Life..

It has been over 5 years since I've graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras with a Bachelor of Technology degree. I have been working for a corporate company ever since. I cannot say with conviction that my life has seen its best since then. I would say that I have lacked direction and in whatever areas I have had a little vision, I had lacked focus to achieve what I wanted to.

This post, however, is not a self deprecating one. It is just a reminder to myself that, at this point of time, I'm less than 28 years old. Although I haven't achieved great things in life yet, most of my life lies in front of me. The last 9 years or so haven't been the best in my life in terms of significant achievements. But they have been good in their own way, showing my different facets of life. I've fallen in love, married, traveled a little bit in this time.

I'm writing this to remind myself of the great potential that lies within me, the wonderful capabilities that I've been gifted with, my zeal to achieve great things in life and the opportunities that lie before me to make my dreams come true. As I wish to remind myself, all great things are achieved with great effort and in due time. As I awake to take my destiny into my hands, I pray to the universe to give me the strength, patience, courage and all the other virtues to let me contribute significantly to this creation and make this world and the others, a better place to be.

I will continue to add to this post over time.

I'm lazy and I'm an addict

I think i'm an addict. I also want to make sure what addiction is. So here it is.

"An addiction is a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity. The term is often reserved for drug addictions but it is sometimes applied to other scenarios, such as problem gambling and compulsive overeating. Factors that have been implicated in precipitating an addiction include: genetic, biological/pharmacological and social factors."
Yes, this is from the wikipedia. All those links make sure it is from wiki and also that i'm lazy to remove those hyperlinks.

And I think addiction is something which is easy for a person to do. So in my case, i do something very easy and fun and do it again and again that i wouldn't do what is to be done. This is laziness. Thanks to laziness, I continue doing the same thing further more that I become an addict. So, what addict am I?

Hmm.. I don't smoke and I don't drink and I don't get stoned. But I know people who do smoke, do drink, do smoke up and are sane enough to do something when they ought to do it. I am an all round addict. That is if i'm stuck up with anything that's doable repeatedly, i get addicted to it. I was a gaming addict for more than a year. I played something called Age of Mythology. Then, after quitting the game, I was a movie addict. I still am a gaming addict. If I find a game nice and playable, I go on playing it for ever.. till i finish it. I was an addict of Naruto Manga. I'm an addict to several other animes. I am an addict of FRIENDS now. I am an addict for internet sometimes. I am an addict to gossip sometimes. I am an addict.

So, is it addiction or is it doing just what i like to do? If I could do what is supposed to be done effectively even doing all these things, I wouldn't be an addict. But it is just that doing all these things without doing the things which I must do makes me lazy and an addict.

However, there is one mantra to overcome addiction. It is "do it now". But, it would be great to do something without having to remind ourselves "do it now".

The Deer Experiment

Not more than forty five days ago, I suddenly wanted to tame a deer. Now that there are a lot of deer around our place, it wasn't very difficult to find one. I went to the place where the deer move around in groups (there are certain places in our campus where you can find deer in groups). There were many of them, young and old. All the younger ones run away as soon as we approach them. Only the elder ones with big antlers remain calm and still. Even they move away slowly, just not wanting you to interfere in their affairs. So, the deer go away. I stay there watching them, making funny sounds to attract the deer. They stare back at me maintaining a good distance. I did this for a couple of days.

Then I thought that it was no good. I decided that I'll feed them. Visions of all deer crowding around me and I caressing the deer while feeding them were running in my head. I smiled to myself. How thrilling it would be. I googled with 'what deer eat', 'deer food', 'feeding the deer' etc., The results showed that deer eat many types of grass. I knew none of those grasses and had no idea of getting them from somewhere to feed the deer. I looked for something which would be readily available and there I came across something: APPLES. Great. Apples are available straight away in the store which is there in our mess. An apple a day keeps the deer close. And that's what I thought.

That evening I took an apple and went back to the deer roaming place, this time with the apple in my hand. Heheheh.. as if that made any difference. The young deer still ran away and the elder ones wanted to keep me away. But one elder deer, a bit fearless, could see that I had something in my hand and stayed there. Good. One deer for a start. I wanted to show that i had something to give it to eat. So, I took a bite off the apple and kept it on the ground, a few feet away from the deer. The deer came up to the apple sniffed it for a while and took the apple in its mouth!!! It had some difficulty in eating the whole apple in once bite. It struggled chewing it for a while and finally could eat all of it. It finished the apple and looked at me. Wow!! looks like this is great going. So, I myself took a friendly step aead and went to caress it. Nice try !!! It won't let me. It shakes its head pointing its antlers at me. But it doesn't run away either. I try to get to it from its side. It takes a step backwards and hits me gently with its antlers. I came to know this. It's not very dangerous when the deer acts like it's going to hit you with its antlers. Mostly, they won't hit you hard. You'll only have to be careful about the deer with sharp, pointed antlers because, though they hit you gently, you might end up getting cut.

Very well. At least the deer ate my apple. I stayed there for a while and left. I came again the next day with another apple. This time it was an other deer. This one ate my apple too. By this time I realized that it was difficult for the deer to eat a whole apple at once. So, I started getting a knife with me, cut the apple in two pieces and give it to the deer. The next day, no elder deer were around at that place. All younger ones ran away seeing me except one or two. I cut the apple in two pieces, kept the pieces a few meters away from the young deer and waited. They were too afraid to come near. I withdrew myself a little. I drew myself a few feet back. No, they wouldn't come. So, I went back further to a pretty long distance and observed the deer. They came a bit near to the apple. They wouldn't eat it. They look at the apple and throw a glance at me... look at the apple.. look back at me. I got tired of it and went away. Never knew whether those deer ate it or not. This went on for few days. But I did not see any deer friendliness around. They were just eating my apples and going away. I decided that this wouldn't work. I have to catch one particular deer and get to become friends with it. But I couldn't find the same deer twice at their regular roaming place. So, I looked around for an 'out of the group' lonelier deer.

Yeah! there was one. And guess what. It was the most beautiful of all. It had perfectly symmetric antlers and they weren't sharp. They were of a beautiful branched shape. I decided to get friendly with it.

And what happened comes in the next post, if I write one at all.