Lesser-known and offbeat places can be better than popular and usual travel destinations [COMPACTIDEA]

The point here is that most people, when they travel, travel to same popular destinations to which most other people travel. Travel agencies push these usual places, and most in the public buy tour packages for only these "fast food" destinations. Most people are unaware that tourism can at least sometimes be more enjoyable by doing places and experiences that are less-known, less explored, more untouched, less crowded, offbeat and overall more exotic. A rare village here, a serene trek there. A remote island here, a scenic valley there. A Greenland here, a Siberia there. And so on.

And not just the usual Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, London, Hong Kong, Paris, etc.

One should consciously try - as much as possible - to do a mix of usual, popular tourist places and also sometimes explore stuff that's rare and exotic.

Update [Oct'22]: Dharamkot, during our McLeod Ganj trip. Same thing, same effect.

American politics, and more generally America itself, is so weird, ruined and rotten [COMPACTIDEA]

It can probably happen only in today's USA that a prostitute/porn actress [Stormy Daniels] openly commented - in detail - on the shape / structure of the US President's genitals in a book she wrote. It wouldn't have been that bad if things had stopped here. After all, she's a call girl [or an "adult star" - little fundamental difference between the two actually, irrespective of what people will say], so obviously she'll say shitty things that are standard in her trade, and one shouldn't look too much into it. What is weird, however, is how America's mainstream news media outlets reported her words verbatim. That was a low. No respect for the post of your own President. Petty domestic politics and quarrels above national dignity. Quite rotten America itself has gotten lately, I must say. And to claim that such clickbait reporting by American newspapers is a reflection of the presence of "free press" in America is shitty and doesn't have legs.

Correcting historical wrongs or a crime against Whites - forced land seizures from White farmers in South Africa - is this the right thing to do?

It isn't easy to answer the question raised in the title of this post, but just because it's difficult to answer this doesn't mean that there isn't an answer. And the answer is that yes, seizing the land "belonging to" White farmers in South Africa and giving it to Black farmers is overall the right thing to do. The counter argument that these White farmers whose land is being seized today aren't those White men who forcibly took these lands from SA's native Black farmers [perhaps centuries ago] doesn't have legs. These White men of today are the descendants of those evil Whites who forcibly annexed lands from SA's native peoples, and by being their direct descendants, these Whites of today are in a way directly though wrongly enjoying the fruits of the inhumane crimes committed by their forefathers on the Blacks, reflected in the elevated financial positions and relatively luxurious lifestyles of SA's Whites of today [in stark contrast to the poverty and misery continually being suffered by the Blacks, on average]. To right these historical wrongs, there's no practical way left but to take these lands forcibly, and give them to their real owners [if not to the same men, at least to their descendants]. Besides, if SA doesn't seize lands from White folks, what's the solution to the asymmetrical land distribution in SA then? Is there any other solution to give the lands originally belonging to the Blacks to Blacks again? If not, then seizing has to be done. The Whites - all over the world - will obviously make much hue and cry when these seizures happen, because they've gotten used to always being on the perpetrator end [for centuries now] and they can't see "fellow" White folks being mistreated the way they mistreated Blacks. Let them create furor. Let Australia beat its chest and bark like a dog. These Australians - much like other White nations - are compulsive racists who can only see and react to injustices against Whites - they don't see or feel any crimes at all when they bomb to death innocent Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians or Yemenis. Seizures are overall the just and right thing to do.

Even a little dabbling in a field gets you a title to flaunt around for life, at least on Wikipedia - but did you really earn it, and did you really deserve it

Two examples here. Is it right to call Priyanka Chopra a singer? It is not. She isn't a singer. No way. Just because she has "sung" a few songs doesn't mean that she deserves the coveted title of a "singer". You earn this title. You shouldn't be awarded this title just for quickly assembling a song by hiding your own voice behind modern technological features such as autotune [or Auto-Tune], by resorting to nudity/sexualization [she starts to pour this right in the first five seconds] and other distractions or "riders" in order to shift the main focus of the song from its melody/tune towards its racy visuals, by selling yourself to a top star so that you can convince him to participate in your song in order to give credibility to the song which you alone cannot [but after his massive contribution you still get to collect and flaunt the undeserved title of a "singer"], and by making a song such that only a small proportion of its length is comprised of your voice while much of it is simply instrumentals or the voice of that top star whom you desperately rented by selling yourself.

Let's look at these two sentences.

"Priyanka Chopra... is an Indian actress, singer, film producer, philanthropist, and the..." [link]

"Udit Narayan... is an Indian playback singer... of Nepalese descent..." [link]

Both these sentences use the same word - singer. But is the so-called singing of Priyanka Chopra comparable to the lifetime singing career of Udit Narayan? Not at all. The way the words have been used imply an equivalence - but this is anything but equivalence. If both Udit Narayan and Priyanka Chopra are singers, and the latter is also an actress, a film producer and a philanthropist, then she must be a sort of polymath, right? Not at all. At least this title - singer - has been given to her but neither does she deserve it, nor has she earned it.

This actually also highlights two major issues with Wikipedia itself:

1. As far as Wikipedia's perspective is concerned, it doesn't have any perspective of its own. Whatever is published elsewhere is Wikipedia's perspective, with two noteworthy points. The first being that Wikipedia uses this extremely vague term called "reliable sources", from which facts/information can and should be picked. But what's credible/reliable for one person might be propaganda for others [think of The New York Times knowingly spreading anti-Iraq and anti-Saddam propaganda in 2002 and 2003 in order to prepare the world opinion for an American invasion of Iraq]. The second being that the "volunteers" who write and edit Wikipedia - their personal biases and opinions can never be separated from them and these will definitely percolate into what gets written on Wikipedia.
1. In the case of Priyanka Chopra, if news media outlets call her a singer, then Wikipedia will automatically start to call her a singer. It doesn't matter what the "real truth" is. Whatever is reported is automatically "the truth". This is kind of like according to Wikipedia, Crimea was annexed by Russia - because the entire Western news media said so and continues to repeat so on a daily basis. Wikipedia doesn't have any judgment or morality or perspective of its own. It'll never raise the fundamental question of whether the secession of Crimea was really an "annexation", especially considering the pro-secession results of the referendum held there and even the subsequent confirmation of these results as correct by West's own polling in Crimea?
2. There isn't a proper way on Wikipedia - or more broadly in the English language - to differentiate between different "levels" of a title. A random, low-level newbie singer is also a singer. And a legend like Mohammed Rafi is also simply a singer.

Children attend birthdays, elders attend funerals [COMPACTIDEA]

I might be writing this as a COMPACTIDEA, but the idea itself isn't compact in its significance. I've frequently observed that while kids attend births and birthdays, their elders attend cremations and funerals. Philosophically this is so strange [and sad], and is one clear way in which a distinction can be drawn between younger and older humans.

Sridevi shouldn't have been wrapped in the Indian tricolor flag, nor should she have been given a state funeral [COMPACTIDEA]

It was politics at play when Sridevi was wrapped in the Indian flag and was given a state funeral. She was no soldier. She was just an actress, like so many others. Raising her to the level of the jawaans who take bullets to their chests in order to defend our nation is shameful. The sacrifices of the brave men guarding our borders and securing our skies don't deserve to be made comparable to the death of a Bollywood actress.

The faces of mixed-ethnicity Indian-American women - Nikki Haley and Sunita Williams - look very weird [COMPACTIDEA]

In some photos, Nikki Haley looks like either an animal or an alien. She looks neither proper White American, nor proper Indian, but somewhere in the middle, and this gives her a weird, scary look. Ditto for Sunita Williams.

कुत्तों के भौंकने से शेर अपना रास्ता नहीं बदलते।

"कुत्तों के भौंकने से शेर अपना रास्ता नहीं बदलते।"

That's the sentence which spontaneously came out of my mouth the other day when I was driving on a highway at good speed, and a random car came behind my car and started pressing the horn repeatedly, asking me to get aside so that it could pass. I didn't give it way and continued driving as usual and my heart just uttered this sentence. I then realized - wow, what a nice quotation this can be :-)

Buying a pretty phone that doesn't have many useful applications available - like the BlackBerry Passport - is analogous to marrying a pretty girl who naturally comes without brains!

Art, artistic movie, etc., are the usual words that are used to make pornography inside movies appear normal, justified, and even required

Truth is that Ram Gopal Verma is doing a cheap movie by putting in a new porn actress [this could become a new trend going forward]. He knows that this "formula" will work. That Indians will flock to cinema halls to watch this so-called "movie". In reality, it'll be pornography disguised as a movie. And now just look at the kind of heavy and nice/professional/serious words RGV has used in order to make it look like he's not doing a porn film - "an elevating and thought provoking experience", "I Thank you for the person you are and I admire and respect you for the way you project your thinking ..You are the painting and I am just a frame maker". Bullshit dude. He obviously milked her for all the casting couch favors [obviously she wouldn't resist]. He's well-known for doing this, and he'll probably continue his hunt for a new prey when he gets bored of this one. Who do they think they're fooling with these sophisticated words? The people? The CBFC? The news media? Everyone knows what's really happening here.

Many times, we remember only a correct summary, or general feeling of an incident or a series of incidents, but not the individual incidents themselves

This applies to both persons/people and life incidents that happen to us. Many times we don't remember or recall details of specific incidents [within a series of related incidents], but we do remember the overall "feel" or "feeling" of what happened, or how a person was to/with us. For example, if we dealt with a fellow ten years ago for six months, then sometimes we're only able to give a [correct] broad summary of whether that person is good or bad [or any other trait(s)], without being able to tell specific incidents that are behind our summary. Similarly, suppose I had traveled through Hazyview town in Mpumalanga, South Africa, eight years ago. It's totally possible that I [correctly] claim that Hazyview was "awesome", without being able to recall or remember any specific incident(s). The word "correctly" needs some comment here. It doesn't imply in absolute sense that Hazyview is "awesome". It means that I had actually found Hazyview "awesome" back then, and the overall, one-word summary of my travel through Hazyview that I'm giving in the form of the word "awesome" correctly represents my feelings back then.

One's current geographic location - state or country - has a very strong effect on one's thinking and eventually actions [COMPACTIDEA]

A related idea about how an otherwise simple view starts to seem breathtaking if it's in an exotic foreign country.

I've observed this both personally and in others. The same person - suppose he or she belongs to and lives in the Punjab state/province of India - starts thinking, behaving and acting differently when he or she is in Delhi. The difference isn't necessarily "positive". But the difference does exist - and it's usually a strong difference, with the strength roughly proportional to the distance from your home place. Similarly, the same fellow will behave very differently when he or she is in a foreign country, say Colombia. One's inhibitions, self-control and self-restrictions generally are lower when one is in foreign territory, especially is this foreign territory isn't "backward" compared to the place/state/province from where one has come.

It's very difficult to read the Wikipedia article "Timeline of the far future" [COMPACTIDEA]

Specifically, this is about this current version of the article. The article talks about our Earth, our Milky Way, and the Universe 10,000 years from now, or 100,000 years from now, or 1 million years from now. It's so difficult to read this article because of the very far future events it talks about. You almost want to cry. The Universe is so vast. These far future events are so far. So very far. No one I know, including myself, will be around then. So sad. Feels so weird to read about these events out into the far future. I left reading this article without finishing it.