While reading a book that delves into understanding happiness (more importantly how we prevent ourselves from being happy) – more on that book later, I learnt about two 50+ year old conjoined twins -Lori and Reba (now George). If you get a chance, read up about them in http://www.keepmywords.com/2011/01/11/lori-george-schappell/

Now here is the crazy thing….
They are very very happy!!! Look at their picture and tell me honestly how many of us can place ourselves in that situation and say we are happy? But they are.

When asked about separating them, their response” “Our point of view is no, straight out no. Why would you want to do that? For all the money in China, why? You’d be ruining two lives in the process”.
Lori added “Don’t assume our life is difficult till we tell you it is so”

This befuddles all psychologists. And gives a lie to all current medical opinion from doctors (none of whom have been born conjoined twins) that all such twins should be separated out at birth.

Oh! How we project our own definition and concept of happiness onto hapless others!!!
Just watch how we behave with our kids, spouses, friends, colleagues….

Last evening, during my indepth discussions with Tathagata about life, the conversation somehow veered towards human being’s fascination towards how they dress up.

I think we were talking about Shakespeare – specifically, Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3. Polonius gave some memorable advice to his son Laertes before he left home at the age of 21 (or was it 25?). A couple of great examples:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be // For loan oft loses both itself and friend”

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice // Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.”

But as I explained to Tathagata, there was a particular advice that vexed me no end since I cannot, even to this day, align my values to that advice. It ran thus…

“For the apparel oft proclaims the man,”

That means you reconcile yourself to a world where you will be judged by how you look. That bothers me a lot. Mostly because I do not look good or dress good 😉 Seriously though, I have been deeply conflicted on that advice.

Tathagata, with his vast knowledge of literature, reminded me of a quote from Tagore

“Juta ki manushke boRo korite pare?”

Roughly translated to Shakespearean English it would be

“Shoes maketh nary a man, nobler”

I was absolutely delighted by his quick quip from a different language, different poet, different times.

Maybe I like him so much because he is my friend from elementary school.
Maybe I like him so much because he knows so much about literature and poetry.
I think though I like him mostly because he comes up with quotes that I can agree with better than the ones I come up with myself I 😉

Later driving back home, I remembered a Mark Twain funny quote on this topic I wish I had told him.

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little to no influence on society” 🙂

As we grow older and older, our Christmas gift list becomes smaller and smaller.
That is because we wish for more and more things that cannot be bought with money.
(Inspired by a post shared by Tammi Gagne Perry)

Last week, I was having breakfast with Sunjay at the Burlington Marriott and when the waitress brought the bill, I wrote down the usual stuff – tips, room number, last name etc. on it. The room number was 804 and you know my last name. But an idea struck me and I showed Sunjay how we can derive my last name from my room number.
In fact, my whole name can be represented as a proper decimal number!!!! Cool or what?

(In wine lies the truth)
(Also, why I have my two glasses of red wine everyday 🙂 )

Got to know this from an email from my friend Karthik Mani via Raj…

From Herodotus’ writings…
If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.

Zimmerman (remember him?) was arrested today for “pointing a gun at his girlfriend”and pushing her out as she was packing to leave.
NRA, thoroughly disgusted at this, is campaigning for all girlfriends of Zimmerman to carry assault rifles. 🙂

As I pulled out of my dirt road this morning, I noticed Natasha’s close friend Shelby waiting at the street corner waiting for her school bus. She was by herself and obviously very cold. So, before thinking any further, I rolled down my window and asked her if she would like a ride to her school. To which, she readily agreed. It appeared that Natasha and Sharmila missed her by a few minutes.
The drive to school – which was a slight detour for me, but I had a two hour drive to Lake Oconee in front of me – was very insightful. I am really impressed with how mature kids are these days and their clarity around what they want to do. After asking about her parents, I inevitably came to the “What do you want to be when you grow up” question.
I am not sure, why I always ask that question – maybe because my dad used to ask me and my friends the same question. Or maybe I am simply looking for some ideas for myself 🙂
Anyways, Shelby was clear she wanted to be a doctor. I immediately made a note of how my dad would have been proud of that answer. In his world, everybody grew up to be an engineer or a doctor. Or a Nobel Prize winner!!!
“Tell me a little more”, I prodded Shelby. She went on to explain how she is fascinated by what she has been studying in Biology regarding how organs work. She thinks it is an incredible feat of our body how all the organs work in tandem. She also realizes that for many people those organs do not work perfectly. So, she wants to “fix” the organs for those people.
It was a good chat for 10-15 minutes. After I dropped her and hit the road for the long haul, my mind kept going back to my tenth grade (Shelby is a tenth grader). I had a Biology book too. (It was a red book by two authors – Katyal and Ali, as I reckon). And my Biology book had chapters on organs too. But to me, every new organ was an obstacle to getting myself a passing grade 🙂
And yet, from these same chapters, this girl has started building her dream.
I am truly impressed with how kids learn so much more, faster and exhibit greater level of maturity and independence in deciding who they want to be.
Don’t you let anybody tell you that this world is not getting better and brighter…