Love is love, and a cup of coffee is a cup of coffee. They are incredibly similar if you go to look at them from a certain perspective. So here are some of those points of view that can be applied to both of them.
· It is the finest celebration, of life, of the simple joys of living in the present. It helps put the perils of the times behind, and let the mind and heart wander free for a few cherished moments. It is a tribute to everything that might just be right with the world.
· It is warm, satisfying, and completes the soul of a broken human being. Sometimes it is just what is needed to stop the tears, and bring a weak smile of relief and hope that the worst is over.
· One can never see what lies at the bottom. And finding the flavour at the bottom is an experience in itself. It might be sweet or it might be bitter, but it a new feeling altogether that is never the same as what one tastes at the surface.
· There is a completely different charm attached to it when it is raining outside, and you are wet. It might be how the warmth gets to you through the wetness and goes right to the bones, or the simple pleasure of being with it there in the moment, but it’s completely different.
· I hope I can say this with a clear conscience, but it is usually hot and steamy. And it can really be enjoyed with chocolate.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
ON SLEEP-TALKING...
The other day I was told by a sadistic well-wisher (I know that that is a self-contradictory way to describe the person, but that is, all in all, the ideal way to put it. I won’t go into further details, for then I shall be digressing) that I spoke in my sleep. Not speaking in my sleep actually, but in the state of disturbed semi-consciousness that is induced when one is shaken from deep slumber for the first time (the first time never works in waking a person up, it just induces the aforementioned state. A further nine attempts, a cup of tea and a mug of water on the face are usually required to the job, at least for me). And apparently, in the words of the well wisher, I “said extremely interesting stuff.” That particular morning, I was saying something along the lines of “the sum total of all liquefied assets of an economy is a direct function of the money supply present, and by the credit generated by active commercial banks…” and this piece of news really got me thinking.
I am not a willing student of economics. I have no particular fondness for the study. I do not like the member of the alien species who teaches it to me. But yet, of all the things I could have said in my sleep, I was talking about economics. Wait a minute, why was I talking in my sleep in the first place? Which brings me to the current topic at hand.
I figured that a normal, sane, balanced human being like me (ignoring the lees-human sides right now, for the sake of convenience) should not face such a problem, but the fact that I did pointed to two possible theories. Either it could be the sub-conscious genius within the realms of my sub-conscious mind that was speaking sub-consciously to me in my state of sub-consciousness, or it could be that the state of balance and sanity that I take pride in possessing was wearing thin.
Now, if it’s the first case, its all fine, in fact it’s something I’ve believed all along. All I have to do is to get a secretary to sit by my bedside the entire night and write down everything I might utter, so that those invaluable words of sub-conscious wisdom are not lost and the whole of mankind may benefit that there be peace and harmony on the world and everybody can live happily ever after (violins playing in the background).
But if it’s the second case, which is far more probable than the first (more probable because of the circumstances in which I live- the education system, my alien professor of economics, the Al Qaeda, the income taxes, and the smell of the new imports of French cheese can erode anybody’s sanity), then I must do something drastic to correct it. How I plan to do it is not something I would like to advertise, so please excuse me for not disclosing to you all the details at the forum.
Maybe someday some new research might reveal to all sleep-talkers that talking in their sleep is not a bad thing after all. Maybe someday sleep-talkers and non-sleep-talkers will be able to coexist in harmony, without animosity, and looks that say “Oh My God! I just saw a sleep-talker!” Maybe someday sleep-talking might be taken to new heights as an art, and people might be able to recite Shakespeare and Wordsworth. Maybe someday I might find my own place in this universe as a sleep-talker proud to be what he is.
I am not a willing student of economics. I have no particular fondness for the study. I do not like the member of the alien species who teaches it to me. But yet, of all the things I could have said in my sleep, I was talking about economics. Wait a minute, why was I talking in my sleep in the first place? Which brings me to the current topic at hand.
I figured that a normal, sane, balanced human being like me (ignoring the lees-human sides right now, for the sake of convenience) should not face such a problem, but the fact that I did pointed to two possible theories. Either it could be the sub-conscious genius within the realms of my sub-conscious mind that was speaking sub-consciously to me in my state of sub-consciousness, or it could be that the state of balance and sanity that I take pride in possessing was wearing thin.
Now, if it’s the first case, its all fine, in fact it’s something I’ve believed all along. All I have to do is to get a secretary to sit by my bedside the entire night and write down everything I might utter, so that those invaluable words of sub-conscious wisdom are not lost and the whole of mankind may benefit that there be peace and harmony on the world and everybody can live happily ever after (violins playing in the background).
But if it’s the second case, which is far more probable than the first (more probable because of the circumstances in which I live- the education system, my alien professor of economics, the Al Qaeda, the income taxes, and the smell of the new imports of French cheese can erode anybody’s sanity), then I must do something drastic to correct it. How I plan to do it is not something I would like to advertise, so please excuse me for not disclosing to you all the details at the forum.
Maybe someday some new research might reveal to all sleep-talkers that talking in their sleep is not a bad thing after all. Maybe someday sleep-talkers and non-sleep-talkers will be able to coexist in harmony, without animosity, and looks that say “Oh My God! I just saw a sleep-talker!” Maybe someday sleep-talking might be taken to new heights as an art, and people might be able to recite Shakespeare and Wordsworth. Maybe someday I might find my own place in this universe as a sleep-talker proud to be what he is.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
ON ELBOW INJURIES...
About a month back, I was involved in a minor accident and injured my right elbow. I don’t feel compelled to go into the details of the accident, because if I do, I shall be digressing. Let’s just keep it to the fact that a motorcycle, a lot of stones, and a girl were involved. Well, as you might be able to well imagine, there was blood and pus, and a lot of pain, and also the hope that it would get well soon, which it did after all. And everyone lived happily ever after (me, obviously, but also all those members of my family who had to change my dressing every night.)
But, however, all those nitties and gritties aside, the point of this post is to bring to light how inconvenient it is to injure your right elbow (or your left one if you are a left-side-dominant person; or both of them if you are ambidextrous). For a period of almost three weeks, I was unable to bend the right hand, and what follows is a glimpse of what I had to go through:
· I was unable to brush my teeth, because my right hand could not reach my face. What I tried to do was brush with my left hand (which I was not very good at, and there was more froth on my nose than in my mouth), or not brush at all (which I could tolerate, but the rest of the world couldn’t).
· I was unable to eat comfortably, because (once again) of the same reason. To tackle this (my left hand was ineffective once again), I tried to master the art of dropping my food into my mouth from above at an arm’s length (it was a disaster, do not try this at home), or to find a spoon long enough to reach my mouth without requiring me to bend (such spoons are hard to come by, and using serving spoons is not comfortable as the spoon to mouth connection is not compatible).
· I could not write very well for a while. And I didn’t even try using my left hand for this purpose. I managed to solve this partially, by keeping my desk about two yards away from the chair. I could not type as well, but the same solution was applied for the computer table as well.
· I couldn’t soap myself, because soaping yourself requires you to bend the arm. The left hand was once again useless in this situation because it has never received much practice in the science of soaping me, and kept letting the soap bar slip out of its grasp and fall all over the bathroom, which became all the more irritating.
· The worst bit of the whole thing was that I was not able to change my dressing myself. This means that I had to rely on the magnanimity of the rest of my family to feel better. It was tough, for I had to keep all my opinions to myself and act very rosy and diplomatic for three whole weeks. Also, family aside, being unable to change the dressing means that you can do nothing if the wound suddenly decides to bleed and irritate you, and you have to wait till you get home before you can do anything about it.
I went through a lot more, but that would probably classify as ‘Too Much Information’. But the whole experience left me thinking with a great bit of seriousness, as to firstly why my left hand was so incompetent? And if it was, then why hadn’t I noticed and taken measures to resolve it?
The answer came sometime later, when I realized that my right hand had been altogether overused, and my left hand had not really been given room to develop. This maybe a similar case for a lot of people out there, and I’d appreciate it if all you guys learnt a bit from this.
At the end of it all, the injury came with a very important underlying message of striking a balance between the hands. And now, when I have healed and learnt, the whole episode doesn’t seem so painful anymore. Or is it because I can put my food into my mouth again?
But, however, all those nitties and gritties aside, the point of this post is to bring to light how inconvenient it is to injure your right elbow (or your left one if you are a left-side-dominant person; or both of them if you are ambidextrous). For a period of almost three weeks, I was unable to bend the right hand, and what follows is a glimpse of what I had to go through:
· I was unable to brush my teeth, because my right hand could not reach my face. What I tried to do was brush with my left hand (which I was not very good at, and there was more froth on my nose than in my mouth), or not brush at all (which I could tolerate, but the rest of the world couldn’t).
· I was unable to eat comfortably, because (once again) of the same reason. To tackle this (my left hand was ineffective once again), I tried to master the art of dropping my food into my mouth from above at an arm’s length (it was a disaster, do not try this at home), or to find a spoon long enough to reach my mouth without requiring me to bend (such spoons are hard to come by, and using serving spoons is not comfortable as the spoon to mouth connection is not compatible).
· I could not write very well for a while. And I didn’t even try using my left hand for this purpose. I managed to solve this partially, by keeping my desk about two yards away from the chair. I could not type as well, but the same solution was applied for the computer table as well.
· I couldn’t soap myself, because soaping yourself requires you to bend the arm. The left hand was once again useless in this situation because it has never received much practice in the science of soaping me, and kept letting the soap bar slip out of its grasp and fall all over the bathroom, which became all the more irritating.
· The worst bit of the whole thing was that I was not able to change my dressing myself. This means that I had to rely on the magnanimity of the rest of my family to feel better. It was tough, for I had to keep all my opinions to myself and act very rosy and diplomatic for three whole weeks. Also, family aside, being unable to change the dressing means that you can do nothing if the wound suddenly decides to bleed and irritate you, and you have to wait till you get home before you can do anything about it.
I went through a lot more, but that would probably classify as ‘Too Much Information’. But the whole experience left me thinking with a great bit of seriousness, as to firstly why my left hand was so incompetent? And if it was, then why hadn’t I noticed and taken measures to resolve it?
The answer came sometime later, when I realized that my right hand had been altogether overused, and my left hand had not really been given room to develop. This maybe a similar case for a lot of people out there, and I’d appreciate it if all you guys learnt a bit from this.
At the end of it all, the injury came with a very important underlying message of striking a balance between the hands. And now, when I have healed and learnt, the whole episode doesn’t seem so painful anymore. Or is it because I can put my food into my mouth again?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
ON THE TITLE OF MY BLOG...
Okay, so I’ve started this Blog.
And okay, it’s a seemingly weird title. What the heck. One of my readers (I’m flattered- one post, and I already have a reader) asked my, why in Pete’s name was my Blog called “Bileifs, Konphessions, and Spelling Mistakes” (not that it is called anything else in anyone’s name, its just that that particular reader seems to have a special liking for Pete, whoever that is). So, I feel morally compelled to explain that title.
Well, for one thing, I am a person with many beliefs (surprise- I know the right spelling to this), because a person is after all what he believes in. For another, I am a person with many confessions (yes, you probably are surprised at this as well), because well, I have lived my life like a normal human being, and most normal human beings have a few confessions here and there- skeletons in the closet I think they are called.
And now that we’re talking, I might as well confess that I believe that I make a lot of spelling mistakes, the most common ones being the ones that involve the golden rule: “I before E, except before C”. For some odd reason, I can never get this rule in my head, simply because there are too many exceptions to the damn thing! I mean, look at ‘weight’. The ‘E’ comes before the ‘I’, even though there is no ‘C’, and yet it’s a perfectly healthy word. So I just decided to forget the whole thing, and move to using Microsoft Word, which is the perfect substitute to remembering your stupid grammatical rules (at this point, I can create a very good advertisement/ infomercial for Word, but then I will be digressing, so let me just avoid that and continue with the original plan of things), and write away in whichever way you please with the smart little computer figuring out what is wrong and correcting it, in short, doing all the dirty work.
And it is indeed very frustrating, because you spend all your primary education years as a good student who does his/her homework, learns his/her spellings, and scores very well in all the spelling dictation tests in the English class, but then you grow up, get introduced to Microsoft Word, and wonder “Why the hell did I rack my brains back then when I would have been using this in the future anyways?”
But anyways, I hope, dear-reader-who-was-excessively-interested-in-why-my-Blog-was-titled-the-way-it-has-been-titled that your doubts regarding why my Blog has been titled the way it is titled are satisfied, and I just spelt satisfied as satisfyed before Word corrected me- so kudos to Word.
And okay, it’s a seemingly weird title. What the heck. One of my readers (I’m flattered- one post, and I already have a reader) asked my, why in Pete’s name was my Blog called “Bileifs, Konphessions, and Spelling Mistakes” (not that it is called anything else in anyone’s name, its just that that particular reader seems to have a special liking for Pete, whoever that is). So, I feel morally compelled to explain that title.
Well, for one thing, I am a person with many beliefs (surprise- I know the right spelling to this), because a person is after all what he believes in. For another, I am a person with many confessions (yes, you probably are surprised at this as well), because well, I have lived my life like a normal human being, and most normal human beings have a few confessions here and there- skeletons in the closet I think they are called.
And now that we’re talking, I might as well confess that I believe that I make a lot of spelling mistakes, the most common ones being the ones that involve the golden rule: “I before E, except before C”. For some odd reason, I can never get this rule in my head, simply because there are too many exceptions to the damn thing! I mean, look at ‘weight’. The ‘E’ comes before the ‘I’, even though there is no ‘C’, and yet it’s a perfectly healthy word. So I just decided to forget the whole thing, and move to using Microsoft Word, which is the perfect substitute to remembering your stupid grammatical rules (at this point, I can create a very good advertisement/ infomercial for Word, but then I will be digressing, so let me just avoid that and continue with the original plan of things), and write away in whichever way you please with the smart little computer figuring out what is wrong and correcting it, in short, doing all the dirty work.
And it is indeed very frustrating, because you spend all your primary education years as a good student who does his/her homework, learns his/her spellings, and scores very well in all the spelling dictation tests in the English class, but then you grow up, get introduced to Microsoft Word, and wonder “Why the hell did I rack my brains back then when I would have been using this in the future anyways?”
But anyways, I hope, dear-reader-who-was-excessively-interested-in-why-my-Blog-was-titled-the-way-it-has-been-titled that your doubts regarding why my Blog has been titled the way it is titled are satisfied, and I just spelt satisfied as satisfyed before Word corrected me- so kudos to Word.
ON ABUSING...
One of the most irritating things about verbally abusing people in the 21st century is the fact that they can’t even define what you said. Just because you verbally abused them, you gave them an ‘abuse’, which does not make any sense. It is a ‘Curse’ that you would probably have given them, but people can no longer associate abusing with any form of a curse; and there are just abuses and nothing else. Today curses are but random gibberish words that are found in Harry Potter like books.
Speaking of curses, the curses used in the world today are seriously outdated. The entire English Cursing Industry is being dominated by a few players- the perfect example of literal oligopoly. To briefly explain, all the curses the world uses today are words that begin with ‘F’, gender-specific words beginning with ‘B’ and a triplet with the initials ‘SOB’. Apart from these undoubtedly bad words, it is quite hard to come across any others that are used in similar contexts. What is even more interesting is the fact that these four pillars of the cursing industry are often used in collaboration- like joint ventures- to bring about a greater effect, like the notorious ‘F’ is converted into a verb and used before the ‘B’s.
But I don’t know why I am explaining the mechanisms of the curses- I am writing an entry about why I hate it. Don’t mind me, I tend to get distracted.
Coming back, the reason I hate these curses is that they fail to achieve the purpose for which they were created. I mean, when was the last time you felt genuinely hurt when someone called you an ‘F-ing B’? If I was to speak from my experience, I’d say I cried to that when I was in the fifth grade, and I was being picked on by the tenth graders (I still hate them, and I’d say that they are bigger F-ing Bs than me, but I digress). Or does ‘SOB’ make you feel pathetic about who you are? Of course not, not anymore at least. Which is the reason these curses do not work anymore- no one feels verbally abused when they are cursed by these words!
What has most probably happened to reduce the potency of these words is as follows. Their demand went up to new heights in the 21st century, as the number of people who started behaving like F-ing Bs stared increasing (there are many important reasons to this increase as well, though the foremost worth mentioning would be George Bush’s presidency, and irritating tenth graders), and in order to counter the growth of F-ing Bs, the words “You are an F-ing B!” started being used all too frequently. The entire population of F-ing Bs got a bit too used to listening to these words and became immune to them.
Also what happened simultaneously was that due to the rising demand in the need for those words, and the rise in the frequency of their usage led to a decline in the art of delivering them. There is a certain way to deliver those words- one has to spit them out, but without any saliva (in case of expression of real hate for the receiver of the words, saliva maybe appreciated, but only after the delivery of the words themselves). The frequency of usage ensured that the user had no time to implement the art, and delivered just words, instead of real curses, which they were meant to be.
So, what we need to do today is redefine the way we verbally abuse people- so that bad words are not just bad words, but actual curses returned to their former glory. It will be a tedious process, requiring grit, resolve, determination, international cooperation and a reduction in the consumption of chewing gum (because chewing gum increases the saliva content of the mouth, thus making it harder to spit without egesting saliva). It may require the world to create new curses, or simply rediscover the art in delivering the existing ones, but they both are noteworthy tasks.
I pray that we may find its faults, so that we may all be able to verbally abuse our alarm clocks and early mornings in a better way.
Speaking of curses, the curses used in the world today are seriously outdated. The entire English Cursing Industry is being dominated by a few players- the perfect example of literal oligopoly. To briefly explain, all the curses the world uses today are words that begin with ‘F’, gender-specific words beginning with ‘B’ and a triplet with the initials ‘SOB’. Apart from these undoubtedly bad words, it is quite hard to come across any others that are used in similar contexts. What is even more interesting is the fact that these four pillars of the cursing industry are often used in collaboration- like joint ventures- to bring about a greater effect, like the notorious ‘F’ is converted into a verb and used before the ‘B’s.
But I don’t know why I am explaining the mechanisms of the curses- I am writing an entry about why I hate it. Don’t mind me, I tend to get distracted.
Coming back, the reason I hate these curses is that they fail to achieve the purpose for which they were created. I mean, when was the last time you felt genuinely hurt when someone called you an ‘F-ing B’? If I was to speak from my experience, I’d say I cried to that when I was in the fifth grade, and I was being picked on by the tenth graders (I still hate them, and I’d say that they are bigger F-ing Bs than me, but I digress). Or does ‘SOB’ make you feel pathetic about who you are? Of course not, not anymore at least. Which is the reason these curses do not work anymore- no one feels verbally abused when they are cursed by these words!
What has most probably happened to reduce the potency of these words is as follows. Their demand went up to new heights in the 21st century, as the number of people who started behaving like F-ing Bs stared increasing (there are many important reasons to this increase as well, though the foremost worth mentioning would be George Bush’s presidency, and irritating tenth graders), and in order to counter the growth of F-ing Bs, the words “You are an F-ing B!” started being used all too frequently. The entire population of F-ing Bs got a bit too used to listening to these words and became immune to them.
Also what happened simultaneously was that due to the rising demand in the need for those words, and the rise in the frequency of their usage led to a decline in the art of delivering them. There is a certain way to deliver those words- one has to spit them out, but without any saliva (in case of expression of real hate for the receiver of the words, saliva maybe appreciated, but only after the delivery of the words themselves). The frequency of usage ensured that the user had no time to implement the art, and delivered just words, instead of real curses, which they were meant to be.
So, what we need to do today is redefine the way we verbally abuse people- so that bad words are not just bad words, but actual curses returned to their former glory. It will be a tedious process, requiring grit, resolve, determination, international cooperation and a reduction in the consumption of chewing gum (because chewing gum increases the saliva content of the mouth, thus making it harder to spit without egesting saliva). It may require the world to create new curses, or simply rediscover the art in delivering the existing ones, but they both are noteworthy tasks.
I pray that we may find its faults, so that we may all be able to verbally abuse our alarm clocks and early mornings in a better way.
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