21 December 2011

"The New Internet Will Make You Sad Forever"


Loved this article by Sam Biddle on Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5869802/the-new-internet-will-make-you-sad-forever In case the URL gets obsolete, here is the article copy-pasted.

The New Internet Will Make You Sad Forever - by Sam Biddle


The web used to be about other people. IMing your friend, emailing your wife, a chatroom with other guinea pig enthusiasts. Now it's turning around. Information is becoming less important than emotion—the web is an empty nostalgia factory.

When everything is worth becoming a memory, what's that say about remembrance? If everything is the object of nostalgia and reminiscence then I don't really know what those things mean anymore—it would seem to be nothing. We're reaching that point.

Technology has not only made it easier to long for the past, it's made it tempting—and at times unavoidable—to strangle ourselves with an overload of fake nostalgia. Through their abundance and laxness, memories have been cheapened like few other things by the internet by sites like Timehop, which unifies existing nostalgia feeders into a daily digest of your social media footprints. Its creator calls it a "digital wave of nostalgia"—reminders of where you checked in, what you photographed, and what the weather was like a year ago each day are served up automatically. "Memories delivered daily to your inbox!" A bar I checked in to a year ago. I forgot about it. Now I remember. Proof that I existed a year ago—something to grasp. "A daily email that brings it all back to you," Timehop calls itself. All of what?

We Instagram our burgers, our trips to the mall, our beers, our sunsets.
We check in to every trivial appointment, errand, and coffee on Foursquare.

And now, Facebook has turned into the largest, clearest mirror ever produced by the internet, expressly designed to chronicle our lives—and to dig deep down into the primordial muck of our social ancient history. With a few clicks I can pore over every exchange I had with every freshman year dorm friend, every high school well-wisher, every photo with a fake friend I met at an internship, and the rest of the detritus and minutia.

There's a great deal of beauty in Timeline—but it simultaneously holds all the dreck that we have no reason to revisit, spread across a gilded platter and garnished quite nicely. I love Timeline—I use it daily. It's an extraordinary creation, and yet I know there's something a little perverse about wading through page after page of status updates from years and years ago. But I keep going.

We spoon feed ourselves these bites of personal history because everything happens too fast to eat something better. The web churns, and we churn with it—our lives are often accelerated beyond the ability to stop and appreciate anything, let alone discern the meaningful.

So to compensate, we apply filters to our photos to make them look old, worn, and cherished, we leave breadcrumbs on Foursquare so we'll remember that time we got a danish at the airport, and we swan dive to 2007 on Timeline, swimming with photos and messages of people we have no reason to acknowledge anymore. The result is the devaluing of everything we do. We ought to feel nostalgia for our old bedrooms, a good New Year's Eve, or someone we won't see again. These singular things capture the Greek algos in nostalgia—the pain of something of significance that we can't have back. But you can always go grab another sandwich, no matter how remote it looks in that Instagram.


There's no reason to think this will slow, or even reverse. We're addicted to artificial nostalgia, we're sad without it, and getting a quick fix is effortless. But truth be told, we may be just as sad with it, constantly cast backwards into memories of trifling bullshit. It may be sad to feel like we're sprinting through our high tech lives without milestones, but it could be far, far more depressing to look back fondly on a fucking caffè latte.

20 December 2011

A thought for Dhanurmasam - Him or His?

Once upon a time, there was a wealthy kingdom. The king ruled justly and the ministers worked hard. It was the responsibility of the treasurer of the kingdom to go to all the villages in the kingdom once in every 6 months to collect taxes. He would take a small troop of soldiers with him to guard the treasury box filled with money. He would always make sure that he reached the capital before dark and would never travel when the night fell. He didn't want to attract the attention of thieves and robbers who would way-lay anyone travelled through the jungles after dark.
Once, the treasurer somehow got delayed on the way. He was travelling through a forest and it was getting dark. Suddenly, from somewhere a group of robbers came and attacked the treasury convoy. The robbers outnumbered the soldiers. A fight ensued. As they were fighting a fierce battle, six young men came and joined the soldiers. Five of them fought valiantly with the robbers. The sixth man took the treasury chest with him on a horse, reached the capital and brought more soldiers with him. The robbers were all caught. The king was very pleased with the six young men. He praised the service rendered by them to the kingdom and said he would grant each of them one wish.

The first young man said, "My house is in a very dilapidated condition. Can you build me a brand new and strong house please?" The king said of course, he would.

The second man said, "I have a good house. But I don't have any money. Can you make me a wealthy man?" The King said he would gladly do that.

The third man said, "I want my family to be respected by all. Can you please confer the honor of knighthood on me and my family?" The King said it is a simple wish and he would fulfill it.

The fourth man said, "I have everything except one thing. I am in love with my neighbor's daughter and want to marry her. My neighbor doesn't like me. Can you influence him so that he would give his daughter to me in marriage?" The King smiled at this and said he would definitely do that.

The fifth man said, "I don't want any of these material things. I want to do some service to my village. The roads leading to my village have gone bad and full of potholes. Can you please get them repaired?" The King said it is a noble thought indeed and that he would happily fulfill it.

The sixth man was quiet all the time. When his turn came, he didn't say anything. King asked him what his wish was. The man hesitated and said, "You should not get angry at hearing my wish. You should not deny it either. Give me your word to that effect and I'll tell you what my wish is." The King hesitated. The man said, "Don't worry o King. I won't ask for anything that's beyond your capacity. I'll only ask for something that you can easily give." The king thought for a moment and agreed. The man said, "O King, I wish for your company for a week every year. You should come to my house and live with me for a week every year." The king granted him the wish.

Everybody in the court thought the sixth young man to be a fool. But very soon everybody realized how intelligent he was.

Since the King would visit him every year and stay for a week in his house, his small dilapidated house was replaced by a big palace. He was given wealth to be able to host the king. His friends, relatives, villagers, and everybody in the kingdom started respecting him because of his friendship with the king. The king felt it is inappropriate to come and live in a common man's house every year, so gave his daughter to the man in marriage. Now the king had no problem being a guest in his son-in-law's house.

What is the hidden meaning of this story?

The first man wanted "good strong house". We ask God for strong body and good health.

The second man asked for "wealth". We ask God to give us money, cars, jobs and other material things.

The third man asked for "knighthood". We ask God for respectability and honor in the society.

The fourth man asked for "fame" (through social service). We ask God for fame all the time.

The fifth man asked for "wife and children". We ask God to bless us with children, grand children, etc.

But the intelligent sixth man didn't ask for any of these things. He asked for God Himself. Once he got God, he got everything that is God's. So, we all need to make this choice. Do we want Him or do we want His?