Is taking away my breath!
Your amber adorned blue hat,
Beckons the end of old season's chat!
3/9/08
Oh Boston!
Seeing you in your new dress,
Is taking away my breath!
Is taking away my breath!
2/24/08
What is love?
Love is when the boy plays his flute after she departs
The essence of love is its self-sufficiency, being
Elementary and fundamental, where reason
Need not rule, where overwhelm are the senses!
In friendship we seek utility, in love we desire union
So is love so useless, so meaningless, and so pure.
The essence of love is its self-sufficiency, being
Elementary and fundamental, where reason
Need not rule, where overwhelm are the senses!
In friendship we seek utility, in love we desire union
So is love so useless, so meaningless, and so pure.
2/19/08
Missing out ...
I noticed I react to multiplicity and complexity of a situation by simplifying it, by the mean of cutting down on the number of involving characters or processes.
Such an attitude, while simplifying the situation, drains the set of possible outcomes from its richness.
Thus we see the trade-off between simplicity and richness.
2/17/08
Elsepath (A poem by firstcomet)
She was trapped in a dilemma;
life, so called, her share of the eerie
the repetition of a self, weary!
life, so called, her share of the eerie
the repetition of a self, weary!
The moment her back pain was back
the shared hurt of living, intact
the truth was what she lacked
In retrospect, these were the facts:
The back pain was to evade,
the rest was attention overpaid!
The boisterous everyday parade
to sense the real with reason
was to construct a new prison!
Or the search for the prose that rhymed
was nothing more than a waste of time;
a mortal's search for the sublime!
1/26/08
My grandfather's voice
"Searching for my grandfather's voice" is a book describing the journey of an Iranian expatriate to his birth-land after 25 years in search for a tape containing his grandfather's voice. The tape was seized from his family's private collection during a raid by the revolutionary guards years earlier. The book touches a variety of topics including the nature of truth, identity, sacrifice, simplicity, and happiness.
1/10/08
1/5/08
1/2/08
12/22/07
A Birthday Card for You!
What is life? A journey through a series of seemingly random events,
and formation of mental images aimed at making sense of them?
Maybe, fulfillment of a vision delineated meticulously down to its most subtle nuances.
Or perhaps, something in between!
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday!
12/21/07
Communicaton Bridge
The following is a passage from an e-book distributed by the IEEE, titled "Engineering a Communication Bridge":
"In the end, the bridge over the communication gap will not be built through crafty legislation. The bridge will not be engineered through advanced communication technologies.... The bridge can only be constructed of one material: humans. Anyone can serve as the bridge by taking action, by ensuring a diverse education. Get involved. And get talking!"
Although, the e-book was concerned primarily with the communication gap between engineers and policy makers the overall message is widely applicable to many other areas of human endeavor: boys meet girls and there is often a communication gap that can only be bridged by developing a diverse set of interests (sport, dance, music, food, cinema, ...), emphasizing on humanity (respecting each others wants, ignoring occasional human follies), and getting involved and talking (spending time).
12/12/07
Time (by firstcomet)
In a fight to make right
One wrong, a million wrong
I found self distressed
I felt heart weary
I grieved bygone youth
I glimpsed a dimmed horizon
Time, the greatest exposé
In the battle of self-indulgence
Comforting convictions posed
The hubris of man shows
The voyeurism of time satisfied
That's the end of most fights!
One wrong, a million wrong
I found self distressed
I felt heart weary
I grieved bygone youth
I glimpsed a dimmed horizon
Time, the greatest exposé
In the battle of self-indulgence
Comforting convictions posed
The hubris of man shows
The voyeurism of time satisfied
That's the end of most fights!
12/3/07
Lost (a poem by firstcomet)
It was a flower, perished
It was a desire, demised
It was a chance, missed
It was a take, lost
It was a desire, demised
It was a chance, missed
It was a take, lost
If the moment was cherished
If the words were spoken
If he had his ego accost
If she had her passion gust
Maybe their path could have crossed!
12/2/07
Rachmaninoff Piano concerto No.3
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that Game theory should be the natural language of Contradictionism and that people should be more educated about game theory:
It's very simple; contradictions are the cause of all the conflicts in the world. But, people don't realize it. I can think of two reasons for this:
1) Euphemism: we try to resolve contradictions in the linguistic stage by adopting euphemism.
2) Evolutionary psychology: we are so much conditioned by our extended histories that do not realize our inherent biases.
To be more concrete, let's take an example of Euphemism: "Patriotism is a virtue." Here, Patriotism is a euphemism for acting in accordance with the unilateral interest of your country. However, if every country follows the same maxim then conflict is inevitable.
Here is an example of how evolution biases our point of view and results in contradiction: "One has to be truthful unconditionally." However, the following dynamics results in contradiction:
i) Factuality: A necessary condition to stay truthful is to keep track of facts and stay faithful to them.
ii) Fallibility: human beings make mistakes. Furthermore, they often find it more convenient to hide their fallibility from others, or rationalize their mistakes, or to blame others for their own wrong doings.
iii) Friendliness: social life requires collaborating with others to achieve common goals or to compromise over incompatible objectives. Friendship by definition requires being biased with respect to certain individuals, thus, manipulating facts to their advantage.
Thus, there is a fundamental contradiction between Factuality and Friendliness as a byproduct of Fallibility. Looking at the state of affairs, it seems like Friendliness takes precedence over Factuality. This quality (friendliness) equipped our ancestors to cope with the complications of living in groups.
Another closely related example: "Rationality commands that our primary moral and social concerns must not be directed towards those with whom we are bound by the common ties of kinship, rather to those who strive to improve the condition of their lives through conscious decisions and ceaseless struggles."
Above is an example of a principle one might arrive at via sensible reasoning, but is not supported by our common sentiments. In particular, we fail to realize the above due to our emotional engagement with the members of our kinship group.
It is proposed that educating individuals about the principles of "proof by contradiction", might be a viable mean to help them see the contradiction of life and to deal with its complications. However, I remain skeptical! Since, resolving many contradictions of life demands a "disconnect" from our very natural dispositions that are not psychologically viable or otherwise painful. At the very least, it requires a great deal of courage and intellectual honesty.
Life is the peace of contraries,
And Death is the proof of this war. --Rumi
It's very simple; contradictions are the cause of all the conflicts in the world. But, people don't realize it. I can think of two reasons for this:
1) Euphemism: we try to resolve contradictions in the linguistic stage by adopting euphemism.
2) Evolutionary psychology: we are so much conditioned by our extended histories that do not realize our inherent biases.
To be more concrete, let's take an example of Euphemism: "Patriotism is a virtue." Here, Patriotism is a euphemism for acting in accordance with the unilateral interest of your country. However, if every country follows the same maxim then conflict is inevitable.
Here is an example of how evolution biases our point of view and results in contradiction: "One has to be truthful unconditionally." However, the following dynamics results in contradiction:
i) Factuality: A necessary condition to stay truthful is to keep track of facts and stay faithful to them.
ii) Fallibility: human beings make mistakes. Furthermore, they often find it more convenient to hide their fallibility from others, or rationalize their mistakes, or to blame others for their own wrong doings.
iii) Friendliness: social life requires collaborating with others to achieve common goals or to compromise over incompatible objectives. Friendship by definition requires being biased with respect to certain individuals, thus, manipulating facts to their advantage.
Thus, there is a fundamental contradiction between Factuality and Friendliness as a byproduct of Fallibility. Looking at the state of affairs, it seems like Friendliness takes precedence over Factuality. This quality (friendliness) equipped our ancestors to cope with the complications of living in groups.
Another closely related example: "Rationality commands that our primary moral and social concerns must not be directed towards those with whom we are bound by the common ties of kinship, rather to those who strive to improve the condition of their lives through conscious decisions and ceaseless struggles."
Above is an example of a principle one might arrive at via sensible reasoning, but is not supported by our common sentiments. In particular, we fail to realize the above due to our emotional engagement with the members of our kinship group.
It is proposed that educating individuals about the principles of "proof by contradiction", might be a viable mean to help them see the contradiction of life and to deal with its complications. However, I remain skeptical! Since, resolving many contradictions of life demands a "disconnect" from our very natural dispositions that are not psychologically viable or otherwise painful. At the very least, it requires a great deal of courage and intellectual honesty.
Life is the peace of contraries,
And Death is the proof of this war. --Rumi
The Gap
I wonder how it feels to grow up in a middle-class family in US.
I wonder how it feels like to be Peter; the son of an engineer (or was his dad a businessman) who has been making a six figure income for the past 20 years, while Peter was going through different stages of his life.
I wonder how it feels like to be Peter; the son of an engineer (or was his dad a businessman) who has been making a six figure income for the past 20 years, while Peter was going through different stages of his life.
What did Peter do while he was 5 years old?
How did his pre-school years look?
How were his middle school days?
What does Peter think about life?
Peter's dreams?
Peter's ideals?
What does it take to make Peter?
What does it take to break Peter?
11/28/07
The Walnut Creek Theater
Today the Walnut Creek Theater showcased one of the masterpieces of French existentialism; namely "the hackneyed butterfly ascent" (or was it a descent?). The only creative component of the play was the overwhelming dramatization of the scene by spectators, who interpreted the extreme apathy of the antihero as a butterfly ascend (or was it a descent?). It turns out a more thru interpretation of the play may result in a butterfly effect that was not the original intent of the screenwriter.
11/26/07
Games of social life
Observations pertaining to an anthropological case-study:
This game is called "who looks better". This particular game turns out to be a dangerous game; since in the real life it actually matters "who looks better". Here is a typical strategy people use:
1) Players A and B start by standing face-to-face, and telling each other anything they can think-of that can make the other person look bad. This can happen in a park or over a kitchen table.
2) Then they depart from each other and start advertising to others that they "look better" than their opponent. As such, the objective is to convince as many spectators as possible that your opponent is uglier than what they think he or she is:
3) Player A proceed by coming-up with fictitious stories (may originate from reality, but is sufficiently distorted to qualify as fiction) and propagates them among his acquaintances.
4) Player B replies by trying to discredit player A calling him crazy. The idea is that if player A is discredited then all of his statements will be interpreted by others as false.
A funny consequence of this move by player B is that for her to win the game, it has to become a self-fulfilling prophesy, i.e., player A has to become crazy.
5) Once in a while, one of the spectators decides to believe player B over player A. In such cases, player B seizes the opportunity by calling player A and bringing that to his attention. She also calls the acquaintances of Player A at 2:00am in their local time to win their votes. And there are those spectators who mediate the game through public media, the worse of them being smart aleck theorist and e-mailers!
You might wonder why spectators bother to take a side. It's because any spectator automatically becomes part of the game "who looks better". Among the many ways a spectator can look better is by making right judgments. After all, if you can call-out the guilty party you're smarter than both player A and B, and consequently, you look better than both of them. Furthermore, certain spectators seize the opportunity to compensate for their “old losses” on the game of "who looks better". After all, this game can go on for lifetimes! As you might have guessed, spectators are an essential part of this game. Without them the game is simply absurd!
6) Rules regarding types of money accepted by the dealer (the devil) for purchasing your chips are very flexible:
Your respect, your honor, your honesty, your genuine concerns, your quiet evening times, your emotions, your tears, your health, your sanity, your rationality, your family ties ... you name it.
7) There is no shame in changing strategy or using the same strategy as that of your opponent. Even though, from time to time you might find certain strategies of your opponents very hurtful, reducing the pain is not one of the objectives of the game. The only objective is "who looks better" at the end of the day.
8) Players and spectators can take breaks from the game and return back as many times as they wish; the only requirement being that the game must go on. In fact, certain players get sick of the game and decide to quite.
As such, the game of "who looks better" can be a very painful experience. But, the sweet taste of wining, au contraire, makes the game worthy of eternal recurrence. In practice, the overall number of the players and spectators remains steady throughout the game, and there are always plenty of exchangeable goods to purchase your chips with.
9) It turns out you do not need to make time for playing this game. You don’t even need to learn the rules of the game. It comes naturally to almost everybody. And you’re most likely so good at this game that you don’t even notice you’re playing it.
Happy playing kids!
This game is called "who looks better". This particular game turns out to be a dangerous game; since in the real life it actually matters "who looks better". Here is a typical strategy people use:
1) Players A and B start by standing face-to-face, and telling each other anything they can think-of that can make the other person look bad. This can happen in a park or over a kitchen table.
2) Then they depart from each other and start advertising to others that they "look better" than their opponent. As such, the objective is to convince as many spectators as possible that your opponent is uglier than what they think he or she is:
3) Player A proceed by coming-up with fictitious stories (may originate from reality, but is sufficiently distorted to qualify as fiction) and propagates them among his acquaintances.
4) Player B replies by trying to discredit player A calling him crazy. The idea is that if player A is discredited then all of his statements will be interpreted by others as false.
A funny consequence of this move by player B is that for her to win the game, it has to become a self-fulfilling prophesy, i.e., player A has to become crazy.
5) Once in a while, one of the spectators decides to believe player B over player A. In such cases, player B seizes the opportunity by calling player A and bringing that to his attention. She also calls the acquaintances of Player A at 2:00am in their local time to win their votes. And there are those spectators who mediate the game through public media, the worse of them being smart aleck theorist and e-mailers!
You might wonder why spectators bother to take a side. It's because any spectator automatically becomes part of the game "who looks better". Among the many ways a spectator can look better is by making right judgments. After all, if you can call-out the guilty party you're smarter than both player A and B, and consequently, you look better than both of them. Furthermore, certain spectators seize the opportunity to compensate for their “old losses” on the game of "who looks better". After all, this game can go on for lifetimes! As you might have guessed, spectators are an essential part of this game. Without them the game is simply absurd!
6) Rules regarding types of money accepted by the dealer (the devil) for purchasing your chips are very flexible:
Your respect, your honor, your honesty, your genuine concerns, your quiet evening times, your emotions, your tears, your health, your sanity, your rationality, your family ties ... you name it.
7) There is no shame in changing strategy or using the same strategy as that of your opponent. Even though, from time to time you might find certain strategies of your opponents very hurtful, reducing the pain is not one of the objectives of the game. The only objective is "who looks better" at the end of the day.
8) Players and spectators can take breaks from the game and return back as many times as they wish; the only requirement being that the game must go on. In fact, certain players get sick of the game and decide to quite.
As such, the game of "who looks better" can be a very painful experience. But, the sweet taste of wining, au contraire, makes the game worthy of eternal recurrence. In practice, the overall number of the players and spectators remains steady throughout the game, and there are always plenty of exchangeable goods to purchase your chips with.
9) It turns out you do not need to make time for playing this game. You don’t even need to learn the rules of the game. It comes naturally to almost everybody. And you’re most likely so good at this game that you don’t even notice you’re playing it.
Happy playing kids!
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