The Social Media

Past few years have seen a surge in the way we communicate and socialize - all so because of one of the powerful medium - the internet.
We capitalize so much on social networking sites such as facebook, orkut, myspace, blogspot etc. these days that life seems to be incomplete without them. Then there is professional networking through linkedIn and there is twitter for fast dispersal of information in less than 170 characters. All these things have completely changed our lives and styles over the past few years. I see facebook as the biggest human database storing lot of information than any other database. One can simply open a page and judge the behavioral patterns of people. Now a days recruiters rely more on social networking media to judge the candidates attitude, weaknesses and  characters to some extent. A lot of other information is provided by google itself.
As a facebook user myself, I have seen, there is a paradigm shift in "keeping in touch" with our family and friends. I have some 105 facebook friends, out of which most of them are colleagues or ex-colleagues. Then there are family, friends, class mates, people from office with whom I never worked before or old friends. Everyday, this has become a rule for me to get up and see the facebook page for updates. I can now categorize the people I know into 7 distinct categories:
1. Casual users
2. Attention seekers
3. Eager to know what others think about me
4. Want to voice their opinion on things like science, politics etc.
5. I don't care about you but you have to care about me.
6. Recluse.
7. Real social networking users.

The first category is the casual users who post photos, videos not so often and sometimes come to browse the site and occasionally post messages and write on somebody's wall or respond to somebodys comment. This category usually has the busiest people who hardly get time to browse.
The second category is that of the attention seekers who consider facebook as seventh heaven for them. Because they can reach a number of people all the time and want people to say something about them or respond. This category has people who don't go by a certain trend rather they change it according to people's response. The third is the one who likes to post beautiful pictures and photographs of themselves or their families eager to know what others may be thinking about them. Then the fourth is the category who often like to share intellectual information through the site. They post a link on an article/paper etc., voice their political opinion and disseminate knowledge. This is the intellectual category. Then the fifth is the one who always post their information, but barely reads what others have to say. They are only concerned about themselves. The Recluse are the category that worries about their privacy. They don't want to share any information because they believe, it will be an invasion into their privacy. In my opinion they should not be there in facebook at all. As the rationale behind creating facebook was to share information. The creators think, you should not be doing something that you need to hide from people in the first place... Now the last category is the real responsible users who know the true meaning of social networking. They don't over indulge in anything or are obsessed with attention. They genuinely post messages that they want people should know. And at the same time, they also read others information and react when needed. Not you didn't react to my post, so I won't react to yours type.
Now today this much for the social networking... Have a happy Saturday.

The almighty Electricity!

Today around 12 PM, I realized, I can’t check my office email. Then thought may be our mail server is down; then I checked other web sites, and all seem to be offline. Then realized internet is down. Then  I was wondering why internet is off, let me try and trouble shoot. Went near the server and saw power is off, so the cause is a power outage.  Hmm…  I am thinking hard on how to spend time fun way when power is down. May be call one of my friends, but how?  there is no internet and I need VOIP for a phone call. Obviously I can’t work, so suddenly some long pending work came to mind i.e; going to the bank. Then happily I got ready thought I will run some errands also that was long pending. Then tried to open the garage door, it wouldn’t open…  cause it is electricity operated.  Now, going out is out of question, so what else can I do? I checked there is food in the fridge, but I can’t eat it because I can’t heat the food.  Oh, well I thought to myself, let me do a facial that is pending for a long time. I opened the kit and realized I need hot water and I can’t heat water without electricity. Still thinking what can be done when there is a power outage. Can I go out to walk? No, it is too hot. Middle of the day I can’t do yoga or meditation also, so kind of running out of ideas how to utilize my time. May be play chess with my laptop, but hey laptop needs to be charged in half an hour. So, what else? It is summer, we don’t need AC but lot of people do, I am just wondering how miserable they must be. Will they sustain Texas heat without AC? It makes me introspect how dependent we are on electricity. How people used to survive when there was no electricity? Hard to imagine.  In our village in Orissa, there was no power for one month and people were operating as usual. Now hats offto them those who are not slaves of this inanimate object!!

Evolution of faith...

Today  I am prompted to think what is my religious status? Do I believe in god? Do I fear god? Do I need god for my existence? Which category do I belong to?
I am born  a hindu, believed in hindu rituals, prayed idols especially Ganesha as a child to give me vidya(good education). I used to pray a lot when I was small, and still pray when I am in trouble, now then why this doubt about god suddenly? As I grew up, my constant demand to god about a myriad of things does not get fulfilled. Then I am mad at god and think does god really exist? Isn't it silly to pray someone that does not exist? Instead why not to rely on our own abilities?
Well, we all go through this dilemma sometimes in our lifetime. While growing up, it was certainly essential for us to believe in god, because it was very fancy to have someone by your side as your savior all the time plus it did not harm us in believing in someone by our side.  Every time we needed something we believed praying god will fulfill that. I as a child used to pray god primarily for that purpose. I could not have imagined life otherwise. For example, I clearly remember one incident when I lost some story books I borrowed from a friend. One day she asked those books back. I came back home worried, searched everywhere but did not find it. Now what to do? If I tell mom, I will be screwed, if I tell the friend, it is going to be ugly. So, all that I could do is pray... Took off one day from school to avoid that friend of mine, and the next day, don't know how exactly I found those books, but I did. When I found the books, I did not think god has returned those books to me, rather it appeared silly that instead of looking for the books at that particular place, I prayed. But, this types of thing kept repeating throughout my life several times to say the least. Sometimes, it works out, and sometimes it does not. Now the big question is if there is really a god, who listens to us and fulfills our demands? Well, as a believer of Karma, I do certainly believe; as a you sow, so you reap. If you don't work hard, then how much ever you pray, it does not work out. Then, why do we waste our time by praying? Instead why don't we just work. But, are we strong enough to just rely on our work? Certainly, there are a large number of people who pull through life without relying on god. They work through their problems, without playing a blame game on god, or doing lots of rituals for getting something in life and just meaninglessly praying for it. But, there may be third case scenario, where you do everything possible and it is no longer in your control. Now you desire a certain outcome, then what should you do? Just accept whatever is happening or be positive/optimistic for a certain outcome? I think this is the time when prayer helps. Whether you get your desirable outcome is not the question, but if you think there is someone out there on whom you can rely or just pass on the responsibility, then that certainly gives you a lot of strength. I consider that is what is very important aspect of having a god by your side. Here I will give a simple example that happened to me recently. I was driving from Blacksburg, VA to Charlotte. My flight to DFW was about at 6.30 PM from Charlotte Douglas airport. I calculated about 3 hours drive time, so decided to start at 1.30 PM from Blacksburg. As I reached the vehicle, I realized that I had left the car key inside the car and locked it. Now, that was a rental car, and the car was rented at Charlotte. What am I suppose to do? Rent another car, leave this car here and drive straight or call somebody to open the car and fetch the key? Right at that moment, I saw an unfamiliar female passing by. Out of desperation I said her what had happened to the key. Then she promptly suggested to call Virginia Tech police, who come and rescue the key for free. I was happy, went to the receptionist and made a call to the VT police, and they said they will be right there. Relieved, I waited outside. After about 30 minutes one retired guy came with injured fingers. He tried a lot, but could not get past the door. Another 20 minutes passed. Now worried about my timings, I was getting impatient. Then he called for another guy, and finally they could get the key out. It was almost 2.30 PM. Now I had 2 and half hours to drive to the airport, return the car, take the shuttle and reach the airport. I thought, that is quite doable, so I set for driving. It was winter and I drove OK till the car rental place just about on time (5 PM). But by the time,  it was already dark and in the dark, I can't see that well. On the top of it I am directionally challenged. Once I was there, I realized I did not fill the tank. Unless you fill the tank, you get to give 3-4 times the fuel price, and that was something I was not willing to. Then I asked someone about where to fill the tank, they showed me some routes out of the ramp. Being very poor in direction, I was not certain whether I will be able to find the place. Anyways, I started for it and as expected lost my way. It was night, late and in a new city without direction, I was in some new highway. That was the time, I prayed and prayed desperately. I pleaded god to forgive me for being mean earlier, for not believing his presence. And in the winter, I was sweating for the first time. Then I got courage to comeback on that highway and coolly looked for a gas station and filled the tank. Now the next herculean task is to find my way back to the rental car place. Whoever I asked, the directions did not work. I was still praying desperately asking god to forgive me for all my misdeeds etc. Then I took an unconventional route and there you go, I saw my rental car drive. My god, I was so relieved. I gave all the credits to god for taking me to the airport just about at 6 PM. It was high drama for one hour. After that I am now thinking should I denounce the presence of god because some of my prayers are not answered? May be what I am asking for is not good for me or may be I don't deserve it yet. Now, at this cross road of my faith, I am more inclined to believe that there is something that gives you strength/power when you need most. I am not strong enough to pass through the storm all by myself. I need someone, or at least to pretend there is someone out there to help. With this, now I am inclined towards changing my facebook status to agnostic from atheist.