The year i lost. Repeatedly.
The year i lost more weight than i gained.
The year i lost some people close to my whatever-that-plumbs-blood-in-my-body.
The year i failed twice. In the same exam. Twice.
The year we lost Steve jobs, Dennis Richie, Jagjit Singh.
The year of lost warranties. (Jail broken iPod Touch, Rooted and Custom-Rom’ed Desire S and Nook Touch)
The year of 4.8% alcohol intake.
The year of four wheel drives.
The year my Esteem ‘99 died, reborn and died a couple of times more.
The year I laid my eyes on *Silver Surfer* Vento.
The year of Distraction, Distortion, Depression.
The year of Self Assessment , Motivation and fall backs.
But damn if it wasn’t one of the best years of my life.
Heres to 2012. The year followed by 2011.
cheers!
Why am i comparing love with games like world of Warcraft? they don’t have anything in common. But we have started behaving like players in role playing games while looking for love. Love used to be simple. Life used to be simple. And then we were bombarded with all these rules, guidelines and things that were supposedly ”uncool’. And you couldn’t just say what you wanted to. It became a game where you had to use strategies , tactics and surveillance to score your prey.
You cant just say what you actually believe or feel is true. You cant make snap judgements. In this era of internet. there is no “living in the moment”. spontanious decisions have come down to hours of research and a logical decision.
You cant talk about sex without being considered a pervert.
You cant express your love without being labelled emotional and clingy.
You cant be alone without being tagged as “anto-social”.
Why is there a need to define and judge every single move of the person. And why does it affect their over all image.
Approach that girl you dont know but you think is cute. ya, you’re probably a player.
Pour your heart out on a letter to the girl you haven’t met in months? good luck getting a reply.
The scary part of this equation is being judged. We pass on so many opportunities just because we aren’t comfortable with how people will “see us”.
That girl you’ve had a crush on since years but haven’t talked to only because you don’t know how she is gonna react. And you think aren’t ”good enough for her”. how will you know if its true till you actually approach her?
When i was in 12th we had this poem by Shakespeare simply called ‘Sonnet no. 148”. Its topic was how love is blind. Our English teacher was a great lady. Passionate about the subject and you could actually understand what she was trying to say. She asked the class what some of the lines meant. No body came forward, which was surprising to me as it seemed so simple. So i stepped up.The author was trying to say that when you are in love, you don’t see the negative side of your partner. And as others can see them, this means you must be blind. author says that he is so busy falling for the amazing side of the girl that he doesn’t notice at all whats wrong with her.
Now that was the 16th century. These days you cant even start dating someone without gathering every piece of information about them from various sources, like Facebook, Google and you always have that one gossipy friend. Why don’t we give ourselves the chance to decide what the person is like by ourselves. Even if you realize you made a bad decision 6 months later, i would still have been YOUR decision and you probably learned something from it. May be its a good thing that love is blind. At least this way its pure and unadulterated.
Why cant we just stop playing all these games? Secretly encoding and decoding sugar coated messages, being on the loop with more than one partners juggling them like a clown entertaining kinds on a birthday party, blindly believing what others tell you just to keep up with the status quo.
I’ve lived on this earth for 19 years. And in that time i have learned quite a few things. One of them is knowing what CRAP is and how avoid it.
Now, i know it seems silly to learn something like this from a 19 year old. But hear me out.
Crap sells. It just does. Recent example is RA one. Awful movie. No story what so ever. And still it became the biggest grossing movie of the year. That was the magic of Promotion and advertising. That’s how the people in marketing make money. By misleading us.
Take a look at all these indian soap operas. I cant watch them for 5 minutes without putting a fake bullet through my head. there is nothing to learn from them other than very long courses of ” How to steal someone else’s husband” or “How to look exactly like your enemy after having a plastic surgery” And the ever lasting “How to die dramatically and be born again and repeat the process till someone beats the crap out of me”
You can continue falling prey to this kind of misleading stuff or you can update your screening process and waste your time on the stuff you actually enjoy.
I have successfully tried to keep myself away from stuff that i think is crappy. These are some pointers that worked for me. They might help you too.
- Use IMDB or other websites before watching / renting / downloading a movie. The user and critics reviews will help you decide what to see and what to avoid. A few minutes can save you 2 hours of your life.
- Give up TV. Seriously. Its been years since i have switched on TV. Why should you watch annoying ads over and over again and follow the schedule set by someone else to get some entertainment. I use Sidereel to stream tv shows online. YouTube for trailers and video songs. and if you Google around a bit you can find some source to watch Indian shows online too.
- Research the internet before buying anything important. Don’t rely on just advertises and the sales executive to make the decision. This will make your purchase future proof and save you from pulling your hair later. There is a lot to learn in this area. but start off with user reviews of Amazon ( for virtually anything under the sun) and expert reviews of Cnet , Trustedreviews and Theverge for tech related products.
These should get you started on the right path of leading a non crappy life. For a more detailed guide, watch this space.
I wake up looking at a 3.7 inch shiny SLCD screen. And i go to bed doing the same thing. Its not a fancy phone. It doesn’t have a dual core processor or a 1080p camera. Its decent classy and it still excites me every time i turn on the screen.
It does everything for me. call, text, Gmail, Calender, late night reading, browsing, YouTube etc etc.
And i have done everything with it that’s possible. Dropped it, scratched it, Rooted, Flashed custom ROM, Momentarily bricked it. Got scared. restore from back up and it worked like a charm again.
Ive used two custom ROMs CyanogenMod and MIUI, MIUI is my favorite. Its just so well thought of and its inspired by iPhone. But that’s where the similarity ends. It does everything the Android way.
People tell me android doesn’t feel as polished as iOS, or its rough around the edge etc etc. But that’s the part of its charm. It can be anything you want it to be. It can be that confused teen from The Breakfast Club or the sophisticated stock broker.
You can customize the hell out of it. Make it do exactly what you want by using Tasker. Want to turn on 3G when you open the browser. Done. turn on GPS when you open your running app. Can do. It will do exactly what you tell it to do. Its fun to fine tune android till it you get exactly what you want.
You will find a hell lot of articles on the Internet about the best apps on android or the best ROMs, launchers, but that’s what what this post is about. Its about what android really is.
Its not the slut the wants to control your every move and give you only the thing it wishes to provide you. No. Instead its this happy to help friend what will gladly be your bitch and obey all of your command.
P.S. - This is the part one of my two part article series.
The next one - I bleed iOS.
Complete the Biggest achievement of your life.
Live on the high for few weeks.
Prepare for the next step. Get glasses after years of ignorance.
Start the “next step”. Believe in yourself.
Get too comfortable. Start taking everything lightly.
Take people for granted. Take EVERYTHING for granted.
Start giving inhuman things like Tech more importance over human things.
Go crazy till you get “THAT THING”.
Completely forget what you were supposed to do.
Realize what you just did wrong. wait until its too late.
Console yourself by saying there is nothing you can do now.
Stop interacting with people. Stop wishing people happy birthday on Facebook.
Update horribly out of context statuses with not so understanding language.
Spend the whole day in your PJs.
Prepare your mind for the Faliure ahead.
Tell everyone its ok!
Wake up, Laugh it off. Make jokes. Move on.
