Category: Flawsophy

  • Living over legacy

    Sometimes, when the topic of purpose comes up on this blog (and it has many many times),  I try to connect it with legacy. When I saw Michael Schumacher come back for another round, and in general, when I see people whom I have admired for their craft, continue plying it even though they have fallen below the insanely high benchmarks they themselves have set, I wonder what makes them go on.

    In the post that I’ve linked to earlier, I even wondered whether it’s the lack of a purpose in one’s life that drives one to look for a legacy – things that will last long after they’re gone. I also found it difficult to “consider that life, in whatever way it is lived, is its own purpose.”

    But recently, I read a statement (via this excellent post, if you follow cricket, even passively) from Dravid, (quoting Ian Thorpe) “I can sacrifice my legacy for the love of the sport.” He continues, “Sometimes we get too caught up in legacy; what are we going to leave? Sometimes it’s not about that, it’s about the player actually playing at that point in time. He’s not concerned about his legacy, he’s concerned about what actually made him play the game in the first place, which is that love of the game, the desire to compete and play.”

    At that point in time. Living in the moment. Where have I heard that before? In probably every book that talks of a higher state of consciousness. 🙂

    Focusing on leaving a legacy is probably looking at purpose from the wrong end. If I can find that something that gives me joy just by doing it – the act of doing it being a reward in itself – the result and even the implications would probably not matter. The legacy would be something that also managed to happen.

    until next time, legacy issues

  • Once upon a place…

    Travel used to be something I looked forward to – I can still remember train journeys  – from Cochin to Bombay, Chennai to Kolkata and shorter ones, from packed home-cooked food and getting Amar Chitra Katha bought for me at Railway bookstores to bringing books I couldn’t find in railway stores and getting down at stations and sampling local specialty food, the first rides in the Rajdhani and Shatabdi in ’93, from traveling in a group to traveling alone, and from listening to a walkman to listening on a mobile phone, the stories are endless.

    Travel then became an escape from the mundane existence with known favourite destinations that would guarantee rejuvenation if only for a few days. Then travel became something I completely avoided, until slowly I began to unravel that mystery in my head, and here.

    These days I look forward to my vacations, planning months ahead and carefully choosing destinations. Meticulous planning and research that even D has now gained a knack for. 🙂 The idea of a mass of humanity that vastly differs from me in many ways, and yet connected to me by that sometimes intangible human chord. The sense of possibilities, the immense perspectives that one gathers just by observing a different way of life, and the comforting knowledge that I am not alone in matters of the human condition.

    until next time, we’re busy getting Balistic next week 🙂

  • Moral Signs

    A little more than a year back, I remember writing a post on identity – what exactly constitutes the individual – work, relationships, consumption, combinations of these…….

    More recently, I read a Scott Adams post which actually asks the same question ‘Who are you?’ He also provides his best answer to it ‘You are what you learn’. It’s an interesting point and I do agree that what you learn is what gives you additional perspective. It changes the way you view older experiences and how you react to new experiences. And so, despite believing in being prisoners of birth to some extent, and knowing that the apple never falls far from the tree, and at the risk of generalisation, I would tend to agree.

    Which brings me to learning. In an earlier era, our ‘channels’ of learning were limited – parents, relatives, friends, teachers, literature, some amounts of media, and so on. Limited when compared to the abundance that a media explosion and the internet have brought into our lives. Sometime back, I read a post in the NYT titled ‘If it feels right‘, which discussed a study on the role of morality (rather, the lack of it) in the lives of America’s youth. The author clarifies that it isn’t as though they are living a life of debauchery, it’s just that they don’t even think of moral dilemmas, the meaning of life and such. The study ‘found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism’, mostly because they have not been given the resources to develop their thinking on such matters.

    It led me to think about the moral frameworks that were instilled in us by our sources when were young. At the very least, value systems existed, though obviously their ‘quality’ would be a subjective affair. I wonder, if in this era of abundant sources, we are missing out on inculcating the basic moral guidelines that are necessary for a society’s sustenance and  evolution. If people are what they learn, then the least we could do is take a closer look at our own moral framework. The next generation, despite the abundance of sources, could be learning from it. Or perhaps this is the way it has always been, between generations. 🙂

    until next time, moral poultice

    PS: a beauuuutiful related video

  • Glimpse into the future.. and the present

    Fans of Star Trek : The Next Generation would easily remember Geordi La Forge and his VISOR. For those not familiar, the VISOR is “a device used by the blind to artificially provide them with a sense of sight.” It does so by scanning a scene and transmitting it directly to the brain via optic nerves. Science fiction? Yes.

    But when I read about Google’s Augmented Reality glasses and the potential – from the glasses that could act as a guide for tourists at popular destinations to the more complex “consensual imaging among belief circles” for sharing ideas and to “overlay a trusted source’s view of a given scene on mine”, I wonder how far we really are from what would have been, until recently, tagged science fiction. In response to another related post shared on Google+, I commented, “I have this thought of the glasses capturing information even when the eyes are closed and the brain processing it by the time we’re awake.” I wonder if it is not far off when the ability of our natural sense organs will be negligible compared to the technology we create. No, we’re not getting into the augmented human debate or an eye vs camera one. 🙂

    I tweeted that I had expected Google to give me a view of parallel universes. (my alternate reality) 🙂 That’s probably still science fiction, until we really master time. But I did see something (awesome) on those lines too – The Quantum Parallelograph, a device that allows you to get a glimpse of your life in parallel universes.  Maybe there will indeed be a time, when a human species can make choices with all the data of not just its current reality, but alternate realities too. Would you really want it? Would the whimsical concept of an alternate reality make sense at all then?

    until next time, sight vs vision

  • 1, 2….34

    One of the characters in Preeta Samarasan’s “Evening is the whole day” asks, during a conversation, “Everyone is always so tired nowadays. I wish we could all be young forever, or whatever age we ourselves choose. What age would you be if you could choose..?“

    It made me think of what my answer would be. At first, I wondered if I would like to be older than what I am today – to sit back comfortably with the perspectives I have gained.  As the years pass by, and the memories accumulate, I seem to be viewing most phases of my life so far through a happy prism. Despite remembering a few specific instances that made me unhappy, and (paradoxically) being certain that I was probably frustrated/terrified/bitter on many occasions and would never want them to be repeated, I can now look back and smile at the overall scheme of things. Perhaps I am lucky or perhaps, this is the way it works for most of us.

    And yet, even happy memories, I have noticed, can evoke contrasting sentiments within me. When melancholy strikes, and I remember happy times, it’s a bit like what Alfred Tennyson wrote (in a context I have no idea of)

    “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
    Tears from the depths of some devine despair 
    Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
    In looking on the happy autumn fields, 
    And thinking of the days that are no more.” 

    until next time, “I’ll spend my future living the past“