The Sleep Eater

Ever woken up all night watching something that you wanted to see till the end?  I have, several times!  The sleep eater: a wonderful servant, and a terrible influence (at times!).

The Sleep Eater

Beautiful stories
come to life
in flowing colors
and lifelike sound,
and make me forget
myself
as I gaze
into a crystal screen
hypnotized
throughout the night
until morning comes
and I realize
that the sleep eater
has once again
eaten my dreams
leaving in their stead
a throbbing headache
and reality!

Note: I might re-edit this sometime in the future: this was just an effort once again, to write something at the last moment!

Its all your fault!

I haven’t written stuff in a while.  Today, I had nothing to write about in my head, as I opened up a new post.  A topic came into my head, but it happened to be a very complex one, and it requires a lot of analysis.  I can write how I feel in general, but writing in a more rational way would require much more effort that the 15-20 minutes I will attempt to dedicate to it.  Hence, I call it a ‘rant’ and present it below.  I look forward to hearing what you think as well, and look forward to comments.  To see what kind of comments I like, please look at the about section .

People sometimes mess things up for us, real bad. We have to go through extreme misery just because of them, day after day, seemingly without end.  In the end, after its all over, the bad taste is still in our mouth, and we might feel that we’ve been scarred for life.

Then again, people sometimes mess things up for our predecessors.  Things are ok for us, but for so long, our predecessors had a real hard time.  Sometimes, we have a hard time too, to an extent.

And then, sometimes, our predecessors didn’t have such a hard time, but we are against the status quo of certain things.  In the air of our revolt, we try to break the status quo, and we blame everything that has happened so far, including the state of status quo that was there when our predecessors existed, and blame the receiving end for it.  It is all a ‘tool’ to help further our revolt.  The past, the present, anything that we can manipulate with words.

No matter what had happened, is the choice we are left with: “what do we do now?”.

The question is: with the initiative in your hands, what do you choose to do?

Would you choose to simply break away: forgive them or just leave them be, and get on with your future?  You could do something constructive, or if they are involved too, get them in a win-win situation with you, get things working for a better future for both of you?

Or would you choose a path of active aggression, attacking the alleged wrongdoers, gaining benefits from them to some extent, both by showing you are morally superior to them, and taking what they think is theirs, while doing very little constructive work yourself?

If you choose the second option of course, I have some questions: who is the judge of your own actions: that you are right, and the other is wrong, in the past, and more importantly, today?  Also, what is your true intent behind choosing that path, all words left aside, including the words you tell yourself?

A note on why I ask these questions:  I see so many situations where people react to the past, some examples being revolts in my own country.  Someone did something to a group a long time ago, someone took away an independent state from someone else a long time ago, and ever since, they have been forced to live as colonies of the invaders.  A note to those who do not know about my country: it is not very big, and as far as I know, everyone was trying to increase territories back in a feudal area.  The example of states being colonized is but one possibility of seeing wrongdoing in the past.  You might be angry with someone in your personal life, or in various other contexts as well.  However, I choose to only look at this particular example for now.

Why is it such a big deal?

Everyone now seems to want their own ‘territory’, free from interference from the other territories, or at least that is what I understand.  Who does it help?

I guess the people who get to be in power in the small territories in the small run.  Perhaps neighbors who would love to attempt to slurp up a few chunks of land if they can: much more difficult to do from a unified Nepal than from small pieces of it.  Perhaps the people there, but really, do you think it would help them that much?  Couldn’t there be a much better solution if all the ‘territories’ overlooked the ‘past’ and decided to work together as one single nation?  Difficult for the ones shouting the most—their chances of getting into power would perhaps diminish, but what about the rest of the gang, the ones that actually have to live a life free from politics one way or another?

I end my post with these questions for this particular example.  However I feel that the questions I raise apply to most situations where grievance is involved, though the situations are sometimes very very different. The final question is:  is it possible to still walk away with your future in your hands, completely free of the initiator of misery, or must justice always be dealt? My choice slightly leans towards leaving the offenders be to a certain extent, perhaps because I like to believe that your karma eventually catches up to you, no matter how much you try to leave it behind.  I think I would choose to neutralize any means of aggression they possess, and leave them be after that if I can.  However, that is from my perspective.  I leave your answer upto you.

Note:  This is a post written in a hurry, so I might end up editing it later.  Most likely not though, but lets see.

To memorize or not to um…. what was I saying?

I used to look at memorization as if it was something that was not fit for people really interested in learning.

That was in the past.  Nowadays, I look at it in a different light.

Long ago, I preferred to derive formulae for mathematics rather than try to remember them, even in exams.  I believed that what was important was understanding the concepts, and being able to do things yourself.  I still believe this though.

But then, I’ve also begun seeing things from another angle: the fact that a man with the right tools can achieve more results than a man without those tools, though the one without tools may be a very good worker.  What does that have to do with memorization?

Its pretty obvious that memorization serves as a tool for various purposes.  Students cramming their way through exams is one purpose it serves quite well.  However, providing a framework of readily accessible facts in your mind when you need them is another very important use it has.  Think of two people: with the same level of understanding of a subject.  One understands all the concepts, but he needs to refer to his books, the internet, or whatever he has at his disposal to remember hard facts.  The other knows all of the facts in his mind.

Let me take an aside from the scenario above for a while, and go to the world of Buddhist monks in Tibet, where I read once (in a book called The Third Eye by T. Lobsang Rampa) that the monks were supposed to memorize numerous thick volumes of books, and were able to remember anything in any of the pages using a memory system.  “The feat might be incredible, but what is the point?”, you might ask .  Anyways, that was one of the questions that had come to my mind.

I am not sure.  One thing though, is that they have two advantages: i. they can refer to, and mix and merge any number of concepts in the books at will, and they have a reference that is always at their disposal (thus, helping them gain a deeper understanding in the long run); ii. the discipline that it took to memorize those volumes forced them to concentrate, and I believe that, the density of the time you put in is much more important than just the raw length of time you put in. By density, I mean the amount of concentration you put in.

Jumping back to the first scenario:  the second person has the facts he needs in his head all the time, which means that he can refer to these facts anytime– something I seem to frequently do (since it seems my unconscious mind keeps working on problems even when I am doing something else– something I have noticed frequently when I try to solve brain-teasers and other problems).  In other words, he has a framework in his mind, which he can customize as he wishes to.  That is a very valuable tool for learning.

The second advantage he has is in self confidence.  Both people might be experts, but the one who can easily answer any questions fired at him instead of having to refer to notes gives the ‘feel of an expert’ to a random observer.  And being able to convince random people that you are an expert is part of the art of selling yourself, something that is quite important in competitive times.

As a final observation that I found quite interesting:  after you work for years in a field, you find you know certain things by heart, i.e. you have the knowledge/skills at your fingertips.  If you are a person used to memorizing+practicing things well in the beginning itself, you thus gain significant comparable expertise much sooner.

The subject of course, deserves much more detail than what I have covered above (my customary apology– this is a blog, not an essay ).  However, the aspects I mentioned above are quite important (at least to me), and are part of the reason of why I am beginning to find a newfound respect for memorization.

‘Grown Up’

I begin this post with a recommendation for those of you who have not read The Little Prince to do so at least once in their life.  It is a very beautiful book, very short, and though it is a children’s book, I am sure it will call out to the child in every adult who reads it!  You can read it online from the link above, or here as well: the link of my preference.

I often wonder what ‘being grown up’ is exactly about.  A more apt statement would be that I wonder if everyone has the same perspective of ‘growing up’ as I do… to explain my perspective, many (please note: I do not say ‘all’) ‘grown ups’ do seem like the ‘grown ups’ the Little Prince meets in his journeys in the book.  Not the whole person of course, but some aspect or the other.  I am sure I resemble quite a few of the characters there too .

Today, something struck me as a possible explanation of the phenomenon of ‘growing up’ (in the sense of the book).  I’ll explain it below:

As a child, we all have our own fears, our own inadequacies, as well as our own positive points.  As we grow up, we need to cope with things in life.  The ideal solution would be to face each fear, and to get rid of it once and for all.  That is the concept of ‘fighting one’s demons’ that I understood in a movie on Bruce Lee’s life… something his father was talking to him about.

But then, to fight demons requires strength, and often, help (in the sense of help from friends, family, or someone with a lot of perception, to cite a few possibilities).  Not all of us are lucky enough to get even one of the two many times.  However, time (and life) moves on at its own pace, waiting for nobody.  You grow older, and before you know it, you have more and more responsibilities.  You still shoulder your fears, your ‘demons’ though.  What do you do?

If you cannot openly face them, you build up defense mechanisms to avoid those fears.

Children may not need, and hence, understand these defense mechanisms.  Even we ourselves may be unaware of our own mechanisms, and even more unaware of those of others.  Hence, we may not understand that the way Mr. X or Mrs. Y reacts so strangely to certain (all?) things is not because because they are bad people deep inside, but because they are just naturally reacting defensively against their fears– demons deep inside their minds, lurking around and thriving in the dark corners of their minds.

Is that what a lot of ‘grown ups’ are like?  I know a few in my life, whose reactions really used to irk me.  Later, I could see their defense mechanisms and their actual fears (to some extent) as I got to know them more.

Some act all bossy towards kids (and other people), and behave as if they know it all.  However, if they had to go through their childhood once again, through the same situations that are perhaps packed away in some dark corner of their mind, forgotten, but not let go of, how would they fare the second time on?  How many demons have they fought off forever in their life?

Of course, it sounds so nice to be able to get over all your fears, to live life without pretenses or complexes.  However, its a short life we have, and not all of us find the resources we need to fight all of our battles.  The people who gather around us, the responsibilities that pile up on our shoulders, these need our time, as much as our inner battles do.  Which do we give priority to?

After all, whether we win our inner battles or not, we are still, in essence, the very people we have always been, the same people that only we might know deep down inside, and like so much.  We live our lives the best we can, and hope to make a difference (or perhaps not), leaving behind memories that hopefully, at least a few will cherish for a long time, doing our best to be ‘grown up’ with the time and resources that we have at hand.

Personally, as a note, I would like to add that I think we have as many resources as we would like to have, and both winning the battle and living our life at the same time is possible.  However, that is just an opinion, nothing that I have thought very deeply about… somewhat like this posting in this regard (which perhaps received a bit more thought that the last statement ).

My two cents on what could be done… (yeah, dream on…)

I read this news article yesterday, and found myself agreeing– it sounded like a good idea to me!  I also read this article today.  I am actually really excited about the first (not excited as in ‘jumping up and down’, but excited as in … ‘wow.. thats kind of along the lines I think too!’), and would point out certain things about the second as ‘not completely true’.  Here is a 2-minute, ‘my two cents’ analysis– I seriously believe that this might be actually helpful though.. though I am sure that more appropriate minds than mine are working on the problem.

My Two Cents

1. We do not lack skilled manpower, even within the country.   All of the manpower might not be ‘as skilled’, but there is definitely a lot of ‘top talent’ still within the country.
2. A pool of relatively less experienced (but quite skilled) manpower is also present in the country, currently ‘looking for jobs’.  They graduate every year from various institutions.  They believe in fairness, competition, benefits, recognition, skill improvement, global marketability etc.
3. My experience in most of my jobs (quite a few!) has been: I have had to learn more on the job than apply what I learned in my undergraduate studies.  I believe this principle applies in many situations, and is the reason that companies train employees.  Train the new graduates– give them the freedom to go elsewhere if they want, but try your best to interest them and make them genuinely want to stay with you.  My belief is that when you are starting a career, experience, contact building, learning skills and techniques, etc are much more important than pay (which is definitely still important). This helps you to ‘sell’ yourself anywhere you want in the future.  If old employees leave, train new ones — try to keep old ones as long as you can, but let them go to ‘greener pastures’ if they can.  Pay them competitively, I would say slightly above the average ‘private company’ market rate, but quite below the ‘NGO market rate’.  However, train them well and treat them well.
4. Integrate willing, but less skilled manpower into the team for work involving more quantity and less skill.  Train them on the job too– same principle applies.  Give everyone the possibility of upward mobility.
5. Build a team culture.
6. Plan a lot of projects.  Don’t do it yourself.  Encourage private parties to do it.  That is where the government fails miserably now, and one of the most important aspects it should work on: completely root out the corruption in the process.  Quotes for government projects is a near-mafia style business in the current context according to what my friends tell me.  Trust me– the people who give you much lower rates and better service are elsewhere, and present in large quantities– just if you are willing to forego the personal benefits of engaging the current players. Encourage and help skilled parties to join in the game.  Create as many projects as you can.  Consult experts on ways to make the structure sustainable agains corruption in the future as well– rules are made to be broken– no matter what the system is, and people always find ways to corrupt systems– corruption is inherent in minds, not systems… protect against that– by understanding, not rigidity.
7. Get ‘skilled’ manpower to willingly create excellent proposals, and get aid for them if necessary, or fund them by yourself if you can.  By ‘skilled’, I think highly paid consultants might be much less appropriate than people who might be willing to do good work for much less.  Quality is important, but optimization for the best price-payoff ratio is the best strategy.
8. Get the projects rolling
9. Involve more people, improve the infrastructure, improve the pay, etc etc (i.e. sharpen the saw.. in the words of Stephen Covey, in a slightly different context!).

Thats all folks

Lack of time?

Or is it just lack of concentration?

I’ve found that working on concentration helps me manage time a bit better nowadays.  Turns out that the longer my attention span is — the faster I get things done, i.e. a span of 15 minutes before letting my mind wander is much better than letting other thoughts creep in every 2-3 minutes.

A lot of this is because of context switch overhead in my case– I need to gather my thoughts again, which takes up time, and when I am facing difficult things, it is easier to phase out temporarily again, in contrast to sitting it through for longer blocks, no matter how difficult the problem is.

Just phased out long enough… so I wrote this post!  Have to concentrate, have to concentrate, have to concentrate…….

The Circle of Influence: Are we aware of ours? (context: positive change in Nepal)

In the past years, many people I know who hail from my country, Nepal, have expressed their dissatisfaction with what is going on, with worry about what is going to happen.  When I read the news, I get very worried myself at times.

However, I have always believed that change is possible, and that the change does not have to necessarily come from the government. Awareness is change.  A positive action and the right timing is a very positive change: a small slide can cause an avalanche (not verified, but I believe it to be true, or ‘approximately true’ anyways ).

If we look at the problematic situation as a tree, then there might be many branches and leaves, a huge trunk, and deep-growing roots.  However, can we actually discern between which is which?  That is absolutely necessary in my opinion.

Another thing that we need to think about is: even if we see the components of the problem, what can we do?

I often remember a few basic principles I read in a book called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“: I did not read the whole book thoroughly, but I had read the first chapters intending to bring about a change in my life, back in 1998, and when I look back at how things have developed, I do believe that I have been able to to some extent.  The reason I bring this up is because of one basic concept the author brings up: the concept of a Circle of Influence.

Everyone has a certain circle of influence, the amount of change they can actually bring about in their surroundings (their world) if they actually want to.  They also have a Circle of Concern, usually much larger than their circle of influence (unless you are very powerful and very irresponsible.. citing one possibility!).  Focussing on the circle of concern, if it is outside of our circle of influence, serves to feed worry in our heart, possibly not helping much.  Focussing on the circle of influence on the other hand, produces results, no matter how small.

Which brings me to my question.  What is our circle of influence?  Ours would mean the different people who are concerned about what is happening in Nepal.  What changes would we like to see?  How much change can we ourselves introduce?  How?

Why do I bring this up?  I have my own daily work, my own agendas, and the way I have prioritized things in my life, I will perhaps not spend much time on actually getting directly involved with things to change the situation of my country immediately, unless……

Unless there is a smaller subset that can be helpful, that can be done by not only me, but possibly other people who are interested as well, to bring about a change. A change that I would actually believe would be helpful, change that does not simply follow the ‘development agency’ model of focussing on a particular aspect, and doing a certain thing, without explaining the whole picture to me.  They are doing great jobs, and I have not done enough homework on them, but that is simply something I feel about my involvement: I need more persuasion to get involved that simply accept someone’s agendas without seeing how it will help in the long term, given the current circumstances.

And talking of the circle of influence, that is the whole point of this entry, not the background material posted above. I am definitely worried about things in Nepal, but I am not writing this post out of frustration (or at least I do not think so), but out of curiosity, to explore an idea that came into my mind.  It is more of a question than an idea though:

What tools and resources do we have at our disposal to improve the situation in Nepal without letting go of our individual lives (i.e. the path we have defined for ourselves in life), and how can we use them effectively?  Some tools I know of are: contacts, web (and web 2.0), more purchasing power (perhaps), more awareness (perhaps ), a desire to see positive change. What else?

Remembering the “Bikram Sambat”

Today, I was momentarily happy because I remembered that a new Facebook app I had added lets me remember the Nepali date.. but then, I also remembered a moment later that Bikram Sambat is apparently no longer the official Nepali Calendar, or so they say.

Oh well, just as I was getting hope… hehe.. I wonder what they will change next.  Development would be nice, but perhaps that might be asking too much of them if they are busy squabbling over the small things. Perhaps, someday… when we are no longer worried about language and calendars and whatnot… it is difficult though it seems!

P.S. : perhaps, I do not understand their rationale fully, which is why doing such things when there are things that actually matter seems a bit absurd to me.  Anyone care to explain (without flames and rants and attacks if you actually happen to write down your words, please).

Inspirations

When I watch a movie that inspires me because the hero never gives up, I wonder how much more inspired I would be just to hear myself say those very same words, and to achieve my own goals…. it is so much nicer to inspire yourself than to have to look for materials that would do so, and so much more difficult!

One thing a grad student should always do

Assumption: ‘grad student’ implies that the arrival of deadlines tends to be bursty in nature, and far greater than the service rate at times of pressure.

Result: high delays, packet loss increase

Let us equate packets with sleep.

Whenever you can, wherever you can, get some sleep… granted that assumption 1 holds true, and you can means that you still fulfill your other duties..

as you may have guessed, queueing theory floating around in my head in a sleepless night.. nothing else