The Wind Beneath My Wings

Some days I feel this feeling of time rushing by me, as a heavy wind, instead of leaves floating by, there are achievement and events in other peoples lives, the wind is heavy, and I feel helpless, I am neither directing my sails, nor am I fighting it. I feel time pass by me, I feel this desire to do something, achieve something, create soemthing, get a name for myself, be famous. I get ths urge to radically alter my useless existence, I feel the need to achieve the extacy of achievement.
The futility of my present life hits me hard on my face and I pity myself for allowing myself to wallow in the dirt, aim high aim high I tell myself. My fingers tingle, my heart beats faster thinking I will do something impulsively, changing my sails, or spread my wings and fly away fly high and far, soar with the wind beneath my wings. The idea that I could do something great enthuses me, I dont know where to start, there are so many options, I could be a great muscician, I could win the pulitzer, I could create a new revolutionary piece of software, I could I could, I start thinking making plans, So many places to start, I start on one, write a paragraph for my pulitzer book, write a note for my new idea, write aline of code for that amazing software, research on the music software wow I am coasting, and then I dream the adulation that is awaiting, I can feel the claps, the hurrahhs and and .... and then as if that was all I needed, the dream of adulation, the wind calms down, everything calms down and I get back to the normal humdrum of life.

The value of a clean conscience

I think a clean conscience is the essential prerequisite for a peaceful mind. By peace of mind I mean the ability to sleep well without dreams, the ability to concentrate, and more important to empty the mind of all thoughts and have a calm empty mind, as if it is resting. I have done a few things against my conscience, and they have always haunted me, to the point of depression, to the point of wanting to drill holes in my head to cull out those remoreseful thoughts. I wish sometimes it were as easy as that, lesson learnt, please leave the lesson and erase the slate, I need a fresh beginning. It is never possible though.

A simple life, preceeds a peaceful life, no I take that back. A truthful life preceeds a peaceful life, its not the lack of doing but rather the act of doing things right that is important. There is a saying "you can get peace and hapiness from being at the lower end of a ladder, but not the extacy of achievement" In as much as I believe in that, I think a safe conscience preceeds all in being the basic requirement for anything to do with happiness or peace.

Can the conscience be something bio-chemical, considering how feeling bad, good etc are all chemical reactions in our body the conscience has to be a complex bio-chemical reaction. A state triggered off by certain chemicals that get released when the nurons have a certain configuration. Also can we control this chemical, that would be interesting. This is what we will have to simulate if we are to create machines with emotions.

Everybodies limits are different, its like saying whats the least count of a conscience, and then the quesion arises, how does it get set, and how does it change over time. How can some commit a murder and still sleep and other tell and lie and have nightmares. When does this least count get set and how, is it in the genes, is it from practice and does it vary based on past experiences and exposures.

How come other animals dont have conscience, a lion doesnt feel bad that it ate the deer, well that a wrong analogy, maybe the lion does feel bad that it killed a deer when it wasnt hungry, if you notice animals only kill when there is a need, they dont kill for pleasure, hence they have a clean conscience. Maybe this conscience is something behaviorial, something we created ourselves, a human started crying and shouted ouch I am bleeding, and someone said, you are not bleeding, those are tears and those came out because you are feeling sad.

What ever it is, we are stuck with it, and trust me, a clean one is the essential ingredient for a peaceful mind, I keep telling myself I am going to keep a cleanconscience and then I go and do something stupid and it basically leaves a scar for life. The effects of the scar stay on for ever, though they thankfully dull over time, but we do keep getting visits from the demons in our closet, reminding us about how we have been.

Can the conscience be killed, is it a good policeman. Considering its an afterfact, rather than a warning during the act its not a good policeman. We need to design a better crime punishment scenario, if the basis for punishment is to prevent people from performing crimes, then it isnt serving its purpose, as people keep commiting crimes. Only a person who has been punished might remember what punishment is and might shy away from doing it, but a person who hasnt been punished, i.e. the first time criminal, there is nothing to stop him. Similarly the conscience, instead of kicking in, should give a taste of the act before the act, maybe thats a more rational approach to designing humans, something that never happened. We do not completely thing the results of our actions, there is not if then flow chart, adarsh if you do this you will be ok, otherwise there will be many sleepless nights and tears every time you see a long letter.

It will be interesting to analyze crime and punishment someday, i will do so sometime

Half life of Prejudice

Radioactive Half Life: the time required for a quantity of a radioisotpe to decay by half.

My theory is that the half life of any prejudice, be it race, colour, caste creed, sex, anything, is one generation. The prejudice doesnt just die away with time, it needs a generation to halve its following. With each generation the prejudice decreases by half, untill it becomes miniscule. That doesnt mean that it will ever disappear, traces of it will always be present, come what time, but it will decrease until maybe the least count of prejudice, being one human being is reached.

Take women in worplace for example. In our parents generation, women in the workplace were scarce, or rather they had to fight their way in a male dominated society. They had to work harder to be recognized, they were passed over, they were looked upon as weak etc. compare that to a generation earlier where they wernt even allowed into the work force, a women was supposed to clean the house and cook food.
One generation they are confined to the house, come next generation , they faught for a place in a prejudiced society, and then comes our generation where I see women are treated almost equal, atleast among our generation. When some top executive says today the she still faces prejudice, take it with a pinch of realization that at her level she is still dealing with people from her generation, a generation that grew up with that prejudice level, one should not generalize that, as the state of the union today. She is still fighting with her generationa and will always be, its not the state of top officials but rather the workhorses of todays generation or rather the youth which determines the status of a prejudice.

Just as even after disintegration takes place in radiation, there are always lingering atoms, so there will always be lingering prejudiced people, but the general half life is a generation, hence the number keeps halving each time until it disappears, ,
The same thing goes with blacks, castes, religion, creed, jews etc......

Who's war is the US fighting

Reading about all the casualties in the war, the push towards falluliah, I am now thinking as to whose war is the US fighting. In the sense that its no longer against Saddam, its no longer terrorists, the US is now fighting insurgent from the US occupation of Iraq. These people woudnt have taken up arms, but for the occupation of Iraq by the US. Its as if the US army has created a bunch of so called terrorists to support its existence.

I feel sorry for the people of Iraq, they seemed to be ok taking care of business limping back to normal as Saddam ruled them, and then the US came and all thats left is an shattered coutnry, dead people everywhere, an economic mess and no end to this terrible plague. Dont take me wrong, I dont say they were better off with Saddam, but Iraq was getting back to some semblance of normalcy after Iran - IRaq war, Kuwait conflict etc. Getting back to normal is a slow process, not a hold elections and solve all problems one.

The best thing the Iraqi people can do is something like a non voilent or civil disobedience movement, thus negating the US claims of subvertist activities. They should bide their time, and then resolve their differences by themselves. This war being faught on their land will destroy them, come what may, who ever wins, Iraq would have lost. I know its difficult to swallow pride, but in lieu of the greater good of everybody they should go back to a peaceful existence, like an old indian saying, till the foreigners are driven out we shall place an united front, once they are gone we will fight among ourselves, only people who can harm us will be ourselves, but we will never allow a foreigner split us.

The US has taken on a war without any end in sight, I think its better for them to withdraw too, they did what they said they wanted, cleaned up the bad regime, and started a democratic process, but its beyond their agenda to ensure a country runs according the their mandate. But the reasons they actually went to war in Iraq are different, it wasnt Saddam, it wasnt terrorists so i think they will stay put for a long time to come.

Education an Investment

Isnt it sad that nowadays education is regarded as an investment than a means to pursue knowledge. Its all about calculating i will miss y$ for x years, but will make it up with z$ after n years. Its no longer about free spirited learning, research, love of knowledge thing. Its all about getting through mid terms and grades, job search and interships, bah thats ridiculous.
Education is also so expensive, especially in the US, again even the universoty sees it as an investment being made by the student, ofcourse the university ahs to make a living, computers and teachers and equipment need money, and we havent yet reached a point in our civilization where education is free.
I think that, that will be the goal for the future, if technology, can get us to a stage where man doesnt need to work to be alive, and can study till when ever he or she wants, something like, people stay in school till they are 30 or so, learning, experimenting and so on, furthering knowledge, that will see the greatest progress of mankind. I hope technology can get us to the point where we needent work for the bare necessities, enough food for everyone, and we can be left to pursue our higher ideals.
anyhow another question that arises in my mind is does society value and degree or does it value knowledge, is that the reason why people want to get a degree in something, my hypothesis is if i spend time reading and learning up on a subject I will be better off than going to school for that piece of knowledge. the school is a structured environment, it is supposed to give a foundation, it is supposed to direct you on what you should do, i think a school should have a curriculum, an open curriculum, and let the student study by themselves, and professors should be there to provide as soundboards and moderators of discussions, no knowledge can be achieved in silos, it is through discussion alone that we refine our thoughts and turn information into knowledge.
I think I am going to follow this idea, in my pursuit of knowledge of biotechnology.....
soemtimes i think it might be born out of my inate fear of exams, fear of failure, its so easy to learn something without any pressure of any exam or need to provide proof that one has learnt it. well thats for another pschological study some other day

If Time were the 4th Dimension

Here is a possibility with time as the fourth dimension.
We all are familiar with 3 dimensions, X,Y and Z; Time is believed to be the 4th dimension. If that is true then we can keep X,Y,Z the same and change time, just as we can keep X,Y the same and change Z by moving on the Z axis. It would then be possible to keep X,Y,Z the same and move time, and if that were true then there can exist a parallel world along with us, and we would never know, as our time is changing at a different rate than theirs. So a parallel earth exists not anywhere, but with us, our atoms might be the part of another thing living or non living and by some quirk the two worlds might meet, this will be an awesome sci fi story.

I started thinking, a dream, might qualify as a time dimension movement, x,y,z remain the same but time moves, well not exactly true, but xyz with respect to our body remain the same but all other xyz and time move. Maybe thats why we have dreams as we are unconsciously part of another living being too, or non living if we dont have dreams hahaha.