Kudos to karenika, gigglechick.com and all the other bloggers out there who have the guts to post all kinds of personal stuff on this public medium. They are definitely stronger than I. I can learn from them. The have the guts to stand out here and say what they really think. And also to relate it to personal life. I’d like to do the same. But everytime I sit down to write this, i keep thinking of all the freaking complications involved in me doing what I think. It becomes worse when someone I *know* tells me that they read what I wrote!! Don’t get me wrong, I love the feedback! I love knowing that people actually read some of this crap…. but when it’s someone who knows me really well, then that gets scary… because even those people who know me well, will be surprised by some of the stuff I write on here. Because this is not stuff I discuss even with them.

I guess I’ll describe it as the Heisenberg Principle for Blogging (I’m reading a book titles Physics and Philosophy by the famous physicist Werner Heisenberg these days, so…) i.e. “Once the blogger knows that the blog is being read, then it begins to influence what the blogger blogs” 🙂 I guess what I really mean is that knowing that people who know me (personally and professionally) have seen the stuff that I write on here, brings back the dreaded ambivalence that resulted in sneaker.org going down in the first place. Because then I start worrying about what people think, what will they react to. The security of the public anonymity (wow, isn’t that a twisted concept…) fades away.

When I made the decision to put this site back up, I had to fight to figure out how much information I should really put up here. The information is out there. And information is what matters. Information may soon be the only thing that matters. But that doesn’t mean that information about me matters. So I should really be able to put stuff up, and use the wonderful title of a book I read many many years ago… “What do you care what other people think?” by Richard Feynman. I’ve always cared what other people think even though I may try not to make it look so… so now the effort is to try not to worry about what other people think.

But, everytime I sit down to write on here, I always land up making the entries intentionally vague. Vague so that even the people who the entries relate to (honestly they almost always relate to people and events) would have a tough time knowing if that’s really what I’m writing about. The security of public anonymity is supplanted by the security of unrecognizability and vagueness. I guess that’s good in a way. Allows me to maintain face and not give away everything! 🙂

I guess the coolest way to end this entry is with a question: Would Anais Nin Blog? 😉

Some of the biggest screw-ups that I’ve come across to date always seem to have their roots in mis-communication or lack of communication. “Words are at best a poor excuse for communication” – very true. And in fact, even my attempt to write something about this on here is probably not going to be successful in communication what I am really thinking (well, part of that is for a difference reason, see the upcoming blog on Vagueness and Continued Ambivalence).

People just cannot seems to be honest and tell others what they really think. There is always a facade to maintain. Always some scheming in the background. What it results in is a lack of understanding. A lack of clear expectations. When person A expects something else, because person B just didn’t have the balls to come out and say what they really want to say or vice versa. And as it was said in one of the quotes I have in the old quotes blog somewhere… expectation is the first step to disappointment. Mis-matched expectations is what causes people to get pissed. It’s what causes people to be diappointed. To be hurt. To be pissed-off and angry.

I definitely maintain that I would be happier knowing than not knowing. I’d rather know what the fuckups are. What the problems are. What the expectations are. If I know, then what actions need to be taken can be a educated decision. And yes sometimes knowing can be worse… but that is a decision for the individual to make. Whether or not they want to know. It is wrong for anyone to make that decision for another.

So, as I said in quotes today… People confuse me. Really. They do. But I guess the non-predictable nature of humans is what makes us fascinating as well…

Yesterday, as I walked around Schenley, Squill (Sq. Hill) and Shadyside, I ran into several very friendly canines. One who literally dragged his owner over while coming to say hello to me and in the process wrapping his Flexi all around me, immobilizing me in the process till his owner walked circles around me to set me free. Then there was this very old bassethound… really old. I bet it could harldy see as the cataract in its eyes was very apparent. But it was friendly nonetheless.

The highlight of the evening however was a highly exuberant canine with his two human cohorts. Can you say that this guy liked to play fetch? He was out like a bullet as soon as the ball left his owners hand and was literally about 2-3 feet above the ground while jumping to catch it!

So what is this strange canine-fascination with balls!? I have yet to come across a dog who didn’t get excited at the idea of having to chase a ball. They’ll sit there with their eyes glued to it while it’s in your hand, with drool dripping down the side of their mouth! And then dart out after it as if it is the coolest thing in the world! Is this a charactistic that is universal to all dogs? Or is it a characteristic of their human owners who inculcate this seemingly innate desire in a dog to chase an object of spherical propensity! Enough said.

I’ve always had dogs at home. I’ve now been in the States for about 9 years and haven’t had a dog here. Initially it was because of school, but now it’s simply because I just hate the idea of scooping poop! So I’ve been thinking about an automated pooper scooper! Should be to complex to build actually.Would just take a little clever engineering and it could even be made cheap. And no, I’m not considering putting a microprocessor in there (well, okay, maybe…)

I’ve now been throwing this idea around for a while. To basically have a self contained device that you can cary with you when accompany your favorite K9 companion on his quest to fulfill mother nature’s call. And then when the jobs done, you just place this device over it and sucks up all the crap (literally) on it’s own into a disposable bag. Then you get home or wherever else you like to dump the do-do… and you press a button and the device drops out the bag and is ready for it’s next use!

Now the pre-requisites are that it has to be a completely self-cleaning device. No cleaning required. Maybe the bags could be setup in such a way that any this that would stand a chance of getting dirty is covered by the bag and just gets thrown away! Flush! Of course then it would be logical to extend it by adding an little deodorant container which is also available at the press of a button to eliminate any odors while you carry the precious cargo to its docking station.

Hmm… maybe one of these days I’ll just have to flesh out the design fully before I get a dog! I’m sure there’s a market though!

I read/saw a psychology study once which discussed the role of first impressions on interview situations. The study basically showed that within the first few seconds of the candidate entering the interview room, the interviewer already had developed an impression of the candidate. I don’t remember for sure what the result was with regards to the interviewers impression of the candidate at the end of the interview, but that is not important here. The reason I brough this up is because, it made me realize the importance of first impressions both in professional and personal situations.

This all ties in with each persons own expectations. When one meet someone new, one immediately builds a mental image of this person in our head. And the rest of the time that we spend interacting with this person, we’re always trying to either fit the externally perceivable characteristics of this person into our mental image or hopefully in more cases than the latter, adjusting our mental image of the person. This need not even be a person, the same could even apply to an object.

What that leads to though is that very often first impressions and the mental image that we may construct of a person or an object may not be what the person or the object really is. And I guess that is really the key point I wanted to point out. I guess I can actually think of instances in which I have been a victim of my own mental imagesof other people. I can remember atleast two if not more instances of when I saw some of the people who were to be my classmates in grad school, I created a mental image of them which was not even close to what those people turned out to be. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pierce the veil of my own creation to take the time to get to know these people, who thereafter became some of my best friends. But then there may be contless other cases in which I may not have been so fortunate.

I wonder how many interactions between people have fallen victim to first impressions where people do not take the time to get to know an individual. Instead of taking their own mental image as a raw heap of clay which needs to be scuplted into form using the interactions with a person, they cast their mental image in concrete based on an inadequate and superficial first impression.

As it is in most such cases, this facet of human behavior much like any other has no simple explanation, no simple solution. The awareness that things may not always be what they seem is critical. So first impressions count, but refining those first impressions and moulding them to take a more accurate form is probably more important.