To Whom It May Concern!

“Terrorism is a terrible weapon but the oppressed poor have no others!”

-Jean-Paul Sartre

Need I say more?

Cross-roads

“Now I have come to the cross-roads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without any exception, I knew, but I never took it. You know why? Because it was too damn hard! “

-Scent of a Woman ‘92.

Know Thyself!

“I believe man should be wise and powerful enough to formulate and apply on himself, his personally defined moral values and ethical laws. He should not blindly subjugate himself before the long established social morals and religious dogmas, for prostrating without questioning and examining is the toil of animals, deprived of any wisdom, consciousness and sound knowledge and not worthy of a creature possessing all these superior virtues and calling itself the best of all creatures. The very essence of humanity lies beyond the full utilization of mental and physical capacities. Confining man within the bounds of pre-defined moral values and set of ethics is akin to suppressing his spirit and hindering the way to his progress.”

-Initial Meditations, Umer Latif.

Einstein, Heisenberg, and Tipler

Einstein, Heisenberg, and Tipler, after equal invariant intervals in purgatory, find themselves before the Throne of God.

As a man, they exclaim, “What did I do to merit an eternity down (brrrrr) there”?

God thought for a moment; when you’re omnipresent in spacetime there’s no need for haste. He turned first to Einstein.

“Albert,” he said, “you showed your species My creation in its most elegant form, law without Law. Then, inflamed by wartime passion, you urged the transformation of your discovery into a weapon of mass destruction.”

Einstein shuffled his feet and nodded subtly. He resisted the temptation to stick his tongue out. God turned His omniscient Eyes toward Heisenberg.

“Werner, you discovered that I do play dice, and you glimpsed that I have to if anything interesting’s going to happen—your last words were, ‘I will ask Him why there is turbulence’. I will answer you, ‘So there can be Heisenberg’. But you stayed in Germany, Werner! You worked on a reactor for Hitler; you taught physics to brown-shirted Nazi thugs. You’ll recall that my Son is Jewish.”

“Frank, Frank, Frank,” God continued, “didn’t you read my bookk? I read yours, you know. Does the phrase ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ ring a bell? How about ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending’? You not only wanted to have another God before Me, you wanted to be Him. And the money, Frank…do you know how piddling an advance I got for the Bible? And you assumed causality—you Frank! You should know me better than that.”

Tipler, almost defiant, raised his head and fixed God with a cold stare. “Why are there singularities in Your universe?”

“Because there are things I don’t want you to know,” God responded calmly.

Heisenberg, his dying question answered, remained silent, pondering the choices he’d made during his life on Earth.

Einstein seized the moment, “Look, Old One”, he said, “physics is local. You made it that way; I figured it out. But why is there that spooky action-at-a-distance nonlocality in quantum mechanics?”

God chuckled. Even experiencing all of spacetime at once, such events were rare. “Albert, your greatest talent has always been not finding the right answer—anybody could do that—but asking the right question. Your generation learned physics assuming I was a great watchmaker; you destroyed that notion, but most of you died off before it became evident what I was. I create abstract systems from pure information, Albert. I’m a programmer.

“Quantum nonlocality is a bug.”

God turned to Saint Peter. “Einstein and Heisenberg go to Heaven. Send Tipler to the massive rotating cylinder to try again. Next case.”

God hated these Judgement Days; he couldn’t wait (to the extent that’s possible for an omnipresent being) to get back to his craps game with Wotan, Jove, and Shiva. Saint Peter looked up from his infinite scroll, “Fourth Commandment: blasphemy—eternal damnation. Send in Lederman and Hawking”.

What was it about these physicists, God wondered, as they approached the Throne.

-John Walker.

Missing Link

I miss the good ‘ole mesmerizing blend of Coffee-n-Cigar. I really do.

I need to live an ascetic for some time. I really do.

Semester on. Studies accelerating factorially and all ‘theetas’ are in my section. Gotta take some pain! :S

Figure a link?

Nick of Time.

 A very close friend of mine referred to me as a swinging ideal pendulum regarding a certain matter but tonight during my ‘coffee-session’, which happens to be my best time for meditation, I reserved a few minutes pondering on this metaphor, although the perspective was slightly different.

 

I concluded that I DO behave like a pendulum. There was this so trivial a though that I don’t even remember it now but it plunged me into almost a euphoric fit of bliss. I couldn’t figure what exactly this phase was. But then I started thinking about this behaviour and I came to observe that this has become almost a common behaviour for me, so common that it passes unnoticed. I can listen someone deliever a motivational and inspiration talk for hours and in the end I still feel the icy coldness of pessimism. On the other hand, there are times when I come across negligibly trivial happenings and slightest gestures and they provide me with extremeties of uplifting. There are unacceptable practical happenings that collide with me and I’m totally numb, while only a few thoughts are enough to make me want to explode with blackest depression and bleakest derangement.

 

I believe this is an intrinsic phenomenon. External conditions, sermons, upliftings do good to you but to a limited extent – the real inspiration one seeks comes from within, from your spirit that simply negates hopelessness, stubbornly refuses to give up. External circumstances do effect it, positively or negatively, especially if they are associated with those who are extremely important to you, but then again, the actual thing that matters emerges from within us.

 

May be this happens to all of us? May be, all we need to do is to give it a little consideration? May be?

Vacations

A rare blessing for lethargic souls like me, that’s what vacations usually are supposed to be. But lately, I’ve tried to rectify this “owlish” aspect of my nature, and the effort was quite worth it.

Now that vacations have ended and although I wasn’t able to completely follow the pre-planned schedule, I believe I’ve ended up in not-too-bad category. I managed to drag along a couple of books on moral philosophy, read three novels, study some physics along with the visual lectures of Dr. Walter Lewin (MIT) and also covering Special Relativity (this one wasn’t in lectures), watch loads of movies with Zohaib, enjoy sleeping under bright sun-shine and eating peanuts with coffee!

My day usually started around 10 am, although after taking breakfast, enjoying a hot-water bath I used to go back to sleep under bright sunny blue sky and actual day commenced around 2 pm!!! Then, time before 9 pm was filled with usual trivialities: a little reading, market rounds for grocery and all, pick-n-drop at tuition and enjoyment with cute little naughty group of my nephews. 9 pm to 4 pm was reserved study time, though I wasted a lot of it brutally and pointlessly on Internet.

Scheduled activities commenced with this 19th century American Classic “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” which was quite a good read dealing with the subject of slavery (Abraham Lincoln actually once called this novel the cause of Civil War, but that was, of course, humour), although the iteration of ‘Christian-morality’ was up to the irritable extent. “Moonstone” was the next victim, considered to be the first modern detective novel in English literature. The pace of the novel was a bit sluggish but still quite gripping and, although devoid of any striking twist associated with detective stories, overall, it wasn’t disappointing at all.

Final along this line was George Orwell’s classic ‘1984′, a general literary critic on totalitarian society, the conspicuous theme of Orwell, and a particular taunt towards the Stalinist betrayal of the Russian Revolution. Just what “Animal Farm” does in disguise, this novel depicts in the actual human society.

“Elements of Moral Philosophy” (Don’t remember the name of the author) was the book I had already read but without any basic understanding of moral philosophy, so I read it again this time and it was quite enlightening. Other book “Ethics” (Again, no author) was a collection of excerpts from classic, modern and contemporary great moral philosophers. Amazing read, loved it!

Read a little relating to Eastern Philosophy and after discovering that Mulla Sadra actually proposed Existentialism much before any of the Western philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche did, I now intend to read him in detail but of course, I’d have to wait for some time.

Then movies, ah. Watched tons of movies, alone and along with Zohaib particularly and in company of other friends generally. Some of them I had already seen but hadn’t realized the timeless worth of these masterpieces (Pulp Fiction, to name one). Fulfilling my passion for classic oldie-goldies, I asked Zohaib who downloaded “39 Steps” (1935) for me and man, awesome it was! Master director with great cast and thrilling plot, and black-n-white…perfect, eh?

And at the end of all this, I looked back and though, it wasn’t after all that lazy! Good boy, keep improving, and I promise ya lots of sleeping at weekends!

Pulp Fiction ‘94

The Wolf:  You see that, young lady? Respect. Respect for one’s elders gives character.

Raquel:  I have character. 

The Wolf:  Just because you *are* a character doesn’t mean that you *have* character.

Oscars ‘09.

Finally long anticipated Oscar nominations are out just a couple of days back. I have to admit the colors are not too bright this time. 2007 had some great movies on the credit while the previous year was just about the mark. Curious Case of Benjamin Button got nominated for 13 Oscars. I admit that it’s quite a great flick but still 13 noms are a bit too many. Same goes for Slum-dog Millionaire, which indeed is a good movie speaking critically, but nonetheless, is over-hyped. Besides these darlings of the year and two or three other movies, I didn’t find anything truly worthwhile this year. It was, however, good to see Brad Pitt nominated for an Oscar and I do hope that late Heath Ledger bangs an Oscar just like Golden Globe. Sean Penn, Kate Winslet and the great Meryl Streep once again proved their immense talents.

 

Now take a look at 2007. No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Atonement, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford (Which I don’t think so is much less than ‘Curious Case….’ yet with only two noms!), Juno, 3:10 to Yuma, Into The Wild, Michael Clayton …so many to name, all rocked the year. Perhaps the best year of the decade.

 

As for 2009, can’t really predict anything about it. But the movie I’m desperately waiting for is Johnny Depp’s ”Public Enemies” about the notorious American gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during the depression era, also starring Christian Bale, the man always underrated by award committees.

 

Let’s keep the fingers crossed for the rest.

Clearing the Mist

“I like to formulate a simple logic in my mind regarding God. That goes like this that if a benevolent, most merciful and most caring God would create this world and human beings, he won’t leave them ignorant of the purpose of their creation. Hurling helpless beings in this world without even informing them of the reason of this labor is beyond comprehension. This, if done, can only be done by a God who is sadist and malevolent. And as God cannot be malevolent and sadist, for that would render him Evil, that would mean there isn’t any God.

The purpose of creation is the question that nags any person who believes in a God and creation. Without this belief, this riddle remains no longer unconquerable. And since God himself has presented no answer to this fundamental question ingrained within humans, it’s rather difficult that there is an omnipotent and omniscient, most loving and merciful God who created this universe and everything within.”

- Initial Meditations, Umer Latif.

Am I becoming an existentialist?