Love, Laughter & Learning

I have a dream

2009-10-09T18:05:00.000+11:00

I dream about sleeping. Sleeping deeply. Soundly. Peacefully. And drifting out of it gently. Rising up from the mists of sleep, drifting into the waking world like a feather rising slowly on a hot summer day. Not being woken up by strange noises and alarm clocks or sunshine. Not by neighbors banging doors, or by my conscience and my sense of duty urging me to get to work at a decent hour.

Varied house guests, couchsurfers and other commitments have contributed to leaving me deprived of the soothing balm that knits the 'ravelled sleeve of care. And it makes me unsociable, and feeling dumb. Which is not a pleasant feeling. To make matters worse, when I do fall asleep - like around 2 pm last night, my sub conscious contrives to sabotage what little nap time I manage. It makes me dream. If you have a co-operative sub conscience you see pleasant dreams. Such as scoring the winning goal in the world cup final, or winning the lottery. Or maybe if you've been really good to your sub conscience you see dreams where you are pouring late night drinks for Uma Thurman and Charlize Theron in your apartment. In the hot tub.

And if you've been really unkind, as no doubt I have, you see dreams where you are trying to fall asleep. I cannot remember where reality ended and where the dream started but all I remember from last night is that I was trying to fall asleep.And not even trying to fall asleep in some 5 star resort with goose down quilts and goose feather pillows. My dream had me in my own apartment, and in my own bed. Like I need a dream to see that. And at some point the alarm went off and I stopped trying to fall asleep and actually woke up. And then I was thinking, wait a minute, how could I wake up - I was trying to fall asleep all this while.

Sort of like life. It's hard to make out where reality ends and my head begins.

I think I need to rent some one else's dreams, mine are not doing it for me.

Parallel Worlds

2009-10-08T22:54:00.001+11:00

So many choices available, and each option leads down a good road. When each road, and every destination looks good, and you know that any choice you make, you would make the choice work - how do you step beyond the choice and do what's really your choice? Analysis paralysis beckons, and the sheer plethora of options makes it difficult to take any option. It's why good restaurants like to keep their menu cards short while they refresh the options every few months.

Of course, the only way to choose is to make a choice and act.

Or make a choice to refrain from acting. And you can see your choice pass you by, like to flower floating downstream. The moment for you to pick it up was there, and then the moment passed. And you can follow the path of the flower, and you can see where it's headed. And you can admire it. But you can't bring the moment back.

Life explodes with choices, and options. And while we fix our eyes on the flower we failed to pick, many more are passing by.

It's really a beautiful life, if I stay present to the beauty in front of me. And choose.

Making a point: A letter to myself

2009-07-05T19:29:00.000+10:00

It's all pointless, isn't it? It really doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

All the hopes and fears,we are so full of ourselves that we choke on the garbage we fill our minds with, and throw up before we can stuff anymore of ourselves down our throats. It's all pointless, and it doesn't mean a thing. We are tiny, tiny people with small minds living, occupying an infinitesimal amount of space in this universe. But we fill the universe with our world and believe they are one and the same. And we run out of space. Everything lives in our heads. Good or bad. The horrible client or the terrible ex, the friends who never understand you or the friends who should, all the stories about what happened and what will happen live in our head. And who rules our head?

Me, you say? I, am the lord of my kingdom, I run my life. In a way it's true, and utterly untrue. It's our petulant childish ego that runs our head and our lives, the ego that's still looking for ways to compensate for being left out of the class play in kindergarten. It's that 'I' who rules your head. And mine. A five year old. And we think we are in control. And we laugh at the thought, No that doesn't apply to me. I am mature and smart and I know all the tricks my mind plays on me. And that's still a trick your mind is playing on you.

The mind drags you away from the only thing that's really important to your life, it takes you to stories of the past, and fantasies of the future. About how Happiness, with a capital H, will arrive when you have that job, and that car, and oh, that suit, and that film star. Or how you were such a hero in spite of all the villains in your life, and how you are so brave. And unique. And you are always living your life in the past, or in anticipation of the future, the carrot at the end of the stick which will make you happy.

The only point is here, now. It's the only point that matters, and it's all there is. Take your mind to here and now, stop holding on to the past. There is no reason to fear or worry. Or complain about why the world is not behaving the way I think it should behave. The world is. And so are you. We are. Here and now.

And in this one point, of here and now - where there is no past, or no future. There's all the space you need. To do everything and anything. The point gets a little bigger each time, freeing up more space.

Live in this point, and this time. Now is where everything happens, and where absolutely anything is possible.

Flying high

2009-06-09T21:15:00.000+10:00

The mind breaks free
From the grip of gravity
And I soar again
Rising beyond fears
Leaving worries behind
The sky greets me
And the wind whispers
A welcome song
I'm floating free
Back where I belong.

And flying is easy,
Just open your mind
Let your imagination
Unfold mighty wings
See here and now.
Is filled with possibility

Still now

2009-05-18T22:00:00.001+10:00

The silence speaks to me

Drowning out the sounds
Of the vehicles racing by
Drawing me closer
To the silence inside

Both surrounded and seeded
By stillness seeking to speak
Images floating nearby
Almost out of arms reach

A light shines brighter
A candle in the deep

Tears flood the eyes

Rinsing old memories clean

She still smiles out
From the vaults within
Echoes growing louder

The past rushes in

Stillness gives pause

And silence recedes

I must return to now

To the buzz of rushing wheels

Headed down?

2009-04-20T23:37:00.003+10:00

The sun was bright. In fact it was dazzling. I couldn't look at it - it seemed like someone had set off a few flashbulbs in my face. I had to close my eyes and open them slowly. I couldn't remember the last time I had been so dazzled by sunlight. Hold that thought. I couldn't remember the last time of anything. And the brightness was just me emerging from within my brain. I rolled that thought around my mind, which wasn't too difficult given the amount of space available since all my memories had suddenly fled the scene. Before my tongue could come up with the classic 'where am i' my brain decided to exert some control. And wake up some more.

I was in a car, one of those SUV type thingies. I thought I knew the guy beside me who was looking at me with growing concern and moving his lips. That didn't seem right. Oh ok, he was asking me a question.

"Where do you live?'

Hmmmm. That was an interesting question. My answer was even more interesting, since it came out without any conscious effort on my part to answer.

"I don't remember"

And that was true. I really didn't remember where I lived. It was then that my awareness grew some more. The guy driving was my ex-teammate and manager. And I had been playing a game of soccer. A cup match, against Sydney United's premier league team. I wonder what happened there. I remembered coming off from the midfield 5 minutes into the second half with us trailing 1-0, and coming back on 5 minutes later as a striker with us trailing 2-0 (we had rolling substitutions). That's all I remembered. I wondered what had happened to the game. And I asked him.

He said we went down 7 nil. I was aghast. It had been only 2-0, when and how did they make it 7? He said they had unravelled us. It's bad enough to losing one's memory, but the shock of losing the game had been too much for my still fragile mind to bear. And I slumped a little and started to examine my head. I'd always been a great one for introspection. And I realised that it was taking a lot of effort to think. As though the gears were all clashing, and there was no grease. And my mind was also sputtering instead humming smoothly, like the mind of any bona fide genius should.

So far I had avoided classic question no 1, and I considered classic question no 2 as I metaphorically gathered my strength to ask my friend 'what happened'. When my system got another shock. A woman's voice saying 'everything will be ok' - and someone reached from the the back seat and patted my arm, while at the same time I could hear her looking through a bag, (mine - said my mind) and wallet (again mine - said my mind). Of course, my team mate's girlfriend - trying to find out my address or a contact. That did enough to derail the delicate train of my thought and I slumped back into my seat trying to remember stuff like what year was it and where i lived. I had some vague recollection of some 11th or 9th floor. With some sort of a walkway. In the meanwhile she had found my phone. And she asked me whom should she call. Last dialled nos - dad, mom? No No - I knew they lived far away and I was in ...Sydney? She got a friend's name, who I knew lived close by and she called them, and explained the situation.

Their friend had got hit on the head during a soccer game and was suffering from some memory loss, and they were taking me to the hospital - could they (ie my friend) come there? Apparently they could.

So since I knew the answer to the classic questions -

Q: what had happened? A: I got hit on the head during a game of soccer and lost some of my memory
Q: where was I? A: In a car, heading to a hospital.

Other stuff started filtering through my head. I had been at a soccer game. Oh yes. I asked Buzz, my team mate - what happened in the game? did we win? - He looked decidedly unhappy, he said 'No, we lost 7-0.'

'7-0, but it had only been 2-0 when I came on.'

He didn't say anything.

And I tried to remember other important stuff. I still didn't know where I lived, but I knew who my employer was, and the name of my erstwhile manager. And I had some vague memory of this being 2009 or 2010.

And we had reached the hospital. Buzz took me in through to the emergency ward. Where we told the person in-charge about my problem - knock on head, memory loss. And she asked us wait.

I wondered aloud why an emergency ward would have a waiting room for patients? I mean if they can wait it's hardly an emergency.

(To be continued)

(The team - at the end of last year's final)

Lines and shadows

2009-04-07T21:09:00.000+10:00

Do you see your world in black, white and grey? The good, the bad and the necessary ugly? And you close out the bad, avoid the ugly and try to focus on the good, but get defeated by the very act of doing so, the conscious focus on avoiding and erasing that which you do not wish to see only brings it front and center.

So one should be doing it unconsciously, or practice it long enough that it becomes part of your unconscious make up. The make up where you seek perfection, or should I say excellence, perfection is a mirage - a goal which is always shifting, never to be reached. But excellence can be attained and implies a continuous growth.

And perfection breeds an unbecoming arrogance whereas excellence can bring in humility, and further me along the path to bigger goals.

I am seeking to understand my current role and perform it to the best of my ability, trying to avoid focusing on the past or worry about the future. This doesn't imply that the past was unimportant, or the future is of no concern, but if I take care of now, everything else will take care of itself.

Right now, I feel like I am in a box, hemmed in by lines I have drawn, lines I can't cross, looking for the right choice. If the lines are mine, erasing them should also be my prerogative - as long as I can live with the consequences. This inactivity for fear of doing wrong is definitely not right, and though conscious wrongs are to be avoided, stagnation is to be avoided as well.

And so it goes, I learn from patterns past, and try to avoid repetition, but too much focus on the rear view mirror is a pattern of the past as well - and that too, must be broken.

And all new choices are just the same old choices in new clothes, it's always about right and wrong.

What's good, what's bad and what's plain ugly.

Silence

2009-03-20T22:51:00.001+11:00

I look out over the water, and see nothing.

I look back, and the only thing I can see is the pin point of light from the boat shed, and many smaller scattered points around it - from the houses, mine and those of my neighbours. I wonder how much time it would take for them to notice I was gone. Would they think that I was still working late as usual if they didn't see me for a few days? Or would someone see the little tell tale signs? The newspapers piling on the porch. The unkempt grass on the lawns. Or maybe the lack of garbage? The rubbish produced by orderly living, replaced by a creeping disorder.

Maybe someday I would know. It seemed unlikely. And unimportant.

All those years of working had taken their toil. And tomorrow was going to be the first of many Mondays which wouldn't be spent in rush hour traffic. Or slow death in meetings.

I had no idea what I was going to do next, but I clearly knew what I was not going to do.

I had thought it would take a little more effort to pluck myself away, but it was painless - as though the anticipation of the freedom was a drug against the pain.

Truly now, the world was my oyster. A gorgeous well stocked yacht. All the electronic gadgetry to guide me where I needed to go. No bonds to hold me back.

I wondered why I hadn't done this before, even as I knew why.

I had never won the lottery before.

Releasing Joy

2009-03-10T23:04:00.000+11:00

Another morning. Another day at work. Smiling, chatting cheerfully, answering queries, guiding employees with only one objective. Making sure that the customer is happy. And the hotel prided itself on getting every customer to come back. And to keep customers happy, he made sure that his employees were happy.

He was warm, kind and had the uncanny ability to release any tension with a combination of the right word and his brilliant smile. And his eyes were smiling even when he wasn't. That's what made working with him so easy. And made everyone happy. Employees. Waiters. Bell boys. Cleaners. And customers. And the management loved him too. The hint of the clown and a trace of the schoolyard prefect, mixed with generous doses of grandfather and father.

And when the days were longer then normal, he would allow himself the one drink. Always wine. Always with the radio tuned to the classics. And look around his empty house.

And stare at the pictures on his desk. The twins. And Emma. And he could never forget that night.

And the dam would burst. And he would cry. Soft, soundless tears. Gushing down his anguished cheeks.

The long days always ended like this.

And some of the short ones too.

They said time would heal all, and the tears would stop.

But only death could stop, what death had started.

Cricket for a cause

2009-03-09T22:54:00.000+11:00

This weekend, a friend organized a game of cricket at a park. He didn't allow his ignorance of the game or it's rules prevent him, and it didn't prevent most of his friends either - who although blessed with the good humor, irresistible good looks and the charming Irish accent, were singularly unequipped with cricketing knowledge, thanks to their shared Irish heritage.

So the barbie was fired up, numerous bottles of beer and alcohol were consumed and we all played a game of cricket. You were allowed to face only 6 balls, and if you got out - you kept on batting but you lost 5 'points' (they refused to call it 'runs' and I thought it was bad form to argue with the hosts). The girls bowled to each other, and everyone got to bowl, some of them made Murali's action look like something prescribed by the Gentlemen at the MCC.

And we were very much in danger of setting a negative score, but somehow managed to keep it on the plus side. And we finally got our chance to sledge and knock the stumps over a few times.

But the only real score that mattered, was the count in the little white box kept on the picnic table. Because we were all gathered to help Adam Clerkin - a 2 year old Irish boy who is suffering from Ewing's tumor and is undergoing extended sessions of chemotherapy before he can fly to Boston to have his jaw reconstructed - and the family needs all the help they can get.

And we all chipped in, and hopefully the box was overflowing before it left.

You can help too.

And what makes me ask you is this http://www.marcandangel.com/2009/02/25/how-to-make-all-the-difference-in-the-world/

So please,

Do help, in any small way you can.

You might change one person's life.

I wonder

2009-02-23T20:59:00.000+11:00

if we create the drama in our lives to escape boredom and dullness. So many of our problems are self created, and if we have had the arguable good fortune to get someone else to create a problem for us, we make sure we do our best to perpetuate it. Why end it and avoid the potential for excitement?

Surely the tedium of a perfect life would render such perfection useless, and how are we to appreciate perfection if not by contrast, so we create our problems, all of us, the reigning drama queens of our lives, and we entertain ourselves and others, our problems are our escape from a much bigger problem, monotony.

Which reminds me of one of those Ajit jokes. I loved those.

The voice in my head

2009-02-21T17:59:00.001+11:00

'Hi'

Hey, haven't seen you in a while..'

'Yup, I know, you've been busy so I've been away. But looks like you finally have some time'

Ah, well. You know how it is, the business of living takes so much of the life out - I've been meaning to catch up with you for some while now, but I just never found the time, and then you keep putting it off. It's like the Oscar winner, that's always at no 3 or 4 in your DVD rental list - never making it home.

Yup, I know what you mean, we've all been there. But I'm glad we're catching up, even if it's been too long.

Yeah, I'd forgotten how great it used to be with you, I guess that's one reason why it's been so long - and that's a vicious cycle.

Don't worry about it. How have you been? I see you are moving in the right direction.

Well, I hope it's the right direction, it was just getting too tough. I just wanted to walk away from it all, walk away from everyone. Everything. Just be myself, alone. And far away. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I couldn't even shrug. And the more you take, the more you get. And all the time, I was trying to do what's right. And be true. To myself and others. And the line blurred somewhere, and it all got mixed up. It's not meant to be this hard is it?

Well, I could say it's only as hard as you make it out to be, but you don't want to hear that. I could say that it's actually very easy, but again - that's not what you want to hear. I could tell you the answers, but they would just be my answers, your questions and your answers are your's to find. And they will come to you. They are all around you, but you need to look in the right places. The answer is not the name on your visiting card, or the cash in your wallet. It's not the friends you have, or the cool people you know. Not in your closet, or your living room. The car you drive, the mobile you use, the beer you drink or the wine you buy to showcase your refinement are not it either. It's not the school you attended, or the philosophy you preach. The women you sleep with, or the God you follow. It's all this and not. It's the beginning. And the ending. And everything in between just comes from it. But you already know all this, don't you.

Well, it's all true and not. There is this, and there is more. But the answers in my head need to translate to the life I lead, right? The choice I make, and the outcomes that follow - should be showing me something.

They do, but don't throw out the good with the bad. It's true that you make choices, and you need to be aware of the choices, and the consequences - but the choices can be right, sometimes the consequences are beyond our control. You do your best, and then you still don't get the result you wanted - what you learn from that, is not that the choice is wrong, or that you shouldn't have made the choice but that there's more. There's more you could have done, and even then. Don't worry about the results. You've been down the other road, and you know that road is not yours. Does it really matter that you see so many people on that road?

It does, it feels like I'm lost in limbo. Waiting. Where's the here and now?

Stop thinking, and start doing. Make a few more mistakes. Don't shut yourself up in an ivory tower, solving everyone's problems in your head - take some action with your own. And you can't make everyone happy. Don't be afraid to make yourself happy. Go out there, and free yourself, and your mind.

Yup, I should, it's been great, catch you soon?

You know where to reach me, have fun. Smile a lot more :-)

Only words

2009-02-16T14:47:00.002+11:00

From an unpublished poet's private collection.

write to me.

write to me,

write me a story,

of happy endings

write me a story

of humble truths

and brave choices

write me a poem

of freedom

write me a poem

of joy unrivall'd

and harmonious echoes

write me words

in any form

write me words

many many words

to replace the voice

we silenced.

I am a mirror

2009-02-15T14:12:00.003+11:00

I reflect.

I passed through the dark,

Guided by the light

Of the future I was creating

The vision always in sight

I am clothed in fire

The light surrounds me

And now there is no fear

Darkness I treat lightly

And I treasure the dark,

As it was a fire

To make me stronger

To light my desire

Mind Games

2008-11-11T09:04:00.001+11:00

She: 'I don't think we should do it'

He: 'What are you talking about?'

'I don't think we should get Junior started on chess'

'ummm, he's 4 years old, and it's as good a time to start as any - wasn't that when you started?'

'Yes, but I fear for what it will do to him.'

'You have lost it. What can go wrong with learning to play chess?'

'Well, firstly why are the pieces black and white? and why does white always have the first move? Isn't that just reinforcing the old cliches? I mean, there is no need to go with black and white.. it could have been anything, and even with black and white, why not give black the first move.. but no. White has to move first. Typical.'

'You are not serious, are you?'

'I am, think about it. And then the whole emphasis on everything being black and white. Life is not like that. It's all shades of gray. But no, they had to show everything as black or white. Where are the gray areas?'

'............'

'And then there is all this violence. Pieces are just killing each other no? No sitting down and talking about it. No diplomacy. It's cut and thrust from the moment you start. You really think that is what we want our kid to learn?'

' And if that's not enough, there is all the trickery and manipulation inherent in a game such as this. He will be learning to deceive his opponent. No, we are not starting him on chess, and that's final'.

What do you do after you fall?

2008-11-04T12:27:00.000+11:00

Nick has some thoughts

Going with the flow

2008-11-03T22:49:00.000+11:00

If you are familiar with the flow concept - you might also have been through a flow experience yourself, then you will recognise the symptoms of being in the flow - when time doesn't matter, distractions are absent and everything happens automatically - when excellence is within your grasp and things happen as they should. Everything just flows. Answers pop into your head fully formed, and even before you try the hat on, you know - it's going to fit. Or when the cricket or tennis ball is the size of a football, and your feet are dancing into position without any conscious effort on your part.

Things just flow.

And the flow experience, as the speaker says, comes after a certain threshold of effort or practise or time spent chasing a creation or a problem. And what comes from a flow experience is superior output, high quality stuff.

And it might also explain why organisations would love for their employees to be in a state of flow. Now they, that is the organisation, cannot look into your head, and see if you are in a state of flow or not. But they do know the 'symptoms' of being in flow. Time flies by and you have no idea of other stuff going on around you. So they reward the behaviour - spending time at work even after closing hours, means you must be working hard and solving big problems in a state of flow. It also shows your commitment to your organisation and work place, and it doesn't matter if you are not spending time with your family or recharging your batteries to be more productive.

Another reason why the behaviour is rewarded is because the costs of spending a lot of time at work is a evident over a longer term, the bill for which will be paid later - over a couple of years maybe. Whereas the benefit, potentially, is here and now - meeting the numbers for the quarter. Over a few years, you might be with a different organisation or a different boss - therefore very little incentive for your current manager to really think about it - the only time they will think about it is if the organisational culture tilts all the way towards actively encouraging a healthy work-life balance. If it only pays lip service to the concepts, but rewards potentially inefficient behaviour (spending 14 hours at work every day has to be inefficient) then it's a cost which the organisation bears over a long term.

And the costs are in terms of the kind of talent the organisation attracts, the lost productivity due to health issues and multiple negative effects of burn out, lower retention rates, higher wages etc.

To be fair, I am not arguing that you shouldn't be spending any time at work - many times certain projects get me so involved that I do end up working late - but only because I am in 'the flow', doing something. Not because I know that's the behaviour my organisation/boss rewards.

Behaviour tends to follow incentives, and if the reward is for the process because the output is hard to measure/can't be measured - then it's likely to cause bigger issues in the long term.

We are better off measuring output accurately and rewarding results.

Conversing with technology

2008-10-27T10:55:00.000+11:00

via Twitter - from The NYT

PEOPLE who want to improve their communication skills may one day have an unusual helper: software programs that analyze the tone, turn-taking behavior and other qualities of a conversation. The programs would then tell the speakers whether they tend to interrupt others, for example, or whether they dominate meetings with monologues, or appear inattentive when others are talking.

Read the complete story here

Of course, once you look beyond the obvious applications - you see what this means, don't you?
Google can actually launch AdSense for conversations (other such launches here )

Probably part of your mobile phone, listens to your conversation - converts to text, searches for relevant terms and pops up a 3D Holographic ad based on your location and context. So you might be in Darling Harbour, wondering where you can catch the latest movie, and up pops an Ad for a concert at the state theatre - you click on your phone for more info, see the timing, artiste and click to book, paying through your mobile, and the ticket is sent to you via text.

And you are done.

On What Makes Life Worth Living

2008-10-23T23:22:00.001+11:00

From TED Talks

Absolute reality

2008-10-21T22:50:00.003+11:00

Carrying forward a related point from the previous post absolute beliefs - do you think that
a) there is an absolute reality, which exists independent from observers.
b) there is no absolute reality, it's all subjective and dependent on who is observing
c) there is an absolute reality but we will never know it
d) there is no absolute reality and we all just plugged into the matrix.

A question which may or may not have killed Schrodinger's Cat . The death (or not) of the cat was meant to showcase the 'absurd' version of reality being cranked out by quantum physics and quantum physicists, and since then we have moved on to string theory which is even more confusing, we hope no cats were killed in the making of string theory - we would be positively gutted to hear of anymore dead (or not) cats.

And there are a lot of very very smart people trying to pull together a Grand Unified Theory of Everything which will explain everything - the Origin of The Universe, Nuclear Forces and Gravity. And a lot of not so smart people are worried that trying to verify these theories might lead to the end of the world as we know it - so I suggest that you take a look at the TED talk about A Simple Theory of Everything . I mean, what if the world does end - and they have some sort of multiple choice test to get into heaven - since there are no absolutes of right and wrong and anything goes. I suspect a theory about the universe would account for a few questions.

Think of all those virgins waiting for you.

Falling

2008-10-18T13:35:00.005+11:00

What suprised me was the clarity. I didn't expect my thoughts to be so clear - i thought processing would break down, with the end near. You hear about people's life flashing before their eyes, and you wonder which parts of your life are going to make it to the highlight reel. Would it be ordered chronologically? Start to end? Or in reverse chronological order like the resume we spend so much time mailing around ? Or would it be totally random bits of your life bursting through your subconscious - thoughts and moments you never expected, never suspected would be lying in wait to jump at you? That girl in the red shirt you saw at the seminar. The kindergarten teacher checking your lunch box. The freshly labeled and covered text books and note books in your 3rd standard school bag. The red converse style shoes you had as a kid. The taste of orange ice candy after a game of cricket. So it was true, my mind was wandering, and my life was flashing before my eyes. Random bits though. And not in any order. But the clarity was still there. I didn't know what I was thinking, but each thought was crystal clear. And time seemed to slow down. It's funny how they say 'the time is now!'. Isn't the time always now?

How had it come to this? The day had started innocently enough. A regular normal day in the life of a regular normal guy. A normal breakfast. And now I was falling, and a sudden end was going to terminate my fall.

Seriously, wasn't there anything else left in the highlight reel of my life?

(To be continued)

Learning to Fly..

2008-10-19T19:30:00.002+11:00

Sher Kan is a 14 year old eagle, born and raised in captivity - an eagle with unused wings. The falconer spent 18 months preparing for Sher Kan's first flight with help from his para-glider friend. They took the eagle, via helicopter, to the top of Mont Blanc and then launched themselves from there - and the bird took flight.

It's not just a story about an eagle. It's our story, or my story. The eagle always had the tools it needed to take flight, and it even had the knowledge - hard coded into it's brain. It just didn't know it could fly.

We go through our lives the same way, rarely breaking free from the gravitational pull of mediocrity or good enough. Rarely realising that we have the ability to break free, fly high and achieve the elevation occupied by a 'chosen few'. We might take off occasionally and glimpse the beauty of life and the world from on high. But then, we get scared and tell ourselves we are not meant to fly. The safety of ground is what we deserve. And we come back to earth. The chosen few were not chosen by others, but by themselves. And it's up to us to choose the option to fly. Take off, learn to fly.

We have the tools. We have the knowledge. And there is no shortage of people willing to show us how.

But we need to flap our wings, and take the leap of faith.

Absolute beliefs

2008-10-18T23:29:00.001+11:00

I've been having long discussions with Kan (@ Lucid Dreaming) about limiting beliefs and how our mind plays tricks on us. Or rather we use the tricks as crutches, to avoid having to run hard. Or avoid being uncomfortable. Or because thats how our mind evolved because of our childhood environment. And these can be specific individual level beliefs - about what I see as my level of ability or comfort or wealth or success. These beliefs tend to be deep rooted, and unconscious, and require a great deal of cud chewing and cogitation and an a-ha moment before you get to a stage of realisation. And they manifest themselves in the walls you keep banging your head against - and you ask why does this always happen to me? - for eg: falling repeatedly for bad boys or ice maidens..

But these are micro level issues, in the sense that these are limiting beliefs held at an individual level which to a large extent are function of nurture.

On the other hand (I'm training to be an economist) you have the tricks nature plays on you through your mind - what you might call evolutionary 'beliefs' or hard coded stuff - propagation of the species kind of stuff - for eg the whole courtship ritual - which can be overcome with conscious decision making. To bring awareness to the fact that our systems have certain tendencies which are based on the need to pass on our genes - and these tendencies have conscious rationalizations in our mind - but these rationalisations are really false beliefs/tendencies, because they are a) not reached through a process of conscious reasoning and b) they are not meant to maximise individual or even potentially social outcomes - but are based on achieving optimum evolutionary outcomes ( read Eliezer Yudkowsky's post 'Why does power corrupt ')

So keeping in mind, both these macro and micro level tricks our mind plays on us, how do you decide on a code of ethics and guidelines for what you do and what you don't? (here's another post from Eli - End's don't justify the means ) So potentially the reason you didn't go through action x to achieve outcome y is because you a) you really didn't want to get y and/or b) you get a higher personal payoff by holding onto your code of ethics which prohibit action x.

So for eg: though you would do anything to say win the heart of the office beauty, you still can't woo her since she is your friend's girlfriend and your code says - Bros before h0s. Now the standard thought experiment about killing n to save n+x (where n and x >0) can be discussed.

And the second layer to it - how our reality is a manifestation of the beliefs in our mind. So the fact that I often find myself in situations where I need to do x to achieve y implies that I am consciously or sub-consciously making choices which lead me to these situations. Which requires a basic rebooting of the operating system I use, and also begs the question - is there an absolute of what's right? Or even our own absolute?

The fact that we might not have any absolutes, just relative values which we weigh up every time against the payoffs is not particularly exciting. But if you go down the road of limiting beliefs, it's hard to avoid this conclusion.

* apologies for what is a rambling and poorly constructed post, but it's midnight here and these questions have been rattling around inside my head for some time now.

** also maybe this entire post is just me rationalising, trying to stick to my behaviour and arguing against change.

*** for the record: I would have done anything, but I just couldn't do that.

btw: Is it just me or do you agree with Scott Adams - I am afraid Obama could lose the election - that's another post

So long and thanks for all the fish.

2008-10-18T08:08:00.000+11:00

via twitter : A hedge fund manager says goodbye

It's back!

2008-10-09T11:25:00.000+11:00

The dreaded Sambharmafia is back, go say hi, and be nice.

And how many of you enjoyed the repeated comments about the overhead projector ? After just voting to spend $ 700 Bn to (as Doonesbury puts it) 'socialise risk'.