Is your religion better than others?

Do you think your religion is better than all other religions?
Do you think the truest path to self realization, salvation, is your religion and no other religion?

If your answer to both the above are yes, a couple more simple questions -
(a) Were you born into your religion?
(b) Did you make a conscious choice of religion after considering all alternatives?

If the answer to the above is (a), then what really was the basis for the first contention that your religion is the best? Is it not as childish as a kindergarten kid claiming that his shoes are the best?

How to remember things

For a few months, I've had this chronic problem of lack of hunger. After waiting around and procrastinating for around three months, I finally visited our family physician two weeks back. He diagnosed me for "agnimandyam" (which roughly translates to a slow-down in appetite). He gave me a medicine, which I had to take twice a day, once before breakfast and once after dinner. It went without saying, any miss in the schedule, and the medicine would not have the desired effect.

Now, how is it that I take an instruction like that, and make sure I follow it? How does my brain know automatically from the next day, that I have to have the medicine as soon as I get out of bed? Of course I could write it somewhere where I'm sure to see it, or set a reminder on my mobile - but the point is, the brain is actually capable of remembering without these external aids.

I actually managed to follow the course, without any such device, even without anyone having to remind me. I tried a new technique. The basic idea is, it is possible to condition your brain and make it remember what it needs to remember. Here's what I did, I repeated to myself several times before I went to sleep that night, that I have to remember to take the medicine the next morning. While I did this, I imagined myself actually taking the medicine, tasting it, and feeling it go down my throat. The next morning, to my pleasant surprise, I automatically remembered to have the medicine. The repetitions that I did, and the mental image that i had carefully built the previous day had helped my brain form new neural pathways to remind me of the new thing that I had to remember from the next day. It was a lot easier the next day, I didn’t have to remind myself as hard as I did the first day and gradually, this conscious effort gave way to unconscious habit, and soon I started to remember to take the medicine almost like I remember to brush my teeth.

Well, finally last night, I finished the course of medicine, my appetite is now back, I am eating and sleeping as good as ever. And most importantly, I have finally cracked the mystery of memory - after countless lost umbrellas and locked cars.

Funny thing though, I just remembered, I forgot to have dinner yesterday..

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

If you are worried about the piles of waste that rot on our roads, about the corporation that you think doesn't know its job; about corrupt politicians who you think swindle public money, about the whole system that in your opinion, doesn't work, and if you think your job ends there, please skip the rest.

On the other hand, if you want to do something about it, here are a few shockingly simple things you can do, which can go a long way.

Reduce - Reduce the use of materials that can end up as difficult-to-manage waste

1. Avoid takeaway food as much as you can, if you do, do it from a place where as little plastic is used for packaging as possible.
   
2. Buy cotton clothes instead of synthetic/semi-synthetic clothes
3. While shopping, buy stuff with as less plastic packaging as possible.
4. Again, while going shopping, take your own shopping bag along.
   
5. Never, never waste food.
6. While arranging parties - go for paper/ceramic cups, plates. Never go for plastic or other synthetic stuff.
7. When going on a trip, carry your own water bottle (plastic or otherwise). Take a look near our railway tracks and you'll know why I say this.
   
8. When buying soft drinks, buy them in cans instead of plastic bottles.
   

Reuse - Reuse whatever is reusable. You'll be surprised how little we normally do this.

1. Re-use plastic bags, do not just throw them away after a single use. Wear them out by use.
   
2. Reuse one-sided paper for your rough scribblings
3. Use fountain pens instead of ball-pens. If you do use them, make sure you get them refilled - do not just throw away used pens.
4. Give away your old usable clothes to charity
5. Sell away unusable clothes, glass, paper to recycling shops

Recycle - when you can't re-use, make sure you recycle

1. Disposing plastic should be your last option, and when you do, make sure you dispose it properly, understand where it’s going, make sure it gets recycled if it is recyclable. The fundamental thing here is segregation of plastic.
   
2. Segregate the degradable from non-degradable waste at source. Do not just dump all your waste on the people who come to collect them - remember they are also people like us who would not really enjoy digging through someone else's garbage.
   
3. If you have the space, dispose organic waste in your own yard in a compost – rather than burdening the corporation/municipality services. Actually it doesn't take that much space;here's a good link on how you can go about composting.
   
4. If you live in a flat, talk to your association to get a compost unit built.
   

(I'll keep adding to this list as I think of more:))

Does excess breed inefficiency?

Does excess breed inefficiency? If so, does scarcity breed efficiency?

The optimal state for a system is the state where the system produces the expected output without any wastage of resources. In engineering terms, the state of 100% efficiency.

Now, the estimation of the right amount of resource to allocate is a challenge with most systems. Particularly when you are dealing with systems that involve people. Practically, there are two ways of arriving at the optimal state when you are dealing with such systems where accurate estimation is not possible.
Route 1: You over-allocate a resource and gradually reduce the supply till you reach the optimum.
Route 2: You under-allocate and gradually increase the supply of the resource till you reach the optimum.

Which is the better way?
I feel, the latter holds more promise.

Here's why I think so:
Do we tend to use a resource irresponsibly/inefficiently when there is too much of it to use? Looking at a few daily-life observations, I must think, the the answer is yes - if I have a hundred rupees in my pocket when I am waiting for the bus on a normal day, I wouldn't think twice about calling for an autorikshaw. If I have just ten, I'd rather wait for the next bus. If there is no shortage of electricity, I'll probably not bother to switch of the fan when I walk out of a room for five minutes. If there is abundance of water supply, I may tend to be careless about it.
And, here's a really interesting observation I made while staying abroad, an average household in USA or UK seems to generate more waste in a day than an average household in India... why? one main reason I felt is that these countries have a much better waste management system (in other words, a surplus of waste management capacity) which people tend to over-use. The real reason behind all this may be subject of a deeper study - may be it's economics, maybe it's just human nature.

Okay, now if all that is true, then the converse must be true also. If the supply of a resource is restricted (naturally or artificially), then the efficiency of its use has to increase (bringing it closer to 100%). If so, this would be the easiest way to increase efficiency of any system where people are involved.

Applying the theory to time management - you should be able to get more done in your day if you restrict the time you allocate yourself for each of your tasks.

Applying to project management - you should be able to get more productivity out of your team, if you restrict the number of people in it.

Applying to waste management - restrict waste disposal systems, and you get a much cleaner (pun intended) waste management system. In fact this is something I've seen being tried out in parts of London - to my surprise I found no trash bins in sight after getting down at Liverpool Street, and had to dump my coffee cup in my laptop bag:). By the looks of it the ploy seemed to be working.

To summarize, I feel the better way to get a people-system closer to 100% efficiency is by under-allocating and then scaling up. (But of course there are situations where this may be too risky to do)

Comments welcome; author not responsible for any unwelcome consequences of applied theory:)