Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Partners in Pursuit


How often do you meet someone, with whom you share an inherent resemblance of thoughts. I am not talking about 'Bush is an idiot', 'Angelina Jolie is sexy', 'Ronaldinho is the best footballer'.....I am talking about the innate interests and thoughts that geeks like me have, which are a "taboo" in the social circle. I mean, I could discuss Black-holes, superstring theory, origin of the universe, particle accelerators and many more topics like those for ages with someone. But finding that 'someone' is the hard part, not those topics. Maybe if I had done my majors in Astrophysics that wouldn't have been a problem.

My friends say I think a lot and spend a lot of grey matter pondering over petty things. Something a "cool" person wouldn't do. And when something I say, goes over their heads, they say I have left my brains at home. I so wish I could do that.There are only a handful of people I have come across with whom I could talk about anything and everything, you know, right from 'Versace' to 'Event Horizon'. Very few people would be familiar with both those terms. (Chances are, you don't know either of them. No worries, google them or go to en.wikipedia.org for a more precise answer). Ok, back to 'finding that someone'. Until few days back I used to think that I am the lone soul on the face of this planet, with a vivid range of thoughts. Thoughts about the very existence of mankind and the universe and about having such a limited knowledge about the 'bigger picture'. But I finally found that 'someone'. Someone, who spends time pondering about bigger picture like me. Name is 'Oihane'.....pronounced as 'O-e-ann'. She is from Bilbao, Spain. Thats like 5000 miles to the north-west from where I stay.

I've known her for more than a year now. But it wasn't until few days back, that we really came to know each other. Oh! did I mention that the only communication we have is through Instant Messenger. So, the conversation began with Spain beating Ukraine 4-0 in the Football World Cup encounter. Followed by some casual leg-pulling, the quintessential element of our chat.
Then things started to unravel. I think the question I asked was, 'From where did the universe come'? I was so scared that like all the others, this would drive her away too. I was so wrong. Apparently Oihane, like me, was pretty obsessed with the whole 'understanding the universe and the purpose of our existence' thing.

I am guessing that you too, like other 'normal' people I know, have become bored. But you might wanna hang on a little more. It gets less boring from here. Let me give you some background on Oihane. She is a Computer Engineer from the University of Deusto at Bilbao. Wanted to study Robotics, and become an astronaut. Carry machines into space. Is that cool or what? How many girls you know, dream of that! If that aint enough, currently she is pursuing History for her post-graduation at the university. Reason: She is fascinated with 'Time'. Back to our Apocalyptic conversation, next on the cards was Time-travel. Theories like, what would happen if I travel through time and kill my grand-father, the Butterfly effect that would ensue. That was followed by 'wormholes' and 'singularity'. I was on cloud 9. For the first time I was actually talking with someone about the 'dark matter' inside my head (pun intended!). I so wanna talk more about the technicalities we discussed; Antimatter, gravitons, 11-dimensions. But I wont! Lets just say, I have an outlet to my thoughts now and that gives me an immense sense of satisfaction. Am so looking forward to tons of more geeky, spooky, out of the world conversations.

Somehow, the inner voice inside me tells me that I might never find answers to my question in this lifetime. But the problem is, I just cant 'let go'. I believe the pursuit is far more significant and interesting than the goal itself. Because once we know the answer to the 'Theory of Everything' there wouldn't be anything to pursue. Just imagine how boring that would be. How boring it would be when we know Everything!