God and 'i'

God is one of earliest concept we all learn. In most of the religions we have one or more gods. We offer our pray to him and seek his blessings. Even in the 21st century, in this modern world we still have many temples, churches, mosques. Though there has been no scientific proof of this entity called god, we still worship him. And we fight against each other in the name of god.

There are people who actually believe in god and there are people who completely deny his existence, and then there are people who are confused, who are not sure, and who don’t care. These are the people who do not actually believe that god is physically out there but instead think, there is some ultimate power, some ultimate energy which is simply out of the reach of human intellect (something very similar to traditional concept of almighty god, but they can not or maybe don’t want to visualize, materialize it). These people don’t keep questioning about god’s existence. They don’t accept him physically and don’t deny him morally or spiritually and go ahead. They thank him when a seemingly bad situation suddenly turns normal. They thank him when they think they were lucky that they escaped the accident. They pray when they await the result of some important exam or when they want their national team to win the cricket match. The question is despite not acknowledging his presence why these people pray god? Why do they need god? The answer is simple. It simplifies their lives!

Let me explain how it simplifies the life with an analogy. There is a concept of imaginary number in mathematics. Square root of -1. The 'i'. Anyone who has learned high school mathematics knows that such a number simply can not exist. There can not be a number which when multiplied with itself would give -1 as the answer. All our mathematics professors, scientist, engineers know this, but they still use it. The answer again is that it simplifies. Assuming that such number exists (and is called 'i') we could find out solutions to many equations. By proving that, such and such explanation of some phenomenon leads to imaginary root, we could say, such thing can not happen. (eg if speed of an object goes beyond speed of light, the object’s length would be negative, so we can not go faster than light). I think the concept of god plays similar role in people’s lives. There are many things a man has no control over. He has done is job but still it can not mean success. There are a lot of external factors which can affect man’s work. After having played his part, man can only wish that things go right as per his plans and to express this feeling he needs someone to whom he can say ‘let this work get done successfully’. Or when things go wrong, without (apparently) anyone’s fault man needs someone to whom he can say ‘why did you do this to me’. Man needs god to express his desires, his sufferings, his pain because there is apparently no other man (or men or anyone else) who can change his situation including himself. God does not necessarily help man but it at least lets him express his feelings. I think even a person who completely denies god would also pray when his son is lying in the hospital bed fighting for life. He would need some place where he can cry. Someone to him he can beg his son’s life. This is because there are certain things which are not in our hands, not in anyone’s hand and this is the very place where god comes into picture. According to me god is our psychological need. We need him to listen to our pain, we need him to be grateful to, and we need him to be blamed. We may not believe that he is physically present (and we need not), but we need him for our own use. So let’s not enter in the fight between the believers and non believers. Just accept him as i and life would be simpler.

22500

22500.
This was the reading of the speedometer (? or whatever that counts the number of kms the vehicle has traveled till date) of my bike. So did you notice anything special about 22500 ? Well I did. The moment I saw this number it looked familiar. I thought that I know this number. Now Let me elaborate on what I mean by knowing a number with an analogy. So when you come across a name such as 'Amit', this will sound familiar to you. Because you must have come across this name in your life. You might be knowing few Amits. But if you see a name like 'Fitzergerald' you will know that you don't know this name. With names it is easier to think if we know it or don't.
Going by this notion of knowing, it is not that easy to categorize between numbers we know and those we don't. One reason is that it is comparatively much more difficult to remember numbers. But that is not my point. The worse part is that we think we know all the numbers. That is not the case. So when I looked at 22500, I actually new the number, because I remembered that it was the answer of some numerical question I had solved not so long ago. At that time a thought came to me that there are so many numbers in the world (numbers live in the world..? I didn't know that), which I have never come across in my life. (I am 24 and still don't know most of the numbers... how bad) There are certain numbers like 500, 99, 1024... which most of us know. But there are many more numbers (we do not need to go to large numbers. You can even consider 4 or 5 digit) which we think we know but we don't. The whole point of writing this text is that next time if you look at some number you should be (or might want to be) aware of the fact that the number you are dealing with might be appearing in front of you for the first time. If you have really followed whatever I have written seriously (I mean I have written it seriously but have you followed it seriously) I bet looking at the numbers would never be the same again. Still not convinced ? Try this 66816.

[If you don't like Amit (as a name) you can use any other name in above example as long as you know it]

WWW

Hi all. This is the second post. I got good response and some feedback for my first post from many readers (read just a few friends of mine). Most of the readers thought that it was not bad attempt at all but it was lacking content. After they finished reading they did not quite remember what they just read. Or they could not summarize the central idea or could understand what that post was actually about. Well... I take it as a compliment (I take criticism in very positive way). Because I believe its not easy to write something that people cant remember just after having read it. I call it "the art of writing without writing". In the movie "Enter the Dragon" (which is one of my favorite movie), legendary Bruce Lee answers his opponent that his fighting style is "the art of fighting without fighting" [for those who haven't seen the movie here is the link ] On the similar lines I guess I have my own style- "writing without writing [WWW]". And I guess most of the readers would agree! If you still have doubts about my style, finish reading this post and after ten minutes try to remember what you had just read. If you don't remember it means that WWW thing is true. If you do remember, it means you have got really good memory, Congratulations!


[PS. I know, if one more time I write a post like this (without actual content) most of the readers will turn away from this blog forever. So will put my style - WWW on hold for sometime. And you will witness some real blogging by me]

The First Post...

After having decided to write a personal blog the next question in front of me was where to start. Being a bit introvert kind of person I find it bit difficult to express my feelings and thoughts even through an indirect medium such as blogs. While I was thinking about what should I write in my first post an idea came to me. Before I tell you about what that idea was, I would like to say something about the mechanism by which an idea occurs. It occurs spontaneously, instantly. And we say that an idea "occurred" or "struck" to me. Because it comes by itself. We can't make it came. It will come when it has to. And it comes within a split of second. I read in the "The Tao of physics" that when Lord Buddha was meditating to gain the eternal knowledge about the universe, he spent many years in meditation, but he got all the knowledge in a particular moment within a split of second. It did not came gradually, it came in a flash. In his book "The Tao of Physics" the author compares this with the mechanism in which we understand a joke. When we listen a joke, there comes a certain moment at which we understand the essence of the joke and that makes us laugh. We don't explicitly analyze the joke step by step. We listen and suddenly understand it and laugh. I think something similar happens "idea strikes". Anyway the point is that an idea struck to me on how to start writing for my blog. The idea is that I should write about my likes and dislikes on blog. It is simple because every person has like and dislikes about almost everything we deal with in our day to daily life. We have likes and dislikes about films, music, food, company, people even thoughts. So after having decided to start my blog with my likes and dislikes the next question i now face is (again) where should I start ? Which of my likes or dislikes i should start with because many things come to my mind regarding this. By the way have you realized that without actually witting about any of my likes and dislikes i have already written good amount of stuff (being a computer engineer I had put data in place of stuff but while editing I realized stuff would be a better word) in this first post. So I have already started my blog. (My blog is up and running.) So actually my initial problem is over. I have already broken the ice (of writing my first post). So there no actual need to write about my likes and dislikes. But since you have taken efforts to read till this point, I wont disappoint you. I will keep my promise and write about my likes and dislikes in upcoming (I had put next in place of upcoming, but I am not sure if I will really talk about my likes and dislikes in the next post so I changed it to upcoming) posts.

[I know in above post I have used "likes and dislikes" many times and I understand it could be bit irritating to some readers. But as I am not a experienced writer or blogger please bear with me.]

This will be my personal blog. I will be posting some random things about me. I am not a regular blogger. So let's see how long I am able to continue.