The Band’s Visit

Sometimes, We take life for granted. The house, the water, the sun, the air, the food, the …

A music band comprised of Egyptian police people visits Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center. No one comes to pick them up at the airport. They are lost in the country. They are not able to understand what people speak and vice versa.

They end up in a place called Bet Hatikva instead of Petah Tikva. They meet a lady Dina, a restaurant owner and spend their night, with the band split in Dina’s house and one of the worker’s house.

There is so much to tell about the movie but very little words. It was one of the few good movies that makes you laugh and feel for the character. It is a small film but wise in its understated depiction of humanity’s common bonds, slow-paced but held together with a sensitive charm. In a moving sequence, band member Simon plays a lovely but unfinished composition for the clarinet for Itzik who tells him that he should end the piece, not with a traditional showy display but with what is there for him at the moment, “not sad, not happy, a small room, a lamp, a bed, a child sleeping, and tons of loneliness.”

How much they speak about life, children, loneliness and how we look at life.There is so much happening around us that we fail to notice. We are busy chasing the unknown carrot without even looking around us.

I am reminded of a story. A friend of a king visits the king. The king is busy so he asks the friend to help himself to a self-guided tour of the palace. But, he gives a cup of oil. This friend returns after going to every nook and corner of the house. When the king asks how the palace looks, this friend answers that he didn’t get chance to see the palace because he had all attention fixed on the cup of oil. The king asked if he asked him not to spill the oil. King asked the friend to tour once again only this time, the friend did not have to look after the oil.

I don’t remember the context of the story but, above is the crux. Oil is your goal/ambition/transient aim and the palace is your life.

This movie urges me to go to a unknown place. There is so much meaning in being a human being. It makes so much sense to look at someone’s eyes and empathize.

Take my word. We are gifted to feel, to think, to understand. It is so much fun to talk, to see and to hear. Just look around you and feel the life. It feels great to look out at the sky and feel the cold air. It is so good to belong here. It is so good to feel the life, the place, the conscience.

This movie didn’t ask these questions but it, sure, pushed me into a state, that my mind started asking questions. I wish you watch it some day.

And, this one life is such a gift that you might have wanted to spend it usefully… purposefully… thoughtfully. Will you do what you are doing if this were your last day? Are your eyes fixed at the oil ?

Comment.

Something I think I shouldn’t be discussing

It is Marriage. I read this post and it only made me more confident of my thoughts about marriage.

“Studies show that “love”, regardless of how everlasting it may feel in the beginning stages of a relationship, usually doesn’t sustain itself in the long-term. The “honeymoon period” that invites many of us to think about “forever” lasts… at the very most… two years. And then we settle down into a rhythm that is better described as “comfort” or “companionship”.”

I, for the record, don’t believe in marriage. This one sure is a tonic. Marriage is fake. I don’t think two totally independent souls can tie a knot. Never.

Can’t a person live normally in this world? Or am I totally wrong?

This post has kindled the fire in me against the three evils of the world. The evils of human kind. The evils that are tying us down.

They are God, Money, Marriage . (in that order).

Update:

I found lots of charming comments. I am presenting a few.

”

I agree, marriage should be eradicated. It is an antiquated institution imposed by religion in order to force women and men into “traditional” roles and to impose religious moral values. It’s a bunch of crap, in my opinion.But still, I’m married. I’m not religious, and my husband is an atheist. We don’t like kids and don’t want any. We have very independent careers and spend most of our time in separate locations, maintaining two homes. You’ve probably already guessed that there was no name-changing involved, and the bride did not wear white. So why did we get married?

The problem is that we had no alternative. In America, we don’t have the ability to declare any other type of social partnership that would allow us to identify one another as related in all the ways that are legally important. Were we in France, we wouldn’t have to be married… we could have a simple civil union.

One of the points I recall is that countries that offer legal partnerships have stronger marriage statistics… which doesn’t exactly support the eradication of marriage, but at least it gives the rest of us another opinion.”

————-

Yeah, let’s get rid of marriage just because members of our society lack the moral courage and responsibility to live up to their promises. Yep, just because 99.99% of all divorces are caused by marriage, we should just toss the whole concept of out the window. (Yes we can play with statistics to make a case for any point.) Sorry, as long as the few of us who still believe in “till death do us part” are still alive, so will be marriage.

————–

Interesting in theory. Stupid in practice.If you only know two happily married couples, you either hang with a very weird subset of humanity, or have a ridiculous definition of happiness.

Economists who’ve tried to calculate the effect different factors have on people’s happiness (look for Andrew Oswald among others) estimate that being married on the average increases people’s happiness to the same extent as an extra £60,000 of income pa. About $120,000 US, at current exchange rates.

And no, that doesn’t mean married people float around in a state of perpetual bliss. Any more than people who earn a $100,000 a year more than you float around in a perpetual state of bliss. But they are somewhat happier on the average than if they didn’t have that.

——————

My theory: a key reason why people marry instead of writing a will is that a wedding is a party and doesn’t remind them of death.

——————-

As someone approaching his 30th wedding anniversary let me say I support marriage. No, it isn’t perfect, but nothing we humans do ever is. Rather, it is an ideal we should attempt to strive to achieve. If we fail, and end a divorcee, then at least we tried.
Why should we strive? Because we need something between society and the individual. This has always been the family, and a contractual foundation to the family is the best way to achieve this.
Why do we need something between society and the individual? Because they are two extremes and conflict constantly. We need a form of middleground in the family to take the edge off the two states of existence.

——————

Sorry. This post really grew too much.

Indexed and Perplexed

Certain blogs makes you think about something you don’t know.

Certain blogs makes you wonder about something you know.

And, certain blogs makes you sigh / laugh-at / blunt-talk about something you lived with your whole life.Those facts will make you smile and think.

This is one that belongs to third kind. Few samples. Plenty unexplored.

Please paste links of interesting ones in the comment section.

And few more links . There are hundreds at the blog.

Outsourcing Personal Assistants

Outsourcing personal assistants is taking the concept bit too far. Imagine I ask my assistant to research for an article, ask him to book tickets for me, send flowers for my mom’s birthday… it is left to imagination. With online transaction becoming common, I think there are no limits.

Read this article published on September 9, 2005.

I really couldn’t believe this.

Why Does Popcorn Cost So Much at the Movies and Why You can’t Predict Happiness?

Have you ever wondered why the price of Popcorn is so high in movie halls?

Believe me (or the article), that a lot depends on the psychology of the moviegoer.  It discusses the long fought debate of whether to price the primary product (movie) high and concessional product (popcorn) or vice versa. My opinion is to price primary product low and accessories high. This way you can get lot of people buy your product and there is more chance you might sell more accessories.

“The argument that pricing secondary goods higher than primary goods can benefit consumers has been circulating for decades, but until now, no one has looked at hard data to see whether it’s true or not”

Also, a major chunk of the revenue from the movie goes to the distributor but, from popcorn, the theatertakes the whole money.

This is an interesting article on the psychology of moviegoers and the price of the popcorn, soda, etc (concession products) .

Another study which blew me off was about we predicting our future happiness. Simply put, you are about to make decision whether to go to a movie or watch cricket match. You make decisions based on past experiences and future predictions. But, according to this study, Harvard psychologists made experiments and came to the conclusion that you can’t decide between movie and cricket match. Both are different experiences.

“… bolsters the theory that our inability to predict enjoyment of our future experiences keeps us from accurately predicting what will make us happiest in the future overall.”

“Consider the choice to marry one sweetheart over another.Envisioning what life would have been like with an alternate spouse becomes difficult and increasingly irrelevant as you settle into the life you’ve selected. “Once you make a choice in life, the unchosen alternatives evaporate,” he says.But what if the person you didn’t marry moved in next door? Suddenly your attention isn’t completely collapsed on your own marriage, and every day you can witness the alternative life you overlooked.”

Nice experiment and must read results. The conclusion is “”When looking into the future, never trust your gut. That doesn’t mean it’s always wrong, you should just never trust it. It never hurts to stop and ask.””

Psychology always fascinates me. And, cute little experiments they conduct on people is simply mind-blowing.

Feeding the Oscar Fever

Which movie is going to win the Oscars this year?

The nominated movies are No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton and There will be blood. Except “There will..”, I have seen other movies.  “No country..” is a plain winner. Clean, tight screenplay, excellent performance by Javier Bardem and background score makes the movie an outstanding one.

Juno might get the screenplay award. You got to watch the movie to feel it. It is such a bold and light movie that deals with heavy subject. And, the soundtack. It is mind blowing.

Atonement might, well, receive the Cinematography award. The lighting is too good to miss and couple of world war scenes were beautifully filmed .

Micahel Clayton too is a contender for screen play but I find it not worth a nomination. It is not a bad movie but it is not too enough for Oscars. I am having my fingers crossed waiting for the result.

Click frauds…

I am not against Click-thro-ads but I don’t think it can sustain the internet cogwheels. Here is why:

1, There is no relevence in placing ads where people are not expecting ads. It makes sense to place ads in search results page where I want to find something. But, when I visit social networking site, I am not looking for information, rather, I am looking to make friends or learn something new. The chance that I will click on an ad is less.

2, Click fraud has become very common. It is too tempting. A click there, a click here, a click then, a click now will add few more cents. In few cases, it is as high as few hundred dollars. (Don’t click on any of the sponsored links. They are all legal advisers and would set them back by few hundred dollars 🙂 ) So, the easiest way to make money is look for which adword is costly and then start writing about that topic and do “click fraud”.

3, I find some content extremely useful, some free software making me productive but there is no way to say my “Thank You” to the website owner. I click on the ads. Simple, huh? I think this will be the most important reason for the fall of contextual ads. Fraudulent clicks can be prevented by monitoring the clicks but “Thank You” clicks are impossible to prevent. Because, they are impossible to track and pin down.

4, The mere ubiquitous presence of TextAds, Banner Ads, etc is making people Ad-blind. I don’t remember when I clicked on a ad. Put aside clicking, I don’t remember seeing an ad.

5,  What if someone writes a browser that automagically doesn’t display ads? Firefox extentions do that but for lesser mortals, if Maxthon or IE come up with such browser the model is dead, forever.

And, according to MediaPost, the percentage of ad clicks that are fraudulent is rising every year:

The overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 16.6% in fourth-quarter [2007], up from the 14.2% click fraud rate for the same quarter in 2006 and 16.2% for third-quarter 2007.

The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.3% in fourth-quarter 2007 — up from the 19.2% average click fraud rate for the same quarter in 2006 and 28.1% for third-quarter 2007.

Now, there talks of ISP (Internet Service Provider) injecting ads into the pages you browse. This is the next logical step, since your ISP knows every site you browse and every click you do and every purchase you make. He has your brain mapped.

Apart from this, mobile advertising is said to be taking off. Gosh! I really wouldn’t want my personal device to buzz because of an ad SMS/MMS and with my small screen, I don’t want to see TextAds also in my mobile and I willing to pay my calls/smses, which I am already doing.

Researches say that people are not willing to look at ads even if they are paid. But, they are willing to pay to avoid ads. So, what is the solution? That is a multi-billion dollar question. If you know the answer, please share it with us.

Time or Money, which is more valuable?

It might sound crazy and it is indeed crazy. You fly paying high to save time. You save time to make more money. Money is the most overvalued commodity in this world and time is the most undervalued.

Read the story of Sandra Boynton who is juggling her time between four businesses. Music, Art, Literature, etc.

It really makes me jealous of her. I really wish that I could change my profession every two years. My ambition in life is the same. In the next 40 years,  I should have worked in 20 domains. Is it possible? Comment.

You mean, Free Shipping?

A paper published by Wharton marketing professor David Bell details the online consumers’ psychology when it comes to shipping charges. He says that online retailers use it as a promotional tool. “a free shipping offer that saves a customer $6.99 is more appealing to many than a discount that cuts the purchase price by $10”, clearly explains the psychology.

He gives advise about the pricing strategy when it comes to offering free shipping if the purchase hits a threshold.

“A firm with already low prices, relative to the model, should drop prices further when lowering the threshold. A failure to do so would give consumers a benefit at the firm’s expense, Bell said, because consumers would hit the free shipping threshold more often. Conversely, a firm with high prices should increase them further when lowering the free shipping threshold, since the company is likely to be paying shipping costs more often. “In the latter case, people pay more for the products, but they will more often get free shipping. In the other case, they will pay less for the products, but more for shipping,” Bell says. “So, the total cost of products and shipping cost will net out to be the same in both cases…Ultimately, the rational consumer is indifferent.” ”

Clever paper and now, in 2008, such a research will be more accurate because more sample is available.

I am interested in psychology very much. If you have a  any links, please do give by commenting.

IPL- Indian(?) Premier League.

Every newspaper and news site is shouting about the IPL drama of auctioning of cricket players.Unlike most other people I  hear and see, I am not unhappy about the money that players make or the board makes. I am unhappy about the way teams were formed. I am listing my thought about the outcome of this IPL saga.

First, Why didn’t they name the teams as red, blue, yellow or atleast Zeus, Apollo, etc. or mango, banana, apple? Why did they name the teams based on city? I find it odd that even a government based (I don’t know if it is truly a government organization) sports board wants to cash on the communal feeling . They could named the teams just like English PL, like ManchesterU, etc.

Second, I can clearly see a flop in this scheme. Will a boy from Jarkhand support Dhoni or Mohali team (am guessing here)? There is a moral dilemma about the support he extends. I guess he will support his team than region player. This will make a small or may be a big difference.

Third, Indian society is a cynical society.Indians prefer someone’s loss to self profit.With this much money involving, a fan might think why the heck should he support and allow them to make money. Also, he might think that at the end of the day it is his money, through advertising, is going to the players and team owners. He, just, might not encourage this indirect loot.

Fourth,clearly BCCI is minting money here. Being a capitalist myself, I am not bothered about this fact. But, since BCCI is representing India for cricket, I expect them to spend this money in activities that creates more “stars”. Possibly, it might make more money for them. It can be seen as investment rather than expenditure.

Fifth, they just let the cat among the rats. There is going to be mayhem. They aped ICL’s idea but what if ICC think that they too want to join the party. Come on, there are millions waiting to be made (outta fans’ pocket). It might be interesting to watch, if ICC allows non-country based teams. Just like IPL teams, ICC can also recognise private teams. And, if it creates Sachins or Pontings, then all hell will break lose.

Sixth, there is going to be overdose. Everyday some match might be played and fans might lose track of matches and who plays for whom info. It will become a overdose. Are we ready for cricket overdose? Guess not.

Seventh, players might fall sick too often and only play T20 tournaments, sort of. And, we can’t rule out early retirement. This might make the professional lifetime very small and might just improve the quality of the game.

Happy cricket-watching.