! Decide

FYI for those of you who want to pick up this hobby.

              de·cide/diˈsīd/Verb.Come to a resolution in the mind as a result of consideration.

Now and again I feel the need to come here. True I can maintain a diary for all my random and berserk ideas and save you guys some trouble, but what fun would it be? Plus, it feels good when I get thumbs down for my post - its an indication for me to move on from my 'current' madness.

The theme of my rantings today is decision making. If I could help it, I would just become a robot and let someone govern me. Decisions - every day, every second and each one of them of consequence. Leave the dinner choices for now, and you are still stuck with more questions than you can answer.

Decide what I like and what I don't. Decide if I should go get a job or am I are good in school. Decide whether I value my sleep more than my work. Decide if I value my work. Decide if I like my work. Decide if my not-so-fat paycheck is plenty. Decide if I am okay with others making more moolah then me. Decide if I care about money. Decide if I am okay with being just another one in the crowd sweating it out for money. Decide if I should set new goals for myself. Decide if I will care about these goals one year down the line. Decide if quitting my status quo would be too much trouble and I should just stick around. Decide if I care about the 'loser' tag my friends will attach to me if I do leave. Decide if I have it in me to change the 'loser' into a 'winner'. Decide if I care enough to stick to my goals and the change I just made. Decide if my gut feeling is the way to go. Decide why no one else sees eye to eye with me. Decide if everything I do is 'worth it'. Decide if it anything is 'worth it'. Decide if anyone is 'worth it'. And finally decide how often I want to make these decisions. Because even though I indulge in 'overthinking', if there exists such a thing, even after a lot of consideration, my pea sized brain is often unable to reach conclusions. Tired and worn out, it just goes off to sleep waiting for a new day to begin. And on those days of rare clarity, I decide that the only thing that matters is being in action. Comprehending and acting of everything else is more than my abilities.

On a related note, you might find this talk by Noreena Hertz interesting.

Center and Focus

Earth revolves around the sun. The moon revolves around the earth and in the process revolves around the sun. But I am not on a quest to prove that I am smarter than a fifth grader. I am here to wonder aloud, yet again.

Do you ever feel that you are taking one step forward and two steps back? I feel that often, that is if I am going anywhere at all. And most of the time, I am just moving in circles. Talking about feelings, I feel we all move in circles. There is a center to our lives which is often fixed by us, and sometimes by our circumstances. But by no means would I say that these centers are fixed. They change - sometimes in a moment and sometimes it takes forever.

As a kid our world is centered around all those fun things that our parents wouldn't allow us to do. We have your crayons, our Lego blocks, our dolls, our miniature cars, our video games and our cartoon network to worry about. Every day, every hour and every wish involves these treasures. Goals and accomplishments are defined in terms of these baubles. Each laugh and each cry is the result of our accomplishments and how much closer we are to our goals.

I call them baubles now because they don't hold the same value anymore. The center of my world has shifted. It has been through many changes actually. I have heard (can't cite my experiences here since I don't have any!) that it does happen to everyone. The center moves, from parents to friends, to work, to bikes and cars and a home, to the person you build a home with, to kids, to travel and so on. Do you think we can have more than one? Or would that be a blunder? Am I wrong in calling it a center when it is just one of the focus. Could my life be an ellipse and not a circle? I am trying to find the answer, figure out where I am centered or focused right now.

do we really understand?

Humans are classified as the species Homo Sapiens of the genus Homo, in the family Hominidae, in the superfamily Hominoidea, of the infraorder Catarrhini, of the suborder Anthroidea, of the order primates,of the subclass Eutheria, in the class Mammalia, in the superclass Tetrapoda, which is a member of the subphylum Vertebrata, of the phylum Chordata, in the kingdom Animalia, of the domain Eukarya, in the empire of organism (phew!!)
This is just something I was reading the other day (ya ya, its BIO!!) It just set me thinking

Why do we look for order in everything?
What is this desire to understand our surroundings, our behaviour,our friends, and even ourselves?
Why should everything be understood?
Why cant we just let things happen?
Why does chaos have to upset us so much?
Is this quest for learning and finding the unknown ever gonna end?
Is it possible that by classifying and arranging the'data' we actually make it more complicated?
Can we be sure that by 'processing' the 'observations' we arent actually disturbing the natural order of things?
Am i really nuts to think that there exists a possibility that by disturbing this order we are actually making it impossible for us to understand things?
Can we be certain that unpredictibility in not THE underlying principle, the essence of life, the universe?
Is it really preposterous to consider, even if for a second, that things are supposed to be the way they are, there is no simplified model, but a matrix that binds the cosmos together and that it is beyond our comprehension?
How do we know for sure that the way we are spending our resources on research is a wise idea? (...and this leads me to another set of questions - about right and wrong. but thats besides the point)

The point is - how do we know anything for sure? isnt there an inherent bias in all of us? isnt it just our beliefs and feelings (or rational deductions of a prejudiced mind) that have developed the scientific method? cant this 'method' fall short some day, or better(or worse) be destroyed because of some anomalous 'observations' and conclusions? in case we do discover that we have been on a wrong path, what do we do then? do we give up, or do we start at the beginning, again?

Here I am, despite all my wonderings, indulging in the very act i have been questioning - trying to understand...