For readers, who don't know what epsilon is, here is a brief background from wikipedia.
Epsilon (uppercase Ε, lowercase ε; Greek: Έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 5. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He . Letters that arose from Epsilon include the Roman E and Cyrillic Ye.
Here is the most important use of ε to remember. This notation from mathematics forms the basis for our postulate
In mathematics (particularly calculus), an arbitrarily (or nearly so) small positive quantity is commonly denoted ε;
Postulate.
If X is the amount of love you are going to have after marriage then affair before marriage is like an ε. Affair adds an ε amount of extra love in your life. In some cases people have tendency to add multiple epsilons in their life.
There are two obvious but completely different corollaries proposed by different set of people on this postulate.
corollary: 1
In India, Its not worth to waste your time on ε unless its not free because by construction of the society in India, everyone is guaranteed to have X unlike some countries where ε is a must to achieve X.
corollary: 2
Even though ε is negligible in comparison to X but ε has some distinguished properties which makes it desirable to posses at least 1*ε for whatever cost it demands. This distinguished property is difficult to explain in words.
These two contradictory corollaries from the same postulate makes this theory controversial and its still matter of much study and research amongst social scientists. Up to the writing of this post validity of none of the corollaries has been proved and none have been contradicted with certainty.
The theory presented here will form the basis of many upcoming posts like marriage, love marriage, arrange marriage, premarital affairs, post marital affairs etc. these posts will assume validity of any one of the corollaries depending upon the state of mind and experience gained at the time of writing post.
Note: Both the corollaries and postulate are open for further refinement.
Also many people tend to assume both the corollaries as independent lemmas depending upon the experience they have.
The amount of confusion and broad nature of these corollaries makes this theory very popular research topic specially for younger people.
Big vs Small
Big Corporation vs a Startup (Perspective of a very young employee)
Just passed out of college I joined the biggest Technology company in the world(IBM) and worked there for one year. I was doing pretty well there, Everyone was saying that my career is going in right direction. Yes, I also feel I was doing good. In short period of time one patent approved for filing, four more disclosure filing. My manager was also happy with me and my American aka felt I was good. I don't know how many employees get a chance to hear from there manager that he was being asked by Tech lead ( My tech lead was a big shot in IBM) and US manager to make sure that this guy (me :) doesn't feel unhappy.But i am sure the number is not too big. Then suddenly I changed my mind and joined a startup. The change was justified only in my mind.everyone else barring one or two was thinking that it was foolish and suicidal. Most people warned me before I took final decision. they tried to convince me by all their arguments that taking such a huge risk at this early stage of career is not wise.
I talked to one person, and without asking for her permission that if she was willing to consult me or not, asked her to tell me what to do. Thankfully she told me what I wanted to hear and I was convinced that I am doing good :)My thinking was that this change was aligning with my long and short term Goals. Short term goal was to earn more money.At new place I was going to get 100% salary hike on increased salary after appraisal at older place. At the the top of it there is a chance to make money later by stock options. This was impressive from any point of view. This turned out to be better after I got my first salary at new place. I am feeling more independent, My wardrobe has more number of clothes and I have more number of gadgets. :)
Only the time will tell, whether my decision was foolish or not. If it turns out to be foolish, I may suffer and struggle but definitely won't regret. I did whatever I wanted to do.That's reason enough to keep me satisfied. I respect the good intentions of the people who warned me well in advance, but without being disrespectful I will say, they were confusing and not helpful.Sometimes lessons can be learnt only hard way and its best not to confuse more to a person who is already confused and adamant to do whatever he wants to do. Remember, he is asking you the question in the hope that you will highlight something good about his decision. He is not saying you to tell the reasons so that he can change his mind.
Yes there are difference between working in a large and a small company and its very close to be described as cultural change but definitely not as cultural shock. There are some obvious differences.In a startup you interact with fewer number of people, you work in a smaller office, Processes are less organized and in many cases they may not be in place. Believe me these things doesn't make a large difference in your life and they should not be a factor in deciding whether to work for a large company or startup.
The good thing about the startup is that you know everybody and almost everything about the company. You can talk to CEO and vice president. Your ideas are more visible and you have better say in changing something if you want to. Learning curve becomes steeper and you work hard to make things working. You become less dependent upon support system as its absent in many cases. You learn by experimenting, reading and doing things at faster rate. You
get lesser number of chances to fail and this makes you more accurate.
In a big company, environment is more formal, everyone has their well defined role and its very difficult to get to know about other things.People in startups are generally more enthusiastic about the technology and market. everyone thinks and discusses about everything. Even if you are a developer,you get a chance to be in customer meetings. You can see why deals happens and why it breaks.These advantages of a startup is helpful with my long term goal of becoming an Entrepreneur.
The one factor which favors working in a Big company is job security and its definitely is a very big factor while going for Big Vs small. Analyze your risk taking appetite and if you can afford small then only go for it otherwise its better to change your mind.
One more big disadvantage working for a startup is that there are very less number of girls :( and unless you are very lucky you may not find a single suitable gal to accomplish your future plans :) I was not very lucky in IBM also and IBM was almost as bad as this new place so it doesn't make any difference in my life.
Overall change is good for me and I hope, situation will be better in future.
Thank you consultant for free consultancy :) I needed someone to support my decision and you did that well. Also I am thankful to one of my friends who tried his best to get me out of IBM. Rock on !
Confusion !
I made a conscious effort to make this post as short as possible. I haven't included citations, quotes from some personalities who, according to my perception are intelligent. If this post looks long to you then I am sorry and go away. I cant make it shorter than this. This post is for my personal reference only and does not talk about anything interesting. If you don't have extra time to waste then please leave this page immediately for your own welfare.
So here it goes, whenever I try to analyze myself and the system in which I am living, I get confused, I feel like,what the hell is happening with me, what kind of person I am. What type of society I am living in. I don't have a clear cut idea of almost anything. I am confused, and here is the gist for few of my confusions.
confusion#1 "God, religion and all"
I don't know whether I am an atheist, theist or Agnostic, but it seems my thoughts puts me closest to a definition of agnostic. Religion is something which I think a lot about and at the end of day I become more confused. Why do people believe in God? My perception is that because people don't want to take a chance, they want to be on safer side, if by chance GOD exists then he may punish him/her for denying the existence of almighty. Nobody wants to take risk by
annoying omnipotent, almighty God. But you said he is always helpful, always does good. He is interested in welfare of humanity, life and nature in any form. Oh cm on! even if GOD exists, then by your own definition, he is not going to punish you, so be bold and don't follow something just for the heck that everybody else is saying its there, if you have sufficient proof to believe, then alright, best of luck, don't bother me. I will find myself as you found it and don't force your experiences on me. I don't see any reason to believe that you are more capable than me in finding out this truth.Yes, because the background is different. The background is the only thing that can express itself. What else is there? My expression of it is the background: how I struggled, my path, the path I followed, how I rejected the paths of others -- up to that point I can say what I did or what I did not do -- so, that did not help me in any way. one of the most popular reasons why people believe in GOD is because they are damn sure that they have got many favors from GOD which reinforces there belief that God exists. Absurd, totally absurd, do you know,if some event has probability 0 of its occurrence then it doesn't mean it may never occur, it can, but I am sure it also doesn't infer that GOD exist.It looks I have more inclination towards not believing in GOD but I don't have enough reasons and proof for it. To be on safer side (its natural human tendency) I currently pretend myself to be an Agnostic, If God exists then, Oh almighty! please ignore my ignorance, I never said you don't exist, and if God doesn't exist then its cool I dint do anything to satisfy God, my precious time was not wasted in doing it.Voila!! I am confused but on safer side. Maximizing gains is aim of all the businesses we do and I am simply doing that.
confusion#2 "How to behave or live in society"
Broadly speaking there are three school of thoughts on "how to behave or live in society". First one says, do whatever your heart says, never think about right or wrong, self love is the only love. you got it! I am talking about objectivism, the philosophy made popular by Ayn Rand. I have two doubts abouts this philosophy, first of all it is impractical and difficult to practice unless you are a sage and living in Himalayas. If one claims to be normal person, living in a social system and also claims that he follows objectivism then at best he may be called a hypocrite, and according to me, he is making a wasteful, infertile attempt to gain liberation by fooling himself. Also one of the downsides of objectivism is that it will make society too boring and mechanical. That's not how we want world to be. Imagine a situation in which everybody loves himself and do whatever he wants. Is this interesting to you? Not to me. How boring !
The basic principle of objectivism lies in objective reality. generally objectivists don't believe in God or supernatural. they authorize themselves the prophet of reason, truth and reality. Alright. that sounds cool and I will make you happy by saying that you belong to a cult and I will also accept that it endorses my current state of confusion and satisfies me by saying that you are not thinking something too odd. Then the question comes, why don't I label myself as a objectivist? here is the answer from the church of reality.
"Unfortunately however, much of objective philosophy extends beyond the concept of objective reality (feature creep), and under the banner of Objectivism Ayn Rand extols the virtues of being selfish, greedy, and all but worships capitalism. At the same time, Altruism is described as "evil", as culture Objectivists look down their noses at generosity, giving, sharing, selflessness, and community concepts. Objectivists claim to be rugged individualists and advocates of
individual freedom. I also support individuality and individual freedoms, however I don't see community as the opposite of individuality. Objectivists are not entirely monolithic in their beliefs. One Objectivist named David Kelly wrote an article titled Generosity and Self-Interest where he acknowledges that "dichotomy between self-interest and generosity is a false one." However, Objectivism has been called an Unlikely cult because the Ayn Rand
followers have adopted her personality quirks which includes extreme arrogance. I would hope that we learn from this".
second school of thought says, "think good, be good, do good". I don't have enough time to think what is good so please go to hell or heaven but don't trouble me or yourself by telling what is good.
There is third school of thought which says live life as it is, don't think too much about it, enjoy every moment of it. what a crap! I am a thinking human being and God(if it does exist!) has given me some brain so please don't tell me that I can follow this path. Its out of scene.I may be insane but I claim to have my mind. I don't endorse objectivism, totally disapprove "think good, do good, be good" policy and I am not lame enough to accept "don't think" attitude. It looks like I am ineligible to join any of the schools, I am confused, what will happen to my career without a degree :(
Confusion#3 "Capitalism vs Socialism"
Although in its pure form, both capitalism and socialism endorses philanthropy and altruism and both are based on the basic principle to make a happy social system. No matter how much one blames other but in my opinion both of them are good in their ideal form. But in practicality there are large differences between the two.Practical capitalism does good job when there is good regulatory mechanism to check its misuse by certain individuals or organisation with vested interest and exploiting the herd mentality.But its too big an assumptions and I don't think currently we have enough capability to device such mechanism. So called "Land of opportunity" I am not happy to see you as a model of capitalist state, you are the biggest exploiter of the world and its resources. Also you are the most selfish and destructive model one can think of. Stop being snob and looking down at other less privileged one. Unfortunately everyone sees you a model to emulate which is not so good. you are presenting a bad example to follow.
I have no doubt in my mind that Socialism as a concept looks attractive but I have a firm belief that in its pure form its not implementable and its implementable version is too far from the concept that it becomes more exploiting and bad than capitalism. None of the concept is capable of making a happy social system. Its better to find a balance between the both. I don't see this happening anywhere in the world so I am confused that if someone wants to make the world happier place! Everyone has their rigid thoughts and they are following the books which they liked most, even if the principles in that book is not helpful or capable of achieving something good. Thank you! Marx, Engels. I am convinced that your ideas were good but I am also convinced that they are of no practical use.
This is the topic which can be really long so I am ending it here without raising too many questions about both the systems.
lets have fun and enjoy confusion !
So here it goes, whenever I try to analyze myself and the system in which I am living, I get confused, I feel like,what the hell is happening with me, what kind of person I am. What type of society I am living in. I don't have a clear cut idea of almost anything. I am confused, and here is the gist for few of my confusions.
confusion#1 "God, religion and all"
I don't know whether I am an atheist, theist or Agnostic, but it seems my thoughts puts me closest to a definition of agnostic. Religion is something which I think a lot about and at the end of day I become more confused. Why do people believe in God? My perception is that because people don't want to take a chance, they want to be on safer side, if by chance GOD exists then he may punish him/her for denying the existence of almighty. Nobody wants to take risk by
annoying omnipotent, almighty God. But you said he is always helpful, always does good. He is interested in welfare of humanity, life and nature in any form. Oh cm on! even if GOD exists, then by your own definition, he is not going to punish you, so be bold and don't follow something just for the heck that everybody else is saying its there, if you have sufficient proof to believe, then alright, best of luck, don't bother me. I will find myself as you found it and don't force your experiences on me. I don't see any reason to believe that you are more capable than me in finding out this truth.Yes, because the background is different. The background is the only thing that can express itself. What else is there? My expression of it is the background: how I struggled, my path, the path I followed, how I rejected the paths of others -- up to that point I can say what I did or what I did not do -- so, that did not help me in any way. one of the most popular reasons why people believe in GOD is because they are damn sure that they have got many favors from GOD which reinforces there belief that God exists. Absurd, totally absurd, do you know,if some event has probability 0 of its occurrence then it doesn't mean it may never occur, it can, but I am sure it also doesn't infer that GOD exist.It looks I have more inclination towards not believing in GOD but I don't have enough reasons and proof for it. To be on safer side (its natural human tendency) I currently pretend myself to be an Agnostic, If God exists then, Oh almighty! please ignore my ignorance, I never said you don't exist, and if God doesn't exist then its cool I dint do anything to satisfy God, my precious time was not wasted in doing it.Voila!! I am confused but on safer side. Maximizing gains is aim of all the businesses we do and I am simply doing that.
confusion#2 "How to behave or live in society"
Broadly speaking there are three school of thoughts on "how to behave or live in society". First one says, do whatever your heart says, never think about right or wrong, self love is the only love. you got it! I am talking about objectivism, the philosophy made popular by Ayn Rand. I have two doubts abouts this philosophy, first of all it is impractical and difficult to practice unless you are a sage and living in Himalayas. If one claims to be normal person, living in a social system and also claims that he follows objectivism then at best he may be called a hypocrite, and according to me, he is making a wasteful, infertile attempt to gain liberation by fooling himself. Also one of the downsides of objectivism is that it will make society too boring and mechanical. That's not how we want world to be. Imagine a situation in which everybody loves himself and do whatever he wants. Is this interesting to you? Not to me. How boring !
The basic principle of objectivism lies in objective reality. generally objectivists don't believe in God or supernatural. they authorize themselves the prophet of reason, truth and reality. Alright. that sounds cool and I will make you happy by saying that you belong to a cult and I will also accept that it endorses my current state of confusion and satisfies me by saying that you are not thinking something too odd. Then the question comes, why don't I label myself as a objectivist? here is the answer from the church of reality.
"Unfortunately however, much of objective philosophy extends beyond the concept of objective reality (feature creep), and under the banner of Objectivism Ayn Rand extols the virtues of being selfish, greedy, and all but worships capitalism. At the same time, Altruism is described as "evil", as culture Objectivists look down their noses at generosity, giving, sharing, selflessness, and community concepts. Objectivists claim to be rugged individualists and advocates of
individual freedom. I also support individuality and individual freedoms, however I don't see community as the opposite of individuality. Objectivists are not entirely monolithic in their beliefs. One Objectivist named David Kelly wrote an article titled Generosity and Self-Interest where he acknowledges that "dichotomy between self-interest and generosity is a false one." However, Objectivism has been called an Unlikely cult because the Ayn Rand
followers have adopted her personality quirks which includes extreme arrogance. I would hope that we learn from this".
second school of thought says, "think good, be good, do good". I don't have enough time to think what is good so please go to hell or heaven but don't trouble me or yourself by telling what is good.
There is third school of thought which says live life as it is, don't think too much about it, enjoy every moment of it. what a crap! I am a thinking human being and God(if it does exist!) has given me some brain so please don't tell me that I can follow this path. Its out of scene.I may be insane but I claim to have my mind. I don't endorse objectivism, totally disapprove "think good, do good, be good" policy and I am not lame enough to accept "don't think" attitude. It looks like I am ineligible to join any of the schools, I am confused, what will happen to my career without a degree :(
Confusion#3 "Capitalism vs Socialism"
Although in its pure form, both capitalism and socialism endorses philanthropy and altruism and both are based on the basic principle to make a happy social system. No matter how much one blames other but in my opinion both of them are good in their ideal form. But in practicality there are large differences between the two.Practical capitalism does good job when there is good regulatory mechanism to check its misuse by certain individuals or organisation with vested interest and exploiting the herd mentality.But its too big an assumptions and I don't think currently we have enough capability to device such mechanism. So called "Land of opportunity" I am not happy to see you as a model of capitalist state, you are the biggest exploiter of the world and its resources. Also you are the most selfish and destructive model one can think of. Stop being snob and looking down at other less privileged one. Unfortunately everyone sees you a model to emulate which is not so good. you are presenting a bad example to follow.
I have no doubt in my mind that Socialism as a concept looks attractive but I have a firm belief that in its pure form its not implementable and its implementable version is too far from the concept that it becomes more exploiting and bad than capitalism. None of the concept is capable of making a happy social system. Its better to find a balance between the both. I don't see this happening anywhere in the world so I am confused that if someone wants to make the world happier place! Everyone has their rigid thoughts and they are following the books which they liked most, even if the principles in that book is not helpful or capable of achieving something good. Thank you! Marx, Engels. I am convinced that your ideas were good but I am also convinced that they are of no practical use.
This is the topic which can be really long so I am ending it here without raising too many questions about both the systems.
lets have fun and enjoy confusion !
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