About: Anger

Anger is always a sign of frustration or desperation. Once you realise this, it could be easier for you to control yourself when you're angry. It (anger) can rarely achieve anything useful.

Also keep this in mind when dealing with an angry person.

Further, anger arises very easily in a person who is hungry or tired.

More Good Quotes

This one's from Marcel Proust, sometimes referred to as the greatest novelist of the 20th century:

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

And this one is straight from a Bombay based jeweler, who was talking about real diamonds:

Only a diamond can polish another diamond.

A Curious Experiment With Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

Let's try this on the internet ! Let's take the obscure links and see where we reach! Less Google, less Digg and less StumbleUpon.

As for the complete poem, you can find it here.

The Mark of an Experienced Man

An experienced man (or woman) is a person who can predict the behaviour of a system which is otherwise unpredictable, simply because of the amount of experience that he has with the system.

The person might not actually make predictions (as these can themselves alter behaviour), but will act upon certain internal assumptions that he makes about how the system will behave in the future.

I do not mean to say, however, that this enables the man to make better decisions. He is just better informed. Decision making is a different ball game...

Nature Does Not Count ; Numbers Don't Matter

I feel quite convinced that some of the biggest problems of the human race have their root in our ability to count.

Nature does not count in precise numbers. It only understands relative terms.

Some have suggested that the ability to count in humans has been misused, but I would just conclude by telling everyone to be less obsessed about numbers. It's one of the easiest ways to feel better connected with the wild.

The Way of the Samurai

I sincerely recommend this book to all of you. I think that most of its observations are still perfectly valid and make a lot of sense. The book might seem a bit radical, but it is nonetheless correct. Many great ideas are radical anyway.

The Way of the Samurai - Hagakure (download pdf)

Don't Work Alone!

I have discovered that even in some sports and other professions where work has to be mostly done alone, it is better to work side by side with somebody.

The problem is one of motivation. I've realised that you are most motivated when your energy levels are high and least motivated when your energy levels are low. So really motivation rarely helps when you need it the most :) It is only the most highly motivated can actually work consistently, even when they're low.

As for us mortals, it's better to work with someone. When your motivation is low, the other person can prod you into working even when you don't want to. And you can prod him or her into working when he's down. It sort of balances the spirit....

Ode to Passion

Very often, we skip doing the things that we live for because we can't find the time and space for them.

- It was too late.

- I was dead tired.

- I had an exam.

- I had a important meeting.

These are the only times that make a difference. If I do something everyday, but when it becomes hard for me to do it, I let go, it's no big deal.

That's the difference between a passion and all else - For a passion, it only matters then... everything else is forgiven.

If you don't have a passion, ignore this post.

Wit and Wisdom

There are two equally important factors that determine the quality of a decision. The first one is wit. the other one is wisdom.

By wit, I would like to point out the alertness of the mind and the amount of attention that one is paying to the present moment.

By wisdom, I mean the total knowledge relating to the subject of the decision that the mind has and remembers at the present moment.

Both these factors are equally important. Only a person who is both knowledgeable and alert at the same time can be entrusted to regularly take good decisions.

The Decreasing Importance of Time

Despite the increasing levels of stress, the longer working hours, lesser free time, etc that popular opinion suggests we have, I am unshakably convinced that our time is not as important as it used to be in our earlier generations.

I have a good proof for it.

In the earlier times, the probability of meeting death at the very next moment was very high. Thus, we factored impending death while thinking about what to do this moment. We took the moment very seriously and did important things.

As the probability of meeting death in the next moment reduced, we started reducing the importance of impending death while thinking about the present moment. We started thinking that we have a lot of time, so let the important things be... we'll first enjoy ourselves.

Thus was reduced the importance of our time and we became the sad people that we are today.

The Perfect System 2: Risk Reduction

I have one earlier post about how a perfect system should be flexible. Here's an expansion of that idea.

What I meant to say there was that when running very well a human system should run on the gut feel of the human beings involved and not on pre-determined procedures. So, the Brazilians that I had talked about earlier, when playing very well, do not bother about any theory of football and move on the pitch as they feel like without any apparent structure. Yet, they seem to be playing very well.

What happens when the gut feel goes away, however, is that they have no idea of what they should do. The same used to apply to Real Madrid also. They'll just go about listlessly playing very obvious moves and end up having their passes intercepted plus a goal or two in the back of their net.

Now, I would like to find a middle point.

What should ideally be done is to play without structure when your gut feel is strong. After the playing, have someone analyse why and how it worked. So now you have an idea of precisely what worked for you when you were playing well. This is what I would like to call the thought structure. Now, when the gut feel goes away, you play according to your thought structure. Just stick to your thought structure and keep playing. You won't play as well, but atleast you won't be as miserable as you were without it. When the feel comes back, you're back.

What we've done is covered the vulnerable underbelly of our 'perfect' system.

Observation about the blog

My blog is titled 'Observations' of a talented idiot and not 'thoughts'. In this light, I must give my readers pure observations and not opinions or thoughts. Thus, I apologise for some of my recent posts, which I felt were not up to the mark, but I could not assign a reason to it. I hope this is an observation and I promise to make amends.

'Culture of Excellence' and the Individual

This post is closely related to the one before this.

I believe that any society that does not voluntarily reward quality where it seems to be unrewarded will eventually become obsolete and will rust to death. Nothing is free. If you don't pay for it now, you'll indirectly pay (perhaps more) for it later.


The statement might seem very obvious to begin with but it involves every individual including you.

Let me start by explaining the statement: Those who are in the habit of offering the best quality and continually improving upon it do it for its own sake. They enjoy it and that is why they do it. When they don't get paid for it, they do not necessarily stop and move on. They either get frustrated and do things ordinarily, which certainly leads to a drop in productivity, or they continue doing things their way even though the market does not pay them, which means that they become inefficient and are driven out by more efficient people who might not bother about quality enhancement. Thus, we get people who are not into quality and the society becomes stagnant. The times keep changing, and this stagnant society cannot keep up with the change. It eventually dies out and transforms itself.

Now let me give you some ideas of what this has to do with you:

1. You know that waiter at that restaurant who did a pretty good job and didn't get a good tip? He could have just stuck to the rules and served you like any other guy, but he tried to make it amazing for you. In a culture which does not tip every once in a while at least, these guys fade out or become inefficient. That waiter might continue doing his job that way, but the other waiters get less tired after doing their jobs and can perhaps earn some extra bucks doing side jobs while this guy does nothing. New waiters see this and are discouraged from offering quality even before the realise the joy in doing it. Nothing is free. If you don't pay for it now, you'll indirectly pay (perhaps more) for it later.

Lesson: Tip when you are impressed with some one's service.

2. Feel the air around you. Most probably, it was much fresher 20 years back. No body's been rewarding this quality in the environment for some time, and we've been feeling the results.

Lesson: Consciously do something for the environment. It is unpaid quality and needs to be rewarded.

3. Sportsmen: Young amateur level sportsmen often struggle very hard without reward to improve their game and very often have to give it up because of a lack of funding. Try and help them if you can. Remember, it's the pursuit of excellence that matters, not the field. The benefits of all quality seeking are highly transferable across fields.

Lesson: Try and help budding sportsmen, artists and scholars when possible.


*I know that what I am saying is well covered by that body of thought under 'positive externalities' in economics, but I am concerned with solving that problem on an individual level here, not theorise about it and suggest policy decisions.

I have also been thinking about the open source software movement in this context, but I cannot get a result yet.

A suggestion on the "Standard of Living" concept

I have already talked about the virtues of doing every little thing that you do extraordinarily well, from the viewpoint of being peaceful in life. (See my older post called "The Truth About Happiness")

What I would like to do now is talk about the idea of "Standard of Living" and what it has to do with the idea expressed above.

To begin with, by "Standard of Living", I mean the quality of the life that a person or a society lives. Which is simply to say that it means how happily a person or a society lives. Any other idea of the Standard of Living is rather useless to me because it does not tell me what I want to know.

Now, I strongly feel that the standard of living of a person or a society is seen in its most ordinary and unimportant actions. If those actions are done properly (or even better, extraordinarily well,) I would suggest that the standard of living of that person or society is very high.

This is because the very fact that unimportant and ordinary things are being done well suggests a commitment to quality. Only a commitment to quality and an active pursuit of it ensures real happiness in my opinion.

* This post relies on three important ideas;

1. Extraordinary teams and extraordinary persons do ordinary things extraordinarily well. - A line used by many people including Shiv Khera, Greg Chappell and Stephen Covey.
2. Swami Vivekananda, an Indian guru, once said that if you want to really see the merits of a yogi, do not see how he meditates, see how he makes his bed. ( This is closely related to '1' above)
3. The post is an extension of my ideas in "The Truth About Happiness.")

How to Use This Blog: Short Comment

While I am happy about the increase in the number of comments on my blog, I must point something very important: when reading this blog, my intention is to give people 'clues' with my words.

Please understand this:

I do not want to tell anybody anything precise and exact. I only hope, always, that after reading what I write, there will be some sort of realisation in the mind of the reader, for which my writing is just a catalyst.

Please do not infer too much from my writing. Read it and the rest is left to that wonderful instrument that you have (and this idiot doesn't have much of!)

Classification v. Continuity

I know that this suggestion is very difficult to implement, but try it:

When thinking of things and analysing them, try not to classify them into categories. Put them on a scale.

For example: Norway is a cold country and Singapore is a warm country.

This classification seems perfectly justified, but it leads to a liking for oversimplification, where we continuously put things and people into categories just for the analytical pleasure of it. Try forming a description of any person you know and you'll get what I mean.

What should be done is to just keep things on a scale and analyse things comparatively.

For Example : Norway is colder than Singapore.

Such a method of analysis keeps the analysis more realistic.

Is This The End?

Hello Everybody,

Regular visitors to this blog must have noticed that in the past few months, the already irregular flow of posts has trickled down to nothing. There have been instances in the past when this happenned but I am inclined to think that those instances were only seasonal variations in the flow of my observations....

An unfortunate series of events has, I am afraid, blocked the free flow of my observations in a manner which makes me think that the cause of this scarcity of good thought is more structural than seasonal this time.

I am noting this down on my blog because I think that the explicit definition of the problem might lead the way towards a possible solution. I believe the problem has a lot to do with a loss of both the environment conducive to my thinking as well as the methodology which refines the original observations.

In brief, I've lost material!! A writer's block perhaps.

All help will be entertained. Your suggestions will do a lot.

Please Help!

Yours Idiotically,
Talented Idiot.

Construction and Beauty

A quick realisation.....

It is very important that things look beautiful in every phase of their construction if they have to be truly beautiful after they are finished. All good poems, songs and paintings looked very good to me even when I saw them in their 'making' phase.

Just contrast this with the buildings we see being constructed around us.... I don't find them good looking even after they are done!

Good idea

This one's from a good friend:

Amitabh Bachchan, in one of his movies, is drunk when points to a bottle of whiskey and says, "If this thing had spirit in it, it would behave drunk." (that's the best translation i could manage).

What it means is that the alchohol itself does not make us behave strangely, but it only releases something that is already there within us. Think about it.....

The meaning of "art"

Another nice theory developed while having a nice time.....

I would often think that any field of performance started as nothing in particular, on development became a science because of its technical aspects, and in its stage of highest development became "art". Why art? Because art is art! I couldn't really explain that one. Then, a brainwave....

Why do we call something art? It is because we can feel the sheer excellence of it, but we cannot comprehend it. That is why we call it an art. We call something a science when we feel it's sophistication/ excellence, but can also realize that there is a way to it.

However, the person actually doing something excellently, comprehends it quite well. So, it is never art for him. It remains purely technical work. It is only the others who find it art.

When things become too abstract to comprehend for an observer, they become art for him. When he finds the abstractions difficult or challenging but comprehensible, it is a science. However, for the doer, what he is doing never becomes too abstract to comprehend, or else he wouldn't be doing it!

This is exactly why music and many such things: plays, dancing, etc become art for most of us fairly easily... The incomprehensibility of abstraction begins pretty early. Whereas in many sports such as football, we find only certain things artistic: for example, the beautiful style of the brazilians. This is because the incomprehensibility of abstraction begins fairly late in these fields.

But another question arises: if, for example, a musician is not getting joy out of his music the way we are getting, what is his "spiritual" motivation?

The answer is simple: he is working on improving his technique/skill. Every time this reaches an unprecedentedly high level, the musician enters virgin territory. It is the joy of discovering these virgin territories that is pushing him.