Amazing Art…

I found this amazing form/ expression of art and wanted to share with you all...

This stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted.

Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colors of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants,
the colours created by using different varieties, in the village of Inakadate in Japan . The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate , 600 miles north of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993. The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall. More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.

Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa , Japan . And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.

Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September. The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work. Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

On the lighter side - Microsoft Windows in Punjabi?

Imagine if your computer starts working in Punjabi then what will happen???

-You will have commands like these on your computer:

Send = Sutto
Insert = Wich Paao
Attachement = Naal Laao
Edit = Sidda Karo
View = Waikhee Jaao
Forward = Aggay Sutto
Inbox = Undar Da Daak Khaana
Outbox = Baar Da Daak Khana
Trash = Mitti Paao
Recycle Bin = Koore Daan
Sent Items = Pheji Gayee Dak
Address Book = Patay Wali Kaapy
Reply = Phejan Walay Nu Jawab do
Reply All = Saareyaan Nu Jawab do
Delete = Daffa Karo
Download = Thallay Laao
Download All = Saary Cheezan Noon Thallay La ao
Properties = Jaidaad
Connect = Naal Milaao
Fonts = Likhaai
Accounts = Galla
Drafts = Chitheeyaan
Find = Labbo
Run = Pajjo
Setting = Kuri Nu Patao
Paste = Thook Naal Chipkaao
From = Phejan Walaa Banda
To = Door Betha Hoya Banda
Subject = Khaas Gall
Carbon Copy = Koelay Walee Naqal
Blind Carbon Copy = Anni Koelay Walee Naqal
Stationery = Pensal, Rubburd, Shaapnar
Folders = Thailay
High priority = Waddee Takleef

and finally Ctrl+Alt+Delete = Sara Syapa Mukao..
Enjoy it !

India’s uncouth road warriors and the Civil Disobedience…

India’s capital city – New Delhi, is trying to gear up towards hosting an international event– the common wealth games in October 2010. the fact that the city is nowhere near the target deadline that it had set for itself to gear up years ago is as much as a testament towards a culture of lack of initiative, corruption and just sheer laziness to live in better environs as much as it is attributable to the fact that this has become an accepted norm that the city will be in a permanent state of disarray and chaos.

The other major problem with the city is that a vast majority of “residents” of Delhi do no associate themselves with the city. There is no sense of belongingness and certainly no pride in being part of the city.

For someone, like me, who on an average spends (whenever in Delhi) up to 4-5 hours on the road per day, the state of the infrastructure, culture on road and the general disposition of “natives” borders towards insolence, impatience and just plain rudeness.

Recently Home Minister P. Chidambaram Tuesday told citizens of Delhi that they needed to change some of their bad habits if visitors to the Commonwealth Games next year are to have a good impression about the host city.

There are vehicles running without registration plates, some are crossing roads where they should not. People are not using over ground or underground passes and all in the name of saving a few steps of walking. I know that the weather is not very favorable at most times of the year in Delhi, but basic civic sense is a requirement and not a virtue. We should encourage people to change their mindset.

People come to Delhi. This is the capital and we cannot stop people. But if they come to Delhi, they themselves will have to adhere to the behavioral requirement. We must behave as a citizen of a big, good international city,’ Chidambaram said.

Easier said than done Mr. Minister!

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, whom I admire for all the work she has done for the city in the past decade, perhaps took the cue and said a campaign will soon be launched to make people in the national capital aware about the need for behavioral changes.

I wonder if this will make a huge impact. The most impressionable years in humans are the early childhood and we seem to have imparted a wrong message or no message at all during those years to people who come or reside in Delhi.

Some of the citizens are not amused, however. According to some newspaper reports - some people have (correctly) said that not just Delhi but the whole country needs a crash course in basic manners and politeness. some opine that the change should start from the government officers and politicians.

As a resident, and although this goes against political correctness, I have to fully agree. And it nowhere more evident than on the roads. The “Delhi culture” and I may be venturing into a political minefield by saying this, reflects upon our actions on the road. Not following the lane discipline, parking 6 feet away from where we want to shop (to avoid walking) and frequently blaring horns to ensure that everybody is aware that our vehicles have it, no matter how disturbing it might be to openly break rules of the road or even mere civility – all are characteristic of the denizens of this area called the NCR.

There is so much evidence of this basic lack of courtesy and manners. The other day, I was in CP with my wife, trying to obtain a seat for a couple in a popular restaurant serving south Indian cuisine. Like polite and cultured couple, we were waiting for our turn, when much to our chagrin, a south Indian family of four rushed past everyone and secured a table which had just been vacated! Everyone who was waiting was surprised and angered by this blatant display of lack of manners. Some of the foreign tourists who were standing in the queue got the wrong impression that this is perhaps the right way to doing things in India or more specifically Delhi and started rushing past everyone into the hotel floor – hunting for tables for themselves. The south Indian family who had just secured a table was grinning as if they had just won an Olympic medal. We left, much in disgust, from the restaurant and headed towards another one in the outer circle – reflecting upon how these rude denizens turn very polite and urbane the moment they step outside India. Perhaps the fines or the fear of a new country turns them “docile”. The fact remains, basic civic sense and a sense of what is proper is singularly lacking in most of the Indians. True, the whole country needs a course in basic manners.


This is the kind of civil disobedience which, I am sure, Gandhi never subscribed to.

Civil disobedience, by the way, is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. It is one of the primary tactics of nonviolent resistance. In its most nonviolent form (in India, known as ahimsa or Satyagraha) it could be said that it is compassion in the form of respectful disagreement.

The American author Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government". The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and also how one is in morally good standing as long as one can "get off another man's back"; so one does not necessarily have to physically fight the government, but one must not support it or have it support one (if one is against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American War.

The intentions and in some cases actions of these “humans” is anything but non-violent. I admire homo-sapiens ability to follow through a good idea to the extreme no matter how much it hurts. Civil disobedience taken to extreme – with every man for himself and the rest be damned.

I use the term very carefully since to be called “people or human”, one has to qualify as at least as evolved as one of the primitive homo sapiens tribe and sometimes I really wonder if these so called “people or humans” are evolved at all. For some have managed to bypass the evolutionary stages and regressed into half-baboon and half-chimpanzee states (no offence to these species and I hope PETA and similar organizations do not take offense to this)

Most of the people in Delhi are indeed disobedient of the laws of the land and amongst the youngsters and a certain profile of people it is considered as an identity symbol. To be able to flout rules is considered as a form of bravery or style statement. Perhaps I am too mild, but I fail to see the connection between machismo and the ability to jump a red light or travel in the opposite lane when the traffic is stuck in the right one.

Delhiites will be given lessons in civic sense and etiquettes ahead of the Commonwealth Games here next year. The Delhi government is preparing to act on Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s advice to the citizens in the capital. The campaign to impart civic sense will be launched in two phases and culminate two months before the start of the Games in October 2010.

We do not react to the pollution of the Yamuna, the dumping of garbage, the scrawling on ancient monuments and the disrespect of women. It is high time to change and think of this city which is very dear to all of us,’ said Dikshit in a statement.

I certainly hope that this campaign succeeds at least for 10% of the population of Delhi. I am reminded of my own blog entry on the bad habits of Delhi - 15 Traffic Rules that Delhi Lives By...

In my next entry, I will be writing about the state of infrastructure in Delhi…

Water on Moon!

So it’s finally confirmed!

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

Forget that tired old image of the moon as an entirely dry locale, devoid of any moisture. A recent set of discoveries have found that not only is there water on Earth's sole satellite — but the water is everywhere

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The Moon is in synchronous rotation, which means it rotates about its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. This result in it keeping nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times. The Moon used to rotate at a faster rate, but early in its history, its rotation slowed and became locked in this orientation as a result of frictional effects associated with tidal deformations caused by the Earth.

The Moon is the only celestial body on which human beings (home sapiens) have made a manned landing. While the erstwhile Soviet Union's Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972 – the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. Human exploration of the Moon temporarily ceased with the conclusion of the Apollo program, although a few robotic landers and orbiters have been sent to the Moon since that time. The U.S. has committed to return to the Moon by 2018 and I am not much impressed by the conspiracy theories indicating that the Americans never landed on moon in the first place and all these manned spaceflights have been nothing but utter hogwash…

According to Wikipedia…

The continuous bombardment of the Moon by comets and meteoroids has most likely added small amounts of water to the lunar surface. If so, sunlight would split much of this water into its constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen, both of which would ordinarily escape into space over time, because of the Moon's weak gravity. However, because of the slightness of the axial tilt of the Moon's spin axis to the ecliptic plane—only 1.5°—some deep craters near the poles never receive direct light from the Sun and are thus in permanent shadow. Water molecules that ended up in these craters could be stable for long periods of time.

Clementine has mapped craters at the lunar south pole that are shadowed in this way, and computer simulations suggest that up to 14,000 km² might be in permanent shadow. Results from the Clementine mission bistatic radar experiment are consistent with small, frozen pockets of water close to the surface, and data from the Lunar Prospector neutron spectrometer indicate that anomalously high concentrations of hydrogen are present in the upper meter of the regolith near the Polar Regions. Estimates for the total quantity of water ice are close to one cubic kilometer.

Water ice can be mined and then split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms by means of nuclear generators or electric power stations equipped with solar panels. The presence of usable quantities of water on the Moon is an important factor in rendering lunar habitation cost-effective, since transporting water from Earth would be prohibitively expensive. However, recent observations made with the Arecibo planetary radar suggest that some of the near-polar Clementine radar data that were previously interpreted as being indicative of water ice might instead be a result of rocks ejected from young impact craters. The question of how much water there is on the Moon has not been resolved conclusively.

Three papers appearing in the upcoming issue of Science Express outline the discovery of pervasive water found clinging to the surface of the moon. Infrared spectroscope measurements from three different space probes have detected absorptions that indicate the presence of water or hydroxyl (which is, itself, a strong indicator for the presence of water) on the lunar surface, with one model suggesting water makes up a few tenths of a percent by weight in the optical surface. This water is apparently clinging to the moon's surface, rather than being absorbed by dust.

India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board the country's maiden lunar craft had discovered water on the moon, a finding confirmed by US space agency NASA's probe that was also aboard Chandrayaan-1.

India's first moon mission has achieved a historic first by discovering water on the lunar surface. This is being hailed not only as a landmark breakthrough in space science but also as a vindication of the mission itself, since the two year project got terminated after just 10 months.

Predictably - India's first lunar mission had made a "path-breaking and real discovery" by establishing the presence of water on the moon, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman Nair said. While expressing pride in the achievement, Nair added: "But the water is not in the form of sea or lake or puddle or drops. It is embedded on the surface in minerals and rocks.” Scientists confirming the presence of water on the moon are doing so on the basis of scientific findings that have been arrived at after a rigorous process of deduction and analysis and not by actually finding lakes, pools or puddles of water that we're familiar with on earth. It's hardly a vast lake, and it won't yet support that lunar agricultural colony you've been dreaming of, but it's far more water than scientists ever expected to find on the moon, and it could prove a valuable resource to future lunar visitors.

The researchers have also found that the concentration of water is higher toward the poles, lending credence to the theory that larger deposits of water exist near the poles, and researchers note that it's possible we'll continue to find wetter lunar regions in the future.

So where did all this water come from? Although meteors or comets may have periodically brought water to the moon, the prevailing theory among the three papers is that solar winds have carried hydrogen to the moon's surface, where it has bonded with the oxygen in the moon's own dust and produced water.

However, according to Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan-1 project director, the water molecules came from the Moon surface — a major revelation made possible by the Indian mission. This dispels the age-old belief and the current thinking that only other planetary bodies can be the source of water molecules on the Moon. According to ISRO scientists, this mission has changed the thinking. The new theory is that the water molecules are not from an outside source, but are being generated then and there. This is now being analyzed.

According to a space.com article - There are potentially two types of water on the moon: that brought from outside sources, such as water-bearing comets striking the surface, or that that originates on the moon.

It is really one of those moments in human history which can prove as a turning point. Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

The clutter in our lives

As sat quietly in my living room this afternoon, the thought occurred to me - Why would anyone want to carry around needless burdens? That's what clutter is. It drains one's energy, slows one's progress, and eats away at our limited time and space. Left unabated, it spreads all over one's life becoming emotional, mental, and physical clutter.

Have you gone through several iterations of de-cluttering, only to feel like you really didn’t make much progress? The likely reason for this is that our lives are filled with clutter, rather than us just having a few areas of clutter.

Our lives tend to accumulate clutter in every corner – on our desks, in our drawers, on our shelves at home, in our closets, in our computers, even in the activities that we do and our relationships!

We start out in life unfulfilled, with nothing, and we start acquiring stuff. At some point, we peak (the top of the curve) when we have enough. That’s the magic thing that we’re always looking for: enough.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the endowment effect.

The endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion) is a hypothesis that people value a good or service more once their property right to it has been established. In other words, people place a higher value on objects they own than objects that they do not. In one experiment, people demanded a higher price for a coffee mug that had been given to them but put a lower price on one they did not yet own. The endowment effect was described as inconsistent with standard economic theory which asserts that a person's willingness to pay (WTP) for a good should be equal to their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation to be deprived of the good.

The effect was first theorized by Richard Thaler. It is a specific form, linked to ownership, of status quo bias. Although it differs from loss aversion, a prospect theory concept, those two biases reinforce each other in cases when the asset price has fallen compared to the owner's buying price. This bias has also a few similarities with commitment and attachment.

Loss aversion, by the way, was first proposed as an explanation for the endowment effect - the fact that people place a higher value on a good that they own than on an identical good that they do not own - by Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990). Loss aversion and the endowment effect lead to a violation of the Coase theorem - that "the allocation of resources will be independent of the assignment of property rights when costless trades are possible"

Sigh… here I go again, getting too deep into the technicalities of what and why we clutter our lives with stuff we don’t often need or need to hang on to… we start acquiring from the day we are able to and that age is pretty low for humans…

But, of course we don’t stop acquiring. We enter the zone when we begin having more than enough, and therefore begin accumulating clutter. And most of us accumulate it all of our lives. The sad thing is, we don’t just have more stuff than we need, and we now have stuff we don’t need that demands our attention in some way: we have to maintain it, fix it, continue to make payments on it, store it,

So we start becoming less fulfilled instead of more so.

I can give numerous examples, but the most relevant one seems to be the thousands of books, some going back to my college days of over 10 years ago which I still hoard or my wife’s jewelry: enough to start a store. Closets full of clothes I haven’t worn in a long while, and so on.

Clutter is usually thought of as things we acquire or accumulate. And, when you stop and think about, the clutter goes beyond purchases: we also clutter our lives with activities that are of no real value to us – like watching serials which serve no practical purpose except to pass the time. I guess, most of us end up doing it unconsciously. The things we don't do, but should do, clutter our mind with apprehension and stress. Unwritten letters, unpaid bills, unanswered phone calls, and unattended tasks and obligations take their toll on our lives. They create a slow energy drain and are as distracting as an endless humming in our head. We can free ourselves from such needless headaches by taking the time to do whatever needs to be done. We can't do everything, but we should do the essentials

So, what do we do? We can do some de-cluttering. It seems to me, though, that what we most need to work on is our constant desire to fill our lives with more “stuff,” be that unnecessary purchases or activities that are of no value. I only suggest it as something we should be aware of and work on to the extent that we can on avoiding it or getting out of the trap that we lay for ourselves.

I don’t have any advice for you on how to do that, at least not at this time, but I did come across a good article by Chuck Gallozzi – and while there is no mystical answer to anything there, it does offer some practical advice!

Long Term Implications of Longevity on Humanity

As I sat down after my initial indignation at the callous attitude, rather to be more accurate, retarded and inefficient approach towards solving a real life problem by AMEX travel counselors, my attention drifted towards more abstract thoughts.

The idea of extremely long life has been a fascinating one. Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in a physical or spiritual form for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time. As immortality is the negation of mortality—not dying or not being subject to death—it has been a subject of fascination to humanity since at least the beginning of history.

To present day science, it is not known whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations — for example, their fragility and slow adaptability to changing environments, which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering.

However, as of 2009, we do know that natural selection has developed biological immortality in at least one species, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula, one consequence of which is a worldwide population explosion of the organism.

According to Wikipedia - Biological immortality is the absence of a sustained increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. A cell or organism that does not experience, or at some future point will cease, aging, is biologically immortal. However this definition of immortality was challenged in the new "Handbook of the Biology of Aging", because the increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age may be negligible at extremely old ages (late-life mortality plateau). But even though the rate of mortality ceases to increase in old age, those rates are very high.

Biologists have chosen the word immortal to designate cells that are not limited by the Hayflick limit (where cells no longer divide because of DNA damage or shortened telomeres). (Prior to the work of Leonard Hayflick there was the erroneous belief fostered by Alexis Carrel that all normal somatic cells are immortal.)

However, there is definite agreement on one fact at least - The immortality of a single cell has never been observed.

That would be the day!

If it were possible to have immortality in a single cell – this would naturally lead to immortality of a being – steady-state – never decaying, never dying – perpetual existence in a locked state.

Not even regeneration would be needed. Now, what would a time lord think of that idea?

The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by physical trauma: According to 2002 statistical data, the odds of an individual being traumatically killed are once in every one thousand and seven hundred years.

Some life extensionists, such as those who practice cryonics, have the hope that humans may someday become biologically immortal. This would not be the same as literal immortality, since people are still susceptible to death through external circumstances (either deliberate or accidental).

But is immortality really desirable?

Let’s take a look at some arguments in favor of undesirability of immortality.

Physical immortality has also been imagined as a form of eternal torment, as in Mary Shelley's short story "The Mortal Immortal", the protagonist of which witnesses everyone he cares about dying around him. Jorge Luis Borges explored the idea that life gets its meaning from death in the short story "'The Immortal"; an entire society having achieved immortality, they found time becoming infinite, and so found no motivation for any action.

Here, one of the stories written by Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s travels). He too had basically written against immortality. Of course – everyone assumes that to live forever means to live forever in a state of youth. Swift was rather astute to point out that this may not always be the case. Immortality trapped in an old body is worse than a curse!

Humans being social animals - to really live, alone, for a long time – is quite undesirable indeed.

Ethics of immortality

The possibility of clinical immortality raises a host of medical, philosophical, and religious issues and ethical questions. These include persistent vegetative states, the nature of personality over time, technology to mimic or copy the mind or its processes, social and economic disparities created by longevity, and survival of the heat death of the universe.

The social, emotional consequences of achieving extremely long life can very really hard to imagine. We have, in our times, experienced the average human lifespan increase tremendously. Today we do not find it odd to observe and expect that an average human – not subject to disease or trauma would at least live to be beyond 75 terrestrial years. Of course the average lifespan vary by region of earth and type of human gene pool as well.

However, our social customs and society is geared very so much towards the old medieval concept of aging. The so called “middle age” has steadily shifting towards 50s and we have a chance of really observing 80s as being called the middle age factor!

But what of the world population? The social consequences of people continuing to live the way it is done today – with its associated tremendous pressure on the resources of this planet.

There are of course religious viewpoints in this very sensitive subject – but I will deliberately restrict myself from venturing in that direction.

In my view, this planet cannot afford to have extremely long lived humans with their current pattern of consumption at figures of billions. We either need to find a new habitable planet to expand to or vastly change the way we live and consume from the environment.

In my future posts, I will concentrate more on emotional and social consequences of extremely long life spans…

ACTION solves almost all the challenges in life!

Feeling depressed for some reason? I was, after almost a week "down-time" with a gastro infection which was followed up by a viral… and started searching for how to kick the depression (all those medicine…)

I found a nice set of tricks to kick the depression out… don’t know the origin of these recommendations, but they work… sort of :-)

First trick:
Get out of your head and into your feet

The body craves movement. Exercise really works. Let's not think of it as exercise though. Nothing is gnarlier to the depressed person than imagining him/herself at the gym in ill fitting sweats, panting on the stair master while svelte athletes are bopping around in all directions. As Woody Allen says, 90% of success is showing up. Once we've got our walking shoes on, once we get endorphins cooking, the doldrums have less power to penetrate.

Second trick:
Turn on music! Now!

I recommend that my clients have an arsenal of inspiring and fun music at their fingertips. I have even been known to make CD's for my clients. When we're depressed, the smallest task feels overwhelming. . If I can kick-start someone's joy, then I am thrilled.

Third trick:
Turn on the light and sit in the sun. Many of us work in windowless cubicles or offices, and wonder why we feel blue.

This time of year, if there is no sun in your world, then buy a full-spectrum light. Get one cheap on E-bay.

Fourth trick:
Hang out with 4-leggeds. (Unless of course, you're allergic)

Having an animal companion near can instantly release oxytocin, that magical hormone that we secrete when we fall in love, give birth, or are nursing. It releases a feeling of goodwill, or trust in the world. OK, so not all of all are blessed to be in love all the time, or be breast feeding, so I recommend my clients find other ways to bring on the joy chemical. Read on.

Fifth trick:
Change your thoughts. Right now.

We have around 60,000.00 thoughts per day. 87% of them are negative and are the same thoughts we had yesterday. Experiencing joy is a deliberate choice. Joy takes practice. Joy is hardcore. I use realistic affirmations, which, at times are posted all over my room. Notice I said realistic.

We must remember that affirmations don't make something happen, they make something welcome. People tell me, "I put an affirmation up on my bedroom wall, saying: “I am going to be hugely successful in the stock markets and get rich." It's been 3 months. Where is the money?" I tell them; "You have made yourself more open to making money. But have you tried doing anything in that direction? Sorry."

Sixth Trick:
Follow a joyous lifestyle. Choose joyous entertainment.
Find a class, a workout, anything that gets you in your body, preferably sweating a bit.

Seventh Trick:
Affirm joy with words.

Rudyard Kipling said "I am by calling a dealer in words. And words are by far the most powerful drug in the world". It may seem trite, but changing the way we speak can be extremely influential in changing our moods.

Eighth Trick:
Grab hold of a goal.

Make it a do-able one. Happiness and joy come from goals. We mustn't put off our lives.

Ninth Trick:
Cultivate a relationship with the divine.

We are whom our higher self wanted to experience. There is some truth to the pithy phrase: There’s no atheist in foxholes. Have a smidgens of faith and the world can be a gentler space.

Tenth Trick:
Choose joyous companions.

When we are depressed, we take our bored, sluggish selves wherever we go. We need distractions. We need company. We need intimacy. It is very important to be around authentic people. We need someone who believes in us. No nay-Sayers!

The Foundation – Seldon Plan and Project Planning & Management!

These days, my interest in readings on literature related to a profession called “project management” is leading me to some weird alleys in literary town.

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.

A project is a finite endeavor--having specific start and completion dates--undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. This finite characteristic of projects stands in contrast to processes, or operations--which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time and budget. The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.

Project management has been practiced since early civilization. Until 1900 projects were generally managed by creative architects and engineers themselves, among those for example Christopher Wren (1632–1723), Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859)

It has been since the 1950s, which organizations started applying systemic project management tools and techniques to complex projects. The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern Project Management era. Project management was formally recognized as a distinct discipline arising from the management discipline.

At that time, two mathematical project scheduling models were developed. The "Critical Path Method" (CPM) developed in a joint venture by both DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation for managing plant maintenance projects. And the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or PERT, developed by Booz-Allen & Hamilton as part of the United States Navy's (in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation) Polaris missile submarine program; These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.

As I was reading through such historical notes… my mind connected with a fictional discipline of Psychohistory as expounded in the novels and stories of Isaac Asimov – in the foundation universe. The Seldon Plan is the central theme of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of stories and novels, in which – the fictional character - Hari Seldon devised the Seldon Plan using an analytical technique he had mastered called psychohistory. His analysis worked only for large numbers of persons, working as a mob, unaware of their likely future, and gave probable paths for wider historical developments. Using this technique, Seldon deduced that it was certain the Galactic Empire was about to collapse, and usher in 30,000 years of barbarism.

The basic concept behind the plan was initially stated to be to reduce 30,000 years of Galactic barbarism, to under 1,000, and establish a Second Galactic Empire. This appears to have been the original version of the plan. Not because Seldon did not have wider aspirations, but because that was as far as it was originally worked out by Seldon himself.

Seldon obtained permission from the Emperor to start an Encyclopedia project, on a resource-poor planet towards the outer edges of the Galaxy. This project, called the 'Foundation', was to face a series of crises, each of which would force the Foundation to take a particular outcome. For example, a scarcity of metals forced the Foundation to co-operate and trade with neighbors. Each time a major crisis happened, a projection of Seldon would appear, and make comments on the situation that had just passed. After the first crises had passed, Seldon revealed the secret purpose of the Foundation was to re-create the Galactic Empire.

The Seldon Plan is statistical in nature. Future events are described as being probabilities. The variables, as discussed (see above) require a very large number of human beings, literally the population of the Galaxy, in order to reduce the ordinarily random events concerning human affairs to become amenable to statistical modeling.

Seldon's original address at the Decennial Convention on Trantor in 11178 G.E. was his proof, using the irreducibility theorem (or First Seldon Theorem) that the population of the people of the galaxy fell short of being a dynamic system which would be impossible to model adequately mathematically, the definition of 'just' most likely being one order of magnitude, though this is not discussed within the novels. At the time of this discovery, Seldon was not yet sure of either the scope or time constraints required to develop this discovery further.

Initially, Seldon was unable to make any headway on developing the model, as he was attempting to bring knowledge of all Galactic History, as well as considering all of the Galactic Population into modeling. Inadequate history and news reporting in the 12th millennium G.E. hindered his progress during his first year on Trantor, particularly during the period known as 'The Flight'.

After some consideration, at the end of the period of 'The Flight', Seldon realized that Trantor and its attendant worlds constituted an 'Empire in Miniature' on which he might model the past and future course of the Empire. Events in the rest of the Empire could be effectively modeled as second-order effects. Seldon often described this breakthrough as being 'the result of a turn of phrase' he encountered during The Flight.

During Seldon's lifetime, congruent points in the Plan were developed and modeled with enough accuracy to determine the critical points of inflexure that would set the Galaxy on the path of Foundation, and the Second Empire. In order to ensure that the First Foundation would be created, Seldon and the Psychohistorians of Trantor placed the Comissioner Linge Chen (then actual if not crowned Emperor) under intense scrutiny, as well as Mentalic influence in order to achieve their aims. This was a clear but vital breach in the limits of psychohistorical theory, as psychostatistics is meaningful only with planetary numbers, and not with individuals.

To me, the greatest challenge in any age would be to concoct, plan, execute and manage a plan like a Seldon plan!

To think of the challenges where the project execution cycle extends generations beyond the original planner and various disconnected “project managers” must take it to its logical conclusion.

Project Management tries to gain control over variables such as risk. Potential points of failure: Most negative risks (or potential failures) can be overcome or resolved, given enough planning capabilities, time, and resources. According to some definitions risk can also be categorized as "positive--" meaning that there is a potential opportunity, e.g., complete the project faster than expected

To properly control these variables a good project manager has a depth of knowledge and experience in these four areas (time, cost, scope, and risk), and in six other areas as well: integration, communication, human resources, quality assurance, schedule development, and procurement.

The risks to Seldon plan were great indeed. The plan came close to failure in Foundation and Empire because of the mutant called The Mule. Because the Mule had psychic powers of mind control, he did not fit the model of interactions psychohistory was based upon. The Mule could influence men at a distance, unlike Second Foundation agents, who required eye contact. The Mule was eventually lured to a remote planet to destroy the Second Foundation. However, in so doing, he left his main fleet, which was turned against him by Second Foundation agents in his absence, thus ending his rule.

Strange are the parallels that a wandering mind can draw and this one makes me wonder whether this was a vision or random neurons connecting with each in truly random ways…

The Dark Side

No, I am not going to talk about the “Dark Side” of the mythical “Force” out of Star Wars Saga… what set my mind thinking on the dark side of things is an interesting piece of article which caught my attention.

In 1998, astronomers made an astounding discovery that shook the foundations of modern physics: contrary to expectations, the expansion of our Universe is revving up. We live in a runaway Universe, where the most distant observable galaxies are racing away from us at ever increasing speeds.

But what is causing this cosmic acceleration? No one knows for certain, but whatever dark energy actually is, detailed measurements reveal that it comprises a whopping 74% of our Universe's total mass-energy budget!

As the Universe's dominant form of energy, dark energy plays a crucial role in determining how the cosmos evolves, and it will determine whether our Universe expands forever or collapses upon itself.

According to NASA’s website article on Dark Energy - Dark energy has the cosmologists scratching their heads. Observations taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and future space telescopes will be needed in order to determine the properties of dark energy.

Probing dark energy, the energy in empty space causing the expanding universe to accelerate, calls for accurately measuring how that expansion rate is increasing with time. Dark energy is thought to drive space apart.

In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate. In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy currently accounts for 74% of the total mass-energy of the universe.

NASA has developed the Beyond Einstein Program, a series of missions designed to probe fundamental questions about dark energy, black holes, and the very early Universe.

One of the missions is the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), which will study dark energy.

Two other Beyond Einstein missions, International X-ray Observatory (IXO, formerly Con-X) and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), will provide crucial independent measurements of dark energy.

The exact nature of this dark energy is a matter of speculation. It is known to be very homogeneous, not very dense and is not known to interact through any of the fundamental forces other than gravity. Since it is not very dense — roughly 10−29 grams per cubic centimeter — it is hard to imagine experiments to detect it in the laboratory. Dark energy can only have such a profound impact on the universe, making up 74% of all energy, because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space. The two leading models are quintessence and the cosmological constant. Both models include the common characteristic that dark energy must have negative pressure.

This accelerating expansion effect is sometimes labeled "gravitational repulsion", which is a colorful but possibly confusing expression. In fact a negative pressure does not influence the gravitational interaction between masses - which remains attractive - but rather alters the overall evolution of the universe at the cosmological scale, typically resulting in the accelerating expansion of the universe despite the attraction among the masses present in the universe.

The simplest explanation for dark energy is that it is simply the "cost of having space": that is, a volume of space has some intrinsic, fundamental energy. This is the cosmological constant.

Since energy and mass are related by E = mc2, Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that it will have a gravitational effect. It is sometimes called a vacuum energy because it is the energy density of empty vacuum. In fact, most theories of particle physics predict vacuum fluctuations that would give the vacuum this sort of energy.

Some theorists think that dark energy and cosmic acceleration are a failure of general relativity on very large scales, larger than super-clusters. It is a tremendous extrapolation to think that our law of gravity, which works so well in the solar system, should work without correction on the scale of the universe. Most attempts at modifying general relativity, however, have turned out to be either equivalent to theories of quintessence, or inconsistent with observations. It is of interest to note that if the equation for gravity were to approach r instead of r2 at large, intergalactic distances, then the acceleration of the expansion of the universe becomes a mathematical artifact, negating the need for the existence of Dark Energy.

Cosmologists estimate that the acceleration began roughly 5 billion years ago. Before that, it is thought that the expansion was decelerating, due to the attractive influence of dark matter and baryons. The density of dark matter in an expanding universe decreases more quickly than dark energy, and eventually the dark energy dominates. Specifically, when the volume of the universe doubles, the density of dark matter is halved but the density of dark energy is nearly unchanged (it is exactly constant in the case of a cosmological constant).

If the acceleration continues indefinitely, the ultimate result will be that galaxies outside the local super-cluster will move beyond the cosmic horizon: they will no longer be visible, because their line-of-sight velocity becomes greater than the speed of light. This is not a violation of special relativity, and the effect cannot be used to send a signal between them. (Actually there is no way to even define "relative speed" in a curved space-time. Relative speed and velocity can only be meaningfully defined in flat space-time or in sufficiently small (infinitesimal) regions of curved space-time). Rather, it prevents any communication between them as the objects pass out of contact.

The Earth, the Milky Way and the Virgo super cluster, however, would remain virtually undisturbed while the rest of the universe recedes. In this scenario, the local super cluster would ultimately suffer heat death, just as was thought for the flat, matter-dominated universe, before measurements of cosmic acceleration.

There are some very speculative ideas about the future of the universe.

One suggests that phantom energy causes divergent expansion, which would imply that the effective force of dark energy continues growing until it dominates all other forces in the universe. Under this scenario, dark energy would ultimately tear apart all gravitationally bound structures, including galaxies and solar systems, and eventually overcome the electrical and nuclear forces to tear apart atoms themselves, ending the universe in a "Big Rip".

On the other hand, dark energy might dissipate with time, or even become attractive. Such uncertainties leave open the possibility that gravity might yet rule the day and lead to a universe that contracts in on itself in a "Big Crunch".

Some scenarios, such as the cyclic model suggest this could be the case. While these ideas are not supported by observations, they are not ruled out. Measurements of acceleration are crucial to determining the ultimate fate of the universe in big bang theory.

However, we need not get overly worried. The timescales being discussed towards the end of the universe range between 30 billion to 50 billion earth years (at least as we know them in present era).

15 Traffic Rules that Delhi Lives By...

Driving in Delhi can be a pain... literally!

I have the misfortune of indulging in this activity almost on a daily basis and I have come to recognize some of the rules that our most gracious Delhi-walas live by, especially when on the road...

1. The Other Side Law: - If my side of the road has a traffic jam, then I can start driving on the wrong side of the road, and all incoming cars will be rerouted via Meerut.
2. The No Queue Rule: If there is a queue of many people, no one will notice me sneaking into the front as long as I am looking the other way.
3. The Mind Over Matter Law: If a red light is not working, four cars from different directions can easily pass through one another.
4. The Auto Axiom: If I indicate which way I am going to turn my vehicle, it is an information security leak.
5. The In Spit Of Thing: The more I lean out of my car or bus, and the harder I spit, the stronger the roads become.
6. The Cinema Hall Fact: If I get a call on my mobile phone, the film automatically goes into pause mode.
7. The Brotherhood Law: If I want to win an argument, I need only to repeatedly suggest that the other person has illicit relations with his sister.
8. The Baraat/ Marriage Right: When I'm on the road to marriage, all the roads in the city belong to me. To ME.
9. The Heart Of Things: If I open enough buttons on my shirt, the pretty girl at the bus stop can see through my mal-deformed chest into the depths of my soul.
10. The Name Game: It is very important for the driver behind me to memorize the nicknames of my children.
11. Parking Up The Wrong Tree: When I double-park my car, the road automatically widens so that the traffic is not affected.
12. The Chill Bill Move: When I park and block someone else's car I am giving him a chance to pause, relax, chill and take a few moments off from his rushed day.
13. The Ogling Stare: If you don't ogle and drool at every hot Chic that passes by, you're gay.
14. The Bus Law: If I stop my bus at the correct place near the bus stop, the city will explode and blow into 6 million pieces.
15. The VIP Rule:There are only 3 important persons in this city -Me, I, Myself !

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LATERAL AND LOGICAL THINKING

Here's a story which caught my imagination today and set me thinking about the "seemingly" insoluble problems which we face in everyday life...

Many years ago in a small Indian village,
A farmer had the misfortune Of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender.

The Moneylender , who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer's beautiful Daughter. So he proposed a bargain.He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry his Daughter. Naturally, both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the Proposal.

So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let Providence decide the matter.

He told them that he would put a black Pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would Have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven.
2. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.
3. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into Jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer's field. As They talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he Picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag.

He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag. Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag And expose the money-lender as a cheat.
3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order To save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story.

The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with Traditional logical thinking.

Think of the consequences if she choosesThe above logical answers.What would you recommend to the Girl to do?

Well, here is what she did ....

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without Looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the Bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked."

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dare not admit his Dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

MORAL OF THE STORY
Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don't ATTEMPT to think.

Watch out...

In one of my smallest blogposts till date... i share one of the pearls of wisdom I picked up from somewhere....

Watch your 'Thoughts,' they become words.
Watch your 'Words,' they become actions.
Watch your 'Actions,' they become habits.
Watch your 'Habits,' they become character.
Watch your 'Character,' for it becomes your Destiny.........

The lighter side of financial life!

The following really sums up in layman’s language the current financial predicament we now find ourselves caught up in; however, it is done in a very comical way.

1. The US has made a new weapon that destroys people but keeps the building standing. It's called the stock market.
2. Do you have any idea how cheap stocks are? Wall Street is now being called Wal Mart Street.
3. The difference between a pigeon and a investment broker... The pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW
4. What's the difference between a guy who lost everything in Las Vegas and an investment broker? A-tie.
5. The problem with investment bank balance sheet is that on the left side nothing's right and on the right side nothing’s left.
6. I want to warn people from Nigeria who might be reading this, if you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it's a scam. Don't fall for it.
7. What worries me most about the credit crunch, is that if one of my checks is returned stamped 'insufficient funds?' I won't know whether that refers to mine or the banks.

NEW STOCK MARKET TERMS:
§ CEO --Chief Embezzlement Officer.
§ CFO -- Corporate Fraud Officer.
§ BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.
§ BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry.
§ VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.
§ P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
§ BROKER -- What my broker has made me.
§ STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.
§ STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
§ STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
§ FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.
§ MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.
§ CASH FLOW-- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
§ YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
§ WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.
§ INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.
§ PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.

FTL – Finally a possibility in mainstream science

Every now and then, a piece of news begs you to stop, rise above the mundane world of everyday life and reach for the stars and this month… it literally made it possible to reach for the stars – well almost, at least in theory!

Finally two physicists at Baylor University, US, have stumbled upon an idea that may turn traveling at the speed of light from science fiction to real science, just like the warp speed at which spacecraft travel in the fictional TV and film series ‘Star Trek’

Dr. Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Dr. Richard Obousy, a Baylor post-doctoral student, theorize that by manipulating the space-time dimensions around the spaceship with a massive amount of energy, it would create a “bubble” that could push the ship faster than the speed of light.

To create this bubble, the Baylor physicists believe manipulating the 11-dimension would create dark energy. Cleaver said that positive dark energy is responsible for speeding up the universe as time moves on, just like it did after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.

“Think of it like a surfer riding a wave,” said Cleaver, who co-authored a research paper with Obousy about the new method. “The ship would be pushed by the bubble and the bubble would be traveling faster than the speed of light,” he added.

The method is based on the Alcubierre drive, which proposes expanding the fabric of space behind a ship into a bubble and shrinking space-time in front of the ship.

According to Wikipedia - Alcubierre drive - also known as the Alcubierre drive or Warp Drive, is a speculative mathematical model of a space-time exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "Faster-than-light".

In 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. The ship would ride this wave inside a region known as a warp bubble of flat space. Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic effects such as time dilation do not apply in the way they would in the case of a ship moving at high velocity through flat space-time. Also, this method of travel does not actually involve moving faster than light in a local sense, since a light beam within the bubble would still always move faster than the ship; it is only "faster than light" in the sense that, thanks to the contraction of the space in front of it, the ship could reach its destination faster than a light beam restricted to travelling outside the warp bubble. Thus, the Alcubierre drive does not contradict the conventional claim that relativity forbids a slower-than-light object to accelerate to faster-than-light speeds. However, there are no known methods to create such a warp bubble in a region that does not already contain one, or to leave the bubble once inside it, so the Alcubierre drive remains a theoretical concept at this time.

The ship would not actually move, rather the ship would sit in between the expanding and shrinking space-time dimensions. Since space would move around the ship, the theory does not violate Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which states that it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object faster than the speed of light.

String theory suggests the universe is made up of multiple dimensions. Height, width and length are three dimensions, and time is the fourth dimension. Scientists believe that there are a total of 10 dimensions, with six other dimensions that we cannot yet identify. A new theory, called M-theory, takes string theory one step farther and states that the “strings” actually vibrate in an 11-dimensional space. It is this 11th dimension that the Baylor researchers believe could help propel a ship faster than the speed of light.

Gee – the only thing left to invent now is “inertial dampening” and “shields” J I wonder what Zefram Cochrane would have thought of this…

So…the theory is there. Implementation waits the perception of our current technologies in higher dimension. Accelerating masses generate gravitational radiation in higher dimension. That side of the universe in completely dark for us as we cannot perceive anything beyond the three spatial dimensions and one forward moving time dimension.

The theory of relativity predicts that masses being accelerated should emit ``gravitational radiation’’ in the same way that charged particles (like electrons) emit electromagnetic radiation when they are accelerated.

Simply put use of gravitational wave in higher dimensions easily produce thousand time faster speed than light. The waves and radiations that we can perceive are designed to explicitly manifest themselves in 3-d spatial environments. Gravity radiation is what runs the chilled universe, the Hyperspaces and zillion universes held by the chilled platform universe.

I think this piece of theoretical work has important connotations for humanity and its future and I for one would closely follow any developments – theoretical or experimental in this field…

Great one liners....

In quite a departure from my usual serious posts, this week I am putting some rather hilarious one liners that I received from the usual spam that everyone gets... only this one was somewhat catchy and relevant to our times... ENJOY!

1. I say no to alcohol, it just doesn't listen.
2. Marriage is one of the chief causes of divorce.
3. Work is fine if it doesn't take too much of your time.
4. When everything comes in your way you're in the wrong lane.
5. The light at the end of the tunnel may be an incoming train..
6. Born free, taxed to death.
7. Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.
8. Life is unsure; always eat your dessert first.
9. Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
10. If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you'll have trouble putting on your pants.
11. It's not hard to meet expenses, they are everywhere.
12. I love being a writer... what I can't stand is the paperwork.
13. A printer consists of 3 main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.
14. The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was the genius.
15. The trouble with being punctual is that no one is there to appreciate it.
16. In a country of free speech, why are there phone bills?
17. If you cannot change your mind, are you sure you have one?
18. Beat the 5 O'clock rush, leave work at noon!
19. If you can't convince them, confuse them.
20. It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.
21. I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
22. Hot glass looks same as cold glass. - Cunino's Law of Burnt Fingers
23. The cigarette does the smoking you are just the sucker.
24. Someday is not a day of the week
25. Whenever I find the key to success, someone changes the lock.
26. To Err is human, to forgive is not a Company policy.
27. The road to success.... Is always under construction.
28. Alcohol doesn't solve any problems, but if you think again, neither does Milk.
29. In order to get a Loan, you first need to prove that you don't need it.

and here's the best of the lot ....

30. All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive, fattening or immoral.

Life!

These have been the days of days for contemplation and meditation. Days when I found myself drowned in the materialistic pleasures that this civilization can throw onto us and yet I found myself asking some deeper inner questions amidst this state of plenty.

Most of us sleep walk through life.

Now some people may take offense at this statement, but if we look closely, then one does realize that most of our responses to life’s deeper questions have been “automatic”. We plan for business outcomes, projects and even money making schemes. We plan for annual priorities or goals at office, in essence we plan for everything - yet how many of us plan for life?

During younger days, the thirst for newer experiences takes us places and when we get a little older the fascination towards nature decreases in intensity and we turn towards the very real and practical problems of getting by both financially and otherwise – through the quagmire that is life…

I often remember the fascination I held for the celestial bodies (naw… I am not referring to those originating in Bollywood or Hollywood) – often looking at them through home made telescopes and wondering if there is anyone out there. Flights of imagination, fancy produced fantastic creatures which lived in oceans of Venus and of exotic creatures from Mars… Alas the illusion is broken when one gets older. The world of elders is much more practical

There are more practical things to worry about – the EMI for the house, buying things which we don’t need to impress people we don’t know or even if knew – wouldn’t like to be associated with… and the innocence is lost. We no longer question whether anyone lives on the moon or planets or if there is life “elsewhere”. We even stop planning long term.

I remember during my childhood – of dreams of becoming a scientist, an astronaut, explorer, writer – all at the same time. And now that 20 years have gone by… the dreams are no longer so vivid.

But as we age, our focus shifts. Planning for life is a tough thing. Have you ever asked yourself some really deep questions?

For example, I have tried to enumerate some of them…

• What is your deepest desire
• What would one like to accomplish in one’s life?
• What would one like to accomplish this year?
• Where would one like to be in 5 years?
• Where would one like to be in 20 years?
• What is one really good at?

Obviously there are deeper questions still, such as:

• What would one do if one had enough money not to work ever again?
• What were one’s dreams when one was younger?
• What does one think is impossible for one to do?
• What would one do if one won a million dollars?
• What would one do if this was the last day of one’s life?
• What would one do if one couldn't fail?
• What are one’s strengths and talents?
• Does one has a wish but doesn’t know how to fulfill it?
• What does one admire most about others?
• What would one’s ideal lifestyle look like?
• What does success mean for one?
• What makes one really happy?
• Is there anything that needs to be invented?
• What does a perfect day look like for one?
• What would one do if there were no restrictions?
• What really excites one?
• What would one be honored and recognized for?
• Where does one see one’s life in ten years?
• If one were immortal, what would one do with one’s life?
• What needs to change to make this a better world?
• What would one do if one were Superman?
• What is one proud of?
• What would one do if one were the President?
• What would one like to accomplish this year?
• What would one do differently if one could start over again?

To be able to answer such questions, one needs to do a lot more than spend an evening with oneself… it is a journey to one’s inner self… of self-discovery…

How many have undertaken it?

Quantum physics and consciousness

Today was the day of connecting with inner self. So I spent the afternoon going through some books on consciousness and its connection with quantum physics.

For more than two hundred years Newton’s ideas dictated our world view. Newton declared that everything operates mechanically and can be predicted like clockwork. Science in Newton’s view, being nothing more than the act of observing, meant that this world view was easily perpetuated by independent observers all over the world.

In the late 19th century, science entered into the era of subatomic physics, which changed everything. Scientists discovered that the so-called ‘subatomic particles’ were not particles at all. They behaved like particles when they were measured but they traveled like waves. Quantum theory has changed everything, because what was once a mechanical, external universe has now become a web of intelligence. Science finally admits that the simple act of observing changes the result of any experiment and by extension, that the observer and the observed are not separate.

Quantum physics started in the late nineteenth century and is associated with the work of German physicist Max Planck. In the 1890's Planck set out to explain the phenomenon of blackbody radiation; the observation that the color of light emitted from an object did not change in a linear fashion to its temperature. Planck provided an explanation for the phenomenon in 1900 by postulating that light is emitted or absorbed in packets of definite size, which he called a quanta. Thus light, once considered a wave, was now being described as a particle (photon) in order to solve the riddle of blackbody radiation.

Quantum theory is also generally regarded as one of the most successful scientific theories ever formulated. But while the mathematical description of the quantum world allows the probabilities of experimental results to be calculated with a high degree of accuracy, there is no consensus on what it means in conceptual terms. The issues involved with this apparent conceptual conundrum are discussed in this article by David Pratt - Consciousness, Causality, and Quantum Physics.

According to physicist Leon Lederman there are three qualities we know about quantum theory.

1. It is counterintuitive,
2. It works,
3. It has problems.

Lederman goes on to write, "In spite of the great practical and intellectual success of quantum theory, we cannot be sure we know what the theory means." It is this ambiguity within the "hard" science of physics that has helped initiate a crisis unlike science has ever encountered. Once concerned with the motion and trajectory of particles, physics is now considering questions which would have been labeled as blasphemy throughout academic circles a hundred years ago. Now, numerous physicists are speculating about the nature of reality, the existence of consciousness, even the existence of God.

According to Pratt - According to the conventional interpretation of quantum physics not only is it impossible for us to measure a particle's position and momentum simultaneously with equal precision, a particle does not possess well-defined properties when it is not interacting with a measuring instrument. Furthermore, the uncertainty principle implies that a particle can never be at rest, but is subject to constant fluctuations even when no measurement is taking place, and these fluctuations are assumed to have no causes at all.

Simply speaking, the quantum world is believed to be characterized by absolute indeterminism, intrinsic ambiguity, and irreducible lawlessness. Most physicists are content to accept the assumption of absolute chance. This has important implications in connection with free will.

As the late physicist David Bohm (1984, p. 87) put it: "it is assumed that in any particular experiment, the precise result that will be obtained is completely arbitrary in the sense that it has no relationship whatever to anything else that exists in the world or that ever has existed."

It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, have been surveyed in this excellent article - Quantum Approaches to Consciousness.

According to Mark Bancroft in Quantum Physics & Consciousness - "Quantum physics has directly challenged the meaning of matter for more than fifty years. Being defined as, "Something that occupies space and can be perceived by one or more senses; a physical body, a physical substance, or the universe as a whole.” Thus, matter may also mean the entire universe; including "'not-real' stuff". The atom was considered to be the indivisible building block of the universe up until the discovery of the electron. Now, particle physicists postulate that there are sixty-one elementary particles which make up all matter in the universe."

On a side track - Professor of Mathematical Physics, Frank Tipler, confidently proclaims that physics can and will lead to the immortality of humankind. He shares on page three of his book - The Physics of Immortality.

According to Dream Manifesto - Reality is never experienced on an exclusively personal level. The 21st century has witnessed the introduction of new ideas about how we fundamentally view reality. However, all we can know of the world in an absolute sense comes from our own sensory perceptions and the mental constructions we build around them. Behind these perceptions lies pure consciousness. Quantum physicists have shown that consciousness itself - something you have in infinite supply - is the basic stuff of the entire universe.

Quantum physics is a branch of physics which concerns itself with the study (observation) of the subatomic realm. Physics is defined as, "The science of matter and energy and of interactions between the two. Physical properties, interactions, processes, or laws. The study of the natural or material world and phenomenon." Being a scientific endeavor the above definition appears to fit with the somewhat vague definition of science.

A rather beautiful representation of quantum mechanics and consciousness is given on this website…

And before I close this entry, I must mention Fred Alan Wolf who is a physicist, writer, and lecturer who earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at UCLA in 1963. He continues to write, lecture throughout the world, and conduct research on the relationship of quantum physics to consciousness. He is the National Book Award Winning author of taking the Quantum Leap. He is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars. More can be found about him on this blog… of course he also has his own blog site J there are a thousand questions which clamor my mind and one day, I intend to ask Dr. Quantum…

Internet and mankind

Sleeping on something sometimes produces profound thoughts… or so I have heard. During my well earned afternoon siesta today after a rather hectic week at work… the dreams hit on a theme we usually ignore – the internet and its potential impact on our society, culture and civilization.

Over the next several hundred years, as mankind grows in numbers, progresses in technology, and generally, learns how to control its environment with more accuracy and efficiency, the structure of society is likely to change in some very significant ways.

According to Wikipedia –

Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network, and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe computer model. Several research programs began to explore and articulate principles of networking between separate physical networks. This led to the development of the packet switching model of digital networking. These research efforts included those of the laboratories of Donald Davies (NPL), Paul Baran (RAND Corporation), and Leonard Kleinrock's MIT and UCLA.

The research led to the development of several packet-switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including ARPANET and the X.25 protocols. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including unix-to-unix copy (UUCP) and FidoNet. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for inter-networking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet protocol suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of inter-network began to form into the idea of a global inter-network that would be called 'The Internet', and this began to quickly spread as existing networks were converted to become compatible with this. This spread quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard and global network. However, the disparity of growth led to a digital divide that is still a concern today.

Following commercialization and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by e-mail, text based discussion forums, and the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and collapse of the Dot-com bubble, a major market collapse. But despite this, the Internet continues to grow.

Because, of its already noticeable impact on the every day lives of many people, the Internet has attracted attention as something which may well bring about significant changes. The tendency of the Internet to promote connectedness between individuals and its ability to disseminate large and diverse quantities of information has led many theorists to advocate the concepts of the super organism and global brain as descriptions of future human society.

Bill gates, one of the visionaries of our times (and the richest individual for a long time on Forbes Listing) outlines the importance of Internet as –

“The main advantage of any new technology is that it amplifies human potential. In the 20th century, electricity, the telephone, the automobile and the airplane all made the world more accessible to more people, transforming our economy and society in the process. The Internet has the same revolutionary impact--individuals and businesses can overcome geographical, cultural and logistical barriers and improve the way they live and work. Because it amplifies our potential in so many ways, it's possible that the long-term impact of the Internet could equal that of electricity, the automobile and the telephone all rolled together. The Internet brings people closer together. Before the Internet, it was possible to keep in touch with relatives and friends across the country or around the world--but it was also expensive. Today, communicating with a friend in Japan is as easy and cheap as communicating with a friend across town, and families regularly use the Internet to keep in touch with far-flung relatives. Millions of people with shared interests--no matter how obscure--exchange information and build communities through Web sites, email and instant-messaging software. Using innovative accessibility aids, people with disabilities can use the Internet to help overcome barriers that prevent them from leading more productive and fulfilling lives”.

However, the internet is being thought of being much more than just bringing connectedness. What this interaction between individual “cells” represented by individual people and the global mass populations as super organisms has profoundly greater potential than being recognized as such.

Ideas of the human super organism and global brain first appeared in modern form in Herbert Spencer's The Principles of Sociology (1876-96). The super organism idea gained scientific support from the work of the notable Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. He performed groundbreaking studies of the large scale biochemical processes of the earth, and was the first to think of the Earth and all living things as a single biosphere.

While the biosphere concept deals with the Earth as a whole, Vernadsky also coined the term, noosphere, which more specifically denotes "the network of thoughts, information and communication that englobes the planet." This network could only be a phenomenon attributed to humans, and in 1955, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin published his work, The Phenomenon of Man, in which he popularized the term, noosphere, and the concept of the human superorganism and the global brain. Since then, a wide range of thinkers has taken up these concepts and developed them using today's knowledge of the world and humanity.

The most straightforward way of approaching the concept of the human superorganism is through trend. By examining a significant trend throughout the development of living creatures and humanity, in particular, it is possible to extrapolate the development of the human superorganism. This trend has been for systems of single entities acting separately to combine into systems of many entities acting in cooperation. The many-entity system can then be viewed as a single, larger entity, often with significant qualities which cannot be attributed to the individual entities making up the system.

In evolutionary terms, this tendency of individual entities to combine to form larger, more complex entities manifests itself further in the structure of multicelled organisms. The single cell organisms, which existed before the development of multicelled organisms, realized a distinct survival advantage by cooperating with other single cell organisms to satisfy their basic needs. The level of cooperation between single celled organisms evolved until the cooperative units could be viewed as single entities or multicell organisms.

Speculating about the future development of humanity, proponents of the superorganism concept notice this same trend in human societies with modern free market economies. In these societies, individuals acting for their own benefit often find that cooperation with another individual serves to further the individual interests of both parties. Indeed, this concept has been developing for millennia and has reached the point where people spend the majority of their lives specializing in one area of expertise. People provide work in narrow areas that somehow benefit others and contract with others to provide for their needs in all other areas.

The incredible rate at which scientific discoveries and technology advances are made today ensures that the need to specialize will only increase. As humans become even more specialized in narrow fields of expertise, the need for cooperation becomes even greater. In general, the more a person has specialized in one field, the less they know about other fields, and the more they must rely on others to provide knowledge or services in other fields. In this manner, the complexity of societal interactions and cooperation is constantly increasing with developments in science and technology.

Thus, we are reminded of the single cell organisms whose level of cooperation increased to the point where all cooperating cells could be seen as a single, more complex multicell organism. In the same way, if one assumes that the progress of humanity will continue in the manner we have seen throughout history, we can extrapolate the development of a human superorganism. Such a superorganism would result from the highly complex interactions and cooperation of the human individuals as they each act naturally in their own best interests.

The guiding intellect of this human superorganism can be defined as the global brain. This global brain is likely to have qualities which cannot be attributed to individual humans. Just as a cell cannot comprehend the concept of a human or of sentience, we may not be able to fully understand the nature of the superorganism and the global brain. However, one can hope that our sentience and investigative nature might give us more success than the cell.

To understand the influence of the Internet of the global brain it is necessary to understand the current state of the global brain. As witnessed to by all the present strife in the world, it is evident that the global brain, if at all existent, is still in a very primitive form. While there is a reasonable level of cooperation among members of some countries, cooperation among member of different societies is still quite limited by language and cultural differences. We see fighting, terrorism and general strife in many parts of the world in the name of language, religion and culture. Also, at least half of the people in the world are not in political or economic situations in which they can participate in a superorganism and global brain. Clearly, humanity has far to progress and many obstacles to overcome before the global brain can emerge as a coherent entity.

The advent of the Internet in the past decade has caused quite a stir among thinkers sympathetic to the global brain concept. It is thought that the Internet might be the ingredient needed to bring about the emergence of the global brain as a coherent entity. The reason the Internet inspires such optimism is due to its likeness to human brains and to its globalness.

Firstly, the organization of information on the World Wide Web in hypertext format closely resembles the associative connections formed by neurons in the brain.

Secondly, the Internet network encompasses the entire globe, holding the possibility for linking all humans with a means of virtually instant interaction.

Thirdly, it could conceivably store all human knowledge and provide instant access to that knowledge to its users.

This is an unparalleled trend in human evolution. Never have we, as a species, had instant access to such amount of information. Besides simply noticing the trend of today's civilization toward developing a global brain, some thinkers have suggested specific ways in which this might come about through development of the Internet. This is important for the healthy development of the global brain. The global brain must develop as a natural process that benefits individuals and never as an end in itself. This helps to guarantee that human individuals will not find themselves being oppressed for the "good" of the global brain.

Various information gathering mechanisms can be viewed as ways of improving the efficiency of interaction between people who are cooperating to perform various actions. The knowledge provided by a person with a certain specialty is more readily available for use by others who might need it. As such, the Internet, by dramatically increasing the level of cooperation between individuals, could possibly lead to a solidification of the global brain as a coherent entity.

In fact, some thinkers argue that the advent of internet may have even more profound impact on humanity than splitting of the atom!

“The fact that everything is possible on the Internet reveals mankind's true essence, the aspiration towards freedom.” Pierre Lévy, “Collective Intelligence: A Civilization”

The ubiquity of computers and access to the Internet has put the greatest libraries, image databases, and interactive tools at the fingertips of most artists working today. As a result, traditional artistic practice is exploding as artists explore the potential of these new technologies and incorporate them into their working methodologies.

I-Mod talks about the concept of Meta-brain - Mankind and it's Meta Brain, the Internet.

There is however, as usual, a contrary view as well as this article on cracked.com highlights it - 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable… or this one - Internet: Amazing tool of mankind in the 2lst century but…

As Bill Gates puts it - The Internet has already revolutionized the way we live and work, but it is still in its infancy. In the coming years, a combination of cheap and powerful computing devices, fast and convenient Internet access, and software innovations could make the Internet as common and powerful a resource as electricity is today.

Mankind would never be the same again… although that may not always be a good thing all the time. But as history of dinosaurs has shown us… what does not evolve, perishes!

Time shifting - How to Control the Speed of Time

This afternoon, I was reading about the concept of time and how it’s flow or rather the “perception” of its flow can be manipulated. I came across the concept of time shifting… now don’t get me wrong… I know all those sci-fi fans would be drooling over the concept of time travel. Unfortunately, for them, I am going to talk about something much more mundane…

The concept of Time shifting grew out of the workshops Dr. Rechtschaffen’s leads on the creative use of time. Unlike time-management courses which teach people how to work efficiently at an ever-accelerating pace, Rechtschaffen’s basic premise is that it is crucial to learn how to “timeshift,” to move smoothly from fast to medium to slow and back again. Each speed has its proper place, he believes, but the rhythms of industrialized societies encourage us to live in “fast forward” virtually all the time. He asserts that we pay a heavy price for doing so.

In this interview with Dr. Daniel Redwood, Dr. Rechtschaffen discussed the patterns of overwork endemic to modern culture, and presents practical ways to change these behaviors. In answer to a question about attention deficit disorder, he speaks of the condition as a rhythmic disturbance brought on when children try to entrain to the speedy rhythms around them, and offers advice to parents seeking alternatives to Ritalin.

Staying busy always a positive thing?

RECHTSCHAFFEN does not think so. He goes on to say, “Too often we keep busy in order to avoid feeling our real feelings. When we’re in a crisis, whether it’s a death in the family, the breakup of a relationship, a bankruptcy, or whatever, people tell us, “Stay busy, it will keep your mind off things.” Painful feelings are difficult to face, and mostly we’d rather not feel them.”

So we end up substituting action for contemplation. We get busy, speed up, turn on the television, do the chores, surf the Internet, and go to the gym, anything but feel the painful feelings. We want to experience pleasant emotions, particularly joy and love, but grief and pain are also a very real part of life. It’s essential that we not cut off these feelings or cover them up with ceaseless activity. I found this view on typical avoidance of unpleasant feelings very common amongst humanity.

It is very important to go through and come out from every tunnel of darkness that we encounter. To solve a problem, one has to recognize it. To avoid is not to mitigate and simply pushing the dirt beneath the carpet may make a house look clean without actually achieving cleanliness.

RECHTSCHAFFEN further goes on to clarify – “I want to make it clear that I’m not saying we need to do everything slowly. That’s why I called my book Time shifting rather than Downshifting. Time shifting means constantly changing our rhythm, slowing or accelerating in order to feel present and in the flow of the moment. There is a proper time and place for doing things quickly. It’s just that in our society, we seem to lock in to one particular speed, which is fast-forward. Going full speed ahead all the time creates all sorts of problems. The physical manifestations of a high-speed, high-stress life can include high blood pressure and heart disease. And then, there is the emotional toll. You can’t stop and smell the roses when you’re always going 65 miles an hour.”

This, I believe, is at the heart of the matter for most of corporate workers. We are being goaded into working ever more “efficiently” at an ever more “increasing” pace without a thought for where we are going.

Research has shown that approximately 40 percent of the average American’s “free” time goes straight down the tube or television. And again, it serves to remove us from feeling, from the direct experience of our own lives.

Are there practical ways to re-connect, to shift toward life-affirming rhythms?

According to RECHTSCHAFFEN – “There are many ways to do it. Meditation, relaxation, listening to music, taking a walk in nature. Sometimes the best thing is to just literally sit still in one place for an hour. This sounds simple, but for many people it’s quite difficult. There was a woman in one of my Omega workshops, an environmental scientist who led a workaholic’s life: up at five in the morning, kids fed and off to school, work and research all day, then writing up the results in the evening. As an assignment, I told her to sit–just sit there–for an hour under a tree. Describing it afterwards, she said that at first she was more frightened than she had ever been in her entire life. Having the whole familiar structure of busyness removed was truly terrifying. But at some point she had a breakthrough. She felt transported back to a wonderful childhood experience. By sitting still, she had entrained to a slower rhythm, a natural rhythm. Everyone needs to find ways to do this.”

Believe me, I have tried this personally and found it difficult to sit quietly for one hour. There is always a sense that there is something more important to do and time is running out. A classic behavioral pattern wherein one is always trying to outrun – well himself…

So, has technology made things easy?

One would think with all the technology around, we should be having more time for slowing down, taking life easier. But have you seen anybody with high exposure to technology leading easier life? We all have our smart phones or blackberries. The urge to remain connected, checking emails every 15 minutes, being on the call at hours which a couple of decades ago we would have called unearthly – are all manifestations of increasing pace of life. We take laptops to our vacations, are expected to be available 24 x 7… I wonder whether technology has really helped!

Statistics in Rechtschaffen’s book to the effect that we could reproduce the 1948 U.S. standard of living working half the time it took back in 1948. So the question remains - with all the “labor-saving” devices that have emerged in the past half-century, why are we working longer hours?

RECHTSCHAFFEN has a rather curious and simple answer – “We have made many unwise choices. Basically, we have decided to trade our time for more goods and services. That statistic can be found in Juliet Schor’s book, The Overworked American. It means that if we chose to arrange things differently, we theoretically could work four-hour days or take lots of long vacations. There’s something very appealing about that.”

So why do people continue to work such long hours?

When someone knows that staying longer at work will bring him or her increased income, there is a very strong incentive to stay longer and longer. An internal conflict develops. The person asks, “Do I leave work now and spend some time with my kids before they go to bed, maybe read them a story, or do I keep going on this project here at work?” More and more people are choosing to stay at work. And definitely, this is true for people in government and in social movements, but it’s also true in the healing arts (doctors, surgeons), in social services, and many other places in our society. Seeing the value in the work we do, and recognizing that there is always more to be done, we find ourselves on a treadmill that never stops.

It’s important to remember that productivity is not necessarily related to the amount of time one spends on the job. At one point we had a staff member in my previous organization who was questioned because he wasn’t spending as much time in office as others expected him to, as much as his predecessor had. I knew, however, that he was a superbly productive worker, in large part because he set aside time for thinking and long-range planning. The glorification of “face time,” where workers coming in early or staying on the job late are praised, but others, producing as much or more, are not, is counterproductive in the extreme.

Why do we feel that “time is money” is the most insidious belief in society?

RECHTSCHAFFEN –

“Because this concept severely devalues human interactions. It wasn’t long ago that everyone charged by the job; now we charge by the hour. There are lawyers who charge by the minute. I called up my lawyer not long ago, and he greeted me by asking, “How’s it going?” He charges $5 a minute. I found myself not wanting to “waste time” telling him how I was feeling (which I would of course do in any other situation), because I don’t want to be paying that kind of money to share my feelings with him. When I call him, I make a list of the points to cover, and I try to cover them as quickly as possible. What happens is that what should, hopefully, be a caring human connection, becomes little more than an information transfer. And that is a very high price to pay.”

“Someone who bills by the minute, or the hour, starts to think, “I make $100 an hour. Our baby sitter makes $10 an hour. If I work six more minutes, that pays for the sitter staying another hour. If I work for another hour, I can pay for a sitter, a cleaning lady, and a cook.” This line of thought keeps on going. “If I work another week that will pay for a chauffeur and a limousine. That will get me to work faster, and I can work while I’m being driven to the office, so I’ll be even more efficient and make even more money.”

The problem is, we lose sight of our original goals. The goal is not to make money. The goal is to have the time and enjoyment that money can, in theory, provide. But if we just stay at work, earning more and more money, and seldom taking the time to enjoy it, to read that story to the child, to take that vacation on a secluded island, then what is the point of it all? It’s a question that needs to be asked. In my workshops on the use of time, these are some of the questions we explore.”

So do the rich don’t necessarily get to enjoy all their money?

Some do. Most don’t. There are complex factors that come into play for people who make lots of money. I think it is a fair generalization to say that instead of having more time, most wealthy people have less. It is very time-consuming to manage and watch your money and investments. Also, being rich can become your identity. Vacations start to look like a loss of money-producing time. Money generates its own set of demands. These are not non-negotiable demands, but it takes real strength to resist them.

The question that arises is about Attention deficit disorder as a rhythm disturbance, caused by entraining to society’s speedy pace from birth. How can parents help their children to avoid this pattern?

RECHTSCHAFFEN: This is a real challenge, because there are so many influences in the culture that encourage the child to go faster and faster. The pace and rhythm of society continue to accelerate, and children try to keep up. Some have more difficulty than others. Ironically, in the United States these children are treated with Ritalin, a drug that speeds up the nervous system. Paradoxically, the children slow down. In my view, this apparent contradiction results from a speedup that enables the children, like a racing engine, to shift up, get in gear, and thus be in sync with what’s going on around them.

A better alternative is to just teach them to slow down. It takes real effort, but children can be taught mindfulness practices, dance to slow music, sit still for readings, and accept nap times. Today’s childhood toys–computer games, instructional tapes, television–all entrain children to a rapid rhythm. We need to offer them other activities that counterbalance this.

I think it’s very important for us to view all activities as worthwhile, whether it’s driving to work, washing the dishes, cleaning the bedroom, or anything else.

So how can washing the dishes, cleaning the bedroom, and the other “mundane” chores of life become enjoyable?

That is the quintessential question. It’s a matter of mindfulness, of focusing on where you are rather than constantly imagining the future or reliving the past. It’s about being in the moment. This is a challenge for anyone who seriously undertakes it.

So in the end, the simple mantra is to view life in perspective. Always trying to speed up and do more in less amount of time is not going to yield the desired benefits. Making more time out of 24 hours may not be such a good idea after all…