Well I dont know where to start, I just got home after a 1 and a half month long trip to the States and UK.. it sounds very exiciting and to be honest it is (was) but only in pieces and died quickly. There is no place like home is a phrase which i now know the real meaning of .
US was easy going fun place which seemed intriguing for the first 3-4 days and then it settled. I found the people very helpful in contrast to what I had previously .
They go out of their way to help instead of being loud and rude. I work in an american company and have had the 'pleasure' of dealing with them a lot but its different to interact with them in their own country.
UK was a lot more fun .. lot of culture..fun places which werent loud..pity I was only there for a short time.
Enough about places, here comes the real thing. I had a nightmare one of the nights I was sleeping in the hotel in Phoenix. The details are too personal to share and also obscure because the unconscience does not know of any logic but surely knows how to get the message across.
To give you an idea about what it was, it concerned my family. I woke up short of breath, hollow, shaken up, guilty, sweaty, frozen for good 10 mins until I realised that I have woken up !
Quickly put on the plush robe (given to me by the hotel :)) and went to the balcony to get some air. After a few minutes light up a smoke ..still dazed .. dont know what hit me.
The dream made me realise how much little I had given back to my family over the past years and how they have supported me in my every little mini ambition ... the support had been unconditional , where as I was all about not getting adequate space to do 'my own thing'..
Made feel shit ..unworthy.. I constantly got in the frame of mind to mend things when i get back and suddenly I started missing home like I had never been there and was the sole pupose in my life.
Most of the past decade I had spent head deep into my work, kept my self busy , concentrated on my girlfriends... the fact that i had unconsciously kept my family very low in the priority list never struck me till now.
A confused person that I am , I still dont have an idea how I will make it right . all I know is that I will tilt lot more attention towards my family now.
My 0.2c on this is that whatever your passion in life is dont let family take a back seat. Life is very complicated , ruthless, unforgiveness and there is nothing like family to back you up . I am not saying that stick to family purely for selfish reasons but its the greatest feeling of unconditional belonging that atleast I have come to realise.
Do what you have to and fix this......
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Presumptuous me!!
Thank you to all who wrote comments and emails to me about my previous entry. It lets me know that I am in a place where I am surrounded by people who matter. Believe you me, it’s a great feeling.
I think that a little clarification is required… I have to stop writing these 2-3 minute speed writing blogs (though the current one is no exception but I have always been a slow learner)… there can’t be a more fitting case of over confidence ….akin to swim the English Channel after first 20 twenty minutes of swimming in a baby pool!!
I have been congratulated, blessed , passed on good wishes, asked curious questions about my previous entry and this is all I have to say …. I was presumptuous in my claim when I said that “Dont know about you but I found mine”
This is how it works. This blog is predominantly an outlet for me, conversations with myself, sporadic thoughts in the cyber world. I don’t realise the audience, the manner, my choice of words, I just write on with completely content to give structure and words to my thoughts and feelings. Last post demonstrates this best. I went on to declare that I have ‘found mine’ at a stage which I now realise was too preliminary and my thoughts naïve. Truth is that I am close, not quite there, and got too excited, jumped the gun and shouted as if to say “Eureka” ! I felt the connection and almost immediately didn’t .
I do stick to my earlier closing that one should feel arrived in life if one has found that person. I am close but not quite there……..
I think that a little clarification is required… I have to stop writing these 2-3 minute speed writing blogs (though the current one is no exception but I have always been a slow learner)… there can’t be a more fitting case of over confidence ….akin to swim the English Channel after first 20 twenty minutes of swimming in a baby pool!!
I have been congratulated, blessed , passed on good wishes, asked curious questions about my previous entry and this is all I have to say …. I was presumptuous in my claim when I said that “Dont know about you but I found mine”
This is how it works. This blog is predominantly an outlet for me, conversations with myself, sporadic thoughts in the cyber world. I don’t realise the audience, the manner, my choice of words, I just write on with completely content to give structure and words to my thoughts and feelings. Last post demonstrates this best. I went on to declare that I have ‘found mine’ at a stage which I now realise was too preliminary and my thoughts naïve. Truth is that I am close, not quite there, and got too excited, jumped the gun and shouted as if to say “Eureka” ! I felt the connection and almost immediately didn’t .
I do stick to my earlier closing that one should feel arrived in life if one has found that person. I am close but not quite there……..
Sunday, June 10, 2007
U turn ? For good ? ?
When is the last time the evening fell so hard and you had no one to turn to ? I reckon, if I think I know people, that this moment comes too often for comfort. There is an inner feeling that tells you that no one understands, no one feels the same, no one knows what to do , no one has the time, no one is genuinly concerned, no one is unselfish.........
Feel alone? I bet you do ... every one does... but let me tell you .. not that I am an authority on the subject, that in this 6 billion people loaded earth there are people who are not in the bracket you are trying to categorise them in, who would care . The best part is that they are happy to help you, the luck factor is to find them. For those who have been lucky should also realise that they have found them .
Life becomes a little easier then - doesn't it ? Dont know about you but I found mine. You can think what ever you want , give it any name you want - I dont care because it is too special to gain society's recognition.
When you get to a stage when life pulls you a fast one and you think you reached the end. I am sure the energy is just not enuff to pull through .. look fr a u turn with the person you found of course.. makes life easier and livable..
My advice..find that person .. can be any one .. build a support system .. get more out of life.. u do that .. n let me tell you that you have arrived in life !! :)
Feel alone? I bet you do ... every one does... but let me tell you .. not that I am an authority on the subject, that in this 6 billion people loaded earth there are people who are not in the bracket you are trying to categorise them in, who would care . The best part is that they are happy to help you, the luck factor is to find them. For those who have been lucky should also realise that they have found them .
Life becomes a little easier then - doesn't it ? Dont know about you but I found mine. You can think what ever you want , give it any name you want - I dont care because it is too special to gain society's recognition.
When you get to a stage when life pulls you a fast one and you think you reached the end. I am sure the energy is just not enuff to pull through .. look fr a u turn with the person you found of course.. makes life easier and livable..
My advice..find that person .. can be any one .. build a support system .. get more out of life.. u do that .. n let me tell you that you have arrived in life !! :)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
How much money is enough ?
Well...isn't this the eternal question ? The greed is killing everyone .. yes a strong word such as 'killing' . Consumerism and peer pressure are the main culprits. The effects of greed can be traced to broken relationships, heart troubles, blood pressure etc . The world is a very different place when your eyes have turned green with $$$$$ covering your eyes. Suddenly things that really make u happy become invisible ... that time when the laughter was genuine, that last engaging conversation, the cool breeze by the sea, ..... the list is endless
Heard the talk about replacing country's GDP with a Happiness index "GDH" ? Do you then know the reason why ? There is a separate debate on how a buynch of numbers prove the level of happiness but lets not go there . At this point, lets assume that it is possible and explore the reasoning of the intent rather.
My personal opinion is the intent is noble but the name given is misleading.. I say this because the eay happiness is defined.. it again linkes it to the amount of disposable income left with people after basics like health care, education, housing etc are taken care of. A very good way of looking at things one would say but my point is that we are again linking it back to money so in essence we have the lost the wholw point. If it really about happiness, then availibility of natural resources, cleaner environment, number of sick people, heart patients etc . If this ignores the money portion which many rightly believe is critical then look at two indices together would make sense.
To my mind we need to alienate money from happiness and satisfaction. Research has shown that money is not what drives people . I have always believed in it so far but my dept satisfaction index proved otherwise . A recent survey in my dept showed all indices moving northward except the ones dealing directly with money. This inspite of major salary corrections been done in the recent past. But when I think deeply again I am more and more convinced that is not about the money . If most of the team got it then why the answer? It convinces me that its more about communication and more about gettting a taste of reality .
Do you have an answer? Post it . I will be very interested...
Heard the talk about replacing country's GDP with a Happiness index "GDH" ? Do you then know the reason why ? There is a separate debate on how a buynch of numbers prove the level of happiness but lets not go there . At this point, lets assume that it is possible and explore the reasoning of the intent rather.
My personal opinion is the intent is noble but the name given is misleading.. I say this because the eay happiness is defined.. it again linkes it to the amount of disposable income left with people after basics like health care, education, housing etc are taken care of. A very good way of looking at things one would say but my point is that we are again linking it back to money so in essence we have the lost the wholw point. If it really about happiness, then availibility of natural resources, cleaner environment, number of sick people, heart patients etc . If this ignores the money portion which many rightly believe is critical then look at two indices together would make sense.
To my mind we need to alienate money from happiness and satisfaction. Research has shown that money is not what drives people . I have always believed in it so far but my dept satisfaction index proved otherwise . A recent survey in my dept showed all indices moving northward except the ones dealing directly with money. This inspite of major salary corrections been done in the recent past. But when I think deeply again I am more and more convinced that is not about the money . If most of the team got it then why the answer? It convinces me that its more about communication and more about gettting a taste of reality .
Do you have an answer? Post it . I will be very interested...
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Off track!
Here is the other side of me ( I am not always complaining !! :) )
Thought provoking nonetheless...
Heard about Butterfly effect ? Check out this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
Also for the econometrics in all of us : Check out the Nobel Award winning theory of ' The Beautiful Mind'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
( the Prisoner's Dilemma will interest you for sure)
The classical prisoner's dilemma - derivative from the game theory
The Prisoner's dilemma was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the "Prisoner's Dilemma" name (Poundstone, 1992).
The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:
Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a two-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?
The dilemma arises when one assumes that both prisoners only care about minimizing their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to cooperate with his accomplice and stay quiet, or to defect from their implied pact and betray his accomplice in return for a lighter sentence. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice, but each prisoner must choose without knowing what his accomplice has chosen to do.
In deciding what to do in strategic situations, it is normally important to predict what others will do. This is not the case here. If you knew the other prisoner would stay silent, your best move is to betray as you then walk free instead of receiving the minor sentence. If you knew the other prisoner would betray, your best move is still to betray, as you receive a lesser sentence than by silence. Betraying is a dominant strategy. The other prisoner reasons similarly, and therefore also chooses to betray. Yet by both defecting they get a lower payoff than they would get by staying silent. So rational, self-interested play results in each prisoner being worse off than if they had stayed silent. In more technical language, this demonstrates very elegantly that in a non-zero sum game a Nash Equilibrium need not be a Pareto optimum.
Note that the paradox of the situation lies in that the prisoners are not defecting in hope that the other will not. Even when they both know the other to be rational and selfish, they will both play defect. Defect is what they will play no matter what, even though they know fully well that the other player is playing defect as well and that they will both be better off with a different result.
Note that the "Stay Silent" and "Betray" strategies may be known as "don't confess" and "confess", or the more standard "cooperate" and "defect", respectively.
Thought provoking nonetheless...
Heard about Butterfly effect ? Check out this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
Also for the econometrics in all of us : Check out the Nobel Award winning theory of ' The Beautiful Mind'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
( the Prisoner's Dilemma will interest you for sure)
The classical prisoner's dilemma - derivative from the game theory
The Prisoner's dilemma was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the "Prisoner's Dilemma" name (Poundstone, 1992).
The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:
Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a two-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?
The dilemma arises when one assumes that both prisoners only care about minimizing their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to cooperate with his accomplice and stay quiet, or to defect from their implied pact and betray his accomplice in return for a lighter sentence. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice, but each prisoner must choose without knowing what his accomplice has chosen to do.
In deciding what to do in strategic situations, it is normally important to predict what others will do. This is not the case here. If you knew the other prisoner would stay silent, your best move is to betray as you then walk free instead of receiving the minor sentence. If you knew the other prisoner would betray, your best move is still to betray, as you receive a lesser sentence than by silence. Betraying is a dominant strategy. The other prisoner reasons similarly, and therefore also chooses to betray. Yet by both defecting they get a lower payoff than they would get by staying silent. So rational, self-interested play results in each prisoner being worse off than if they had stayed silent. In more technical language, this demonstrates very elegantly that in a non-zero sum game a Nash Equilibrium need not be a Pareto optimum.
Note that the paradox of the situation lies in that the prisoners are not defecting in hope that the other will not. Even when they both know the other to be rational and selfish, they will both play defect. Defect is what they will play no matter what, even though they know fully well that the other player is playing defect as well and that they will both be better off with a different result.
Note that the "Stay Silent" and "Betray" strategies may be known as "don't confess" and "confess", or the more standard "cooperate" and "defect", respectively.
Update #1
The picture above will summarise this blog and my despair at this point. This time the news has a mixture of good news and bad ... as everything else in this world, the good portion is merely decorative..
The culprits have been caught ! All of them.. this is the good part and the end of it. We thought that this would be the end of it and justice would be served but one hard look at the police and the judicial system in the country will make you think otherwise... easily!
When confronted with these fellows in the station, they threatened my friend as if being in the lock up didnt matter and had no effect on them whatsoever. So much so was the confidence that they told the complaintent that jail does not stop them .. in front of the ACP!?
I mean I know of people who are afraid of traffice violations but here - what explains this ? That they are well connected? That the real power of police is just to have them locked up for 2 nights? They are so confident that the judicial system will let them go free?
India is shining but is this the colour? Where you can't do shit to psychopaths who committ the deadliest of crimes and be so confident that they commit another one of threatening from within the lock up ? What do you do ? Leave the country ?
Anyone ? Any solutions?
Friday, May 11, 2007
Not fair! What is the reason?
This time I am not going to mince my words unlike my first blog...all throughout my 30 years on this earth, I have believed that everything has a reason , a purpose and that reason/purpose has a positive outcome even if it is not immediate. It goes beyond humand mind to comprehend all the butterfly effect to realise that something good will eventually come out of it.
Yet ... something that happened two hours ago defies all logic , reasoning that all gyan gurus , spiritual speakers, deepak chopras of the world! It in no way ever by any stretch of imagination and help me fo you think it can.
A friend of mine , got her house looted ( where she was posted out of town on a project) , her maid raped , her puppy which she adopted the night before killed !!
I mean where is the reason .. where is the logic .. what is the justification...what can possibly be right or positive with this ? I am dying to be enlightened !
Someone has a theory on Karma ? Well lets see what Karma can explain such an act!
Spare a thought for that person who went through this today ... I have had enough of writting for today!!
Yet ... something that happened two hours ago defies all logic , reasoning that all gyan gurus , spiritual speakers, deepak chopras of the world! It in no way ever by any stretch of imagination and help me fo you think it can.
A friend of mine , got her house looted ( where she was posted out of town on a project) , her maid raped , her puppy which she adopted the night before killed !!
I mean where is the reason .. where is the logic .. what is the justification...what can possibly be right or positive with this ? I am dying to be enlightened !
Someone has a theory on Karma ? Well lets see what Karma can explain such an act!
Spare a thought for that person who went through this today ... I have had enough of writting for today!!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The first entry and my favorite quote!
efore I start ... a disclaimer :
These views are my personal and in anyway, do not subscribe to my professional affiliations. Even for my close ones, if you ever come across this page and manage to identify me, ... try and understand ! :)
Also, please dont get frustrated with the spelling errors and with my tendency to eat up words in between. I want to write this for purely my writing pleasure and not for external approval.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Is putting a disclaimer common in a blog? I would not know this is my first blog and I have not read many. Well I created this blog to be an outlet - predominantly an emotional outlet. Well... write a diary instead! ...... people would say. This comes close doesn't it and yes the thrill of the world being able to read this also fills me up with nervous energy.
I have been thinking about starting a blog for a long time but my laziness took the best of me and I, as other important things in my life, delayed it. But I am glad I even got this far and I dont mind being late. I have been late for most of the things in life but the wait has made the taste sweeter. I think for people who get things in life easily dont get to live it fully. Besides, who defines being late? Who sets the time? Who sets the expectations? Who defines how we should be? Who dictates how we behave?
Any answers? .... my assessment is that it is the inner self. One of my favorite quotes: In the end... the race is with yourself!
How true can it get? I have read work of many great thinkers and philosophers (I am not a name dropper) but I can’t find a quote as simple and effective as this one. I can't find a quote which answers so much with simple ease. Think about it.
Well so much for the first entry... hope to write soon!
These views are my personal and in anyway, do not subscribe to my professional affiliations. Even for my close ones, if you ever come across this page and manage to identify me, ... try and understand ! :)
Also, please dont get frustrated with the spelling errors and with my tendency to eat up words in between. I want to write this for purely my writing pleasure and not for external approval.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Is putting a disclaimer common in a blog? I would not know this is my first blog and I have not read many. Well I created this blog to be an outlet - predominantly an emotional outlet. Well... write a diary instead! ...... people would say. This comes close doesn't it and yes the thrill of the world being able to read this also fills me up with nervous energy.
I have been thinking about starting a blog for a long time but my laziness took the best of me and I, as other important things in my life, delayed it. But I am glad I even got this far and I dont mind being late. I have been late for most of the things in life but the wait has made the taste sweeter. I think for people who get things in life easily dont get to live it fully. Besides, who defines being late? Who sets the time? Who sets the expectations? Who defines how we should be? Who dictates how we behave?
Any answers? .... my assessment is that it is the inner self. One of my favorite quotes: In the end... the race is with yourself!
How true can it get? I have read work of many great thinkers and philosophers (I am not a name dropper) but I can’t find a quote as simple and effective as this one. I can't find a quote which answers so much with simple ease. Think about it.
Well so much for the first entry... hope to write soon!
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