C'est La Vie;That's life

One of the great things about mid-life is that you've finally hit that average point in your life span, when the last 40 years and maybe the next 30 years of your existence kind of evens out.  It gives you that perfect space in life to settle down without any crutches, look back and front with no neck cramps, and mostly, contemplate deeply without getting lost in your thoughts and getting stuck in 'seniledom', and do the one act you've always wanted to do but denied the most - freely comment on the world at large with a minimum 50% accuracy, give or take few well-intentioned, but completely misguided advices (yeah, we've all been there, bungled that).  So, on that lousy, rotten statistical note, let's start rating you now.  Have you always felt how much our lives are constantly observed, evaluated and left hanging on random scales?  Looks like it's become compulsory need that whatever we're doing now or done in the past has to be measured...

Have you realized that there's way too much information floating around these days? It almost seems impossible to get by an hour, forget about a day, that we're not bombarded with words around us. Visually, it's either the loud marketing messages when you're watching the TV, or the in-your-face pop-up ads (can block them all you want but they're there to cleverly "boo" wherever you go) when we're browsing the net or take even the billboard ads, posters, signposts staring at us when we get out of our house. And, then there are the audio messages thrown, starting from those living with us like our parents, spouse, siblings giving an earful, or our teachers, bosses, co-workers telling us to do things better. I know i'm skewing on the negative side here, but honestly, how often do you hear anyone praising each other these days (except on the Utopian, fairytale world of FaceBook where everybody "likes" everything). I suppose some...

Honestly, I've no idea how I got here....but guess it is true. My 100th post already. Still hanging in cyberspace and no remote idea how. Or for that matter why. It just seems like yesterday that "blogging" seemed like a natural extension of my "blabbering", decided to give a break to the poor jaws and let my hand do some venting for a change. Got a sudden urge to spare the rest of humanity surrounding me from my incessant and specific views of anything and everything. Misery loves company, so i told myself - why limit the torture? No, seriously, all this writing has been nothing short of a revelation and brought out a different dimension that i never knew existed in me before. I've thoroughly enjoyed this process and the complete freedom of speech that it reinstated. It's sort of a liberation of untold magnitude. So, to those of you who have a burning desire to blog and to others who want to but are dilly-dallying, i have this to say - ju...

continued from part 1..... Let's start from the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, which is Physiological & Safety needs . These are our basic survival ones like eating, breathing, clothing and, living under a decent roof. The human mind will come to grinding stop if these are not met, and you'll be unable to even think about the next level of needs. Don't believe me? Try dieting/fasting for a day, and you'll be amazed how your fat brain (please, it's a compliment) which used to process complicated thoughts like the greenhouse effect, looming elections, world economy etc. till the day before, can obsessively think of only one thing and nothing else now, which would be the magical, four-letter manna - FOOD. Anyways, these needs would probably come from the closest relationship of all, i.e. parents or caregivers. And, from an evolution point of view, would be our Infant/Childhood stage. Next, is the Love/Belonging needs, which deals with our sense of ...

Let's admit it. All of us as adult humans have needs, wants and desires. At first, they have and will be at a basic sustenance level of food, shelter and clothing, and once that's done, it moves to many different elevations above. Also, it always starts with material things like money, car, house, job etc., then kids (and the heavy price tag that comes with them) etc. Think of it as the " taking " phase. At some point of life, when many hairs have been "grayed-and-dyed" after, we hopefully evolve to higher-order thinking like social work, helping/caring for others or spiritual quest etc. - basically, chucking the hugely inflated and egoistic "me and only me" out and replacing it with a big picture view of "what i can do for others", "how i can be useful to Mother Earth"  line of thought process. This would be the " giving " or " pay-back " phase. Sorry, life doesn't offer any free lunch, anytime, an...

There are two things in life i'm very passionate about - one, a good cuppa coffee and the other, any views or opinions (mine or of anything that walks on two legs).  Both are crucial to my existence, i'll tell you why. Without a heavy dose of caffeine in the morning, am nowhere ready to face the world yet - au contraire, hey, i see no one craving to see my crabby personna either. Fair enough. Anyways, I can go on and on about how coffee wakens my sleeping brain cells from yonder and beyond, how I'd have no problems living in a deserted island if only someone can supply my three cups every day ( side note - for the wisecracks, thinking: how could coffee get there? Answer: I don't care, this is only a hyperbole and do me a favor, please don't think so much) or what i honestly feel about people who don't drink coffee (if forced to write about them, i'd be exceeding my expletive quota for this blog) - ok, hopefully, you get the idea by now. ...

So, the ability to use language as a mode of communication is one of the main differentiating factor between us and the rest of our primate friends. It gives us that crucial "one-up" to dominate the earthly scene, making us feel all superior. Of course, we easily gloss over the fact that some of us can share so many other traits with the animal kingdom - don't we have enough samples of sly foxes, wise owls, slimy weasels, scared chickens, sharp eagles, vain peacocks etc all around us? Makes one raise an important, poignant question: are we so different after all? Me thinks nah, not so much. More on this topic, it's also fascinating that there are around 3000-6000 languages spoken by us humans around the world (as per our friend "Wise Wiki"). In India, even if you're linguistically-challenged like me, there should be an average of at least two languages acquired over a life time by each person (this is my own extrapolation, so please don't ana...