Vijayendra Mohanty on Living and Learning

A response to the open letter

2008-11-28T15:09:00.002+05:30

My previous blog post "Open letter to the media" got me heartening email response from far away. Publishing it here with the writer's permission:

Dear Vimoh,

First of all I hope you are doing well considering the circumstances Mumbai is in at the moment.

I read your "open letter to the media" and it touched me, somehow I wanted to let you know this. I am Dutch and working in an international company with many expats. The Mumbai attacks have shocked us all, especially our Indian colleagues and friends. When I read your letter out loud to my colleague/friend who sits next to me, she's from South America, she became very quiet. A few moments later she said it was so right and so true. In the meantime colleagues from all over the world have read your letter and no matter where they are from, what they do or who they believe in; we all agree.

To be honest I don't really know what to say, but I just wanted to let you know that you are not the only person who feels like this about terrorists. We all feel like this, it's universal. I hope that the thought of you not being alone with these feelings can be a bit of support - it's all I can offer you.

All the best,
LM

Thanks for the kind words LM. Appreciate it! Gladder still to see someone from so far away understand the fact that living in a secular democracy is a privilege we can't take for granted.

Open letter to the media

2008-11-28T12:09:00.008+05:30

Dear mass media of my country.

I know you are analytical & highly educated people, and have my best interests at heart. But you are also blind. Allow me to explain.

A band of murderers pops out of nowhere and kills a whole lot of everyday folks (just like me) and then send you a letter (or a video, or an email) telling you who they would like to be known as and who they represent and what they want.

You then, in your great wisdom, read their lies to the whole nation aloud (with flashy lights and exciting music in the background for added effect).

Please stop doing that! It is fucking irritating!

I, and many others like me, can do without their lies. And it irritates to see you repeat their lies for them.

Can't you tell?

I don't care what they are called. I don't care where they are from. I don't care who they think they are doing this for. They killed people - they are murderers.

Stop calling them Islamists or Hindus or activists or outfits. Words like 'criminal' and 'murderer' work just fine.

If they need to kill people to get the governments' attention, then they don't deserve ANY attention. In fact, I would go so far as to say that murderers don't deserve freedom of speech.

I would love for them to be nameless and uncategorised. The whole lot of them undesirables. I would like them to be put away for life, with no one ever seeing them again, or hearing of from them, or hearing of them and their so-called 'cause'.

Update: I received an email in response to this post. Read it here.

All about iTwote and TwitterGuru

2008-11-06T20:58:00.003+05:30

Since its launch last night, iTwote.com has received great attention and response (mostly positive). I think it would be a good idea to explain some of the underlying ideas behind it.

First a recap of the process:

We are out to find who the most popular Twitter user in India is. Mostly because we think the value a user provides to his followers (fun, information, news, whatever) can't be measured by looking at the number of tweets they have made or the number of followers they have.

We thought the most logical way of finding that out was through a vote in which users come out and actually say who they like best.

So we set up a process like this:

Those interested in participating in the poll must first follow @itwote on Twitter.

Then you must tweet your nomination. If (for reasons known only to yourself) you wanted to vote for me (@vimoh), you will tweet:

@itwote #twitterguru @vimoh

The more such nominations a user receives, the more points he/she builds up till the day of the nomination counting. The nomination process is open till November 12, 2008.

A few points to remember though:

You can only nominate one person.
If you nominated for someone and then changed your mind, you can nominate again. Only your last nomination will count as valid.
Your nominated twitter user must be from India.
You cannot nominate yourself (Sorry, but we have to mention this).

The 5 users with the most nominations go into the final round of actual voting that happens on November 13, 2008. On that day, you will have to vote for one of the 5 finalists and the one with the most votes will be declared TwitterGuru.

Some users have raised questions and objections to the idea. I will try and answer some of the recurring doubts here.

I think it is a pointless exercise and proves nothing.

Ans: Perhaps you are right. But then you have to wonder if any kind of voting counts as anything. There are always those who don't vote and those whose votes end up invalid. That doesn't mean the fault is in the process.

What's with the seven day nomination period?

Ans: Some users don't on a daily basis and might miss out on the updates. In any case, Twitter is just too noisy a place for a message to come across without potentially being lost among other messages first. The week-long nomination period will help more users take note of the contest and will hopefully invite more involvement.

How come you are allowing nominations to be changed? Serious elections don't work that way.

Ans: We understand that. But please note that real elections don't allow regular folks to nominate candidates on as immediate a level as we are doing.

Also, real elections are preceded by issues that need solving. Candidates step forward to solve them. People hear their proposals out and make their choice.

Hear we are only looking to find who people like most (for whatever reasons). There is a great difference!

But then what's the point behind this? Why do this at all?

Short answer: Because we want to.

Long answer: I see iTwote.com as a social experiment. Blogs don't come with an audience attached, Twitter (potentially) does. If you have something to say, it won't take you long to find yourself in the middle of a community that wants to hear exactly what you have to say.

It is not just the physical format that separates Twitter from other platforms. I have gotten a lot of people to start blogs. But they quit soon ("nobody comments on my blog") in the absence of connection. A big part of the Twitter experience is to connect and converse.

We think it is a good idea to harness the conversations and harvest opinions out of them to gain (however blurry) a picture of things. TwitterGuru is merely our first baby experiment to test this system. What we can do with it in the future, I leave to your imagination.

And this conversation is not over. I invite comments, complaints, abuses (umm... maybe not), and suggestions. The comment form is open.

How to follow the conversation?

2008-10-08T22:05:00.001+05:30

Let us follow a conversation.

It starts and grows on Twitter until some people decide 140 character replies aren't really working anymore. They take it to their blogs and the conversation continues in the comments (possibly through Disqus).

Some have integrated their Twitter status messages with their Facebook accounts. The conversation continues in the comments to those status messages, spreading through the social network via the ubiquitous share button.

Some of those who blogged have Friendfeed pulling their RSS feeds. The conversation has taken news turns in the lively comment threads there. Some of those who only read the blog posts have shared the posts on their FF pages and have their own conversations going.

What's more? Many of the people involved in this conversation have their Twitter accounts, their blogs, AND their Disqus accounts plugged in to Friendfeed. Every single quip and retort is rendered commentable. The conversation explodes into a thousand pieces!

I am just skimming the surface of this issue. There are a million other ways the conversation might take. Forget following it, even making sense of it is a far cry. Need I remind you of the existence of those who are eager to label the social web 'noisy'. Can we really blame them?

Expecting a single web service to solve this problem isn't practical. While the limitations of one service may not be there in another, there will soon emerge a set of needs that force the user to look beyond his favourite online hangout.

This is the time when I give you an answer. Unfortunately, I have none. I was hoping you could help me out on this. What do you think we need to better follow the conversation?

Losing my rights

2008-10-02T12:17:00.003+05:30

This post was first published at mypajama.com on April 3rd, 2008 (a day before this blog started).

There is a story about a boy whose parents took him to the sage-poet Thiruvalluvar because he had too much of a weakness for sweets. They requested the sage to tell the boy not to eat so much sweetmeat. Thiruvalluvar sent the family away asking them to return in a fortnight.

When they did come back, the saint explained to the boy why he should ease up on the sweets and why too much sugar will turn out bad. The boy got the point. The parents didn’t. Why hadn’t he said the same thing the last time they were here?

Thiruvalluvar smiled and told them that he was a huge sweet-addict himself back then. He couldn’t have asked the boy to shun a habit he himself was guilty of nurturing.

Think about it.

I have fought rage and outrage like everyone else at many points in my life. But every single time, when the anger subsides, I realise I am turning into the object of my anger the moment I start hating him/her/it. No matter how righteous my anger or how deserving my cause.

I have not lived a clean life. In my time, I have been unreasonable, vindictive, deceptive and vicious. I have angered people and I have caused people pain.

The thing about such behaviour is that, it is inescapable. Knowingly or unknowingly, we can't help rubbing others the wrong way. Even just by being yourself, you become a threat to many around you. Anger comes naturally, but it never solves anything. How then, does one go about keeping everyone happy?

Perhaps we are trying to solve the wrong problem.

I discovered the liberating feeling that comes with realising that I have no right to get angry at anyone. No right at all. Not because of what they did. Not because of what they are. And certainly not because of what they did to ME!

The moment realise I am myself capable of every evil that may ever confront me, the other person starts looking like an extension of my person -- someone who I might have been, or someone who might have been me.

I realise that every wrong I see in the world around me, is a reflection of what is inside me. The world is only a mirror. It is easy to make faces at a mirror if I don’t like what it shows me. But if I really want to change what I see in the mirror -- what I get from the world -- I need to change myself.

Why I will not start a religion

2008-09-07T20:39:00.000+05:30

If I do start a religion, I will base it on humane values, justice, fairness, kindness, and faith. Why? Because every religion we have is based on those same high principles.

The reason it doesn’t work is because most people lack imagination.

Let us assume I did start a religion. I decree that my followers must help each other selflessly and be kind to all people in general. I pronounce all men and women equal. I forbid violence and make it a point to underline this.

That should take care of everything, I think. Then I live my life and die when my time is up.

Time passes. Society changes. Language grows richer. Aliens make first contact with us. They start living amongst us.

This is when a devoted follower of mine loses it. He brings it to everyone’s notice that I said men and women (he jabs his finger at the words and does a wild dance to emphasise his point) and never made any mention of any other creature. He concludes that aliens are evil and he is allowed to kill them in my name.

Many laugh him off. Many lap it up because they were bored of their lives anyway. They want to punish someone for it instead of making an attempt to improve things.

So they form a club and call it defenders of the faith or something. Upon those who oppose their dumbness, they make accusations of blasphemy, quoting my divine origins (I was born in a government hospital in Cuttack, you dumbfucks!).

So there. I don’t think I will start a religion. I can’t stand the idea of perfectly sane people cursing me to hell centuries from now just because their neighbours have no imagination.

Open letter to the Hindu fundamentalist

2008-09-05T22:48:00.001+05:30

In my home state of Orissa, in the last few weeks, Christians have been threatened, attacked, raped and murdered by people calling themselves Hindu. I want this to be an open letter to those murderers and criminals.

Let me get this straight. You are honourable members of the Hindu faith who feel violated by Christian intruders' attempts to turn honest and god-fearing Hindus (such as yourself) to their faith. That's it, right?

May I ask you which tenets of Hinduism ask you to maim, murder, and humiliate unarmed people in order to defend the faith you so claim to love? Where in all of those oft-quoted religious texts does violence against the unarmed find mention as one of your weapons?

Are you sure it is your religion that is making you do this? Are you sure you are not doing this because you are a gutless, illiterate, psychopathic criminal? Are you sure you are not doing this because you enjoy the killing and the raping? Or maybe you know all this and still choose to blame it on your religion. Religions don't talk back, do they?

You decide to go do some manhunting. You find there is no way you can do all that and still have claim to residence in civilised society. So you rev up the rhetoric and call forth other criminals like yourself. You hide behind political organisations and religious bodies and do your killing conveniently. Anyone who opposes you automatically becomes a faithless traitor (or to use a more fashionable phrase, a 'pseudo-secularist').

Here comes another crucial part of your motivation. You just want to hurt. You are angry at a lot of things in your life. But not enough to fight. So you carefully choose people who can't fight back. Going out and out criminal will cause you to go against the law. You don't want that. Joining the army includes considerable risk to life and limb. So that is out of the question as well. Why not take it out on the helpless and the weak? If someone raises their voice, you can always play the 'defender of faith' card, right?

That, right there, is your little game.

Tell you what... I am done with you. From what I have read, Hinduism is hard to define. We don't worship one god, nor many. We don't abhor violence, neither do we embrace it. But if it comes right down to the dirty matter of choosing sides, you can count me out of your little criminal club.

You and I are not the same. If you are a Hindu, I am not. I wish I could claim Hinduism as my own private little garden, but then I would have to breathe the same air as you scum. I would rather remain faithless then have anything to do with you.

What is God?

2008-09-02T20:29:00.000+05:30

God is a word. This word is used to imply a concept. This concept states that there is a force higher and greater than all mortal consciousness and all individual elements of nature.

According to various accounts, this force is said to be the origin of things. It is also said to possess the power to reward, punish, and judge actions of those that it has created.

I believe reality is not objective. The world is different things to different people. Hence, trying to grasp the God concept using traditional logic is futile.

God, to me, is you.

I am a mind. There is a part of me called the sub-conscious. You have it too. All our sub-conscious minds put together make a super-conscious mind. That is God to me.

The super-conscious mind is not conscious in a way we would understand. But it lives anyway. It is the sum total of all of us. The only way we can access it is through each other.

What is the point?

2008-08-20T13:36:00.001+05:30

Some time ago, I happened to be in the presence of two highly educated people who were discussing an old fable by Aesop.

It was the one about the arrogant lion who is holding the forest to ransom. He demands that unless one creature willingly becomes his food everyday, he will go on a rampage and kill all animals.

The animals, keeping the greater good in mind, agree to this.

Things go according to the plan (some plan, eh? reminds you of what the Joker said about plans, doesn't it?) until one day a smart rabbit goes to the lion and convinces him that there is another like him in the forest.

The lion, enraged, demands to be taken to the imposter. The rabbit takes him to the well and shows him his image in the water. The lion is furious and roars at it. The well echoes his roar. Eventually the dumbass carnivore jumps into the well to finish the imposter in his head.

That was the story. But you know what the highly educated people were debating? They were disagreeing about whether it was a smart rabbit or a clever jackal that did the lion in.

This is what we do to religion, don't we? To religion, and to God, and to our heroes, and to our laws.

We are taught to analyse everything. We end up analysing the shit out of everything. We read so much into stories that they remain little more than plain text to us.

And while we do this, the meaning - the whole point of it - the reason why Aesop felt compelled to tell the story in the first place, lies unnoticed some distance to our left.

Day of the dog

2008-06-30T00:31:00.001+05:30

This is an old story I wrote some time back. I am re-publishing it here (mostly unchanged) because it is very close to my heart. I hope it finds a place in yours.

There is an enormous backyard somewhere. It is full of dogs. Every dog has his day. They are all seeking theirs. Actually, they are all chasing their tails, convinced that the day they have their tails between their teeth will be theirs.

Dogs of all ages strain themselves. Some are more determined than others. Some are really not into it. They are just doing it because everyone else is. Many have been doing it for years and think they can’t stop now. In any case, everyone is going round and round.

One day, one of them, after having flexed his body to degrees unimaginable, gets to his tail. As he holds on to it with his teeth, all others around him stop. Soon, there is a crowd around him. Some dogs bark their appreciation. Some growl in envy.

Some come to him to seek his secrets. But the dog is too busy holding on to his tail so he can’t share his way of doing it with anyone. Eventually, they all go back to chasing their own tails.

The dog holds on to his own tail. He is aware of hundreds of dogs all around him, looking at him in awe and wonder. They consider him unique. He has accomplished what they have only ever dreamt of.

The dog is pleased, but a part of him is full of questions. He had always thought that this was his day. Maybe it is. But how does that change things? What is he to do now? The other dogs see in him a content and happy being. He sees nothing. There is only emptiness ahead of him. An eternity standing right there, with his tail between his teeth.

It is then that a smell comes to him from somewhere outside the backyard. He can’t see beyond the high fence. But as the smell assaults his nostrils, he is reminded of the days when he was a pup. Back when he used to bound about the garbage dump with his brothers and sisters, sniffing for good, wholesome leftovers.

The dog’s mouth waters. The tail almost slips away from between his teeth. But he can’t let go of it. He has spent too much time on it. His image… his very life hangs on it. He begins to fear the smell. He convinces himself to hate it. He tells himself it is something evil, sent to take away his life from him, leaving him insecure and unsafe. Without his tail, he would be right back where he started. He has his day and he is not going to let go of it.

Time passes. One day the gentle wind brings a wave of smell to him again. Fighting the impulse to follow it, he bites hard into his tail. It bleeds and he opens his mouth a little to let out a whimper. The tail swings free. He snaps at it several times in vain, but he is standing straight now and can’t get back to it.

He goes round and round for a while, unwilling to believe that he has lost it. Then he notices that he looks like everyone else now. Fear and a sense of loss come crashing down upon him and he howls out loud, disconsolate.

A few other dogs stop and come to him to share his grief. But as before, they don’t stay long and return to their own tails.

Then the smell comes again and a part of him feels happy. He seeks refuge in his childhood and the memories flood his mind. He doesn’t have the energy to fight them this time.

Eventually he opens his eyes, and gets up on his feet. He finds his tail wagging and feels odd. He doesn’t remember the last time this happened. Turning to face the source of the smell, he takes slow, leisurely steps. Then he breaks into a trot. The other dogs appear creatures from a bizarre dream now. He looks at them in mild amusement as he passes them. None of them notice him.

He follows the smell out of the backyard, far away and beyond the sea of dogs. As the smell grows stronger, his trot dissolves into a run and he bounds forward like the wind.

At long last, he comes across a garbage dump. There is a puppy running around it on its little legs. The dog feels happy to find the puppy’s glee reflected in himself. His tail wags harder. He runs across to the puppy and barks to him in happiness. The puppy answers with a small, enthusiastic bark.

The dog takes the puppy around the dump. He teaches him to find less steep slopes -- easier to climb up. Then he teaches the puppy to leap. He tells him how to use his hind legs to propel himself forward and upward. The puppy tries and fails many times. The dog nudges him on.

Soon, the puppy makes it to the top of the mound and retrieves a slice of pizza. It is still soft and untouched. The puppy starts eating, hoping that the dog will help himself to it. But the dog doesn’t. He waits for the puppy to finish.

Then they walk, both of them, side by side. They are happy, and it is unclear which one is following the other; or whether they are following anything at all.

How to believe

2008-06-27T01:52:00.002+05:30

I grew up a staunch atheist in a family where the gods had their own separate room. Ideas and theories bunking the God concept were (still are and always will be) plentily available. I knew plenty of ways to get at you if you were out to prove God's existence to me. What's more? I was proud of having thwarted seasoned believers at the game.

Atheism was good training ground for me. It trained my mind in reason and taught me that whether I believe or not, God is something that would haunt my mind always.

But this was not just about God. It was quite some time before I started to see this as being about plain old trust. Believing in myself, my dreams, my vision of life, other people's opinions and convictions. It was about working in the absence of evidence. About not being trapped by what is considered the very purpose of our existence -- knowledge.

The need to know

We work under the assumption that when we are born, we know nothing. That we learn as we grow up and have learnt all there is by the time we are grown-ups. And yet, we conveniently forget that practically all the knowledge we gather in our formative years is based on an act of faith. We are told things and we believe them.

Faith therefore, is a quality we are all born with. It seems to exist in the absence of knowledge. Small wonder then, that we equate faith with ignorance.

Truth is, we never really stop believing. You don't exactly know how your computer's keyboard or TV remote functions. But you believe what the techies tell you. You believe advertisements. You believe signboards that tell you "road blocked ahead" and take the suggested alternate routes to your workplace.

Imagine what it would be like if you insisted on knowing everything!

What is the point of knowledge then?

Knowledge is important. But as I said, it has no independent existence. In my eyes, knowledge is an aid to faith. Jumping off a cliff believing you can fly is an act of pure faith (or pure stupidity, depending on your perspective). But if you have flown before, it helps you believe that you can do it again.

Knowledge is good to have. But it is not indispensable. Nor is it opposed to or superior to faith. It complements faith. In fact, you need faith to know. The most reliable encyclopedia will serve you no purpose if you don't believe what it says.

Knowledge can be incomplete or fragmented (it often is). Faith can only ever be absolute. There is no middle path for the believer. Doubt, fear, and misery don't walk alongside faith. If you truly believe in something (God for example), then there can be no doubt and hence no fear. If you are in doubt, you obviously don't believe. Think about it. (I have written about this before)

Faith is a vastly superior quality than knowledge. It does not cripple. It is not a handicap. Those who believe can afford the ultimate freedom -- fearlessness.

So we can believe whatever we want?

Yes. You probably already do that. You wouldn't hear a word against your only son, would you? Even though your neighbours may know of him having broken into a local shop. Similarly, you believe in what your favourite charismatic politician says without giving a tweet about popular opinion.

Sometimes, it so happens that you want to believe something or someone, but simply can't. With all due respect, it is NOT SO. If you want to believe, you can. You don't have to learn faith. You were born with it, remember? I like Richard Bach's way of putting it in his book Illusions:

"Humbug on faith. Takes zero faith. What it takes is imagination...

Two thousand years ago, five thousand, they didn't have a word for imagination, and faith was the best they could come up with for a pretty solemn bunch of followers.

Consider this. There are millions of melodies, all made of just seven musical notes. The notes you can know, but you need to imagine the melodies in order to be able to make them.

Why the ant hates me

2008-06-18T20:41:00.002+05:30

There is a suicidal ant in my loo. Almost every time I go in for a leak, I have to use a brush to sweep it out of the pot and drop it on a dry spot on the floor so that I don't accidentally flush it to its death.

What bugs me is that it always fights back. I have probably broken more than one of its legs in attempts to keep it from its watery grave. Every time I drop it on the floor, it circles the spot in anger and confusion.

I got thinking about the things we complain about in life. The little setbacks, the accidents, the apparent tragedies. Did something higher than us just 'sweep' us out of the path of even greater damage?

What caused you?

2008-05-31T20:02:00.004+05:30

Prophecies are a staple of many stories. A set life path, leading to an inevitable conclusion – usually the death of a much despised villain at the hands of the chosen hero, or the reaching of a cherished goal.

Harry Potter was born to kill Voldemort. Lord Rama took a human form to end the evils of Ravana. Frodo was chosen to destroy the ring, and with it, the lord of Mordor.

So why are these people heroes? What made them heroes? What is their cause of being?

What brought Rama into being was the climactic battle in which he chopped off all ten heads of Ravana. What makes Harry a hero is the killing of Voldemort. What caused Frodo to be a hero is the act of flinging the ring into the fiery waters of Mount Doom.

The hero’s existence is justified by the act for which he was born. The reason for Rama’s birth is Ravana’s death. Harry lives so Voldemort may die. Frodo exists to end the power of Sauron.

Think about this for a while.

The cause of a hero’s coming into being lies far out in his future. The cause (villain’s death) comes after the effect (hero’s birth).

Why is this important? Remember the tons of prophecies Harry and his friends trashed when playing with the Death Eaters? Maybe they were about us!

Maybe, like Rama, you and I were born to fulfill a cause still some distance away. Maybe you, sitting in front of your computer right now, are unknowingly doing your part towards seeking your very own holy grail - one hidden away exclusively for you. How about that?

Good luck with the demon slaying!

The bomb that decided not to explode

2008-05-30T12:19:00.003+05:30

A short piece of fiction that chose me to be its writer was published on everydayfiction.com on the 28th day of May, 2008.

It is a simplistic story about the power and freedom each of us possesses to be anything we want -- even something entirely opposite of what might appear to be our given purpose.

Do read the story and let me know how you liked it.

About twenty minutes before it was to fall and decimate more than half a country, the thermo-nuclear warhead “Arrow” became self-aware.

It discovered something akin to happiness in its first moments. The joy of existence spread to the very edges of its circuitous consciousness. It fell in love with itself.

Continue reading 'Arrow's Way' >>

Fable of the unfortunate king

2008-05-27T22:50:00.003+05:30

Once there was a king who was young and ambitious. He ruled his land responsibly and was loved by his people.

He wasn’t very happy therefore, when one day, the wise court astrologer foretold his death. His exact words were, "Ten years from this day, you will die. And you will die alone."

The wise one had never been wrong before. The king considered his age and decided that life was not fair. He was to die at thirty!

The king grew angry with the wise one. But he respected him too much. So instead of having him executed or imprisoned, he limited the old man to his house and forbade him from making any more predictions.

As the years passed, the king grew sickly with worry. In all but appearance, he was already dead. The thought of death occupied all of his mind. Nightmares of bloody battles haunted his nights. Seven years remained.

Then one day, a travelling merchant came by to pay his respects. The king sat through the formalities looking his usual wooden self. When the time came for the meeting to end, the merchant asked, "What ails you my king?"

"Haven’t you heard citizen?" replied the king. "I am a dead king. In seven years, I will die. At the hands of what monsters, I don’t know."

The merchant considered his words and realised nothing would console the young king. He looked about and asked a guard out aloud, "When are you going to die?"

"I don’t know," said the guard.

The merchant asked him, "Will you die tomorrow?"

"It is unlikely. But anything can happen. Anyone may die at any time."

The merchant next addressed one of the ministers, "When do you think you will die my lord?"

The minister was silent for a while. Then he said, "I should very much prefer to grow old and die in peace. But that is not for me to decide. I could die any day, if God so willed."

The merchant turned to the king at last, "When will you die my king?"

"In seven years, as you very well know," said the king, now slightly irritated.

"What if you were to face off with a hungry lion in a ring tomorrow? Will you die then?"

Realisation pounced at the king out of nowhere. "I won’t," he said.

"What if you took your forces against that dastardly warmonger king to our north? Will he be able to kill you?"

"No," said the king, beaming now.

"For the next seven years, neither man, nor god - neither disease nor sword... will be able to harm you. You will die on a day seven years from now," said the merchant, "But that day is not tomorrow. Nor the day after, or the one after that."

The king rose to his feet and looked around. The court house looked different somehow. The courtiers looked different. They all spelt possibility.

There wasn’t much time. The king decided to get busy.

How to be an Authority Commenter

2008-05-23T00:16:00.004+05:30

Let me start by assuming that your name is Vijayendra Mohanty and you don’t have a blog.

Good news is – your name is Vijayendra Mohanty. It’s not a special name by any stretch of imagination. But it is your name. So it is important.

So here you are, online and trying to make sense of the blogosphere. You read up acres and acres worth of beginners’ guides on the web and chat up scores of seasoned bloggers and web professionals. They inspire and motivate but you end up more confused than when you started.

You decide to start by lurking at some select joints in the blogosphere. You pick up RSS feeds left, right, and centre and read (as best as you can) the hell out of them. You give up on all but a few of them a week or so later. This is also the time when you start paying more attention to the few feeds that you are still reading.

You start clicking over to some of the blog posts and see a veritable torrent of comments under each write-up (you wouldn’t choose anything less than a pro blog, would you?). People are speaking their minds, letting the blogger know how wise, insightful, stupid, or short-sighted he/she is.

You realise you can contribute to this conversation. A lot of these people are not really saying anything. You can actually answer some of these questions and probably even introduce angles nobody has raised (noticed?) yet.

So you put the carat in the comment field and type out your point of view. After that, you set right (politely of course) a few of the buffoons that got to the thread before you did. Then you unassumingly sign the comment Vijayendra Mohanty and leave the URL field blank (you don’t have a blog, remember?).

The next day, you go back to the thread. There are more comments. Your heart jumps! People have taken the time to acknowledge your comment. Some agree with what you say and some don’t. But you are present there alright! You even get an @ reply from the blogger.

Pleased with yourself, you learn a valuable lesson – the web is about presence. Brochure-type websites for companies, photo blogs and galleries for professional photographers, tech blogs for those who know their machines. If you don’t blog, your name is your presence.

It represents you on comment threads. It is what you are known as to anyone who has ever been to the blogs you frequent. You are a known quantity.

If all the comments you have ever made on any blog post were to be aggregated on one web page (blog?), they would show a pattern, wouldn’t they? Your interests, you choice of topics, your use of language. Your general way of dealing with disagreement and with other people. Your personality!

Actually, it is not that IF a situation. If you have ever commented on a blog that uses Disqus Comments, you already have a page like that. Here, for example, is the disqus page of Karen Swim – a commenter on this blog. People can even subscribe to your comments the way they would subscribe to your blog (if you had one). There are other comment services like Disqus, (eg: IntenseDebate and SezWho) but I only have first hand experience with Disqus.

Taking comments responsibly can prove to be a powerful pre-launch strategy if you want to start a blog some time soon. But you might want to hurry up and get that vmohanty.com domain that has become such hot property, thanks to you obsessive, incessant, and insightful commenting.

How they remember past lives

2008-05-20T02:37:00.004+05:30

I think I just figured out how some people manage to retain memories of their past lives. It is a reasonable enough explanation anyway. Listen.

In the universe, there is energy. It is everywhere and in everything. It is like Obi-Wan Kenobi's definition of the Force, "...an energy field created by all living things, that surrounds and penetrates living beings and binds the galaxy together."

There is also mass. Loosely defined, mass is stuff and energy is what makes stuff work. Everything is made of stuff and everything is being run by energy.

If you know basic level physics, you would know that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another. It is called the law of conservation of energy. The same energy runs our bodies, nuclear reactions, the stars, and all manner of living and non living objects.

If you put absolutely anything under the microscope, you will see molecules. Regardless of which element something is made of, there are, microscopically speaking, vast empty spaces between molecules. This seemingly empty space contains energy.

You will see the same vast spaces and the same vibrating molecules in pretty much everything. Your hand, your bed, your dog. The list, as cliche goes, is endless. Energy holds matter together and keeps it from falling apart.

Now, we know that memories are extragenetic (independent of genes). If you are cloned, your duplicate will not have any memories of your life. (Watch the action-packed movie The 6th Day. Schwarzeneggar alert!)

Here's my point. Cloning replicates all matter in our bodies. But what of the energy? And what of that which the matter can not hold - memories?

What if, upon destruction of the body, the energy drifts away (soul?) taking with it memories, and just becomes a part of the sea of energy that is all around us. In due time when a new body made of matter needs mobilising, that bubble of energy enters it and brings the memories with it.

Some time ago, I wrote a post called Getting Ideas. In it I suggested that ideas are just things that float all around us and come to us when we seek them. I am saying that same thing about consciousness now.

Think of it as a like-attracts-like situation. A set of memories and feelings seeking matter will be drawn towards a body. Similarly, a body in need of a feeling will draw such towards itself.

Paranormal researchers say that many ghost sightings are a result of energy signatures left at certain places. So in a way, the universe remembers. (Read an oldish sci-fi book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called The Land of the Mists)

More proof that we are all connected. We are parts of each other and belong to each other, quite literally. Maybe the bright idea you just had was somebody's dying wish. How does that make you feel?

How to be Yourself

2008-05-19T21:48:00.005+05:30

On my way to work (when I was working a year or so ago), I saw a billboard everyday. It had a bunch of kids posing in a variety of cool-seeming poses, wearing what the fashion store labelled fashionable then. The tag line was - Be Yourself.

Being one's own self has to be the easiest of things, right? We are already what we are, and have always been that way. Is it even possible to be anything but ourselves?

And yet, we fake a lot. We work very hard to resemble the ideal of the ideal. Somewhere in the collective super-conscious mind that connects us all, there is resentment about this. The real self doesn't like being bound and controlled. It is perhaps for that reason that the phrase 'be yourself' has such charm.

So, what part of me exactly is me? How much of my nature is really mine and how much of it is things I have learned to be? How can I know if I am myself (if that is at all possible)?

I don't know. But I can make a few educated guesses. Let me start at the beginning.

I am looking for a version of myself minus the things I have learnt. So it probably makes sense to look for my answers in a time when no one has learnt anything much - infancy and early childhood.

Metaphysical author Dolores Cannon, in her book Between Death & Life, suggests that a spirit in course of its many earthly lives, develops a personality. So it is wrong to assume that when (if for all you non believers) we are reborn, we start with a fresh slate. Cannon says that in the earliest stages of life, a person remembers a lot of this 'spiritual personality' and acts and makes choices accordingly.

Babies sometimes show qualities neither of the parents seem to possess. Were you a perfect fit in your family? I am not talking adoloscent rebelliousness here. But maybe long-standing differences of opinion, orientation, and even value systems?

Cannon says a baby brings with itself many qualities of the spirit. It can sense feelings and is incredibly good at sensing good or bad vibes. These qualities are dulled and eventually disappear as worldly 'knowledge' creeps upon and claims the baby's conscious mind.

Some time ago, Ankesh pointed me towards the Myers-Briggs personality type assessment. Here is what the test advises one to do before starting:

In reviewing the comparisons in our inventory, you may find yourself drawn equally to opposing choices. In such cases I suggest you try to think back to how you were before the age of 12 or even younger if you can recall. The rationale for this suggestion is the fact that by the time we are 3 years old, the core of our cognitive organization is well-fixed... although the brain continues to allow some plasticity until puberty.

After the onset of puberty, our adult learning begins to overlay our core personality - which is when the blending of nature and nurture becomes more evident. For some people, this "learning" serves to strengthen what is already there, but with others it produces multiple faces to personality. Discovering or rediscovering this innate core of yourself is part of the journey of using personality type to enrich your life. (my personality type)

Going by either explanation, I think it is safe to assume one is most 'oneself' before he/she 'grows up'.

Each is born with inclinations and a purpose of his/her own. Golu showed an amazing ability to remember things before he could even properly walk. He once amazed me and my mom by memorising an entire lullaby we used to sing to him.

Another nephew of mine, Om by name, loves wrestling. He wails until the channel flipping stops on a WWE match. He frequently cannonballs into unsuspecting sleeping relatives like a pro wrestler. He has hurt himself many times but it never stops him.

Untaught and natural, this is what they are. Of course it is possible for Golu to end up a clerk and Om an engineer, but they wouldn't be their true self then. Robin Sharma, in his book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, says that in order to find one's life purpose, one only needs to go back to the things that gave him/her joy as a child. Barbara J. Winter is of the same opinion:

As children we were all naturally intuitive. We had more dreams and fewer doubts. As time went by, the "guidance" we received may have dimmed the dreams and fueled the doubts. By the time we began thinking about how we would earn our living, we had received considerable advice that may have led us further away from our real desires.

Now then, back to the how to be yourself question. What differentiates us from the children we once were? Two things, in my opinion.

One is simplicity. We were lucid when we were babies. I may feel I need a lot of possessions to feel happy. But if I remember correctly, a spoonful of mixed-fruit jam was all it took to make Golu the happiest person in the world. All Om wants is someone to practice his tumble and roll routine on. Such is his focus that even meals appear to be chores.

The other thing we learn as we grow up is fear. Children aren't really the most frightful creatures - not when they are doing their own thing anyway. But they realise soon enough that some things can hurt and cause them pain. They come to fear pain so much that the mere possibility of it causes them to retreat. After that it is only a matter of what pain is associated with. Independence is pain - they run. Love is pain - they run. Heck, people even associate pain with dreaming! Fear (of pain or anything else) is a crucial barrier between us and our self.

'One's own Dharma, even if followed imperfectly, is superior to someone else's Dharma, even if followed perfectly. It is better to be slain while following one's own Dharma. Someone else's Dharma is tinged with fear' - Bhagwad Gita, Chapter 3, Verse 35

When you are yourself, you will lose all fear. When you are yourself, your life will be so simple and yet so intoxicating, you will wonder why you were ever anything else. Truth be told, you will be wrong. You have never been anything but this!

What do you feed your genie?

2008-05-11T14:21:00.001+05:30

Imagine a genie, immensely powerful, capable of the most amazing feats. Imagine it beside you, invisible, at all times. Imagine yourself in command of the genie, able to make any demand and at any time. Demands that the genie will fulfill, no questions asked.

What if all you ever needed to do was ask?

Truth is, we are always asking. Whether we do it knowingly or not, we are always giving the genie instructions. And the genie is always processing it, altering our reality by fractions, giving us exactly what we want.

Not much is known about the nature of the genie. There are many theories, some more popular than others.

One theory says the genie is our own sub-conscious mind. I will try to explain.

For the most part, our reality is decided by what we perceive through our sense organs. We believe what we see. This, in essence, is what forms the basis of our conscious mind.

The sub-conscious mind however, is blind to the world. It does not interpret reality. It merely takes the conscious mind's version of things and accepts it without question.

The senses observe the world and feed the conscious. The conscious feeds the sub-conscious. The sub-conscious makes us who we are.

The power that our sub-conscious mind has over us is phenomenal. See a point I made in my previous post - How to Get Lucky. Hypnosis takes the conscious mind out of the picture by putting the subject into sleep or a similar trance-like state during which the mind becomes vulnerable.

Ideas are directly fed to the sub-conscious mind. The sub-conscious, as is its nature, accepts everything as true. Its interpretation is not based on accepted definitions of reality or even what we believe to be right & wrong. It just listens and obeys.

Take a moment to consider what you feed your sub-conscious during an avarage day. Your states of mind, your moods, your choice of television programmes, news and cinema.

Is there a pattern? Do you find yourself telling your sub-conscious something particular over and over again? Is it a worry? An anxiety? A fear? Do you frequently feed it despair, anger, and frustration?

Or do you tell your sub-conscious you are happy? Do you tell it you can deal with anything? Do you ask for power and strength? Do you tell your sub-conscious that even though things may seem bleak, they will not beat you?

The ask-you-shall-get premise is not limited to the mind-body analogy alone. I have found this same message in various kinds of literature. The idea of us not being alone is something you can find practically anywhere you care to look (fantasy novels, religious texts, spiritual literature, self-help books, comic books etcetera).

Personally, I find the concept very much in line with the practice of praying. The same kind of doubts apply to this theory as well. An atheist may say praying is a waste of time and will not work. He doesn't pray because it is not effective. In reality, it does not work because he doesn't pray.

You could say that the sub-conscious doesn't matter. You could argue that the world is what it seems to be. You could call yourself practical and trust what your senses feed you.

Guess what? Your sub-conscious will agree with you. Without a question. Always.

How to Get Lucky

2008-05-04T22:11:00.001+05:30

Do you know Shalu? She was a classmate of mine in college. She was unlucky (or so she thought). She told everyone about how terribly lacking in prosperity her life was. She looked at smiling faces and found reasons to explain why she could not smile like that.

She whined day in and day out about how unfair the world was to her. She believed everything was futile and had a million reasons to prove why nothing would ever work and why life is terrible and why it would never get any better.

Most likely you don't know Shalu. But you are sure to know someone very much like her. Someone who is never happy and in fact, seems to go looking for unhappiness. Someone extremely talented when it comes to looking for faults. So talented that even when good things are pointed out to them, all they can see is faults.

I learned a lot of things from Shalu. I learned that depression can become an addiction. I learned that depression can be contagious. Most importantly, I learned the secret behind good luck from her.

Of course, I didn't know it at the time. The lesson kind of grew on me in course of the years that followed.

Luck is a strange and powerful word. We throw it about in daily conversations, seek it more than anything else, even grow jealous when others show signs of possessing it. Most of us seem convinced it is a crucial deciding factor in all matters in life. Many also believe there is little we can do about luck. You either have it, or you don't.

I have been called lucky all my life. At times, to the point of frustration. Imagine working hard for something, getting it, and then the credit going to your lucky stars.

Perhaps this was because I never looked like I am working hard. And when I do look like I am hard at work, I fail, miserably (Want to see my high school math grades?). Then again, areas that I have done well in, have never really been hard work either. I have had fun doing things that brought me happiness and success.

I do believe luck exists. But not as something outside us. It is not something we all must reach out for. Something that is short in supply and must be guarded with jealous zeal.

We are all born with all the luck we are ever going to need. We become lucky or unlucky depending on whether we accept it or deny it.

I have this thing with my attitude. Some have called me a bullheaded optimist. Barring the flowery language, I have nothing against the definition. I have mostly been, from as far back as I can remember, utterly blind to the possibility of failure. I have always believed that the odds don't apply to me. I admit there have been times when events have come close to shaking my faith, but I am happy to report that the demons returned empty handed.

Of course, this theory is rooted in the general faith that one's mind rules one's reality. You may have heard of the case where a hypnotist told a subject he was being touched with a red hot iron and instead touched him with a pen. The subject instantly developed a blister at the point of contact. What determined his reality wasn't what happened. What was eventually real to him was what he thought was real. (see details here)

How about if you stop saying, 'That's it. I'm screwed.' or, 'I'm never going to make it now!'?

What if you started, instead, to tell yourself that you can do it. No bright and flashy, "YES, I CAN!" trip. A moderate affirmation will do. Something that will convince you. Something you say as if it can't be anything but true.

Here's an example. Try saying, "I will make 50,000 bucks more this month," in the same tone as you might say, "I take the bus to work every morning."

If you make a habit of it, nothing like it. Don't sound dreamy. Don't sound like you wish for it to happen more than anything else. Just say it like its true. Like it has already happened.

What my name is

2008-04-30T15:18:00.001+05:30

This story goes back a while. My family has been following a naming template for two generations now. Uncles, cousins, siblings, all follow (or are made to follow) the naming convention in the name of upholding family honour. As a result, we are called Mahendra, Upendra, Amarendra, Samarendra, and Vijayendra (me) respectively and in that order.

I was never comfortable with this arrangement. My mother tells me that at the time of my naming someone suggested Kumarendra and everyone almost went with it. Had a wise elder cousin not come up with my present name, I would be just another Mr. Kumar today.

Some time in my early teens, I decided to name myself. I wanted to call myself something that marked me as unique and not as a part of the Nepal royal family.

So, I did what young Tom Riddle did. I took my given name, and made my new name with it. I called myself Vimoh. It is sort of an acronym of my first and last name. In addition, it is Sanskrit for 'enrapture'. You may have heard of mythological sages and hermits getting all vimohit due to heavenly apsaras giving them private performances. The name stayed with me through my school life and college. It was one of my first email usernames. On many web services even today (like on stumbleupon), it remains the way I identify myself as.

Ironically, Vimoh may also mean 'free of attachments'. Sanskrit is a funny ancient language I know. I choose to go with the first version.

I have nothing against my mortal family and the given name. Just that I think one's name should be one's own.

Why you should plan for good times

2008-04-24T22:22:00.003+05:30

Our culture places a great deal of emphasis on being prepared for bad times. We are warned against being too optimistic and told that it is foolish to think our plans will bear fruit. We are told to assume the worst and save up (if not give up).

As expected (awaited?), bad times come. No matter how prepared we are, we fall short of resources to deal with the situation - because hey - they are bad times. It wouldn't be right to call them bad times if they were easy to deal with, right?

You may have heard - 'Whatever you focus on, expands'. Do you think we might be asking for bad times?

I mean, how much more focussed on failure can we get? All we ever anticipate is things going wrong. All we ever see in our future is ourselves dealing with truckloads of troubles. We don't entertain even the faintest possibility of a grand success or lasting happiness.

It is almost as if we have accepted misery as the status quo and happiness as something that can only ever come rarely and never last for long.

Maybe the reason happiness doesn't stay is because we don't plan for its coming. We take great care in plotting out every detail about what we supposedly don't want to happen. But we just assume the good times will take care of themselves.

Let us then start by figuring out exactly what great things we want from our future. In gruesome and ludicrous-sounding detail!

If it is fame you seek, think about what you will do when you are famous. Imagine yourself surrounded by screaming admirers. Picture applause and accolades. Think which part of the day you will assign to replying to fan mail.

If you dream of prosperity, imagine all manner of worldly pleasures before you. Banglaa, gaadi, naukar chaakar and all that. Feel the state of mind that comes with financial abundance. Imagine what it would feel like to not have to worry about overspending.

And don't stop with the dreaming. Chalk out elaborate plans of daily routines you will follow when the fabled good times descend upon you. If your plan involves freedom, think what you will do with that freedom when you get it.

Visualisation is a powerful technique. One that has worked for me several times in the past. If you can get past the mental trap that prevents you from entertaining positive thoughts, it will work for you too.

What Sprite ads can teach you about winning

2008-04-22T21:41:00.002+05:30

Sprite wins the cola ad wars. And it takes the trophy with a wise smirk. If ads affected my choice of soft drinks even one bit, I would probably be drinking Sprite right now.

Coke and Pepsi dazzle you with large-scale starry dreams, but it takes a Sprite ad to speak the language of simplicity and common sense. And common sense, being in such short supply already, takes the cake and eats it with relish. Here then, is what a Sprite ad can teach us about winning.

You don't have to 'win'

One of the lesser-remembered lessons from the kachhua-khargosh fable is that the hare ran needlessly fast too early. If he had conserved energy in the beginning, he could probably have dispensed with the need to doze off mere metres from the finish line.

Also, remember Cars, the animated movie? Who really won the final race? The loudmouth baddie? Or the good-natured hero McQueen? McQueen didn't win the race by crossing the finish line first. He did it by helping someone else win.

Sprite ads prove the futility of the 'first' tag. Technically you do need to be 'first' to win a race, but true victory comes from merit, wise choices, and value addition to the experience of the audience/ customer.

Wait and watch

What if you are the kachhua? What if, like the turtle, you lack the energy and resources to stay up to speed with the bigger players? Sad situation. The good news is, you have time on your side. You can wait and watch. You don't have to make the mistakes your fellow competitors make. Keep running as fast as you can. But don't sweat it. Instead, pay more attention to observing the one that went ahead.

Sprite's winning ad strategy uses this model. They let Pepsi and Coke make expensive, star-studded ads and then come up with the respective trademark Sprite spoof. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to tell which ads end up having more impact (or which ones cost less money to make).

Money won't help you win

Money may help, but it isn't the ticket to victory. Many people seem to work under the belief that dazzling audience with expensiveness is the way to their hearts. Not so.

What works is simple functionality. What works in the end are workable solutions. Things that allow the user/ consumer/ audience to connect to what is being offered. And because most of us live in a world where common sense still makes things go around, Sprite ads work.

Just to be clear about things, I don't drink colas. Not even Sprite. Lessons can be had from anywhere you care to look.

Dealing with Introverts and Extroverts

2008-04-21T18:46:00.001+05:30

In her book, The Introvert Advantage, author Marti Olsen Laney, says the primary difference between introverts and extroverts is one of energy focus.

Extroverts draw their energy from outside themselves. A social gathering will freshen them up. They will be at their best when they are surrounded by people. They are drawn to public events out of sheer thirst for validation. An extrovert is essentially feeding himself off the outside.

Introverts on the other hand, draw their strength from inside themselves. Only in their own company, are introverts ever truly at home. Being in public drains them of energy and leaves them gasping for breath. In much the same way as an extrovert suffers in solitude.

Laney's book is a must read. Being an introvert myself, and also someone who finds himself surrounded by extreme extroverts several times a month, I consider myself a fair bit of an expert on the topic. I have walked the path extroverts walk and lived to tell the tale. Here it goes.

Dealing with Introverts

An introvert may look like he doesn't care for company. But he only looks like it. You could think of him as a sponge that absorbs data and impressions from all around him, all the time. He processes it in his own way. Even though it may not be obvious to you.

Not all introverts will be silent. Some will talk. But it will happen rarely and only in select company. An introvert probably won't open up if he doesn't know you well enough.

An introvert may sometimes be so focussed on a thought or feeling that his outward expression is affected. He may either look as if stoned / in a trance or too animated for no reason. Don't judge him by what he looks like.

Try and understand that introverts need space. Sometimes, even a loud presence counts as an intrusion. Don't be offended if the introvert shows signs of discomfort. It's not you. It's him.

All this is not to say that the average introvert is unsocial. The definition of society need not be a perfect fit for everyone. Introvert kids sometimes grow up with low self esteem because they think they should have been extroverts. Consideration helps.

Dealing with Extroverts

An extrovert may appear shallow and fickle, but he isn't. His way of life requires socialising. This depends on accepted 'party' templates.

Extroverts value relaxation. But it does not mean sitting quietly and contemplating the ceiling fan. That would probably kill them. They need to be in the middle of sights and sounds. They need to feel busy to feel relaxed. Hard to grasp for introverts but essential in order to understand extroverts.

Extroverts may have more problems with discipline. While an introvert may think rules make life easier, an extrovert sometimes considers them hindrances in his path. This does not usually mean extroverts are rule-breakers by nature. They assert freedom their own way. Just like introverts do.

Extroverts don't think as much as introverts do. They may even think out aloud. Don't let this make you think they are incapable of silence. They are merely more vocal creatures.

You may also think extroverts are dumb because they don't understand things you don't say. Just say things you want to say. They will like you better for it. Remember, a lot of things they 'say' don't make sense to you either.

One thing I have learned is that introverts and extroverts NEED each other. Try and imagine a completely introverted or completely extroverted circle of friends and you will see what I mean.

There are treasures both inside and outside one's self. To be too focussed on one means losing out on the other. We don't want that, do we? An occasional blink of curiosity, a nudge of understanding, and a passing smile that says, 'I get you!' will make us all rich.

Why TypeRacer is good news for writing

2008-04-17T15:34:00.006+05:30

Last evening or thereabouts, Orkut came out of the closet and declared, "We have become Facebook!" Not that I mind. A good idea belongs to nobody. And social networking works best when there are games to be played. Sooner or later, you are bound to get tired of "hi!!! hru??" scraps.

I was particularly kicked by a social gaming application called TypeRacer. Once installed on your Orkut profile, it allows you to race your typing speed with your Orkut friends. And you are not just ranked on the basis of your speed. What is truly beautiful about TypeRacer is that it brings the much-ignored criteria of grammar and punctuation back into stark focus. I love it because of that.

I have always considered myself an able keyboarder. Last night, I realised I had been competing with the wrong kind of people. I logged an average of 35 words per minute in my first eight races. Someone who does text commentary for a cricket portal beat me black and blue in three fights.

I am still recovering. But I am not a sore loser. TypeRacer can be a boon to the state of online writing.

The state of writing in general (online mostly, but also offline) is, frankly speaking, sad. Writing 'hru' may be easier than 'How are you?'. But it sure as hell is not easier to understand.

Journalists, copywriters, sub-editors, teachers and students of English. These are the people generally considered guardians of the sanctity of the language. I would like to add bloggers to this list as well. But there is some distance to walk yet. I am not against errors. Mistakes happen.

But to embrace mistakes as a new way of doing things just because you consider yourself incapable of doing any better sounds irresponsible.

If TypeRacer becomes anything of a competitive fad, it will at least help the Orkut and chatroom crowds get over the belief that fast typing is the same as good communication.

TypeRacer is like a fussy chat friend who wouldn't pay attention to your IM's if you don't spell all the words exactly right. As someone who has seen resumes soaked in ignorance about what language is, I see great possibility in TypeRacer.

So then, I am up for a match. I am 35 w/m. Beat me? Be warned though. I am getting better at this.