The Need To Care (give a F#@*)

Dear Readers,

What makes us human? Apart from our ability to cause destruction and be among the few species who know more about killing than about giving life.
Well in my opinion one of the leading factors that makes us human is our ability to Care. (In more present terms our ability to "Give a damn/F###") We are known as a "Social Species". We are the species who managed to come together and conquer Nature and have stamped our authority on the planet despite being a relatively younger species.

But are we losing this trait of humanity? Are we becoming less Human?

To be honest, it is very difficult to care in this modern day and age. The helplessness of situations we see each day of our lives has desensitized us to these horrid scenes. Poverty is just another aspect of the nation we have come to expect wherever we go. (We are prepared with a 2 Rupee coin as soon as we stop at a traffic signal that you know beggers frequent!) We take corruption for granted because it easier to pay 10 grand under the table, than spend our precious time and money on this lost cause. (We will support an Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Movement  from the comfort of our homes and give our valuable opinions and ideas to him through our television sets)

But this piece is not on such issues that will take a larger movement to tackle. My views are about smaller things. My concern is that we have stopped caring in our relations with the people in society around us. We don't care about national issues because we cannot (or feel that we cannot) make a change on that front.
 But what about the reduction in social contact and the evaporation of politeness from our personalities?
What about the amount of useless attitude we throw around (and we do it without even knowing it sometimes)?

Why have we reached this point? What changed from a time in the past where people had cool stuff like "Manners" and "Concerns" and "BeyBlades"... Oh sorry! We have shifted from a social structure that involved a lot of personal contact to a social structure that has almost no personal contact! We shifted from social meetings, telephonic conversations, handwritten letters to text messages and emails that do not have as much personal contact. We just don't have the time. We have studies and work.

Sure, memes like these..

..May give you a laugh but give a thought to the scarcity of "F###s" in the world. We really should try to increase the world supplies of this rare commodity of "F###s" Because we will in the near future reach a point in time when you would want one yourself, but not have any offered to you.

So that's my rant for today. Goodbye till my next piece. 

Yours Truly, 

Do We Really Want To Know What They Are Up To?

Greetings!

Often I hear panelists on TV demanding absolute transparency into the works of the government. The Nation seems to want to know what is the next conspiracy the Government is hatching to keep the cool stuff off public domain (Cool stuff like Who killed JFK?; Did we REALLY land on the Moon?; What was really found at Roswell? What is the Secret of Victoria's? Where is the Chamber of Secrets? Is Karan Johar straight?). The list of conspiracy theories will never end!

But where did this begin? What made the Government have a secretive approach to some aspects of its duties? Are they justified? I'm not really an expert on it but I have one view to justify the governments right to a certain amount of secrecy in its operation. Let me give you an example from my world of economics.

Imagine a bank has a few investments which go south (suffered losses) and they need a bailout to salvage their market existence. So they approach the Central Bank(which is basically an extension of the government)  and ask for a bailout package. One of the first conditions put for it is that the bailout be a secret.

Why keep it a secret? Shouldn't the depositors of the bank know what's happening? Do they not deserve to know their money is in trouble?

Let me introduce you to the term Bank Run. When people who have deposited money in particular bank, have reason to believe that the bank is going bankrupt, all of them rush together to withdraw their money. So basically if the bank was having just a minor credit issue, it will now face full blown bankruptcy!(Utter and Total!)

Loss of the depositors' faith in the bank only causes it to lose the rest of its meager cash reserves and will end up putting it out of business, taking down with it the confidence of the market. In this case, the leaking of the Bailout news screwed the economy over. Just an economic issue that most people didn't even understand, caused them to cause an economic fallout that affected them adversely!

Now imagine the reaction people would have to the news of the existence of extraterrestrial beings? They would totally lose it. People would try to stockpile and people would run helter skelter. Law and Order (Not that TV show folks!) would be a thing of the past (very much like that show!) Anarchy would be the order of the day, without doubt! And you still want to know?! 

So basically when you get all titillated hearing of exciting conspiracy theories the best course of action is...

Everything isn't a conspiracy and trying to fabricate one (though entertaining) is not the solution. Conspiracy (worldwide ones where we stand to die) are best enjoyed in our favorite novels.

That's all for now folks! Till next time, Cheerio!

Yours Truly,

"Experts" Are High, Stupid or Scamming Us

Greetings Esteemed Reader,

I'm just going to keep going on with this flow I'm in these days. This is something I've noticed in TV commercials and got me thinking. I'm sure some really smart guy has already done a more correct study but I'm going to put down my flawed self observed theories

How does a dentist earn his bread and butter? He depends on people not taking care of their teeth and then having to treating them. (No sir, he doesn't have a secondary motive of scaring the living daylights out of you!)
How does a medical practitioner earn his livelihood? Because of every sucker who got fooled into that stale Vada Paav (A.K.A. The Indian Burger).

Should I then really be comfortable when a dentist endorses a toothpaste brand on TV? When they say,"9 out of 10 dentists recommend this!", isn't the 10th one the smartest? Are these 9 tired of their dental practice?
Do they all meet up at a cocktail party and go,"You know what would be cool? Lets endorse a product,  using which people will not have the need to pay for our services. We could all then go in search for the Chamber of Secrets!"

Hell! I made them sound high, didn't I? But that is how the logic seems like to me!

Either they don't want to earn money anymore (because it is getting too mainstream these days!)
Or They are being paid more to endorse the product than they would ordinarily earn. (Like hell that's going to happen!)
Or the entire product and its marketing is a lie. (SSSSHHHHHH!!!You didn't hear that from me..)

The consumer is taken for a ride these days. Take even the stock market broadcast shows. A person who is really good at understanding the stock market can make millions on the market in a day! Why would he want to waste his time telling you about the market at the rate of peanuts he is paid by the channel?

We the consumer is very gullible to an ad like this..

Always remember that..

 But the biggest idiot in the process is the guy who actually bought it because of that ad.. In conclusion, my point quite simply put is

"An Expert could simply be a con man in disguise"

On that I shall bid thee adieu.

Yours Truly, 

The Good Guys And The Bad Guys (Part 2)

Greetings Dear Readers,

I have finally made this blog public but I'm going to keep the same style of expression. But I would welcome feedback,suggestions and ideas. Since many of my new found readers liked the first part I've decided to write a sequel. Hope it lives up to the first!

I originally planned for TGGATBGs to be about Perspective. That was the originally planned title but I changed it just prior to publication. This sequel is more in that vein.

I bet I'm probably the only guy who has read The Chronicles of Narnia books. All 7 (Yes there are 7!) of them and they have had a profound effect on my way of thinking. Especially a scene from the last book, "The Last Battle" (The movies really killed this series...) is a real master piece and in my opinion the character of Aslan (Yes, the Lion who talks) is based on Jesus Christ. (Not a very long shot since the author C.S. Lewis was renowned for his War-time radio broadcasts on Christianity)

There is this one line he says that really got me thinking. its essence was...

"Even though you worship that hideous Idol in your temple, If you do it with pure devotion, your devotion is ultimately to me"

This line makes you wonder if religion is a lie. Is it a scam? Or is there really one true way to God? I will leave that for you to decide. (I personally am a staunch monotheist and believe there is one God) But Religion is an ideal way to demonstrate perspective.

The Crusades of Medieval times, was Perspective at its worst. You see, Jerusalem (Over which most of the issue was in the first place) was a strategic strong point that just happened to be a religious center as well. So  any politically motivated move to take Jerusalem could have easily been transformed into a religious Casus Belli. So the religious head, the Pope threatened to disown Catholics if they didn't join "The Holy War".

The reaction of the average Catholic,"Hey if the Holy Father is so serious about this, it must be worth all the bloodshed involved!" Well, weren't you wrong! The Crusades screwed over Europe and nearly wiped out a couple of generations.

This is a classic example of our herd mentality. We Do not WANT to rationally justify. We find it easier(and in fact it is easier) to follow the guy who makes the best articulated speech. The guy who looks the best. The guy who represents the best you can become. Unfortunately in Post WWI Germany, that guy was a stud named Adolf Hitler.

So we are the reasons for the wars? We are the ones who get the Hitlers of the world into power. We start the mess. This picture denotes our power perfectly!

So the view I'm trying to put for with this one is plain and simple

"Are you voting a Hitler-in-the-making to power?"

That's where I will leave it. Till next time, Hasta la Vista!

Yours Truly, 

Things We Control

Greetings Readers!

I have finally got some feedback on this blog which I have kept top secret. So this piece is dedicated to my first critic. And here I go..

Humans have an inbuilt sense of direction. A direction they want to pursue. A direction they feel is the best. Well this is the inner voice all of us follow. This is "The Voice" (Sucks without Shakira and Adam Levine, doesn't it?) We follow this voice throughout our lives. It takes us to the dizzying highs of success and the chasms of failure but the one constant is that it never deserts you. And hence we feel that we are the ones who control our destiny with our choices and the adhering to of "The Voice"

But are we really in control? Or are we not?

The title of a particular book that has captivated my imagination for a while now (though I have not found the time, neither saved up enough to buy) is "Prisoner by Birth", by Jeffrey Archer. The title has my mind racing with its possible implications and the one that stands out the most is the one I shall share with you today.

We are simply caught up in an illusion of control. We have absolutely no control over our lives from the moment we are born. Our birth itself is more random than a game of Roulette! If we begin our lives with a random event the rest is simply a mixture of time and place.

Imagine the birth of 2 kids at the height of the Cold War on the same day. One is born in the shadow of the United States Capitol Building in Washington and the other in the shadow of the Kremlin in Moscow. They have had their sides picked for them in a war they probably wouldn't have even been a part of in a different time or place! Hell,these two could have been twins!

So basically saying that anything is your birthright is more like saying you won it in a lottery.

A while back I read a book called "The Black Swan" by Nicholas Nassim Taleb.(No, the hot steamy movie with the lesbian scene was not inspired from THIS book) This dude is a Guru of randomness and in the book he talks about how our lives are very minimally affected by our own attempts at control but rather are given direction by 'low-probability yet high impact' events that he refers to as "black swans"(Surprise! Surprise!)
Truly a gem! (sadly I do not understand a lot of the technical stuff but the idea was very clear to me)

So basically my point is that...

"Control is an illusion"

I am reading another one of Mr. Taleb's works entitled "Fooled by Randomness" and I in completing it will gain a little more insight that I can share with you my dear readers at a later point in time.

So till my next post, Cheerio!

Yours Truly, 

  

The Good Guys and The Bad Guys (TGGATBG)

Greetings Dear Readers!

I have finally reached 100 Pageviews! Its very encouraging especially because I didn't expect to get very many. So this has encouraged me to go on. So here I go with another reflection.

Who can adjudicate who is right and who is wrong? I have retained a line in my memory from when I was very little. It was something like,

"We are all supporting actors in someone else's drama of life"

It made me start thinking about life from the eyes of the "other person". Quite often in life we don't notice the grey areas. We are always right. Someone else is always wrong. We don't really care to know the other side, do we?

I often wonder, isn't the villain a hero in the eyes of his followers? Are they not also following what they know to be true and right and correct? And still these people endure the scourge of the "Hero"(and his little minions).

History, as we know it, is a one-sided story. We hear (majority of the times) the side of the victors. The guys "fighting for the good of the Human race". The losing sides do get a mention in the footnotes of History, passing mention on how evil they were and how screwed in the head they were, stuff like that. But is that all such figures in History were? Bad guys sent on earth to be vanquished by "The Good Guys"?

Most of the times The Bad Guys are driven to the action they take. They are reacting to conditions brought about by The Good Guys most of the time (Surprise! Surprise!) I can give you a really pertinent example.

Anybody remember the Nazis? (Yes the Hitler guy and his peeps) The Nazis were not,as you might think, an organization made since time immemorial to destroy the world. They arose from the ashes of a broken Germany. A Germany taken hostage by the Allied Powers after WWI. A generation of Germans paying the price for a war they didn't know much about! A Germany in this state was bound to be the Petri dish in which a world threatening virus was to be born.

The Nazis were despicable, granted. But they truly were driven to it.

The Middle East too. The Indians under British rule. Just name it. All of them will be able to put forth a justifiable cause under which they fought, under which they were willing to die.

I'm not justifying their actions. Only their causes. And not even all of them. I'm only asking you to take note of your uncritical acceptance of what is fed to you. Give it a thought first. I'm not done with this interesting topic so I might get back to this some time in the future! Till later..

Yours Truly,

Change

Greetings!

Been away for a while but I'm back with a new topic to have a thought about. And I am a little sad that I have not got a single comment yet. Good, or bad either. Hope I get some, here on in.

My topic for today is Change. 

What for you is the first thing that comes to mind with the word? Is it the changing seasons? Is it the song,"Man In The Mirror"? Does it bring back memories of the Obama Campaign? What is change to you?

Whenever we think of change, we think of it in terms of very particular occurrences that happen in due course of time that manifests itself either in us being happier or more aggrieved than we were prior to it. NOW what we fail to understand is the very nature of Change (Yes, I like to think of it as an entity. Pretty much like Fate).

Change, as I have come to understand it, is a very volatile and yet constant phenomenon. It is happening very single second and yet it's effects may take a moment to settle in or a lifetime. Change is happening all around us but every person's awareness of these changes is very different. Its like an inbuilt Sixth Sense of sorts. 

The average person has to wait for the actual change to happen for him to notice it. And if he does notice it, he prefers ignoring it because life as he knows it is comfortable enough for him. This average person having a delay in his realization of change is mostly affected by it negatively and hence curses these changes! Some really great people actually need to get kicked in the butt before they accept the change around them.

The really smart individuals who predict changes keeping in mind the current situation are the ones who end up actually profiting from it.  In a way these people either cause the Change itself or are smart enough to adapt to it quickly and take advantage will always be the ones who end up being the really cool, rich powerful guys who run the world.

That's all I have the time for now. I will be back with a new thought next time and I wouldn't be averse to revisiting an old topic if I'm asked to. Till next time have a great time, dear readers.

Yours Truly,

Greetings people!

According to my stats I got 62 pageviews! How cool man! I've been on a little break for the past few days but I'm back to continue with my rantings!

In theses past few days I've made an observation that is worth a little thought. The observation is about "Best Friends". These are those peeps who you go crazy with. These are the people who are always with you, through thick and thin. They are the ones with whom you have the most memories with. They constitute one of the most important parts of your life.

But at some point they start drifting away. They just don't seem the same and you know in your gut that its happening but are not ready to accept the fact. Well its happened to me and another friend.

The case with me was that my friend was one grade younger but we were real close. He had shifted here 5 years back and I was his only friend then. Now he is popular in his grade and has his own group of friends. He kind of grew "up and away" I guess. Here its nobody's fault as such, just circumstances.

 With this other friend of mine the case is very different. He and his mate are in the same grade and yet his friend ignores him when he has the chance to hang out with friends from his residential building. I cannot judge who is at fault but I know something is wrong here.

I would appreciate comments on this post because I want to figure out the dynamics of friendship. I look forward to hear from you people. Peace out!

Yours Truly, 

Greetings!

I'm gonna take a break from myself and talk about some random stuff now.

Any of you watches football? And I don't mean the American version. I mean the Real Football these Americans call "soccer". (Seriously America, did you run out of names for that sport?) Well I'm an avid Football(Yes, I'm gonna call it Football!) fan. I'm of the opinion that it is the best sport in the world.

First off its a pretty cost effective sport. The bare minimum you need to play is a ball, which is pretty cheap! The shoes are also optional, so basically anyone can play. This sport, in my opinion, has the power to bring people together. It has the power to tear down social barriers. But hey that can be true of any sport, right? If you come to think of it a number of sports are quite similar!

Take for example, the sports across the world that are referred to as "football"( association football, American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby league, rugby union,....needed to catch a breath there!) . From a modern perspective they seem very different because we have built a strict set of rules around them. But all of these are modern interpretations of games played as long back as medieval Europe. And boy did they love it! Entire towns would play and not hard to guess, it was soon ban in England! Even Shakespeare mention it in his plays (Hamlet and Comedy of Errors I think).

Safe to say, Football (Whichever kind you prefer) rocks! Well enough on this! Peace out!

Yours Truly,

Greetings!

Wow! 12 pageviews! Ok now I'm pretty excited about this blog.*sarcasm*

You might figure out from the excitement that I'm having attention issues. You see I'm a bit of an attention seeker. So my friends being busy elsewhere doesn't help me. I know I'm not the center of the world but I wish I was!

How do we attain the ability to transcend our own ego? Man if I knew, my life would've been so much easier.Everyone says I have a bit of an ego problem. Too much attitude. Well to be perfectly honest I feel it might be true. But make no mistake, I try my best to minimize that part of my personality. But I have no way of knowing if I'm successful in my attempts. My friends won't tell me because they wouldn't want to hurt. The people who actually hate me because of my issues, well, safe to say they wouldn't want to have a conversation with me.

More on my ego later. Cheerio!

Yours Truly,

Greeting!

Apparently i got 3 pageviews since my previous post so... Yaaaay! that is actually 3 more than I expected. So let me get on with it. To give you a sense of why i really made this blog, I gotta give you some back story. So here goes.

I am the ordinary kid. No really. I'm the kid you will know who exists but won't give a second thought to. The kid that you are comfortable with but is not all that important to you. I'm good at most things but not the best at any particular activity. I am the average kid.

I have to go now so I'll get back to my sad story later. Cheerio!

Yours Truly,

Here I Begin

Greeting dear readers,

Well i know there aren't many readers (actually there are none, but I would like to play the part of blogger properly). I created this blog to have a platform to vent my various emotions. I really don't care much for any reactions to this blog because... well I just don't! (In hindsight, now I do)

Let me begin by saying that I'm in a cloudy mood these days so if you see a really cranky post on here.. Don't be surprised! (Wow, I really was in a bad mood!)

 Have you ever had a period in your life when your life, and everything therein, is changing but you seem to be caught in a time bubble that is causing you to think that you are caught in the past? Well, That's me right now.

So expect my ranting in the future. Cheerio people.

Yours Truly,