a common man ಸಂಜಯ

I’m write this as a record [approximate, based on old memories], of my RSI and all its consequences. If anybody already has the problem, then hopefully this should help. I think after all my research, I have many solutions! I know many people for whom this has occurred and dissapeared never to appear again. So its not necessary that any of this applies to you. But the solutions are good fun anyway, none of them involve any injections or bitter pills

To begin at the the beginning…

Ever since engineering, I was a programmer, and apart from than that, also a chatter and emailer. And… an obsessed computer gamer… [totally addicted to Doom (3D virtual reality computer game) among others]. Around the year 2000, I hardly noticed this pain which came in my hands once in a way.

It was around January, 2001 when the pain increased. I started consulting doctors, who referred me to orthopedics (and charged me for consultation anyway). And I had thought orthopedics only dealt with bones. I saw around half a dozen orthopedics, both in Bangalore and in Germany. Bone scan, x-ray, etc didn’t show anything. They all said almost the same thing… just use ice packs… hot packs… ointments… bandages… wrist splints… it would go away in a few days. I went through all kinds of treatment for six months and none of the treatment really helped. I tried typing with only two fingers and wearing my wristbands and using the wrist pad, didn’t help much. Many did give me temporary relief, but after starting to type, it came back.

At first, it used to pain only when I used a PC during the week. It would subside over the weekend. At one time, I applied for 4 days leave from a Thursday to Sunday. I was shit scared on Saturday because even after two days of complete rest, I still had a lot of pain! The main thing is the more I worried about this, the worse it got!

It didn’t help much when I came to know that were some group of doctors in Australia, who were trying to prove that tendonitis doesn’t exist at all! They were being funded by companies who were getting sued by their employees!

One thing I did not like about a couple of doctors I consulted was, the moment I said “hand pain” they would go “oh you’re a computer programmer right? right! Oh ok I know all about you and your problem. I have seen so many people like you!” And I could make out he wasn’t really listening to when I started describing my situation. He would gleefully start writing out a prescription even while I was talking, and would typically prescribe some squeezeable toy or some ointment. Even if I said “Ive tried that, it dosent work” it wasn’t much use.

Anyway, one of the better doctors I consulted said that it is caused mainly because of the “circus” that the wrists do while typing multiple keys simultaneously! Unfortunately this can’t be avoided because that’s the way software is designed… how would I ever code if I can’t use Ctrl-C Ctrl-V Well, came across a solution for that, there’s this Sticky Key option in Win2k (Accessibility Options).

It was amazing how such a simple action as clicking a mouse button could send a mild electric shock down my hand. I started using my mouse with my left hand, not without some initial confusion. Strangely, switching the mouse settings to make it a left-handed mouse made things simpler. Eventually my left hand was affected too, and I had to then keep alternating between my two hands. Came across this neat tool to avoid mouse clicking… www.mousetool.com It was pretty intuitive and I used it for over 6 months… Only thing was if somebody else used my PC, all the windows would go completely berserk with random clicks all over the place… but luckily it had a task bar item thru which it can be turned on and off. A very useful feature was the 30 minutes stretch timer which pops up a message box every 30 minutes reminding you to take a break.

There were a lot of information available on correct ergonomic postures. Though at times, different sources seemed to contradict each other, the basic principles were the same. But somehow though I corrected my posture, after half an hour I would find myself back in my old slouching position. I even tried really weird shaped ergonomic keyboards and mice.

Immersing my hands in hot water provided some temporary relief.

All those helped, but didn’t really eliminate the problem.

There was a typing tutor software which said RSI is caused due to the QWERTY keyboard layout. This is because the QWERTY layout was designed for the old models of typewriters to make it as hard as possible for the typist (So that they could keep up!). It suggested that I learn the DWORAK layout. But somehow that didn’t appeal to me… I was a touch typist and the idea of unlearning QWERTY to learn DWORAK didn’t sound very attractive.

At one point, my hand became very weak. I had difficulty lifting even small weights which I didn’t have earlier. That’s when I really panicked. I had to seriously start considering giving up the use of a computer forever.

One fine day… I had an unbelievable breakthrough!! One rare Sunday morning when I successfully woke up early in the morning, I went to 18th cross grounds and played Frisbee. The way we play Frisbee is we stand about 100 – 150m apart, and almost run 20m away to catch the Frisbee (not direct hand to hand throws)… really ‘high-end’ playing! At the end of the session, I was stunned to discover that the pain was virtually gone!!! It was there slightly in my left hand… but didn’t come to my right hand until Thursday!

When it returned on Thursday, I knew that it was not invincible and permanent. I knew that I could beat it. The relief had brought tremendous confidence within me. I started experimenting with different ways of tackling the problem, this time from a fresh perspective, from a scientific point of view. The pain which had been my enemy was now the subject of a very interesting investigation!

I found that practicing the karate punches which I had learned a long time ago from my brief martial arts stint helped. Badminton and table tennis were very good. I tried my best to burn fat and lose weight… one theory was that due to fat in blood vessels, blood circulation is not enough for hands.

There’s no permanent cure for RSI, it keeps recurring again at again at unpredictable intervals.

Sree Kumar (from icope) told me an inspiring story – that of Sachin Tendulkar’s. When Sachin was diagnosed with a back-injury many years ago, the doctors told him that he cannot play cricket any more. He didn’t give up, and did some back exercises and got back to form. His back injury is permanent .. but he still continues those exercises… and he still plays cricket.

At one time when my pain recurred, I decided to give a friend’s recommendation a try. I went to a “natural healer” (I forgot the exact term). Her system was based on massages with some weird smelling oil, pressing the arms with a cloth dipped in boiling hot water (ouch!) and reiki and meditation and what not. I was cynical at first, because till the day I consulted her, I had thought that allopathic system of medicine was the only one which worked, all others were based merely on psychological effects. Anyway most such impressions changed that day. She was the first doctor (though not officially) I had consulted till then who could explain the root cause of the problem. She told me that its not just because of wrong computer usage, it also gets aggravated by the way I ride my 2 wheeler. In both situations, I unconsciously tense my elbows. She suggested that I make it a point to relax the arms while riding.

However it was easier said than done, and it took quite a while to undo the old habit pattern of the mind of tightening the arm muscles, especially while driving in heavy traffic involving frequent use of the accelerator and brake.

Years rolled by and I changed my workplace, and attended some Yoga classes. I was lucky that my instructor did not pre-condition my mind with a lot of theory about chakras and what not. Knowing a lot of theory before practicing it can be counter-productive, because the mind begins to “expect” certain things to happen instead of looking at what is actually going on. I could simply learn Yoga as it was, and it was a lot of fun.

Eventually, I was able to observe the tension of the muscles in my wrists, elbows and shoulders, as well as the slouching of my back while riding my scooter. I could work towards gradually correcting the situation to make the new posture the “default” behavior.

At the risk of sounding like some stereotype advertisement, my suggestion to others about RSI would be… don’t fear it, face it and beat it.

As I type this now, in July 2003, I still have the occasional sharp shooting pain. I smile at it and acknowledge it. I know I am more powerful than it. And I keep on typing.

Some of the information given in the below link could be quite intimidating. But it should not be, once the problem is accurately understood:
The RSI Page

Some useful excerpts wrt posture from some articles:

The most essential thing is to sit with your back straight. The spine should be erect with the spinal vertebrae held like a stack of coins, one on top of the other. Your head should be held in line with the rest of the spine. All of this is done in a relaxed manner. No Stiffness. You are not a wooden soldier, and there is no drill sergeant. There should be no muscular tension involved in keeping the back straight. Sit light and easy. The spine should be like a firm young tree growing out of soft ground. The rest of the body just hangs from it in a loose, relaxed manner. This is going to require a bit of experimentation on your part. We generally sit in tight, guarded postures when we are walking or talking and in sprawling postures when we are relaxing. Neither of those will do. But they are cultural habits and they can be re-learned.

Breathing

Breathing correctly helps regulate your entire psychophysical structure. Calm breath calms the mind, and heavy, rapid breathing accelerates the tempo of your thoughts and leads to tension of the body. The function of the breath is to supply oxygen to the body and to cleanse and purify the dark impure blood into vitalizing red blood. The breath indirectly supplies energy to the body by the explosion of oxygen into atoms of life force. Through habit, our bodies have become accustomed to food and air, but if we de-condition ourselves and train ourselves to life more by the life force, the less will we need to depend on secondary sources of sustenance, such as, food, oxygen, water, and sunshine.

To breathe properly, it is important that you also maintain a proper posture. Look carefully around you and you will observe the apathy with regard to this vital statistic of life. Right now, stop and check on how you are sitting or standing. Slouched, are you?!? If you exist all-folded-up, you’ll restrict your breathing, squash your internal organ functioning, and generally limit the effectiveness of your clarity, awareness levels, and overall perspectives in life. When you breathe, remember to keep your spine straight and upright. The head should be held relaxed but looking straight ahead with the chin only slightly upraised. If the whole vertebral column is taut and rigid, moving upward from the coccyx (the tailbone at the base of the spine), seek to loosen and relax each of the many vertebrae turn by turn, all the way to the crown of your head. Simultaneously, lengthen up the front of your body from the pubic bone to the upper portion of the breastbone. Never sit with a crooked spine and squeezed lungs. As you breathe, deep and slow, remember that your diaphragm should (the area just below your ribs; the muscular partition between your chest and your stomach) expand with every inflow, and should contract with every outflow of breath. Throughout the day, cultivate the habit of doing spot checks on your breathing process. Speak with your diaphragm, and encourage it to expand a little bit more than it normally does. When you breathe in, the region of the abdomen must expand, and when we breathe out, it must contract; so many of us do just the reverse. Make a conscious and then unconscious habit of this and see the effects it quickly weaves into your life.

Symptoms, then, are in reality nothing but a cry from suffering organs.
~ Jean-Martin Charcot

I settled down in my apartment. If I were to imagine a perfect place to stay in, it would be quite identical to this one. I was in the top (first) floor, and my house has really huge windows overlooking a lawn below. There was plenty of light and ventilation, and a lot of greenery around. I could open my window to a chorus of a wide variety of songbirds. No sound of cars anywhere. This was quite incredible, because even if the house was a bit towards either end of the road would have meant a lot of noise. [Quite a striking contrast to the hotel I was staying in earlier, which was located next to a roundabout (circle). The room almost rattled with every car which passed the roundabout... which was every 2 seconds.]

This was a studio apartment which has one spacious room doubling as a bedroom + living room. It had a bed, cupboards, a sofa set and a chair. There was also a a small kitchen and a bathroom. The kitchen was well equipped, having a washing machine (+ dryer), microwave oven, electric stove, oven (which i have no clue on how to use) and toaster and vacuum cleaner and all utensils, lots of other stuff. Quite impressively, it had everything I would ever need, or would ever imagine I might need in the future. Also a lot of things I would never need too.

But the single greatest luxury in this apartment is that it has no television. Television is one of the biggest vacuum cleaners of time. True I can tell myself that I have will power and will have an organized life, its all a matter of maintaining discipline. I can tell myself that I will watch this movie for exactly 2.5 hours on this day of the week or spend 10 minutes on this news bulletin for only 10 minutes every morning. But over the past few years, I’ve seen that what really happens once I switch on the TV, my mind kind of “switches off”. I just keep changing channels one after the other. With such a lot of variety of programs on so many channels, I concluded that at any point in time, there will always be atleast one program on one of the channels which I “simply have to watch and cannot afford to miss”. So I was delighted to be freed from its shackles. Ive actually spent time reading books and talking advantage of the late sunsets and walking outside in the evenings.

How much of time do I have? This is a question that bothers me once in a way. “Time for what?” is the next question. Its an assumption that I always have that I am going to live for atleast another 40 to 50 years [except occasionally while paying for my Life Insurance Policy]. 50 years sounds like forever from this point in time. If time is viewed like distance, then that 50 years from now looks like something way beyond the horizon. My whole lifestyle is based on the assumption. Yet one look at it immediately reveals how flimsy and baseless that assumption really is. So to face the truth, I really have absolutely no clue about how much time I have. And I have no clue about what I must do within that time. Which in turn means, I have no clue about what constitutes wastage of time… and what constitutes a useful way of spending it. Maybe time spent in having fun and doing something you like is time well spent, and doing things you don’t like is wastage? That dosent sound right, nor do any of the other endless list of other questions and possibilities that follow that question.

It reminds me of Neo in the Matrix who says “I really wish I knew what I have to do”. I read somewhere that you must find out your life’s purpose, and then put in all your energy into fulfilling that purpose. I don’t know if there really is some such thing as a “life’s purpose”, right now Im still figuring out my own (I hope that itself isnt a purpose… it better be more interesting than that!!)

[Later discussed with Conan... he had some thoughts: "time spent doing positive things like helping people, etc is time spent well... other things are time wasted". And he added a very important point... something that I do a lot... "too much of time spent on doing one thing is time wasted"]

[Later on, while waiting for a train I walked into a shop to buy a sandwich and saw some books there. I had a look at some of the books, one caught my eye titled "10 thoughts about time" (by Bodil Johnson). I flipped through it and was amazed to see one page where she had expressed exactly what I had been thinking about! Note (*) at the end of this entry]

So coming back to the mundane topic of television, in UK there are 4 tv channels which come without cable, just like DD. Two are from BBC and don’t have any ads at all. So how do they support it? The answer is quite diabolical… every UK resident HAS to pay a TV tax, 130 pounds a year… whether he watches those channels or not! Conan said they are quite dirty people, they keep sending red letters (critical priority letters if a red border is used) to people as if they are criminals who are trying to evade this tax. They assume people are evading it until proved otherwise! So that’s one more advantage of not having a TV, I’ll have nothing to do with these guys. Conan said even if people say they don’t have a TV, they search inside the house to see if it is hidden somewhere!

One strange appliance in my apartment was an electric shower. Now why the heck would anyone ever want an electric shower… cant people simply turn on and off a simple tap?!! I felt mixing electricity and water was pretty risky. But it turned out that the shower is actually a more refined version of the instant geyser we get back home, its not just a switch to turn water on and off, but also heats it. Pretty neat. And till now, no electric shock… so far so good.

Over the next few days, I got used to managing my house. I tried to create and incorporate environmental friendly ways of housekeeping. Here are some of the ideas, not very original though, just some things that I remembered which I had heard long ago.

- Don’t keep the fridge door open for more time than necessary. Hence know what you need and then open the door, and close it immediately afterwards.

- Any food that is taken from the fridge should be kept back immediately after taking out the required quantity. So if I remove a can of yoghurt, I pour what I need into a cup and keep the rest back immediately. This is also keeps the food fresh, thawing and recooling the food isnt healthy.

- Cover the vessels when kept on the stove, so that heat loss due to radiation is reduced.

- Keep the water flow from a tap to the minimum while washing vessels because otherwise most of the water just goes down the sink.

- Switch off every electrical appliance including lights immediately after Im done with them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Note (*): the below is from some weblog and after seeing this, I felt I should have bought the book after all.]

Ten Thoughts about Time
>I just finished reading a book by Swedish professor Bodil Jonsson,
>called ’10 ajatusta ajasta’ (‘Tio tankar om tid’, ‘Ten Thoughts about
>Time’). One of her aims is to provoke the reader to review how he or
>she experiences time. According to Jonsson, the fact that we feel in a
>hurry, i.e. short of time, need not be the case. In fact she says that
>’time is all we have’, nothing else. She makes a distinction between
>’clock time’ and personal ‘perceived’ time.

She also gives advice on how to gain more of the ‘perceived’ time, and for this she presents various methods. One of the methods is to learn to identify how our time nowadays is divided into small pieces by appointments, dates, meetings, scheduled holidays etc. In our childhood, on the other hand, we had long summer holidays without any definite plans, no dividing elements, which then resulted us experiencing the time as very long; actually experiencing more and in a deeper way. Getting more undivided time, which can be gained in various ways, is one of the keys to get more ‘perceived’ time. An example of her suggestions on how to get more undivided time, are mobile phone free coaches in trains, where one could experience an undisturbed, i.e. an undivided time period for the duration of the train trip. She says that she as actually proposed this to the Swedish railroads. Undivided time is also essential for the thought process; as she says: ‘Thoughts take time’ (‘tankar tar tid’). If you feel that you are short of time or not in control of it, try reading this book. I’ll try to implement at least some of its thoughts in my life.

————————————————–

This is from my diary, the entries are just as I later remembered how things happened… and I don’t think even I can stand by now for everything I thought/said/did then

_________________________________________

2-July-2003

Bristol, UK

———–

I went to a public toilet near the city center the other day. It was in the basement, and as I entered it, I was hit by the unbearable stench of an uncleaned loo. It was very strong, and for a few moments I felt some difficulty in breathing. I thought let me finish and get out as soon as possible.

Imagine my shock when I saw a guy lying down and sleeping there. I could not imagine why he chose this this place of all places!! At first glance, one might think he has fainted. But just when I entered, he had looked up and glanced at me. There was nobody else in the bathroom except for one person using one of the closed toilets [I could see the shoes]. I quickly finished my business… feeling acutely uncomfortable if he was some criminal or some low down guy… he might suddenly come behind me and slit my throat and flee with my wallet.

I hurried outside without looking back. As soon as I reached the fresh air outside… I found myself feeling sorry for him. I wondered what kind of situation would have made him get into such a circumstance that he had to find accomodation in a bathroom like that. Even the poorest people in India are better off. How many diseases he will be getting breathing in such air!

I half wondered whether I should go and just give him some money and say “I am taking a gamble with my money… that you will use this to get yourself out of this situation that you are in”. But a moment later I dismissed this thought, if he were to have the insight to use the money, he would not have got himself into such a situation in the first place??

—————–

[no date... somewhere around Apr-2000]
Dusseldorf
Germany
————

I had been to Berlin Saturday and Sunday, and returned to Duesseldorf Haupt Bahn Hof (main railway station) on Monday morning at 1 AM. Went out of the railway station to catch a tram to go home. Bad news. There were no trams during the night, last one was at around 11:30 PM, and the first one in the day was around 4:30 AM. After some looking around, I found that the only alternative was to take a taxi home, though I had no idea how expensive it would be. It was summer, and the night was cool and comfortable with just a light breeze. I had only around 3 hours I thought I might as well sleep on a bench in the station. But when I tried to go back into the station, I was very surprised to see the security wouldn’t let me in. I tried to convince him that there was no way I could go back to my hotel and I just wanted to stay till the trams started, but I couldn’t convince him, particularly unhelpful was the fact that I was trying to do the convincing in English!

So mostly out of miserliness to take a taxi, and partly out of a sheer curiosity, I decided to spend the next few hours outside the station. There was a big open space in front of the station criscrossed with tram tracks and dotted with tram stops. And these stops had benches one might barely manage to sleep on. The place was mostly desolate except for some sparsely distributed people, some squatting on the floor apparently on a high smoking
something, and some lying on a bench. The lighting was a mixture of some well illuminated areas closer to the station, getting dimmer and dimmer dissolving into murky shadowy areas away from it. I picked an unoccupied bench somewhere in the middle, put my backpack as a pillow and my jacket as a sheet and tried to get some sleep.

Turned out to be impossible. Occasionally the eerie silence was broken by the sound of somebody laughing, or some drunkard swearing and smashing a bottle on the floor. And some bizaare sounds that had no explanation. Hmmm… this is how it was to be a tramp in Germany. Sometimes there would be some kind of streetfight in the distance, and I got tempted to get up and leave… but just a few hours more….

One chap unsteadily walked up to me as I watched warily through almost closed eyes, pretending to be asleep, hoping that he would just pass by. Then he made me jump out of my skin by extending his hand and asking something totally incomprehensible in German. I gave him the safest reply (by statistical evidence): “Nein, bitte” (no, please/sorry) and after he made a few more queries, that universal answer finally satisfied him and he staggered off.

Just a couple of hours more…

Finally after another angry scream from somewhere in the distance, I decided I had enough and took the taxi, which was probably a good idea as I could catch some sleep in my cosy 3 star hotel.

Later if I happen to stay over in somebodys place and the host asks me “I hope this is comfortable enough for you?” …I can only laugh… “comfortable? its luxury!”

—————
Con-woman on Cunningham Road
April 2002
Bangalore
———-

I’ve seen her a few times. The first time she approached me I was a bit impressed by her story & acting: she was with a torn medical bill saying that her husband is bed-ridden and she does not have money for medicines.

Then said I’d buy her the medicines, and conveniently she said there was no medical store on Cunningham Road – I said there’s Wockhard Hospital (for one) and she replied that they didnt have stock My theory at that time (around 1.5 years ago) was that she’s probably conning me, but let me take a gamble anyway in the remote chance that her story might be true.

Later on I saw her doing her act in front of someone else and I knew for certain I had got conned. I went and confronted her “oh the poor chap is still in hospital is it?” And she had the guts to face me cooly saying now it was for someone else!! And the thing is she speaks very well in different languages – depending upon her potential victim, she speaks Kannada, Tamil, Telegu, etc (who knows what else), as fluently as a native speaker, and also speaks pretty good English. And to add to that, shes a really good actress (probably because she’s rehearsed the same scene enough number of times!)

While its entertaining from one perspective, from another, its unfortunate that people like her make life very difficult for those who are genuinely in trouble. They create a very cynical attitude in the mindset of us city dwellers. It ends up with an attitude of mistrust, where we percieve any person who approaches as likely to “want something from us”.

I wonder if its really possible to evaluate each person independently rather than think theyre all conmen.

Hopefully one day we will live in a civilisation where any stranger is trusted by default, unless he/she proves to be unworthy of it.

—————
“Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness. ” – Matrix
—————

There is a way in which we may conduct our lives without regrets, and in such a manner as assists in developing and realizing our individual potential, without harming others, or inhibiting the realization of their potential, and which is beneficial to a healthy society.

Such a way of life may of course be conducted without a name, and without description, but in order that others may know of it, and so as to distinguish it from other ways in which life may be conducted, we give it a name, and use words to describe it.

When discussing or describing this way in which life may be conducted, rather than refer to it in full, for convenience, we refer to it as ‘the way’, meaning simply that the discussion is concerned with this particular way, not that it is the only way of conducting one’s life. In order that we
might distinguish it more easily from other ways, we refer to it also by its original name, which is ‘Tao’.

- Tao

Complete translation

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If you found that interesting… then I would say its only the tip of a gigantic iceberg…

We have the habit of associating mental images with words. For example, the word “sage” might remind one of a lonely guy roaming around a forest surviving merely on berries and leaves, and badly in need of a haircut. In reality, even a rich software engineer having bungalow, car, etc and happily married, could still be having many qualities of a “sage”. I see several people around me right here in my workplace who have many of the qualities described here!

To better appreciate this work of literature, I would suggest we not get limited by words and their meanings but look more at the bigger picture… at some of the fantastic ideas it presents.

At lunchtime (assuming its at the cafeteria)… have lunch next to some random colleague you dont know at all or are only vaguely familiar with.
Read the rest of this entry »

Some encounters with our fellow earthlings…

Read the rest of this entry »

A collection of some encounters with our fellow earthlings from my childhood days…

the parrot

One day my Dad got a parrot home in a cage. I was delighted with my new pet and planned to teach it to talk, just like the one in my school. I would make it happy giving it a lot of chillies (thats one thing parrots actually seem to enjoy eating!!).

But this one was silent most of the time.

It kept itself busy all its waking hours walking round and round the metal cage, methodically testing the strength of every single wire. My parents didnt share my enthusiasm and seemed quite unhappy looking at it. I said its probably because its new to the place, will become comfortable after some time. I promised to take good care of it. But even after a few days, its efforts were relentless and desperate as ever. Though now, there were times when it seemed to be a little tired and just sat in the center of the cage.

They said its better to let it go.

I protested and threw a tantrum and cribbed and revolted in every way I could, untill they finally relented. I tried to pay more attention to it, running to it every day after I returned from school. Under the supervision of my Mom, I made sure I gave it always had the right kind of food, and the water was never lacking.

After a week, we noticed one of its claws was bleeding due to its efforts to get out. That was it, there were no second thoughts now.

It was a holiday that morning, and all of us stood outside and watched while my Dad opened the door of the cage. The parrot stayed silent and motionless at first. Then it edged gingerely towards the entrance, and hopped outside.

It suddenly broke its almost perpetual mouna vratha – with a loud screech, it flew upwards!

Quite possible that it may be devoured by a hawk the next minute. For it it was no doubt a risk leaving the security of the cage, where it was being fed very well daily and provided water by a very zealous owner (i.e. yours truly). But that moment of freedom was undoubtedly more than worth the risk, and worth more than a lifetime of imprisonment in the cage.

We watched mesmerized as it dissappeared noisily into the sky.

Standing there silently, we shared a kind of quiet joy. Strangely, I felt no regrets at the loss of “my” pet

You are sure to love this book. Even if you don’t have the habit of reading, nor the time or inclination… I still strongly recommend that as an exception… you read this one book:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Its a very small book, but has a lightning bolt packed in it. It dosent have any “moral of the story” or something like that… but can be interpreted in many many ways.

Incidentally, the first time I came across the book, I flipped through a few pages and felt bored thinking “oh I know what hes probably going to talk about” and put it down and forgot about it.

I later came across a short story…

A university professor visited a Japanese Zen master to enquire about Zen.

Though the short story above talks about learning “Zen”, I guess the same could apply to learning anything.

I eventually happened to come across the book again. This time, I “emptied myself” and read the book, and the sheer brilliance gripped me for the next one hour, and I think many of the points will remain in my mind for a very long time.

Later update:

One of the many applications of this book is in software development – it started a long chain of thoughts in my mind in this regard, which I wrote as a story.

A Drawing Excercise

Try this drawing excercise… pay careful attention to the instructions… dont
worry too much about accuracy… its more about how your brain
works than your artistic skills . Btw the book (see the home page) is
supposed to be pretty good too and enhances creative thinking, etc in addition
to teaching drawing.

http://www.drawright.com/vaceface.htm
(you could even try the applet at the bottom of the page)

Awaken The Artist Within You

Fun With A Pencil by Andrew Loomis is a neat online book that teaches drawing
available at http://www.saveloomis.org/

--- Excerpt from the introduction ----
MR. WEBSTER DEFINES DRAWING
AS DELINEATION. THAT DOESN’T
TELL YOU HOW MUCH OF A REAL
"BANG" THERE IS IN IT. MAYBE
HE NEVER KNEW. MOST FOLKS
LOVE TO DRAW EVEN WHEN
THEY KNOW LITTLE ABOUT IT. IT
STARTED WITH THE CAVE MAN,
AND STILL SURVIVES ON THE
WALLS OF PUBLIC PLACES... BECAUSE
IT’S SO MUCH FUN, AND
SO EASY, IT’S A SHAME NOT TO BE
ABLE TO DO IT BETTER.
ANDREW LOOMIS

ALL THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW, TO START
THIS BOOK, IS HOW TO DRAW A CIRCLE. . . .

Don’t start out with that old gag, "I couldn’t draw a straight
line." Neither can I, freehand. If we need a straight line, we
can use a ruler. Now please try it, just for fun.
And it can be as lopsided as the family budget, and
still work out.

--- End of Excerpt ----
									

Unleash The Music Composer Within You

Intelligence alone will not solve problems,
unless it is linked with observation.
First observe, and then use the intelligence.
	---------
Use your intelligence to control the body
Before starting the movements of the body.
In the beginning,
The brain moves faster than the body;
later, the body moves faster than the brain.
The movement of the body and the intelligence of the brain
Should synchronize and keep pace with each other.

About Sudha Murthy… wife of Mr. Narayan Murthy,
CEO, Infosys

http://nipun.charityfocus.org/inspire/infosys.html

Zen
Stories

These are very small interesting stories typically
not more than a short paragraph or two. Yet inspite of their simplicity,
they offer surprisingly profound insights into human nature and the cosmos! And
more importantly, they’re a lot of fun to tell since they are also witty
and typically puzzling. The stories usually dont have one single obvious
‘moral’. They cause you to think, and different people interpret
different meanings in them. Talking about those meanings with your friends and
family can be a truly educational experience!

Hence you could use them as handy conversation
pieces, to help you and others talk, think, and laugh about the wondrous and
mysterious details of this thing we call Life.

http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/zenstory/zenframe.html

http://www.thesegoto11.com/zen/index.php3

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7948/Zen.html

Vedic Mathematics

How does Vedic mathematics differ from its more conventional counterpart? Mr.
Glover answers with an illustration. “Take the Wimbledon tennis competition.
There are 128 entrants, they play in a knock-out manner,” he says. “The first
round has 64 games, the next has 32 games until you reach the quarter-finals,
semifinals and the final.

“The problem is to find out how many matches there are all-together. The
conventional approach is to add the number of games- 64 plus 32 plus 16 plus
eight plus four plus two plus one-to get to the answer, which is 127.

Now the Vedic approach, which uses one of the sutras, argues in the following
way :-

“Since there are 128 players and only one person wins the competition, there
must be 127 losers and for each loser there is a match, so there are 127
matches.” Thus, Vedic mathematics teaches you different approaches to problems
systematically. That’s what makes it such a useful educative tool.

Vedic Maths Tutorial

Vedic Maths is based on sixteen sutras or
principles. These principles are general in nature and can be applied in many
ways. In practice many applications of the sutras may be learned and combined
to solve actual problems. These tutorials will give examples of simple
applications of the sutras, to give a feel for how the Vedic Maths system
works. These tutorials do not attempt to teach the systematic
use of the sutras. For more advanced applications and a more complete coverage
of the basic uses of the sutras, we recommend you study one of the texts
available.

A Gentle Introduction To South Indian Classical (Karnatic) Music
B y Mahadevan Ramesh

What is the focus of this primer?

Many of us have grown up in India, where we were exposed
to Indian classical music in one form or another. However, if you are not from
a musically inclined family, the odds are that you perceived classical music to
be something esoteric that only a selected few could understand and appreciate.
An occassional devotional song or a ‘classically tuned’ film song would have
made you stop and take note. Your curiosity could have been aroused. But, you
may have quickly ignored the instinct and made a beeline for the usual pursuits
in life. Even if you were interested enough to find out about classical music,
you did not know what books to read or who to talk to. Even if you managed to
talk to someone, it is likely that the person made you feel inadequate about
your lack of musical abilities or proceeded to give you a long lecture about
music with a million buzzwords that confused you and weaned you off your
curiosity. It is unfortunate that there is an almost total lack of simple,
readable, introductary texts on Indian classical music, especially when
compared to volumes and volumes of elementary books available on Western
Classical music. No wonder an average college-educated person in the USA is at
least mildly knowledgeable about Western classical music whereas an average
Indian is by and large ignorant about the technicalities of Indian classical
music. This primer is a feeble attempt to introduce Karnatic music in a gentle
way, in a language presumably we all can understand. I want to be able to
rekindle your interest and help you discover some of the ‘method’ and grammar
of Karnatic music. Even though these notes are aimed at introducing Karnatic
music, a lot of of what I have to say also apply to Hindustani Classical music.

http://www.aunet.org/ramesh/gentle1.html
http://www.aunet.org/ramesh/gentle2.html
http://www.aunet.org/ramesh/gentle3.html
http://www.aunet.org/ramesh/gentle4.html

A Brief Introduction to Carnatic Music

By Candida Connolly

Carnatic music is the classical music of South India, with ‘classical’ taken as
meaning a style ‘adhering to an established set of principles of regularity,
balance and purity of form marked by stability of form, intellectualism and
restraint’ (Collins dictionary).

The Carnatic raga is presented through various styles of composition,
improvisation – both a-rhythmically and within rhythmic structures – and
rhythmic patterns precomposed within various mathematical calculations. The
complexity of these rhythmic ideas has been and is being developed and refined
through the ages, by the rigorous practice and perfection of rhythmic
calculations, creating arguably the world’s most sophisticated rhythmic form.
The legacy of previous great musicians is also captured in their compositions
which are handed down to the next generation of musicians and are notated using
‘sargam’ – a script-dependent syllabic notation. Thus it is a style which both
preserves the musical ideas of great masters of the past and evolves with the
performances of living musicians.

http://www.amc.org.uk/education/articles/A%20Brief%0Introduction%20to%20Carnatic%20Music.htm

So you think you know all about Mahatma Gandhi?

Sure? Confident? Based on what I remember about history in school and movies and
the media, I was too… until I had a look at this excellent article…. a
real eye-opener especially the last paragraph on Satyagraha.

Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths
By Mark Shepard
http://www.markshep.com/nonviolence/Myths.html

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
By Richard Bach

I KNOW youre all very very busy, I KNOW you generally don’t have much leisure
time…

BUT…

Take my word for this just once. Buy this book (or print it out, its available
online at this link… http://www.42.dropbear.id.au/jls.html
)

Its so small you wont take more than an hour to finish it.

The first time I read it, I got bored after a few paras… but luckily
rediscovered it a few months later… and this time finished it at almost
one reading! It really made me feel… I wont tell you, hope you read it… but
its one of those small powerful books meant for both the young and old. So…
if at all you find it boring in the beginning… make an attempt to reach
atleast two pages till you give up!

This book can be read many times, each time we can learn something new from it!

Maslovs Heirarchy Of Needs

Maslow is a humanistic psychologist. Humanists focus upon potentials. They
believe that humans strive for an upper level of capabilities. Humans seek the
frontiers of creativity, the highest reaches of consciousness and wisdom. This
has been labeled “fully functioning person”, “healthy personality”, or as
Maslow calls this level, “self-actualizing person.”

Maslow has set up a hierarchic theory of needs. All of his basic needs are
instinctoid, equivalent of instincts in animals. Humans start with a very weak
disposition that is then fashioned fully as the person grows. If the
environment is right, people will grow straight and beautiful, actualizing the
potentials they have inherited. If the environment is not “right” (and mostly
it is not) they will not grow tall and straight and beautiful.

Maslow has set up a hierarchy of five levels of basic needs. Beyond these
needs, higher levels of needs exist. These include needs for understanding,
esthetic appreciation and purely spiritual needs. In the levels of the five
basic needs, the person does not feel the second need until the demands of the
first have been satisfied, nor the third until the second has been satisfied,
and so on.

http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/maslow.htm

What the Matrix was actually about

Many people didnt really appreciate the movie the Matrix much. They felt its
a boringly confusing movie with nothing but special effects and action to
its credit. (Maybe they had fixed ideas of what a “good movie”
should be like, and the Matrix dissapointed them when it didnt meet such
expectations.)

For some others, the movie got them thinking. They might agree with
Socarates who had said, “The life which is unexamined is not worth
living.”

I hope both kind of thinkers like this link… it shows the many diverse
kinds of ideas and thinking that went into the making of the Matrix.

Just to give an idea…
“At the beginning of The Matrix, a black-clad computer hacker known as Neo
falls asleep in front of his computer. A mysterious message appears on the
screen: “Wake up, Neo.” This succinct phrase encapsulates the plot of
the
film …”

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/index_phi.html

“The Buddha once visited a small town called Kesaputta in the kingdom of Kosala. The inhabitants of this town were known by the common name Kalama. When they heard that the Buddha was in their town, the Kalamas paid him a visit, and told him:
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