Its amazing how one’s life can be compared to a wave. I remember this ultimate line from Jurassic Park (the book of course). I like Micheal Crichton a lot. It’s a shame he had to die so soon. The way he writes his books is amazing. Any man with a basic scientific knowledge can understand everything. Not that his concepts are simple but because he explains everything so clearly. Its as if he is writing a manual for a particular process – in this case, the manufacture of Dinosaurs (rather, as it turns out to be, animals like dinosaurs but not actually dinosaurs). Its convincing enough to try it!!!
Anyway coming back to the line I was mentioning. It goes like this – Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm are on their way back to the visitor’s centre after seeing the Stego and unveiling the fundamental flaw of the park – the animals breeding and Raptors being lose. Just before they find out how the animals were getting off the island (I don’t wanna spoil the fun for you guys)), Malcolm and Alan talk like this : (Read it carefully and with heart)
Driving back in the fading light, Malcolm seemed oddly subdued. Grant said, "You must feel vindicated. About your theory."
"As a matter of fact, I'm feeling a bit of dread. I suspect we are at a very dangerous point."
"Why?"
"Intuition."
"Do mathematicians believe in intuition?"
"Absolutely. Very important, intuition. Actually, I was thinking of fractals," Malcolm said.
"You know about fractals?"
Grant shook his head. "Not really, no."
"Fractals are a kind of geometry, associated with a man named Mandelbrot. Unlike ordinary Euclidean geometry that everybody learns in school-squares and cubes and spheres-fractal geometry appears to describe real objects in the natural world. Mountains and clouds are fractal shapes. So fractals are probably related to reality. Somehow.”
"Well, Mandelbrot found a remarkable thing with his geometric tools. He found that things looked almost identical at different scales."
"At different scales?" Grant said.
"For example," Malcolm said, "a big mountain, seen from far away, has a certain rugged
mountain shape. If you get closer, and examine a small peak of the big mountain, it will have the same mountain shape. In fact, you can go all the way down the scale to a tiny speck of rock, seen under a microscope-it will have the same basic fractal shape as the big mountain."
"I don't really see why this is worrying you," Grant said. He yawned. He smelled the sulfur fumes of the volcanic steam. They were coming now to the section of road that ran near the coastline, overlooking the beach and the ocean.
"It's a way of looking at things," Malcolm said. "Mandelbrot found a sameness from the
smallest to the largest. And this sameness of scale also occurs for events."
"Events?"
"Consider cotton prices," Malcolm said. "There are good records of cotton prices going back
more than a hundred years. When you study fluctuations in cotton prices, you find that the graph of price fluctuations in the course of a day looks basically like the graph for a week, which looks basically like the graph for a year, or for ten years. And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there. . . . And at the end of your life, your whole existence has that same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day."
"I guess it's one way to look at things," Grant said.
"No," Malcolm said. "It's the only way to look at things. At least, the only way that is true to reality. You see, the fractal idea of sameness carries within it an aspect of recursion, a kind of doubling back on itself, which means that events are unpredictable. That they can change suddenly, and without warning."
"Okay . . ."
"But we have soothed ourselves into imagining sudden change as something that happens
outside the normal order of things. An accident, like a car crash. Or beyond our control, like a fatal illness. We do not conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as built into the very fabric of existence. Yet it is. And chaos theory teaches us," Malcolm said, "that straight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way." Malcolm sat back in his seat, looking toward the other Land Cruiser, a few yards ahead. "That's a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But, for some reason, we insist on behaving as if it were not true."
Actually every word spoken by Malcolm in the book is a masterpiece. But there’s no point in me putting it all here. If you had read the above conversation closely, you would understand why I kind of remembered that line when I said that life is amazingly comparable to a wave. Actually, come to think of it, life can only be compared to a wave – cause nothing else can incorporate the beautiful and terrible dynamics of this ever changing variable called life in a more apt manner. (lets argue on this!!!) [ kuncham ekkuvaindemo!!! ;) ]
I mean every part of anyone’s life can be compared to a wave. You have ups and downs, you have turbulence and unexpected weather – tsunamis, cyclones, everything – its just how you define the events that fall into each category. But at the end of the day, every event will fall into one category or another. I am too young to take this concept further, but I am sure one day some yogi on some dais will use this metaphor and he may even go on to say that death is when the wave breaks down completely on the shore and to take it to even a more extreme comparison – the waves being pushed back again and again as afterlife and stuff…but that’s not my point.
My point is that you could apply this fractal philosophy to all events and occurrences in your wave (i.e., life) and you will see that it remarkably fits into it. Life is basically the same wave again and again. Starting from a highly successful person to an utter failure in life, his wave will have the same basic shape at different scales. Amazing!!! (P.S: Thanks ra Aslesh!!! You gave me a wonderful habit)
But the most beautiful part is that these waves of our lives are controllable. At the end of the day, its how you control and learn from them that differentiates you from the rest.
A person who failed in life will have the same failed shape wave throughout his life; A person who is successful will have the same successful wave shape; a haphazard person will have the same shape every day. It’s the same no matter what example you take. We take things lite and say one bad day doesn’t change everything, but if you are having bad days on a trot (bad meaning unsatisfactory) then its time to reboot your system, sit back and think of where you are heading – cause fractals speak of whats gonna come. If you let these unsatisfactory days to happen again and again, you will never be able to stop them and one fine day when you are 70 years old and sitting on a cool evening in your verandah thinking of your life – you’ll find that you are not satisfied with your life – and you are responsible for it as you let your average day take that unsatisfactory shape. Because your entire life has the same fractal shape as a single day in your life – that’s what mathematics teaches us.
So keep fractals in your mind – don’t let the waves control you but go on and control the waves to get satisfaction – cause once you lose control over the shape of a single unit (unit changes depending on the scale in question) – be it a day, a year, so on ; you’ve lost it.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which side you wanna be on, on that cool evening in question…..
And more importantly, as one uglyduckling Deepak quoted recently – “its not knowing and planning that matter – its implementation”…..
Anyway coming back to the line I was mentioning. It goes like this – Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm are on their way back to the visitor’s centre after seeing the Stego and unveiling the fundamental flaw of the park – the animals breeding and Raptors being lose. Just before they find out how the animals were getting off the island (I don’t wanna spoil the fun for you guys)), Malcolm and Alan talk like this : (Read it carefully and with heart)
Driving back in the fading light, Malcolm seemed oddly subdued. Grant said, "You must feel vindicated. About your theory."
"As a matter of fact, I'm feeling a bit of dread. I suspect we are at a very dangerous point."
"Why?"
"Intuition."
"Do mathematicians believe in intuition?"
"Absolutely. Very important, intuition. Actually, I was thinking of fractals," Malcolm said.
"You know about fractals?"
Grant shook his head. "Not really, no."
"Fractals are a kind of geometry, associated with a man named Mandelbrot. Unlike ordinary Euclidean geometry that everybody learns in school-squares and cubes and spheres-fractal geometry appears to describe real objects in the natural world. Mountains and clouds are fractal shapes. So fractals are probably related to reality. Somehow.”
"Well, Mandelbrot found a remarkable thing with his geometric tools. He found that things looked almost identical at different scales."
"At different scales?" Grant said.
"For example," Malcolm said, "a big mountain, seen from far away, has a certain rugged
mountain shape. If you get closer, and examine a small peak of the big mountain, it will have the same mountain shape. In fact, you can go all the way down the scale to a tiny speck of rock, seen under a microscope-it will have the same basic fractal shape as the big mountain."
"I don't really see why this is worrying you," Grant said. He yawned. He smelled the sulfur fumes of the volcanic steam. They were coming now to the section of road that ran near the coastline, overlooking the beach and the ocean.
"It's a way of looking at things," Malcolm said. "Mandelbrot found a sameness from the
smallest to the largest. And this sameness of scale also occurs for events."
"Events?"
"Consider cotton prices," Malcolm said. "There are good records of cotton prices going back
more than a hundred years. When you study fluctuations in cotton prices, you find that the graph of price fluctuations in the course of a day looks basically like the graph for a week, which looks basically like the graph for a year, or for ten years. And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there. . . . And at the end of your life, your whole existence has that same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day."
"I guess it's one way to look at things," Grant said.
"No," Malcolm said. "It's the only way to look at things. At least, the only way that is true to reality. You see, the fractal idea of sameness carries within it an aspect of recursion, a kind of doubling back on itself, which means that events are unpredictable. That they can change suddenly, and without warning."
"Okay . . ."
"But we have soothed ourselves into imagining sudden change as something that happens
outside the normal order of things. An accident, like a car crash. Or beyond our control, like a fatal illness. We do not conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as built into the very fabric of existence. Yet it is. And chaos theory teaches us," Malcolm said, "that straight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way." Malcolm sat back in his seat, looking toward the other Land Cruiser, a few yards ahead. "That's a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But, for some reason, we insist on behaving as if it were not true."
Actually every word spoken by Malcolm in the book is a masterpiece. But there’s no point in me putting it all here. If you had read the above conversation closely, you would understand why I kind of remembered that line when I said that life is amazingly comparable to a wave. Actually, come to think of it, life can only be compared to a wave – cause nothing else can incorporate the beautiful and terrible dynamics of this ever changing variable called life in a more apt manner. (lets argue on this!!!) [ kuncham ekkuvaindemo!!! ;) ]
I mean every part of anyone’s life can be compared to a wave. You have ups and downs, you have turbulence and unexpected weather – tsunamis, cyclones, everything – its just how you define the events that fall into each category. But at the end of the day, every event will fall into one category or another. I am too young to take this concept further, but I am sure one day some yogi on some dais will use this metaphor and he may even go on to say that death is when the wave breaks down completely on the shore and to take it to even a more extreme comparison – the waves being pushed back again and again as afterlife and stuff…but that’s not my point.
My point is that you could apply this fractal philosophy to all events and occurrences in your wave (i.e., life) and you will see that it remarkably fits into it. Life is basically the same wave again and again. Starting from a highly successful person to an utter failure in life, his wave will have the same basic shape at different scales. Amazing!!! (P.S: Thanks ra Aslesh!!! You gave me a wonderful habit)
But the most beautiful part is that these waves of our lives are controllable. At the end of the day, its how you control and learn from them that differentiates you from the rest.
A person who failed in life will have the same failed shape wave throughout his life; A person who is successful will have the same successful wave shape; a haphazard person will have the same shape every day. It’s the same no matter what example you take. We take things lite and say one bad day doesn’t change everything, but if you are having bad days on a trot (bad meaning unsatisfactory) then its time to reboot your system, sit back and think of where you are heading – cause fractals speak of whats gonna come. If you let these unsatisfactory days to happen again and again, you will never be able to stop them and one fine day when you are 70 years old and sitting on a cool evening in your verandah thinking of your life – you’ll find that you are not satisfied with your life – and you are responsible for it as you let your average day take that unsatisfactory shape. Because your entire life has the same fractal shape as a single day in your life – that’s what mathematics teaches us.
So keep fractals in your mind – don’t let the waves control you but go on and control the waves to get satisfaction – cause once you lose control over the shape of a single unit (unit changes depending on the scale in question) – be it a day, a year, so on ; you’ve lost it.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which side you wanna be on, on that cool evening in question…..
And more importantly, as one uglyduckling Deepak quoted recently – “its not knowing and planning that matter – its implementation”…..
