unbelievably cheap rates. India has been allegedly 'shining' etc based on the few call centres we have managed to open up. Added to that we believe that because we have some IT companies that we are beginning to emerge as the next superpower. We cannot be more wrong - all that is produced in India is lowest quality stuff - the engineers we produce are good just because they are so many and so cheap. The work done in IT in India is mostly stuff that is low end. On the other hand chinese engineering technical supremacy was apparent in the recent top coder contest. There were as many as 800+ competitors from India but none managed to reach the final rounds. China had quite a few of the top places including the #1 winner. There are many other incidents that point to one direction - that china is taking over the world. If you are not bothered by it, enjoy and start learning chinese oops cantonese. But if you are not - then don't do anything out of the charts - we need to at least acknowledge and accept the position we are in. Acceptance of the problem is the first step in solving any problem and it is high time we begun.

0% Syndrome - A product of Procastination Inc.

Being a total geek, even my jokes have their source in academics. In software engineering there is term called the 90% syndrome (there are even papers on it). It basically means that a software project after reaching 90% completion takes till eternity to finish the last 10% because people make assumptions, over estimate their deeds and underestimate the remaining tasks. So basically things drag and makes the whole project very inefficient. Now we as elders of the procastination society (no one holds elections, so everyone can take as many posts as he feels like) take it upon to give back to the society (contrary to the claims that procastinators have no useful output).

I give you the 0% syndrome. It is based on studying the doings of myself as well as fellow members of the procastination society. The fact that a job has not been started means it is at 0% completion. And it remains so until the very last moment, the job is done (if done) so fast that it spends almost all of its time at 0%. We find this is very efficient to the worker in the sense that he gets from being fired (mostly) and doesn't worry about work except the bare minimum required.

If only I could get a research paper out of this too .. ! :D

Talibanisation

So today we see how precariously Pakistan is placed. India and Pakistan started of as kind of similar nations. Just that Pakistan was smaller. Even in early nineties economically they were not far apart. But now when Indian are going out and making a name for themselves around the world, we have millions of Indian researchers in premium universities, companies trading with fortune 500 companies and PIOs working in those companies as well. But what about Pakistan, its busy making headlines as the home grown terrorism hit country. The nurturing of Taliban and other 'Islamic' forces have now been proven to be disastrous out in the open, its not a new suprising thing as such, people always knew what they were dealing with. Just that they had been denying it as everything was not out in the open. Now that they are being held hostage and their existence is more than in danger. Now we don't have anything to rejoice because India's stand is being vindicated. The thing is now India has a more grave responsibility, to forgive and help. That requires a very big heart and lots of humility from both sides. But that alone can be the solution that can now resolve this situation so that both continue to survive. Its not fair to expect this of India but come to think of it, Pakistan is a way better neighbour even at its worst than Taliban. To support Pakistan is somethng unimaginable in India and I dont see any party with thing on their agenda getting a single seat.. But good thing that politicians are not answerable to the public unless their time is almost up. Lets hope that leaders on both side see some sense and act with maturity of mind and not only age.

Dignity of labor

Well no work is bad, the fact that you are doing a work that enables you to live with self respect is sufficient to make it dignified. Well how did this idea come to slip in through the crack while the rest of the world is based on nothing but egoist principles. The reason I believe is the white collar people who need the workers to do work that they consider below their dignity. They know that the common man has to do whatever work he gets - its not an option for most. But the thing is that the need is dual and instead of a symbiotic relationship with mutual respect, we know that practically the man with less manual work and all the power has indeed been dealt the higher hand. Now they can be mean and let the rest know who is the boss. But then they are smart in the fact that they know that workers with even a false reason of self-respect and sincerity are better than those that are forced  and so we have such a fancy show. They do that from time to time but at the same time they have this propoganda  teaching kids that no work is bad. Hell if it aint why the difference in position, power and money. I am not saying that they dont deserve it, just that giving the people a false sense of respect is somewhat cruel - practical but cruel.

Sense of Agnostic Redefined

Agnostic is as defined a person who doesn't believe that a certainity pertaining to God can be reached. I have refined this in my earlier post and myself defined it as a person who believes there is no reason to attempt to define a religion, belief and impose it on all others. Basically I am against the forced cloning of ideals that religion basically has come to be. 

Now with new insights I intend to add some thoughts to it. Religion is not a bad thing, the same old logic of too much = bad applies here. The problem is that religion may at best be a consolation to the people who might need it from time to time when in need of support and strength (though its always better to find it within yourself). But people will be the same, they tend to over-rely on anything that gives them comfort, be it medication (druggies), entertainment(lazy bones) or food (fatties) and the same is true for religion. The reform we need in here is more self-restrain and not simple abolishment of religion or any such sweeping change. We need to realise that all people are not strong enough for them to be able to deal with the realities of life and the idea of having some sort of a emotional support for them is not at all repulsive. It's more like we need to make it more of a personal thing. Do what you need to help yourself and thats it. There is no need to make everyone see the things in the same way as you. An anology I can see of the present situation is of a addict under influence hating all the sober people around him. Actually there is nothing more interesting about this whole thing. More focus needs to be given to actual important stuff that may help people live better. ~!

too random this time - i put no effort to rein it in

I just discovered. In old movies when the hero is saddened for some reason that cannot be solved by his almighty fists he sings .. well we normal people do other stuff less filmy. I for instance write. So I through that chain of thought I realised that my writing is more of a device to cope with pain. Its not a rule but thats mostly the case. So why is it that I am saddened on holi eve. When i talk to people they believe that I must be having a time of life, enjoying myself and basically worthy of being envied - all because I am in USA. But then what does being at any place do, will a dying man be happier just because he is living in switzerland or in paris. No, thats a basic immaturity of folks, I cannot be innocent of this crime myself - I used to think so just few months back to some extent. Ya this is pretty obvious but it does pain you when you realise that your suffering is going unrecognised rather misinterpreted and even envied.! 

So the thing is I havent written a diary for a while - by diary I mean not a thing recording what happened but what I thought. Because thoughts like time fly by, you seem to retain only a few seemingly important ones. But then there are things that you would like to know later on but it slips your tiny brain. 

So here I am blogging my thought out in the world naked for everyone to see. Doesnt that make me an exhibitionist - I am not sure. An exhibitionist in the known literary senses is somewhat of a repulsion for various people including myself but come to think of it exposing your body is less weird than opening your mind and thoughts to everyone. Why there is nothing new in any body but every mind has something peculiar and new in it (at least mine does). But exposing it is not blasphemy as it probably should be. Well I dont know - a closed mind doesnt really spread out new ideals and thoughts if you think in that sense.

So I have discovered that this is what my style is in writing- I guess I am more consious than I should be about my style - part of the reason being that I sometimes fancied(or rather still do fancy) myself to be a writer of sorts - but well then I should produce coherent, free flowing, seemingly effortless stuff - but boy have I realised that it is though to take a dictation from the mind and compose it in a decorative language at the same time. I could write it down first and then perhaps try to beautify it - but that would be cheating and somewhat fake - so I tend to keep a clear consious and provide readers( if any :D - my lame humor is glued to me tight, there is one regular reader i believe) this incoherent piece of unintentional crap. 

Well seeing that I have creative juices flowing today and that I have typed this whole thing till now without a pause to think, I should probably go on till it goes - just to see how much I can write without actually saying anything of much consequence. That will be a fun experiment - for me at least.

So coming back to the original topic - why is it that I am sad on a jolly holi day. Well the thing is that its nothing new, nothing that anyone can change and not anything weird. I mean I guess almost everyone has this kind of trouble give or take a little in magnitute.  But the reason is that the most important person from my perspective is what I think about most and am effected by him - and as it turns out for me its myself. Thats the case for most normal people. So that explains sadness as a result of environment and some problems( wont go into details - ya am cutting that supply of masala) so why today then. Hmm still figuring it out, I guess you tend to miss people more in times of 'fun that could be but it not to be'. Not a very innovative answer I know - but then thats the best I got - guess becuz its the most sensible one. 

I am beginning to realise how much of a narcassist I am turning into - I am writing this as basically a record of my talks to myself - it is a weird minute of the meeting that I am having with myself. Well from my viewpoint.

Kind of a different track now. I was thinking why/how do old friends/friendships die out. Its not a machine made of nuts and bolts that just die out of wear and tear. I have seen many (some including myself as a member) friendships die out as a star out of fuel. The reason is distance - well in most cases it is an important part. But there are other reasons such as girls, economic divide, ego and many other follies that man has created to nullify all his intelligent gifts given in the form of such wonderful things. And the thing is it saddens my heart to see that indifference also figures among them - ya its not for an egotist to admit it out in the open - but thats why I name no names and I am sure no one knows exactly who I am talking about - because I myself am not sure. he he .. Ya I meant the general trend of people in general out of which some are important to you. I guess I am going to make a novel of crap if I dont stop, so I will force a stop at this point.  

But ya continued this whole thing w/o a pause. I can produce good volume work if not good work. . lol

Depression v2.0

The great american recession... havent talked about that and somehow this is one thing that has affected everyone (myself included) in more ways than one. We had the last big depression in 1930s and this was a time that I know not much about, but the least I can tell is that this was a time when the developed nations had conditions not much better than what poor nations have today .. or state it simpler suddenly the great nations had gone poor. Now what baffles me is how does a nation become poor and more stupefyingly how can the whole world become poor. Well this is what happened in 1930s and is happening in the present and coming years. The reason is obviously some sort of a scam - a conspiracy ( that's a chic word to use today for some reason!). Well I am not the right person to comment on the depression v1.0 but since I have seen the depression v2.0 released by Mr. Bush I surely can give an insight into that. The USA has been for a long time been the dream of dreamers, who wish for success - material success at least. Many have come in and realised their dreams. But now suddenly why has USA got nothing to give its own people now. It's poor - one of us. There can be no one reason for this. One is obviously the war that America has waged over the past few years in Afganistan and Iraq. Official figures are around __ billion usd so we can be sure its at least __ billion usd . But this amount though very large it's not enough to pull down a prosperous nation as USA. The reason is that it is more of a case of a terminte infested house being subjected to floods - a sort of double whammy. The other reason is inertia - the tendency of being in the flow of the situation, with rising belief that a bleak future is ahead of us the future is made more bleaker with the death of each hope. Also I am not a real fan of Bush. I do believe that other than the war his policies had a lot to do in fucking up the economy. So basically the wrong choice made by american voters has been the reason that other countries have suffered.!! Other reasons include the oil prices. Oil is the necessary and OPEC is the devil with its key. Now it can hardly be the case that all the countries are helpless in front of opec. They have oil but the rest of the world has lots of things that they dont. The reason that they yield so much power is the greed of men of power that make the powerful countries meek in front of them. Now i dont mean that Bush was on a direct payroll of some oil lord - but in some sort of indirect way he has profited or else he is why has he let the opec come across terrorist powers. It may seem that this essay is somewat scattered but the reason is that the problems associated with the topic are a web and concentrating on just one part will give only part of the picture. There is a lot more to the topic and it shall be continued ............