Why linux is liberating …
Tux
There was a time not very long ago when, the first thing I did after buying a computer was to stuff the latest Windows on it. But now, and for some time before now – I have been totally enthralled by linux. It was never a sudden fascination. No one can be fascinated by the command line ! It grew on me till I could appreciate what the linux movement really implied. Therefore, as a little advice and as an exercise in reminiscence – I will reiterate why linux changed me in more than ways than one.
At heart we are all creative. Yes ! You , your aunt , your mom, dad , sister, friend, girlfriend – everyone is built to be creative. Our language skills develop because we continuously improvise with it. Our physical self develops because we push ourselves in various ways to do many different things. We are alive and in the position to rule this planet because of one very important reason – we were creative enough to understand, adapt and then control the multitude of situations that time has thrown at us. For our long term survival, it is this trait that will be our guiding light.
Linux gives you the freedom to be unique ! It liberates you from the necessity to pay for running code on your hardware to create your unique ideas. Because this freedom comes right from the level of the operating system in your computer – it permeates all that you load and run on it (well almost !). Linux is not a product or a device or an algorithm. It is a confluence of ideas of many unique individuals, ideas built to empower the new computer user to create more unique ideas.
But not everyone wants you to be unique and creative. For the business of selling software, you are a better customer if your needs are predictable and your usage of your hardware is in the “standard” range of customer behavior. So it makes great sense for a software selling company to drive consumer behavior to an average line on their demographic map. The line that leads to the pile of money ! And so you are “encouraged” to buy the “propriety” software so that you can be the “power user”. If only you knew what that really means, you would think twice about being a “power user” !
Propriety and paid for software encourages talents no doubt. The money they can generate can fuel the aspirations of vast numbers of capable humans. There are many brilliant people in Adobe making the “best” photo-editing software. There are many talented folk at Microsoft making the next Windows ! But they are all driven to the same goals, their unique ideas snubbed by the same market forces that are providing their living. Amazingly this money flow generates conformist behavior at both ends !
Linux made me realize the joy of being in a position to exercise the full worth my ideas. From a harmless user who could make photos look cool on a screen, I can now write and deliver code that will do any number manipulations real time on any number of photos and serve them from an Internet domain name ! From a lame one trick pony listening to mp3′s and playing games, I have been transformed to a game maker – creating unique playing fields with sights and sounds which draw interested stares from other human beings ! I have been given the freedom to be unique.
There was a time when linux was that thing you put on your computer and typed endlessly on a black screen with white and yellow characters. Linux used to be for the nerds ! Mainly because it was made by some rebellious nerds. The average Joe cannot be expected to make an operating system can he ? But he can be expected to be unique and creative. And that was what made the average Joe the usability expert in the linux community ! To direct the tide toward a more user friendly and beautiful interface. There was KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, OpenBox, ICEwm and many more gui interfaces for your favorite desktop. These were the reflections of many unique individuals and groups who strove to make the most “suitable” window manager for your system. Some were nerds, some graphic artists, some usability experts and some plain old grannies and granpas who used it and gave the most valuable thing – feedback. They cared to give feedback because they felt empowered by the system !
Today linux is a powerhouse of variety, usability, security and stability. There is a version for everyone. For those who have 20:20 vision to those who can barely see at all ! For those who want to play 3d games on their home PC to those who want to simulate hundreds of molecules interacting in 3d in virtual reality ! For those who want to write remote procedure calls on far away servers to those who just want to use Internet telephony to talk to their children studying in distant countries ! Linux has put many a helpless man back in the driving seat of his survival story.
If evolution can teach us one important lesson it is this – those who can adapt will survive. Linux enables us to be adaptive – to be what the situation demands and not what the software seller wants you to be. To be your own unique self – so that you can add to the creative pool of human endeavor. Linux is what will redeem us in the end from the monotonous zombie like existence that all of us fall prey to. Linux will liberate you not because linux wants to, but because you will never feel comfortable in those software chains again !
Karmic Concepts
Karmic Wheel
On a recent trip, I found myself in the audience of an “informed” astrologer. He was doling stories on the reasons of the events of the Mahabharata. A recurring concept in his themes was past life “karma”. To a question from one of the five strong audience – he replied that the hardship in this life is due to the bad karma of the previous lives. In fact he classified karma into two types – once which accumulates over lifetimes, and the other which expires with every life. Interesting thought…
Karma as a positive behavior reinforcing concept is excellent. Its a sturdy fabric to build our society with. Without this – we are liable to just annihilate ourselves in random fashion from time to time to random acts of greed and excess. Social evolution (with the implication that non-karma oriented societies failed in the long run) has made this such a strong concept (even in other religions apart from Hinduism & Buddhism) that by the time we are adults – we seriously believe that doing “bad” will get you “bad” and vice a versa. In fact it is such a strong idea that indeed after doing a “wrong” thing – one might expect to self destruct – further proving the concept. And also perfectly serving the purpose of keeping a healthy society.
However to be perfectly logical – this concept by itself is not true. There are people in this world with enormous amounts of “bad karma”, who never see the raw end of the deal. Vice a versa their are many “good karma” guys who never see a great life till their ends.
To accept such exceptions we start reasoning with the previous and next birth concept. It gives us satisfaction to know that “bad things will happen” in the next life of a “bad karma” person. It is at this point that although we are actually seeing the fallacy – we yet do not want to reconcile the contradiction, covering it instead with conjecture.
To sum up – we need to understand that the concept of karma is not a passive/reactionary “God-mediated” service. We ourselves have to enforce the concept. To that end some of us may fail and become greedy and obnoxious. Again it is for the rest of us to diligently enforce the concept. Sitting back and harping about the “next birth” will only make sure that this concept will eventually fail ….
In this country (India) there are millions waiting with hunger in their guts and a desire for a better life in their minds. They can, if they wanted to, come together and enforce the “karma” concept on those that suppress them and serve to impoverish them. And yet the imagined next life and its implications are injecting a lethargy into the system. We have made the karma concept and it up to us to make the magic happen. We are indeed our own Gods !
How to BEAT the damn traffic …. in India
Stuck forever !
India is a multicultural land where the laws are notional and ground reality operates on principles more in tune with the Amazonian Rain Forests. Traffic in India is one of the best manifestations of the preceding statement. Foreigners hate it, some Indians enjoy it and the rest just tolerate it.
Among those that enjoy it, are three groups. The first group believes in “enjoying” while driving – implying they will usually drink, pass lewd comments, break the lights and honk a horn so loud that even your dead ancestors will wake up and come running to you. They are usually illiterate, driving taxis for a living – getting payed by the hour.
The second group consist of the “insulated”. This group is usually travelling in cars, with AC and a driver. They read a paper while the driver tries to justify his bread and butter. Often cars of this group of people stop suddenly in the middle of the road while the “sahab” squints at some consumer good on the roadside shop front. Or maybe the “memsahab’ wants to get off right there to meet an acquaintance !
A very small percentage of people form the third group. However this group is the most promising in terms of abilities. The demographic is a Young Upwardly Mobile person, who is reasonably good at driving and takes special joy in getting ahead of the traffic by various means. These means may border on the illegal, but the activities are usually not as discomforting as those of the first group of “enjoyers”. Lights are broken – usually only when the cops are gone and traffic is sparse. Horns are blared – but at opportune times and for maximum effect. This group enjoys the fact that – others on the road don’t know the “tricks”.
Although I used to tolerate the traffic before – I have slowly learnt to believe in group no. three and strive to be in that category. The following advice is for those who want to be in this category and more specifically drive a car. For bikers I will publish more advice later. Please remember and clearly note, that the following is not advisable to be done regularly as it takes considerable mental alertness and effort. Also there are risks that should be evaluated before undertaking such driving. There may be “bad” repercussions in case of a misfire. However, sometimes one has to really be “there” by “this time” and these methods may come in handy at such junctures. Always be careful and alert … you cannot let yourself be distracted when doing the following.
1. Timing : The first technique is to master half-clutch driving. I can hear some of the die hard motorists criticizing, to them I have to say “shut up and go to the US”. Your mechanic may complain and your driving instructor will get appalled – but if you cannot drive on half clutch you will be forever at the “end of the long line”. The reason is one word – TIMING. Driving to beat the traffic involves a lot of correct timing. If you are too fast you will hit the car ahead, if you are too slow the auto-rickshaw on your left will come in front of you. Also some times when you are going fast you may have to go over a bump. At this time a little break and a bit of half-clutch driving will minimize the impact to bearable levels. The idea is to brake hard just before the bump, shift to second (or maybe first ?) gear and drive half-clutch over the bump controlling the speed to adjust to height of the bump. Just as your rear tyre starts going over – leave the clutch and start accelerating. If you time it right you will accelerate as the rear wheels are going “down the bump” and will get an extra impetus.
2. Prediction : The second most important technique is something I learnt in driving school. But in a different context. In driving school they told us to drive “defensively”, and one of the tricks was to see ahead and see the big picture. The idea was that you would be able to avoid a potentially dangerous situation. But the same trick can be used to good effect in “offensive” driving. Once you see the big picture you will have an idea about the traffic in your vicinity. It pays to be able to estimate which driver is timid and which driver is over-aggressive. So when you approach their vehicles you will be correctly predicting their reactions. This is an invaluable art – and if you can master it, half your problems on the road will be gone !
Work on the left !
3. Geometry : Yes, you need to understand geometry well to beat the traffic. On the road, there are wide and long buses, short and slim autos, cycles, thelas, bikers and people who don’t have a ride at all ! In this mixed chaos its important to understand angles and spaces. If you can place your vehicle in an advantageous position – you will be able to overtake even the most aggressive of the drivers. Almost everyone can overtake cars on the highway at cruise speeds. But overtaking vehicles travelling inches apart at 10km/hr is quite a different ball game !
For example : One thing one should always try to do with the car is to block the bikes trying to get past you from the left. They will usually go ahead and come in your way – so keep them behind you. To do this you have to travel in the left most lane making sure that space between your car and the pavement on the left is less than the width of a bike ! Geometry ! To extend the example : You detect a space on the left of the bus ahead, just enough to pass your car through – or maybe not. Theres the catch – if you know the width of your car well you can take the risk and slip through. If not – by the time you have “estimated” – space will be clogged with cycles and bikers. If you estimated early that you cannot pass – the next best thing to do is to “block the hole”. Get behind the bus and almost touch the rear of the bus while minimizing the gap on the left of your car. You have to careful here – as this can be dangerous on inclines – the buses will come back a few inches when the driver leaves the clutch. Once you have blocked a hole – you can later take another shot at slipping through.
4. Traffic Lights : If they work – the advice is to follow the lights. You will not get much benefit by breaking a light, and the risk of getting caught by a cop on the other side may be high, especially during the day. At night certain liberties can be taken – but usually the benefit availed is of less than a minute. However as most other things in India – the traffic lights may not work. There are various stages of malfunction. The light may be totally not working – no red/yellow/green lights. Or they may be partially broken – red or green may be off. Or they may seem like strobes in a disco – blinking randomly. The important thing is know what do in such uncertain circumstances.
Risky Business !
The first rule is that if the lights are malfunctioning and there is no cop on the road in the middle handling things, you can safely assume that law is unavailable at that junction. You can probably shoot a guy on the crossing and no one will bother. No cops + No lights = Jungle rules. At this point you may safely break the rules (you, anyway cannot make out the light – so there are no rules !). But the trick is in how you break the rules. The fools go charging in and more often than not there is another such fool on the other side ! Result – a JAM. But you know this so you keep to sparse areas – as far as possible from the center of action. The idea is to circumvent the problem in novel ways. Say you want to take a right on a crossing where the lights are kaput. Stick to the left and follow the vehicles going straight ahead. As you are almost past the crossing brake sharply and put on your right blinker. This usually scares people behind you and if you can judge the reactions times you will have turned before the car on your right can block you ! Sometimes even this may fail as the center of the JAM is large enough to cover all of the crossing ! Your next best bet is to check the traffic on the left of the road on the other side. If the oncoming traffic has a clear left lane – go ahead to the next cut, take a u-turn and then take the left when you come back to the crossing. This technique has helped me often in cases where my right turn was totally blocked !
If you know a traffic light is broken before hand (they stay broken for a month or more before they are fixed !) you can avoid it at peak times. At off peak times, if you want to pass through fast without getting hit by other brave people on the road – there is a special trick. As you approach the crossing (at high speed) – blink your headlights (especially at night) , honk loudly but not continuously and then break hard till you can hear the tyre screech ! That usually scares other drivers in earshot – and you can then go past the crossing at a higher speed !
5. Left Lane Policy : On the highway the right lane goes fastest (we follow the English driving ethic). However in JAMS use the american system. Stay on the left, overtake from the left, abuse from the left and generally do what ever you have to do, ON THE LEFT. The left is usually occupied by large buses and trucks which have more “scare value” in jams. Which means they usually get ahead faster by scaring the smaller vehicles. Also travelling on the left gives you the occasional opportunity of a clearing on the left- where you can overtake the bus you have been following for some time now !
6. Follow Talent : If you find an aggressive bus driver – just shut your brain to everything else – and keep the gap between your bonnet and the bus’s ass to less than a feet. Thats all you will need to get past the “slow coaches”. Same for an aggressive and talented taxi driver. Also if you happen to be following someone who is a regular on that road (and you are new) – you will come to know the “tricks”. The small by by lanes and gaps which are waiting for the intelligent opportunist. However if you are not up to the talent levels of the preceding vehicle – then you may get stuck in a stupid situation while the guy ahead just slips through. So follow with a pinch of salt. If you are a regular as well – don’t be afraid to overtake the “talented ones”. The best of us are prone to mistakes – traffic is such a game that its difficult to predict correctly, and you may just have the extra observation that gets you ahead !
7. Examine New Roads : If you are travelling regularly on a particular route, take some time once in a while to examine the “inner roads”. You may turn up in a blind alley occasionally but more often than not you will find an alternate route – a very handy thing to know during peak hours ! If you are a map type – you can buy an Eicher map (they are the best printed maps in India, and have the most detail – right down to house numbers). Or you may invest in a GPS navigator. But don’t depend on either for salvation – most inner roads are often blocked by police barricades – so your “special route” may just be a dud. There is nothing like examining for your self – so after you detect a new route on the map – go check it out ! Keep a watch out for barricades on the road side. They are usually deployed in “sensitive” times and may block your alternate route.
If you are not the map type or have difficulty understanding maps – then just do some wishful driving once in a while – the only requisite being COUNT THE TURNS. If you hit a nice route by chance just note the route in your mind (if you have an elephantine memory) or on a piece of paper or on the phone/pda. You can usually just note the counts like so … third left – second right – fourth left ….etc. Remember to note the staring and the ending point. If you know the end point on an alternate route opens up on a jammed crossing, then you can avoid the route in peak hours.
8. Horn Please : The honk is your ranged weapon so use it intelligently. If you honk continuously – it is not only a nuisance to every one else – it gives you a headache as well. Needless to say – such honking is usually counter productive, for it may make the others around you aware of your intentions ! Yes ! Your intentions are yours. Don’t give away the game before it starts. Approach a vehicle silently from behind – measure the driver and overtake him when he is distracted with something else !
The honk is very useful at certain important junctures. If you have approached silently and the driver ahead doesn’t know about your existence – then you can scare him if tries to block the gap on the left ! The timing has to be right – if you honk early you give away your position. If you honk too late he is already blocking you ! Just when he is about to make his “move” give a loud burst and shut up. He will pause and may try again – repeat the dose. If he is hesitant again – you are in luck ! He is a timid type – rub his nose to the ground ! Overtake and while you are abreast honk when your bonnet is nearest to his ear. The extra dose will bottle him up enough to prevent him from making counter moves from behind you afterwards !
Concluding thoughts : There are many more tricks of the trade which I have not mentioned here. They often come naturally after a while and cannot be taught ! However this basic set will help you a long way if you happen to be a hapless foreigner in the middle of the sea of chaos – called Indian Traffic (Expatriate Commonwealth Games personnel – please note) . Please remember that this is not for the faint hearted or the timid. If you really and desperately want to fuck the traffic and get ahead – these rules and techniques will come in handy. Once you are doing these often – you will start enjoying the effect you have on traffic around you.
That auto-walla may shout – but you have blocked him !
The bus driver may honk – but he cannot pass through the gap on your right !
The biker may be aggressive – but thanks to the small gap on your left he will fall into the storm drain !
The “thela” (cycle cart) may be blocking your way, but cannot match the sudden acceleration when the traffic opens up !
The taxi walla is trying to intimidate you – distract him with counter abuses, and then overtake him. Block him and pause your car – let him shout till he is hoarse. Go ahead and pause again near a traffic constable – now he cannot abuse you even when he is overtaking you !
The key is to have fun while keeping a cool head. Be aggressive and ruthless within the bounds of law and decency. Enjoy the “repercussions” of your driving and while you are at it – you will be “there” in no time !
Kolkata Diaries – Part 1
Roadside ablutions !
During the latter half of November, I had the chance to take a good look at Kolkata while on a brief sojourn. I had imagined that my fifteen day holiday would be a long lazy one, but as always it turned out to be shorter than expected. There is just something about holidays which makes me want a “bonus day” on the last day of the holiday !
The occasion was my son’s “anna-prashan” which roughly translates to a ceremony to mark the first consumption of rice by a new born. The theory is that up until that day the baby is supposed to be only fed the liquids. During the ceremony the usual rigamrole ensues, whereby a suitable learned looking “pandit” doles out passages from a dog-eared tome. The sound of the sanskrit language exerts a strange allure on the masses – although almost 90% percent in recent times neither know or understand it.
So there I was in Kolkata for a few days contemplating my holiday routine and trying to figure out a comfortable way to pass the time. The weather was just right and the scenery around my dad’s pad is pretty green – with a lake thrown in for good measure. In this scenic setting I started wondering about Kolkata and what defines this city. The most compelling reason for this activity of mine was one word – pollution !
Ah yes the pollution ! My reveries in Kolkata were totally annihilated whenever I tried to venture out on the city roads. The noxious fumes were so disgusting that by the end of the third outing I had almost decided that the next trip would be the one to the airport when I am flying out. The air there is more than polluted – it was poisonous. A deadly gas which would have been a favorite with the Nazis at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
I realized that there were a multitude of reasons working in tandom to achieve this abominal end result. The most important, I felt, was the fact that the people of Kolkata seem to accept anything from mother nature and nothing from upper management ! Since the polluted air was more mother nature than upper management – its was totally acceptable. However stringent laws to control pollution seemed to be more of an upper-management dicktat – so it met with heavy resistance whenever any attempt at its implementation were made.
The auto-rikshaws as usual were the greatest offenders. They use something called “kata tel” or “modified petrol”. The modification in this case was the dilution of the petrol with kerosene. This causes a decrease in running costs (because of the subsidized nature of kerosene in India) and a ten fold increase in air pollution from the exhaust. To give an idea of the situation – everytime I followed such an auto-rikshaw (in my car) I felt like someone had stuck an exhaust pipe up my nose.
Get a wiff !
The auto-rickshaws are followed by the buses in the polluting top three. The third spot is of course held by the archaic and totally ramshackle set of Taxis ! The age old diesel buses and taxis have engines which are probably older than the oldest driver. They should have all been scrapped by now – except that in Kolkata “poor people” can get away with anything ! Since the poor bus-wallas and auto-rickshaw-wallas are amongst the “poor people” there illegal actions are pardonable.
Which brings me to the second reason for this end result. Vote bank politics. Kolkata has been ruled for a long time now by the CPIM – a communist party which has managed to hold the reins for nearly forty years ! Communism has always been a favorite concept with the enlightened bengali “bhadrolok”, read – gentleman. However in forty years of power, the CPIM party has managed to make a mockery of the concept – and use it to squeeze the last drops of life from this ailing old city.
In their diary of forty years the CPIM have prominently etched a number of amazing achievements. One of the more famous ones is the exit of the Tatas from Singur. The Indian dream car – called the nano was supposed to have been launched from Bengal. But in the end the cheap politcs and the Kolkata mentality for limiting progress – prevailed ! The sterling project was reduced to a political farce. Many loud slogans and party meetings later – the Tatas got completely frustrated and left the place, swearing never to come back with another project. In fact in a recent conference the chairman of the Tata & Sons group, was reported to have remarked that it was all for the best – as he was almost a hundred percent sure that they (political parties) would not have allowed them to function with any efficiency even if they had managed to create the factory !
Kolkata inspite of all its past history of high education and learned achievemnt, has managed to become an immense slum of sorts. Everywhere you look you can find a ton of rotting garbage and plastic bags. The roads are some of the worst in India (even within the heart of the city). The air is polluted and the population is predominantly old – as the young have left for greener pastures. It was really sad to see the city on its knees gasping in suffocation. It will not be long before the situation goes beyond control and the only option left will be to leave the place to rot in isolation. Maybe they will create barricades around the city – to prevent the filth and the shit from spilling over to the relatively cleaner rural suburbs !
Evolving India ?
The Delhi Success Story
Just got some work done by the neighborhood tea stall owner. He also happens to lug around stuff on his makeshift cycle-cart, so he was helping me move my goods from home to the store. While we were at it, he gave me a bit of a sad tale which touched a chord.
He told me that one of the residents from our “society” ( a collection of apartments is called a society here …) had duped him of some money. I was wondering how someone could dupe money out of a tea stall owner on the roadside. He replied that this guy (well educated and all …) had promised him, that he would help him set up a tea stall outside the mall. The bugger took an advance of Rs 700/- and then promptly disappeared from the horizon. He switched off his mobile phone for a few days and then about a week later, someone else picked up the phone and told him that – this was not unusual.
Wow! I could not even think of doing such a thing to a poor sod on the road side stall. But more than that, it led me to wonder. Is this where we are headed as a country. Will our future generations take such behavior as “normal” and then think of someone being nice, as a “loony” case ? Is the new definition of success all about how many helpless individuals you can fleece ? All around me the city seems to be losing its humanity. Every day I can hear stories which appall me to newer levels. Every day I can see thousands of people breaking all road rules and abusing each other. Every day seems to be a tad more chaotic than the day before !
I fear that we are headed for a catastrophic failure of civic life. As the crime spirals beyond a point of no return, and as the people slowly lose their humanity – this place is going to crumble to the dust, like so many historical examples of great cities gone wrong. We are not far from the brink of social lunacy. As the government looks on helplessly – being tethered by the “rich and powerful” , the poor people on the road are getting more and more desperate. Soon all of them will take to violent crime to make ends meet. The vision of the Mahatma is in shambles – independence it seems has failed to inspire us to any notable achievement as a society.
I wonder why we cannot help ourselves. We seem to be too rooted in the phones, LCD TVs,cars , gizmos and cricket. We the people of the land of the Buddha have forgotten “dharma”. We have become worse than whores selling our souls for a few currency notes. If someone asked a random guy on the Delhi roads – How much for your soul ? , the guy would probably start thinking of a number ! Like hollow zombies we walk and bump into each other – while our personal axes are grinding incessantly in our heads. Some of us feel the situation is getting worse – but who cares. The need to escape overrides our need to correct the situation. And that is why we cannot change anything for the better in this country.
To sum up let me define success in the Delhi perspective. A successful person in Delhi will :
- Lie incessantly and without remorse. To the extent that radio jocks on the local FM channels have competitions of the “average Delhi liar”.
- Be able to dupe helpless individuals of their resources by promising things that he never intends to deliver.
- Have an abusive vocabulary
- Drink and drive and kill people
- Charge exorbitant amounts from customers, and treat his own workforce like shit.
- Not respect his own words and position – constantly mutating his views to adjust to the money flow.
- Rape and kill helpless women who happen to cross their path.
- Be a fat leering SOB who will drive the knife through your heart. smiling all the while !
Can education stop you from trying ?
Diwali !
I came to ask this interesting question when I saw something at the neighbourhood mechanic shop. I was siting there waiting, as a mechanic labored over the car. As usual he wanted to replace “everything” so I had to keep fighting the good natured debate of “why not to replace that” every now and then. And while I was doing this a small boy arrived at the shop with a “lari” of lights.
A “lari” means a string of lights (LEDs / Bulbs etc) on a wire, used mostly during Christmas and Diwali, in India. The function of this four foot length of blinking wire (usually deployed on the balcony) is to show the people around your house – that you subscribe to this latest festival and need to get his/her attention to that fact ! So now that we know what is a lari, let us remove the quotes from around that word.
Coming back to the topic at hand, this small boy had a torn lari. A little technical snippet : the lari usually has lights on three lines controlled by a small chip which blinks the lights in various patterns. The wires has come off the controller board so obviously there was no light. The intention in the boys mind was to solder the wires back on and get the lights to work.
He knew where one of the three electrical lines went on the board. About the other two he did not have a clue. Neither did my college educated self. The board had no indications of where goes what (in typical “Chinese goods” fashion). I soldered the one I knew and then wondered if I would blow the thing if I got the other two wrong. I was trying to examine the minuscule writing on the board for some enlightenment ! But alas it looked “Chinese” and the boy was in a hurry !
Noticing my hesitation the little fellow just stuck the wire on to two points on the board, where the solder was looking a bit ragged ! I soldered it in (as the mechanic believed I was the best person to that in his shop). It did not work on connecting to the mains. I got a 250V jolt as well while trying to figure out the problem, on-line ! So we disconnected it and stuck the other two wires the other way on the same two points on the board – and voila ! The little fellows face lit up as did the lights on the wires ! And then saying “genius”, he disappeared in a blur.
After he left I was just wondering. The lights on the wire could cost around a dollar at the electrical store. So definitely from my perspective it was not worth fixing. As for the little fellow – well he did not look too well off and maybe the effort was justified. But then if the effort was justified for him – then the lights would have definitely have considerable worth for him. However he did not hesitate to try. If he had blown it – he would have been disappointed. But if never tried he would never have had had the chance to rejoice !
I tried to think his position from my perspective. Lets say I have something which is proportionally valuable to me. Would I take this risk of blowing up the gadget. I was hesitant to take the risk even with the little Chinese made board. I guess I would have been much more difficult for me to take a risk like that. My education told me that wrong wires going in wrong place could blow things up. I imagined smoke and sparks. The boy imagined just his next move !
Did my education come in the way of some harmless experimentation ? (Can this experimentation be called harmless ?). I will let the reader decide that for me !
Prescription Drug Abuse
Michael Jackson having a jar of pills
Its the latest and most fashionable way to die …. or so it seems from the recent deaths of Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger. Its being called an epidemic and very soon it will probably replace all other addictions as the top-rated addiction !
But what is the reason for this “epidemic” ? Why is it that so many individuals in the US and other developed nations are popping pills day in day out ? What are the circumstances that lead the average guy to the nearest drug store with a handful of bogus prescriptions ?
Any attempt to answer the above questions must include a thorough analysis of the daily habits of the average guy. However since that is quite out of the scope of this little article – lets me just examine the circumstances a little superficially and attempt to find some meaningful answers. Let us start by examining what are the reasons for any sort of drug abuse – not just prescription drugs.
Drug abuse is well researched in other domains like cocaine and heroin. The abusers are usually disconnected people trying to lose their loneliness with the help of some chemicals. It does not really matter how the habit starts – it almost always ends up being an attempt to relieve the stress of modern day lives. Among those who start using drugs early – some do not feel the need for it once their circumstances change , while others continue to use it moderately and a handful few really become the abusers. These are usually the “misfits” – the people who just happened to be in the wrong circumstances.
Since drugs like cocaine and heroin are banned in most places on this earth – the abusers are often reined in and most of them eventually do quit the habit. The loneliness is long lasting and doesn’t go away, and its effect – a ton of stress on the fragile human mind. In our lives today we often neglect the things which we need to concentrate most on – like bonding with the people around us or finding long lasting friendships which can carry us through tough times. We are generally more interested in monetary aspects of our existence – and material gains are usually highest on the priority list. Having acquired the “latest” , we simply loose interest in it and the cycle starts all over again. This continuous need and satiation cycle wears our brains down to the last neuron. Eventually the “latest” fail to enthuse us anymore and a feeling of deep ennui sets in. Loneliness is the manifestation of this whole process. As we loose connections and friends while we age – we need the support of chemicals and artificial means to support our interest in the world around us. Its like the brain building and alternate and interesting world inside our heads so that the external disconnect can be overlooked.
Since drugs like cocaine are illegal, most law-abiding citizens will not use it, even though they may feel the need for it. Not so with prescription drugs. They are legal and at the back of our minds we know that they are “safe”, because they have been “tested”. Most celebrities today have such stressful lives that going on without the “support”of prescription drugs looks like an impossibility. The fans then follow these celebrities and think its fashionable to pop a pill and continue with the grind of daily life. The logic is that – ” my icon does it , so why not me !”. Even after they realize that they are doing a whole lot of harm to themselves – most prescription drug abusers feel that going on without them will be more “harmful” to themselves.
Prescription drug abuse cannot be rooted out by making new laws and punishing doctors. This malady has to be dealt with at different levels. This “epidemic” is the symptom of deeper problems with society as a whole. Treating the symptom will only make other symptoms appear – as the problem itself is ever present and ever growing. The problem of disconnection in our lives has to be solved first before any sort of drug abuse problem can be solved. The abusers need to be reassured about their “necessity” to the people around them. They have to be made to feel a part of the whole – not the outsider – an aberrant personality taking drugs to solve problems. We need to accept our stress and try to solve it – not suffer from it while maintaining a calm exterior supported by forty different chemicals running inside our systems.
Michael Jackson was an icon in more than one way. He lived larger than life and paid the price for it. His death itself is iconic – starting a world-wide debate on prescription drug abuse. More like him will pay the same price as our constant clamor for gratification increases. Celebrities are usually most hit by the loneliness – they are surrounded by “fans” they are not allowed to bond with. They meet numerous faces everyday without forming relationships. They are doomed to snuff themselves out, as they feel the pressure of remaining viable and famous, while their bodies slowly wither away from the stress.
The Endpoints and the Connections …
The traditional view of the “living” world is that of organisms inhabiting it, while they interact with each other and the environment to produce the “buzz” of life. Each organism is an entity and humans along with all other animals, understand the world around them from the perspective of the “me” or “I”. Every plant and every animal has a rudimentary consciousness and the greatest display of this consciousness is in us “humans”.
As humans have progressed over the times the conscious part became stronger and soon was able to overcome our animal selves. Our actions were determined more by our thoughts and less by our instincts. Although there has always been a glorification of the “instinctive” persona, the cogs and wheels of this world moved mostly to the tunes of “discussions” and “exchanges of thoughts”. Our corporate culture is the best example of an area where people with foresight and networking skills are preferred over the “raw” types.
However now the ways of the “living” will change. Before the advent of computers and the Internet our thoughts mostly lasted as long as we did. Except the charismatic leaders and people with “reputations”, almost every body along with their ideas were forgotten after a few years post their demise. But now our thoughts live – in hard-disks, Google accounts , Facebook , blogs and what not. The electronic media is rife with ideas and thoughts. Although mostly in a disorganised mass of digital information – our thoughts have finally found avenues to live longer than our bodies.
So let us examine this situation from a fresh perspective. We have always perceived thoughts as extensions of the person. That is because the person came first and then his thoughts. However now as our thoughts have learnt to survive beyond the individual – the thoughts are eventually going to come before the person. That is because as more of our thoughts get trapped by the immortality offered by our digital toys, they will eventually cluster and form strong “lines of thought”. And every new person born will more likely than not – fall on one of these lines. Thus we will come to this world – attach ourselves to the “thought”, work for the “thought” and then leave some of us in the “thought” as our physical selves dissolved in death.
Connections are Humans !
In the new world the thoughts will live and the people will die. The nerves in their brains will provide temporary vaults for these thoughts. Some of the minds may become the “labs” for a “line of thought”. Other minds may just help in making the “line” stronger. Eventually, if we have complete convergence of our mental and digital selves – the thoughts will become the “real” living beings more alive and longer lived than the mortal humans.
If we ever manage to produce artificial intelligence – we will make sure that we will become “unnecessary” in the long run. The beauty of artificial intelligence will be its exponential nature of evolution. Humans have had to evolve physically to become “more intelligent”. Our unit of “intelligence’ is our brain and its bound by the skull and the hardware inside it. There is really no such limit for an “artificially intelligent” being. It will be able to evolve exponentially from generation to generation. Eventually it might not need any “generations” to evolve.
If we combine the above concept with the the concept of immortal thought – we can start getting the picture of the new “way of life”. Our minds and brains will become the connections and the thoughts themselves will become the endpoints. The strongest “line of thought” will become the God of our existence. So omnipresent and inherently potent that no single human or “thought” can overcome it. Hopefully this “line of thought” will include the requirement of human existence even after the “artificial” life is created. Otherwise we may be headed for a slow but sure extinction !
Sugar for the Brain !
Evolution is such an amazing concept, that its implications are often unfathomable from a distance. Its only with a bit of science that we realize the beauty of the logic behind this most controversial process ever described.
There was once a universe without life. And within this world was a multitude of atoms in clusters of various sizes, strewed all across eternity. Expanding into empty space these clusters did not have anyway to relate to reality, other than the most passive way of just existing. In this world came an extraordinary event. And everything changed after that singular event. No its wasn’t the Big Bang – it was a chance coming together of several atoms in a way that they could replicate their existence from the matter strewn around them. And from there came life …
Life is about organization. It is an example of how from inanimate pieces of matter a pattern of immense value can suddenly come to existence. But the story of evolution is not about the birth of life. Its about what happened after that !
As life “evolved” it got better and better at its inherent objective – to exist. So the permutations and combinations continued till there were multicellular organisms and even then it did not stop. On top of this pile of multicellular organisms evolved another layer of life – it was called consciousness. This was by far the most interesting development from the beginning of time. Conscious life is different from bacteria or other forms of life. Conscious life is a layer of abstraction (to use a technical term). But why is this layer of abstraction exciting ?
To answer that question one needs to understand the “organization” called life. Up until conscious life arrived on the planet everything existed as an experiment. Patterns of DNA competed with each other to be the most successful at continuing to exist. But once there is consciousness the rules change. Now any pattern can become the more “successful” provided it is “valuable” for the conscious life forms. The stage is set for the arrival of the “experimenters” ! Initially this must have been a hindrance to life itself – as the under developed conscious life forms may have actually selected harmful DNA patterns in their naiveté. But as the consciousness evolved so did its alignment with the process of evolution itself.
We have over time learned to select the most correct patterns that help us preserve life. An example of this is the recent world frenzy about global warming. As our science has improved so has our ability to compute future possibilities. In the multitude of outcomes that can result from our present behavior, we have learned to select those outcomes that keep us “safe” from”harm”. In other words we have selected those strategies that give us the best chance to continue existing. Finally our brain has come a full circle.
Consciousness
But is conscious evolution better than the passive one ? It is a question that will be answered in another few hundred years. Passive evolution has happened over eons. Time has been merciful at least on earth. We have been spared calamitous ends by sheer chance ! However conscious evolution will not require as much time. We have already seen how over the past few centuries our abilities have grown exponentially with respect to the passive evolutionary process. It is not far fetched to believe that in another hundred years or so we may be able to “simulate” evolutionary cycles and produce “jumps” in evolution itself. We may be in fact learn to make better versions of ourselves. As well as better versions of organized and “conscious” matter. My belief is that our conscious selection procedures will extend till we manage to create “artificial” intelligence. And after that we may have to just sit down and watch !
For all of you wondering about the title of this post … do you know what is the sugar for your brain ? Sugar is a source of carbohydrates and carbohydrates are the central energy source for most life. Therefore we are “programmed” to like sugar. You will rarely find an individual who hates sugar . Almost no one will turn up their nose in disgust after consuming some sugar ! That is because sugar has a hardwire to our brain. The set of events that happen after we consume sugar release pleasure chemicals like dopamine in the brain. This release can also be achieved by “doing” things like copulation and a multitude of other activities which may have (as yet) unexplained reasons for having a positive impact on our longevity. But these are the passive evolutionary “wires” in our brain. There is another set of wires which are more “active”. These are the learned behaviors. We can program ourselves to please ourselves when we do a certain activity. So for a baby a bungy-jump may be positively scary, but not for the seasoned jumper. The seasoned adventure freak has programmed himself to get a dopamine rush every time he jumps off a high perch. Some of it may be a case of passive evolution at work ( he may have got some “adventure” genes which make him like jumping so much). But most of it is learned behavior. You have only to see the smile on his face when others are cheering “bravo” around him to understand how potent our “conscious” evolution is.
So lets the ask the question to ourselves as a community – what do we want to be the “sugar for our collective brain” ? This question may actually hold the key to unlock our ability to exist as conscious beings beyond the limits specified by the physics of our world !
