fakeness

It's beyond me how the term "fakeness" is used so widely. My source here is rather lame, but over a thousand profiles on orkut have the word "fakeness" in them! Isn't the noun "fakery"... or have my poor old oxford and dictionary.com not been updated? I even looked it up on Merriam-Webster, but without any luck. Do people believe that this is actually a word, or am I living in some distant land where a mouse is still just a little rodent that runs about? What has gotten me all the more confused is the fact that the spell-check in MS-Word doesn't think that it's a mistake! I wonder...

Arrrghh! Choices!

I can't decide whether I love having choices or hate it.

I do realize the world would be a rather boring place if things just came your way, without you having to choose. But that would make life so much simpler. Strangely, and perhaps justifiably, some people do believe that that is exactly what happens. You can read about it here. There is no free will they say. The idea there is that you don't really make any of your choices yourself... you were bound to make them. I can't be sure whether that is true, but if it is, I so wish this choice which was already made for me would not be so encrypted. I mean, if it's already made, why can't I know what I will choose.

Why, for instance, can't I decide which university I want to attend? It's obviously an exciting choice to make, and I am not complaining about the fact that I even have the choice. Most people will tell you that they were really glad they got only one admit, so that they were saved the trouble and trauma of making a choice. But I have five options, and hell, I love having to choose!

What complicates the decision tree way more than required is the fact that most of us have no idea about what we want. If we did, it would be as simple as traversing a complete binary tree with 2^n leaves, where n depends on the number of parameters that decide the outcome. The problem is, most of us average minds aren't aware of what we seek. I am not sure if what I want is even static. It's a completely crazy, indeterministic function of what I encounter each moment. So there goes my binary tree... or should I say there grows my binary tree... exponentially too! And even if we knew exactly what we wanted, the optimal choice is never available.

Of course, the binary tree is assuming there are just two answers to a parameter-deciding-question. For most situations, you can break up the parameters in a way that they would be yes-no questions. Let me explain, for example, the decision tree when I go to buy a pair of shoes. There are the obvious yes-no questions, such as "yes I want the shoe to fit". Some of you, especially the men, may find this a rather silly question. Of course you want the shoe to fit you, unless you're buying it for someone else. But the truth is, that this highly efficient question reduces the search space by way more than you can imagine; in my case, it leaves about ten pairs per shop. Add to that "yes I want them to look decent" (notice, I did not say good), and that eliminates some shops altogether. In the remaining, the choice reduces to about two pairs. The above questions must never be coupled with "yes I want them to be comfortable" and "yes I want them to suit the occasion", or else you'd never end up buying anything. And we still haven't gone into the cost factor. If I ever found a pair of shoes that fit all those parameters, they'd be so priceless, I'd never wear them. One of my friends did find one like that... but when I say one, I literally mean it; the other shoe in the pair was missing! So you see, you almost know what you want, but that's never one of your options.

Even if I have a limited set of options, and construct a tree such that the leaves are only the things available to me, then I end up with a new problem. With only "available options" to choose from, there is almost always a compromise between one parameter or another. Such as, let me choose a slightly lower ranked college if I get a better overall experience in terms of my education. This decision, since it is not a strict yes-no, is really difficult to take, as the one question that keeps flashing in my head when I choose to compromise on something is "what if I live to repent it?" I mean, how do I predict what I will need more in my future; and even if I can, how can I do it accurately.

And all this while, this choice which is already made is not helping me at all in choosing which choice is already made! Of course, once my conscious mind has made a decision, those scientists will come around with a map of my brain and say, "There! We knew you'd choose that all the while!" Not much help then, is there? So here's where this beautiful mechanism called intuition steps in. I don't know how my intuition knows what the right choice is, maybe it somehow communicates with the factor that has already made my choice for me. But as far as I remember, whenever I have felt strongly about something and gone by what I have felt, I have almost never repented. That's it then! I know which university I am going to, and I definitely know which pair of shoes I am taking there.

The Unfathomable Species Called Mothers

Mothers! They seem to defy every rational or logical conclusion that I have drawn about human behaviour in general. It's almost as if they don't belong to the same species as the rest of us.

For one, I believe (as you may have read in a previous post) that every relationship is a give-get transaction, not necessarily material. And still there are times when I can't understand why my mother gives me so much when I seem to be giving very little in return. Starting from the financial support, right up to the back massage when I am tired, to the comforting hug when I am scared and the hot cup of tea when I am studying for an exam, my mother has always been the giver in our relationship. I am twenty-two, and she still makes sure that I've had my breakfast on time. I know I am always in her prayers, and she makes it a point to call me even when she's on a business trip, however inconvenient it might be.

It's incredible the way she knows exactly what is happening in my life, although she barely spends a few hours everyday with me. She knows who I am dating, what I want, when I have cried... it's hard... no, almost impossible to keep a secret from her. I mean I can always tell a white lie here, and hide some facts there, but at the end of the day, I know she knows; and she knows I know she knows.

She's been my best friend, confidante, role model, caretaker, teacher. She's the only one person I know who will give up the leg piece in the chicken for me. Seriously, who does that?

Obviously, I am grateful for having a person like her in my life, but in a strange way, it scares me. It scares me when I think about what kind of mother I will end up being. I can't imagine giving up a leg piece for someone else. I'd probably just buy more leg pieces; but in general, I am a selfish person. I think primarily of myself, and believe this to be normal human behaviour. I am self-involved and unobservant and inefficient... most of my close friends will confirm this. And while those things may not make too much of a difference when I play the role of a friend or an acquaintance, I know it's almost all that will matter when I play the role of a parent. To make matters worse, I am insensitive. Not that I don't help people, I just don't realize when someone needs me... that probably has a lot to do with being self-involved.

I do love children, especially those related to me like my cousins and nieces and nephews. I share an amazing bond with them, and they seem sufficiently fond of me. But those are people I meet once in a while. My biggest fear is to end up being a mother who is so caught up in herself, she can't be all that her mother has been to her. It will be a shame after having such a wonderful example to follow.