Jul 30, 2013

Conserving inherited heritage - an urgent challenge!

Need of a micro conservation policy. 

We let our inherited ancestral heritage decay, gathering dust and slowly fading away in the oblivion, inheritance sometimes tangible like that beautiful gramophone, that antique classic chair, that vintage album of family photograph or that intricately carved wooden window of ancestral home somewhere in suburb, inheritance at times even intangible like values, culture, stories and learning, family heritage dilapidated usually due to ambiguous responsibility among siblings, lack of time, lack of alacrity and most importantly in absence of micro conservation mechanism, because we feel disoriented and helpless in absence of such mechanism, a guideline, a supportive hand saying "let me help you conserve your family heritage because we know how important it is for you, and equally important for our nation, because these little inherited objects, antiques, collectibles, vintage photographs, values, stories, prose, poetry, proverbs, lessons, and so on make the larger heritage pool of historical cultural and social importance. You can call it “crowd sourcing of heritage” which subsequently contributing to nation's image building, while maintaining a stock of inheritance. 

This micro conservation mechanism should be prepared by government because heritage even individually possessed is something of national value and something to be proud of and something which should be preserved and documented immediately for the future generation. These family heritage need not necessarily be kept in museum just because it’s of national significance, we can rather let them be with those families and individuals who inherited them, but we must make an effort to help them conserve it, governments role can be as a facilitator, trainer, protector, documenter, providing manpower and finance to restore protect and document every piece of family heritage without getting into affairs of taxation and legality, with sole focus of preservation and documentation of objects of historical importance whether for individuals or for nation, documenting design, motifs, techniques, skill set, learning, stories etc. which are going to corrode and disappear in thin air otherwise!

Jul 26, 2013

Interdisciplinary Exploration & Randomness - key to the next big wave of knowledge

It's this notion of specialized segmented knowledge which is hindering the next big phenomenon of world knowledge!

You often see people walking with an air of expertise in certain field of knowledge, they are experts of course no doubt, but the moment you talk about some fairly distant subject, they will say oh that's wonderful but you know that’s not my area of expertise or interest. That’s how we are, stubborn, rigid, and insensitive toward new knowledge, that’s how we have been taught, trained to become a doctor or an engineer or scientist or another specialist soul. A much propagated outcome of intellectual segmentation through insensitive education, teaching designed to produce another of many cogs in the wheel i.e. teaching only to the extent which will suffice a day job requirement and a reasonable income. Though they have various subjects incorporated in the curriculum they are still missing a vital point which we are going to see.


They say Look Mr. "A" you are a doctor, you are not supposed to get into social science, Listen Mr. “B” you are an engineer, you are not supposed to trespass into the field of philosophy, Hey Mr. “C” you are not a physicist so mind your own business of architecture and You Ms. “D for dancer” microbiology is not going to fetch you bread and butter so you better concentrate on different dance forms which we have already listed in Wikipedia. That the languages we understand and appreciate today, this vary language which is hindering the next wave of knowledge! A next wave of knowledge is long due for mankind which is something beyond currently much popular data-mining, analytics and big-data.

Let’s see a glimpse of what this next mutation of knowledge might look like, Mr. Doctor “A” getting into social science finding out that size of family has something to do with survival rate of patient. Mr. Engineer “B” has this sudden realization while trespassing into the area of philosophy that people need products which touches their soul and fulfill their spiritual needs not something which just touches heart and fulfills their materialistic hunger, the Architect Mr. “C” delving into physics and mathematics realizes that his flowery concepts of design aesthetics can have more scientific and lucid explanation and meaning through quantum physics and topology.  Ms. Dancer is enlightened to see the colorful oscillating Nano world through the eyes of microscope and now trying to mimic the oscillating dynamism and moves of cells and microbes and so on!

Contemporary education system is missing out this very basic purpose of learning, their focus is to let the kids memorize the books so that they have a basic knowledge of different field, so that he or she can choose one of his or her subject of interest later on and succeed in their life in the chosen direction. But learning process has to be driven by Curiosity and Absorption rather than Memorizing facts.
Teaching everything or not at early stage of life is irrelevant, what is important here is to plant this seed of curiosity in each child so that they keep exploring and dare to go beyond their chosen comfort subject exploring vast possibilities in later part of life when their education is over, learning when they are grown up in the most productive and receptive period of life, when they are capable to explore, absorb and learn at an unprecedented speed. 

Next wave of knowledge is not about eminent scholars, literary figures or authoritative wisdom, new wave is soon to be triggered by the random individuals scattered across the globe, through a random fusion of currently highly segmented streams of knowledge, knowledge which would be driven by those individuals who will dare to explore the knowledge streams beyond their scope of specialization, streams alienated from their own domain of functioning, no matter what. Go seek anything you never cared for, explore anything you never paid attention to, go seek if you will, if your educational background permits you to do that, if you feel it’s important, if you dare to do that!  ROR of "Randomness" with calculated risk is much higher than the "Calculated surety", every daring business knows that, every successful person adores that, same logic applies to the field of knowledge. If you try to connect the dots of your own learning process, it’s not an accident that you somehow catch hold of best of the websites and online resources truly randomly, on a random time of a random day, it’s not a coincidence it’s a "inevitable reward" of "random exploration" - imagine if you are able to control and master this accidental learning process. This is what coming “Next” in knowledge!    


Jul 14, 2013

Some kids don't play Soccer and possibly will never play Golf, why so?



Sometimes one feels that sports is more about opportunities and affordability! 

Usually Kids from humble socioeconomic background seems to be happy and content with their primitive sports, which does not need any sports gear or tool or gadget or training or coach and so on. 
   
 Has it anything to do with the limited opportunities they get and their    sparse economic condition?