fooled by randomness

“Fooled by randomness” by Nissim Nicholas Taleb is an interesting read. It tries to explain the role of chance in life, more through the example of market. In the course it speaks about probability, skewness, odd, expectation, mean vs. median- what not. The book is written in entertaining manner bringing lot of laugh and thinking. One may agree or disagree with the book, but surely it will make the reader to contemplate. A book can never change a person’s view of life on a single read. (That’s why I stay away from self guide and motivational genre.)But what, a worth a read, will do is resurfacing itself at several places showing how true it was. This book is worth a read.

Trying to explain what this book speaks is not an easy thing, but let me try to point out the ones that pops out after a week (Time is a good filter to remove the noise).

1. If we have sufficient number of monkeys knowing to hit typewriter, then there is a possibility one monkey might produce an Iliad, but it doesn’t mean it will make another epic. More the people, more the chance, the so called success to be a pure random event.

2. If there is an urn with 50 white and 50 red balls, more the red ball you take out less the chance of drawing a red ball on next draw. So in a way past history has a negative co relation in predicting future.

3. Whatever be the number of white swans you see, it is not sufficient to say all swans are white. It just need 1 black swan to say swan can be black.

4. Random thing can decide the outcome but not the way you see it or react to it. This is the important thing that made me to appreciate the book. Means, not the ends that matter. As Nissim says “The only article lady Fortuna has no control is your behavior”

felix qui potuit cognoscere causas

This weekend one of my friends is entering into wedlock. He was my room mate in my final year of college. Any friend's marriage is news to be elated and his marriage has more reasons to cherish. It’s a five years love journey hitting up a milestone a.k.a marriage. Before that they were close friends for four years. It is one of the classic college day’s stories where the love lying low in the waters' of friendship surface up under the sudden revelation of getting separated. Well five years gone by and now they enter into matrimony, I toast for their happy married life.

Love in all forms and colors happening around -who chose not declare the love as it won't culminate as marriage because of socio-family reasons, who declared it and withdrawn either not being able to fight up against those forces, or saying it was a wrong call, who declared and reached a milestone and then decided it is not what they thought and also the one who fit into the last line of the fairy tales we love to hear. It’s really a beautiful thing to see people in love, being in the room or conversing with them. Faces brimming with joy. Oh man… life is so beautiful through their eyes.

Love is too fickle. It takes a great skill and art to make it luminous. Sometimes in this journey love simply passes away as the fume that escapes from the candle. Love is a necessary thing. It’s the elixir; hope and reason. That's why most people fall in love in moments of solitude than while surrounded by clamor. It’s a momentary feel. If one dissects it, it will masquerade. In certain things ignorance is bliss and happy doesn't lie in knowing the things behind... The only way of being in love is madly in love.

I got this in email: Life ends when U stop dreaming, Hope ends when U stop believing, Love ends when U stop caring, Friendship ends when U stop sharing. I ask, "I care for my friends and don't 'u in love' share with your loved ones?”

weekend blues

When I don't know what I want to do, isn't better to do something to prove someone rather than brooding on what I want?

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During the moments of Saturday night, staring on gtalk looking for some one to pop up,sending "hi hru" , asking carefully chosen questions on location, climate, life, weekend plans, hearing and saying, 'my social life is becoming void.....", somewhere in my ear Tennyson screams loud, "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all"

weekend

I write in this space only if I had something to write and the whole world conspires to say it. But now I am writing as I want to write something. Reason , you will find it 2 posts below. I am sitting in by med with laptop, in a place where it's name suggests it should be, in a room filled with heat waves, hoping someday I'll get my magic touch ...........


This weekend I watched three movies (well that's what I do on most weekends).Jaane tu ya Jaane na is a feel good movie on college day love. The movie started well. But as it progressed i could no longer be with the film. Things looked predictable. Later when I thought about it , the movie had all the things I used to enjoy. It was sweet, beautiful and romantic. I wonder I am hitting the age circle where I could no longer empathetic with a feel good college day romantic movie, where every one is as good as one wish and life is nothing but youthful exuberance. Am I getting romantically challenged?


children of heaven is an Iranian film, which revolves around 2 poor kids. The story: Ali miss his little sister shoe while bringing from repair shop. His mother is ill and his father is finding difficult to meet the ends with his salary. So he tells his sister not to tell to dad and they will workout themselves. The story then goes on about how they manage with the Ali's shoe and Ali's constant attempts to get her sister a new pair of shoe. The movie is filled with nothing but poverty , but there is no scene or dialogue of melodrama and most of the time movie moves through the eyes of the 2 kids. The way the story unfolds and the scene moves i felt the movie is more a poem than a movie. Romanticization of distress and poverty like 'life is beautiful', 'the barn'..


Rear window- 'the' Hitchcock movie. The hero is a famous photographer and he is in his room with his leg broken . He develops a habit of watching the adjacent houses through his rear window. By this he suspects a salesman living in apartment opposite to his house has killed his wife and what follows is told in an engaging manner.The way Hitchcock establishes each character and the indifference with which he builds the tension of the viewer, makes the movie a great watch.