Volatility
What do you do, when you feel the ground underneath moves fast, without your control and you wonder as what to hold on to and what's stable and that would save you ?!
For the past few hours I'm trying to come out of the devastating news I heard about my colleague, who lost her job today.
All business reasons apart, I see her as a person, a friend and that who was working with me, till today.
This morning she came back from her 3-week vacation. She had brought a gift for me and we were talking and joking about the things that happened, in the last 3 weeks. Then came the news! I couldn't believe it.
Putting myself in that situation, I don't think I'd be able to react the way she did. While she was agitating inside, it was very much visible that she is trying to cope with the sudden abhorrence around. Its very sad.
I wonder sometimes, have we as mankind come so far that our day-to-day requirements are so much and the rules we set to achieve them are so harsh that a slight slip never misses to get punished ?!
Equally, how can one give a bad news as this to one's face ?! I can't. I really can't. Its some body's career, some body's life, redefined, restructured !!!!
God, help her.
Hawk's feather clipped !
You know, one could repeat the lie again and again, 1000's of times, but those who think, all those listeners are idiots, are infact proved to be idiot.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor rocks!
"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," she wrote. " . . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution."
Link to this landmark judgement.
Grieving within
It's been a very long hard weekend, to say the least. While I was occupied completely with work, I now do know whether the choices I maded to squeeze into watch two movies, was right or not.
After spending long hours at work, I decided to have a life for myself. I decided to watch World Trade Center from Oliver Stone. I've always felt that Stone deals very tuff subjects very well e.g. JFK, Wall Street, Nixon, Alexander among the many.
The movie is based on true story of 2 fire-fighters who while trying to rescue, get trapped under the rubble of WTC, after its collapse on September 11th, 2001.
May be it was a wrong choice to see such an heavy subject on such a tiring day. While I did know its going to be hard, the inexplicable tragedy always makes me think and stops me to not let myself away from it. Seeing the 2nd tower's crash, destruction and people jumping out of windows as paper flying in a wind - live on TV, as it happened is still in my memory as yesterday.
Suprisingly the movie wasn't full, as I had expected. Ten minutes into the movie, I was on the day, when it happened, while trying to follow the movie, I was recalling as how that day start of, for me, as events unfolded.
My friends phone-call woke me up, with the words that "we are at war, America is being attack, turn on the TV". The movie dealt the fear and the heorism of those fire-fighter's who while completely over-whelmed by what they were seeing in front of the eyes, decides to go to rescue, while not competely know the cause. It also highlights as how this nation was ( and still many believe is ) so inferior when it comes to emergency communication systems, in case of a crisis. Equally it deplores as how wrong information was passed on the grieving families about their loved ones' well being.
To think as a fire-fighter who sees people falling out of the tower as flies and to step-up to rescue the survivors, I just am unable to live that imagination. The movie shows a fraction of collapse of the towers as it deals as what happened inside the rubble. With tons and tons of concrete on top the trapper 3 surviving fire-fighters support each other and are hopeful that they're going to come out alive !
From that point on, the movie deals heavily with their thoughts, not knowing whether they can really bare the pain or not, while fire and more rubble threaten their life. With just their head-out and not even be able to turn it, they talk and support each other, while the building is falling down.
Their conversation of their loved ones and events in their lives as how they're unable to be part of it, just melts you. The immensense pain and suffering of the men and also their families and the fleeing survivors are just too much to handle, while its all the fact.
I came out with a very heavy heart, with so many thoughts about that day, where we've come today and how the world has changed and so polarized since then, terrorism, my believes, sympathies, terrorists, their view of their enemy, their lack of respect for their lives, their 'cause' of this innate war. While I try to stay out of this thought, I know that inside me, it bothers me a lot. Again and aglain and again, I put myself in those fighter's position, in those jumping out of the windows' position, in those grieving families position. Its just not being easy.
I'm left with one question, what drives human being to cause so much of pain to each other. Aren't we mature enough to realize that while life is a privilege that we were bestowed upon, we should try not to snatch it from others, with the reasons of greed and lust ?!
To all those lost ltheir ives on September 11th, 2001, recently in the series of Bombay blast's and those in the ever changing but equally ravaging world, may your soul rest in piece.
Guilty by association.
I was talking to my friend, who found a good deal to buy an used car. The car was 1/3rd the price, but turned out to be a scam. Interesting inference was the reason given by the seller that he is selling, as he is leaving to Iraq on a 5-year assignment. His further mails were very suspicious.
After few hours it dawned on me tell her to not buy the car, even if he turns out to be clean!
I think, if he really is who he says he is, I'm sure he should've had a opportunity to not sign-up to this unjust war. He could've his own reasoning about his participation, but by helping him, I feel that my friend in some way is underscoring his action.
I persuaded my friend to take actions at several levels
- Say no to him
- Report the ad as scam
- Write to DMV about this in detail, as he has disclosed VIN details along with photos
She did agree and the rest of the stuff is going thro'.
But, come to think of it, I don't think I'm not guilty either! I may have the complete opposite thinking to this government, I may be a non-immigration here on a temporary stay, I may shout and shout and persuade the events around me, but I pay tax $ which thro' all its routes, supports or is used for what the government's policies are !!!!!!
I feel the heaviness in light of this situation. It makes me feel very sick, cha...
Minimalist
Just like that, I thought I don't want my superb desktop. After several discussions, my friend agreed to buy it. Yesterday it all got finalized and I decided to clean it up. Cleaning was much more easy then setting it up. Hours and hours of work put in, was being removed in seconds... Aware of the nightmare ahead of me, to pack this to ship to my friend, I started early.
Once the system was ready to shut down, after cleanup, it took few seconds for me to really get to the point that I'm really getting rid of this machine. It was tuff :( Then started the mega dis-mantling exercise.
Roll forward 3 hours!!!!!!!!! it was packed and good to carry, ooffffffffffffffff. It was so taxing :(
But after setting up my old table along with my laptop, it felt as if I got a new-clean-room to myself :) Life is simple, yet cool now :)
