The new

Sitting at home, in my bachelor pad, I think about how fast the world is changing. Quantum Computing, gender-neutrality, actual images of black holes, also, governments can now shut down the internet. So exciting.

Blood, pressure and curiosity

I came close to popping an artery today, at the gym. As soon as I felt the pressure building up in my head, I heard a voice. It was my friend, Sir David Attenborough. “The Giraffe’s blood pressure is higher than any other known animal”, he said. I slowly rose up from the abs-work-out thingy and sat up straight. David continued, “This great pump(the giraffe’s heart) produces blood, squirts it up the artery to the head, and then when it comes down through the jugular vein, there are pocket shaped valves which prevent the blood from flowing backwards into the head, if the animal lowers its head in order to have a drink”.

I will never forget the days I spent watching the Discovery channel, listening to Mr Attenborough’s voice. He was genuinely excited to show the viewers how interesting nature really is. I remember spending hours in front of the TV, watching his shows in awe(I hadn’t discovered porn yet). Thank you Mr. Attenborough, for planting the seed of curiosity in so many people.

“I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored”

– David Attenborough

The age we live in

We live in an age where, if you need to send a letter via mail, like actually physically with your hands, you need to google ‘stamp store’, realize its too far away, buy the stamp online instead, wait for it to arrive, stick it on the envelope, and then drive to the nearest post box, crash the car into the post box, explain to the postmaster that you never dreamt of stealing from the post box, pay a fine and then get back to your job, working for a satellite communications company. 

Building stars

I feel like depression is turning me into a poet. I feel like there’s something super-poetic about the fact that we humans are building stars here on Earth. Let me explain. “Building stars” is the new hit TV show on planet Earth. Just kidding. We humans are on a never ending path in search of power/energy. We’ve tried everything from fossils, wind, sun and water to shit, literal shit. But we’re not there yet because the demand is also never ending. Since the demand for energy is sure to see a steady rise in the future, and is also sure to bring monetary gains to people who work in the field of power generation, there is a lot of push to discover more efficient sources of power. Who wouldn’t want to invest in something that is sure to bring guaranteed returns?(insert stock market joke) One such source is a star, a.k.a., nuclear fusion energy. Now, building a star here on Earth is, as one would imagine, not that easy(K-pop groups know what I’m talking about). You need to secure the funding, buy the land, pay the nerds, but most importantly, develop the technology! Then it has to be made available to the public. People who have already setup nuclear fusion labs say it’ll happen in the next 30-40 years. Since I have no hopes of crossing 60, I will continue to burn fuel and pollute my dear environment.

The tiny dots in the sky can power your Xbox. Who knew?

Arthur Eddington knew

In the 1920’s.

 

Best things I’ve heard this week

“Sometimes people put a little salt in their ice cream, you know, or a little bit of ketchup in their lemonade. This is stuff that people do to enhance the different flavours.”

-Conan O’Brien

“An almost indispensable skill for any creative person is the ability to pose the right questions. Creative people identify promising, exciting, and, most important, accessible routes to progress – and eventually formulate the questions correctly.”

-Lisa Randall

“Cactuses have thorns because nature doesn’t give a fuck.”

-Curiosity

If anyone wants to correct me by saying, “it’s Cacti, not cactuses”, feel free. I will send you my address. I am ready to fight you. I’ve been training. Wait, I’m sorry, I forgot. I thought this was reddit. The level of rage is so much different there.

Best things I’ve heard this week

“I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”

– Robin Williams

“Homosexuality is not against the order of nature. It is nature itself”

– Justice Indu Malhotra(not a direct quote)

“The most mysterious entity that I’ve encountered in nature is time itself”

-Curiosity(written under the influence of liquid gold/time juice/beer)

Need somebody to lean on? Are you sure?

I’m a fan of the song. But is it true that 

Everybody needs somebody?

Everybody needs something?

Maybe I’m inexplicably naive. But as human beings, I think we are evolving to be more independent and efficient in every way possible. Whenever I feel down, and feel like I need companionship, I do this little trick where I look up to myself! (lame, I know). I ask myself for advice, and guess what? It works! Especially when I’m drunk. You know why? Because deep inside, I know that I am the only person in the whole world who can help me. I know how relationships, religion, that sort of thing, seem magical. Do you think, in the far-away future, people will still cling on to these?

Or, is all of this just nonsense spewing from a super-introverted, super-single, super-happy human being? My mom called the other day and talked a lot about how she thinks I’ve changed. The words, ‘distant’, ‘strange’ and ‘family’ were used repeatedly. She’s funny. I like her.

PS:

I just remembered my dog. Everything makes sense now. Dammit.

 

Best things I’ve heard this week

1. “How come we can put a rover on Mars but I can’t get decent Wi-Fi on a Delta flight?”-Sean Evans
2. “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”– Neil DeGrasse Tyson
3. “There’s a reason why you get the best burgers from local fast-food joints and not from big fast-food chains. -Curiosity

I wish I had said the last one during a meeting or something, to prove a point. Hell, I would have got a standing ovation for that. But no, I came up with that while eating a burger. Dammit.

Adaptive blogging

I found certain similarities between biological evolution and blogging. I know, I need to lay off the alcohol. But I had this thought while I was super-sober, during a work meeting.

After writing a post, do you ever find yourself tweaking it just a little bit so that you get those extra views/likes? As the years go by, you’ll figure out which of your posts get liked the most and which ones don’t receive any attention. So you’ll start making amends to your posts. This habit might grow over time without you even knowing it. You might realize it at some point of time but you’ll continue to do it because you’ll find that your posts thrive that way.

Or

One day, you’ll wake up and say, “what the hell am I doing?. I have lost my uniqueness, my individuality. I need to reset”.

Both scenarios don’t look that bad. But when it comes to evolution, I think it can get a little tricky. Nature tries making small changes with every few generations of animals and plants. Some succeed. Some fail. Nature learns. Nature makes amends. For example, it gave a few of our ancestors, the ability to walk using only two legs. But it didn’t do the same for all our ancestors. My question is, is nature aware of the changes it is making?. Did at any point of time, nature forget about uniqueness and individuality, and went ahead only with those who succeeded? We might never find out. But that’s not what scares me.

What if one day, nature wakes up and thinks, “what the hell am I doing? I have lost my uniqueness, my individuality. I need to reset”.

 

Troubling thoughts

What if the cure for Cancer lies inside the head of a super-talented, brilliant kid who cannot afford an education? What if that kid is being abused by a family member?

What if we finally find out, we are alone in this universe after all?

What if dogs showed affection to their masters only because we artificially bred them to behave that way? Nah, that’s too dark. We live on a planet where burgers and rock music exist. It couldn’t be that bad.

Clip from last weekends jam with a new band