An ode to Wikipedia

It’s really amazing when you think about the advances made by the human race; just in the past few decades and in the past centuries.A very important reason for this advancement is the ability to share information; that is share the information you acquired to your fellow humans so that collective learning takes place. In case of other animals all the information it acquires during a life time is lost when it dies. That is, there is no scheme by which information is passed on through the generations. This is where communication and sharing of information comes into play.

All the information obtained by all the other human beings can effectively be learnt by you in today’s world.

Close to a hundred billion people have lived on the face of this planet, and all the facts and ideas we have was learnt by someone, somewhere, at some point in time.

This is how we differ from other animals; the information acquired by the animal is lost when it dies. So the only way most species can evolve, to become smarter is by trusting their luck to random genetic mutation. If a favourable ‘mistake’ in the gene happens, the species learn to keep the ‘mistake’ and hence, in a way passing on some information to future generations.

All this just goes on to show how important storing and sharing the information you acquire is of prime importance; just gathering information does not suffice.[1]

Now, just imagine for a second that there is a place where, you store all the information relating anything for free access by anyone at any time. Well, you can stop imagining and head over to www.wikipedia.org.

I owe a lot of what I am today to this single place on the internet, Wikipedia.

Patriotism in the age of globalization.

“It was all dark, gloomy and sticky. I was floating around in a desolate place with barely enough room for me to crouch and fit into the small confined place. During my entire stay I was fed using a tube and had to survive – without even a touch of sunlight. When I finally made my way out, I chose to land in the country of my choice.”
Well, this is obviously from a tale which never happened, simply because none of us got to choose where we popped up; and yet we always tend to have this sense of pride hovering around the location of our birth!

There more I think about it, the more it fascinates me; When humans stopped foraging and instead started farming and as a result began settling down instead of wandering- the first thoughts of association based on settlements started to appear. Along with civilization, which has evolved and still continues to evolve exponentially, the notions of patriotism and nationalism have grown too.

The music of growing up.

Change is inevitable, the sooner one realizes that, the sooner he starts to appreciate change.

It has been about two decades since I landed here on earth and growing up is something everyone has to; people relate to a lot of things over the years, and so do I. The things that I thought were eternal? Well… turned out to be otherwise; the only true eternal entity is change, and it can be seen everywhere around us.

Music has been a great part of my life, and I think it helps me understand myself better. However, the term “Music” itself is very broad and does not convey the hidden implications of the journey one goes through when he listens to some good Music.

It all started when I was around 3-4 years, cognition had started to kick in and I started to wonder as to why listening to some particular songs put me to sleep, while others didn’t. I remember vividly asking my granny and mom about the same, and none of them had any answers.
And, thus began a long journey into a realm, which to date, never ceases to amaze me; music!