And then, it saved me

A day that started with a sense of accomplishment, became an exercise in humiliation as it drew to its end. I made futile attempts to distract myself by trying to think why a multi-threading framework doesn't work with C++ STL lists and debating with my friends on how using statistics is a not that bad a way to approach NLP, inspite its futility. Nothing really worked, I was still restless. So i decided to retire early. A good night's sleep can cure almost anything.
So i retire back to my room and suddenly I get this random urge to look through my CD pack. I find this DVD which i had burnt months ago, and i randomly decide to watch this movie called "The man from earth". I am so glad that i did.
The concept is not very alien. A man who never dies, has lived now for 14000 years, not sure of how people around him would react to it, moving from one place to another, as soon as someone starts noticing that he isnt aging etc etc. Whats interesting is how it is approached resulting in carving an almost flawless screenplay. Of course bolstered by excellent acting performances by the actors.
The whole film is no more than an intellectual discourse between the 14,000-year-old Cro-Magnon and his professor and teacher friends at his farewell party. There is a biologist, an anthropologist, a historian, an acrhaelogist, a psychologist and a christian literalist. The protagonist of the movie, John Oldman, starts a plethora of thought processes by expressing a hypothesis - "What if a man, from the Upper Paleolithic survived until the present day?" , when his friends keep probing him for the reasons he has quit a job with a tenure and leaving almost clandestinely without even saying a goodbye to his friends he has known for 10 years. Listening to the hypothesis, the characters do, what academicians would do in such a situation--, ask questions. Basically all aspects of how a man who has seen 14000 years of mankind and society pass by would feel and think is covered with perfection. He talks about the things he had to unlearn, and then learn again, his intellectual capability which was a result of a rare opportunity he had, to understand whatever he had witnessed in the past with the help of the understanding of the present, how his views about religion slowly changed over that life span, how he faced problems getting in terms with his immortality on the personal fronts, everything expressed in succinct, yet profound replies. Also there is a touch of honesty around him, where he never gets too melodramatic about his immortality, never rants about how he wants to die as that is whats appropriate according to the laws of nature, he seems a little sad about he had to watch his loved ones age and perish, but all the extreme emotions seem to have settled into a cloak of stoicism., like the ripples in the water ultimately die out over a long period of time.
It also raises the question of how does one feel when the entire foundation of one's belief is shaken. If there is something that you believe blindly, and the next moment you see the evidence in front of your eyes that it was hogwash, does it feel like a free fall ? Does the human nature fights back with a sense of denial ? more than that, is it fair to shake someone's belief like that if its not doing any major harm to anyone else ? what is wisdom ? what is truth ?
All in all, it was a treat for the intellect. I liked a movie so much after a long time ! I was tempted to sms K and A 3a.m in the morning. Somehow decided against it. I finally slept off with a smile on my face.

Spin the yarn

The following is result of a heated argument, a train journey and ample amount of leisure.


Mathematical truth, I think is the innate pattern embedded in whatever math we have discovered and would discover in future. What is required is to acknowledge the fact that, that math is so much more than just numbers, additions and calculus. There is a reason why we have primes just like there is a reason that there is a pattern found among them, or rather lack of it.
I have always found differential equations the most fascinating of all. If one notices, they are extremely powerful. They circumscribe a whole lot of things about a system in the most precise form.
Now, thats elegant. Morever, they are "complete", they describe the system for all boundary conditions and intermediate states between them. If ever, the equation for the universe is found, I am biased enough to believe that it would be in the form of a differential equation ( :D ).
I wonder, what would be the differential equation of emotions like love ? Or would they appear as just boundary conditions ? Temporary constructs of time-bounded variable ranges, stagnating a system to a certain state. If that is the case, there isnt much hope, you see ! One cannot be in love forever.
Maybe the differential equation is such that, towards the end of a life span, it just settles itself, from transient state to a stable state and the boundar conditions dont really matter in the end.
What if one wants to attain this state of "equilibrium" prematurely ? Is there an external way or more importantly is it worth it ? Maybe an equation's "purpose" is only fulfilled if it experiences all the bounday conditions. In that case, the extreme states that it experiences are justified. Is it possible to be ambivalent, while experiencing a powerful emotion ? Or maybe getting swepty away in it, is a part of the plan ?
That raises the question, that what is this darned "plan" anyways ? Is it conceitous to think that i play some part in the whole fabric of the universe ? Or am I an independent unit, which just experiences its sets of boundary conditions and then perishes ? But then if the tool that describes me is same as the tool that describes the universe, then a huge power is vested in each of us. Somehow, each of our differential equations somehow fit in infinitismely into the equation of the universe, maybe it justifies the phenomenon of butterfly effect.
Now with this insight, what is the purpose of each "differential equation" ? And why is that the knowledge of this purpose is not known to us ? Or is it ? present but not known. Thats tricky ! Its like a new math to describe the existing one.

There has to be a pattern in how we think and the things we devise to describe what/how we think. How many times have we felt that there is something huge, incomprehensible and somehow everything is related in some unknown way ? Is finding that relation our purpose ? But not everyone can learn or choose to learn advanced math, and its stupid to establish math as the only tool.
Considering only the group of lunatics who hold that mathematical truth as the only truth, one can hypothesize that purpose is to find the relation between my "equation" and the "equation" of the universe. But what if I dont want to actively pursue the so called "purpose" ? What if i deal in math, but dont neccessarily think that there is such relation or even if there is, dont neccessarily care what it is ? Does it make me "purposeless" ? Or is there a function estimator, that infinitismely defines the purpose, defining just a small step at a time, something like slowly zooming out and in the end viewing the complete picture. In way, there is a purpose hidden in even being "purposeless".
I am grade A lunatic.

Statuory Warning : Curosity and leisure are a dangerous combination.