Dear friends, Hope you are all well. Hope you all enjoyed the summer and are beginning to enjoy autumn and everything it brings. It has been almost five months since I last wrote a "Random Thoughts" letter. My life has changed quite a bit since then, for the large part because during this summer I found love. Or to be more precise, love happened. More about it below. I also visited the eastern shore a few times enjoying the beach and the fresh air, and also did some hiking and biking. On the whole, life has been good and I am grateful to God for everything. It will get even better if I hear from you. Please do write when you have time and let me know how everything is going! Yours, Sankar PS: I also have a new website: http://nature-lover.net and have put up more pictures at http://flickr.com/sankarx Random Thoughts (79) 10/12/2009 1. I am finally getting to sleep early enough to wake up with the sun. I leave the windows open just to make sure that I do wake up at dawn. The highlight of the day is then the walk at sunrise along the lake (or even better, the beach). This morning (6/16) I was walking along the lake when I saw a heron like bird flitting around the shore. Turns out to be a green heron. First time I see one in the lake. Of course then there are the ring-billed gulls, great black-backed gulls and the ubiquitous Canada geese, now with some young ones. During my first few years at Howard I used to see red-winged blackbirds at this lake but not anymore. 2. (May 29) Tonight I watched a bit of Jay Leno’s last “Tonight Show.” I have been watching Letterman more often than Leno, because I like Letterman’s sense of humor better (though at times it can be jarring) and also because he is more sympathetic to progressive causes --I get really turned off by Leno whenever I see Dennis Miller on his show. Nevertheless, sometimes I watch Leno just to see what he is doing. I also like the fact that his show comes from L.A (which I miss). Tonight though, I had to watch it. To my surprise I felt myself really admiring Leno as the show went on. At the end of the show he brought to the stage all the children who had been born to cast members, introducing them as the show’s legacy, and mentioned many of his crew by name. It revealed to me the man behind the joker, that here is someone who really cared about people, and that was his main thing in life. I also realized that this show has been on for the past 17 years of my life, and that I have been watching Leno on and off the entire 20 years I have been in the U.S. For better or worse, his shows had become a part of my life. As the credits rolled the saxophone played his theme mournfully. Perhaps my nerves were just a bit stretched, this being the end of the week, but I found myself tearing up a bit. 3. Recently the Srilankan military managed to flush out the Tamil tigers and kill their long-time leader (The Tamil equivalent of Osama). I have never been sympathetic to the Tigers and it is hard to know who is to blame for this vicious cycle of violence, much as it has been with the Israelis and Palestinians. I don't know if the violence is going to stop now that the SriLankan government has killed off or captured most of the terrorists. Violence has to be first stopped in people's hearts. That is why I like Obama's outreach to Muslims. 4. I attended a national orchestra institute concert at the University of Maryland in June. The music was sublime, and also very complex. It made me think about the role of Complexity in our lives. Music, like river, needs no explanation. But we have a need to build new things—and even if it is not important, important that we do it. Nature itself keeps building and evolves towards more and more complexity in structure. 5. Pampered men are unable to see their own faults. In places like India and the middle east— where women have not been fully empowered-men who have been pampered by wives keep making wrong decisions. Wives should not be ashamed to be guides and teachers. Men need the guidance, and sometimes even the direction, of women. 6. I found the following quote very touching. It is from a neighbor of James von Brunn, the white supremacist who attacked the Holocaust museum in Washington. "He must have had a mental glitch, and he needed to be needed," Newland said. "But we couldn't need him." 7. Real leadership is leadership without controlling – Obama is a good example. Leadership must be based on example, inspiration, reasoned persuasion and compassion. 8. Talk to any fundamentalist and he/she would quote many passages from their scripture, be it the Bible or Kuran or Veda or the Sutras that say that the teachings in that scripture are the only sources of revelation of The Truth. But it is important to remember that during the time that those scriptures were written, the respective teachers didn’t have much contact with or knowledge of the other teachers. If indeed the Buddha, Christ etc., were to get together today, I am sure they would come up with a single unified source of teachings. But given their time and circumstances they had to assert the uniqueness and supremacy of their own teachings in order to dispel the ignorance that surrounded them. 9. Every man wants and needs, once in his lifetime, to swim in the ocean of love and to have his mind, body and soul all swirl in the deep waters in one big rapture of passion and union with another soul. For most of us that happens with another human being. Some who move beyond that seek the same with God. However it happens, it results in contentment and a fulfillment of wants and desires that provides the peace of mind and strength to move forward in life and to do work that might benefit the wider world. 10. (8/7/09) I was sitting at the Starbucks on Dupont circle when a small film crew passed by. Looking at the boom microphone with hairy fibers over it I was reminded of the cilia in our own inner ear. I don’t know if the two have a common purpose but it set me thinking about the way we make machines based on objects in nature. Is there a machine that we developed without any help from nature? The internal combustion engine came to mind. But then it hit me that the automobile engine not only looks like our heart but it functions very much like our heart. All the valves and tubes, electrically triggered mechanisms firing at a precise frequency, mixture of fluid and air…. 11. (8/11/09) I was walking on 14th street, near columbia heights metro station, watching middle class and working class people do shopping, etc., It made me realize that pretentiousness and uppity behavior amongst lower classes arises from their desperate need and desire to get out of the cycle of poverty and low status; On the other hand pretentiousness amongst upper class seem to arise out of greed and competitiveness. 12. Urine-powered cars could be available in six months with new technology developed by scientists from Ohio University.Using a nickel-based electrode, the scientists claim they can create cheap hydrogen from urine that could be used in fuel cells to power cars, houses and other appliances.Urine is rich in hydrogen, and extracting the chemical from urine requires only a quarter of the energy needed to extract it from water."One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses," said Gerardine Botte, a professor at Ohio University developing the technology.A urine-powered fuel cell vehicle could theoretically achieve 90 miles per gallon, according to the scientists behind the reasearch."It is not a solution for all our cars," said John Stickney, a chemist and professor at the University of Georgia, "but it is the kind of process which will find many applications and will make for a greener world." Hmmm.... 13. All my life I have been trying to achieve things that I wanted to achieve. That is the easy part. I realize that true wisdom will develop only when I learn to not want to achieve. But first I need to develop the confidence that I can achieve anything that I do want to achieve. 14. There is a tribe in the remote, hidden canyons of mexico --the Tarahumara Indians—who run 100s of miles barefoot, that too without eating too much. They seem to have almost perfect health as well. Apparently humans are built for such extremely active lifestyle. On the other hand modern athletic shoes have been found to be causing foot injuries, so much so that Nike is now developing ultra-thin shoes that mimic the natural curves of the foot, called Nike Zero. Since reading about this I have changed my style of running and it has improved my aerobic capabilities by quite a bit. 15. Meditation – like exercise for the body, keeps mind in balance. Need to do it regularly to keep in balance, just like exercise. 16. I don't consider myself terribly intelligent. In fact I am positively stupid compared to many of you. But I think I know enough to know what I don't know. Unfortunately there are people who cannot come to terms with their own stupidity, such as Glenn Beck. I don't mean that he is dumb, just that he is totally unaware of his own limitations and unable to learn from people wiser than him. 17. I watched Mark Warner’s townhall on healthcare (only because I admire Mr. Warner. Otherwise these townhalls are rather repulsive). He showed amazing wisdom, poise under tremendous pressure and intelligence in a room full of people who seem to be followers of (and siblings of) the aforementioned Mr. Beck. I was particularly touched by how he stood up for Obama. Great political theater. The virulent hatred and anger directed towards Obama was a shock. I was also touched by one white woman who stood up for Obama. Looks like they were trying to find something to be upset about. 18. (9/6/09) Today I was walking to Georgetown via the rock creek park trail. I discovered " homes for the homeless" under some bridges, that were well hidden from the view of drivers or even pedestrians due to the walls under the bridges. It was shocking to see such slum like conditions in the U.S. They are quite common in India. I must say, though, that it didn't look like there were families living there. Mostly homeless men, and the places were filthy and filled with stench. 19. Food industry – feeding junk food; Beer industry, cosmetic industry, drug industry –all feeding people things they don’t need, things that are dangerous to them. Should they be regulated? People are responsible but under the barrage of commercials these companies are able to sell products that not only are unnecessary but positively harmful. I am big on individual freedom but people need to wake up and realize that the commercials are making zombies out of them. 20. Mitt Romney is the dog that did not bark during the health care debate. Where is he? After all, he created universal healthcare in massachusetts. I think the cagey Mr. Romney is positioning himself as a moderate, lying low while the hard-liners cut down Obama, so that he can emerge during the primaries as a sensible centrist. 21. Republican shrillness is a sign of desperation. Only people who feel helpless and powerless get angry and try to shout down the other side with distortions. 22. (9/12/09) Today I was in the gallery place area. I tried to spread some love to the Tea party people, by simply saying Hi, to the consternation of my girlfriend. I really think that a lot of white people are simply afraid of the changes happening in the country. [Of course, there are some who are simply unhappy that there non-whites in this country]. Let us spread some love around instead of engaging in arguments and shouting matches. 23. Watched Joe Biden on C-Span. Biden is really Obama’s secret weapon. He must be widely deployed. The man can talk anyone to death. He is a good man, I think, just shoots his mouth off. Guess that’s the problem. But it is worth taking the risk sometimes. 24. Watched a bit Rush Limbaugh on Jay Leno – had to force myself to watch even that much. I think, apart from having the limitations of Mr. Beck, Mr. Limbaugh also suffers from some deeper psychological problems. He needs sympathy and therapy. I hope he finds a good woman who can show him some love and get him to mature as a man. 25. Love also makes me attached to life more. I see even more than before how fleeting life is and how precious each moment is with my beloved. 26. They say soon books will go the way of the horse carriages and the typewriter. I don’t think they will. People would always want to curl up with something that takes them to another world, or makes them think and learn new things in a quiet, personal and intimate way. That is not possible with TV or even with an IPOD. Maybe paper will be substituted by LCD screens that are ultra-thin and flexible, but books in some format will always be around. 10. (10/12/09) For someone who has lived an almost monastic existence for the past 14 years, being in a relationship poses its own set of difficulties. But I am happy to report that they were not as bad as I was afraid they would be. I don't miss the single life, the lonely nights, the misunderstandings, the roller-coaster emotional rides, the constant feeling that something is missing. I have replaced the excitement generated by the search and anticipation of meeting new people by the excitement in doing new things and exploring new places with my love. I am slowly learning to include my other half (my better half, really) in my thinking, speaking, and planning and to master the art of being with another human being for extended periods of time. But I will admit that it is a pleasure to have, once in a while, a day like today when my time and my space is my own. Just a day. Any more than a day, and I begin to get restless.