Debunked: 7 Stage Collapse Pattern: America is at Stage 5

March 2026  |  Amusing Morose Musings

Disclaimer: I am an armchair student of history with no formal qualifications in economics, political science, or civilisational collapse. What follows is my personal analysis, offered in the spirit of intellectual provocation rather than authoritative pronouncement. Disagree vigorously in the comments.

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A video has been making the rounds. Sixteen minutes, slick production, dramatic music, and a thesis that has clearly struck a nerve: America has completed five of seven stages of imperial collapse, and the end is nigh. The channel is @theparalleltruthofficial.

Click to watch: "7 Stage Collapse Pattern: America is at Stage 5" (16 min) -- @theparalleltruthofficial

Watch it first. I'll wait.

Back? Good. Now let me tell you why it doesn't hold up -- not because the underlying anxiety about American power is foolish (it isn't), but because the historical argument, examined carefully, has four large holes in it.

A Note on Ray Dalio -- Coming Next

This video borrows its framework loosely from Ray Dalio's Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. I want to be clear about something: Dalio was one of the most serious intellectual influences on me in my twenties and thirties. His thinking on debt cycles, reserve currency transitions, and the mechanics of how great powers rise and fall genuinely changed how I read the world. He deserves a proper, respectful engagement -- not a paragraph. I will get to him in a dedicated post. What I am debunking here is the YouTube version: Dalio's framework with the nuance stripped out, the doom soundtrack added, and the conclusions pushed well beyond what the evidence supports.

The seven stages, as presented: Military Overextension, Currency Debasement, Debt Spiral, Loss of Productive Capacity, Social Decay, Loss of Reserve Currency, Collapse. America, the video argues, has ticked off stages one through five. Stage six is coming. Stage seven -- implosion -- follows shortly after.

It is a compelling story. It is also, on examination, largely wrong. Here is why.

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1. The USSR Wasn't a Fresh Empire -- It Was a Dying One in a New Coat

The video's three data points are Spain, Britain, and the USSR. Three collapses, one pattern, checkmate. Except one of these is not like the others.

The Soviet Union did not emerge from nothing in 1917 as a new imperial experiment. It inherited, lock, stock, and Siberian barrel, the entire geographic, ethnic, and structural mess of the Russian Empire, which had been visibly cracking since at least the Crimean War of 1853. The same centre-periphery tensions that destroyed the USSR -- Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Central Asian republics, the Baltic states -- none of these were Soviet inventions. They were Tsarist inheritances. The 1905 revolution, the near-collapse in WWI, the actual collapse in February 1917: all of this predates the Bolsheviks by years. Lenin didn't build an empire; he relabelled a failing one and applied a tourniquet that held for seventy years.

When the USSR "collapsed in 900 days" -- a phrase the video deploys with some relish -- it was not a fresh empire completing a clean seven-stage cycle. It was a centuries-old Russian imperial project finally exhaling after a very long illness. Using it as a clean independent data point for a seven-stage collapse model is like counting the same patient twice because he changed pyjamas between the second and third act.

Remove the USSR as a valid standalone data point, and the video's "pattern" rests on two examples. Two is not a pattern. Two is a coincidence.

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2. Empires Are Always "Overextended" -- That Is What Empires Do

Stage One of the collapse model is Military Overextension. America has bases in 80 countries, is fighting on multiple fronts, defence budgets are ballooning -- Stage One confirmed, apparently.

Consider Britain in 1810. At that moment, Britain was simultaneously: fighting Napoleon across the Iberian Peninsula; blockading France's Atlantic coast; managing rebellion in Ireland; fighting the Third Anglo-Maratha War in central India while consolidating Bengal as the engine of the opium trade into China; and dealing with Tipu Sultan's legacy in Mysore, where the final war had only just concluded a decade earlier. Pick any decade from 1750 to 1900 and you will find Britain fighting on four or five simultaneous fronts across four continents.

By the video's logic, Britain was permanently in Stage One of collapse from roughly 1750 onwards -- which is precisely the period during which it was building the largest empire in human history and approaching peak power. The metric doesn't measure decline. It measures imperial metabolism. Empires project force. That is what they are for. Calling military engagement "overextension" only once collapse has already occurred is not analysis. It is narrative fitting, applied backwards.

Spain was identical. From the 1520s through the 1640s, the Spanish Crown was fighting in the Low Countries, Italy, the Americas, North Africa, and occasionally against England and France simultaneously. "Overextended" for 120 years, and somehow still the dominant global power throughout. Stage One, it turns out, is simply a description of what it looks like to be a great power.

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3. Currencies Go Up and Down -- That Is What Currencies Do

Stage Two is Currency Debasement. This one is almost too easy.

The pound sterling was debased, revalued, suspended from gold, returned to gold, and debased again multiple times between 1800 and 1914 -- the very century of Britain's unchallenged global dominance. The Spanish real fluctuated wildly throughout the 16th century as silver flooded in from the Americas and caused inflation across Europe -- yet Spain remained the dominant power for another century after the debasement began. The US dollar has been "debased" in various senses since Nixon ended Bretton Woods in 1971, and has remained the world's reserve currency for 55 years since.

Currency debasement is a constant of monetary history, not a terminal diagnosis. Every government in recorded history has, at some point, spent more than it collected and found creative ways to manage the gap. Identifying this as a distinct stage of collapse is like identifying "occasionally gets a cold" as a stage of dying. Technically observable. Analytically useless.

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4. Even on Its Own Terms, the Video's Timing Is Off by About a Century

This is the most generous concession I will make to the video's framework: let us accept it entirely, assume the pattern is real, and simply check the arithmetic.

The video's own historical examples tell us that the gap between an empire's peak and its effective collapse runs roughly 100 to 150 years. Spain peaked around 1580, was effectively a secondary power by 1700 -- roughly 120 years. Britain peaked around 1880 to 1900 and had lost its empire by 1947 -- roughly 60 to 70 years, though two catastrophic world wars compressed that timeline in ways that are hardly typical. The USSR, as I have argued, should not be in this dataset at all.

The United States peaked, by almost any measure -- military supremacy, economic dominance, cultural reach, reserve currency share -- in 1945. It is now 2026. That is 81 years from peak. By the video's own historical rhythm, the US is somewhere in the middle of its decline arc at most, not approaching the terminal stages. The alarm is being raised at roughly the same point in the British cycle as, say, 1961 -- when Britain still had nuclear weapons, a permanent UN Security Council seat, and a GDP that was the envy of most of the world. Not a superpower any longer, but hardly a ruin.

If the pattern holds -- and I am not conceding that it does -- America's effective decline would be expected somewhere around 2095 to 2145. The video is, by its own evidence, approximately 70 to 100 years premature.

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The View From March 2026

There is one more thing worth saying, and it is perhaps the most pointed.

This video was made in late 2025, when dedollarisation was a fashionable anxiety, BRICS nations were loudly exploring alternatives to the dollar, and American political dysfunction was generating genuinely alarming headlines. The mood suited the thesis.

Then, on February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury. The Strait of Hormuz closed. Oil spiked. The global economy shuddered. And something interesting happened: in a moment of genuine geopolitical chaos, the world did what it always does when genuinely frightened. It ran to the dollar. Not away from it. The dedollarisation conversation has gone remarkably quiet. The BRICS alternative reserve currency project, already struggling, now faces the awkward reality that the country it was designed to circumvent just demonstrated it still runs the jungle.

I have been calling this redollarisation -- the quiet reversal of the dedollarisation trend that crisis has a habit of producing. We are watching it happen in real time. It is not what Stage Six of imperial collapse is supposed to look like.

The video is well-made. The anxiety it channels is understandable. But a pattern built on two-and-a-half data points, applied to a country whose most recent geopolitical act looks nothing like decline, timed roughly a century too early: that is not history. That is mood.

The serious version of this argument belongs to Ray Dalio. That post is coming. And I promise to be considerably less dismissive.

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As always: armchair analysis, offered in good faith, open to challenge. Hit the comments.

Why the US has already won the Iran war

March 11, 2026  |  Geopolitics, Economics

Let me be direct about something before diving in. There is no moral equivalence between geopolitical analysis and cheerleading for war. People are dying in Iran, on ships in the Gulf, and in US bases across the Middle East. That cost is real and should not be minimised. But as armchair students of strategy -- and if you have followed this blog you know that is exactly what we are -- we also cannot pretend the strategic picture does not exist. Wars have consequences beyond the body count. This is an attempt to read those consequences honestly.

So. Turn on any news channel right now and you will hear some variation of the following:

What the TV talking heads are saying "America has stumbled into a quagmire." ... "This will be Trump's Iraq." ... "Oil at $200, the economy is finished." ... "Iran will bleed the US for decades." ... "This is the end of American credibility in the Middle East."

They were wrong about Iraq in 2003. Wrong about Afghanistan in 2021. And in my reading, wrong again today. Let me explain why.

Five predictions. Every one runs counter to what you just heard on television.

1. Redollarization. The decade-long push to dethrone the dollar reverses. The US reasserts financial hegemony and the unipolar moment quietly returns -- not announced, just structurally re-established.
2. US nominal GDP permanently pulls away from China. The gap becomes undeniable.
3. 2026 is the high-water mark of the China-Russia-Iran axis. It is already in decline.
4. A new Middle East takes shape with no Iranian veto over anything.
5. The Western Hemisphere becomes a US-dominated economic zone. Monroe Doctrine 2.0, with teeth.

Arguments for all five follow. Read on or bookmark and come back. Either way, check back in three years.

There is also a specific media ritual that plays out in every major conflict that deserves to be called out. Photographs of dead children are deployed on cue, and they are genuine tragedies every single one of them. But the same outlets that run these images with solemn outrage are often completely silent when the same regime uses civilian infrastructure as military cover, or when it pushes young men to the front lines as cannon fodder, or when it has been funding proxy wars that have killed hundreds of thousands across Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq over the last two decades. Grief is being manufactured and selectively distributed. The children of Iran deserve better than being props in someone else's narrative war.

Alright. With that said. Here is the actual strategic picture.

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America Built a Shock Absorber Nobody Noticed

The United States is producing over 13.6 million barrels of oil per day. Record high. More than any country on earth. It imports less than 2% of its petroleum consumption from Persian Gulf sources. When the Strait of Hormuz closes, America does not scramble. It watches.

But here is the part that is genuinely clever and which nobody is talking about. Tariffs -- the same tariffs that have been litigated, complained about and mocked for two years -- have quietly created a policy dial no previous American administration possessed. The mechanism goes like this: when global oil prices spike, Washington can selectively cut import tariffs on goods whose costs are being pushed up by energy costs. Producers widen their margins. Consumer prices stay anchored. The government absorbs the shock through the tariff lever rather than passing it directly to the pump. It is a pressure valve, and the US is the only major economy holding one right now.

Venezuela's heavy crude adds another layer. Gulf Coast refineries were built specifically to process that grade of oil. It is a Western Hemisphere supply chain that has nothing to do with the Persian Gulf and sits completely outside Iran's reach.

Compare this to the situation facing everyone else. Japan and South Korea source over 70% of their oil from the Middle East and are drawing down strategic reserves. Europe is watching its industrial energy costs bleed out. China is pivoting toward Russian crude, deepening a dependence on Moscow that serves nobody but the Kremlin. America sits in the sweet spot: producers profitable and investing, consumers hurting but not collapsing, trade position strengthening.

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The Axis Just Cracked

For a decade the most serious long-term threat to American strategic primacy was not any single country. It was the quiet alignment between China, Russia and Iran. Three revisionist powers with complementary capabilities and a shared goal: dismantle the US-led international order.

The arrangement worked like this. Russia provides military hardware and energy leverage over Europe. Iran controls the Gulf chokepoint and projects power through proxies from Lebanon to Yemen. China provides the economic engine, the financial lifeline, the diplomatic cover and the technology transfer that keeps the whole structure functioning.

That structure just lost its geographic keystone.

Iran's proxy network across the Middle East -- and what has been dismantled

Iran (under strike) Iranian proxy presence Regional states Strategic waterways

Iran was not merely one member of this axis. It was the geographic hub through which Russian and Chinese influence flowed into the Middle East. Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas in Gaza. Houthis in Yemen. Shia militias across Iraq. This entire network has been funded, armed and directed from Tehran for 40 years. Israel has been methodically dismantling it since October 2023. The US strike on February 28 accelerated that process dramatically.

Russia cannot meaningfully reinforce Iran -- it is already stretched beyond its limits in Ukraine. China is watching a key strategic partner crumble while managing its own economic slowdown. The carefully constructed architecture of anti-American alignment is under the most severe stress it has faced in a generation.

The axis has not been destroyed. But one of its three legs has been kicked out. Triangles do not stand on two legs.

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NATO Just Remembered Who Needs Whom

For years European leaders have been building the case for strategic autonomy. Less dependence on American security guarantees. Energy diversification away from both Russia and the Gulf. The general vibe was that NATO was a legacy institution and that Europe would figure things out on its own.

That project is on ice.

Europe gets 12 to 14% of its LNG from Qatar, through the Strait of Hormuz. Its jet fuel supply chains run through the same chokepoint. Industrial energy costs are spiking at precisely the moment European economies are at their most fragile. And the only country with the military reach, intelligence infrastructure and energy independence to shape the outcome of this crisis is the United States.

Washington did not need to make this argument. The Strait made it instead. NATO allies are not returning to the table as equal partners. They are returning as countries that need American power more urgently than they did six months ago. That is leverage, and it will be cashed in on defence spending, trade terms, technology policy and above all on China.

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China's Already Bad Year Just Got Substantially Worse

China entered 2026 already fighting on multiple fronts: property sector in slow-motion collapse, weak domestic consumption, deflationary pressure, demographic headwinds, and an export-led growth model running into tariff walls across every major Western market.

Now add an energy shock and a strategic retreat in Latin America.

China's Latin America footprint vs US pushback (2025-2026)

Chinese strategic assets US counter-pressure (2025-26) Regional states

Roughly 40% of China's oil imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Its manufacturing sector runs on energy. When input costs spike, margins compress, exports weaken, and the growth numbers that Beijing depends on for political legitimacy start looking shaky. At the same time, the US has been systematically rolling back Chinese infrastructure across Latin America: Maduro removed from Venezuela, Panama exiting Belt and Road, Honduras pivoting back toward Taiwan, Chile blocking Chinese cable projects, Argentina under Milei firmly in the US orbit.

The window in which China could plausibly challenge American economic primacy is not infinite. It is roughly the next ten to fifteen years. Every year of slower growth and strategic retreat is compounding American advantage that cannot be recovered. China is losing time it cannot afford to lose.

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The AI Race Has an Energy Winner -- and It Is Not Close

Artificial intelligence is not just a technology story. It is an energy story. The data centres required to train and run frontier AI models consume extraordinary amounts of electricity, and that demand is growing faster than most grids were designed to handle. The country that can supply that energy reliably, at stable prices, and without geopolitical interruption will have a structural advantage in AI that compounds over decades.

That country is the United States.

America's domestic energy production -- natural gas, expanding nuclear, oil -- gives AI infrastructure developers something neither China nor Europe can currently match: certainty. Hyperscalers and AI labs making ten-year capital commitments need to know the lights will stay on and the cost will not spike 40% because of a conflict in the Persian Gulf. In Europe, energy costs have already become existential for heavy industry. In China, the energy supply chain just became more dependent on Russia and more exposed to exactly the kind of Middle East disruption now unfolding.

The Hormuz crisis is effectively a tax on AI buildout in every energy-import-dependent economy. Higher electricity costs mean higher training costs mean slower deployment. The US, structurally insulated from the worst of the spike, keeps building. The AI gap that already existed is now widening further, not because America accelerated, but because everyone else just hit a speed bump America does not have.

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Five Predictions

Right. Sticking my neck out. Here is where I think this goes:

Prediction 1

Redollarization -- the unipolar moment quietly returns.

For the past decade the narrative has been relentless: the dollar is finished, BRICS will build an alternative, yuan settlement will replace SWIFT, the world is going multipolar. That narrative had genuine tailwinds -- high US debt, weaponisation of sanctions, growing non-Western trade flows, and above all the China-Russia-Iran axis providing an alternative pole of gravity. That axis is now cracking. Iran, the geographic hub, is being defanged. Russia is exhausted. China is on the back foot economically and strategically. Without a credible alternative pole, countries that were hedging toward a multipolar currency world have much weaker incentives to do so. Dollar-denominated oil will flow again. The US military just demonstrated it can project decisive force anywhere on earth. The dedollarization window does not just slow -- it closes. Call it what it is: redollarization. And with it, a unipolar world that was supposedly buried comes quietly back to life.

Prediction 2

US nominal GDP permanently pulls away from China. The gap becomes undeniable.

China's nominal GDP was already tracking to plateau relative to the US given its structural slowdown. The energy shock, compounding property crisis and demographic cliff mean it never catches up. Within five to eight years the narrative of inevitable Chinese economic dominance gets quietly shelved. The US remains the world's largest economy not by luck but by structural advantage.

Prediction 3

2026 is the high-water mark of the China-Russia-Iran axis. It is already in decline.

The axis that has been assembling since 2014 has just passed its peak moment of influence. Iran, the geographic hub, is being defanged. Russia is exhausted by Ukraine. China, facing economic pressure and watching its proxies eliminated, will quietly recalibrate toward economic pragmatism rather than military confrontation. Historians will look back at 2023 to 2025 as the apex of this alignment and 2026 as the turning point.

Prediction 4

A new Middle East takes shape with no Iranian veto over anything.

Israel emerges from this conflict as the dominant military power in the Middle East with no meaningful near-peer challenger for the first time in its history. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, freed from the Iranian threat that has constrained their foreign policy for 40 years, accelerate normalisation with Israel and deepen alignment with the US. The Axis of Resistance -- Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Iraqi militias -- is a shell of itself within three years.

Prediction 5

The Western Hemisphere becomes a US-dominated economic zone. Monroe Doctrine 2.0, with teeth.

Panama Canal ports free of Chinese operators. Venezuela post-Maduro. Honduras back with Taiwan. Argentina under Milei firmly in the US orbit. Brazil watching carefully. The combination of US military credibility restored by the Iran operation and systematic rollback of Chinese infrastructure investment leaves Latin America more firmly in Washington's sphere than at any point since the Cold War ended.

Redollarization -- and the Return of the Unipolar World

The dedollarization narrative had genuine momentum. BRICS summits were declaring the end of dollar dominance. Russia and China were settling trade in yuan. Saudi Arabia was at least talking about pricing oil in non-dollar currencies. The argument was simple: America had weaponised its financial system through sanctions, so the rest of the world would build an off-ramp. And with China, Russia and Iran providing an alternative pole of gravity, that off-ramp had somewhere to go.

Here is the thing. Every one of those tailwinds depended on the axis holding together. China needed to keep growing and providing a credible economic alternative. Russia needed to stay functional enough to anchor the military side. Iran needed to remain the regional hub that gave the whole project geographic weight in the world's most energy-critical zone.

Strip out Iran and you have Russia -- exhausted, sanctioned, increasingly a junior partner to Beijing -- and China, which is now facing an energy shock, a growth crisis and a strategic rollback across Latin America simultaneously. The alternative pole of gravity just got much weaker. Countries that were hedging toward yuan settlement or BRICS currency arrangements now have to ask: hedge toward what, exactly?

Meanwhile the US military just demonstrated it can project decisive force into the most sensitive region on earth, absorb an oil shock better than any other major economy, and systematically roll back Chinese influence from the Panama Canal to the Andes. The dollar does not need a marketing campaign. It needs the world to look at the alternatives and find them wanting. That is exactly what is happening right now.

I am coining a term for what comes next: redollarization. Not a formal announcement. Not a treaty. Just the quiet, structural reassertion of dollar hegemony as the multipolar project loses its anchor. Watch for it in trade settlement data over the next two years. The trend will reverse before anyone on television notices it has started.

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None of this is without cost for America. People at the pump are paying more. Inflation has a new upward pressure. Men and women in uniform are dying. These things are real.

But compare that to the alternative ledger. A China simultaneously hit on energy, growth and strategic alignment. A Russia that cannot help its most important regional partner. A NATO that has been reminded of its dependence on American power in the most visceral way possible. An Iran that was the geographic keystone of the anti-American axis in the Middle East. And an AI race where the only country with committed, domestically controlled, geopolitically insulated energy supply is pulling further ahead.

The television talking heads will keep predicting catastrophe. They have a show to fill and advertisers to keep happy. The rest of us can look at the map. Five predictions are on the table above. Check back in three years.

Standard disclaimer: armchair strategist speaking. This is opinion and analysis, not investment or policy advice. I have been wrong before and will be again. But these are the dots I am connecting as of March 2026.

The opening gambit: from border to boundary

Disclaimer: Blood vs. Boundaries

Before diving into this, we must be explicit: there is no moral or physical equivalence between a soldier dying for their country and a cricketer losing a wicket. One is a tragedy of national proportions; the other is an evening’s entertainment. Yet, as arm chair students of strategy, we cannot help but notice that the DNA of the Pakistani establishment—be it in the GHQ or the PCB—is remarkably consistent. They play like gamblers who bet the house on the first hand.

The Historical Blueprint: 1965, 1971, and Kargil

• 1965 (Operation Gibraltar): It began with the "out-of-the-box" idea of sending thousands of infiltrators in civilian clothes to spark a rebellion. It caught India off guard initially, but when the "lofty goal" of seizing all of Kashmir failed to materialize, the subsequent Indian counter-attack on the international border (Lahore sector) turned a tactical surprise into a strategic retreat that Pakistan could not afford.

• 1971 (The Pre-emptive Strike): Pakistan attempted a "Six-Day War" style strike on Indian airfields. It was a bold tactic meant to cripple the IAF. However, the goal of holding onto a distant East Pakistan while being surrounded was a strategic impossibility. The "out-of-the-box" air strike ended in the largest surrender since WWII.

• 1999 (Kargil): Perhaps the ultimate example. Secretly occupying high peaks in winter was a tactical masterstroke that gave Pakistan a temporary, dominant advantage over National Highway 1A. But the "lofty goal" of forcing a settlement on Kashmir backfired. As India brought in heavy Bofors artillery and the IAF (Operation Safed Sagar), Pakistan found itself diplomatically isolated and militarily pushed back to the LoC.

The Recent Context: Operation Sindoor (May 2025)

In the recent conflict of May 2025, known as Operation Sindoor, we saw this pattern repeat in the modern "gray zone." Following the terror attacks in Pahalgam, India’s precision strikes on terror hubs like Bahawalpur and Muridke were met with a Pakistani counter-response that tried to cash in the initial uncertainty. They used link17 which confused IAF pilots. Yet, as the conflict reached day four, India’s innovative platforms and integrated air defenses established air superiority. Pakistan’s attempt to reach an equilibrium through "nuclear blackmail" failed because their tactical aggression was not backed by the economic or logistical depth to sustain a multi-front engagement.

The T20 Mirror: The 2026 World Cup Clash

Fast forward to the recent T20 World Cup match in Colombo (February 2026). The pattern was eerily familiar:

The Tactical Surprise: Pakistan started with an unconventional bowling attack or a frantic Powerplay that had India on the back foot.

The Mirage of Equilibrium: For a moment, it looked like a stalemate. Pakistan had the "momentum," and the "lofty goal" of an upset victory seemed within reach.

The Structural Collapse: Just like the wars of the past, the lack of a "Plan B" and the pressure of the lofty goal caused a mid-innings collapse. While India came back strongere, Pakistan’s "all-or-nothing" approach resulted in a 61-run defeat. They could have curbed their goal for utter demolition and might have made the match more interesting.

The Cost of Over-Reaching

Whether it is the 71 War or a T20 match, the lesson is clear: Tactical brilliance is no substitute for strategic depth. Pakistan’s tendency to seek "total victory" through "limited surprises" always brings them to the same crossroads. They start with a bang, dream of a new status quo, and end up losing more than they would have if they had simply played—or lived—within their means.

Just wishing they do not learn from this and keep gifting things on a platter!!

Hoka Hey!!

My incessant listening to the podcasts keep throwing up some gems on and off. I am left with at least something to show for all the time invested.

But these two poems are something completely different, deeper.
Typing them here. Just so that I can enjoy these again.
First, Here is the original source:

The podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=48&v=okDzJ22CtCY

The wild woman: http://www.rebellesociety.com/2014/12/14/a-wild-woman-is-not-a-girlfriend-she-is-a-relationship-with-nature/

The wild man: https://www.aubreymarcus.com/blogs/aubrey-marcus/a-wild-man-is-not-a-boyfriend-he-is-a-force

And here are the words:


A wild woman
Is not a girlfriend

She is a relationship
with nature

But can you love me
In the deep?
In the dark?
In the thick of it?

Can you love me
when I am bigger than you?
When my presence
blazes like the sun does
When it hurts
to look
directly at me?

can you love me
then too?

Can you love me
Under the starry sky
Shaved and smooth
My skin like liquid moonlight

Can you love me
when I am howling and fury
standing on my haunches
my lower lip
stained with the blood
of my last kill?

when I call down
the lightening
when the sidewalks
are singed
by the soles of my feet

can you still
love me then

What happens
when I freeze the land
and cause the dirt to freeze
over all the pomegranate seeds
we've planted

will you trust
the spring to return?

will you still believe me
when I tell you
I become a raging river
and spill myself
upon your dreams
and call them you the surface
of your life?

Can you trust me
even though
 you can not
tame me

Can you
love me
even though
 I am all
that you fear
and admire

Will you fear
my shifting shape?

Does it frighten you
when my eyes flash
like your camera does

Do you fear
they will capture
Your soul?

Are you afraid
to step in to me?

The meat eating plants
and flowers
armed with
poisonous darts
are not in my jungle
to stop you
from coming
Not you!

So do not worry
they belong to me
and I have
invited you here

Stay to the path
revealed in the moonlight
and arrive safely
To the hut
of Baba Yaga

The wild old wise one
she will not
lead you astray
If you are
pure of the heart

You can not be
with the wild one
if you fear
the rumbling
of the ground
the roar
of the cascading river
the startling clap
of thunder in the sky

If you want
to be safe
go back
to your tiny room
the tiny sky
is not for you

If you want
to be torn apart
come in
Be broken open
and devoured
Be set ablaze
in my fire

I will not
leave you
as you have come
well dressed
in finely threaded sweaters
that keep out the cold

I will leave you
naked and biting
Leave you clawing
 at the sheets
 Leave you surrounded
 by owls and hawks
and flowers
that only bloom
when no one is watching.

So
come to me
and be healed
in the unbearable
lightness and darkness
 of all that you are

There is nothing in you
 that can scare me
 Nothing in you
I will not use
to make you great

A wild woman
is not a girlfriend
She is a relationship
with nature
She is the source
of all your primal desires
and she is the
wild whipping wind
that uproots
 the poisonous corn stalks
on your neatly tilled farm

She will plant pear trees
in the wake of your disaster

She will see to it
that you shall rise again

She is the lover
who restores you
to your own wild nature.




A wild man
is not a boyfriend
he is a force.

Can you love me
in the blinding heat
of a birthing star
when I shower warmth
on distant moons?

Can you love me
in the hole
of the cosmic black
where no one
can reach me?
Not even you?

Can you love me
then too?

Can you love me
when I drag
buffalo skulls
through the dirt for days,
to the rhythm
 of an ancient drum?

Will you love me
if my beard hides
the scars in my heart
from battles I cannot explain?

WIll you love me
when I lack courage
when I am defeated
when I won't let you
 patch my wounds?

WIll you trust me
when I smell of
sweetgrass and sage
and when I stink of
whiskey and sweat?

When I drink
from the cup
and play in astral light
will you anchor me
to home?

What happens when
my words don't work
and I can speak
with only my eyes?

Can you
love me enough
 to let me go,
without asking me
 where I'll be?

I am no poodle
to lay groomed
on a leash
at your feet

I am the wolf
that fetches
the bones of truth.

A wild man
is not a boyfriend
 He's not built
for animal husbandry

He is a force.
He is a cause
for an effect
He is a mission.

Are you afraid
to let me inside you?
Not just my flesh,
but my soul

The wild man
is neither burglar or vandal

I will not take
anything from you

I will not trample on
sprouting seeds
 or pick flowers as a trophy

I am the sun
on flooded fields
 and the fire
for tangled webs

Don't be scared

lover
mother
maiden
crone

 Take me as I am.

Even if I have
the power
to destroy worlds
I will not
destroy you.

A wild man
is a protector
A father
A warrior for all that is good.

When the chaos seek
to obliterate you
sheering your flesh
from bone,

I will hold
all the pieces
together in love

until you are ready
to reassemble.

When your seas boil
and your winds
throw cars at corn fields

I will wait
patiently
for you
to catch my eye
so that both of us
can laugh.

When Hell opens up
the fiery gates
and sends
all the cosmos
against you

I plant
my heels
deep in the ground
I lay
my shield low
My sword
is sharp then
my love

The steel
sings sweetly
With a smile
Hoka Hey!

My last breath
a farewell kiss

Today is a good day
to die.

For ours
is the oldest
love affair

The greatest story
ever told

Cupid and Psyche
Shiva and Shakti
You and I.

Same same
but different
Would we have it
any other way?

Break a leg!

(Advance warning: upper body nudity of a middle aged male variety ;) )

This is a story of how we had best of both the worlds and hit back harder when the universe took its revenge!

This is a story of how we went from this:

to this:

and hit back with this:

Here is the full story.

Last summer my family left me alone for a month and visited India. I being the full blooded Indian male that I am, did the thing every one in the same situation does. I missed them terribly and while doing this, I had a whale of time.

 Rounds of lake Washington on my bike, learning Kayaking and then taking the kayak to places where it has not gone before :), especially almost full day pedaling through Lake Samamish, Samamish river and lake washington, watching Blue Angles from the water.

And the debauchery continued even when the gang came back.


It had to stop some where and it stopped one day when I was trying to do my first hundred mile ride on my bike.
I broke my leg and tibia plateau. We really had a pretty bad time. Adding to this the complications in anesthesia which made me spend a night in ICU. This was easily the worst night of my life with kids + Pallavi balancing on rickety chairs whole night praying for me to recover. We were stranded in a strange country with no family nearby. Our kind friends were the only support structure. But we were definitely staring in an abyss.

At this moment, we started fighting and crawling back one step at a time. Pallavi and kids showed incredibly courage, we recovered together.

But we also had a lot of fun.  We of course maintained regular schedule of outings, enjoyed as and when we could what ever was happening around us

But we needed to hit back with something more.

And here is the coup-de-grace. While recovering we also decided and reduced my weight from here: 

to here:

The exact numbers do not matter. What matters is that we not only fought together but also improved the earlier conditions!

And all this has been possible only because of the tender love and care shown by my better half. Also the steel and resolve I really never knew existed.

And now we hit an arbitary deadline of reaching 70 kg of weight, just a number in general scheme of things, thanks you pillu for every thing. Here is for more and more challenges and goals together!!

Let's make lemonade when life gives us lemons!!!

Solaris - Lem : Dobara

I have felt this feeling may be a couple of times in my life (obviously, life till now :D ).
The feeling goes some thing like this:
As soon as I start reading a book - it kind of looks familiar. I have definitely read the book earlier. Each event feels like you have read it before. Some part of my brain known the story completely: but is teasing with rest of the head and not opening the unread part.

I keep reading on and as soon as the mystery reveals, the knowing part jests with the dumb part. May be they share a chuckle and I then read on.This goes on for pages and pages/chapters and chapters. I enjoy this game as much as I enjoy the original story line. It adds a lot of spice and color to an already engrossing book.

I am currently having the same feeling re-reading Solaris by Stanislav Lem. I had definitely liked the book earlier. With this private game being played in my head now: I like it even better the second time. Especially the way Lem has handled the mystery: it adds even more intrigue.

This whole process gives my real good high, a purer high than the recently-legalized substances :). I really love this private kick that I get (private only till now. Now the inter-tubes know of this!!). Here is to read more about the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95558.Solaris

Post-fact world

History has a way of chewing out points of views and personalities. Obama's term in office is an example of such vagaries of time. When he came in the lime light, he was all about the audacity of hope, "yes we can" chants warming hearts on both side of divide.

The Crybaby

But when we see at the last half year of his term, it looks like a worst book end any president could have. He could have hung around and remained neutral in the upcoming elections. This would have added so much to his legacy as well as made his actions against Russia more believable.

The political progression

It is a well known pattern in US politics. There is a definite handover of power between parties every eight years. Only an exceptionally successful President can push for the next candidate from his own party. Only an exceptionally bad president loses the second term. You need extra ordinary proof on you side if you want to rule out this thesis.

Even exceptionally successful presidents, who have done two consecutive terms and still remain popular, generally prefer to remain mostly aloof from the electoral process. One of the major mistake Obama made was ignoring all these inputs. 

Never wrestle with a pig

I think this involved a large amount of miscalculation on his part. Instead of walking in the sunlight with his head held high, he got pulled in the mud by Trump. And as it generally happens, the pig won. It is not the pig's fault that the fight happened at all. It was complete miscalculation on the second party that got in the mud.

Difference between election and party

There is no new proof that the actual electoral process was affected by Russian hacking. As the clip above shows, it is also really difficult to actually impact the actual election process. Words matter here. This is nothing but a very clumsy effort of diverting the blame. Only thing that was hacked was the party's and Podesta's personal emails. The only thing that was leaked actually showed lacked of democracy within the democratic party. 

Only thing Obama is achieving by raising these issues is to land another foot in mouth. His priorities here should have been to (a) Take the foot out of his mouth AND/OR (b) Firmly keep the mouth closed so that nothing else can enter there again.

My conspiracy theory

Here is my contribution to the whole discussion :). I have my own pet theory why things turned out the way they did. In my opinion there are three major possible reasons for it:

Trump is firmly under Obama's skin Trump has got under Obama's skin since the time he started making allegations against him. This is justifiably so. I personally think the Donald played a really dirty game there. But Obama allowed him to get under his skin and did not actually take the "high road" as his better half keeps reminding. And the first chance he got, Obama had to pay Trump back.

It is all $$ If you remember correctly, Obama's campaign was one of the most funded ones. He raised more than 600mil dollars. Hillary Clinton also shared more or less the same bunch of sponsors. Obama owed this to his masters and he did not have a way out. Also once they did not need him, he did not have a lot of investment in making him look good. As soon as the backing went away, his feet of clay were visible.

He made a deal with the devil Hillary's support for 2008 run after she lost the nomination came with a bunch of riders. That's how she got the secretary of state nomination.

What ever may be the reasons, this has left this great country in an unenviable position.

Post-fact world

Every one is trying to out-Trump Trump. Wrestling with the pig.

But the fact is that this post-fact world is not ushered in by the Donald. He just introduced to world to the possibility. 

The media took it up whole heartedly. Instead of being a mirror to the people, they tried to become the opinion makers. They lost grasp of the the facts and objectivity. They manipulated their numbers 

to align with their political leanings.They whole hearted followed him to the post-fact world. 

But the credit of making this a highway goes definitely to his predecessor - Barak Obama. 

Two negatives do not make a positive

There is some thing which has been making me really agitated last couple of weeks. I hope making it public might relieve a bit of my pain by sharing it :)

This all started with this celebration:

First thing that popped up was it was so not unplanned and stage managed. Second thing was that the series was still a 2-2 draw. In 2015-16 they have just played Sri Lanka, Bangla Desh and England. They have won only in UAE and  (maybe in Pak).
Apparently to get to this 2-2 draw they practiced with Pak Army. There are some striking similarities between the Cricket team and the army. Army's terrorist catching record can compete with Akmal's wicket keeping record. Just like the Army then have been just beating starved Bangladeshis and no one else. They both are the best match fixers.
Add to that the frustration of a rained out game without any rain on couple of days in WI and we have the most undeserved test number one ever. Now the irony was full till the brim.
This was one of the few times I prayed to God. That too in Marathi. - "Irony"chyaa devaa tulaa thingi thingi waahu de - my fav song dedicated to the most powerful God of probability.
And lo and behold: my prayers were answered:

And I am like:
https://youtu.be/HRAjzK75M0U?t=1m30s
Hope you feel the same way too ....

The only easy answer to the question "why" is

Why not.

And now, after two weeks in US of A, I can think of only that to justify my move here.

I, as many people know was never a big fan of moving to the fatherland. This was one subject I thought I have a principled opinion and a strong point of view. coincidently, the other things I had so much strong opinion about India's nuclear tests, atheism,Sachin's captaincy, advances of t-twenty and bunch of other things.  And exactly like these points this particular opinion went the same way: it actually does not matter much.

I consider myself a person who likes to travel around and like visiting new places. Though missus thinks that I am the biggest couch potato ever. The thing is that discussion on this particular matter is already closed with me being shown the

As an aside, If you want to know the real nature of husband, the wife is the best source. And spouses are known to be the best critic. But all the wife-bashing aside, the fact still remains that I have not moved a lot unless really forced too.

And the movement (or lack of it) characteristics have not changed whatever the time scale or the distance scale. I do not move for hours together also for years together. On hour scale my movements are limited to TV remote searching and sofa to dining table/refrigerator reccee. On year scale it was limited to Hyd-Blr IT belt.

So all signs were pointing to continue to gentle walk into sunset basking in the sun of Indian IT industry, may be float in the middle management, earn fat paycheck till the time we retire and then do what ever retired IT folks do (what do they do? Browse net for hours together on your own machines rather than using the ones provided by the employers?).

So the question arises why take such a drastic (only relative to my scale of movement) decision to move to the fatherland the land of opportunities for medium term. Also a land where may be the time difference and location separation is not there to hide how less work I actually do!

 And the answer in there in the first line.

So most probably this is more of just muddying the still waters and  making a scene. This is the glorious habit of taking movement for progress. It does not change much the path the life in general is taking. Maybe it will be more comfortable, a little bit different, a little less routine till a new routine is found. The major difference right now is the two generations we are tying together. The grand parents and the grand children are affected far more than us.

Current status is that we have survived our two weeks in the cold here. Both end of the generation gap have taken it pretty well. Especially the less-study-more-play approach to schooling here has gone down exceptionally well with the younger ones here.

Will keep posting our progress here when ever I feel like: For folks who care or just for my records. To be looked at in the above mentioned retirement. I will also try and make it more of an events-and-happenings post rather than a thinking-and-opinioning one :D

Good bye Shiv

Shivnaraine Chanderpaul is a very difficult cricketer to like. He has been just about breaking stereotypes and kicking the romantics in the face.  In a game where it is mandatory for a left hander middle order batsman to be elegant, he is inelegance personified.
The game has evolved where the batsmen are analyzed very thoroughly. Even a few degrees of change in the arc of the bat coming down can be exploited as a opening for the ballers. It is known to end careers. But not for Shiv, he took his front on batting stance and faced and most of the times won successfully against the best in business again and again.
The temerity of the man was in being what he is and taking it in front of the best and surviving. The picture that I have of him in mind can not accommodate a farewell series. He is more likely to use it as an opportunity to come back in the reckoning. He does not ask favors, does not give any quarters. When the selectors take him in the team, they do not declare that he is the best that they have. But they need to say he is not good enough when they do not select him. I imagine his definition of fun would be grinding out hundreds under guyanese sun or delaying the sure shot defeat by grinding out partnership with tail enders. Delaying the inevitable opposing the best in the business may be yet another of his pastimes.
In this Shiv is Dravid minus the statesmanship. He is also Steve Waugh who was always riled up and backed into a corner. He is the most distilled doggedness that can be found on a cricket field.
If he is going to go out, this is the only way he would. But I hope he still has in him to fight his way back in to the reckoning again. That is the Shiv I came to know over the years.

Here is hoping for his return to international cricket ....

Docker on windows via Services for UNIX: An Engineer’s dream

 

I came across this news: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2836601/microsoft-subnet/microsoft-partners-with-docker-to-bring-containers-to-windows-server.html.

This is interesting in a lot of senses. It is a sign that in the new world the Microsoft windows is ready to move with the time and change. Also it makes the docker eco system more universal.

Of course we all have heard about demos that were run inside Microsoft and outside which showed these capabilities with windows pretty early in docker’s life time. So I won’t be surprised if this gets done sooner than expected !!

but I think it will be pretty difficult to get Linux based docker images working on Windows. So even when the technology is supported it may not be universal.

That is where the interesting part comes in. One of the major requirement of a docker image is the existence of Linux/POSIX kernel. As a few of us are aware, till recent releases, windows used to be released with a POSIX subsystem and tools on top of it.

I think implementing docker on top of Services for UNIX might be a better option or may even be a more compatible option.

 

This particular opportunity is tremendously exciting. Please watch this space for more discussions about the possibilities and approaches. :D

Hobbyist developer: How do side projects end

This is one of the most important things that folks tend to forget. You should always know the possibilities with your side project.  In my opinion, there has to be an out standing pipeline of projects. You should also know the priority of each of these. Also keeping the status as well as priority in your mind is pretty difficult. It is especially difficult if you have a demanding day job. and almost impossible if you are a middle-aging developer like me.

 

Discarded-Aborted-Saved-Shared

  This is the bucket most of the hobbyist projects end up in. Many reasons for that happening. But the major ones are that the developer is no more interested or the project is no more relevant. I thing there is nothing wrong in putting projects in discarded bucket. You should not take this as a failure that you are either discarding or suspending your side project. The generic idea is that very few ideas actually succeed. So it is definitely a win to have started. But once you realize things are not coming together, there is not point hanging on to an idea. The theme is that you should be generating and throwing away ideas very quickly.

 

You should be really cut throat about culling the old projects. This is how new and more exciting and more fruitful projects can be started. Working on the idea is not only the measurement of your will power but of the validity of the nascent idea itself.

 

One thing that I am trying to change at this point though is the way I let go of a project. I have not been very good at this aspect. When ever you decide to move on, you just need to spend a bit more time and get it in a shape where it is as useful as possible. This means that at the least, you should have it checked in to your private repository. If the idea is applicable, you should share it with the relevant folks.You can blog about the idea if it is globally applicable. And of course the most ideal way to let go of a project is the share the idea as well as the code as widely as possible.

Definitely there are limitations to this, which will reduce the extent of sharing. But you should still try and do it. 

 

Suspended-Saved-Shared

Another place where ideas end up is that because of some reason or another, we need to stop working on them for a while. This is the most dangerous place for any idea. This is where ideas turn into zombies. Not preserving them properly for a restart is the worst you can do to an idea and your potential. To preserve it properly, you need to ensure that you prepare it for a restart.ideas are delicate. So you need to ensure that you preserve them in great shape.  Here is one example :)

 

The way to achieve the same for a software project is to document as much as possible. Just before you assign you project to the crypt, you should ensure that you have checked in all the code and documentation. You should also think about future when you may want to restart work on it. For it, it has to be as simple to understand and start on it as possible.

 

Successful

Woo hoo !! YOU are the man/gal. If you have reached here, you have already been paid for your persistence. Now that you are out of limbo, other and more dangerous hells await you. But you have crossed the first threshold. I have seldom,if ever, been here.

Monetized

If you have completed something successfully and have been able to get some money out of it as well – that covers every thing. You , sir , should be writing this post :)

 

Hobbyist developer - Why do you do a side project

There are multiple reasons why one starts a side project. I have been starting those (and not finishing most of them). I think there can be many reasons and some of them are driven by the personality of the developer.
The point there is that it is important that you have felt to urge to try out some thing. This wish for action is more important than the nobility of the reason for which you started.
Here are some of the noble and not so noble reasons folks start their hobby programming projects - these contain a list of reasons why I have started my side projects as well.

Exploring alternate employment opportunity: There can be hardly any developer worth his salt who has not dreamt about starting a google or a facebook in his spare time. This can also be a fact that you have an organization as your next target and you are getting your feet wet with whatever they are doing so that you can hit the ground running. You may also think it makes your resume more attractive if you have some code written especially in the public domain in the same area you want your next employment in.

Your bid to change the world view:  Some of us have thought at least some point in time that folks are not thinking right. The soberer version of it is that you think you have another point of view for the current one which is also right. What better way of doing it than just doing a side project.

Learning:There is some technology, language you want to pick up and what better way than doing a quick project. I tried to learn Ruby on Rails the same way. (Before forgetting it even more quickly :))

Proving your point: There is some assignment at work. You think it can be solved in a more generic way. Your folks do not think so. You build your generic solution and open it to folks. People flock to it and you thumb your nose at the aforementioned nay-sayers. (Have not seen it happen too often - but no danger in trying)

Jealousy: You have the core piece of the work you are doing. You do not get it because it is assigned to somebody else because of experience, credentials or age. A healthy outlet to the envy is to implement the same thing for yourselves.

Of course I have not covered every thing. Do share if you think there are other reasons. It is highly likely they may make more sense than the ones that forced me to start my projects.