More on Life .....and Lemon's Principal

A guy on my floor just received a terrible news. A cousin of his father was on his way back from Tirupati, with family, when they met with an accident. The cousin died on spot and others of the family seriously injured. It reminded me that life is all of what I said in the last post and more. It is transient, temporary, and perpetually haunted by the spectre of death. As somebody said the ultimately aim of life is to die.

The other thing it did was to drive home the importance and beauty of life ever more strongly. I was reminded of the time when I came so close to destroying it. I can scarcely imagine the trauma some such action would have wrought on people who love me.

I just hope I don't come that close to the precipice again.

I came across an interesting principal called Lemon's Principal in my Financial Accounting book. It says that the presence of people in the market who are willing to offer inferior goods tends to drive the market out of existence. The theory was first stated by George A. Akerlof , Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley in one of the most cited papers- the paper won him the Nobel Prize. Could you explain how Lemon's Principle works ? One of these days I am going to write the explanation but right now I am feeling too lazy to do that.

If you go through the posts on this blog, it is hard not to notice the enormous swings in my moods. The posts range from overly optimistic and cheerful to downright gloomy. If you continue to visit the blog, you may find a number of contradictions too. Because if I am honest to the posts, they will inevitably reflect the state of my mind which, unless I get superhuman powers, will change much. And as my thinking evolves I may develop opinions contrary to those that I harbour now and may infact come round to my original opinion again in the course of time. I guess I have too much to learn to have many fixed opinions at this stage.

Life is Eminently Livable

Life sucks
when you have to attend three lectures of one and a half hours each on trot...3 days a week.
when you go to bed lonely... every night.
when you wake up lonely and at seven...every morning.
when you miss the homemade food...every mess meal.
when your best friend is worried...every now and then.

Life is beautiful
when you rediscover that learning is fun.
when the professor makes a subtly witty comment...and it brings a smile to your lips.
when you appreciate there are many people who'd gladly swap positions with you.
when you talk to your family and feel how proud they are of you.
when you feel how happy your best friend is for you.
when you try cheering your best friend and succeed.
when you anticipate the coming holidays and the visits that you will make.
when you appreciate that you were in a much worse position this time, last year.

Life is beautiful when someone loves you selflessly and limitlessly.
Life is at its best when you find you love someone selflessly and endlessly.

On the balance, Life is eminently livable.

Of Classes and Depression

Just to reinforce what I wrote in the last post and offer a food for thought, sociologists David Reisman and Nathan Glazer (1950) contend that in most cases, "people's real work -- the field into which on the basis of their character and their gifts, they would like to throw their emotional or creative energies -- cannot conceivably coincide with what they get paid for doing". In my case it is not coincident with what I am paying to learn. I found this in a paper published by Jaan Elias & Gregory Dees from Harvard Business School on "The Normative Foundations of Business".

We had an interesting class on Business, Government and Society today wherein groups were formed and asked to discuss an issue and then make a presentation. My group had to dissect the contention that graduates of the IIMs should be compelled to join "public service" for a fixed period fresh out of the college in view of the significant subsidy at which they are recieving their education. One interesting point that I raised was that the government is trying to withdraw from most spheres of our economy by privatisation and limit itself to its core duty of administration. So, are the managers from IIMs supposed to study management and then necessarily join as administrators (bureaucrats ) in the government? And is it practical to compel people to do so? Won't many people be tempted to give the IIMs a miss in the favour of foriegn b-schools - surely they won't find it very difficult to find sponserers, as it is most students of IIMs have to take loans ? What implication would that have for the IIMs?

Is persistent ennui symptomatic of a deep psychological disorder? Is it a precursor to acute depression where one is losing the will to put in an effort to enjoy? It is very tempting to let go of all responsibilities and throw oneself at the mercy of others. There is this nagging insecurity and loneliness--- I am not very good at fending for myself. I find myself looking for the comfort of pills. God Help Me.

Rambling On..

I have always had this nagging doubt as to whether I am doing the things I want to in life. The four years at IIT were - for want of a more original phrase - the best years of my life. I had fun, made good friends, learnt a lot. But then, how often did I enjoy doing what I had gone there to do. I have, upon self introspection, always found that Civil Engineering was not what I enjoyed studying. Ironically, I did quiet well studying Civil Engineering (and most around me have done quiet well for themselves doing what they hate doing). One week into IIMB tells me I am not particularly going to like studying here either -I may be wrong here and indeed I hope I am. Maybe, I don't like studying at all. Or maybe its because of being at an IIT or IIM that I don't enjoy studying. I am more inclined to believe its the latter reason. I confess that the institutions which are supposed to be the apostles of learning in India put me off. I detest the pressure cooker atmosphere in these places, the intense competition here, the perpetual fear of being left behind and the compulsion to do things because they are being done by most of the others. Its like you may not be convinced of the utility of a course of action, but still pursue it for fear of missing out on some unapparent benefits. I suppose all these can be dismissed as mere excuses for weakness in the face of competition or as laziness. After all, these institutes have proved themselves as producers of quality manpower.

In IIT I managed to find of group of likeminded people who went on to become close friends and integral parts of my life. IIMB offers little hope in this direction. From what I have seen of my batchmates they seem guarded and superficial, not ready to let that barrier down. Maybe its the natural diffidence engendered by a new and competitive environment and strange faces all around. Maybe its my perception that is at fault, maybe I am not letting my guards down, allowing others to approach. Maybe it will wear off with time and I am waiting eagerly for that. I dislike being lonely.

The class today illustrated the kind of enthusiastic but thoroughly useless contributions (interferences ?) that pass off as class participation here. If this enthusiasm is not dampened considerably we are not going to make much progress in the class. The positive side is it was quite amusing in parts, so from a personal point of view, such doses of thoroughly inane participation are required to pass off the one and a half hour.

Well, things can only improve from here on. Or can they? Lets see. will keep you posted in either case.

After A Long Time

Hi there! I know I have been missing a long time. But I am back and this time for long (or so I hope). This blog was created to feature some of the outputs of those moments of inspiration. Evidently, there weren’t many. The modern education system has, I discovered, added me to its list of victims, sapped the creative juices of my brain. The left brain has completed its conquest of the right brain; it requires far too much of an effort to be creative and the effort shows. Thus, the long silence.

I am breaking this silence however. Since January, when I last posted, things have changed considerably. And so have my needs. Then I had the company of my best friend, always ready with a friendly ear to listen, a sympathetic shoulder to cry on and a helpful hand to lend. Alas, I have these comforts no more. Time has sundered us. He is still my closest companion, yet we are separated by a journey of two nights by train or a neat sum of five thousand by plane. I have not the two nights, nor the five thousand rupees. And so I revive this blog, untended and ignored for the last few months – this time not as a recorder of my flashes of creativity but as a faithful listener to my periodic rantings and outpourings of thought. It is going to be my companion in this journey that has recently begun and seems so long and lonely.

And so I revive this blog, untended and ignored for the last few months – this time not as a recorder of my flashes of creativity but as a faithful listener to my periodic rantings and outpourings of thought. It is going to be my companion in this journey that has recently begun and seems so long and lonely.

Here’s to your reincarnation my friend.

p.s. The journey that I am alluding to began four days ago when I joined IIM Bangalore, one of the premier B-schools of India. I will write about my experiences here, during this brief period, in the subsequent post.