Being Mature...

The word is Mature: When I looked at a standard dictionary to see what exactly it means , I got many definitions. I picked this one:

having reached an advanced stage of mental or emotional development

Then there was an example sentence:
"a young man mature beyond his years" and i wondered why it didn't said: "a young woman mature beyond her years". I mean it's just an example.
Anyways.

Now, this was the definition close enough for me to be a "perfect definition" but it had so many flaws when I tried to make a practical thing out of it. I mean can I actually make out, using this definition, that If a person is mature or not? Reading this definition over and over again make me feel that all other people, who are not mature, are retard.

Now I love Einstein and his incredible theory of relativity. You can put it with anything and make some sense out of it. If the person, whom you want to think that you are mature, thinks that you are mature or have reached an advanced stage of mental or emotional development , makes you mature for that very person. This also implies that the person who thinks that you are mature should be mature enough to think that way. Now here is the tricky part, this other person could be you yourself. I can not resist myself seeing a recursive situation here with lots of troubles followed. To avoid this, it is always good to let others do this job of being the other person.

Getting out of the recursive loop and coming back to the subject of discussion, let's see another aspect to this. By now it is very much clear that this definition, on its own, is good for nothing. It has another variable: The Other Person, a human being who decides whether "some-one" has actually reached an advanced stage of mental or emotional development( assuming here that the other person is "Mature" enough to do this job). The tricky part here is that human are human. They are always prone to prejudice. People always have some pre-convcieved lovely picture-frame build in their mind. They try to fit every thing in it. And if someone fails to fit-in, they simply conclude them to be unfit for their picture-frame. Further we cannot consider human to be just a variable; A human is influenced by numerous other variables which makes the individual personality. Some people have high expectations. Some people have ego issues. Some people are impatient. Some people are prone to misunderstandings. And some people are too simple to understand the complications surrounded by a rather very simple looking thing.

I'm not sure but may be maturity lies in not trying to be mature in a way others want you to be. It lies in being yourself and doing things which you like doing in your own way. And let the mature people out there decide if you are mature or not. If they think you are not; hard luck! You can always smile though that there could be more mature people out there who think the same way for them. See relativity :-)

Fate, Destiny, Faith and Control

This is one of my posts from the past. Pasting it here to share with you guys.

What is fate? Or what is destiny?
In any standard dictionary, it will say,

"fate is a predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control."

And that makes destiny an inevitable destination waiting to be reached.

In movie Matrix, Morpheous asks Neo:

Do you believe in fate, Neo?
No.
Why not?
Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

“Being in control of your own life”, what does it mean? We might get the answer by the end of this blog.

I was thinking all about this while driving to office this morning and was wondering is it that every thing I do in my life, the life I am living, every failure I face, every achievement I make… all is part of an already written script and I’m just somebody who is filling up this character of being me. I’m not in control of my life. I can’t change things. Is it true? What if I bang my car to that tree? Is this also destined to happen? Yes, if I choose to do so :-) … tricky isn’t it?

There are different ways to perceive the concept of fate. And there are lot of things which are contradictory. And I believe fate and destiny are sometimes, in fact most of the times misunderstood and are normally used by people to feel better in a situation which seems to be helpless. Ok, explain me the difference between “giving up” and “giving up to fate or destiny”. The latter definitely sounds more consoling. But is it okay to say always that things dint turned out our way as it was not destined to be.

Okay, if we give it a further thought, I say fate is our path from birth to death, it’s our life. And at each moment in our lives we face an infinite number of choices… Infinite number of doors… one of which we choose to open. Have you ever heard of the sentence “I can only show you the door, you must go through it”… It’s God, the supernatural, he brings us to the doors and give us the opportunity to make a choice. At times deciding could be difficult. But we must make this decision, even though we don’t have all the answers, no certainty of what is behind the doors. So it becomes the decision of faith. There will be times when we might find ourselves unable to decide anything, and then we wonder why God brought us here at first place? May be we fail to realize that God is showing us a way and if we accept the path to which God invites us, we are too assured the ability to rise above all confinements and difficulties of this present reality.

Destiny brings us to the door. And it’s us who chooses to go through it or not. The door WE decide to choose determines the life WE choose to live. As we progress through our lives, we make some important and some not so important decisions. And these series of decisions when seen in entirety becomes the path of our life; and makes our life what it is, different from others and meaningful! It’s WE, who add meaning to it. WE therefore define our own path, our own fate, our own destiny! And this power vested in us to CHOOSE make us in control of our own life!

~~

XBox 360 Vs Play Station (PS) 3

Isn't this great?
I heard the voice from right side of my shoulder. A man in his early 50's was standing and watching me playing on a brand new PS-3 in a Sony World showroom. I'm not into gaming too much. I normally use gaming as a stress buster, I just drive away to glory with needing to speed my virtual cars all over the places. That day, I was there with my friend who was having some problem with his new wide-screen LCD TV. The engineer was taking some time and I couldn't resist my self to put my hands on the demo PS-3 machine connected with a 42" LCD screen. They had put some car race game which I think was named "Ridge Valley or Rally Race".

I said, yes sir, this is nice.
How are the control likes? I've heard, they're not as great as XBox.

They are more or less same, Sir. It's just how you adjust yourself to the controls. More you play, more you feel friendly to those controls, be it XBox or PS.

Can I try?

I said sure and I handed over the remote. He started playing.

Na... It's not as good as XBox. Too slow. Not even close.

He said this while still playing and crashing his car all over the places. I was little surprised. I said, May Be, but I couldn't feel much difference. How did you make out?

See the car is so slow, it's not even accelerating.

I was like "Whattt..????"
Inside me, I was in all laughs and tried my best not to show it but couldn't help a ridiculing smile to escape out. I know many people have many misconceptions about computers, how they work etc... Mostly they are elderly people who although are very good in their own respective fields but dwell some strange misconceptions about computers. Being a computer engineer, it becomes my responsibility to educate them and clear them from any such misconceptions. It's like making a difference in the world around you in a your own way, be it a small way.

I said. No sir. The speed of car has nothing to do with the hardware(CPU) speed. It is just that the game is designed in such a way that it's simulation lets you feel that the car is not going as fast as it is, actually. And in other games the simulation gives user a different perception, a faster moving surroundings for example.

Nope, I can make out, it's the CPU. It's simple, if you don't have solid engine, a solid heart, how will your car run? It's too slow. He immediately ruled out whatever I said.

So I tried again. Yes sir, you are right, but the heart here is not CPU but the game, the CD inside. That's the heart here. Another game or another car with better performance will act differently.

And then he looked at me... with that look... and he started...
What are you talking son, let me explain to you, there are different components of a computer like Monitor, CD, UPS, Keyboard, Mouse, CPU and some black and grey wires. And out of all, UPS is the heart.

You mean CPU, Sir. I interrupted.

Yea yea, CPU, whatever.
So slower the UPS slower is the car. I said CPU again.

He sure did had his computer lessons well. Or may be his son or a beautiful daughter (this is what I was imagining) explained him that.

I said, okay Sir! you are right, CPU is the heart. But if you want to put it that way(I tried explaining him in same line, so that he can appreciate the difference), then the game in there is the soul. If the game is not good the CPU can't do much. Just like if one has a weak soul, good heart can't do much.

He gave me a stunned look... Man.. what am I saying? Why am I saying? And am I making any sense at all? I was sounding like a fool, a cave-man to myself, leave alone others.

He was still looking at me, even when I've stopped talking. I think that the whole heart-n-soul thing became the low point.

CD drive a soul?? Ha ha ha.

That, I must say, was a ridiculing laugh. Full-fledge laugh. I was looking like an idiot. He continued to laugh for another 10 seconds. He kept the remote back on the table there...

And while trying himself to stop laughing but not actually fully stopping, he asked:

What do you do son?

Never in my working life, I ever felt of hiding, what I do. Normally I answer this question with lot of pride and style. You are here talking about a guy, who is passionate about coding... algorithms, graphics, animations and he even dreams to be, someday, a game programmer. I couldn't just say it.

I said, I'm a car mechanic, Sir.

I almost heard his eyes saying... "That explains!"

I'm sure tomorrow if he calls up Microsoft tech-support to know whether he was right with his theory. Surely they'll confirm that XBox run cars faster because it has a faster UPS.

~~

Gadzet Gizmo

Lately, I've developed this reputation of being a gizmo-gadget freak, who knows all about all the hot and cold electronic gadgets in the market. It's not that I've some problem carrying this rapport, but this sometime gets me in some unusual situations.
For example, all my relatives want my approval before buying some thing which consumes electrical energy to work. And at times a telephonic approval may just not do. They'll want me to accompany them to the shop, see the thing physically, at times they may want me to touch it as well (Does this touch good? yea uncle, No!, touch here... It's little rough... imagine!).
And then finally, after all the touching and seeing, I declare that this thing is good enough to buy. Then comes the part which I hate the most. It sound something like this: "Son! we are buying this just because YOU said that this brand is better than the one your Aunty's sister has. That one has 6 months of more warranty and will cost us Rs 200 less. But we are still ready to pay that extra amount because YOU are saying so. Are YOU sure?". A polite message from them to re-consider my declaration. It feels as if I'm about to sign a stamp-paper declaration; and if ever this thing gets screwed up, they are gonna sue me taking the sales-man as an eye-witness.
Most of you at this point would think... that I should like... what the heck... then go and buy that other one. No dear friends, from my experience, never do that. Unless you are willing to have another visit to another showroom and another round of touching and seeing and then another classic reconsideration. And this time, it would be like: "Son! you know what, we actually liked the previous one better, it was your Aunty's fav brand and would have given her a definite edge over her sis and hence made her feel proud of myself, moreover that salesman was saying that it has better technology, had YOU not told us to come here, we would have bought that one only!"
What the !@#@$
Believe me it never ends.

Next Time

In my earlier days as kid, I used to think, everything is periodic. There is a pattern in everything. And it keeps repeating itself over and over again. We all are living in a set of concentric circles. Small circles. Big circles. Just like days and nights. Just like time on our watches. 4 p.m it's today and so is it tomorrow. It gave me an impression that this moment right now... will be back again, tomorrow or some time later. So it always gave me this thing called "Next-Time". And I wished next time would be better if it's not already. Now since I know what to do, I'll do it better next-time. Being a younger sibling, I used to think, It's just not fair to be younger and next time I would be the elder one. So that I can win all the sports. So that i can be taller. So that I can boss around.

It took me quite a long to understand what exactly this deal was all about. And being younger is not that bad either.
It's more like a spiral coil, a spring, than a circle. And if you stretch ends, you'll get a straight line. No going back. And it took me even longer to realize that there is no such thing called "Next-Time". And if you think you can go back and live it again. Change things. Be a Hiro Nakamura. No. You can't. Not in this life.

But. Yes. Things do come back. They come back all the time. And it is not bad to hope them to come back. And then, when they come back, you should know what to do this time as there is no .... :-)

The Beginning

Rough Copy**

There is this one copy(note-book) in our lives in which we don't fear to write, draw, tear of pages to make paper planes... paper balls which we throw on you know who... tear off pages to play various games not forgetting the legendary game of Indian child-hood called - RMCS (Raja, Mantri, Chor, Sipahi)**
Whatever we learn.. we write it on our rough copy first!

And it doesn't end here.

Your first signature. Initials of your first crush along with your own in a heart shaped bubble, which you stare endlessly with her thoughts in your mind :-) That's the place your imagination flows... Your first sketch.. weird, surreal, super-natural pictures coming from your unconscious mind or world of your own and going straight in there... For some, their first poem or a song... That's the place where you are in-charge. And you are not feared to be judged by some one (or get caught!). That's the place where your thoughts get freedom.

We spend least amount of money on this note-book and make most out of it. We treat it in worse possible way but can't do without it.
And by the time we reach college, virtually it's the only note-book left with us... which gets reduced to few pages and then gets lost soon after.

I wish I can have all those rough copies of my life back so that I can look into them and know, who I was. And know about the stuff which I no longer know about myself...
Who was my fav toon character which I liked drawing the most. How many crush bubbles I had on it(And how many of those got crushed :,(). Who was the school teacher or college lecturer, I hated the most and made him as pitiable as possible in my sketches. How many tic-tac-toe games I won. And lot more.

This blog is tribute to that me who used to love to express him self in those rough copies!

**RMCS (Raja, Mantri, Chor, Sipahi): For firang(Non Indians) readers, It's an advance game which takes Chess to the next level and allow actual persons to impersonalte the characters of the game, device strategy, play politics and win wars). Historians think that it was the first form of strategic war games and inspired games like Chess etc..