Personal Achievements

30 years of my life, gone. I achieved nothing, which to be honest, doesn't come as a surprise. I had thoughts of suicide only six years back but I decided to continue with life. The thoughts of suicide are gone and now I think of achievements - probably the only achievement that I could think of. I made some money - enough to settle in Himalayas for the rest of my life. In my early 20s I couldn't have said that. The pressure from family and peers and the sudden appearance of money-power in the post-globalization India made me think of Money as the ultimate solution to my problems. Actually let me amend that a bit - I didn't really think that Money was a solution to the problem but I felt that lack of money was the root of all my problems. I couldn't pursue what I wanted as I thought nothing is possible without money.  The safety-net of the olden days, when family members could support you for as long, and when money wasn't the sole end -goal of life, had withered away and we were left in this Bangalorean world of shiny bikes, hot girlfriends and macho-coolness. I didn't fit in anywhere in this picture and longed for the world when pursuit of a deeper meaning was possible. I ran away. I would've felt dead if I lived in such a world. In retrospect I think that was the best thing to have done. Even though it was my  own helplessness that made the new globalized world appear a dejected place, my escape from it was what gave me a second chance to look at this new world and find my place in it. When I started from null, I could set goals for my life, I could choose my friends or choose not to have any. I held myself responsible for what I did and who I am, instead of feeling as having been setup in just about everything I did. The fear of risk and lack of money still were a fact of life. I spent time in New York, wished to become a movie-director, but never had the motivation to seek interested partners movie-making, pursue film-making seriously or  pick up the camera and go around taking some shots.  I was still afraid of my background, feared of being judged and hated the world dominated by big media and shallowness. The lack of risk-taking and submission to feelings of  depression definitely didn't help me in finding female partners. The lack of female company made sexual pleasure a fantasy, so much so that the real sex wasn't as much fun any more.

The fantasy element seemed more interesting. The wish to have sex with a girl who lived on the block seemed more interesting than going to a club and approach sex with a woman in conventional ways. Sex too, became a way for escaping this rejection. It probably had always been like that. I wasn't interested in women who were interested in me. I wanted to get women who were not interested in me. I wanted them to like me and hated myself for being not good enough for them. Approaching 30, I realized my limits, which were posed more by my self-hatred and fear of being judged than because of my background.  Living in New York, the view that money is a  panacea to my personality issues did grow stronger. I thought that making money, would have me rise up in the social ladder in this great melting pot. I didn't know that backgrounds still did matter. Expression of power was necessary to survive. Money did buy things, but you needed loads of it. The goals in life are never that linear and the pursuit of money was pointless for the most part. You try making money and when you realize that you have some, you are already entrenched in the system that would never let you free. You need money, but your dreams of a possible quiet life in the Himalayas are harder to realize because you are so much attached to the system where you made money that the dream of Himalayas doesn't appeal as much.  I knew from the very beginning that I wasn't made for living this dream of monetary glory but when I wasn't left with many options, I went with the flow. Is that why I felt so miserable or I am merely looking for excuses?  People around me have always told me that I want to feel victimized and that I am not a risk-taker so I find reasons to avoid the risks I should take. The criticisms are true. If they weren't I wouldn't be reflecting on my goals in life and the feeling of not having achieved much. Once again, there needs to be a prioritization. I need to detach myself from the world of money and pursue my passions. Passions don't survive in the world without money but yet money isn't what drives passion. I have realized that in the past, and need to live it now.

Parle-G

The luscious temptations of the modern world have ravaged all the reservations of our adolescence. Through our reservations we sought a deeper connection before jumping into a superficial closeness. The trouble for us is that in the modern world, those like me who have tried to jump into material superficiality have at first fallen in love with it, but then have stopped believing in everything, even love, after having realized the fakeness of things that were superficial.

We grew up in lack of superficiality and still haven't got used to being around it. In my teens, we all knew what it was to be around beauty and we know what it meant to long for it. But the age of visual excesses that we soon were to witness destroyed that continuity. Suddenly it was just hotness and sex all over and there was nothing else to achieve or dream for. All emotions, love and longing started appearing as an attempt to escape the reality of natural selection.

Having found some pieces of Parle-G in the jaggery nimkins from my last trip to home, I just realized how much more we now spend to get the same pleasure that we had with much less. I also have some nan-khatai, cookies made with flour, sugar and hydrogenated fat. We had our problems in the old world, but we knew hot to cope with them. Suddenly, there seems nothing else except a game of power.

Our only option in the new world is to keep the balance between expenses and income and hope that everything would work out for us in the end. We don't believe that anything else is achievable. If we feel sick, there are medicines and doctors at your service, but there would be no one tell that you're fine. Having consciously got rid of little things in our lives, thinking that they were irrational, we have nothing to love and nothing to fear of losing when we're gone. With no purpose to live, we know we would die in ignominy.

You could of course, just love superficiality and be married to it, but would you love it? People of my kind are still unsure.

internet banking in India

I spent last 3 hours trying to buy a ticket from an Indian website. I had opened an account in India to avoid carrying cash/amex-checks with me while I am there, but I can't use the bank account for anything. Every time I try using the internet banking the password doesn't work. If I ask them for the password, they send me my password through mail (apparently that is much safe than resetting the password). I can't use the card for buying anything either because all merchants require me to login with password (another ridiculous lack of responsibility). I guess the only relief is banking exists in India and if you know the right people and are lucky enough things would work out for you. On paper, India has everything - democracy, freedom and capitalism but in practice, good luck if any of that works out for you.

personality type

1.

1. Extrovert/Introvert
2. Sensitive/INtuitive
3. Thinking/Feeling
4. Judging/Perceiving


I should be an INTP but I somewhat lean towards ISTP as well. I think intuitively and then try to approach with rational/details. I am not a complete INTP and cannot live in my own workd. I rely on popular opinion but only to see how applicable my approaches are (makes sense to me, if I am an ISTP).

The ISTP personality type is likely to be analyst (which I am). I should be doing something that an INTP can do. The following link summarizes my problem:

http://personalityjunkie.com/2009/12/28/intp-personality-type-jobs-careers-interests-and-majors/

2. Another concept is that of Holland Code. My Holland Code seems to be IAC (Investigative, Artistic, Conventional). As I said, it is not easy being artistic and conventional. Wikipedia describes the following letters in the Holland Code :

• Realistic - practical, physical, hands-on, tool-oriented
• Investigative - analytical, intellectual, scientific, explorative
• Artistic - creative, original, independent, chaotic
• Social - cooperative, supporting, helping, healing/nurturing
• Enterprising - competitive environments, leadership, persuading
• Conventional - detail-oriented, organizing, clerical

what do you love

It is only recently, I think, when Google started playing with the idea of monopoly. It owns tons of data, more than facebook, more than IMF or WHO or anyone who has their business model based on data. Having been at the helm of user-data for years now, it shouldn't be surprising if Google spawns a range of products that finally put this massive user-specific data to use.

So far, the results have been disappointing. Google buzz went nowhere. Google trends is practically unusable. Google new is still in its infancy (customizing news couldn't be that hard). Google+ probably has some capability to compete with facebook, but it still can't be the same. Facebook captures the spirit of college life and in a lot of ways keeps you tied to the college behavior - wild partying, exhibitionism, social gossip and spirited volunteerism. Google would have a tough time tapping into that market. People might like voice and video and wide range of selections Google servers fetch for you in fraction of a second, but a "Like" button is not something computer scientists can come up by themselves.

I am curious what happens next but I am somewhat disappointed that Google is more interested in providing more content than actually improving the content itself. The what do you love feature, seems another attempt to provide a new "product" based on data. Absolutely nothing seems to have changed for the search content itself. In first tests, I don't see any intelligence that is being used.

1.1.45 आद्यन्तो टकितौ

1.1.45 इग्यण​: सम्प्रसारणम्

सम्प्रसारण happens when इक् occurs at the place of यण्