Generalizers, simplifiers, sifters et al.

'Why' is the question that stumps most people, but it is the most important question because if forces people to think, to reason and not take anything as a given or even worse at 'face-value'. Why we are where we are, what we are, how we are... are the most difficult questions. Since the day I saw Krugman's column in New York Times, I liked the way he reasoned many things, which are neither 'alien' nor 'Greek and Latin' to me. For that matter, why should we consider any topic 'alien' to us? One with 'common sense' should understand or question anything. Coming back to Krugman, I (did) suspect that he won Nobel Prize a bit 'earlier' because he was 'anti-Bush', 'Jew' etc, but that is hardly to take away my admiration for his prolific output, especially his blog. Also, we have many 'home-spun' theories of many things/phenomena but we keep it to ourselves - on the lines - it is better to keep quiet and be stupid rather than open the mouth and prove it to others. I found Krugman to ratify my 'common sense' when there are so many 'popular' experts in India, who in my opinion are some kinda fear/hate/xyz mongers, if not stupid. Fuels on the hill runs in contrast to 'home-grown' rather Swadeshi expert, Gurumoorthy யூக வியாபாரமும், பெட்ரோல் விலை உயர்வும்! ie 'Speculation and rise in petrol prices'.

We want 'one stop shop', easy answers, 'acceptable' answers etc. I dont know but given the little bit of brain, I believe that we should exploit it to the maximum in our short life and exercise it as and when possible. I cant just 'accept' someone or something as answer for everything. To quote the couplet of one identity common to Tamils - Thiruvalluvar

எப்பொருள் யார்யார்வாய்க் கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள்
மெய்ப்பொருள் காணப தறிவு

(my rough translation goes) Quest for truth in words, irrespective of whose mouth it came from, is wisdom. Even if Krugman says, I have to look if it 'makes sense' and then accept/discard the same. I like Krugman's interview at Stockholm during his visit for receiving the Nobel Prize. In particular, I liked the part about possible 'candidate's who could give a good model - there are 1. generalizers, 2. those who sift large amounts of data quickly, 3. simplifiers etc and of course, he is a 'ruthless simplifier' :) I myself would like to put myself more in 2nd category leaning towards the 1st.

I think I may have inherited 'fast reading' (ie sifting) not from my parents, but probably my 'grandparents' (maternal). In school, I used to read 'Hardy boys' novels (250-300 pages) in about 2.5-3 hours. Why I am inclined towards 'inheritance' is when my Chithi (mother's younger sister) said (unsolicited of course) that she is amazed that her daughter reads magazines in a flash. Of course, some of my relatives think/say that I dont 'work' at all but simply read (useless?) 'magazines' all the time. I recently realized that I actually dont read all words :o Maybe some sort of 'intuitive' feel as to what are the 'key words' and key is to 'read those select words'. Infact, I remember one old forward about people reading correctly even in a message full of typos :o Similarly, 'Beautiful Mind' shows 'Nash' (Russell Crowe) picking out certain digits, letters from a maze of words/letters. I hope that I am not a schizophrenic like him ;)