someone else, anyone else 003

I see... ... voyager. Alright, you are it.

With each episode that passed, the actors seemed to settle into their characters. The story lines seemed to do the same: Captain's log, on screen, hail them, shields down, shields up, set a course, engage... In the confines of a ship, what more can you hear, if such a thing were to actually exist? I found the next generation's screen and 'red alert' to be much more impressive. Once you get past that, the early episodes reached their final sheen. Now we are inching towards 'the scorpion', where we shall meet 'seven of nine'. There you get spice and hence irony. Are you sure? All you need to hear is an exhilarating "I amWe are Borg"! That's where I started. I started in the middle, went forward in time for a while and then decided to loop back and start over. Just a minor temporal re-sequencing.

Right now, some cheese is being taken to the doctor for examination.

sea 002

I am held by the hand. No, I levitate by the magnetism of the soft fingertips, like a stained-steel pin. My head is almost above the water. The little waves splash and dash, blocking the airway now and then.

Keep me up here, it is nice.

The wooden boat on the transparent sparkling sea green is manned by the nascent power. Looking up from where I am, it seems to rise out of the floating boat and extend into the brilliantly blue sky, breathing the air and punctuating the wind with flowing curls, soaking in the brightness of the day.

The hands splash around in the water and get their wrinkles examined by curious eyes. With every move made, I follow, bounded.

When you drift away, on your own course, I am dragged along. But the force weakens with distance. Soon I will lag. Then I will have to be content that I can see you... then that you are out there... then I will start to doubt that you are out there... then I might...

Faith, has to be blind... or does it have to be faith? Don't I 'know'?

[Edit 14/6/09: PS: My blog has had been marked as a 'spam blog'.]

vanishing point

In the impending change to darkness, the parallel rows of buildings and trees converged along the road that met the horizon. The sky opened upwards from there in bands of different colors interleaved with rows of gray clouds. The arrangement put things in perspective showing how enormous things are above the surface of the Earth and from how far up the rains had made their way. There is a fresh look about everything and the evening was turning into shades of yellow. I heard there was a rainbow too. The blue and turquoise up there in the sky tickled a few muscles in the face. "I like more colors now", I thought. The fever and cold that have stayed away for long have made a visit. So far it has reached a shimmering burn in the eyes. So I can't work. I have to be on the web. Not a bad time to be sick either.

This is how myths are born and become larger than life, I guess. For good. Or for worse. "Don't be evil" ? I have to be sarcastic here and say "yeah?". I don't see how an illusion of information can be better than no information, under such censorship. May be now that they have gone in, they should get out. That might paint a clearer picture. I may avoid news, but that's not the same as being denied information. Time heals things, as it should and selective memory has to do its job. But.... oh well. We'll just see what happens with the "Whole Sort of General Mish Mash".

talk 001

Her nasal mumbles to an imaginary audience sputtered out viscous drool around her as she precessed now and then under the influence. Influence of gravity that is. She carefully placed the tweety bird on my palm when I extended my hand, as I lay down on the couch. A few seconds later, she took it back. I did not move my hand. She was busy with the toy. A few moments later I showed the other palm. She repeated the same steps again. She did not get bored for the next five times. Then she got distracted by a noise from the outside. She dropped the bird absently on my hand and hurried on her toes to the entrance and stood there looking outside. Her silhouette, with a bright halo, was stalk still, rapt in attention. A moment later she hurried back in, on her toes, shrieking with joy. She got distracted by the tweety bird again and took it from me and started to explore it with her mouth. I didn't have to guess what she saw. "uh!" she said, wide eyed and open mouthed, an expression that said: "have you not understood yet?". "Oh, of course. I understand", I said and smiled at her. She left it at that and went back to chewing the toy. Sometimes I take away the toy and put the side of my palm under the gums and watch her not being able to bite with a mouth that's now too full. I got reminded of Charlie Chaplin being fed corn by a machine. I laughed out aloud. She responded in kind. That was a good conversation, I thought. I said thanks. I opened my eyes. She closed hers.

all the world's a stage

I needed to stay away from news and refrain from forming opinions. But that's what I didn't do. I caught the day's fever.

So here I am, watching Hubble service mission STS-125 live and munching on information about uniform civil code, personal law, religious law, polygamy and past history of a nation that has gone to vote. The Space crafts in tango continue their fall around the Earth yet another time. It is very important to know your position in the universe. Very important. Far below, there are various things happening and in one section, numbers, that are the translation of millions of voices, captured in the form of ballots, are being tallied. It is a very minimal language available to elect these politicians and entrust them to shape your future. I have found politics to be repulsive. But lately, not so much. May be I realize that the problem is not the process - you can't build a fool proof system. When your inner governance is failing, there's nothing one can do outside. Alliances in a coalition government are formed and reformed with a sole goal of getting into power. Parties do make populist offers to get vote. And even the people who are a little different and actually want to run a government by taking stern decisions are forced into uncharacteristic propaganda. With all these open secrets, it is the most affected who vote the most. And their choices are simple - when your needs are basic, who ever provides them is your candidate. How does the next government or the far future matter to someone who has to think of surviving the next day, month and year somehow? I opine that no election can capture enough voice from people. Things are more complex than just a vote. So politicians should just tell themselves that they are the lesser evil that people have chosen. Wait. They already know this. An average, by definition, is not the clear choice. Even a 100% 'for' vote still does not make an elect, perfect - the elect was just preferred over the rest. And the system is better than chaos for a society that cannot govern from the inside.

What all this means is, governance is about bridging the gaps in society. All sorts of gaps. Their job is to act like an all permeating semi permeable protecting transparent conducting elastic sheath kind of glue. A stem cell. A something that is intelligent with no identities. And it is never going to happen.

keyfabe

I have been talking too much at work lately. Too many anecdotes. I am afraid I don't know what I am going to say next. I have always enjoyed the fact that I don't have to watch what I am saying, but lately I feel like I know too much about too many things to be blurting out words carelessly. I am not able to catch myself on time before this happens. I helplessly watch myself get into a minor mess which perhaps only I am aware of. I can't say that for sure because people around are not exactly honest. They observe etiquette. That was not the case when the team's average age was lesser. Nowadays you really have to wonder what goes on in someone's head. Probably nothing is going on, but there's nothing better than silence to stir some chaos. I don't know when my mouth is going to cause some serious damage. I don't know how I got into this keyfabe. I will break character. I need to stay away from news/information/forming opinions and bury myself in the task at hand and just lie low for as long as possible. There could be a problem. What I have observed is, without a certain amount of attention from people, especially when I have zero 'friends' near me, I have become a sucker for any kind of attention. Lame. Yes. But, fact. Just like a moth... can't resist getting burned. I can't resist showing off a clever word play or when I find a problem and see a solution. I also get insecure when credit is not given where it is due, especially when I think I am diligent on this regard with others. This is not about modesty, this is merely about acknowledgement. There's nothing more irritating than to hear someone explain a problem or a solution to someone else as if it all occurred in their head. Actually there is just one thing more irritating... that's when the problem/solution you found makes a full circle and finds you :). That begs a question though, what would my boss feel? He must face this ALL the time.

"do thy duty, fruit is not thy concern". Deep breath.

model

The x model and its theories and methods for efficiency are best left to the places that manufacture things on assembly lines. Any manager who does not appreciate the human element in non-mechanical work is frankly a hindrance. A government or management that manages minimally and more importantly knows when to leave things alone, is the best kind. You cannot replace a person with another person and expect the new person to work like a cloned spare part just because some research paper somewhere generalized the words 'industry' and 'job'. It has not worked here before and if it ever does work, it will be nauseatingly attributed to the mighty farsighted manager and not the person below him who went out of his way to make it happen. What kind of a nonsensical system is this? I don't deny there's a role to be played by a manager, but get over yourselves. He pays attention like a sensitive voice recorder and barely surpasses it in comprehension. If the theory says that a worker can be replaced by any other, let us please start with you. Wait. That's exactly how you got your job. What a perfect system this is: so beautiful... insensitive self absorbed number based system which knows nothing about exceptions and has many ways to manipulate itself and fool itself into believing that it is working. Creating an intelligent system demands that you live with it. It is not a replication process followed in a car company. There is an organic evolution which cannot be treated like a machine blue print. It is precisely NOT a rocket science. You CANNOT quantify everything. There IS inherent fuzziness. The end line IS blurred. Don't be in such a hurry to make more money. Growth occurs in many forms - somethings have to be in a cocoon for a while too. Learn it. Give it some thought. Listen. We have had more managers and 'resource' shuffles and 'head count' fluctuations than I can bear to stomach.