I'm such a loser

I started with some affection for self-help because this shit is so easy to fall for. But now I abhor it in totality simply because it is disgusting.

One recent incident bought so many things to forefront. Some of my office colleagues were listening to an audio in full volume by one of the most irritating self-help gurus His-Highness-do-things-my-way-Shiv-guruji-Khera. When I heard it, I rushed to the accident place for rescue and told that its all stupidity. They are all so involved in the shit that they took my running for my want to listen to that crap.

They started it from beginning. God proclaimed things which the non-god should be doing. Non-God are losers by default, not that I mind being a loser but how is guruji so sure of that. And above all God had recipes for all the worldly problem faced by the non-gods. My colleague argued whats wrong if we follow the guruji's experimented formula, gain from it and be a Winner. The so-called experimented recipes include things like 'Do it anyway' as if its as exciting and inviting as ridiculing Shiv Khera. Now the world seemed to be divided in two sections Winners and losers. Winners are those who follow guruji and 'do it anyway' and Losers are those who think and 'do it their way'. I felt, I'm such a loser.

One of the many quotable quotes from Guruji's speech. "Losers don't want to get up in the morning and they don't, Winners also don't want to get up in the morning, but they do it ANYWAY".

Amusement in crap

We adapt with our surroundings and if our surroundings are crap we adjust to that crap, knowingly or otherwise. One of the easiest way to adjust with crap is to take amusement in crap.

Take for an example how the sensible lot used to crib when they first heard or saw remixes, now some of them find amusement in them. From 'amusement' here, I mean a pleasure/excitement which is not generated out of love or respect or curiosity but by sheer disrespect. The pleasure thus gained is of high order and quality.

One more example which comes to my mind is watching the serial 'Alif Laila'. This is one of the crappest serial ever made, even the producer/director knew that its crap.But it provided quality entertainment mainly because it was not meant to laugh on. During Doordarshan days, this type of crap was difficult to find only because the airing time was small. Today there is no dearth to it...

Being part of one of the most uneventful professions, I am always on a look to find amusement in the crap around me. I can recall taking amusement in group mails, management crap and design documents to name a few. There are some instances where this crap and the amusement, relieved me from work stress.

To take amusement in crap helps reducing in the cribbing attitude towards that crap. I donot know if it is Ok not to crib, but I prefer amusement to cribbing. Some ppl can argue that taking amusement from it like patronizing crap or taking it easy. They have a point here but I have noticed over time that crap is not worth taking seriously and it generates more crap in return.

There is a sort of sadistic pleasure and also require some critical amount of self-esteem to indulge in this pleasure. Morally, it may not be considered the right thing to do, but again who is here to define our moral standards. Show the morality bibles to those who make crappy movies, serials and self-help.

School time friends

Was thinking to write something about my school days...here it is....

On God and Religion ...

This is cut-paste from one of my discussion with a friend about advent of Religion/God.

We started with pagan gods, (which is quite logical ) basically we can say that we started believing in god as 'something' who can control what we cannot control like extremities of nature. but as human race developed mentally, we devised other means to save ourselves from nature ( like establishments were made near river to do away with drought and cities were built on higher elevation to check floods , to name a few..., and these things are done even now... nature can't be overtaken or abated so we still worship rain gods & the likes..) . So in most of the cases, the identity of GOD started with fear and in the others cases as a custom...When population increased, the emphasis on society and behavior started which was required for the smooth/controlled working of the society... Imagine a situation where everyone worshipping their own pagan gods which donot put any moral limitations on the people. After morality and virtues ( like kindness, love, peace, compassion, brotherhood, code of conduct for men and women, about different strata of society.. so on and so forth) are attached to religion, the need for social security (ppl living in groups want to grow their groups and feel secure with more and more no. of ppl who have the similar beliefs ) also started. I mean to say that by that time ppl have started living in much larger and more organized groups with leaders, territories and the belief defined, so the groups started protecting them by increasing their reach in terms of ppl and lands. One of the way is to annex the territory. But very gradually it would have been realized that it is not going to help in long run as the annexed societies and group will resurface because they will think that they have been enslaved and estranged from their own beliefs. A slower but effective way was to spread your thoughts. And the easier way was to spread your religion which is infact a set of belief in some supreme power and the customs with it. So wars were being fought on the basis of religion. By this time , no one caring about what a religion is, it has become to tool to govern god-fearing masses and to bring more in sphere of influence.The powerful lot were using god and religion to motivation the masses to fulfill their vested interests. But there is one more thing, for the masses, now there is something bigger than the king/leader/master which they can look upto, there is 'some' messiah who can save from the world's pain and agony, ( although no one can see HIM, but he seems to be the Robin hood...). Now god and religion have taken the connotations of 'Savoir' and 'Hope'. In the course, different free thinking individuals came from time to time to propound their philosophy and it had changed the beliefs and ideas of ppl and newer philosophy emerged, this caused the existing ones to fear and to plunder the new ideas. The religion by now turned to the power and the number games. But it kept the masses occupied and thats why Karl Marx has once very rightly said ' Religion is the opiate of the masses'. Every now and then similar questions were raised in different religion like what is truth or what is right code of conduct and what do we get on being moral and where will we go.... and why we have came to the world, hence, all the religions documented their answers and ppl preached them ( most of the time without analysing or understanding them).... I think that bringing some amount of morality to the masses ( although mostly by fear, not by logic) is the most significant achievement of religion. People also found some solace in religion and GOD mostly because they start believing in the philosophy of a religion. So the use/context/need/interpretation of god/religion changed as human race evolved.

Comments invited...

The art of Procrastination

Believe it or not, Procrastination is an art. Although being a very fast learner, I took relatively lesser time to master it, you may take some time...:))
Previously I used to worry about things to be done, I still worry about them... also I used to feel guilty about the things that I have not done, the guilt is still there... let me make this clear that this art is not going to help on those fronts...A master of procrastination will not care about worry and guilt, he will simply procrastinate to care about them, till they die their natural death...
Let us take a simple example to explain it. 3 guys working on a project in final semester. Guy A at his room, starts off my making his mind to work. But before starting he wants to relax(he is knowing that it will go for long, its already 10:30 pm) with his favorite music( to listen) and favorite magazine(to see). In this relaxing mode Guy B entered the room with urgency to work on the project, seeing Guy A in a relaxing mode, first he vent off his anger on him by giving the bad shape of the project work... Now the atmosphere is tense and they are both hungry (its 11:15 at night, they need to go and fetch something before the shops closes)... they both start off to eat something and discuss their project over tea as they both have a big idea of what needs to be done, make very stringent dead lines and make promises in mind to deliver... its 12:30 now and the third Guy (Guy C) is still not there. They both start to discuss why they have taken such a stupid guy with them, who has no sense of himself, doesn't work and never motivates... good and coherent discussion goes on... now its 1:15 at night and they both make their mind to start the work seriously... Guy C enters the room, and shows his dissatisfaction over life in general. and all three discuss this common topic about life.. its now 2:30 am, time for Guy A to sleep and since they need to work together its all deferred till tomorrow.
There are some of the finer points to the story. first is procrastination comes by induction. And ppl in group try to procrastinate more easily and coherently. secondly, there is an inherent urge to procrastinate and fortunately ( or unfortunately), as you start to learn this art there is an initial thrust and as you progress things become easier and easier (some of us will not even figure out the process which made us the master in this area) and thirdly the worry and guilt part are becoming lesser and lesser with time ( i.e. till the third guy arrives and because there is always a tomorrow)...
Now a question for those all who read this, Who of the three Guys is the best procrastinator ( please give your reasons to it and you can make reasonable assumptions)...

What's this and why this...

...I was thinking what is Blogging... Is it some sort of pseudo-exhibitionism... or a calculated show-off of your philosophising nature..or a document which YOU can read later with nostalgia... anyway your are publishing it to all and obviously want others to read (otherwise you can very well write on a notepad..). Also you know that not everyone in interested in u and if someone is, he/she may be least interested on the blogs. So let me confess, its a well-intended show-off :))... and sincere suggestion is "if you donot like it, ignore it"...:))
Now another question why I decided to write it..one of the reasons is today I am free and second is because others do and thirdly I felt sort of good doing it today. I have thought to continue it for sometime and hope that sometime will be long enough, at least longer than that daily-dairy thing..

C&H and me...

...as I was thinking before too, one of my early posts will be on the Calvin and Hobbes and my increasing affinity to it... I was seriously thinking what made me such a fan ... But before having a discussion with my friends, I thought of pondering myself... Lets start it... It was a very usual day and one of those nostalgic training time days in Bangalore, just SEEing 'Bangalore Times' over tea, I was struck in a crossword ( as usual, and there is a classic C&H about crosswords...). Surfing usually thru the comic strips and found a whining kid with messy hair shouting at his parents for apparently no tangible reason... the idea seemed to me ridiculous (Now the same idea amuses me, see the difference:))... But the second day I went again to see the then-thought crap called Calvin and hobbes and within little time, the philosophy of the strip surfaced and resonated... the humor and the situations are so Calvin-oriented that you felt like Calvin and told by a six-year old made them all the more magnetic and untamed ... Hobbes always gave the counter views and made the philosophizing discussions more wholesome, although the calvinism dominated always...All other characters are there to define and enrich the Calvin's amateurish versatility... Probably, the situational autopsy of common issues associated with uncommon wit and arguments attracted me... I still feel the same mastery of Bill Waterson art when I read and re-read the same strips. There is Cavin speaking on Good, Bad, ethics, parenting, consumerism, commercialization, love, evolution, and what not ... Still I can't put finger on what drew me to the C&H, but It has done it for sure and quite effortlessly...

Here I blog...

Created the blog JUST now...!!! Not sure about the setting and the blog title (recommended by 'someone':)) , will be changing soon... Will be back with some more postings... probably on .... later... :))