Musings of a White Haired Teenager

How Much Do You Need It: It is no surprise what a person needs and what a person gets are completely different things. This is why everyone learns to do expectation management. And also learn to grin and accept it when expectations are not met. One is also reminded that some expectations are not correct - sometimes those become entitlements and people seem to take the expectations as granted and consider them to be the norm. A bondhu recently said about life - "reprioritize and move on." Indeed that often is the way things work, jobs change, places change and if one expected to live the rest of their lives in a certain way, all of a sudden something would happen, and all the "needs" need to be rethought. Global moments from the Second World War to the recent earthquake in Turkey constantly remind us that what we need from the World, we will not only not get, but we will be reminded, sometimes even rudely, that what we thought we needed, we should not have needed at

That is awesomely shocking: Today, my dear bondhu and respected colleague visited my class. An internationally renowned researcher, winner of many awards, Professor Michael Hyde, wanted to collect data from my students. Data on the notion of "awe." I have spent many a spirited hour with Michael learning from him about the notion of "awe." Yet, every time I listen to him, I am inspired, and thus again I pondered. We have all had the moments of awe, but as I break it down I am tempted to ask, what are the sources of awe? For instance, some would claim that one is awed by a place. But, I wonder. When I have walked through the edifices of Manhattan, or taken a train through the rice fields of Bengal, or recently viewed the sunset on the Pacific - right off Highway 1 that runs from Los Angeles to San Francisco - I was impressed; I was amazed by the work of nature and how we have harnessed technology, but I was not awe struck, impressed, yes. Standing at Observatory Point