TheWackyHeads -

Author: Forsworn ninja

One does not simply Become an Engineer

I’m an engineering student (yeah, mishaps do occur, I know) and now is the exam time. I should be studying, right? So why in the bluest of the blue hell am I writing a post? Simple. I am an engineering student. A not-so-famous philosopher once defined an engineering student as the one semi-human entity performing every thing with élan, except for studies. Personally, I don’t like to study. And I feel (no, I damn well know) that many of you don’t like it either.

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 Some would condemn me for being a blood traitor, but I think something’s wrong here. After all, we are in a profession of our choice, we are studying subjects we’ve dreamed of studying since a young age, and we enjoy being students.. Err.. Do we?

I say, screw everything I’ve said till now. Go back to the beginning. To the very first time you decided upon a career. Dream of your career again. Do you see yourself wanting to become an engineer? If yes, Congrats. You’re an engineer to your core, and most probably a sincere one at that. For all intents and purposes,rest of the article is meaningless for you hereafter.

I wish to speak to the rest of you. Do you still feel that rush, the thrill of doing what you’ve always wanted to do? No. Where has it disappeared? It’s doing something which you’ve enjoyed doing, but realized that something was your thing a teensy bit late. One sign: that tiny twinge of jealousy when you see a friend doing what you now can’t…

You and I are not to be blamed here folks. Maybe a little. No more than a little. We wanted to be engineers because we wanted to do something great. Who in the bluest of the blue hell thinks of packages and placement criterion in the childhood? All we wanted was to make a difference. Where does it all go wrong then? Where do the Edisons and Einsteins go wrong ?  Why do we get stuck in the loops of attendance and defaulter’s lists when we are doing what we want?  Of submissions and assignments ? Backlogs and grace marks? Maybe I know the answers to a few questions… I’m still searching for the rest.

One does not simply be an engineer

The Next Hill

I’m standing in the door sized window of my apartment. It’s twilight. The time when nature is pristine, the mind is free, and the heart aches with a longing I cannot place. The colors of human world are subdued, but the sky looks like the canvas of some great painter, splashed with hues of such beauty that cannot be imagined.

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My apartment’s at a beautiful location. I can see a range of hills from my room quite clearly. Idly, I wonder how good the sky would look from the peak of the tallest hill in the ranges I see. But after a moment of thought, I discard the idea because the moment I’d be at the top of the hill i’m seeing right now, I’d see the next tallest thing in the horizon and i’d probably want to leave the hill and go to that place. Most importantly, I’d forget to look at the sky in the process. I’d forget why I wanted to be on the hill in the first place. My mind told me, ( it was busy, but it still took the opportunity to meddle) maybe this is how people lose track of their lives, chasing shadows as they set out to find joy and happiness. And happiness, in the first place, was looking at the sky, and not going to the highest peak one could find.

I  notice my mind’s unusually active today, despite the fact that today’s a rest day. I casually consider the possibility of me going insane. But I brush the idea off after due thought, as I’ve always considered a silent mind as a sign of insanity.

Sighing, I look at the new block of apartments being erected right in front of my apartments. A couple of months later, I’d have to deal with the fact that I won’t be able to see those hills or the beautiful hues in the sky as I can now. Someone who might stand in those apartments someday would look at the sky and wonder how beautiful it looks when it’s twilight. Maybe they’d wonder about going to the hilltops too.

It’s dark now. The light is almost gone. When the time comes, I might have to stare at the whitewashed walls instead of galaxies in the skies. But for now, I’m at peace. It has been a good evening.

Dear Society… Screw you.

 

STATUATORY WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS PURELY A RANT AND NOTHING ELSE. THOSE OF YOU WHO AGREE WITH TITLE, PLEASE CONTINUE. OTHERS CAN GO AND WATCH CARTOON NETWORK UNTIL THEY CAN SENSE SOME TRUTH IN THE TITLE.

Eons ago, I read a qoute by a man named william e. channing. what he said was this: “to me, the progress of  society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him the consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to stregthen and elevate an elevate his own mind. “  I believed him. there comes (and passes) a stage in every man’s life when he believes that every printed word is the absolute truth. I once quoted this line to my father, trying to prove my point in one of the countless playful little debates we had, and still have. my dad quoted ” society engages in polishing and decorating the cage in which man is imprisoned”. I argued that this was so-not-true. with a slight smile and a pat on the back, he said, “you’ll understand what I mean after a few years, when you grow up”. now, after almost five years later, I can say that he was correct. no, that didn’t come from some life changing personal experience, but from acute observation of whatever shit the life threw at me to see(or gawk, if you prefer that).
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You see, I learnt to think a lot earlier than I learnt to talk. and from what I’ve seen by now, i honestly think that society is a stupid institution comprised of intelligent constituents. perhaps, the only institute which is completely devoid of logic of any kind, which runs on just emotions and not practicality and in all, defies the sense in all and any form. Man has always been a herd animal, always trying to lose himself in the crowd, afraid of being labeled a ‘misfit’, a  ‘freak’. This might be necessary from the point of view of safety, but when the so called uniformity begins to forget that it too has individuality, a cancer called supression is born.

I’ve Never Been Able To Understand The Logic Behind “Majority Wins”. The Only Thing Majority Wins At Is Stupidity. Majority Consists Of People Too Foolish Or Weak To Have Their Own Opinions, Or Too Cowardly To Stand By Their Ideals. Who Gives The Right To A Society To Make A Man Live As The Society Tells, And Not By His Own Preferences? How Can Someone Be Told What Profession To Follow By A Society In Which He Lives? Believe Me When I Say That I’m Not A Nihilist. I Just Have A Grudge Against Any Damn Thing That Stands Between A Man And His Feelings And Individualism. The day you begin to heed what the society tells you to follow, what people might think about you, what they tell you to do, you are over. Obviously, this does not meen that you have to be an uncivilized beast, or you might conveniently interpret this as a ticket to live like however you want to live. The only thing you need to remember is this: If you aren’t good to yourself, you are worse off than the mangly dog you see near dumpsters, because even that dog is capable enough of feeding itself. Do you see the honeytrap here? to be good to yourself, you have to be good the society. You don’t fit right in, you’re worse than a cripple. In the process of being good to yourself, you have to take care of the society. Gradually, the only thing you’re left fit to do is take care of the society. The ‘I’ in you is long gone. You’re just another cell in this fat, useless body. And this is what sickens me. You can’t be you. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a few examples: Galileo. Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Einstein. Newton. Initially labelled as heretics, retards, or even threats to society. Reason: Refusal to follow conventional standards set by society, or rather, create new standards for society to follow.

Now what does that tell you about the nature of our society? RIGID. NARROW MINDED. ORTHODOX. An unwillingness to change, to progress, because as much as the society is divided on the various events, it will unite against a common enemy: The gamechanger, the person who proves their fallacy, limitations. To a certain extent,  society might be right to oppose radical changes,  but you can’t really justify opposing everything for the sake of opposing, can you? What does society do to radicals? Ban them. Hurt them. Kill them. Rape them. Tarnish their image. The same society upholds them as heroes who survive these tortures and are still able to show the finger to this bunch of wolves. Science says, we are born with 23 pair of chromosomes. As we grow up though, we acquire a new pair: hypocrisy. Personally, everybody loves a rebel; but the funny thing is: nobody likes them once they are in a group. Sorry for a being a cynic here but why do we always have to behave? Praise a person to his face and laugh and poke fun at them once  their back is turned. What logic is that?  Low life assclowns like the current crop of Congress Politicians running the country, while artists like aseem trivedi languish in jail. Incompetent people shaping the mind of India’s future (wow, what the fuck is that) while competent officers are harassed for doing their duty and are sent to remote areas as ‘punishment’. Wow society, I give up. I cannot understand you. I’m no Howard Roark, and probably will never be. Here’s a quote from my favourite book “The fountainhead”, which probably sums up just about everything I feel about society: “ Everything has strings leading to everything else. We’re all so tied together. We’re all in a net, the net is waiting, and we’re pushed into it by one single desire. You want a thing and it’s precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can’t know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you’re afraid of them all. And you cringe and you crawl and you beg and you accept them-just so they’ll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept.” That’s all. Think of me as an antisocial element, a freak maybe. But that’s what I’d had to say. Agree or disagree. Because after all, I’ve written this for myself and not for the society :p

 

N.B. Those of you who haven’t read it yet, do read “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. A must read, whether you agree with this post here or not.

 

Ravings of a Thankful Madman

 

It was Aug 13 2012, 10:30 pm. I was lying in my bed, unable to lift even my head(damn, that sounded poetic). Doctors  advised me not to stay in front of a screen for a long time as I’ve just had a surgery and the anaesthesia is not completely out of my system yet. With much reluctance, I’d had to agree. I was kinda heartbroken because I wouldn’t have been able to write for the first b’day celebration of TWH, a project that had become the sole reason for my meaningless existence for quite a period. But then, as I tried (and failed again) to lift my hospitalized ass from my bed, a montage of events from the 6th of august,2011 to the present day started to unfold before my eyes and I realized that I didn’t need to follow every single thing doctors told me to do and write something for the occasion. Hell, I owed thewackyheads that much and more:-D

 

Aug 6, 2011 was when it all started. It was just another boring and depressing afternoons after my lacklustre JEE result. I was whiling away my time on facebook, when a message from a relatively new friend of mine, Dibya, made me open my eyes. Naah, that would be an understatement. That message gave me a reason to live again. It said something like, “Do you want to write again?” - Read More -

 

I must mention, we were involved in an amateur project named r3treat2 together earlier, but for some unexplicable reason, it didn’t take off. But I did want to write again. As Dibya explained to me what and how TWH would function, all my doubts gradually dissolved and all that was left was pure enthusiasm and a sincere, heartfelt thankfulness to him. Then I got another pleasant suprise. I was asked to be the co-admin for the site. All the more reason to work hard for the success.

For a guy like me, this was an opportunity to express what “psychlones” I had, but could never define. Coming to TWH was like homecoming, everyone UNDERSTOOD everyone, because we’re kindred souls after all. TWH has not been just another blog where one gloats, whines, moans… It has been a platform where ideas developed, thoughts were discussed, put to action and evoked positive actions and reactions, I daresay. And I might be exaggerating, but the entire TWH roster might agree with me here.

TWH was initially a team of 4 admins and 6 writers. Today, we stand 6 admins and 12 authors strong. Initially, we were ranked over a hundred million in alexa ranks. An year of wackyness, six hosts, four themes and seven overhauls later, we have improved by more than seventy eight million ranks. This is not boasting; not some corporate snob’s annual appraisal of a company’s performance. This is the effort of around eighty outstanding posts by the brilliant young authors at TWH who’ve worked their asses off while their peers were having fun as they loafed around, rolled around in their beds, chased gals all over the face of our green earth, etc etc. Dare I say, we evoked mixed reactions. Some admired us for doing something different and creative, while some mocked us for aging prematurely. There have been many bends and turns during the journey, but that’s what made this all a great pleasure for us.

Not one of us writes for money. We only write for the pleasure of writing. We write to make the voice of youth heard. And that’s what makes TWH a great place, one big family. After one year, I still feel the same surge of energy that I felt on my very first day for writing a new post for TWH. It’s not a chore, it’s a pleasure. And I know, it will always be the same way. I express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has been a part of thewackyheads, the past or present. Keep up the good work guys, we still have a lot of work to do.

 

~Thank You~

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