Cliche'd isn't it ? May be not. There are a few times in life , when some seemingly trivial incidents make you look things in new light. A casual dinner conversation with a friend turned into one of the most intellectually stimulating discussions I ever had. It all started with why I want to pursue business education and then drifted around environment consciousness, global warming awareness and at this juncture my friend said something that kind of shook me. It goes something like this.In a few years time, may be in the next 15-20 years, we will not have to worry about resource shortage. In essence, humans will have mastered the technology to 'manufacture' everything. These are the so called believers in nanotechnology. At the outset, this seems too far fetched. It's like the movie Matrix becoming a reality. How can EVERYTHING be manufactured. I mean we are talking about manufacturing the most fundamental living organisms - the cell or even at a more fundamental level - the DNA. How radical would that be ? Like Morpheus said in Matrix, 'Humans were no longer born, they were made". Not to go too far in time, but the realization that dawned upon me was how this concept of 'fundamental level thinking' is neglected in day to day life. It then did occur to me, how distantly far I was from the day to day fundamentals, operating at a 10,000 ft macro level.
As I started questioning a few basic assumptions, based upon which these macro things (for simplicity, let's call these macros) are looked at - the macros just fell apart. Something as simple as buying a company's stock (a macro behavior) based on the EPS (the fundamentals) just fell apart when I realized that the EPS was in fact not the most fundamental tenet of a company. it's just a logical entity derived from several underlying fundamental factors. Even mundane problems such as a headache - are looked at a very macro level. I don't get to the most fundamental part of why I got the headache in the first place. There's relief right at hand in the form of Tylenol and I take this short cut. I'm sure many of us do. I can think of many such examples.
I think we are, or for sure I am so sucked into the world of macros that I have lost the vision of fundamentals, or in some cases, forced to take my vision away from the fundamentals. It's so wrong.
As I think more about how to get to these fundamentals, one thing becomes very clear. It's very hard and time consuming to get to the fundamentals. At some point of time, I give up and take a short cut. It's high time I stopped taking such short cuts and focused more on the most fundamental aspects of life.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
A weird dream
I came home after a not so bad day at work and started reading. Within a few minutes, sleep hit me. May be, it was the tiredness or may be, the lack of previous night's sleep but I succumbed to the sleep. As I drifted into the sleep around 6 PM, my dreamworld unfolded.
A friend of mine suggests watching a movie and as I start watching it, the movie is juxtaposed by a 'nature' episode. It's about lions. As the show narrator starts narrating the lion's behavior, the camera focuses on a lake and gradually zooms in on the lion's face which is inside the lake. The lion is emerging out of the lake ( for those of you who've seen "The spy who loved me", imagine the lion instead of James Bond's car as it comes out of the ocean" ) and suddenly as the lion get's out of the lake, the narrator is touching it's mouth and petting it just as she would pet a dog and explaining how friendly the lions actually are.
Then in a flash , the lion panics and goes into a hole in the ground dragging all it's cubs and covering itself and the cubs with mud. The cubs as such are not cubs, but more like rats. The narrator is gone and the camera zooms out. A pack of wild dogs are on the prowl and they are scratching the loose mud out to get to the lion and it's cubs. Then one of the dogs finds the lion's legs and starts eating the leg ... and I can hear the bones crushing as if I'm standing right next to the dogs. At this point, I woke up. It was 7.30 PM.
I freaked out when I woke up. Come to think of it, a lion that is so powerful, sensing the attack of a pack of wild dogs, retreats in fear to a huge underground hole. His cubs are as small as mole rats. The scariest part, he lies helplessly with his cubs, as the wild dogs clear the covering mud and start eating him alive.
While none of the above scenarios can occur in the actual world, I need to analyze why and how such a subconscious thought manifested.
A friend of mine suggests watching a movie and as I start watching it, the movie is juxtaposed by a 'nature' episode. It's about lions. As the show narrator starts narrating the lion's behavior, the camera focuses on a lake and gradually zooms in on the lion's face which is inside the lake. The lion is emerging out of the lake ( for those of you who've seen "The spy who loved me", imagine the lion instead of James Bond's car as it comes out of the ocean" ) and suddenly as the lion get's out of the lake, the narrator is touching it's mouth and petting it just as she would pet a dog and explaining how friendly the lions actually are.
Then in a flash , the lion panics and goes into a hole in the ground dragging all it's cubs and covering itself and the cubs with mud. The cubs as such are not cubs, but more like rats. The narrator is gone and the camera zooms out. A pack of wild dogs are on the prowl and they are scratching the loose mud out to get to the lion and it's cubs. Then one of the dogs finds the lion's legs and starts eating the leg ... and I can hear the bones crushing as if I'm standing right next to the dogs. At this point, I woke up. It was 7.30 PM.
I freaked out when I woke up. Come to think of it, a lion that is so powerful, sensing the attack of a pack of wild dogs, retreats in fear to a huge underground hole. His cubs are as small as mole rats. The scariest part, he lies helplessly with his cubs, as the wild dogs clear the covering mud and start eating him alive.
While none of the above scenarios can occur in the actual world, I need to analyze why and how such a subconscious thought manifested.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A conversation
... .. .....
She: (mockingly) So there are a lot of women out there who you'd like to be with ?
Me: Hey, that's not true
She: Yeah, yeah, don't lie .. but me likes u lots
Me: Yeah, I know that :)
She: Dare u like anyone else in my presence
Me: Darlin, my heart is so filled with you. if u were to gain any more weight, my heart would just shatter into a million pieces and I'd be brokenhearted, come to think of it .. literally :)
She: (laughingly) shut up !! ... and continues laughing...
... fun times.
She: (mockingly) So there are a lot of women out there who you'd like to be with ?
Me: Hey, that's not true
She: Yeah, yeah, don't lie .. but me likes u lots
Me: Yeah, I know that :)
She: Dare u like anyone else in my presence
Me: Darlin, my heart is so filled with you. if u were to gain any more weight, my heart would just shatter into a million pieces and I'd be brokenhearted, come to think of it .. literally :)
She: (laughingly) shut up !! ... and continues laughing...
... fun times.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Random Thoughts
As I opened my eyes after 10 minutes of meditation and started preparing some coffee .. these were the thoughts that flashed across...
Chaos v/s order - I'm reminded of kids or rather infants. They just love chaos. You put them in any orderly environment, they'll turn it into a chaotic world. Be it kitchen, library or whatever. Then somehow order get's into their brain and remains throughout. Whatever the kid does, is perceived as disorderly. A kid wanders around in the garden, comes with dirty clothes - that's not good, plays in bare hands and legs - that's not good, spills when eating - thats not good. In the pretext of disciplining the kids, we take away what appeals to them the most or rather condition their minds to like something that we adults like. We kind of kill their love for chaos. So then, how will the mind learn to navigate through chaos ?
Personally I think, I don't have the same appetite for chaos that I had as a kid. I wonder even if I have that fancy for chaos anymore. When was the last time I did something totally random like just lie down on the ground and just toss some mud into the air ? or just take off to some unknown destination ... I seem to have really lost that joy, that happiness. That spontaneity is there, albeit quite dormant, but there is also a sense of insecurity that inhibits the desire for doing something totally random. How I wish I could embrace randomness and chaos .. again.
Chaos v/s order - I'm reminded of kids or rather infants. They just love chaos. You put them in any orderly environment, they'll turn it into a chaotic world. Be it kitchen, library or whatever. Then somehow order get's into their brain and remains throughout. Whatever the kid does, is perceived as disorderly. A kid wanders around in the garden, comes with dirty clothes - that's not good, plays in bare hands and legs - that's not good, spills when eating - thats not good. In the pretext of disciplining the kids, we take away what appeals to them the most or rather condition their minds to like something that we adults like. We kind of kill their love for chaos. So then, how will the mind learn to navigate through chaos ?
Personally I think, I don't have the same appetite for chaos that I had as a kid. I wonder even if I have that fancy for chaos anymore. When was the last time I did something totally random like just lie down on the ground and just toss some mud into the air ? or just take off to some unknown destination ... I seem to have really lost that joy, that happiness. That spontaneity is there, albeit quite dormant, but there is also a sense of insecurity that inhibits the desire for doing something totally random. How I wish I could embrace randomness and chaos .. again.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The urge to buy
Stuff ... I had briefly mentioned this craving earlier on my facebook status. Call it the analytical mind or the lazy mind, but I did ponder about this urge/craving to buy quite a bit. Here's my analysis:
Why do I buy stuff ? Primary reasons are want and need. For instance, I lost my nail clipper and I had to get a new one - so I bought one. This is clearly a need. Then there's the want, the desire to buy things. I might see something visually appealing and even though I don't need that item I might still want it. Secondary reasons are boredom and laziness. These two are so intertwined, it's hard to separate the two. I'm bored at times because of laziness and I shop because of laziness. Why ? because shopping/buying is the easiest way to obtain 'ownership'. All you have to do is swipe a card and you own something. Call it my psyche, but there's a momentary gratification in owning a new item. That gratification dies slowly as the item becomes familiar or to put it more crudely, as the item loses it's value. On the other hand, try translating that ownership to something that doesn't lose value over time - a skill such as dancing, playing baseball or any skill for that matter. It's incredibly hard. There's a steep learning curve. Owning a skill is very very hard. The human mind knows this, it's so weird. Given a choice - it always points you to the easier path, or the path of least resistance aka shopping. I can't think of anything that's as easy as buying something. Watching TV might come close but watching TV doesn't give you any ownership. Ok, let me correct myself - watching TV doesn't give you any tangible ownership where as shopping does.
In my opinion, buying something because of a need is fine, because of a want is also fine, but buying something because of laziness or boredom is not. I would rather spend that time in acquiring a skill than squandering my money over some items which, after a while will prove worthless. I've done this repeatedly over and over again - the iPod, the PSP, all those clothes that I gave to goodwill, oh the list is endless. It's high time to stop this meaningless shopping extravagance.
Why do I buy stuff ? Primary reasons are want and need. For instance, I lost my nail clipper and I had to get a new one - so I bought one. This is clearly a need. Then there's the want, the desire to buy things. I might see something visually appealing and even though I don't need that item I might still want it. Secondary reasons are boredom and laziness. These two are so intertwined, it's hard to separate the two. I'm bored at times because of laziness and I shop because of laziness. Why ? because shopping/buying is the easiest way to obtain 'ownership'. All you have to do is swipe a card and you own something. Call it my psyche, but there's a momentary gratification in owning a new item. That gratification dies slowly as the item becomes familiar or to put it more crudely, as the item loses it's value. On the other hand, try translating that ownership to something that doesn't lose value over time - a skill such as dancing, playing baseball or any skill for that matter. It's incredibly hard. There's a steep learning curve. Owning a skill is very very hard. The human mind knows this, it's so weird. Given a choice - it always points you to the easier path, or the path of least resistance aka shopping. I can't think of anything that's as easy as buying something. Watching TV might come close but watching TV doesn't give you any ownership. Ok, let me correct myself - watching TV doesn't give you any tangible ownership where as shopping does.
In my opinion, buying something because of a need is fine, because of a want is also fine, but buying something because of laziness or boredom is not. I would rather spend that time in acquiring a skill than squandering my money over some items which, after a while will prove worthless. I've done this repeatedly over and over again - the iPod, the PSP, all those clothes that I gave to goodwill, oh the list is endless. It's high time to stop this meaningless shopping extravagance.
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