Pursuit of avoiding irritation

The title seems a bit weird... looks similar to "pursuit of happiness", but a bit weird. However, I was talking with my wife, and this thing came up, that I am getting irritated by many things, and how I live my life with it. With that in mind, I thought this is probably best title for my Autobiography, if I plan to write one. I would want to add some things in this section, and hopefully, it would be a good read, and I'll continue writing more.

A bit about me first. I am a software engineer, working in Microsoft. Had some experience in Google and Facebook before, and studied in IITB, which is one of the best colleges in the country. I married my wife 4 years back. Ours was an mixed arranged / self arranged marriage. She is working as engineer as well in Qualcomm. My parents are from Aurangabad, and they are visiting me right now in Hyderabad. I make good money, have car, house, cool gadgets (like my Roomba). Things seems like they're going well for me. Recently I am buying a house, getting settled in India from US. It's a new thing in my life. Lots of new things to take in. New people, new culture, new issues.

But, with all of this, I am always irritated. I have felt like suicidal before, I've felt given up on everything. I burst out of people occasionally. But, with all that, I try to keep myself calm. My wife seems to like many things. She enjoys art, cooking, meeting people. I don't. There are rarely any things that I enjoy. On the outer shell, I look like very approachable. That means, people are happy for me to be with them. On the bad side, I've to hear all their problems. Even though, I have no solution / suggestion to most of them. I hate being a good boy, that I've acted like for so many years. But, I haven't had any bad intentions in my life either. I feel just bored so many times, and even though I feel tired from exhaustion, that's the only things that feels comfortable to me.

Lots of things irritate me, frustrate me, pain me. Maybe it's people annoying me, maybe it's they expecting things from me, maybe it's people asking me to do things I've no interest in. I like to live in a world, where I've choice to do things I want. I frankly don't expect to get many fruits from the world actually. If "Karmanyevadhikaraste, mam faleshu kadachan" to be believed, "I have right to work, and not fruits of it". So, that should have been simple. But, it's not. And that's what irritates me. With that in mind, I'm going to add some stuff here that I find irritating on regular basis, 

Overflow of information

I recently heard in some presentation at Facebook, "every second, approximately 5000 hours of consumable content is getting generated". Meaning, if you look at the text, video, music or any kind of content generated within a second, it'll take you about 5000 hours to read/hear/watch it. Now, some of this information might be repetitive, some might be incorrect, and some might be even irrelevant to you. But, the fact that so much content is there, is mind boggling.

Now, this causes a shift of paradigm in knowledge consumption. In my childhood, the overall assumption was that more knowledge makes your life better. So, our brains were trained to grab more and more information wherever it came from. We read some interesting books, we watched videos (In TV and in cinemas), we listened to radio, conversations. We tried to grab opportunity of grabbing as much as possible. Of these, our knowledge was the filtered information. We dissected information, tried to find right, wrong and relevant parts of it, and we consumed the right one, discarding the rest. But, even then, the remaining information did stay in our head. Because that's how our subconscious works.

Now, given the usage of internet, where all information is freely accessible and all relevant/irrelevant information is up for grabs, this old approach has noise issues. Imagine 1000 people trying to tell you something at a time. Individually, each one of them may have a point. Some of their points may be contradicting to each other. Some might simply be irrelevant for you. But, you still hear all of them. And your brain gets a sense of being full of knowledge, whereas it's just full of information. The dissection process hasn't even taken place. So, your mind is filled with so many contradictory statements, that you haven't got time to resolve and you have so much irrelevant content which is not so easy to get rid of.

Because of this, in later stages, your brain understands this problem, and starts making auto-dissection of this information. It knows its limits, and it must keep only limited information as "knowledge". So, it goes to bias. Every human mind has his own set of biases about what's right and what's wrong. In an ideal world, where flow of information and dissection rates are comparable, these biases are supposed to be changed/corrected by this information, like re-evaluation of basic concepts. But, when we haven't got time to do so, we just keep our biases as they are. And so, we assume right and wrong based on our biases, which even strengthens the biases themselves. Like if you think dinosaurs are cute, and all you see is cute Dino cartoons, you'll strongly think that dinosaurs are cute. Maybe you're too scared to watch Jurassic park or maybe someone else made that decision for you, or you just ignored it completely by separating dinosaurs from some ugly monsters in the movie. In the end, your bias is set.

So, I think it's time to change the knowledge gaining strategy. One way is to consume only verified and well noted resources. But, that causes lack of complete picture in many cases. One more way is to keep the biases, and do more evaluation on biases all the time. This works, till someday if you find mistake in them, and you go in limbo, and think that your whole life is a lie. Or you simply carry your bias till the grave. Another way is to dissect all information coming to you at any rate. Well, any brainiacs here? Because we need one for this. :) I myself chose a way. Now, you may call or right or wrong. I ignore most of what's going on around me, consciously. I stay low in conversations as well. This gives me some disadvantage in debates, since I don't stick to some bias or opinion. But, it helps me stay focused on things that matter to me. And since all information is available at any time, whenever I am in dire need of information, I just, "get it".

We are in a flood of knowledge. Let me know what are the strategies you've found to stay afloat.

Sun

We went to see Pacific ocean today. What a beautiful scene it was. First "blue" waters on the beach I have ever seen. And the timing was perfect... during sunset. It was about 6:30 PM in California.  I was just looking at the sun going down... down into the ocean. I realized, that it was 7 AM in India. Sun must have risen at that time there. Without realizing what I was looking at for past half hour, I was just watching at the beauty of beach and sun performing together. Realization was that this was the moment in the day where the Sun, was not only looking at me, but also at my parents, my brother, and everyone there in India. Even though, I am across the world, there is this one guy, who is looking over me and my family. Directions might differ, where me looking at it to west and my family looking at east. But, he looks at us daily. Sun, the connecting bridge between all people, made me realize that I was not that far from my home. No matter where I travel, he'll always be there. He'll greet me in the morning, and say adios in the evening. But, will always come back, like a common friend given to me at all the places on earth. I realized, I'll never be far away, no matter how far I go from home.

Work

There is an interesting thing about how much time one can do work in a single run. Obviously it depends on who is doing it. As for me, it goes through 3 different phases. First is learning curve. I am in general not confident about the type of work in this phase. New stuffs comes along. In this phase, it is quite likely for me to give up things.
Next phase is routine phase. I know exactly what I am doing and how am I doing it. I am the boss here. I don't depend on anyone's input in this phase, I tend to be even a little bit instructive in this phase. Basically, awesome time.
Next phase is boredom. Now I'm so used to this work, I don’t feel like doing it anymore. Given a work item, I know exactly how to do it, but I don't want to. In figurative sense, when I can work with my eyes shut, I tend to fall asleep. I want to get something new now. And even though I can do amazing things here, I want to get out of here.

Now, the term "work" that I am using here, is not just for my office work. It is also during my college time, also while talking  to people, also while learning some thing extra-curricular. And here are my experiences about them in all the phases.

Learning curve
I am new to the work. I have absolutely no clue what people are talking about. I am just trying to fit into the whole structure. There is a sense of pressure on me, that whether I'll be able to do it or not. And also I many times have a feeling that this thing is out of my league. Many times, I have given up the work at this point itself. There are many courses in IIT I remember, I just couldn't get in the beginning. So, I gave up on them. Many opportunities, like studying abroad, studying for MBA, I gave up. Just because I felt that they were not "my thing". It wasn't always the case though. I learned how to play tunes in piano. I learned how to code in MS. So, when I try to realize what was the factor that caused this distinction between achieving and giving-up, I point to one small thing. "Something clicked". I tried, and failed, I tried again, again failed. But, in the end, I found something in that work that interested me. Like while playing piano, I found that I can relate to sound frequencies and figure out which tune is played by what key. Or at work, I just thought it would be interesting to create the whole system on my own. There were off-course boring parts there as well. Like not being able to play any song on the run in piano, or being bored while fixing bugs in office. But, something that clicked, made me go through that boring part also. Or, I think I tried to hold on to those "clicks" very long, because I wanted and loved those clicks very much. So, no matter how much I was overwhelmed with the work, or difficulties I faced, I finally managed to succeed in those things.

Routine
This is a dream-like time. Everything seems to be falling into place by itself. Whatever I do, it just works out properly. I am doing what I want to do. I am getting different ideas in my mind and implementing them simultaneously. I am experimenting with things, creating new things. It's like dream come true. The routine, being just started for me to happen, it seems lucrative to me as well.  I am so excited about so many new things I can explore, I just want to do it all. I want to create my own identity in this. I want to be its master. And the way things go in this phase, I almost become one. May it be foosball, bike, OOP work here, piano, I just love doing it. I am constantly exploring new things. I'll learn new moves in foosball, I'll try to get to 120+ on bike, drive car for 600+kms in a day, give suggestions to my manager and colleagues about work, I am just stretching what I can do. I love this phase. I have come up with most of my achievements during this phase only. Just appears like nothing can go wrong now, and I feel invulnerable.

Boredom
In a simple word,  "Budhapa". I am doing just great in the work, things are falling in place, nothing is going wrong etc. And one sad day, I don't feel like doing it. The thought process starts like this. First I start doing work. I feel like it's a 'cup of tea'. But, now the newness of that work is gone. I have explored many things in that part of work now. There is no obvious new experimentation that I can do there now. So, even though the things are falling in place, I just don't feel like doing it anymore. Just now when I was typing last few lines, I opened the facebook like 2-3 times. It's like that things that I felt boring about the work earlier, start coming back to bite me again. The curiosity, the lucrativeness is gone, but boredom is still there. So, I start losing my patience while doing it. I try and start some other work. I try terribly hard to find something new in that work, but with no success. And in this way, even thought I was supposed to be a 'master' of the work, I start achieving less and less in it. And call it Karma, or something, things also start falling apart. Then, at the end, I feel like there is nothing I can or nothing I want to do in this type of work, and I give it up. And this is story for many of my work-items I have gone through in my lifetime.

Frankly, I was planning to draw few graphs that represent my enthusiasm, toughness or work, boredom etc. on the scale of time. But, even this writing took a toll of me now. Someday, if I feel  writing about it again, I'll continue. Till then, adieu.

A year to remember

"When I was of your age, I did ..."

A standard template by any father in this world to tell kids. Sometimes I wondered where their deeds, or achievements came from. Some say, they made everything on their own. Some say, they achieved so and so. Some say, that they were so well in academics and career. Some even speak about their adventures, trips, sports. I am 25 today. Learning phase in life is so called 'over' by now. Many of my friends have enjoyed lots of things, achieved so many things by now. I was wondering for myself what I have done so far? I mean I had pretty good career curve so far. No issues with job, no problem in family. Everything is fine. But, nothing stood out except for few days earlier. But, then this last year happened.

There is a term in Marathi called "गद्धेपंचविशी". They say that you do lot of stupid things, make lot of wrong decisions in life, get into lot of trouble in between age 24-25. Many of these moments define your life path later. Well, many of things that I did in last year, are definitely going to define my life for sure. But, fortunately, not in a bad way.

Starting with the biggest one. I have a group of friends now. Never thought this would be possible for me. I mean, I had friends before, but not like these. But, I have friends to whom I go and can do all kind of 'bakar' for hours. We (Me, Ankur, Pushkar) have an awesome group. We had common interests like stocks on some day, or coding-competition on the other, or new job search on some other. But, out interests matched all the times and we formed a group. Currently, I have a reason to come to office, because I am damn sure that I won't be bored there at all, since there will be these guys to tease :P, chat, and play foos-ball and do infi random bakar with. It was the biggest thing I have achieved in this year.

In between past 2-3 months, I was running through things. For instance, I gave 4 different interviews in a week. Imagine that. Google on Monday, Facebook on Tuesday, IIM-Calcutta on Wednesday and Amazon on Friday. And astonishingly, I was highest "bug-fixer" in my team in the same days. I never imagined that me, who told his manager upfront some day that "I don't want to fix bugs", will be able to manage this. I also wanted to switch team once Windows 8 was done, so, I wanted to prepare. But, never got enthu to start working on it. But, then when Pushkar told me about code-chef and how his batch mates do lot of coding, it gave me enthu. I started coding, and then I decided to apply. After in total 5+6+2=13 interviews in different tech. companies, I finally decided to join Google. My dream job since I was intern there. Google, Mountain View, California. YO!!!

Then there was something about the CAT too. I was not much interested in doing the MBA from beginning, but, I thought, why not give it a try. My mom was very eager for me to join an IIM. So, I said, 'fine, I'll give the exam. We'll see what happens'. In between 2 coding milestones, there isn't a lot of work, so I got bored. So, I was wandering around in Madhapur area and I found this TIME office. I just went there and paid 5k for their test series. Then when I came home and wondered would I even do it, a thought said, "man, why did you put 5k in it then?" So, I started reading English after that. The CAT result was not much of interest for me, but became very useful one day. My mom had a kidney operation couple of days back before result. Every relative was coming to visit her and asking how was she doing. Basically whole typical gloomy atmosphere. The moment my result came, everyone coming was with some sweets and congratulating mood. I don't believe much in psychology, but it changed my mom's mind state from "I am ill, but it is feeling little OK now" state to "I am completely fine, I am just waiting for doctor to discharge me" state. She was walking the next day. Amazing!!! :)

I changed my flat due to water problems in my last flat last year. Since then I had very good home in White fields, Karan, JJ and Piyush were really good flat-mates. Very helpful, and very enthusiastic folks. Helped a lot with my mood, and every exam I gave, every interview I had, seemed a bit easy because of their support.

I had an amazing last year. Hoping that my coming years will give me same joy and success like this one.

Satisfied : PART II

For those, who don't like calculating and equations, lets go with another analogy...
We know that if you drop a marble on slope, it goes in the direction of slope and settles at bottom, such that it can't go further down, without climbing something. (In maths, term is "local minima")

Say, there is this surface, like earth, with lot of mountains and ditches. If I drop a marble, it'll go to a ditch. Now, consider height as opposite of your satisfaction level. and gravity being your motivation. You want to go down.. Simple?
If laws follow well, you'll do what gives you most satisfaction.

But.. and here comes the inertia part.... Say, surface is made of a cloth and marble has weight.. what happens. Even on flat surface, marble puts weight on cloth, creates a ditch for itself and settles itself. Even if it is lying on top of a mountain, it'll think that it's in a ditch.. and hence don't want to travel anywhere.. and surprise... it doesn't go down....

Similarly, due to the K' discussed in earlier post, or our hatred to do stuff, or stay in inertia, although there is a slope made for us, we won't do it.... Easy, right... In other words, if I sleep even till 11 AM, I should be excused.. and its law of nature I am following (:P)

Satisfied???

Well, today was one of those days, when I got real bored.. I mean REAL real bored. Literally, I didn't want to do anything. But, there was always something in my mind saying that, I am not accomplishing anything today, my life is waste etc. etc. ...

So, I thought I should play piano, or do painting, but frankly, didn't want to get up. I was being less satisfied by idea of not achieving anything, but at the same time, I didn't want to do anything.

So, it hit me. Even though I want to accomplish something to get satisfaction, why am I not doing it? Well, there is some negative value for work to be done.

Now, only question needed to be answered was, how long I have to do more work? So, I got up, and since I had nothing to do, I drew these specs.. Have a look..

Here, K is something that you do, when you don't feel good or bad, and you don't achieve anything that you feel satisfied about... You don't like it, and you don't dislike it.. etc. etc. A neutral work... like, breathing, sleeping etc.

"l" is amount you are doing less work than K. and all of a sudden, you decide to do "m" more work than K.

Work(t) : W(t)

Accomplish(t) : A(t) = Integral(W(t) - K)

Satisfaction : S(t) = A(t) - K'*(W(t)) + K''.

K' represents how much you hate to do work.

K'' represents how much satisfied you are in general. So, lets forget K'' here.

Now, T is the time for which you need to more "m" more at least so that at the end, you'll feel more satisfied about your decision to jump the Work curve.

By calculations, you get : T = K'*(l+m)/m = K'*(l/m +1)

To, more you jump, lesser it'll take. Or, lesser you hate your job, your good to go...

But, there is another time T'. If you jump for even less than this, you'll feel.. "Ohh, my life is becoming more and more bad..." since your curve now, is below the curve, even without a jump.)

By calculation : T' = K'*(l+m)/(l+m) = K'...

So, more you hate your job, you need to try it a little more....

Well, moral of story,.. I feel quite satisfied, that I actually did something for some time today.. YEEEEEESSSS..

अवशेष

नवीन सरकार आपल्या जुन्या प्राचीन सौंसकृती विषयी विशेष अभिमानी होते. जे आपले पूर्वज करून गेले, जो वारसा त्यांनी आपल्याला दिलाय, तोच आपण जतन ठेवला पाहिजे. आजकालच्या या औद्योगिक युगात आपली प्राचीन, देव देवतांनी बांधलेली समृद्धी यांचा विसर आपल्ल्याला पडला आहे याची खंत त्यांना होती. आणि बहुतांश इतिहासकार आणि सर्व धार्मिक लोक याशी सहमत होते. अचानक एक शोध लागला कि एका शहराच्या खाली देव देवतांनी बांधलेली, प्राचीन युगीन भव्य रचना आहे. पण सध्या त्यावर दोन तीन कापड गिरण्या उभ्या आहेत. पण शेवटी धार्मिक लोकांच्या प्रचंड आग्राहस्तव, आणि मोठ्या लोकांच्या आशिर्वादाने, त्या गिरण्या पाडण्यात आल्या. सगळा ढीगरा बाजूला सरल्यात आला आणि उत्खनन सुरू झले. वर्षभर खोदून, त्यांना हजारो वर्षांपूर्वीच्या वस्तू दिसल्या. बरेच सौशोधन करून कळले की हे त्या काळातील एक प्रगत शहर होते. आणि माधवर्ती भागात एक मोठी पुरतं काळातील कपडे निर्मिती करणारी यांत्री होती ते शहर हजारो लोकांचे राहणीमान होत, आणि देशाच्या व्यापाराच एक मूलभूत अंग होत.

हे पुरतं अवशेष पाहून लोकांना धन्य वाटले. आपल्याला लाभलेल्या या वरश्याबाबत लोक खूप अभिमान बाळगू लागले. देश-विदेशातून लोक हा वारसा बघायला यायला लागले, त्याच कौतुक करायला लागले, त्यापासून शिकायला हवे असा म्हणायला लागले. हे अवशेष जगास खूप काही देऊन जातील, असे जनमत बनले.

बाजूला एका झोपडीत आपला काम काढून घेतला कामगार आपला बायका पोरांना घेऊन आपल्या कापड गिरणीच अवशेष पाहत होता.

जर मी दारू प्यायलो तर...

जर मी दारू प्यायलो तर, काय करेन ठाऊक नाही.

उभा राहायचे भान तरी असेल काय, माहित नाही.

लहानपणीच कळले मला, दारू वाईट पेय असते.

तब्येत खराब, घर खराब, जवळच्यांना दूर नेते.

व्यसनापाई पैसा जातो, व्यसनापाई शुद्धी जाते

निष्काम राहून, भांडण होऊन, घरच सारे गहाण पडते.

कॉलेज मध्ये शिकतांना पण, दारूचा जरा आग्रह झाला.

पण मी राहिलो स्थिर, म्हणालो "नाही त्याचा छंद कशाला?"

treat वर कधी गेलो असता, टुन्न होणे झाले नाही.

जर मी दारू प्यायलो तर, काय करेन ठाऊक नाही.

दारू पिऊन, टुन्न होऊन, लोकच कसे बदलून जातात.

कधी गातात, कधी रडतात, आणि कधी हरवून जातात.

काही जरा पचवलेले, तसेच ताजेपण भासवतात.

"मैने तो पिया हि नही", म्हणून प्रचंड भपकारा सोडतात.

आजवर काहींना रस्त्यावरती, उपडा झोपलेलं पाहिलंय.

आणि काहींना खरोखर "गटारात" निद्रादेवी आलीये.

एकास शिक्षा होऊनसुद्धा, दारू सोडणे जमलेच नाही.

जर मी दारू प्यायलो तर, काय करेन ठाऊक नाही.

कॉलेज च्या अखेरी मित्र, दारू पिउन बसले होते

आठवणी उजळत बसले होते, बोलून मोकळे होत होते

कोणी रडत बसले होते, आक्रोश कोणी करीत होते.

कोणी फाजिल बोलत होते, पण मन मोकळे करीत होते.

"जाऊदे, तो पिउन बसलाय", म्हणून लोकही "लाइट" घेत होते.

पण त्या निमित्ताने का होईना, पण मन त्यांचे मांडत होते.

पण अशी मित्रांची गम्मत पाहून, मला मात्र प्रश्न पडला

मनात साचला गाळ कधी, काय मी लोकांसमोर मांडला?

आज असा विचार करतो कि, कधी मनातले बोललोच नाही.

तोंडाला सारखा "फिल्टर" लावून, अर्धे मन कोंडून ठेवी.

भीती वाटते आजही मला, कि लोक काय समजतील.

मनातील सारे बोलून कधी, मलाही काय "लाईट" घेतील?

आजही शपथ आहे माझी, कि दारूला कधी शिवणार नाही.

जमल्यास मरेपर्यंतसुद्धा, पण शपथ माझी अटळ राहील.

पण आज वाटते, जर मी प्यालो, "फिल्टर" काय मी मोडला असता?

माझ्या इच्छा, माझे दुःख, बांध काय मी तोडला असता?

घातला असता कुठे मी राडा, कोणाला शिव्या दिल्या असत्या?

कोणाला बोलून, मोकळे होऊन, प्रश्न कधी सोडवला असता?

पण "जर तर" च सोडून देतो, काय आहे खात्री त्याची...

सध्या इथेच थांबतो...

म्हणतात ना, "झाकली मूठ सव्वा लाखाची"

:)

- अमेय

Charity

Once, I was chatting with my friend. We were chatting for long on the road. Just then, one beggar came along. Said, she was really hungry, and really poor and all. I told her this one thing, "Sorry, I don't do charity". She tried begging once more, but then she understood, that I was not going give any money. So, she left. For once, I felt that I might have had a really bad impression on my friend. "I don't do charity", that's pretty strong statement. For a bachelor like me, earning well enough to buy a gadget per month, it was not economical issue for me, specially when I didn't have any dependents. Even, I thought a bit odd about it.

There was another case. I was going home from Secunderabad station to Aurangabad for Diwali. As was just entering the station when 2 couples came along, each having a kid with them. They looked really scared in a way. They were asking, if anyone knew Hindi, as in Hyderabad, it was quite hard to find. I said, how can I help them. They said they came from Maharashtra, and lost all their stuff while visiting Tirupati. I sensed begging over their, and was ready to turn them down. Still, even I don't like to give money to strangers, I always like to help them. So, I asked them, that would they like to know any address, or how to reach any place etc. But they said, that they are going to return in some train to go back home as soon as possible and their only worry was their kids (both looked like 4-5 years old), who didn't have any food for a day or so. So, they asked me if I could lend them some money. I again tried to back out from that saying same phrase. But here, they were actually asking me for food, not money. As there were lot of fruit stalls and small shops around, I decided to give them some money for biscuits or something. And so I gave them money and left to catch my train.

While in train, I started to think, what was the difference between the 2 situations. Trust me when I say this, I do like to help anyone whenever possible. But somehow, giving money to anyone just makes me anxious and I just have a bad feeling about it. Somehow, I just feel that giving money makes things out of control. I heard and even seen many situations where beggars are millionaires (in Rs.). Also, I thing if anyone is begging for food, or any help, which will directly help him, I should give it to him/her. But when I give money, I dunno what that person is going to do with it. For all I know, from money given for food, he can go and get some alcohol, which will further ruin his life already in poverty. So, I decided this. I'll help anyone by buying things that he needs, or doing some help for him, like showing road, carrying stuff, giving drop at some place etc. Even I am ready to buy a hungry man some food. (In fact, I recently donated blood also :) ) I am not sure whether this approach is right or wrong, but I just feel nice if result of my money which also represents my efforts, should be in my control. Because, such a liquid thing like money, can result in any outcome, which I'll hate to do something which I don't want it to do.

Do pass your comments/ suggestions for this, since this questions keeps bothering me.

Never ending

It was year 2000. Inside a dark lane, a man appeared from nowhere. His name was "mr. Ganesh". After appearing, he had no identity proof with him. But being a born genius, he figured ways to get his identity back. Got a job in a reputed research lab. Meanwhile, he fell in love with this amazing woman called "Riddhi". Somehow she just reminded him of his mother, who died when he was just 8 years old. They fell in love. Got married in year 2005 in court with witness of many friends. A year after, they were blessed with a child. Very sweet and healthy child he was. Being a huge Lord Ganesh's devotee, Riddhi named him "Lambodar". (also the name signified his fatness) This kid turned out to be a genius. Sadly in year 2014, Riddhi and Ganesh died in a car accident. Lambodar was quite interested in physics. He went to research lab at the age of 20 only. He didn't like his name actually, now that he was all slim and all. He changed his name to "Ganesh". at the age of 25, he invented something improbable. "A time machine". After a year, he perfected his design. And set his course for year 2000...

Not so simple problem

There are 2 men.
There is one object that both crave.
It can be taken by only one of them.
They can get the object if and only if they work together.

Question : Will they work for getting this object?

(On a quick note, assume that there is no past affecting this decision. And there is nothing else there that they want or they can get.)

Have fun!!!

Friend or Foe

Imagine this:
You are put up on a very long plane white surface by someone.. say God. You say, "Hello, anyone there?" No one is there to respond. All you see is a place surface with nothing else in it. Even you can't dig into the surface. You are in terrible condition, living in nothingness.
'Twice a day, someone will ask "Are you hungry or are you bored?"
If all in there say hungry, they'll send 1 apple down.
If anyone say bored, they'll say one more human down.'
Now, once you say that you are bored, he'll send some other human there. For now, assume that is of your own sex and you are straight, so no other proposition is solved except someone to talk with.

The question is, will that human be your friend or foe? Remember, whoever comes on this land has the same rights as you have, and will be listened with equal importance. You'll first definitely talk with him like a friend. You are social animal and you need to socialize. So, it is fine to expect that he'll be your friend for a while. Now, again someone asks, "Are you bored or are you hungry?" You both say, "Hungry", since your boredom is gone while chatting. God sends you "a apple" You both are confused. There are 2 of you, but 1 apple. And trust this, you are hungry enough to eat at least one apple.

But rules are the rules. Twice a day, they'll ask "Are you hungry or are you bored?"
If all say hungry, they'll send 1 apple down.
If anyone say bored, they'll say one more human down.

Now, tell me. Will the other human is your friend or foe?

Applying this a little more generically, just makes me wonder, if the war along with humanity is also part of our nature? If it is so, is there a REAL concept called "world peace"?
If these generalization are not that acceptable.. forget about them, just answer the "friend or foe" question.

Have Fun!!!

Game Theory

Laws of Game :
1) First and most important law of a game:
you don't play your best move.... you play the move by which the opponent can do least damage to you.
2) You don't work what you are best at.... you work at what gives the best output to you.
3) You don't speak what you want to speak to others, you speak what gives best return answer from others.
4) You don't wear what feels best to you. You wear what looks best to others or what is most appreciated by others.
5) You don't do anyone a favour for good of people. People's appreciation and return of favour is most important concern.
6) You don't love anyone without getting the same love in return.

Laws of Sport :
1) Play as best as you can. Its about making and braking records.
2) Work what you are best at. You might end up doing something which no one has ever done before.
3) Speak up your mind. Your feelings deserve an expression.
4) Wear what you are comfortable with. Its you who needs to be comfortable.
5) Favours automatically multiply. Do them whenever you can.
6) Love is beautiful. Just go for it.

Life is a game and a sport at the same time.... Sometimes we 'Play Games', sometimes we are 'Sportsmen'.

Dead

I was preparing for NTS interviews once. Sometimes back them , I came across this question. What is the difference between living and non-living? Many speculations were made in our group, like, living things grow, reproduce, eat, think, have mind.. blah blah blah. But then too the questions remained. Cars or Bikes also 'eat' in a way. They consume fuel and perform work. regarding grow and reproduce, how about some automated plants today that create cars without human intervention. About think or have mind, AI is emerging really quickly these days. I am sure it is not the exact kind of intelligence that human mind has. But it has its own benefits, like accuracy or speed. Even our mind has all such linked memories, and memory mappings and all that, which are becoming part of computers these days. But the mentioned things are called 'non-living'. But, we humans call ourselves 'alive' or 'self-motivated'... So, what's the difference.

One of my friend's mother was a physician. She told us one good bookish definition of 'alive'. "One who has death is alive"...... WHOAA... now that makes sense. I never saw any of the non-living things die before. Sure they get repaired and rusted and outdated, but they don't die. So, why 'living' things are the only ones that die? To understand this, I looked closely at the definition of 'death'. Its a kind of irreversible process. Once you are dead, you can't come back. Well, we can repair a computer, a plant, or any engine these days, why not human bodies? Well, that answer came to me from a joke :
"

Mechanic : You are a famous heart surgeon and I am fixing your car's engine. Tell me what's difference between you and me. My engine also needs good care, it pumps power and also fails some times. Then why are you so important and not me?

Surgeon : Try and repair engine while its running and we'll talk about it.

"

Well, the process of body can't be stopped. Cyanide kills our brain for a moment. But that it enough to shut it down permanently. Because, once stopped, these things can't be started. Perhaps it's due to some limitations while making the body so complex. So, many things can be called alive in the same analogy. Like a painting, which after getting ruined by water, not possible to regenerate. But I am sure that a genuine artist can make a replica. Or an engine, which won't work exactly as before after opening it. (Believe me, I have tried it... My friends are still blaming me for their engine failure for a competition :P ) But I am sure that some expert mechanic would be able to correct it.

So, in a way, we just say that things that are so complex that thy can't be reverted are 'alive'. Something that we can't control. Because when we say we control stuff, one part of it is making process reversible. So that you can get back to what it was. So, more control you have, more you get close to making things reversible. In a way, you are making yourself more GODish.

I hope one day will come when this death process will be reversible too. (Just like flying, or automating or curing diseases)

But then, will it mean that we'll be 'non-living'? Think about it.

Matching

In a relationship, there are 'reachers' (who gets partner better that them) and there are 'settlers' (who have to settle for partners). (Refer to HIMYM's latest episod) There are 'perfect match' with highly low probability. But that's not the point. It's what the person in relationship thinks about it. Just a brief survey.

	REACHER	SETTLER
Optimist	Looks at other guys and says... Now see, that's what I call luck. I am the luckiest guy in the world. Not like you s*****s.	That's how I am. I follow my love and I don't care what anyone says. My honey loves me. And that's what counts.
Pessimist	I am a reacher... ohh no. My girl will eat me. She must be thinking of me like a looser and must be seeing others by now....	Now, this is what I got to settle for haan... I could have done much better. Look at that lucky guy. I am stuck.

Contact

Our brain has a random memory. When we perform add or delete operation in it, it does not necessarily do it. In many ways, deleting is kind of impossible. Even finding is difficult lot of times.

Hear this. I had a contact. I deleted it from my phone. I knew its location in my PC, so I deleted it from some terrible-to-find location. I also kept one backup of all my contacts in one of my friends hard disk. I deleted from there too. And after all these efforts, now I want to use that contact and blaming my brain for not remembering it correctly.

Generalization

It is a thing that babies learn after crying once, and see that people attend to you.
It is a thing children learn after crying, to see that people shout at you before you do it.
It is a thing that boys learn not to cry, as it feels embarrassing when some girl laughs.
It is a thing that under-graduates learn to cry, as it helps to convince your profs sometimes.
It is a thing that men learn not to cry, as people dependent on you feel hopeless when you cry first.
It is a thing that old men learn not to cry, as nobody pays any attention towards it.

So, who are you?
baby, child, boy, UG, man or old-man?

3 loves in my life...

I am in 3rd standard, in Parbhani. In my colony, we used to get bicycle rides on rent. My father insisted that I should learn to ride one. Rent was just 3/- per hour. 3-4 weeks on a ground. Was injured for like 5-6 times then. But finally learned to ride one. I didn't have that much height to ride big cycle. But used to try as hard as I can. Sometimes my leg used to go from below the upper rod, or sometimes I used to use only one paddle. But it was fun. My elder cousin sister used to have ladies cycle in Aurangabad, and it didn't have upper rod. Whenever I used to uncle's home, I used to ride that one. Then came 4th standard. It was scholarship exam time. Father as well as my grandpa promised to give me a new cycle if I would come in top 10 in that exam. I topped it and 3 days, after lot of insisting to father, we went to Aurangabad to get a cycle. I waited like crazy for my cycle to get transported. When it was back, it was a dream come true. It was the best cycle I ever had. It was light, fast, and awesome looking HERO RANGER GENERATION X, ATB cycle. I used it till my 10th. Started to go to 7 kms. distant school on that from 9th. After that my brother used that. It is still there at my home. That was my first love.

Well, I was a college student now. Most of my friends got some moped or bike to go to college. I wanted one desperately. I just wanted it for fun. But the reason I gave to my parents was that I had go to college and classes , and it would be hard for me to travel 20-25 odd kms. daily on cycle. Well, as usual my dad gave me challenge before hand only. I got selected for NTS, and still after lot of fight that am I old enough to ride the moped, we finally left to buy a Scooty. I drew 3 different color (red, blue, black) scooty models just for fun. But when I went there, the black model was not available. Owner suggested to just ride one model once and see of it fits. There were few silver colored models there. Somehow they felt like too much attractive. The black plastic and seat part and silver metal part, made it a perfect colored design for me. Then I rode it for like 2-3 mins. Man, that feeling was awesome. Something traveling so smoothly. Especially on a rainy day, the black part would become really dark, and the silver part would shine, making it like a perfect view while leaving home. It was like it was calling me to ride. Its top speed was 60 only. But on the flyover downside, it used to go up to 70. I drove it with as maximum speed as I can. Many of my teachers and even my relatives used to complain to my parents for driving that fast. But I used to let it go full throttle. My love for speed began from there. That was my second love.

And the third one, here it is, I am typing on it right now. My new laptop. I had one in institute as well. But this one was special. I got a new job, and apparantly they didn't give laptop. So, I went to dell website. Completed customized it specially for movies. Got 1920X1080 resolution screen. Awesome experience while watching high definition movies. But the most beautiful part is, when lappy is off, and I just see it opened lid, same silver pad and black screen combo makes it look like the best possible thing. My third love.

Rotation

Have you ever tried to rotate a notebook on a finger? There is a tricky physics that I felt about it. To make sure that it will stay in your hand, you must put your finger under centre. But this won't work forever. Eventually due to fiction force, it will slow down and in the end fall down. For that you need to take your finger a little away from center and give it a rotation. But you have to make sure that the centrifugal force won't throw your finger away from center forever. So, while rotating, you should force your finger towards center. Or else, the notebook will be out of control and fall down.

Easy enough? If words are a little hard, here's the glossary:
rotate : to live
notebook : the world
finger : your action
centre : stability
stay in your hand : keep living (obviously)
forever : forever :)
friction force : boredom
slow down : retire
fall down : the end
little away : change from routine
centrifugal force : butterfly effect of risk
throw : take away
force : inside strength to recover
out of control : out of control :)

Happy reading.... :)