Fate , AI, Random Generators

The video below is a randomly generated video through artificial intelligence. Essentially, artificial intelligence used random generators to produce the video. The interesting thing of note is the fact that the video still flows and makes sense even though the separate clips were randomly chosen. Once again, the question comes in : could coincidence have randomly created a perfectly meaningful clip? Or some kind of fate? It's not all necessarily linked, but what are the odds?

It was a pretty navy blue. Shiny and gently bobbing, its
wings had a black and yellow outline. The prettiest combination. It meandered about right in front of me. I followed it enchanted, feeling a sense of déjà vu – I had envisioned this exact scene just a few innocent hours ago in one of the most vivid dreams I had ever experienced. I wondered how that happened. Was it just coincidence? What were the odds of me seeing the butterfly with all its symbolic significance in real life just when I thought of it? Was it a sign, an omen? What? I was confused and didn’t like it. The one day I think of the butterfly, a very specific one too, I see the exact replica of it in life, moving just as I imagined it. In my dream, the butterfly represented free choice and free will. Seeing it in real life however, ironically made me question myself in the opposite direction. Do we really have free choice? Or is everything a premeditated set of coincidences with the illusion of us being in control?

February 2004. I was arguing with my dad about my deviant desire of leaving the country. Born and brought up in India, I had never stepped a foot on anything but Indian soil. While content with this, I cherished an unearthed wish to travel and see the world. I was only twelve, but was capable enough of having a mature discussion with him about visiting the United States – just for a visit. Just for a chance to see something new and different. Ba Da Bing, Ba Da Bang - June 2004 - My dad came home and announced that we were moving to Chicago for a year. A short three months earlier, the very idea of us leaving Bangalore was madness, and now all those obstacles just seemed to have been pushed away (for the time being). All of a sudden, it was alright for my brother and I to suddenly switch educational systems and for us to leave everything we knew (our home, family, and friends) and move to Chicago – even if only for a year. Little did we know it would get extended to three. The funny part? When my dad was given this offer from his company, the only reason he took it seriously was because he knew of my wish to travel. It was an absolute impossibility in February for us to up and leave, and in June my dad somehow found a way. Coincidence?

One day, I was really sick. The doctor suggested having plain yogurt with no sugar. On campus, I had not found this anywhere and was too sick to walk to a grocery store. There was ample sugared, flavored yogurt in the dining hall and the convenience store on campus, but nowhere could I find non sugared yogurt. The non sugared yogurt was supposed to provide immediate
relief. Just that one specific day however, Marillac cafeteria decides to start its granola and yogurt station – and lo and behold – it had plain unsweetened yogurt. Coincidence?

My yoga teacher. Senior year of high school, I spoke to him a lot. That isn’t normal. Unlike here in the United States, students don’t maintain such an informal, friendly attitude with their teachers. In India, teachers were at a different pedestal from students. They were not friends.
They were our aides and counselors but not at the close level of friends. Conversing freely with my yoga teacher about personal and academic life was one hundred percent abnormal. But my life was going helter skelter senior year. On the outside I looked put together. Perfect grades. Smile plastered across my face. On the inside, I was screaming my brains out. And in this state, along came my yoga teacher. Yoga had been started in my school just that year. I don’t even
know how we started to converse with each other or how we transcended the student-teacher divide and became friends. He helped me. He was wise. He pulled me through. He gave me the
courage to smile from the inside again, the way I always had and always would (knock on wood), aside from those four months of high school. When I couldn’t talk to anyone and was barricaded within myself, the most unconventional form of release and help walks my way. Coincidence?

During my three year stay in Chicago(8th-10th grade), I had visited Manhattan briefly for a day. In that one visit, I remember saying to myself, I want to live here by myself. Perhaps for college. Three years later, surprise of surprises, I land up in New York City. Coincidence?

I remember craving samosas (Indian snack) all during the school day one hot summer day in Bangalore. They’re hard to make and are usually bought from stores. I walked through the door of my home after school that day and somehow, my mom had sensed I would want samosas. She had bought some earlier that day and had them waiting for me. Coincidence?

Small things. Big things. Everything. Are all of them coincidences? Are they affected by our actions? Are they premeditated? Or perhaps, are there several courses of action and we end up walking on one through our reactions to the premeditated stimuli around us? ARE we in control? All these above instances are just a few of the myriad that show life to be a little more than just a random happening of events. Everything seems to be connected like a web. Small threads for the little things. Big concrete threads for the bigger things that perhaps form the outlines of our lives. The smaller threads then maybe fill in the intricate details. Does this web have the splash of the navy blue of my butterfly? Everything I have done so far, I believe I have done through conscious choice and decision. But what of all the things that weren’t in my control but worked in my favor? It could be possible that all my choices led me to all the unrelated events. I’m trying to unscramble it out in my mind. Benjamin Button (from the Oscar winning movie) said, “Sometimes we're on a collision course, and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or
by design, there's not a thing we can do about it.” I think all our lives are a collision course. It may look like it’s by accident, or we may figure out the design, but through our own choices and random events, we still wouldn’t be able to change the eventual trajectory we follow. If we do change it, and think it was because of the power we had to change it, it’s possible that this new path is what we were meant to follow all along and were meant to switch to it. Once again, the sense of control dissolves.

But the navy blue butterfly still bobs ahead of me. I had seen it in a dream. Now I see it in reality. Confused? Me too.

Fate? Yes? No? Maybe So?

So I have talked about love and working relationships amongst any two (or more) parties so far. I have also set up a few links on the sidebar for anyone who is interested in exploring more on the topic. There are also numerous self - help books that can help with improving personal life and giving one more confidence in his or her dealings with people. As mentioned in the first post, this blog is also dedicated to exploring the idea of fate. Is everything predetermined? Do we really have free will and free choice? This is one notion that has been toyed with for centuries and that can provide enough fuel for a lot of debate.

I personally believe that we have free will and choice and that we do everything consciously. However, I also feel that the actions that we take were ones we were destined to take. I know, it sounds contradictory. I do not mean to say that if we just sit in one place and claim that things will happen because they were "meant to" they will happen. NO. But what I do believe is that whatever we do do, is because we were "meant to." And if we stray from our original path and believe that we have defied fate, I think fate or destiny meant for us to switch paths anyhow. It is an illusive sense of control. I believe there is a good mix of free will and predetermined fate in our lives. In such technologically and scientifically advanced times, you may ask why I hold such an opinion. That is simply because I have come across too many coincidences and random lucky events to enable me to entertain any other notion. I will elaborate more on this in my next post.

What makes it Work??

So Are Successful Relationships still Possible? Prevalent?

As mentioned in the previous post, empathy and communication are key to a fruitful relationship. Empathy is provided by engaging in gender atypical tasks and communicating with the other person about the ordeals he or she faces. This directly ties into the significance of communication as seen in the song Schism by Tool. For more on this, refer to the previous posts that have been dedicated to the explanation of this song in detail.

Looking at the need for communication and how this works to provide empathy and hence a better relationship (as it leads to mature compromises, better division of labor) through complete understanding of the other person is dire proof that despite the frequency of broken relations in the world today, a successful, satisfying, quality relationship is still very much a reality. People do not believe in fairy tale love stories anymore. However, happy endings are still very much prevalent today if one knows where to look. I can draw on a very convincing example from my personal experiences.

Throughout my life, I have heard of broken relationships, seen friends with divorced parents and broken families. This is in complete contrast with my parents who have always been together and have continually been and are supportive and communicative. I have never seen them fight, but only have solution seeking discussions. It might also be interesting to note that they had an arranged marriage which lends more strength to the notion that communication and empathy are essential to a happy relationship. Ironically, my family has a lot of unequal division of labor but equal perceived division. My parents, to an extent, conform to conventional gender roles, while wildly breaking out of them as well. However, these unbalanced roles on both sides are surpassed by their strong communication, understanding, and empathy for each other so as to provide strength to their relationship rather than weaken it. This, in relation to the findings of the article provides more credibility to the idea that “men and women view marital satisfaction through a gendered lens. They attach different meanings to family labor and achieve marital satisfaction in different ways” (Wilkie et. al 593). Clearly, each of my parents functions differently and contributes in starkly contrasting ways to the family. But together, they achieve the end goal of providing a stable, supportive home for their children and themselves while enjoying an immensely satisfying relationship of long duration. They had numerous struggles themselves but found ways to get past them through communication, empathy, empowerment, and equity.

While all the examples aforementioned are not telling of everybody’s condition in society today, the findings mentioned in the article combined with the message of Schism substantiated by live example points to the haloed fact that working, successful, and satisfying relationships are possible and desired. All one needs is communication, agenda setting capability, sensitivity to the other’s feelings, and understanding to flourish.

Gender Roles in a Relationship

In today’s highly competitive world, everyone has to be on top of his or her game. All of us have to fend for ourselves and symbiotic relationships between individuals are facing trials and tribulations like never before. Within such an environment, the ideology of an egalitarian society with equal opportunities and treatment of all, irrespective of gender, has been pushed forward and to quite a large extent, practiced. However, what are we to do when the notions of equality and fairness are subject to the opinions of the sexes? If the fundamental building blocks of an egalitarian approach are by perception different for individuals, reaching the utopian ideal of an equal society for the sexes is hard to imagine. In conjunction, the trouble couples face in their marital lives when it comes to equal divisions of labor (paid or unpaid) and feelings of appreciation make one’s quest for a gender-friendly, equal society difficult to establish. One way to reconcile the differences between perceptions of fairness among the two genders is by objectively qualifying what each quality (equality, fairness, empathy) means to each sex. In the article Gender and Fairness: Marital Satisfaction in Two-Earner Couples, the authors attempt to qualitatively assess the “the relationship between marital satisfaction and the family division of both paid and domestic work…and whether value preferences for the gender division, the balance of power, and perceptions of equity and empathy” (577) have any effect on how labor is divided in a family circle. In essence, this article gets to the roots of the dynamics of a working relationship, determining the necessity of “perceived fairness” (Wilkie et. al 578) and “perceived empathy” (Wilkie et. al 589) for marital satisfaction while delineating the criteria that defines each for the two sexes. The authors use a combination of gender and equity theory to aid their efforts for their scientific research. The purpose? Namely to create a gendered model or understanding of how these dynamics have an effect on the emotional marital satisfaction of a relationship and improve the quality of married life by being observant to the needs of both partners.

The first baby step for such an undertaking was to decide all the contributing factors that affect fairness, equality, and satisfaction in a marital relationship. The authors believe that “the relationship between the division of paid and domestic labor and marital satisfaction is mediated by role preferences, the balance of agenda-setting power, and perceptions of equity and empathy and that these relationships differ by gender” (583). With all of the research that the authors undertook through a survey of 382 educated, married couples, quite a few conclusions can be drawn. It was found that even if the actual division of labor was unequal, the perceived fairness of it was equal if the spouse received appreciation and credit for his or her work. For example, if the woman received empathy and understanding from the male (by his partaking in just a little bit of the domestic work), she was content even if the actual domestic labor division was unequal. Similarly, it was found that men (after the 1980s) were more content when their wives took on jobs and appreciated the breadwinning role of the male. Interestingly it was found that “both men and women are guided by conventional gender expectations in their judgment of what is fair” (Wilkie et. al 587). In addition, personal preferences were found to be more important than abstract norms in separate relationship structures and “husbands’ priorities more substantially and more significantly influence perceptions of equity and empathy and so indirectly affect marital satisfaction” (Wilkie et. al 592).

From this basic backdrop of findings and conclusions, one can analyze the power dynamic and social setting of relationships between a male and a female. It is to be noted that despite the egalitarian views of society today, men and women are still affected in their thinking by conventional gender roles and this social conditioning has far reaching consequences in all spheres of life. The woman has traditionally held the role of the primary care giver and held a housekeeping label while the male has held the role of breadwinning. While these norms do not hold true today, their subtle influence clearly still pervades through society. This is proven by the fact that even now, there are women who pull a “double day” (Wilkie et. al, 577) with a paid workday and an unpaid housework day later in the evening. This workload is exacerbated when children under the age of six are involved. Invariably, the mother becomes more directly responsible than the father in the caretaking of the children at tender ages. Furthermore, the fact that a husband’s preferences get more factored in to the relationship prove that the conventional norm of having a male dominated relationship indirectly and subtly still holds. While women are more empowered today and speak their minds freely (in the United States at least), according to the research done by the authors, male preferences still tend to control the direction of the relationship, the division of labor, and the abstract norms (ex. conventional gender roles, ideas of what is “woman’s work” or “man’s work”) that are incorporated. In order to balance the scales equally instead of the generous dip towards the side of the males, it is necessary to figure out a way to equally delegate this workload as the equity theory (defines what is fair) would propose. The authors turned to gender theory (analyses the behaviors of the sexes and the meanings attached to them) for this purpose. With the integration of the two, one realizes that empathy is the key to providing perceived fairness.

Schism - Analaysis - Communication's Importance

Ladies and gentlemen, this song speaks for itself. It needs no explanation because it is meant for self reflection and introspection. Just a casual reading of the lyrics is enough tell us that the song is about a relationship. Any relationship. It tries to show that without the right nurturing care, any relationship that worked perfectly (in which the “pieces fit”) can “atrophy” and get bogged down and lost.
The given situation is one of a relationship on the way to getting ruined and destroyed. It’s not there yet, but one of the people in this mess has stepped back and is looking at the whole process objectively, watching the connection fall apart and “tumble down”. He is mechanically imagining the structure he and his beloved formed together, the “temple” they had (symbolic of a temple of love perhaps?) and how machine like, they fell apart when it came to “testing our(their) communication.” It is easy to glean from the musical and lyrical tone that the speaker is not happy about the disintegrating relationship and has identified the source of the problem: ineffective communication. Since the narrator in the song is in the relationship himself, he clearly has more than enough ethos for the audience to believe and understand his point of view and accept his message.



The people to whom this song would appeal to the most (besides Tool fans and metal lovers) are those who would actually engage with the implications behind the words. It is especially important for those people who have had deteriorating relationships with their significant others, brothers, sisters, parents, or anyone in general. While the song specially refers to “lovers” there are live versions of this clip where the word “brothers” is also used (in concert). The singer is talking to himself and his lover but is keeping the discussion open to others (for whatever they choose to learn from example) with an open message at the end of the piece. Furthermore the music accompanying the words can have a balming effect on a troubled mind and can force him or her to look into his/herself and figure out how he/she landed up in this situation.

Tool’s primary purpose with most of their music is to engage and get involved with the audience on a personal level and force them think. Most of their songs have lyrical twists that are not easy to “get” and it’s not the band’s primary concern that people do. They want their listeners to actually get inspired by the music (as they did) and discern meaning and understanding for themselves. Honestly, this song is open to all kinds of interpretation and very often Tool has been frustrated at the audience’s need to define and label the specific meaning of this song. It’s preferable if the listener goes with the flow and where the music takes him or her.
The song has to be understood both lyrically and musically. In the very beginning, before any of the singing starts, and after the first eight introductory guitar notes (more chords really), the guitar riffs are very put together. It sounds like there are two guitars that are playing in perfect harmony like two people who are perfectly content with each other. Soon, we hear some more instruments join in which synergize with the guitars already in motion. That can be likened to the happiness and all the other advantages the people in the relationship (any kind of relationship) get by being together. And then slowly, as the music gets more complex and tricky, the singing starts and one can focus on the lyrics as well. The first line “I know the pieces fit” immediately signifies trust in the fact the relationship does work and has the capacity to work. He saw the pieces “fall away” due to “fundamental differing” , “crippling communication”, “coveting,” and the “desire to blame the other.” But every time he mentions any of these problems he emphasizes how he knows “the pieces fit.” The continuous belief that the pieces fit and the relationship works is important as it signifies that a solution has to be found. In the first two stanzas, he goes over the problems and how the relationship used to be before. They had a “fuel that burned our(their) fire then, has burned a hole between us(them) so”. This could be another problem of having excessive expectations from the other and that excessive passion, expectation, and desire is now backfiring. Along with all these lyrics in the first two stanzas, one has to notice how the music is put together and coherent during the singing of each of the stanzas but then becomes louder and more disorderly. It goes from the happy get together feel of the relationship (when the pieces fit) to the messed up time now when everything is “mildewed and smoldering.”

He reaches the pinnacle of this disorder and broken relationship with the third stanza when he says the “the poetry that comes from squaring off in between and circling is worth it, finding beauty in the dissonance.” I believe this part is trying to say that it is important to work out the differences and from that come to the higher level of a functioning relationship. That’s the way to find “beauty in the dissonance”, by “squaring off” the difficulties and obstacles that we ourselves put up. All of this accompanied by a highly cacophonic yet poetic musical background highlights his point even more and puts it in perspective.
His last two stanzas are then focused on finding a solution and fixing the relationship. A crucial point he makes is that when things don’t work out properly, people tend to second guess and give up on the whole thing. That is why, through the example of his relationship he says “I’ve done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing” and how the fighting and misunderstanding is not worth the loss of something special. He had already said previously that there was “no fault, none to blame.” So in these stanzas he tries to tell his lover that they are “doomed to crumble unless we grow and strengthen our communication.” He is taking that first step to talk it out, grow, and realize that all relationships require care and nurturing.
After this, the music becomes slower, trance like, and hypnotic, with specific bell like beats in the background. It slowly calms the listener from all the preceding tension and the final, most important message is hammered out. In a deliberate, precise, yet poetic and lyrical manner, the singer perfectly enunciates the fact that “cold silence has the tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers.” The strongest line of the whole song, with a lot of logos and pathos to convince the audience to rethink their relationships as well, it is the epiphanical (if a word like that exists) peak of the song.



The last final belief and importance given to the idea “I know the pieces fit” is the firm conviction that it will work. This determination and trust in oneself and the other person is the underlying reason that this song has meaning. It does not let the listener give up. The music is convincing and transcendental, begging for self reflection and thought. And you have to end up agreeing with him by the end of the song, because even you realize that the pieces fit. I know the pieces fit.

Schism

For Lyrics : http://www.lyricsfreak.com/t/tool/schism_20139403.html

Love "Schism"

Quite often, we come across broken relationships, heart - breaks, strained bonds and more. Why? Mostly because of strangled, broken, or no communication and myriad misunderstandings.

Schism by Tool is a song that is very close and important to me. Besides the brilliant trance-like music, the amazing vocals and put together unique sound of the song and band, the lyrics speak to me. The lyrics, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, talk about how relationships (of any kind) suffer when there is a gap in communication between the two parties involved. It also talks of the desire people have to blame and pinpoint mistakes instead of finding a solution. In this song, the singer detaches himself from his messed up relationship for a minute and tries to analyze what went wrong, when, and why. Then he also finds a way to remedy the concerning issues and reiterates his belief and complete conviction that the relationship is possible and workable if they choose to make it work.

The two most striking lines in the song are “I know the pieces fit” (confirming his faith and trust in the relationship as this is repeated over and over) and “cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers.” These lines spoke to me the most as it highlighted that the “strangled” communication is the one of the major reasons in the breakdown of relationships even if the relationship is one very likely to succeed. I could apply this to my personal life due to some trials that I went through (during senior year of high school) with friends and family. Those were troubled times for me, but times of great learning. I gained a lot of self confidence, self esteem, common sense, and a renewed belief in the importance of maintaining the right kind of relationships in one’s life. Those lessons and many more are ones that I learned the hard way. Schism, however, made the journey a lot easier. Music speaks to me like no other medium and this one fit the bill exactly.

Love, Fate, Will, Life

This blog is dedicated to the love that all of us have and share in our lives. Not meaning to sound cheesy or corny or anything, but I am sure all of us have been through trials and triumphs in our lives and it's usually love that helps us endure and survive.
Besides seeing examples of love and family in action bound by trust, this blog will also explore the idea of fate and if it really has a role in determining where our lives take us. The notion of free will is a very strong and powerful concept, but it has been questioned innumerable times. I want to freely discuss this idea as it has befuddled my mind and is fuel for thought.
Lastly, this blog is meant to emphasize the beauty of life and the importance of happiness from the inside. I know this sounds like some self fulfillment, look inwards and reflect kind of deal - but it really is not. I am a person least likely to fall for such hooey, but I do believe there are bigger forces at work around us than ourselves. A little thought, a little slow-down of the pace of our daily lives, and just...living contently is all that is needed.