Skip to main content

Ones and zeroes

It's all ones and zeroes these days.  Your entire existence is captured in bits and bytes which ultimately are electrons in a computer.  Represented as one and zero.  From your very existence in the form of a unique ID, issued by the state you are in (intoxicated truants get their own id) to your bank account balances and stock holdings or a company's balance sheet to a government's budget are simply random electrons forcibly organized to represent something of value.  If the power goes out one day (that is a strange expression - where does it go out to?) these weird charges go crazy and all could be lost.  Big Zero.

Similarly in real life you are either a Zero or hero.  As in some One.  Up and on the go or Down and out.  Binary - nothing more nothing less.

People are always trying to take themselves seriously and are in an eternal quest for oneupmanship.  South Koreans recently decided to build the world's tallest invisible skyscraper.  If that is not a new twist on emperor without clothes not sure what is.  Jokes aside one must hand it to them for being a miniscule island nation yet trying to scare the pants of their whacko northern cousin.

Be One not Zero.  Get the gold not the bronze.

I for One have reconciled with myself amicably and come to terms (which for sake of privacy shall remain undisclosed) that I can make my own space between the zero and the one - that's the Point.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...