Everyone's an Atheist

Atheists should understand that no now really believes in God anymore and that most of the Theists are purely opportunists. Please stop arguing with them.

If I were to kill stalker Sathish and went to court and said God made me do it, I am absolutely sure no one would believe it. But, if a child was praying for money to pay his/her school fees and I happened to help him/her then these same people would grab the opportunity to say "See, God sent you to help the poor child".  

Nostalgia II

Was browsing through the net and suddenly landed on a blogger site that was using the exact same theme as this one. I hadn't even logged into this account in a long time and intruded by nostalgia came here to see how were things. 

 For some unknown reason 'Blogs I follow' sunk my heart. All those amazing blogs seemed as abandoned as this one. I remember eagerly following Lightning Strikes Everyday and Magix 'n' Curses back then and try as I might I can only image reading those blogs on a cool rainy evening. 

 Guess I am not unworthy of nostalgia after all.

Nostalgia I

I think I am unworthy of nostalgia. The place that I grew up for 25+ years seems alien to me. I've been away for only five years but I don't seem to miss anything. Why?

The Journey Begins

All through my life I had considered myself as an un-emotional guy. No, I wasn't proud of it. I could cry easily when watching a Pixar movie, get extremely angry seeing all the atrocities committed in my country, feel sad for that little dog... but when it came to real people - be it my parents, wife, brothers or sisters, I had to fake it sometimes.

Somehow I had become detached from people. My obsession with logic blinded me from understanding human emotions and my sarcastic smirks only widened this gap. Its a miracle my wife fell in love with me ( I am thankful for that :) ).

And then my niece was born. She was the first person in the world who brought real joy to me. In a way she also made my wife fall for me. She taught me to care, play and pulled me away from this online world. In spite of all this, as an uncle I still did not have one thing - responsibility. 

Today my daughter was born. The moment I took her in my arms she showed me what real emotion was, that pain of waiting showed me how much I loved my wife. Every moment with her gives me unfound energy and responsibility.

Responsibility can change you a lot.

I am suddenly more confident, feel like starting all over, learn new things .. becoming a kid at 30 is great!

Of the all the things in this world, the joy of becoming a father to a little girl is unbound. The movies weren't lying after all.

I am a paranoid guy and am sure to be an over protective dad. I do hope one day she'll understand and say I am the best dad in the world. 

The Grass is Not Always Greener on the Other Side

When I was in primary school I used to think that life would be much better in high school, when I went to high school I hated Chemistry and thought life would be better off in college, made it to college and again felt 'Work Life' would be much cooler.

It took me some time to enter the 'Work Life'. Summer came and to my horror realized that I was no longer entitled to 'Summer Vacation' .. and went back to feeling miserable.

Its been nearly six years since I started working now. My office is located near a school and a few days back I left early, right when the school closed for the day. Don't know why but when I looked at them I suddenly felt a sense of relief.

Holy moly! I am out of school.

An Appeal to All My SN Savvy Friends

Guys, please stop it.

I already know very well what has happened in the past few weeks. Like most of you, I too am in the habit of following the media through TV, newspapers, blogs and everything else that can make one go berserk. There is really no need for you to keep endlessly sharing the incident in every gory details (with pictures).

What are you trying to achieve here?
Are you expressing your solidarity with the victim ? If so, do you really think that a Facebook like or share or a less than 140 char re-tweet will mean anything ? Or is that I (and all the other 'friends' who get to see your timeline) will change over a new leaf ? Oh! come on! for heavens sake, I get to see what you shared because I am in your 'friends' list and you get to see what I shared because you are in my friends list and, we both are friends for a good reason, the most important being that we both consider each other good people meaning someone who'll never commit such heinous crimes . If not, then you have made a serious mistake in your life and its high time you check who and what your friends really are and correct that instead of sharing something out of impulse. The only thing you are achieving here is making the day more depressing for me.

How much do we really care? 
Its a well know fact that telling others about our frustrations would help us release some anger and is this how you want to release it? with a Facebook like/share, re-tweet? Look, we all are angry here. Frustrated, angry, saddened and helpless. Have you every tried sitting down and taking some time to write what you really thought?  You'll be surprised to discover how little you have to say and how less you care. It is even more frustrating to see you share a gory detail and then in a minute share how awesome your car/bike/mobile etc. is.

Oh! ya, we are a community that is obsessed with an entertainer who after entertaining us with a century goes on to dedicate it to the people of the country and donates a few lakhs to an already wealthy charitable trust. It doesn't matter if the 10 lakhs is just 1% of what he earns, it doesn't matter to us that he could have helped the cause much better if he had boycotted that match, we will gladly post it on our timeline and say he has made our country proud.
If we cannot go out on the streets and protest, not for a day, not for a month, not in hundreds, not in thousands then nothing will change. There are more criminals in this world than good ones. 2000+ mob goes on to burn, rape and kill people, millions of people visit the funeral of a politician but only a few hundreds will come out to protest. Check out this and this if you want to hear it better.

I sincerely hope someday I have the courage to go out and protest but today I am a ******* coward who will not do anything. My family, friends, job, property are more important to me. Please don't keep mocking me and depress me and let me do some work.

Thanks,
thepsychologic

PS 1: This post is not just based on what my friends are sharing but generally on what I think is happening.  Every time I see reports of crime/corruption and people protesting, I cannot help but wonder where these so called celebrities (Who 'do' it for the country) are. Yes, with great power comes great responsibility. If they think not, then they should keep their mouths shut and refrain from saying 'I did this for my country'.

PS 2: Hats off to the people who are protesting in Delhi. Feel free to abuse me in the comments on my inability to do anything. I deserve it.

On Sachin Becoming RS MP

I recently had an interesting conversation on Facebook over a status update I had put up. Thought this might be a better place to archive the arguments people came up with and my answers.

Status: Cricket or for a matter of fact any other sport, art etc. is just entertainment. No matter how divine you call it, IT IS JUST ENTERTAINMENT!. Why the **** are entertainers given a RS seat ? There are LOT many ppl who have done lot many things to their fellow human beings. Sachin is just plain BULL**** (outside Cricket).

And the debate that followed ...

The argument:  Sachin is not just a cricketer but also a good ambassador of the country.. He is not just known for his records but for being the most honest and humble cricketer of the era.. Also everyone knows the presidential nominations to RS is nothing but BULL****.. Not the nominee (read Sachin)..

Me: Sachin getting nominated is another thing, he ACCEPTED it, that makes him BULL****. Let him be a honest and humble Cricketer, I don't dispute that and I don't care about that but I CERTAINLY don't want him to rule me. His cricketing skills are enough to govern the country? What has he done till now with all the money and fame expect for donating a bit here and there ?

The argument: Sachin could have been threatened by someone with $314 billion in swiss bank into accepting the seat.

Me:  If he accepted it because he was threatened then its lot more worse! Sachin is not poor either! .. and he has lot more cult following. Tomorrow he will be asked to do something that will plunder the nation, he'll do that too because he is threatened ?

The argument: highly unlikely when u have the power u will be the one who is issuing threats to every one to keep them in line with ur decision

Me: He already has it.

The argument: RS is a meant to play ONLY an advisory role and not meant to rule the nation (we are a democratic country and we are supposed to ELECT rulers and not SELECT them). Though it is nowadays used as a backdoor entry, thats a different case altogether.. And as per the constitution, out of 250 RS members, 12 are chosen by the President of India for their expertise in specific fields of art, literature, science, and social services. Cricket is an art and there is none better than Sachin to represent the art..

Me: 1. I am only saying he has much more influence in how the nation is ruled now. And he got this influence for just being an ENTERTAINER.

2. Well, he has been SELECTED and not ELECTED :-). I know the president can choose (which itself is disputable) but the point is he shouldn't have accepted.

3. I have already included 'art' in my first line itself :-)

The argument: Artists are included to ensure that the DUMB politicians do not forget something called art exists and artists by virtue of the art are expected to be more knowledgeable than the politicians.. And if the sons and daughters of politicians can have an RS seat just by virtue of their parental lineage, there is nothing wrong in artists getting nominated.  Even I am personally unhappy with this degradation of Sachin by pulling him into politics (if not only by the nomination but also by all the drama that went on around it).. But that can never be the premise for calling him BULL****..

Me:  "artists by virtue of the art are expected to be more knowledgeable than the politicians" - really ? then probably SRK too deserves a RS seat. Just because politicians bring in their sons/daughters to RS doesn't mean Sachin has to do the same. And lastly, you're talking like Sachin isn't responsible for any of things thats happening, he could have easily put everything to rest by not accepting it.

The argument:  the true purpose of nominating artists is to provide them a bigger platform to make the art reach the masses and not leave the art and get into politics.. In that way, we shud wait and watch what Sachin does.. And I really do not understand why he should deny a honour that is bestowed upon him when there is no past record which suggests that he would fail to deliver there..

Me:  Yup, we can wait and watch what hes going to do. That part I do accept. But if he does something for Cricket alone as a RS member, that still makes him BULL****. Any person with brains will understand that Cricket doesn't need any more attention and hand-holding then what it is getting now. Lets wait and see ..

The argument: on the theory of calling cricket as just entertainment... when India won the world cup in 2011. Did u felt proud or just applauded... If u really felt proud then how u see cricket as an entertainment. I believe it's more than that

Me: Yes I was. I was proud of the achievement. It was like the same feeling I got when I saw Rahman win the Oscars, Rajinikant getting accolades from far and wide. I am proud of the achievements they have done against all odds in their field. I was proud of the talent, the hard work, dedication. But being great entertainers doesn't automatically make you good or bad. Becoming a member of the parliament is to serve the people and not to entertain them. Talent and character are two different things. I can still be proud of ones talent but not of the character.

The argument:  it's really hard to digest saying them as just entertainers.....

Me:  What else have they done other playing ? If I call actor Vadivelu as an entertainer would it too be hard to digest ? Vadivelu and Vivek are great comedians and excel really well in their field. Just because Cricket is popular but comedians aren't, why should he be treated any different ? On a side note, BCCI isn't a government body but rather a 'private club' and so is just like any other entertainment business.

The argument: sport , entertainment ,game what ever you wish to call it depends on the perception of the individual . we can't talk about some one especially sachin who is the ultimate record holder for all time achievement in cricket and a great person in social life. on a comparative note vadivelu is not a grt person he spoke too much about ADMK and got blasted for it .

Me:  " great person in social life" - how do you know that ? Vadivelu too has the right to free speech :)

 ?" sport , entertainment ,game what ever you wish to call it depends on the perception" - there is no perception here, its just plain fact.

The argument:  meant comparing sports person to comedian is not really a balanced one ....

Me: I am comparing one entertainer to another :) .. of course their methods of entertaining are different :)