When wolves become shepherds…

A shepherd was out with his sheep one day, when a wolf came along and attacked one of them. The man chased after the wolf and took his sheep back. The wolf then turned, and spoke to the shepherd:
”If today you are protecting the sheep, but who will protect the sheep on the Day of Savagery, when there will be no shepherd to protect the sheep, except me.
The day, when wolves become shepherds…”




And today, when US president Barack Hussain Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize in Peace “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”…
…my initial reaction was:
”Say WHAT??”

Now don’t get me wrong…its not like I don’t like Obama (his monkey-faced predecessor yes, but not him, really) but I’d like to know two things:
1) What exactly did Obama do to deserve a “peace” award and
2) was there really no one else in the world who made a bigger contribution to peace this year???

Yes, I really would appreciate it if any of those guys from the Nobel Committee cared to explain exactly WHY the hell would they want to give a “peace” award for someone who hasn’t really done anything so far.
I mean okay, so he’s “strengthening diplomacy” but is that what a peace prize is for? Almost seems like an insult to what Mother Teresa did.

Which brings us to my next question:
This whole “strengthening diplomacy” thing – is that honestly the best anyone has done for peace this year; out of 6 billion people? Seriously?
Wow, it that’s really true, the future of humanity doesn’t look very promising.


But then maybe I’m just over-reacting. I guess at some level this is good news; because now the Nobel Prize – the Epitome of all that is Great and High – all of a sudden seems within reach of almost anyone.
I mean come on, if Obama can bag a peace prize after calling for renewed attacks on a country America invaded… its almost surprising why anyone else can’t have one.

Hmm, I wonder if Britney Spears would like a Nobel Prize in Chemistry next year…
Think I’ll start a campaign or something.
Who’s with me?

The Comeback

Yes, I am back from vacation.
Back from two weeks of fun, good food and family. And back to my regular life.

The past few weeks were good, and the vacation was even better because it helped sort out the few things messing around in my head that I mentioned in the last post and made me see life in the true sense it is meant to be seen.

I realized that you don’t always need a plan, and that things won’t always go according to the one you make.
And that its not even a bad thing.

I realized I should be thankful for everything I have, which includes my family, my friends, the job I have, the food I eat, my new laptop, iPod, PSP and high-speed wireless internet :)

I realized there is no such thing as a dead-end career, and that all jobs will eventually kill your potential unless you keep the edge. And keep moving forward.

I realized knowledge is just about the only thing you can truly own, and that it doesn’t always need to come in a standard package as an MBA or some other degree.
And that to seek knowledge is a quest upon us all till the day we die.

I realized there is more to life that having a job, making money, spending some of it and putting away everything else.
And that money is merely a tool that should help with a greater cause in life.

I realized that time is the most important thing people waste, and many don’t even realize what a crime it really is.
And that it is for that same reason that too much sleep is the refuge of cowards.

I realized... that I realized much today.
I’m really glad I had that vacation; I feel fresh with a ton of ideas, and there’s loads of stuff I wanna write about!

The Square Circle is back in business.

Happiness is...

...coming home from the airport after a tiring trip and sinking into a comfortable chair with a steaming cup in hand, catching up on the Emails from over the weekend.

Rich guy, Poor guy

I don’t do this a lot, and I’m guessing its maybe because of the financial crisis thingy, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about money. And the way I see it, you have at least three kinds of rich people in India; though this is probably true all over the world.


1. The illegally rich
As in filthy rich. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. We all know who they are; dirty politicians, the shady guys up in government, the underworld, the over-paid who don’t do their taxes, all the guys who in fact have our money and we don’t do anything about because in a way, we almost expect politicans to be corrupt.


2. The legally rich
These guys are real rich too – except that they get their dough through legal means (which unfortunately includes movie stars, but then that is legal), pay their taxes and sometimes even set up institutes of social welfare. This is a minority; but hey, as long as they have money and know what to do with it, I don’t really mind.


3. The pseudo-rich
This is the part that bothers me. And this is also where most okay-to-do families in our traditional society fit in, because these people don’t have the money for their extravagant quests but they pretend as if they do.
If you’re still wondering, these are the idiots who spend around a million rupees on a wedding; pathetic losers who spend over 4 million on a stupid 2 bedroom apartment on a marshy swampland at an hour’s drive from the city; and throw away unspeakable amounts into medical school admissions.

Now, this maybe fine if you have the money; but I call these guys idiots because they don’t – and do all this just so they “fit in” with society.

I recently met someone whose family had to come up with a 100 sovereign of gold jewelry for a wedding. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term; a sovereign is 8grams, so this works out to nearly a KILO OF GOLD!).
I mean come on, who does she think she is; Paris Hilton?

And why does this happen? Because people believe in the equally brainless justification of it:
“That’s how marriages are arranged, you need that much gold”

I simply believe they are idiots.
After all, when you think about it - you can’t really have a need to spend money you don’t have.

Its time to start rethinking all this.
And the current financial crisis is the perfect place to start.

A phone through the spin cycle

In case you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like for a mobile phone to go around in a washing machine…
…I can tell you: they DO NOT like it.

And I found that out the hard way this evening after I stuffed my laundry into the washer, turned it on, and then three cycles later discovered that I forgot the phone in my jeans.

And needless to say; it died a sad, wet death under layers of suds and fabric softener; and I’m still mourning over the loss of my poor Nokia 6230i.
May she rest in peace.

Now moving on and getting to the realities of the situation; I still have another phone – a clammy old one from work; and I’m not missing a lot of phone numbers because the only people who call me are either from work or concerning work; and I already have their numbers on Outlook.

The biggest loss for me though, was all my data that it took along with it. I had a list of all passwords I use for pretty much everything online; I’ve marked important dates on the calendar; scribbled in a bunch of notes; even put in a little to-do list for the week.
All of which I don’t have anymore.

In a way it kinda freaks me out because it draws us to realize how so very much we are dependent on these little electronics which you can lose at any time.
I mean, when my laptop died last year (yeah, this evening wasn’t the first time I lost data to gadget hell) I was absolutely lost because that is where I had almost every aspect of my online life; from Email to documents, pictures, contacts, videos…pretty much everything.

And in a way it teaches you too; it was only after that mishap that I realized you should never stash data all in one place; and that it’s important to take regular backups. And that you should always keep written copies of passwords.

But I guess no matter how prepared you are, nothing prepares you for that one sudden moment when it all turns black; and you realize its all over.

Just like our own lives.

Snoopy

In his own inimitable way, Charlie Brown once said to Snoopy:
“When a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it still make a sound”

Now unlike Snoopy, I’m guessing most of us never really give it much thought, but when I equated this with problems in our own lives, I found myself in a bit of a sticky situation:

Is it still a bug in my program when no one knows there’s a bug in my program?

Do I still owe Bob the €15 if he doesn’t remember I owe him money?

Do I still have to be in office at 9 o clock when no one will see there at 9 o clock?
.
.
The list goes on.

And unfortunately, I’m not too sure we answer ‘yes’ all the time. I don’t wanna go into deeper philosophical or moral consequences of the answers, but I’d just like to say that sometimes, there’s more to it.

After all, that tree did make a crash, whether you heard it or not!