guide to the future and past

I have on my left hand something that also tells me the time. I bought the Moto 360. It is basically a smart watch. On a lot of the mobile revolution I was wrong or caught napping. When mobiles first came out, I thought they were hardly of any use. Then when Black Berrys made a lot of noise, I was late onto the market. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. What do you get by checking your phone regularly for email? Why would you need that? And of course all those investment bankers in their suits in the lifts, spending eth valuable 30 seconds to see their mail as opposed to simply saying hi, or at the least acknowledging the presence of another human being. So when the iPhone first came out, I too was unimpressed. What use could it possibly have in my life.

The touch screen sensation missed me. I had just upgraded myself to the Black berry and used it for a good three years before one day; the BB gave up on me. I came back from a vacation and it refused to spring back to life. Now I recently saw a friend using the smart watch and I was hooked. My first reaction was what my measured reaction is – I am not spending that kind of money. No way. Why should I spend this money? I am a bit of a gujju here. Does it really add that much value to my life? Do I really need something like this? What use is it actually? I kept thinking about it and I realized that I am what I am because I understand technology very well. I am constantly ahead of the curve in technology, I read technology, I use technology then I can’t let the iPhone mistake to happen again. I must be there in the middle of it all. I must be the early adopter and I must see how it works and evolves. Today I claim to understand Google and what it does for me because I have seen it evolve from what it origins were. I see it as a human. If I understand its soul at its core it will bare it to me, with all its mysteries. So when the android wear 1.0 has launched, I should be stupid not to adapt to it first up. I must.

Coming back to the soul. Technology is nothing but the manifestation of the human mind. It tries to do what a mind has taught it to do. The inventor has a belief and a philosophy. What is that philosophy? We must understand it and we must internalize it. Once you understand this core, you will be in a position to leverage it for you.  Mathematics can do everything; it can twist the universe and bend it. It proves that the world is far more than what we can see. In fact it predicted what you cannot see and hence you have to look out for what you cannot see and then find it – aha – the black holes. But at the end of it, it also has a philosophy, that of its writer. So if you understand the writer then you understand his philosophy and then you can understand its core. Whenever I try t understand some math guy or some algo, I try and decipher its core philosophy. Once that’s done – you can understand where its come from. That’s why history is so interesting. Once you understand where you come from you can predict where you will go… atleast it will give you probabilities.

Here is one – you are what you eat

Researchers have found that people from rice-growing southern China are more interdependent and holistic thinkers, while those from the wheat-growing north are more independent and analytical.

The researchers call it “rice theory”, and they believe the psychological differences of southern and northern Chinese stem from their ancestors’ subsistence techniques – rice farming needs co-operation and planning; wheat farming requires less co-operation between neighbours.

…The last experiment assessed the nepotism, or group loyalty, of the participants. Students were given hypothetical scenarios and asked how they would treat friends and strangers in reaction to helpful or harmful actions. A defining characteristic of holistic culture is that people draw sharp contrasts between friend and stranger.

“The data suggests that legacies of farming are continuing to affect people,” Thomas Talhelm, of the University of Virginia and lead author of the research, said. “It has resulted in two distinct cultural psychologies that mirror the differences between East Asia and the West.”

Talhelm and his team concluded that the co-operative nature of rice-growing has cultivated a culture of interdependence, while wheat-growing has cultivated independence.

“I think the rice theory provides some insight to why the rice-growing regions of East Asia are less individualistic than the Western world or northern China, even with their wealth and modernisation,” Talhelm said.

We went to Elephanta recently and I had read up on it before hand. I had a book that I had bought many years ago but we never did manage to go to Elephanta island. Here we took a local guide but I soon asked him to keep quiet. He got his facts wrong. I started off explaining to the kids what each statue was and the significance of the story behind it. Each one is a picture that tells a moral much like Aesop’s fables. It was lovely. I also did not know how much I knew. Now I plan to read more and more and then I want to be a guide at least to Elephant. I want to explore the island and go often enough. I want understand it more. This is near home, it is exquisite and then let me see if I can do guiding to Elephanta for certain tourists on weekends. I would love to be a guide. Today I know more and I can explain more than most guides on the island. I know the stories and the mythology behind it. The significance of Shiva murals and the other gods in it. Just a little more research and I could be in business. What say? I want to be a guide that says – come along – really low or free to join and work completely on tips. If you like you pay, else it’s up to you. Just like teaching – money can’t be the motivator. In teaching you don’t get or want tips, but here that is critical. If I am able to make it fun and happy for all, who knows, this could be a great source of self-fulfillment. Teaching helps me learn so much, being a guide will also help me. I want to be a guide. Elephant is the perfect starting block.

I was speaking o Jispa about Elephanta and was asking her about the trip. She then remarked that if I loved history and mythology so much, why I didn’t pick it up as a career or something. What to do… in school, I hated history which was nothing but a bunch of dates to remember. I remember asking mom – what use is history to us? Hmmm.. today I try and explain the importance of these subjects to Jispa. They are important. Yesterday I was explaining why civics is important. And I explained how she wouldn’t appreciate it now, it’s almost impossible to appreciate it as a young kid but it is extremely important to understand how we are governed… by ourselves and how the structure is critical to be understood by every citizen. I have to teach her civics one of these days… I hope I can teach it without boring the crap out of her.