It is a known fact that most of the people don’t like their work. They are doing it because they do not have any other choice. In order to survive, we need money, and hence most of us end up in the job or business where we make money but don’t generally work in the field that makes us happy. Why this is case for most of the people? Is it because we do not get enough opportunities in our interested field or there is not enough money to be earned to survive from our passion?
Rapid development in science has shown us new and excited fields like synthetic biology, nuclear fusion power, artificial intelligence, etc in recent years. Subjects like art, music, dance, history, philosophy, etc are evergreen. And there plenty of other engineering, medical, and social science related subjects are there to select for our professional life. Yet, most of us end up working in the field, in the company, in the environment or in the city where we don’t like working et al. Life is about grabbing opportunities when they come. May be we are not able to see these opportunities or not brave enough to capture them. Or, it may be just that because of personal and family responsibilities, we are not able to do what we like to do. We live in the society where freedom of an individual exists only on paper and not in practice. And, even someone has that freedom to choose the field he or she likes and even if that person has all resources to start the career, this person still have fear of failure in the future and this failure can be very shameful as this is what he or she really wanted to do and failed.
If every adult person had a job he or she really likes, then obviously world would be a better place to live in. But, that is not possible, not with current social system we have. And, I don’t see things improving in recent future because happiness in our life depends upon money and believe me, money is not a good thing.
Wednesday 13 May 2009
Tuesday 12 May 2009
Existence of life
The existence of god depends upon us. We human beings are responsible for god and I think without us there is no purpose of god. Millions of years ago when dinosaurs inhabited earth, did they need god for their survival? It is a common idea among us that dinosaurs vanished from earth because they were not capable enough to survive on earth and hence nature decided to demolish the whole species and begin the era of humans. Well, that belief is not true and in fact, dinosaurs lived on earth for around 160 million years while Homo sapiens have been on earth for only around 200,000 years. And, although we have more developed brain than dinosaurs, I see fewer chances of us surviving few millions of years on earth. And, if dinosaurs didn’t needed god for their survival, do we really need to believe in god for our existence and for our survival?
When we compare the age of earth and time of form life being here on earth with time of human being on earth, we are in early stage of evolution. And, when we check the history of religions, we can easily find out that there is no religion exists today which has been here for more than 5000 years. Does it mean that god came to our life since then? Or, is it that we realized about god when we were clever enough to figure it out about him, around 5000 years ago? There is no religion that explains clearly how life came to an existence on earth. Religions teach us how to live a good life and teach us about the practice we should do to go to heaven or for salvation. But I think it is very tough to live a normal life when we do not understand the existence of life and we do not know the purpose of it. The question of existence should have come across to each and every intelligent person into his or her lifetime. And there are chances that none of us will be able to find out the answer in the future. But that doesn’t mean that there is no answer to it. May be we have confined ourselves to logical thinking and that logic cannot go beyond our understanding of current knowledge and hence we will need people who can think beyond the limit and that will be way to find out answers we seek throughout our lifetime.
When we compare the age of earth and time of form life being here on earth with time of human being on earth, we are in early stage of evolution. And, when we check the history of religions, we can easily find out that there is no religion exists today which has been here for more than 5000 years. Does it mean that god came to our life since then? Or, is it that we realized about god when we were clever enough to figure it out about him, around 5000 years ago? There is no religion that explains clearly how life came to an existence on earth. Religions teach us how to live a good life and teach us about the practice we should do to go to heaven or for salvation. But I think it is very tough to live a normal life when we do not understand the existence of life and we do not know the purpose of it. The question of existence should have come across to each and every intelligent person into his or her lifetime. And there are chances that none of us will be able to find out the answer in the future. But that doesn’t mean that there is no answer to it. May be we have confined ourselves to logical thinking and that logic cannot go beyond our understanding of current knowledge and hence we will need people who can think beyond the limit and that will be way to find out answers we seek throughout our lifetime.
Sunday 26 April 2009
Visit to North Wales
Recently I visited northern Wales with my friends. I have been to Wales before but those visits were mainly concentrated near southern part. It is a very small country in size but has plenty of varieties in landscapes. While southern Wales has plenty of forests with almost flat countryside, northern part has one of the longest mountain range in Britain and has highest mountain peak in Wales called Snowdon. Our visit was mainly around this mountain region and near the shore of Irish Sea.
Although Wales is incorporated into England since 1500s, it has kept its separate identity from rest of the UK with unique culture including its own language, food, customs, music etc. Welsh language still has significance in local people’s life and it is also one of two official languages in Wales, another being English, of course. It has population of around three million.
Best way to visit northern Wales is by car as public transport is limited. Weather
was nice during our visit with few showers here and there and that made landscape look better with light warm Sun light bouncing from water particles. We were surprised by number of sheep we saw in farms and I think there are more sheep in Wales than humans. When you first enter into mountain area, you will notice water stream flowing from mountains, uncountable sheep on grassy lands and vast area with roughly no human presents. If you admire of nature and like mountain walk, I think Wales could be one of the best places to visit. Wednesday 22 April 2009
Errors and precision
Life is full of disorders, malfunctions and errors. And, then also, somehow, most of the things are working correctly in daily life and lives on planet are continuing. Murphy’s law says that if anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Our body is made up of so many different organs, and in total, adult human body consists of around 10 trillion cells. Except few sicknesses once in a while, our body seems to work normally throughout life span, which is typical of around 65 years. Society, as a general, has a multiple parts and even though some parts may create chaos sometimes, life goes on normally for each of us and we are moving ahead for better future. It seems that even though Murphy’s law is undoubtedly right in general sense, error doesn’t happen that often in our lives and somehow we manage to survive in this chaotic world.
Error has different meanings depending upon the context where it has been used. Error can happen due to lack of knowledge. But nature sometimes introduces these errors in its code to make species different from each other and to form coherent society, and this error generally referred to as mutation. Each of us has DNA that consists of millions of base pairs, and with the help of this DNA, our body is forms our body parts. Now, with only few exceptions, out of billions of people around the world, errors because of genetic mutation are rare. And it is amazing to know that copying of pairs in DNA happens in few seconds and still most of these pairs are free from errors. Is nature very kind to us or there is more order in life than we think? Even human made components, like computer processors, are an example of precision in life and when we see that each processor contains millions of transistors and each transistor holds a few electrons, protons and neutrons, point of failure is not in single or double digits but its in millions, and still, these processors work around the clock. It is in our nature to make mistakes but due to technological advances the rate of failure has been decreased recently in all major fields and work of nature provides us an example to become more accurate in every aspect of our lives.
Error has different meanings depending upon the context where it has been used. Error can happen due to lack of knowledge. But nature sometimes introduces these errors in its code to make species different from each other and to form coherent society, and this error generally referred to as mutation. Each of us has DNA that consists of millions of base pairs, and with the help of this DNA, our body is forms our body parts. Now, with only few exceptions, out of billions of people around the world, errors because of genetic mutation are rare. And it is amazing to know that copying of pairs in DNA happens in few seconds and still most of these pairs are free from errors. Is nature very kind to us or there is more order in life than we think? Even human made components, like computer processors, are an example of precision in life and when we see that each processor contains millions of transistors and each transistor holds a few electrons, protons and neutrons, point of failure is not in single or double digits but its in millions, and still, these processors work around the clock. It is in our nature to make mistakes but due to technological advances the rate of failure has been decreased recently in all major fields and work of nature provides us an example to become more accurate in every aspect of our lives.
Thursday 9 April 2009
Multiple personalities
Knowingly or unknowingly, we act differently to different people or to group of people and this creates various images of ourselves to other people. Most of us spend the average day at work with colleagues. Out of all colleagues we work with, each one has distinct perception about us in their minds. Although each of us is unique as a person, we live differently in our parents, friends, colleagues, rivals, etc. mind.
The moment we meet a new person, we start building image about his or her in our mind. At the time when we start our conversation with this individual, this person generally shows his or her positive side and acts civilly. When we get chance to meet or work with this person quite often, then we start adding his or her characteristics in our mind and build a strong image of that person after a few meetings. As we interact with a few friends, relatives, colleagues etc everyday, they get to know ourselves better and learn our different characteristics each time and we also add their traits, their behaviours, and their positive and negative sides into our minds that ultimately alters their image that we used to hold until then.
Although each of us has unique personality, somehow we appear different to each and every other person. And the same way, we have a unique image of each individual in our mind that may be very diverse than that person’s actual personality.
The moment we meet a new person, we start building image about his or her in our mind. At the time when we start our conversation with this individual, this person generally shows his or her positive side and acts civilly. When we get chance to meet or work with this person quite often, then we start adding his or her characteristics in our mind and build a strong image of that person after a few meetings. As we interact with a few friends, relatives, colleagues etc everyday, they get to know ourselves better and learn our different characteristics each time and we also add their traits, their behaviours, and their positive and negative sides into our minds that ultimately alters their image that we used to hold until then.
Although each of us has unique personality, somehow we appear different to each and every other person. And the same way, we have a unique image of each individual in our mind that may be very diverse than that person’s actual personality.
Monday 30 March 2009
Fact on theories
As an electronic engineering student, I studied most of my undergraduate education studying around electron’s properties and its behaviour. I did so even without actually seeing electron by my eyes and putting faith on university lecturers and scientists who have discovered and studied it before me. The question is, how can we spend whole life on something which we haven’t seen or touched and just putting faith on people and unquestioning whatever they have substantiated a long time ago, is correct? What if someone will discover that the electron that we used to know is not what it is? Will lives of all electronics and computer engineers jeopardise if such thing happens? Or, nothing much will happen as computers and electronics device will work same as they were working before the new discovery.
Most of our educational studies and professional work are based upon some sort of theories. These theories are either established by some facts or verified by other theories on which current theory is based upon. Now, if predictions of any theory are verified by a few different sources, then we can confirm that theory is full proof. But if theory is based upon assumptions that we can’t verify directly but only depends upon indirect evidence, how much can we trust that theory? Most theories in Physical science are based upon such assumptions and those assumptions are, at least most of the times, depends upon indirect evidence. The question arises at this point is that then how can we trust such theories?
For example, all information we have about our Sun is a result of indirect evidence or calculations made on earth by scientists. As it is not possible to actually go to the Sun and collect evidences, is it worth to put blind faith in whatever scientists tell us? Most tests carried out by scientific circles show that Sun will be still there for another 5 billions years. But what if scientists have made some mistakes in their calculations and what if those mistakes were so catastrophic that we misjudged the whole process of chemical reactions in the Sun’s core? As we don’t know the whole secret of physical world yet, what if we haven’t noticed one significant process happening in the Sun that can alter our whole perception about it? What if we found that instead of 5 billion years, Sun’s remaining life is only 50 years? The chance of that happening is very odd, but, still, there is a chance!
In order to expand our knowledge, we always use old scientific notions and expand them further. We generally believe in our predecessors and their work. But, as it has happened before, they might have omitted minor facts that weren’t important to them in the discovery of something but those facts were also not that much negligible as well not consider for the bigger and better result. This may lead us all to the false results and to the future that is different than what we have predicted. There is no point going back to the beginning of scientific and mathematical origin and start verifying everything. But, there always will be a dilemma whether to trust on someone’s work that we can’t verify personally. Hence, I think it is always worth considering the fact that unless theories are based upon pure facts, they are still theories and we shouldn’t put our blind faith on them.
Most of our educational studies and professional work are based upon some sort of theories. These theories are either established by some facts or verified by other theories on which current theory is based upon. Now, if predictions of any theory are verified by a few different sources, then we can confirm that theory is full proof. But if theory is based upon assumptions that we can’t verify directly but only depends upon indirect evidence, how much can we trust that theory? Most theories in Physical science are based upon such assumptions and those assumptions are, at least most of the times, depends upon indirect evidence. The question arises at this point is that then how can we trust such theories?
For example, all information we have about our Sun is a result of indirect evidence or calculations made on earth by scientists. As it is not possible to actually go to the Sun and collect evidences, is it worth to put blind faith in whatever scientists tell us? Most tests carried out by scientific circles show that Sun will be still there for another 5 billions years. But what if scientists have made some mistakes in their calculations and what if those mistakes were so catastrophic that we misjudged the whole process of chemical reactions in the Sun’s core? As we don’t know the whole secret of physical world yet, what if we haven’t noticed one significant process happening in the Sun that can alter our whole perception about it? What if we found that instead of 5 billion years, Sun’s remaining life is only 50 years? The chance of that happening is very odd, but, still, there is a chance!
In order to expand our knowledge, we always use old scientific notions and expand them further. We generally believe in our predecessors and their work. But, as it has happened before, they might have omitted minor facts that weren’t important to them in the discovery of something but those facts were also not that much negligible as well not consider for the bigger and better result. This may lead us all to the false results and to the future that is different than what we have predicted. There is no point going back to the beginning of scientific and mathematical origin and start verifying everything. But, there always will be a dilemma whether to trust on someone’s work that we can’t verify personally. Hence, I think it is always worth considering the fact that unless theories are based upon pure facts, they are still theories and we shouldn’t put our blind faith on them.
Friday 27 March 2009
Friendship
Some of us are very luck in terms of friends we have got. Throughout our life and at different stages, we make friends and sometimes these friendships lasts forever and sometimes they don’t. I have good friends like, and because of these good people around me and with their help I am whatever I am today.
When I make a friendship with any person, I try to keep it that way forever. I have changed a couple of schools and been to two different universities in two different countries. Still, today I am in touch with my friends from my first school and still I am keeping in touch with all of them with whom I have friendship. Although each one of us is a little bit or more selfish, I consider myself very lucky in all friendships and I have gained more than what I have given whether that in terms of knowledge or help. I try to put every effort from my side to keep friendship alive, doesn’t matter where the person is living, how often he or she contacts me, how often actually I meet them in person or whether they were helpful to me or not when I needed their help. Friendship for me is to give something to people who I care about and seeking nothing in return. If any of these friends can help when I need any assistance, then I appreciate their input but if they can’t help me I don’t take it personally.
Each and every friend of mine knows me in different capacity. Although I have made few new friends since I have been here somehow I have managed to keep my old friendships intact and throughout last few years they have become even stronger. My colleagues here are telling me that these have happened because I am still bachelor and haven’t seen true face of each friend. People do change when they get married, get settled in their lives and when they have kids; people become more self concentrated and it will be hard from both the sides to keep friendships active. Well, I would like to think that when I will get married and when I will have kids as well, I would still try to keep in contact with all my friends and no matter what circumstances I will be, I will try to help them when they will need my help.
When I make a friendship with any person, I try to keep it that way forever. I have changed a couple of schools and been to two different universities in two different countries. Still, today I am in touch with my friends from my first school and still I am keeping in touch with all of them with whom I have friendship. Although each one of us is a little bit or more selfish, I consider myself very lucky in all friendships and I have gained more than what I have given whether that in terms of knowledge or help. I try to put every effort from my side to keep friendship alive, doesn’t matter where the person is living, how often he or she contacts me, how often actually I meet them in person or whether they were helpful to me or not when I needed their help. Friendship for me is to give something to people who I care about and seeking nothing in return. If any of these friends can help when I need any assistance, then I appreciate their input but if they can’t help me I don’t take it personally.
Each and every friend of mine knows me in different capacity. Although I have made few new friends since I have been here somehow I have managed to keep my old friendships intact and throughout last few years they have become even stronger. My colleagues here are telling me that these have happened because I am still bachelor and haven’t seen true face of each friend. People do change when they get married, get settled in their lives and when they have kids; people become more self concentrated and it will be hard from both the sides to keep friendships active. Well, I would like to think that when I will get married and when I will have kids as well, I would still try to keep in contact with all my friends and no matter what circumstances I will be, I will try to help them when they will need my help.
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Memories
We often hold on to things that remind us our past, things which are belongs to our good and bad memories. Photos, gifts, mails, etc are such things that can bring us back to that joyful time at which we were happy and enjoyed our time with those who cared about us. But why we keep things that remind us our unpleasant past, why we don’t through those few belongings that does not only makes us sad but also makes us harder to come out of bad feelings again.
Life is a sum of good and bad memories. Each occasion is generally associated with some personal possessions. These personal items remind us how happy we were at the moment and some moments are priceless. Recent advancements in technologies makes our life easy to store those memories in terms of photos, emails, videos, etc which we can look back to those items anytime and refresh our memories.
But is it worth it to keep those belongings that although may reminds us the best time of our life but also makes us sad? Why do we keep those things? Do we keep those things to remind us what has happened and what could have happened? Or, do we just keep because that’s the only thing we have which connects us to our past? Or, may be, we keep those things thinking that this time, time will not be cruel and what didn’t happen will happen in the future.
Life is a sum of good and bad memories. Each occasion is generally associated with some personal possessions. These personal items remind us how happy we were at the moment and some moments are priceless. Recent advancements in technologies makes our life easy to store those memories in terms of photos, emails, videos, etc which we can look back to those items anytime and refresh our memories.
But is it worth it to keep those belongings that although may reminds us the best time of our life but also makes us sad? Why do we keep those things? Do we keep those things to remind us what has happened and what could have happened? Or, do we just keep because that’s the only thing we have which connects us to our past? Or, may be, we keep those things thinking that this time, time will not be cruel and what didn’t happen will happen in the future.
Friday 13 March 2009
Cameroon Visit (Final part)
It has been more than a week since I have been here. Due to long daylight hours, it feels that I have been here for ages. It is amazing that how we adopt new routine, new culture, new food and the new way of life so quickly. Apart from food choice, I didn’t have any major problem here. Because my colleagues are with me here, I have overcome of language problem with they are helping in French/English translation.
Work pattern is very similar here to the one I have seen in India, normally its 6-days a week for employed person. I met few professional people and worked with them in project work, and found that they work very long hours daily and everyday they finish their work between 8-9pm. It is because work progress is relatively slow when you compare it to the work done in the UK and hence it takes long time to finish any technical project. As our project was within government agency, it was even worst for us because they tend to work in different (African) pattern and that is very unlikely than European pattern.
re driving new Mercedes Benz and Lexus everywhere; internet and mobile phones are common among the people who can afford these, etc but still, you feel that there are so many things need to done here. It looks like that government has adopted few things from developed countries without understanding local etiquette and need of people, and hence, I think that’s why there is a tension in the atmosphere between different communities of people because of this western adaptation. There is no point of authorities to help mobile companies to provide iPhone to minority of rich people community while majority of people don’t have access to daily water and electricity supply.The situation is very worst here than in rural India as gap between poor and rich is very wide here. Recent progress and prosperity in India has happened because of rise of middle-class families and their demands. Practically, no middle-class exists here in Cameroon, not even in the cities; someone is either poor or rich. Apart from two major cities, everything else is undeveloped and even basic facilities do not exists for people living outside Douala and Yaoundé. This is not because that lands are not fertile or they do not have enough natural resources, it is because minority of people handles the way country is going and they have interests in their own money and not much in country’s growth. I hope that those who are well educated and those who can understand their country better than any foreigners, will try to overcome basic problems in order to guide Cameroon to the better prosperity.
Sunday 8 March 2009
Respect
Most often we forget the inherited characteristic with which we born and that is respect to other human fellow. Before we are anything, we are human. That means that no matter what other person is, we are connected to him or her with one bond and that is human bond. But as we grow our knowledge, get rich and get more power either in professional life or in society, we generally forget the basic value of human race.
The line between ego and power is very thin. It is necessary for us to develop our skills, earn money to sustain daily life and get necessary artificial luxuries. It is also necessary to go to the top of hierarchical social or professional systems. But when we do so or try to do so, we always tend to forget basic value of our lives. And that value is respect; respect to other human being. No matter how much richer or poorer one is, no matter how sophisticated or primitive one is, no matter either someone is the owner of a company or an employee or no matter how old or young one is; we should always see other person as one of us. As each of us is unique, there always will be differences in opinion, difference in culture or tradition, difference in attitude, etc but no matter who we are, we always connected to each other with invisible bond with which we come to the earth.
Society and religions always try to teach us this value to everyone. But, we often forget this basic value as we grow from a child to an adult person. And that’s why it has been said that children are pure form of god as for god each us is same, children are above all the differences we have created in our societies. Children see another person as just another person, not as rich or poor, not as clever or dull. Only few of us are able to preserve this true characteristic throughout our life. If we can understand that because of these differences in each of us we are able to exist and live the life we like to live, we will be able to see that each of us is important in the society. We can earn more respect of others if we can respect others and if we can value their work and life.
The line between ego and power is very thin. It is necessary for us to develop our skills, earn money to sustain daily life and get necessary artificial luxuries. It is also necessary to go to the top of hierarchical social or professional systems. But when we do so or try to do so, we always tend to forget basic value of our lives. And that value is respect; respect to other human being. No matter how much richer or poorer one is, no matter how sophisticated or primitive one is, no matter either someone is the owner of a company or an employee or no matter how old or young one is; we should always see other person as one of us. As each of us is unique, there always will be differences in opinion, difference in culture or tradition, difference in attitude, etc but no matter who we are, we always connected to each other with invisible bond with which we come to the earth.
Society and religions always try to teach us this value to everyone. But, we often forget this basic value as we grow from a child to an adult person. And that’s why it has been said that children are pure form of god as for god each us is same, children are above all the differences we have created in our societies. Children see another person as just another person, not as rich or poor, not as clever or dull. Only few of us are able to preserve this true characteristic throughout our life. If we can understand that because of these differences in each of us we are able to exist and live the life we like to live, we will be able to see that each of us is important in the society. We can earn more respect of others if we can respect others and if we can value their work and life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)