Late Night talk

A Typical Afternoon in the office includes a hot cup of coffee which usually just sits there half empty, a colorful screen with all kinds of red, orange and if lucky green-blue simulation signals, and a good set of sony headphones, the kind which I recently received from D. No, unlike what you might be thinking, I did title this correctly. It not about afternoon that I wish to talk to you about. From the "circumaural" headphones comes out a very sweet sound of a song which takes me back to those cold nights in Cincinnati at a speed more than my simulation can run.

Those were the days. Me and one of my very close girlfriend with our class of 2007 use to spend nights after nights in our VLSI lab at Cinci. Our survival kit included the fudge cookies, brisk ICE tea from the wending machine across the hall in the nap room/break room and the our lone CD in the lab. We used to play our favourite song, "bheegi bheggi ratoon mein by leslie lewis". And not only did we play it , we kept on playing it. As the number of nights we spent in the lab increased, the sweet sound of the song was followed by our out of Sync voices. The song transcended from being an addition to the project nights to an addiction.The nights I spent in the 880 Lab does not remind me of the project deadlines or blood shot eyes but more about the fun we had as a group.

It would be close to a year now since I left my student life, but every little thing brings back memories including the 9'O clock Fox shows. My rommie's blog does not make the task any simpler. I miss those days and above all I miss the people. Wish I could go back in time for just a day back to the lab, back to my friends back to Apt 12, relive the moment over again.

Confessions Of A Cynic

The following thoughts and ideas have been loosely abridged from my observations of life and are postulates so to speak, to be accepted without proof.

Expectation is the root of all misery

Expectation sets mental standards. Failure by people around you and life in general to meet these standards leads to misery. So ingrained in our minds and lives is the law of action & reaction that we subconsciously expect returns for each and every action, no matter how small it might be. Master the art of giving up expectation and you will overcome unhappiness once and for all. However, the fact that you won't be unhappy does not mean that you will be happy.

The worst unanswered questions in life start with Why

"Why did he say that?" "Why did she do this to me?" "Why must life suck so much?" "Why Me?" It all starts with Why? We all wonder Why? Given a choice, most people would rather want to know "Why can't we be truly happy?" instead of "What is true happiness?" Answers to What questions are philosophical. Answers to Why questions are practical.

Hope is the biggest trick of them all

The biggest trick that was ever pulled on mankind was to make one believe that having hope can somehow affect the outcome of whatever it is one is hoping for. Thinking about it logically for a second makes one realize how ridiculous the idea is. However, the success stories of a small percentage of people hoping for something and then getting it, usually get more media attention and thereby overshadow the huge failure rate. It is this fact that keeps up the smoke screen. I put it rather bluntly though. Hopeful people would rather put it as: This is what keeps people going.

Rejection is the root of all conflict

Rejection: Of ideas, of love and often of common sense. Wars, heartbreak, crimes, divorce, global warming...the list is endless. But it can all be traced down to rejection. Rejection of one basic value, on which had the conflicting parties been able to agree upon, would have led them to not being conflicting parties in the first place. Variety is not the spice of life. The varieties of rejection are the spice of life. In fact, it would be a safe bet on my part to assume that many of you readers would rather reject my ideas of cynicism after having convinced yourself that optimism is a better choice.

Love is a scarce natural resource in need of conservation

Understanding a quality as complex as love requires the application of logic beyond the normal realms and boundaries of analysis. The world population is constantly on the rise. However, there is only enough love to go around. A common scenario of demand exceeding supply. It would help you to understand if you think of love as a spiritual or psychological oxygen for the human race. Or for the technically inclined, an internet connection with limited bandwidth. For new people to fall in love, people already in love have to fall out of love to make resources available, leading to divorces and split-ups. However, if the feelings of mutual affection of the new people who want to be in love are not stronger than those of the current people, resources are not freed up, leading to heartbreak. Love, therefore is a non-renewable scarce natural resource in dire need of conservation.

Footnote:

These ideas have not been presented with an aim of converting you into followers of cynicism. In fact, I suggest to the optimists among you that you feed on these golden morsels of information and think of how lucky you are to be privy to this knowledge without having to undergo the arduous quest to cynical enlightenment.