Are you real?

I just came across this wonderful quote.

“It’s never too late to become the
person you might have been.”
- George Elliot

–

It reminded me of The Alchemist. Both have similar message. While one talks about having a personal legend and following it truthfully, the other talks about or rather suggests that it may not be too late for you or for me, to do, what we dream about or what we “should” dream about. We must become the person which we might have been, had we been more diligent, disciplined and focused about our goals. Many of us waver from our goals and take a parallel route and think that we are doing alright. But we don’t realize the truth until someone points it out to us. It is hidden in plain sight, and yet we do not see it. It is crystal clear, if we want it to be. It is right there and yet, we cannot see.

Best fortune, I have read till date.

Today might be great and wonderful day. It depends on you.

Buying stocks

Following seems a good link for advice on buying stocks. I am going to religiously follow them and invent my own method.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/learn-how-to-invest/7-questions-to-ask-before-you-buy.aspx#pageTopAchor

My stocks were down by 50% by they have already recovered by about 90%. I did a couple of glaring mistakes when the stocks were down. My intuition was to buy a few I knew were good, but denied that opportunity to make money, thinking about the rotten economy and not believing that it is going to get up and run. But, that was a mistake, as has been proved already to a certain extent. Currently, I am getting to understand the process and pinning down a method to buy stocks.

a new beginning?

How many times have you seen yourself saying the following to yourself?

“Today is the day! I begin new! Past is past. Past mistakes should be forgotten. Last job was a mess. I will do these many good beginnings in my new job. Last marriage was a waste. In this marriage, I will not do certain mistakes. I hurt my friend and I lost him/ her. I will not hurt anyone henceforth and make many new friends. Today is the day when I start afresh!”

I am sure umpteen number of times. It can be a bit personal or totally professional ambition on everyone’s part. But, every now and then I see oneself saying to oneself, Today is the day when I begin afresh! This is, as harshly I must say, stupid. It is stupid because nothing can be fresh. Yes a decision to learn from mistakes is. Past mistakes in jobs, school, personal life cannot be undone. They, however, can be redone, if one is not careful. “A new beginning” is coward’s way of saying that my memory will try to forget everything that has happened before. A coward will run away from the fact that he/ she had made mistakes in the past. I am not sure of the following sentence, but I guess it is true – Everyone in the world makes mistakes, and probably everyone outside this world too. Mistakes happen because we do not learn from them. ‘We’ includes me, for sure. Beginning is almost impossible since we always begin with the sun remainder of our deeds. If anyone believes in death-n-rebirth, we have heard that our past sins/ good deeds sum up to our current state/ form. If our birth is so much dependent upon our past deeds, how can one escape from mistakes? How can we nullify the fact that we are in negative, when we really are. We are not at 0, we are in the -ve. Many times, I have seen myself doing the same – thinking that the past week was a waste, and promising to work harder the next week. The truth is that, we cannot work harder and compensate the past week – it has already reached the past tense. It is not current, and thus cannot be compensated for. It is the current that is in our “control” – or I should say, it is in our “sight“. It may or may not be “control“, as some may say, but it is something we can see and thus can do something about it.

I am not sure where I going with my random thoughts, just thought to write a few lines I hear from people – about starting afresh. Very funnily, I hear it from them quite often, starting a fresh year, fresh day, fresh hour..

Knowledge or something like it

The more I read about some X thing, the more it seems to me that I know little about it. This seems applicable in everything I do. The more research I do, more questions seem to creep up. The more I cook, more and more it seems that I know little. The more I write, the lesser I am convinced about what I write. The more I read, lesser I know. When I realize this, I cannot ignore what I have heard “Ignorance is bliss“. This is so true. One, sometimes, just needs to ignore, in order to achieve what one is set to achieve. As someone has pointed out – When you dig for gold, you must look for gold, not the dirt that covers the gold. One must learn to ignore everything else, all the paraphernalia associated with it. “Digging for gold” seems like a good phrase to hold on to, but it is rather difficult to implement it.

This avid greed to know everything is bad. I, fortunately, don’t have this greed. But, this greed can be very well compared to some people’s habit of wanting to see every nook-n-corner of a new place they are visiting. I have many people going to a new vacation place, and instead of enjoying this place, they have on agenda, to see everything they have heard about this place, every monument, every museum, every sunset point, every beach and every other small thing. In doing this, they forget that their motive in this was to enjoy a vacation, which seems lost while they are leaving this place. They “saw” everything, but did they “enjoy”? Seeking information and seeking knowledge-from-this-information, is something like that. You don’t need to know everything. You only need something, something that is sufficient for you and you feel good about it.

Moving up: a milestone

Last weekend, I was playing in the Pittsburgh Chess League 2009/10. It was a game I had been waiting for, since in the  last year, I lost many games due to shear bad play. In this year’s league, I want to make amends and move up. This was round one. My first match was against a player whom I have played before. He is a very good player, who does not make mistakes. I have lost to him twice and drawn once, which meant that it was difficult for me to beat him. The game went on and on, and was the one of the last games to finish. We were neck and neck and then I grabbed 2 extra pawns, which made life easy and then he made a mistake. But, my opponent is not an easy one and he tried to get a stalemate off me, but I have played too much chess, lost many games, to be tricked. Finally I won. I moved 40+ points, since he is a 1500+ player and  I am 1100+ player. This win took me to 1200+, for the first time in my chess life. It is a moment for me to remember. Though 1200+ means nothing more than “I can play chess, not too bad”, but it meant much for me and I am happy about it. I have to be consistent now to move past 1300.

Dravid, the real wall

What can you comment when a man of Dravid’s caliber is being drafted into an ODI team filled with young explosive batsmen? Well, you can not only comment, but say with some pride and some shame – Pride, for Dravid, since he has time and again proven that the quality he offers, is unmatched. Shame, you must have, not for the young explosive talent that fires many times, but also fails a bunch of times too, but shame is here for the selectors who, in the first place, dropped Dravid. I always felt that Dravid, Ganguly and Tendulkar could be playing in the next World Cup – not because they deserve to be having another shot at the Cup, but because they deserve their places on merit. None of the young talent has been consistent, definitely, not as much as Dravid. A man who unfortunately has spent more time of his career trying to prove his critics wrong, deserves a place, just on merit. He is the unbreakable wall. While I agree that he had some tough time before he was dropped, but then who does not have tough time and lean patches? Each one of these new players scores a firecracking 50 once and then crumble in the next 4 games. Dravid’s fault was that he was consistent most of the times, except that he could not score much in his last 8 games on the trot. Well, to this, the solution is to give a break and make a fresh start. But, as flimsy the selectors are, as their mentalities and I am pretty sure there is a lot of politics is involved here too. I wonder how Tendulkar does not suffer from this politics and it is good that he does not. But, my question remains why Ganguly and Dravid did not get the same opportunities as the Little Master? We may hear it someday, but not from Dravid, a man who rarely speaks or gives flamboyant interviews, but believes in letting his bat talk. Whenever I hear him speaking, there is plain humility and calmness about his attitude, which is rarity these days. A man with immense talent, the real wall of Indian cricket, has some unfinished business, I hope.

alternate

Your understanding of an alternating current (A.C.) is about to change. Your thinking about getting alternate benefits is about to change. I have warned you now.

the commonly accepted norm of an alternate is something like this – 10.10.10.10.10.10.10.10.. (1)

I truly believe that it is a completely wrong way to do. The real alternate is quite complicated. My small brain can think of something like this – 0110.1001.0110.1001..(2)

Consider (1) and (2): Mostly I might be considered crazy for proposing this theory. But, to me it is all about equality. In (1), there is no equality…1 and 0 come one after the another, but the fact remains that 1 always comes before 0, in any given round of binaries. In (2), there is no binary. Here the cycle gets completed only when both 1 and 0 get their share. In one round, 1 starts first and then in the following round, 0 starts first. This is a close-to-correct alternating theory.

I reached this theory while I was thinking about authorship issues in papers.

(1 helps 0. 0 helps 1. 1 helps 0. 0 helps 1..) cannot be alternate.

(1 helps 0. 0 helps 1. 0 helps 1. 1 helps 0.1 helps 0.0 helps 1..) is the real alternate.

nemawashi

do you want to lay the groundwork of a fact before taking it to the table? do you think you can dig a tree all-round and transplant it elsewhere? do you want to build consensus before the cat is out of the bag? do you want to let the cat out part by part, and then put a mouse on the table? do you want to re-invent the wheel as square and still wish that people would agree? do you want to run and still make believe that you are static?

search for “nemawashi” and practice it.

Play like a rabbit

“For a good life,
Work like a dog,
Eat like a horse,
Think like a fox,
And play like a rabbit.“

~ George Allen

These lines are so true; everyone – from children to adults must play like rabbits – innocent, playful, cute, bubbly, happy, and carefree..