Role of Randomness

I call any unexpected event,a random event.Many things take place in our lives daily,which are not planned.This can be a car which comes out from the corner,at a turn.It can be a bird sitting on the roof of your house/room/flat.Heck,it can be your alarm that went off at the wrong time! And among bigger things,it can be your career or life partner.We become so used to,to this randomness,that it doesn’t even strike us now.Just think of the few most important people in your life,outside your family.You will have a hard time explaining how/why you got to know them.When we work or go to a place regularly,some faces become familiar.This happens right from our kindergarten days.We don’t even know about these people.We just recognize them,and feel secure in their presence.But how does this group form? How do I acquire a skill,and make it better? How do I come to know new things? How do I fall in love? There are no easy answers here.This is just randomness making its way into our lives.So.what if,instead of Jim..I had chatted with John? He would’ve introduced me to a different set of people,my thought process may have evolved differently,and thus,the decisions I took,would’ve been different.All from one interaction! And still,there is no way to know beforehand,talking to whom will result in a better life? And we are not discussing soul mates or marriages here.These are just people,you would like to have around you.Of course,one big turn on can be intellectual matching.You two may think alike,and you just hit it off.But how often does this happen? The event that I stumbled upon someone like that,is again totally random.I feel,as humans we feed on randomness.

No matter how much we cringe ‘change’,but its a fact that things keep changing all the time.The color of the walls fades,the car gets older,we get older,kids grow up,our salaries & expenses change,our lifestyles change,etc.Interestingly,there is a scientific law that says,”Chaos is the way to go!” Thermodynamics defines a quantity called Entropy,which measures the randomness of a physical system.It turns out that any process that takes place spontaneously,goes in the direction of rising entropy.It is even called the arrow of time.So,is randomness really that bad? From what I have seen & experienced so far,randomness is a big part of life.If one was sitting in his/her room all day,passing time might become a travesty.But it will become much easier,if you have ‘randomness-inducing agents’.These can be any electronic equipment like a mobile or a laptop or a television set.These equipments give you an interface into the outside world,and thus,bring you in touch with something unexpected.You never know what your friend’s response to your message will be.You never know what the character on a TV show would do next(if you do,then its probably a bad show),and you just don’t know what surfing the internet will throw up.These things add up to the excitement of life.Its a great boon that we don’t know the future,since it would drain our lives of all the excitement.I can go further with this: the first day in college,the first day in a new town,the first day on a new job,the first girlfriend…all these happen without prior notice.I just have no way to know how the above will go.You just take it as it comes.And randomness keeps flowing.

How did you like the first post? Feel free to ask in the comments section below.

And yes,keep me sane!