On the bomb blasts

"How do you think we should respond to these bomb blasts" I asked Vinod (a.k.a Vinu baba)

"Maintain peace within" he said

The words initially seemed to be quite foolish - quite contrary to what I had expected. Instead of an action oriented, outer directed answer, baba was asking me to look inwards....

It was only after a while that the response began to resonate with me...

The aim of any act of terror is to terrorize those who witness it....what happens externally (the terror attacks) gets internalized (as terror within). It could be at many different levels - anger, fear, apathy, irritation, frustration et el....whatever it is from this set of emotions, the perpetuator of terror has managed to create an impact and imprint on your psyche, your spirit...

The first space that we need to guard from terror is our inner space.... there are many ways we can respond to these terror attacks...light candles, sign online petitions, blog about them or take peace rallies....

What is important is that the response should come from a center of peace, rather than any other. If it is any other emotion that we act out of, we are merely being counter - terrorists acting from the same lower level of awareness at which the act itself originated...

The serach for answers is just starting - as we embark on this search, we need to make sure that we act out of peace - inner peace that may  be based on the foundation of forgiveness and acceptance....thats what will be a truly non-violent reaction...

Every program has a bug

Every program has a bug

When things go wrong with our lives, we tend to wonder. We ask the universe, 

"Why me? What did I do to deserve this!??" Somewhere we believe that this 

misfortune is only ours - there are so many people around who have better 

looks, more intelligence or way more money and opportunities. Its a tough life 

indeed....

But you know what? Every program has a bug. Every person alive is facing a set 

of challenges that are unique to his or her existence. As much as you may 

believe that there are no problems like the ones you are facing...there are 

many many more people facing more complex problems. As it is said, if you 

are looking for someone with no problems, walk to the cemetry!

So every program has a bug. Its a life where we have no choice of where or to 

whom we are born. And then that means you did not choose your genes 

either...if you're weak in Math, blame it on your genes! 

Each one of us starts with a different pack of cards - a different life context. It 

is then upon us to take full responsiblity of it and grow from there onwards...

It is problems that we face that will make us stronger...its the bug in the 

program that gives some one impetus to make the next improvement, launch 

the next version...

So from Windows 1.0 we have travelled to Vista...would you say Vista is 

perfect? Far from it! And yet it has come a long long way....

So remember, every program has its own bug. You have your own problems 

and so does everyone else. Never stop becuase you are facing a problem - 

though its going to be unique be sure everyone around you has their own 

problems. If that gives you strength, know that its only problems that make us 

grow and expand.

Remember, every program has a bug.

Cool animals that I dig....

Given a choice to be reborn, I might just opt to be an animal....

The coolest creatures, if u ask me, are frogs. You hibernate all through winter (I can relate to that inability to work when its cold - the blankets get sticky).... Then when it rains you croak the hell out (again thats what rains do to me)

I also fancy sitting lazily on some lotus leaf and flipping my long tongue to catch a fly. Thats my version of the lotus cafe....

And then just in case some princess comes to kiss me, I might just turn into a prince....

The other cool animal I dig is the camel. The look on its face is 'I dont care a damn'...its hot like hell, and its desert - and yet the camel seems to be like a totally equipped vetran...it doesnt even feel bad that it has a wierd looking body....it exudes confidence...thats what I love about them...I fancy being a camel just chewing away at the brink of some desert...

Next on the list are crocodiles... Crocs are supposed to have evolved to almost near perfection with their surroundings - so much so that they've stopped evolving....

The crocs saw the dinos and they (the crocs) still looked the same then too... its kewl to be sitting with my mouth open and some bird coming in and cleaning up my teeth

The hippos, rhinos and elephants are cool too but not so cool becuase they're heavy - not watching their weight....

I like Giraffes too - they are like those extra humble tall men who seem like perfect gentlemen...atleast till when they speak....

Of course I'd love to be a bird, not only becuase this would let me fly, but also becuase it will let me shit on anyone while flying naked in the air! 

I dont wanna be an ant - i think antz are too work obsessed in life... I prefer the more chilled out ones...

I could think about being a religious praying mantis for example....

I dont wanna be fish either - I generally am not too fond of water and living in it, along with transperant eyelids that fish are supposed to have, and swim all the time, i know thats not for me...

for now I'm happy being the most complex animals of all - human

Times...they're changin!

Happened to interact with a few kids and teachers at a nearby school....what came out was a fascinating description of how life for the tweens has changed - and radically so...

Out goes beating in the class...I was even hesitant to ask if the practice of class beating (entire class getting pasted) exists... Students were smart enough to bring cut outs of court orders against beating up kids and put them on bulletin boards or tell teachers about it....

Poor school teachers...given that most students have classes as a backup and very little fun time, they begin to see school as entertainment....the school on the other hand does not have enough time to finish the portion - it needs to rush through creating a tuff-to-understand situation for schools...

Its hard to tell what exists becuase of what - but somewhere our education quality at schools got derailed and that gave birth to the coaching classes industry - today the sheer size of the coaching classes industry is a witness to this quality drain in schools...and if only schools would have time enough to teach all thats needed, students are prepared to say no to classes...

Teaching quality is not an issue since the same teachers teach at class as well as school...so it just boils down to the fact that in order to run more batches, schools run SSC in lesser time, and as a result have students going to classes which then again means that schools can get away with bad teaching...

The other interesting aspect was the cross gender pairing - something that might have happened in 9th or 10th at our times now happens as early as 4th or 5th...call it hyper progress or innocence lost - the sheer exposure that this generation of kids has makes it almost impossible to  manage them, forget control altogether....

Kids are also far more pressurized - by parents and peers alike...and yet many of them are clear about what career they want and how studying well fits into the picture - almost half the group of 15 odd kids I was talking to knew what they wanted to get into...

Orkut is another aspect - a supervisor of the cambridge part of the school actually was on orkut and monitored activities of her students on the network...

Its a new generation and they only get faster, smarter and better :) 

Its time to find new ways to manage this gang - rather than sit back passively and watch it go outta bounds...

Good bye, CAT

And so the CAT sunday passed away....some 2.5 lakh people taking the exam for less than 2000 seats (even lesser if you bring in the admission quotas and reservation math)

I haven't been too different when it comes to CAT - I used my performance in CAT to judge my self worth...and it was pretty kewl becuase I ended up with a good percentile - good enuff to get into an IIM

In retrospect I tend to talk about the event as if I had totally mastered my strategy. I talk as if I knew or I could predict what would happen and how I had the exact strategy for it. I often find myself talking to glaze eyed CAT aspirants about what my 'strategy' to crack the paper was.

Truth to be told - every admission into an IIM has a huge element of luck - at times it is your day and at times its not. As hard it may be to accept - its fortune from the start. Being born in a certain background with some aptitudes, having them developed and right upto that paper on that day which turned out to be "crackable"

Knowing how narrow the odds are in terms of making it, a huge chunk apparently registers but does not appear at all....and then there are the rest - who except for the top 1000 - 2000 return to next year perps or head to some other B School...

I dont know what goes on in their heads when they flunk the CAT - but I am sure its not anything too pleasant. 

Why let an external exam judge you? Why take the verdict of CAT on a certain aptitude of your life as THE BLANKET VERDICT on all your life?

You may have bought into the hype created by the zillion CAT coaching classes about the IIMs - but now if you havent made it, its time to get unsold on it. 

It is sure a very difficult challenge - but dont let your esteem take a hit for not making it at CAT. Know that success and satisfaction in life are no ways a biproduct of whether your BSchool name starts with 2 Is.

And the IIPM starts with 2 I's as well ;)

So good that CAT's finally over.... with all that it creates for all of us - Good bye, CAT :)

The compulsive buddha

The middle path is often the best alternative it is said...and yet to me it has always contradicted at some level to committing to action - I mean how can you succed without full committment? Will moderation in that be right at all?

Personally when I look at my own situation though, I need to regulate my moods. It is a medical necessity rather than just a choice - so I am aware. I monitor how I feel in a detached manner (or atleast try to) and also regulate it...to that extent its the compulsive buddha.

I duno if given a choice I'd take this - I have always loved to live life at the maximum...letting joys be ecstacys and feeling the pain also deep within...thats what I was... and I think thats what reached a peak and its unsustainablity broke it down....

The challenge really is to be grounded and then experience all the joy and grief there is to- to me the experiencing of these at the deepest level made me feel more human, more alive...

However the middle path is also not as bad - its living in awareness of my moods rather than being swayed by them...

So for now I can call the compulsive buddha as a wise consequence, a great choice! 

On experts and expertise

I think expertise is grossly overrated.

As Anush points out, its the Einstien phenomenon. If Einstien's intelligence doubled in a flash, no one will be able to tell except Einstien himself. So for that matter we will have to take his word for it...

I went into a meeting today where the guy, almost to intimidate asks me, "Are you a technical man?"

"No not really" I say. Though there is a nerd alive within me, I decide to keep it straight...

"Then you wont understand a thing" he smirked.

Over the hour though he went on to explain the most common scientific aspects of his work - very simple core fundamentals that just needed some curiousity, some patience to understand. It was not complicated at all - and all the while he kept saying 'its complicated, its complicated'

I think the problem with expertise is manifold. For one, if you don't know what you don't know, it becomes almost impossible to estimate the quantum of what you don't know. And in that case even marginally better knowledge can seem expertise...

Then again people who posess this expertise jelously guard it - as businesses it is their trade secret while as individuals its their point of differentiation - something that keeps them as experts and maintains status quo

But I strongly believe that the fundamentals of any field are simple and can be understood without too much effort - basics are after all what they're meant to be - basic.

Whenever I have tried to dig beneath the surface for understanding a certain field, the truly secure 'experts' have freely shared...while there have been others who sit and protect their domains very seriously

As a society as we grow, knowledge is increasingly becoming more complex...and hence the temptation to rely on experts in each field...but that doesnt mean common sense should go for a walk...it should be there, around....

And as you explore and learn about more different things, you'll not only release the innate curious child within you but also see the beautiful patterns that emerge across fields and the often unbelievable correlations of beauty and knowledge...

Fragmented v/s Integrated living

I just did a great post about JD writing (something we do for a living) and then removed it almost immediately....its a risk to post anything connected to work - especially when it has a nuiscence quotient....

And Anush in a timely manner warned me, apart from talking about a press release where 13 Virgin Atlantic employees were fired due to joking about the airline!

The one thing I dont like about jobs - or corporate work for that matter is that it forces us to fragment...to constantly split between the personal and professional...

For many this might be a great idea - after all the personal and professional must be fragmented...separated for convinience and separated as a principle

However to me, the principle of integrated living appeals much more - I am one person and all of me exists at any point of time. There may be parts of me which are not needed in a certain context those I am ready to put to back. But if someone goes out there deliberately to fish information for me and then use it - that is something that is an issue with me.

But then no-nonsense corporates are best left to their own means - and for me its self regulation all the way

Interesting stuff has happened at Orkut also - my orkut profile is written based on the transitions that I have gone through - now very often our relatives are not acquainted with these... So suddenly my description on orkut alarmed a cousin who immediately brought it to the notice of mom....

Now honestly I'd love it if I am left by myself - but thats again asking for parts of me to be hidden away from people they are not relevant too.... Its quite a contradiction of sorts you see...

Net Net I dont think anyone or anything in my context is ready to see all of me - not even myself! Why even when I see myself in the mirror I dont see all of me - I just see a side of me! Then doosre kya cheeze hain

Am I depressed?

A tough question I ask myself....my immediate reaction is No! I am not!

For starters let me make a distinction between being depressed and what I call experiencing depression....

If I am depressed, then this depression becomes a part of my identity... I'd rather choose the option to call myself as 'experiencing depression' ... That makes it more temporary...that gives me a degree of freedom to be only experiencing it as something passing and not as something that has become a part of me...

There is a taboo to being depressed - atleast clinically so...its a happy world and we are all supposed to smile all the way...that often doesnt happen, and sometimes life can get really stark. Whether it is you brooding over the meaninglessness of creating temporary meaning in your life, or entirely for no reason feeling the blues....happens to us all....

I am going to make a large claim now - I believe each one of us experiences depression (and by that I mean the dark degree that affects the way we feel) at some point of time or the other...

I mean c'mon, you've been sent to the world without any clue...you live life with constructed wants or in an endless discovery of happiness... knowing that all is tranisent - think about these things for a bit and you're bound to feel depressed!

One of the things I guess people do when they experience such dark feelings is that they stop feeling altogether...and becuase you dont feel enough, you dont feel happy or sad enough - that keeps you in a 'zone of safety'...a glamourous name for this is the middle path. Depending on whether you have conciously choosen this or not, this is either an escape or a coping mechanisim - a very valid one at that

Do not assume for one bit that I am attempting to glorify depression - all I am trying to do is to observe the phenomenon that we call depression - this devil that we all fear and yet confront knowingly or unknowingly

I do know of a number of people around me, who 'experience the blues' more often than not...who live life so fully that the stoic tragedies of life are bound to percolate deep into their souls... and for them it is that I am concerned....

Because out there is a fairly functional world - a world that keeps moving without regard to how you feel or where your world is....at face of it that might be a great escape...but I am not sure if escaping depression is the right way out of it....

I think for me it is the confrontation of something deeper....for all this while I have assumed all that I know to be temporary...to be transient...and it is this search of meaning at times that leaves me feeling lost.... too complicated some would say...

At other times there is no reason really....

But now I would not call myself depressed... yes I am experiencing what are some of the symptoms associated with being depressed but hey, I am aware of it as well....While I am not resisting it or fighting it, I belive that experiencing it fully will let a natural equilibrium follow....

Well thats a pretty self indulgent post...but in the end thats what being depressed is about...its about when I start to think only of myself and treat the rest of the world as unreal...or as 'not me'...and i transact with it very transactionally...

So when I do this blog post, I feel good - I feel great that there is someone out here who shares my pain...who is also a little lost...who is also a little bit of a seeker...and that I am not alone...its often that one small comment on the blog that can make all the difference

Depression is like water thats stagnant in a pond...stinking...with mosquitoes and maybe even frozen....life on the other hand is like a river... it flows... it goes on with the new replacing the old...

It is in fully embracing this flow that life is about...sometimes meaning lies just beyond the constructs of our mind...just beyond the meaning of meaning...so  beautiful to admire my intellectual cave....so difficult to light that match and create light for real.....

It's the gravity, stupid!

Gravity is a force that we have all learnt to live with, in the real world. You know that if you fling something in the air, it will come down....

Gravity also works in our personal and spiritual context - the default for your unless you apply a force to the contrary, is to go down.... 

So very soon I start feeling bored, lost or sad....its the gravity that pulls me to my default state...each and every time....

Being spritually aware in such times is like having storeys to a building - you can shield against gravity when you are at your home on the nth floor (you dont hit the ground ground but just the floor of your floor)

But still gravity exists....what it means for us is that whatever we do to get to a feel good etc. will be temporary, till it is internalized....and even after being internalized, there will still remain a force acting on taking things to status quo - to boredom, to unhappiness, to restlessness....

Its that gravity that i am trying to fight - at times I forget that such a force will always exist. I just sit wondering why I am feeling low again...or why is it down again after being so high just a little while ago.....

Its the gravity, stupid!

Measures against this gravity mean taking your daily dose of positivity (maybe from some self help tape or some Aastha pravachan). It means doing your daily chores like meditation - those will keep you more intact than not...any slip in this and there is gravity, waiting out there to take over, to swallow you and drive you straight back to the lows...

Next time you feel low without a reason, remind yourself...its the gravity, stupid!

On self obsessions and happiness

This one's to you Anuj Gosalia

For writing to me out of nowhere - thanking me for my blog posts... It has inspired me...inspired me enough to start blogging again....

I realise that time and again my attention deviates to myself - I become too self centered and warped... unhappy not knowing the real cause of my state...

And then suddenly out of nowhere is a blip - something that shakes me out of my self absorbed-ness.....something that suddenly takes attention elsewhere...from moving in the void of my state to something beyond...

Your mail did that to me, Anuj. It made me happy. And thats what I was trying to be for so long...for so long I was trying to get myself to do something that makes me happy...

And yet I forgot what I knew and was so time tested - that happiness does NOT come from within....it comes from the response of within to the without...and the origin of happiness often comes from knowing that you're not alone...there are other living creatures out there - some of whom respond to you...

It felt like knowing that I was alive...I was someone...and I mattered....just that one small email from you Anuj...it was really powerful

That also makes me feel that a lot of what I do must also be very powerful for others - the way I respond to situations, the comments that I make at people and all of that....

How many more souls can I rescue from their self absorbed-ness....that much more net happiness I can create and pass around...for all to cherish...for all to enjoy

One last time, Thank you Anuj