READ THIS IF YOU ARE 50+ ALREADY AND GOING TO BE 50+ SOONER OR LATER

PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU ARE 50+ ALREADY AND GOING TO BE 50+ SOONER OR LATER (THIS IS TRANSLATION OF AN ARTICLE IN CHINESE)

Because none of us have many years to live, and we can't take along anything when we go, so we don't have to be too thrifty...
Spend the money that should be spent, enjoy what should be enjoyed, donate what you are able to donate, but don't leave all to your children or grandchildren, for you don't want them to become parasites who are waiting for the day you will die!!
Don't worry about what will happen after we are gone, because when we return to dust, we will feel nothing about praises or criticisms. The time to enjoy the worldly life and your hard earned wealth will be over!
Don't worry too much about your children, for children will have their own destiny and should find their own way. Don't be your children's slave. Care for them, love them, give them gifts but also enjoy your money while you can. Life should have more to it than working from the cradle to the grave!!
Don't expect too much from your children. Caring children, though caring, would be too busy with their jobs and commitments to render much help.
Uncaring children may fight over your assets even when you are still alive, and wish for your early demise so they can inherit your properties and wealth.
Your children take for granted that they are rightful heirs to your wealth; but that you have no claims to their money.
50-year old like you, don't trade in your health for wealth by working yourself to an early grave anymore...
Because your money may not be able to buy your health...
When to stop making money, and how much is enough (hundred thousands, million, ten million)?
Out of thousand hectares of good farm land, you can consume only three quarts (of rice) daily; out of a thousand mansions, you only need eight square meters of space to rest at night.
So, as long as you have enough food and enough money to spend, that is good enough. You should live happily. Every family has its own problems. Just do not compare with others for fame and social status and see whose children are doing better, etc., but challenge others for happiness, health, enjoyment, quality of life and longevity...
Don't worry about things that you can't change because it doesn't help and it may spoil your health.
You have to create your own well-being and find your own place of happiness. As long as you are in good mood and good health, think about happy things, do happy things daily and have fun in doing, then you will pass your time happily every day.
One day passes without happiness, you will lose one day.
One day passes with happiness, and then you gain one day.
In good spirit, sickness will cure; in a happy spirit, sickness will cure faster; in high and happy spirits; sickness will never come.
With good mood, suitable amount of exercise, always in the sun, variety of foods, reasonable amount of vitamin and mineral intake, hopefully you will live another 20 or 30 years of healthy life of pleasure.
Above all, learn to cherish the goodness around... and FRIENDS... They all make you feel young and "wanted"... without them you are surely to feel lost!!
Wishing you all the best.

A Perfect (Detached) Love

Girl: Since the day I left you, you don't seem feeling any sort of pain. This means, you were not actually in love with me. So, all the love you showed towards me was false, right?

Boy: No. In fact, I am more in love with you. Actually, I feel pain only when you feel pain. Since, you are happy with your new boyfriend, and as you are not in pain, I am not feeling any pain.

I never asked God to give me what I want...

because, I don't know whether what I want will be good for me or not in future. Whenever I pray God, I always ask him, "Give me what you feel I deserve the most". Sometimes, I don't even ask anything from him because I think God is mature enough to find what I want before I ask him. I feel sad hearing people asking God to give them immediately what they want. If not given, they scold him, and the least stop praying him. I always have the feeling that God has grandeur picture in his mind, to execute the tasks that are good for all, not to specific individual. If God gets biased to individual requests, he may not execute his grand plan efficiently (Assuming that God has given us freewill to ask whatever we want from him). In short, whether you ask God or not, he will give you what you deserved.

Freedom of speech and questioning

Whenever I ask a question: how can you prove the existence of soul? I get countered: how can you disprove it? I stopped the discussion then because asking a counter question is not answer to a question. I see lot of such counter questions in day-to-day life. Why people feel hard to say these simple words: "I don't know". Instead they defend it as if they own it. We are not founders of Hinduism, and there is no point in defending it. Just because we are born to Hindu family, we don't have right to defend it, instead we should dare to question your parents, why they believe what they believe. Some parents agree that their parent's told them to do so. Some try to defend it and scold you for questioning them. The freedom of speech stops from the home, why bother govt stopping you. The basis of science is questioning, which we already proved to the world we lack it: just see our scientific progress.

Are you questioning?

Do you believe that if I said I sold my two bed-room normal flat for two billion dollars? Do you believe that while I was walking on road, director Spielberg stopped by and asked me for acting in his next film, as a main character? You don't right, if I say. But you may possibly believe if your father says so. You will definitely believe if your father said these when you were kid. Here, we observe that anything that didn't fit to your rationality, you would tend to suspect, right? My question is, why do you think Jesus resurrected on third day, and two women saw it; he was then seen by his followers, and disappeared to heaven, fits into rationality? Is it because you father said so while you were kid walking miles with him to church every Sunday? To extend that, why don't you think the Jesus story was cooked-up? We all know Jews were going through hard times under high priests, at the time of Jesus. Is it not rational to think that the only way to overpower high priests is to have an historical incident, which of course the Jesus resurrection? Wasn't this recited the mob to rebel against the high priests, and threw them away?

A Colored Theory

We have as many theories as there are colors in the universe. Because, people repaint old theories with new colors and propagate them as new, like painting a box with a new color and showing it as new. And worst of all, they take credit for doing so.

Some notes from CTO

1. The next huge markets will be India and China, and the Product Management in US has no clue about the local dynamics in these markets. They tend to apply what work in US, but fail terribly. The reason is that, for e.g., China is going through technology skip. So, you can't sell handsets to them, where everybody has mobile nowadays. Indians can better understand Indian market. So, you guys (us) have a benefit of being here, over a long run, if you exploit the opportunity.

2. He said a very interesting process of generating innovative ideas. Once in a while, he sends an email to 8 random people, who don't know each other ideally, and ask them to gather at a place, and discuss about what they are working, and what improvements they would like to see. This will help generate cross-pollinated ideas. After such meetings, he starts getting very innovative ideas, which he didn't get when he conducted a meeting of top distinguished engineers in the company. This is very innovative way of driving innovation.

3. The only way to sustain growth in India is to work-hard...China is growing rapidly.

My CTO is a Physicist!

In our all-hands meeting today, my CTO said, "you find most of the top guys (who made breakthroughs) in Computer Science are from Physics background". And he proudly said that he was a Physicist. Later, I thought why this is so. If you observe, Physics was great in demand before Computer Science came into existence. Obviously, most of the smart guys were attracted to this field. Smart guys not only influence their field, but also start influencing the buddy fields, which of course, Computer Science was one of them. Computer Science is nearly two decades old, and not surprisingly though, you find Physics graduates playing top roles in this field. May be two decades later, a Biology professor tells in his class, "You know what, lot of breakthroughs in our field were done by Computer Scientists!". And we are observing how Computer Science is solving some of the tough Biology problems today. It is not what the field is that is important, it's where the smart guys are in.

Why do we visit Church?

Ah...what a boring topic! Talk something else Subbu...Sorry; this is my blog; I can rant whatever I want. So, why do we visit Church? Ok...tell me, where do you hide when your big brother is chasing you to beat. Obviously, behind your mom. Of course, there are other places in your home to hide, but your mom can do one additional thing: beat your brother back. So, what we observed here? If you are overpowered by your brother, you will go to your mom who can overpower him. Correct? Similarly, if your are overpowered by difficulties in the life, your will go to a place where those can (believe to) be tackled, or at least you get a sense of relief from difficulties. So, you visit a church, where you surrender yourself and ask God to resolve them. In my view, church is the only place where you feel that there is something more powerful than you, and you feel secured there. [Ofcourse, bomb is also more powerful than you, but you don't feel secured there :)]. No no...I am atheist. I don't go to church. Ok. Simple. Believe in you, and feel confident that you can help yourself. Or visit a psychiatrist, he will make you believe in you :)

Skepticism

Skepticism is healthy only to a limited extent. Being skeptical about proofs and programs (particularly your own) will probably keep your grades healthy and your job fairly secure. But applying that much skepticism will probably also keep you shut away working all the time, instead of letting you get out for exercise and relaxation. Too much skepticism is an open invitation to the state of rigor mortis, where you become so worried about being correct and rigorous that you never get anything finished.

-A skeptic

(Taken from Margin-notes of D.E Knuth's Concrete Mathematics book)

Perspective

In my view, there is one powerful word in the English dictionary, which is the key manipulator of our humanity. It's "Perspective". Everybody carries their own perspectives. It defines what is important to them and what is not. Two people having a common perspective become friends, otherwise, they become enemies, in worst case. The depth of their friendship or enmity is define by the how much overlapping their perspectives are.

There is no perspective that is always right or wrong. Something you feel right may not possibly agree with the other person's view. He might have his own reasons to disagree with you, however illogical they are. Some times, a given perspective may appear right, perhaps just for a short period of time; however over a long run, it may be absolutely disastrous. For example, religion was formed to bring order in the chaotic society. Though it did well earlier, they are now driving us to religion wars. If people who developed religion foresighted this, there could have come-up with something better than what we have today. We are now too struck with our religion, which is a perspective though, to think of anything contradictory.

Secondly, perspectives of an individual defines his identity. Any contradiction to his perspectives make him feel threatened to his identity. The identity can also be called as "Ego". A person is egoistic, if he believes firmly on his perspectives, and self-center in them. A person is egotist, if he brags about his achievements, as he perceive value in those, and wants to show off to make others feels the same.

Finally, people are too busy in airing their own perspectives, despite wrong, to hear anything opposing. Many people are not realizing because realizing anything does not fetch them immediate benefits. People understand others views if they can easily relate to their perspective. If they could not relate, they feel that they either did not understand or it is stupid.

[There are many things in life that could be explained with one word "Perspective". I tried to cover as much as possible. For remaining things, you could come up with your own analogies]

To Me, Everyone is a Kid

To me, everyone is a kid, but only the things that satisfy their desires change. For example, as a kid your desire is to have a wonderful toy than your neighborhood friend's, as you grow to an adulthood, the desire remains the same, except that the wonderful toy is replaced by a wonderful car. Contrastingly, if it's so, why can't we call everyone as adult, as the desire is constant for both adult and kid. That's a very good opposing point of view. But, I still stick to my opinion, not by being stubborn though, but with a proper reason. I observed many people (or the so-called adults) are as demanding as kids. They quarrel like kids, if not butcher others, to get what they want. Their first priority is what they want, and do not care what others think of them. This is exactly what kids do. By observing this behavior, I feel more happy to classify them as kids than adults. I believe that even God, if he exists, is a kid. He has a desire to create us, nature, and the laws. I don't know whether he quarreled with Satan to realize his desire, but he might have got a tremendous pleasure of realizing what he wants, like kids. Otherwise, he wouldn't have created us, if his creation is boring.

Though this concept seems convincing to some, there is a chance of getting mis leaded. If you consider everyone as kid, you may tend to ignore them, as kids' ideas/opinions are often ignored. I argue that if you take this concept literally, you'll certainly get mis leaded. In my opinion, no body is less or more. Everybody has some thing good to learn from. In fact, everybody is a mix of good and bad. I would tell you not to ignore adults as such, but only their childish behaviors. Be aware of those behaviors, and treat those as we treat kids, and take those behaviors in a light-hearted manner.

I believe that having such mind-set would keeps us from taking things personally, if somebody hurts us: both physically and emotionally. Ask yourself, do you really care if a five year old scolds you, instead you might love to take him on your lap and kiss him, and to some extent try to mend him. Still, if the kid is too tough to deal with, just leave him, and move on. There are many kids out there to play with.

Fiction Versus Non-Fiction

I have heard about some debates on which one is a good read: fiction or non-fiction. But, I feel that the debate is pointless, because both are the same in terms of gaining knowledge. The only difference I see is the amount of knowledge you gain per page (or per unit of time).

Fiction books are like conveying the author's thoughts in the form of story-telling, which like kids, interest readers. Whereas, non-fiction is to the point where the author conveys his thoughts succinctly. I appreciate the fiction in the way that the author tries to convey something by framing a real world situation. This, I feel, is required for people who can't frame the situations on their own. Whereas readers of non-fiction (have to) come up with their own analogies to relate the concept. According to my observation, people who are either too busy or unable to come up with analogies on their own, prefer fiction. These people don't want to stress their brains. In other words, reading fiction doesn't require much brain stress. That's why we find many people reading fiction whenever they find time: waiting at bus stops, queue, hospitals, before bed time etc. Here, it's ok to involve your half-brain, and keep the other half, for e.g., observing the bus you want to take. On the other hand, reading non-fiction requires some mental effort to really understand and relate things, which requires your 100% concentration. If you read non-fiction at bus stops, you may more likely miss the bus :).

At the end, I would say, [as if I have made a final conclusion on the world's hottest debate], it's all about your choice: nothing is good/interesting and nothing is bad/boring.

There is an article that gives more elaborate view on this topic: Read...

For Math Geniuses

Prove that !(!x) != x. If you can succeed, your are shaking the foundations of Boolean Algebra.

Unnatural Selection

Documentary: Life Running Out of Control aka Unnatural Selection

This is one of the best documentaries I have seen. This explains how genetically modified plants/animals lead to suicides in Indian cotton farmers to effect of health on humans who consumed them. In US, genetically modified plant/animals products are being sold for the past eight years. Also, these products are increasing penetrating into international markets. People are increasing consuming them all over the world. In a lab test, mice were fed with genetically modified food. Scientists observed that trails of DNA of genetically modified food is seen in mice; this might eventually affects immune system of mice. On humans, the effects of genetically modified food, though may not surface now, will certainly show up in forth coming generations. Some of the genetically modified fish are escaping laboratories into wild. This leads to genetic pollution, which doesn't dilute like chemical pollution over a period of time, instead reproduce to change the ecosystem, however, bio-engineering firms claim that those fish varieties are sterile. But, God only knows what the effects are.

My question is: Is it really to be seen as genetic pollution? Or, are we catalyzing the evolution process, which otherwise would take millions of years to show the effect, naturally? However, natural evolution is factored by environment and errors (or changes) in cell mutation. But the genetic modifications we are working doesn't seem to be having environmental consideration, which makes genetically modified species difficult to survive in the wild. But, somehow, if they adapt to survive, then the human-driven evolution starts.

Belief in Good Day

I was grown-up in an orthodox Hindu family in India. My father is a great devotee of God. He always believes that the things, good or bad, happen around us is undeniably due to God's influence. He follows the notion of good day to start any work, assuming that good days bring fortune to us than bad days. Recently, I asked myself, "Why do many people, like my father, believe in good days?". One reason could be: this belief may protect us from becoming slaves to our reactive/impulsive self. To expand, we want to start something today, but today is a bad day, and have to wait for a good day to start. Can we use this waiting as a time to contemplate on the work we are planning to start? Perhaps, this contemplation allows us to foresee the problems that would arise, and gives us time to correct. Many people might have seen benefit of waiting for the good day; thus leading to such belief.

On a second thought, will procrastinating things for good day is good for every situation? Probably, No! Some emergency situations require quick action.

Is Memetic Evolution Cause of our Unhappiness?

Stay tuned ...

Why do we Criticize?

By and large, people criticize for survival and/or for seeking attention. But, few criticize for well-being of the society. Survival instincts and attention seeking/identification belong to the basic traits of humans. These traits influenced prominently for building value system in the society. Fortunately or unfortunately, we associated Money, Status, Information, etc as societal attributes to our value system. Whoever has these in surplus matter most than those who don't have. Here, we concentrate just on information, which is a key attribute (in the value system), for explaining why we criticize, as criticism constitutes sharing of information. There are two types of information that gets shared: good and bad. Criticizing for good to happen is constructive criticism, whereas criticizing for bad to happen is destructive criticism. Generally speaking, the prevailing criticism is destructive criticism. That is, people are curious to know bad or weird^[1] things than good things; thus fueling bad criticism. In my view, I guess that this is due to survival instincts everybody has. To explain, if you propagate good about people around you, there may be a threat to your survival. In other words, propagating bad about your neighbor could boost your survival in the society.

Secondly, as said, humans love attention or identification. Knowing something important that others don't know is definitely a value to you, at least to show your uniqueness. And it's norm that society appreciates value, and values those who have value. You knowing something will attract those who wants to know something, especially bad or weird things. And people attract to those who know something, so that they in turn attract those who wants to know something. Most of the times, the information shared is bad (such as rumors/gossips) than good.

Some criticize something because they have no other choice apart from living with it. For example, if your manager is a bully, you criticize him/her all the time, unless there is an immediate choice of you moving under other manager or leaving the company. It's the same with other relationships also. Once you moved out of it, the amount of criticism will definitely reduces, and eventually fades away.

Lastly, few people who either don't care or feel safe of their survival and identity in the society criticize for its(society) well-being. There people are rare.

References:
[1]. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, by Michael Shermer, 1997. (Book: Amazon)

Levels of "Why"

Mr no-why is a reactive
Mr why is a contemplative
Mr why-about-why is a genius
Mr why-about-why-about-why..etc either leads to madness or achieves nirvana.

Go Placidly

By Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)

"Desiderata" was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann (1872-1945). In 1956, the rector of St. Paul's Church in Baltimore, Maryland, used the poem in a collection of mimeographed inspirational material for his congregation. Someone who subsequently printed it asserted that it was found in Old St. Paul's Church, dated 1692. The year 1692 was the founding date of the church and has nothing to do with the poem. See Fred D. Cavinder, "Desiderata", _TWA Ambassador_, Aug. 1973, pp. 14-15.

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
And remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly & clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull & ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud & aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain & bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing future of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment
it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness.
Beyond wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees & the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labours & aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.