Meaning

Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved? -- Troy

Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning. -- Why Music Matters

John Henry Giles: [to House] I know that limp. I know the empty ring finger. And that obsessive nature of yours, that's a big secret. You don't risk jail and your career to save somebody doesn't want to be saved unless you got something, anything... one thing. The reason normal people got wives and kids and hobbies, whatever, that's because they ain't got that one thing that, that hits them that hard and that true. I got music. You got this. The thing you think about all the time. Thing that keeps you south of normal. Yeah, makes us great. Makes us the best. All we miss out on is everything else. No woman waiting at home after work with a drink and a kiss; that ain't gonna happen for us. -- House M. D.

Luck By Chance

Apart from the kind of luck by serendipity, luck truly favors the prepared:

From http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/08/luck-and-the-en.html

How energetic are we? How inclined towards motion are we? Those of you who read my first age and the entrepreneur post will recognize that this is a variation on the "optimize for the maximum number of swings of the bat" principle. In a highly uncertain world, a bias to action is key to catalyzing success, and luck, and is often to be preferred to thinking things through more throughly.

How curious are we? How determined are we to learn about our chosen field, other fields, and the world around us? In my post on hiring great people, I talked about the value I place on curiosity -- and specifically, curiosity over intelligence. This is why. Curious people are more likely to already have in their heads the building blocks for crafting a solution for any particular problem they come across, versus the more quote-unquote intelligent, but less curious, person who is trying to get by on logic and pure intellectual effort.

How flexible and aggressive are we at synthesizing -- at linking together multiple, disparate, apparently unrelated experiences on the fly? I think this is a hard skill to consciously improve, but I think it is good to start most creative exercises with the idea that the solution may come from any of our past experiences or knowledge, as opposed to out of a textbook or the mouth of an expert. (And, if you are a manager and you have someone who is particularly good at synthesis, promote her as fast as you possibly can.)

How uniquely are we developing a personal point of view -- a personal approach -- a personal set of "eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors" that will uniquely prepare us to create? This, in a nutshell, is why I believe that most creative people are better off with more life experience and journeys afield into seemingly unrelated areas, as opposed to more formal domain-specific education -- at least if they want to create.

I have a dream

I have a dream.  For an easy life where you don't have to do things you don't like. The Jetsons way of life. 

Outsource all the boring work to robots. Like, personal finance, washing + ironing clothes, making food, exercise, personal hygiene, driving you around, writing this blog post even!

For instance, the Jetsons exercise just by watching a gym episode that they do and their body gets what its need. 

Humans can then focus on the interesting stuff. Like ideas, art, better alogorithms for the robots etc.  

But Jetsons way of life is still centuries away. There is an other option which can be as good though. 

Part of the reason I like the software industry is because the manual labour is minimal. Even here, I have already insulated myself from all the boring work at office by becoming a 'busy' technical lead so that the boss does not bug me with things such as paper work.

And home is pretty much neat too. A cook. A maid. A dhobi. 

But still there is still stuff like personal finance, tax,  paying bills etc which are still a pain. 

Maybe time to hire a secratary? It just needs 5 people to share the secratary and it becomes affordable. For a Rs. 5000 salary, you can get a decent one. And for Rs. 1000 a month, per person, it is a steal!

I have been pushing this idea to colleagues and roommates but they would rather waste 1 hour a day doing all this. 

Sigh!

Redemption

"Bangera is not playing today!" exclaimed Vasanth, a cricket enthusiast in my class of Mechanical Engineering. Bangera was the Dhoni of our cricket team and his absence was a big void, even in the illustrious team of my class, 'Mech C'.

"You want to take his place?" he asks me.
"Sure. Stitch ball or tennis?"
"Tennis. Its Mech C v/s Printing. We can't afford to lose this match."

Cricket was the favorite pass time for 18 somethings in our class of 'Royal Mechanical' engineers. They would arrange matches with other classes and the results were duly reported on the blackboard in the class on the next day.

But even I had no idea what I had gotten into until we started playing.
Either team had a person dedicated for keeping a scoreboard on a piece of paper. Every detail was calculated. Run rate. Runs per wicket. Strike rate. Fielding mistakes. They debated immensely on who should umpire.

"Why are we doing all this? Isnt this just a game?"
"No. It is a matter of pride. As I said we can't afford to lose this. Want to bowl first over?"
"Sure"

Six.
Six.
Six.
Six.
Four.
Six.

34 runs in the first over! I thanked God for the lone boundary in my over to save me from total humiliation of 6 sixes which can be devastating for any bowler.

I was rebuked. Condemned to the lowest batting order.
Still, the team had not lost hope. They loved challenges and the first over had made the game exciting.

At the end of the first innings, we had to chase 165 in 15 overs.

The openers did a good job. But then there was a collapse which took us to the final over with 4 runs to win and 3 wickets in hand.

Dot.
Dot.
Dot.
Wicket.
Wicket.

Damn it! Only one ball left and 4 runs to win! There it was. An opportunity to redeem myself.

"Just knock it somewhere and run!" Vasanth's shout out from the other end brought me to reality. The bowler was really fast had taken 2 wickets in the same over. And, he had a hat trick chance!

The pressure was immense. A loss, and it would have been humiliation.

I begged for a trial ball to get my eye used to the speed. Denied.

I took a survey of the field as a message to the bowler that I was going to hit him.

Took my stance and a deep breath. He was running towards me now. My eyes focused on the ball. Suddenly, everything became clear. The cricket ball was the size of a football.

The ball was released. Time slowed. The trajectory of the ball was clear. I pulled.

It is a Six!

Love-ly

Valentine's day provides a great spectacle while walking on the streets. You can see a couple walking hand in hand, a dude proposing to a girl, a girl crying because someone proposed and the rest of them trying to attract each other.

I never really understand why proposals work.

"I love you. Do you love me?"
"Should I love you because you love me?"

Most marriages seem like a contract with heavy penalties on breach.

In an episode 'Role Model' of House M.D., which is currently my favorite TV show, Dr. Cameron says to Dr. House:

"You asked me why I like you. You are abrasive and rude, but I figured everything you do, you do it to help people. But I was wrong. You do it because it is right."

Would you love someone because the person loves you or because he is right?

Cause and Effect

"See, all our people are businessmen. Their loyalty's based on that. One thing I learned from Pop was to try to think as people around you think. And on that basis, anything's possible." Micheal Corleone explains to Tom Hagen in Godfather 2. Expect the worst in people and anything they do better than that is only going to be good. :)

My cousin's post on religion says this:

"Man from his selfish and basic needs graduated to sharing and helping his fellow beings. He became tolerant, respected and wise."

My take is that Man became helpful and engaged in resource sharing because it was a necessity for survival. And this behaviour is not unique to humans alone. 

Predators engage in pack hunting because they know they can eat only if they do so. Bees are one of the most organized species. Ant behaviour is highly coordinated. They all do that because thats the only way they can survive.

But humans have one extra thing. They have something called self respect. It is an internal reward system which incents them to accomplish things even if they dont need to.

It is what makes my colleague, heir to a large estate, slog at nights. "Sense of accomplishment", he says.

Labels

Ever got caught up in a discussion about god or religion or politics that never went anywhere? 

"My god/country/culture is better than yours" -- All because they happen to be born into that religion/country/culture.

Paul Graham's excellent essay advices people to keep their identity small.

What's different about religion is that people don't feel they need to have any particular expertise to have opinions about it. All they need is strongly held beliefs, and anyone can have those. 

Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too. Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.

I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan.

More generally, you can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn't engage the identities of any of the participants.

The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible.

Labels like Hindu, Brahman, Indian, Asian, Konkani, Mallu, Liberal might give you an identity but they only make you smaller.

New Generation. New Rules.

A culture is always a product of its circumstance. Culture itself means 'a particular society at a particular time and place'. It is designed to meet the requirements of that place and time. 

Why should anyone be proud of culture then? Especially if the culture is no longer relevant to the current times.

If you keep clinging to your culture, you are blocking its evolution. 

The Great Indian Tamasha

One of the best things about living in India is the perpetual theater of comedy presented by the politicians.

Recent case is the 'Moral Policing' initiated by Karnataka's Hindu extremists who are now over-confident with the BJP Govt in the state.



Equally humorous is the over-enthusiastic verbal diarrhea from India's self appointed Women conservator, Renuku Choudhary.
'Pub Bharo', is her advice. Stretching Gandhi's Civil Disobedience mantra a bit too much I guess.

One wonders, if she will take the same stance if Sri Ram Sena takes a stand against prostitution and other 'social ills'.

A simple twist of fate

The project had a rocky start. New technologies. New frameworks. New methodologies. People with 2 years of experience in India were reporting to firangs with 10+ years. To people who had started their own companies before, who have been CTOs and Software Architects. To add to that, the project was grossly underestimated, off by 1 year. Everyone was very skeptical about the whole arrangement.

Daily status calls were a nightmare. "Why did this take so much time?" "You guys are idiots!" 

We all developed thick skins. But we are very resilient. We knew this was an excellent project. We could learn a lot from these guys. And now, we had a cause. To prove them wrong. So, everyone slogged. The official work hours were 12:30 PM to 12:30 AM. But we often ended up working till 2 AM everyday.

We loved it. Those were the most productive days. Even though we were working very long hours, they felt very short. The cooperation in the team was excellent. Everyone did what they had to do. There was no hierarchy. No manager wanted to touch this project. 

In the darkest days, the senior management initiated a Case Study. What went wrong in this project? 

But a few months later, the story changed. All the hard work had paid off. We now had complete knowledge of things. And our productivity was 3 times higher than them. 3x productivity for a 1/10th of the cost. The client poured out their appreciation for the work. They loved our solutions. More work came in. The team size grew 5x. New work meant new revenue which got the management's attention. 

What went right with this project? Now, they want a new case study.

In praise of laziness

All tools have the same purpose behind them. To make us more efficient in the task at hand. So that we spend lesser time and energy to accomplish things.

From the wheel to the iPhone, every invention is basically aimed to make things easier to do.

People say, "Necessity is the mother of invention". But what is the motivation for necessity? Laziness.

Laziness is the real mother of invention!

Speed thrills but...

"When you ride at such speeds, you attain a transcendental state where ironically things slow down." says a colleague who is into bike racing. Some years back, this person had an accident because of an air bubble in oil and was in a coma for a few days before recovering. He still races inspite of passionate pleas from relatives.

At high speeds, small mistakes have high costs.

"Crouching Tiger, Lumbering Elephant" is a phrase aptly used to compare China and India.  

Someone compared it to riding a car on a fast track where you don't know where the road ends versus riding on a road full of potholes.

Which is better? I don't know.