Thanksgiving

Every year a strange event occurs at the White House around the Thanksgiving holiday. The President, arguably the most powerful person in the world, pardons two turkeys in what appears to be a comical ceremony usually marking the occasion with some inane remarks. I say comical but sparing a couple of the birds while millions of their kind are being slaughtered is a cruel joke and I find it distasteful. I cannot see a reason for it to be part of Thanksgiving celebrations. 

Historically, Thanksgiving was observed as a day of prayers and church services in response to events considered as special blessings coming from God, such as victory in a war. The English settlers brought the tradition to America. The modern observance of Thanksgiving Day may be quasi-religious or even secular but in earlier times it was to express gratitude to the Almighty. This sentiment may be seen in the proclamations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. From its religious origin, Thanksgiving has evolved into an annual affair, not tied to any particular event.

Whatever the origin, I guess Thanksgiving is a day to reflect upon and be grateful for what we have. But not everyone has something to be happy about. Some say that there is always someone who is suffering more and so one should be grateful that one is not worse off. At the conceptual level, this is good advice but hard to practice. When we start comparing, we inevitably direct our gaze to both sides of the spectrum. We end up feeling better or worse depending on with whom we compare ourselves. Also, it can be argued that to gain some satisfaction based on the fact that there are people worse off is in bad taste. 

Being grateful for one's circumstances, I think, is acknowledging the role chance plays in our lives, whether one considers it divine providence or karma or just happenstance. But there are occasions when someone lends a helping hand and we are indebted to that person. It is not always possible to repay this debt because its value depends on the seriousness of the situation. Unless the same misfortune befalls the helper, we cannot in true measure repay the debt. It is perverse to hope that this occurs just so we can even the scales. This is perhaps why, in the Ramayana, Rama says to Hanuman that there was no way to repay the debt He owed Hanuman (Ram Charit Manas, 5-31-3). As you know, Hanuman had completed his heroic one man mission to Lanka and brought back news of Sita to Rama. 

Reflecting upon our good fortunes should bring to our minds all those who have helped us along the way. We can look upon Thanksgiving as remembering with gratitude the people and circumstances that have benefited us then. We remain indebted to them.

Being grateful for what we have is one thing. Being content with what we have is a more difficult goal that many spiritual traditions stress but one I think is at odds with our consumerist economy. Lest we settle into the warm glow of satisfaction saying, 'What more could I want?', the retailers kick off the annual holiday shopping season right on the heels of Thanksgiving comprehensively answering that question. As we count our blessings, we are reminded of what more we could want. You have your Happy Thanksgiving but the sellers want their Happy New Year.

On that note, I hope we all have a Happy New Year!

Hidden Potential

When I browse news stories on my phone, I routinely come across articles on the hidden features of the smartphone. A google search for hidden features on the iPhone 12 brought up 48 million results. A search for 'Samsung Galaxy hidden features' brought up a whopping 780 million! 'Features You Didn't Know', 'Hidden Tricks You Must Try' scream the headlines and many with specific number of such features - '21 Tips', '10 Pro Tips', etc. 

I am sure some of you remember the tagline for old yellow pages 'Let your fingers do the walking'. Our fingers are indeed doing a lot of walking these days. And talking when you include texting (Don't call - let your fingers do the talking!). In fact, they are dancing madly on the screens of smartphones, although speaking for myself, I would say not very well. More on that later but it made me wonder what we are getting from this mad dance. After all we spend a lot of time on the phone. Still there are all these articles telling us about hidden capabilities. 

With such a large number of articles crowding the internet, I am not sure what is hidden any more but then I realize that I rarely read them and hence they remain hidden from me anyway. Maybe you are one of those who read these and go, 'Yes, I knew that' or 'I have tried that one', but not me. In fact, when I first got a smartphone, it was a mystery box to me. I am not an early adopter and I got my first smartphone many years after such phones had been on the market. It was a steep learning curve to become comfortable with just the basic workings of the phone. As for things like 'Back tap', 'pinch', 'swipe left', etc. - the so called gestures, I am still behind the curve. My fingers are clearly not adept at dancing on the screen of the phone. Lifelong learning has taken a new meaning for me.

The whole thing reminds me of my first encounter with the PC some decades ago. When I booted up the machine, it whirred through several lines of display and finally ended with nothing but an intriguing and somewhat intimidating  'C:\>' on the screen. I had no clue what to do with it at that point and wondered what the hype was all about. Without all the bells and whistles of the graphical interface, it was quite underwhelming.

To get back to the phones, occasionally, I click on one of the links about secret features and actually learn something useful. For instance, I discovered that you can make it appear as though you are looking at the camera  (make eye contact as it were) when talking to someone on Facetime. I am sure you can relate to that especially after all the zoom sessions you have sat through during the last couple of years. It is annoying to see that the person you are talking to does not appear to be paying attention  because he/she is looking at your face on the screen and not at the camera. 

Why do we have all these 'hidden' features anyway? Did the coders put them in quietly behind the scenes even though they were not in the design? I rather suspect that there is simply no time to create the document or manual for the phone and keep it up to date, what with new releases happening very frequently. Still, it must frustrate the programmers that their work may remain hidden. I am sure that some of them are authoring the articles on the functions in their spare time hoping to spread the word but the gargantuan number of articles tells me that there is an army of nerds which delights in bringing the hidden potential of the smartphone to light.

Given the long list of features touted by this army, it stands to reason that many of us are probably not using the phones to their full potential. We spend a good deal of money to acquire a phone but if we are not making full use of it, are we not losing out? I would say no. It is like the sewer pipes in the house. They are only used when we use the bathroom. You don't keep flushing the toilet because the drain pipes are sitting idle. Similarly, the phones should be used only when necessary. Yes, I just compared smartphones to sewer pipes. I have probably committed technological blasphemy but you get the point. 

Talking of hidden potential, I have often heard it said that we use only a small percent of our brains. Upon enquiry, I found that this claim has been debunked thoroughly. In fact, all parts of the brain are active virtually all the time. This however, does not mean there is no scope to learn new things but it does blow up the notion that there is somehow this huge untapped capacity in our heads which, when tapped, can turn us into super-intelligent beings. Alas, no such luck. So we must still struggle to find the capacity to learn the hidden features of the smartphones. Or must we really? Like I said, it is okay to leave drains underutilized.

PS: While I was writing this, as if on cue, a relic was delivered to my mailbox, a hardcopy of the old fashioned Real Yellow Pages (not to be confused with the off-white Yellow Pages wannabes, I suppose). The book calls itself the Original Search Engine, and bears the logo suggestive of fingers walking the pages of the book. I found it rather comical. The next generation of phones must let our eyes do the walking to eliminate any comparison to the antiquated albeit original search engine. 

A Tale of Two Birds

It has been a mild summer here in San Diego so far this year. While other parts of the country are reeling under heat waves, we have been enjoying mild days and cool nights. We still have time of course for a southern California spell of hot weather but for now one cannot complain. 

Back in early July, I noticed that a sparrow of some sort had built a nest behind the porch light in the space between the light box and the wall. Also around this time, there were mocking birds in the neighbourhood providing a steady mix of songs. One in particular seemed to be a late night partying kind and would  start singing around midnight. He (apparently the males are the ones singing to attract females) used to take up a commanding position on the top of the pomegranate tree in the backyard and belt out an amazing array of 'rocking' bird hits.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the songs of birds as much as the next person but listening to these songs in a repeat loop for two to three hours in the middle of the night takes a toll. This bird had the ability to project its voice to an entire block and the stamina to keep going for hours. But there was nothing to be done except close the windows and hope that the bird would snag a partner soon. Which he must have by late July because all of a sudden, the singing stopped. While I would not go so far as to say 'good riddance', I confess I do not miss the singing now. In passing, let me note that I was amazed to learn that the mocking bird can learn up to two hundred different songs and can mimic the sound of car alarms and the croaking of frogs.

The bird that had taken up residence at the front porch was a model tenant. She seemed noiseless mostly and I only noticed her flying away sometimes as I opened the front door to go out. There were a couple of occasions when I spotted two birds and I assumed it was the male half of the pair. I soon saw the mother sitting in the nest for long periods and I was sure there was a clutch of eggs there by now incubating. Then all of a sudden, one day, we heard high pitched squeals at the door and when we looked, we saw the mother (or the father) sitting on the light box feeding in turn three tiny but wide open mouths. Soon this became a familiar sight a few times a day. It was fascinating to watch them through the mesh door sitting on the staircase (opening the door would have scared the lot). 

Over the next couple of weeks, the little fledglings grew from strength to strength and their squeals noisier. Every time the parent arrived with food, they snapped into action, bobbing their heads up and down as if competing for the best morsel. More and more of their bodies became visible and in ten days or so they appeared fully grown and ready to fly fluttering their newly grown wings. And fly away they did in the next two days. The parent seemed to egg them on almost pulling them out by the beak. One by one, they took the first tentative steps around the nest, and a few quick trial jumps to the top of the lamp, eventually leaping off the nest. One interesting thing to note was the sibling that first took to flight seemed to return and help the others.

If you have not quit reading this post by this point (thank you), you are no doubt wondering why I am launching into the breeding and nesting habits of birds. But I have a good reason. I don't know about you but I have found this summer a bit exhausting and I am not referring to the heat which I already mentioned has not been a factor here. 

It has been a summer of discontent in many ways. The news from around the world has been sad and alarming - heat waves in many parts of the world, floods in others, and unprecedented wild fires in still other parts, war in Ukraine that seems to rage on with no end in sight, a COVID-weary world unprepared to tackle the outbreak of another virus (monkey pox), new lows reached by the political class, need I go on? In the midst of all this, to see the little sparrows set up their nest and raise their family, and to see the young ones take their first flights - all routine and normal activities, was calming and somehow reassuring. They seemed to offer the hope that all is still right with the world. Indeed, to quote Emily Dickinson, 'Hope is the thing with feathers' and who better than a little bird to reiterate that?

Time to take down the empty nest and clean the porch. I now miss the chirps of the sparrow family and even the mocking bird's songs.

Counting Your Way to Sleep

Most of us have probably had to deal with sleeplessness sometime or other. Advice on how to fall asleep is plentiful and runs a wide gamut of techniques - lower temperature, calming music, exercise, journaling, avoid late dinner, focus on staying awake (yes, I found this nugget on the internet!), etc. It sounds paradoxical that natural functions like sleeping, eating, and even going to the bathroom have now become subjects of How to Guides and serious research. This post, however, is not serious and definitely not an attempt to offer any tips for the sleep-challenged. And if it fails to entertain but makes you yawn, well, that is okay too.

There are apps (of course, there are) on your phone to help you drift off into the dreamless and fitness trackers that tell you if you did and for how long. I wonder if the latter bit helps or makes you more stressed about not getting enough sleep. It also sounds paradoxical to rely on electronics while being told to avoid screen time at bedtime. Apart from that, I think the phone apps still present some problems.

If you are sleeping alone, you can merrily play the calming music (more on that presently) or listen to celebrities read stories to help you fall asleep. Otherwise, you may be disturbing the person lying next to you. As to wearing headphones in bed, do I even need to comment on it? The music itself, I think, is designed to be non-descript so that the tune does not get stuck in your head and become an annoyance. You know how catchy jingles can take over your head. But I find much of the music from the apps sounds somewhat eerie and foreboding, not the best kind to induce sleep. Anyway, my problem is not falling asleep but getting up after a few hours and staying awake. Picking up my phone at that point is the last thing I want. 

The oldest advice for insomnia has got to be 'counting sheep'. This really intrigues me. How on earth did someone come up with such an idea? Why sheep? When such profound questions arise, there is only one thing to do and that is to consult the internet. Yes, the collective wisdom found online may be confusing and contradictory but it is readily available so I 'let my fingers do the searching' to paraphrase an old advertisement. And I was not disappointed.

The idea seems pretty old and goes back more than a thousand years according to this article. Before deciding whether the idea works or not, I had to think about the actual process. One cannot just whip up some sheep to count. One has to expend some energy to imagine the scene. Are the sheep at rest or moving about? If they are all sitting and ruminating, it may be easier to count them but if they are huddled close to one another, it can be hard to distinguish individual sheep with all that fleece covering their bodies. On the other hand, they are freely moving about, it will be difficult to keep track of the count. If you are particular about the accuracy of the count, that will be a problem. Even if you are not, what if you finish counting the lot before you fall asleep?

One of the suggestions (see this 'How to Guide' - there really seems to be nothing you cannot find online) is to imagine them jumping over a fence in an orderly fashion. Just how do you achieve that? What if they jump back? There is also no mention of the noise level but won't the constant bleating of the animals prevent you from falling asleep? The article goes on to list other methods including taking a pill. I am guessing the author spent watching countless (!) sheep before adding that little gem. 

Then there is this sheep counting app (this should come as a surprise to no one) which features two modes of play whatever they may be. I am not even sure if this is a serious app but it proffers this advice: 'Enable the blue screen filter on your phone so you won't get distracted and start counting to fall asleep faster!' I will leave it to the readers to sort out the ambiguous wording. But staring at the small screen with or without a filter sounds like terrible advice to me. 

For the definitive word on the sheep method you have to just watch Mr. Bean demonstrate it. That's absolutely the best way to do it! And if you want to follow him, I am sure you will find pictures of sheep for sale online. May I note that this is also a rare documented case, albeit fictional, of the method actually being effective as a soporific.

I did not quite find out why sheep are selected for this though. I was going to say there is no rhyme or reason but in this case sheep rhymes with sleep, so there you have it. Seriously though, would you ever accept rhyme instead of reason?

Connections

I stared at the mass of cables behind the TV stand. I had just disconnected and taken out the old TV which had stopped working. I had assumed it was a simple matter of swapping out the old for the new and reconnect the various cables back. But obviously it was not going to be that easy. I had had the old TV for more than a dozen years which is a very long time in consumer electronics. Whereas the old one had myriad options including S-video, and VGA to connect to components like amplifiers, DVD players, etc., the new one presented a small sleek set of connectors. 

Manufactures often change the type of connectors forcing us to spend on acquiring new ones with any upgrade. Or they eliminate options to connect accessories again making us buy costly wireless alternatives. These new gadgets are obscenely expensive making me wonder if the whole idea is just to fleece us. You find that the latest model of the phone comes without a charger included. The cable is included, however, it will not work with the old charger (I am looking at you, Apple!).

It is not just in consumer electronics you run into this problem. For example, Apple and Microsoft often do not play together nicely in the conference room. I have sat through many meetings where the room is supposedly wired for all kinds of connections to project content on the screen. But the person presenting uses a Mac and it will not work without a special adaptor - 'Sorry, I forgot to pack the adaptor. Let me just email the file to you and you can project from your PC' (yeah, that's disruptive technology for you!). 

My amplifier is almost vintage by today's standard and I was beginning to fear that I would be unable to connect it to the new TV. I could buy a Bluetooth sound bar for the TV but why should I when I have a perfectly functioning sound system with six speakers? This venerable system is twenty years old and has served me very well over those years. I looked at the back of the TV closely and discovered that it had a digital audio output which was compatible with my sound system. And wonder of wonders, I actually had the requisite connector. Crisis averted, connection made! If the amplifier had a LinkedIn profile, it would have boasted of a new connection. With seven inputs and six speakers connected, it has about as many connections as I have on LinkedIn!

I sometimes feel like the amplifier. The ways of connecting with the world at large are changing constantly. With all the advances in technology, we interact less and less in person with others. We order stuff online and have it delivered at our doorstep. With the pandemic, this has certainly been very useful but I wonder about the larger implication. Will we turn into isolated cells with just the one connection (the internet) to manage all connections? 

A long time ago (but still within my living memory), the milkman would bring his cow to our doorstep and milk the cow while we watched (to ensure there was no adulteration with water!). This invariably led to some pleasant albeit banal banter. The vegetable vendor would bring her heavy basket of produce balanced delicately on her head (she would need help unloading and loading from me or one of my brothers) to our homes. There was an unwritten agreement between the her and my mother - my mother would always buy something so that the vendor would retain an incentive to keep bringing her produce to the house. But in the process, she would usually engage in some haggling over the price adding a little drama to the interaction. 

We have seen an incredible amount of change in our day to day life over the last few decades. Milk can now be ordered in aseptic cartons and delivered at the click of a mouse. Yes, milk now comes from the mouse! Renting video cassettes with expert advice being thrown in by the video library staff is ancient history. We have moved to streaming content online and binge watching. The list of startling changes happening at a frenetic pace is too long to enumerate. Strangely, they seem to have happened almost seamlessly as we have adapted quite remarkably. But through all this, like the old amplifier, I think I have retained the ability to interact with my old connections - the people that I have known through the decades who too have experienced all the changes and who, like me, can still relate to me on the old channels. 

To old connections, may we continue to meet and engage in our banal banters!