Life as I find it

A friend of mine was being pestered by another friend who wanted her to give up smoking. To make a long story short, this is an ongoing thing and I have come to associate the presence of that man with anti-smoking propaganda rather than a friendly conversation.

I am certainly not saying that one should or shouldn’t smoke, just commenting on how tedious it can get to have a whole bunch of brainwashed individuals who think that if you smoke, that’s the worst thing you can do for yourself.

I have smelled street air in Mumbai and it seems as bad as a cigarette and doesn’t even pretend to relax anyone. I smoke on occasion myself, and as an outdoor person, (ab)use my body beyond what many well wishers know as possible. I have yet to find myself incapable of doing something I could before I started.

Of course, I don’t deny that there are bad results that can happen from smoking, just like there are bad things that can happen if you drive. I think such decisions are personal and it is a person’s choice whether the harm outweighs what they get from it or not. I don’t see how anyone else can understand what my happiness is in walking for days on end in high-altitude. Surely it holds the fear of death, frost bite, natural calamities, danger from animals and humans, etc for the pleasure of being there?

And why do I consider anti-smoking enthusiasts misguided or brainwashed?

The key to that is understanding where they get their information from. No matter what the source, is it likely that such a popular occupation has absolutely no health benefits? Yet, how many of these are they aware of? I am usually suspicious of black-and-white stories and the anti-smoking campaign is one which raises every alarm I have. I find it impossible to believe that something that has lasted centuries is entirely evil, and if it is shown like that, I feel that I am being manipulated to live a decision someone else has made.

Many people feel relaxed when they smoke. Is smoking for relaxing worse than the heart attack from the stress it gets rid of? Who decides this for others?

How many of those who make these “prescriptions” have actually researched their subject in detail?

Among the people who died and reached hospitals for illness, in my acquaintance, there are three smokers (one died at the age of 63, two didn’t - one got jaundice and the other had an accident). Others are completely “healthy” individuals who don’t smoke, don’t drink, eat carefully and sleep adequately (out of these, 17 died - aged relatives and 16 didn’t). And yes, I actually sat and thought of everyone I knew who had died or had fallen seriously ill in the last 2-3 years. Part of this may be that I know more non-smokers than smokers, but certainly the difference is nowhere near this ratio.

I remember an old man from my time in Manali who was 93 years old and had lived a long and healthy life. He was mobile enough for his daily needs even then. He used to smoke. One day he had a chest pain, and the doctor told him to quit smoking. He asked the doctor, “I am 93. Is it possible that I may be dying of old age and not smoking? Smokers aren’t immortal until nicotine kills them, you know?” He continued to smoke, and as far as I know, was alive and well for 2 more years at least until I left the mountains to come and live in Mumbai 5 years ago.

I would be interested in the results of surveys of the percentage of smokers among the patients in a hospital and see if they are the same as those in the outside world. My hunch is that they are far less. Yet we blindly believe that smoking is what will land us there.

Smoking may be bad, but it certainly isn’t the only bad thing humans indulge in.

This certainly doesn’t mean that I suggest that you start smoking. What it means is that I suggest that you stop bugging smokers.

Today, as I traveled from home to the Resonate Consulting office, where I have started working for the past couple of months, I was watching the world around me as the rickshaw negotiated traffic.

On the highway, there was a traffic jam. Horns blared, irritation was in the air and there were many people held from their priorities. I was to reach the office to work on something important and urgent, and I was impatient myself.

Some street kids came begging for money, others came to try to sell me things. Annoyed, I waved them away.

A child caught my eye. It was sitting on the divider near an area where some repair work was happening. Oblivious to the ponderous priorities of the world, he was lost in his own world, talking to some invisible companion. From the look of things, he was giving some instructions. He was trying to act stern and in command, but excitement bled from every gesture. I don’t know what exactly he was doing, but it was obvious that in the middle of all that dirt and grime and pollution and horns and unsafe traffic, he had found something that captured his enthusiasm.

That moment was enough to anchor me, and I felt my stress drifting away. I was to sit in traffic. I couldn’t help it, but surely I had a choice whether I wanted to spend that time stressing myself out or enjoying myself.

I found myself humming songs under my breath the rest of the way. I would work on the work when I got there, and until then I would enjoy myself.

When my mother was scorned by the world as an eccentric, I was the one who thought that she actually might have something that was not being heard. As I grew up, her eccentricity grew into full blown psychosis and eventually she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She got treated, and I lost the lively, if sometimes bizarre person that was my mother into a submissive, depressed shadow…… She got a lot of medicines, but no one who felt that what she wanted to say was worth listening. In my eyes, it is the problem and her behaviour just the symptoms. My main feeling in this situation is that as a daughter, by not believing her or appreciating that she had her own perspective, I failed her.

What does this have to do with Morgellons? Well, I’m a behavioural scientist, not a medical one, so what I’m looking at is behaviour. If there is a whole bunch of people behaving out of the ordinary, its enough to spark my curiosity as to what is happening.

I first heard of the Morgellons disease on some site a few years ago as I StumbledUpon and scanned through a page that seemed creepy. Fibres coming out of the skin, depression, fatigue, joint pain ……. uh, whatever and moved on. I coincidently came upon some page that talked about Morgellons as “delusional parasitosis”—a mental health condition characterized by the belief that one has parasites or bugs crawling on one’s skin…. oooookay, this was something I could maybe relate with if I read descriptions rather than the exotic label. So I read around. This is about 2-3 years ago. (more…)

I don’t know what’s it with people. Whenever I am introduced to someone, about one time in ten, someone will say that I look like someone. Sometimes its a friend, relative, sister, daughter…. or its some famous personality. The most common ones being Sushma Sharma (an OD consultant) Urmila and Smita Patil.

A friend of a friend actually convinced his wife when I went to meet her after having delivered her first child that I was Urmila’s sister!!!!

Naturally, this is not what I want. I’m certain all of us look like someone or the other, but hey, I am me, not a photocopy of someone.

Out of all these, the only comparisons I like are that with Smita Patil and Sushma - I honestly admire the women. The “fire” and passion in Smita’s roles, the assertive personality….. and its also in me. The spontaneity and presence of Sushma …… So at least I associate that comparison with someone acknowledging that in me. Urmila…… not a chance….. I just am not that stylish.

I don’t particularly look like either of them though….. you figure it out if you can:

I came across this bizarre (yeah, that’s my favourite word) situation with poor Vlad, who like many of us here is a blogger writing about his interests and writing paid posts as opportunities arise. Now, this situation seems to have a lot of angles to it, but from what I basically understand….

This Vlad accepts to write a review about ePerks. From all that I have heard, this was a positive review (I can’t find it). However, comments on his post were very strongly negative. These had some intervention attempts by an anonymous commenter and the whole thing heated up.

Well… he addressed that exploding comments situation inviting an exploration into ePerks in a follow up post. The company itself did what ….. they shouldn’t have, if they valued their reputation. They threatened him. Now, for a company that buys reviews from bloggers to build thier reputation, to threaten a blogger for writing - and from what I hear, Vlad did not criticize the company until then - is like having an axe… don’t know where to put it… look…. there’s my foot…..

This is basically what happened. This was followed by an explosion of bloggers speaking up in support of Vlad (like I am doing right now). It really is no longer the issue what the services of ePerks are anymore. The issue now is their image. For a company paying to get reviewed, it sure has more unpaid reviews now, and none of them that they would want to pay for. I doubt if any of them include a link either. Some examples would be:

• iHype & ePerks - How To Kill A Startup by Andy Beard really looks into this situation from many angles. I found this post really helpful in understanding the situation.
• Presumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent by Aaron Walls speaks briefly about the right to free speech and the risk involved in mass acquiring of links without building relationships.
• Memo to ePerks.com: You idiots! Trying to censor a real estate weblogger is a poor way to defend your reputation — such as it is… by Greg Swann along with some other posts, all equally “defending” the right to free speech.
• There are many others who have got angry about this whole thing.

My perspectives on this:

• ePerks: This was an incredibly stupid thing to do, which I guess I don’t need to tell you by now. If you pay for a review, you get a review. The end. If you don’t like the comments, go camp out on the comments form, address the commenters (which you did). However, threatening a blogger for something he did not do….. You don’t have a leg to stand on. Opinions are opinions. The smart thing would have been to acknowledge the comments, apologize if anyone had suffered inconvenience, and invite them into a dialogue to resolve the issue, or make your stand clear. This could have got you a few free nice posts, for graceful handling. Now, it is just about digging yourself deeper and deeper, and the damage is really beyond control. How many bloggers can you sue? Do they even live within your reach to do that? Really, I see no happy solution for you beyond a massive apology, an attitude shift and big payments to bloggers for damage control.
• Vlad: I see you doing what you were supposed to be doing initially, but I wonder if you really understood the imact of your second post. While it certainly invited investigation and feedback, I felt that it enouraged making extreme stands, which is good to get lots of comments, but really, how important are comments - at what price?). Though I don’t see how it would have changed anything considering the nature of comments that followed.
• Common man: I understand your frustration at being scammed and applaud your sharing of your experience so that it may serve to warn possible victims, or provide feedback to ePerks, if they do attempt a change of attitude.
• The blogging community: I expereince this rush of support for Vlad as one of the strengths of this platform, and the community. I don’t know Vlad at all, but being in his situation (having written about a scam earlier) I know that it is a risk that we get unnecessarily caught up in legal hassles. While we know that there is something inside us that wants us to stand for the truth, it is equally difficult to face legal feed regardless of who will win eventually. I don’t know most of you personally, but this act of solidarity makes me feel that there is support anyway if we stand for our beliefs.
• For me: The truth needs to be told. If I can do it in a way that facilitates resolution, superb. If not, confrontation it is!