Framing thoughts

Trying to make sense of the ideas that I have.

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Conservatism.

“I find your abundance of conservatism to be disturbing”, said he, which is all that I needed to start my train of thoughts.

One of the ways of defining conservatism is as, “The tendency to resist new experiences’.

I guess conservatism is more or less the exact opposite of being a liberal. I understand this classification is based on beliefs rather than on personal tastes. On second thought, to draw such a fine line of classification is wrong because, if you think about it, it depends on both to an extent. Let’s move on and see.

One way of defining conservatism, as far as I can see, is as the fear to come out of your comfort zone. This brings us to the question of when does one’s comfort zone get fully established? Is there even such a thing as fully established comfort zone?

It is not like you define your comfort zone at a certain age. It keeps on growing. You definitely will be comfortable doing something now which you were not comfortable doing, say, five years back. So this “new thing” is within your comfort zone now, when once, it wasn’t.

This means that sticking to one’s comfort zone makes him do things and take decisions based on his life’s experiences he has gathered so far, which, I hope you will agree, is not a bad thing.

In this perspective, not being conservative, is to be lenient in growing your comfort zone. Let things into your CZ without too much of resistance and experimenting. However, that depends on the methods in your CZ, that you use to grow your CZ. Let’s sit back and see what all methods we use to grow it.

The first and foremost, I would say, would be “need”. When you absolutely need something, you would try any means to achieve it, thereby bringing all that you tried under your CZ. I believe this is the sudden and fastest way of growing it. Of course, I’m not talking about the same need again and again, but new needs.

The second one would be “curiosity”. This, as far as I can think of, won’t be sudden. You are not driven by the “need” for getting something done here. You are simply trying to quench your personal thirst. In this process, I think the basic nature of humans would be to shield themselves from as much harm and hurt as possible. Which means you are going to take it nice and slow while experimenting, unless, to get hurt or be harmed is already in your CZ.

The third one would be being an “extrovert”. Of course, this would very well classify as being crazy as well, but what I mean here is the “why not?” attitude.

In a broad and general manner of classifying the methods we depend upon in order to extend our CZ, I believe the above three covers pretty much everything. However, you might have noticed that the above three things, more or less, is beyond a person’s control. All these three things depend upon the fundamental, inborn differences that human beings have, where they were born and how they were brought up, their surroundings and circumstances in life. These will be different for almost everyone on God’s green Earth and hence, everyone’s CZ and the pace of its growth will be different.

Now, coming back to the definition of conservatism, even though one of the definitions that I gave for it is the fear of coming out of one’s comfort zone, that is not the only obstacle to not being a conservative. I did not mean ‘obstacle’ in a negative sense there.

Being conservative will definitely have something to do with one’s belief as well – Religion and parents’, teachers’, families’ and friends’ teachings. When this sinks in a person, he takes for granted the meaning of certain things. I mean, that is what belief is about, isn’t it? “Believe your mom when she tells you chocolates are bad for your teeth”. You respect and love her so much that you take her word for it. Is that something to be blamed for? I don’t think so. All you have t make sure is that you be really careful in selecting the people whom you are going to respect and love the most. Most of us already have these priorities set.

So, if a person is a disbeliever, it is that much easier for him to become a liberal. But does this mean that that is THE path to be followed? You have your beliefs and I have mine. Let’s respect each other for that. Peace. Coffee?

Coming to the point of the entire article, did he take all these things into consideration when he said he was disturbed by my conservatism? Is being conservative a wrong thing? His circumstances might have been different where he was born and bought up from mine. So I say everyone won’t be like you. Take it easy and give me chances. I’m sure I’ll expand my CZ, even though it might be a bit slow.

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Perseverance, sacrifice and friendship.

Life has changed for me and suddenly I have this feeling that I’m at the driver seat. Till now I was just a passenger and the paths were already laid out. I just had to go with the flow and I was sure to reach where I was heading. However, today it is not like that anymore. There is no “system” that I can just blindly follow. I have to think, figure out what I am doing and what I should be doing.

It feels good.

One of the things that I have missed is writing. The frequency at which I blog has come down considerably. I used to think that I wold naturally find time for it. I understand it is not so. Keeping things in perspective and finding time for what you want to do is becoming a more and more challenging task with each passing day. Time is flowing by and unless I act quick, things might reach a point where the currents would be too strong to swim back.

I find myself in the company of a man who has a vision. The yearning to bring about a change in the way things are. A strong and silent man who does not even show any signs of the slightest of frustrations on his face. I find myself in the company of a man who follows his dream of bringing together a community. I’m still ignorant of how all it came to be. But what I am sure of is that he is not alone.

I see a woman who loves her husband dearly. A woman who sacrifices her time and her career just to see her husband succeed. From many have I heard how lovely it was to behold such a relationship among all the hurried life in the city. She is always in search of what her place in such a surrounding is. Her thoughts go far beyond the pleasant smile that she wears all the time on her face. Her thoughts go here.

A motherly figure to all of us, I see a woman who strives to teach her two little children the ways of life. A kind hearted and empathetic person whom you could turn to whenever you feel life is too much to take. She will bring you back to reality, advising you for the best.

Three brothers. One who has traveled around the world much. Biology is at his heart, knowledge he has of almost everything, enthusiastic he is about tech and more than everything, cool he is! Whatever problem pops up somewhere, let it be tech, life, logistics, inventory, people, everyone’s first option would be to turn to him and the wonderful thing is, he always has an answer, and that too, a really sensible one.

One who loves mother Earth. His love for her reflects in his ways with the ones around him. A cute brother, always watching out for you, ready to help you at any moment. People like him increases your trust in humanity. You start to understand what it is like to be there for someone when you are with him. Relations, what ties the whole world together, he holds each and everyone he has, close to his heart.

One who loves to be one among us. His tech thoughts as well as jovial nature deep behind all the well kept. cool looking hair, beard and mustache, he is always ready for a laugh whatever mind boggling thing was up. Always ready to lend a hand, he hates bugs. Both in software and in real life. He exterminates both of them quite skilfully.

Last but not the least, imagineer. The silent, creative girl who works magic out of her fingers. Designs and art are her mastery and she conjures them up from thin air. Extremely quick in picking things up, a guaranteed wonderful designer who is soon to be famous. She is blooming to one beautiful flower from the cute bud that she was.

Kiran, Zainab, Radha, Ashwan, Sajjad, Krace and Praseetha, respectfully. HasGeek. Oh, and yours truly too.

It was amazing to see the dedication and sincerity with which everyone performed their roles last month over the two huge events. Perseverance, I saw in all of them. Mentally taxed, physically tired, ill, none of them were ready to quit and take a rest. There were things that needed to be done and they knew they were the ones who had to do it. There were no backseats. Working late into 3am, they sat and slept when everything was finally set. I realized that there was more to life than just watching out for yourself.

Sacrifice. That is how you work as a team. One for all and all for one. You are there for him and he is there for you. That is how it works. Of course you can call in sick and go lie down. But that was not a decision any of them were ready to make. They stuck together and pulled through. Many had lost track of time and many were taken ill. They got over it, and they did it.

However, all this comes with a price. All of these has a side effect. A beautiful one at that too. The bonds that were made. Small jokes in between rush hours, little chats over dinner and tea, they found themselves amongst a group of people who had something in common. They all wanted to make this happen. And they did.

I never expected to be a part of something this diverse. I still wonder where I am going to fit in. Hey, but what’s the rush? Life has just started for me and I want to make this happen as much as all of them.

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Is execution important than vision?

I had a pretty tiring day.

Being at the town, I started walking from a certain point, under the blazing hot noon sun, visiting each and every slipper shop on the way, trying to get hold of a certain brand which I had been using till now. I walked and I walked and to my surprise and dismay, reached back at exactly the point that I had started, without any luck whatsoever. Tired and wounded, not to mention disappointed, I went and had a drink. I sat and rested my overworked feet for a while. I got up again and started walking towards the bus stand in order to catch a home bound bus.

Just when I had taken 4 or 5 steps, there was this shop to my left. Out of inertia of having asked at each and every shop that had slippers in them, I simply stood outside and with an air of sarcasm , asked the owner whether he had the brand that I was looking for. I got what I was looking for from there.

The lesson that I learned from this happening is that always start the things that you want to do just before you  are  actually going to start doing it. In the philosophical sense, this thought has many implications. However, having experienced this first hand in real life, I’m bound to start applying this thought to the various aspects of life.

Anyway, that was just the icing of the cake and the above three paragraphs were not in my mind at all until I thought about how to begin this post that I wanted to write.

Reaching back home, I turned on my laptop and checked my mails. I happened to stumble upon this thread. I simply went through the replies and happened to click this link, with no particular reason. That was Diaspora page of Jishnu. Since I was tired from the day’s happenings and wanted to rest, I was simply browsing and as such, scrolled down along his posts. There I stumbled upon the following video, which is the primary reason for this blog post.

Usually I had this idea of talks by technical people getting boring and monotonous. This was exactly the opposite. Moreover, this was not a talk but rather a sort of Q&A session. I was not planning to sit through it completely, but the more I listened, the more I got interested to listen to the rest and hence, I finished it in one shot.

Mind you, I’m not saying that Linus is the epitome of perfection or anything of the sort. He maybe, he maybe not. I just wanted to think and improvise on some of the things that he mentioned during that session and that is exactly what I am going to do.

The fist and foremost being the title of the blog post. Is execution more important than vision? Vision as in, a dream of how something should be.

Well, according to Linus, he personally was in favor of getting things done rather than thinking and dreaming constantly of a bright future and end up doing bits and pieces. He takes the analogy of a man walking, looking at the stars. He has vision. However, unfortunately, he fails to see the potholes that are in the way that he walks because he is not looking down. Hence, he stumbles upon them and falls down. Linus does not completely criticize visionaries too as it is possible that the path that guy is walking upon might not have potholes and as such, he will achieve his vision.

This is a very interesting point because everyone can have ideas. People can have tons of awesome ideas. They can dream of things that should happen and keep on dreaming. As much as I admit that you should dream until your dreams come true, sometimes (most of the times), people simply end up only dreaming. That does not help.

What makes you different, or better, worthy of being alive, is when you get things done. Linus even quoted Edison where he said, “Success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. That is more or less true. Passion, inspiration, dreams, ambitions, etc all are just thoughts in the wind until you work hard for it, and achieve it.

With this thought in mind, I thought about how I have been over the past year and it was quite interesting to see the difference.

  • Started my blog – “Yet another guy who has access to Internet registers yet another blog on wordpress”
  • Wrote posts – “Yet another blogger who has to put in his blog, everything that happens to him”
  • Wrote posts consistently – “Hmm… Yet another consistent blogger”
  • Wrote stories – “Most definitely not a personal diary”
  • Technical posts – “Not just philosophy and stories. Useful posts”
  • Crossed 100 posts in a year – “Wow, I did not expect this guy to keep at this for so long. Still…”
  • Published a book – “Awesome. This guy is actually getting things done”

I sure as hell would like to meet that omnipresent dude who commented on my stages of blogging. However, the point that I was trying to make was that even though I hadn’t realized it till now, I was following my passion and getting things done.  I needed this push as I have in my drafts, 4 incomplete posts that I started writing and half way through, started thinking about how it should be and the impact that it should bring about to a reader. That thought is good, but it should not be as strong so as to pose a hindrance to what you are doing. Otherwise it ends up as the case mentioned earlier. I have these amazing vision and thoughts but I’m not actually doing anything for it. Now that I have that idea in my head, I’ll be finishing those posts soon.

Hence, as much as it is important to have a vision, it is as important to get things done as well.

Another interesting thing that he mentioned is being open about your feelings regarding something. He quoted his own example for this statement which was that one guy who worked on a certain kernel feature, got suicidal when Linus told him that the kernel did not want that feature. This would not have happened if people clearly knew about how Linus wanted the project to be.

I was not a big fan of extremism. However, taking into consideration the above scenario, there are times where being an extremist pays off. I mean, him being like that in regard to his project does not mean that he is like that with his family. The point being that there are occasions where you should stand like the Pole star and there are occasion where you should be diplomatic. I mean, Linus could have called that guy for a cup of coffee and started the, “Listen, I knew you’ve worked really hard” thing, but seriously, that attitude would have left the entire kernel project in once heck of a mess.

To the question of whether all the students should be made aware of the open source movement, his answer was thought provoking. The point is that everyone need not be made to learn programming or anything of th sort. However, the ones who have the spark in them should be given the chance and the proper encouragement for learning and improvising on it. He mentioned the cheap Raspberry pi board available where out of 100 boards, 99 of them might be lying in the dust. Still, the important thing is that one board gave an interested person the opportunity to learn and that is what matters.

This is true in real life also. When you try to do something for the people, instead of worrying and spending time on getting everyone involved and interested, you should be more set and concentrate on helping out those who are genuinely interested. We tend to forget that in our path of achieving a “noble cause”. Once you get through to those who are interested and when they start to do wonders, the influence will become bigger and will spread.

Well, that’s about it I guess. That session was something that I desperately needed and I’m glad I did not stumble upon it any later.

Thanks Linus.

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He is Me.

One day early morning, two people happened to cross each other’s path. One of them was returning home after spending the whole night in prayers and worship while the other person was returning home after a night of ‘shameful’ activities.

Upon seeing each other, the first person thought, “Oh! That poor man must be tired from having prayed all night long”.

Ironically, the second person thought, “Heh, looking at him coming so innocently. Like I don’t know what he has been upto”.

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Similar to all the posts that I write, this one does not convey a meaning that is absolutely correct. I’m putting down what I have learned from my personal experiences as well as from the people I’ve met in my life. This only is meant to offer you a different perspective of the normal things that we live through each and everyday. Hence if you disagree or have a completely different take on the matter, you are more than welcome to share them.

The idea that I’m trying to convey is that whenever you really feel that a person is bad, that is because that “badness” exists within you. I’m not talking about what you say about a person in public or to your friends. I’m talking about the thoughts that you have in your conscience regarding a person that you see. When you doubt him for something bad, you usually think that you are having such a verdict because you have experience. However, most of the times, I have found the truth of the matter to be that you come up with that verdict because you yourself are a victim of that.

Interestingly, this not only applies to the negative side of things. When you can genuinely think good about a person, I’ve felt that it is possible mostly because you have that goodness within you. However, it might be well for you and me if we drop this positive side of things because otherwise you will most probably start being arrogant about how good you are. You know what I mean right? Too much of self-righteousness might creep up and nothing can make a person more annoying than that.

Hence the next time you think bad about someone and judge him (which is one nasty thing to do) at least try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Just like that, when you sit there gloomy thinking that how bad and unfair the world around you is, maybe it is time to look within you and start making a few changes starting with the man in the mirror himself.

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Imitation – The innovation inhibitor.

We often hear people say, “Wow, he is so cool. I wanna be like him”. I’m not ruling myself out of that group. I too have thoughts on the same line. However, what does that line actually mean? To what extent are you willing to “be like him”?

When you think about it, there is a certain inborn skill associated with each and every human being. The skill of innovation. By default, this skill is there because the human mind cannot be chained. However, a lot of forces are out there that are set on manipulating our thoughts so as to fit into the ‘plan’. The availability of entertainment and pleasure at our finger tips makes it really hard to get ourselves to think for ourselves. We think for the people that we see and involuntarily, we act so as to fit into the ‘plan’ too. The books “Brave new world” by Aldous Huxley and “1984” by George Orwell might be worth mentioning here.

Now there are people among us who, even though at the mercy of technology at his fingertips, do not retire into their comfort zones and succumb to the pleasure there. Some among us actually think about the things that needs to be done instead of the things that you should be doing anyway. I’m not saying that thinking about things that you should be doing anyway is a bad thing, but just that they do not bring about a change in the world.

However, the few among us who really do think might have been motivated and inspired by certain people. This is the context in which I would like to talk about the meaning of the line I said at the beginning of this post.

When we try to imitate a certain person whom we are motivated and inspired by, we are actually cheating ourselves into inhibiting our skill of innovation. Mind you, obeying and imitating are not the same thing. So do not confuse one with the other. Now coming back to the point, the person we are imitating brought about a change in the world because he thought of things that did not fit into the ‘plan’. He thought of a new way to do things and without fear, he made his thoughts into action and those actions, as much as it might have shocked people, showed them that things could be done differently, as well as thought of differently.

Thinking about it, it was not his actions as such what brought about the change, but rather, it was the way in which he thought. Hence when we imitate that person, we are actually forgetting and disregarding the actual message that that person gave the world. Instead of being inspired and motivated by how that person could even think about doing such a thing, we talk of that person as an inspiration and do the things that he has already done. In the current world where you live, what he did might not be even in the slightest sense, do good to you or anyone around you.

The point that I am trying to make is that you do not know what sort of a situation in the life of the person that you are trying to imitate made him do the things that he did. He had reacted to certain happenings that were going on during his time and in the world around him. What we should learn and understand is how he thought of what he did in such a circumstance. Unless we do that, simply doing the things that he did might not have any relevance to who you are, the time that you live in, and where you live.

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A realization.

It is not a joke when they say life is a teacher. It most definitely is.

In your journey of life, you tend to step on a lot of stones. But when all the stones that you have stepped till now has been firm and ones that have taken you to heights, you naturally tend to forget that there might be some stone that is loosened. Some stone that might give way when you step on it, throwing you down if you are not careful. Always the first time that you encounter these kind of stones will be the hardest. Because you neither expected it nor know how to handle yourself when it happens.

Once the first fall happens and you somehow recover from it kicking and screaming, you pick up a whole lot of maturity and experience from down there where you fell. No matter whether you want it or not, the experience and maturity will rise up along with you while you stand up from your fall. It is inevitable.

Once you stand up, you introspect. You figure out a few things. You see the flaw in certain things and learn a few lessons. After everything, being a better man than you were yesterday, you continue with your life. This post is about a few things that I learned on my first fall, which happened quite recently.

The first and foremost would be that whenever someone else’s life becomes intertwined with something/anything that you do, then you should give care and thought to your actions. You are free to toy, experiment and play with life as much as you want, as long as it is yours. Most of the time, just because of the fact that you won’t give much thought to what you are doing, you tend to forget that your actions could affect other’s lives too. These “others” can be anyone from the low life vermin who is the saddest excuse for a human being on Earth, to someone who is the epitome of goodness and perfection of the human race. The only thing that matters is that it is the other person’s life.

I speak here from my experience. When my fall happened, it was due to me doing something I was passionate about. Me writing my blog. The damage had been done and I was slowly helping myself to stand up. However, a few thoughts popped up in my head that said what I did was right as long as I was passionately following what I did. Giving much thought to that idea, I finally came up with the conclusion that it was not so. The “Let them say what they want, I don’t give a care and I’m going to do what I love” attitude is not the way to go as long as what you do has had an effect on others.

I say so because then, you are using your passion as an excuse for not assuming responsibility for your actions. Whenever anything that you do is used as an excuse for something in the slightest sense, then the genuineness with which you do that is compromised. This applies to a wide range of activities that you do in your daily life and when you think about it, most of times you will be just making excuses, to yourself as well as to others.

Having realized that, the next thing that occurred to me is that whenever you see something that is not right, something that needs to be rectified, diplomacy is the key to making it correct. If the best strategy that you can come up with is to just gripe about it, then that makes you no less different than the others who are doing nothing in trying to rectify that wrong. Although a bit too ideal, the words “Be the change that you want to see in the world” makes sense. If you see something wrong and that something being wrong is actually bothering you, consider it your problem and hack at it real slow instead of griping about no one doing anything about fixing it.

In case you haven’t noticed, everyone is good at griping about no one correcting the wrongs and everyone is a master when it comes to putting the blame on others. If that is basically what you have done too, no matter what approach you took in doing it, then in the end, you’re no different from the rest.

It is rarely the case that you have to approach the problem in an extreme manner. Only the impatient and weak willed adopt that approach as it is expected to bring about sudden changes. I do not know how effective such changes are or how long they would last, but if you really have a strong character as well as a strong will, you slowly, patiently and diplomatically approach it. It will never be easy, but then again, who said life is going to be easy?

Having stepped on the first loose stone in my Journey, I’m still not experienced enough to identify such stones by looking at them. Nor am I experienced in raising myself from the fall. But now I know to expect not all stones that lay my path are firm. Treachery and disguise hides in between. I learn to be more careful.

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It is all about attention, and addiction!

As humans, when we are asked why we do something, we have an arsenal of answers ready at our command. We come forth with the “It makes me happy”, “because I think it is right”, “passion”, “this is what needs to be done”, and numerous other answers as well. Basically, what we are all trying to do is to find a reason to justify our actions. The answer to the question, “why?”.

There is another basic instinct that is at work here, which is actually the one thing that we crave for while doing all our actions and yet, the one thing that we are ashamed of admitting that we are after. It is so because admitting to that reason makes you “not cool” or something else of the sort.

What is that basic instinct? Have you ever wondered why criminals are given Jail sentences as punishments? More importantly, do you know what the worst punishment is that can be given to a criminal while in Jail? Apart from all the hard work, bad food and punishing, the most scariest of them all is solitary confinement.

To be in a cell, alone, away from humans, without even being paid the slightest of attention. Prolonged stay in solitary confinement breaks a person down emotionally.

Lack of attention is what channels people’s minds in different directions. When I say people, that includes everyone from a little baby to a kid, boy, a youth, middle-aged and old ones. All of them require attention for their lives to go on.

I have experienced this scenario first hand with a cousin brother of mine, who was entrusted in the care of one of my uncle’s family, because his Mom had to undergo certain treatment and his Dad had to be in another country for work.

This kid was a modest and silent child, sweet and gentle. He was 9 years of age or so. However, his stay at his uncle’s slowly started changing him. He started causing silly troubles, engaging in constant fights, and also started having constant mood outs. He wanted to do something to gain attention. It did not matter what he did nor what kind of attention he gained. Whether it be good or bad did not matter, as long as it provided him with a little of someone’s time.

Almost all of us have other’s attention all the time and thus, as is our nature, we take that for granted and build up huge philosophical mountains on our ego to cover up this basic instinct of ours. If you talk to doctors, you can see that a huge number of patients are coming there to consult him without any real diseases. Especially old people, when they are cast aside without being heard and attended to (attended as in, talked with and heard by), the way that they see to get attention is by conjuring up diseases which do no actually exist so that they can at least visit the doctor. This is true even in the case of young people and not just old ones.

People have connections with people whom they receive attention from. I believe this is the fundamental factor behind love. For when two people are in love, they both give each other their ‘time’ more than anything else in the world. Your time is the greatest gift that you can give one person and time means attention. Also just look at your friend’s circle. Are you friends with anyone who does not pay you attention no matter how much good that guy is? Of course not! You are happy with your circle because they give you attention. No matter whatever greatness and goodness that other fellow has.

I believe that is the reason why certain students get into “bad company” too. Because most of the studious and enlightened students in the class might not have time to tolerate and hear what certain weak students have to say. This basically puts that weak kid in a situation where, in order to gain attention, he tries all sorts of students in his class, and figures out that there is a bunch from whom he can get attention easily. All you have to know are gossips about celebrities and movies. You need not learn math nor do hard work. And since the society nowadays encourages you watching movies and knowing gossips, that weak kid finds that he has an easy way to gain attention and thus, gets into that company.

We talk about ‘passion’ as a reason for doing things. Have you ever thought what would happen if no one notices you when you do the ‘things’ that you claim you are passionate about? In my case, I claim ‘writing’ to be one of my passions. Would I still write if I had 0 hits day and night on my blog after having over 130 posts? Nope. I would have given up way before. Free software, open source, programming being the other things, would you stick to any of those if people did not pay you any attention? Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying people do things without any other reason. I’m just saying that the fundamental reason why people do things is for attention.

People are blessed with interests and likes. That is why they pay attention when they see or hear things that they like. That is how attention is passed around.

I had stated in one of my earlier posts that people did not have passion these days because they were not getting bored. However, a more valid argument would be that people do not have a passion these days because they do not have any lack of attention. Because they have the Internet and especially because they have the social networking sites, they get as much attention as they want. They need not do anything creative in order to get attention. They just need an e-mail account and a few clicks on these sites.

When people do not have attention, they do creative things. Things that others are not capable of doing, in order to bring attention to themselves. I believe that is how passion is born. These days, people who do not entirely succumb to the attention from Social Networking, or for that matter from any other communication media, get to be creative. The lesser the attention that you get, the more creative that you become. This creativity can be for good purposes or bad ones. It does not matter.

You know how people crave for power. How people like to be in the ruling committee no matter how much risk they have to take. What is power if not but attention magnified a thousand times? Attention is more or less like money. You can live decently if you have enough. But you never stop trying to get more. Inspiration, motivation, everything has the fundamental factor of attention attached to it.

So basically what I’m saying here is that everything you do is for attention. Well, everything? Nope. Not everything. You do things for one more reason, and that is addiction!

This is scary. Really scary if you know what I mean. Even if you do not get an ounce of attention, you will go about doing this. Just to mention a few of the common ones – drugs, porn and gaming. You succumb to these even if you do not get any external attention. These are things to watch out for because you would be a lot better if you give your time to almost anything else.

So, don’t be afraid to admit that you need attention. It is something that we all need. Something without which we cannot live. On this, you may create as many pillars of philosophical reasons for the things that you do. It is upto you.

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Multitasking? Bah!

In the course of life, I have seen many people get into situations where they need to pay attention to a million things. In order for their loved ones to have a good life, these people, no matter how many things that they have to take care of at the same time, somehow manages through it by staying sane, and finally when the day is at an end, the feeling of soulfulness that they experience is something that words cannot do justice to.

It might be the case that a person is working in a firm where he is under payed and his boss is making him work extra hours with no additional benefits. He cannot quit the job because he won’t be able to find another one fast enough in order to feed his family. So with this tension and pressure, he somehow manages through, and returns home to his kids, who are happily waiting for their daddy to play with.

Sometimes in the midst of such a life, his wife might be pregnant and is admitted at the hospital expecting delivery soon. He cannot be with her all the time because of his job and his first kid is at school. Now he needs to concentrate on his work where, if his response lacks quality, he will be fired. In the middle of that, he needs to find time to go and visit his wife and attend to emergency calls coming from the hospital now and then. Plus, he has to go and pick his elder child from school and take care of his daily activities of washing clothes and making food for him.

In such a state, a man multitasks. That father, just out of love and the feeling of responsibility, performs all his tasks, one interleaved with the other, and pulls through without causing hazard to any of the things that demands his attention. This is where he multitasks. He cannot tell his boss to get lost for the fear of losing the job. He cannot tell his wife to shut up and let him work for he loves her. He cannot let his elder child be, for he means the world to him.

Finally this man accomplishes it. He is a true hero. This is where we say that a person multitasks.

Nowadays we see many among us, including ourselves too, who proudly say that we are good at multitasking. When asked what we are so skillfully multitasking about, it is amazing to hear the answer.

Chatting with some stranger through the computer while answering the phone from his friend who wants to go out for a movie, at the same time watching a youtube video while having one earphone from his ipod plugged into one of his ears plus studying Math with his other free hand!

Goodness me! We seriously know how to rape multitasking. You are voluntarily killing your skill of being able to concentrate! I’m not saying I am free of all this, but when you see a kid or someone younger than you committing the same action, just tell him! Stop him from doing it for it is NOT something to be proud of. And as for us ourselves, let us not voluntarily do this, shall we?  I know it sounds cool and all but I hope you get the idea.

You need to multitask when the situation calls for it. But you need not rape your brain with it when it is not needed at all.

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We need good teachers.

It is no secret that the standards of teachers nowadays in colleges and schools are pretty low. Since most of them consider teaching as just a process to earn money, the ethics and true meaning of being a teacher has been ignored and cast away by them. That being the case, numerous people are out there to take up teaching as a profession.

These days, whenever I talk to someone about teaching, they tell me that it is one of the most easiest jobs in the world. Do you know their reasoning for that remark? They say that you’ll have to work only 2 to 3 hours per day, you will have lots of vacations and if you get a Government teaching job, then swell, you can slack off as much as you like.

Slack off? You have to be kidding me. This is the common man’s view regarding teaching and unfortunately, the views of most of the teachers nowadays too. Since both the teachers and common ma agree with the same idea, there are more and more people trying to get into the teaching profession so that they can ‘slack off’.

However, the funny thing is that there are good teachers among us. But they neither make it to school nor to colleges. I talk from the perspective of a fresh Computer Science graduate here and hence, my views maybe restricted to this field only.

These ‘good teachers’ among us are those who are passionate about what they do and have got an extremely good talent in teaching others what they know. Unfortunately, none of these people have their profession as teachers. from what I have seen, most of these people are in the IT industry, working for a software firm or something of the sort.

What I’m saying here is that the society, and more importantly the students, need people like these. People who have passion and people who actually know what they are talking about. People who can guide the young ones on the right path. People who can be followed.

Alas, these people are unavailable. They work in the industry on technologies they are passionate about and earn a lot more than a teaching job. So what need do they have to teach a few? I think there is a need because otherwise, the coming generation is going to have a hard time thinking straight.

I think it takes an enormous amount of will to dedicate one’s self to teach the new generation just by understanding the situation the young generation is in. I don’t know if it is a responsibility as such, but I definitely know that it is a service only those people can give. I guess no one can blame them for not doing it, but I believe that they can make the world a much better place to live, they can make a change and bring forth a ray of hope.

However, assuming that these people do come to teach, they are not going to do much of a good job if they have egoistic superiors breathing down their neck. The institutional politics is something that they don’t need to put up with because they are there to offer a service. Not to “show” that they are offering a service. Hence, there should be other outlets for these kind of people to come forward once in a while and to be able to share what they know with the young ones.

Pramode sir is one person I have seen as such. He realized he had something to give to the society. He teaches, and the beauty is that he teaches on his own, without any “department politics” or “bossing around”. He took a risk upon himself by doing what he did. To stabilize one’s self in such a way by establishing his own institution. I wish the society or the Government supported such initiatives so that we would have more people like him.

My aim is to become a teacher. I want to learn well and then teach about what I know. I have seen many knowledgeable people in the IT industry who say that they will teach/train if they get paid a huge amount of money. It might be true that what they teach is worth that much, but I believe they are forgetting the deserving ones out these, who cannot afford it.

I agree money is important, but money simply is not everything. I wish, hope and pray that those people who have the skill and knowledge to make the difference in the society, to set aside at least a little of their time to teach those young ones, who deserve to be guided.

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The arrogant humans.

Arrogance, is not a good quality. Unfortunately, when you go deep enough, all humans are, to an extent, arrogant. The arrogance breeding from the belief that they have the capability to understand everything.

I do not state facts here but merely put forth reasons that more or less, vaguely, points out that we don’t have the capability for eternal understanding. As such, this post is assumed to be controversial. You may voice your opinion without being offended.

We believe that there is nothing beyond certain fundamental beliefs that we hold dear. One such belief is the concept of creation. Many of us believe that for something to be in existence, it has to come from something else. Like the concept of “Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another”. Sometimes we take that concept, and go with it to the extreme end. To the supreme power of creation and question that power’s existence. The arrogance of thinking that you have the capability to figure everything out, is what comes into play there.

I mean, the words, languages and thoughts we have are incomplete. It is not so hard to understand that. I don’t know if the following analogy will clarify my point, but let’s see. Consider that we are making robots. The ideas and knowledge that we feed them defines their understanding. They can reach at logical conclusions based on their observations. However, whatever they have, they are never going to understand what ‘intuition’ is. As much as you improve your robot into being a human, you never are going to get a perfect human robot.

I’m not comparing God and humans on the basis of being a creator. What I’m implying is that what we humans know,  are things that are fathomable to us. That does not mean there is nothing else that we cannot understand. After some point, faith comes into play. That is what the essence of this post is. At some point or the other, you’ve got to have a blind belief because the things we perceive are within a framework that we have. A framework containing physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, astronomy, etc. Is it so hard for you to make yourself believe that there are things other than all these? All we know regarding those things are that we can refer to them by the word ‘other’. We cannot even start to imagine in what form or nature the ‘others’ are.

I’m one who believes that there are no “one solution fits all” method for anything in the world. Some people say that they always have to be happy, some say they always have to be optimistic, some say you should never ever give up. I’m not saying these are wrong. What I’m saying is that there are specific areas that these are applicable to. As such, when one point is reached, I’m ready to give myself up and submit to faith.

If you were able to get my drift, then do leave your thoughts.

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I’m not a FOSS fan boy.

“FOSS fan boy”. That term is really scary. It says in a single breath that the person described by that term is nothing but attitude.

“FOSS fanboys will never understand that, because they need to believe that they’re freedom fighters in a revolutionary war, like characters in their favourite animes”

This is what provoked me to write this post. Trying to draw an analogy, during my college life, I have seen a lot of students getting involved in politics. I have always wondered what got them so interested and dedicated to the cause. I used to find it absurd that they spend time on useless discussions, strikes and fights. I even have discouraged many of them from going after politics and “ruining” the time they had at college. As far as my analogy goes, the belief that something great or superior is there to be achieved by our little actions, is what drives the people, and I believe that there is something free software is destined to achieve.

I’m not sure so as to how this belief is instilled in the young minds. I don’t exactly know how even I got into that mindset. But somewhere along the way,  I did.

People always like to make themselves believe that they are important. They do that by mingling with the ones  who make them feel that they are important. Once they realize which group of people makes them feel important, they will start actively working for it.

I believe that is the truth to getting followers. In some aspects it is easy to provide the motivation because the actions of the group are easy to be imitated. That is the case with political parties as it is easy to be one in a crowd and shout. You can always get attention and feel important without doing much. You just have to make some noise and be somewhere by the side of the mob.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in no way implying that politics is bad. On the other hand, what I’m talking about is the “Fan” attitude. A more meaningful (and unparliamentary) way of putting it would be “All fart and no shit”.

Another observable example are the “fans” of celebrities. It is one thing liking a certain superstar and it is completely another treating them as God, spending time on putting banners and posters of them everywhere and picking fights with anyone who says he sucks. Most of the youth these days, sadly, involuntarily falls into this trap. The seriousness with which they “fight” to support the celebrity is rather… admirable?

There are still many examples like football fans and cricket fans where all they do is talk without ever having kicked a ball or having held a bat.

Now coming to FOSS. I entirely agree that the ‘fan’ culture is there for that too. Basically, it means that you keep on talking about philosophy without an ounce of technical knowledge. The “keeping on talking” would be fine if you would only spend a little time on it. However, with fan boys that is not the case. They keep at it day and night.

You see certain ‘free software enthusiasts’ commenting about Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman saying that they are not right. These ‘fans’ would not have even cloned the kernel source code yet and they say “Torvalds was wrong to do that, he was wrong to say this” and stuff. I mean, the Linux kernel is such a huge project being maintained by one guy collaborating thousand of developers from across the whole world! You have no clue what that management is like nor any idea regarding its implementation. All you have done is to sit comfortably at your home, open your laptop, read some stuff from here and there and there you go! Somehow you are man enough to advice others. XKCD depicts this wonderfully. Take a look below.

What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong

As far as I can see, that attitude is not something to feel proud about regarding FOSS. Let me mention a few people who love FOSS and have done much for it and yet are humble.

The first one would be my brother, Noufal Ibrahim K V. He neither talks philosophy nor tries to correct the “wrong person” on the internet. He lived his college life by tinkering with the internals of the Linux OS and thus learning much about how a computer works. He says that it was the Free Software Movement that brought about the freedom for this kind a thing to happen and thus he respects its existence. He works for the internet archive which is a non-profit NGO dedicated to archiving the whole of internet (as crazy as that sounds!) and yet he does not simply criticize others.

The next would be Ershad. He is just so enthusiastic about computers that he would give his life in exchange for it (Just kidding!). He gets to voice his opinion because he has done much for the society due to his love for FOSS. Not only has he a really good technical knowledge but he has contributed much with it. Both through programming as well as teaching. Personally speaking, he was the main reason for the small light of hope that was lit at our college,

Then comes Praveen ettan whom I have gotten to know over the past few months. Nothing more need be said about him other than that he is a Debian developer! Which means that he spends his time and effort, without any return whatsoever, for maintaining packages for the Debian Operating System. That, my friends, is how you contribute to society. He has strong philosophical beliefs which he puts forward and there is nothing wrong with that because he is one person who tries heart and soul to keep the spirit of Free Software alive not only through words but also through actions.

Now coming to the essence of the post. Am I a fan boy? To an extent I am for my contributions are questionable. Also, since I have been a great ‘fan’ of comic book superheroes like Batman and Wolverine, I’m pretty easy to get excited about “fighting for the goodness of the world”. So the comment at the the beginning of this post applies in my case.

Thanks Sharat for opening my eye. I am not going to be simply “one among the crowd” and shout. Till now all that I have done is to make chances for a few people to come together and learn a little but I see that is not enough. I will try to better myself and one day, I shall speak.

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The farewell speech.

I thought I would not get a farewell to give my “all-too-prepared” farewell speech. But I did get a farewell. As for my farewell speech, I guess everyone was in a merry mood and did not hear anything that I said which all ended up in me performing my awesome moonwalk in front of my class as well as my juniors!

So I’m writing this post in the hope that some of my juniors will read it and take it to heart. The following is the speech that I wished to give.

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I remember the time when ICC (Islamic Cultural Center) was in existence in our college. I was doing my second year back then and we were giving the final years a farewell party. There was a person named Niyaska in that batch from mechanical. He was one person that I respected and loved in college. A person with a soothing personality, one who had above 70% aggregate for his B. Tech, Kung-fu black belt, college football team player, a person who was there for almost everything good around us.

The words that he said that day comes to mind. He said, “Motivation is an important factor that can change your life and can help you discover skills within yourself that you would never have dreamed that you had. But you won’t find that factor in this college. Therefore, in order to understand and realize yourself, you have to be self-motivated.”

I had listened to that and forgotten it. Now it comes back to me. So what I have to tell you guys is to realize the importance of giving motivation as well as being motivated. As once I had written in my blog, if you are a human, you have the power to give motivation. So help your friends and do them a favor. If they are trying out something, motivate them and help them to realize the skills that they have. That’s what friends are for.

Now that was just the icing of the cake. Let me get to what I’ve been preparing for the last six months.

What all kinds of advice can a person give? I’d say three. One, to preach about something that he practices. Two, to advice others on the mistakes that one had made so that the people hearing won’t make them. Three, the advice that all of us are familiar with. Free advice, which basically means to blabber on about something that guys has no clue about.

Of the above three, which would you say was the most effective one? In my opinion, I would say it was the first one. I say so because the person giving that advice had undergone the hardships and the tests in order to do what he was talking about. He could be a guide to what he was advising others to do. Most important of all, he would have felt what it was like to do that.

As for the second one, it would be effective but much lesser than the first one. That is because the people who are hearing the advice can ask us, “You had all the fun, so why can’t we?”. You cannot tell them how it is possible to not make that mistake.

The third one, well, need I say more about the third one? Anyone, anywhere and at anytime can give it. I don’t know if it will have any effect at all.

Now since we have, more or less, agreed to the fact that the first kind of advice would be having the best effect, that wold be the one I’m giving. Neither the second nor the third.

I have three advice to give you.

One, find something that you are passionate about and follow it. Most of the people nowadays have no passion. They do not have something that they do just for the sake of doing it. You can ask yourself the question whether you have something that you are doing no matter what others say. Something creative.

The reason why most people don’t have a passion is because they do not give their minds the time to find it. You know why? Because you want to be entertained all the time. It is either music, or movies, or gossips, or chit chat or mobile phones. You do not give your mind the time to find something. So “sit bored”. Boredom is one of the ways to let your mind show you what creativeness you have within you.

Of course, boredom is not guaranteed to bring out the creativeness in you, but it helps. It will definitely make you try out something you have never tried in your life and that just might be the thing you are good at. That being said, most of the times, it happens at a certain blessed moment. This is my first advice.

Now, as for my second advice, I won’t say it. If you really really want to know it, you can come and ask me personally. Isn’t that right Manu?

Now the third one. Help and support your friends. This point stems from the fact that not all of you will be interested in the technical aspects of Computer Science. Most of you would just want academics to go by while you are interested in sports, politics or whatever you are interested in. I do not blame you for that is your choice.

But there will be your friends who are, at least a little, interested in learning new technologies as well as programming. Just make sure that you do not discourage them. Do not make fun of them. Instead, support them. So even if you are not interested, do not be a hindrance to others. That applies to Abacus as well. Even if you are not interested in its activities, do not discourage your friends who spend time to keep it alive. Support them.

If you remember a year earlier, you’ll know that most of us made fun of Shalin Jain saying that he was boasting. But now I realize he was giving us the best advice that he could, telling us about something that he did and was doing. He was a role model and he was definitely the person who made a major milestone in my life.

This is what I wanted to tell you. I hope you’ve been able to grasp it. If not, this is not the end, feel free to mail or call me if ever you find that you’ve stumbled upon your passion. I’ll help you work it out.

So enjoy your college life. I sincerely say that no one could have asked for a better bunch of juniors. All of you have given me the strength and courage to face life’s challenges. Many of you, I know personally. Anand, Ashiq, Aravind, Vasudev, Nithin, Ranjith, Ajay, Manosh, Harikrishnan, Jijo, Jibin, Sruthi, Aparna, Aaliya, Sreelekshmi, Hari, Sree Hari, Anjana, Suhaira, Ajumal, Charu, Aksin, Arun, Shyam, Divya… I’m not going to forget any of these guys in a hurry. So keep rocking and all the best!

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I guess that sums up my farewell speech. I had timed it for ten minutes. However I’ve made it a bit elaborate in my writing. As always, take what you feel is good. But don’t dump the rest. If you think some of what I said was not right, then try to understand why I said it and try to see it from that perspective.

Cheers guys!

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Pining to write.

Life has been quite dull as well as busy lately. I never had the peace of mind to sit and write about the numerous thoughts and ideas that were popping up in my head. Trying to keep them aside and concentrating on the day’s works has really been tiring for the brain. I feel as if my brain is not good for anything any more. Hey, that happens when you continuously use your brain without rest for nothing but bull shitting.

I’ve had to write a few exams lately which were completely dumb and I had to fill up my answer sheets with something. That being one, the other was to prepare my final project report. If you read my post here, you’ll know what repeated. Suffice to say we’ve got it all over with today.

Since there are a lot of thoughts in my head to put down, I thought of keeping them organised and what better way to do that except writing about what is to be written?

So here goes. You can expect the following posts from me pretty soon.

1. Can I be optimistic about pessimism?

This thought originated when our Head of the Department, an old lady, said that she won’t encourage any further activities of Abacus. It seems she thinks that we are upto something mischievous. When you see something that you worked your heart for being killed just because of the absurd imaginations a person, it hurts.

2. Home schooling V/S schooling.

This interesting debate happened while our project team was waiting for the teachers to show our demo. It lasted for about two hours and was really patience-testing as well as interesting.

3. I’m not a FOSS fan boy.

Quite an interesting discussion happened on our abacus mailing list. You can read it here. After all was said and done, I received a message from one of the guys in the discussion. It read as, “FOSS fanboys will never understand that, because they need to believe that they’re freedom fighters in a revolutionary war, like characters in their favourite animes”. Upon hearing that, I lost trust in myself a bit.

4. Against E-learning.

Many people around the world are e-educated nowadays. As in, whenever you ask a doubt to a certain person, he mostly will tell you to figure it out on your own. I guess it has its advantages but won’t it breed arrogance as a by product?

5. Its all about attention… and addiction!

I’ve been thinking about it and everything that we do boils down to two things. Either attention or addiction.

6. The farewell speech.

For the past six months, I’ve been thinking about what to speak if ever I was asked to say something in front of the whole CS batch during a farewell party. I don’t think that our farewell is going to happen because of our HOD, but I’d like to put down the speech that I had prepared.

7. Hard disk partitioning.

I’ve been playing around with hard disk partitioning using gparted for a while and many people are scared to give it a try. Hence I plan to write a small tutorial on how to use gparted to partition your hard disks.

That’s about it folks. Expect all these posts soon. Tomorrow I turn 23, leaving college, having learnt a lot.

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Naruto IS genjutsu!

For those among you who are already into cartoons, you must have come across this name from some place or the other as Naruto, the anime Cartoon, is the rage nowadays.

It would not be possible to describe what this cartoon is about in a few words. Those who have seen it can vouch for me regarding that. However, keeping a long story short, its about a kid who never gives up on trying to get better, his friends and the world that he lives in.

According to the Cartoon, there are basically three types of skills for a Ninja (There might be more, but I was able to gather only three).

1. Taijitsu : This refers to one’s physical skill in battle. The martial arts he has learnt and the will with which he uses it.

2. Ninjitsu : This can be thought of as special powers that the Ninjas have. They have this inner power called Chakra. Once you learn to master the inner power, you can control and mould it to be used as powerful techniques. You can spit fireballs, make lightning, etc. You get the idea right?

3. Genjutsu : This is the ability to manipulate once reality. If you have this skill, you can project an illusion at your opponent and he can be trapped in it for a time depending upon the skill you have in using it. Even though it can be done using music, sight, etc, doing it via sight is the most effective one. Especially if you possess the Sharingan eyes!

Well, what I’m saying is Naruto IS Genjutsu and I’m trapped in it!

One year back while I was studying my fifth semester, I shared my hostel room with Varun, Shabeeb and Koushik. After class in the evenings and the nights, Varun would turn on his laptop and sit watching Naruto while I wasted my time with my cell phone and laptop. Back then I wondered what the hell was wrong with this guy to keep on watching that stupid cartoon day and night. Upon his request, I had watched a single episode which was the fight between Neiji and Naruto. However, today I wish I had watched that cartoon with him. I would’ve really enjoyed it.

So from then on days went by without me watching it at all. Even at home my sister would watch it from youtube and would invite me to watch it along with her. But I simply wouldn’t watch it. Things went by like this until a month ago when one day while I was having my evening snacks, my sister was watching an episode of naruto. I simply went and gave her company.

Little did I realize it was the episode between Sasuke, the wielder of the Sharingan, and Daedara! I watched the episode and in between them I looked into the Sharingan of Sasuke! I never in my dreams imagined that I would be trapped in his genjutsu! Alas, I was and now even when I realise that I’m under his Genjutsu, I cant stop watching Naruto. Episode after episode I watched and exhausted all the episodes that I had on my hard drive.

I’m still itching for more but it seems that the further episodes have not been made yet. I’ll only be able to come out from this genjutsu once the person who cast it upon me dies. That means Sasuke must die. Like everyone else in the hidden leaf village, I too am counting on Naruto to save me.

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Sound relations.

Humans are creatures with emotions. Be it anger, love, hatred, passion, greed, sympathy, we all have them. Most of the times we are well aware of what triggers these emotions within us too.

Well, lately, I happened to have an interesting observation while talking with my Mom. In between our conversation, suddenly I happened to lose sense of the words that we both spoke. I could only concentrate on the sound. She was using her mouth and I was using mine to produce sounds. Sounds in certain specific patterns so that they were able to trigger emotions within us.

Once my mind converged on this thought, talking became weird because I was not talking any more. I was simply making sounds that had some magical effect because of the tone and pattern in which I made them. The magical effect being that she was able to make sounds in such a way that those were responses to the ones that I was making. The ultimate result being we were able to share what was in our minds by making sounds.

I spent sometime thinking this matter through and it felt surprising to see how the relations that we develop with certain people was based on the sounds we made from our mouths.

Talking is not like seeing or hearing because for a person speaking English and a person speaking Japanese, seeing and hearing are the same for them. But when talking, there are producing sounds The only difference being that they were producing them in their own patterns and tones.

I was wondering how relations among us get so strong based on these sounds that we make. When our friend is in some deep grief, the tone in which we produce sounds make a great difference in his mind and heart. If we were to make sounds in a jolly and rather loud way, he would not understand that we were sharing his sadness nor would he understand that we were being sympathetic and were trying to console him. But if we make those exact sounds in a deep and gentle manner, his mind would be much soothed.

I don’t know why, but there appears to be a spot of fakeness in this. But my thoughts regarding the matter has not gone any further than this.