Blissful Life

Month: January 2010

  • What To Do When You Get Too Many Ideas Together

    The creative mind is like a desert.
    When you want something desperately it will show you mirages and endless sea of sand.
    But when you are wandering aimlessly, hoping for nothing, lo! it’s an oasis before you.

    When people get ideas they get too many in a row. And within minutes they forget all but one on which they focus. Thus a huge part of their creativity is lost.

    How do you block the leak?

    Simple.

    When you get ideas, write them down.

    When you get more ideas, write them down.

    And after all your ideas are poured out, start developing from the beginning.

    Your creativity – saved.

    Always keep a pen and paper near you, who knows when you will get your next idea.
    (And what do you do when you are a blogger and has just uncovered a topic about which you could make 20 posts at least?)

  • Why You Should Visit Trizle

    • Other sites: If you wanna be productive, blah blah blah blah… And so blah blah blah blah… For example blah blah blah blah…. And finally blah blah blah blah….
    • Trizle: Example. Point. Period.

    Think of every site you are subscribed to.
     Think of how much words they take to explain a thing.
    And think of how much of what you read from those sites you follow in your life.

    Now, go visit trizle

    Trizle. Rock Business.

    Why not others?

    • They introduce the point to you.
    • They go on and explain the point.
    • They then give a few examples.
    • They then explain the examples.
    • They then conclude.
    • They go on and on…

    RESULT
    TIME = WASTED

    Why Trizle?

    • Trizle gives you bulls-eye examples.
    • Trizle tells you the point.
    • Trizle keeps to the point.

     RESULT
    TIME = SAVED

    Go there. 
    Have fun.

    (I have tried to maintain throughout this post the style that the trizle team uses to make their point. If you liked this style, you will really love trizle too)

  • Rule #1 for Productivity with Computers

    After tussling with my 256 MB RAM for more than 3 years, I bought a 1 GB RAM last week. And that very instant I knew that I was making myself a fool for 3 long years.

    The #1 rule for productivity when dealing with computers is

    UPGRADE YOUR HARDWARE

    This does not apply to those who already have tons of RAM, and amazing processor speed and graphics accelerator and so on…

    But that poor consumer who just knew that computer can be used to calculate when he was buying his first PC; who bought a PC at the lowest prize (and slowest configuration implied) and then learned so much about everything and computers too; but still forgot to upgrade his own computer, this is to you.

    When you bought your computer you were only learning. You needed just a little power.
    Once you are in the second year, you have learned almost enough. You need twice the same power.
    And every 2 years so forth you will need to make fine adjustments to the configuration of your system.

    Or else, you will be doomed.

    I learned it the hard way. Thought that the time my computer takes to respond to a click could be used to think about what to do after that. But I was wrong. When my computer started responding faster, I started thinking faster.

    What are you waiting for? Go and buy some new chips.

  • What To Do When You Are Angry?

    Anger is one of our worst enemies. When you are angry you feel very very strong. And most often people break valuable things, including glass-wares, and relationships.

    But with a very simple tip, anger can be converted into a very powerful productivity tool.

    It’s simple.

    You are angry with someone. Instead of bashing the one you are angry at, you control your emotions. And you do something productive.

    Done. You were so concentrated at the cause of anger that the whole concentration was transferred to what you did instead. And so you did it better than how you would have done normally. And by the time you finished doing it, you are no more angry.

    For example, this post was written and published in about 10 minutes in which I was really angry. And I’m really happy right now, because I suddenly got almost 3 weeks worth of content to write on.

    So, the next time you feel angry, instead of blowing your top, convert the heat into work.

  • !! Happy Republic Day !!

    WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
    JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
    LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
    EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
    and to promote among them all
    FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
    IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HERE BY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

    Republic Day

    India, though she became independent on the 15th of August, 1947 did not become a republic until the Constitution was adopted on the 26th of January, 1950.
    Starting from a meeting in the Constitution Hall in New Delhi (now known as Central Hall of Parliament House) on 9 December, 1946 it took 2 years, 11 months and 17 days and 299 members of the Constituent Assembly including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Acharya J.B. Kripalani, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Smt. Sarojini Naidu, Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Shri Sarat Chandra Bose and Shri C. Rajagopalachari to complete the historic task of drafting the Constitution.
    It was this Constituent Assembly which took over as the Legislative Assembly of India late in the evening of 14 August, 1947.

    The Constitution of India was adopted on 26 November, 1949. In all, 284 members of the Constituent Assembly signed the Constitution on 24 January, 1950. On that day it was drizzling outside, as if nature was excited about what was going to happen.

    Finally when the Constitution came into force on 26 January, 1950, the Assembly became the Provisional Parliament of India until a new Parliament was constituted in 1952.

    Indians started celebrating Independence Day seventeen years before actually gaining independence, from January 26, 1930 onwards. And hence, this exact date was chosen to enact the Constitution.

    Every year on January 26, a grand parade is held in New Delhi beginning from Raisina Hill near the Rashtrapati Bhavan, along the Rajpath, past India Gate, and on to the monumental Red Fort. Different regiments of the Armed Forces march in formation. The President of India takes the salute. A Head of State of another nation is usually the Chief Guest. The forces will be followed by dance troupes to symbolize the cultural heritage of India, students dressed in the tricolour, NCC cadets and recipients of National Bravery Award. At the end there is a flypast by the Indian Air Force. Jet planes fly leaving a streak of tricolour in the sky.

    Republic Day like the other national holidays is a day to pause for a moment, look back into our past, and then jump forward into a great future.

    And for this time, I wish you all a great Republic Day and tremendous growth.

    My India, My Pride Badge

    – Akshay

  • Why Your Dreams Must Be Unattainable

    What is there in simply dreaming about things that would never happen??!!!
    You can dream, dream and dream…(like APJ says)…..but…life is not a bed of roses.

    When I showed my list of dreams, one of my dearest friends asked me the above question.

    And I answered: Because,
    Reaching the goal is not the goal. Striving to reach there is the goal 
    – Swami Chinmayananda

    To repeat Chinmayananda in my own words, dreams are not meant to be achieved they are just reminders to move on. When you are a student, score maximum, when you are writing entrance aim for the top, when you are a doctor, try to be a better doctor, and then try to start a hospital of your own. Then may be you can expand that as a chain to other parts of India, then the whole world. Or start blogging. Or travel to places. Or treat poor people in remote villages.

    Just having a dream is not enough. The dream should be sky high.

    If you have a small dream from your childhood, and you somehow achieve that dream, then you stop growing. You stop learning new things. You get stuck in life. Problems begin to pile up. Your job will have become so boring to you that you will concentrate on your problems more and innovative ideas less. And then life starts to become boring. And that is when life is really going to be a thorny bed.

    But when you dream big, you try (at least try) to make things happen. And that would require that you grow. You will have to learn new things to make your dream happen. You may have to travel. You may have to meet people. But you grow.

    If you really take life in its sense, then these are really roses.

    Heard this story?

    Two guys were walking through the jungle when they spotted a lion. One of them reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of running shoes. The other guy looked at him.
    “Do you really think those shoes are going to make you run faster than that lion?”
    “No, and I don’t have to. I just have to run faster than you.”

    Though I don’t suggest this policy, this is life these days.  You don’t have to be the best, but you can be somewhere in front of the trailing lot, and you will be surviving. When you do nothing you just rot away. But when you try to reach somewhere, you end up at least a little higher.

    So, dream high so that you move on. And remember that even though you may never reach your dreams, you will reach higher than most other people, and that would suffice almost always.

    To sum up,
    “When you stop dreaming, you stop growing.”

  • The Never Forget Rule About Reading

    Of course reading is the best habit on the planet. A man IS what he reads. This is very evident from the fact that children who are exposed to books on atheism or rational thinking grow up as atheists or naturalists and the children who are forced to read the mythological books only most often end up as hard and fast believers.
    (Well if you think the above observation is invalid then try that at your own kids. Even if they are a few years too old, when they get to read books like Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained they will start telling you thousand reasons why God probably does not exist)
    Or leave all that ask a kid doing well in science whether they are/were subscribing to any scientific magazines or weeklies. The answer will most probably be “…for 4 years or so…”

    But I know reading is great. I thought you had something else to tell.

    Yes, I am coming to it.
    This might not happen to everyone. But some people when they find a book interesting, they keep on reading the same kind of books one after another. And they will never be tired, so they will read more and more of the same kind.
    Now, that is a problem.
    You should NEVER read the same kind of things.
    Because reading is supposed to gain you ideas. And when you read the same stuff, may be from the same author or of the same genre, you will end up addicted to the same. Books are all interesting. You may be finding this interesting. But it does not mean that you will not find the other interesting. And may be when you start reading the other you will find that the other is more interesting than this one.
    But you never read the other stuff, so you will never know the other side.
    It is like always having vanilla shade of ice-cream because you liked it the first time you ate it. Sometimes you may like strawberry much more.

    And this is particularly true when you are reading things that may shape your opinion.
    For example you read a a book about socialism by Karl Marx (may be Das Kapital).
    Socialism is great and Karl Marx will show you why. And that idea will seem interesting to you too.
    And then you have two options.
    Either go for the Communist Manifesto or for a “Capitalist Manifesto”
    If you go for the first you will end up as a biased frog in the well.
    But if you go for the latter you will end up learning a lot about both the ideas, about the differences between them, about the pros and cons of each and you can always decide which one is better.
    Because when you read only one, unless you are reading from wikibooks, you are hearing from just one side. And you will never know what lies they tell you.

    So that is it. Read. And read diverse.

    Don’t narrow your collection to a single colour.

    Make it a point to read an entirely different book after you finish the one you are reading now.
    You will end up a lot more.

  • Couldn’t mind be naturally ‘supernatural’?

    I just got a hypothesis to prove that supernatural may be natural. Well I actually got that idea when I was trying to make my first post at Brights India (a group of Brights in India, Brights are the people who like the naturalistic way of the world), but there’s no way I can adapt that in another way to put in here. So I’m just copy pasting the whole thing. Keep in mind that I wrote this not to you, still I want to say this to you too.

    Let me first excuse myself, this is my first post here, I might be sounding odd.

    But couldn’t mind have powers that some of us are just being unable to use?

    Let me clarify myself.
    Our brain can convert sensory inputs from eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue (that’s where modern science is now) that is visible spectum, audible frequency, smell, temperature roughness, taste

    Now think of sharks which can sense electromagnetic field.

    To continue what I’m going to say I need to make an assumption –
    “that there could be, like the electromagnetic waves, another kind of waves or radiation or energy, which the modern science is yet to experimentally confront.”
    (and with that i must add “did anyone know about electricity before faraday (or is it oersted?) discovered it?”)

    and there’s one thing to note that if there’s such a thing it’s properties could be vastly different from any other things we have observed. It may not be like light. it may not be like particles or waves. and of course i can not tell what it will be like.

    [the whole point of this post is that assumption. if that is wrong i’m dead]

    If you agree with that let us call those rays asd rays (that’s the abbreviation of my full name – so that if in case someone finds it i can tell that i had predicted it and name it under my name, got the point? :D)

    now i hope i am right when i say that “evolution does not depend on whether we understand it or not”
    (that is to say like we have the electron behaving like a wave when we observe it and like a particle when we do not in Young’s double slit experiment)
    So I believe that
    “even if we don’t know that asd rays exist, our DNAs know it” (my goodness, that is an interesting point, could our body be knowing what our mind doesn’t? could we be knowing more than what we know?)

    And so let us assume our body has evolved mechanism to receive asd rays (like we do with light rays)

    And if we can receive asd rays we may be able to send asd rays too.. may be (like we can create sound, and hear sound)

    And may be there is some organ in our yet-to-be-studied-fully brain which CAN actually send and receive asd rays.

    now, may be the composition of asd rays is such that it doesn’t require a medium to pass through.
    and may be it could interact with things (sound can make things vibrate, light can strike electrons off)
    ————————

    OK. that is all the assumptions we have to make.

    Now my intentions are clear.

    Couldn’t there be such a mechanism in our brain or mind or body? (which can make things like telepathy, spoon bending, apple from thin air, etc. possible)
    ————————

    Reply from akshay s dinesh to asd of india

    But if there’s such an organ, our body would let our mind know it. For, do we have to learn that we can use the eye to see, ear to hear, etc. Should there be such an organ we must be knowing about it.

    reply from asd to akshay

    but do we come to realize that we have a liver, or a spleen by ourselves? (I never knew there existed an organ called spleen until I watched a mother killing her step daughter hitting on the spleen with a hammer in reality tv)
    i mean may be this is an involuntary organ.
    (like our heart rate gets automatically lowered when we’re calm and vice versa)

    ————————————

    Well I know all these are assumptions. But this is my hypothesis to make many things that we term supernatural as natural.. So that there wouldn’t be any fight at all (i don’t like fights)
    and therefore i wish to invite you to contribute to this idea too. That is to say instead of asking me questions. Help me make this idea a perfect hypothesis waiting to be proved.

    Well, that’s it. I know this is crazy. Still.
    This is the link to the actual thread.