Ascension

The above image is courtesy Jason Evans from The Clarity of Night. He held a story writing competition, with stories inspired by the photograph above. The challenging part was, the story had to be limited to 250 words. I came to know of the contest with only a couple of days left for submission. I could not come up with anything within that time-frame, largely, I suspect, due to the self-limiting belief that I haven't done any story-writing before. So I ardently, if passively, followed the contest and I must say, it was an absolute pleasure.

Weeks later, after the winners have been chosen and applauded, my meandering mind has finally generated something, so here is my take. The first story I've ever written. Try not to be brutal with your comments. Here goes :

The Irony of FILE

"Wherever and whenever we are together, always hold me to your left" she said. “So I wouldn’t interfere with the purpose of your life.”
Did she know that she was contradicting herself? I wouldn't ever know.
But I still sleep on the right side of the bed, alone, smiling at the irony.

We bought exactly identical denims on our shared 18th birthday, to mark our metamorphosis from boys to men.

“18 till we die” we decided. Did we really comprehend those words? I'm not sure.
But I still wear those denims on the day only I grow older every year, alone, smiling at the irony.

One of my earliest memories is one of him sitting pillion on my tricycle, facing backwards.
One day, years later, he introduced me to her, bringing her to me on his bike, seated backwards, so that I could not identify my promised "hot date" from afar and backtrack with nervousness.

They both used to say that too often in life we miss what we have and will have, because we are too busy looking at what we have left behind. And then we used to laugh at the irony. They were both veterans at dyslexia. But was their’s the only kind?

Some people fear the slits at the bottom and the top of the elevator. I fear the invisible crack that runs down the middle, causing the two sides to ascend at different speeds.
I still ride the elevator backwards, alone, smiling at the irony.

Av

P.S. - Just for the record, its EXACTLY 250 words. :D

Genius!!

As you can see on the right, I have added a fresh new widget to the blog. Its from the CriticsRant blog readability test. According to it, you apparently need to be a genius to read and understand this blog. So for all the folks who have been happily following the random ramblings in this tiny corner of cyber-space, CONGRATS! You are all Geniuses!

I tried a number of blogs in the link, and no other blog gave the same result as this one. For a while, this massaged my bloated ego to great comfort. Then, suddenly sense raised its logical head. If a blog required the reader to be a genius to understand it, then given the statistic of only about 2% of population being geniuses, most people would not be able to follow it! Hmmm.. that kinda explains the dearth of comments. :D

Speaking of geniuses, Malcolm Gladwell's latest book has stirred up quite a hornet's nest by its unique take on the idea of genius. He argues that if you dedicate 10,000 hours of your life to ANYTHING that you are "just about okay" at, you shall get "world-class" at it. Now that offers some hope, doesnt it?

The argument presented is on similar lines of what one great polymath, Herb Simon proposed many many years back, saying that to become an expert required about 10 years of experience and internalizing about 50,000 chunks of information. One of his students called Anders Ericsson took it a step further when he developed the Theory of Skilled Memory. (Warning - pedantic link!!)

Probably to spice up the other end of the spectrum, Mr Gladwell also presents extensive statistical data to suggest that "making it big" is also a function hugely dependent on luck, principally in the form of where and when you were born. The data he has researched and put together is quite compellingly varied and hence comes dangerously close to destroying the idea of the self-made man.

Book reviews on the net fire away at how the arguments are not watertight, and indeed the 10,000 Hour criteria can surely not be heralded as a Necessary-and-Sufficient condition for success. Neither necessary nor sufficient, actually. The Beatles surely did not jam around for 10,000 hours before they made it big. Nor is every guitarist who has been playing for 20 years in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But everything else apart, I really believe that the author's strength does not lie in presenting impeccable arguments. His forte is writing about abstract concepts, through the use of anecdotes and everyday examples, to arrive at a way of conveying slippery theories, that is at once vibrant, riveting and memorable. That is something he has always succeeded admirably at ever since his first book. Which is exactly what makes him dangerous. A gullible reader runs the very real risk of believing ideas which may not be that firmly rooted in reality.

In closing, a humbling quote by the great critic George Bernard Shaw, who has had something to say about practically everything under the sun:
"Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius."

Luv-n-Luck,
Av