Reflections from Walden Pond

This is more like an after thought than one of my sudden bouts of writing. I had read Thoreau's Walden a few months back which had evoked some difficult issues. Some questions that I have been dying to ask myself, but I didnt have the time to face them. Last night, the family who lives just above my home had a huge fight. The father was practically yelling, no yelling is too small a word, how about this: practically breathing fire down his son's throat - thats more like it - ... down his son's throat to drive him out of his home. There are issues under which this happened, but while trying to drown out that noise I was trying to intently focus on my books and study. I could to a certain extent but later I just got drifted away. 

Every syllable, although incomprehensible evoked a small feeling of derisiveness that, its people and the way they think or perceive reality that drives them crazy and not the circumstances. Lawyers know how to play the circumstance card in the big UNO game of the courtroom - its their wild card. But can all humans play the circumstance card? There is a wonderful mention in this book about how man should never feel self-pity. I dont recall the exact words, but he calls it pretty close to a sin to pity ourselves and our condition. From what I understood is that its not that pitying himself/herself is bad in its own way, its just that we dont want to stand up to our own guilt and accept it - and move on - but rather stand there and think: "why does this always happen to me?"

After all this why do we even bother to worry?

It also led to thoughts of several references to the grinding, grueling effect of the mundane daily existence, which many people, who are creatively inclined (self-diagnosed 'right brain heavy') believe they should get away from. I have noticed so many people shun the idea of day-to-day living for seeking more adventure, blaming the former as a mediocre way to while away our lives. I have begun to wonder, whats not exciting about something so trivial and simple as a mundane life when weekends can be spent in the warm winter sunlight with legs facing north and a book balancing on the tummy? This want for excitement, I believe, also creates a want for belonging to some adventure and not here, not now. Not accepting whats here and appreciating how it got to be that way. There is more materialism (I chose not to use that word, but there are some thoughts that are to be expressed with exact words) in constant thrill seeking than just wanting material happiness through spending more money. This is by no means an excuse for complacency - every adventure has its own time & its own definition for us. 

Thoreau quotes some fellow named Chapman:

"The false society of men - for earthly greatness

All heavenly comforts rarefied to air"

I must admit, this wasnt so obvious at first, but I went back to this line last night to find that there is a constant obsession for some security, although there is no thought given to how to earn this security while having fun at doing so. I also admit, I love the idea of money and what happens to it once it is invested into the right assets for the right (rational) reasons. I also admit, I hate to spend it - doesnt make me a miser in my own eyes (some people do think about me that way) but it surely does allow me to "create" more security for later when I really need it by allocating it wisely right now. Not just allocating it, but having fun while I am at it. I think the sole nature of hating the mundane and the daily stuff of life is only because of the fact that people dont know how to have fun while generating security for themselves. Now Chapman dude feels so correct after thinking through it. There is disheartening realization here that this lack of emotional security while getting more security is turning normal people into savages. I dont think "savages" would suffice, but for clarity it works here.

There is a lack of self-sufficiency. A friend once said to me, that local trains in Mumbai are the classic example of mediocrity - I disputed jokingly that they are the bedrock for opportunity - since we want to get off it as soon as possible so that we could go on with our lives. He refuted. I think there is some merit to what he says that the opportunity that I was talking about also lies in finding a sweet spot inside a crowded train wherein not many people would step on my shoes and I would have that sacred spot to myself. Thoreau says that, " I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion". We put ourselves through all that misery every single morning just to reach where we want to reach to fulfill what we set to do. The idea of homely comfort still beseeches us to find a similar comfort outside our homes. Which makes every single person on the platform including the most mild mannered fellow go wild and slightly aroused as he watches the train approaching. His hands, his feet, his eyes assess complex physical realities to deal with that one ideal flick of his calf and ankle muscles to jump on that train to comfort. What happens when this is multiplied by 100 on just a 6 ft wide door? 

It felt like an hypocrite as I do this every morning, but with less fervor and less risk. I too care for that sweet spot amidst all that testosterone pumped compartment, but I care for my life more to jump on to it. This is my pumpkin it seems. 


Can I do what I love to do, for the rest of my life? Will it make it any more or any less mundane if I choose to do what I love, every single day? I'm still not bored and I don't presume I'd be bored. It then seemed to me like a constant struggle for happiness. This passive hedonism is justified in many ways. Although misery also catches up pretty quickly if there is no choice involved in what course we have to take. I am one of those lucky bastards who does what he enjoys. This also allows me the privilege to filter all thoughts about other activities which I enjoy doing, when I am focused on one. I spoke to many people, who have confessed of being in the wrong jobs, doing something they dont think they want to continue doing - but their reasons were usually material - good hours, good money, "this is my fuck you money", "what else have I got to do?". Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - it works for some, it doesn't for others.


I found it really worth knowing which category of people I fall into - nothing wrong in being either one of those people - to each his own, I believe.






PS: I also realized as I proof-read this - that I need to add a tad bit more humor on my reading pile sooner than later :)

My Reality for me

Exactly one year ago, I wrote -

The old man said,

"People hate reality, people don't like common sense, until age forces it upon them."

It is still true.

I had made a wishlist and it was probably already embedded in my thoughts even before I wrote it down. I dont know how to feel, but I have not been off the mark on my own thoughts. I did all the things on that personal wishlist and I am still doing them.

So this brings me to this year's wishlist - which I am not going to make.

I am really confused by one of my wishes - to empathize more. Which I did and found it rather annoying sometimes when the one's I was trying to empathize with didnt appreciate it and reciprocated rudely. I dont care, but it set a few thoughts in motion. I wonder, why is it that the one tries to understand has the toughest time? Its not a duty or obligation, but its just an openness to different opinions and different ways of looking at the same stuff we go through everyday.

Although it doesn't bother much when I move on to the next thought and get consumed by it, so its hardly anything.

I think there is a sort of optimism or hope (for excuse to my poor vocabulary) about things in general. I have noticed apathy in my behavior with a fine mix with empathy. I dont know what it stands for, but its a new feeling. Maybe its the things happening in my life, a lot of wheels are turning and a lot of activity has suddenly kicked in.

As a last thought to part with this year, I do wish I can use some more time for thinking than stuffing my head with information.

Thinking has never been more fun.... can't have enough of it.

Song for the moment: Eminem - Encore / Curtain Up

No Condition like the Human Condition

As I grew up to what I am today, one thing that I looked back at, was the constant lack of any aspect of me being this (human) animal not being taught to me in detail. The social sciences was the only crooked window into this soul-searcher of an infant being aware of his own existence as a moral animal. Disgusting as this seems now, it took a series of novels and a  dose of nobel literature to drill this point into my head. 'We are humans and we are subjected to the same conditions of existence all over the world.' There are exceptions of course, some of us tame ourselves to the suburban meaning of life, while others break free and suffer scorn of the so called urban intellectuals. 

I know I am being condescending about some of the elements of my own species, but I am not worried of being chased by a lynch mob on this one. They know it already. Literature has been incessantly focused on this difference, even media calling it a very difficult to pronounce (and spell) word: the 'bourgeoisie'

I am not even sure if I like this term. Its not like I care. The human is fun.

The appalling thing I was talking about earlier, about not having been taught about being human and all, well I learned about it a few years back, it was called another idiotic, obvious name: the human condition. I began to wonder why we make things sound so obvious? Why not get out of the bourgeoisie jargon and get on with our sorry little lives and enjoy the finer aspects of language. 'The human condition', it has a serene air of mystique around it. It doesnt allow the audience, the pleasure of knowing what it means, instantly after hearing it. They have to use their PDA's to refer to the wikipedia entry on it. They have to, I mean, there's no way that anyone can possibly make an obvious interpretation out of something that is made to sound so obvious. 

Well thats the catch, its not as obvious as it seems. Its usually polluted by a mine-field of dissertations and intellectual type academicians. They all want to claim that they have somehow contributed to the explanation of what it means to be human. Can you imagine a bunch of zebra's claiming that they are trying to understand, 'what being a zebra actually is?' 

Well, they are doing it, not the zebras, but those solemn intellectual types. They also use fine rim glasses sometimes. [for the record: I gave up my fine rimed glasses in exchange for the new thick rimed glasses, just so I could make that statement with no guilt]. The parenthesis explains yet another face of the human condition, claiming not to belong to a group and yet advocating something similar, but not quite so.


Why now? I was thinking about it in the form of an idea of travelling back in time. Back in time in my mind of course. This is just to re-iterate the experiment of testing what I felt was rational back then, was really rational or not. This whole quest for finding the rationality bug under rug got me to thinking how fragile our sense of understanding is, when it comes to future outcomes of our actions. This makes every decision we make, impulsive. If everything we do is impulsive, then every rational thought is also subject to the same impulse. 


Well, rationality, like the human condition is another of those obvious words without obvious meaning. Its different for everyone. If I believe that I have been rational about some decision of mine, then for some observer, my actions might seem to be cultivated out of some bias. My rationality is my conviction. For an observer, my rationality is a bias towards my world-view.


This was interesting for me, since I noticed I was looking at decisions differently now. If I try to do the right thing for me, it would be frowned upon by some observer since it would lack the same context. The fun part is, we can also have observers running around trying to figure out the exact nature of our actions (posing to be rational). 'Cool' I thought, this is Calvin and Hobbes all over again.


Calvin: "I'm a misunderstood genius.".
Hobbes: "What's misunderstood?"
Calvin: "Nobody thinks I'm a genius."


Song for the moment: The Killers - Human

November Rain

I always wanted to experience that one song, by Guns n Roses, which had such an impact on me as a kid. I loved this song regardless of the fact that I didnt understand its meaning at first. Being with her made me truly learn what it meant. Isnt it proverbial in some way that the year we decide to make it official I get to experience something that I have never had the opportunity for. November Rain. But there is nothing cold about this November Rain.

This is for Puriya: November rain by GnR

When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain
We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain
But lovers always come and lovers always go
An no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away
If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain

Do you need some time...on your own
Do you need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone
I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you

Sometimes I need some time...on my
own Sometimes I need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain, ohhh yeahhh
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain

Gyroscopic Inertia

We master the physics of motion so easily as we grow up, then why is it so difficult for us to master the physics of emotion?

I was standing in the bus fighting its centrifugal force as it made a sharp turn across the road. The sudden jolts when the driver hit the brakes, the sudden pull backs when he accelerated on a miraculously empty patch of road. I felt everything and even before the inertia could make me lose my balance, I controlled my muscles to stay put. I did lose my sense of the center of gravity, but it was easier to balance with just the muscles in my feet.

Some of my recent experiences have taught me so many valuable lessons about having been able to develop my fictional muscles which I can use to control my emotions. I don't know how effectively I would be able to grasp them, but its still fun to flex them nevertheless. Sometimes things just hit me point blank even before I am allowed to realize what I am supposed to think about them. Each of this instance is a test of my instinct, although largely the actions that follow then become the test of my emotions. I do face an inability to perceive what the outcome can be or should be, but I am slowly learning to bridge this gap.

I have been observing people around me, mostly elders and their mannerisms & how they have been handling some of my shared experiences. I must say there was some amount of experience embedded in their actions, although there was mostly that instinctive response that we could expect from someone who would go through it for first time. It taught me something that even after having tonnes of experience in handling such family issues and tackling such situations, there can be an element of surprise (or lack of recall of the action taken earlier). It bothered me when I realized that this could also happen to me as I grow more experienced. In investing, maybe even after learning from some of my mistakes I can eventually endorse to my intuition for guidance at the same time rely on facts to back me up. It may not be in that order & thats where lies the rump.

Indulging in classics helped me grip reality at a whole new level, especially learning from putting myself in their shoes. One thing which is supposed to sound like a management lesson from the 30's is, "Don't try fixin' what aien't broken." Its fun to read this thought, because most of my actions were tending to fix things that "I" perceived to be broken. So if my perception was so strong as to lead me to act when no action was necessary, would this perception drive me to make similar mistakes in my investment decisions?

Yes, some thoughts have haunted me, some have sobered me & some experiences have humbled me beyond recognition. This seems like living in a pinball machine, bobbing around bumping onto experiences to get reward points of knowledge.

Or.... maybe I am reading far too much into my own deluded reality!

Last Chance to See, One more time....

I remember writing about the Carl Sagan book, "The Pale Blue Dot", almost more than a year ago I think. That was one humbling experience traversing the length of space to turn around just one last time to take a look at our mother planet. All that we stand for and care a lot about, is just one small pixel in the peta-tera-giga-pixel picture of the cosmos. Why should we be any more significant then?

I watched the series, "Last Chance to See", specially remade to re-trace Douglas Adams' and Mark Cawardine's journey after 20 years. The book was an immensely satisfying experience, which brought home the message of wild-life conservation out to the mainstream. Its not just another experiment to control populations of obscure species. Several reports  have come after Adams' trip to those places and documenting their experiences in their book, how popular these conservation attempts had become. People sent money, aid and a whole lot of things to facilitate the conservation attempts in one way or another.

This time, Stephen Fry and Mark, go through the same experience along with BBC, to catch up with the conservationalists to check up on those near extinct species. I can't say that I havent been deeply moved by what I got to watch. I remember sprawling on my bed reading through Adams' Last Chance to See, enjoying every moment, every trek, every description in his own quirky and witty manner making it even more enjoyable. I could hardly imagine that someone would want to capture this on a camera and make it into a TV series.

Its the most humbling experience, so much bio-diversity we have around us and we are merely just a tiny blip on the map, yet have such a lasting impact on it. Human intervention and colonization have long introduced extraneous elements onto a landscape and destroyed its ecological balance. Its sobering to realize that some of us do in fact give a damn about it and do enough to care to change the irreversible effects of our encroachment.

The more I write the more it gets diluted, but I want to recount one experience, the very end of the series, the final episode which follows the Blue Whale. Majestic animals, jumbo-jet huge yet with an almost royal elegance, 'fluking' their way towards the abyss. Some of the moments they have captured on tape are breath-taking, almost unreal. I have been raised on discovery channel and NatGeo but never was it so personal. The sheer size of this animal and yet we control if it deserves to live or not, is a gross misstep across our natural boundaries. The song of the humpback whale, almost feels like being trapped in a Sigur Ros song with the Auroras dancing around us.

All this does drive home a point. All the things we humans seek: love, compassion, acceptance, companionship, courtship, kinship and parenthood are all present in this dynamic biodiversity. Yet most of us fail to recognize the deserved gratitude that we must show towards it. 

Nature is only once, the only place we have left to be. This certainly wasn't 'the' last chance to see...

Learning to learn

Charlie Munger, is one of the most famous personalities in the investment world today. He is much more than just a role model. He is an investment manager who has been yawping from the rooftops about the importance of importing ideas from other disciplines into our own discipline or profession.

But much has been said about the benefits of this tendency of interconnecting ideas or principles between disciplines. No one really talks about how to do it. I was really surprised by the lack of or the abundance of pretentious material which dealt with this topic. But nevertheless, I took it upon myself to understand which would be the most efficient way of learning to forge interdisciplinary understanding of things.

After reading about Munger and his approach, it became clearer to me why it was difficult to propagate a standard means to learn how to learn. It's easy to realize that everybody has a different learning pattern. It becomes exceedingly difficult to import someone else's chain of thought if that person isn't in sync with our pattern of thought. It may sound possible ideologically, but it's very difficult to implement practically. But in that case, each and every thought must be difficult to import. But that's not so. Logically it might seem that it's difficult to import thoughts from other people and implement in our own thought process, but intuitively we all thrive on the same hardware for cognition. Awareness can only be converted into actionable thoughts by going over the same concepts in different contexts.

In one of the Annual Shareholder Meetings of Wesco, where Charlie Munger is a Chairman; in his address to shareholders he mentions Alfred North Whitehead who said that "Civilization itself progressed rapidly in terms of GDP when mankind invented the method of invention". I think its a very beautiful thought to carry around. Despite of a ring of entitlement to the statement, it deserves every bit of merit in saying that if I think I can learn in a particular way, that process of learning itself must be imprinted upon the way I approach things. Once I am comfortable with a particular learning process I can very easily use it to learn whatever else I want to learn. Why wasn't this idea so obvious in the way I learned things as a kid? It's a shame I had to spend so much time till I finally came face to face with this thought.

Another thing I found very difficult to understand, but have finally realized it, is that 'extreme loyalty to an ideology or an identity destroys cognition. I can't be restrained by the power or irrefutable logic of some thought or an idea. If I am, then I have a serious handicap in considering any other thought which is not congruent with it. That means I have less opportunity to learn that I can be wrong and face the consequences of being wrong instead of being aware of it and avoiding it.

And finally, I am beginning to wonder why I enjoy refuting my own arguments sometimes when I can very easily stick with them for the rest of my life?

What's wrong with the world?

I always wanted to ask this question, to everyone I knew. As a kid I wasnt really aware of the gravity of what it meant, but it did mean something. It was like having a doubt that there's something stuck in my teeth, while I prod ceaselessly with my tongue, the entire dental length and breadth for the answer. 

I didnt have the tools to ask the question, neither to answer it. I cant claim to have them now either. But I have one small advantage over many. I can say calmly, that yes, there  'might' be something wrong with the world after all. 

Long ago, back in school I had heard of the idea called 'reinventing the wheel'. It probably meant that we shouldnt try to make things all over again which are already made. This is probably the premise of the patent and IPR laws, replicating an invention deserves no credit. This idea works phenomenally well with physical and tangible objects. Nobody will go and reinvent a spoon if a sudden desire to eat arose in a person. But will we go ahead and reinvent the way we live if one decided to live long enough and embrace circumstances?

I have some reason to believe, and this is my theory, that everything there is to know about the human condition, has already been written down. But unfortunately known only by a few. Misery, a concurrent theme in many people's lives (at least I have seen it in the form of insecurity), is long to be known as a serious waste of a precious resource, thought. What good is the human race if it shuns the idea of learning from the past? Where to find this epic body of knowledge which deals with these kind of issues?

I dont like to ask other people what have they learned from a book, or a film, or from an experience. Ok, perhaps I am not so lenient about the experience part, but I dont like to ask the former questions to them. Strictly because nobody knows until they come face to face with that same fact in some other way. Learning then is totally experiential (my theory again). Even learning from what somebody learned from their experience can give volumes of insight only if its described properly. 

So other people who can be a store-house of this knowledge of life (how the wheel was made, so to speak) are a very limited resource for such an experiment. Other resources I found was observing people and films. These two things go hand in hand since they offer a window into the life of someone else. These windows allow me to imagine me on the other side of that window and understand my own responses to those circumstances. Yet the films are not a really good resource, since they only go back a 100 years or so of human existence trying to cope up with something which is 10,000 years old. 

The most efficient resource I found then, were books. Probably books written way back even before my forefathers were born. I found a lot of insight about day to day life and questions about why we do what we do, to have been elaborately described in classics. The most beautiful thing about these classic texts is that they have a unique, dated way of explaining life.  They create that sort of imagery, which would sound ridiculous if not seen in context, which makes it even less appealing when read from an unobservant point of view. Great detail hides in these words, which lead to even more thoughts about more 'why's', more 'what's', more 'how's'.

I finally came to a point of asking myself the question, what's wrong with the world? I dont know, but I know only this that there is a total disregard of the ancient written word with people living nowadays. Not many really want to put themselves through the pains to understand how life had been lived and how todays questions of insecurity had already been solved eons ago. Whose job is it? Should we take it upon ourselves to learn these things or should some medium be present to propagate these ideas, once again.

I personally prefer the first option, taking it upon ourselves. There's nothing better than a realization that happened to me than to some other person. The amount of responsiveness I'd develop would not be matched by the latter. Another medium, I found so gladly lacking the adequate machinery ( a receptive mind ) is the schooling system. American military, perhaps had a saying, "Get'em young!" The same applies here. Any reasonably sound person will understand that a child's mind is the most receptive of all. If only they could open our Veda's and other ancient scriptures to the minds of these kids, we could save a lot of generations from the same old misery of the mundane.

I agree with what Thoreau had to say about this: 

"No wonder Alexander carried Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. Its something more intimate to us than any other work of art. Its the work of art nearest to life........The symbol of an ancient man's thought becomes a modern's man's speech."

What's wrong with the world then? - We're probably not paying enough attention.

Song for the moment: John Mayer - Waiting on the World to Change

Found it, have I?

I was stirred by a simple realization that, how do I cultivate myself in this vast variety of influences? Henry David Thoreau said, "Every man is the builder of a temple called his body".

Murakami's book on running rewired me (What I Talk About, When I Talk About Running). It recharged a part of my brain which was already aware of these thoughts but had somehow sidestepped it for a want of better clarity. I was trying to grapple things too quickly which was only resulting into disappointment in failing to grasp them completely. For want of a better understanding, I was standing in the shadow of giants in my field, trying to import small portions of their wisdom. They had been momentous in their achievements and complete in their own way, perhaps. Their achievements were an outcome of decades worth of incessant practice of their art. I thought, yes, work then becomes art when you tap your abstract to get the next insight. If not, what good is the brain if we are hoping for just mechanical outcomes? Even a machine can do that.

I have always believed that changes are hard to come by. It requires some special gene in us, which will help us to biologically embrace change, thats what I felt (sarcastically, of course). But I have incorporated some changes for good. I have started changing things in my lifestyle, which were holding me back from doing what was really necessary. One of the major changes I had started some 2 years back, was to quit watching TV. This has resulted into a lot of free time and also helped me seek quality entertainment options rather than watching some drab stuff. This made me realize that when I have free time suddenly pumped into the system, I don't know what to do with it exactly. So I started exploring and found my true calling.

One thing I had learned that evening, when I read pages 76-77 in Murakami's book, was a blinding flash of the obvious. This was something I had known and had believed in for a long time. He mentions about the three most important things for becoming a successful writer (success not by just being a best seller, but being a novelist). He latches onto; Talent, Focus and Endurance. Too many motivational books also describe these as some of the most important factors in becoming good at something, but there was a difference. He said that Talent is abstract, but focus and endurance are more definite. I wondered why this thought was so important out of all the things that I have personally understood. It dawned on me that focus and endurance were the most undervalued aspects of my activities. I appreciated focus and endurance, but I took them for granted as a part of my nature.

But in spite of all the talent, focus and endurance I might have, can I assure a favorable result? What would I get, if I got to know the result? Its like staring at a crystal ball, the ball's guess is as good as mine. I have been reading about the idea of process v/s outcome in almost all books on investing. How developing a process is more important than just having our eye's on the prize. I love this thought, it allows me a lot of freedom to squeeze out all I have, to test it against the logic of my actions & then sit back and watch how it works. Tinkering, Tinkering & more Tinkering.

Alone!

They laid on their backs, staring intently at the clear night sky hoping to witness ‘a’ stellar movement, any stellar movement. Of course they were 8 years old & wishing for the stars. But the innocence in their wish almost made the universe transpire that event.

Remo had just finished reading a sci-fi story about how humans meet with aliens after a long, deliberate struggle to find if there is life in the universe. The story captured the essence of mankind’s dream to find the answer to that question, ‘Are we alone?’ He had also enjoyed the story of Carl Sagan’s Contact, which his dad read to him, about an astronomer who decodes an alien signal & also gets to go on a journey to meet with them. This sort of imagery always fascinated him. He couldn’t fathom the fact that this sort of thing isn’t already happening. After all the advancement he knew & read about, it seemed so odd that there hasn’t been any contact with any extraterrestrial species yet. He had almost started to believe that the enormity of space is wasted if there is no one else to share it with.

Dex had heard his friend out, patiently, all the while when he had voiced his concerns about ‘we’ being alone in the universe & had shown a slight distaste for Remo’s penchant for desperately trying to find some other species out there. He had never given a second thought to it, although he was extremely curious himself to figure how the answer would turn out to be. He even scribbled pictures of alien encounters & drew large bug sized creatures communicating with the humans. He had an elaborate idea for a comic strip, but not enough punch to believe in it himself.

Dex was one of those odd little 8 year olds who knew that there was something wrong with the equation. Something didn’t make sense. He had been learning in school about the history of the world, the animal kingdom & how animals have been living with the humans since millions of years & so on. All this seemed very peculiar to his mind. He always believed it to be very obvious that when humans meet another species from outer space, it would be the same like meeting a totally new species of animals or plants or other humans out here on Earth. What would we do when we finally meet them?

Hollywood had too many scary answers & he spun out all the DVD’s to find a sensible solution. None emerged. Not equipped to understand the human condition, he was thinking purely from the world eye view of a novice, juvenile, yet dangerously curious observer. Almost with a scientist’s skepticism for the mystical, he realized that why would someone want to travel all the way, spending so much effort just to see if there’s anybody else out there? Isn’t it peculiar that the transit must pay for itself?

Remo objected, “What fuel are you using?”

Dex was caught by surprise. He hadn’t thought about it. If it’s cheap enough to make the trip, the answer becomes worth knowing. But Dex went to a different line of thought.

“Hey Rim! Do you think we are alone for a reason?”

“What!!!?” Remo jumped back, almost sitting upright on this ridiculous remark.

“No, no listen!” exclaimed Dex.

He asked Remo to be patient, his eyes oozed of grave doubt & uncertainty over his logic, yet he showed a different determination on his face. Remo sensed a whopper coming. Dex was never this serious, unless he had a really good argument, he knew from experience.

“Look at it this way, Miss D from our school, you know; she lives alone, ok?” asked Dex.

Remo nodded in silence, waiting for the punch-line.

“I heard when she was talking to my mom one day that, she thinks she’s going to be alone for the rest of her life”, said Dex.

Remo was still waiting.

“But you see Rim, she has so many people around her, which she seems to not notice”, Dex was really concerned.

“She thinks she is alone, because she wants to believe it.” Remo finally moved some cheek muscles, but with enormous effort, “But what do you mean? Why we are alone in the universe has nothing to do with why Miss D thinks she is alone.”

Dex grinned. “Yes there is.”

Dex jumped back after an extra second’s pause.

“We are so used to finding ourselves alone ever since we are looking at the stars, so like Miss D, we might have gotten to believe that there is no one out there. Maybe our need to find someone isn’t great enough to actually go & find someone.”

Remo gave a hearty laugh. “What about all the space missions?” asked Remo.

“What fuel are you using?” Dex asked with smug delight.

“Ok, I get you. You think to find something quicker we need to use different means to find it, not the same one’s which match our needs here on Earth?” Remo crystallized it.

“Yuuuppp!” Dex pursed his lips, but not with the final word.

“You know what worries me Rim, I think we might be living in an illusion of being alone.” Dex came back with another one.

“Ok, What?” Remo had his smug moment now.

“I think we have been found already, we just don’t know it yet, since no one has made any announcements to us through the media that we use”, Dex did have a point.

“You mean we have already got what we want to know, we just don’t know how to read it?” Remo was back with one of his clarifying tones.

“Yuuppp!”

“Wow! I’d have never thought of this”, Remo frowned with a tinge of curiosity.

“But Dex!!!” Remo called back in a hurry, this time he actually got up.“But, if, we have already been found, then what do you think are those species thinking about us? I mean, we have such old technology which clearly can’t even know that they are talking to us, what would they think of us?” A small ball of sweat rolled off Remo’s brow.

“Slaves?” Dex came back with the most obvious HOLLYWOOD solution to Remo’s ingenious question.

“What!!” Remo was furious. “I won’t be a slave to some slimy creature just because he can travel all the way to my home planet. I don't want to be no slave to a Columbus.”

A lightning bolt struck in Dex’s tiny brain. “That’s what we would have done.”

Remo booed off the idea, “No way! No way at all. We would be much nicer to them & we would learn their technology, their culture, their lifestyle, everything about them. We would never make them our slaves. Never ever.”

After a dramatic pause, Dex came into the spotlight of the argument. “Even when we know that they would be defenseless to our technology, we would still want them to be our friends or worse; would we still treat them with respect?”

“Yes! Why not! They are surviving the same harsh space as we are, they deserve the same credit of free existence as we do”, Remo raged forward again. He almost resembled his dad.

Dex frowned now, “look at most of the species here Rim, look at them real hard. Who do you think is their boss?”

“Mother Nature ofcourse” came back Remo.

“I wish it was that easy. We read about the Aztecs right? What happened to them? Some conquistador came in & destroyed their culture, they had primitive technology & they refused to give in.” Dex recounted history. “Look at all the animals; we use most of them as our food, as our slaves, as our pets, just because they can’t revolt.”

“But they can revolt” Remo had a point. “Why? Do you think animals are dumb?”

“No Rim” Dex reasoned, “I think some of them like the idea of ‘life’ instead of a ‘struggling life’. They get food, place to live.”

A tiny glimmer of insight was being forged in the fires of Dex’s mind. He was finally coming face to face with the human condition, thinking beyond his ability to pursue such a thought. He was, as we know it, at the brink of a moral, philosophical revelation. This was Dex’s stellar movement. The universe has ears which listen farther than we can imagine they could listen.

Their hearts pounded in their ribs. They thought about everything in one second. All life on Earth would be a meaningless existence if it would be found by any other species, before we find some other species. All those years spent in research to find something more, something better, this ever evolving technology would vaporize in a puff of slavery, as we are ill-equipped for an inter stellar struggle for our freedom. What fuel would we use?

Man’s penchant for tinkering renders it impossible for him to stay put & always throws him at crossroads of an explorative journey, just to know what else he might find out there. Are we using it right?

Football

This world is full of people who don't think like I do, thought he. He was looking out through the window of his desolate room at the kids playing football in the yard. They passed the ball to each of their buddies hoping that they would carry the ball and maneuver it to its ultimate becoming, the goal. He wondered how a simple sport like football can teach these kids so many lessons about life and having goals, that these kids will not realize even if they read 100's of books and consult their parents an equal amount of time. The ball's only 'goal' is to reach the goal post, all these players are mere an incidental force focusing that ball's desire to reach it. There will  be obstacles in the way, there would be forces that would want to stop the ball and steer it into some other direction, but the ball must persist amidst all these influences, to reach its goal.

How flawed is then, our sense of control, when all the ball has to do is wait for the influence from the players who will reshape its direction at every kick? Control is an illusion which the ball can afford to exert onto itself, thinking that it might only move to its goal if it could remain inflated throughout the journey. It must not allow these forces to deflate its enthusiasm.

What a sorry state to be in? We all believe that we control our goals and take requisite actions to reach them, but all this time, our directions to reach those goals are being shaped and reshaped by several external forces, which may or may not want us to pursue that direction. The ball's story, is a constant fight for direction, its round shape doesn't help at all, it bounces off these forces to eventually realize that its internal compass hasnt been working for a long time and it's being driven to its destination.

What then are my goal posts? How many do I have? Which forces will stop me from reaching each of these? When will I be kicked in some other direction and when will some other force kick me back to my track? The ball only anticipates, expecting jolt after jolt of passive movement in some direction or the other. But there is one thing, the ball doesn't realize, the Earth is round. Being on a round surface  it always rolls off into some new direction, wherever the slope might take it. That's the advantage the ball should think of,  the price to pay for constant movement, is a directionless motion devoid of influences. For without an influence, no goals could be reached.

The only consolation the ball has is to make sure that it is kicked around by really good forces. Forces that wouldn't allow the ball to reach any other goals, but the ones desired.