Hide & Seek

Its been a looooong time since I'v played hide & seek. Guess I'm big enough to find it hard to locate a place to hide in, and kids now-a-days don't play such games anymore #-o. But there are still those around me who love to play hide and seek :).

The worse part of the game is when you opponent has a cloaking device :(. It gets really hard to find chameleons X-(. I literally had to turn the place upside down in hopes of finding the quarry. And of course the advantage of being really small and able to squeeze into tight places.

I was so hoping that in all the turning around of the place, I would hear some footsteps but in vain . He was too gud. Finally it was time to bring in my tracking instincts *sniff sniff* based on the last location where I spotted him :D.

After making a rummage of the place, realized there was this one spot which was unscathed. Even then my eyes couldn't quite locate him. It was like searching a needle in a haystack #-o.

Left with no other choice I had to strip off the covers :), and looo there he was. His cloaking (near transparent) was no good against the clear backdrop of varnished teak wood of the bed *phew*. Finally I found my memory stick's cap \:D/ ... yippieeeeeeeeee. Gooood I spent a whole half hour hunting for him just before leaving for office #-o.

All this apart there is this blind belief that if you left an object somewhere with your left hand, you are very likely to forget it than when you place it with your right hand. Dyu believe in such?

When sky is all thats above you.

School days were such bliss 8->. Soo many nights I used to spend time in the terrace with my cousin brother (who happens to be a physist now *smug*). We used to watch X-File episode late night with all lights turned off and feeling cold and sleep with scary :-s thoughts of alien beings or new life forms peaking in through the window or comming out of the water closet :)).

And one of the following days when the power blows off, we hit the terrace with a beam torch light and shine it @ the sky. For a while we would be wondering about the parabolic reflector and its impreciseness to deliver a parallel beam ;)). And slowly science turns into fiction. My cousin would send an S.O.S using the torch straight up into the sky, and one of us would invariable say "maybe aliens are listening to us da" and exchange a smirk =)).

Even though its been long since, we still do the same up in the terrace watching the stars and trying to identify constellations (me never spotting anything more than orion, ursa major / minor, pole star and venus). So it did happen again recently when I manage to coax the lazy bums to sleep for a while over our water tank (highest above in our appartment) during a power break. And yes with our torch light :).

This time I noticed something faint drifting across the skies. The neon lamps in the street render the sky with the misty orange ting, so to spot such things in the night is a rarity. Thanks to my sharp sight (which non of the others had that night @ least), I recognized it as a flock of migrating birds \:D/. Since we didn't get a pint of sleep we started with our conversation starting with the physists question.

Phy: Guyz why dyu think the birds take the arrangement you see.
Me : Are you refering to the triangular formation that they take?
Phy: Ever wondered why they do?
Me : (In Jest) Coz they 2 love pyramids :-/
Phy: Good one but not what they expected!!!
Me : Well, the formation luks much like the wing of an aircraft :-?
Phy: So? Why would that be of any advantage?
Me : Maybe the formation decreases the drag they experience during flight :-/
Phy: Exactly da!!! Much like the foils of a formula one race car :).
Me : He He ... nature's own formula one
Phy: All thats fine buddy. But don't you think the guys leading the flock would get tired over great distances? Aerodynamics just doesn't solve the problem you know :p.
Me : hmmmmm ... I have no clue over this one
Phy: Well you see, these guys keep rotating their position in such a way that a few of them spend the energy taking the drag whilst the other relax until it their turn. Thats how they reach long distances.
Me : WOW :-o ... that ingenious da, ;)) in a simple way. Wonder how they learned all that.
Phy: God?
Me : You know I was'd thinking that. Darwin maan!!! Evolution :).
Phy: Dyu remember the BBC Documentary that said darwin was wrong and that life has an inherent capability to learn to survive?
Me : Don't tell be me you buy that BS da. It quite simple da, take the case of these flocking birds. They migrate to live in a place more conducive to their livelyhood and change of giving birth to healthy offsprings. Those who didn't simple perished over time.
Me : Even their behaviour w.r.t. their formation dude. Those birds which did not would not be successful in their migrations over generations and ultimately perish.
Me : I think everything we see is given to evolution. Nature being the womb for all possibilities, nurtuting those inadvertent choices an organism makes.
Phy: Of course da, survival of the fittest!!! And you say its nothing more.
Me : Its easy observed everyday da. We see so many stray dogs. I saw one run over his foot by a car when he was sleeping close to the road. Felt horrible listening to his cries, n wished I could speak to animals :(. And realized those dogs who didn't sleep besides the road we choosen to survive by nature.
Phy: Think that scales for all beings?
Me : I believe so da, rather I choose to. Everything is perception da ;), even science per say.
Su : I dun know about you guyz, but I am hungry!!! And I think the power is back :).
Me : Its true that this is the age to grow da, but adhukaage saaptundeee iruka koodaadhu.

Silence fell in and there were more such questions (unanswered) and conversations before we moved indoors. And am hoping for one such next week :).

Have a lovely weekend folks. Adios!!!

a typical weekday

wake up early morning

slight change of plan - no yoga/exercise today, defered to tomorrow - status, action item still open

hit the sack again for a lil while, alarm status - snooze (over n over again)

wake up late (remember the verses - "ur still in bed @ 10 when work began @ 8"), plan for the day ahead (@ least the morning) and head to SSS, morning chores n away to work

enter office late, oops it already T-time (and marie biscuits), okie now plan until lunch

outlook pop's up a meeting schedule, no agenda nor results, next meeting planned n scheduled

oops it time for lunch, fine then plan for the afternoon

the plan can wait until my short siesta is done ... |-) z z z

guilt hits in and work for an hour or two

decide to not take the work back home and get goin home cursing the traffic

happy dinner watching ur favourite T.V. show ... count the number of days left for the weekend

do some blogging, catch some friends online n most of all a much needed sleep :D

The Science of Religion

This ain't a controversial topic to stir up any arguments. Just my interpretation of things as assimilated from my experiences and thoughts, result of my quest to answer that which is enforced by society supplemented with little help from science.

Amongst the many things emphasised in the movie: The Matrix, is belief and hope. Only a subtle difference sets the two apart. And hardly do most watching the movie appreciate such things. All they have to say is "ooooooh our hero is beginning to belieeeeve :-o" *goosebumps*.

Just as much as I insist in purpose to life, humans fundamentally need to *believe* to move on. It is the very fuel to live, which when fades the later kicks in to give a false impetus to the former - a survival mechanism built into the subconscious cognitive sense of every individual.

When one's belief fades drastically, he begins to question his very existence as his fuel to live is lost. People who have experienced a mid-age crisis will have some idea of what I mean. Hope is the subconscious mechanism to counteract this. And if I might add this is probably how we brought in God - an entity beyond perception who would always endow us with hope, belief and a reason to live.

To me God is not an entity but rather a quality. I strongly believe that a crowd high in morale, principle and where godliness flows is where god exists. It is only for our convenience of a pedestrian that we have reduced it into various forms and scriptures. Even religion preaches that god is in oneself (for that matter in everyone and everything), not external but all-pervasive, negating it from being an entity by itself. Unfrotunately such enlightenment is hard for most people to digest.

Religion as I perceive is the science of controling peoples mind (just as much as The Matrix is). A mechanism identifed by the wise (sages, prophets, messiahs and their conglomerates over generations) to prevent people from living arbitly and formalized into various institutions.

Scientifically speaking, Psychology would be the closest match to religion.

Let me detail an example in hope of making this clearer, unless someone can make a counter argument. To save my ass I'll stick to a not too controversial institution - marriage (yeah yeah the act of hooking up put up in polished words).

Imagine no such institution existed. People hook up arbitrarily based on their will and wish. Most people mature physically much earlier than they are mentally. So all they care is - get hooked with somone by such and such time frame (and not a state of mind, which in most cases has reached desperation to get laid). Obviously the chances of lasting for long is less (statistically), for obvious reasons.

Every religious institution has its own system of horoscopes or equivalent, to aid towards such arrangements. People with no clue as to what they want are the highest benefactors. For those who do it is of trivial importance.

For the rest who are 50-50, it is a psycological advantage. When someone believed to have clairvoyance says "you are gonna have the best time of your life with this person" you blindly believe so (as if it were an axiom). Even at the onset of something uneventful you still believe in the former and do all it take make life work. And when told - "tough times ... you'v got to do such and such to be well", you do all that it takes and believe that everything would be swell.

Likewise two peoples chance of living together well is enhanced by the fact that the horoscope says so. And when things go wrong, all parties involved say that "it cannot be so, the horoscope says otherwise" and they put in the last pint of effort they can to get things straight. Ultimately it is only the individuals and their resolve that made it work, but with a psycological advantage packaged along (which they were oblivious to realize).

And for those unlucky beings who don't buy as said by horoscopes, even the slightest mishappening and people blame it on not having stuck to it. A scapegoat for things going wrong.

What originally was intended as a system to improve people's belief and hope has reduced into a means by which people would disown responsibility and accept things as fate and find a scapegoat (all but themselves). This is why religion does not recommend but enforces such practices to ensure a much better progeny to the institution.

But institution norms do not hold much under modern day circumstances. Just because a couple's marriage lasted a lifetime does not mean they were happy (as when we say a successful marriage). Just because a person ain't married doesn't mean he is unhappy (take our president Abdul Kalam). Just because a couple is divorced does not mean that they are unhappy (for I'v seen people lead much better lives after seperation). Just because an age old institutional practices says so, a marriage is not necessarily successful. Unfortunately these are never re-written to accomodate changes in society with time.

For that matter any aspect of life governed by religion IMHO can be explained along similar lines. It ultimately boils to individuals and their belief in each other more than all else, and their hopes when life hits rough seas.

Your opinion and thoughts on this would be appreciated. I could widen my understanding of things that way :) ... adios.