Self Appraisal

Got something very interesting in the mail today :

A little boy went into a drug store, reached for a soda carton and pulled it over to the telephone.

He climbed onto the carton so that he could reach the buttons on the phone and proceeded to punch in seven digits.

The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation:

The boy asked, "Lady, Can you give me the job of cutting your lawn?

The woman replied, "I already have someone to cut my lawn."

"Lady, I will cut your lawn for half the price of the person who cuts your lawn now." replied the boy.

The woman responded that she was very satisfied with the person who was presently cutting her lawn.

The little boy found more perseverance and offered - "Lady, I'll even sweep your curb and your sidewalk, so on Sunday you will have the prettiest lawn in all of North Palm beach, Florida."

Again the woman answered in the negative. With a smile on his face, the little boy replaced the receiver.

The store-owner, who was listening to all this, walked over to the boy and said, "Son... I like your attitude; I like that positive spirit and would like
to offer you a job."

The little boy replied, "No thanks, I was just checking my performance and the job I already have.I am the one who is working for that lady I was talking to!!"

Are we also so sure about our self-appraisal.....???

Book Fever

Have been infected with the Book Meme virus courtesy Johnny Boy. Neglected books for a long time now....Here goes...

Total Number Of Books I Own :
Around 200. But my main source in this regard has always been my uncle - he's got me the books perfect for my age ever since I could read....He's got more books than most libraries - over 10,000 I'd say. He's stocked his house with them....got 8 cupboards (big ones...) filled with them!!

Last Book I Bought :
'The Lord Of The Rings' trilogy. Truly a classic :-)

Last Book I Read :
'The Dancing Wu Li Masters' by Gary Zukav. It's a book which tries to explain modern physics - it does so quite successfully. It is written so that even a person who has never been introduced to physics in his entire life would comprehend most of the stuff.....

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me :

Anything By P. G. Wodehouse : No, P. G. Wodehouse never wrote a book titled 'Anything'. But the man had such a great writing style - he always manages to get me in splits!! His Jeeves series, Psmith......his early works and short stories like 'The Golden Bat' - I find all of them extremely funny!!

The Lord Of The Rings : The creatures, the setting, the entire world created by Tolkein reeks of genius....The book is the grandest one I have ever read!!

Sherlock Holmes : No two ways about it - Conan Doyle was a genius!! Every Sherlock Holmes story is a masterpiece. I remember that I would come up with insane 'deductions' for a couple of days after reading Sherlock Holmes.

When my brother would return on Saturday night, for example, I would go - You have been to Fire and Ice (a disco). It was a group of 6 people. One of them had medium length straight hair, wore a black shirt, and was left handed....At least one of the girls carried a black handbag (this has a very good chance of being correct!!), had a Nokia 3315 etc etc....Sherlock Holmes does this to you!! And that is why it is such a great piece of work!!

I believe Edgar Allan Poe had a character similar to Holmes in one of his stories - he was a policeman, and he had an assistant similar to Dr. Watson. His analytical ability, and method of working was strikingly similar to that of Holmes....I do not recall the name of the story, but it dealt with a killer ape.....

Allan Poe's story was long before Holmes......there was another character which reminded me of Holmes - Byomkesh Bakshi - one of my friends (I am tagging him) has written a nice post comparing Holmes and Byomkesh in his blog...

The Dancing Wu Li Masters : I do not know whether it is because of my love for physics, or the simple and lucid writing style - but one thing is certain - this is one of my all time favourite books.

Comics : I am doing them a grave injustice by slotting all of them under one head.....Phantom, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Archie, Richie Rich.....who hasn't read them?? They sure 'mean a lot to me' :-)

Tag Five People And Have Them Do This On Their Blog :

Ted
Syco
Vijay
Sriram
Samrat

Religion

I would like to clarify that I do not intend to hurt the sentiments of anyone.....the topic of religion is a dangerous one - people tend to be very touchy about it.....I am merely putting down my thoughts......i hope no religion demands that free thought be killed....

I can't help wondering - what is the purpose of religion? Especially in today's world....I think more people have been killed because of reasons related to religion, than any other single reason. Religion has been/still is the root cause of most wars....

What merit could religion have then? What was it originally intended for? The laws of a country change with the times, but the rules laid down by religion seldom do....

What would a world without religion be like? Definitely less colourful.....but safer, and more rational??

I don't know........

Intuition Vs Calculation (for lack of a better word)

A typical group discussion would probably begin with 'Let us first define intuition and calculation'. But this is not a typical group discussion........And defining intuition would probably take up another post......but to put it simply, I personally think of intuition as being primarily gut instinct (about 80%) plus experience (about 20%). The experience part is far less important than the gut instinct part....

Think about what happens when we drive. There are numerous possibilities. Most of the vehicles you see around you can do speeds ranging from 0 to 100 kmph. They can change direction (to change lanes). There is too much data to handle....any computer would break down. But not a human. Even a drunk driver would be far superior to a computer (this is not to say that I support drunk driving!!!). Why is a human so superior?

I feel that humans do better because they are imperfect. They kick out most of the data. They don't bother to think that the vehicle ahead of them may turn suddenly while they overtake it. They assume too much. And most of the time, they come out trumps!!

This is intuition at work. What I'm trying to argue is that if a computational method is overloaded for such a simple task as driving, how can one expect to solve life's more complex problems using these? Computational techniques are useful only when there is very little data, and almost zero uncertainty.

The biggest argument against intuition is that it may give different answers for different people....probably, even different answers for the same person at different times...however, try out the analogy again. No two people have the exact same driving style. However, most of us can drive quite well. And all of us drive better than computers ever can!!!

I personally feel that many of life's more complex decisions should be taken based on intuition.....people with a good gut instinct should be at the top (I think even now, people at the top do have good intuition....they mask it under the veil of calculations....to justify their decisions...). Somehow, I get the feeling that intuition has not received its due.....

Challenges - The best part of life :-)

The Bible has the following quote :
'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes
And there shall be no more death
Neither sorrow, nor crying
Neither shall there be any more PAIN
For the former things are passed away"

Iron Maiden had this to say on the cover of their album 'Piece of Mind' :
'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes
And there shall be no more death
Neither sorrow, nor crying
Neither shall there be any more BRAIN
For the former things are passed away"

I really loved it....life would not be truly enjoyable without challenges and hardships. When you manage to tide over them, the happiness you feel is immense!!

Another thing which gives you immense satisfaction is doing the thing you fear. I read this a long time back :
"He is brave who hath no fear,
But he also is brave, who does the thing he fears"

Doing the thing you fear not only helps you grow as a person, but also gives you a high (no pun intended :-))!! Of course, I do not mean jumping into a tiger cage if you are afraid of tigers - that is foolish, not brave. What I refer to are the irrational fears most of us have - fear of water, fear of escalators (I am shocked at the number of people who are scared of using escalators!!), fear of ghosts (yes, many qualify here too...) etc.

Try facing your fears instead of running away from them. If not, you are denying yourself a great deal of happiness (which you will surely feel when you overcome your fear), and also living with a handicap (fear handicaps you.......severely).

Someone, somewhere is made for you????

Had a conversation with a friend recently. It was about one of the evergreen topics - love....
Here's an excerpt :
"it's not just that
it's that....ppl want to fall in love
they make themselves fall in love frm among the few they meet
this is the truth
i merely state what i see"

I was wondering about the 'Someone, somewhere is made for me' bit.....If you think rationally you will realise that there is a humongous set of people to consider (even if I decide to restrict myself to my own country, the figure will be close to 100 million or so...). Given this, it seems highly unlikely that you will ever find 'the one', even if he/she existed.

So how do we see so many people falling in love? I believe that most people 'make themselves' fall in love. Given the limited number of people you meet, this seems to be the only explanation for the large number of 'lovers' we see. Love is probably an emotion which can be controlled, just like anger etc. You have the power to switch these things on and off. You only have to let go.

What seems to me to be true is that there are a few people you CAN'T fall in love with. You eliminate these from your potentials. However, you can make yourself fall in love with thousands of people (all those u don't eliminate)..... it's just a matter of who you meet first.

Once you decide on one person though, you stick with him/her.....you have found a satisficing solution (we call it 'bounded rationality'). It is similar to a search for a college to pursue, say engineering. You do not find out details about every college on earth. You look at a few (therefore 'bounded'), and rationally pick the best (therefore 'rationality') from among those. Do we not follow a similar procedure for falling in love??

Is it not forced? According to me, the only difference between an arranged marriage and a love marriage is that in case of the former, you make yourself fall in love with a person picked from a set of just one!!!, while in the latter, the set is a little larger.....but still nowhere close to 'Someone, somewhere is made for me'.......

Shud be 'Lots of people in lots of places are made for me' :-)

The senselessness of specialisation

If a 2 year old and a 6 year old kid fight, the 6 year kid is almost sure to win. But if a 32 and a 36 year old fight, one can't be so sure of the outcome. The same difference of 4 years has now become insignificant. And if a 78 and 82 year old fight, the 78 year guy would have a greater chance of winning. Now the 4 years works against the older guy.

Link this to specialisation. One does not really need 10 years in an industry to be a master. I'd say 2 years is good enough for the fast learners. After these 2 years, the effect of experience is nullified, and it is inherent skill or intelligence which decides. And upon spending too many years in a single industry, one would become akin to the 82 year old man......weaker than the younger people. This would happen because after spending so many years doing the same thing, one cannot think of fresh ideas...

The biggest point against specialisation - Life will get too boring!!! Anyone who knows the law of diminishing marginal utility will appreciate this. Given that one can develop the skills required for any area in less than 2 years, I don't see why people should not do exactly what they wish to do at any given point in time.

I know for sure that I cannot stick to one field for the rest of my life - life has too much to offer!! I have to try out many things. Try radically different things and don't be stuck in a rut is all I say.........

A small intro

I was considering chucking the intro part and starting with some burning thoughts right away. Why go through the usual stuff of 'I never thought I'd be writing a blog, but lo!! here I find myself writing one!!' Does it even matter?

I know exactly why I am writing this blog. It is to put across certain thoughts (about varied topics - really varied...gonna cover everything from artificial intelligence, physics, love, jobs.....). I have actually read the privacy policy before starting my blog (yes, i really have!!). So anyone thinkin of writing a blog - rest assured....all that you write here is your property - not that of blogger/blogspot, or anyone else for that matter.

Well, I'm currently doing my MBA from IIM Lucknow. Have finished one year, and I must say it has been fun :-)

Guess that's enough character development......Time to move ahead!!!