Tribute

I attended a modern dance performance recently where I saw a composition titled "Pieces of Me". The choreographer Michael Somersel had tried to capture/express his growth in four years of his undergraduate life. There was a piece called "In Cooley's Looking Glass", where he expressed a very interesting idea: Our perception of ourselves is (largely)based on the reflection of us that we see in others. The world is our mirror and there is nowhere to hide!

Our identity is formed by the people we meet, the experiences we have and what not. But what is it that makes us unique, gives us our individualism(ity?!)? Is there anything that is truly original about anyone? Where are the inventors, the creators? Why am I not a creator?!

Anu Malik had said once .."Show me an original song"! I say "Show me an original person" !! Honestly, with the profusion of information bombarded at us these days I don't think there is a way to escape convention and conventional thought! How then will we make progress? Only through rebels? Only through those who reject conventional wisdom? And if it is genuinely wisdom then why does it need to evolve?!

Answers when I have them :D

PS: The tribute is to all those people who have contributed to shaping my thoughts! I don't know whether I should thank them or destiny for letting me meet them!

Big Red!

The semester is about to end. My life as a student is about to end. I have enjoyed it so much I don't want it to stop.

I've wanted to go to school, I've wanted to work in lab. Cornell did that for me. Never felt like "bunking"! I owe something to this University and the people here. Thank you.

For those who are considering coming to Cornell, just do it! There is no doubt in my mind that I would do it again :) Maybe I'll come back for a PhD!

"Far above Cayuga's waters....." Go Big Red :-)

Some progress, nothing concrete!

I found a few sites that analyze love from a philosophical perspective:

Kenny Pearce's blog
Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy

The first of these sets out to prove the statement: Love is a deeply internalized belief in the intrinsic value of the beloved.

The second is more like a textbook chapter that lists the various "forms" of love: philia, eros, agape.

A confession: I have not read either of those two through. I thought they might help me answer my question, but then I realized that the answer to my question should not be based on what philosophers surmise! I ought to think on my own and come up with something for myself!

I believe emotions quite often do not subscribe to laws of logic and "rationality" (this word in quotes because I am unable to define it), hence a logical analysis of love seems contradictory.

I am going to end the post here partly in order to explain the title, but really because everything that I tried to write after this either did not make sense or was not right for this post!

The first set of questions

Reading "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho has left me with some unanswered questions. Some questions are by-products of more menial tasks, while some have been with me for a while!

What is love?
What is freedom?
What are Jacobian matrices? How do I use them to solve the problem that I am trying to solve?
Where will I find bliss? Is it "worth it" looking for bliss? Why don't I just enjoy the journey instead!
Why do some emotions inspire(unleash?) creativity? Despair, longing, jealousy, anger, happiness....

Too many question marks in this post... I will try and remedy that in the next one.

And I think I'm going to enjoy blogging :-)

Thanks goods ;-)

Welcome to my world

A few of my friends have been pushing me to "blog". I wonder what the philosophy of blogging is about! I definitely don't want to expose my inner self to the world, at least not right now! But I think writing down some questions, some answers, some experiences and some unorganized thoughts will be good for me. So here goes!

PS: I hope some of you folks (does anyone really read random, unknown blogs?) will leave a comment once in a while!