Random musing

Right from childhood, it is ingrained in our thoughts that failure is a terrible thing. Failing a year in school is thought as wasting a year of life. Students on the borderline of academic pass/fail line have to deal with the constant stress of staying on the right side of this line. 

Most of them do! They come out of the system without facing failure. But the race isn't quite complete yet. It keeps getting tougher and tougher. There comes college, now the odds of survival are slightly tougher. The ones who passed out of school with flying colors are suddenly scrambling to pull things together to avoid another failure. Some of them succeed here too. 

But then here's the problem for people who come through this system without failure. Life is much more than standardized tests where where you are judged on memory/knowledge/aptitude et al. It has much more to it! Guess what, having never faced failure before is going to make it ever more difficult to face it when the time comes. 

It can come through variety of forms. Rejection from the girl you adored so much, failing the job interview of the company of your dreams, not getting the promotion you really worked hard for. As a child we learn to deal with so many things, anger, jealousy, frustration, peer pressure and many more. But we never had to deal with failure. This makes us react in mysterious ways. 

We start looking for faults within ourselves, faults within the system, start looking at inspirational quotes, motivational you tube videos(bring on Rocky speech!) and so on. We start believing in luck(good/bad), in superstition, in other things that take our mind away from failure. Gulp down a drink or two. 

But, we seldom think, is failure really that bad? It's just a phase! It happens to most of us. It gives us good advise for our future endeavors. It makes us aware of our capabilities. It gives us a chance to try again. It makes us humble. 

Maybe it's not such a bad thing! Maybe somebody should have told me this earlier!

Organic - the new premium

Organic!! The word that has been buzzing around us for past few years. It's all around us, so much that a lot more people are talking about it. It is like a premium grocery product. It begs the question, is it really worth paying the price difference? Can the regular stuff(non-organic) be that bad that you feel like moving to the organic section.

And why is it that we are hearing about it now more than ever? I did not know of organic grocery while growing up. It was all just grocery. What changed?

I think until some point, we were doing the right thing, in terms of produce, poultry and other groceries, but slowly we moved away from the best practices. We modified our crops to survive harsher climates, low rainfall. We stopped grazing cows on pastures and started feeding them in factories producing milk. We genetically modified stuff. Chicken that lay eggs for us were no longer cage free, farm fed. Slaughter houses were not kept up to standards. We started fish farming rather than wild caught fish. We kept producing only those varieties which had a bigger shelf life and could stay longer in the supermarket without going bad.

We made so many changes that hardly anything is seasonal anymore. Everything is available all the time. A mango in November was unthinkable in my childhood for me, but I can easily buy mangoes throughout the year at roughly the same price. same goes out for watermelons, strawberries and apples.

We did so many things to keep the produce prices low, deviated from so many good practices and all those changes were so gradual that people accepted them. The world population just keeps growing, our consumption keeps growing and yet we roughly use the same amount of land that we had before for farming.

While these changes were taking place, two kinds of people really stood up for a food revolution. Firstly, the farmers who did not want to get away from doing the right things stood their ground and refused to make these adjustments to maintain their product quality. Secondly, some of the consumers who had this awareness of benefits of these practices kept buying these things at the now changed prices.

This is the beginning of the the new 'organic' I think. Those were the people who did not ask the question, why is this stuff so expensive. They asked the question, why is that other stuff priced low. Where could they have cut corners. It is a shift in thinking that makes a difference. What we buy really indirectly sends the message. with more people starting to buy the right stuff, the big supermarkets will have no choice but to stock the right stuff more and more.

Supermarkets are a reflection of society's buying habits. We see so much canned food and frozen foods around us occupying more than half the shelves and the produce reduced to a single aisle in the supermarket with a division between a small organic section and the other regular stuff. It is a crazy world where a can of apple juice costs less than if you were to buy apples and make juice out of them.

I am not suggesting we all buy apples instead of apple juice or buy the fresh stuff instead of canned or buy organic instead of regular. The pace of modern life has changed our lifestyle which we have to live with. I understand that for some of the lower and middle incomes, grocery costs can constitute for up to 10 percent of their after tax income and for them to move to a costlier product is not always feasible. And the world's resources would be put to a lot of strain if every animal or animal product that we consume were to come from pasture raised, non gmo, no growth hormones, no stress environment.

I think this debate is endless. We can never have a definitive agreement on either side, but we can make an informed choice rather than our grocery store influencing us by putting a fancy label. If we don't we might end up with a 3 tier structure. Regular, premium and extra-premium. I hope that never happens with food.   

Luck by chance

I've been downplaying the role of words like 'luck','fate', 'chance', 'fortune' all my life. I always thought of them as something I would not associate with my successes or failures. Recently I saw a youtube clip of Harsha Bhogle about it in which he mentioned people start believing in these things more and more as they grow older. He couldn't have been more right. 

Most of the times, bad luck or misfortune can be wiped away by getting around it. A small inconvenience and pinch of hardwork will brush it aside. But I've learn't that's not always the case. Although the decisions we make are the biggest contributors to our destiny, we have to understand that there still are awful amount of things are beyond our control. 

We can buy a property at one of the most lucrative places and yet there is no guarantee that there is a price surge in the next couple of years. Agreed we have a lot of choices to make in most of our decisions and we could make our lives a whole lot better by making good choices. The same way bad choices can take us downhill. But not every bad choice will. If we ask ourselves, I am sure everybody will have gotten away with making bad choices every once in a while. 

Although, I have started to come to terms with luck, it still is unpredictable. You cannot base your decisions based on it being in your side. Heisenberg's uncertainty  principle also applies to real life. The difference being that uncertainty  is not a constant here, it's a variable. It affects some more than others. You cannot estimate it and try to tame it. Buying a car on a Tuesday or getting your name changed to certain numeric addition is not going to change it. Even if it does, you would never know what would have happened if you did not. 

I would like to end this post by a Donald Rumsfeld quote. 

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Random Musings

Haven't scribbled here since last May. Missed out on so many opportunities to Blog about. More than that, I've come to a realization that I've really missed writing. Haven't been able to convert the drafts folder to a concrete blogpost. No this isn't a writer's block, this is more of laziness creeping in. Just trying to kick it out. 

I have a post about my Brazil world cup experience lying around in my drafts folder, but that's for some other day to complete. Had an eventful last year, with five international trips and ended up getting married as well. Life has changed a lot since marriage. Mostly for the better. Many other things have changed. A photo of my apartment last February would have very little resemblance to the current picture. But that would be true in case of most marriages I guess. It's not my way or the highway anymore, it's more of my way or wife's way. 

Jokes apart. Bali, Indonesia honeymoon trip was a great trip. Over-commercialization has plagued the pristine Bali Island, but in patches, you will see that the heart of the Island is still buzzing with the calmness and the hospitality you need for a relaxing vacation. Did some experimentation with my new DSLR camera, Bali is certainly a nice place for doing that. After a few clicks, I managed to come out of the auto mode, I will consider this as progress. A big thank you to my friends who gifted me the camera. 

I've started strumming the guitar again, after more than 2 years. This time around to teach my wife. I do not know how far I can go in that department, but the rusted strings have been replaced and time will tell the rest. I am cooking less often than before, which is a good thing as I've never really enjoyed cooking. I've done it more out of necessity than liking. 

This might be one of my most random post with no sense of direction. But posting this one will mean that I have to cover it up with a substantial blogpost soon. Hoping to get back. Here is one of the photos from Tanah Lot Bali. 

Now Loading.... World cup fever

Less than half a month left for the Fifa World Cup. The stage is set to support your team at this mega event. No matter, how slim the chances of winning are, every qualified team will have an army of supporters cheering for it. Unfortunately for me, it will be a while before India qualifies for the world cup qualifiers, forget about the main event. So, that means I have to pick a side or be a neutral spectator. 

The real question is can you really be a neutral spectator? Or as some others like to put it "I am a fan of good football, regardless of who is playing". Can you really be a neutral fan without having a tilt or affinity one way or the other. 

Affinity can come from anywhere. It could come from a particular player you admire. Like when Ronaldinho was on the ball, millions of people would just forget who they supported for a minute to admire him play. Same can be said when you see Ronaldo taking that free-kick from 30 yards. It's true with any sport. Millions of people like me stopped watching F1 when Schumacher retired; or Sachin for that matter, who while batting made people look at TV showrooms across India while on their way to office. 

You could like a team due to it's style of play, like impressive short passes or solid defensive capabilities, attractive array of striking options and so on. Some people would like to see the underdog beat the giants and would watch out for something widely known as a "Cupset". Like David beating Goliath (Unless he is David Moyes - As a Chelsea fan, I had to crack that one!!!). Some others would play safe and be behind the strongest team. Like they say, dude I tell you, Spain is going to win this one. Like i do not know you saw the football rankings yesterday and made up your mind!!! 

Then there are people who would be England, Spain or Germany fan because they have been following their football leagues for a long time and developed the affinity. I know lot of people would not like to admit they like England(due to the weakened squad they have) but if England were to make it past the group stages, these people will start rooting up for England.

Then there are people who will only start watching after the group stages and maybe after the round-of-16 and then say things like, "Dude I said, Germany all the way". I feel like saying - Do you know what All-the-way even means? You started following from the quarters, how could you be supporting Germany all the way?

Those things aside, I feel it's difficult to be a neutral and still enjoy the game as much. Unless you are a commentator and your job warrants you to be neutral. Even if your team ends up losing, you pick up another side to back it. Or you have a soft corner towards a particular team. Whichever way you want to put it. The world is going to watch!!  

Come what may, this tournament will present us plenty of unforgettable moments. Who will be the Suarez to play the hand of god? Which big team will not win a single game like France? Which underdog will be the surprise package like Ghana? A lot remains to wait and watch. Come on Brazil 2014. 

5 Second Rule

It's been long since my last blogpost. My last two attempts found their way to the recycle bin. 

Just like we proof-read our emails before posting and then decide to toss it away for some reason. I want this blog to be about opinions and analysis. Criticism, somehow does not make the cut in any of those categories. Not without a pinch of negativism. 

Criticism gives you an easy way to vent out the frustration, but it's not the best way. Couple of days back, I went to a restaurant and got a very lousy service there. I felt like ranting it out on Yelp or some similar review site. I was typing in the review and stopped midway. 

One part of me was saying, post it. There's no harm in letting people know what to expect when they go to that restaurant. Why should my voice be unheard? But then, to be fair, i thought to myself, did I ever write a review for all the good restaurants I've been to? Why did I not think of writing a review then? Maybe the waiter had a really bad day today and I was unfortunate to have the chain effect of that. Why should I carry forward this chain to other people. 

It takes a long time to establish a good foundation. A good school, good restaurant, good beauty salon, a good apartment complex and all it takes to destroy the goodwill is a few bad comments on social media. Sad, but true. 

Criticism, at times, is essential; but through the right channel. If you do not like something about a friend, talk to him on the face. That will help him more than writing a blogpost about it. 

For me, the 5 second rule works perfectly. Before posting something on social media, or before sending out any email, just for 5 seconds, take a pause. Think if it is the right thing to do and then hit the submit button.

Random Chaos

(This Post is not about me. It's just a phone conversation with one of my friend. I have written it in first person)

Sunday morning. 

Looking around me, everything was a mess of sorts. A cup of tea getting cold as a go through making another PowerPoint. Around me was a pile of crap. It included a stub of movie ticket which I had to leave mid-way to adjust for an unscheduled meeting. A jacket with some Starbucks stains on it. Last pizza piece lying from yesterday's Papa John's order which I could not finish myself. A half-read book, a few visiting cards of people I met this week. 

I wanted to go home. It has been long moving from one city to another every weekend. What started as fun is no longer fun anymore. All the craze about getting more airline miles has subdued. My phone beeps to give a reminder about my flight to Atlanta in a three hours. Next three hours were the most cliched part of my life. Drop the rental car, pick shuttle to airport, stay in the security line, have some coffee and wait in line to board the plane.

Home is a mere concept. I did not know why was I even renting an apartment which I got to visit once in 3 months. All I needed to rent was a mailbox, or even better way was - forward my mail to a friend's place. I made a lot of acquaintances during these trips, but did not make many friends. Maybe I am not the person who can make friends in a couple of meetings. Falling in love was out of question. 

Last month, i visited my undergrad friends on one of my trips, re-lived my college days. Listened to all the stories all over again. They never lose their charm. No matter how much time passes by. How happy I was on that trip. Why am I not happy like that always? Why do I not take life as it comes?

In college, I ran after the highest paid job. I knew it was going to be hectic, i knew it was going to involve a lot of travelling, i knew what i was getting into. A year down the line, the metrics have changed, so have priorities, preferences, likes, dislikes, everything. 

As I make my way towards the plane, I make a pit-stop towards a souvenir shop selling those magnets which has the picture of Charlotte downtown on it. This is magnet number 40 for me. A year has 52 weeks and i have managed and impressive 40 magnets! Some cities i have counted twice, but lets not take away that little piece of joy from me. 

Maybe I need to find a fridge to stick these on and start living a real life. Or Maybe, I need to wait and make it a round figure of 50 before I jump on to something else. Maybe I stack up enough miles to make a free Australia trip. Confused!