Writing Experiment Lab | Poe's Law Playground
Wide-angle shots. A vast expanse of barren lands covered with snow. The crime just happened or about to happen. Great percussion music in the background building up the scene. Characters who indulge you in hyping up the scene with great acting. Tense situation. A bullet about to go off. And then all of sudden, out of nowhere, something totally unexpected shows up and changes the course of everything.
Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world. A few days ago it was Jeff Bezos. A few years ago, it was Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet and so on. As one may notice, they all are still in the top 10 or so richest people in the world. And they have been there for a long time.
Elon Musk (as he is quite active on Twitter) showed amusement after the news broke about him dethroning Bezos. He commented that this was interesting. And within a few seconds, ‘Back to work’. Basically, unfazed.
It is only us, 99% of the population which discusses and shows amazement about who’s in the top 1%. Those who are actually being the richest have to keep working to stay on the top.
To be without a king is better than having an arrogant king.
Kautilya
One of the most brilliant inventions of the human mind is Democracy. It gives satisfaction to people that their own representatives govern them back. At least in theory. In India, democracy is something we all cherish and be proud of. It took us an enormous amount of time for establishing Democracy and with a lot of sacrifices. We love the fact that about 800 million people get to decide the fate of our country for 5 years. 800 million is such a huge number that even managing them to cast their votes is as difficult as reaching Mars.
Democracy is like playing a biased sport. The rules of the biased sport are known in advance though. Sometimes the ideals of democracy go for a toss as well. The rules on which we based our biased sports, get bent. That ensues newsworthy scenes. Some countries have Black days, some have White days.
This happens because Democracy is not the equilibrium state. Chaos/high entropy/anarchy and the survival of the fittest is natural. Democracy is actually the opposite of natural. All the other ways of governing have overtime proved to be difficult or have failed. We all know that Democracy needs patience. It is certainly not ideal and all forms of Democracies have tradeoffs. There is no 1-way Democracy has worked. It evolves, twists and turns, and churns out a new form from time to time.
Only in a Democracy, a Tea Seller, or a Reality Show Star can become the head of the state. We can always vote them out too. Often, we take our Democracy to be granted. It is far from being perfect but the best of what we have. Cherish it!
Photo by Aditya Joshi on Unsplash
Not that highly but still a recommended reading:
One time, my parents were coming from North India to Bangalore (South India). They boarded the flight around 9 AM and they were scheduled to land by 11.30 AM which they did. I lived in Central-Southern Bangalore then. So, I started around 9 AM from my place and I reached the airport around 12 PM. That’s how far the airport is from the city. It is so far that if someone asks you to come and pick them up at the airport, you can just laugh it out as if they were joking.
Continue reading “Don’t get your hopes up”It is a tricky thing to achieve when nobody is willing to budge. Right Wing and Left Wing Supporters lock horns all the time. Government and the Opposition are always at loggerheads. Countries sharing borders are always in an argument about which side owns that particular amount of land. Unless the land is ‘Bir Tawil’. Coke and Pepsi can never come to the same table in a restaurant. Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan can never join the same party. Covishield and Covaxin, despite have Co in their names, are finding it difficult to co-operate against Covid.
Continue reading “Finding Common Ground”It is a good thought experiment to consider that the world is a simulation. You are living in a Matrix and your life is just a program. All your actions and even your thoughts are just someone’s gigantic piece of code. If you’re not living in a Matrix or The Truman Show, then why was 2020 like a movie?
Continue reading “You Vax, You Lose?”Before I begin, I would like to take this opportunity to thank e-commerce websites. Thank you! They have not only totally taken over the businesses of nearby and faraway local grocery stores, but they have also left no stone unturned in making us truly lazy. But that’s not the main reason. For me, one of the major moments of embarrassment in public is faced when I have to bargain. Despite being an Indian, I cannot bargain. But I don’t have to add it in my weakness section of the resume anymore. E-Commerce has literally killed the art and science of Bargaining.
Continue reading “Bargaining Skills are a passé”
