Connotation of Humility

If it involves painting a "smaller" picture of oneself, it is just another tactic to manipulate people. How can it be any different from exaggerating stuff about yourself? Both involve misrepresenting facts for some perceived advantage in interactions with others.

If it is about not bragging, well, thats good. So is not shouting in public places, not throwing dirt on other people or not doing something unpleasant in general. Do we need to invent words to describe these "qualities" and emphasize their importance too?

Explanation vs Training

From PI 5: Children are taught languages by training them, and not by explaining things to them.

I am reminded of this short story by Asimov, in which there is this robot, which believes in a 'higher' purpose. It holds some beam steady over a storm, saving the lives of people with him on the space station. The interesting part was that the robot doesn't do it to save the people, but to fulfill his duties to this higher being (or something like that). It does its job well.

The fact that all knowledge bottoms out to training (by external or internal sources), makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

The Passion of Anna

Watched 'The Passion of Anna' today. It wasn't as charged as 'Persona' or 'Cries and Whispers'. There were some good moments towards the end. But it didn't have the Bergman magic. Nykvist did his thing. I didn't quite enjoy the movie. The subject was interesting, though. I think the existential theme was stronger in 'The Silence' than this one. I agree with the imdb rating of 7.6/10.

Me, Myself and Moi

I remember this story that a software engineer once told me. He told me about how hard he worked on a project, which he wanted his boss to approve of. When he demonstrated it to his boss, the software displayed the boss's photograph. The guy believes this was the single most important reason why his boss approved the project.

I think it is important to acknowledge all the sources which boosts your ego. It is important to accept the weak ones too. They may be as trivial as seeing one's own face, or hearing one's own name, or as significant as winning the Nobel prize. The tricky ones remind you of yourself in subtle ways. Stuff that seem to agree with your own beliefs (esp. the ones you are not vocal about, atleast in the given context), are subtle yet powerful.

Once they are identified, we tend to go through a range of emotions. [Oh my god, am I soo shallow that I get a kick from hearing that I know of one band more than the other guy? No *I* don't take pride in such trivial things. No. Never]. As far as I am concerned, acknowledging them is very important. You may be comfortable to live with some of them, while others may clash with your own morality. At this point, you could re-evaluate either your own sense of morality, or the things that you actually value, or both. Maybe you could reconcile them.

If you fail to acknowledge them, you make it difficult to evaluate the sources objectively. Hey, I feel good right now, my picture is definitely not the reason behind it, so it must the software! Acknowledging those little boosts help us to decouple them from the rest of the system. Hmm, that is a photograph of myself, cool! Now where was I with evaluating the software? Denying these little kicks is what makes us susceptible to flattery, and poor judgement. Accepting them on the other hand, makes you realize how ordinary you are. Which is ofcourse a topic for later!

Drawing

Q. Why do I apply charcoal on paper?
A. Because people tend to respond poorly to semen on paper.

The Contract

Some people find that internet in general, and blogs and emails in particular 'corrupt' our language. The same set of people will find that my blog vindicates their claims. I am not attempting to write something "good" from a literary point of view. I am not even trying to write a good blog. However, I will try to capture things that I find meaningful, at this point of time. I am trying to take little snapshots of my thoughts, so that a couple of years later, I can look at them and go "Haa Ha". (Hint: I am a Simpsons fan).

It is very interesting how after a couple of years you have moved so far from the 'old you', so much so that he is a totally different person from your current self. You can't understand his emotions or justify his motivations. The same pitfalls related to 'judging' an-other person seems to apply in this case too. I understand why many people are obsessed with the notion of 'metamorphosis'.

I was motivated to start writing this blog when I began to read Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations". That, and because I was feeling bored and unproductive. The idea that one could write something like this book, without a 'top down' structure, and still make it meaningful(?) is very encouraging. I find it very difficult to think about a 'topic'. I feel that they are arbitrary, and completely breaks the flow of things. Language, meaning and communication are very interesting subjects. So is their manipulation. Personally, I always perceive a 'gap' in what I want to say, and what I think people will interpret my words to mean. In other words, I am very poor when it comes to putting my thoughts into words. This 'gap' irritates me to no extent. Whenever I try to minimize this gap actively, I start stammering and end up looking dumber than George Bush. This mistrust in language runs pretty deep.

I could imagine that in my utopia, people communicate without language. But is it possible, atleast in theory? I assume that each person is a "closed" system with respect to thoughts. From the moment we are born, we are input with chemical and physical stimuli, but never thoughts. Nobody can give you a piece of "thought". Everything we know is defined as its relationship with everything else we know about. I visualize this as a pot of clay in which I am allowed to create patterns with the help of a stick. I am not allowed to add or remove clay. Now whenever I create a pattern, its "negative" is formed automatically. The interesting bits about us is in the patterns. Can two such systems communicate without error? Can I transmit one pattern from system one to system two, without both being same to begin with? I think the answer is no. Humans saw a revolution when we learned to communicate, however imperfect this is. Perhaps the next revolution will be when we develop a collective consciousness. One big fucking pot of mud?