Money as the metric

Someone just estimated me at 10x of where I was. And that made me feel small; have I achieved so little?

I started defending all my steps, and my journey.

It finally dawned on me that his maths was flawed.

And now I understand that all of us are flawed.

Why is money the metric for achievement?

I told my wife the other day, that I see prisons everywhere...

My 2 year old kid HAS TO go to school; and my 5 year old also sees that.

And until they are 18 or so, they dont see an alternative; that is just how lives are lived.

These same prisons allow for an unencumbered life, full of joy and love and anxiety and performance pressures.

They then move to "what do you want to learn, in order to be employable"

The college life is a lot more carefree, where personalities are formed and clothing is finally your choice! You finally get to meet real strangers and you start fending for yourself in the world.

What happens next after the age of 22 to 26 is astounding... You HAVE TO report to work. You dress a particular way, speak a particular way, and you HAVE TO show up everyday and put a smile on your face. Unlike school, you cant choose to be in a grumpy mood or plain refuse to speak to anyone.

And the sad reality is that a lot of people spend a huge chunk of their hours being at work, managing chores, and very simply, imprisoned by the daily grunt of being fit, looking fit, and showing up at work. 

And then, by the age of 55-70 there is another astounding change. 

People stop working, and start preparing for a life of 'nothing'. There is finally, no showing up at work, fewer pretenses,  and there is now a mad scramble to hope you are fit and wealthy enough to live a full life.

And all of this can be traced back to forms of industrial revolution and colonialism, where the school culture and the work culture began.

And this brings us to what they call the 30s crisis, where people have now started having kids and they are forced to assess their health and if this is the life they want to live. They quit, go freelance, and start their own business so as to be more free.

Just last month, when I was faced with absolute freedom, I realised that beyond books, TV, reading for work and exercise there was precious little to life unless we find ways to reconnect with people. I suppose that this is the current plight of the people - we would much rather doom scroll than face life. 

Let Go

With my eyes shut, I have heard myself saying these 2 words quite often lately...
Things have changed and I can't accept one particular change - and that's a good thing.
Heady times tell me to let go
All that once was, is not anymore
And all that is will soon be gone.
It is the law.
I remind myself of the fragility of all that surrounds me
And if this may seem flighty, it isn't
It is the law
I may go hungry
I will grow old
I will lose my abilities
I will disappoint
But when the dust settles, the few stars in my sky will remain
Or so I believe
There is nothing that is hidden here
Read again.

Why so serious?

A few days ago, I was sitting with a couple of friends late into the night at a coffee shop. Prior to that we were at a pub. They made a plan to go drinking next week and I said, "Will come if I'm alive."
At the coffee shop, we were speaking of a soap box race and me as the designated driver; I said, "Damn... that would be a cool way to die."

To this, my friend asked me why I was so obsessed with death.
For one, it's a certainty - there is no getting around it.
Secondly, when one has few expectations from life, the need for psychiatrists goes down!
Thirdly, it keeps me on my toes all the time which also makes me unwilling to compromise on the quality of my life.

May be this very characteristic about me suits my profession.
Wonly twendy fyyeee eye syay!!

Do Nothing

Action Bias. It is a plague that has hit large swaths of humanity. The incessant need to do something. May be that's why I like walking alone because then I am not answerable to anything or anyone. Just like the time, recently, when I walked alone at this village in Ladakh called Stok and I stopped walking and I sat down for a half hour may be just because I wanted to.

An ad made me right this. I think it is write in the message it's trying to convey. Go nowhere. Do nothing.

It's your time
To waste time
Coz you'll never be young again
So go nowhere
And do nothing
Chat up the wind!
Kiss every frog
Stare at nothing
Waste more time
Coz you'll never be young again
Tick tock Tick tock Tick tock...
Waste away (Empty your head)
Float away...
Coz you'll never be young again...

There was a time not so long ago when people had time. It seems to me that people don't have time nowadays. Ok, will leave office at 6pm and go to gym and eat and watch TV and sleep. I will wake up early because it's the healthy thing to do, eat some food and watch a movie and go shopping and meet a friend and talk and talk...
What happened to not doing?

SHUT UP YOU IDIOT

Spoiler Alert.
The final season of House MD has ended. A fitting end. Am happy we did not have to deal with the misery of Wilson's death or House's imprisonment/ death/ suicide/ murder...
Am truly going to miss the show. My eyes were watery when the house burnt down on house and Wilson tried to run towards him.
I hope that some of the 'lessons' don't leave me - those related to being an ass, having fun, not believing people at face value, the value of relationships, but foremost may just be the fear of imprisonment - may it be through a physical injury, a mental illness, a prison, bearing with personal commitments or just living a woeful life.

Accident

I have been driving since I was 18 years old and am 24 now... In all this time I've never met with an accident. That changed today on the day after Christmas. I pride my face value assessments so here goes...
I was at the Irla signal which opens up opposite Cooper hospital. I had stopped at the signal and when it just turned green, I started driving my car... As it was a turn, I had not accelerated much. I was in the 2nd-ish lane with two rickshaws to my right. I drove my car ahead and I saw a glimpse of a red motorbike coming towards me, right at my door. I then saw the guy getting flung from his bike against my car and then onto the ground. Quite unnerved, I took my car ahead and stopped it, hoping he was alright and marginally bracing for a fight.
The guy got up, he tried to muster some anger but went for his helmet.
Yes, it's a good thing he was wearing his helmet.
He tried to say something to me; I cut him off and asked him, "You alright boss?"; I then pointed at the light saying that his was long red. He mumbled something as he knew he was in the wrong. I then asked him, "Are you alright man?" He said, "Ya."
Those were my exact words and I am still amazed that I meant them. He seemed like someone my age and definitely someone who spoke English as his daily language.

Just 2 days ago I had told my friend, "I have it so good, I'm really lucky; I'm bound to go through some shit pretty soon.." I believe that this is just the beginning. Some sad things ought to happen to me soon enough.

Request: Please don't jump a red light, especially at too high a speed.
Request: Bikers, please wear your helmets. And just because you are riding pillion, don't excuse yourself from wearing a helmet.

Slavery and the Pursuit of Happiness

I bought the new iPod Nano today and it's quite brilliant. I tried my best to stay away from an Apple product but this one was simply fantastic, which brings me to my point for this post.
Human progress.

I had stepped out of my office for a bit and I saw cars on the road, and it just struck me... Billions of years of (supposed) evolution and humans have created a society wherein people fret every moment, travel, 'work', earn money, spend money - all towards a largely insignificant death. Yes, this is all dreary but I'm looking at the bigger picture where I see other creatures quietly going about their stupid lives actually building things, creating things for sustenance.
What I see is a futile exercise which we have accepted as a way for society to function... what we are right now, in terms of our daily functioning would have been inconceivable a thousand years ago and for the record, a thousand years is a very short time period in the grand scheme of things...

And once in a while we come across people like Jimmy Wales - the founder of Wikipedia; an open source information centre on almost anything. Of course, he might have his own ulterior motives but I see that as a real development.
Gerald Ford revolutionized the way we commute but not much has changed since then except for congestion, blatant consumption, a supposed easier lifestyle and most importantly - becoming a slave to the machine that we have created.

What prevents us from vacating the daily grind after we have made an adequate amount of money?
Isn't this equivalent to slavery or succumbing to societal norms and pressures?

A friend described me well when she said that a girl would hate to be in a relationship with me because one day she would wake up without me by her side; she would call me and ask for my whereabouts... I would say, O! I am travelling.. Buzz off...

37

T: Did you know that Aishwaria is 37 years old??!!
H: Ya. So?
T: 37!!! That's 13 years away!!! That's half our age away... That's a long long time away.

Rumination

Europe has changed me for the better (or less worse). Today, I attended a lecture on 'superparticles' which could be a part of particle physics; may be for the first time I sat for a lecture without the compulsion to learn and remember and that made the lecture quite enjoyable...
I read about Sufjan Stevens, Casimir Pulaski, Nick Drake, Modigliani and I see the horror that this society has transformed into...
I still thank my friend for telling me about Into the Wild because it made me sincerely question materialism. Yes, yes ... I'm not a complete disaster yet (or would I be called a victor?).
We still have artists and brilliant scientists in our midst (not so much in our midst, but you get the vibe...) however, they don't seem to be as strong as earlier. They seem weak, succumbing to the lure of materialism which is understandable but deplorable for society as a whole.

Yes, a decade from now people might appreciate some artists whom we don't right now but I don't see a painter, a sculptor, a writer or a poet then... I see successful bands which will have made people happy not through their art but through their canvas.

I said that Europe has been beneficial because I saw a weird joy in people - as the french say "joie de vivre" which means "the joy of living". I see in India people who are old at 25 years of age where the only form of them being young is partying and boozing (extreme generalization).

Next week I'm going for a contemporary dance performance at the NCPA. Will I like it? I don't know but it's a brilliant mode of escapism.


I love the world of particle physics and quantum physics - particularly because it is so difficult to imagine some of the things postulated or proven.
2 galaxies colliding 4 billion light years away?
A very small amount of energy in daily life, such as 1TeV, which is difficult to 'create' or 'capture'...
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles which could hold the key to finding a 'theory of everything'. For the record, experiments are underway in a mine where supercooled Germanium crystals are used to capture the faintest of vibrations from particles such as WIMPs.

Take a step back my friend and you will see how inconsequential our lives are...
We live for 60-90 years.
We pursue money and affection.
We are heartbroken and we feel loved.
We sleep less, we sleep too much, we smile too little, we are serious and not as jovial as we ought to be...
You ask me why I loved Into the Wild?
Here's why:



"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
— Chris McCandless

"The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences."
— Chris McCandless

7 minutes to write this post...

As an amateur and largely ignorant human it's quite grounding to read about the universe.
The nearest quasar, for example, is at the least 780 million light years away.
A light year is the distance that light would cover in one year which amounts to approx. 10 trillion kilometers.
A distance such as this is almost impossible to relate to.

Another thought: Everything we look at is the past. Because light takes a finite amount of time to reach the human eye, whatever we see has happened in the past.
It is insignificant in daily life but, for example, the sun we see is as it was 8 minutes ago. Similarly, when we look at the oldest quasars in the universe - approximated at 28 billion light years away - we are looking at that which existed a really long time ago, probably at the beginning of the universe (if the universe did indeed have a 'beginning').

The hypothesis behind the existence of a blackhole is quite intriguing. Earth is a small planet and therefore has a very small escape velocity - 11.2 km/s. The sun has a larger mass and therefore its escape velocity is estimated at 617.5 km/s. The hypothesis that Feynman came up with was that there could possibly be a large enough mass (or gravitational force) that would not let even light escape. Escape velocity higher than 300000 km/s.

Information from Wiki and from 'Universe in a nutshell' - Stephen Hawking. Why do these things intrigue me? Because once in a while, I like to take a step back and look at humans. Hawking said something to the effect of: We should not try to find extra-terrestrial lifeforms because the odds are that they will be more advanced than us and possibly hostile. The future for humans lies in space because the Earth will one day be too small a place for humans.

I just wrote about quasars being 780 million light years away. We can confidently say that humans have developed themselves quite rapidly in the past 2000 years. It is not plausible to discount the existence of other lifeforms even 10000 years ahead of us, let alone millions of years ahead of us.

Calling time a dimension puts a new twist to all that we worry about because in the grand scheme of things everything is quite irrelevant.
What is also questionable is that which we assume to be real and why reality should even matter to us.

With this post I can say that I have come a full circle. Questioning reality has been my most fruitless pass-time. Questioning purpose and daily illusions can also be added to the prior sentence.

Disgust

When we hear of ill-equipped hospitals, cramped localities, discontinuous or non-existent energy supply, atrocities committed by people with unbridled power or apathy towards a better whole who do we choose to blame?

Is India just too large a populace to be cared for properly? Are the capitalist tycoons answerable towards uplifting sections of society around them? Are the bureaucracies of various systems to be blamed?
Today, I choose to blame the untouchables.

The untouchables of the past were determined by lineage.
The untouchables of today are determined by their lineage and their decisions. They decided to act in their own interests during their ascent to their respective positions.
The IAS officer, the police inspector in a faraway village, the customs officer, the tax inspector, members of political parties - particularly those related to religious propaganda, the 'babu'.

These people are rarely 'touchable' or accountable. Of course, generalizations are evil but generalizations are based on a clear majority based on hearsay and actual experiences.

The capitalist system is such that it makes a richer man richer and in turn, more powerful. I see that, as a man becomes richer he drags or rather pulls towards him, directly and indirectly, sections of society.
What the aforementioned people do is, most of the times, beyond the scope of the system and beyond the reach of the law. A lack of transparency and the continuous focus of people towards their own lives are the root causes of such 'distance' and power.

Because I am a product of the capitalist world, it pains me to see power concentrated in the hands of people who are unwilling to share it or distribute it.
If a business tycoon has amassed a fortune it is his call, whether or not to disburse his riches because he has legally (for the most part) created his personal wealth.
If an official (the list of people I mentioned earlier) has amassed wealth, it will largely be illegally, immorally and laden with guilt (I hope).

The larger effect of the 'babu' is his domineering demeanour and conversely, the inability of a subject to voice concern or opposition. I call it helplessness... which is why even I have to succumb at times to being a part of the system. It is also because of my illiteracy regarding my rights and my selfishness pertaining to my free time which I want to be as hassle-free as possible.
I disgust me and I am a part of the people - for now.

Flaws

Guys:
Short,
Baldness,
Fat
Paunch,
Too much body hair?
Crooked teeth,
Bad breath
Greying Hair
Bad fingernails
Perceived fear of small size of 'member'
Attitude Issues
Personality Issues
Hygiene Issues



Girls:
Out of shape
Fat
Crooked teeth
Small sized 'assets'
Too short
Too tall
Bad Hair
Facial Hair
Periods!
Male Dominance



It's a sad sad species as we find flaws in people all too easily :|

Rape

Sunday June 13, 2010. Times of India
Man held for raping teen daughter.
Body of raped six-year old found in nullah.
Two neighbours spike drink, rape woman.

Empowering women, improving law enforcement and bringing about a socio-cultural change whereby men realise respect for women, but more so, women understand the need to be fiercely independent. Respect for all.

Find me the spark

Great personalities and great contributions are rarely realized. Random names: Mozart, Ludwig Van, Mohandas Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Mother Teresa, Michael Jordan?, Elvis Presley, The Beatles!
I believe that striking personalities are difficult to find now and will be even more difficult to find in the future.
There is a lack of independent thought. There is a lack of art (in its various forms).

Do we even know of great artists, poets, composers, authors or leaders from the past 2 decades? Sure, one can say Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rushdie? - but eh...
What I see is that capitalism and prosperity have driven people into (largely) single files where everyone strives for individual 'success'. It's great that the end of the Cold War stimulated global prosperity. But has the pursuit of prosperity robbed humans of their inherent humanity?

The people who don't fall into files don't get the attention that they would have received some decades ago.
People have become part of the machine and it wouldn't be incorrect to say that things are nice, but I would say that there is an absence of human ingenuity today. Medical research, financial innovations, technological changes are largely driven by entrepreneurs - not as much due to curiosity and thrill, but more due to power and success.
The simplicity of yesteryears is lost.

On an individual level, I believe that some of the innocence can still be ploughed back, or rather, brought to life. Losing oneself and withdrawing from society is a fairly recent development and it can do some of us a lot of good methinks.

Too much time is spent on fear and obedience.

Special

I write in a diary. At the last page of my diary, I have a cut-out of an article that was published in Times Life Sunday April 12, 2009.
I kept that article because it encapsulates a lot that is dysfunctional in society as we see it evolving. I have had the luxury of studying in the US for a year and I did not see the same emotions there, but I do see them in Mumbai. In short, people believe they are special and they ought to be doing something better than what they are going towards or are currently doing.
It also tells us of how simple life ought to be and how complex we tend to make in pursuit of that which is never static - happiness.

Desires

He said to his friend, "Hey, when you get done with school, if you want, we can go away backpacking through Europe."
Some months later, he quit his job. He went backpacking through Europe for three months.
Now, he secured a job with a great firm, he bought a house by a lake and has a boat docking area. The job pays well and he now has, what seems to be, an excellent house.

Food for thought?

Reality

Reality is a belief;
Emotions, actions and reactions are derived from reality.
But beliefs are... beliefs.
Beliefs can well be unreal.

Gobbledigook

Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook, from the album "með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" which means - "with a buzz in our ears, we play endlessly"

The first time I heard this song, it had me hooked. It is in Icelandish and makes no sense to me; in addition, it is not supposed to make sense. But the english translation of the song does seem to make some sense... Getting to the point. I loved the song from the get go and before long, I was 'lalalalalaLALALALALAL"ing... I searched for the video of this song on youtube but could not find it. Finally, one dude mentioned that the video would be on Sigurros.com.
And soon, I realised why the video was not available.

It had a bunch of people (male and female) dancing, having sex, jumping around and enjoying themselves in the nude, but they wore shoes. I believe it could be termed as 'naturism'. Humans, may be, used to be this way and let's face it - humans were meant to be animals. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with being animals, just that we tend to be too sheltered, scared and comfortable in the society that we have grown up in - including me. The most that one can do (apart from forsaking society) is to go away from people, if only for a bit. But I have written about this earlier so I will not touch upon that subject.

The other thought that came to my head yesterday was, why humans get bored, why we do the things we do. As analogies, I can well say that we wear good clothes to look better and potentially more attractive - same as animals do; we care about families and society, the same way that animals do about communities; we care about money and comforts in marginally different ways though - animals eat enough for sustenance (may be they don't have the luxury of overindulgence) but animals do crave for more than they can consume, and this is what we do too.

This leads me to : Boredom, thoughts, morals, beliefs.
One can never peer into another's mind, and similarly, a being can never peer into another being's thoughts. We will never know what creatures, who are not humans, think of. Therefore, we may never know if they also get bored living their same lives day in and day out.
There is no measure of consciousness, which is why there is no certainty as to whether each day has not already been lived earlier,
Or whether each day is our consciousness as a new being and not as we suppose, which is that we live our lives each day, and our identity does not change till death. I had written about consciousness earlier.

Gobbledigook - means something akin to gibberish. May be what Sigur Ros is addressing is a realization - which is, in fact, a belief - that nothing is supposed to make sense, but we do try our best to make sense of things. Man belongs near nature and man should do odd things once in a while because that is as close to nature as one can be. I do not have the courage yet, but I greatly respect controlled insanity.

Ruin and Prosperity

People change, and by this I refer to how people, in general, change with time. Sense & Sensibility (the movie) made me think of how humans used to be. Women took to the arts and took care of the house. Manual labour demanded men to be the workers. Economics has changed; this has allowed women to equal men. People are more prosperous, but the sheer number of people has ensured that a large portion of human population lives meagerly.

Changes in lifestyle, consumption, inhabitance and capabilities has changed how people behave. I am sure that there were times when people thought not of what they aspired to do or be but thought of taking care of themselves and their dears.
Prosperity has influenced minds. Enjoying life (even though one had different forms of enjoyment in the past) is more within reach. People care a lot more about love, relationships, happiness, contentment and rest - may be more than ever before. It ought to be a good thing.

Somehow, we tend to ruin ourselves. There is too much information to analyze; the content has grown - especially over the last decade. Movies, songs and other media throw at you aspirations, ideals, concepts of love and relations and the ignition for individual thoughts.
The internet has destroyed centuries of basic human communication; communication with people who we like, people who we want to know, people who we don't care about and people who we would never have known.
People know more about the world than ever before.
And somehow, people think they know more about themselves than ever before.

I go back to thinking that we the world is just too competitive, and sometimes it should do us good to step back and understand just what we are battling and why we do the things we do. Stepping back broadens one's horizons and allows one to possibly see what one really wants.

Appeal:
Get rid of the noise.
Blow away the dust.
You can see then that society has converted life into a battleground.
Dream of a vacation.
A vacation without a camera and without a phone.
Go to a place where you know nobody.
Be alone.
As once humans used to be.
It is not a life choice.
It is a vacation choice.
Now if you don't mind, leave.

Questioning Reality

Lars & the real girl. Avatar. Cast Away. The Matrix.
I have been questioning reality for a while now; even now, when I look outside my window, I wonder if what I see is real or not.
However, there is a more fundamental question before that... What is reality?

Reality is a belief, as are most things. As humans that have created society, there are certain things that are called 'real'. For example, in Lars & the real girl, the mannequin was a real human to Lars but not to others. It is because we have a set belief in what constitutes a human being, we have a set belief in what constitutes reality.

We believe that dreams are not real and only when we wake up, that is what is real. However, how will one ever know if one is not living inside a dream?

In Avatar, when the dude falls asleep inside the chamber, he becomes one of the Na'vi. As the Na'vi, when he falls asleep, he awakens as the human being. So, which form is real? What physical being will he associate his mind with?

In Cast Away, Tom Hanks creates Wilson; the volleyball friend. He creates him and believes, for the longest time, that Wilson is another friendly being. We know that Wilson is a volleyball, but Tom believed that Wilson was his friend - therefore, real.

In the Matrix, humans move from one world to another. What is real?

Somewhere, I believe that these questions do not matter. I talk to myself often. I have statements running through my head at times.

I like doing and trying to do unusual things because I firmly believe that there is no rule to life.
There is no rule to how beliefs are set.
There is no certainty, simply because there is very little that one controls.
And have you ever asked yourself, whether you really control yourself?
If you decide to lift up your right arm right now - go on, do it - you can see it moving up, but did you choose that or was that meant to happen anyway?

Tie all of this to the pursuit of happiness and you realize that you should try and do the things that give you long term happiness (or at least, you believe that that is what will happen). Nothing is set in stone. Nothing is certain but belief.