From: jose@csd.uwo.ca (Jose Thekkumthala)
Subject: --The Psychology of a Net-Writer; Part III-- by Jose
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London
Distribution: alt.culture.kerala
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 17:56:28 GMT


   +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
   +                                           +         
   +   THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A NET-WRITER          +         
   +                                           +
   +             PART III                      + 
   +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
   
Hello folks, I don't know about you, but I cannot help thinking
that there is a vigorous renaissance happening here in ack. I am
referring to a COOL and PEACEful breeze that is flowing through
ack, the mother of all newsgroups. Here, sitting in my ivory tower
on the top of the world with my polar bear friends in this great
Canadian Arctic, I am watching this interesting scenario 
unfolding itself. This breeze is gathering momentum and every Dick,
Tom, Harry, James and Mareena is professing to be the latter-day 
prophets of this cool-peace religion. In fact, I am afraid that 
this is reaching epidemic proportions, that this breeze is turning
out to be a hurricane Andrew and that this is going to have 
devastating consequences as far as the evolution of the Space-Time
Continuum and Cosmos is concerned.

Why?

Because the Laws of Thermodynamics dictate that there is an eventual
increase in the entropy of the universe, which contradicts the 
harmony and the tranquillity associated with the cool religion.
This is why prophet Paul cannot enunciate the principle of
staying cool. Now the question of peace: Peace defies the very 
corner stone of KaliYuga characterized by anarchy, misery, war, 
hunger, deforestation and ozone layer depletion. And KaliYuga 
is what we are amidst at this point in time. 

This is why the proponents of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) are
unable to get all government heads together in the White House
in Washington, D.C. to meditate and bring about the World Peace.
The unaccomplished mission of the TM advocates begs for an explanation
and the answer lies in the fact that you cannot defy the Laws of
Physics.  

Now, why did I start a simple-minded topic like the psychology of a
net-writer with a profound philosophical note?

Keep reading.. 

Remember that I posted Part I and Part II of this series last week?
You don't?  Well, I do. I really and truly posted them last week.
And the response to my posting was sensational according to the
postmistress of our local post-office. I do not have a way of 
checking if this is true or false, because she refused to deliver 
those fan-letters to me, saying that there were too many of them 
and her staff could not handle the job. So, I take her word for it.

However, I did receive some responses through my sunmaster (I 
affectionately call my SunSparc station as sunmaster; hereinafter
to be referred as sunmistress). The one that really stood out was 
a message from JAMES JOSEPH who works in GE Research in the upstate
NewYork, far from the madding Manhatten. I will be quoting salient
portions from his message as we go along. Before that, I would like 
to share with you a surprise that I had this sunday when I went to
church. I learned with an exhilarating surprise that the message 
that James wrote was directly taken from the King JAMES Version of
the Biblical Ramayanam. 

Here are some of the quotations from his message:
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
       Excerpts from King James Version of Biblical Ramayanam:
    
    " No, no, no.  You have this wrong idea that you have to have some
     ideas or something substantial to say, if you want to write
     on the net.  I can see that you really believe that.  Just look
     at your article !  It makes interesting reading and you spent
     some time and thoughts into writing it."
     
        EXPLETIVES deleted, as per Richard Nixon. 
  
     "Case in point:  Look at this article of mine. I don't have anything
     substantial to say.  (Except that your article made interesting
     reading.  I have read  only part I.  I have reserved part II for
     my next break).  Still I write, don't I ? "
    ------------------------------------------------------------------    
     
Now, I do not know in what context of the Biblical Ramayanam this was
written by King James-Vathmiki. Is it when Lord Rama rented a Pushpaka
Jumbo-Jet from Afghanisthan Airlines to go to SriLanka to rescue Sita
from the Tamil-Tigers? Or is it when Christ was led to the mountain
to get crucified? 

Leaving aside the question of the context, I thought that this was a 
well-written article meant for the betterment of ack. 

He even gets break at GE! I never heard about a break in my life.

More quotes:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
      Word according to King James (Vathmiki); from Biblical Ramayanam:
          
    " Now, the problem is the silent majority.  It has been estimated
     (by yours truly, nobody else) that there are 23.7 people who read
     the articles for every person who posts something on the net. " 
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    
23.7 people to devour a net-writer's article! Imagine that!! However,
I was worried about this 0.7 person among the group. Like the 
proverbial shepherd who went hunting for the lost one from a herd of
one hundred, leaving behind the rest, I was worried sick about this 
0.7 person. I did not care about the rest 23. I did not give a dickens
about the loud majority of 23, but my heart was bleeding for this 
silent minority of 0.7 person; he was probably both silent and bleeding
considering he is only 0.7 of a person. What happened to 0.3 of his body?

This thought occupied my mind most of the week. My heart was aching
for this poor fellow. This 0.7 of a person, is he a Malayalee? Is 
he a poor ack-reader who got amputated while reading the newsgroup?
Did the sunmistress get hungry enough to devour 0.3 of his body while
he was net-reading? Or, is he the fifth incarnation of MahaVishnu
(Sphinx-like creature; man-lion) with the lion's part cut off?

I was struggling with this thought completely pain-struck, when, suddenly
out of the clear blue, an idea presented itself to me.!  
       

 
                    ----- TO BE CONTINUED ----- 

============================================================================
       From My Ivory Tower in the Basement,

	 jose                                          email: jose@csd.uwo.ca
                                                    Dept. of Computer Science
                                                    Univ. of Western Ontario
                                                    CANADA
============================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala