Past..!!Present..!!Future..!!

"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake" – Confucius
May be to some extent the former holds good. I made mistakes in my past, largely with my early expositions of my origins and the like, which were less-than-accurate, however such dishonesties (and I have integrity and honor enough to call them what they were) were more the substance of gross hyperbole than outright fabrication. If we can live in the present, acknowledge and learn from the past, but live in the present…we are immediately freed up from a lot of garbage. But past will not be that easy up on us. We require lot of compassion and inner strength to move on from the mistakes from the past. As said by Russel crowe when Hansen is concerned about John still having hallucinations in A Beautiful Mind.
“They are my past. Everyone is haunted by their past.”
Definitely, everyone is haunted by the past. I get these weird thoughts of repenting now about my past mistakes and I love to own a time machine to change my past to make it sync with my present for a better future. How many of us believe that we really deserve a second chance? Or another chance? Or many more chances? There are so many ‘what ifs’ in life but the challenge is how are we going to face the ‘what is’ and when you think about it, it is better to gamble than not doing anything and you will spend the rest of your life thinking what it might be if you had done it. “Am I okay right now?” is a good question to ask we are anxious about the future or depressed or feeling guilty about the past.

If the answer is yes, observe the feelings connected to the past or the future but don’t embrace them. Yeah I definitely need a time machine... Maybe to unravel the mess that is the Present we need to tie the loose ends of the Past. And hopefully, the Future will take care of itself.Or if it doesn't, well, c'est la vie.

Yes...Yeah...Yo

It was a quiet and peaceful evening and another sunday before my term exams in undergraduation age. As usual I was bumping my head with the syllabus, which I was seeing for the first time and it started looking like some roman and Italian to me (believe me while speaking both the languages sounds like English, but u know the truth.). Got irritated and I went to do my usual business, surfing (chatting) on the net. But things usually come my way. One of our class’s frustoo (the term used to describe first bencher and mugger) is online. This guy started giving me fundaes (English translation of Geeta Poems given by people known as nonsense morons to those people who are not at all interested). And finally he got to know the truth that he’s wasting my time (infact his own) and asked for an adieu. Gladly I marked the confirmation by saying “YO”. I didn’t quite expected any reply, but suddenly our chat window started beeping. I was stunned seeing the reply. Really I didn’t expect that, and for the first time I feel like an Italian talking some nonsense. The reply was “Is it Yes or No”.

Then I've discovered one of my greatest downfalls: the invention of urban slang also known as internet shortcuts or showoff language. Ranging from lol, rofl, lmao, omg, wtf, ftw, pwn, to dude, wassup and any variation of the above, these truly destroyed who I am. Really, it created my personality, defining who I am, but utterly trapped me within its grasps in the process. I can't stop using them, in fear of changing who I am in the eyes of others, and the fact that the lack of such items feels wrong, yet the overuse continues to haunt my hindsight on things. Now some reality into facts, the origin of this so called slang.

For a long time slang or 'urban talk' to the uninitated, was a trend started and maintained by a certain class of society. In most cases it would be the youth of the streets that would give birth to new terms for commonly understood priciples, usually to confuse authoritarian figures, and deliver jokes or sinister messages outside the knowledge of the uneducated audience. However, there is a new trend hitting the streets, once scorned the 'foreigner' is now at the forefront of the 'Urban' 'slang' trend.

But we have developed strange instincts of gaining shorter language or so called lingo in our daily life. Right from EOD to describe evening to ASAP to describe now. The rules could possibly change completely within a generation or two. Perhaps the start of sentences would no longer need capitalization, the way the use of commas has decreased over the past few decades. Language changes to Lingo. “LOL! Dude, Playing pranks is all Crappy sleazy stuff.” Difficult to understand right! May be engineering the language had made Yes to Yeah and then to Yo. Perhaps re-engineering came into existence only to set things right. I am still in a dilemma is YO yes or a no?

Tea! Coffee! Cappuccino!

The moment I think of making decisions, I will go places into my history. I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I have seen people seldom took it. You know why? Because it's too damn hard. I never questioned them, never risked in following them either. Being a silent watcher I never preferred to be on firing side. When those difficult Cases occur, they are difficult, chiefly because while we have them under Consideration, all the Reasons pro and con are not present to the Mind at the same time; but sometimes one Set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of Sight. Hence the various Purposes or Inclinations that alternately prevail, and the Uncertainty that perplexes us.

It started from day one when my dad was saying, no shouting stating that I lack discipline and clarity in my decisions. At that point I don’t even know the meaning of those two little words and my dad is expecting me to use them in real time. Very funny!!! Science or arts, engineering or medicine, electronics or computers, MS or MBA everything in my life was bonded by my odd capability of making so called worst decisions. People say we often learn from our mistakes. Certainly true to some extent. I totally took that in wrong context and started committing as many of them that I never had time to learn from them. Years after my engineering, I am still in a dilemma when I have to take sides. May be I will always learn from my mistakes, throughout my life.

To get over this, I started a strange Way i.e., to divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns; writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then during three or four Days Consideration, I put down under the different Heads short Hints of the different Motives, that at different Times occur to me, for or against the Measure. When I have thus got them all together in one View, I endeavor to estimate their respective Weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I find a Reason pro equal to some two Reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two Reasons con, equal to some three Reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the Balance lies; and if after a Day or two of farther consideration, nothing new that is of Importance occurs on either side, I come to a Determination accordingly. And, though the Weight of Reasons cannot be taken with the Precision of Algebraic Quantities, yet, when each is thus considered, separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less liable to make a rash Step; and in fact I have found great Advantage from this kind of Equation, in what may be called Moral or Prudential Algebra.

A structured approach to decision making can help us make good decisions, but can’t guarantee good outcomes. We are sole and whole responsible for our own deeds. We always play safe by taking advices which in turn lead us to make our decision battened. My experience was so little. I tend to make simple but yet powerful decisions to make myself inquisitive.

Now I have an interesting situation to discuss. The whole purpose of places like coffee machines is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to sip one cup of coffee or tea. Lemon, black, light, horlicks, chocolate, cappuccino etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are, can, with in 10 seconds, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tea! Coffee! Cappuccino! It comes naturally. Often we do mistakes. Next day the taste as well as the ability changes. May be reciprocal to each other. The least thing we ever expect is to have an uninvited visitor in our cup. A cockroach in cocktail of course. (Wait for my next blog to handle uninvited visitors!!!) Next time you ask me right or left, definitely I will say straight.