Language is just a means of expression!

Being a part of the CrazyEngineers Forum and the social media (that you can’t get rid of even if you want to), statements from random people that are grammatically incorrect and inherently erred have become commonplace. Then again we belong to the land where dialect changes after every mile, so the actual, purest form of language gets lost somewhere amidst the chaos of one language impacting the other. My mother tongue being Marathi, I have a lot of issues with people who don’t pronounce Marathi words correctly or change the basic syntax or genders of objects around us. I used to interrupt people & tell them the correct usage. It used to be quite annoying for them & for me. That was till I came face to face with a foreign language, Japanese.

In the process of understanding the nuances of this new language and having a hard time remembering & later recalling the exact sentence formation (which was actually really interesting), I experienced changes in my way of perception.

Invention of language ...was an accident?!

From the ages when apes ruled the Earth only different kinds of sounds & snorts must have been used to interact with each other. These later put into organized formats and beautified with grammar and termed as ‘Language’.

So, coming to think of it this way, I realized that the rules of language are all defined by us, human beings & now we find reasons to impose them on one another. Isn’t the purpose of language fulfilled when the other person understands precisely what you are saying even though the words used do not adhere to the prescribed regulations? Language is in fact created to pull down the barriers in conveying our thoughts & ideas. It is meant to give us the chance to express. If not for the language, the most awesome things would have left confined in our brains.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean. Therefore, does it really matter how we utter things when all that we want is the other person to just understand what we are saying? You must agree with me on the fact that there is that one expression, one nod, one smile, one sound or one word that conveys things almost perfectly to certain people without making it necessary for us to “describe” it to them.

Why then is there a so much clamor around perfecting a language we speak or write? Why can’t we give everyone the freedom of expression by not raising eyebrows at those incorrect pronunciations?

I guess, the answer lies in the fact that we feel bliss in the purity of the form.

I would like to know your views, so please express in the comments.

Carl Sagan Quote ‘We are one species’ – Zeitgeist Addendum

Just wanted to make a note of this:

An extraterrestrial visitor examining the differences among human societies would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities.

Our lives, our past and our future are tied to the sun, the moon and the stars. We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that sculpted this work and we, who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, have begun to wonder about our origins – star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth.

Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring.
We are one species. We are star stuff harvesting star light.”

- Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)

I am reading & watching a lot about The Zeitgeist Movement. This post serves like a time capsule for me.

You know, just for the records.

FOMO – The Fear Of Missing Out!

A friend asked me to read an article in ‘Oxygen’ – the supplement that comes with the local Marathi newspaper ‘Lokmat’. It talked about a new kind problem popping out in this digital era. It’s called FOMO – Short form for ‘Fear of missing out’. I don’t remember the exact content, but the idea of the article stuck with me. It had a story that goes something like this -

It’s a saturday night. Nothing to do. I have no thoughts of work. I am ready to spend a quiet night at home. I think of browsing through the internet before hitting the sheets. I switch on the Laptop and open my Facebook account. Suddenly I see a flood of recent notifications on the page. Some friends have gathered at a venue near my apartment. But why? What was happening there? Then I see pictures of other friends enjoying fancy milkshakes at a trendy restaurant. Suddenly, my simple domestic pleasures start looking pale in comparison with the things I could be doing.

The flurry of possibilities set off a rush of restlessness and indecision. I am torn between nesting in my cozy roost or rallying for an impromptu rendezvous, and I just don’t know what to do.

- That was a story published in the supplement along with a logical explanation of why this happens. Out of curiosity I searched about it and found a similar article published in NYTimes and the term ‘FOMO’ listed in urban dictionary. That proves, thousands of youngsters must be facing this state of mind (though were few will reluctantly agree.)

FOMO refers refers to the blend of anxiety, inadequacy and irritation that can flare up while skimming social media like Facebook & Twitter. Billions of Twitter messages, status updates and photographs provide thrilling glimpses of the daily lives and activities of friends, co-workers and peers. The upside is immeasurable. Viewing postings from my friends scattered around the country often makes you feel more connected to them. But, occasionally, there is a darker side.

When we scroll through pictures and status updates, the worry that tugs at the corners of our minds is set off by the Fear of Regret – The fear of missing out!

90% of the people, burdened by this ever-increasing peer pressure, won’t have a clue on how to handle it. This the reason why we see so many people going out of the way to do all those things that their friends are doing. No! Really! – How could I be the one left out?

PS: I agree that the image is quite irrelevant.

10 Things I Learned From The Big K

Somehow, growing up & learning years never seem to come to a halt. I get to learn so many things each day. From the time I first breathed sense I have consciously thought of The Big K as a real-life super hero. I thought of listing down some points for why I feel so. Following this is a collection of feel-good thoughts I unconsciously picked up from Biggie.

1. Self Belief
What my conscience tells me is always right. People bug you all the time. They tell you that you are stupid and your work is insane. It’s only self belief that gets you to the right shore.

2. Patience
If Rome was not built in a day, how can I convert my dreams into reality overnight? It takes undaunted patience to push through all the thick and thin and watch the dream unfolding before your eyes. And what a beautiful view that is.

3. Staying cool
Decisions taken in haste and in an angry state of mind will always prove fatal, whereas if I keep my head cool, most of the angry storms turn their course away.

4. Fighting fear
Easiest way to tackle fears is to just do it and then keep trying till perfection is achieved. It’s the unknown we fear, when we fear without trying.

5. No excuses
Like they say, for certain things in life, there are no second chances. The same way, there is no space for excuses. Either I nod and say yes or I shake my head and say no. There’s no point in hanging between these two giving random excuses, because even if you do it ultimately, it’s too little & too late.

6. Talking Sense
Dumbnuts who keep chattering endlessly with little or no sense in their verbose are particularly very irritating than anything else. Talking little, but talking sense is something I’ve started appreciating highly.

7. Turning a Deaf Ear
Listening to people brag and boast about things that are not even close to praiseworthy would get to my nerves. Turning a deaf ear to that and all other unpleasant tit-bits helps focusing on the more important things in life.

8. Execution of things at hand
Dwelling on the past and unending planning of the future leads to a moment when present has become past and future in not as planned. Instead, successful execution of the work at hand gets instant results and instant happiness.

9. Being Passionate
It’s the only that gets you up in the morning with an enthusiastic state of mind and keeps warm blood rushing through your veins the whole day.

10. Persistence
Being persistent with whatever I feel passionate about.

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All the points mentioned above are more or less the output of using common sense. You may not need a Big K for learning those. Everyone eventually learns them the hard way.
Guess what, I’m feeling lucky today!

A song dedicated to Biggie:

Theory of Everything and Nothing

I saw an awesome documentary from BBC called ‘Theory of Everything and Nothing‘ that left me perplexed and made me write this post. It gives insights on a unifying explanation that can make sense of the infinitely tiny as well as the infinitely large. The quest for finding an answer to the theory of everything is every physicist’s dream.

What I am writing about in this post is not about what this theory is, or rather what it can be in future. It’s about how even a little knowledge about the vast space above us all can make us realize what we are here for and where we are heading and sometimes change the way we look at life, starting with the daily chores.

When we know, that our presence and existence is not confined within the 20km radius of our home,  we realize that we are the tiniest possible specks in this enormously huge cosmos. When we start to understand that there are thousands of unlocked mysteries that have deep meaning and more importance than any of our biggest day-to-day problems, we know there is definitely more to life than what we think.

We attach so much importance to our mundane world and our thoughts are way too commonplace, that we forget & fail to open up our mind for it’s true potential. We often create so much havoc for petty issues like when – the clothes are not ironed, food is not ready, keys are misplaced, dogs are barking at night, neighbors bang our door at odd hours, friend is not picking up calls, spouse won’t listen to you, exams ahead and no preparation …(and I can go on like this for an hour), that it’s unbelievable how many of us live the life almost blindfolded.

And what happens when we shake our head and try to look above all this? Try imagining yourself lifted up above and looking at you from the top of our universe. What you will see is your life is just like an ant that you might see daily in your room but it’s SO miniscule that it’s life and it’s world doesn’t matter to you and you are not bothered about it. That’s how we might look like when seen from above. Think about it for a minute.

If you know what I am trying to put down here, we have to stop being so self-centered and believe in the importance of the nature. The nature’s nature is so intricate and so vast that you will be left aghast by what you were ignoring for so many years of your life.

Till next time, admire the beauty of this:

PS: 1. This is the only post in which I have used maximum number of “so”s till date.

2. This is the first time I read the whole post after writing it, looking for silly grammar mistakes.