The bell curve, or Gaussian distribution, is a symmetric, mound-shaped graph where most data points cluster around a central average (the mean), while extreme values taper off equally on both sides.
This visualization tells us that most things in life are statistically average (the center of the curve). The further you move away from the center, the rarer things become. That’s why test scores, body weights, manufacturing errors, and many traits in nature follow this bell curve.
I sometimes tend to think of life this way – a large bell curve spread over your lifetime, with the peak someplace in the middle (hopefully). Many things follow such curves – the number of people who come into your life, for instance. In my opinion, such peaks may vary from person to person, and also depending on what is being measured. But one thing does not change – the shape of this distribution.
The fact that people start coming into your life when you are born, and at some point in time, mostly a peak that you don’t recognise at that time, you have all your loved ones around you – and then the slide begins. A morbid, but unavoidable fact of life. One by one, people fall away – friends, family, acquaintances, and then finally, it’s your turn:)
Maybe one has to look out for this peak, recognise it, and value it. Maybe, we are too busy living life until one day when we realise that life lived us instead.
All these thoughts in between designing a native LLM ( or Large Language Model for the uninitiated), which is in itself, very exciting and super frightening at the same time. Humans hate uncertainty, and we are in arguably the most uncertain times of all existence. People working at the forefront of AI themselves cannot seem to agree whether this will be a boon for humanity, or a terrible and irreversible mistake. All they do is come up with some vague mumbo-jumbo about being responsible, which ironically, none of the frontier models seem to be.
On another note, was also thinking of a discussion that I had with some members of my team this Friday, when we went for an Independence Day lunch (Tiranga platter and all). Someone mentioned tattoos, and then wondered if such things were allowed in Sanatana Dharma. Well, I don’t think anything is forbidden in Sanatana really. The dharma is built around one single premise – cause, and effect. You choose (hopefully wisely) your actions, and the consequences of such actions are also yours to bear (or enjoy). There is only a journey to seek yourself, and the truth, both of which are said to be one and the same. But of course, if it were so easy, we would all be enlightened souls already.
And yes, there are no “Gods” in Sanatana. You heard that right. No Gods in how others define them. Only energies on higher planes, that you again can choose to invoke, if you are tuned to the same frequency. As scientists are now discovering, what you call God is within everything – every single atom – the Universe is a manifestation of the divine, and vice versa. One and the same. Intriguing.
Too many random thoughts on a Saturday night – time to get back to work!