Perspective of self

Perspective of self

I read Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It gave me a perspective of self. The story revolves around the hero Roark and the other external factors which influence him.I believe the author intended to share her thoughts about self and its importance. She chose the channel of story telling to communicate her thoughts. Philosophical articles may not reach people like me.

As i understood the whole story is about self. The hero who is almost the idealistic representation of author's thoughts, believes only in self. He believes in a purpose of his existence. Roark believes in self. He does not care the influence of the rest of the world on him eve though he could recognize their existence .

The common man looks at himself from other's(a thrid person's) perspective and tries to be good to them in all or at least maximum possible means. When he tries to 'be good' to others he may not have the conscious of himself. He may not be sure that the 'being good to others' is really 'being good to him' or not. Roark is surprised at him. He asks a very simple question 'how could you allow others to decide what you supposed to do'. He is not influenced by anyone. He exists as him and he never recognizes the others view of him.

Life seems to be fairly simple for him. He knows what he want and most importantly what he doesn't want. He does what he wants to do. It is not quite possible all the time. Then, he tries to exist by doing something which is not in his 'dont-want-to-do' list. This existences seems to be pathetic in other's perspective. As usual he never cares.

I was impressed by this way of living. This is not primitive. He does differ from other animals by knowing his purpose of existence. When he comes to know about his purpose is totally a different topic to discuss. He finds his purpose due course of living. Unlike animals, his purpose is not mere existence, its more than that. He does not look like having a destiny, a single ultimate target to achieve. Instead he has something which is on going , which is giving him pleasure all the time, which keeps him satisfied all the time, which he achieves in every moment of his life. He has targets. He has challenges. He works sincerely to achieve his targets. He expects no one's appreciation for his sincerity. For him it's not sincerity, it's his purpose. He sees no one between he and his purpose. He admires his achieved targets. He failed to achieve targets; sometimes due to interference of the external factors. He takes it easy; though he is not happy, he is content.

I am impressed by the way of living portrayed by Ayn Rand. Some times the way of story telling carries away the reader and makes me to believe that the author's views are the only truth. I felt that it is a kind of hypnotism. I am trying my best to get out of it to see the reality. I am not quite sure her philosophy is meaningful.

I have just read 'Just a couple of days' by Tony Vigorito.It gives a different perspective of self. The hero of the story Blib says 'self can be seen only by other's perspective'; which seems to be sensible to me. It leads me to think in different direction. I will be thinking abut it for some time.

Migrating to the world of 3 Dimensions

It was a casual Sunday afternoon until we started this topic. I was just browsing through TV channels and Mahesh and Natraj just watching it without much interest. Suddenly the power was cut. We sighed and with out knowing what to do next we were just talking something and somehow we got into the topic.

We were watching some foot ball match just before the power cut. I started the conversation by saying "After 15 or 20 years we may not need to sit in front of the TV to watch these matches; probably there would be some other technology that might enable us to watch this game from anywhere. Just like a wristwatch there would be a personal device which may enable us to visualize the match in 3 dimensions. Instead of a flat CRT or LCD screen, the device may look more like a helmet or spectacles. Instead of seeing the single angle shown in today’s telecast, we would be able to choose from where (which camera) we want to see the match. We may visualize the game better by being virtually inside the ground. "

Natraj said " Yup. I think Virtual Reality could be the enabling technology".

Mahesh asked " If Virtual Reality is going to be the enabling technology, why isn't it successful today?. " He also added "We had a Non graphical Charactor oriented operating system environment then we moved to GUI environment with the help of MAC and Windows like Operating systems. But what is blocking us to migrate to 3D world and beyond?".

I was listening to this and my thoughts were racing somewhere. I am a dreamer. I think of most of the things that can easily be certified as impractical by the others. Most of the time, they are correct. But it has never stopped me from dreaming. I assume all these are my visions :)

I just repeated my views. "Who knows… In 2020 things may be different. We may not be sitting in front of the flat screen to see the foot ball match. There could be some technology gives you the choice of selecting your own view point from any corner of a ground. You may run along with the player in 3 dimensional environments to closely follow the game. There won't be a flat screen anymore. There could be something like spectacles which replaces your conventional monitors or flat screens. Instead of a flat wall paper you may be able to set your 3 dimensional environments. No more keyboards and mouse. There could be some other devices that interpret your actions as inputs. What else! Hum..... Virtual class rooms, Fitness Programs, fat burning 3D games. .and.."

Mahesh stopped me "Stop this... and talk about something logical and practical.. We are not talking about what can be done with Virtual reality.. But we are talking about something which can bring the next evolution".

I thought for a moment and he was right i was rat holing. I realized and said "Could user friendliness or pleasing work environment be the key value to drive this evolution".

Natraj seconded me saying "Yeah.. In early college days when we used to work in monochrome monitors and when we got the Windows system it was exciting to work in the colorful environment. This kind of exciting user interface itself could be a driving force."

Mahesh insisted his point. “See.. User-friendliness by itself can not be the driving force. Earlier we were using “Pine” to check our mails. It is quite good and solves its purpose of communicating. Though we have a fancy GUI based email clients today the core purpose is communicating the information. There is nothing new in these new email clients. Only claim is its more users friendly. I can not completely agree on this; I still find ‘pine’ is friendlier than often-crashing resource-intensive so called ‘user friendly’ applications. In my view a technological innovation like “email” can make the difference and migrate us from here to 3D world”

I replied “Assume a practical scenario. A Civil engineer wants to share his building plan. Using conventional ‘Pine like application’ in the text based CUI environment he can communicate the model by describing the dimensions. It will take quiet some time for receiver to interpret and visualize. The GUI based tools have the capability of attaching the building plan and elevation as image; so it takes comparatively less time. Assume, if we have an application that builds the 3D model and allows the engineer to send it as an attachment in a mail, it is far better isn’t it. I agree that all these are not related to email but all are related to communication. 3D allows better communication, that it may be the selling point in Construction, healthcare, automobile and other industries.”

Mahesh still felt some key thing is missing.

What do you think ? What is the key enabling thing that drives us to 3D environment.

Welcome to RealMask

Hi there,

Welcome to my blog. I would appriciate if you could share your comments on the topics.

Why did i choose this name "RealMask" :) ? If you could think of something. Do share it here.

Catch you soon,
SuKa