the quandary of the lottery

In a conversation today with my teammate, about the lottery and the often insane amount of money at stake, I was thrown into a chaotic state of affairs usually achieved by the topic. For from time immemorial, I have been carrying conflicting opinions about the concept itself, forget about what to do once I win an obscene amount!

I remember my father being quite addicted to the system. Apparently, even during times of acute personal economic crisis, he used to be quite an ardent believer in his luck when it comes to a lottery ticket. However, as far as I know, the system has been happy to fool him around, with his highest win not exceeding Rs. 50. And this was exactly what surprised me: even without a sufficiently positive sample set, he relentlessly aimed for the jackpot – with the determination of an excessively needy child.

I happen to believe that such tendencies give away certain characters of a man, however, as usual, my father continued to befuddle me because the conclusions I would draw from the aforementioned habit were far from descriptive of the man he was. Further Malayalam movie hero stereotypes only increased my dilemma, and at some point of time I chose to ignore the lottery-obsessed human and his potentially deconstructive abilities.

Also, for sake of rationality, I am at loss when unable to answer an academic question of what I would do in the wake of a lottery win. I mean, I understand and have experienced the pleasures money can bring. I sometimes wonder whether an inability to answer the above question is because of a staunch ideological belief that every single penny should be earned in order for it to be enjoyed. However, instances of day-dreaming at work are not seldom, and despite that, I certainly do enjoy every bit of money I own. So, the confusion reigns.

No amount of thinking leads me to a coherent objective with many millions of dollars in an account. I wonder if it can be considered equivalent to the deep state of introspection I drown into every time I reach a restaurant offering buffet. How do I utilize this huge amount of food, for maximum pleasure to my stomach, palette, and mind? Similarly, with such a huge amount of money, should I buy a huge house? … in which case, how palatial?… car? … how many, and which? … invest? … where, and how much? … girls? … ahem, moving on …

Genuinely, a difficult optimization problem.

quality writing?

A statement like ‘writing is my passion’ warrants not only a justifiable amount of passion, but also a certain charisma or effectiveness (to tone it down a bit) in the activity itself. Although this humble assertion of mine might seem unmistakably conceited, considering I am writing myself and have known to make exaggerated statements like the above a forte’ like none other, the content should prove my innocence. In fact, this blog itself is a result of unnecessary introspection regarding the above dilemma of mine, and as of now, unfortunately has led me to no path to shangri-la.

There isn’t a doubt in my mind about my affinity towards writing, in its various forms. The problem from the interest obviously being a deep desire to produce material as good as one reads. The paradox obviously being that, the more one reads, the worse one becomes at writing, assuming you’re not stuck to a particular pulp genre. Now, I am stifled to talking about blogging because I have considered the possibility of something more meaningful, and have stealthily evaded the thought, on grounds of ability and intellect! Of course, not to say that I am not in the process of strengthening my foundations, but as of now, they’re on marshy grounds …

The problem also is that, a personal (general) blog, by definition is often very informal, and elastic in terms of the topics it can contain … so if one decides to pen down a thoughtful indulgence, it might be easily misconstrued as being a misfit for the concept of a blog itself. Of course, the contents of my blog are glaring examples of the same. And how can one forget the omnipresent problem of all, how public should one’s blog be? However, that question is not of relevance here as the content is not necessarily what I am worried about, it’s the quality of the same. Having said that, one writes passionately about one’s feelings, which are often either too private or an acute lack of self-assurance pushes one away from making it public.

In such light, I wonder if other forms, like short-stories (for fear of using the ‘n’ word) are a better outlet, from a purely quality objective. It won’t be difficult to mask characters, and circumstances to let one’s thoughts through. Also, it certainly is a great exercise to let the conflicting ideals flow, like once Tolstoy did. Not to mention, the sheer pleasure of one’s vision and ideas getting materialized into coherent text, is worth the process itself. The unfortunate reality being that, a worthy example of the above form wouldn’t emanate any time soon, so till then, what better platform to preach but a blog.

That completes the vicious circle ! …

PS: The content is oblivious of blogs on ‘opinions on worldly matters’, or on technological happenings. In fact, ‘quality fiction’, ‘coherent interpretations of incoherent thoughts’, ‘philosophical writings’, would have been appropriate as topics, but were eliminated for lack of generality !

PS2: Pardon my wasteful indulgence …

Facial hair and programming languages ?

Now, for all you skeptics out there, read this and you’ll see that I think in more than one dimension …

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/tamir/archive/2008/04/28/computer-languages-and-facial-hair-take-two.aspx

fun-e-lolcats

Back home?

Back to the place, the definition of humanity; the history, the people, the roads, the architecture, the virtues, the vices, … and so many more. Looking out of the bright-yellow, demure looking hotel room, across the bay to the lights of Manhattan, my emotions are anything but coherent. A forlorn King-Kong running amuck on the old NYC inside the small television doesn’t help matters either. The waves hitting the rocks below, destroy the quaint night, threatening to permeate the moonlit membrane in the air into countless silver sparkles. These waves are familiar, they’ve comforted me often, during the three months I was here. A time when melancholy was an obsession, for valid reason and not, when these very waves seemed to be the only constant companion, all understanding, all absorbing.

I often wonder if the city means more to me because of its ‘human’ image in my mind, formed as a result of movies and books, or from my very own experiences. It has seen me hit my rock bottom, and somehow always, seemed to have space in it’s heart for me. It has pacified my soul, and at the same time, fueled my sorrow. Mind you, it is no exaggeration that this city breathes, you’ll feel it when it’s heart opens out to you; every new place you visit will seem familiar, living up to your dream of visiting it sometime and every place you visit again will become your friend, in good times and bad. It’ll hurt when you leave it: to not walk the roads that defined your daily existence, to not feel the morning smell that rendered caffeine useless, not to have a companion that expects nothing in return, but faith. No matter how many times I come here, I feel like being touched in a new way, only to make me yearn for another time. I hope the time never comes when boredom sets in for either one of us.