xor eax, eax

Desire is the very essence of being human. We long for the forbidden things and then desire what is denied by us. It often challenges me to think as to what we actually want. Is it the need, passion, love, lust or mere thirst of getting what we don’t have access to.  Is it the yearn for ideality in perspective of reality?

Yet the question remains that beyond simply identifying the various facets of desire how do we reconcile them? What is the whole theory behind  them and how do we get over it?

The multi dimensionality of desire is often driven by a force powered by passion with aesthetic vibrations. Emotional or erotic, fleeting or consuming, need or luxury, desire has its endless variety in the past, present & future expressions. I keep wondering is it possible to solve the dynamic enigma of desire or is such a pursuit mere wishful thinking. Whatever it is, it is difficult to answer.  Desires can be selfish, selfless, conscious, unconscious, forced, heart-felt, anger-driven, lustful, patient and impatient. Manhandled desires end with detraction of our ability to deliberate, solve and act rightly. 

Whose desire to follow? What to desire?

According to Lord Krishna (Bhagwad Gita) desires should be judged and executed by basic moral intuition – what we call desire-less action(karma). However, when this intuition is reaches its logical conclusion, it collides with another intuition — an intuition to which we subscribe even more tenaciously. If desire obstructs one’s moral agency, then ideally one should act entirely without desire. But intentional action entails desire. Hence, desire-less action is impossible. So, I believe in the first place Do what you desire than only desire to do and make a Hamlet of yourself doing nothing.

To settle this conflict of intuitions and desires one needs to define and draw a line between permissible and impermissible desires.  We desire to be happy, are we really happy when we get what we desire? Or is it just the sense of satisfaction that we achieved what we desired. Its all too complicated. Is happiness a mere by product of met desires? Difficult to say, do we really mean met desires when we say “Who cares? I got what I want, I am happy.” It is mysterious.

Desires are for those who dare to desire. But then you need desire right. So Desire your heart!

Taken from a mail to me:

A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration. All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to take part in the festivities and celebrations. Everyone had a wonderful time.

The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his black tuxedo. Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true.

A few months later, the wife comes to the husband with a proposal: “I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage.” she offered.

“Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together.”

The husband agreed, so each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their lists.

“I’ll start,” offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it enough to fill 3 pages, in fact. As she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husbands eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Nothing” the husband replied, “keep reading your lists.”

The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over top of it.

“Now, you read your list and then we’ll talk about the things on both of our lists.” She said happily.

Quietly the husband stated, “I don’t have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don’t want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn’t want to try and change anything about you.”

The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.

In life, there are enough times when we are disappointed, depressed and annoyed. We don’t really have to go looking for them.

We have a wonderful world that is full of beauty, light and promise.

Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying when we can look around us, and see the wondrous things before us?

Moral of the story: We are happiest when we praise the good and try our best to forget the bad. Nobody’s perfect but we can find perfect-ness in them, by changing the way we see them.

Analysis Paralysis is a stage where you can’t make any progress becoz you bog down too much in minute details, all the time tweaking, brainstorming, researching and … anything but just getting on with it. Sounds familiar ???

Well its something which I see people struggle with and at times I am a victim to this too. I guess all this happens out of a fear for failure, partly coz the mill-manufacturing of ideas doesnt end, perhaps because most of the time we think we are a geek.

A very worst case scenario for this can be seen at the entreprise level. At times this can be very fatal. Believe me.

I think it is always better to start off with something and then improve on it rather than spend an age thinking, agonising, planning for the perrrfect finished product. The best way to go about it is prioritize elements in stages - alpha, beta, pre-launch and post launch.

This is not about dropping to low standards or setting your sights low. Its about identifying things which are needed from the word GO, items that need analysis, and items which can be fixed later on.

While it is perfectly normal to want to spend time thinking about the project, understanding the requirements, especially the one which has an element of risk, but then there comes a point where any more thinking is counter-productive and you need to start making some progress than just dreaming about how to go about doing it

In programming world it is always about setting top priorities right, the stuff that demands extra care, and stuffs which will be difficult to refactor later.

We encounter n number of expert procastinators in day to day life. Not to forget I too am n Ace Procrastinator. So, what are the reasons that lets us define the lazy git of sorries and excuses besides working. I figured out that this so deadly analysis paralysis is often a successor of the learned behavioral approach which we are accustomed to, for years. Why do we analyse it so much? Either it has been proven fruitful to do so or not enough planning has caused too much chaos at occasions and you want to be cautious all the time or is it that we just want to stay away from the hands on job.

Failure to plan is planning to fail. Planning is good but too much of it can be as crippling as not enough. Even after all the so called required analysis and perfect decisions, when the analysis meets reality, the projects fail. Everything was so right, suddenly an alien from outer space comes out of its dungeon and defeats all your quality planning tactics. No amount of thinking could have predicted that. The unseen remains. So, thinking on your feet is often as important as any amount of analysis but we need to make sure that we define the scope well and plan accordingly, doing things in phases than getting tempted and flying around with personal jet-packs on our back.

Its a good idea to partner somebody or take a second opinion of someone a lil more reckless and get us used to making decisions. Prioritize the elements, do it one by one, easy or hard, doesnt matter but gain some momentum.

Hey !! it works .. this is how i managed to defeat procrastination and started to write my blog.

Now, Stop thinking n start doing something.

There are so many many things that prevents a person like me from blogging. Lack of time, confusion .. dare I say it, a little dash of technofear and above all am a lazy fellow.

hmm … No time? I figured it out that will always be the case and I will never be able to escape it. Technofear. hmm .. my colleagues who have always tolerated my shout cry for cutting edge technology and fear for the crashes that comes with it and in return gifted me some patient encouragement, useful advice and assistance.. And they say that I dont fear them at all and that I should get on with it.. So I guess I have started to believe them .. Laziness - Well this one has been a grist of my procrastination mill for one good year now. Anyway, all these days I pushed myself hard to overcome lazyness. So here I am ..

Hmm .. So that leaves confusion. It’s not just quite enough to say: “Am going to blog.” You have to know what you want to write about and how do u go about it. And I really didn’t know.

I have two big interests. One is exploring new domains & cutting edge technology and the other is writing, storytelling, reading. For a very long time I had these two interests jockeyed in my brain for dominance. Until recently, when I discovered that they can actually peacefully cohabit in there.

The eureka moment occurred when, in desperation, a five week project analysis went through this mechanical, visual process of diagramming a story and I realized that my interests in writing and in the structure of information & tasks that comprise a website, or even an application, are fairly closely related.

Both these activities are about communication. Both these deal with unearthing a form for the content or system that is natural, that makes sense to the beholder, that is even pleasurable and at times somewat fatal .. lol .. Anyway, when I think about it, I’ve always been interested in something that makes someone tick; in getting to the heart of a matter; to the nub or the crux of an issue. I love kernels of truth…

Bring on the nittygritty !!!

After almost 12 long months, i thought i should resume blogging. Yes am back, back at business. this whole past year was not just one another year. it was long, one long year, filled with ups & downs, flips & swivels, rolls & slides, take-off’s & crashes .. but all together it was GREAT .. filled with excitement, adrenalin, emotion & dreams .. dreams which i stopped dreaming about .. Yes .. the urge to push, the will of fighting, the sweet taste of winning was never so much before .. i dont know whether this is a beginning or the end of a beginning .. i really dont know .. n i dont really care … wat matters is that the energy, the passion, the will that drives us should be optimum like it is always .. n everything will only get better from here .. so stay tuned ..

Stay alive and kicking !!

A married couple is driving along a highway doing a steady 40 miles per hour.
The wife is behind the wheel.
Her husband suddenly looks across at her and speaks in a clear voice.
“I know we’ve been married for twenty years, but I want a divorce.”

The wife says nothing,
Keeps looking at the road ahead but slowly increases her speed to 45 mph.
The husband speaks again. “I don’t want you to try and talk me out of it,”
He says, “because I’ve been having an affair with your best friend,
And she’s a far better lover than you are.”

Again the wife stays quiet,
But grips the steering wheel more tightly and slowly increases the speed to 55
He pushes his luck. “I want the house,” he says insistently..

Up to 60.
“I want the car, too,” he continues.

65 mph.
“And,” he says, “I’ll have the bank accounts, all the credit cards and the boat!”

The car slowly starts veering towards a massive concrete bridge.
This makes him nervous, so he asks her, “Isn’t there anything you want?”

The wife at last replies in a quiet and controlled voice.
“No, I’ve got everything I need,” she says.
“Oh, really,” he inquires, “so what have you got?”

Just before they slam into the wall at 65 mph,
The wife turns to him and smiles.
“The airbag.”

Moral of the Story : Never underestimate women.

It’s a fine sunny day in the forest and a rabbit is sitting outside his
burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter. Along comes a fox, out for a walk.

Fox: “What are you working on?”
Rabbit: “My thesis.”

Fox: “Hmm… What is it about?”
Rabbit: “Oh, I’m writing about how rabbits eat foxes.”

Fox: “That’s ridiculous ! Any fool knows that rabbits don’t eat foxes!” Rabbit: “Come with me and I’ll show you!”

They both disappear into the rabbit’s burrow. After few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his typewriter and resumes typing.

Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit.

Wolf: “What’s that you are writing?”

Rabbit: “I’m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves.”

Wolf: “you don’t expect to get such rubbish published, do you?”

Rabbit: “No problem. Do you want to see why?”

The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing.

Finally a bear comes along and asks, “What are you
doing?

Rabbit: “I’m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat bears.”

Bear: “Well that’s absurd ! ”

Rabbit: “Come into my home and I’ll show you”

Scene : As they enter the burrow, the rabbit introduces the bear to the lion.
Moral of the story : It doesnt matter how bad your performance is, what matters is whether your boss likes you or not.

One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops - a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.

At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight,built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, ” Big John doesn’t pay!” and sat down at the back.

Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn’t argue with Big John, but he wasn’t happy about it. The next day the same thing happened - Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the next.

This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff.

By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what’s more, he felt really good about himself. So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, ” Big John doesn’t pay!”

The driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, ” And why not?”

With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, ” Big John has a bus pass.”

Moral of the story: Be sure there is a problem in the first place before working hard to solve one.

Steve came home from the pub late one Friday evening stinking drunk, as he often did, and crept into bed beside his wife who was already asleep. He gave her a peck on the cheek and fell asleep.

When he awoke he found a strange man standing at the end of his bed wearing a long flowing white robe. “Who the hell are you? and what are you doing in my bedroom?”.

The mysterious Man answered, “This isn’t your bedroom and I’m Jesus”.

Steve was stunned “You mean I’m dead!!! That can’t be, I have so much to live for, I haven’t said goodbye to my family….you’ve got to send me back straight away”.

Jesus replied “Yes, you can be reincarnated but there is a catch. We can only send you back as a dog or a hen.”

Steve was devastated, but knowing there was a farm not far from his house, he asked to be sent back as a hen.

A flash of light later he was covered in feathers and clucking around pecking the ground. “This ain’t so bad” he thought until he felt this strange feeling welling up inside him.

The farmyard rooster strolled over and said, “So you’re the new hen, how are you enjoying your first day here?”

“It’s not so bad” replies Steve, “but I have this strange feeling inside like I’m about to explode”. “You’re ovulating” explained the rooster, “don’t tell me
you’ve never laid an egg before”.

“Never” replies Steve.

“Well just relax and let it happen”

And so he did and after a few uncomfortable seconds later, an egg pops out from under his tail. An immense feeling of relief swept over him and his emotions got the better of him as he experienced motherhood for the first time. When he laid his second egg, the feeling of happiness was overwhelming and he knew that being reincarnated as a hen was the best thing that ever happened to him…ever!!!

The joy kept coming and as he was just about to lay his third egg he felt an enormous smack on the back of his head and heard his wife shouting “Steve, wake up you drunken bastard, you’re shitting on bed, you moron”.

Moral of the story :- If you want to stay clean, stay away from alcohol.

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck.. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. I am ashamed of myself, and because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.

The bearer said to the pot, Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side that’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them.

For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house

Moral of the Story : Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. “You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them. “