The ‘adidas’ punch line is good. We are usually limited by imagination than by knowledge. Most of the people have requisite knowledge. Knowledge is acquirable as well. Not easily imagination. Given that there is so much of information overload, it is not easy to have time for imagination. Remember, information is about what ‘is’ and not what ‘can be’. Letting the mind go off into the realms of what ‘is’, not what is ‘yet’ or not ‘easily’ possible is a good way of enriching it. Two things which can enable this are – visualization and thinking in a language that is rich (read, English). To go even further is to invent new words to represent our new thoughts, like James Joyce’s Ulysses.

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Life is about choices

Life is about choices. Every choice has an alternative. Sometimes, nothing is right or wrong. There are no rights and wrongs because what is right to someone can be wrong to someone else. Every choice, thus, has to, and usually does, emerge out of individual thinking, needs, values and compulsions, if any. Every time we make a decision, we give up the choice to make alternative decisions. So, it is ‘we’ who ‘choose’ to tread a path. We will leave the discussion that every choice is half-chance for some other time.

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Datum, datum everywhere. Even i am one.

It would not be science fiction to write that the entire world is coming under the grip of numbers. Everyone is today a piece of data – a consumer, a patient, a passenger, a student, a worker, a husband, a wife, a couch potato, etc. No longer a human being.

It is difficult to provide convincing proof of any argument without supporting it with numbers. Data are the most important attribute of a report; the ability to interpret them, the greatest skill of the human mind.

Wal-mart claims greatness not just because it is the largest company in the world, but also because it has access to billions of data pieces in the form of information on customers. The data are more than the entire bytes that are available through internet. Wal-mart can use all these data to look at how people behave, rather how people are. Using these data, it can work backwards to change what people can do, or should do.

PS: Term IV starts tomorrow. For the first time since i came to the school, my mind is in the least receptive state. I, for one, really dont enjoy term breaks. They spoil the rhythm.