My Commandments

A very long time ago, God (or Moses) provided us the 10 Commandments - guidelines to live our lives by. Tons of stuff happened since then, including the evolution and explosive growth of self-expression, personalization and customization (this is purely a guess => for example, I have not charted the breadth and depth of self-expression over the millennia (sounds like a very interesting project actually, and chances are someone's done it already...I know I'm digressing when I start nesting brackets :-))).
What I'm getting at is, in this day and age, I believe it makes a whole lot of sense for everyone to come up with their own set of 10 Commandments, based on their life experiences and value systems. I do not deny the universality of certain truths, but the basic ones ought to be pretty much covered by the law (2 out of the 10 are). This essay is most definitely not about how the 10 commandments ought to be spiritual rather than religious, so I won't comment on that. Anyway, I believe for anyone to truly be able to be themselves to the fullest (a bit tangential to the idea of reaching their full potential) they need to chalk down their own version of the 10 commandments.
Here are mine:

1. Serve others, especially those that need your help
2. Understand your fears and try to overcome them
3. Applaud, enjoy, laugh and be grateful at every opportunity you can
4. Be open to the infinite possibilities of life
5. Work hard and after a hard day's work, play and be merry
6. Make a conscious effort to stay in touch with all the people you love
7. Always, always be kind and dignified
8. Exercise and/or do yoga every day
9. Eat fruits and vegetables every day
10. Love and take care of yourself

Also rans:
- Take responsibility but never stress
- Never take yourself too seriously
- Be responsible for your carbon footprint

Know it to experience it

How does one experience a feeling or emotion if they dont know a/the word for it?

For example, one would be stuck with using varying number of very-s with angry if their vocabulary did not include exasperated, vexed, furious, outraged. It may prove to be even harder to identify and express milder versions of the sentiment such as annoyed, miffed, piqued.

Many of these terms carry further refinement of meaning, making it especially appropriate to use in certain contexts. For example, being piqued brings to mind an impulse of emotion in response to a stimulus - such as the instant reaction you feel when someone says something that hits under the belt. Miffed, on the other hand, reminds me of times when I've been petulant or in a huff over something - knowing I'm being immature and probably playing out the emotion to a greater degree than I was feeling it. But if I had never heard of either piqued of miffed, I'd have to settle with being angry. Its similar to a ray of light passing thorough a prism and looking at the spectrum of colors that come out of the other end. The richer your vocabulary, the greater the number of wavelengths that your emotions can be parsed into.

And of course, it ends up being a feedback loop where since you couldn't clearly identify and document the emotion you experienced, you sort of didn't experience it.

But I think this idea extrapolates to cultures / nations too. In fact I first started thinking about it in that context. I'm thinking of the word meltdown - in the context of a person. We see so many celebrities in the US going through meltdowns - and as each new chapter of their bizarre and sordid lives unfold, I cant help but feel how the term meltdown very aptly captures it. Having grown up in India, I follow news of what's going on in that part of the world and that includes keeping tabs on what all the celebrities are up to. Lots of celebrities in India do crazy, weird, funny things - but I have never ever seen or read of one having a meltdown. It can of course be argued that the collective human conscience comes up with new terms as and when they need to be coined - someone in the west at some point realized the parallels in a nuclear meltdown and someone's life unravelling, after all. And I salute those original minds. But I do believe that for the rest of humanity, until they have heard and understood and ruminated over a term, its not possible for them to experience and in fact enact it.

I am sure some celebrity in India will at some point "experience" / "enact" a meltdown. And I have a feeling that once they do, or once a media person has had the good sense to label it as such, we will start seeing a many more meltdowns!

Water, no ice please

The expression "Water, no ice" rings a bell for every desi in the states (not sure bout other western countries). In fact, there is a cool website bout desis in the bayarea named after it.
For the uninitiated, "water, no ice" is the way most desis specify what they would like to drink, when they are at a restaurant. This is because pretty much very restaurant in the US (regardless of cuisine) always serve ice old water with lots of ice in it and the default drink for quenching thirst is not water. So you are always (and usually very politely) greeted with a "What would you like to drink?" question after being seated at a restaurant. When I first landed here, I often found myself trying to quench my thirst by gulping down ice cold water and not succeeding, While I wondered why anyone in their right minds would want to drink super-cold water when it was already super-cold outside, the vision of me merrily drinking super-hot tea in my super-hot home town (relatively) of Pune would float before me and I realized there was probably some very good reason for this that I would eventually one day understand.
So I soon changed my tactics of always saying "water, no ice" to the "what would you like to drink?" to just plain "water", which of course resulted in me getting water with ice.
After 10 years in the US, I still haven't figured it out! On the other hand I have been sufficiently Americanized (or matured) to just ask for what I really want and to not care too much about conforming, to now revert back to "water, no ice" - without diffidence and without apologies! :-)

If you were to pick up a condom in NYC...

I love NPR, as might be apparent from my "inspired"/plagiarised blog name. But what I love the most about NPR (and KUOW) are those irrelevant, irreverent, inconsequential stories that just make my day and often re-instill my faith in America, the world and the human kind as a whole. A recent such story was about a contest held in New York city to redesign the cover for condoms that the city gives out generously and freely to its denizens. Although the finalists included such interesting designs as a dirty NYC subway hurtling down towards a tunnel, the top honor went to a design that was incredibly simple and yet incredibly symbolic (and literally too!). It was the symbol on the power button of most digital gadgets - a circle with a tiny (pssssssssss) tick going through it at the top center. The symbolism kept hitting me in waves - from sex is about power and control to the existential question of are we gradually perceiving ourselves as digital?

Ode to the cauliflower

After a long hiatus, the cauliflower made an appearance on my dinner plate today, in the form of small overcooked florets (in true Indian style). As I ruminated on them, a strange (and borderline disturbing - considering I am a woman myself) analogy popped into my head. If vegetables were women and I was objectifying them, the the potato would symbolize a blond bimbo. The cauliflower on the other hand would be beauty with brains, a true woman of substance!

Arnold and the note

Being a democrat through and through and not being an action movie buff, I find very little that is appealing in Arnold Swazzy, the Governor of CA.
However, a recent news byte made me inch my opinion about him in the positive direction.
He had been heckled by a Democratic lawmaker (something that seems to be becoming commonplace in US politics). When vetoing (obviously) one of the bills co-authored by that lawmaker, the note he sent out explaining the veto, appeared to carry a hidden meaning. Putting together the 1st letter of every sentence in the note happened to make a very commonly used phrase, actually a profanity. The 1st word being the four lettered f-word and the second one being y-o-u.
The Governor's spokesperson's reaction to this was, of course (paraphrased) "OMG, what a wild coincidence". But NPR interviewed a University professor who would be qualified to make a statistical estimate on the probability of this being a coincidence (based on the frequency of the various letters and words) and it turned out to be 5.5 in 1 trillion!
Full marks to the CA Governor for his irreverence and his (or his officials') wit.

Why should I wake up every morning?

I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine the other day. The premise was, unless you are deeply passionate and completely fired-up about what you are doing, what's the reason for you to wake up every morning? Unless the day holds the promise of a deeply cherished and fulfilling activity, say for example, playing a game of tennis, why should one bother to get up in the morning?
As I contemplated this question, three distinct reasons emerged in my head:
1. To explore, learn and experience. For example, if you had never learned to play tennis in the first place, you would never have realized that you love it, that you enjoy it, that its an activity you cherish. However, this was not something you knew on the 1st day of your tennis lessons! Unless you take the effort to learn new things, to explore things, you will never know! You need to work (sometimes hard), for anything that's worth having - this also applies to fun! I think we are all born with a passion to explore, learn and experience. That's why kids are so full of enthusiasm and always have a ton of curiosity and cant wait to do the next thing! Because they have fun (through exploring, learning and experiencing) on a very regular basis. As we grow older, the demands of adulthood make us lose sight of this very fundamental truth. I think that is what is meant by keeping the child within you alive - remembering to explore, learn and experience to have fun!
2. Whenever we meet someone new, the 1st question we ask them is, what do you do? Every adult chooses to focus all their passion, energy into a particular field - it becomes their profession. We spend our entire day working on this. If we make the choice that is right for us, if the profession we have chosen is our true calling, then we are set!! We will wake up every day (well, at least most days), excited and looking forward to a new day at the office to do what we love to do! Well, the fact of the matter is, statistics (that I am just pulling out from my butt) show that less than 5% people are actually doing what they are most passionate about. There are some who know exactly what they want to do, but ha vent found the right opportunity and there are a significant number who ha vent yet figured out what they want to do and may end up in the profession that they happen to be good at, that pays them well or other entirely wrong reasons. For all these souls, having the fire to keep working on figuring out their true calling in life is, is the key reason why they wake up every morning! Here again, the daily rut of life can quench this fire - and keeping it alive is akin to keeping the possibility of true happiness in your life alive! Some people have very basic reasons for waking up every morning - for finding food to quench their hunger, for finding a roof over their heads. If you have the privilege, to not worry about these issues, you have the freedom and responsibility to figure out a cause, a profession that makes you feel as passionate as if you where hungry and looking for food!
3. And last but not the least: People. Life would be meaningless without other people. People enrich our lives and make them meaningful! It is super important to have clarity of thought, to not "need" other people, to not seek validation; it is super important to be independent. The key is to surround yourself with people who motivate you (to do #1 and #2 above), who care for you, whom you can have fun with, who provoke you, who push you to your limit and who love you. And its very important to keep seeking such people. Not in a desperate, leechy way, but in a subtle and honest way while exploring, learning and experiencing things! :-). Having the right people with you makes any activity, be it watching a movie or going on a trip, exponentially more meaningful!
So, you should wake up every morning, because life is full of endless possibilities of learning, exploring and experiencing new things, of doing something meaningful in your calling in life and of sharing exquisite moments of joy, triumph, love and friendship! But none of these are going to happen if you don't wake up in the morning!
Life is a gift, a privilege!