The Phoenix

This blog has been dead. For a while.

A lot has happened. A lot hasn't. In the meanwhile, I've learnt many new things, forgotten old ones, wasted a lot of time, had many baths and have generally come out with the feeling I'm a better person after all. The baths helped of course.

Hopefully I'll be able to revive this one from its ashes.

Hopefully.

Necessary But Not Sufficient

If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

~Ashleigh Brilliant

Courage is the price life exacts for peace.

~Amelia Earhart




Sometime back, (come to think of it, a long time back.... but then, as DA said, time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so)I was chatting with Aai & Baba (over cups of piping hot tea) about how all things general. One of my close acquaintances recently had a great new job opportunity - and was now able to do something she wanted to do for all her life. It was great to hear about that. She was now in the U.S. for about 5 years and things were looking good. My dad remarked about how it had been a very difficult decision for her to leave the well settled life and leave to pursue her idea of success. It was a uncertain future for her back then. But it had paid off.

What is the most essential ingredient to 'success'? What is that one thing which differentiates the successful* from the ordinary? What do you mean by success anyway?

After little pottering around with those thoughts (and obviously with nothing better to do - what with the depressing snow et al.) I've an observation and a conclusion:

The basic fact of life is that we all prefer to stay right in our comfort zones. And that's where it all goes wrong.

All of us face problems. Different ones at different times, but we all face them. They may be palpable ones - ones that have been defined for us - or ones which we seek or need to define ourselves.

Quite often in life we prefer not to deal with our problems/hurdles, simply because we are afraid of failure. We are scared that we may fail, thereby not to achieving what we set out to do. Many of us, I'm afraid, wonder "what people would think". We seem to almost lie in waiting, waiting for that moment when the problem would pass away; after all it would be so much easier.

But somehow we don't seem to realize, that it is by denying action on those problems that we actually end up failing.

Ironically then, we fail because we are afraid of failure.

I'm sure that there comes a time in everybody's life, a moment of realization,when you can see that if you don't act you will definitely fail. This is usually a breaking point. It is a point where the person is stretched to his/her limits. It is then the character of the person which decides how he or she will react. Some will break down and accept failure. Others will fight all odds/act on it. Remember though, in all cases success comes only to those who get out of that comfort zone.

That said however, getting out of the comfort zone is a necessary but not sufficient condition for 'success'.
_______________________________________________________
* I won't waste my time defining success here. Take it as whatever you think it is. It _is_ basically what you think it is ;-). But there's definitely more to say. It deserves another post though.
**Don't you scoff at that. If you don't believe me, try searching for 'success' in wikipedia. You'll be redirected to an article on (surprise, surprise) social status. Now that says a lot doesn't it?

Thats life!

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome K. Jerome


This was one of the 'quotes for the day' on my google homepage. I couldn't agree more with it. It's happened more often than not that I've yearned for a hot cup of tea, while lazing on the 'zhopala' in my verandah with a nice novel in hand when I'm preparing for exams. And I stop yearning for anything like that the moment they are done!

Heh heh heh...

Future Shock

Ok so this has nothing to do with Shaunak's post by the same title nor with the book by Alvin Toffler. It's just that I couldn't think of a better (and original ;) ) title for this post.

The "future shock" I'm referring to has got to do with engineers.

Have you ever pondered about the future of engineering? I mean have you ever given it a thought as to whether say 20 years down the line, what an engineer's role would be?

Well here are some of my thoughts.
Actually I'd been thinking on these lines for some time now. It started off with an article I read in the IEEE Spectrum. Those thoughts precipitated to this blog, with an article I read today in The Indian Express: The Mother Of All Softwares.

The article in IEEE Spectrum spoke of a time in the engineering industry, when engineers would be relaced by software packages. Not too difficult to imagine actually, considering the fact that almost 50-60% of today's practicing engineers are only sort of consultants, tweaking long established designs to suit the conditions. Imagine a software package that'll take in specifications, and lay out the entire detailed design! What better than a package (a one time investment) like this, rather than a costly, time consuming and error prone human engineer? Critics may comment that one would still need "the human touch", but while I don't agree with that (nor do I want to get into an argument - maybe I'll write another post), even in such a (grossly optimistic) senario, one has to admit that the requirement for engineers would dwindle. In any case, such an engineering job would definitely be boring, frustraing offering virtually no creativity.

I'd say that an engineer who's doing such things is basically going to be obsolete - jobless. Move over to software, and the article in the Indian Express will confirm your worst fears - there's already a software out there to automate programming. Be assured that in the next 20 years or so, we'll have a really well done package to handle even the most complex of coding tasks.

In essence, if you're an engineer doing mundane things, working up old designs, without any creativity or originality, then the future's your highway to extinction.

Methinks that the future engineer (aka an engineer who's not extinct - not jobless) is going to fall under these 3 major categories:

1. The "human touch" engineer (arguable but I'm willing to yield for the moment)
2. The research engineer.
3. The manager engineer.

The first guy is definitely going to be one bored (but perhaps well paid) dude.

The second one, is definely going to be well paid, but a rare creature. He'll be the one who devises new technology, the guy who makes new, pathbreaking designs. I guess the guy who writes The Engineer Softwares would also fall under this category. He'll have to be smart, in touch with the latest research a continuous learner, and above all, a creative and broadminded, thinking person. Most likely, he'll be the invisible force of the new era.

The third guy is gonna be the most common engineer. He's gonna be either the one who takes care of the broad engineering - business related decisions (it's hyphenated for a good reason) or an entrepreneur in the engineering business. He'll be a person who is constantly in touch with technology, creative, and having all the important traits of a good manager. He'll be the palpable, human force.

Well that's my prediction anyway!

Tell me what you think!

I'll search for my cheese

Somebody moved my cheese!

Yes, somebody moved my cheese, and I can either sit here and wait for the cheese to come, or make a decision and search for cheese before it's too late.

I'm actually referring to an unhappy state of affairs with my present job. I'm not happy about it. It's not what I want. It isn't giving me my cheese; not giving me any challenge, any creativity, nor any connection with the most important thing - science and nature.

Some of you may be surprised, some may be saying "yeah, well I saw it coming ", and well some would say "Yeah? Are you kidding me or something?" Well whatever! Point is I'm not amused!

Let's put things in prespective in here.
I have a job which is perhaps in one of the better firms in here. As of now, it's okay. Not something that will buy me the château Versailles or something, but definitely one that would allow a decent life. A few years down the line perhaps, and I would be definitely doing well. Um, lets add a dash of extravagant success (yeah, yeah..... I'll attach hypothetical to the extravagant, but let's not argue over that right now ;-) ), and it's definitely a good life I guess!

A lot of people seem to want to tell me, "So what's to lose? All you've to do is stick to it for some more time. That's all! The good times will flow! "

The problem is that I don't see my cheese, and I don't believe that it would come here. So before it's too late I need to make a decision, and seek my cheese.

On one hand is the fact that I don't see my cheese, but my position is definitely comfortable. I don't have to risk too much, and the money will come. And on the other hand is the fact that before it's too late, I need to seek out my cheese - and face the inherent risks that will come with it.

So the million dollar question essentially is: Should I be taking a RISK???? ( hey it really is a million dollar question, Dhirubhai might help you answer it ;-) ).

I think yes.

A small anecdote before we go on. I had the opportunity to meet a certain Dr. Shreenivas Kulkarni when I was in my junior college. He was (and perhaps is) the Head Of Dept. Astrophysics at Caltech. One of my friend's father had arranged our meeting, and we essentially spoke about what we'd like to be doing in our lives. We had the usual stuff: "We'd like to do this and this, but we don't know if it's a good idea. Perhaps it might not work out. So it's better we do what most others do. It's safer that way!"
What he told us next has stuck in my mind since that day. He said "Guys, I've seen a lot of smart, really smart people out there in Caltech. All of them are good, intelligent and hardworking students. Yet I see, year after year, that only some of them do well later on in their life. Do you know why?". It was plain we didn't know why. "It's because those guys seek to do something that's not been done before. Sometimes they go bust, but sometimes it works out great. If it goes bust, some try again and some accept defeat. Well essentially they take a risk. But there are those who don't, but then they don't stand out either! The essential point is, if you take a risk, you are giving yourself the extra opportunity to stand out and succeed!".

Again, I guess Dhirubhai would attest that.

I decided to pursue engineering because I liked physics and maths, and thought it would be fun to be creaative and use the two. But currently I've lost that connection. So before it's too late, I'm going change this state of affairs, and make a big, risky decision. I'm going to do what makes me happy. I'm going to go to whoever allows me to be happy, going to go wherever I can be happy. I'm going to go search for my cheese!