Figments of transient relationship: Friendship

On the first Sunday of August, Indians celebrate Friendship day.

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Today is Sunday. While finishing up with my experiments (ah! bygone weekend ), I got a notification that my friend Eshan has written an ode to his friend (Immensely touching- the first line, especially!). Aping this emotional outlet method (chronologically I wrote it before due to different time zones), I thought of giving it a try and defining what does friendship mean to me?

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So, let's switch on the accelerator, and start the emotional rollercoaster ride on with one of the latest track sung by Arijit- Tera Yaar Hoon Main.

Being an introvert, I rarely had friends before. All my life revolved around myself. Infact, I hated people as I was taught that the strangers are no good to befriend. So, the first sense of friendship came as a bliss to me, but in figments. It was an assumption that moved me, that the person I met is my friend. Not trying to make it my story, I think the best thing about a potentially enduring relationship is the abstract idea of magical attachment it endows with itself. You feel it first and start expressing it later. Within the clutches of your social interaction limits, you set the boundaries of your friendship. For me, that boundary starts with zero value (introvert again!). Setting the payoff to zero makes it clear that you are giving no space for any new disturbance in your life. But then, I am bewildered how that boundary starts expanding. It happens itself and these moments are purely countable and very few in your life. You never need to start being a friend of someone; it just happens. The circumstances and trajectories of your life go hand in hand, so parallel, with someone (coincidental is supposedly marriage) that makes you question for the coming years- how did we meet. Isn't it like a dream? You never realize how it started and when you realize that, you are in the middle. I think this well supports that friendships and dreams arise out of your subconscious mind. Your hidden fears, expectations, goals, and problems all come up together to make your subconscious talk to that person in a particularly intriguing fashion. Your subconscious mind is well designed to make you progress ahead in life. So it behaves quite differently with every other person. The moment it resonates with someone, it becomes gold. The relationship becomes pristinely obscure enough to well put into words. That's why friendships are so fulfiling- like dreams, they are meant to push you further towards going ahead in your life and winning the unconquered battles. Friendship is ultimately meant to give meaning to your dreams.

Keeping up with this utility of friendship- a good bond between people help them to attain new vibrational plane of mental and spiritual energy. Every new phase of life demands new of you. A new friendship with someone prepares you for that.

My approach towards this relationship has been quite abstract in many terms. In my high school years, I just started assuming that the person is my friend. Then I started pushing my frontiers to the next level to make myself compatible to be a friend of hers. It went well with the sour-sweet taste. Then the senior school demanded a new friend and inadvertently I forgot the previous liaison. Again, I didn't advance. But passively, I started working with him towards our set goal and in the process, became good friends. Repeating this process several times over made me capable enough to summarize the facets of this relationship that fascinate me the most.

There are two rules you have to understand:- a) It's going to end someday/month/year/decade. b) You need to give your heart into its sanctity. Some people think that life-long friendships are bliss. No, it's not! It's probably receding (Marriage is receding too, but that happens after so much of advancing that the hysteresis is quite high that you are capable enough to set your equilibrium anywhere in between). Every friendship comes with its expiry date. But you have to be passionate enough to invest all your brain and heart into it, as this friendship is meant to uplift both of you. Surprisingly, an upgrade doesn't happen with anyone. In fact, very few people benefit from their friendship. There are several reasons for that (can't specify in order to make this article positive in reading and not going into perils of unhealthy relationships). Most of the people think that being friends means hanging out with each other, enjoying the materialistic parameters of life, and understanding each other. I think these are stupid things to do in a friendship. Brute force method towards strengthening your bond never works well. In addition, finding the same taste in a new friendship as in a previous one is quite futile an attempt. Friendship for me is: doing nothing. I just sit back and start assuming that the person is my friend. If you ask me who are my current friends; I have a big list comprising of existing stalwarts like Malala Yousafzai- a female right activist, Elon Musk- a polymath, and many researchers. But bear with me for such diversion; I assume approachable people as friends too ;) In that sense, friendship for me means walking through the same phase of life with them, having fun in the process of solving each other's troubles, motivating each other, strengthening your desire to live life passionately, love or being loved by them like never before, attempting things never done before, letting them bring a change in you, and finding meaning in your silences. Learning from each other, sharing experiences and being self-less throughout in this approach make the most out of it.

Lastly, bear in mind that it will end, so be prepared for that. After that, don't lose contact, but don't force (can you stop yourself- no in this digital age) upon refurbishing the contact. If you again happen to meet again in a different phase of life while facing new problems, you might patch up again. But never try to put impetus onto it.

I don't want to put some conclusion to this article. Maybe next year, I will add more to it when I mature more. In a few lines, I misconstrued friendship with love as they aren't entirely mutually exclusive.

To be continued.. 

A cycle quite uneasy to cycle !

The cycle, I am talking about, is basically a combo of 2 circles. One rolling over the other. Just like that gyroscopic motion example. The inspiration for this 'cycle-nama', I have drawn from my cycle itself.

I never though that cycle will be a gulping one. I thought it as a try. Just like other tries, I started rolling. Oh! sorry, riding. Rolling would be best to use after I have traversed a significant distance. So, essentially riding. I started and continued riding down that 'same' road just to make me ride a cycle. And obviously, on cycle itself. (I have bicycle as my only mode of transportation here). 

I start with a fresh mind and full efficiency. I knew the ride is going to be cycle as many researchers say, " One has to do lots of tries, again and again". To my habit of taking things as granted, as such, the habit that has made my thinking an impetus. I, now, love to struggle. It looks good to me when I do struggle. When I fail to not understand something fully. Or maybe partially too. But when I do not get something, it excites me a lot. I essentially work more. But again the same habit comes in between. Let it be. The point I was explaining (to me) is more or less the same as written above. I am loving, as always, the cycle I am riding daily to cycle that important 'cycle' of one's life. Genius, although, doesn't ride that cycle. Probably, he may have some chord (external one) to reach destination. But the common manearcher's problem is the same. You can't get the destination in a cycle. Every point is a starting point. You can call it a ending too. But again at some point, some where else, it is most probable to become an initial point again.

My routine is going the same way too. The manearcher's one. I am not genius, reports and surroundings say. My insight observation too. Quotes say one has to struggle a lot. I accept too. Unintentionally, I am validating it too. All are validating the same common perception. Perception of using gyroscope. Cycling your cycle with your cycle. But, ain't there any way out? To point out the destination and go straight to it. Even if there lies a straight path, it is highly likely that that point is least probable to find out. The precision, likely isn't limited to some minimum value. But I am sure it has some point below which it can't go. And a random manearcher can never reach that point by luck. The circle has billions of points. Thus, the world is not enough if we go by luck. But yes, by struggle and hardwork, there lies some sets of "manearcher turned genius" who are likely to find that point. The point which drives you to some result. The result may itself be in some other circle. Who cares? You are not alone 'genius' there. Your progeny is meant to repeat the same feat. In a more judicial manner.

Thus, that cycle is very important, not because more cycling means more toiling, more output, more close to the result. Instead, cycling means finding out the point. The point where a path exists. The path may even be in nano length dimension(if your points' distance among each other is in micro level).  But it's really important to travel those straight lines. Now, it depends on your precision only. The accuracy doesn't really matter. More precise, more closer to the point of interest. Any straight line, a straight indication of some result. Followed by either of these 2 things. First one, to stop and let progeny traverse the next cycle. Second one, to come back and travel the same cycle. But remember, you didn't travel the same cycle only. You discovered that line. Whose final point decided your future action. But whatever may be the situation. You did actually transformed into some fraction of genius. Although, the perfect genius doesn't exist. Same does the reference value of genius, whose fraction you are!

     

A Move Towards Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax

Every time we say that time changes so do the situations, time changes so do the rule and regulations, time changes so do the moral obligations. But when the time is shifting in per-second level (I mean when we are contemporary living beings watching our own changes), it is difficult to notice what is exactly changing.

We have millions of articles which focus on the study of History and we have hundreds of documentaries which predict how our future is going to be. But a study on the change of present situations in an explicit manner is what I think is not much focussed upon. The same idea forms the soul of this post and takes the concept of 'carbon tax' as an instance to substantiate my position.


The crux of the story I am going to envisage is the carbon cycle. Yeah, as we mildly remember,  analogous to the water cycle, we have a constant transfer of carbon to and from the bottom of the earth. Prior to the industrial era, we relied on the cutting of trees, slaughtering of whales and much more to meet our energy demands. But we 'instantaneously' shifted to the industrial era. That instant shift took centuries to start but merely 2 or 3 centuries to execute. The following 2 graphs say a lot:

As I was explaining about the carbon cycle, the credit for adding something to the carbon cycle goes to the Industrial era. Unfortunately, that something is the 'carbon'. The result is less absorption of carbon by the earth compared to the amount prevailing in our atmosphere. Talking about the direct impact, there is a danger signal to the coastal areas as they are super-sensitive to climate change. In the climate crisis due to obvious reasons, they are going to be the first ones to suffer. And problem elevates as you can see here:

                                                                                                                   

What we pay now today is the commodity that has been borne out of burning fuels. No matter whether it belongs to this company or that country, once the word 'industrial' comes before any product, it should be understood the product is the outcome of industrial revolution. But wait, industrial revolution was also the outcome. Yes, it was. Of the era which saw the heavy killing of animals and forests. The era which was manually written. But since every era has its ending and some era just lasts not long, to un-declare them as era, it's time to move on from fossil fuel era completely to renewable source era.

Back to the point, I was talking about the money which we slog off for day and night. Although money we spend get subsidised by Government in some cases, but a latent equivalent of subsidy is what we are enjoying by virtue of our mute 'mother nature'. A direct analogy of this subsidy can be made with the money which we pay for garbage collection. Since, garbage adds waste product to nature, we pay money so that authorities may recycle them to useful products. Same thing goes with carbon. Industries eject 'carbon' to atmosphere adhering to laws which limits their rate of ejection. But, can't we take carbo-tax from them so that they're forced to use better ways of production and produce less carbon. Although, the argument seems quite literal in a sense. But , the image below is enough to stress the problem :

                                         

                                                                       

Thus, it is evitable that this 'garbage' in our atmosphere is really a big subject to worry about. The idea of Carbon tax also seems quite reasonable. But, 'change' and 'success' are two amazing words that have miles of gap between them.
If we think to wait, there are two extreme results that can follow:

  As scientists predict worst case to be more probable, waiting means getting screwed up.

 Hence, a neutral carbon tax is the term getting preached by most climate think tanks. 'Neutral' means  that tax extracted from carbon expulsion should be balanced by tax evasion from some other source.
 One possible solution, I think, will to be preach various alliances: G-20, EU, BRICS etc. to join and  amend their environment and climate related laws. They can cut the service tax on cable  communications (as it is now a necessity) and start collecting the equivalent money from private  industries. In this way, a revenue-neutral carbon tax. However, this is my opinion. Other smart  options can also be tried.

 I am pretty sure that before 2100 we will convert our 80% of fuel dependency into renewable source  of dependency. But the point is that how fast can we bring this change. We have to unite together to
 be able to see the change in our generation only. The subjects like Machine learning, AI, IoT are
 already complementing the move by doing their part. All eyes are actually on the industry and  manufacturing sector (which in turn depends on the work by researchers), countries and their laws
 and our combined efforts.
           " We deem to make our descendants see a changed world, so that they can be proud of us. "

 

How it feels after you sleep for more than half of your day ? My conclusion.

Health experts always preach that one must sleep 8 hours a day along with taking small naps of half an hour to one a couple of times when one finds himself tiring. I never slept for more than 7 hours in the past 3 months (barring few days of discontinuity as was 2 days back). But suddenly I realised 2 days back that life should be chill in college, so I broke all my habits and slept with utmost laziness of more than 14 hours. This venture may be termed as an experiment with my habits and to see what comes as an outcome.

I say with all my confidence and belief that the only thing that can cause hindrance to one's path is SLEEP and the only thing that can make one person beat another is SLEEP. I have realised that sleep is the only thing that has distinguished all sorts of people into different economic categories. The one who manages to conquer his hold over sleep is the ultimate winner of life.

So let's start with the most famous quote: "Early to bed early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Examining critically this line,  I would say that the term: 'early' is totally relative in modern day's world. Gone are those days when man used to sleep at night only because no artificial electric lights were there. But in today's world, it is in our hand to decide when you are 'early' to go to sleep and 'early' to rise. Or more clearly, reference of your sleep time can be shifted to any point of 24 hours, so in this way even if you sleep at 4 AM, be confident that this reference is perfect according to you.

OH WAIT !
DISCLAIMER: THIS POST IS TARGETED AT COLLEGE STUDENTS ONLY, ANY NON-COLLEGE STUDENT SHOULD DIRECTLY CLOSE THIS TAB. SERIOUSLY.

Next, the main thing for which we are roaming throughout the day is to achieve our goal. (The one who has no goal for any single day, is a fuckin' idiot in literal sense). So now comes the fact that how sleep is related to goal. As I play with words, SLEEP and GOAL are the terms that shapes your SOUL. To coordinate well with sleep (or time, here) and goal, one must be clear with variety of things.

Let say you are learning something and it entices you everytime something new about it. You are totally mad about it (If, at any point of your college life, there is nothing that makes you crazy to think about and you never felt any concept/idea/subject/art/category/topic that makes you feel goosebumps, then my friend you are fuckin' idiot). If you are falling in the former situation, then the only thing that will come in your way is sleep. My mantra in that situation would be to manipulate your timing of sleep , keeping in mind the fact that you are made for achieving goals and sleep is your enemy.The best way to defeat any enemy is to befriend him. So befriend sleep,  by not telling her that she is your enemy,actually. This befriending can be done by going to sleep at any point of day, by makes your nights and days equal by purpose in terms of sleeping, by making your mind 'on' while waking and 'figuratively' off while sleeping.

The reason why this weird algo will work is because you are making sleep relative w.r.t. time. The reason why you are doing this stupid thing is because you are committed to complete any long-term goal (step-by-step). The reason why I choose sleep as my weapon again sleep is that man is creative in his extreme level while sleeping. But that creativeness depends on what you were doing a few hours before sleeping. Now as you are sleeping very irregularly (but beware duration should be at least 5 hours) , you are stressed. Probably you will get to sleep very fast. As you are already 'burdened' by your commitment to achieve your goals, your enemy will help you to manipulate things will in your mind. And who knows you might get an idea to solve any problem which was practically unsolvable if you would have been waking at that  (or sleeping in more relaxed manner).

So ultimately, I want to stress the fact sleep is the weapon which one should use judiciously keeping in mind the practical limitations (which I won't explain as one should experiment all things possible).

Explaining the terms : Soul and Brahman

In the continuation of my previous post, some clarifications of classic terms: Soul and Brahmin, will be my point of interest in this post.

A layman will term Brahmin as a body born in some high caste family irrespective of what are his future deeds. But how can we describe Brahmin as a "body".Anything could  be a deciding factor for describing someone as Brahmin. The factor can be a soul. It can be one who performs spiritual rites. It can be one who has knowledge. It can be one who masters every skill.
Isn't it going too puzzling? To find out what Brahmin is, one has to critically examine each factor which terms someone as Brahmin.

Assume soul to be the  deciding factor. Throughout every generation the soul remains same, only the body changes. And since all the works that body does are outcome of previous works, it means that Soul can do good/bad work in different generations. But Brahmin is supposed to do good deeds only, hence soul can't decide who is Brahmin.

Assume body as a deciding factor.Now the body is made up of 5 elements which are common for all types of individuals. These elements can never decide who is Brahmin. There must be some other term which can certify Brahmins.

It is said that class of family makes someone Brahmin. But the mythology states that many sages were born from diverse origins, like drop of sweat, deer, ant-hill etc. Obviously, no-family origin also made them Brahmins.

Knowledge can't decide someone as Brahmin. There were many Kshatriyas who had unbound knowledge in the past. But since we can't mix the 4 classes of society, there must be some other deciding factor.

Performing spiritual rites and works never make someone Brahmin as the works get impelled by previous birth karmas.

As an example from my previous post, after going through the "9-day long" journey of hardships and struggles, we attain the fruit from Goddess Kali, Laxmi and Saraswati. But since this cycle is repetitive, we have to face this cycle throughout our lifetime. The one who passes this stage every time successfully without bearing in his mind any feeling of self, through the fulfilment of his nature, becomes rid of the faults of desire, attachment, etc., and endowed with qualities of tranquillity, etc., rid of the states of being, spite, greed, expectation, bewilderment, etc., with his mind unaffected by ostentation, self-sense and the like, he lives. He alone, who is possessed of these qualities, is the Brahmana. 
Lastly, it will be wise to say that Brahmin and Soul have no relative connection. The connection of Soul remains with body everytime. But the deeds of body changes, so Soul itself get affected and loses its purity. What the body does at a particular instant makes a person near or far to the state of Brahmana.

Colors of Indian Festive Season : Navratri

The most awaited season in India is the Autumn season. Technically, the monsoon season is known for the economic prosperity which it brings to working-class season dependent people. But months of October, September and November are full of so many holidays (due to festivals) that we somehow forget to acknowledge the concept behind these festivals. Let's now focus on Navratri which is celebrated all over India and Nepal.
I will focus on the mythology and interpretation behind Navratri. I will put light on the concept of Navratri in our lives. Then, I will cover the term 'Brahmana' as it gets closely related to holy fests in India.

STORYTIME:

Let's start with a story written in ancient Indian scriptures which lay the foundation of  Navratri.
A long time ago, there were two brothers who were performing die-hard austerities in order to gain special powers. But Indra killed one of them as he became nervous off their hard work. But the other one goes unnoticed and gained a power which made him unkillable by demons, Gods and humans. In due course of time, he fell in love with a female buffalo and copulated her by changing his form. But he went under the fury of female's brother and was killed. Female buffalo, being pregnant, buried herself in his pyre. But her son got delivered before her death and came out in the mixed form of buffalo and human, named Mahishasur. As he notoriously caused havoc almost everywhere, the three supreme Gods- Brahma, Vishnu, Shiv joined to form a newly formed light called Durga which was the combination of powers of all Gods and Goddesses. She eventually waged a war against Mahishasur which continued for 9 days and nights.

INTERPRETATIONS:

Now comes the interpretations of this 'myth'ology in our lives. At first, it is better to come up with imagery of this story.

The short term Navratri festival represents our long-term fight against egos, evils, negativeness in our lives. We continue to fight against many evils which have possessed us in many ways. We continue to face many ups and downs in this course which many range up to several years (up to infinite even).

Even if we manage to somehow win over it, what we gain is a "void" feeling of victory. This feeling can be filled either by boastfulness (a form of evilness) or goodness. The aftermath of Navratri symbolises the worshipping of Laxmi and Saraswati who are meant to spread wealth, prosperity and wisdom, knowledge respectively. If we manage to trace this path successfully in our lives we realise that life is nothing but a cycle of this time period. All three forms of Goddesses - Kali, Laxmi and Saraswati are combined forms of Durga. We need to embody their skills and power in ourselves, every time we face problems and that '9-day' cycle.

                                                                       OUTCOME:

But many questions arise:
1.  Who is Soul?

Even Vedas say that we transform into a new form which they call as "Brahmana".
2.  But who is Brahmana?
3.  Is it a specific or abstract class?
4.  How can one say that one is Brahmana or not if passes one cycle but not other?

5.  The classification of our society has anything to do with "Brahmana"?
                                                                                                                      .......................contd.....

The recursion of Motivation,Laziness,Success and Laziness.

 

Whenever you get fed up of your continuous failure or your under-performance, the only things that come to your rescue are these 'well-articulated' quotes.
But are these quotes really useful?
Do they really satisfy the purpose for what they are supposed to be meant?
Have you ever listened about a man who was successful by just reading some set of quotes?
Till what extent do these quotes really satisfy the purpose of motivating us?
Believe me, this post is going to a direct attack on fickle-minded people who try regularly to take inspiration from these virtual sources.

Coming to the main content:
'Most' of us have a habit of taking inspiration from every niche of material source possible.It may be any catchy quote, a new success story published in national daily, new biopic of some successful person, a celebrity interview recapping his life, fishy motivation TedX talks or youtube jukebox with remixed motivational songs.
I would never realize how can these handmade stuff scan motivate someone who is reluctant to do anything new on his own?

Let's start with your day. Suppose there are two individuals  living in disjoint localities.Let their names be Cop and Van. Both are medical students who are studying in a reputed college of their country and have admitted there after passing through a tough competitive test. Now both must be having some plan to do  after college. But this is true for Van only who is enthusiastic off Radiology and Imaging course right after it was introduced to all in very first class. Cop has a good sense of understanding new things but lacks an interest in any particular thing. Now as he has to choose something good for his future.
The point is that one type of an individual is taking all the things as the point of interest and thus enjoying his course structure as granted. But another individual is pretty clear what do he want to do.

Now comes the point of this story's relation with my argument against quotes.Since, Cop will resort to copying interest from other people, he will face many difficulties in his path.Even though he may be doing well in his field, but a sense of detachment will always deject him from focusing well towards his target.Van's mind is totally clear of the field for which he was made starting back from his first day in college.He may face more difficulties, but I am sure he will never look down any success story to copy from. He is unique in his own sense.
The conclusion I want to draw is that success without motivation is possible only for top 1% of the top 1% of individuals.Others are just copycats like Cop who choose their field out of interest and struggle hard, become lazy, search for brute force methods, find quotes, motivational movies and lurch for success and achieve it.
The people like Van are those individuals who aren't part of this recursion cycle.They have their own cycle of their success, failure and other things which is unique for him.
Now the choice is yours: which you think that, by fate, is not in your hand, but it is, owing to axiom of your mind's volition, is in your hand, whether we want to be like Van or Cop.