From Mythical to Ethical

Today's article was written by yours truly for a friend(read as "with a little help from"). As a result, it's not really that funny, given that I wasn't given a free reign to completely utilize my expletive vocabulary. So bear with me with this one. It's about what we can learn from European mythology, and a nice change from the usual stuff I write,  anyway, cheers
                European mythology has always been thought of as tales compiled over the ages

derived from carvings in the walls, with the potential to hold listeners spellbound with interest.

From David and Goliath to Beowulf, it is a treasure trove of literary prowess, that transcends

the boundaries of time. But is there more to it than meets the eye?

              Let's look at this age old tradition from a radically new point of view.Consider the Labors of Hercules. Is it just a tale spun by the wishful human mind or Is there any philosophical meaning behind the lore left behind for us by our European brethren? Let us find out.

               Hercules was the son of Zeus, the king of Gods. However, he was doomed to be a mortal as a result of a curse. To redeem himself as a God he was to complete a series of tasks. His story came to be known as the labors of Hercules.

               The first labor of Hercules was to obtain the golden antlers of a stag that was rumored to be the pet of the God of Wind himself, and was endowed with speed that no mortal could even hope to match, testament to which were its feet of brass. Hercules followed the beast from the Greek mountains, to the valleys of Europe, over the seas, to the plains of Africa, hoping to get it wounded by his arrows, but could never get within range. At last, after months of pursuit, he identified the stag’s pattern of movement and finally laid a trap in which the stag’s magnificent golden antlers got caught. Thus, Hercules completed his first task.

               From this story, we see that Hercules persevered, came out of his comfort zone, beyond the threshold of mortal endurance, and his patience was rewarded. The story also tells us that one must identify and utilize all the resources at their disposal in order to fulfill the task most efficiently. This is the first teaching of Hercules.

                For his second labor, Hercules was ordered to clean the stables of the King Augeas of Greece where 3000 oxen had lived for 39 years, without the place being once cleaned. It seemed an impossible job for one man. However, Hercules was as wise as he was powerful. He spent several months cutting a new channel for the stream that flowed near the stables, so that the river now flowed as a rushing torrent through the stables, carrying away to the sea, the mountain like heaps of dirt.

               The second teaching of Hercules is that in order to make the most out of life, one must not rely on physical strength alone. A sharp mind is sometimes more powerful than a strong body. To work smart, and not work hard, is what he teaches us, and is implemented by all of us to this very day.

               The third labor of Hercules was to obtain golden apples from a fabled garden guarded by three fair maidens. Hercules, being a man of principle, could not lift his sword against three women. After tedious searching, he found that Atlas, a giant made to carry the heavens for all eternity was the only one who could get them. He agreed to get the apples for Hercules, if he would carry his burden for a while. But, Atlas was a sly one. He intended to trick Hercules and make him carry the heavens in his place. However, Hercules soon saw through his plan, and soon after Atlas had agreed and got him the apples, under the guise of putting the apples in his bag, he ran away swiftly, leaving the giant roaring with rage.

               In his third task, Hercules teaches us that one must remain integral to his or her beliefs come what may, and that one who even thinks of breaking them loses all hope of ever being more than a mere mortal. He also tells us that there comes a time when one must take the help of those that one would rather avoid. To exercise caution when doing so, and understanding the mindset of the one concerned is imperative. And that diplomacy, when it harms no one, is a very valuable asset.

               Hercules was then ordered to conquer a tribe of savage female warriors known as Amazons. They were great in number,each with the strength of a horse. Hercules understood that this was not a task that he could complete alone. So he began recruiting heroes and warriors, aching for adventure to come along with him and fight. The war was brutal and many were killed, but in the end victory favored Hercules, but it was by far, his most dangerous ordeal.

               This anecdote tells of the clarity and level headedness Hercules had. His power did not corrupt him as it so often does. He understood and accepted his limits. His humility offered him the solution that won him the war. That unity is strength.

               The fifth labor of Hercules was to slay the Hydra, a many headed monster. Hercules began by cutting off each head of the monster at once, but was in for a rude shock. Every time he cut off a head, two new ones grew in its place. But Hercules, being of nimble mind and body, came up with a solution. Every time he cut off a head, he would burn the root from where it grew. So one by one, the number of heads grew less, and in the end, the Hydra was slain.

               This fifth teaching of Hercules is that, every problem is a Hydra. If you approach it with the intent of merely pruning it from your life, it will only return with twice the problems. But if you deal with the problem from the root itself, it is destroyed completely. So, one must not think of merely avoiding problems, but one must face them and make sure that they are obliterated from scratch.

               Wise, powerful, courageous and determined. No wonder he is the Son of God! However, we have not yet arrived at the last and most important teaching Hercules has to offer. He teaches us that, nothing in this world is impossible, and that man has the potential of being perfect. So, it seems that European mythology is not mere folklore after all! It teaches us simple and powerful things that we can apply to our daily lives too!

                  Finally,learning begins from the heart. That if one wishes to learn, even the whispering wind, the swaying flowers, or even a thousand year old fable can be a teacher. That is what I have learnt.

An Eye For An Answer Makes The Whole World See

We have always seen the type of kickass Chinese movies in which the hero leaps into the weaving of his body into boy scout knots, apparently forgetting that there is a concept called rigidity. It is in these movies that we hear dialogues thrown at us that are deeper than Shah Rukh Khan's cheeks. To be honest, we see them first, because of the dubbing delay, but that's not the point. These dialogues are usually thrown with a flourish by the Master of the hero, usually called the Prancing Peacock of the Eastern Shrub Meadow or something of the sort. Now these dialogues bring about an epiphany in the life of the hero, and he immediately gains immense strength and proceeds to give the movie an oriental fairy tale ending.

I have often wondered if those things made any sense, because half the time they fell on my ears, I was engrossed in eating pizza. I have said before that someone with nothing better to do can find philosophy in the most mundane of things. Now I'd be a liar if I said I was busy at the time, and a hypocrite if I didn't try.
One of the lines I seem to recall was, "You see, but you do not see." That got me thinking a bit. Mutual contradictions have no logical starting point, people who have arguments with their mothers and/or girlfriends know this predicament very well, so its rather difficult to analyse this rationally. So, for a person who was at a point where life got interesting when he changed his brand of cornflakes, what was better than to try it out?

Let's begin at the obvious. What do we see? Well, at the moment, I see tiny pixels appearing on the white background of my laptop screen, I see my hands typing, I see my dog sleeping peacefully and I am overcome with a sudden urge to pop a plastic bag behind her. What, you might say is so deep about that? When you boil it down to the basics, what I'm essentially doing is labeling things according what I've been taught or conditioned to believe before I could even drink my baby formula, let alone formulate my own concepts. But here I am, thinking to myself, that what if, I had had no conditioning whatsoever in the last 20 something years of my life? What if every step I took led me to something new? What would I do? Now it is at this point that one would expect a life changing epiphany of sorts. But you'd be wrong. Being humans, all of us are painfully prone to doing the stupidest things possible in any given situation. And hence, what I would have started doing was that I'd start labeling things.

All of us have an internal co ordinate system that enables us to comprehend our surroundings by placing it at a certain point in this system.This is the epicenter of labeling. If we look at Megan Fox, she's immediately assigned a high value on the hot axis, a puppy would be found on the cute axis, whereas if one looks at, say, Bappi Lahiri, he'd be found at the apex of the awesome axis. Chuck Norris would just destroy the entire co ordinate system for fun. Either way, labeling is an instinctive reaction to any human being when faced with something new.

What's wrong with that? You might ask while sipping your evening tea. A lot, as it turns out. There is a concept called "living in the moment", which you may have heard in a rather 60's context along with words like "groovy" or "rad". There is
some weight to the idea, in my opinion. Living in the moment would mean taking leave of all your senses.(in a VERY literal way, otherwise you might end up splattered up a tree trunk.)  Now one might imagine it to be easy. Why, I can close my eyes, muff up my ears, pinch my nose, wear a thick sweater and track pants, and not open my mouth. Voila! Total sensory deprivation! But there's another obstacle in your way. Thought.

Ceaseless, continuous thought. To simply put how it prevents you from being in the moment, consider this.
How easy is it to stop thinking? Just close your eyes, and try not to think about anything. you might consider yourselves lazy bums, like me, but our brains beg to differ. A continuous feed of thought is what our brains demand, and inevitably get. And in the process of comprehending any thought, the moment passes.

You look at a rose. You see that it is pretty, you think it smells nice, you find it pricks. The time required by our nervous system to send the message to our brain, however infinitesimal it may be, is enough for the moment to pass. For the ones unfortunate enough to be learning DSP, let me put it this way. the moment is an impulse signal. It tends to zero. you can't pinpoint its temporal location because of the simple fact that in the time taken to pinpoint it, it passes. It needs to be experienced, it needs to be passed through, not searched for. And the most effective way to do that, in my experience, is to let loose. To let go of all your inhibitions, conditions, doubts, or any other mental manifestations your brain might create to validate it's existence.

To be in the moment, in one simple sentence, one must be willing to be brainless. And that, ironically is what all of us are most afraid of.

I would rather watch this without subtitles,

Than this.

Our World : A Huge Matryoshka Doll

I have always maintained that if you look hard enough, or have nothing better to do, you can always find some philosophical meaning behind anything. That does rather diminish the whole "brooding philosopher" image, but it's really quite logical, and the best part is; you can never go wrong, because whatever you might think is always based on your own personal experiences, learnings, habits or conditionings all in all. Which may seem rather closed minded, but that would be going off topic. The fact is, everything is relative. What you might think or infer is always right according to you. So your own philosophy have about as much chance at being wrong as me being right in Calculus (For those who don't know me, or the happier ones who don't know calculus, that's 0). However, having done so with quite a few things, What struck me was the distinct difference between what one might see in natural subjects and those that are man made. It's not quite antonymous, though. It's rather like the difference between sleepily dozing off on a hammock and solving a Rubik's cube underwater in mittens while on LSD. (The comparison is not meant to be dramatic, but accurate.)

Which leads me to my point, that all man made objects or even situations are reflections of his own psyche. Anything and everything whose grandpa was a blueprint unfailingly represents the mortal mindset. That's not so hard (that's what she.....oh....), you might say but when you extrapolate, we arrive at a very old saying. "Necessity is the mother of all inventions." Every need stems from a certain mental stimuli, so why wouldn't anything that would stem from an invention? And why wouldn't an invention from the invention?(Yo dawg.)

It is quite like the Russian Matryoshka dolls. The way every new discovery, every new application paves the way for a new one. Now there are 2 things that came to my mind when I thought of it this way, and because my brain is the love child of entropy and Peter Griffin, completely unrelated to each other. Firstly, our self consuming world being proof, that we have ignored the fine line between need and greed quite thoroughly. Where exactly is this line? Or is it merely a grey area? And secondly, If the world at all was created by a higher power, is it the reflections of it's basic nature? 

My mind is pretty much custard at the moment, so a topic requiring any kind of mental strain is more than likely to turn me into a gorilla. What I can do, though is look at a very tiny aspect of my own hypothesis. The most direct way of confirming it is marketing. Though immediately it may sound far-fetched , it does have a tiny strand of relevance to it. Advertising, marketing requires a study of their target customer, assuming one to be ideal. It plays to the core nature of their market, it looks through their eyes, walks in their shoes, and explores every aspect of their lives to give a surprisingly accurate idea of their needs, wants and expectations. This, albeit from a commercial point of view, is essentially the first step towards a holistic understanding of the human mind. What people like me do, however, is take it down a notch. To take every possible quality we find, and find it's stimulus. After weeding out the few unique gems, we have a fairly plausible assumption of the core characteristics of an ideal representative of a group of people.

This is a rather huge topic, not just in terms of sheer size, but also in terms of the realizations it has the potential to lead to. It's one worth thinking about though, and in my eyes, rewarding as well.

Me being the incomplete me that I am, would love to steal your ideas and think about them, so if there's anything you think would be more accurate added to or subtracted from my writings, I'd love to learn from you, so please do leave feedback.

Matryoshka Dolls : The Original Inception

Claustrophobic Education

I looked out of the window today, and realised that I haven't actually ever been able to enjoy one of those semi-summer mornings. The sun peeped shyly over the horizon and the sky blushed like a kid being asked his name. The air was filled with the natural symphony of twittering birds, lightly whooshing air and the rustling of the leaves in their silent duet. The atmosphere was refreshing and I felt that I could conquer the world. Then I saw the pile of text books on my desk that needed to be read and all my joie de vivre was sucked out of me faster than a horde of hungry Dementors. I trudged wearily through the daily chores, and ended up sitting beneath the dim glow of my desk light, trying to remember the formula for the slew rate of something I have no idea about. Next to the huge pile of misery which is ironically my path to third year engineering, lie the printouts of a PCB (those neat little things hat pop out of your TV remote when you inevitably break it.) we had made for our college projects. I had learnt more in those few weeks of making that project than in the months I spent in class trying to decipher the suspiciously hieroglyphic handwriting of our teacher.
Living in the heart of Pune city, I often have to traverse through streets painted head to toe with colourful banners usually with a photo of a bright, confident student, along with a rather Uncle Sam-like statement. "Do YOU want to EXCEL in life? Then join XYZ Classes" Which is perfectly fine, till you eventually stumble upon a pre-school coaching class. Pre-School? Seriously? With the new NEET pattern set to pounce upon the innocent little lives of HSC students, one can expect a rise in coaching classes, but this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. And this comes from a man who has survived Jaani Dushman.
The sheer inflexibility of the conditioning, is in itself enough to shrink the child's understanding of learning to mean that which he is supposed to mug up from text books.
Having said that, it doesn't take rocket science to realise that examinations are not a measure of one's intelligence. Yet we are beings most convinced by numbers. Quality above quantity is just an excuse for people who don't get higher grades, according to us.
Yet, it has never ceased to excite me when I learn something new.My heart has always skipped a beat when I try a new circuit with a new IC. I have always crossed my fingers and my stomach has always dissolved whenever I conduct a test run. That is the rush I get from learning. And that alone is worth more than any praise, any job offer, any prowess it might result in. As a primary student I never bought the idea that learning could be fun. Because my definition of learning was limited to what we learnt in the classroom. And what happened in it was less exciting than breathing. It hardly matters what marks I get, how do I stand in my class. Because the only good thing about our education system is that you can at least pass if you know the subject well, and not regurgitating it on paper.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, whenever you do, you learn. The whole world is one massive classroom without a class teacher. You can be an absolute maniac and still come out learning a few things.(Primarily to not behave like a maniac.)
Which brings me back to my pile of books. I have never done very well in linear integrated circuits, I never remember derivations or diagrams. So I might as well break out the breadboard and a few IC's and tinker about while listening to the birds sing in the golden sun.

Becoming : A Retrospect

In my last post I have been an advocate of extreme rationality and logic in order to take a decision. And one can be blamed for thinking that I am right, and that rationalism to the extent of brutality is an appropriate attitude towards life; or one might conclude that whatever I said is bullshit and that mechanical exercise of logic is not at all a viable option, and that I am a complete idiot. Ah, if only life were so simple as to there being a right and a wrong.

The following is a poem I wrote for my college magazine, which coincidentally expresses my thoughts on, well, thinking outside the box.

So these are my thoughts on being a bit unconventional;

BECOMING

Dormant in the murky depths,

anonymously it lies,
Curled up in a ball of thought,

yet to open it's eyes.

Around it's foetal form are bustling,

clouds of logic and facts

Their monochrome paths lead on towards,

rational and conventional acts.

No novelty, no originality,

No impetus for perception a bit wide,

In their cocoons of traditionality

Immune to transcension they reside

Their aura of mediocrity,

A new thought inevitably dies,

Yet dormant in the murky depths,

anonymously it lies.

Untainted,pure, it's pristine shell,

being obliterated by ignorance so dark,

Pressing down on it's wings,bearing hard,

All it takes is a spark

A flash of light, A streak of colour,

penetrates the practical mind

And in a sudden moment of madness,

all presumptions are left behind

New possibilities begin to unfold,

ideas begin blooming anew,

In a world that has no limits,

Because of an epiphany so true

All boundaries destroyed, All rigidity melted,

It's salvation from the worldly cage,

it's time to arise is closing in fast,

An unmoulded mind it's stage

Shafts of light pierce the depths,

it finally opens it's eyes,

Free from it's darkened prison,at last,

Serenity finally flies.

The Principle of Duality : 50 Shades of Gray Area

              Apparently the entire nation is holding up torches (just a more dynamic way of saying banners) against something a politician said the other day, my Facebook news feed has become a complaint box for the patriotic Indian charged with the sudden surge of national pride. Can you guess what intrigues me here? Is it the insensitive comments made by him? No. Are the comments disturbing me? Well, they are irritating, taking up half of my screen, but no. It's the fact that so many of our decisions are so heavily influenced by emotions.

              Reading Sherlock Holmes last night (A Scandal In Bohemia), I happened to come across a sentence that made more sense to me than deleting the entire How I Met Your Mother series to make place for House M.D. Arthur Conan Doyle says "Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own of high power lenses would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his." He speaks of Sherlock Holmes, who in all respects is the ideal reasoning machine.

                To connect both the above paragraphs, any of us can take our own example. A startling majority of our decisions are based on emotions, feelings, which allow the unwelcome presence of the factor of irrationality in them. Every decision has a reason, however spontaneous it may seem. Which is why when asked the question "why?" people who answer "just like that" should be given a 619.(No, the 1 is not a typo.) And, with every reason, comes it's basis in fact. Now, here's the fun part. In any rational method of taking a decision, it should be modified to suit the facts in consideration, but what happens when, as wonderfully depicted by Looney Tunes, an angel and a devil with your face start quarrelling in your head? We begin to modify facts to suit the decision. See the vicious circle? This snowballs from a tiny moment of weakness to a moment of brutal realization of the extent of irrationality. This entire complex mental turmoil is best explained by none other than Bollywood Cinema.(Oh, the irony.) In just about any action movie, there comes a time when the hero has the barrel of a suspiciously waxy looking revolver at the forehead of the villain; when suddenly he hesitates because his anger is overshadowed by the goodness of his heart. He lowers the weapon to the sound of a sad dirge, begins to walk away in slow motion with heroic strides, the fact that half his leg is blown off doesn't hamper his swag,when the blurry villain in the background pops a cap in his ass. If Bollywood movies are to teach us anything, it is this. 

                 Emotions are an intrinsic part of what make us human. But that doesn't necessarily mean they should be mixed with every other thing that humans do as though they are the cerebral equivalent of salt. Facts remain facts irrespective of how the armageddon in your head has ended. Being impartial and almost inhumanely neutral about these things has always helped me get a crystal clear understanding of the situation I am in, and how to deal with it. This approach is often received as cold or even ruthless at times because it is rather counter intuitive.It works, but not many try it. They prefer to allow emotions to cloud their judgement because not doing so would mean accepting the fact that we do have an option to not be human.

That's what I'm talkin' about!!

My Archaeological Pit of Understanding

Another holiday, another day to think.What a coincidence. Because in the last 24 hours, I have been about as active as a sofa. My nose would put Rudolf to shame, and my throat would make Adolf sound lame, (Fun fact : Hitler talked about as loudly as the ordinary person shouts.). My treatment consists of a sweet, minty tonic, lots of coconut water, and utter uselessness. Which is fortunate, because considering the Venn diagram  of my impressions of people, that is what I am best at.

In my semi-conscious state, I happened to glance around the room to see a lot of stuff gathering dust.(quite literally.)  I'm a very picky buyer when it comes to such things, and I do a lot of research on what, how and when to buy even the least significant objects in my room. Before I buy anything, I always think about I might use it, how it might add to my little castle of dependent happiness. However, as their forsaken look might tell, it hasn't always been as I had thought.
Here begins my little train of thought. Hope and expectation. What exactly is the fence between them?
After some contemplation, I assume the best way to relate the both of these would be to say that when you allow any emotion to be a function of your hope, it becomes an expectation.
Hope is innocent, pure and transparent. Expectation on the other hand is tense, proud, binding. It's always a win-win situation for a hopeful person, if it happens, wonderful, if it doesn't, it doesn't make a difference. In any expectation, you stand to lose something. Which is usually bad. However, use it as a motivational tool, and it mops the floor with hope.
Childhood conditioning has taught us to always hope rather than expect. But the answer to the question "why?" has never been given.
As with anything, there is an extremely fine line between hope and expectation. All of us really enjoy playing skip rope with this line. We expect, when we should hope, and we hope when we should expect. People with low confidence hope that their expectations will be fulfilled while overtly optimistic (or plain spoilt) people expect their hopes to turn into reality.
As I turn over on my side and watch tiny specks of dust floating over my ancient mouse, I find that I am a hopeful person. I have spent months thinking, reviewing and researching on what should g where and why, and  now that the time has come and I have been proven wrong. It doesn't anger me or leave me frustrated. It leaves me with a better understanding of my own self.

Logitech G300 after a few puffs.

Damn Mentally Stimulating Sundays

It's been a pretty lazy Sunday, even by my standards. Time, being the most sadistic thing in the world does know how to press everybody's buttons. It's just sitting there in it's impenetrable cocoon of perpetual existence plotting ways to collectively disrupt the happiness of every ecstatic being in the universe like a little kid running through a flock of feeding pigeons. 

Now at this point, one may quote the wise words of Birbal when faced with the question, "What sentence can bring joy to a sad man,  and take it away from a happy one?"

To which he replied "This too, will end."

It turns out Birbal was much smarter than he was made out to be. He didn't specify 'when'.

As one of the pseudo-Murphy's Law dictates (by pseudo, I mean I made it up.); 

The perceived passage of time is inversely proportional to the happiness experienced by the person, hence it is directly proportional to the sadness experienced by him.

For those who are still writing with crayons, in simple words, Time flies by when you are enjoying yourself; and stretches out like half eaten chewing gum when you are not.

Time, it seems to me, is the ultimate troll. It gives you the illusion of uniformity, that time passes by the same for everyone. But in fact time, like just about everything else in this world is relative. However, this relativity doesn't stem from some eureka moment a guy with a wacky hairstyle had, it has its roots in the mental cogs that churn in the tiny little brain of mortals. Time merely utilizes this trait of ours to show us how exceedingly imperfect we actually are.
Sadly, most of us fail to understand this and end up in a very cliched situation, drenched in rain mixed with their own tears, cursing their luck, throwing their hands in the air and shouting "Why God? Why?!"(contrary to Taio Cruz), all the while looking at how raindrops hit the ground slowly and how his walking looks like shuffling.

The only person who has found a way around this little inconvenience, in my opinion is Rhasta, The Shadow Stalker. (DoTA reference, not really a person.) It's on these lazy Sunday evenings that I click him repeatedly to hear him say, "Don't worry, be happy."

Rhasta the Shadow Stalker (for those who aren't nerds.)