I’ve been here,
I’ve been around,
I’ve been poor,
I’ve been crowned,
I’ve been alone,
I’ve been the crowd,
I’ve seen life,
I’ve been the shroud,
I’ve missed the moon,
I’ve seen the star,
I’ve not been close,
I’ve never been far,
I’ve never been drunk,
I’ve run the bar,
I’ve seen monks,
I’ve fought in the war,
I’ve moved on,
I’ve been pulled back,
I’ve can’t walk,
I’ve sprinted the track,
I’ve been white,
I’ve been black,
I’ve been grey,
But never to wisecrack.
And after all this while,
After all, I’ve been,
After all that I could be,
All that to be seen,
Can I just back out,
With preen?
Can I just distant myself?
And still, bloom like silene?
Can I forget her,
Without the need to say?
Can I look away,
Never seeing another day?
Can I throw it away,
Like ash in a tray?
Can I just get up,
And walk away?
We read articles about computers that began to think and had to be shut down. Some articles talk about two computers developing a language of their own, or developing their own set of moves in a game. Or just two computers talking to each other over a Git Repo (a code repository), commenting solutions to the code and replying in GIFs.
Meanwhile, at times, your Swiggy ChatBot fails to understand your request. Don’t believe me? Try throwing in uncommon jargon or slangs and push in multiple sentences at a time, it will die a painful death. First losing its brain and then finally forwarding it to a human.
But what is thinking? A common dictionary will tell you that it the process of considering or reasoning about something. Over millions of years of evolution, we have developed a complex algorithm in our own heads, to go about the process of thinking. We still fail to give out a sophisticated output to most of our problems, especially the ones that scale only to a personal level.
And sometimes, even when the numbers seem right, we add the element of persona and emotion. We won’t buy a product even if it is the best in the market because the owner is rude, or the brand has a bad image.
The computers can compute, they can consider, but can they reason? Not right now. But let’s be fair, they are babies as compared to the evolved human race. We were still figuring out how to sharpen stone tools in the first 50 years of our race, considering we had learned to walk before that. Yes, there are variables to it, but the statement won’t change.
Well, if they can’t think, can we make them think? Will we be able to feed the millions of years of evolution on a computer chip? What if we try to replicate it with a certain set of rules?
In that case, I don’t think they will be anything more than a bunch of psychopaths. Why? How?
Well, psychopaths, as they are, are unable to differentiate between right from wrong. I know I shall not drop my coffee cup from the table, it will shatter to a million pieces and I won’t. If I’m angry, I still won’t, if I’m very angry then… I might. I lose my thinking capabilities under the influence of emotion.
What I did, is wrong, but it was conditional. I’ll regret it later, I know. But for a psychopath, conditions don’t apply. If you can break a cup in one state, then why not in all of them? And when you are aware of your action and you are the ones to enact them, then why do you have remorse.
A computer acts similarly. It enacts, in all conditions with no remorse.
Okay, let’s not add the emotion bit here. Let’s leave computers with their flat, emotionless voices. But say you made a certain set of rules for the computer to follow. Let’s take the ones which would be pretty common and in that order of priority.
A. Never hurt a human
B. Never hurt a living organism
C. Never hurt yourself
and D. Obey orders that don’t break these rules
So, say in a situation a wild beast attacks a human and the human asks for help from the bot. The bot is not hurting the human in not helping it out, but it might harm the living organism if it tries to help, so it would rather not move, not to break any rules. Or not help someone in case of fire, where it might harm itself.
Say we change the rules, from never hurt, to always protect a human. What happens when a human attacks another one? Or if the bot detects a threat from wild animals to the humans. Will it just kill the one at the site? Or will it chase down every single being of the species?
Let these slip, these are edge cases. Let’s take an example of using AI in medicine, humanoids treating humans. It cannot hurt a human, so it will not perform an operation as the needle is hurting the human, it doesn’t consider the long-term benefit, it is not in the rules.
So, we make an exception; it can hurt humans while performing operations on them. Then it can kill them too while performing an operation, right? Okay, protect humans. But sometimes, you have to pull the plug, to let the body free of its sufferings, then what? With enough data we can train it to see the long-term benefits, but will you actually trust data over trying to save a human’s life?
No, now you are just exaggerating, no bot will ever do that.
Well, that’s what normal humans think, not psychopaths. According to a case study, a man and wife were about to get a divorce, but according to the man, he owned the wife and he has this idea of “all or nothing”, which is kind of vowed in churches and temples.
Ideally, there exists a solution where they split and find someone else who is more compatible and live the rest of their lives with them. But for the man, the solution of letting her go doesn’t exist, so while stabbing her to death, he pictures it as a ‘Justified Homicide’ which the community rightly appraises as murder.
So, to make the bot think like humans you teach it emotions like humans. Sounds right? But then how well do you define the boundaries of love and anger? How do you explain a bot that stalking is not the way, threatening someone is not the way and you can’t really make someone fall in love with you?
Just like Richard Farley couldn’t understand when he stalked Laura Black. Richard Farley, now termed as a psychopath, got really attracted to this new colleague in his office. He followed her around, joined her Zumba class, bought her concert tickets and even went to join her at a game. The story ends up with mass murder. A real case loosely translated to the infamous movie “Stalking Laura”.
How do you do that, while still explaining it that it is okay to break some rules at times? For love is not something that can be bounded by rules?
How do you justify you jumping a traffic light and being ready to pay the fine later on, just because someone you truly love was counting their last breaths on a hospital bed? How do you make it think logically and weigh emotionally?
We, humans, make rules for our welfare. But we break those rules at times, and that’s how we think. When you define rules for something, how do you close the loopholes, how do you not make a psychopath.
If computers think, they will be a bunch of psychopaths.
Here is another blooper.
Here is another blooper.
Life seems like a miracle and death scares us all.
But what if you knew exactly when you were going to be born, will that be a miracle anymore? And what if you know exactly when you are going to die? Will that be terrifying anymore? Maybe it will still be terrifying, in fact, you might be even more terrified of it especially as the day approaches, but what if you were immortal? And the physical form, that you are in, is just you acting in a play? Once you are done you go backstage and then hop on to another play? You leave behind the body, the character, but the soul, the artist lives on.
Maybe the body dies, but the soul remains, forever, immortal? The body is just a mask that the soul wears.
We all have a purpose in life, the one we keep searching for, but maybe we all know it. It is not becoming rich, it is neither having the best start-up idea, nor becoming writers, musicians, artists, bankers, priests, or whatever else you are or want to be. Maybe we all already know what it is that we want, we just don’t know it as a textbook. We just know it because we do. We probably are born with some ill traits and we are here to get rid of them, or we are here to gain a few new ones.
It is greed, lust, kindness, having trust in, gain someone’s trust, help someone or it is something that we need to remove from ourselves and/or learn something new. We all probably know why we are here and when we are done getting what we really want, we may accept our death without flinching, maybe we are just waiting for it to come along. We might be scared of it, only and only if we have not completed what we want.
What if we have already completed what we were here to achieve? Well, then you would already know, I guess. And maybe the ones in a coma are wondering if they should pass on or just stay back and learn a few more things.
Have you ever thought that why you instantly connect with some people around you, and at times, even though you try your best to be around someone, you can hardly ever do anything to get their attention? It’s just as if you don’t exist for them. What if all these people have been around you before. Not in this lifetime, not anywhere else, but have some connection with you. Maybe your brother was your grandfather once, long long ago. Or maybe it was the other way around. And maybe the one that is rude to you, or ignores you, had slit your throat in a battle.
We connect with someone’s vibrations instantly and some don’t match. Maybe it is right to be drawn to matching or rather constructive vibrations. That is indeed the law of nature. But is it correct to run away from destructive vibrations? Or should we go out of the law of nature, and connect with them, for we are not nature. We are souls in a physical form.
What if guardian angels do exist? But they come in only when they see you in trouble or when you need guidance? What if people you see in your dreams after they have died, are actually communicating with you because they had some unsaid words or incomplete tasks involving you. What if children who are talking to their imaginary friends are not talking to imaginary friends, but there is someone actually there? But only they can see them?
Maybe we come from the same place, we all know what we are here for, and maybe we are all equals, even though the cultural, intellectual, racial, and financial differences are right there, in our faces. But think about it, maybe we are equal, all equally big and shiny diamonds. It is just a matter of how many facets we have cleaned.
Slit, bleed, cease.
Maybe that’s lingering around in your head from months now.
It even took over you, or your past failures pushed you to it; but you are here, reading. Because maybe, you failed at it too. Another failure to add on to your list.
But for a second, think if you succeeded at everything you did. Would you ever try something new? Try a new way? Would you make an effort to do anything? And now think if you succeeded at it too. Would you ever get to try again?
So, maybe, just maybe, failures aren’t that bad after all, and failing at a few things is far better than succeeding at them. You might not see it like that, but everyone around you does, believe me, for I’m one of them.
Do you know why you failed? I made it happen. Do you know why you tried? I made it happen. And do you know why everything went wrong? Because I made it happen. Why everything is right now? I made it happen.
The fire at your restaurant, the buzzing crowd, the car crash, the new car, the exam result, the break up, the wedding, the suicide, the newborn, the long medical bill, the loan, the debt, the law, the success, and everything and anything that led you to being here, right now, it was all me.
No one can be happy at all times, no one can frown at all time. No one can have a constant, no one cannot know what it is like to have everything, or lose it all in one go. You can be at the top of your world, you can be at the apex of the highest mountain, but cannot trust the snow beneath, and you cannot trust the skies above.
I’m not a friend, I’m not your enemy, I’m not a deity you worship, nor am I a demon that could be killed. I don’t flow like the wind, I am not steady like the earth, I don’t need a vessel like water, nor do I breathe free like fire, I’m not cold, I’m not warm. I am a power. I am Fate.
Maybe it’s just me, or it has always been around and I just noticed it recently, but a lot of people around me are giving up on things the shouldn’t. A lot of people around me are not sure about what they are doing. It might just be the age and the phase that we are in but it is all around me.
Sometimes, packing up your bags, leaving home, and running away from everything sounds perfect. Just get out of wherever you are and hide in a cave far away from everything there is, was or will be. But thinking about it, probably staying alone was what made pushed you there, and talking to someone might just help. It will break your thought tunnel and lead you to a new world of open windows.
You can talk to me too! I’m not saying I know everything and I will help you out, because I don’t and I can’t, but I would hear you out. I would give you a hand out of the pit or maybe we could stay in the pit together, at least it won’t be dark, lonely, or frightening anymore. And someday, we’ll figure a way out.
Everything’s new.
Around you, about you? The place, the streets, even the birds sound different. It’s new, it’s happier, you’ve left your old life behind. It was a profound change. I mean, even if it were just cities and clothes and, uh, names? It was still for the better, at least that’s what you told me before you waved goodbye.
I knew life here was hard on you, your college was tough, your friends weren’t actually your friends, your boyfriend wasn’t treating your right, hot chocolates no longer treated you and it just got worse. I didn’t give you much time either, I mean I did call you and texted you every single day, but you never… I’m sorry not my point, I know, it’s on me!
I would have loved to see you smile again, I know I cannot see you anymore, or you don’t want me to, but hey, smile! Or just change your profile picture, I check your profile every day. No, I’m not stalking you, I just want to know where you went off to, and who are your new friends, I hope they are better than what you had here.
You’ll be the new girl in the school again, so I was just concerned if you found a partner for your project already or not. Because if you haven’t I could be, I mean, I cannot change the school and the cities, but I can help. I wish I could help you.
I was just going paranoid recently, so I just wrote you this. I don’t know if you will ever find it. Don’t worry about me, I’m always paranoid, you know that. It was just that I haven’t heard from you in a while, and you were last online over a year ago, at least that’s what the text near your name tells me, have you changed your number? And you even deleted one of your social media profiles, so.
But hey! Whenever you upload a new picture, remember to smile!
After being in the dark for 3 years, he lowered the note and kept it by her grave.
I never said I love you, I never said I like you as much. I was just saying how things could have been different if I did, and you did too. It was just a story, where I talked and you heard, I was a fiction that sounded real, and maybe you fell in love with the surreal.
I never said I want to be with you, I never meant that I want to hug you. I just said it would have been like Stardust, if and when we hugged. When I would have wrapped my arms around you, when I could be your pillow to cry on, and I would be your arms to laugh in, and I would see you smile in my chest, and you would have complained about my hug being too tight. And Stardust isn’t real, just like our hug, it is only in the stories.
I never said I’m falling for you, I never meant to compliment your eyes so. I just said that if and when I would have looked into them after a long tiring day, they would have brightened up my soul, it would have been the most amazing sight in the world that I would return to see every single night. And I would have treasured it, every time I looked into them, and when they shone like gems against sunlight. I never looked into them, for they were closed when I spoke, and it was just a story.
I never said I wanted to place a ring on your fingers, I just said it would be amazing. I would have taken you to your office every day of the week, and we would go to movies and shopping every single weekend. We would have long drives, sit by the beach, the sea, the mountains, the hay, the farms, the grasslands, the barns, the flowerbeds, the cities, the rooftops, and… and… adore the view, while we soak in each other, making memories and capturing laughs. I said it would have been amazing like it is in the stories.
I never said you were my protagonist, I never said she looks like you. I just said that her hair are hazel brown, just like her eyes, I don’t know what color to call it, but they do look like yours. I just said she’s shorter than me, and she loves to wear white shirts and blue jeans, you just happened to wear the same while you stood next to me. I just said she loves chocolates and carries them around in the basket of her bike, like you carry some for me when you come to meet me. You were never my protagonist because you are real and she isn’t, just like the fiction tale.
I never said I love you, I never said I like you as much, I just said if things would have been different, if we weren’t far apart, even as we stood abreast, if I wrote the story, I would have said it.
Stand by a cliff, look down, jump.
A new life, a new beginning, a new start. Or maybe, just walk away from the cliff, and pretend that your old life jumped off. The old you died today, it is time to let go of the grudges, it is time to let the pain settle, it is time to make friends, again.
The only thing that remains is the experience, skill, and degrees. Nothing else. It is time to let go of the battles and quarrels of the past and hug the person again. It is time to let go of the failures and see the goal again. It is time to run the road.
It might not be as easy as it sounds and it might not be the best thing you’ve decided to do all along, but it might be the best for you right now. Sometimes, more than the reason behind doing something isn’t as important as the purpose.
And now that you are running again, this time, remember, money isn’t everything. Success is not earning billions and hating your life so much that it takes you to the cliff, it is about being able to pay the bills and doing what you love to do. Earning less is fine, loving less isn’t.
Don’t torture yourself, instead, love you.
Tum ho toh
Khawishein bhi hai,
Kaash tum na ho
Toh khwab nahi hai,
Tum ho toh
Chahtein bhi hai,
Kaash tum na ho
Toh icchaien nahi hai,
Tum ho toh
Pyaar bhi hai,
Izhaar bhi hai,
Kaash tum na ho.
Tum ho toh,
Toh haan bhi hai,
Inkaar bhi hai,
Kaash tum na ho,
Mere ishq ka deedar,
Mere alfaaz ki pookar,
Meri haan ka inkaar,
Ho tum,
Meri ruh ki chavi ,
Meri kavita ki kavi,
Me Satlej toh Ravi,
Ho tum,
Mere likhne ki wajah,
Mere jeene ki chah ho tum,
Mere rukne ki wajah,
Mere bhadne ki rah ho tum,
Meri burai ki wajah,
Meri “wah” ho tum,
Kaash tum na ho,
Kyunki meri chah ho tum
Najane kyun tujhse joodah hun mein,
Najane kyun tujhse joohdha hun mein,
Kyun aaj bhi me tujhe chahta hun,
Kyun aaj bhi tujhe dekh na pata hun,
Kaise nahi dikhta tujhe tera yaar,
Kaise nahi hua tujhe mujhse pyaar.
Kaise nahi sunai di tujhe meri pookar,
Kaise sab yun chali gai tu?
Kaise sab ek pal me bhoolah gai tu?
Tum ho toh
Umeedien bhi hai,
Kaash tum nahi ho
Toh wajah hi na ho,
Tum ho toh,
Naajane kyun dil darta hai,
Kaash tum na ho,
Toh Wajood na ho.
It might be time to settle things with your past. I’m not sure how or what you’re supposed to do and how do you go about it, I just know it has been too long that you have been back and forth, I think it is time to settle it down.
It is time to let go and begin a new. It is time to let yourself relax and be at peace with the constant battles you’ve been having from the past few days or years.
The emotional outbursts, driving each other away, ignoring their presence, and everything else needs to stop.
It is time you make peace with the foes you never wanted to make, it is time to make peace with the friends you always wanted.
We meet a lot of people in life. Some by chance, some by fate, and some you meet but you don’t interact with them. You just saw them passing by, or doing something around you. You still met them, from the corner of your eye, or you were just supposed to see them, because something is going to happen next.
You’ve met them and you didn’t even notice them but they did and then they somehow turn up, bringing a very twisted turn in your life.
They just look at you all weirdly when you don’t recognize them. They just stare at you like it is a crime that you don’t recognize them, and they hold a grudge on you for that.
You try to remember what set them off so bad only to realize that you can’t remember anything. You’ve just “met” them, there is nothing you can do about it. It sounds like a prejudice towards you.
And sometimes they, they give you a hint or sometimes you have a hint that you’ve seen them before, but you don’t know when and where and you cannot think of a reason why you set off somebody so badly.
You’ve seen them before, but not sure when and where.