December 24, 2013

Poem: Musings

I mused in the Winter of 1986 as I sat through engineering graduate school.  I mused again 26 years later in the Winter of 2013.

Perhaps you might conclude my thinking has changed in the couple of decades that have elapsed since 1986, even if it has been all downhill since then!

I can only hope you find that the musings have stayed within the guardrails of schmaltz and contrivance on the one hand and cloying or assertion on the other.

Hope you enjoy these musings...
Year - 1986
---------------

#1

1970s movie - Coma
Between the worlds of
Big and small
We live as entities
Awaiting the call





#2

Within the boundaries
Of birth and death
How many games we play
Fooled by the all pervading myth

#3

Tell me the way
To break free
So I can hold life
Instead of it holding me

#4

Philosopher Homer with a wide following

If you happen to detect
I am losing my senses
Do no come to protect
My transcending pretenses





 
#5

To bear so much slime
In the messy ocean of time
When I must really be free
To enjoy eternity

#6

Intelligence complete
Show this particle discrete
The way to be blind
To differences that bind

#7

If divinity is reality
And life a duality
Then, what am I;
A dual reality?

#8


Destiny?
May fate give you
The best path in life
Accident?
I wish
Your dice are loaded






#9

The droplet
Seeking salvation
Sank bewildered
Into the ocean of enormity

#10

Is happiness
A state of mind
That determines
The mode of our daily grind?



 Year 2013
-----------------
#11


Leaders stand tall
Not succumbing to power's thrall
A peaceful transition
Makes a strong nation







# 12
 
Those events of ages
Fills history's pages
Mystic memories or lapses
Just electrochemical synapses


#13

Time is about healing
The hurt one is feeling
A curious surprise
Distance affects the pained cries

#14
Out there, an exo-planet
Perhaps carbon life-form habitat ...
In cosmic time scales
Will our journey set sail?

#15
Crab Canon - Mobius Strip
A journey with no goal
The journey its own shoal
Music is such
As notes transform to the touch



#16

Adam Smith focused on the I
And Marx wanted to split the pie
The former continues his story
The latter in the dustbin of history

#17

Japanese Sketch - Mythic Hold

The ground beneath gives a frightening shake
A trail of destruction in its wake
Quakes, cyclones or tornado alley
Tragedy cannot be measured by statistical tally





#18

Mandelbrot Set
Singing Newton's tune
Got us to the moon
But beware reliance on this tool
For complexity lurks to fool






#19

Mt. Kilimanjaro

A collection of climbs should serve us well
When all is said and done
It should be real fun
With all the 'tall' tales to tell!




#20

Inscrutable mysteries surround us
Time, Infinity, Fractals, Mars/Venus
But friends, family and self
Help park such conundrums on the shelf 
 

-------

Notes:

1986

#1

My subsequent essay elaborating on this topic titled Suspended Animatron:
http://agingonthevine.blogspot.com/2011/04/suspended-animatron.html

#2

We operate between guard rails. And accept our part in the Leela as real. Reminds me of Narada's tale where he dreams of a rich and luxurious life.

#3
We appear to be under the grip of assumptions. Perhaps we can call the bluff?

#4

How do we appear to each other? If behavior is outside a norm, then we assign the person as crazy. Assigning as crazy and dismissing as crazy are two different things, the latter being a loss!

#5

Is time a fundamental reality or a mental construct?  What would a physicist say?  The past is recorded as memory - connections between neurons.  In what sense is that real?  Going Zen is collapsing the past and future into the current second we are in - it seems like.

 #6

I am asking for vairagya in this musing.  But I am appealing to an 'intelligence complete' for such a grant.  I am an intelligent design sceptic on the one hand and also believe that intelligence (and consciousness) is an emergent property of our brain.  Thus, am not sure what exactly I am appealing to...

Blaise Pascal applied game theory to this eternal question and concluded that, "the best course of action is to believe in God regardless of any lack of evidence, because that option gives the biggest potential gain"

 #7

I know the monist's response here and his specific disagreement with line 2.  But the question remains ...

#8

Our attitude to how the world works swings wildly between rules that work and predictions and random brownian motion.  But having said that one thing we can bank on is good will we can wish upon each other.  So why not use both metaphors to wish each other well?

#9

I was riding on the Staten Island ferry past the Statue of Liberty and the sun shining on the waves.  The water droplets glistened like many pearls and diamonds.  It was a beautiful sight.  Each droplet served its function of refracting the light.  But then looking at the vast expanse of the ocean, I wondered about the droplet.  The fact is that it became one with the Atlantic ocean as the waves churned.  But was it bewildered?  I am.

#10


2013

#11

Mandela's passing away and the watching the changing of the guard makes me realize that an orderly transition of power is most important to stability, health and strength.  Mandela, like Washington willingly gave up his presidency (and perhaps both were glad to).  The opposite of that is Mugabe in Zimbabwe who has used his Freedom Fighter image to stay well beyond his welcome.  The changing of the guard reminded me of any number of military coups in history around the world and how the military needs to restrain itself and know the difference between civil and military power.

There is a fascinating story about General Manekshaw and Indira Gandhi - worth researching this story!

#12

Recently I wrote a poem based on the concept of Blink and applying to the English Alphabet.  But what is memory, other than firing between neurons?

#13

I can think of a dozen painful episodes where the pain and hurt were overwhelming.  And after decades or years or months or weeks as the case maybe, the pain is gone.  And here I am not talking about physical wounds, but rather mental anguish….

#14

The first exo-planet, a planet outside our solar system was discovered only in 1995!  Wow….  And in 18 short years, we have plotted hundreds and thousands of them.  With more and more data gathered and analyzed and more and more powerful telescopes being installed with additional sensitivity and range, how long before the first 'aha! we got one…' moment!?  

I wish to celebrate that moment for all of humanity.

The question is the cosmic time scales are vast and our own human history (all of it) is a blink of an eye.  So what is the chance that our time scale and time history matches another planet's that we can actually find life-forms elsewhere?

This is such a fantastic demonstration of human spirit… 

If you have not followed Natalie Batalha, the exo-planet hunter, please do - she is an exciting scientist who is willing to share here findings and discovery with the general public.

#15
Musical notations appear strange on ruled pages - some up and some down.  Looking at them, a lay person has no idea what they entail.  But the musician who picks up the instrument and starts following those notes creates a magical experience, which is an end in of itself.

While prose, like the paragraph above has a purpose and aims to convey a meaning.  The musical notes just are - they touch the heart not the brain.

I hope you enjoy this piece - the crab canon (haunting!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUHQ2ybTejU

#16

To the uninformed, the choice between selfishness and selflessness would have been obviously the latter.  But how counter intuitive that the approach that has generated such material progress around the world rests on the curious notion that it is better to pursue one'w own interests and through that the society benefits.

In hindsight, the genius of that thinking is recognizing who we are and what makes us tick.  And rests on the notion of individual freedom.

However where there is a Ying there is a Yang.  Most recent studies show that giving makes us more happy and live longer.  So the new thinking is how to balance these two.

#17

We have been hardy living through extreme weather situations whether it is the Innuit up north in the great winters or in the blazing heat of the Congo.

But when you think of Volcanoes, earthquakes, cyclones and tornados - you realize the awesome and destructive power of nature against which we have very little protection.  The Tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka is too epic to even imagine.

And yet, we persist and labor on!

#18

In as much as we would love to have linear causality, the world around us is infinitely complex and how everything interacts with everything else is something we are grappling with in fits and starts.

I heard a 2013 podcast on complexity. Apart from a few new case studies (such as crowd behavior), the basic learning do not seem to have changed from when I read James Gleick 'a book in 1989!
#19




#20

A Mars/Venus discussion in the Wall Street Journal this week:  http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304858104579262231486059794.

 Every time we think we make progress, the universe throws open never ending layers of mystery.  

 However, it seems to me that a Zen break with friends, family and solitary 'musings' allows for a soul nourishing tranquility.

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