yawn dept.

Read this on a blog somewhere...

It is a great privilege to work with individuals who possess a scientific temper and an inquisitive and open mind. More so because India is so pathetically fanatical about its cults and religions and irrational belief systems and such people are in short supply. How often does one have to squirm in silence on encountering irritating bottom-dwellers who will prattle on about their latest pyramid business scheme, or rant ceaselessly about other religions and modes of thought other than their own. Its refreshing to meet people who have the self-belief to say "we don't have all the answers", and not try to ascribe to their own ideas some atrociously inflationary levels of importance.

That there is an inhumane racial, economic (whatever, just add to the list) social hierarchy strangling independent thought in this country is obvious. Go to any city and talk to the young men and women just out of schools. Listen to the content of their language. Eighty percent of it is junk that is purely related to their immediate social environment ("XXX met YYY and they had dinner at ZZZ"). The ability to abstract is zero. The ability to relate to those not within their social sphere is zero. Well, but is the situation any different elsewhere? Probably not. I remember in college having to struggle to find friends that I could relate to. So much of our thought is lost in the nuances of our language. And so much of our thought is governed by the way we use language. How is a rational man to hold on in a sea of humanity that refuses to give up its senseless babble about trivialities?

The author does make some pertinent points but commits the fallacy of self-contradiction by showing a fanaticism for tolerance and an intolerance for fanaticism. There are many individuals that one does come across, if one looks hard enough, who transcend their environment. The author seems to have been blinded by bitterness (quite possibly, brought upon by some traumatic experience).

the-time-is-now dept.

I have always had problems with punctuality, ever since I was in school. I remember being meted out different kinds and levels of punishment for being tardy (standing outside the class for an hour, a jog around the school playground, a dressing down by the school principal) -- and it doesn't seem to me that any of it has made any shred of difference to my innate nature.

Of course what is cute and cuddly in school is actually quite off-putting and unsexy as an adult. People make the most blood-curling faces, and trash you in the most explicitly embarassing terms for wasting their valuable time.

My father, for one, as long as he was alive, never missed a chance to let me know how I never had any sense of time. As if the fourth dimension never existed for me, that is.

Then how does one be on time? In an age of distractions and constant crises and temptations, how does one maintain fidelity with the stoically marching hands of the Great Merciless Timekeeper?

A thoroughly intractable problem.

platitudes-from-the-plateau dept.

At times like these, things even themselves out nicely. There is nothing to look forward to in anticipation, nothing to smoulder at in resentment, and no ghosts to retire into their graves. There is just the vague sensation of being.

Life moves at a steady, humdrum pace, and the indomitable fear for personal survival kicks in and provides the only sustenance.

There's some distant rumbling up-ahead. Hopefully there might even be a nice, ass-kicking storm coming to dispel the monotony of existence.