Of Luck and Traffic tickets

Ever wonder how lucky you are? I think I may have figured out to a way to tell how much. How is it that you have come upon this charm to measure a person’s luck, you ask. Elementary, my dear!

Luck of a person for a given year is inversely proportional to the number of traffic tickets one has collected in the same year.

You see, just a few days ago, I was driving down relatively harmlessly, following a car in front of me at nominal speed when I was pulled over for speeding. I was very surprised, as even though I was a little over I was not truly speeding, also by the same element the car in front of me is guilty of the same infraction.
Now very cautiously as I proceeded on, very mindful of my experience a few minutes ago, this car just zips by me. I wait for a few minutes; patiently waiting for the blue-red lights to give him a deserving chase. Hmm…., nothing happens, absolutely nothing! Why is he so lucky I said when it suddenly struck me? I have on many occasions enjoyed the reversal of this fortune, with a silly unlucky passer-by, wondering why I was having a good day.

So I am not looking at the Speedo-meter, every second I drive, for that matter I am not very cognizant of the environment and the speeds associated with that area. Given this fact I have rendered my probability to speed, relatively high. I can safely say most of who drive do speed or break the traffic laws (stop signs, tail gaiting, forgetting blinkers, seatbelts, etc) in one way or the other.

Getting caught then is like picking up a chance card in monopoly reading, you are fined for traffic violation. Tickets are pure chance, and since they are attributed to such bad fortune, this becomes measure of luck or in this case bad luck.

So if you get a ticket, in and around that week, don’t buy a lotto ticket.

_/not_driving.

Where’s the fire

The baby boom is on. Everyone I know is having/has had kids. Not that I dont, but personally, being a man and falling into categorical pattern of delusional phobia of commitment, responsibility and being socially institutionalized, I would have waited longer.

But that's a different view. It seems that once you enter parenthood, you are touched by some sort of light. Its like parenthood shades, you see more parents, going to be parents, you preach parenthood, joys of parenthood, obviously you cant really say otherwise. To the likes of this peer and social pressure fall more victims.

As I enter through the gates of parenthood, I see a whole new set of inductees and I find myself saying “why didn’t they tell me this was going to be a party”.

It seems that people are rushing in, and as I realize the devilish instinct to promote the cult, I can’t help but think, I may have contributed to the fire.

_/burnt

Fracta-Life

Tiger is now 3(months), my new life has started; things have more or less fallen in to a pattern. Things have found places for them selves, work has found slots of time, issues have formed/are forming knowledge bases, routine has found place and life now turns predictable-somewhat.

The need for a pattern or template was simply to standardize the flow in my life. What is funny however is while I orient my life to sort out disorder; I am now making my self available to further introduce entropic elements. A natural tendency I must say, especially if you’ve read juggler’s ball. Another pattern to note here is while I order my life; I am forming a pattern to append disorder. These together form some pattern of behavior, which seeds its own growth. In mathematical terms a ‘Fractal’.

What is a fractal anyway? Dictionary.com defines it as “a geometric pattern that is repeated at every scale”. My pattern in my life is formed of so many such small patterns. The extent of this has influenced my style of working and living. What’s interesting also is the fact that, these patterns can now be applied to people and behaviour, so much so that they can now be referred to as a collection of patterns them selves. My wife may adapt my patterns to tackle issues, while I may refer my son to model after his mother’s pattern of say cleaning. An interesting fact also is that a new pattern you start or pick up may be a requirement of you as a pattern yourself.

While I continue to define this I am afraid I may fractal-ize myself, but wait I am already a fractal.

_/Fractal-Life

Promoted: Married >> Parent

Being Real.

After the initial change is status, and all the special attention, you are soon on your way to the old life with new added responsibilities, priorities and roles. A few weeks pass and the level on the conformability scale starts to decline. If you are anything like me, Id like to know what’s ahead on the road, not in a crazy manner, but more to the nature of being somewhat prepared.

So endless reading on baby issues, baby development, baby diapers, baby health, baby rooms, baby toys, baby wipes, baby cream, baby formula, baby monitor, baby gadgets. Research on each of these items on their seemingly limitless choices, can be stressful. Add to these, stages of baby development. It’s kind of funny, if you don’t study what to expect at different stages, you stress and read too much into new behavior. And if you read the stages, you keep waiting to mark it off your check list, constantly worrying why your baby hasn’t passed the bar.

Lets complicate it a bit more, add health to this mix, mother’s, baby’s, possibly fathers. Constant doctor visits, where they point out how high or low your child is on the average scale, further adding to the pressure.

The baby doesn’t make things easier, sure the moments of cuteness and playfulness far out weigh any of the above issues, but you cannot ignore the baby cry. I actually dread it. I always feel I am doing something wrong for him being so uncomfortable. Sleepless nights, feeding and burping issues, all of these attribute a huge percentage of the toll the parent takes.

Every step is a new challenge and at each level, we are (I am) judging, if the decision we make goes in to what and how our child develops.

Mind you I am not trying to be the least bit discouraging; I am just trying to be real.

OK, stop. We get it. Actually we don’t. If you enter parenthood, with out being cognizant of the real issues involved, things will enter a downward spiral, which will be far compounded by the stress in an ever dynamic environment.

To sum this up, Parenthood is not a new lifestyle, it is a new life.

_/sleep-less

Juggler's Ball

So after creating my first blog, I thought I had entered a new world of self expression. Excited, I vowed, to do this religiously. Unfortunately, I have 2 basic things wrong with me. My dedication and priority proportions are completely out of order. Secondly my decision capabilities are seriously hindered by just too many choices.

Anyway, as I attempt to get back (which is primarily because of reading another blog), I do want to talk about a concept I just read on rootburn. Too much of a good things, talks about PDE, a concept of digital media effect on produce and acquire vs consumption. Rajat talks about how our rate of consumption is running stagnant, where our rate of production increases.

Upon reading the concept I realized, to some degree l enact the model at a physical level. I easily get involved in too many new things, but never end up in finishing the one’s I get involved in. According to the theory mentioned above my desire to do new things, generates in me a level of production faster than I may consume, that level of production is far compounded by the ease of getting involved, further complicated by so many things available to get involved in. Even more, the rate increase causes me to reduce my attention span to appropriately distribute load, thereby adding a level of incompletion, to be addressed based on priority.

This takes away the spark that generated the interest in the first place and leaving me to find something more interesting to do, without really letting go of the first one, hence the pile up.

I find my self constantly involved, racing through things, hardly enjoying the things that caught my interest and mostly never finishing them.

My analysis of this problem is that at some level we all have to juggle. The balls we juggle are weighed unequally based on priority and interest. Interest controls rate of production and priority controls consumption. Doing it right is just a matter of finding the right interest/priority combination. I on the other hand am a very bad juggler.

_/juggle-crash

Rage!.

Not necessarily the best way to begin a blog, but that what i feel right now. Against my instincts telling me not to watch the video of the American hostage Eugen Armstrong beheading, i decided i would. The verbal text description although built a gruesome picture, it did not fill in the void of visual context.

I started looking for links to the video. Most of the sites referring to the story refer to the source as the Site known for Islamic Content. Any how, without much diffculty i was able to find links to sites hosting the videos of the beheading.

How could they do such a barbaric act, i had to see it for myself to believe it. The video was horrifying, the experience of watching it was something i do not wish on any to do. I could not believe what i saw and as i saw it, it made me turn inside, such a gruesome act. It had no audio and i can not imagine how much worse it could be. But i watched it again, and again and again.

I feel anger, rage,despair, confusion, i... i ... i... feel sad.

My emotions are in turmoil, its like being in a state where i do understand but i dont. I wish to inflicint the same on the inflictor. I have so much anger for these people. Killing in the name of cause is one thing, but to torture some one to death in that manner, that to an innocent man, that is no cause- however you may choose to justify it.

So many questions flying through my head, but i guess what i want myself answered rather understood is what the video had brought with in my self.

The question here being am i giving in to thier cause by actually watching the video and acknowledging the effect thier act produced? Would i feel the same if they had just shot him in the head? I dont know, but i guess not.

The graphic slaying has defnitely had an impact but not of intimidation, but more of fury. No matter what the answer to my question, i know for a fact i will not understand thier cause and hence forth i will not try to either.

I read somewhere fire does not fight fire, it adds to fire. The end result being more innocence will fall victimized.

-RAGE