It has been long since i visited the fantasy genre, got turned off of it thanks to JK Rowling and the steaming pile of dog shit she called "the deathly hallows" But i played Infinity Blade (on the iPhone) which almost seems open ended and storyless - like an RPG version Punch-Out, but the comparison is just the gameplay, one-on-one arcade style fighter. Comparison on any other level would be unfair since Infinity Blade is one of the most beautiful games i have seen for the iPhone.
Given that the developers do not have the luxury of making a full fledged game with elaborate cutscenes and complex gameplay on such a limited platform, i can definitely say that this book(/novella) adds that missing dimension. Most elements of the game are tied in perfectly and leads into an ending that would serve as a springboard for the next installment, Infinity Blade: II.
The role this book plays in the Infinity Blade universe is also my criticism towards it. It brings a lot of potential to the series and consequently a lot of expectations as well. I would like to see the book standing out on its own, with the game being the "add-on", i.e. the game playing out major action scenes from the book as opposed to the book filling up missing plot points from the game.
Brandon Sanderson is an incredible story-teller and i would really like to see him, chair entertainment and epic games turn this into a modern-day classic like the Lord of the Rings.
I live in suburban Philadelphia, in a small town called Ambler. I’m not joking about the part where I say it is small. It has a street called “Main Street” and that is literally where everything happens. It is a good town, a lot of nice people, trees and clean crisp air. This suburban setting has its flipside(s); I have absolutely nothing to do outside of work, most people I know live 3 hours away in New York City, and I don’t want to be out and about on the streets of downtown Philly after 10pm. I don’t have a car nor the means to get one (at the moment, atleast 2 months before I even get close) I can’t make new friends! I am really not that old but an interesting mix of apathy and awkwardness stops me from doing it. College kids are stupid and older “kids” are, uhh, old. Seinfeld said it best, by the time you are an adult you have chosen your friends and you are stuck with them for life. SO, my TV is my roommate, my iPad and iPhone are my best friends, and my computer is my girlfriend. “Why don’t you read dude?!” the wise ones would say. I do.
I have been reading a lot off late and have built up a belief system purely based on my interpretations of what I read. I like to talk; rather, I love to talk about things i have read and get feedback, what most people call "an intelligent debate". Intelligent. But the more discerning members of my audience would have realized by now, there is no one to listen. So I made the poor decision to find people to “talk” to, online. Although I’m sure there are several people who share the same fascination with being informed as I do, the more I read – the more I feel others are not. I find myself getting increasingly aggravated by ideas that disagree with mine. Any argument opposing my “world view” only serves to reinforce my existing convictions, when I myself advocate free thought. Why do I have to take sides? Why have I become this self appointed crusader, fighting for the cause of rationality and logic the way I see it? Do I really have to argue and “win” to feel more comfortable about my own beliefs? Even if I do "win"; I have not, in any manner, reduced entropy in this society. I like to think so, but I have not.
So what do I do?! I seem to have found a way to be even more condescending by implying I am beyond mere right and wrong. I know what to do! I am going to be a -thought hedonist-. I just made that up, like I am going to with everything starting now. I am just going to go with whatever I feel is most suitable given my state of mind at the time. Ask me the same question a while later, I just might say something else. “WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?!” one might ask. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I simply am not there.
The title is from Nora Ephron’s book of the same name, which started off really well I should add, but after the first few chapters she ironically begins chronicling her life. My past, on the other hand, just seems to be a series of vague recollections which I cannot definitively place in time. People, names, places, dates, times reduced to an unsolved jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces. Yet all of what I don’t remember has resulted in the person I am now. I have been ‘maintaining’ a blog for about three years now, angryindianpsycho.blogspot.com. Was I angry? I have had a pretty decent life so far. Was I a psycho? Haven’t done anything too far from the ordinary from what I can recall. Am I an Indian? My passport seems to agree. I went through my blog and found that my anger stemmed from sexual deprivation and Indian psycho since my favourite movie was(is) American psycho. From my posts I understand that the idea of being an intellectual badass appealed to me and projected myself as one. My posts then turned into random philosophical musings, rants about desis in the US and failed attempts at comedy, adding pieces to the puzzle.
How did my thought evolve? What events occurred at those times that significantly affected the way I think and act? My whole past has been slipping away slowly and I just did not notice. My old blog, however lame, was able to give me good enough insight and I intend to carry this forward. This is going to be an effort to record significant events, observations and my thoughts about them, a blog about nothing, but everything that is Sajeev Krishnan.
I just got back from a long haul trip to India, and the only thing more agonizing than having to constantly smile around people i barely knew, was answering their standard set of questions. "What are you doing?" [yawn] "engineering" "Which year?" "Final year" "What are you going to do after this? MS?" wtf? they dont even even wait for answer, they ask "MS?" as if it was the most obvious thing to do, fucking retards. People annoy me.I would not describe myself as being very "sociable", but then i do like some people and i manage to tolerate the rest. Now there is a certain group of people i simply despise without forethought, they say don't judge a book by its cover. Fuck them. This group, in my opinion are nothing but useless bunch of low-lifes with an identity crisis. American Desis. They just annoy the fuck out of me. The last decade has been the decade of the exodus. People adore fads, in the 90's every iyer you knew would have been in engineering college, and this decade it is going to the US to do an MS degree, which is now assumed to be the natural step forward after an engineering degree. Now, an MS degree is not cheap, fucking expensive is more like it. Naturally the same old story follows, take a loan, by the time you graduate you are in the can by more than 50grand, and to pay off this loan you have to earn american money, earning american money requires you to get an american job, and by the time you are done with all this mess, you are old enough to get married. An american desi son-in-law is a very marketable product in india - he fetches bigger dowries (which eventually goes off in repaying loans) and he offers the girl a prospect to go live/work in the united states (which she couldn't do herself, because she wasn't smart enough) The guy gets married, the girl moves to america and several biological activities later, they have a kid. By this time the parents are used to the american way of life and they bring up their kid in a similar manner. Several years later they come back to india to visit their relatives. And as bad luck would have it, im put in a situation where i have to socialize with these dumbasses. I'll recount an exact conversation i had with a woman, 36-40 years old, married, settled in the US and has a son in the 8th grade. (i will not reveal her name and her relation to me for obvious reasons), and what was going through my head at the same time. Her: "So what do you do?" [oh god not again] Me: "Engineering" Her: "which stream?" [why do you care? are you going to give me a job?] Me: "Computer Science" Her: "So what are you planning to do after graduating? MS?" [Blood. Rage. Murder. Violence] Me: "I'll see what i can do" Her: "If you need any help on getting there to the US, let me know" [what are you? a travel agent?] Me: "what have you studied, what do you do there?" Her: " I did my BA here, and im working as a substitute teacher" [wtf!?! YOU are gonna advise me, an engineer, on how to get to the US, no thanks.] Me: " Where is *your son*" Her : "He's sleeping, the water here does not suit him, he has stomach problems, even i dont drink the water here" [really?? you used to import water from the US wen you were a kid dint you?] Me: "aah ok, what does he do to pass time?" Her: "nothing great, there used to be a boy upstairs he moved to the US for his MS this year, so now hes pretty bored and bugs me all the time" [blank] Me: "There's a library nearby, he can read books, might as well get some education out of his free time." Her: "He tried going there, the books are too dusty, gives him an allergy" [WTF??!?!? are you kidding me??] Me: "ok" ---x--- I did not feel like talking further. You would expect these people to behave like indians once they got back, because they lived and studied here for a better part of their lives, right? WRONG. What you will encounter is a bunch of ball-less pussies who behave as if they are so extremely fragile that just a touch would shatter them into a million pieces (if only that were true, i would go touch crazy), a bit like Samuel L. Jackson from shyamalan's Unbreakable, maybe even worse. Nothing remotely indian is good for them anymore. They wont drink the water here, gives them dysentry, they drink only mineral water; boiled and filtered twice over. The air is too polluted for them to breathe. The cars honk their horns too loud. They won't take the bus/train because its too crowded. They wont smoke gold flakes, only marlboros or davidoffs. They wont do any housework anymore, they need cleaning crews and housemaids to do it. They won't wear saris because it is such a bother to tie "that thing" around you. They are on a perpetual diet "I dont eat rice anymore, only oats and branflakes". And finally (not like this is the end of the list) they speak with most obviously-fake-sounding american accent. These people not only turn themselves into pussies but also copulate and spawn a new generation of similar beings, to replace their own pathetic existence. And the trend continues. I'm pretty sure the american desi community is solely responsible for the sudden dip in average indian masculinity. We are headed towards a future where everyone is a american-english speaking pansy with no masculine traits whatsoever. Those are just the parents. The kids are worse.They want to go back to their american friends. They dont like indian food, too spicy. They wont drink the water here either. The list goes on. Whats worse is that their parents seem to encourage this behaviour, and worst of all the indian relatives seem to think their accent is something admirable and try to get into the act, people who cannot string two words to make a coherent sentence in english,(try to) speak in english. What pisses me off even more is that, these people (even the kids) speak with an air of superiority. They assume themselves to be on a plane of moral/intellectual/physical(etc) superiority, and give themselves the right to dispense "valuable" advice. Everyone fits this stereotype! i am yet to see someone breaking it. Going to america is not bad, DON"T lose your identity in the bargain. I know even i'm headed down the same road, going to america, MS and so on. BUT i'd much rather cough my lungs out, crap my intestines out and listen to cars honking until my eardrums bleed rather than turn into one of them. I have written a small play to illustrate my thoughts on the matter, it goes something like this :
SCENE 1 : Sajeev in india, visiting his relatives who are on a visit from the US, lunch time.
Sajeev : "here you go, rice sambhar and potato curry" American born desi kid : "i dont like rice, i want pasta, mommy!" Sajeev : "YOU JUST SAID THE WRONG FUCKING WORDS KID! BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
[evil laughter] [loud heavy metal music]
Sajeev beats the living hell out of the kid, in slow motion. [yelling]Sajeev : "YOU WERE BORN AN INDIAN, YOU WILL LIVE AN INDIAN, AND YOU WILL DIE A FUCKING INDIAN!!" [still yelling] Sajeev : "TRY GETTING PASTA NOW, YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD!!!"
Beating ends. Kid lies in a crumpled heap on the floor. Sajeev cleans his fangs, sharpens his horns, polishes his pitchfork and proceeds to force feed rice, sambhar and potato curry to the kid who just lost his american accent. SCENE 2 :
Sajeev in America, finishes his MS, in a good job, speaks the indian-english accent like a pro, wears a lungi at home, smokes gold-flakes(without filter), honks the horn on his car just for kicks, drinks water specially imported from india and eats 2 raw green chillies before going to bed everyday because food in america is not spicy enough.
SCENE 3 :
Sajeev in India, stuffing his son's face in a carton full of dusty old books.
How do we define reality? "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." --Philip K. Dick "Things that are real, are things that will never change." --Parmenides "Change is Reality, Reality is Change." --Heraclitus "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistant one." --Albert Einstein
Over the years many people have tried to define reality in their own way, what seems ideally suited to their own set of beliefs, THAT is where the paradox lies - Reality is what you THINK it is. You might begin to wonder, if reality is what is percieved then reality becomes relative.YES, reality is relative. Just look backwards, what you think is real is what you have been told is real. Lets take a simple example, You look at a shiny gold box. All your senses tell you something about the box, your eyes tell you that the box is shiny and gold, your fingers tell you that it is smooth and solid, etc etc. Hence according to you this description becomes a reality - That the box is shiny, smooth, solid and golden. Lets take another person, similar in intelligence, height, weight, academic background, hometown etc etc. but the only problem is that he is colour blind(completely, he can only see black, white and shades of grey). Now when this person looks at the same box his senses tell him nearly the same story, the box is solid,smooth and shiny but he doesn't see the box to be gold in colour, what he can see is a shiny grey box. This becomes his reality. But, as an interesting turn of events, the box inherently does not possess any of these qualities. Ultimately - up close it is a storm of sub-atomic particles, and we only perceive it to be shiny and golden(or grey) because ofsome other quality in the material that makes the IDEA of shiny and golden apparent to us. This brings us back to the original statement, what both of them percieved as reality is, in fact, not the ultimate reality but it is what their senses told them is real.
Right from the time we're born, our senses are constantly bombarded with information. All this information is open to interpretation. Whatever our brain interprets is registered as a system of beliefs, and this system of beliefs becomes our reality.Who makes these so called "belief systems"? We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups — and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-Realities right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener. Our constant thirst for information has proved favourable to the manufacturers of these realities, who use these channels of information to dissipate information and in turn cause us to create realities for ourselves. All of us agree to the fact that every person is unique and same piece of information is liable to be interpreted differently(like in the example of the golden box). but the "accepted" reality is the most common interpretation, i.e. what a maximum number of people percieve to be real. These "commonly accepted" realities become religions, laws, rules , ethics, morals and truths within a society. (In a city FULL of homicidal maniacs, would murder be a crime? think about it.)
But the fact of the matter remains that reality is still relative, and what may be true/believable to a certain number of people may not the same to certain others. This conflict in perception of reality causes segregation. When we are born into a group with a certain belief system we are conditioned so as to build the same belief system as the rest of the pack, and however intelligent we may be, we aren't able to break the shackles of our own belief system. eg: Suppose we come across a theory that shakes the very foundation of our belief system(Galileo and the Pope), what do we do? do we accept the new theory with open arms and modify our belief system instantaneously? No we don't. We fight it, although every ounce of logic suggests that the new theory is correct, we refuse to believe it. Why? because our belief system is not conditioned to accept it that quickly. This totally breaks open the concept of free will doesn't it? We want to believe it but we cant? how did that happen? Free will in my words is just rationalization of an act that has already been done. in simpler words your "Free Will" is dictated by your belief system, a system created by the group in which you were born, which means that the choices you make using "Free Will" has already been made for you by the creators of this belief system. How does that make you feel? Angry? Sad? Surprised? Unfortunately even these reactions are a result of an inconsistency between my opinions and your belief system. Although my statements seem very logical and seem to reach a sufficient conclusion, you will never really completely believe what i have said. "Free Will", for all practical purposes, is non-existent.
We have now established that reality is an illusion you have created for yourself, to protect your collective beliefs, thoughts and ideals. We arrive a startling question, In a world where reality itself is not real, what is? I'd like to propose a theory here, There is a Reality that transcends all the parallel realities that we have created. Lets say you are asleep and dreaming. Suppose that in this dream you are having a conversation with your friend. Although its your friend who is in the dream, it is your brain that is doing the thinking for him . Which means that you are thinking for yourself and your friend in the dream i.e. your consciousness is divided into two in that dream, one for yourself and one for your friend. If there are three people in the dream, your consciousness is divided into three, and so on. Lets say you are having a very vivid and detailed dream about a busy market scene, your consciousness is divided between every entity present in that scene, animate or inanimate. Your brain is the source of every complex movement, emotion, action and reaction that is occurring in that scene. i.e. your brain creates REALITIES for every entity in your dream. These realities you created for them serve as barriers that hide them from the fact that YOU are the ultimate reality, YOU are the creator, YOU are the destroyer and their realities do not surpass yours.
"Last night I dreamt that I was a beautiful butterfly fluttering through the fields. Now I awaken. My question is this; how do I know if I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamt himself a butterfly, or if I am a butterfly, now dreaming itself Chuang Tzu?" --Chuang Tzu, Chinese Taoist Philosopher
Thinking along these same lines, we realize that, our universe is just a part of a SUPREME consciousness. The Consciousness that has created us and our universe. Each and every one of our actions and inactions is governed by this supreme consciousness. THIS is our Ultimate Reality, The Reality of the Divine, the Infinite, the Almighty, God or any other word that has been to use to describe this Reality. What is being fed to you on a daily basis as "reality" is just a barrier between you and the Ultimate. Free your mind, free yourself from the cage of your own thoughts. Our existence is nothing but an endless pursuit to realize and recognize its existence and to gain immortality by merging with the Ultimate.
Infinity Blade: Awakening by Brandon Sanderson
