One one things

Interesting quiz sort of thing. Exceedingly frustrating at times but rewarding too. Not a good test of intelligence but it’s fun anyhow. I got 29 in approximately 50 mins, and feel rather happy at myself in so doing.

http://intelligence-test.net/part1/

I hope I’m not infringing any copyrights, if I am, please reprimand me. In other news I have 2 presentations and an essay due this week making the last 45 mins rather a poor investment in time. Bugger that.

For better or worse intelligence is a fairly important barometer of social standing. This is natural since intelligence is a fairly important factor in what we “make” of ourselves. So it’s fairly important to have a decent measure of intelligence. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka at least, ppl tend to equate intelligence with academic achievement. The older ppl in my family in particular have this tendency. Aachchi usually asks about ppl; “Is he/she bright? graduate? science or arts?” and makes an appropriate face, eyebrows raised in approval or a slightly embul face in contempt. Others would say “Apo, that bugger, failed all 4 AL’s, useless bugger” (amusingly when asked his AL results this chap apparently says 1 F, 2 F, 1 F). But then, many of the 1F,2F,1F characters have gone on to excel in their own fields, be it business, the arts and even politics. So they’ve got to have something smart, clever or whatever you want to call it, within them. It just so happens that academics aren’t quite the stage on which some ppl shine. There could be several reasons for this, the education system could be shite, for instance only testing skills like factual recall and analytic thought. But even if the education system is good, some ppl just aren’t cut out for academic performance bc they can’t be bothered. Being lazy isn’t equivalent to being unintelligent, specially if you can get away with being lazy, when push comes to shove lazy chaps can throw their weight and match up to the cleverest. For instance, I have friends who never quite cut it in school but will kick your ass in poker or 304 nine times out of ten (because it’s card games really count, not school). To excel in academics you need two skills, learning and application. So if you suck at one of the two you won’t get too far in academics. But in life you can get very far with the latter despite not having oodles of the former (as long as you know your own game well enough, and that doesn’t necessarily require vast amounts of knowledge).

In most job applications and graduate requirement tests and stuff you find a lot of emphasis placed on quantitative and language skills. Though these maybe important for the job or university course in question, I don’t think they are a complete measure of intelligence. They test different parts of your brain (left or right cerebral hemispheres, or something like that) and different skills. I know plenty of ppl who are hopeless at maths and yet are exceedingly smart. A combination of quantitative and verbal skills are also insufficient in my book. I think the best measure of intelligence is the way that someone responds to a problem for which he/she is unprepared, how they make best use of available information and come up with a viable solution. This places everyone on a level playing field, and there’s every chance that the bugger selling cadju in Galle face will pip a university prof. All the preparation in the world won’t matter for something you’re unprepared for.

Finally, should intelligence really be a measure of social standing at all? Quite naturally it is one such measure bc intelligent ppl will achieve more in life than ppl not blessed with it. Blessed, that’s the key word. Intelligence is a gift, and I don’t think that a million years of schooling can give it to you. School gives you the advantage of gathering knowledge, training yourself how to apply it and organize it effectively. But raw intelligence is innate, you either got it or you don’t. So should we really judge ppl on something based on pure luck? I shouldn’t think so. Maybe then we should judge ppl on how they use their available resources to the best of their ability to achieve what they want to. But then what they want to achieve may not be your or my idea of “good”, so it’s probably best to allow ppl to judge themselves. Ha, not a chance. What a twisted last paragraph that was.

It’s mid January and we’re bang in the middle of another over rated London winter. Every year they say that the forthcoming winter will be the worst in so many years but inevitably pfft, it’s just another winter. But January, i’ve been telling myself that I need to start thinking about permanant employment come January. I’ll be closing shop on my formal education this September admist much protest from the village elders (my parents and their friends), and so I need to find my first proper proper job.

Last year I worked as a trade economist (that sounds flash) at what I call an “econ research joint” whenever ppl go “eh?” when i tell them where i work. At times I just say “I’m at an institute” and ppl would go ohh..and cock their heads looking for signs of mental degeneration. It was alrite as far as a first job goes, I quite enjoyed some days and got some super opportunities, but all in all it didn’t quite set my house on fire. The bottom line is that I don’t want to spend the better part of my life doing some research, having 5 ppl read it, nod their heads in unison and watch it pass from file to file until somebody gets bored and says screw this. I want to do something tangible, something I can look back at and tell myself that I contributed to that. And I want to affect the lives of others in some useful way, I didn’t see that happening at the Institute. So, what are the options?

Like most ppl i’ve had my share of dreams, but probably not as many as most. I started off wanting to be a vet I think. I used to own a battery of star tortoises who’d fall ill on a regular basis (admitedly some at my own hands) and i’d be so thrilled when the vet worked his magic (though now i’m fairly sure he just injected those buggers with saline and let them recover on their own merit - I say this bc most of them died before their mandatory 100 odd years). Then quite naturally I thought it would be clever to play cricket for Sri Lanka, I mean at the time there were some fairly ordinary buggers donning the national colours, Don Anurasiri, wtp? In the quest I joined Bloomfield C&AC, practiced a couple of years under Brendon Kuruppu, got screamed at by Arjuna Ranatunga for walking in front of the sightscreen one day, and dropped out. Not bc of the screaming, I just lost interest in hours at the nets after some time. Air Force was the next bet, but then the LTTE discovered anti-aircraft missiles, bastards. And that’s it really, I started doing O/L’s and did human geography and thought hey this economics shit looks fun. A friend of mine maintains that I used to say that I want to be a development economist since the age of 14, scary. Haven’t seen that friend in an age, he was supposed to join the airforce with me. And then there was uni, and maths. Bloody mathematics, the scourge of my life, among others. I discovered that to be a pro economist, maths is more important than nice economic theory. But i’m way too far down the line of hating maths to get off my arse and actually learn it. So, plans slightly screwed really. Came home after uni and worked at the UN doing what I thought would be a taste of me in 15 years. Bad taste though, the bureaucracy in that place is not even remotely funny. I was involved in a project that materialized in some bastardized form a whole year after the stipulated date, and that’s just a report mind you. I saw the amount of resources wasted in that effort, I shudder even today at the thought.

I’ve had a few other ideas between then and now. I’ve always wanted to do some teaching at a more formal level that the little economics classes I used to run for friends’ siblings last year. But a couple of problems, have to wake up bloody early in the morning, have to control a group of increasingly garrulous young Sri Lankans, neither of which I’d be particularly good at. On the bright side, holidays! Another option is to dabble in a bit of journalism. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and it would be fantastic to work with a paper like The Economist or something along those lines, bc I’d enjoy being involved in the research aspect even if I don’t become the editor within the first 6 months. Working for cricinfo is also a bet, Charlie Austin, how goes it?

So that leaves me where I am today, doing a Masters to buy some time and help me get a bit of a headstart over the competition. Now I really need to start thinking, the options are as follows. Sell my soul to the World Bank, ADB, UN or something, risk getting thoroughly frustrated and being a hypocrite for believing that these organizations should be collectively shot for wasting money on flash cars and fat salaries (hence the selling the soul part). One condition is that the job needs to involve an actual ongoing project, not some pipe dream, and ideally not a purely desk job. I’m open to the idea of working with a private firm if I find something particularly interesting to do, so it wouldn’t be clever to commit too far into any one of those, i’ll leave that part to fate. Journalism and teaching are interesting and most probably short term options, but I’ll need some extra cash from next year bc if all goes according to plan I’m going to move out of my parents’ place so will need to pay those utility bills too. And I need to save up for when I open my restaurant in 15 years time

I came across a brilliant little anecdote which i think has interesting implications for the way we tend to look at religion. It’s from an outstanding book of travel journalism called The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple which i picked up one lazy rainy sunday afternoon at Barefoot (they’ve got the best selection of books in Colombo as far as i’m concerned). I’ll put a proper review later on if time and eagerness permit.

So there’s this island somewhere between Sri Lanka and Madagasscar called Reunion (pronouced as the French would pronounce it with a little accent on the first e) and back in 1931 a box of relics arrived in the island from the Vatican. Unfortunately the label with the name of the Saint in question had been discarded somewhere along the way and all that remained was a stamp with the Italian word “Spedito”, meaning expedited. The natives, a melange (i really need to figure out how to put accents where they are due) of retired French planters, arab and chinese traders, malagasy slaves, south indian tamils and other odd odd characters, decided that label or no label they would not be deprived of their saint. And so began the cult of Saint Expedit. The Saint’s popularity grew exponentially and eventually became the unofficial patron saint of Reunion. Dalrymple reports that there are over 350 shrines on the island dedicated to St. Expedit where all of the island’s different ethnicities pay homage to the Saint. St. Expedit was personified and his image is now that of a Roman legionary with silver breastplate and red tunic. In his hand lies a spear and under his right foot he crushes a raven, supposedly symbolizing his triumph over the demons of temptation. Hindus of Reunion clothe the idol in Hindu sacred colours and treat St. Expedit as an incarnation of the God Vishnu. Hindu mothers wanting children tie saffron cloths to the grilles. For the sake of Reunion’s Hindu population one hopes they don’t sit back and wait for the baby to knock on the door in 9 months time. The descendents of the slaves take the spear and the raven to depict sacrifice and consider the Saint to be a sort of white witch doctor. In order to neutralise his power, natives often cut off the head of the Saint and use it for their own spells and what not.

The cult of St. Expedit provides a very interesting case study of the evolution of religion. We don’t often get to see a religion evolve from an objective point of view over a very short time. I think it’s quite likely that many of the world’s mainstream religions are very similar, except they evolved over a far longer time and are thus more engrained into our lives. Our understanding of religion is based on what has been passed down from generation to generation, and I imagine each new version is bastardized to some extent. What we are left with today could for all we know be miles and miles from the truth. But it seems that isn’t what is important. What is important is that religion gives ppl something to live for and to shape their lives about, it provides a degree of structure. That’s obviously what is important for the ppl in Reunion. This very day many mothers may be telling their kids that if they steal things St. Expedit will cut their hands off with his spear, just like how our parents told us that if we commit sins we’ll go to hell or be reborn as something not very nice.

Maybe a 500 years down the line ppl in Reunion will fight wars in the name of St. Expedit. Try telling them then that St. Expedit is just a clerical error. Jihaad!