Supermarkets and Plastic Money - Lethal combination!

For any activity planning is important. In my childhood days, I have seen many women in my neighborhood preparing the list of household items to be purchased for the month, and the budget that will be required for getting those items (with more than 95% accuracy). The items in the list, would be typically of absolute need, and very rarely (On special occasions, where extra bonus income has come) exceptional items would find their way to the list. And also those were the days, only small grocery shops were available, and finding a supermarket was a rarity.

However these days, as both men and women are working, and as everybody is busy with something, it has become extremely painful to do such meticulous planning, and most of them enter the modern malls or supermarkets typically to get the absolute essentials, but endup buying a lot more than that is required.

The main reason for this is the lack of planning - in not only the list of items to be purchased, but also the amount of money to be carried for buying those items. The availability of Cards - Credit or Debit has made the later possible. So, one could forfeit all the planning processes, and would walk into a modern mall and pick up the things that tempts him/her.

Added to this the free credit period, that one would get to repay the amount - in case of credit card, and also the other temptations such as bonus points, discount coupons, and so on ... would easily make a person, jump out of the line. As if this is not sufficient, the malls attract you with lot of advertisements - claiming to be give goods in a "never-before offer!" at mouth-watering prices.

Suppose, if you had been doing shopping with all the above temptations, and if you had time by your side in the mall - then it's going to be even more lethal for your money - because one gets easily spoilt for choices and also want to get the best - meaning highest priced one, unless otherwise, you have a very definite taste or pick for a particular product.

A psychological factor can also be added to the above recipe - "the joy of discovery". Typically as the items are scattered across the store, you end up searching and browsing for your required items, and once you get to your favorite item, you feel a sense of discovery, that will urge you to discover more - which leads you to discovering more and more items, that you would have never bought in the first place. However, this factor plays out only if you have sufficient time for spending in the mall/store.

So, the only solution, is to plan well in advance, - of what you want to buy, and a rough estimate of the amount that would be needed, before you step in into the stores.

Some Short Philosophies in Tamil

It's really been a long time, that I wrote something in Tamil. So, here I am going do that. But what to write ? - For me, it's simple - philosophies as usual ( தத்துவம் in Tamil). English translations are also provided.

உயிர்- உடலையும் உள்ளத்தையும் இணைக்கிறது; இல்லாவிடில் உடலும் உள்ளமும் வேறு வேறு!

English Translation: It's the life force that binds both our body and mind (soul). If there is no life force, then body and mind are separate entities!.

(உண்மையான) சுவாமி - ஆசை அறவே அற்றவர்; மற்றவர் - ஆசாமி!

English Translation: A REAL saintly or godly person is one who renounces ALL the desires, while others are all ordinary persons.

Being Judgmental!

Sadness, Frustration, Anger, Depression, and other such sufferings are predominantly (most of the time) caused by the Judgmental attitude or behavior. The above pains could be because of either the sufferer's attitude or because of the attitude of the people related to the sufferer. As an adult we always make judgments; often about others, sometimes about the situation, and occasionally/rarely about us.

It is this judgmental attitude that make us suffer the emotional pain, and therefore make us unhappy. The answer to the question, that why young children are generally happy lies in the lesser exercise of this attitude. (Well, this point could be very much argued, but I am speaking from a general view point).

So, do I mean to say that one should give away the judgmental attitude to be happy - Not necessarily. However, if you are wondering for a solution, then follow this:

When you are making judgments about others, try to put yourself in their place; and when you are making a judgment about yourself, try to put someone else in your place.

And if you are unable to do the above, try to avoid the process of judgment, as you may be dealing with a situation, which might be of no concern to you.

The above solution might look simple and obvious. But for an ordinary soul, like me, it is really difficult, and you need lots of practice, patience and persistence to develop the above skill - a skill that will make you a better soul - a better human being, and if you are interested in spirituality it will lead towards the path of self-realization.

The year 2009 - for me

As it had been my convention, let me start this year's blogging by writing about some notable events for me in 2009.

• A long-awaited project in the domain of Web Intelligence materialized in December. More about it later.
• Did spend a good amount of time on research, the result being my research papers accepted for publication in reputed and popular conferences. (Ofcourse faced rejection too, from a most conference)
• Technically feeling and creating the AJAX magic, in web development and mainly involved in improving the Usability of systems.
• Significant progress made towards my PhD; Also decided on the final title of my work;
• A project that I worked passionately for the last few years, got extended for another 3 years, but with riders and change of direction (towards product mode targeting different kind of users).
• Had to put my head into ISO processes, as one of the internal auditors and as a process owner for some time.
• Involved with the process of coordinating a mega module (topic wise), covering Databases and Web in 6 weeks and allocating work to 20+ members! who wanted to participate in the training activity.
• Setting up of VASP (a software for Molecular Simulations) in clusters, for the second time.
• Moved to an apartment with better amenities; started understanding the apartment culture, and was getting the feel and importance of amenities.
• The birth of my second angel/queen
• Took the 'active' decision of giving up the official transport and using the Public transport for commuting to office
• Observing Financial markets from a distance, and wondering whether I could ever understand and explain its behavior.
• Travelled to Tirupathi, Kalahasti, Erode, Kodaikanal, Chennai, Mahabhilipuram, Vellore (Golden Temple), Mangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pondicherry.
• Overall, the year was satisfying.

Socks - Is there a Left and Right foot socks?

After posting three consecutive 'heavy' articles, let me take a break, and discuss about a lighter issue - Given a pair of socks, which one would you wear on your left/right foot?

Initially, I thought there were no such left and right foot socks, until a friend of mine, asked me how to identify it, couple of years ago!. From that time onwards, I became conscious while wearing the socks, thinking of which one to wear for the right and left foot :) So, one fine day, I consulted our modern-age gurus - Google and Yahoo for answers :)

I started with searches in Google whose results pointed to companies that were manufacturing socks and marketing as "Anatomically designed for left and right foot". I got a few hints, that some companies were making specialized socks for left and right foot, especially for athletes, but otherwise, there is no such concept!. But, when I checked for the same query in Yahoo answers, to my surprise , I found the same question being asked by 2 or 3 users in the past one year!. However, when I went through the answers, to those queries, I was thoroughly confused, as each user had their own opinion, and often contradictory with the previous user, or post!.

So, again I returned to google, rephrased my queries (my first query was left-socks and right-socks; and my final query was "Is there a left-foot sock and right-foot sock") and the initial scanning of the results proved that there were some companies that were making such specially designed socks for athletes, and its there I discovered the phrase "anatomically designed for right and left-foot", and were charging around 9 UK Pounds for a pair of socks!.

The lesson to take-away from this exercise, is that when there are no obvious answers, everyone tries to provide their own answer and adds to your confusion. This could be a factor to the detractors of online social networking. The problem occurs when things are always fuzzy and not obvious, and the chances of even obvious things turning fuzzy may increase, over time, when more people enter the online world and give different and often contradictory suggestions! A simple way to illustrate this is when you try to discover a person, whom you might be knowing already - and you use their name to discover that person say in Facebook or Orkut, you may be staring at a huge list of similar looking names. This might not have been the case, when these sites were in their infancy stages.

Emotions and Passion - Part III

This is in continuation of Emotions and Intelligence - Part I and Emotions and Communications - Part II.

Though Passion is treated as a kind of emotion, it is better to understand them in greater detail. Passion can lead to strong positive or negative emotions. I have seen people with passion both succeed and fail in their lives. Of course it all depends on what you are passionate about. However, here I would like to take a generalized and abstract view of passion, to understand them better.

Dictionaries define both emotion and passion as a strong feeling, but one needs to differentiate between instantaneous emotions and passion. A passion is basically an interest on a subject that develops over time and is consciously fed and processed by the higher layers of our mind. A passion usually is a positive thought or action, while instantaneous emotions can be a response to a perceived negative thought or action on those emotions.

To understand this important concept, we need to know about the human cognitive model. The human cognitive model consists of layers that processes the inputs (obtained through perceptions) to produce outputs. The lower layers react emotionally without processing much of the information; in other words they are the instantaneous responses to the events received by the perceptual organs. The higher layers however processes a given input with more information/knowledge and hence give a measured/matured response. The model also implies that the responses elicited from the higher layers take time to give an output.

Instantaneous Emotions such as anger are therefore from the lower layer of the cognition, while passions are from the higher layers. That's why a negative emotion such as anger or sorrow when not exhibited immediately, would get through the higher layers, and if consciously or sub-consciously fed, will lead to destruction or depression.

A well-developed passion can easily cause strong emotions. Often people end up with strong negative emotions or turn violent when actions or messages of others affect their passions. People, particularly politicians use this as a tool to stoke other's passions in order to make them commit for a cause or for their own benefit.

This does not mean that one should not have any passion - if that is the case, then life will not only be boring, but also achieving some thing of value would be extremely difficult. Without passion, you just cannot have 100% commitment, and without which you cannot achieve any thing significant enough. Hence one need to be careful and choosy about what they are being passionate about. But that is easily said, as passions are a reflection of one's personality, environment and influences that he might have undergone in his life.

Emotions and Communications - Part II

This is in continuation of Emotions and Intelligence - Part I. But in this, I would like to focus on the relation of emotions with the important component of our lives - Communication.

The main intent behind a communication is not only to pass on a message, but also to pass on emotions. I believe this applies not only to the human beings, but to all the species in this world. One can pass on almost any sort of emotion to the listener or the other party through a communication. According to me, the coupling of the emotion with communication is effectively utilized by many great political leaders.

Typically, many politicians or political leaders use this initially to stir up one's emotions, in their communication. Basically, they do this, by whipping up one's passions - a kind of emotion (more about this later) and most of the time it would be aimed to make your mind feel heavy - meaning - negative emotions, so that they can gear you up to obtain an objective (which may be of their interest!).

One should not assume that communication happens only through speech. There are a variety of ways through which humans can communicate - movies, books, and other subtle means such as painting, sculptures, gestures and so on. In fact, I believe that the number of ways in which a human being can communicate with his fellow beings is what that differentiates him from other species on this earth.

Most of us like stories and would like to watch movies or read books. What makes us interested in them is their ability to put us through various emotions, easily and effortlessly, though the other things such as the lessons from the story are just a take away. And, of course there is a lot of variety in movies and books - to cater to the various emotional needs of an individual, such as humour, horror, drama etc...

However there is a difference in hearing stories and watching movies, as in the former, our mind has to do the visualizations and hence needs to be creative, at the same time possess the knowledge for doing so, thereby imposing some cognitive load and simulating our thought processes (A bad thing for effective emotional communication!), while in the latter case of watching movies, the visualization with the emotions are spoon-fed to us and we directly immerse in those emotions. Hence, movies are more powerful, in the sense, that they can ignite even a lazy mind, and/or a mind that might not possess the required knowledge to create the visualization on its own!.

People often speak of gender, when it comes to emotions and communications. The difference I feel that lies in the emotions between a man and woman, is that women may get entangled in emotions and act and react with those emotions in many number of instances than men - I feel the count is what makes the difference. However, this may not be applicable to every man and woman on this earth!.

Update: Emotions and Passion - Part III