The Inherent Irony of Everything

“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”

"What an irony!", we often say when the apparent happening is somewhat opposite to the expected situation. There is a complexity of emotions, a contradiction of expected results when this thought strikes our mind. Sometimes hilarious but often heart breaking; ironies surround us everywhere, what is required - an observant eye to perceive it. 

People who are extremely cautious and re-check their steps frequently are always bed-ridden, usually end up forgetting something. While there are those who take the leap of faith, decide once, look around and jump off the cliff, bothering least about the consequences. Such kind of people often achieve what they desire without a scratch, while the onlookers stare with their jaws dropped, amazed on the irony of the situation and cursing their cowardice. 

One of the most fascinating form of irony is our own self. We are "something" inside, with our fears, desires, regrets, insecurities, expectations, guilts and incompetencies. But what we project to the outside world? We project what we "wish" to be. We even guide people around us to handle situations we ourselves could never face if subjected to. For example, people who could not get through the IIT-JEE exam after all their attempts, guarantee your kid's admission in the top college regardless of the kid's own caliber or interest. 

In literature or even while talking generally, irony is used to add fun to the conversation or explain something which is contrary to general expectation. It is fun to humor your friends by hurling random ironic statements like "The most silent place to study at my university is the cafeteria and not the library or the study room?" Being a part of speech used on a regular basis, ironies are familiar to many of us. Of course, we never look into whether the usage is correct or not. Found a website http://www.isitironic.com/ where we can actually check whether our usage of irony is correct or not. This website is entertaining and enlightening at the same time. Readers will cast their own vote – you can see the percentages of the votes – and the website will provide the final yes or no verdict.

Some of the best entries from this website are mentioned:

• Is it ironic that the creative process (for writing) actually kills my creativity?...

83% ironic 17% not ironic

• The most silent place to study at my university is the cafeteria and not the library or the study room?...

75% ironic 25% not ironic

• My school email system marks as spam, email that is sent from the school itself?...

89% ironic 11% not ironic  

• After Christmas a person who hates Christmas time says "Thank God" when it is over....

75% ironic 25% not ironic

• Having noted that most people do not understand the meaning of irony, we now have a crowd-sourced website that uses majority rule voting to decide what is and is not ironic....

83% ironic 17% not ironic

• The bank charges you extra money for not having enough money in your account?...

86% ironic 14% not ironic  

• I posted a generalized statement on Facebook about being disappointed in people's behavior and the person I am aiming it at unknowingly likes my post?...

83% ironic 17% not ironic

• I said "I made a typo" and then misspelled typo?

86% ironic 14% not ironic  

• I took the advice from the Charlie Chaplin song, "smile", with the lyric: "smile even though your heart is breaking"...  which I did at a funeral. I was kicked out the funeral because people thought I was happy the deceased was dead. And because of the lyric: "smile through your fear", I smiled at a scary man who was growling at me and he punched me because he thought I was disrespecting him....

90% ironic 10% not ironic 

• Benedict Cumberbatch, who narrated a documentary where he mispronounced the word "penguins" numerous times, starred in the "Madagascar" spin-off film "Penguins" of Madagascar!!...

78% ironic 22% not ironic

So, irony comes from contradiction between the apparent and traditional. I am an engineering graduate in electronics and communication branch, currently working in a software company, writing a general humor blog with a defective mobile phone. 

(Those who think it is ironic, please explain those who didn't get it) :P 

Image Source : www.boredpanda.com

11 Rules for Critical Thinking

Reflective and independent thinking can be tough these days. With media and internet becoming the source of mostly biased and opinion-based information, one has to isolate his mind for some time to introspect and understand his own opinion about things. Social media on one side is the fastest means to spread a news but it also often propagates highly judgmental views. So, how to discover our own thoughts, not the ones derived from the pre-existing and spoon-fed opinions around us. 

It takes a critical approach to be original and not a mere paraphrased version of the peripheral world. Thinking "out-of-the-box" requires challenging the consensus, not taking the usual route but trying less-popular approaches. I have observed that since childhood, my critical thinking ability has reduced. May be it happens with everyone, you start accepting the general flow and start flowing in the same direction. I was very critical of the world around me. After watching "Terminator", for some time I was sure that everyone around me was a robot and Skynet knew everything about me. All the people I knew were either the ones protecting me or the those who came to destroy the only left human on the planet. Among the destroyers were my school teachers and siblings. Well, this was obviously an exaggerated critical approach to human existence but yes, children have that ability to deny what everyone believes or asks them to believe. They just reject you boldly.

While reading around, I came across "Prospero's Precepts"- 11 rules for critical thinking. These rules are contributions from great minds from history. They have immense depth, and they can serve as guidelines for thinking differently in any matters of doubt. 

1.  All beliefs in whatever realm are theories at some level. 

(Stephen Schneider)

2.  Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. 

(Dandemis)

3.  Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. 

(Francis Bacon)

4.  Never fall in love with your hypothesis. 

(Peter Medawar)

5.  It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts. 

(Arthur Conan Doyle)

6.  A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong. 

(Francis Crick)

7.  The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that is most interesting. 

(Richard Feynman)

8.  To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. 

(Charles Darwin)

9.  It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. 

(Mark Twain)

10.  Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. 

(Thomas Jefferson)

11. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident. 

(Arthur Schopenhauer)

Source               : http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/04/01/aka-shakespeare/

Image Source : http://www.copyblogger.com/critical-thinking/

Mean Memes !!

Memes have been flooding over facebook, twitter and almost everywhere else these days. I didn't know how to pronounce it correctly even after using it several times. For those who still don't know, it's not "meh-meh" but "mi-m" or "meem". 

Google says meme is "an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations." Wikipedia rather gives a complicated theory behind its origin and usage. Who cares where and how they originated but they sure are entertaining. I came across some of the meanest and bang-on memes. They have a message from the society and to the society, with the perfect balance between humor and irony.

Some of the best I found... Enjoy :) 

• This is a fact. Not a single bunk is 100% successful. There is always a "Chatur" in every class.

• Brain vs beat, fight unresolved. Brain is the practical one while sentiments matter more to the heart. Althought a research says that the heart has it's own brain (http://in5d.com/the-heart-has-its-own-brain-and-consciousness/). May be that's why I listen to my heart mostly. 

• The Creator of this planet was clever enough to add ingredients like "light skinned people", "medium skinned people", "dark-skinned people", birds, insects, reptiles, tress etc. "Jerks" were added for fun I guess.

• I believe him!

• This one is just very funny, not sure what it implies though.

• Don't know who was more stupid, the human or the alien.

• It's designed for humans. If I consider vice-versa is true, there are many aliens living among us. The company claims that the phone is inspired by nature and is designed for human emotions. #IdontBelieveIt

• This one is really ironic and shows how virtual kindness is nothing as compared to real help and sympathy. 

• "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the wickedest of men will do the wickedest of things for the greatest good of every one." - John Maynard Keynes

• No offenses meant to iPhone users. But isn't that true? 

• Women!! :D

Source: Quora

Prologue - Who am I ?

Hola !

Greetings to fellow earthly people and to the aliens who just came to earth for free wifi.

This is an introduction to my blog "My Onion Soul". Well, who am I and why this blog? 

I am a keen observer. 

I see people striving hard to find ideal jobs, good life and meet others' expectations. All that is obligatory in today's world, to do what is expected of you for your own better future. But in that struggle to achieve our goals, we forget who we really are and what we really like to do. I believe in preserving our real self. Sustaining our childhood hobbies helps us rejuvenate our self and fills us with new energy to achieve what we strive for. 

I have tried to keep my hobbies alive; they make me feel stress free and useful. Writing blog is the recent addition to my list of hobbies. This blog is my amateur attempt to the field of writing excluding the essay competitions at school and my small personal diary. My posts might not have any morals to teach you but they would take your mind off from worldly heebie-jeebies. Not being a professional writer, I expect the readers to be encouraging and not strictly judgmental. There is no particular genre of my blog. All thoughts expressed here are inspired from real life thoughts and incidents from my life. I am open to reviews and suggestions from fellow bloggers and readers.

Happy Blogging! :)

I'll be back!! (#Arnold voice)

GIF source.

Disclaimer:

This blog is meant for recreational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely intentional and no apologies should be expected. The ideas expressed in the blog strictly belong to the author and must not be taken seriously. Any images used in the posts were searched on Google and belong to their corresponding owners and not the author. If any ideas appear to resemble yours, then the author should be considered as a mind reader and nothing else. If the reader feels insulted or irritated while or after reading the content of this blog, he/she is free to leave the page after sharing it on social websites. If condition persists, consult your physician. This blog is subject to change without notice. No animals or humans were harmed in the process of writing this blog. This blog is suitable for people with high IQ levels and also engineers. All posts of this blog belong to the author and if any part of the text is copied by anyone without prior notice and payment, the person will be punished by God in due time. Charitable investment in the form of cash, cheque or food is humbly accepted. Investments are subject to market risks. Please read the offer document after investing. Investors can drop a mail regarding the payment and in return get a free trip to Mars (*Conditions Applied) 

Procrastination- An extract from the life of a B.Tech student

I was waiting for the weekend to write another post. Not that I was busy, I just could not start working, stuck in the "making-up my mind" phase. Procrastination doesn't spare anyone. Following is a short expression (it's quite long actually) of how a typical engineering student prepares for a test in college. 

I have a test tomorrow, need to score good in this one because others didn't go well. There is a full day and full night to go so I am relaxed. I plan out my schedule, decide to start preparing from today evening after having sufficient sleep to pull an all-nighter. But no, I have to go to the market to buy some stuff I have been postponing and better to do that today because I have to "study" later. I go to the market, and I find some really cool stuff too which wasn't there earlier so I have to buy that (Obviously!). I come back by 5 pm. I should have started preparing by now but I can't because I had to sleep to be awake at night. So I sincerely set an alarm to wake up after exactly 2 hours of sleep. After having a a very good nap I wake up hungry, but how can I be hungry? Because it's dinner time already. May be my alarm tone was so charming that it sent me into an "inception dream" (there is no such thing, don't Google it!). #MovieReference

Dinner lasts for another hour, find some friends on my way back from hostel mess to my room, had to ask their preparation status. They say they haven't started, I know they are lying. Yeah, I have a lie detector fixed in my head; I borrowed it from Nick Fury. So I am a little tensed now, just a little. But I am confident enough; it's just a small test. 

What do I need now? I start looking for notes to study from. I had them yesterday but can't find them now. Oh! I had lent it to a friend for photostat, I didn't get it back. I sprint to her room, ask for my notes. She is a fellow procrastinator; she is watching Friends (the tv series) to freshen up "before" starting to study. We discuss the episode and some other local gossips and another hour passes. I get the notes but I need coffee for maximum concentration. Got coffee now, all is set, I settle down and seriously go through the index, mark the pages to study and happily cross the ones not to be covered. Suddenly my phone beeps, some discussion has started on the group chat regarding the syllabus. They say another chapter is also included in tomorrow's test syllabus. Little more stressed I skip the introductory part of the chapter, let's start with the important topic. I go through the text, didn't get it, read it again. Nah! Still nothing. I need to google it, I am lost in phone now and have to check facebook occasionally because my friends are commenting on my profile photo so I have the moral obligation to reply them. 

So, this topic seems tough, it has a derivation which has five sections. Doesn't seem important. I skip the topic for morning. This continues for few hours. It's quite late now but I haven't done much. Feeling tired, I decide to take a short nap because I care about my health so much (only when it's not required). I'll get up in half hour and finish everything. To my disappointment I wake up half + three hours later. Sun is out already, my heart skips a beat. The test is in about two hours. Feeling horrified, I call a friend and get a list of expected questions and FAQs. I have no time now, but I can see the topics mentioned in these questions. Ultimately I haven't even covered half of the syllabus. I reach college and try to grab the seat closer to the geeks so that I can peek in their sheets. 

Finally, I write the test, trying to extract the most of my poor photographic memory. Hoping for the examiner to be either lazy or too happy so that he just misses the fact that none of the answers make any sense, here I am, proud of my "hard work".

Everyone’s story might differ from this but more or less it will be the same. Temptations and distractions overpower our minds very easily. Beating procrastination would require strong commitment and today with so many distractions around it's tough for students to be consistent with hard work. And why should we be, when last day studying gets us good marks. Thanks to our awesome education system where "if you cram, you top the exam". Procrastination has been a by-product of such system. Obviously, why to cram every day when it can be done on the last day. 

Being the Jack of all Trades

We have heard the saying "jack of all trades, master of none". There are different perceptions of this saying. If the term "master" is considered as the label for expertise and excellence then "jack" would be mediocre or person who spreads himself thin over a broader skill set.

In the modern world, it is he who specializes who survives and thrives. I believe it's after all the society which demands specialization or needs us to gain 'expertise' in particular field and remain alien to other things. Yes, you might have a natural inclination to some skill and you might have achieved certain level of mastery in it, but this doesn't mean you shouldn't be open to new fields and experiences.

I personally wish to be the person who can be asked to fix any kind of problem. I like to be creative in my interests and try to involve myself in fields which are far apart. Obviously no one can be Leonardo da Vinci now whose wiki page describes him as a "polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer."

Being fearless in our choices and interests finally defines who we are. There is no point knowing every particular detail about a field and still digging deeper rather than taking a walk around the neighboring field. It's refreshing to dive into something new. I like to read about politics, arts, sports, geography, history; I sketch or paint often; I like to play hard; I can speak to a crowd; I am curious about things which do not necessarily have link to my field of study or profession. Now, this might make you think I have short attention span and you might be right. #Bummer 

But there are scientific studies that show that when you try different things out for periods of time and you gain proficiency in different creative fields, those things build upon each other. It helps you approach problems with more creativity and more ingenuity. Having experienced that often myself, there are some negative perceptions too of being "jack". Doing a bunch of things together will lead to very slow rate of proficiency gain in those fields. But choosing one path and pursuing it wholeheartedly will make you the "master" of it in lesser time.

It sure is a debatable topic. Being a master is great because they are more popular, paid more than the "jacks", they have more influence and hence more followers. But if you are a "jack" you have insight to many areas, you can be a sort of 'Swiss knife' which can perform different tasks. Of course, there will be times when a "jack" might fail due to lack of expertise but then comes his ability to befriend a "master" of that field and get the work done finally. 

I might sound biased towards the "jack team" (myself being a part of it), but I find the "masters" boring. I don't want to be a Nobel Prize winner in certain field of science at the age of 50 and not know how to play basketball or paint or even talk to people.

Why be so simple? Be too complex to be categorized or labeled.
Look far and wide.  There are worlds to conquer!!

Sarcasm? ..Why not !!

I consider sarcasm as one of best ways to express irony, an art of expressing the situation in an amusing manner. Yes! It might hurt the audience sometimes but if the speaker worries about people getting hurt, sarcasm loses its soul i.e. "audacity". It cannot be described as strictly hurtful or aggressive humor. It is a form of expression that prevents you from lying, gives you courage to say what is right but in a comic manner.  I am a firm believer in sarcasm. I use it as a tool to initiate conversations and sometimes to dodge them too. It helps me speak my mind. 

Sarcasm is often called the lowest form of wit or humor. But it's so much more fun in saying the opposite of what is happening at the time. If my friend is lurking around doing nothing, I would prefer saying "Dude, you look really busy!" rather than saying "You are so idle". 

 

It's not always possible that the person at the receiving end of sarcasm is also witty enough or in a mood to take it. He might turn out to be Sheldon Cooper. It might cause problem sometimes. Once my friend was upset due to low score in an exam, and I greeted her as "Awesome, I am impressed. How did you manage?" She did hit me with the thickest book she had, but later we had a good laugh.

What I mean to convey here is, we can't speak truth all the time. Sometimes we can just satirize the situation. If someone shoots sarcasm at you, reply back with sarcasm 2.0. Believe me it's harmless if you have right crazy bunch of people around you. Getting punched on the nose once in a while is fine by me. Yesterday I was in an elevator with another girl; she pressed the button for 4th floor and looked too anxious to reach there. She re-pressed the button for about 4 times till the lift was about 1st floor and that was the point I couldn't control the urge to speak. "Yeah, I think now it should accelerate." I often do it, shoot sarcasm on people before thinking whether they will catch it and laugh or just punch me back. But thankfully she laughed and also didn't press the button again. 

Well, I am no Chandler Bing, he is the ultimate God of sarcasm. But yes, I often use sarcasm as a shield from those annoying people who can't bear blunt truth and also don't usually understand sarcasm. This is how I choose to be. I can avoid getting too serious about things by being sarcastic and so can you. 

We always need a defense mechanism against the dull world out there. So, let's be witty and take those punches head-on !!