Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo; Flickr, Picassa, Droplr; YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo; Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, Amazon Cloud Drive, iCloud; Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, App.Net, Instagram, Pinterest, Orkut; Whatsapp, Hangouts, Messengers, iMessages; WordPress, Tumblr, Typepad, Blogger – some of the services we use daily on the net. The internet is connected to our life in ways we couldn’t have imagined ten years ago. But, the nature of internet is changing from an ‘accessing information’ model to a ‘content creation’ & ‘content sharing’ model. I doubt even Steve Jobs imagined that his introduction of the iPhone would usher-in the post PC era. We are no more tethered to the desk, glowing rectangles in our hands – always connected to the internet – have pushed us into a ‘mobile computing’ era. If launching the iPhone & App Store was the first move towards mobile computing, the concept of ‘Cloud’ services is making the transition seamless. The future belongs to the cloud (Google Chromebook anyone?), and as more and more life goes digital, it has become extremely important to know how to manage our data across these various clouds, services and applications.
Who Determines the Value of your Life?
Should we be valued for who we are? Or for what we do? Should we do good to be valued? For legacy yes, but in general, should groups like ‘family’, ‘friends’, ‘society’ value us for being a part of them or for what we contributed to them? Should we be valued for being or doing? Is man an isolated creature? Or is his value always determined in relation to others?
What exactly is ‘being’? Is it absence of action? Or doing what is most natural to us? So what if we do things we see as natural to us, but are of no value to others? Does it make us less ‘valuable’?
Be Kind
Who Stole the Weekend?
“Let’s goto a movie this weekend? How about a long drive? How about a get together? How about meeting for drinks?” – Weekends hold a lot of promise. Every Monday starts with a longing only to end on Fridays in feverish anticipation for the two day reprieve. But, what actually happens on the weekend? We oversleep (after all we slogged through the entire week, didn’t we?), laze around and spend 3/4 of Saturday trying to figure out which is the best way to spend the day. But, by the time we make the decision, it is Saturday evening. And, then suddenly our sleeping mind wakes up from slumber and reminds us of all the chores that need to be done that day. What then happens is – depression kicks in. We waste some more time choosing between responsibility and fun.
The Art of Journaling
My first journal was a blue coloured diary gifted to me by a close friend. It was the year ’97 and the diary was of ’95. But, it didn’t matter to me. I had an ‘official’ book to write down my thoughts. I was super excited to pen what I did that day. And, so started that day, without even realizing, a love affair of a lifetime. But, my journaling habits were on and off. Sometimes, I would write everyday, sometimes once a week or sometimes neglect it for months together. Recently, I realised it had been a very long time that I had written something. To motivate myself, I walked to my cupboard, opened it and squatted down on the floor. Lined to the wall were fifteen journals, I picked one and started reading. Going through the motives, feelings, thoughts of a younger me made me cry, laugh, hate and love myself at the same time. With each journal I could see myself grow from who I was then to who I am today. I regretted looking at the blank pages. Why didn’t I write then? What might I have lost because of that? A memory? A story? A smile? or a small understanding of myself? I had to write again.