Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Or is it just me??

I am making an assumption that at least a few of the people seeing this blog know about Orkut. There is another assumption here that there are actually people seeing this but thats not for now. And no, I am not asking about Orkut to start a marketing campaign for them (though I might seriously consider it if the right people ask me to, with the right kind of inducements!! Sergey and Larry, you listening??). I'm asking because those familiar with Orkut would know that, there's this "Today's Fortune" entry displayed on every person's personal homepage which carries a different "Fortune" prediction everyday. I don't know how something like 'You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems' is supposed to be a fortune, but then may be they follow a definition of fortune that I'm not aware of. Anyway, this profound piece of profundity came up on my homepage a few days back - "Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought". Sounds very profound, doesn't it? So, knowing that it would disappear after a day, I copy/pasted it onto a scrap pad and have been looking at it almost everyday, trying to figure out how I could use this profundity to simplify my character.

I think, sometimes too much. And I completely relate with one Monsieur Rene Descartes who is supposed to have said (or written) "Cogito, ergo sum" which is supposedly Latin for "I think, therefore I am". But what would it take, to make any of my thoughts profound? The meanings, of the word 'profound', that I have come across could broadly be grouped in 2 ways which have only added to my confusion. 1. Profound - Adj - having deep insight or understanding. 2. Profound - Adj - low. Given these two meanings, how am I to figure out what a profound thought should be. Should it be a 'low' thought?? Or should it be a thought which would give me a deep insight into whatever it is that I am thinking about? If the 'low thought' interpretation is correct, then obvoiusly there is not going to be any resulting simplicity in my character. Rather my character would also become 'low'!! But then if the 'deep insight' interpretation is correct, how would knowing more about something simplify my character? It would actually give me more options than I know what to do with and thereby just increase the complexity of the whole thing. So seeing how both my interpretations don't seem to be giving me a reason to believe the profundity, the only thing I can say is that its wrong! Or is it just me??

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