creativity and psychosis

as god said, i want it all. so, if you want the greatest of all qualities, creativity, you have to forego your sanity, no less. to enjoy those moments of epiphany and the creative process, the most enjoyable thing on earth by far, you will have to be a little mad. cant help. and if you think that madness iss too great a price to pay for creativity, you just dont have it. have never felt it, never will . just step aisde brother, you dont belong here. as all those who create would know, once you ve felt it, your life belongs to it, you live for it and die for it. and for everyone, you think the creative process is not that big a deal, ask youself, what is sex? and who hates sex. so dont kid yourself

creativity sports two traits: laatent inhibition and fantasy proneness.both, unfortunately, have a strong positive correlation with certain psychosis. low Latent inhibition means that the guy has a strong subconcious. when a person has high LI,  and he stares at or experiences something, he is basically taking in everything, all the experience, all the features conciously. There is no scope for any other impressions to form. even if the guy stares at the stuff 1000 times, at whatever gap, he is always going to form the same impression. but if a guy with low LI, when he is experiencing something, he is absorbing a lot of the stuff subconciously. means, he is looking, but not looking, he is not looking at the purple door knob for instance. he is just looking at the purple colour. in his mind he is trying to fit in some shape, object, fitting to that purple colour. after a while, his subconcious would throw up the round doorknob and make it colourless. then he would try to fit colour to shape; opposite to what he was doing earlier. this is how creation works, you moronic unimaginative beings

the above process is evidence enough to realise that the creative process is extremely fantasy prone, your continually trying to fit imaginative things to one another.you think and you imagine, creating another world. enough said.

now the sacrifice. most of the people who are low LI and high fantasy prone are also sufferers from clinical depression, are obsessive. some are manic depressive.but while low LI and high fantsay proneness are also associated with mental illness, to conclude that creative people are psychotic is like concluding that all climbers are thieves, coz thieves climb.

see what we have to live with? depression, obsession, psycopathic behaviour. but let me tell you on behalf of all creative people, it is absolutely worth it. when you fit that purple square doorknob, its certainly worth the torture and even something to look forward to.. Something you would never understand, you grey polished round doorknob guy, you...

Richter-Rostropovich

twin greats: a cellist and a pianist (Richter) join together to create magic. I especially like the 2nd movement. Its so joyous and it has an uncanny relation to life. Whenever, life has been down and out and its the time for slog against multiple misfortune, somehow I could never make time for the 2nd movement of the 3rd sonata. But then, the clouds pass and you once again feel like the man you are. magically the fates conspire to create the perfect situation for the 3rd cellor sonata in A major to be played, by messers rostropovich and richter and immdediatly you know school is over. summers have arrived, its time to be mercurial again, exotic, everchanging and creative. lets take some risks, im sure its going to be fun, like it always has been.

Listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHrOHgbrtCw

suck.uk.com

Perfectly functional, understated and cute. Made from scraps and off-cuts. This classic wooden doorstop has just a touch of added mouse-like character without being too blatant. If objects are more useful, cheerful and altogether more friendly then people foster stronger relationships with them... and maybe slow down land fill.

Poor Mark! He has met a sticky end, a squishy end to be more precise, his floppy body trapped within the pages of your book, scrabbling to get out, all the while happily keeping your place. You know, keeping the page of that point in the story where the man gets crushed by a giant encyclopedia. Forget pressed flowers and old receipts, Mark is the future and what else will he do now he’s DEAD

Yes, that’s right it’s a giant pencil sharpener. But no it will not sharpen your giant pencils! This is for organising all your miscellaneous pens, pencils and other stuff without looking out of place amongst your other stationery related desk accessories.

poets who show you magic

Poets have the ultimate license; like a wizard’s wand. In our times of starched and ironed political correctness, any public figure raising a contentious issue is drawn and hung out to dry. But Thom Gunn, being a poet, could explore all dark issues like violence, sexuality, anti-social behaviour because he could coat it all under beautiful verse.

All great poets have great eyes. They can see things where no one else can or uncover hidden feelings which you didn’t know even existed.

An American poet who wrote on biker gangs, Italian paintings and sex among other things. The recurrent theme is difficult to understand but I think he wrote about human feelings. "Touch" on intimacy, "Trust" on that, "on the move" on violence, "Santa Maria del popolo" on human frailty. He also does explore nature but always nature through living eyes and not nature in isolation. In this also he was exploring human desire for freedom I think. So how we rate Thom Gunn?

Developing the earlier argument that a great poet has great eyes, well thats not enough. Even great scientists have great eyes but they are not poets, they are scientists. So a great poet also must have great art. I guess art is adding a beauty dimension to something. So greater the beauty dimension in a work of art, the purer art it is. Thats why Gauguin’s pink horses are so beautiful because they are so close to purity and so right in their environment even though they are pink. So does Thom Gunn have the eye and the purity?

eye: "he fingers the little privacies of those who acted as if there should be no privacy" from "trust" to describe the actions of a thief; or "you turn and hold me tightly, do you know who I am or am I your mother or the nearest human being to hold on to in a dreamed pogrom" from "touch".

purity: so can we find in Thom Gunn a line which content wise doesn’t mean anything or doesnt promise much but... very simply just sounds great. I guess "Waiting for when the sun an hour or less conveniently oblique makes visible" is a beautiful line which qualifies Thom Gunn for the status of a great poet.

Touch

My personal favourite: “Touch", why? Find out for yourself. No matter how much you analyze poetry, ultimately it is about feeling the complex feelings that great poetry always generates. Half known, half unknown and always intensely personal.

You are already
asleep. I lower
myself in next to
you, my skin slightly
numb with the restraint
of habits, the patina of
self, the black frost
of outsideness, so that even
unclothed, it is
a resilient chilly
hardness, a superficially
malleable, dead
rubbery texture.

You are a mound
of bedclothes, where the cat
in sleep braces
its paws against your
calf through the blankets,
and kneads each paw in turn.

Meanwhile and slowly
I feel a is it
my own warmth surfacing or
the ferment of your whole
body that in darkness beneath
the cover is stealing
bit by bit to break
down that chill.

You turn and
hold me tightly, do
you know who
I am or am I
your mother or
the nearest human being to
hold on to in a
dreamed pogrom.

What I, now loosened,
sink into is an old
big place, it is
there already, for
you are already
there, and the cat
got there before you,
it is hard to locate.
What is more, the place is
not found but seeps
from our touch in
continuous creation, dark
enclosing cocoon round
ourselves alone, dark
wide realm where we
walk with everyone.

Credit Card Interest Rates

Credit Card Finance Charges

1. American Express Kingfisher Card:

(v) Interest Free (Grace) Period

Cardmember can enjoy up to 52 days free credit without any finance charges levied to the credit card account. This interest free credit can be availed only provided the amount outstanding, as shown in the monthly card statement, is fully paid/settled by the payment due date. This is not applicable to Cash Advance, Balance Transfer.

Illustration: Transaction Date: 2nd June, Billing cycle date 1st of every month, Payment due date: 22nd July, Interest free period = 22nd July – 2nd June = 51 days

2. ICICI Credit Card:

Interest Free Credit Period
18-48 days (applicable only on retail purchases and if previous month's balance outstanding is paid in full)

Perhaps means that if you already have a revolving amount from the last billing cycle, then the interest free credit period would not extend to any transaction made in this billing cycle either?

Questions:

If I have a 20000 outstanding revolve amount from last billing cycle and I have spent 20000 this billing cycle for which the due date is still not over, is interest charged on 20 or on 40 thousand?
What is non retail spend? Is entertainment, travel, car and other spend components non revolving and subject to interest immediately?

3. Citibank Credit Card

Interest Rate/Service Charge
•
Boarding Rate: i.e. in the first 12 months of Card issuance is fixed at 3.25% (monthly) or 39.0% (annual). This can change periodically based on your spend, payback and utilization patterns
•
The maximum interest rate, in the event of default, is 3.5% (monthly) or 42% (annually)

No talk of interest free period between transaction and due date.

4. Deutsche Bank Credit Card

Purchases: Interest will be charged to your account on the full outstanding balance (including previous and pending interest), if the total amount due is not paid before the due date. Also if the balance is not paid in full, all fresh purchases will attract interest from the day of the transaction.

So once you revolve, interest is charged on the entire transaction amount from day 1. There is an interest holiday only if there is no outstanding amount from the last billing period. The ans to the first question in DBs case would be 40K.

how to optimise a townhall

its my first townhall. and im soo happy.where is my red shirt? i heard the business updates with rapt attention. even wanted to ask a question. but better sense prevailed in time. then there were some home grown rockers with some home grown music. and the 3 ds. shit for food, piss for drinks and dance. on the whole a complete waste of time unless you look at the networking opportunities. i talked to 6 people i never conversed with before. infact for one of them i didnt even know he existed.
so,
1. go to a townhall 4 times
2. sleep at the back seat
3. tell senior leaders how informative their speeches were
4. stick to soft drinks
5. and to desert
6. drink a lot if you wanto network with guys
7. dance a lot if u wanto network with gals
8. take ure own car so that u can slip away whenever
dont go more than 4 times coz u would have exhausted everyone and now new networking opportunities. hope to talk about how to optimise an offsite next.

Woodside

lots of dreams come true at woodside in landour bazar.
first the magic of the place is such it can make you forget 4 hours stuck in the traffic and rain on mg road in delhi.
its on the top of the peak, has the most dear old grandmother as owner, its in the middle of the jungle, there is continuous precipitation for the romantic types, there are continuous ups and downs in case you wanto work on that flat tummy, people from atleast 15 countries, you can discuss footie (or beach volleyball) with brazilians, beer with germans, caste system with christian missionaries, flowers with certain pretty koreans...ahem
its ghostly quite, lots of books, the huge bazaar of mussorrie is just 15 mins away in case you belong to the lovely earring gender,and then there is mansoor.
hidden away tucked away drawing only 5000 rs per month is ustad mansoor, the absolute master of any kind of cooking. he can produce the perfect indian dish of any genre in 30 mins flat. and the fact that he is a man of few words only helps matters. next time i going to poach him. see, some people never change, fuck the heavenly place, food, land of gods etc. i want that man in my kitchen.
he is like wasim akram dude. first ball alan lamb out to vicious outswinger, second ball chris lewis out to equally vicious inswinger. first day everyone out to fiery spicy lucknawi chicken;second day killed again to mild bengali gosht.
in case you are still hungry, there is chaar, chaya and mogamabo. chaar has guess; yes only chaar/four shops. their pakodas are great; also the garlic chicken. although slightly overpriced. sit there after strenuous mountain walks and enjoy the show. chaya is a peculiar mishmash of mid eastern (yes chickpeas) and european fare. chicken pie, please try. also the many cookies. mogambo has all tibetan stuff and lots of new stuff, stuff you never knew existed.
landour cantonment is at sisters bazaar near prakash's grocery shop. thats higher than chaar, whish is higher than landour bazaar, which is higher than mussorrie, which is higher than dehradun. soooo, 2 things... landour cantonment is ghostly, even after 300 years of being populated and long after mussoorie stopped resembling a hill town and began to look more like delhi. and the view. you stand on any bloody terrace in landour cantonment, you see clouds, then mussorie, then clouds again, and dehradun below. where else can you see such a view, you feel like the gods, with the clouds beneath you. you can even try saying let there be light, clouds would part and the sun would break out.
best way to get there? take the overnite shatabdi from nizamuddin to dehradun. saves both time and money. a little advanced planning required, the train fills up real fast.then taxi from dehra. wolfs burn is the best place to stay, followed by Kilmarnock. we stayed at woodside. bcoz it is 200 years old and huge and colonial. loved it. youre free to play around.
go for long nature walks, experiement with food, go for shopping or a quick drink to mussoorie. perfectly secluded, yet not to far away from serious habitation, its the ideal hill station. but leave mansoor alone. he is mine.
last question. what kind of a vacation i had? did i enjoy it? most popular question.. no i didnt. wouldnt have been happy in switzerland. but you will. the place has all the ingredients. go for it.