The Astrologer

A field or rather a stream of study and science that has always fascinated me; Astrology. Having wondered a million times over, I never could figure how this science worked. Maybe they are all bluffing and extrapolating based on "reading" your social status and well being? Maybe; then I started thinking on a different train of thought recently.


Humans as we know have originated from other species, where a few of our ancestors took a different route. Meaning that at some point of time in life, there was probably just one man and one woman. Lets jump directly to the topic of solving this astrology puzzle. Knowing how DNA works and how DNA influences practically every single action of ours, its not that difficult to predict how the offspring's of the two will behave. Now many of you at this point will argue that there are a definitely many more combinations of offspring's that are possible. I completely agree and I promise I will come to that, but I will work backwards towards it, so hang on. Coming back, if we assume for now that the behavior or the DNA built of the  offspring's is very predictable, then what we have is people with DNA's which are predictable to a very specific accuracy and then more such people with the same predictable DNA and hence predictable natures and behaviors.We can now very specifically calculate the effect the one individual on another and the resulting behavior of that individual on other individuals. Its like a butterfly effect that will exponentially keep affecting each other and keep growing.

A single primordial cell

Now let me go back many steps as promised to get rid of the "assumption factor" that I asked you to live by. Life on earth, billions of years ago has had a single point of origin. Some call it a chance situation that was favorable for the entity itself and others; not-so. In any case, if life did begin as a single point source, and if every life form has some DNA irrespective of how simple or complicated the life form or the DNA is, then the first single life cell did have some DNA to begin with. We now know a starting point and the effect of its environment on the living form based on its build of its DNA. This life form now undergoes mitosis, giving rise to two of itself which have very predictable behaviors, not just to the nature around it, but also on each other.


Going a little forward, we get life forms like bacteria, viruses and cell life structures whose behaviors and actions to the environment and to each other is known. Now we simply need to keep growing this predictable life form, undergoing adaptation to the nature that it itself influenced and to each other that all have a point source. Somewhere down the line, you reach the time where you have humans or human like species in very limited numbers. If you knew the point of origin, then you definitely will know how these few human like species will behave and influence each other and to their surroundings that they are in based on the very predictable and calculable ancestral DNA, to give rise to what even they would not know to be called the modern society. A society filled with billions of the same kind and others, influencing each other and getting influenced by the same butterfly effect. All tied together by a common string that they do not even know exists. It is like a butterfly effect, which might seem very difficult to comprehend and predict, but not so if you knew the starting point. It began as a single life form which was very predictable, and over a period of billions of years still gives a very predictable result, the lives, actions, behaviors, traits, successes, failures, basically all of the life time itself can be very accurately predicted.


Astrology would not be that difficult to comprehend if there is a way to perform this simulation, which probably assumes a lot of the factors to safely give you a neighborhood of your future life and present. All astrology needs is a record or some sort of knowledge of the beginning point of this chaos or simplicity, depending upon how much you know about the starting point. Its probably the same thing as the big-bang. But if you realize the subtlety, there is another impending question. Who passed on this information of the starting point?

Pictures from Univ. of Texas at Austin

The Hang Up!

The one thing that I think we all generally take time to master is the art of recognizing the genuineness in a person or rather seeking the true face behind the hidden mask. Everyone wears the mask, some for the fear of getting hurt while most for their own selfish gains from others. How to differentiate in between these two people?

Enter: The theory of "The Hang up". What a weird name? Is it catchy just for the sake of catching some attention? Well, I agree it is catchy, and it did not have a name till like 2 minutes back. But its a real theory, and its my own. Let me explain. It emerges from my observations back in India, where many people are not afraid to show you their true face. No politeness, no courtesy and no care at times. We all have these annoying callers on the phone, trying to sell us new cellphone plans, new internet, new insurance; right? Now towards explaining my theory, let me put forward a simple talk in between a typical seller and well...me.

Conversation #1
Caller: Hello Sir, how are you doing today?
Me: (Hating the small talk) Yes, I am doing good..tell me
Caller: I am calling from ABC Insurance and we have 3 new schemes.....(goes on about the schemes, while I try hard to interrupt), are you interested Sir?
Me: N.. (Yes, I did not finish the "o" of the "No" yet)
Caller: (Hangs up) Click./ Or explains why you should listen to him
Either case, he/she does not get the point or try to understand you. End of story

So what' so great about this so called call? It's simply normal. No, not to me. Let me give you another example of a call.

Conversation #2
Caller: Hello Sir, I am calling from XYZ telephone company, and we have 3 new schemes, do you want to know about them?
Me: Sure, tell me (Not that I am interested, but his courtesy makes me want to listen to it)
Caller: Scheme1.., Scheme2.., Scheme3..Do you like them sir?
Me: Well, actually I am pretty happy with my current plan and I don't think I want to change it.
Caller: Okay Sir, but in the future if you do feel like changing it, we have our service center at xyz road near you.
Me: Sure, thanks
Caller: Thank you sir, have a good day.

Now, most of you might have got my point by now. Every one hangs up in the end, but the way you do it makes a whole lot of difference to you. One leaves you cursing these cold callers and one leaves you kinda happy about a good conversation. Hence the name. The point being, why would I want to buy a product when they would not even spare you a few seconds to say "bye"? In fact, the way they treat me after I say no (if I got to ever finish it) is the way they will treat me when I am with them. To say, the way they hang up tells you what kind of an organization they are. Its such a good and clear way of choosing. I would think about the second caller's company/product some time down the line, but definitely not the first one. They simply cut me off their list. Their happy little greetings suddenly converted into something unpleasant. Why would you choose them, right?

The same extends to people. There are some who will simply abandon you and move on the minute they realize that you are not of use to them anymore, and then there are the ones who will still be nice to you even when they know you are leaving. Both will leave you anyways, but one will simply cut you off their list and they would not want to be nice to you again. The way they leave, makes a difference.

Makes you want to reject everyone who asks something from you just to judge them, isn't it? Though I am not saying that, there are smaller clues in the way people react when you are unable to make them happy. They way they treat you, the way they talk to you and about you to others, which gives out all your clues. And once you have mastered your art of reading these subtle little hints, you know what you have; a person with a heart of gold or a person with a custom gold plated heart. Happy Hang up!

The drive for perfection

Ever realize how we always tend to plan things to live a perfect life "in the future"? Ask yourself. Is your present a plan of the past? Perhaps not. Then why do we still plan for that future, that Utopian life that both you and I somewhere know we are never going to live? Its cause we have this "hope" that "If I start doing things right from now on, I will eventually achieve it down the line". But the reality is that you or me doing things "right" depends on a lot of factors around us, which are usually never perfect.

I thought a great deal about this, and have been doing so since a long time, with absolutely no solutions to convince me. I also talked to a lot of people trying to fix this puzzle. A few gave me answers. And a few gave me solutions. And the one's who gave me solutions never ever gave me any answers. The solution was absolutely simple. There is no point running behind something that we somewhere know is almost impossible to achieve. And no, I am not talking about compromising your dreams or objectives either. I am simply talking about adaptability. Plan, but at the same time, don't live it so much in your mind that you allow reality to break the dream all together. Rather, keep it simple, keep it agile. Keep it open to change. Change the route when reality shatters one. And keep doing this till you reach your goal.

Now that I talked about one factor of flexibility, let me talk about the other factor, i.e. "perfection" or "The final point of conclusion". My professor once narrated us this joke which summed up what engineers are made of. And it made me realize how this same principle can be applied to daily life.

So it goes like this: There are 2 guys who are supposedly "horny as hell". One mathematician and one engineer. And at a considerable distance in front of them are 2 hot sorority girls. Now the rule of the game being, at any given time, a guy can only travel half the distance in between himself and the girl. And then after he reaches that half distance, cover only half the distance in between his new position and the girl. And so on and so forth. When the game starts, the engineer starts running. 1st half distance, 2nd half distance and so on. When the engineer has covered quite some distance, he looks back to see the mathematician leave the game and go back. The reason? The mathematician knows that covering half distances will never exactly get him to the exact point where the girl stands. And the engineer still continues. Why? Cause he knows that he will not reach the exact point, but will still reach close enough for "all practical purposes". After laughing over this sexually suggestive joke, It dawned upon me that the professor actually managed to quantify the spirit of us fellow engineers. The spirit of never giving up, the spirit of aiming for perfection, and continuing even when they know half way down that perfection won't be achieved.

Besides being happy for having saved the face of our profession, this simple joke gave me a whole lot of things to think about recently. What I realized is that life is never perfect. We dream, we act towards our dream and then most of us like the mathematicians, give up half way towards the dream. I understood that I need to be an engineer not just by profession but by character as well. That we may not exactly achieve what we set out for, but sometimes what we end up with when we are around the area of our interest might just be a custom fit for what we are and what we never expected would be so satisfying.

I concluded one thing and one thing alone from all this unceasing thinking: Adaptability and the drive to move forward; with curiosity to know why others stop but to still keep moving at the expense of being called a fool is what makes or breaks your dream.