I have been in a foul mood of late. Trying to lose weight (again). OK I lied in my profile - I am not always comfortable with my body image.
As I was struggling to get into my old pair of jeans, with one leg in and teetering, it struck me - I know how to measure happiness. It is not an abstract concept like all these poets would have you believe. It is a tangible, well defined and slightly mundane entity!
And the scale of measurement?
Inches. Yes, inches. Happiness is measured in inches. Well, atleast as far as men are concerned. As for women, I would not have the arrogance to suggest that I understand anything at all about the fairer sex. But as far as simple, uncomplicated men are concerned, we are all inching our way to happiness.
Not convinced?
well, I could start with the human body itself, one's own and others'.
As you look at yourself in the mirror, you wish you were 3 inches taller. Or even half an inch for that matter. That would make you so happy. And then as you struggle into your wrinkled trousers, you wish your waist was a few inches slimmer. You steel your resolve to hold your breath for the rest of the day in those tight trousers, for you are meeting your special girl who manages to turn you into a slobbering fool. You wish yet again that you could lose a few inches, even half an inch - from your waist.
Then you meet the said girl, you are immediately conscious of her figure - even without knowing it, you are adding up the inches, just to reassure you that they add up in the right places in the right proportions. Why? That makes you happy, of course. As you sit through a mushy romantic movie (her choice), you are conscious of her head leaning towards your shoulder - a few inches closer and you'd be really happy.
I will not bore you with the crass details of what other biological detail measured in inches brings happiness in geometrical proportion to men.
You then turn to your next important thing in life, yes, boys' toys.
As you drive to work, you think about the new 19 inch alloys you had specially made for your car and you once again feel extremely happy.
You get out of your car swinging your briefcase and there is more reason to be happy, because your new laptop is only 9 inches in size (2 inches less that your annoying colleague's, ha! that will teach him). Also you have personally verified the claim that the company makes the thinnest laptops - less than half an inch thick! Excellent. you are very happy now - till your mobile rings and you think: 'I have to change this old one, it is 5 inches long and half an inch thick'. Your next door neighbour was flashing his new one the other day - he didn't forget to mention that it was less that a quarter of an inch in thickness and only two and a half inches long. Grrrr, you have to do better, but then you look at the 3 inches of plastic sticking out of your wallet - your platinum card has to be recharged before you can buy that new phone. But that's understandable, after all you have just bought the latest 54 inch LCD that is now contentedly hanging from your living room wall - adding more inches to your happiness. Your pals at work are coming round tonight, ostensibly to watch the finals, but really, it is a celebration of you notching up more inches to your happiness. Sadly it is not long lived - for your annoying technogeek colleague whips out his latest digital camera - 10 megapixels and a whopping 3 inch LCD screen with a touch sensitive menu. You quickly hide your own camera between the cushions - no point in letting people know that you only have an inch and a half of screen on your Olympus - oh, only if you could add a couple of inches to that!
You are tired now - it is time for bed. You toss around restlessly and then drift off to sleep, only to wake up sweating from a nightmare.
You dreamt you were in a giant cocktail shaker - but this one was most peculiar, for it was shaking you and all your beloved stuff till the inches all rearranged themselves. Oh, no, the laptop is now 4 inches thick and 15 inches wide - the embarrassment! You will have to live it down somehow, but then you recoil in horror as you see the LCD TV now shrunken beyond recognition to just 21 inches. You feel quite fat - and realize that you are! It is all the inches off your TV and the alloy wheels on to your waist. Someone you hardly recognize is talking to you - who is she, this ugly, dumpy woman - and then you recognize your once well proportioned girl. The inches are all rearranged and she is a different person now - you try to run away from her, but she keeps following you, down a dark corridor and then you are falling down.. down...
... and you wake up.
Thank God, it was all a dream, she is there lying beside you, her shape under the sheets reassures you that things are all as they should be, you stretch a weary hand to your bedside table and your new slimline clock-radio (only 3 inches wide, surround sound speakers and all) tells you that you have another 4 hours to sleep. As you shuffle back under the duvet, you stub your toe on the bed and wonder - have you grown taller in your sleep?
You have, it seems - atleast 5 inches taller - surely you are dreaming - you pinch yourself, no, it is true - you walk to the bathroom mirror to verify ...
and then...
... the night is rent apart by a blood curdling scream - for you have seen yourself in the mirror and now you realize where those extra inches to your height came from .......
Monday, August 14, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Prime time Alien TV - the human freaks
I wish at times that there was a super human race. A race not as predatory and arrogant as humans are, but with a similar curiosity to explore the 'lesser' species. While I am at it, I would also wish for a David Attenborough or a Jane Goodall to make programmes on nature where they observe human behaviour at work and play.
Only this would give us the insight that we need to understand how we behave as a species, wth all the failings that we so easily attribute to 'lesser animals'.
Is reality TV an answer then? How about Big Brother?
Definitely not, it would hardly be a sincere attempt at depicting human behaviour either on the part of the participants or the programme designers.
Humans are blessed with social awareness which helps us to modify behaviour according to our surroundings - not just the physical, but also the emotional and psychological. This means that the presence (or awareness) of others results in involuntary modification of innate behaviour which thwarts any attempt at studying human behaviour in its purest form.
Another benefit of having a different species study humans would be that it is more likely to be non-judgemental. This is where reality TV would fall woefully short of the ideal. The whole point of reality TV is that we judge the people on the screen, thereby improving our own feeling of self worth. This is why reality TV sells better if it has a group of people who are at best dysthymic and at worst outright bizzare or sociopathic. Why do we not have reality TV programmes on checkout counters in supermarkets, molecular biology labs or libraries?
Well, the simple answer being that it is too real, 'really real' people living normal real working lives. Nothing to feel superior about, in fact, viewers may feel inadequate or depressed if they see happy successful human beings!
A super human species would also be able to delve deeper into the extremes without worrying about 'consequences' of such programme making.
When David Attenborough films a lion making a killing in the wild, for all the blood and gore, for all the detailed depiction of death accompanied by a lucid narration, we hardly bat an eyelid. We encourage children to watch and learn about wild life, not turn the other way.
Why not have a reality TV on soldiers - actually killing 'the other side'? How about a programme that follows someone intent on murder...to its completion? It does not have to be gory, maybe someone plotting to poison a lover. It does not have to involve a dead human, even someone inflicting psychological pressure, financial pressure - all behaviour we know humans are capable of, but never asked to face upto.
Does this make me a psychopath? To think about these things?
I think we need a wake up call. The extremes of behaviour humans are capable of has been glossed over by the media, any attempt to show real suffering is met with resistance.
Bob Geldof (I think) once described how the relief workers in africa are faced with the soul destroying task of selecting people. From a whole field of hungry humans, to pick and choose those who will be fed that day, knowing fully well that the unlucky ones will NOT be waiting their turn the next day. How about a live telecast of this?
When we are sitting down to a meal in front of the TV (the dining room? what's that?) we do not wish to be reminded of our moral standing as a species.
All around the world there is unrest and unhappiness, yet even more prominently there are daily justifications for human behaviour. Those who have bigger, more convincing explanatory notes get away with more.
The whole world is polarised now, more acutely than in the dark ages. The only reason human beings may really unite would be if there really was a super human race... not one interested in making real life programmes... but a predatory one with an appetite for humans, irrespective of race or social status.
Only this would give us the insight that we need to understand how we behave as a species, wth all the failings that we so easily attribute to 'lesser animals'.
Is reality TV an answer then? How about Big Brother?
Definitely not, it would hardly be a sincere attempt at depicting human behaviour either on the part of the participants or the programme designers.
Humans are blessed with social awareness which helps us to modify behaviour according to our surroundings - not just the physical, but also the emotional and psychological. This means that the presence (or awareness) of others results in involuntary modification of innate behaviour which thwarts any attempt at studying human behaviour in its purest form.
Another benefit of having a different species study humans would be that it is more likely to be non-judgemental. This is where reality TV would fall woefully short of the ideal. The whole point of reality TV is that we judge the people on the screen, thereby improving our own feeling of self worth. This is why reality TV sells better if it has a group of people who are at best dysthymic and at worst outright bizzare or sociopathic. Why do we not have reality TV programmes on checkout counters in supermarkets, molecular biology labs or libraries?
Well, the simple answer being that it is too real, 'really real' people living normal real working lives. Nothing to feel superior about, in fact, viewers may feel inadequate or depressed if they see happy successful human beings!
A super human species would also be able to delve deeper into the extremes without worrying about 'consequences' of such programme making.
When David Attenborough films a lion making a killing in the wild, for all the blood and gore, for all the detailed depiction of death accompanied by a lucid narration, we hardly bat an eyelid. We encourage children to watch and learn about wild life, not turn the other way.
Why not have a reality TV on soldiers - actually killing 'the other side'? How about a programme that follows someone intent on murder...to its completion? It does not have to be gory, maybe someone plotting to poison a lover. It does not have to involve a dead human, even someone inflicting psychological pressure, financial pressure - all behaviour we know humans are capable of, but never asked to face upto.
Does this make me a psychopath? To think about these things?
I think we need a wake up call. The extremes of behaviour humans are capable of has been glossed over by the media, any attempt to show real suffering is met with resistance.
Bob Geldof (I think) once described how the relief workers in africa are faced with the soul destroying task of selecting people. From a whole field of hungry humans, to pick and choose those who will be fed that day, knowing fully well that the unlucky ones will NOT be waiting their turn the next day. How about a live telecast of this?
When we are sitting down to a meal in front of the TV (the dining room? what's that?) we do not wish to be reminded of our moral standing as a species.
All around the world there is unrest and unhappiness, yet even more prominently there are daily justifications for human behaviour. Those who have bigger, more convincing explanatory notes get away with more.
The whole world is polarised now, more acutely than in the dark ages. The only reason human beings may really unite would be if there really was a super human race... not one interested in making real life programmes... but a predatory one with an appetite for humans, irrespective of race or social status.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Character building
What a week. What a messy irritating frustrating week!
Lab work can be so ruthless. It is so much easier to be a doctor. The human body is so forgiving to your mistakes. Not like the controlled pristine precise atmosphere of the scientific laboratory, where the way you breathe can mess things up.
Doing PCRs is not fun. In fact it is soul destroying work, especially if you are doing it for the second time in your entire life. You resist the temptation to scale things up. how do you know that the 0.61 microlitres has gone into the tube and mixed with the rest of the 9.39 microlitres of 'stuff'?!
On the wards, if someone is unwell and you need to give them some antibiotics, you can give an extra dose at times, 'for good measure'. no harm done, as long as you know where to draw the line. Not so in lab work. Lab work does not seem to accept the fact that it is also an imprecise science. A microenvironment does not necessarily scale down the variability. it is still performed by imperfect human beings with imperfect knowledge and imperfect skills. So why pretend?
In medicine, the more you work, the more you realize how little you know. I strongly believe that this feeling of inadequacy is proportional to one's insight. I cannot understand arrogant doctors. What are they arrogant about?
it is like the filament of a bulb being arrogant about the light in the room. You are just a plain conduit which is empty if not for what flows through it.
But I digress.
Character building - yes, I have come to hate that phrase. This is what people tell me when things go wrong, after 3 days of work, you find out that there is nothing to show for it, as it has all gone horribly wrong and yet, you don't know what you did wrong.
Character building, my foot!
Well, if it is character building, surely, it is the quality, not the quantity of character that you need.
I don't know
Going back to my samples now
Lab work can be so ruthless. It is so much easier to be a doctor. The human body is so forgiving to your mistakes. Not like the controlled pristine precise atmosphere of the scientific laboratory, where the way you breathe can mess things up.
Doing PCRs is not fun. In fact it is soul destroying work, especially if you are doing it for the second time in your entire life. You resist the temptation to scale things up. how do you know that the 0.61 microlitres has gone into the tube and mixed with the rest of the 9.39 microlitres of 'stuff'?!
On the wards, if someone is unwell and you need to give them some antibiotics, you can give an extra dose at times, 'for good measure'. no harm done, as long as you know where to draw the line. Not so in lab work. Lab work does not seem to accept the fact that it is also an imprecise science. A microenvironment does not necessarily scale down the variability. it is still performed by imperfect human beings with imperfect knowledge and imperfect skills. So why pretend?
In medicine, the more you work, the more you realize how little you know. I strongly believe that this feeling of inadequacy is proportional to one's insight. I cannot understand arrogant doctors. What are they arrogant about?
it is like the filament of a bulb being arrogant about the light in the room. You are just a plain conduit which is empty if not for what flows through it.
But I digress.
Character building - yes, I have come to hate that phrase. This is what people tell me when things go wrong, after 3 days of work, you find out that there is nothing to show for it, as it has all gone horribly wrong and yet, you don't know what you did wrong.
Character building, my foot!
Well, if it is character building, surely, it is the quality, not the quantity of character that you need.
I don't know
Going back to my samples now
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
The King of egotrips
Read Stephen King's Song of Susannah this week. I thought this was it, that the gunslinger meets his maker now, but no, he has managed to stretch it further. There is one more - book 7, The Dark Tower. Have to hunt it down cheap on amazon now, how annoying!
What can I say. Stephen King writes in an irritating way, but I am still drawn to him 16 years after I read his first book.
I used to think, especially when I was in India that buying a King gives you good value for money. Not many authors give you 500-600 pages at that price. So if you are looking for an afternoon to waste or a 9 hour flight to tide over, there is no one better - as long as you are prepared to throw the book away when you get off the plane. A literary equivalent of casual sex.
I like King because he has this weird lopsided angle when looking at life. His spyglass is quite stained and smeared (with things you don't want to know about) and he manages to see the dark side in everything. This, I have always felt is what fascinated me. To see the underbelly of life, the less appealing side - like Irvine Welsh says in High Fidelity - knowing a woman long enough to know that she leaves disgusting cotton underwear lying around and not just the sexy nylon stuff that you get to see on a short hot fling.
A bit like that, but worse.
He is at his best when he describes characters. If he were an artist, he would be one of those wrinkly gruff slightly bitter ones who would only do pencil sketches, never add colour, yet manage to make the paper come alive. I hardly ever read his books for the horror, for it is not a shock or a suspense that he demands from his CRs (CR=Constant Reader). He prefers to make you shuffle in your seat and squirm when you read the dark bits of his characters, for he forces you to acknowledge your own weaknesses and darkest of thoughts, thoughts you would not accept as your own, thoughts like mutant psychopathic children that you don't want to know about, definitely not the ones you would have photos of in your wallet - yet for all your vehement denial, they are your own.
He makes you face up to them, stay in the same room with them and try and talk to them. Here in lies the real horror of his books - a study of the capacity of the human MIND for socially unacceptable behaviour.
What better example that his short story 'Riding the Bullet'. That stands out for the simple reason: it really makes the reader accept his own selfish love of life . Ever since I read that, I have seen selfish behaviour in a new light and I understand it better. I also think twice about adopting a 'holier than thou' attitude. I will not spoil it for people who have not read the story yet - go ahead, read it and decide for yourself.
Why call this post egotripping?
Because that is what his Dark tower series has turned out to be. One of my american colleagues said King is two sandwiches short of a picnic and although that is a bit harsh, I think I can see why she said that.
His style has definitely changed as he got older. If you read the Bachman Books, you see a different King. Young, hot headed, raging against the system and very very crisp and economical in his writing style, even when he digresses off the plot to describe a character in detail, it all feels essential in some strange and beautiful way. Despair and horror in plenty, but of a much better quality.
Nowadays, as he says himself, he gets away with publishing his laundry list and still come up with a best seller, and I think his writing has turned out of form and corpulent in it's old age.
As if he cannot be bothered to make the effort anymore. Even in the Dark Tower series, you can see how the story has become less gripping as you read further - and it feels as if the series is his excuse to get everything he has ever written published - all the ugly mutant children of his brain out in the open and his CRs are forced to adopt them all without question.
Sad, really, for he is very good when he puts his mind to it.
He says Tabby (his wife) is his greatest critic. Why has she let him get away with this? She should know better, surely.
Maybe after his near fatal accident, she has softened a bit, maybe that's why.
But still, as a CR, you tend to expect more from him, which he does not deliver nowadays.
What explanation could there possibly be for him dragging himself into the story?!! Does he think that that would immortalize him any better than if he just wrote a cracking good tale? I think he is sorely mistaken if that was his plan.
It does not add anything to the tale and makes one disappointed is a peculiar skin crawling way. As a CR, you see King as someone you know and the feeling is akin to how you feel when you have just introduced your elderly uncle to a group of friends and he then lets rip a loud smelly fart that leaves you not only embarrased, but also sorry for him.
Oh well, my ranting is over for now.
I am going to hunt down Book 7. Like I said, I still read his books, even if I am being screwed over by the publishers.
I still read his books hoping for his old style, in someways, I am hardly bothered about how it all ends - I dont think he can do very well, the way things have panned out. But still if the journey is interesting, I don't mind if the end leaves me disappointed.
What can I say. Stephen King writes in an irritating way, but I am still drawn to him 16 years after I read his first book.
I used to think, especially when I was in India that buying a King gives you good value for money. Not many authors give you 500-600 pages at that price. So if you are looking for an afternoon to waste or a 9 hour flight to tide over, there is no one better - as long as you are prepared to throw the book away when you get off the plane. A literary equivalent of casual sex.
I like King because he has this weird lopsided angle when looking at life. His spyglass is quite stained and smeared (with things you don't want to know about) and he manages to see the dark side in everything. This, I have always felt is what fascinated me. To see the underbelly of life, the less appealing side - like Irvine Welsh says in High Fidelity - knowing a woman long enough to know that she leaves disgusting cotton underwear lying around and not just the sexy nylon stuff that you get to see on a short hot fling.
A bit like that, but worse.
He is at his best when he describes characters. If he were an artist, he would be one of those wrinkly gruff slightly bitter ones who would only do pencil sketches, never add colour, yet manage to make the paper come alive. I hardly ever read his books for the horror, for it is not a shock or a suspense that he demands from his CRs (CR=Constant Reader). He prefers to make you shuffle in your seat and squirm when you read the dark bits of his characters, for he forces you to acknowledge your own weaknesses and darkest of thoughts, thoughts you would not accept as your own, thoughts like mutant psychopathic children that you don't want to know about, definitely not the ones you would have photos of in your wallet - yet for all your vehement denial, they are your own.
He makes you face up to them, stay in the same room with them and try and talk to them. Here in lies the real horror of his books - a study of the capacity of the human MIND for socially unacceptable behaviour.
What better example that his short story 'Riding the Bullet'. That stands out for the simple reason: it really makes the reader accept his own selfish love of life . Ever since I read that, I have seen selfish behaviour in a new light and I understand it better. I also think twice about adopting a 'holier than thou' attitude. I will not spoil it for people who have not read the story yet - go ahead, read it and decide for yourself.
Why call this post egotripping?
Because that is what his Dark tower series has turned out to be. One of my american colleagues said King is two sandwiches short of a picnic and although that is a bit harsh, I think I can see why she said that.
His style has definitely changed as he got older. If you read the Bachman Books, you see a different King. Young, hot headed, raging against the system and very very crisp and economical in his writing style, even when he digresses off the plot to describe a character in detail, it all feels essential in some strange and beautiful way. Despair and horror in plenty, but of a much better quality.
Nowadays, as he says himself, he gets away with publishing his laundry list and still come up with a best seller, and I think his writing has turned out of form and corpulent in it's old age.
As if he cannot be bothered to make the effort anymore. Even in the Dark Tower series, you can see how the story has become less gripping as you read further - and it feels as if the series is his excuse to get everything he has ever written published - all the ugly mutant children of his brain out in the open and his CRs are forced to adopt them all without question.
Sad, really, for he is very good when he puts his mind to it.
He says Tabby (his wife) is his greatest critic. Why has she let him get away with this? She should know better, surely.
Maybe after his near fatal accident, she has softened a bit, maybe that's why.
But still, as a CR, you tend to expect more from him, which he does not deliver nowadays.
What explanation could there possibly be for him dragging himself into the story?!! Does he think that that would immortalize him any better than if he just wrote a cracking good tale? I think he is sorely mistaken if that was his plan.
It does not add anything to the tale and makes one disappointed is a peculiar skin crawling way. As a CR, you see King as someone you know and the feeling is akin to how you feel when you have just introduced your elderly uncle to a group of friends and he then lets rip a loud smelly fart that leaves you not only embarrased, but also sorry for him.
Oh well, my ranting is over for now.
I am going to hunt down Book 7. Like I said, I still read his books, even if I am being screwed over by the publishers.
I still read his books hoping for his old style, in someways, I am hardly bothered about how it all ends - I dont think he can do very well, the way things have panned out. But still if the journey is interesting, I don't mind if the end leaves me disappointed.
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