Whatever doesn't kill you...

Once Nietzsche famously said that 'whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stronger.' However true it is I feel it is in incomplete.  Yes, the most challenging and hard experiences do make you stronger. But many times they also kill something inside you. The hardship helps you develop a strong shell outside, but the damage already done inside will remain with you for lifetime. And this damage will define who you are for rest of your life.

Goodbye my sweet heart, Hello Vietnam. A still from 'Full Metal Jacket'

Actually hardship can have strange and vivid effects on person. A best example is young men going for war. They experience more hardship in a few days, than of their all previous life. Actually a ruthless training is given to him to make them stronger. And of course it makes them stronger, but is it free of cost? No, it take something out of them. Someone can survive that and someone cannot. When I first saw the film 'Full Metal Jacket', I didn’t realized this thought. Like many other thoughts, this one was also not emphasized much. The name refers to the standard type of ammunition used by soldiers in war. The film is situated at marine corps training center in the first half and in Vietnam for the second. But now,  it occurs to me that the name 'Full Metal jacket' may have a hidden meaning of developing a strong jacket or shell. So that the hardship of war, when you see your colleagues die in front of you, do not impair your ability to react, to fight. It surely have a meaning of turning a man (or boy), in to a killing machine. If trauma caused by pain and suffering is at the core of this movie, another movie, 'The Hurt Locker' explores a completely different situation; where pain and suffering of war becomes an addiction and one cannot leave without that any more.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="970"] The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.[/caption]

To sum it all up , it is true that suffering and loss makes one stronger, while happiness and love makes one weak. As Nikki Lauda says in 'The Rush', "Happiness is the enemy, it weakens you. Suddenly you have something to loose". A man with nothing to lose is unbeatable. But here the important thing is, life is not only about being strong, it's about enjoying it. It's good to be weak, if you enjoy it.

Windows XP, You will be rememberered a lot

Sounds Familiar ? No, then u haven't seen a computer

Today as Microsoft officially stops support for Windows XP. When I heard this news, a lot of things came to mind. Its' not like all XP machines are going to be vanished overnight. But gradually its popularity will fed and one day you will only study in books about windows XP a very successful x86 based operating system. But what XP meant to us, Millennial (born 1980-2000). It was the first OS that touched our hearts. Many of us, when first time pressed the power button of a personal computer, first thing we saw was that screen with the windows XP written in it. However in my case when I first did it on my first pc, it was that 'flying in the sky' windows logo with windows 98, written in it. But my love for computer flourished on those XP days. And like many of us, for long I used that legendary OS(vista in 2006 was a failed OS, I remember we were taught how to change Disk mode from AHCI to IDE in order to boot XP, when laptops were distributed in our college in 2009, yes our college does that on subsidized cost). Actually my contact with it lasted till the starting of the previous year(2013). I was using XP in my PC to keep graphic memory free for high graphics games. XP was the most loved and hated OS of our time, we hated its vulnerability to virus, we hated its crappy hangs. But at the end of the day we could not live without it. XP would work decently on resolution of 1024x800 in a computer with 128 MB of RAM with a hard disk of 5 or 10 GB and still you can play a lagging GTA Vice City on it. (no, I am not joking). For all these things you will be missed, dear XP.