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.)