Tristan da Cunha: A Journey of Mind

Recently, I have gotten myself into the habits of searching and reading about random things on internet. Not because I have lot of time but just because I feel there are so so much more to know, there are so many things we dont even care about or just take for granted. Even at this moment, when I want to find more about this amazing place Tristan da Cunha, it is as far as few clicks away. But... in our daily lives do we acknowledge this convenience, Probably not. But coming back to the title of the blog. Tristan de Cunha, recently I have been feeling little withdrawl from the daily routine and I just wanted to go some place quiet, just pack my bags and go and dont tell anyone... So, I started searching for places, and the farthest I could reach was a tiny village on top of a hill called Gourdon in France. Really seemed remote to me as in there are like 100 people living ther, few restaurants and yes overly populated with freaking tourists like me... I don't know, should I feel bad about myself or good, when i visit such small places, Sometimes I feel like an intruder, but again the mentality of a tourist kicks in.. "Aaah, I am not so bad.. I am bringing buisness to the village." Well I dont really think that way, but that is what many will say.. So, coming back to the point, Tristan da Cunha. I can bet quite strongly, that if you are not curious or weird, for all intent and purposes you will  not care about this place or probably not even heard about it. The way I landed on this beautiful geographical feature, is searching for "Remotest place on earth." Because, as I discussed with many friends of mine about my plans for spending one year in Tibet to do some soul searching and really think what should I really do next, I realised I have the tendency to detach. So, I landed on this place and in last 2 days, I have been gathering information about it, as in what is it like to be there? What do the people do there? Is it really that remote ? Turns out, it surpasses everything i have ever expected, and it made me re-think about loneliness, remoteness and my daily life. I am sure, people whom I meet every day won't really understand this feeling. And by no means, I am being disrespectful to them. They are really some of the smartest people, but they wont understand it because, I wont be able to take them to the same page as I am.

So, it turns out this place is a British colony in Southern hemisphere in Atlantic Ocean, a small island with a population of just 290-300 people and just to give you an idea of the remoteness, its 1500 nautical miles from any other piece of land, and if you want to reach there, the only way to go is taking a Royal Mail Ship, which goes to this island once a year carrying post cards, letters and other STUFFs from UK and it takes 3 weeks in the sea to reach there sailing along the Mid Atlantic ridge through St. Helena island. So, that is to give an idea of the remoteness. When I think about it now, I dont know, all my thoughts about going to some place lonely and remote seems more romantic and Hollywood-ish to me. Really it is soooo far.

Source: Amusing Planet

I mean if we take a moment to think about the people's lives there, it is for all intent and purposes a different world, and I do not know, my heart goes out to them, when I compare our lives and theirs. Sure, I am not saying they are not happy, Ofcourse, they might me, from what I can say, for sure, I do not have a sure way of knowing. The stapled food in this island is potatoes, and taking out potatoes from the ground is the communal Saturday activity. I mean there is a place in the world, where probably the whole population has not seen an airplane, ok forget about airplanes, it is in middle of nowhere, the bird sightings are rare too, and here we are complaining about no internet connectivity on the airplanes and sooo amny mundane things, I cannot even start. The place has just one police office and one single road and walking is the only means of getting around. Few years ago, in 1961, there were volcanic eruptions, on the island and it was evacuated for 2 years and people were stationed in UK, and then sent back. There are some videos on youtube about interviews with  them. Really, they didnt know about television, and till 100 years ago, the buisness practice was barter system and probably even today, it will be sole place on earth, where money seems to have much less value than human relationships. For a community of 300 people to be able to live, through centuries, the real values of relationships, unconditional friendships, helping out each other, love and care for your fellow beings, those are the currency of Tristan da Cunha.

Volcano in Tristan da Cunha Source: HowStuffWorks.com

But, the volcanic eruptions bought the whole world's attention to this tiny island, and they got the modern facilities, which changed the island forever, but they are still far far behind the lifestyles you and I have. From what I could read, the means of communications is just one telephone in the island, so probably we should not consider high speed internet being a possibility. Even reading books, and getting to see pictures of outside world is a real treat for the Tristanians. And I get bored with playing the same video game second time. Somewhere deep down I feel ashamed and really small, when pity the people who complain about things they do not have and really forget to appreciate what do they have.

So, by this time, you might be wondering, ok it is a British colony, if they do not like it there can't they just come to UK. and I am sorry to disappoint you my friends, no they are not British citizens so no they cannot work in UK or other places. They cannot get the education or skills needed to survive in this world, so I am amazed that the UK cannot grant citizenship to these 300 people, just to give them a choice for their lives.

Talking about gender discrimination, you will be surprised to know that in this place, the men and women connot sit together as per customs. The women still have to do the daily chores of the house and really looking at the interviews, it seemed that they really do not have a choice to do things otherwise, and they have just accepted the tradition.

The most famous thing about this amazing place are the stamps, they are really cool, and is a really worthy of collection, if you are a collector. I am not but I think I will still get some. For interested people, you can order them here http://www.tristandc.com/postoffice.php . And I think you should, just to support this island and show them that we care. And you will have something with you coming from the remotest place on eath, which is awesome.

 Source: Tristan De Cunha Post Office

Also, I am torn between the thoughts, that whether to consider this place a heaven or a prison, because of obvious reasons. On one side, there is the serenity which we long for day in and day out in out busy lives, and on the other hand also it is just too far. So, it makes me question, what we really want? Which brings me to another point, that more often than not, we are unhappy because we want contradicting things, we want serenity but we dont want to be soo remotely located too. We want good grades, but also dont want to work too hard. We want the latest technologies, but we do not want to pay for it. Life is indeed an interesting optimization problem.

So, at the end of the day, now that I think about my life and things surrounding my life, I am really really grateful for every single thing I have starting from something as small as being able to just see different people every day as I walk down the street and hear a different music anytime I want, being able to talk to anyone anywhere in the world and eat different food every day if I want to. But, most importantly I feel we all should value choices that we have in life and be thankful for that, because some people don't have them.

Dead Space 2: The game which ruined all the shooters for me

So, the last blog I wrote was about how painfully boring and tiring Crysis 2 was. :(. Since then I tried to play some games which are not in the main stream and I have been successful in fishing out some of the best in the market, though they are not as famous as Call of Duty or Halo, I think they really really are putting milestones in terms of Gameplay mechanics. For example Vanquish, a really fast paced shooter. But, this blog is not about Vanquish its about Dead Space.......... Oh Yes !

I just finished the game. I mean just now, and it was so epic, I really feel that I have accomplished something., and I will like to share this. If I have to rate all the games I have ever played this one will easily make it in top 5 games I have ever played and that is because this one does so many things so right. I tried to explain to some of my friends about it and they just dont get it (You all know who you are if you are reading this blog :) ). There is some satisfaction in strategically dismembering your enemies and then stomping on their head until it gets all bloody mess and then pick up on of the dismembered pointy limb and shoot it on the approaching enemy to pin him on the wall.Yes, you guessed it right, this game is scary and scariest in the recent video game industry i will say. You are never safe, never, just when you think you got the situation under control, there is a necromorph jumping on you from the back. 

The sound design, the lighting effects everything just adds to the experience, and dont even get me started on the enemy types. Goodness gracious i had probably one new enemy type on each levels. and you cant just soot them on their head and kill them like the main stream shooters. you need to keep your cool, and dismember their legs and then arms to kill them and you are always short on ammo and health so yay strategy!! So, you are always always running for your life :). 

Did I mention, there is one enemy type which are just a bunch of toddlers. There is some level of fun attached to shooting bunch of babies. and ok dont get me wrong here I am not a cruel person, who likes to shoot babies LOL just in the game :). 

There is another type of necromorph call STALKER. I think they are the scariest. for me because you just hear them scream and you dont see them, they just hide from you in the dark and attack on you when you least expect it. Now thats something hearing your enemies, but not being able to see them. I must admit, I was really scared myself few times.

Stalker Source: Gamernode.com

What about the story? I wont say anything very special about the story. Usual space colony sci-fi stuff, earth's colonization has gone wrong, as we meet other species. Anyone with little interest in Ridley Scott's movies can almost predict the story line. But the best part is even though the story is so mundane there is always a sense of urgency to save yourself and your partner who is talking to you and trying to fix things.

So, what makes the game so amazing, is even though i am used to such gory cut scenes and the bloody mess after playing the game for like 10 hours, there are parts, where i found it rather disturbing and messed up. If a game can do that make you feel Ouch! what did I just do, now that's a keeper. I just couldn't keep my controller down and kept on playing. There are sequences, where one needs to operate on his own eye or the player dies because of mental trauma leading to shooting a javelin in his own face. Now, I dont want to say about this too much as probably I will ruin the game if I say too much about it. 

Other than strategic dismemberment, you upgrade your weapons and suits using power nodes and an upgrade tree thus adding some RPG elements and replay value. 

Also, I will conclude with just saying that this game's ending is probably one of the best and will make one feel like a hero. It is just right paced and just when you think its all gone, something more happens. :)

Can't wait for Dead Space 3 to be released NEXT YEAR :) So, anyone who like survival horror and shooters will probably do themselves a favor by picking this just near perfect game. An epic I must say.

Zero-Gravity Boots

AND did I mention you get Space thrusters in your boots. If doesn't motivates you, God knows what will.. :)