Ego

Human mind is such a fascinating. It is like complex data base management system which manages data stored in our brain. It is so fast that even today's super computers can not simulate it. Our brain registers and stores all our experiences. Many of them deleted over the time period if not used for long time. Our mind churns them and provides us solution which we call as decision.

This decision making process not only depends on our experiences but it is influenced by characteristics of our mind. One such strange characteristic is Ego. I am personally always confused about it. I am not sure if it is positive or negative characteristic. Since our childhood we have been always taught that being egoistic is not good. All our saints, Priest and well known social workers are always portrayed as selfless people. But I feel it is impossible to have courage to fight against odds if you are self less, without any ego. In fact courage and ego go hand in hand. Some how I feel people without ego are spine less. They are just followers not leaders. Ego always gives you dedication, obsession and most important confidence.

Some time back I got chance to read one excellent book 'Fountain Head' by Ayn Rand. There is nice speech in book by one protagonist. Theme of speech is creator. The revolutionist, the guy who always tried something new going against the whole world. The speech says creator is most egoistic human being. He is most selfish person. When he invents something he only thinks about his own satisfaction. He do not care about world around him. May be that’s why ego is always criticized.

I feel one should have ego for the things he/she posses. It is not bad after all. It can help you some extent.

Cab Driver in USA

On Friday, next day to thanks giving I planned to go Disney land. I called hotel front desk for taxi. I thought I will get reliable taxi service if I hire it through hotel. Taxi arrived on time and we left for Disney land.

As soon as taxi left hotel premises driver announced "$ 38. It is fixed rate to Disney land. Hotel guys did not tell you? ". Then I realized my mistake of following instinct without enquiry. Day before I checked on internet about taxi rate for yellow cab taxi service and it was about $ 28. Now there was no going back. I accepted my fault and kept quiet.

This driver was very talkative. He was from Indonesia. He guessed that I am from India. He suddenly stared speaking 'Namaste', 'Aap kaise hai?' and some irrelevant Hindi sentences one after other just to show off that he know Hindi. Then he started sharing his experiences with Indian passengers.

He thought that Indians are very conservative. They can go to any extent to save few dollars. Naturally it hurt me. He was criticizing Indians in front of Indian. But I had to listen all that crap as I was new to place and I wanted him to drop me till Disney land.

As we came close to Disney land he started asking 'When you are going back?'. I told him I have not decided yet. Then he gave me his number and asked me to call him while going back. I found it very odd. After speaking all that crap about Indians how he can expect me to call him for ride back to hotel. Then he started explaining How it is very risky to hire Taxi from Disney land area. How they will cheat you and bla bla bla. And he was doing so while he was cheating on me.

While going back I have not called this driver as I had decided as soon as I got down form his taxi. I went to taxi stop and luckily I got taxi with Indian driver. He was very professional. We had nice conversation. He charged me $27 as per meter and gave me his number also.

I think I was lucky to go through these two experience on single day. It really helped me to regain my self esteem to some extent.

Spiderman: Beyond Special Effects and Action

Yesterday luckily I happened to watch movie Spiderman-3. I said luckily bcoz me and my friend Tushar was coming back from one ceremony and suddenly we saw big spidy poster on Jai Ganesh Fame. We rushed in and fortunately got two tickets for 10:30PM show. Movie was as usual full of action scenes, fights between good and bad, special effects and action. But at the concluding scene of movie just clicked something in mind .This series of movie is not only about action but give out some self improvement message also.
Let us start with Spiderman-1. What happens in it is our hero gets spider bite and changes in DNA makes him super natural. Now the college going kid suddenly becomes super hero. To add into that his family is in financial crisis. Obviously he is confused about what to do with his powers. Then his grand father steps in and gives him advice that 'Power always brings responsibility with it'. So spidy takes it up correctly and becomes messiah for people in trouble. So what is lesson for us. Do not take undue advantage of your power or authority. Instead use it to help people around you.
Now consider case of spiderman-2. Spidy has now started playing care taker of NY city. But due to that his personal life was mess. He was not able to attend classes in university, take care of his grand mother properly and above all due to some bad journalism his image is spoiling. He is totally confused and he loses his all powers. When he thinks over it, what he realizes is - what ever the matter just stick to basics and do not compromise with personal life in doing so. He starts his work with new energy. It sends out clear signal that to excel in your profession there should be proper balance between personal and professional life.
In the last movie of this series Spiderman starts using his power for his own good due to some extra terrestrial parasite. He had choice to come back to his own mission or continue as it is. But he chooses to continue as it is. Due to that he hurts lot of people which then turns into his enemy. Even he hurts his friend and girl friend. He becomes totally self centric. But in spite of this he is not ready to leave parasite bcoz he is having the feeling of supreme power. Finally his life becomes so miserable he had to leave parasite. In our life also we always have a choice to choose our response to circumstances and they highly govern our life.

Evolution

Sometimes I just wonder if we believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (Personally I doubt on it since I read some material where Darwin is proved to be wrong) then what will be next phase of this process called 'Evolution'.
Till man started walking on two feet evolution is very much governed by natural forces. The main driving force behind evolution was natural selection and survival of fittest. We can say man survived due to his unique power of thinking and superior brain. He not only survived but started dominating earth. Due to hunger for innovation he created imbalance in nature around him and became reason for extinction of many species. So what is next? Are we still evolving or we have stopped this natural process of evolution.
I guess "Yes" , we are still evolving but not naturally. It is man made evolution through his own innovations. It sounds like Sci - Fi movie but it is real. We slowly morphing our selves into cyborgs. Remember Dr Warwick, very alive cyborg who has got fitted chip which can communicate to his neural network. He has successfully operated robot arm through internet. Just think of moving robot arm up seating in New York and ..... abra kd dabra .....it started moving up in London. That’s I call evolution.
I think by the end of this century every one of us will be fitted with chips....communicating without phones, driving cars even without touching steering wheel, writing Blogs just as you think.
One more breakthrough in medical research is trying to dominate this evolution - "Stem Cells". Scientist has created sperm from bone marrow which can replace male sperm in reproduction process. So naturally males are going to become redundant. Research also proves that Y chromosome in Male (which make them Male) is fast deteriorating bcoz it is not adaptable to mutation unlike X chromosome. So mail fertility is declining over the years. In other words mail are on path of extinction.
So conclusion - Be prepared for all woman world with Cyborgs where every one is super hero grrr.... Super "heroine"

Woman Power

This started with casual discussion with my colleague over chat about power bike - bullet. We were debating if bullet is feminine or masculine. As per him for all males it or rather she is feminine but I do not agree with it bcoz I feel it makes the two wheeler beast weaker from inside. But he was firm to his point and tried to convince me that woman are not that weak.

Coincidently the next day it was international woman's day and all measure news papers gave lot of publicity to it. There was interesting stats and info on front page of TOI as well as lot of articles inside. After going through all these articles what I concluded is - Woman have lot of soft power and can direct the society the way they want. I mean woman are pillar of culture for every society. This is universal truth that woman are responsible to look after family, shape up kids early days who then will grow up in sensible citizen.

The other day I happened to read one article about research on human evolution. It claimed that early weapons (during stone age) for hunting were innovated by woman. The reason for that was simple. They were weaker than males. They did not want to put their life in risk as they have important responsibility of growing up next generation. So that’s why they invented weapons to minimize risk in hunting. After that males took over and started exploring different variation of these weapons.

So the bottom line is - woman may be weak physically but they have lot of mental strength with EQ far better than mans and ability to change the civilization. That’s what I collectively called soft power. But main question remains unanswered and that is whether Bullet is Feminine or Masculine.

Being Paranoid

So this is my first ever blog and I am paranoid for this also. How it will look? What people will think about it and bla bla. All are useless questions.... that’s makes me look dumb and even some time I tend to under perform due to that .... to be frank it helps also some time.

Actually funny thing is that I was not aware at all I am paranoid until in one of team meeting ( BTW I am software engineer) our VP said 'Paranoid always survives'. And then I started thinking over it. Is it really true that paranoid survives? So I decided to recall my reactions to crisis situations in past.

It was June 2002 at IIT Kharagpur. Just beginning of my 3 rd semester of MTech. It is supposed to be project semester. For us those were golden days in our life. No classes, No exams. But my paranoid mind was continuously pushing panic button. Because I was not able to rope in only Professor in our department who works in field of FEM to guide me. Reason was simple I was not amongst the topper of department. This field was very promising and had lucrative job opportunities.

So one fine morning as my paranoid mind directed me I went to this Professor’s office and requested from my heart to guide me. As usual my paranoid mind was helping me to make it more real and touching. Professor agreed and on the basis of this project I got into well known MNC.

Now consider another situation... Jan 2006. Tennis court in Bangalore. I was going through training and that day junior trainer taught us service. I was enjoying it a lot bcoz I was picked it very fast. Now suddenly from somewhere senior trainer turned up and wanted to see how we (Me and my friend) are doing progress. So he asked us to serve for five times. Now my paranoid mind panicked again... lots of questions in mind, what will happen if I fail? What trainer will think about me? will I look dumb in front of my friend? and so on... Finally it took its toll and I missed all the five services.

It was same response in two different situations but in first one it helped me to come out of crisis situation but in second one it pushed me to under perform......
Now it is up to readers to be paranoid always or to be cool and fearless. I guess mix of both as per situation can pay off better.