Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Climate

It feels odd to think the way I do bu I grow concerned about how this planet is shaping up. I believe that greater access to information might be influencing my thoughts and I hope that is the case.
Large chunks of the Arctic and Antarctic ice shelfs breaking off, the lowest rainfall in 50 years in a paddy growing region, a drought last year in the wheat growing region of Russia, large swaths of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest being replaced by farmland, the presence of harmful substances in Chinese (and plausibly other countries') produce, semi-random bouts of food produce shortages; events like earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis have been part of Earthen history and should hence be overlooked.

We have managed to change the landscape of Earth, especially over the last 100 years, and we still believe that there is nothing that is really going wrong. The tipping point is approaching. I expect shocks to our sedentary system.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Writing music

I was listening to Chopin last night and was spellbound, yes, spellbound, by some of the music. To describe fantastic musical creations in words would be an insult to the creator (not God, please). I then proceeded to reading a bit about the guy who lived in the 1800s; I thought to myself, it's great that the music has survived. I then thought of Indian music and how it hasn't survived; Indian music is, may be, played from the heart and the mind almost extemporaneously but we don't have records of what a musician in a Mughal court in the 1700s would play.
We don't have a language for music whereas the Western European societies did develop a language for music. It's something we take for granted but just imagine how much the world is missing because of lost ancient music.