Man's Envisage

From the early morning of the world, until very recent times, the best energies of mankind have been wasted in the worship of gods. All these gods have been naturally produced. They originated in the minds of men who, by their invention, sought to account for the facts of nature. The poor savage found himself surrounded by nature’s phenomena he just could not comprehend. Knowing nothing of natural law and order, ignorant of the relation of the clichéd term ‘cause and effect’, his simple mind was terrified and amazed by the things that he observed. The plaintive moan of the wailing wind, the thunder's awful roar, the lightning's blinding flash, the devastating flood, the lingering disease that tortured and deformed, and death that stilled the voices of his loved ones, convinced him of the presence of evil powers that worked to bring about his ruin.

But there were other things that seemed to strive in his behalf. The genial warmth of the sun, the soft light of the moon, the pleasant showers of summer days, the abundance of fish and forest foods, and the health and happiness that he enjoyed--these led him to believe that some of nature's powers were his devoted friends. Thus all the friendly and unfriendly phenomena were personified; and thus were made the gods. A very simple classification of good and bad or a friend and enemy made the savage mind fill the earth and air with friends and foes. Whatever brought him good was a friend--a god; whatever brought him harm was a foe--a devil. To him, nothing was natural. Everything that happened had a supernatural cause. The world was filled with miracles and marvels. All things were the sport and prey of good and evil gods.

It Feels Good

It couldnt have felt better. A smile on the face which i could feel over the phone and the the number of happy-faced emoticons used on Yahoo messenger. It said it all when she read it.

It was hardly 7 lines altogether. But it took a while to write it. Something which i always wanted to do, so that it would express everything i felt. Something i possible found very hard to express, earlier maybe i can now.

And Orkut gave me this opportunity. It was the Testimonial section which is usually filled up by close friends. And my mood supported me in this. Without which, knowinng myself i cant even write a single word on a piece of paper let alone blogs or messages.

And it feels really good to give this blog of mine a change by writing this loose post.

Have We Met?

As humans we live and interact across a wildly diverse set of physical spaces. Each of us formulate our own personal meaning of place using a myriad of observable cues such as public-private, large-small, daytime-night time, loud-quiet, and crowded-empty. Unsurprisingly, it is the people with which we share such spaces that dominate our perception of place. Sometimes these people are friends, family and colleagues. More often, and particularly in public urban spaces we inhabit, the individuals who affect us are ones that we repeatedly observe and yet do not directly interact with – our Familiar Strangers.

The claim is that the relationship we have with these Familiar Strangers is indeed a real relationship in which both parties agree to mutually ignore each other, without any implications of hostility. Isn't this true?

While today’s mobile communication tools readily connect us to friends and known acquaintances, we lack mobile devices to explore and play with our subtle, yet important, connections to strangers and the unknown – especially the Familiar Strangers whom we regularly see. Will these systems provide a new lens to visualize and navigate our urban spaces? How will these systems provide an interface to strangers and unknown urban settings? What will such devices look like? How will we interact with them? What will they reveal about us and these strangers? Will they alter our perception of place? of the strange and unknown?

An Altercation

Great!! Another board for the war of the fans! Star Wars rocks! No it sucks! No you suck! Blah, blah, blah! The flick has been released ages ago and the last remake made it again and hit the Hollywood box office, though i personally believe its a crappy sci-fi movie,yet the same ridiculous fan war is continuing. Not to forget the saga of 'The Matrix trilogy', which i would prefer not to elaborate due to differences in opinion.

I wonder what goes wrong with people? For even the cast, were not as dedicated to that mindless fluff as the fans are and they were the ones who put in the 12-15 hours of work, daily, no less! For those who enjoyed the mediocrity of what Star Wars, as all sci-fi movies are and wishes to continue on, more power to you.
For those who perhaps once loved the flick and hated what became of it, more power to you also.

Why can't we all live in happy disagreement harmony? Why does it always come down to a bunch of sycophants who always hanker to mould others into their way of thinking, and a bunch of bitter fans who wish to push their negativity on everyone? Every individual is duly entitled to his/her opinion and both sides come off as losers when they try to change each others minds'.

Aren't we talking sense here?