To Those Who Failed, Kudos for Daring!

I wrote another poem. It was part inspired by Wall Street Journal's coverage of Jerry Yang's departure from Yahoo. It was the undertone of the article as though he has fallen from great heights. And he might have...but point being, he got there dammit! You (=the author) didn't invent an industry - he did. Its also part inspired by the advice on mediocrity I keep having to listen to from senior management.

It might come off as sad but its meant to inspire. Hope you keep on dreaming. And dream big. There are no guarantees for people who think big but we know exactly what the alternatives are.

Hope you like the poem. When you read this, think of a hero who's just failed at a massive undertaking.



To Those Who Failed, Kudos for Daring!



They say we are a product of our experiences
Then why do I feel so empty inside
I’ve been on rich, daring and scary ventures
So why am I so hollow inside

I keep banging my head on the same mossy wall
Hoping an echo would pass through
I know she is there inside
But why is it so hard to get through

They say I’m wasting away my life
But I’m just living as I used to
It made them gasp & awe before
And now its just a wasteful sorrow

I could have had your life, you know
Would take me all of tomorrow
But if I dare not to dream a sight
The world would remain strait & narrow

The chances are great that I’ll waste away
But if these were my fears then home I’d have stayed
Kudos for daring to those that stray
Remain true & strong of that bright morrow

On Liberatarian Paternalism 2 - Response to Trisco

Here are my comments on Trisco's "On Libertarian Paternalism" , which were too long to fit in the comments box. It just meant to be casual musings in reply to Trisco's question about economists and is in no way meant to be a serious post.

Nice reaction, Trisco! Good point about the apparent contradiction. I'll like to know more as well.

My thoughts on economists being closer to politicians than scientists: Could economists be “scientists" (I had to put quotes, sorry), who are biased to the extreme? It’s no secret in academia that *most* scientists aren't really interested in the nature of reality...if the nature observed is not the nature they *set out* to observe. i.e., a result is probably not worth pursuing in full glory if it doesn't agree with what they wanted to observe. Perhaps you will agree that this is more significant in industry research, but I digress. What is interesting is what happens when the effect observed is the effect proposed. Then even scientists in the fundamental sciences are extremely prone to *advocate* and *advertise* the effect - "e.g., trapped photons must behave similar to trapped electrons, so let us look for the effect there". Well, economists are scientists with extremely real-world problems with real world implications, and unfortunately, with their only true laboratory being the real world. Therefore, I imagine the tendency to advocate and push their models on the real world (hoping their proposed effect would happen) is amplified much more than in scientists in fundamental sciences: a. that’s the only way they can test it, and b. their theory might just save the world. Note that most scientists, regardless of how what they propose in their grants, understand the evolutionary, as opposed to the revolutionary, nature of their research; perhaps this is not so true in economics, thereby moving them closer to politicians?

Disclaimer: This is a very general statement trying to explain overall trends in behavior among scientists in different fields. So it is served with a grain of salt, please take it as such.

The power of words : The Hamilton Rap

Speaking as someone struggling in the deep dark dunes of Dissertation District (sorry but couldn't help the alliteration - been starved for some creative release since thesis writing is anything but) , I have been newly reminded of the power of words. This has been in the back of my mind for this entire DAY (in caps to indicate that I have lost all sense of time ...Dissertation District is dispairing oblivious to the diurnal doings of our precious planet - no apologies this time: you seem to know what you have gotten yourself into - but the past "earth month" has shrunk into the "Dissertation Day "). Now see, thesis writing would be so much more fun, if I can entertain random distractions in thought like in a blog (wanna go ride bikes? Gah, don't listen to me - I am all jacked up on mountain dew [ref: Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Journal: Hollywood, Year: 2006]. Woo Hoo.

Back to what I was actually blogging about - the power of words. A picture's worth thousand words, I am told. Being the 21st century (hopefully it still is or Dessertation Day has been temporally dilating faster than my simulations) lets up the game and post a video on the amazing power of words. Check it. Be Blown Away.



ps: Thanks to Guy Tal for passing this along !
pps: You know you are truly out of touch with your life when you take a minute to remember your own (blog) pen name. Ouch. Can't wait to get back to reality.

On glory that’s past and the danger that’s now....and on movies

Warning: This post ended up longer than intended. But if you stick with it till the end there are two poems – one’s a Hindi/ Urdu classic and the other’s a never-before published original by yours truly.

I am not really a movie buff. Never been. Too impatient for the 3-hr Bollywood kind (forwarding through songs, fights, comedy and romance doesn’t help because there is little left) and too psychic for Hollywood (Kevin Spacey is the killer, Darth Vader is Luke’s dad, Bruce Willis is the ghost) – thanks to Bollywood for the foresight. I do have some favorites (thanks to Quentin Tarantino), but for the most part movies for me are an ordeal.

So the other day, as I lay sulking in my usual physics-grad-studentish misery looking everywhere and anywhere for a pick-me-upper, I chanced upon Rang De Basanti to watch during my ritual morning cardio. I had seen this movie before, at the theater even (a rare treat in midwestern Champaign) and I knew I liked it. But my pensive mood revealed layers and brought forth a powerful reaction that I had somehow previously missed. Let me explain. No spoilers here, so no worries.

Rang de basanti, for the uninitiated, is a Bollywood blockbuster unlike any other. Lets start with the title - the literal title translation is “Color it Saffron” – saffron (basanti) is a deep orange color and is of profound significance in India. It’s a holy color for one and also symbolizes blood. In fact, it’s even featured in the Indian flag – as the first of the three stripes, saffron symbolizes the sacrifice (bloodshed) needed for India to win its independence. There is a less well-known meaning as well, Rang De Basanti was a popular anti-British cry during India’s struggle to break free from the British (damn the British – their accents, their tea, their language and all!). The slogan has its roots in a patriotic song written by Bhagat Singh, a heroic revolutionary freedom fighter. Bhagat Singh in his poem mera rang de basanti chola called for people to dye their robes the color of Spring (spring, the season that symbolizes change is “Basant” in hindi), for times are about to change – the time has come to sacrifice lives if that’s what it takes to get freedom. Thus, Rang de basanti is actually a powerful call to change the status quo. (Obama would have loved it, he needs some Bollywood researches on his campaign)

Just from the depth of the title you are probably beginning to see why this might be a good movie. But the homage to Bhagat Singh (and other Indian revolutionaries) doesn’t end there. The movie is set in contemporary India and draws parallels between revolutionaries of Bhagat Singh's era and modern Indian youth. It’s an ingenious commentary on what it cost our ancestors to fight for our freedom, what we have done with it and how nonchalantly we treat it today. A bloody freedom struggle (from less than 80 years ago) is juxtaposed against our (or more generally the Indian youth’s) irresponsibility to the corrupt Indian political system that is typically cooly attributed to “we-are-like-this-only”. Then it calls for action. To Do something. Anything.

It’s a brilliant movie. Very inspiring. Even the sound track uses patriotic lyrics set to modern tunes. Specifically, they featured one particular old revolutionary poem popularized during the freedom struggle that really made clear the glory of a lost era. To see why, here’s my favorite part (I’ve translated it here –the verse is much more beautiful in Hindi / Urdu and the video is below):

Title: Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna: The desire to sacrifice

There sits the enemy, armed and ready to fire
Ready too are we - to thrust our hearts out to them
With blood we shall play Holi, for our home and country is in trouble -
the desire to sacrifice is now etched within our hearts.

No sword can sever hands that carry the throes of passion,
Heads that have risen won't easily bow when challenged.
It'll flare up even more, the flame struck within our hearts
- the desire to sacrifice is now etched within our hearts.

You can really get a sense for the movie from the this clip featuring the poem:



The first thing that struck me was – no one talks like that anymore. About anything. The words, the values, the passion simply doesn’t exist in contemporary lexicon. Even if they do, they sure as hell don’t carry the same meaning. Don’t we stand for anything anymore? Don't we as a nation, a generation have any cause? Maybe we do. But I was in a coffee shop on campus as I was pondering the movie later in the day and the difference was stark. No, it's not just a cultural thing - and its not specific to India. America has a similar rich history. Our current values or lack-there-of is reflected in everything we do- contemporary art is a joke, a la mode literature is unreadable or depressing at best, and philosophy is out of style. With nothing left to do, I took out my disappointment on pop-culture in an outdated form of expression - verse. Here goes:

Pop goes the Culture

A lost voice a lost cause
Here we rock on without a pause
What we move to- undefined
Synched to the values of our times.

Of our roots, few remain
Best forgotten, coz of the pain?
For it’s a sanguine history that we share
Of freedom-fighters and folk who dared
To stand up for what they breathed-
liberty, justice and to be left in peace.
To arms they took or were beat to death
For the hopes and dreams in unison shared
Of a free world where people walked
Without any fear to mock or talk.

Well, here we are, few suns bygone,
Sheep we are, with no sense of wrong.
Moving to the tunes of time,
Orchestrated by the media chime.

Now we know not what we want,
A pandemonium in faculty, we flaunt.
Like the name, pop it’ll go -
A culture fashioned with mindless woes.

- Rug

Now for the happy ending - The movie did strike a chord. The entire nation rose to salute it. Blogs crept up everywhere urging for action. It was discussed in cafés, shopping malls and classrooms. I’m not sure if anything concrete came out of it. But it sent a message to a whole nation. And I now have a contemporary Bollywood movie I highly recommend. After all, it inspired me to write my second poem. Simply put, this movie is so good that had this been a Hollywood movie, George Clooney would have been proud.

All that glitters can be better than gold

People have been talking about investing in gold for a while now. As Peter Schiff likes to point out, in the Roman Empire an ounce of gold purchased a Roman citizen a toga (suit), a leather belt, and a pair of sandals. Today, one ounce of gold will still buy a man a suit, a leather belt, and a pair of shoes. So gold is definitely a long term inflation hedge. But here are the cons of investing in gold and some other inflation-hedge options.

Cons of Gold:

1) Gold has large volatility and long periods of time (like 20 years around the 80s) when the prices won’t go anywhere.

2) From a contrarian standpoint, we hear way too much about gold now in days. Everyone knows about Cash4Gold etc. For your cash-type ready-to-use money, other useful commodities that have not increased in price as much as gold yet might be better. Oil, Iron, copper, etc. are all great inflation hedges for the same reason as gold. No one can print them. They take hard work to find and unearth, and thus have intrinsic value. And they are not on late night infomercials… yet.

Option 1 – Better -than- gold Tier I stocks

Asset-backed / Necessary-Goods stocks: Gold is *only* an inflation hedge. In the long run you are much better off with a company that is producing something useful, since, over time that company can be worth more, not just the same. So for example any asset backed / commodity stock (oil, energy, food) is a better inflation hedge. The value of any asset backed /commodity company will get automatically adjusted for inflation, which will be reflected in the stock price. A better hedge against inflation is a company that sells something that people will always need, even when they are broke and thus, has a competitive advantage. So they can quickly pass along price-increases and potentially grow your money profitably. Examples of companies like this might be Johnson and Johnson, 3M, etc. On top of inflation-adjustment, you will also see the usual returns/ losses of investing in businesses. It might get hard to decouple the two, but you won't be "wasting" your dollar because of inflation.

Option II - Even- better inflation hedge – Tier II Stocks

Necessary-Goods Companies with High Leverage: The dream inflation hedge would be in a company that apart from selling ever-needed products with a steady stream of earnings (what we call the Tier-I stocks) and having some competitive advantage is also heavily leveraged. Then if inflation does happen, they would able to easily pay back their debt in much cheaper dollars. Now you’ve got a hat-trick - a company with real value, that make something people need, has pricing power and is actually taking advantage of inflation to pay off their debts. Warren Buffett’s purchase of Burlington Northern is a brilliant inflation hedge as it satisfies all these criteria to the T. Large moat, steady earnings, asset based, highly leveraged, and good potential for growth.

Aside: Alternatively, you can take on personal leverage as well, you might be able to find a company that satisfies the dream criteria above AND pays a dividend that will cover the cost of margin for example. Also just taking large loans can make a good inflation bet since you would be able pay them back for a fraction of their original "value". This assumes two things though. 1) You can continue to make the payments. 2) You invest the money in something of value. For example you could buy a house on a highly leveraged basis, subsidized by Uncle Sam.

Option 3: Best bang for your dollar-buck? – Tier III stocks

Highly-Leveraged Necessary-Goods Companies outside the US: The third option is to could invest in tier-II stocks outside the US (the Euro or the Yen for instance) if on top of inflation you are worried about the dollar losing value because of a demotion from its current place as a global currency standard. A global currency standard means that if a French bank and an Indian bank need to conduct a transfer, they would both have to transfer their currency into dollars, transfer the money and then back again. The same is true for buying oil. This means that there is an additional "artificial", if you will, demand for the dollar effectively raising its intrinsic value. There are now talks about replacing the global standard with the Euro, or Yen, or a "bag of currencies" - if this happens, there will a related devaluation of the dollar, which has nothing to do with inflation. For this you could check out countries that Peter Schiff recommends in his book “Crash Proof”. Australia and New Zealand come to mind.

These are fun times we live in. Smart moves can give über -smart returns.

Move the world - lessons for tomorrow's leaders

TED has some of the best talks ever - the content, the message and the delivery are unparalleled. Needless to say, some of the best brains of the world contribute here. This is an exemplary instance of such a skill:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html

Here, Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system gives a mind blowing talk on how and when Asia will catch up to the Western super powers. Its a powerful talk. Watch it once for the message and then watch it again to learn. He owns the presentation, he owns the stage and he owns the audience . For those of us wanting to be the future movers of the global economy, what can we learn from it?

1. Mastering the art of Presenting <----- Leadership skills

TED or not-TED, every talk you give is momentous. For those 15 minutes, every single person in the room eagerly gives you their undivided attention. At least they want to. So do your audience a favor and deliver. Expectations are high and attention spans are low. You can grab on it, unleash their imagination and take them on a guided tour of your choosing. You need to use everything within your disposal to your advantage. Its not just the slides and a memorized speech any more. You have your whole body - use it. Body language, facial expressions, actions and motion can all be used to communicate. Use articulation - customize tone, speed, volume and emphasis to the point at hand.

Watch Hans walk around stage, use facial expressions, actions and gestures to deliver this talk - he even uses props! Pay extra attention to how he matches his voice to the speed of the animation to convey excitement. He engages you and you are simply drawn in.

Professionally, what can your talk do? Talks are where you plant a seed for powerful change, unveil your expertise, initiate collaborations and bag deals. Not only do passion for a venture and level of knowledge come through, but people will know if you are a natural leader. They are after all witnessing an ultimate test of leadership - can you make people listen? You can establish your stance, making it natural for people to fund your ventures, or recommend you to the C-level . It also a natural icebreaker - you have given them a easy opening line- "nice talk"! Professionally, you need not only excel at giving talks- but you should be seeking them out.

2. Data Showcasing <----- Product placement

All data are not created equal - some are more interesting than the others. Having said that, even if you have the most important message in the world, it will be lost if you don't know how to showcase it. The era of pie charts and excel figures are long gone. Apart from being clear and to-the-point, your graphs need to be alive, dynamic and the center-of-attention. They need to capture attention, help understanding not confusion. Your data contains the meat of the message - serve it tastefully.

How can you boost your business via a talk? This is the man's product - Trendalyzer is a software for animation of statistics. Clearly, he had a very interesting message. This would have been an amazing talk - simply for the message. But he didn't just stop there. Neither did he parade his wares. Hans has a great product and he knows it. He highlights the features of his product by simply using it remarkably well.
Aside: Notice how he casually acknowledges and offhandedly cheers Trendalyzer new owner and Gapminder's business affiliate, Google. Everyone likes to be remembered.


3. World Changing <----- Stepping up your game

It appears to take more than just in depth know-hows and covetable soft skills to be a successful business leader. What is it that sets these visionaries apart? There is a trend these days - aspirations to set make a venture bigger than just the product, to integrate business models with the ever changing socio-economic patterns of today's society, or simply put, to include the guy-in-country-next-door in what you do. Such social moves is not necessarily just a feel-good holier-than-thou reaction or a cosmetic move to erase the popular notion of evil corporations, or even a use-behavioral-economics-to-increase-sales effort, but a necessary step in the evolution of capitalism or a good business. The world is getting flatter, the economy more global and thus capitalism more innovative. Capitalism not only lifts the entire society economically but thrives with the overall health - successful businesses open up doors for new ventures, more capital flow helps create new capital, and great ideas inspire new ones. Enterprise success, like happiness, is addictive. You can see this happening in India right now. Ever since India opened its business doors in the 90's the country is booming, the middle class expanding and the overall health is improving. Measures to uplift society at large is more than a admirable goal - it makes long-term business sense. You are simply making the playing field better. So this new trend, creative capitalism specifically, is a inevitable, but nonetheless brilliant, step in upping the anti. This is what sets the Googles, the Microsofts and Whole Foods of the world apart. Capitalism doesn't work against society - properly executed, it works for the society.

Hans could have used Trendalyzer to track statistics of shoppers and predict hot retail stocks for the holidays- this would have also been quite useful, informative and interesting. From an advertising and clientele point of view, this actually makes more sense. But, he reached out to a wider audience, used his business to impact the world and reached out at TED. By seamlessly integrating a socio-economic message into the product over his entire talk, he made Trendalyzer stand out without ever once mentioning the product. None of this appeared fake or superficial. Here is a visionary entrepreneur and he CARES. Far from suffering for his actions, he now has random blogs blog about his product and obscure scientists think about using Trendalyzer. Absolutely brilliant.

What global impact will your venture have?

The Buisiness of Marriage 2 - The Plot Thickens

Posted as a comment on The Business of Marriage

On the surface, it might appear as though the State's authority to approve a marriage is required because of its needed involvement when things go south in a bad marriage. Legal separation, custody battles, the traditionally-required alimony become the State's problem when two not-so-happy-ever-after-the-wedding parties decide to break up a marriage. So we can try to conclude right here that a State needs to authorize a union just so it can "fairly" unauthorize it.

"But aha", cry Apos and Trisco (they both actually and separately did, when I presented this argument to them), "why can't marriage then be just like another business contract? A contract that can be drawn up between two separate parties, albeit with a notary present, and doesn't require a license , State's approval, definitely no tax breaks and can still be a legal basis for fairness when the parties break the contract!"

That's a great point. So why can't a marriage just be a business contract? Lets dig deeper.

A marriage is a legal union of two individuals. The State has to be in the dirty business of this union because it has put itself in the dirty business of approving of who is legally an individual! The State is in one's life to begin with (that's right ...at the moment when you were born and had no idea of what's right and what's wrong - in the hospital...right after you blink your pretty little eyes at your loving mom). Must to Realism's outrage and Nihilism's delight, you don't really exist as an individual until the State grants you an existence license in the form of a birth certificate. And in fact, it's even consistent in handing out a nice tax break, albeit to your parents, for your recent appearance in this world. The State is there to begin with - without this birth certificate, you cannot get a drivers license, a passport or hell, even a marriage license. Since we all have implicitly accepted this power of the State to authorize the existence of an individual, by extension we have to accept (damn, logically, for rationality's sake, we have to demand !) the State's power to grant the union of two individuals as a single entity (and again by extension, demand a tax break for the same).

You cannot drink, travel, drive, earn, move, own, marry, and technically exist, without the State's consent.

Realism squirms and Nihilism shrugs as we walk away with our driver's license secure in our pockets.

ps: As a side note, it is very interesting how the tax breaks encourage the traditional role of a female as a home-keeper. The tax breaks, when filing as a couple, help only those whose incomes are very lopsided (maximized when only one person earns). In fact, if you have a spouse who makes the same amount (albeit extremely low), you are better off filing separately. Being single, why do I know this? Coz,I am suspicious of Govts. trying to nudge the masses. With nudge comes power (and we all know with great power comes current squared times resistance :P). And marriage is a classic instance of this.

Thoughts on Grad School

This is too good (true) to be missed: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/02/03/dont-try-to-dodge-the-recession-with-grad-school/#more-2071.

Part 2: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

Adventures in Photon Land or Massive Communication Gap

Ok it’s time for a light-hearted anecdote (but it is still faithful to VERITAS).

My lab notebook is filled with sighs (“Oh God, why me ??”), curses (*$%& you too, detector! [sorry mom, but trust me it’s appropriate !] ) and monologues to my future self (“Get out here while you are still sane”). Of course there is the requisite amount of bad data, empty pages, and specifications of equipment that never meet specs, but these are for another post. Let’s go back now to that part about me-talking-to-my-future self. The most recent of these conversations started about two years ago. My past self had written down very clearly “Dearest Radzie, please don’t ever touch the allignment laser – it’s a bitch. She will not bother you, if you don’t bother her”. For those of you who don’t know about my experiment (which is everyone but me), the alignment laser is a bright red laser used to correctly position the million optics (lenses, prisms and such) in my experiment, because I can’t see the actual photons that traverse these dangerous terrain. Simply put, I use the alignment laser to visualize my photons’ adventures. Remember that this note was about two years ago. Of course 3 months after I had written that, I promptly removed(!!) the alignment laser (I hope my advisor is not reading this blog – he’d know what an idiot I am and that I write to myself, which somehow seems worse than talking to yourself even though it is just another form of communication – hmmm. Note to future self: think about why this is so). Why did I remove the alignment laser? Because it was in my way- duh! So first instance of future self not listening to past self (bad bad future-self). Let’s start keeping scores: Future Self = -1. Past Self = +1. Yes, I penalize people for not listening to me and reward those who do. Roughly a day after I removed the laser, my then-future-self but now-past-self wrote another note “ Yeah gurl, remember that note about the alignment laser – yeah very very true. Don’t ever touch that again. TRUST ME - Its really a bitch!”. Now this time, my past-self did one step better – she tried to etch into my memory the pain involved in realigning the alignment laser. She didn’t do a very good job. I promptly took it down three months later and had to tearfully realign it two weeks after that. Score: Future Self =-2. Past Self = +2. This kept happening. Fast forward to now: you’ll know what transpired in between from the latest scores - Future Self =-5 and Past Self = +5. Notes to future self are now covered in curse words, some in ALL-CAPS and some were just empty pages (an example of my past-self trying the silent treatment on the future-self – “I don’t even wanna talk to you anymore”). The last of these misadventures happened yesterday. As I was wondering how I could improve communications between these different time zones, I finally figured out why we (i.e., my past self and my future self) have such a massive communication gap. No - its not really a memory thing – I always remember the warnings and have slight forebodings of the pain involved. It is not a language problem either - I have known and will know the meaning of “DON’T”. The vile vicious virulent villain is the middle man – the present self! AKA: yours truly, ME (oh man, it sucks to be the bad guy)! The minute the thought to move the alignment laser enters my head, I start playing with the laser’s knobs (physicists like to touch knobs – to see how sensitive they are [that’s what she said!]). Of course, when things are aligned and you are turning knobs just a wee-bit, everything seems under control. The middle (wo)man gets confident. I start thinking, “oh my past self aligned optics like a little girl (the expressions somehow seems less punchy than throwing-like-a-girl, or hitting-like-a-girl. Nevertheless, it is meant to communicate the same sort of disdain). This must have looked hard to her. Haha! Look at me now – I am the queen of optics…and this is my humble subject. My wish is its command”. Then of course in my vain red-queenly manner I proceed to “chop off the optic’s head” and almost immediately conjure to disappear from the scene leaving nothing behind but a I-told-you-so past self and a very disappointed what-have-I-done future self. The problem is ME. Or YOU - if the me we are talking about is you.

We’ll turn to the moral of the story (the Duchess would have wanted this anyways) to explain the last line: turns out neuropsychology says that this miscommunication is a well known phenomenon. We all work very hard, sacrifice our youth building something that we think we would value when we turn older. Be it pulling all-nighters in college, becoming stressed-out lawyers and consultants or renouncing the castle to elope with a knight (OMG, that is so 2008!) When you get there – you aren’t any happier! Why? Because the future self isn’t really your past self. You have changed. Turns out the best way to judge whether you will be happy in a particular career, lifestyle, country is to poll multiple people doing what you want to do in the future. The chances are you will side with the majority when you get there. Only now – you can save yourself from the pain involved in getting there - if it turns out that there is not the never-never-land you were hoping for! The key is not to ask questions like “oh, are you happy you did this?”, because most people cannot be objective about their life-changing decisions, but questions about their day-to-day life and then trying to picture yourself in their shoes. I know what you are thinking “but I am not them. I am different. Smarter, perhaps prettier, but definitely better”. That’s also a known phenomenon. It’s called the middle man - you or, in-my-case, me!

Ps: Now you probably realize why I am taking so long to do my PhD. Not only do I keep doing the same things over and over again (“hey, that’s how you become an expert !”), but there are voices in my head – all competing for attention and shown in different colors. That or I have severe ADD. I don’t know – lets go ride bikes.

PPs: This post is dedicated to Alice (the one in wonderland) and Lewis Carroll. I just finished rereading it. Note to future self (both mine and yours): “It’s brilliant . Reread it in about 5 years!” :).

An ode to PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Inspired (read outraged) by a heated discussion on how "we" need to remove coke and candy dispensing vending machines and ban (sic!) people from bringing cookies to distribute at work, all for the "goodness" of "everybody's" health, I cried out words like "individualism", "America'" and "self-control". "Most advanced nations in Europe are this way - they have removed vending machines", came the reply. I realized the winds are changing. As I feebly said, " are you proposing to ban coke as well, coke - only one of the greatest company ever ?", an image of a heroine walking away into the dusk flashed in my head. I barely got a glimpse of her - she was handsome, she held her face high and walked tall. She was looking back as she slipped away - her hair flowing, almost blending with her fleeting chiffons. It hit me then that no one knows her anymore, no one wants her any more - SHE: my subconscious rendering of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY was "high-maintenance". And all I wanted to do was to at the least bid her a proper adieu:

Ah there she goes
a beauty so quaint
a stride so proud
now a mirage quite faint

Her words thundered with strength
her cadence echoed of courage
A brave maiden once she
but now feeble with age

In spring she stood alone
towering over masses
not afraid to reach above
or be burned to ashes

They envied her stature
her glance her stance her goal
but what they wanted most
was her very soul

Quiet was the day
hardly a wind there was
but there they came in broad daylight
to smother her for all she was

Her breath was pure fire
her hair pure rage
oh what a fight she put up
A honor-drenched barrage

A storm she conquered
but then came a waft she could barely feel
little-by-little they wore her
her fate this wind would seal

Now she walks away
her time gone she says
with a glimmer of past glory
and an aura of heroic ways


ps: I have never written a poem (not a decent one anyways) so it surprised the hell out of me when these words came gushing out in about 10 minutes after the discussion. Talk about mundane inspirations and sensitive subjects ! This can't be healthy - I am a physicist - I am not supposed to be creative. Comments welcome !!

Francisco Domingo Carlos Andreas Sebastian D'anconia is my HERO

Francisco D'anconia - Copper magnate. Self-made tycoon. Playboy. Destroyer of his own massive empire ! Heroes exist plenty in the fiction aisle (in the ones worth reading anyways), especially in Rand's books - but D'anconia's the only one who stands true and strides a Titan's swagger. Its easy to be a inspiring protagonist -start deep down at the grueling bottom dressed only in rags, accessorize only with spirit and honor and inch your way to the very top. When you get there, redefine perfection. But once you are at the peak, what does it take to slowly reverse the ride if every core of your being demands you to do so? to excruciatingly grind every speck of achievement into oblivion? It takes a true Hero !
Our world needs one today - in fact, we could use a couple. We have seen the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Ambanis and Buffetts. Every one knows what it takes to become rich and maybe if I had kept up with pop culture, I'd know that going from rags to riches is cliche. Regardless, what is popular are opinions like " surely now that 'we' have created these giants, we can simply take a small small bite from their plates?", "after all, aren't we evolved / human enough to know better than survival of the fittest" and "they needed me to get there anyways". These real-world giants, at least the noblest among them, would be the Taggarts of Atlas Shrugged. They keep fighting a losing battle. We might never really know the Galts even though they exist- sorry, thats just part of the character - the men of steel will, strong muscle and razor-sharp minds, who go on and build their own Utopias. But where are the D'anconias? History has never truly had a D'anconia and its high time for Francisco to make his entry . Just to show us courage, morality, grit and to remind us of what truly makes us human. So, while I tip my hat to Dagny and wink my big brown eyes at Galt - it's Frisco who is my true hero.
He should be yours too। After all, he is the one who tells Atlas to shrug.