Journey to the ocean

 Tranquillized by solitude

nerves breathing but not feeling

Clarity in the soul

slowly moving through the noise

Undulation of the vision

execution left for another day

Indolent is the mind

action is unnatural

Lethargy of another beginning

promises of great rewards

I am moving like a fish

along the lines of a stream

The stream joins the ocean

And I feel the burden of freedom

Mother

Your hugs and kisses tether me to goodness

Your anger and scolding makes me better

How lonely a journey you have travelled

Without losing hope and never giving up

You throw your emotions aplenty

But without them, how lost we all would be

Because it is the strength in your heart

And the love in your veins

That gives out such energy

It's the only thing that can jolt us out of ennui

The only thing that can prevent us from wrongdoing

The only thing that can blunt our stubbornness

The only thing that can make us feel 

That there is light at the end of the tunnel

No matter how lost we have become

There is a force that is ever waiting at home.

Metamorphosis

(This is a fictional short-story)

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

  - opening lines of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

He thought he was an artistic kind, seeing beauty and deciphering complexity in everyday events. Until one day, he could not and could not the day after and in short, every day since then. Unfortunately, the seriousness of the situation did not bother him so much as he had, as just described, lost that kind of ability. He looked into the mirror, mirroring what he had seen many times in serious TV shows and character movies, and asked the question: Who are you?

Physically speaking, he felt little detached from his neck. Like the nerve connections took a U-turn before entering the skull. This of course was corroborated with some recent behavioural changes. He did not feel like eating when his stomach was gurgling, only when he was annoyed or talking for long. You see, the stomach signals which were still emitting were not really registering in the brain. The command structure of his actions were now, quite literally, top-down. Any kind of uprising from the lower levels were quickly thwarted. Another physical effect was this sensation of foggy eye-sight. But the fog must have developed so slowly, that he couldn't, not surprisingly, see it happen.

Things went on as usual though which hinted at the fact that his previous artistic experience was probably just noise or at the least, not very useful. Earlier, when he would get up in the morning and step outside for some fresh air, he might look at the sun and say, so how was your last night or you are up early. He would chuckle at the self-perceived absurdist humour and motivated by this, start poking into the businesses of other inanimate objects. But since his metamorphosis, he stepped out for some fresh air and came back inside quickly because he no longer felt any freshness.

After that, he would have his breakfast and read the news. He would generally take a contrarian position to every single item, if the President said A, he would say, yeah right he actually means B. If someone had died, he would surmise murder. And if someone was murdered, he would guess the killer. Thoroughly convinced that now he knew what was happening in the world, he would continue the next phase of the day. But since that "special" day, he lost all interest in news and ate his breakfast quickly.

Work life hadn't been much affected. In fact, he was more productive since now he didn't spend any time secretly observing some co-worker and predicting their little moves. He would also not read into the many interpretations of an email and just jump straight into answers or ask for clarifications. But overall, it was the same. There was and still is, no place for art at the workplace.

The worst effects were seen at night. Previously, he would sit down with a glass of whiskey and ponder over how his own life was unfurling. He would analyse the events of the day and the consequences thereof. He would absorb the sounds of the night and vicariously partake in the night life. He would look at the lights and observe patterns. He might even look up and talk softly into the sky. He was a believer in the spiritual. Forwarding past to recent history, he would drink as much as he could so that he could sleep without knowing.

Metamorphosis was an idea that connected deeply with him, although he had never read Kafka's famous book. The idea that a person could change into a thing or a thing could become another thing or a person could become another person overnight. Interestingly, he never thought about a thing becoming a person. Anyway, it was clear that he had become a new person. Metamorphosis was not an abstract idea for late night philosophy but his own reality. He looked at the mirror and felt annoyed at this unknown person staring back at him. He felt that a crucial component of life had not woken up from one night, lost in an unrememberable dream and hence forever lost unless, in the almost impossible chance event, he had the same dream. But he no longer dreamt. He used to be an artist, now he was nothing.

Why do philosophers fight? And other human things.

Philosophers have a hard time because their nemeses are living in their minds. Like parasites. But why are intellectual fights so common? By the very definition, isn't an intellectual fight an anti-thesis to the very concept of intelligence. If you ask a child, they would be perplexed to find that two intelligent people can fight gratuitously over an issue. And if you ask them to solve this perplexment, they will probably say one of them is not intelligent. The simplest answer, of course. In this short essay, I will try to give my answer to "why do philosophers fight"?

Two rights make a wrong

A question that often comes to my mind is what if one event has two causal explanations. What does it say about a) the explanations and b) the event itself. I will base my ideas on the research of Daniel Kahnemann (and many others) who says that there are fields which are not sufficiently regular for one to develop reliable "expertise" in. For example, if the economy is going down, the political left has one answer and the political right has another. Who is actually right? Nobody knows, both may be wrong and both may be right (in parts). That is the very limitation of an irregular field. Finding the truth is near impossible or may not even exist (there need not be a manifest truth) but what is easier? Defending your thesis. Allow me to condense this into a pithy phrase: two rights, (usually) make a wrong.

Fighting over an issue in an irregular domain is easily the most common phenomena: politics, economics, culture, artistic expression, etc. It is also the domain with most number of "incompetent" people participating, because all one needs is a thesis close to one's feelings. But this doesn't explain the fight that happens between learned philosophers in "regular" domains like science.

Scientists are animals too

Science has had its share of childish feuds which probably have set progress back by hundreds of years. From arguing why earth cannot be round to how evolution by natural selection is absurd, every new scientific theory goes through its share of hand-wavery and sometimes, ridicule. Who are the people fighting? The most learned and logical men living in that generation. And why do they?

If we use the argument in the previous section, then it doesn't really work. After all, science is the very definition of a regular field. But here is the catch. The scientific people are fighting on the boundary of what is known and what is unknown. Science is practically undiscovered for most parts and to make a discovery is nothing short of making a wild suggestion. Wild suggestions will be viewed suspiciously and all efforts will be taken to prove that it is "wild". This is the problem with anything new, it doesn't fit nicely with known thought. Lots of convincing is required to push an idea forward towards legitimacy. Almost all attacks have to be defended against and not just that, other competing ideas have to be shown to be inadequate. This is a lot of additional work and very easy to make a person annoyed and aggressive. Allow me to condense this into a pithy phrase: scientists believe that a needle cannot be found in a haystack, but they try.

50 shades of logic

The final discussion will be in the area of decision making. The decision itself might be in a regular or an irregular field but it's different from the previous reasons for argument. The argument here is not about what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, but it is about the most optimal discourse given we do not fully understand a situation.

Here, the biggest reason for fighting happens because of different starting assumptions, different final objectives and different ways of execution. In any given argument between two decision-makers, it is often very hard to spot that they actually differ fundamentally in any of the aforementioned three aspects. But it is also the most tractable situation, because enumerating these assumptions and objectives is not very complicated. But it has a lot of communication effort: requires detailed elucidation from one direction and patient listening from the other. Any gaps in either direction, and the logical discourse can easily turn into an illogical fight because of misunderstanding. Illogical fights, by very definition, can only lead to frustration and exhaustion. Allow me to condense this into a pithy phrase: there are 50 shades of logic.

In parting: philosophy is a wonderful activity but just like any difficult field, it takes time and practise to do it right.

On joys and pleasures

I think it is important to distinguish between two things: joys and pleasures. In this short essay, I will attempt to unravel these oft-conflated phenomena.

Pleasures are universal things that every human is capable of experiencing. It is not hard to enumerate them, e.g. good food, good sleep and good sex. In fact, I do not think there are any more than the aforementioned three. Encoded in our biology, these pleasures are fundamental pursuits of man and hence our first tryst with the notion of happiness gets anchored to the feelings of pleasure. No pleasures, no happiness. As one grows and finds that acquisition of pleasures no longer suffices to maintain happiness, one begins to explore the meaning of happiness itself. It becomes vaguely certain that it is not feeling pleasures. This is usually the onset of the quarter-life crisis, a tough period without doubt.

In the "it ain't pleasures" period that inevitably dawns on any individual with a deep mind, lots of confusion ensues. Bad decisions are taken and unhealthy choices are made because one doesn't know what gives one perennial happiness. An extreme but common example of unhealthy choice is the use of pleasure giving drugs. But these drugs are fundamentally nothing but an enhancement of the original pleasures and it is not surprising that they do not satisfactorily get us out of this phase. Yet, they might seem like the only solution with a tangible effect in that moment. It is hard to see the opportunity cost that is lost when one only chases a higher effect of a known pleasure. How do we not fall in this pitfall and correct the course of our lives? I think culture (or religion) keeps one tethered to certain lifestyle. These rules, even if unanalysed, buy us the commodity that is necessary to make any progress: time.

As time progresses and not much has been gained (and nothing has been vitally harmed), new "things" seem to emerge. You may stumble into a book that increases your curiosity and makes you wonder about things, you may become good at your job and "feel productive" i.e. you can see that you created something of value to the world, you might discover some other interest (common or obscure) that you increasingly devote time to or you may just find spending time with certain people as lot of fun. These "things" we can call as joys. The fundamental difference from pleasures is that it is unique to each individual. The era of "it ain't pleasures" begins to end as man discovers his fundamental joys and ends when he has solidified his joys and made it part of his daily lifestyle.

Finishing thoughts. It may be gradual or it may be abrupt but as time passes, life re-anchors the meaning of happiness for every person. A life anchored in the pursuit of joys is a very rich life as joys can be many (recall that there are only 3 pleasures). You discover them, you create them and it is in your control. When feeling unhappy, look up your catalog of joys and pick one. If none works, then maybe it's time for rediscovery. Or just a good night's sleep.

On solitude

Long time since I wrote anything. The last post was almost 6 years back. Time flies. But the words remain. Reminding yourself what you were. Maybe that's why I write. To capture time in pages.

Here is a poem I wrote today:

Solitude:

A disease which should not be caught too young

Like a drape of boredom, around your being was slung

I do not know how it came about this way

Not sure if to embrace it or runaway

Poets speak of its glory

People advice to quell it or bury

I am not sure of my disposition

A man of logic or a man of emotion

All I know, one thing is clear

My solitude, I no longer fear

Conversation with Chand

On my return journey from Coimbatore, boredom hit me with full force. So I picked up my phone and started messaging my friend, Shailend Chand(Moon) who also has a wonderful blog running here: http://shailend-tabernacle.blogspot.in/ . The conversation that ensued left me engaged for quite some time and I decided to immortalize it on the labyrinths of the wide web once I reached hostel. Here it is:

Me: ...then anything interesting?
Him: Savour the night sky. Esp the crescent moon.

Me: Ah the crescent moon, such seductive beauty. Possessing her beholders with a bond ineffable by the mightiest of human hearts. Even such its darker side casts upon us every month. But the servility of man to beauty is clearly reflected as we fall mesmerized under her false whiteness in this neverending cycle of celestial magnanimity.
Him: Holy shit! Let me get a dictionary first..

Me: There are more to words than its meaning my friend. When the connection between words and human mind is made the ideas which flow don't need language to be understood.
Him: Still, man. cannot afford to sacrifice precision upon the altar of emotion.

Me: You see the notion of idea should not be obfuscated with more worldly things like emotion. Salvation lies inside ideas and you may have to sacrifice the tangible to truly embrace it.
Him: Ideas are worldly entities, as tangible as the reality they inhabit. Salvation lies beyond, in their absence.

Me: What its the beyond if not the idea of man to escape the truth. The curse of one's being lifted in the beyond is a supercilious idea put into man's head since the time Eve took the unholy bite. When there was nothing the idea of being was what succeeded.
Him:Existence is forced upon man. Truth cannot deliver him from this. Only the abyss can. Over and out.