Carpe Diem

Finally, I return. Post one awesome day (in the course of which I managed a fairly decent and reasonably modest score in the GRE) and a few not so awesome ones, I come back to writing my blog. With the exception of the trip to BARC (which was more like a day’s remand in Guantanamo Bay thanks to the intervention of Mr. Pradyumna Pathrabe) the days were ok.

Without much ado, I shall embark on what I was supposed to explain via this post.
The expedition to the Marwah House on the 5th of September, 2009. Like most legendary expeditions, this one was undertaken under severe stress and a fair(read enormous) amount of pressure. The conditions were far from perfect; severe under-preparedness (according to the standards of a few supposed experts), a total lack of concern and inability to concentrate on the task at hand to name a few. Another factor contributing to the legendary status of this expedition was the Explorer.

Born an astonishingly modest genius, prolific in his formative years and touted to be the next big thing. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Alas, the kid lost his way somewhere amidst all the claims of his being a prodigy and ended up being just average. Forever destined to be known for his obvious talent, but never quite living up to the expectations. He was reduced to being the perennial underachiever. And to see him falter short of the line every single time, was now a rule rather than an exception. Always pretty good, but never good enough.

But the kid didn’t mind. He came up with theories and counter theories to explain his failures. He had reasons for every shortcoming and excuses for every success. He never realised the importance of being single-minded. Always unconcerned, deliberately unprepared, he would always laze through tasks.

When the time came, he saw many undertake the tough expedition. Highly prepared, having worked ridiculously hard, people went one after the other to a very demoralising downfall. A few people though, did manage to make it (but according to the aforementioned theories of the kid, these people were simply aliens) to the goal.

And in these highly unfavorable conditions, including a case of severe cold feet on the day before, the explorer embarked on the expedition. After the due formalities which made sure that the explorer(along with a host of other mere earthlings) was actually capable of going on the expedition without legal, psychological or physiological ramifications, the journey commenced.

As soon as he went to his cubicle (de ja vu arranged for cubicle number 11)and approached the Computer, the sight of orange, compact ear muffs greeted him. Things were already falling in place. A short tutorial, a trip to the loo and two and a half hours of examination later, the explorer emerged, beaming. He had reached the promised land. Years of under-achievement, all leading to this one single moment of Nirvana.

Some people’s motto is “Never retreat, never surrender”, some may say “Be prepared”. The explorer has always believed that either you’re capable or you’re simply not, you can never work your way to capability. So he always believes in the principle “Just show up, don’t bother with anything else.”

Statutory warning: Though reading about the explorer and his amazing stories may give you a high and an immense boost in self-confidence, YOU are NOT the explorer. Things NEVER actually work that way for anyone else. The explorer and the circumstances he finds himself in, are all a work of his own superiorly deranged mind and any imitation in part or whole will be simply foolish not to mention absolutely impossible( and NOT possimpible).

HappYness in Chaos.

Thomas Jefferson and the chaos theory aren’t two names one would expect to hear in the same breath(figuratively which is saying that they aren’t expected to be seen in the same sentence).
The pioneer and the chief author of the American Independence, while drafting the Declaration of American Independence, chose these very words and here I quote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The pursuit of Happiness, the American Dream. I watched a movie starring Will Smith with the title The Pursuit of Happyness. The spelling error being a deliberate reference to an incident in the movie. Despite all cliches about people having to fight and ultimately win and all other bull crap, this movie is brilliant. Will Smith for one moment does not strike you as Will Smith. From the minute the movie starts, to the end, he is Chris Gardner. He blends into the role seamlessly and displays all the emotions of a man who is a victim of circumstance, stricken with poverty, homeless, yet with the fight, the bottle, the conviction and the courage to claim his federal, his divine right, The pursuit of happiness. There is no divine intervention in this movie, not for one second do you feel like, ” aw…there you go, that never happens does it”. Everything real, all the emotions, the situations and the characters.
Watching such movies makes you feel so much better about your lives. Must watch.
Now I come to the latter name in my opening sentence. The chaos theory.
The Chaos theory, in principle, explains the behavior of certain systems whose state evolves with time. It can be explained in a gist as “Something as tiny, as inconsequential (to the unaware) as the flutter of a Butterfly, can have an effect as gigantic as a typhoon halfway round the world.” Now simply, I state this because I watched another movie today, called “The Butterfly Effect“. Now if I could, I definitely would like to give a spoiler of this movie, but this sci-fi fantasy flick is so brilliantly written that I could go on and there would be no end. So simply check out the story on Wiki.
All I’d like to comment is, Ashton Kutcher is one dude who can play such roles effortlessly. I’ve watched a few of his movies, and believe me, this guys got much more behind him than just being Demi Moore’s boyfriend.
Another movie to catch.

Two movies heavy on EQ definitely seem to have taken their toll on my emotional well being. But watching such movies makes me view our people as generally shallow.
People wallowing endlessly about a Hindi movie I paid 180 bucks to watch the other day. It stars the nephew of a prominent star and is a teenie flick. Everyone around me left, right and centre has being harping about the movie and people even have their Orkut display names proclaiming the name of the movie. I frankly did not find the movie to be an intelligent one or for that matter brilliant. The only brilliant actor in the movie was in a bit part role playing the brother of the leading lady.
Such movies put into perspective the depth of thought of the people of my generation. But these people form the vast majority. Makes me wonder who watches the kind of films like the previous ones anyways.