My take on the BLACK SWAN Theory

Heard about Nassim Nicholas Taleb's latest book- The black Swan. Dint get to read the book though, but found the whole theory of Black Swans so interesting that I could'nt stop myself from posting this. To quote wiki : "The term black swan comes from the ancient Western conception that all swans were white in color. In that context, a black swan was a metaphor for something that could not exist. The 17th Century discovery of black swans in Australia metamorphosed the term to connote that the perceived impossibility actually came to pass."
So a black swan is now a metaphor for all those ideas which seemed near impossible in the past but are very much existent in the present world. Ya you are write all scientific inventions are black swans & so is technology.
No sane person would have imagined wireless communication to be such a norm today, things like globalisation, liberalisation & to be more specific outsourcing to change the world economic dynamics. Indeed it takes quite some time for the world to recognize the genius in insanity. Now that you got a grip of the black swan funda, let me move to what I wanted to actually talk about in relation to this theory.
The IT industry in India, has evolved so drastically & so quickly in the last decade, that the same generation has been a victim as well as the realiser of the black swan. Confused? (well then I have been successful, it has been my conscious attempt to write something complex :) ) Just a couple of years back, single digits hikes were a norm, employer was in short supply - meaning lesser oppurtunities, employee had to be the best at his job to be retained & expect a decent single digit hike. Mind you I am talking about the scene in the industry after the boon called outsourcing happened to India, so this is not very long back. This was the age when the employer was the typical bossy "BOSS", & the employee was an initimidated little creature, always a victim to the atrocities of the boss. No one would have ever imagined that we were again being cheated into believing in the black swan.
But merely a few years & we see a complete volte-face. There is no chance you can give any of your associates a hike of less than 10%, no matter what his merit is :). It is the employees who are in short supply as opposed to employers :). The employer is no longer bullying the employee, infact it is the other way, the employee has a triumph card now - "You dont make me happy & I quit" :) The employee satisfaction is no less than the customer satisfaction.
At this point I cant help but think what is the possibilty we feel is impossible today but will become an indispensible truth tomorrow. If the exponential hikes continue in the time to come India will surely lose its cost advantage. One thing all economists are predicting is that India will have to move up the in terms of value addition. It will have to rely more on its quality of work than mere cost advantage. Well this is one possibilty, but I have another crazy idea - this could be a cyclic process, i.e. India loses cost advantage, hence loses work to other emerging economies. Indians lose jobs, so they compromise to work at lower salaries & hence India gains back its cost advantage & the cycle continues. What say? Sounds insane? You never know this may well be our fate, dont rule this out, else you could be getting trapped into the black swan warp, beware!!!

One big question..... well looks I've answered it

This post is on religion, but trust me it has an interesting twist. To begin with, I was just mulling over the relevance of religion. Surely not everything in religion may sound logical, but there are definitely some elements which have logic embedded. Looking at Hinduism in arresting detail, every god represents a value or virtue that man treasures. Its like when you need courage Godess Durga comes to rescue, Lakshmi for wealth, Sarasawathi for knowledge, Hanuman for strength so on and so forth.Each of these gods symbolizes some value we crave for, desire for, covet.
Having money, power, strength, intelligence, love, pleasure in life may make it ideal. But is the list exhaustive? Don't you see something glaringly missing? Someting we yearn for, something that is in limited stock, something which we very easily wasted, something that is very tough to mange & balance.
'TIME' indeed it is. Methinks why don't we have a god symbolizing 'TIME'? Now if you feel its a resource & not a virtue, well think again... Godess Lakshmi??? isnt wealth a resource too?
One reason could be that time has become so important only in the recent past, where the entire planet is moving at high velocity, meaning life's become real fast. May be in the age when religion was actually devised time was unlimited.
A second reason I figure out - is that, time is'nt the problem perse, the issue is that most of us dont spend time efficiently. So the solution also is not requirement of more time, rather it is doing things more smartly, efficiently which implies the requirement is intelligence & wealth. Hmmm looks like religion was devised keeping all this in perspective.
You must be wondering how on earth do I get such starnge impulses that bring in weird ideas. Well thats simple. Meeting deadlines, balancing work & life beyond work all this drives me crazy. And the common thread through all this is limited supply of time isnt it. Worried me, was wondering which god should I be praying ;) Waqteshwar Swami???????