Love vs Justice & Pride

Zen Denizen asked the following question in the comments to my post Enough Love:

Do you believe love is stronger than justice and pride?

At first, I thought that she was asking if one has to choose between love versus justice and pride, what should be chosen. Re-reading the question and understanding it in simpler terms, she might simply be asking if love is more resilient than justice and pride. Whatever she meant to ask, I thought the answer to both questions would be interesting. So, here goes.


What is stronger? Love? Or, justice and pride?

I will answer the simpler question first: It doesn't take much to break justice and pride. One lie, one dishonest act can kill justice. One failure, one humiliation, one moment of humbleness can break pride. But true love is not so easy to break or kill. Love can go through many tests, trials and tribulations, many rejections and failures, and still survive. In that sense, love is much stronger than justice and pride.


Love vs Justice

Being in a position where you have to choose between love and justice is especially tough. The classic example is that of a law enforcement officer who catches his much-loved child in a criminal act. Should the officer succumb to love and let his child off the hook? Or should he treat the child as he would treat any other unknown criminal?

Given that justice is so much more fragile - all it takes is one lie or one dishonest act to kill justice - than love, I'd say that justice should be chosen if there is ever a conflict between love and justice. There is another (more) important reason to preserve justice: true love cannot be built and sustained over a foundation of injustice and lies. Love needs a strong foundation of justice and truth. A love that is chosen at the cost of truth, is a weakened love. It won't survive for long.


Love vs Pride

Pride is like cholesterol - there is good pride and there is bad pride. Excessive pride, false pride or a pride based on the insecurity of a person, is a sure killer of love. Such pride can kill love like an especially vile parasite. Such pride saps the health out of a good relationship.

On the other hand, complete lack of pride results in a weak individual and an unhealthy relationship. Love cannot be sustained by a weak individual, in an unhealthy relationship. Healthy pride is a symptom of self-confidence and a sense of self-worth. It is the mark of a well-balanced and secure individual. The kind of individual who can provide and share a secure, nourishing, nurturing love.


Summary

It can be very difficult and trying when we find ourselves in a position where we have to choose between love and justice / pride. In such a stressful situation, it is all too easy to make a short-sighted choice which appears to be in favor of love. However, a wise choice, is the one which will sustain both love and justice / pride, in the long run. Beware of a choice which requires you to sacrifice one thing or the other. I hope the above answers help us all make wise choices.

Monsoon Rainbow

(Click for bigger pic!)

This gorgeous rainbow appeared over our neighborhood last evening, after a monsoon shower!

Enough Love

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer, no disease that enough love will not heal, no door that enough love will not bridge, no wall that enough love will not throw down, no sin that enough love will not redeem... It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough, you could be the happiest and most powerful being in the world...

- Emmet Fox

Most irritating about Microsoft Windows

I know what irritates me most about Microsoft Windows operating system: the way the focus can jump from one window to another without warning or control. There are no doubt bigger holes and issues in Microsoft Windows, but this one issue of uncontrolled focus-jumping irritates me several times every day.

Suppose you start a particular task or process in Window A - say, opening a particular folder or saving a document - and while this task is being performed, you navigate to another window B to do some other task there. The way the Windows operating system often behaves is that when the task or process in window A is completed, it automatically brings window A into focus, no matter what you are doing in window B. All of a sudden, you will find window A popping up in your face, replacing window B.

I hate this behavior. I work very fast at the computer. So, if some task takes too much time (more than 15-20 seconds, may be) in one window and it is not a really high priority task, I usually send the window to the background and switch to another task in another window. When I send a window to the background, I want it to stay in the background until I consciously navigate to it.

Instead, after a few moments, it will pop up into the foreground without warning. Due to this behavior, at times I end up typing stuff into the first window, that I intended to type in the second window. Sometimes I end up doing more damaging activities than merely typing - such as, saving or discarding changes when I did not intend to.

Anybody else hate this behavior of Windows?

Big Screen Productivity

I am switching to a new laptop at work. During this transition period, I have access to both machines - which means, two screens on my desk. I have been working this way for the past couple of days, and I love it.

A surprisingly big portion of working on a computer involves comparing, correlating or transferring information from one application or window to another. I like to have most of my windows maximized to full screen. So, I spend a lot of time switching back and forth between windows. Having two screens side by side made many of my tasks so much more convenient.

So, I am sold on the productivity of using big screens now. I wish I could have a monitor big enough to hold two or three 1024 X 768 sized windows side by side. That would rock!

Mom's Care No More

Last night, in a moment of intense anguish, I called out to my mother. I have not done that in such a long time - called out to her, that is. I don't even remember when was the last time I called out to her.

Anyway, my mother is in India. So, she could not hear my call. Nevertheless, a few minutes later, she called me on the phone. Only to tell me that she is getting admitted to a hospital today for a surgery. I am very concerned and worried for her health.

This is a milestone in my life. This is when I realize that I can no longer fall back on my mother's care. And that, it is now my turn to take care of my parents.

Oh, I am sure my parents care for me a lot. They are very concerned about me, and I am sure they would want to comfort and support me in my times of need. But my problems and concerns will only trouble them more.

I have always been an independent child. In fact, I have actively tried not to involve my parents too much in my personal challenges and difficulties. I have never really been able to fully express my pain and worries to them, for fear of getting them more worried. This is truer now than ever before.

Although I never really wanted to rely on them, there was some comfort in knowing that they are there, in case I needed to rely on someone. But now, this realization that I should take care of them rather than relying on them, makes me feel especially lonely.

VoIP - 1

Background
Last Thursday, I gave a speech at the Toastmaster's meeting on VoIP. The speech project was to research a topic and then talk about it.

It was supposed to be a 5-7 min speech. I planned on taking 1-2 minutes to give a brief explanation of what VoIP means. The rest of the time was to be spent introducing the audience to 3 or 4 VoIP services which are available in the market right now, to demonstrate how VoIP makes a difference in our lives. The audience was perfect for this topic - not one of them had a VoIP phone line in their homes. I thought that at the end of my speech, they would all be really inpsired to check out VoIP and benefit from it. Boy, was my speech a disaster!

As it turned out, the explanation of the theory behind VoIP took up most of my time. When you are giving a speech, time can fly real fast. I did not have much time at all to talk about the VoIP products/services I was going to show the audience. Even if I had the time, it would not have turned out all that great because my laptop would not connect to the projector. I was going to show them the features of the VoIP services on the screen for maximum effect. As it turned out, I learnt during the feedback that people did not even know that VoIP was related to their telephone service or usage.
They thought I was giving a speech on a theoretical technology that was way out there and did not affect their daily lives in any way! Repeat: what a disaster!

But I can see opportunity in this disaster. Two opportunities in fact. One opportunity is my next speech whose objective is to 'persuade with power'. I think I can show the audience these great VoIP products/services and persuade them to check them out, and perhaps, even use them. The other opportunity is, of course, to write this blog post as a way to gather my speech material.

VoIP Technology
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. To put it in very simplistic terms, VoIP is the technology which is used to transport voice over the Internet. In VoIP, a person's voice signals are converted into digital packets, which are then sent over the Internet to the destination. At a very high level, it is not much different from sending textual data, such as emails. What this means is that, like most Internet traffic, there is no synchronous connection between the sender and receiver of voice data. The modern Internet channels are so fast and efficient that despite this asynchronous transfer of voice data, the data packets still manage to be gathered and re-assembled quickly enough at the receivers end, so that the receiver gets a signal which makes sense and is of great quality. In fact, the best quality voice conversations I have had between the US and India has consistently been over VoIP connections, and not the traditional phone lines.

The traditional telephone systems are called circuit-switched systems. In simplistic terms, in the traditional system, a synchronous, continuous circuit/connection is established between the sender and receiver of the voice signals. In the olden days, this continuous connection was made of copper wires. These days, we have all kinds of cables from copper to fibre optic cables, and traditional telephone signals are even sent over satellite.

The difference between traditional circuit-switched telephone systems and VoIP can be understood at a high-level through the analogy of the railways and roadways. Rail transportation requires that there be a continuous railway line between the point of origin and the destination. There is not much flexibility in the route. Even the containers used for transportation (the boxcars of the train) have rigidly defined size, shape standards. If there is a problem along the railway line, it can hold up traffic for a long time. The amount of railway lines and the places where they are available is quite limited. Compared to that the roadways are so much more flexible. There are many combinations of streets you can take from origin to destination. If there are accidents or problems along one route, you can take a different route. The size and types of vehicles you can use to transport goods over roadways are too numerous to list. The road network is extensive and almost unlimited to most places where people live.

The fact that voice signals are converted to digital data packets in VoIP is important. What that means is that the data packets can now be processed and manipulated by computers and newer digital phones, in ways that were never possible with the older phones.

It is also signifant that the voice data is transported over the Internet, instead of over regular telephone lines. What this implies is that the provider of the VoIP telephone service need not overly concern themselves about the route the voice signal takes from the sender to the receiver. They don't have to spend lot of time, effort and money in leasing bandwidth on telephone lines from the point of origin to the destination. They don't have to be concerned about providing a connecting line to each of their telephone subscribers. All that the telephone subscribers need to have is a high-speed Internet connection. All that the VoIP service providers need is a big enough connection to the Internet to send and receives voice data from all their customers. Of course, the VoIP service provider also needs to be connected to the traditional phone network to be able to provide connections between their VoIP customers and the users of regular phone lines. But this is a relatively smaller concern, compared to being concerned about the their entire network from the point of origin to the destination.

The two factors - manipulating voice data packets with computers and the telephone service providers not having to concern themselves too much about the entire telephone network - result in some great advantages and features to us, the regular telephone users. Those features, along with examples of VoIP products and services which offer them, will be presented in my next post on VoIP. Look out for that post to start taking advantage of these features yourself.

Lessons in Mistakes for Alpha Males

Making Mistakes

• Everybody in the tribe makes mistakes. The Alpha Male might make a big mistake. He has big responsibilities, big authority, big power. So, it is natural for him to be in a position where he might make big mistakes.



• The biggest mistake the Alpha Male can make is to think that he is a worse person because he made a big mistake. How big a mistake a person makes is not necessarily proportional to how bad a person he is. The Alpha Male must always remember that he made a big mistake because he is a big person with big responsibilities.

Admitting Mistakes

• The Alpha Male must be brutally honest with himself in admitting his mistakes and the causes for the mistake. Admitting his mistakes to others is a different matter.



• The Alpha Male must admit mistakes to others only if such admission is necessary for rectifying the mistake or for healing the hurts caused by his mistake or for teaching a lesson to others so that they don't make the same mistake. Otherwise, the Alpha Male should not admit mistakes to others.



• The tribe does not follow the Alpha Male because he makes mistakes and admits to them. The tribe follows the Alpha Male because he corrects mistakes and takes the tribe forward.



• While admitting the mistake might appear honest and honorable, most tribe members will see it merely as a weakness. It takes some maturity to recognize honor in the admission of mistakes, and most followers don't have that maturity.

Rectifying after Mistakes

• The first step to rectifying a mistake is for the Alpha Male to remember that he is the Alpha Male. He is the Do-er of Things. He is the Fixer. He is not a smaller person or a bad person just because he made the big mistake.



• Alpha Males can be hard on themselves, expecting to always do the best. So, when they make a mistake, they might spend time and energy brooding on it, beating themselves up. This is not productive. The Alpha Male should give only as much thought and energy to mistakes, as it is necessary to learn the causes and contributing factors of the mistakes, and learn what it takes to rectify the mistake.



• The Alpha Male should not allow himself to be defeated just because he made a mistake. The mistake might prove that he is not the smartest or the strongest, but he is still the Alpha Male. He should not give up his power and authority to others just because he made a mistake.



• If the Alpha Male is indeed broken or defeated by a mistake, and he is not able to correct it or lead the tribe, he should step down and let someone more capable take over. There is nothing more pathetic or dangerous than a person who is no longer the Alpha Male, but who is pretending to be one or trying to futilely to hold on to the title.



• By all means let the Alpha Male listen to other wise members of the tribe for advice on correcting the mistake. But what he does with such advice is his own decision and responsibility. He should execute the rectifications with his own power, as his own actions. He should be careful not to give up his power and authority to those who advice him in the time of his defeat or mistake.



• This is worth repeating: Mistakes and defeats do not make or break the Alpha Male. The Alpha Male is made or broken by what is in his heart, his head and in his balls.

Mistakes and Women

• One of the worst mistakes the Alpha Male can make is one involving a woman - doing something wrong to her or doing something wrong with her or doing something wrong because of her. The Alpha Male should take special precautions not to mix up mistakes and women.



• Most women follow the Alpha Male for the same reason the rest of the tribe does: because he is the Alpha Male, because he is the Do-er, the Fixer, the Leader. They admire and love him for the same reasons. Not because he makes mistakes or admits to them.



• The Alpha Male might feel the need to have some person with whom he can let down his guard, freely admit his weaknesses and mistakes, be vulnerable. He must be careful about whom he chooses to do these with. Doing all these with a woman does not necessarily make him the cute love-able puppy to her.



• The Alpha Male is better off having an older trustworthy mentor for letting down his guard, admitting his weakness and mistakes, and being vulnerable. Ideally, such a mentor is not a direct follower of the Alpha Male and is somewhat removed from the rest of the tribe.



• There is a rare woman who can see every weakness of the Alpha Male, still recognize that he is the Alpha Male, support and help him to overcome those weaknesses, and love and respect him at the end of it all. The Alpha Male who has such a woman in his life is very lucky. Such a woman will be one of the main strengths which make him the Alpha Male.

Ideal Programming Comments

Leaving proper and abundant comments in code has always been one of the most repeated programming tips.

We were discussing the inadequate commenting practice among team members at work, when I had this to say:

Ideally, comments left in a program should be such that if you filter out/hide all the code and read only the comments, that should give you a good idea of the logic of the program.

Loneliest thing I have done

I am used to doing things alone. Most of the times. I don't usually have buddies interested in the same things as I am. So, for most of my life, I have been going to places or events alone, and then making friends there. I never really minded it. In fact, I liked making new varieties of friends, in new places.

I am now sitting in a clinic for my immigration medical exam (and blogging on my phone). There are couple of other Indian guys here. They both seem to be here with their wives. Both wives are good looking. As I sit here and listen to them having their idiosyncratic conversations that don't really mean anything, I realize that this immigration thing is the most lonely thing I have doing in my life.

I personally don't know anyone who is doing this alone. Most Indians are married by the time they reach this stage in their immigration process. They do it with their spouses.

I am not feeling lonely only because I am doing this alone. I'm feeling lonely more because I realize that this immigration thing has the potential to put some serious distance between the Love of My Life and myself. Each step, each form, each activity in this process is depressing and tortuous.

I had pretty much accepted that this step would come about 3-4 years from now. But the state department advanced the dates by a huge deal. Why did this have to come now, in the middle of everything else I'm dealing with??

The Reason

The Reason (mp3)

This is my own rendering of The Reason (lyrics), originally recorded by the band Hoobastank.

State of Tears

Just got off a painful 28-minute phone call with mom. She kept trying to persuade me to get married, to consider the girls she'd like to find for me.

I kept telling her, "Don't want."

She kept asking me, "Why don't want? What do you mean by, 'don't want'? What do you want? What do you have in mind? What are your intentions? If not now, when would you want?" So on, and so forth.

I kept telling her, "Don't want."

Then she said, "Don't say that you don't want now, and then find yourself in a state of tears later."

Poor mom. Doesn't know that her son is already in a state of tears.

Jhonka hawa ka

YESSS! Finally, I have come around to posting my songs - yes, sung and recorded by myself - on this blog! Thanks to the folks at MyPodcast.com for hosting my audio files.

This first song-post is dedicated to the Love of My Life.

Click below. Be warned, it's a link to an mp3 file.

Jhonka hawa ka

This song is originally from the movie, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

Libran Lover's Blog Updates 2

This year, Google has been introducing a whole lot of sharing options among all its services. I have used a couple of these to share some nice things with you on the side-bar:

1. Through My Lens - In this section on the side-bar, I use Picasa Web Albums to run a small slide-show of some favorite photos, I have clicked myself. You can mouse-over the slide-show to activate the slide-show controls and toggle the caption display. Click on a photo to view it in bigger size, and leave comments if you'd like. Keep checking for new photos from my travels and adventures.
2. My Shared Reading - In this section, I share some of the interesting and share-worthy items I have read recently on my Goodle Reader subscriptions. You can click on the links to read each article in full, on its original website. This section will be automatically updated with fresh links every time I find something worth sharing. So, keep an eye here too for new items.

If you read my blog through RSS readers, you will not be able to see these side-bar sections. You will have to visit my blog page.

I hope all you readers like these new sections. Let me know if the position of these sections on the side-bar should be moved around.

Getting Back into the Dating Scene

Before you misunderstand, no, I am not back in the dating scene. Sorry to disappoint ladies! ;-)

A nice lady who has been out of the dating scene for almost 10 years asked my advice on how she can get back into it. Here's my advice to her:

The best thing you can do right now is forget about dating, and concentrate on all the things which you are truly interested in, things you feel passionate about, things which bring you happiness, things that are not men. I feel that the best way to attract good people to ourselves is by being happy. When we are happy, people will come to us naturally. Some of those people will suck our happiness, some will share, some will increase our happiness. When you meet the person who increases your happiness, you know that you have found the person you want to date.

I am not really a believer in the 'dating techniques', rules, personal ads, being setup with someone, etc. I think that these are all market place techniques. I am not a market player. I am a Lover. And this is what I can tell you as a Lover.

I hope this helps.

Garden State - Movie Review

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the excellent movie, Garden State.

Zach Braff has written and directed, as well as starred in the lead role. Zach is more popularly known as the funny lead character in one of my favorite television comedies, Scrubs. Garden State is a much appreciated movie, causing lot of people to eagerly anticipate Zach's next movie, which is not out yet.

Garden State is the story of a depressed, struggling 26-year-old actor from Los Angeles, going back home and finding his real home. It is a representation of the popular saying, "Home is where the heart is." Zach Braff plays the role of Andrew, a struggling and depressed actor in Los Angeles (his regular job seems to be that of a not-so-good waiter at a restaurant), who goes back home to a small town in New Jersey, to attend his mother's funeral. He has not been home for 9 years, and we learn that he has been in medication prescribed by his psychologist father since the age of 9 or so, when he accidentally caused his mother to be paralyzed from the waist-down. Back in his hometown, he goes off the medication and catches up with his highschool buddies, each of whom is quirky and funny. Along the way, he runs into sweet, cheerful and lying Samantha, played wonderfully by Natalie Portman. It is with her that Andrew discovers the precious feeling of truly coming home, finding peace, contentment, acceptance and love.

I have always liked movies which handle depressing plots/characters in comic ways. Garden State has become my favorite movie in that genre. It strikes a great balance between depression and comedy, without overdoing either one. Through most of the movie, you feel the lead character Andrew's quiet, desperate, depression, even as you laugh at all the other quirky characters (mostly his highschool friends), their silly lines and the funny scenes. Natalie Portman's portrayal of Samantha, who brings Andrew out of his depression and helps him discover love, by doing nothing more than being her naive, silly, cheerful self was utterly convincing.

There were some weird-interesting-funny scenes in the movie like the one where Andrew's shirt perfectly matches the bathroom walls, a family dog masturbates and there is a hall-way in a hotel from which perverts peep on hotel guests. Two of my favorite scenes from the movie:

• There is the opening scene which shows the inside of a crashing plane, with everybody close to panic, but Andrew is totally calm while a mellifluous voice chants a Sanskrit prayer in the background.
• Then there is the scene where Andrew, his highschool buddy Mark and Samantha stand at the edge of cliff which falls into a deep dark canyon and shout their hearts out. That scene is symbolic if Andrew's life at that point of time - his future is dark, deep and unknown, which could hold horrors or treasures, but the shout that comes of his heart while he stands at its edge is one of venting, relief and elation, all mixed together.

But its the final scene which ties it all together: having come to his old home, having discovered a new home for his heart, and standing at the edge of the unknown, will Andrew succumb to his doubts and fears and run away, or will he choose to stay, and nurture his new-found home and love? You will have to watch the movie to find out for yourself.


Official movie site: http://www.gardenstatemovie.com.

Google Vs eBay

Valleywag reports on eBay suspending its Adwords-based advertising through Google after a recent squabble between the two companies. Apparently, Google scheduled a Freedom Party to promote its own payment service Google Checkout, inviting eBay sellers for free drinks, food and massage. The fun part is that Google scheduled this event close - in time and space - to eBay's Live event for its top sellers in Boston. Google rubbed it in further by giving its "Freedom party" a Boston Tea Party spin. All this because eBay won't allow Google Checkout to be used as a payment option on its website. eBay, of course, wouldn't do that because Checkout is a direct competitor to eBay's own Paypal.

eBay's contributions to Google's coffers are big enough that Google suspended its planned party, when eBay stopped advertising via Google. But the damage is done. eBay continues to boycott Google, although the latter was/is the top traffic driver to the former.

While the party fiasco has been publicized a lot, Google and Ebay were bound to step on each other's feet (not just toes!) sooner or later. The fact is that, Google has its fingers in too many pies which Ebay considers its own right now. Examples include Paypal and Skype. Google also has the potential to bite out a large chunk of Ebay's pies, if it chooses to do so. Offering innovative services and features on GTalk and Google Checkout could give some serious competition to Skype and Paypal. And Google has all the big pieces needed to quickly build an Ebay competitor in the auction and sales space. Perhaps, Google should take this as an opportunity to kickstart the campaign of giving eBay a run for its money.

It will be interesting to see how this war plays out between the two. Even if the current battle ends tamely by eBay turning on some (not all!) of its Adwords advertising, the long term war is far from over.

Lawyer's Turn

Finally it was my lawyer's turn today to advise me to get married!

For the past year or more, pretty much everybody I know has advised, requested, ordered or scolded me to get married. My wedding is the most common subject people bring up with me in conversations - whether it is in casual parties or office rest rooms. I am not exaggerating about the rest room part - I have lost count of the number of people who casually ask me when I am going to get married, when they run into me in the rest room, of all the places! WTH!

Today my immigration attorney advised me to get married as soon as possible. Here's the background: The latest visa bulletin from the US State Department states that the priority dates for all categories of employment-based immigration visas (read green cards) are 'Current'. Just last month, the priority date was four years ago! What this means is that the waiting period to get the green card has been reduced from about 5 years to about 1 year for people like me.

This is a huge leap forward. An important life-changing event for thousands of Indians who are in the green card queue in the US, freeing up their employment and travel potential. This is one of those extremely rare occurences in the history of US greencard processing for Indians. It is as rare as a particularly auspicious planetary alignment.

Everybody who is affected by this is overjoyed and scrambling to get their green card process jumped forward as quickly as possible. Everybody that is, except single Indians like me. I am one of the very few people this month, who must have asked their attorneys to not go forward with their green card process. You see, if my green card gets processed for me as a single person, it will be extremely hard for my future wife to join me in the US from India. It is always advisable for green card processing to be done along with the spouse (and kids, if any).

So my attorney's advice was for me to get married as soon as possible because they don't know when we'll have a chance like this again.

Toughest in Love

Love is not always easy. As tough as love can get, there are two things which are the toughest in love.

1. Distance: This could mean being distant from the beloved geographically or emotionally. When you love someone, you want to be with them, close to them, sticking to them as much as you can. You want to be able to reach out to each other whenever you feel the need. You want to be able to see them. You want to be able to share with them, all the new or interesting or beautiful things you come across. You want to be so close as being two souls in one body, or one soul in two bodies. When we are distant from the beloved for whatever reasons, we feel like a body without a soul, like half a person. We don't live our life fully. Our thoughts and emotions, our heart and soul, are always away, in some other place, searching and reaching for the beloved. Geographical distance is quite tough. Tougher than that is when the beloved is right there in front of us or talking to us everyday, and yet emotionally far from us, not sharing the love with us.

2. Letting go: The other thing which is really tough in love is letting go. When we love, we have lots of desires, hopes, dreams. When the person we love does not share the same desires, hopes and dreams, we have to let go of ours. We can't force the other person to go against their heart. We can't talk them into it or persuade them. We just have to let go. Letting go of our own desires and dreams, to subjugate them to the desires and well-being of our beloved, letting go of the beloved, just simply letting go without getting anything in return is the greatest act of love. And it's also the toughest.

Sexuality of Vegetarian Food

We don't give this much thought, but almost all the vegetarian food we eat is quite frankly sexual in nature.

Most of the vegetarian food the humans eat is comprised of fruits and seeds of plants. And these are the sexual organs of plants, the parts from which they reproduce. Even when we eat roots of plants such as potatoes and carrots, we are eating the parts from which these types of plants reproduce.

In contrast, most non-vegetarian food is comprised of the non-reproductive parts of animals. Except for eggs.

Humans are quite unique in their almost exclusive preference for the sexual organs of plants as food. Most other herbivorous (vegetarian) animals eat other parts of the plants, apart from the fruits and seeds. I find this fascinating in a weird sort of way.

Also fascinating is the fact that plants seem to store their best qualities in their reproductive organs. The flowers, fruits and seeds of plants are the parts which have the most compelling colors, textures, aromas and taste. They attract and invite us to pick them and eat them. We like them so much, we try to grow them in ever-increasing quantities. It's almost as if plants are using us to help them reproduce in higher quantities. Quite interesting.

I wonder if this excessive consumption of sexual food is what makes humans the most highly reproductive species in the world. I can't think of any other species which mate and have babies every second of every day, all through the year.