Ok I am liking this concept of writing out a list of thoughts. Keeps me sane. Therefore, this is the next list.

1. Drumming gives me peace. I'm not exceptionally brilliant at it, but I'm good enough to be in a kick-ass band.
2. I want to spend an entire day sitting and staring at the ocean, marvelling at how it so beautifully mirrors life - calm, choppy, serene and sometimes scary.
3. I am giving up cigarettes as on Jan 2, 2008. Why Jan 2 because 31st night will extend into the first. Technicalities, you see
4. I still miss her. *sheepish grin*
5. I crash and burn very easily. Therefore, I shall not henceforth.
6. I wrote a short film in which there is a line that says "Love is not love until it's both ways" Now I see how stupid I was.
7. I always believed that love is not enough. I was wrong. If you love, the rest will fall into place.
8. Why am I such a sentimental moron.
9. Truth is, I wouldn't have it any other way.
10. Ilayaraja and MSV rule all.
11. My dream is to direct Rajnikanth before I die. Not before he dies - May he live forever.
12. Come to think of it, apart from the financial motivations, apart from the creative streaks, apart from my disdain for corporate life, apart from all that. Why I want so badly to make movies is because people told me I couldn't.
13. Damn I'm such a rebel.
14. Truth is, I wouldn't have it any other way.
15. I will not die before I own ENIL India, or at least sit on the board.
16. MundhiriPakkoda Productions is going to rock the world.
17. I suddenly came up with an alternate name - USP : Usual Suspects Productions. Let's see
18. I love her. I've always gotten over relationships rather easily. But I can't seem to get this one out of my head. That says something.
19....."whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth." ...."And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to acheive it." - The Alchemist
20. Most people think Che was a fool. I think he's a God.
21. "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” - Che Guevara
22. I have learnt in the past two months that it takes more courage, more love, and more of a spine to clear the air with an old friend. Standing your ground and refusing to budge and rebuild a bridge you burnt is actually the spineless thing to do. It's a self-defense mechanism. It's not wrong, but it's not right either.
23. Nothing in life is worth getting a person you love or a person who loves you angry. Yes, I learn late, but I learn :)
24. I am happier than I was a couple of weeks back, and it is because I learnt this much in two months. Whatever had to happen happened because I needed to learn these things. About myself, about the woman I love, and about life in general. Now I need to act on them.
25. And so I set out, on my journey of action. Insha Allah, all will be fine. Actually, come to think of it, I know it will be fine.

Thennadudaya Sivane Pottri

I just want to rant. I've bottled up a lot of emotions in the past couple of months, and I'm venting now. No boys and girls, I'm not putting up some vulnerable post that people can all have coffee and gossip about, but this is just a list of random thoughts that come into my head, starting now. So here goes:

1. I hate hypocrisy
2. I don't appreciate being blamed for no fault of my own
3. I love my life either way
4. I miss Anjana Iyer
5. Lol, I feel this randomness is not going to last
6. I'm happy I made my stand clear today
7. I'm happy I had the balls to do it
8. I treasure my memories. Viciously so
9. Big FM had the best Rajnikanth birthday promo of all. It ruled
10. I relate to I am Legend - on many levels
11. It's scary what loneliness can do to you
12. Some choices are hard to make, but they have to be made. Pride-swallowing helps you make them
13. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I don't know why I thought of that
14. Jim Carrey is a God in his own right.
15. God - Thennadudaya Sivane Pottri
16. Anbe Sivam should've been India's entry to the Oscars
17. I wish I could talk to her now
18. I hope she comes back to me
19. No, I'm not being vulnerable, you ignoramus
20. I've got to start writing down the stories I have in my head
21. Maybe that will make the voices go away, too
22. She looked so cute today. Pink looks good on her
23. This is the number of the day in May that she was born
24. Yeah, yeah, I think about her pretty much every waking second
25. I think I should end this with 26
26. Honestly speaking, the only question thus far in my infinitesimal blip of an existence that has given me any joy answering is this - Is she the one? My answer - Undoubtedly, unabashedly, definitely and unequivocally, YES. And somehow, knowing that makes me happy. I pray that she will share my joy soon

signing off,
N

Where Is That Girl? - a message for my Zephyr

Where is that girl, who used to clap her hands in joy at the thought of meeting me? Where is that girl, whose hair was all was required to make me stare in silence? Where is that girl whose hug could kill all pain, all sorrow, and bring joy to my heart? Where is that girl, for whom talking to me was an addiction, not a chore? Where is that girl, for whom I could gather the stars and hunt down the sun and moon? Where is that girl, who used to dig her head into my shoulder and say nothing, and didn't have to? Where is that girl who could force me into silence with nothing more than a touch? Where is that girl who is like the cool summer breeze, blown in from the sea? Where is my Zephyr? Wherever she is, I hope she is happy. That is all I've ever wanted for her.

As for me, I will live in her memory for as long as I am alive. In my heart, she is mine. And nobody will ever take her place. Ever. And Zephyr, you would not understand why I did the things I did, or said the things I said. Some day you might. Until then, I wait; my heart forever belonging to you.

Amen

Random Musings Again

Yeah, well I've been posting a lot recently about relationships, but that's because I've been thinking about them a lot. Part of it is my inherent interest in psychology, but I think it's mostly my irritating Virgo habit of having to know why we do the things we do. And today's topic isn't very different from my past random musings, but the take is slightly different, in the sense that I will not stick to a set agenda. I am going to write as it comes. So here goes:

How many times have we taken someone for granted, especially over someone whom we know for a much much shorter time? In case that didn't make sense, try this - all of us, when we were kids, were very close to someone, and then when a new kid joined school, we spent all our time with them. Is that wrong? No. But is it clever? No. It is very difficult coping with being ignored, or being traded for someone else. Believe me. I know. For example, someone very dear to me was coming back from out of town recently. This person, whom we shall refer to as "it" from now on was very upset when it landed, although I was on top of the moon because it was back. When I asked it why it was sad, it replied, "I'm missing my friends. I've lived with them for ten days, and so I miss them". That kind of hurt. No, who am I kidding? It hurt a lot. In my head I'm thinking, bloody hell man. These people in ten days have become more important to it than I? I knew in my head that it would not keep in touch with these people the way it swore it would. Surely enough, it hasn't. Observation - I hate it when I'm right.

Doesn't it irk you when loved ones make plans without doing you the least courtesy of at least telling you when the plans were in conception stage? Wouldn't it be nice if we were told, rather than informed? I think so. No complaints, but it just kind of hurts when you're taken for granted. But getting back, I hate it when people whom you've known for a long time choose someone new over you. I just hate it. It devalues and disrespects the entire concept of the relationship you and this person share. I mean, it's all very well when you've spent virtually no time with this person. I very simply mean, its all wonderful when you're in love. Those stolen meetings, those sweet nothings, those melting kisses, all that jazz. But marriage and living together, well that's a completely different ball game. Actually living with someone is the toughest thing you will ever have to do. Tolerating them despite their little idiosyncrasies is very very hard but remember, they do it to. So the next time you're about to judge someone who is slightly "off", think about the things you do. You'll be surprised that a lot of the things you do are not exactly what I'd call "on".

I've actually seen and heard people comparing their boyfriends/girlfriends to their new friend of the opposite sex. Many of them have wondered why their partners aren't like this new friend. Well, friend, that's because you know nothing about this new friend. Ultimately it might even be the fact that this new friend reminds you of the old friend you need to be appreciating that drew you to him/her.

I know I've kept digressing, but here's the deal. Ok, your new friends are amazing, they're out of the world, and we all wish we were like them. But we're not that bad either. Give us the attention we're used to and you'll find that we're not as bad as we seem to have become. The simplest analogy I can provide is this: When we visit friends of our parents, we think that they're so much cooler than our parents. We even wonder why our parents can't be like them. We don't realise two things. #1 - we dont know how uncle and aunty behave when we're NOT around. and #2 - our parents weren't always this boring. They got that way paying our bills.
So stop taking people for granted. Because if you do, almost everyone you know will post an entry like this one.

Cheers,
N

Raging Bull

Once there lived a raging bull
Who knew no semblance of fear
He fought for what he thought was right
And cared for the ones who were dear

Once there lived a raging bull
Whose hooves could till the earth
His bellow was as loud as a storm
And his charge was feared from birth

Once a cow met this raging bull
And everything changed forever
She calmed him down and taught him love
And peace flowed in him like a river

He no longer was the raging bull
That everyone knew him to be
He devoted his life to the cow he loved
They were happy as far as anyone could see

Every now and then our raging bull
Would buck and bellow and fight
But just one pat of the cow's tender touch
Would calm him down alright

And then, suddenly this raging bull
Was left without his better half
Where, oh where is that raging bull?
All I see now is a little calf

Zephyr

When I close my eyes I can see only her. Her smile, radiant as the sun. Her long, slender form envelops my being. I am happy when I think of her. Sad when I think of her. Angry when I think of her. Regretful when I think of her. Unknowing, unfeeling I walk on by, until the next time I close my eyes. Whenever I look at a place I've been before with her, a feeling comes over me that I cannot comprehend. I want to go inside and sit in the same place, praying with every fibre that Time consented to move backward for a while, so I could set things right. I want to go inside and sit in the same place and feel the warmth that was once mine own. That embrace which was once mine own, joyfully and freely given to me. That embrace which I have lost. That embrace that I crave, that I need. I wish to God I could never write, because I can write only in pain. I would gladly trade my writing in exchange for peace, for love. Her love. My own one, my Unknown, my Goddess. I see a red door and I want to paint it black. I see colours that have no place in a world where she loathes my very name. I see people happy, and their happiness enrages me. My face contorts in anger, and then subsides. Who am I to feel bad at their delight? They are luckier than I am, and I should thank God that they have that luxury. An ambulance passes, and I pray. I pray that whoever is inside has someone next to him or her who loves him or her. I was foolish, very foolish indeed to think that I deserved love. But, Oh Lord, doesn't even a wretch deserve forgiveness? Isn't there light at the end of every tunnel? Why is it that my light ends up to be a train that runs me over? I close my eyes again, and this time it is on purpose. Somehow I think that punishing myself with pain could somehow absolve my sins. It does not. It never does. I long to go to my great-grandmother - the one person from whom I had last tasted that kind of love - unconditional, non-expecting love. Then I pause to wonder - why am i upset? We are born alone, and we die alone. Nobody will go into my grave but me. When I came into existence and will go out of existence alone, why do I need someone in the interim? Why? The answer is simple. Because I love her. And I will. Always. Even if she does not. She comprises the elements that build my world. Earth, fire, Wind, water and sky. Time is supposed to heal. Why does it not, then? Even if the earth falls out of orbit, if the skies rain blood, if the waters turn into ash and the Wind stops moving, one thing in my world will not change. That one single constant. Her. Her alone. She alone remains in my world. She is my moonflower, my muse, my Zephyr. I was not born to die young, and so I will not end my life. Instead, I will live; live in the hope that someday she understands how deeply hurt I am, and utterly devastated I am that she decided to move away from me. I cannot forget that bond - the bond of love. I cannot. That bond that will forever be mine, and mine alone. That bond, which is like that of the eye and its iris. That bond, which I can never let go of. The simple, yet complicated; tender, yet painful; calm, yet stormy bond of Love.

I will always love you, and only you - my Zephyr

The Forbidden Fruit

He walks silently, with the grace of a doe
Briliance radiating through his silvery form
Admiring nature's wealth and beauty
Not knowing how he would soon be torn

He looked at the trees, naming them all
Cedar, Neem, Banyan and Teak
His joyous surrounding echoed his thought
As his bliss was at its very peak

Beauty and calm was the order of the day
In that divine Garden of love
Animals and birds, he named with delight
Tiger, Fox, Hawk and dove

A while later he craved a mate
Like all his faunic companions had
A mate who would love and take care of him
In whose embrace he could be glad

And so one was given and he took with glee
Like a child given its very first toy
A few months passed, and their love grew strong
And with it, so did their joy

And then it happened, it came to pass
That his instincts took over his love
His mate disowned him; even abhored him
Gone was that which came from Above

Empty and weary he travels the world
Looking for that which he lost
Mephistopheles had gathered his bounty
The Inferno had claimed its Faust

His soul was shattered, his mind was twisted
As he prayed to God above
Was he damned forever, cursed to never
Taste the Forbidden fruit of Love?

The Inferno - A Vision of Hell

I had a dream. A very disturbing one. What follows is what I saw. I should have never read The Divine Comedy. What I saw is completely from there. I know that because I have read it many times. I never thought until today that it would haunt me like this. This is a book I'll never read again until I get over this dream/vision. Read on

Abandon All hope,
Ye who enter here
Once you come inside,
Your souls will disappear

Nine circles in all exist
Each with their story to tell
Come and I will show you all
As we descend into Hell

The first circle is Limbo
The home of the virtuous dead
Accept Christ they would not, and so
Heaven did not count their head

The second circle is for the lusty
Blown about by a violent storm
Francesca and Paolo are with the pack
Who in life did not reform

The third circle is for the gluttons
They with insatiable appetite
Rain and hail fall hard on them
As Cerberus watches in delight

The fourth circle is for the materialistic
The hoarders and who squandered well
The weights they push up against each other
Timed by Plutus' mindful bell

The fifth circle is for the wrath-consumed
In the dark Stygian water they are fixed
The agressors ravage each other forever
While the slothful gurgle forever in the Styx

The sixth circle is for the Heretics
Wrapped in violent, flaming tombs
The rejectors of God are forever punish
In the brightly burning catacombs

The seventh circle houses the violent
Divided into three dark rings
Let us go and visit them each
And hear the song each one sings

The first ring is guarded by centaurs
For those who opressed their fellow man
The Phlegethon consumes them to their measure of sin
Its blood boiling for time's entire span

The second ring is for the suicides
Who live as gnarled bushes and trees
In life they sought relief from pain
In death, they are relieved to bleed

The final ring is for the blasphemers and usurers
Who are kept company by sodomites
They reside in a desert of flaming sand
While the sky rains fire with all its might

The next circle is for the fraudulent
The ones who knowingly did harm
Their habitat is divided into ten stone ditches
When we look, try and keep your calm

The first stone block emanates pain
As we see people in two lines
Panderes and Seducers are whipped by demons
As their wounds multiply by nines

The second bolgia houses the flatterers
They who survived spewing lies
They are steeped in excrement forever
And feasted on by a million flies

The third rock is home to the simons
Bribers who paid The Church for their deed
Head first they stand buried in the rock
While a fire dances on the soles of their feet

The fourth ditch is for the false prophets
Whose heads are twisted down their backs
And the fifth is for the barrators who are punished
With boiling tar snce they did honesty lack

The sixth bolgia is the one with Hypocrites
Ambling around with heavy lead cloaks
And the seventh bolgia traps the thieves
Chased by snakes and by hellfire soaked

Bolgia eight is for the fraudulent advisor
Who are now encased in private flames
Bolgia nine is for the sowers of discord
A demon cuts up their bodies over and over again

The ninth circle is the icy pit
Reserved especially for traitors
Sub-zero temperatures torment the inmates
Those twisted and vile berators

Four zones adorn the icy pit
Each group at a different depth
Watching their plight so miserable and painful
Even a fiend like me broke down and wept

Caina is the first zone of four
For traitors to their kith and kin
Immersed in ice upto their necks they are
Measure for measure of their sin

Atenora is the name of zone two
For traitors of political entity
Unbendable necks, blocked by ice
Because they were consumed by their enimity

The third zone bears the name Ptolomaea
The traitors of guests have a lot to fear
The are buried upto their eyes in ice
And the cold freezes their every tear

Judecca is the final zone of all
It is for those betraying their master
The people here are buried completely in ice
Misshapen as though they were melted plaster

At the end of Judecca, I saw a dark figure
Huge and grotesque, yet captivating
Awe and disgust came in wave after wave
Between them, I kept fluctuating

He sat at the center of his dwelling place
Buried waist-deep in the ice
Six eyes, six wings and three heads I saw
Each representing a different vice

His wings beat hard and furiously fast
As he tries to escape his prison
But the harder he tries the more cold it becomes
Pushing him further into oblivion

His three heads chew three different persons
As his tears mix sickeningly with their blood
The Yellow chews Brutus, the Black chews Cassius
While the Red chews Judas; as they bleed a flood

The vision I saw has left me shaken
And chilled me to my very bone
I stood there scared, amazed and helpless
Worst of all, I stood there alone

Random Musings - Sometimes, Love Just Isn't Enough

Deal with it. Sometimes love just isn't enough to sustain a relationship. Yes, it is the quintessential element in the fabulous cocktail that is a relationship, but thats the point. A relationship is like a cocktail. It needs an alcoholic base (read love) in order to be a cocktail. Otherwise, quite literally, it becomes a MOCKtail. However, all you romantics out there who believe that true love will save the day - WAKE UP!!!! The Eagles were wrong. Love will NOT keep you alive.

A relationship takes a lot of hard work for it to succeed. This is especially true for romantic relationships. It requires sacrifice. It requires compromise. It requires putting the other person in front of you. And most of all, it requires integrity of word and deed. I'm not much of a Gandhian, but that particular phrase - integrity of word and deed - I belive in. If you say something and do something else, the person you're talking to will feel lied to. There's a simple way around this. Its called empathising.

Most people get confused between empathising and sympathising. Lets go linguistically. Sympathy means "having a fellow feeling" or "affected by like feelings," from syn- "together" + pathos "feeling". Empathy, however, is very different. It comes from the translation of the German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"). It means actually feeling the other person's feelings - their hurt, pain, laughter, sorrow, et al.

Empathy is very important for any relationship to survive. The Good Book tells us to "Love thy neighbour as thyself", to "Judge not, lest thee be judged yourself" and to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Incidentally, the Gita also says these in more or less the same meter, tone and voice. In addition to the aforementioned, the two Books also tell us to forgive and forget. Now there, as the Bard will tell us, lies the rub.

Human beings do not know to forgive and forget. And yes, that includes all of us - yes, yes; Me too. We forgive, but seldom do we forget. This is the scourge of all relationships. When we get cross we dig up all our derogatory graves, and reopen the scabs that are healing with our words. And whoever said "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words cannot harm me" is a FOOL. So before we say what we say, I urge you.....stop for a minute and see whether you'd like to hear what you are about to say if it were being said to you. If you wouldn't, then dont say it.

By that I do not mean to say that we should sugar-coat everything, but as the Buddhha said, find that Golden Mean - the Divine Path. I also do not mean to say we must never say what we want to. Just say it in a pleasing way. Another thing we must do in a relationship is let the other person know what they mean to us, because if they dont, the relationship is dead to begin with. Imagine if you think the person means the world to you, but that person does not even know you care. Not very nice is it?

Here's another reason why relationships fail - LACK OF COMMUNICATION. The inability to communicate is also a detriment. And remember, communication is seriously damaged by non-integrity of word and deed. If your partner, or friend or boyfriend or husband or wife or mother or sister tells you something you did wrong, DO NOT get defensive. They're just venting their frustrations due to your behaviour. You might've been 100% right, but you cannot take away the importance of how they felt and what they felt. And remember this - people may forget what you said, when you said it or where, but they will never forget how they felt when you said it.

So talk to the people you're in a relationship with. There's no point trying to play the oneupmanship game. That helps in sports, and when you're a lawyer. In a relationship, you'll win the argument, but lose the relationship. An observation - non-integrity of word and deed can happen when you contradict yourself just because you want to have the last word in an argument; so beware of that.

If you weren't paying attention thus far, it's alright. But this is the most important part of what I have to say. Everything that was written above is far far easier said than done. Showing the other cheek, empathising; all these are good traits, but they are almost non-existent. So work hard on your relationships - because they're worth it. I know the feeling. I'm in a relationship thats worth every shred of effort involving everything I've written about. And it is by no means easy. Its a daily struggle, but thats the challenge, thats the voyage, thats the journey of love. Oh and last but not least, do yourself a favour and DO NOT ask an outside party for advice on your relationship unless things are way beyond repair (which they never will be if you simply empathise) or the person you are seeking advice from is a professional counsellor. This is simply because your friends will advise you in the way they see fit, and believe me - EVERYONE IS AN EXPERT ON SOMEBODY ELSE'S RELATIONSHIP. Their relationship is probably as screwed up as your own. So talk it out with your partner instead. It will be a wonderful learning experience. And here I use the word partner not as in romantically, but in any relationship because thats what a relationship is - a partnership.

In conclusion, I wish you all the very best in your relationships, and hope and pray that they will be as fruitful as they could ever be. I also pray that each of us will be able to practice what we preach - thats more for myself though :) - and that we will be able to empathise as well as we sympathise.

God Bless

N

Great Expctations

Life, it appears, is a bitch. No, I'm not being gender biased. It may well be a dog. Dont you hate it when you're taken for granted? When people just assume that just because it's you, they can do what they want and they actually expect you to forgive them. It makes my blood boil every time, but think of it from this way. Can you really blame them? No you cannot.

Pavlov with his dog showed how conditioned learning works. In the same way, people treat us the way they are conditioned to treat us. But here's the catch. Who's doing the conditioning? Its us. We determine how we are treated in the way we behave with and to people. In other words, people will treat you the way you let them treat you.

You cannot behave one way with somebody, and have them treat you in the way they naturally will in response to your behaviour, and then a long time later demand that they change. If you want change, I suggest you change the way you behave first. If you dont, there's going to be no improvement whatsoever and you'll end up more miserable than anyone else.

If you're feeling bad in a relationship - any relatioship. I do not restrict myself to couples - please open your mouths and say something. If that doesn't work, then do unto him like he was doing unto you. Use guile. There's nothign wrong with that. In such situations, if you've got no guile, and no game, you've got no relationship

Why do I love her? I really dont know. I know its very hard for people to accept me saying that I love someone, especially because I have said it so many times before. I cant give you a list of reasons why I love her. But I can try and describe what I'm thinking.

Most of this she is reading for the first time, so here goes. The first time I saw her, I thought she was an angel. She walked into my life with the effortless ease that a hot knife cuts through butter. I am normally a person that gives no entry into my "world" so to speak to every tom, dick and harry. I found myself telling her things I didn't want to. I found myself wanting to tell her things I didn't want to. In an extremely short time, she became an essential part of my life. Coffee and sandwiches were never the same without her. In fact, they still aren't.

I felt myself feeling stronger and stronger about her everyday, and never admitted it to myself. I kept thinking, "This is HER dammit. She's practically my sibling. Or atleast thats what I keep telling her. How can I ever feel this way for her? No No, leave it". I never imagined that she too would feel the same way for me. One day I worked up the nerve to talk to her about it, and then, under extremely weird and movie-like circumstances, we started going out.

I cannot begin to think of imagining that I can describe how possesive I am of her. This girl is MINE. Every particle of her belongs to me. When she laughs, my world seems right. When she cries, nothing can console me. When she hugs me, I feel peace. She has this uncanny ability of bcoming my mother, sister, wife or friend when the situation calls for it.

This does not mean we have never fought. Of course we have. Like cats and dogs. We've even threatened to leave each other a few times. I know I have, at least. But no matter how huge the fight, no matter how huge the misunderstanding, one hug is all it takes to set things right. This is the only girl I can ever say I'm Sorry to and mean it. Now that I've rambled on a decent bit, I'll just say that I love her, and my life without her makes no sense. Realistically speaking, will I be able to live without her? Of course I will. But do I want to? HELL NO!!! Life is far far better with her in it....no let me correct that. My life is far far better with her AS it. i dont call her Jaan for nothing now do I?

Reality Bites - A series of unfortunate no-rhymers

I'm fascinated with the dark
I have no idea why
It's not just the colour
It's morbidity
Why should it enamour me so?
Is it the reflection of my life?
Or is it my reaction to the world?
Is it the state of my soul?
Either way, Reality Bites

I love that Rollin Stones Line
"I see a red door and I want to paint it black"
Am I really the hideous monster i'm made out to be?
Or do I make myself out to be that way?
Either way, why do I live up to that image?
Is it because I love the attention?
Is it because I really am that way?
Or is it because I couldnt be bothered to change that image?
Either way, Reality Bites

Every time I fight the darkness in me I succeed
But the success is only short-lived
Am I the only one like this?
Are there others who are as pathetic?
Or do only I say these things out loud?
Personally I dont think I'm that bad
But then why does the world keep telling me I am?
There cant be smoke without fire can there?
Either way, Reality Bites

Maybe I dont keep loved ones happy enough
Maybe I dont practise what I preach
Maybe I expect too much
Maybe I set myself up to fail
Maybe I am wrong more that I'm right
Maybe I dont deserve most of what I have
Maybe I should change
Either way, Reality Bites

Prison of My Mind

Prisons of smoke, hell's grim confines
No primrose gardens, no flowery lines
The Sword of Damocles did loom up on high
And the Dungeon Scales of Threave; they too were nigh

Memories and guilt rack'd the blaspheming
And whirlwinds belted around the scheming
In the middle of all this, once you did find
Me, in the Prison - The Prison of My Mind

I judged myself and whipped my skin
Till the lashes left marks, both thick and thin
I punished myself and others as well
I condemned us all to the fires of hell

For twenty-two years I lived this way
Tormenting the world, night and day
Was this how I should live my life?
Intending to give bliss but end up giving strife?

My own true Self who was soft and caring
Was guarded by my Other, with fangs baring
I decided to let Me out, and slash my image
So within myself, I did search and rummage

The shallow mask I wore to the world
Melted away as my sins unfurled
I began to live life like I was me
And not who I forced the world to see

I learned to trust, and not mull things over
For too much thought is like a leap from Dover
I love Myself, and this side I will feed
The Prison of My Mind, no more will I need

The 4 Seasons - "Season" 4 - Fear

I didnt like what i wrote about fear last time......so here is the new version, one that is closer to me than the other one

I sit here silent, quiet and still
Staring at the reflection so thin
If it's so hard to just look at me
How hard is it to look within

What am I really scared of?
Is it fear of what I might find?
The straggly wisps of a sinful past
Loom deep within my mind

I see myself as a weathered tree
Shaped and moulded by life
Whose branches are entangled and coiled
By their own internal strife

We hold on to our past actions
Those terrible wars we've fought
We forget that Time heals everything
And Life connects dot to dot

Potent perception is a useless gift
If you cannot point it inside
The entrails of our soul fear the light
As it approaches, they run and hide

Fear appears when we think it can't
Gnawing its way into our souls
The only way to conquer your fear
Is to look right in at what it holds

Views on Time Travel

Time-travel has always been a fascination for mankind. We have always in our cultures tried to play god, by wrestling with the amount of control we have over our surroundings. Ever since the concept of time travel was conceived, we have seen it as a means to control our circumstances, or even change them, by changing the cause and thereby the effect. However, there are issues to consider. I intend to talk about time travel, and when time-travel is possible by using the paradoxes involved in time travel, the Novikov principle, seen through the perspective of the butterfly effect.

First of all, let us think about a simple problem. Consider this. You go back in time, and kill your grandfather before he met your grandmother. Now if you did this, you would prevent one of your parents, and by extrapolation, yourself from being born. But if you were never born, how would you travel back in time to cause this event to happen? This is called the grandfather paradox.

Now think of this problem – that of a man who travels back in time to discover the cause of a famous fire. While in the building where the fire started, he accidentally knocks over a kerosene lantern and causes a fire, the same fire that would inspire him, years later, to travel back in time. Here’s another one, that of a man who travels back in time and impregnates his grandmother. She would, as a result, give birth to the man's father, to whom will be born the man himself. This man would have to travel back in time in order to ensure his own existence. This is called the predestination paradox, which is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It exists when a time traveller is caught in a loop of events that "predestines" him or her to travel back in time. This paradox is in some ways the opposite of the grandfather paradox.

A variation on the predestination paradox which involves information, rather than objects, traveling through time is similar to the self-fulfilling prophecy, which is is a prediction that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true. A man receives information about his own future, telling him that he will die from a heart attack. He resolves to get fit so as to avoid that fate, but in doing so overexerts himself, causing him to suffer the heart attack that kills him.

The common thread running through the above three examples is that the normally accepted definition of causality is reversed, wherein the effect becomes the cause of the effect, which is the cause and so on. In the first example, the person would not have traveled back in time but for the fire that he or she caused by traveling back in time. Similarly, in the third example, the man would not have overexerted himself but for the future information he receives. In the second example, the man's very existence would be pre-determined by his time traveling adventure. This also raises the paradox of which came first – the time travel or his existence.

In fiction itself, this concept has been dealt with quite often, most prominent examples being the story of Oedipus Rex and Achilles. Lord Krishna, too is a famous example. In filmdom, I don’t even have to tell you about The Terminator and its sequels, which rely almost totally on this paradox as the centre of their story. One could argue, as many did in the case of the Terminator’s particular paradox, that if the soldier sent back in time did not impregnate Sarah Connor, John Connor would still be born. The very simple counter-argument here is that only if the soldier who came back impregnated her, she would believe what was going to happen in the future and bring her son up, training him to be a fighter.

The “Back To The Future” series also exploits this concept to a huge extent. But here, again, there is a glaring loophole. If the scientist and the boy went to the past and altered something, obviously the boy would be missing in the present. In this case, the altered future would involve another version of the boy, in which case the boy that left to the past is an extra in the space-time continuum. Strange, isn’t it?

Obviously with such buildup about loopholes and paradoxes, one must think I’m getting somewhere. Well, I am. I present to you, the Novikov Self- Consistency Principle. This was postulated by Dr. Igor Novikov in around 1985 to solve, or rather explain the problem of paradoxes in time travel. Simply put, the principle states that any event which could give rise to a paradox exists, then that event has a probability of zero.

To prove his theory, Novikov did not rely upon conventional paradoxes like the grandfather paradox. He relied upon a scenario with a more mathematical/statistical bent. He considered the scenario of billiards ball being fired into a wormhole in such a way that it would go back in time and collide with its earlier self, thereby knocking it off course and preventing it from entering the wormhole in the first place.

It was found during the course of this experiment that there were many trajectories that could result from the same initial conditions. For example, the billiard ball could knock itself only slightly astray, resulting in its going into the past slightly off course, which results in its earlier self only being deflected slightly. He found that this “sequence” of events which is actually a causal loop (read predestination paradox) is completely consistent, and does not result in a paradox. Further, he saw that the probability of such consistent events was nonzero, and the probability of inconsistent events was zero, so no matter what a time traveller might try to do he/she will always end up accomplishing consistent non-paradoxical actions. In other words, no action a time-traveller takes will significantly alter the course of history.

Now getting back to our discussion. The Novikov principle, however, makes an assumption that only one timeline can exist, or as a corollary, multiple timelines cannot be accessed. However, this does not make total sense, because when the time-traveller returns from his travels to the same timeline, he will have returned, in the event of a single timeline, in a changed state, albeit minor. This is where the butterfly effect comes in. But before that, let us lay down the logic. If the traveller comes back changed, there are a few things to be considered. First of all, if he has changed, he has to have an innate knowledge of where exactly he will return, this knowledge caused by the events he has undergone himself after the point in time he changed. This, again, is absurd because the human mind can know based only on what it has seen or atleast perceived. Thus, this kind of knowledge would, if at all existent, be deeply subconscious and incapable of manifesting itself in the short while that it takes for the traveller to return.

Second of all, when the time-traveller left, he would have left a life behind. Now, one timeline seems to explain that he merely comes back and takes his place in the timeline after this travels. However, once you think about it, it seems absurd, because once the time travel is over, who exactly takes the place? Is it th entity who traveled back in time and changed something, or is it the entity who grew up through time? To make things clearer, let us involve the Novikov principle in an example. Suppose I realise I would like to see myself when I’m fifteen and travel back in time and do so. Thus, a distinct memory has to be implanted in my 15-year-old mind about seing myself and how I would look from the future, when I’m 22 (scary thought that is). So now when I come back to the present, would I still see myself, that 15 year old, who has grown to be 22, or has time frozen, waiting for me to come back and resume functioning, or will things just be normal? The entire proposition seems to ambiguous, since it stands to reason that once time-travel is introduced, the traveller begins to exist, outside time.

Moreover, the Noviko principle only seems to be covering its tracks when it says that no matter what action the traveller takes, nothing significant will happen changing the course of time. This is where, as I said earlier, the butterfly effect comes in. The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. Essentially, if crossing a street when I was 16 was prevented, I might be in a very different position than I am today. In other words, and on a more philosophical note, everything is relevant to everything else. The concept refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or, for that matter, prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena.

Given a system and a large enough time frame, slight variations in the initial conditions can cause huge variations in later conditions in the system. Now, the novikov principle suggests that only minute changes are possible in time travel, but the net result cannot be avoided, as per laws of probability. My major argument against that is that initial conditions do play a huge role. Moreover, not many real-life phenomena subscribe to probabilistic laws. For example, the binomial theorem in probability says that there is equal probability of heads and tails occuring on a toss. However, this does not mean that in 100 tosses, there will be 50 heads and 50 tails. Such an event is extremely rare, so much so that it might be a poisson event. Thus I state that the butterfly effect holds good.

There is another point I’d like to make. I would say that time travel is unambiguous and feasible only if there exist parallel universes and multiple timelines. Only if we find a way to transverse universes and timelines can time-travel be possible. What I mean is when you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, you do so in (or your actions result in the creation of) a parallel universe in which you will never be conceived as a result. However, your existence is not erased from your original universe. Thus, after the time travel is over, the act of the completed journey results in you returning to another parallel universe, where you resume life as before, without any hiccups. Another possibility is, along the lines of David Deutsch, that if backwards time travel is possible, it should result in the traveler ending up in a different branch of history than the one he departed from. This view could subscribe to the Novikov principle in that no significant change can be made to a timeline, if the change maker is from that timeline. However, a parallel universe and thus a parallel timeline can be changed by one who is not from that timeline.

This makes perfect sense logically, but is this practically possible? It is a widely regarded theory that trvelling back in time means travelling faster than light. However, I don’t believe this to be the case, since travelling faster than light very simply means you ge to see things before others do, and is not actual time-travel. Thus, I subscribe to the views I have put down here, and further state that such technological advancements might not be round the corner, and don’t seem likely, but then again, when Jules Verne wrote about the Nautilus in 20000 Leagues Under The Sea, submarines did not exist. Will man ever time-travel? It is unlikely, but as the saying goes, you never know. Only Time will tell.