Can You Break the Code?

Hi friends, I am back.

                   This time I am going to give you a small challenge, just to spice things up a bit.  You have to find out the sentence or the phrase behind the seemingly none-sensible letters I have given below.  Something like scrabble if you want to see it that way.  To ease things a little, the phrase or the sentence I am looking for contains three words and I have put spaces after each word.  This is one of the simplest codes in the world and I am sure you will easily figure it out.  Anyway, here we go!

PSEFS GSPN DGBPT

                   All right, here is the clue.  I have replaced the original letters of the phrase by the letters immediately after them.  For example, replacing “O” by “P” or replacing “R” by “Q”. 

Want to try it now?

PSEFS GSPN DGBPT

ORDER FROM CHAOS

                   We come across this kind of little codes in the detective novels and movies that we read or watch,  don’t we?  Since my childhood, I was fascinated by various tricks that you can do with shuffling words and letters.  Ordering and reordering them to form new words is still one of my greatest hobbies.  If I say code breaking is something that we often do in our lives, do you agree with me?  For example, think about a person who is difficult to understand.  I have had several friends, who at my first glance were mere puzzles for me.  Their actions and their worldviews may baffle you to the extent that, you feel you can never understand the person, let alone forming a deep friendship with him or her.  According to my reading, our inability to understand a person’s ontological stand point makes that person an enigma in our eyes.  Or shall I say we have failed to break his or her personal code?

                   Through my experiences I have realised that, there is always some kind of an order behind the things that we dismiss as totally incomprehensible or rubbish.  As the old saying goes, there is no smoke without a fire.  Sometimes we fail to observe the fire(in my case the hidden order) because, it does not fall into the parameters of our understanding.  Thus, what matters is how much time and energy we are ready to allocate to understand the world around us.  It is always easy to skip over someone or something because it is beyond our understanding.  However, what is most important is to make some order out of the situations that appear to be mere chaos.  As I believe, if you are willing to give some thought to the codes that leave you without a clue you would not be disappointed.

                   So, my friends, don’t get frustrated by hundreds of meaningless things that you come across in your life.  There is some reason that prompts each action or situation.  Just take few seconds and try to break the code behind that.  It is worth giving a try.

An Insane Dreamer: Steve Jobs

When I was looking for some interesting material for a blog article, I came across the following video on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPAY9JqE4

Please friends, do take a look at this video. I can guarantee you 100% that you will hit the ‘watch this again’ button. This is quite an interesting video especially for folks in twenties as they saw the evolution of smart phones from its very beginning to what it is today. The video features Steve Jobs introducing the Apple iPhone to the global market. The whole video is a wonderful example for the marketing and presentation techniques that we have been learning the last semester in our course Foundations in Professional Writing Genres.

I would like to compare the video with Job’s introduction to the release of Macintosh in 1984. Both Macintosh and iPhone are revolutionary products. Macintosh was the first computer designed for personal use. When Jobs presented Macintosh, people never believed that they would use a computer like an ordinary consumer product. In the same way, Apple iPhone was the first smart phone with a touch screen interface. It features a thin design, 16 megapixel camera and sound sensors which revolutionized the mobile phone. As Jobs is himself explaining in the video, he wanted to incorporate the features of a PC to a mobile phone. Jobs is pretty much accurate when he mentions that it is the smartest phone in the market at that moment.

 I would also like to share my thoughts about the way Jobs takes the entrance to the presentation. If you have time please watch the Job’s introduction to the release of Macintosh as well. It took place way back in 1984. If you watch that video carefully, you will quickly notice how branding has evolved in corporate sector within past two three decades. Jobs was seen wearing business casual when he presented Macintosh in 1984. In 2007, his attire has become simpler, yet you can notice that it has been carefully arranged to suit to the occasion. The colours of his blue denim, his unique black mock turtleneck and white sneakers have been carefully synchronized with the background colours of the presentation slides. The presentations slides create an eerie, futuristic feeling. Similarly, Jobs’ presentations style reminds me that of a magician, rather than a corporate presenter. The way he reiterates the words ‘revolutionary’, ‘gorgeous’ and ‘breakthrough’ reminds me a fictitious character in a Dan Brown’s novel. Not only his language, the way he occupies space on the stage also conveys us that we are going to witness a breakthrough in mobile technology.

The video is such a historically valuable text. No wonder Apple iPhone made a huge difference in the mobile phone market. We all are benefited by Jobs’ innovation as major companies like Samsung and Sony incorporated the above mentioned feature to their products. They all followed Job’s initiative and developed the smart phone. No wonder Steve Jobs became a hero for many in the world. What I want to highlight, is the passion with which he exploits the features of iPhone in a creative way. The way he presents the features and the advantages of the phone mesmerizes the audience. True, there is a troop behind this presentation, but the way he incorporates his passion for the product enchants the audience and if you were in the audience you would definitely feel like buying the iPhone right at that moment. People like Steve Jobs make the difference in the world. It is not only to do with the emerging demand for digital devices like smartphones and computers. It is to do with passion and confidence with which you work. I am pretty sure Jobs might have been laughed at for his apparently wizard ideas. But having faith and trust in what he did made the difference in the end. Steve Jobs, this name will be remembered by many for a long period of time, not only as the founder of Apple or the inventor of Macintosh or iPhone, but as a person who believed in his dreams insanely.

It's High Time to Think !

Remember last time you checked your facebook news feed? What did you see? Charity? Heartbreaks? Mundane Selfies? Most of the time ‘yes!’. Forget about celebrities. We all are curious to find out what our favourite celebrity does. That’s gossip. But this, to see posts on your wall about others’ private life? Some you know personally. Some you know as ‘chat-friends’. And some you don’t even know. Are you really interested in their private lives? May be ‘yes’ if you are a gossip lover. But me, I am not. 

To be honest, for me, it is so annoying when somebody posts on heartbreaks; long stretched lines running into lengthy passages. Who’s interested in reading those? Who has time? And what would one expect by posting about heartbreaks? Perhaps, Pity –Sympathy -Consolation and what not. But the problem is, “who’s going to do that?” Sometimes, people will comfort you saying many a things. Thousands of consolations and condolences will arrive in your inbox and post comments. But, how many of them are genuine? You ask it from yourself. So, all those will be momentary comforts. Nobody in social media will stay with you forever listening to your grievances. That’s how it goes. If so, why would you let others enjoy or make fun of your extremely private matters like heartbreaks? The world around would be laughing at you for humiliating your privacy in front of the whole world. 

The other popular trend in any social media (especially FB) is charity. Some are exaggerating the act of helping the helpless by posting photos with a caption. But, why! It’s an ordinary humane quality or a good moral that the able are assisting the disabled. The rich are helping the poor. For example, one could provide lunch packets for the beggars on his/her birthday. So what’s the point in posting it on FB and telling the others that you gave lunch for beggars? Isn’t that showing off? Yes, people will react with hearts and likes to your posts with many comments of appreciation. But, I’ll tell you one thing. Nobody is really interested in seeing charity done by you. It is your personal life. That only matters to you and perhaps, to your family. But, not for the others. 

I’ll give you another example. Isn’t it hilarious when people keep on posting every mundane selfie they take, in social media? I know it’s okay to post something you like/ a special event in your life but, when you keep repeating it every single day, you are actually annoying your friends or followers. May be I’m being too personal here for I don’t use social media much. However, unless you are a celebrity, basically nobody is really interested in wasting their internet data to see your privacy. So, think twice before exposing your private life to social media. Don’t humiliate yourself before the whole world.It's time to think!

Incorrect Password! Please check your password and try again

                   Most of you who read this post must have come across this message at least a dozen of times while you are trying to log into a Wi-Fi network.  Surely, , remembering passwords for all the Wi-Fi networks that we log in daily is not an easy task.  Besides, using one password for everything also involves some risk because, if you lost it you lost them all.

                   One day while I was talking with one of my best friends I came to know that, Android has introduced a solution for this issue in their latest update.  Now you can ask your smart phone or tablet PC to remember all the Wi-Fi passwords for you!.  What you have to do is just authorise yourself either through a finger print recognition or a face recognition.  If your smart device is allowed to remember your Wi-Fi passwords, it will show you a list of passwords and user names along with the respective Wi-Fi networks that you previously logged in. 

Isn’t that cool?

                   The whole point of this post is not just to mention another breakthrough in the technology.  True enough, I am a firm believer of the miracles the technology has done and the power of it to change human destinies.  I owe a great deal to the technical devices that I use for making my dreams come true.  But dear friends, the world is increasingly getting technology dependent.

How many of you can tell me your loved one’s phone number from the top of your head?

                    Most of you would answer me that there is no real necessity to do that since we have the contact list of the mobile phone, which can literally save up to thousands of numbers.  And that is exactly the point I want to make.  We do not see the real necessity to remember the birthdays of our loved ones because Facebook reminds us them.  For me, the things like remembering a loved one’s birthday are the small things that can make a big difference.  What do you think?

                   That is why I tell you that we are increasingly becoming technology dependent.  Now ‘”ask Google” has become the motto of our lives, Hasn’t it?  On the other hand, have you ever imagined a world where we do not have these little Gadgets to see us through in our daily troubles?  We are so engrossed in seeing the world in the light of the technology, so we do not see the necessity to observe it in a different worldview.  Technology becomes a compulsory feature of our daily reality.  Therefore, we do not feel the necessity to move out of our comfort zone.

                   My point here is not to see technology as the monster of the century.  Rather, what I am stressing is the necessity to not let technology overtakes us.  Otherwise, there will not be much of a difference between humans and the Robots, coming with Artificial Intelligence(AI).

                   I am aware that this is a broad topic about which you may have different opinions.  I warmly welcome comments and would like to see what you think about this topic.  By the way, give a shot to this feature of Android if you happened to have some leisure hours!

Game of Thrones and the Hyperreality

Lena Headey, the famous award-winning British actress who plays the villainous role Cersei Lannister, on the acclaimed and sensational series Game of Thrones (GoT) attends the San Diego Comic Convention, just like all her fellow castmates. They hold panel discussions where they drop little teasers and hints about what to expect, shed light on their characters and answer questions by their fans. Later the cast would typically sit down for meet-and-greets with fans, where the fans would take pictures and get autographs signed. For any celebrity at the Comic-Con, I believe this is a normal procedure. Yet, for Lena Headey, this is not. For, the fans who would approach the long table at which the GoT cast would sit (a very long table because the cast is huge), would often skip Headey when they get to her. While this may be a mild insult, some fans would go so far as to openly insult her as “We don’t want you” or “B**** Queen, Die!”. GoT is building up to its eighth season in the April of 2019 and over the years, Headey has received so much hate that she has stopped coming to Comic-Con and any event which allows direct public communication altogether.

This is a popular story that you may have heard or seen circulating on social media, that really got me thinking after Prof. Maithree’s lecture on hyperreality. Jean Baudrillard explains that the hyperreality is a simulated reality that has replaced the actual reality, in which the individual does not even realize it is a simulation. It is a state beyond reality in which we are unable to discern between what is reality and what is the illusion. Baudrillard further elucidates that the hyperreality could develop to such as extent where the simulation would replace the authentic reality, where the simulated reality becomes the authentic, which he defines as ‘simulacra’- a copy without an original. For instance, reality television makes the viewer feel as if the stories they are showing are indeed authentic and real, but often they are not. If you have watched the popular Gordon Ramsay cooking show ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ or shows like ‘The Bachelor’ or ‘The Bachelorette’, you may understand that these programs thrive on drama, spectacle and commotion. While we the viewer may believe that the fights or arguments shown are indeed actual, often these are the result of scripted storylines designed to develop viewership and ratings.

Social media, mass media and entertainment industries formulate the biggest dimensions of the hyperreality in the world today. These dimensions have developed to such an extent that they have even begun to endanger human lives. The recent internet trend such as the ‘Kiki-challenge’, where individuals sing-along to the artist Drake’s popular hit song ‘In my feelings’, while they walk beside their running vehicles on open roads, has led to many deaths and road accidents in the USA. A deranged fan of the famous ‘Counter-Strike’ online game, who was beaten repetitively by another individual in the game, was enraged to such extents that he hunted down his opponent and stabbed him to death. I can go on and on of such news stories that have happened all over the world, where individuals have lost their ability to differentiate between what’s real and what’s the illusion. And yes, each ending is the same, one more gruesome than the next.

Revisiting my thoughts on Lena Headey, I too am not a fan of the character that she plays and as a die-hard fan of the show, I, like countless others have wished for the demise of Cersei Lannister. Yet, Lena Headey is not Cersei, but an actor who is hired to play a character scripted by another. I think we as viewers should take into consideration of what we watch and how we watch it, in light of our present. While technology has made us become psychological and emotional dependants upon it, we should maybe take a step back and re-evaluate our conditions and perspective. As much as the viewer is human, so is Headey, Gordon Ramsay and the next girl on ‘The Bachelorette’. Often, we all like to use social media such our Twitter or Facebook profiles to develop an alter ego we cannot perform in real life. Technology has tempted us imperfect human beings to develop these virtual presences to be mean and rude to one another, believing that we can escape from it, as it’s just a blank profile and not a real individual. Yet, as the few incidents of many I have cited above shows, it will eventually have spill-over effects, where we take the virtual into our reality. So, my point really is to say that we as consumers in this globalizing, consumerist and virtual world should do our best to hold onto our humanness, even at the direst of circumstances. We should educate ourselves and be mindful of the happenings in our society and even how our own perceptions impact others. We all have the right to use technology and enjoy it however it pleases us. Yet, as social beings existing in a civilized world, we should act responsibly in what we say, what we do or how we treat others.

Therefore, as much as I hate Cersei, and sadly have to await as she returns in GoT season 8 to wreak havoc on Westeros once again, I would still be excited and happy to meet Lena Headey if I ever receive the opportunity 😊

Neo Liberalism , Freire , Marketable Graduates and Sense of Community

Got the big words saved for my  final blog post ( probably :P ). I actually wanted to write about a close friend who astonished me with his " need for a girlfriend " . But this would be far more deep , I thought.

After the those fantastic lessons on Paulo Freire and the Libertarian approach to pedagogy  and that sad lecture on Neo Liberalism, I began to question myself about the irony of university education. To learn Freire and to understand the push of the local education system ( primary secondary and tertiary) towards creating market-oriented students is the worst feeling ever! That moment when you realize that you have been trapped and you have no way out!

 Btw , Depends strictly on your empathy on  society my friends...

If you are happy with yourself, your grades , your own relationship and your own happy bubble in the society , certainly this is not the post you wanna read. You can still not give a damn and act as if you never learnt or heard of freire, But if you still care , think that there are countless people needing help out there and want to make things slightly better , please think about this.

Up to our 4th year (till the end, lets say) , our poor country ( which is running headlong into debt-traps) has spent a decent amount of money on us for education ( even the free wi-fi counts , amigos :D) . So lets decide , whether we will :
1) Graduate with the highest class ( Go for it if you can and believe)
2) Get a fancy job and a good pay cheque
3) Have that dream wedding , car , home and family
4) Study further
and succeed and succeed and succed , stay out of trouble or even say goodbye to a cursed country.

              --- OR -------

1) Graduate
2) Find your own target community or issue
3) Apply the 4 years of knowledge , skills and attitudes to the situation
4) Make the situation at least a level better
5) Get that slightest of mental relief that at least you tried to give back to the country

and then think ahead. I might sound stupid. Oh! Come on Naveen , What about our culture and parents's expectations ? Are you blind?

THINK THINK THINK AND THINK MY FRIENDS........How numb can we be to the needs of society?








 

Peace of Mind

Every time I get bored or feel alone I have this weird habit of going to my book shelf and select a book and a particular chapter or a paragraph randomly and read it. I do not know why I do this often but most of the time I do not like to read a book from cover to cover. One evening, I happened to select Sam’s Story by Elmo Jayawardana. Sam’s story is one of my favourite books that I dearly enjoy; I firmly believe that people like Sam truly enjoy this world and life. Surprisingly, I turned to the last page of the novel (I don’t know why I did this) and I found a paper article pasted on the page. Its title, Peace of Mind quickly attracted my attention and I read it enthusiastically. It was a story about Lord Buddha and it read thus: one day the Lord Buddha asked one of his disciples to fetch some water to drink. The disciple obediently went to a lake and saw that the water was muddy and turbid that it was not fit to be consumed. The disciple returned to the lord Buddha and reported that the water was not clean. After an hour the Lord Buddha again  asked the disciple to fetch some water and this time the disciple noticed that the mud had settled down and the water was clean. Then the Lord Buddha explained to the disciple that the peace of mind is effortless as much as the purity of the water in the lake. You give it some time and it will calm itself down.

Peace of mind is something we all search for in our life. We always want to be happy, fortunate and feel comfort. All of us like to smile and laugh; no one likes to suffer or feel pain. However, we live in a restless, busy world where everything is marketed. In this rat race, even peace of mind has a price. No way! No my dear friends, peace of mind is not for sale. The only method of experiencing peace of mind it letting things be itself just as the muddy water in the lake found its purity on its own. When you feel pain, when you are hurt, when you are depressed, do not try to control what you are feeling (I bloody well know that this does not sound this beautiful when you are in pain, I know this is too didactic and asking for too much , but let’s give it a try). Yes my friends, problems are a part of life. . When we try to control things that we cannot control we are in constant pain and we feel so lost desperate and … I don’t have words to explain that eerie feeling. We all feel, oh God! Why poor me! What have I done wrong and whatnot, but trust me, everyone has problems! It is a matter of fact that they come in different shapes and versions to people. I think the most beautiful lesson that the Lord Buddha has ever taught us is the lesson of letting things be itself. Do not worry too much about your future, your relationship, your career, your food, your house and whatnot. Let it be itself! Let’s live in the present and not worry too much about the future and regret too much about the past. Let’s try to enjoy this beautiful thing named ‘life’ and let it take care of itself. I would like to finish this blog article citing one of my favourite paragraphs from the book entitled The Art of Disappearing by Ajahn Brahm:

I’ve known a lot of monks whose health problems disappeared through the power of their meditation. The first time I saw that was with Ajahn Tate. When I first went to Thailand in 1974, he was in the hospital with incurable cancer. They gave him the best possible treatment, but nothing would work, so they sent him back to his monastery to die. He died

twenty-five years later. That’s one example of what happens when monks “go back to their monastery to die.”

What Ajahn Tate did was let cancer be itself, not worry too much about the cancer and continue his routine meditations. I know this is a tedious task, but each time I read this story I find peace of mind. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha  ! See you soon amigos !😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊