The essay starts with Sisyphus, who was condemned by the Greek gods to roll a big rock up a hill, only to see it roll back down again, //ad infinitum.// This, the Gods had figured, was a fitting punishment — what could be worse than doing a aimless, fruitless task over and over again, knowing that nothing would ever come out of it. Much of the essay is abstract, and I didn’t follow all of it, but here’s my understanding.

The question that haunts us is what was going on in Sisyphus’s head as he went through the turmoils. Was he frustrated, depressed and dejected, disappointed at his terrible misfortune? Was he angry and enraged that life was putting him through such ordeals? Could he possibly have found a positive note to his mundane routine?

Camus’s point is that we should not try too hard to find meaning and rationale for our existence, for it leads us to the following paradox: we value our lives highly and believe that it has some purpose to it, some higher calling; yet we also know that we will eventually die and fade away (see [[wp>Absurdism|Absurdism]] for more) What is life worth then? Are all our efforts meaningless? Should we give up (ala suicide), or should be brainlessly go on doing what needs to be done?

Camus is against suicide, and says that the only way to deal with the absurdity of life is to continually engage it — to learn, to experience, to absorb. He does not, however, encourage living for life itself. He does not share the immense joy of life that ancient Indian’s had, for instance. Instead, he suggests that we maintain a distance with life, not get too deeply involved in its meddlesome affairs. In some sense this is empowering because if you can scorn upon life, distance yourself from it, then you have (or feel you have) more control over fate.

Some lines I really like from the essay:

//As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved.//

//It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.//

//It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.//

And finally,

//One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile.//

The premise of the essay didn’t really come as too much of a shock for me. I think its one of those things about “ancient wisdom of the civilizations” that Nehru talks about in Discovery of India. I mean, such dual/paradoxical notions that life itself might not have a deep meaning, yet we should take joy in living do not seem alien at all. Quite the opposite, I think a lot of people in India would not have trouble understanding and appreciating this line of thought. Infact, I’m quite at home with such a theory.

I don’t like believing in fate or chance, yet I cannot deny it plays an important role in shaping the course of our lives. I cannot control it, yet one must do what one can. In this sense, Sisyphus inspires me to keep going; to strive to be the master of my own personal universe.

Consider re-incarnation: I’m not very knowledgeable on the subject (see [[wp>reincarnation|entry at Wikipedia]]) but the basic idea that everyone understands is that we are //re-born// after death. In particular, the Hindu philosophy holds that depending on your [[wp>karma|karma]] in this life, your fate in the next life would be decided.

Now philosophy apart, at the atomic level, this actually does happen to some extent. I mean, eventually we are all but organized congolomerates of billions and billions of atoms held together by some cooperative forces. And once we die, our bodies will disintegrate (whether its buried or cremated) into its constituent atoms. Also, since an atom is an amazingly **almost indestructible** entity, its bound to combine, cohort and re-appear in some shape or form. Some of your atoms may become plants, others may become earth, still others may become water or air. Just as likely, some of your atoms might re-appear in other organisms. And taking this to the extreme, there is a non-zero, even though infinitesimally small probability, that a human being is born who is constituted entirely of atoms that were once //you//.

I had never looked at re-incarnation in this light, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether the ancients already had an inkling of the atomic world, and the re-incarnation as we know today might just be the polluted and corrupt version of a pure idea dating back thousands of years. In any case, it made me smile :-)

I can divide this year into three phases — pre-summer, summer, and post-summer.

Pre-summer was the most significant: I failed to prepare the dilation paper in time for SIGCOMM, and barely managed to push it into SOSP; I went through the most painful week of my life and it almost broke me; I re-realized how friends can be the supporting pillars in times of crises; I bought my first car in the US (she’s a beauty!) and had an amazing time driving up to the Bay Area.

The summer (internship) period was a time for new people and places: I had a great time with a wonderful bunch of interns at HP; I had tons of fun-filled weekends playing taboo and pictionary and roaming around the Bay Area scouting for food places with my friends; I learned what it was like to work in an industrial research lab; I moved my web site to paid hosting and discovered Textdrive; I started taking an interest in web based technology and related startups; and I became formally involved with the Apache Forrest project.

Post summer, it was mostly a follow through in the momentum of the past events: submitted NSDI paper; met up with Jason and had him take a picture of me with davie; got involved with Udai; I began an introspection that will hopefully evolve into something meaningful in the coming year; made a trip to India; started working towards a USENIX paper;

I don’t believe in new year resolution, but there //are// some things I look forward to doing in the coming year. In short, I need to fix all the things about my life that I don’t feel good about: my working style (I think I can be far more productive than I am if I stop wasting time in the less important things), I need to put some more enthusiasm in the work at hand, and in general I need to act more and think less.

I also do hope to get some more experience and exposure, and meet some more people. Finally, I hope to continue the introspection I began some weeks back — its basically a small effort on my part to try and understand who I really am, both at an individual level, as a person, but also at a more global and societal level. Whats my identity as an Indian? What does it mean to be an Indian? What is our identity as global citizens of the world? Do we even need a national or even a global identity? And so on.

Globally speaking, 2005 was perhaps one of the worst years in recent times. We saw the terrible Tsunami, the US elections, the deadly hurricanes, the Iraq war, the earthquakes, the terrorist attacks, the bird flu and several other unpleasentries. But I hope, as a race, as a civilization, we end the year at a positive note, with hope in our hearts that mankind will yet come out with warmth and compassion and show the vitality and spirit that has helped it survive tumultous times before.

This post might sound pessimistic and cynical, but things are not as bad as they seem. Its just that when I sit down to think, its usually the bad things that stand out.

Here’s wishing everyone a great new years ahead!

A couple of days back, Nakul raised the issue again in [[http://nakulmandan.blogspot.com/2005/08/motherland.html|this post]]. The quote mentioned there-in is very well written indeed (that [[http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050811&fname=monbiot&sid=1&pn=1|outlook article]] raises some very good points, and presents them succinctly). It might all boil down to just a difference in perspective, but let me still try to further elaborate on my point of view. I’ll give you three different ways of looking at it.

**Why you //must// have some feelings for your motherland**

Nakul (and that article) say that they are not ashamed of their nationality, but why should they feel any different for it than for any other country. They say how does it matter where you’ve been born and brought up.

I’ll give a simple analogy (its an exaggeration, of course, but you should see the similarity). How do you feel towards your parents? Looking at it objectively, they invested some resources in you to raise you (just like your motherland); you’ve lived with them and inherited much from them in terms of culture, beliefs, values (just like your motherland); and you _do_ feel differently towards them than say towards other parents, don’t you? Then
why do you treat your country any differntly?

I would love to live in a society where there are no geo-political barriers, where we are all citizens of the world. However, the reality is that that day is no where close. For an innumerable number of reasons (some good, some bad) the world we live in continues to be divided. And its going to stay that way for a while.

**Why you //should// have some feelings for your motherland**

The fact remains that who who are and where you were born and how you were raised, //do// make an impact on your life, whether you want it or not. Throughout history, groups of people have been in clashes, inevitably.
Perhaps its just human nature. Whatever be the case, even today, we see nations in conflicts, there are still the opressed and the oppressors. If you were born in a country that was being invaded, just //randomly//, would it
help that none of the people of that country felt no feeling of nationalism?

What if no other country comes to help?

We live and breathe in a free world today, and we should be thankful for that. But not less than hundred years ago, things were very different. This independence didn’t come for free, it came at a cost. Sure, had you been born elsewhere, who knows how things might have turned out. But you were born //here//, and the life you led would have been *so* much different had you not enjoyed this freedom. Don’t you owe anything to the people who fought for this country and built it?

**Why you //could// have some feelings for your motherland**

Feeling pride for your country doesn’t mean you look down on others. I don’t
know how Mr. Manbiot concludes that a patriot British will choose a program
that lets 101 non-britishers die other a program that lets 100 britishers die.
Since when did patriotism imply non humanitarism?

Infact, I have often found that appreciating how my “motherland” has evolved
over the years has //increased// my appreciation of the struggles and the
triumphs and the tribulations of countries and cultures struggling elsewhere
(both in time and space).

Let me rewind a little bit. Let me ask you some questions: we always hear
about efforts to preserve and promote handicraft, aboriginal art, rare
forms of pottery or porcelain or even cheese making — what do you think
of these efforts? Why do we care about these things? What are “these
things”?

I’m guessing your answer would be something similar to “they are a part of
history, a part of the cultural heritage of some people and so it is
important that they be preserved”. When I was in middle school, I used to
hate history — it was so boring, so drab. But over the years I’ve come to
realize how interesting and fascinating history really is. And not just
for the factual content, but also for insights into the evolution of
civilizations.

Why is culture important? Why should we care what culture people had
before us? I’m not going to answer those questions. But I believe if you
sit down and think about it, you will come up with //some// reasonable
arguments. But how does all this relate to nationalism?

//If// I was living in the aforementioned utopian world, the notions of
nationalism that we are discussing here would simply not make sense.
Then we would all be part of the same culture, the same civilization,
share the same heritage and so on. However, that is not the case. The
fact remains that (and this is as true for individuals as it is for
countries) if we don’t assert our individuality, we start to lose our
identity.

True, if you moved around a lot, you might feel more a part of the “global”
citizenry than others, and you might not feel strongly about any one
particular country. And I think thats //perfectly fine//. Eventually
(hopefully) as boundaries dissolve, we will all merge in the global culture.
But its not happening yet.

I don’t know from where Mr. Manbiot got the notion that patriotism can be
interpreted as a kind of racism, and could encourage wars. While there are
certainly extremes in each ideology, I think “taking pride in my culture” and
“looking down upon other cultures” are two entirely different things. I
respect and admire other cultures as well (modulo the fact I don’t know most
of them as well as I do mine).

Finally, I’m not in favor of blind or false pride. That kind of disillusion
is never useful. No one is perfect. Be critical of your motherland, just like
you are of your parents. But if you find something that you believe in, that
you admire, that you care about, then be proud of it. Why not?

Last week I saw [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/|Donnie Darko]] with some fellow HP interns, on Ryan’s suggestion. It was an interesting movie. I didn’t understand all of it, and some parts were very very vague. Its about this high school kid who it seems is under the influence of a strange rabbit, but in reality he’s just living in a tangent universe… see I told you its not easy to grasp :-D

But I liked the movie. It was different that the regular movies that one watches. Its good to see something like this once in a while. It always reminds me that humans are always so confident in their knowledge of the world they inhabit, and yet as the past century has shown, this confidence is usually not well founded.

I have often wondered, what makes a great school great? How is it, that over and again, we see that certain places manage to inspire and produce generations of outstanding thinkers and artists and scientists.
The Stanfords, the Berkeleys, the MITs, and of course, the IITs.

Abhaga astutely observes that experiences such as living in a hostel don’t make a place unique. Irrespective of where you live, 4 years of hostel live will definitely teach you a lot about people, the world around you, the realities and the brutalities, the goodness and the selfishness. You will grow as a person, understand your responsibilities, learn to make your own decisions, make mistakes, learn from them (or not). Hostel life prepares you for the real world.

But these places have something more. They teach you to dream. Rather, they teach you to //learn to dream//. I’m neither as emotional or articulate as Abhaga was when writing his post, so this probably doesn’t sound that eloquent :-) But the point I’m trying to make is, the actual education is not in the text books and the assignments. Somewhere in those hall ways and libraries and great halls and quads, we get inspired, and learn to live and pursue our dreams.

I think the inspiration factor is key here. Inspiration can come from many places. Roaming in the lawns at Stanford, among those old-architecture buildings, I could easily imagine how people could get inspired simply by their surroundings. The rolling hills, the lush green grass, the tower and the status. Or if you are sitting around with your friends around a fountain in the cobbled courtyards of Princeton. Atleast to me, it seems sometimes just the //natural beauty// is enough to inspire.

Then of course there’s the rich history factor.

Another important thing IMHO is //tradition// — be it the hall 2 vs. hall 3 rivalry of IITK (which sadly, is not anymore… or is it?) or the MIT hacks — traditions both grand and silly, serve to bind the whole place by an invisible threads. Even if you meet a 10 years senior from IITK or a 10 years junior whom you’ve never met — you can always talk about the buildings and the mess and the faculty and the freshers and the ragging. Traditions make you feel that you //belong//.

Sometimes I feel we are in a constant battle to defeat our past, to live up to the expectations of these institutions that we so proudly associate with.

Of course, all of these places were not always great — I mean they all had a beginning right? But they all built a //critical mass// of good students and faculty, that gave them the foundation, on which they built upon and spawned forth. And its not that all the places are consistently great. Everyone has their lean period. But the sheer momentum of the past sometimes burgeones us into the future.

Ah, those days.

He says that teaching Darwinian evolution as a theory is fine. But then, one should also look at other theories of evolution as well (just like we study different theories of gravitation, for instance). The //other// theories, in this case, fall under the category of **intelligent design**.

I wasn’t too familiar with this term, so I did a little bit of research. It seems that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design|intelligent design]] is the “scientific” counterpart to the theory of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism|Creationism]]. It posits that the whole gamut of species that we see today could not have come about by mere natural selection and random mutation.

Now I’m not too knowledgable about these issues. But I still haven’t read anything truly “scientific” about intelligent design (by way of experiments or empirical evaluation). There is [[http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm|this article]] that tries to discuss intelligent design using mathematical tools such as probability and information theory, but I still wasn’t convinced.

On the whole, I’m highly skeptical of this issue. It seems to me bordering on religion, and mixing religion with science is not a good idea IMHO.

For the interested, here are some more articles on intelligent design:

* [[http://speakout.com/activism/opinions/3116-1.html|Intelligent Design Theory: Why it matters?]]
* [[http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-09/design.html|Design Yes, Intelligent No]]

Of course, I should clarify that I’m just talking about personal opinions here. There’s no objective way to quantify how worthy a particular profession is. But in my mind, no matter how hard I try, there does exist a certain bias towards some professions.

Note that respecting a profession is not the same as respecting a person. For instance, I would always give equal respect to any honest hard-working person, irrespective of the profession he/she is in.

But when it comes to professions, for me social service, teaching, health care are some professions that command more respect than others (such as software developer, project manager etc)

I will comment on the original article that was behind the post later; I first want to comment on some of the things Nakul said in his post.

**Idol Worship**

I will concede that each society has its own notion of a //God//. But labelling all such notions as //idol worship// is shortsighted. It might be the case in India (though I don’t think even that holds true). Further, all notions of God are not about //personification// (against, most are, but not all). And finally, simply because //YOU// have not felt or seem //him// doesn’t mean others have (just to be clear, **I haven’t**). To me, the definition of God is a very personal concept, and tied close together with your values, beliefs and faith.

Something that might be seeing and believeing for me, might just be stupidity for you. I don’t believe human society is at a stage where one can give an unambiguous quantifiable litmus test for God. That would be the end of philosophy. Anyways, coming to the point — I don’t think its all bullshit. I sincerely believe that some people do believe and have felt what they think God might be. And I say good for them!

**Motherland**

You were not //just born// here — you were born and //brought up// here. Now **that** is something you can’t just ignore. You probably don’t realize it now, but I’m sure as hell you will when you go to London in a few days. I agree that people make too much of a big deal about brain drain. And I also agree that with each passing day we are becoming part of a larger society. All that is fine and I have nothing against going outside India looking for a better life (I think it just comes back to India in better ways if that happens).

All I’m saying is that there are many things that are part of you, your core values and beliefs that are in part simply because you spent a substantial portion of your life in a specific geogrphical portion of the earth. And that you don’t necessarily //owe// anything to that land or its people, but just spend some time thinking about things like how life would have been had you been born 50 years before Independence, or how things would have been had you been born in Africa or Europe or America or Spain for that matter.

There are fanatics and extremists everywhere. But feeling passionate about one’s country is neither irrational nor hypocritic. Its something to be proud of.

** Hypocrisy **

I wouldn’t go so far as saying that its a //human// trait. But its definitely a //societal// trait. For that matter, I find glaring examples of hypocrisy here in the United States every day. Women here got voting rights only in 1920 I think. And in the 300 years of US Congress, there have been only [[http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/Photo_Exhibit_African_American_Senators.htm | five African-American senators]]. Compare that to the vivid (though chaotic) representation in Indian politics. Despite all the talks of liberty and equality, your color is still something you can’t forget. I could go on an on.

But I think in the original article the writer was a bit too biased (or exaggerating to bring out the point). What I worry more about is that over the last 2 years (and going on) there’s an increasing dichotomy of societies in India. Microcosms of societies have formed in and around the metros (Pune, Bangalore included) while the majority of rural India gets left behind. What they do see however, is cable TV, internet and bollywood. The combined forces of these three media can be devastating, without appropriate education and exposure.

BTW, why do we wish everyone a //happy// birthday? I mean, is it just because it doesn’t make sense to wish someone a sad birthday, or are //we// really happy that its that person’s birthday or do we simply with that the person should be happy that its his/her birthday?