Awesome Natural Spectacles

These desert vistas make you realise, yet again, how awesome, grand and time-transcending Nature is. Helpful when you feel that the world is closing in on you :-)

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Fight we must!

Life's never fair. You know that, and you're probably wondering, like the inimitable Calvin in "Calvin and Hobbes" why it's never unfair in your favour. Here's one corny answer: because!

All of us start life in different ways. Some of us are born into so-called middle-class families, while yet others are born with silver spoons in their mouths; some are born normal and healthy, while others are born with physical or mental deficiencies; some are born with a superior mental apparatus (the world knows them as geniuses), while the rest of us just get by with average intelligence. And so on it goes. So, what are we to do? Resign ourselves to our fate, and go through life with a sense of defeat?

Never! Fight not the world, but that which you assume to be your limitation; not against what you assume to be life's unkind blows, but for the ideals that you hold dear to you. If you want to be a topper in your class, and you know that some of your classmates are born cleverer than you, then make up for it by spending more time on your studies than they do. Sure, they may still outscore you, but you'll be better off for the toil that you put in. If you're a sportsperson and your hand-eye coordination is not in the league of an Agassi or a Federer, then what you must do is spend more hours on the sports field honing your abilities: movement, footwork, racquet / bat skills, speed, etc. Sure, you may never win over critics, but you'll certainly win over the hearts of people who see you fight with every muscle and sinew.

If you are more emotional than the average person, and tend to decide more with your heart than your head, then try and learn to be aware of your feelings all the time. Remember, your tendencies and feelings are strengthened by yielding to them unthinkingly; it's not for nothing that resisting temptation is said to build character. For while anyone can yield to temptation, it's only those with a strong will who can overcome temptation and emerge stronger. If you look at it from that perspective, your being emotional is actually a blessing in disguise for it gives you a wonderful chance to become a stronger-willed person. In fact, that's just what difficulties in life really are: a means to overcome your weaknesses and emerge stronger.

Remember, "there is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts," and "You are never given a wish without being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however." (Richard Bach, Illusions)

Lessons from Movies - 3: Iron Man (2008)

This is a really terrific movie that I liked, and so I ended up buying a DVD after watching it a few more times! And in the spirit of the movies chosen for this series, it has quite a few lessons for us.

Lesson 1: A person who's leading an irresponsible life (whether in your opinion or the prevalent public opinion) may not continue to do so all his / her life.

Lesson 2: Genius is not always evil. Benevolent geniuses are always around, doing incredible things for the common good.

Lesson 3: If you have a serious and fundamental disagreement with one of your good friends, then maybe it's time to reevaluate the friendship and part ways before either of you can do the other a lot of damage.

Lesson 4: Anything is possible if you set your mind to it.

Lesson 5: If you realise that you have spent your whole life in pursuit of something that's not worth your time anymore, stop doing it and start doing something else. Just make sure that you don't repeat your mistake.

Lesson 6: Help can sometimes come from unexpected quarters. Be prepared to accept it.

Lesson 7: Comics sell! ;-)

Fun lesson: when you are going to the top, it can get very lonely. And cold ;-)

Iron Man

If things are too good to be true..

Ever had the feeling that everything is going your way without your having to break sweat? That things are just perfect? That more things are going for you than you imagined would? That all’s well with the world; your world, at any rate? If you’ve answered yes to even one of the above questions, then I say to you, “Watch out!”

Why? Because it’s precisely such a feeling that can lull you into complacence; into blinding you to the path that you’re taking in life which may be opposed to the path that you wanted to take. And then, one fine day, when you wake up from this dream existence, you’ll find that you’re far too down the road you had meant to avoid a very long time ago to even think of any course correction.

So, if things are too good to be true, beware the comfort zone!

Lessons from movies - 2: Inside Man (2006)

This is a movie about a bank robbery. But wait, it's not any ordinary burglary, but a grand, superbly orchestrated one. In fact, it's so perfectly done that the police and the authorities think that nothing has even been taken. What can we learn from this movie? Many things.

Lesson 1: Whenever you set out to do something, think about it. Real hard. And then think some more. If you do this, and plan for eventualities as well as you can, then you're likely to succeed fantastically.

Lesson 2: Not everyone who appears to be innocent is innocent; not everyone who appears guilty is guilty. Sometimes, it's impossible to distinguish between the two.

Lesson 3: People sometimes do things just because they can. So, don't go looking for reasons all the time, because there may be none.

Inside Man

RFCs, Standards and Delight!

Have you ever had a moment when you felt the presence of pure intelligence? A cleansing, uplifting presence in the midst of the muck of mediocrity? I do, when I read clear, concise and unambiguous sentences like what you can find in RFCs and standards specifications (like the one for WSDL, for instance). There are moments when I could whoop in joy at the sight of such lucidly written articles and standards that I feel I have been given a rare glimpse of what omniscience must feel like. It's only in these moments that my narcissistic self retreats and I acknowledge how far I am from reaching that pinnacle, if at all.

However, having said all that, this article had a sobering effect on me when I realised that the standards mentioned above were also written by a similar set of people: engineers. That obviously does not indict all engineers of having criminal intentions, it only reinforces the fact that everything can have a dark side to it.

Fly away

Leaving one's country always causes, I suppose, mixed emotions. On one hand, I'm sad that I'm leaving the shores of the country that I've always called home, though I've not been proud about it at times (that happens to most citizens all over the world, I guess). I'll definitely miss the sight of familiar faces and places. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to what I think will be a new life for me, a new beginning, a fresh start. A fresh start implies getting rid of one's past baggage (to a reasonable extent, the extent being entirely subjective and personal), and that can not only be unnerving at times, but also painfully difficult. Yet, this is what I feel I must do, and this is what I'll strive to do, if I have to have any chance of reviving my sagging career, my not-so-inspiring life. My personal credo can do with some updates, the old patterns of thought and behaviour being contradictory, sometimes, to my core beliefs. Knowing that never fails to make me squirm, and I hope I can successfully get rid of those mental cobwebs.

Who knows, as a result of those changes that I'll work on, this blog might even get a bit more interesting to read!

Musings...

"Has it taken more than it has given?" a friend asked me. I was about to leave a city (Pune) to go back to my hometown, and the question was aimed at the city itself. Strangely, I'd never thought of it that way. I mean, a city that takes and gives? That was new! There was a pause in the conversation as I considered it for a while.

It has been nearly six years, and I've often wondered, not without regret, at how my career could have been had I not made that fateful decision to move out of my previous company in a hurry. Maybe there is a lesson to be learnt here: never be in a hurry to choose a new job just because you don't like your present one; it's better to be late than sorry quickly. As someone said, "Never choose a job over a career."

So yeah, my stint in this company has been long, but it has often left me agitated. At its typical (Indian government employee) Babu-like HR folks; at its policies that evoke emotions ranging from fury to helpless resignation; at its people who think it's more important to just get a job done than it is to finish it well; at its regulations that defy all reason. I hated it, and yet, incredibly, my inertia got the better of me for three long years. I suppose you wonder what it says about me as a person, eh?

Of course, my move to this city had also given me a few things that I never realised I could like immensely. Like a sense of my space; freedom from frequent and annoying disturbances while deeply engrossed in reading; freedom to explore a place at any time of the day I chose; a chance to meet new people who became "friends for life"; a chance to experience "special" relationships (nothing came of this though!); opportunities to learn how to go about a lot of things in life (from negotiating the rent for a house, to finding the best places to eat).

Coming back to the question, in balance, it hasn't been all that bad, especially if I left my job out of the equation. The city has given more than it has taken, and I'm happy about it.

Pune, I'll miss your climate, your vantage location w.r.t. many interesting places, the quality of your water, but I'll never, ever miss the really sad, I-don't-want-your-custom attitude of your shopkeepers (hoteliers and others fall into this group too).

Lessons from movies - 1: Twelve Monkeys (1995)

I was watching a movie recently, and it struck me that movies can teach us some very good lessons in life. You know, the kind of lessons that make us wonder why we can't change the way we look at / do things. So, I'm going to post my take on what lessons I find in movies that I watch from now on, or have watched in the past. Okay, here goes...

Lesson 1: We can't take our life on this planet for granted. The movie is about how a deadly strain of a killer virus decimates human population, so much so that they have to scamper under the earth's surface to survive.

Lesson 2: Not everything that sounds crazy or preposterous is really so. Sometimes, it may just be the truth that we're not yet ready to accept. In the movie, Bruce Willis travels to 1990 from the future, but nobody takes him seriously; they confine him to a mental institution instead. It's only when the statements that he utters casually come true that someone starts believing him.

Investigators into paranormal phenomena sometimes, just sometimes, stumble upon the truth. So while it's good to maintain a healthy level of skepticism about findings that are dramatic in nature, it's also a good idea to keep an open mind, even if only to ask the question, "What if?"

Twelve Monkeys

Free Software

And I mean "free as in freedom, not price". Yes, I'm talking about Richard M Stallman's (abbreviated to RMS) Free Software Foundation and its philosophy. The guy's ideology is far-reaching and inspiring. The following are excerpts from an interview.

JA: What if your job requires you to use non-free software?

Richard Stallman: I would quit that job. Would you participate in something anti-social just because somebody pays you to? What if the job involves hitting people on the head in the street and taking their wallets? What if it involves spreading the word that Democrats should vote on Wednesday instead of Tuesday? Some people seriously claim that you can't criticize what someone does if it is part of their job. From my point of view, the fact that somebody is being paid to do something wrong is not an excuse.

JA: Do you consider it proper for people who are trying to only use free software to utilize...

Richard Stallman: To connect to a server that's running non-free software?

I don't feel I need to refuse to connect to a server that is running non-free software. For that matter, I won't refuse to type on a computer that's running non-free software. If I were visiting your house for a little and you had a Windows machine, I would use it if it were important for me to use it. I wouldn't be willing to have Windows on my computer, and you shouldn't have it on yours, but I can't change that by refusing to touch the machine.

If you connect to a server that runs non-free software, you're not the one whose freedom is harmed. It's the server operator who has lost freedom to the restrictions on the software he runs. This is unfortunate, and I hope that he switches to free software; we're working to bring that about. But I don't feel you have to boycott his site until he switches. He isn't making you use the non-free software.

Cogent and brilliant arguments. You can read the complete article in the link below.

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Now presenting, ladies and gentlemen, War 2.0

We're all used to reading obituaries that don't have any heart in them. Few are the people among us who can say that the impersonal nature of companies is surprising. We all know how we tend to get a bit impersonal in our email / IM replies. But can a soldier in a war say that the killing of lives that a war always results in is impersonal? Thanks to technological advances, yes!

"It's the fundamental difference between the bomber pilots of WWII and even the bomber pilots of today. It's disconnection from risk on both a physical and psychological plain.

"When my grandfather went to war in the Pacific, he went to a place where there was such danger he might not ever come home again. You compare that to the drone pilot experience. Not only what it's like to kill, but the whole experience of going to war is getting up, getting into their Toyota Corolla, going in to work, killing enemy combatants from afar, getting in their car, and driving home. So 20 minutes after being at war, they're back at home and talking to their kid about their homework at the dinner table."

Here's to our modern civilisation - not only have we found enough justification to kill people in an inhuman manner, we've made the whole process impersonal as well!

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Moving Passages

A couple of paragraphs that I came across in Arthur Hailey's "Final Diagnosis".

[An obstetrician reflects on the little ones in a hospital's nursery:] These, he thought, were the normal, healthy animals who had won, for the moment, their battle for existence and in a few days more would go outward and onward into the waiting world. Their destinations were the home, the school, the strife of living, the competition for fame and possessions. Among these were some who would taste success and suffer failure; who, barring casualty, would enjoy youth, accept middle age, and grow old sadly. These were those for whom more powerful and glossier automobiles would be designed, in whose service aircraft would wing faster and farther, whose every whim and appetite would be wooed by others of their kind with wares to market. These were some who would face the unknown future, most with misgiving, many bravely, a few craven. Some here, perhaps, might breach the barriers of outer space; others with the gift of tonues might move their fellow men to anger or despair. Most, within twenty years, would fulfil their physical maturity, obeying, but never understanding, the same primeval craving to copulate which had sown their seed and brought them, mewling, puking, here. But for now these were the victors - the born and urgent. Their first and gratest barrier was down, the other battles yet to come.

[One of the protagonists eyes his son who was born prematurely and who has been kept in an incubator.] Once more het let his eyes stray back to the tiny figure. For the first time the thought occurred to him: This is my son, my own, a part of my life. Suddenly, he was consumed by a sense of overwhelming love for this fragile morself, fighting his lonely battle inside the warm little box below. He had an absurd impulse to shout through the glass: You're not alone, son; I've come to help. He wanted to run to the incubator and say: These are my hands; take them for your strength. Here are my lungs; use them and let me breathe for you. Only don't give up, son; don't give up! There's so much ahead, so much we can do together - if only you'll live! Listen to me, and hold on!This is your father and I love you.

Questions, questions

What's more important? To be right, or to be good? To be good, or to be great?

What are values? Are they an invention of the human mind? Or are they something that are part of the structure of the Universe? You know, some sort of cosmic order.

What is right, what is wrong? Are they entirely relative? Or, are there rights and wrongs that are absolute and unchangeable? If there are, how do we know them?

Do humans have inalienable rights? If they do, what about other species on this planet? Are animal rights "invented" by humans? If so, who gave us the right to presume that they didn't have any rights to start with? 

Is man the measure of everything that's moral? What is morality? What is conscience? What is the difference between right and wrong? Is something that's not wrong right? Who determines it? Where do morality and conscience come from?

What is knowledge? What is belief? Are the two interchangeable? When you say you know something, what exactly do you mean? Is rationality the knower? How do you validate it? Is everything not a matter of belief (though there may be laws that explain things 99.99% of the time)?

Does God exist (I certainly believe so)? If so, how do we prove Its existence? Can it even be proved, in a way that will satisfy science (if not scientists)?

The questions go on and on, and I have no thoroughly convincing answers.