Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed..

My take on this issue:

This statement is the very negative form of human of human behavior. I do not agree with this statement.

We human beings have come to the state where we are today by taking the wrong, unconventional paths and making mistakes. It is very essential for people to make mistakes, and hence choose the wrong path before they actually get to the right one.

The task of an educational institution is not to persuade or dissuade a person to take a path which they think is the right one for the candidate. If that was true Steve Jobs would have never left college unfinished, or Galileo would have never been born to discover the fact that earth is not flat.

Although time and again the institutions somehow think that it is their duty to persuade a person to take to a path where they think that person should go. But these paths are the paths which are already laid out, and someone will always take them.

A path which no one has taken yet will only lead to a new one, and for which, the decision should rely only on the hands of that candidate.

All an institute could and should do is to lay out the information to each fields of study and explain to the student the success which has already been achieved. But, if they force the student to take a path for a specific success, a path to unbound success will never be achieved.

The fact of today’s world is exactly what this statement is stating. People are fearful. They want a stable career and a stable life, which is not bad at all. But the truth is, if everyone does that we will never flourish. Human race will die in a blink of an eye.

Finding new methods of success is what makes humans human. And depriving them of this discretion by enforcing a “right path to success” is just inhuman.

To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.

My thoughts on this issue:

Major cities of any society give us a mixed sort of information. When I think of major cities whether it is in any country in the world, some big cities like San Francisco, New York, London, Mumbai, Sao Palo, Beijing, Tokyo, come to my mind.

In terms of culture, what exactly do we find here? We find here a cosmopolitan sort of culture. People from all over the state, country and world arrive here for the purpose of making livelihood, traveling, or studying. With them they bring the culture of their own society, and gradually all the culture gets intermingled, and present a very homogeneous blend of overall culture. This blend does not describe how the people of the native society are.

It takes a lot of effort to understand the culture of such a society if we are to only study it in the major cities. What we will have, may be such a homogeneous mixture that it will be hard for us to tell that a particular kind of cuisine belongs to which culture and to what extent. Therefore studying a culture in major cities of a society is not very wise.

A seeker can find the true essence of the culture of any society more effectively in less known cities or towns, or may be in villages. But towns would give one the best view of what they are looking for. In fact, if a tourist decides to spend even a smaller time in a less known town of a society, they will get to know much more about it and will themselves be able to inculcate or inherit more of the true nature or characteristics of that society. Being in the major cities will only give them a chance to be more comfortable in the cosmopolitan arena.

My take on this issue is not in agreement with the given statement. According to my understanding a Major city seldom gives out the true essence of a society hence it is not advisable to read the culture of a society in Major cities.

An essay on technology and human brain's curiousness

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

I have very strong faith in human brain. I believe that human beings have evolved up to this level where they are able to build technology to think for themselves, and going forward from here there is no limit for human mind’s evolution. Every new technology definitely brings a lot of comfort to humans in every way, whether it is physical or mental. And hence restricts the amount of effort that they have to put through to get something done. But, it also gives them enough extra time to let them evolve themselves from the state they are to a new level of thinking.

It is indeed true that we humans whenever we get the time and a mode of relaxation we tend to incline ourselves there very easily, but even that cannot in any circumstance overcome the fact that human mind is extremely curious. You only have to give it enough time, it is capable of finding a food for thought and is an extremist. It will take a single spark of thought to new dimensions of imaginations and realities which actually becomes common realities for those who are scared of exploring or are prone to laziness when given an opportunity.

Therefore here is my strong opinion on whether the thinking abilities of humans will deteriorate with the advancement of technology, I think that it will not happen. The mind is a curious being. And this mind has no bounds. Whatever new obstruction you bring to it, it will successfully use it as its means to achieve something miraculously new.

The survivor phase for human beings on this planet or in this Universe is not even close to an end. And until human have the capability to evolve, they will live. And technology can only make the life of plebeian a toy in the hands of technology, but the bright minds will always exist and they will always break the hurdles in the path of advancement. 

Now let’s see this in the light of technology for the plebeian or the common man who avoids thinking. Today, what I see is that every new generation is coming across as smarter than the previous one. And it is not just because of the information technology, but also because of the ability of the mind to relate with the technology and to be able to use it. So a person who has never been more than a mundane user of means at his ends is now trying to learn something. He is trying to enforce upon him a new technology and hence is learning something out of his own comfort zone.

When a person does that, when a person tries to break the comfort zone and achieves a new reality, he in the process also broadens his frame of reference, and hence is more susceptible to accepting new realities, and out of the inherent nature of his curious mind, forces himself to think and apply it to circumstances around him. This is also a kind of thinking that he does.

Therefore, although technology brings laziness in thinking it also bores people out of laziness and helps them find something more and something new to think about.

                                                   Dedicated to all H4's in U.S

I seek for help everywhere, but all I get hold of is fear, insecurity leading to jealousy and apprehensions. Such inhibitions lead to people behaving selfishly. They tend to question and distrust each other, even behaving rudely comes out as one of the outcomes of such fear.

Here in U.S I can see such behavior most explicitly especially in dependent women. I have struggled to be away from the hold of these insecurities. I don’t know to what extent I am successful. But every day I come across women, who are intelligent, sensible but very insecure in their domains. This is creating a clan of sick families. Government in America or people here may have a mere economic notion because of which they have a law that dependents on H1 visa cannot work, but they do not understand that they are helping breed a sick society in their own country. 

Most people here on H1 want to live their lives in U.S, because this has been their dream since they learned to study for the first time. And now when they have achieved it partially, their endeavor remains to build their lives here. They want to spend their life in this magical nation. But, the very intricate concept of society is what is not in their realm. 

These highly qualified H1 candidates also have another aspiration, in choosing a life partner. They do not feel accomplished with just any partner. They seek an equivalent qualified partners for themselves. When the men on H1 marry, the wives who have been equally aspirational about their career, are forced to live under the law that says “they cannot work to earn”. Now there are other options for them to keep themselves engaged, but those options don’t quite suffice. Reason being, they are equally qualified and “volunteering” as the main part of their career is not something that they had dreamed as the best use of their talents. 

I want to ask, would a qualified engineer (male) would want to spend their life volunteering while their spouses (wives) go to earn? And, in U.S where it is literally not possible to raise a family with children on one person’s earning, is it fair to keep the other qualified member forced to be at home raising a child and continue feeling an emptiness in their lives, that they cannot earn and help the family live an economically stress less life. 

Probably the country invites candidates from different countries for her and the candidate's own good, isn’t it? So, what right do they have to leave them suffering on such a terrible level, doesn’t the basic humanity needs them to be fair?

I didn’t ask for this suffering? I have met women who have gone crazy but they don’t realize what’s causing it. Obama said there will be a rule where H4 candidates could get OPT and they could work. But, does someone realize, before the rule applies, how many more families are going to lose their mental stability?

I would have not paid any heed if I hadn’t been in this situation for a long time myself. It took me a long time to come to my senses, and before that I suffered each day each moment of my life. I cursed my marriage, I hated people who seemed happy. It was so troublesome. My family and many other relatives who cared about me asked me to keep myself busy. But is it that easy to forget your identity and accept a destiny as it is forced on you just in a snap? It is not easy. It is difficult. It has killed me bit by bit for over 2 years. Today, I feel like I have lost a major part of me. 

I cannot forget my condition and I cannot help but empathize with women in that condition today. Women who are suffering each day. I want to do something for them. And, I want all those other women who have been successful in coming out of this curse also to spread their hands and hug away all the troubles of those still suffering.

But this is not all. I also want to encourage all the wonderful girls/women who are suffering because they don't deserve this. 

I want you empower yourselves. To not give in. And, I want you to show what you are made of. You are not made of tears and false hopes. You are made of aspirations, and dedication, and hard work and new dreams. Yes it will take a lot of work, but you are not afraid!

Accomplish everything you want because you can. And I promise you , you can.

 

his destiny

July 9, 2011 at 12:19am

There was a day , n thr wasn't any,
and then one day he
ran away

ran away
from the mysteries and massacres
from the truth and loneliness


A person yearning for a life to love
never experienced that enamour
which he longed for.
And this day never arrived


He kept hope
he wished ,he longed
and he believed
that it will happen


And one day
that day , he died
without his hopes realizing

this story is smothering
for every one.
and the irony is
it holds no relevance for himself


Because when he lived
he had hope
he had desires,
which kept him alive
and encouraged him to live
a wonderful life

and then he died
now he couldn't feel anything

Some insights from my pocket on learning:

Some insights from my pocket on learning:


It is easy to say that “you should learn something”. A person might even acknowledge that they need to learn it. But what it takes to learn a thing is the acknowledgement of their need/needs. If a person doesn’t think that they need a particular thing, they will never want to have it. And if they don’t want to have it, they will not indulge their efforts in trying to have it. And in that case, the only thing left with you is your “comfort and no need to learn a thing attitude”. This attitude is good for a virtual world, as in real world the need for continuous learning is more than required.

To be able to learn something is a skill.

There are number of attitudes by which a person learns something:

1) One might just learn something to complete a particular task at that particular moment.

2) One may try to learn something to use the learning for the present task and then to use it for completing this particular task at a later time.

3) Or one may learn something, mull over it, use it now, later, and draw inferences out of this learning so that they extrapolate it in all new activities they try. While this kind of learning is done there is a positive and a negative prospect to it.

i) Positive: you will take less time and less effort to learn anything new, as you would have reference of mistakes and will know the pattern of how your own brain works.

ii) Negative: Our brain processes so many things together that this learning and extrapolation activity might lead you to use it even when you don’t need it.



Therefore it is important to be very careful while developing this skill. Continuous contemplation about your activities and the pattern your brain uses to learn something is the key to finding this clarity.

Learning is essential in everything we do otherwise we are as good as a standstill rock. Probably even a rock learns something with time and its own experiences. It withers with time, it is drenched when it rains, and it crushes into shards and pieces giving a way to a new stone and then a new rock.

We all say that we learn something, but learning is not just confined to our own perspective of a thing. With every other eye, and with every other hand, the meaning and usage of learning changes.
I am often perplexed to see how varied this learning could be. For example, I may learn to make an origami flower. My perspective of learning it could be home decor. My husband may take it as a creative usage of  free time. A visitor may think of it as a nice gift, and use it in that way. Another person might take make it nad use it in a whole different way which I cannot even perceive. With every use case of this product, the creative energy changes too.

When one is aware of the existence of more use cases of a particular learning, it is possible to think out of box when needed. This phrase "Think out of box" I am sure everybody has heard of. And I hope I am able to explain my perception of it.

According to me therefore, learning is one thing. The contemplation over what is learnt, to expand the horizon of its usage, and hence improvement of our daily life is what makes learning worth.

Remember to Remember!

A week ago I ran into a friend who was talking to another person when I saw her. She was just finishing up a lengthy conversation with him before she turned to me. When she came to me she embarrassingly confessed that he was a person who she hadn't seen in a while, and she had no clue what the name of this person was.

She remembered precisely when she had met him first, or what did they talk about then, but name? She had not even a remote memory of that!
Well, as hilarious as this situation sounds, isnt it a bitter truth of our everyday life? We forget names more often than any other memory about a given event.
Haven't you encountered such a situation before?

I bet you have!

It is such a common thing that we often dont keep a record. And when it happens we feel bad and blame our memory saying that we have grown old and the brain no longer works as well as it used to do when we were younger. Actually that was the same expression which my friend used to describe how pathetic she was feeling about the whole incident.

We all hope and wish that the brain behaved a little better when such a thing happens.

Guess what!
Our brains have an incredible ability to reshape itself when it comes to learning. My inspiration to write this article was that friend with whom I wanted to share the little tips and tricks to increase the retention power of memory. I learnt these when I was in 9th grade in school. There was a seminar in the only five star hotel in my city, and somehow I found free passes to attend it. I, along with my friends went there to take a sneak peak of how a five star hotel looked liked. But the seminar turned out to be even more interesting.

The facilitator was teaching us, that it doesnt matter if you are growing old, you can still keep your memories intact and refreshed to be used, everytime after you reboot. Those tricks were:
1) Pay attention
2) Imagine and relate
3) Keep your brain healthy

1) Pay attention: Whatever is happening around us, brain has the tendency to register it. But the attention span that we provide to a particular instance decides whether or not we are going to have for a later use.

Have you heard of Deja vu?
It is an experience which makes one feel like they have lived the event before and are reliving it in the present moment. Deja vu occurs when the brain tries to register an event and do the memorization complete, but a thread is broken by another new memory. In such a case, when the previous event is repeated somehow, we get the notion that it has occurred before. This is Deja vu.
If we explore the concept of Deja vu, we will find out that it exhibits exact same process by which brain learns and remembers something. It is an aberration of this process which results in Deja vu.

2) Imagine and relate: Once taken into account the subject to be remembered whether is is a name or a number, now it is the time to relate. The brain does this relation making process voluntarily in most cases, but with certain ideas like a proper noun, this process needs to be conscientiuously repeated in order to retain. Say you are introduced to a person named "Sarah Walker". Work on these steps:
 i) Hear the name clearly, if needed ask to repeat
 ii) Relate the name to a person you already know has the same name
 iii) Then for the lsat name, say Sarah is very fit, or she is unfit, so you could phrase something like "Sarah walks to keep fit" or "Sarah doesnt walks to keep fit". Thats how you attributed her name to her personality , and so you wouldnt forget to recollect the next time she comes into reference.

3) Keep it healthy: Just like our body, our brain needs a regime, which when maintained and followed religiously keeps it healthy forever. Let's check out some of the methods to do this:
 i) Exercising body keeps minds also healthy
 ii) Taking complete 8 hours sleep to rejuvenate mind when you wake up.
 iii) Eating nutrious food (Like salad and protein)
 iv) Laugh, find reasosn to laugh, and if not that then laugh at not having any reasons to laugh.
 v)  Mind exercises with puzzles. Engage some of your time in puzzle. It is also a very good past time in seattle weather.
 vi) Avoid depression and anxiety. They create fatigue in the brain muscles.

In the end I would like to sum it up as:

Remember a name or a number
Whether it is 132 or cucumber
Sew it in a necklace of fables
And you will never have the strress to remember