Living the Mundane Life with Glory

Today was an interesting day. Not that kind of interesting. Majority of the time, I would lead what you would call a typical ‘dull’, bachelor life.

Go to office on weekdays, come back home, have dinner, go off to sleep. Wake up, repeat. And that’s about it. On weekends, I will mostly immerse myself into reading, playing video games and watching tv series, with an occasional outing with friends or eating out. Board gaming was a passion, but unfortunately, the sole proper board gaming café in Kolkata is going to shut down. I miss Mumbai in that respect.

But by reading Murakami, I am amazed at how he describes this so called mediocre, dull life in his books so well. Just a typical day, where the narrator, takes a shower, makes his toast and coffee, sits down at his table, usually alone and listens to some good music. Or he goes out for a walk at the local park, sometimes takes the train to a particular destination, watches people go about their daily schedule, such as the milkman delivering milk, the librarian maintaining her accounts, so on and so forth.

And you know what, that’s what life essentially is. It is not a glamorous show off of your latest Europe vacation, or posting those selfies in 5 star hotels on Instagram, or giving hash tags of Foodporn at expensive restaurants, or having the most expensive of scotch with your baes, or checking into every international airport on Facebook. We have become social media validation seekers, chasing a hollow, meaningless goal which only gives us temporary pleasure. And as Mark Manson mentions in his book ‘A subtle art of not giving a f*ck’, seeking pleasure will only make you more miserable in the long run. Rather, accept pain and suffering as part of your life, and seek to enjoy the process of doing things. That in itself will bring you happiness.

While the day-to-day activities might seem pretty mundane, 95% of your life comprises of it. We should learn to accept what we have, and not compare our lives with the so-called perfect social media life of others. You do not have to party at expensive pubs every weekend just to pretend that your life is more cool and happening at others. Pursuit your own specific interests, and learn to enjoy the process, no matter how strenuous or cumbersome it might appear to me .

Personally, I am trying my hands at cooking. Though I am not good at it, and I do end up making a huge mess in my entire kitchen, I have nevertheless managed to make few items, and I take pleasure out of it. Even if it drains me out physically. I have also started walking for at least 30 minutes daily, and it helps calm my mind and take my tension off from my hectic schedule at work.
I am reading a lot of good books as well, and it helps adding to my knowledge and experience. Here are the names of books which I am reading at the moment:

• Triggers, by Marshall Goldsmith – Corporate Self Help
• A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami- Fiction
• The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyesvsky- Classical Russian Literature
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson- Non Fiction
• Catalyst, by Chandramouli Venkatesan (Recommended by my friend Divya)- Non Fiction- Management
• The Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee- Non-Fiction/Biology
• A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin- Fantasy Fiction
• A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth- Fiction
• Faultines, by Raghuram Rajan- World Economy

And I have recently completed the following books:
• The Country of First Boys, by Amartya Sen (A collection of his essays)
• Lone Fox Dancing, Autobiography of Ruskin Bond
• Democrats and Dissenters, by Ramachandra Guha- Non-Fiction, History
• What Got you Here Wont get you There, by Marshall Goldsmith
• Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen by Porus Munshi

Yeah I know, that’s a lot of reading. And a lot of people ask me, how can I possibly read so many books at once, and that too on multiple genres, without getting confused or lost. Well, I really don’t have an answer, except for the fact that I have been reading since as long as I can remember, and it has become a habit. It is something which I am extremely passionate about, and I am sure I will carry on reading till the day I can. One of my next goals is to get a nice book shelf created.

Today, I went and visited Birla Planetarium in Kolkata. I remember I had come here as a kid. I saw a show in the dome, which resembles the one at Nehru Planetarium. The show was titled ‘Cosmic Collisions’ and was a refreshing experience to see the virtual night sky, all lit up.

Few more things which I would like to do, is to get involved into some social work, and also try my hands at theatre/drama. Lets see how it shapes up. Till next time.

Life as we Know it.

Well, I have always been an avid fan of Astronomy. And passing time thinking about Extraterrestrial life has been one of my biggest hobbies. So I am writing this article in lieu of that.

Well, recently scientists are claiming that the moon hosts water, and it has been doing so for millions of years. And that it has water is an indication that it might have given refuge to living organisms sometimes in the past. Some say it has life even now. Apart from the moon, similar theories for life existence exist for Planets such as Mars, and also other moons of Jupiter and Saturn. In almost all cases, scientists and astronomers are for the lookout of water, or ice and in some cases even oxygen and the presence of a suitable atmosphere, which is essential to sustain life. My question to all of them, is a simple ‘Why?’ Yes, why. Why is it essential for water or oxygen or even an atmosphere to be present for life to exist? Why cannot life persist in absence of water and oxygen? Is there any real, valid, irrefutable scientific theory to endorse this statement?

For long, I kept on wondering about this. There are billions of planets in the universe. Any one of them could harbor life. And it is next to impossible for us, with our current technology level, to locate life in places far outside our solar system. We should keep in mind that we are not looking for earthlings, but any sort of life forms present. So why should they drink water and breathe in oxygen, and live in moderate temperature regions. Let us take a hypothetical situation. Say a living being X, lives in a planet whose average temperature is 500 degree centigrade. Say, X takes in nitrogen and releases hydrogen. Say the planet has no trace of either oxygen or water. Say, X depends on carbon related food material which can even be rocks. So whats the harm? You may say that it sounds too far-fetched, but hey its nothing compared to some of the alien movies we have seen and endured and live to tell about it. The thing is X may exist. There is absolutely no valid law that can refute this statement since we hardly know anything about the entire universe.

One explanation is similar to our mathematical models. We take it that a certain statement is true, and then based upon such given facts, we try to prove that other statements are true is well. Sort of similar to mathematical induction. So we assume that since life exists on earth(and that is a fact), so if we apply the conditions for life to exist on earth, or rather the conditions of the environment, temperature, proximity from the sun, atmosphere, etc, and we replicate these conditions for other planets, we may find life elsewhere. This theory may be correct, but it may be fallacious at the same time. We cannot predict with 100% accuracy, whether or not life can exist in other conditions. But I personally believe that it can. Other living beings need not be similar to Homo Sapiens or any other species found in Earth, for that matter.

But most scientists still follow the principle of ‘Life can exist only if a planet/moon is similar to Earth’. Namely the principles are:

1) The planet must be average size. Neither too big nor too small. Since life does not exist on Mercury and Jupiter.

2) The planet must have an atmosphere belt to protect us from UV light, meteors, harmful gases, etc. Since it is universally assumed that gases harmful for us will be harmful for other beings too. Duh!

3) The planet MUST, ABSOLUTELY HAVE WATER. CAUSE NO LIFE MEANS NO WATER. OR WAIT WAS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?? Yeah yeah, believe what you want.

4) The planet must have the same amount of oxygen and nitrogen, as in Earth. Even if some other being depends primarily on hydrogen.

5) The planet must have an average temperature of around 15 degree centigrade, the same of Earth. Else it is too hot or too cold to sustain life. Yawn, can anyone tell these people that hot and cold are relative terms. 1000 degrees may be hot for you, but not for X.


Anyways, enough of my blabbering. Obviously all the Nasa scientists and World renowned astronomers know much more than I do, and if they say the above principles hold true (Note: Without any solid proof), then perhaps they do. But I still believe what I feel like, and that is Life CAN exist without the above 5 principles.