I have been watching a series called Sons of Anarchy.... nice stuff... led me to read about anarchy...before today, I always associated anarchy with chaos, infact the kind of definition that i had read, seem to give a negative connotation to the word.... read up some stuff on wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy ... that and the series (parts of it) gave a whole new meaning to me...
I was reminded of a conversation:
P1: capital society is not a good thing
P2: its the best among all the available options
Now the fun part... how is the conversation and anarchy related... they are, and so is the post on freedom... well not the post, but the idea behind the post....
Friday, October 17, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Freedom
Freedom does not exist.. No thoughts are original.. Whatever crap I am writing is not original.. I think its original.. But this is far from the truth.. My thoughts are not mine.. Infact nothing is in my control.. I am powerless.. Whatever happens, happens for a reason.. I am just a cluster of thoughts which existed before me or are existing as of now.. I am just a response to the happenings around me.. I am an outcome of environment.. My likes and dislikes have been trained.. My feelings are trained.. My instincts - .. Is it trained.. But whatever "instincts" mean, they are not in my control.. Whats right whats wrong if nothing is in my control.. Why am I held responsible for my acts when my acts are not mine in the first place.. I live because I am not dead.. I can not die because "instincts" dont allow me.. Here we go again.. I need to understand "instincts".. By the way this is a need which is not mine... I am forced to understand "instincts".. Though I am pretty sure, "instincts" are also not free!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Karma
My atheistic journey started with Krishna's famous views on Karma.. "Karma karo magar phal ki chinta mat karo".. My argument (as that of many others) was that if I dont worry about the result, why the hell would I do any work.. More than 15 years have passed, but these thoughts still linger on, though these are not a basis for atheistic inclinations now.. Infact I am beginning to like these thoughts.. Just do the things that you like to do or rather whats right to do.. I dont like the right part much.. But I think most of the times the things that you like are the ones which are right.. So what this means is that you get completely involved in the things that are right and those that you want to do.. This in turn results in achieving what you want.. I dont know whether Krishna said this to bring more focus and hence achieving results..So what he s doing is bringing in more focus to your efforts.. I dont know whether this interpretation is correct.. But I dont like this interpretation.. What I like is that merely doing something without any focus on the result is much more enjoyable.. Results are by products.. These can enhance the experience of doing the thing, but ends are not ends in themselves.. Doing your "karma" is!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Value System
I talked about this with a friend here in US.... the discussion was concluded by agreeing that we should talk more about this......it might be tied to a few points listed in "points to ponder"......so the basic question was: do Indians (well at that time it was more directed towards the two of us) have any kind of values or do we just believe in existing/surviving and hence act only because of self interest. We were also comparing ourselves to the americans and my friend S gave example of the debate for presidential candidate, wherein two people put forward their views and its almost like black and white (although they are politicians) and the people decide on whom to choose......
i don't think i have explained the problem well...... will come again later ..... and at the same time need to answer whether it is always possible to remain in either black or white, or is there a gray area? although right now it appears that cannot do without the gray area, it seems conflicting with the value system theory (although i have not put forward any sort of theory) .......
And again the usual dilemma of someone's white area becoming other's black... what good would the principles/value system do then... e.g. bin laden's idea of jihad and his actions based on his principles have created a quite a bit of problem for others... I guess dilemma like this sometimes makes me appreciate the 'chalta hai' attitude of the desis. Recently watched a CNN documentary on 'God's Warriors' which highlights the strong value system of a group of people (jews, christians and muslims) and their actions based on the principles.
It appears that this is going to be one big messy post, since i am trying to write about various other connections.
i don't think i have explained the problem well...... will come again later ..... and at the same time need to answer whether it is always possible to remain in either black or white, or is there a gray area? although right now it appears that cannot do without the gray area, it seems conflicting with the value system theory (although i have not put forward any sort of theory) .......
And again the usual dilemma of someone's white area becoming other's black... what good would the principles/value system do then... e.g. bin laden's idea of jihad and his actions based on his principles have created a quite a bit of problem for others... I guess dilemma like this sometimes makes me appreciate the 'chalta hai' attitude of the desis. Recently watched a CNN documentary on 'God's Warriors' which highlights the strong value system of a group of people (jews, christians and muslims) and their actions based on the principles.
It appears that this is going to be one big messy post, since i am trying to write about various other connections.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Points to ponder ....
Here I am with my first blog. (Technically this was my first post : 1 2 3 testing ...
Need to do some tests before i start writing ...).
Few reasons for being so late in joining the world of blogs:
1. I could never complete writing about anything that I started.
2. Never felt comfortable with the idea of putting my thoughts out there in the open.
3. What about spelling and grammatical errors!!!
4. Never was good at writing....
But now here i am. And why am I here? Because :
1. I don't care if I don't complete a post. I can always come back.....
2. Only the chosen few know who I am.
3. & 4. Don't give a damn about them now (mainly because of 2 above).
5. Its a good place to collect my thoughts. I have tons of notepad files on my machine and i have never gone back to complete my thoughts. Here, I might come back.........
(and unlike mr amolratna, i don't plan to keep track of how many dots (.....) i put after the end of a sentence.......;);))
For now I will just list down the topics i plan/hope to write about, and maybe a few lines about them. Maybe amol or parul can complete them.
Need to do some tests before i start writing ...).
Few reasons for being so late in joining the world of blogs:
1. I could never complete writing about anything that I started.
2. Never felt comfortable with the idea of putting my thoughts out there in the open.
3. What about spelling and grammatical errors!!!
4. Never was good at writing....
But now here i am. And why am I here? Because :
1. I don't care if I don't complete a post. I can always come back.....
2. Only the chosen few know who I am.
3. & 4. Don't give a damn about them now (mainly because of 2 above).
5. Its a good place to collect my thoughts. I have tons of notepad files on my machine and i have never gone back to complete my thoughts. Here, I might come back.........
(and unlike mr amolratna, i don't plan to keep track of how many dots (.....) i put after the end of a sentence.......;);))
For now I will just list down the topics i plan/hope to write about, and maybe a few lines about them. Maybe amol or parul can complete them.
- Define right and wrong, good and bad, true and false:
Summary: (I guess I should have mentioned this before: "Look at the tag line in the blog title. Its a quote by Plato (I think) and conveys the idea to follow) Its all relative. eg. killing is ok if you are on a battlefield else you can rot in jail, its okay to listen to pirated music or watch pirated movies but its not right to steal a car......the list goes on. recently i thought i might be able to define (those attributes) based on logic, which brings me to the next post. - Man (and woman too) is not a rational being:
(Now how do i go back one line ?? (like i did for the first bullet) .........) main point, we don't have time to think logically before we take any action (we would be robots otherwise....... first guy i remember getting this from was the author - Nassim Nicholas Taleb in "fooled by randomness.....") , there are things we love/enjoy doing and we don't care about the consequences ...... eg. people smoke, even though they know that its harmful....sometimes our actions are guided by history and sometimes we forget about the history....(AND now how do i go back to the original font? man this is difficult than i thought....) , people cry while watching movies .......again the list goes on.....
But can people logically analyze themselves or their actions to justify them consistently (according to their own standards)? Or is there a need to justify any of the actions? Should we have a "consistent" reason to do what we do? i guess yes, yes and no...... will come back to this later.....
But can people logically analyze themselves or their actions to justify them consistently (according to their own standards)? Or is there a need to justify any of the actions? Should we have a "consistent" reason to do what we do? i guess yes, yes and no...... will come back to this later.....
- Religion and god and all that "crap"
- terrorism: india-kashmir, bombay and the rest, 9/11, iraq, UK, israel - palestine ........
- passion to do something
- comparing life in US to that in india..... can we take something good from one and put it in the other.
- what's going on in india: decline of democracy vis-a-vis (i always wanted to use that in a sentence :) ) "parzania", "da vinci code" , "fanaa", "the satanic verses" - actually the philosophy behind those.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
The Great Indian Line Trick
You can find queues (henceforth called lines) everywhere in India. There is a line outside shops, inside shops, for using washrooms, banks, atms, bus stops, railway stations, restaurants, for buying movie tickets, entering a mall, exiting a mall, for eating pani puri, pan shop - everywhere . Think of any place and the first thing that comes to mind is a big line. Worse part is that the line never looks like a line. Its curved / distorted and cluttered around at the origin – near the counter (and / or destination) with one person at the centre and two at the left side, two at the right side - reminds me of a crooked – not so straight - ‘trishul’ - like the ones in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan.
Not only is the line big, people stink in these lines. You can smell all kinds of hair oils, perfumes, deodarants, hair gels – these are supposed to smell good, but don’t smell so good when mixed with sweat and body odour – believe me. Mobile phones keep ringing in these lines, people keep talking on phones or with each other – which allows smell of gutkhas or cigarettes or onions or bhajiyas coming sweetly out of their big mouths and spreading all over.
I have not come to the worst part yet. People just keep pushing and leaning over each other, touching you from behind and allowing you to be touched from the front side. I just hate this. So you have these fat people with bulging tummies touching your back and people with fat asses touching your front. Believe me it’s a royal &#$%, if you know what I mean. I think that people have just started enjoying all this touching each other business. I mean this gives them a feeling of satisfaction, makes them feel as if they are doing something and helps in removing boredom of standing in a line with increased expectations of reaching the counter faster and quenches their curiousity of whats happening at the counter – more closely you stand in the line, faster your work gets done – that’s the mentality.
Recently, I found out a way of dealing with the line problem. What you need to do is fold your hands so that your elbows are extended backwards. This way the person who is standing just behind you is sure to get hurt, so he/she will maintain a distance. You can of course maintain a distance with the person standing in front of you. I tried this and was successful w.r.t. the person standing behind me. The only problem that cropped up was that other people who are not part of the line start crossing sides since you have provided for a way to them by maintaining distance w.r.t. the person standing in front of you ! So my elbows went down and now I think that I will carry a big rod on my sides, which will create a distance between me and the people ahead of me and behind me. Let me try, will get back to you with results.
Not only is the line big, people stink in these lines. You can smell all kinds of hair oils, perfumes, deodarants, hair gels – these are supposed to smell good, but don’t smell so good when mixed with sweat and body odour – believe me. Mobile phones keep ringing in these lines, people keep talking on phones or with each other – which allows smell of gutkhas or cigarettes or onions or bhajiyas coming sweetly out of their big mouths and spreading all over.
I have not come to the worst part yet. People just keep pushing and leaning over each other, touching you from behind and allowing you to be touched from the front side. I just hate this. So you have these fat people with bulging tummies touching your back and people with fat asses touching your front. Believe me it’s a royal &#$%, if you know what I mean. I think that people have just started enjoying all this touching each other business. I mean this gives them a feeling of satisfaction, makes them feel as if they are doing something and helps in removing boredom of standing in a line with increased expectations of reaching the counter faster and quenches their curiousity of whats happening at the counter – more closely you stand in the line, faster your work gets done – that’s the mentality.
Recently, I found out a way of dealing with the line problem. What you need to do is fold your hands so that your elbows are extended backwards. This way the person who is standing just behind you is sure to get hurt, so he/she will maintain a distance. You can of course maintain a distance with the person standing in front of you. I tried this and was successful w.r.t. the person standing behind me. The only problem that cropped up was that other people who are not part of the line start crossing sides since you have provided for a way to them by maintaining distance w.r.t. the person standing in front of you ! So my elbows went down and now I think that I will carry a big rod on my sides, which will create a distance between me and the people ahead of me and behind me. Let me try, will get back to you with results.
Friday, January 19, 2007
What if I avenge ?
Revenge is the best form of eliminating one's frustration.. One of the best emotions that I have come across.. Its focussed and needs planning.. It involves you completely, motivates you., is demanding and powerful.. What if I did.. What if I lied.. What if I avenge.. What if eye for an eye.. Hats off Scott Stapp.. Revenge is a dish best served cold..
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