Entropy is "life"
Space time curves over itself. That's every Physicist's dream or nightmare. Those who say it does would love to hear someone prove it, those who say it does not live in a constant apprehension of someone proving it right.
So is the Schrodinger's cat. The cat in the box is both dead and alive, unless the box is opened. So is an electron which is both matter and wave, and will continue to be unless we humans actually devise a way to "see" it.
But it's the inexplicability of what is and what not defines the region where we "live". It's the inexplicability that calls for the need of opening the box or searching for the way to see an electron, and makes the pursuit worthwhile. The pursuit is life.
A consistent, predefined, meticulously engineered, straight line might be the best suited approach of building a minaret but it never draws the "life" that's in the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The realization was sudden when I sat on the passenger seat of a car while we drove en-route to Miami. I've always enjoyed travelling by road, back home and sitting right besides the driver, even in a bus is an opportunity I look forward to. But driving in USA was nothing like in India. The speed was higher, but the road never bend without a warning, there was a "straight line" that defined what our domain was and led us on a premeditated path. It was the first time I ever felt bored and listless on the road.
It's when I realized the life that was there back home. The uncertainty in macro surroundings that even Heisenberg could not fathom. The rugged looks on the faces of strangers around me who sometimes appeared dangerous until you talked to them. Once you did you would get an instant liking and you remember them for your life. The masons, carpenters and workmen who I befriended during the times when our house was being built fall right into those ranks. And then there could be those who just appeared nice but would leave you running for your life once you know them. Then there would be random people whom I would meet in different walks of life, who never talk to me, look threatening or benign in their manners and then take me by surprise and add a moment of "life" by something totally unexpected.
But out here, everyone talks to you. Everyone says a "Good Morning" and "How're you" just at the hint that you've looked at them. You already know what's coming. They acknowledge your identity. But then that's where the buck stops. The acknowledgement of existence is what everyone cares about.
Everyone lives a premeditated notion of everyone else's existence. A premeditated attitude exists towards everyone and everything.
When in India, I had heard about racial discrimination against us in other countries. But when I came here, I found racial discrimination as a pertinent part of all our lives and worse still, a part of our lives where we were the perpetrators. Discrimination against those whom we would love to meet back in India. And then there is a form of honor-less subservient discrimination towards a certain class of this society, but is a discrimination nevertheless.
Maybe it's the effect of the engineered lifestyle in this country. The lifestyle that puts all of us in buckets, be it Indian or Martian in this land of blended civilization. Watching out of one of those tightly capped buckets we look at others with total certainty defined by the bucket he is placed in. And so do others, who consider all Indians as having accents as our own "Russel Peters" says that we have. (I even tried talking like that but failed, and am an Indian. Maybe I'm an Indian but not a stand up comedian, and that's the reason I failed. But the reason is still "uncertain"). Such as everyone puts on a "How're you" face and never fail to acknowledge other person's existence.
Today I just pray that I continue relentlessly on the path of "natural laws of physics" that expect the entropy of the universe to increase. May I never fall into any bucket and keep surprising everyone in any other bucket and keep getting new surprises generated by the randomness and uncertainty of the Universe.
May there be enough randomness in my life that my headstone say "He died while he was still alive"
So is the Schrodinger's cat. The cat in the box is both dead and alive, unless the box is opened. So is an electron which is both matter and wave, and will continue to be unless we humans actually devise a way to "see" it.
But it's the inexplicability of what is and what not defines the region where we "live". It's the inexplicability that calls for the need of opening the box or searching for the way to see an electron, and makes the pursuit worthwhile. The pursuit is life.
A consistent, predefined, meticulously engineered, straight line might be the best suited approach of building a minaret but it never draws the "life" that's in the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The realization was sudden when I sat on the passenger seat of a car while we drove en-route to Miami. I've always enjoyed travelling by road, back home and sitting right besides the driver, even in a bus is an opportunity I look forward to. But driving in USA was nothing like in India. The speed was higher, but the road never bend without a warning, there was a "straight line" that defined what our domain was and led us on a premeditated path. It was the first time I ever felt bored and listless on the road.
It's when I realized the life that was there back home. The uncertainty in macro surroundings that even Heisenberg could not fathom. The rugged looks on the faces of strangers around me who sometimes appeared dangerous until you talked to them. Once you did you would get an instant liking and you remember them for your life. The masons, carpenters and workmen who I befriended during the times when our house was being built fall right into those ranks. And then there could be those who just appeared nice but would leave you running for your life once you know them. Then there would be random people whom I would meet in different walks of life, who never talk to me, look threatening or benign in their manners and then take me by surprise and add a moment of "life" by something totally unexpected.
But out here, everyone talks to you. Everyone says a "Good Morning" and "How're you" just at the hint that you've looked at them. You already know what's coming. They acknowledge your identity. But then that's where the buck stops. The acknowledgement of existence is what everyone cares about.
Everyone lives a premeditated notion of everyone else's existence. A premeditated attitude exists towards everyone and everything.
When in India, I had heard about racial discrimination against us in other countries. But when I came here, I found racial discrimination as a pertinent part of all our lives and worse still, a part of our lives where we were the perpetrators. Discrimination against those whom we would love to meet back in India. And then there is a form of honor-less subservient discrimination towards a certain class of this society, but is a discrimination nevertheless.
Maybe it's the effect of the engineered lifestyle in this country. The lifestyle that puts all of us in buckets, be it Indian or Martian in this land of blended civilization. Watching out of one of those tightly capped buckets we look at others with total certainty defined by the bucket he is placed in. And so do others, who consider all Indians as having accents as our own "Russel Peters" says that we have. (I even tried talking like that but failed, and am an Indian. Maybe I'm an Indian but not a stand up comedian, and that's the reason I failed. But the reason is still "uncertain"). Such as everyone puts on a "How're you" face and never fail to acknowledge other person's existence.
Today I just pray that I continue relentlessly on the path of "natural laws of physics" that expect the entropy of the universe to increase. May I never fall into any bucket and keep surprising everyone in any other bucket and keep getting new surprises generated by the randomness and uncertainty of the Universe.
May there be enough randomness in my life that my headstone say "He died while he was still alive"
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