Category: Thoughts uncut

The Curiosity Factor; what’s wrong with not knowing?

I am not curious.

Yeah, I don’t care who killed that random person walking on the street. By the way, which person are we talking about anyway? Random street killings happen everyday. Try keeping a track of those for about 15 years, after which they convict the wrong person.

Isn’t it better to not be bothered about the how the once-great society turned to the sewers? Just forget about people killing each other. Don’t worry about it until you get killed, but then again, you would be killed, so why worry?

We’re all going to die. We would either die early or late. So what matters if one person drowned and another was shot? They just died, that’s it. It’s a perfectly natural thing to do. (even if the cause maybe quite otherwise) Why bother when you can’t do anything about it?

The next thing is the news. People ask me, “Have you heard the news? It’s all over the papers.” Hey! If it’s all over the papers, then why ask me? Go read the paper. I am just not interested in the unlimited things that happen everyday. They are going to happen regardless of the number of people who know about it.

Give me proof that rapes and murder cases have declined, just because a few thousand people are discussing it, then I’ll consider knowing, or even talking about it.

Until then, I’m better off without knowing current events. In fact, knowing the news of how many people actually die falling into open sewer passages isn’t going to make me cautious. Instead, it will only arouse fear. It’s going to make me this fearful person, who couldn’t dare to step out of the front porch because she was afraid that she would fall into a ditch.

Trust me, fear is worse, far worse than an ugly death. Death is heavenly. It’s this amazing thing that happens where you are, all of a sudden, freed from all of those factors binding you to earth . But people fear Death. As if you could evade Him (or Her, (I never thought of it that way!)) forever. It’s quite amusing to see the uncanny ability of us humans to gravitate towards the things that make us miserable.

Being “aware” of all the pathos is only going to hamper our ability to appreciate our lives, and by the time we do, it would be too late. We’ll never be younger folks — as far as I know!

Halfway Through Realizing a Dream

I’ve heard a lot of people talking a lot about the blissful feeling of achieving your dream, but let me tell you, it’s absolutely no use of listening to it until you do it yourself. Do I make sense? Blurry, right?

Well, here’s what I’m trying to say. People told me that when the joy you get when you fulfill your dreams is matched by nothing. I now realize the truth in those words. It’s one thing to watch, from the sidelines, at someone who goes out there and realizes their dreams, but it’s another thing altogether when you are looking at yourself one morning,  fully contented at having made your dream come true.

I’m just trying to say that I’m half way through my first attempt at a novel.

Yeah, it was a dream. Not any more; now it’s my reality. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month wondering if I could prove to myself that I could become the author I always wanted to be. Half way through the month, I have a satisfaction that I’ve never before had in my life. This is the most I’ve ever written in my life for a novel. There were countless beginnings, but I had never gone past three chapters, at the maximum. Now though, I’ve completed thirty chapters. Wow, I never knew I could surprise myself so much!

I’m on my way, 30 000 done, 20 000 more. Here I come!

PS: I know I didn’t have to write 250+ words to say that I’m  NaNoWriMo participant, but hey, this is the month of words!

The Last Lecture

“Take Time Out. It’s not a real vacation if you’re reading email or calling in for messages.”

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

While reading the book, there was only one thought in my mind. How the hell did a programming nerd (yeah, that he was) have such an interesting way of thought?

I know a lot of programmers, the nerdy people whose world is made of directories and variables. There are exceptions everywhere, yes, but I have seen programmers who are so immersed in what they do, that they have made it their life. They’re the classical thinkers; the impassive people.

For a romantic thinker like myself, they appear dull, and I’ve seen the shocked look they give me when I tell them coding is boring. They look at me like I have no interest in life. To quote another person, you know you are a romantic thinker when, “you give more importance to feelings and less to facts.”

But that’s the way we think of each other.

Getting back to The Last Lecture, this Randy Pausch was such a classical thinker, except for the craving for fun. He was a nerd, a computer scientist and a professor. And from what I could discern, he was good at what he did.

Before writing this, I went through the reviews of the book and the lecture on Goodreads. There were a lot of people who gave four or five stars for the book. But, there were some who rated it one or two. There was such a contradiction and wondering why, I concluded, sometimes it’s arguable that one takes a view of life as Randy had, when he is counting his time. I don’t care though. Dying or not, the book has some very valuable thoughts. There is no guaranteeing that it would work for everyone, but it sure did for Randy, and considering that the lecture and the book was his message for his kids, I would say that Randy has succeeded in leaving a legendary legacy behind.

This book greatly reminded me of a similar story I read sometime back. A story of a dying professor – a story about living, in the words of a student. This, on the other hand, is a narrative from the professor himself, about the way he lived life and his regret of not being able to be a father.

It’s ironical that he practically raised his sister’s children and so many other students, but not his own children. That’s the sad part; that you were reading words of a dying person who prepared for his last lecture instead of spending his little time with children who would hardly remember him in future.

The book was the written form of his lecture. I watched the lecture too and Randy was careful to avoid topics that would make him emotional. He was just joking around, like he was trying to make an interesting class out of a dull one.

As a lot of people would say, the book was bound to have pathos spilled all over. It was, yes, it’s a pity to realize that the man who had such unique views is no longer living.

It’s quite similar to what I felt when I read Tuesdays with Morrie; I wish I had had a teacher like that. Two teachers; two conditions; two very different attitudes; both wonderful!

Life Is What You Make It

“If you have not made somebody’s day happier, if you’ve not appreciated something good that has happened to you and if you have not felt thankful to be alive, then you have wasted that day of your life on earth!”

~Preeti Shenoy, Life Is What You Make It

Alright, before I start about the book, let me just declare that I can’t tolerate love stories. Surprised? Yeah, I get that a lot.

Bleeding hearts, love letters, sleepless nights, butterflies and all the other insane things people relate to love – I hate them all. Particularly when the author takes up multiple pages describing how blissfully painful the sensation is.

I totally hate when simple events are exaggerated. Oh, I can’t stand to read how people in love, trip over something as tiny as a pencil and break their leg! Love isn’t about such mindlessness and I dislike it when authors illustrate it so.

Having said that, I was a bit tentative about reading the book. Knowing it was a love story, I had evaded the book for some time now. It was only when I held the book and read the description on the cover that I realized that the story addressed a bigger issue; a disease bigger than unrequited love; Bipolar Disorder.

I so wanted to read the book after that! 

I wasn’t new to the condition; I’ve read blogs of people who are bipolar, and a few other articles too.

So the adventure began. It kept me awake through the night, and that doesn’t happen often, in the case of books that is.

I’m not into reviews, so here’s the story in short. It’s the life of an Indian girl, whose ambition penetrates her love story. She is the brightest student in her MBA batch, until she starts showing signs of bipolar disorder. With her recovery, ends the story.

I only felt that the learning-to-manage-without-medication process was too quick to be true. It is a lengthy process, as I understand, but it seemed simple in the book.

Bipolar Disorder seems to have a simple solution, and trivial matters, like trusting the “weird sisters“, end up tragic. Maybe that’s the queer thing about the written word. But that’s a topic for another time.

Another Face of Poetry

I am utterly surprised at how useful Quora is. I love poetry, and though I may not be the greatest of amateur poets, I enjoy the company of good poetry. It was all thanks to Quora that I discovered this new form of poetry, (OK, it’s not entirely new; it’s just so to my knowledge. (Though that reminds me to be a bit more mindful of the things that interest me. #NoteToSelf)) that they call ‘Spoken Word Poetry’.

I’ve heard poets narrate their works, but this is different. It’s not about narrating a poem that fits on a paper so well; this, is something that cannot be recorded (and is ineffective) on paper. It’s the ultimate power of speech merged with the art of poetry. A little bit of digging into the topic made me realize that it is indeed a long-existent form of poetry and that it is I who was stuck in the medieval age.

I must say that I enjoy this form, as much as I appreciate the written form. (Though I have to admit, nothing beats the smell of print (fresh or old) on paper!))

For your auditory pleasure, here’s Sarah Kay, delivering her poem “If I should have a daughter” on TED Talks. (The poem is only a segment of her speech.)

Enjoy!