Digital Fortress

If you thought I am here to discuss with you the ups and downs of Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress", you better turn back because I am not here for that. My discussion is closer to reality - the one I can see and experience.

I was reading some excerpts from the book "The World is Flat" by Thomas L Friedman. I didn't make more than 10 pages for 2 reasons - one is that I am still not used to or rather comfortable reading an e-book and second I do not have ample time to read these books at this moment. But somehow those 10 pages reignited a thought I have had some days before.

We talk about globalisation and digitalisation of this world. In fact the results are not hard to notice. I am writing this here at my room at the odd hour of 1.30 am and before I wake up from my supposed to be night slumber, you might be reading it already, some 100 miles away from here. The facilities of chatting, e-mailing has brought the far off places so near that we can voice chat with people living in other parts of the world as if they were just next door. In fact I am more connected to people living in some far off place than the person living in the next town. There are more of these from business point of view like outsourcing and all but I will not go into those things. At this moment I want to see this whole thing from a ground level state.
So now we are more connected, more in touch with people, we have transcended the barriers of distance to a great extent, we are ready to put down our views more easily and so on... the results are immense.

Really???

The truth is we have locked ourselves in the Digital Fortress. We have stopped coming out of our room to admire nature, we prefer to do so through the computer. We don't read books, we read e-books. We have lost personal touch. We prefer to talk to our next room neighbours through y/m and gtalk than face to face. We can pretend to be somebody else behind the walls of this fortress just because we don't want to be recognised. We can lie without being caught. We have forgotten how to talk, that words are not the sole means of communication, expression complement them. We have created a virtual world for ourselves and this time because we can communicate with these individual virtual worlds, this vituality has started to repalce reality. We have changed our basic human means of communication to digitalised signals and we are happy with it. Are we not?
Has all these actually brought us closer? No. It has changed the human community into a bunch of isolated nodes that are interconnected with each other. These isolated nodes are the digital fortress I am talking about. The ones we design to hide ourselves or to project ourselves according to our (or rather other's) choice.

I am not complaining. I too can see the immense opportunities that this digitalisation has opened up for us. But even all those advantages you or I can list does not have the power to break these isolated nodes. It only strengthens it and probably it will forever.

Have any of you ever heard about Johny Quest? May be this world is nearing his kind of world.

Water Water Everywhere!!!

Well its rain again so whats so special about having "water, water, everywhere". Nothing except that I had a singualar experience. No, not the water actually... er...well :D
Curious? Read on.

July 12 2006.

Morning 7.00

I wake up at Anu's house to know that it had been raining for more than 3 hours and we might delay our return to the insti. Well, fine. No big deal. After some discussion we end up deciding that we will proceed as planned. So we load up our cartons in the maruti van and find some seats for ourselves as well. 5 of us - me, Anu and 3 other girls on our way to insti. All is fine, the music is on, outside its raining and we are enjoying watching the flooded surroundings. (never knew that in a few moments, the flooded surroundings will be enjoying watching us :D)

Oh by the way did I tell you, we were coming from parmanandpur, beyond the Kacheri and all. Ok, so then we reached the water tank area. The road was not visible, it was all water, water and more water. Our van in its attempt to cross the roadway stream or rivulet (whatever u wish to call) marched on, coughed twice and then to our utter bewilderment and dissapointment came to a sudden halt! The driver kept turning the keys that it might start again. But all the van had to give was coughs, more coughs and more of them with silence in between.

What next? Nothing much. 5 of us alighted from the van and started pushing it while the van still struggled with its coughs. First I thought 'thank god there are 5 of us'. But later i realised 'Well, its not that bad. In fact quite an experience'. So 1.. 2.. 3.. and here we go! and again! and yet again! Phew!!! And 1.. 2.. 3.. we go again and again and again till we reach Bhelupur and cross it and reach Diamond. Thats it! thoroughly drenched but successful, we are back seats again. Except that in less than 15 minutes our hands are once again positioned at the back of the van. And this time our legs are ankle deep in water and that too the water... you can imagine the kind of water that gets flooded in the roads. (Hey it wasnt that bad either). After this thankfully there wasn't another next time :D

We finally reach our hostel drenched, excited, exhausted and famished (had missed the breakfast). And we didnt miss the chance of a rare snap either :D

Phew! Quite an experience but once is enough. Not again!!! :D
Rain seems to have some unique journeys is store for me, last time it was the train and this time the van. :D

Of Thoughts, Words and Actions

It is a cycle, we think, we say, we act and we think yet again. But how much of our thoughts are expressed into words and how much of what we say into our actions is something we will never probe into. The fact remains unquestionable that it never was and never can be 100 percent. However at the end of the day the combination of all these three have an impact on our life and more often than not on the life of others. But who are we to look into other's lives when here most of us are still struggling to consider our own.

No, I am not pondering on some philosophy, nor am I just writing down a string of confused ruminations. Life is a series of forks where we have to choose between two not necessarily vastly different, yet somewhat unsimilar options. The point however is that a single such choice can bring about turning points in life. So I come back to my first consideration - thoughts. The parameter that helps us take the first step towards the choice - the decision. The second consideration - words. Much has been said about the second step - expression. A thought that has not been expressed generally finds its way into the dumping grounds of our mind. Well, I know, not many will agree, because sometimes words do fall short and so here comes the turn of my third consideration - actions or the final step - implementation.

The fact is that in this 3 way process, the efficiency is never 100 percent. What we think and decide are not all expressed and what we say or express is never fully implemented. The final result however is not entirely dependent on just the action, it is a result of the combination of all three. Hence what is necessary is not just to be careful with our words and actions but with the origin of these two - the thoughts.

[You see I started writing this with some specific thoughts in my mind, but as I have indicated above, I may not have been able to express it fully. I hope you can fill in the gaps with your own thoughts wherever you find appropriate]