Dreams and Reality

Opening Song:Beethoven - Pastoral Symophony
Opening Mood: Reflective

Dreams and reality, Romantics and the Realists,Foolish and the Practical - Such has been the distinction made between men since ages. Take any field you want - Art, music, science,sports ; There have been people who have followed the norms and there have been people who have broken them to create new ones... Did you ever wonder why? Why is such a distinction required at all?

I've been thinking about this since quite sometime now... I've been wanting to voice out my opinion since a long time now... I guess, I found my voice in "October Sky".. However this post is not about the movie, its about the distinction that our "society" chooses to make.

The world is subjective, lets face it. There is no point in trying to beat around the bush , trying to find out a perfect equation that will model the whole thing and tell you "objectively" whats right and wrong, good and bad. Judgement,prerequires you to possess some standard by which you can judge. Do we have any objective standards?? I guess philosophers and scientists have been trying to figure out an answer to this riddle since quite sometime now. Only difference being that, philosophers were sitting on their armchairs and playing around with words, and Scientists sitting in their laboratories playing around with their equations.. Good and Bad, are nothing but "subjective" interpretations of the underlying reality.. So should anyone tell us what is good for us and bad for us?

Take an example of your own life... Think about those instances, where you get a great idea, a brilliant one, and want to try it out, but you don't... Why? You are afraid of being termed as a fool by the society. You are afraid of being judged. You are more worried about how you'll live in people's minds rather than your actual living.. You could have tried and tested the validity of that thing yourself. But fear of failure stopped you. Fear, that if it fails, you won't have the courage to think "new" again.

Look around you,and you'll find people looking for security in life. Parents want their kids to go to the best schools, score high grades, get a good job which offers a fat paycheck, get a good life partner, and "settle down". Settle down, into a loop - a secure loop,which will guarentee you a secure life. But ask yourself, what would that secure life consist of? What about your dreams, your thoughts , your ideas? What about these intimate things which were yours and only yours, which define you, the reason for why you are the way you are? Let go of them? Let go,to live a life?

Whose life are you living? Your own or the one society has chalked out for you? When the society is talking about high grades, does it say anything about understanding the subject and loving it?

When it talks of a great job with a fat check , does it mention anything about job satisfaction?
When it talks about getting a life partner, does it consider something called "love"? Na.. Why should it? Or rather, how should it? You see, understanding, satisfaction, love cannot be quantified? They are subjective terminologies which can be understood by each person independently. On things like these, you cannot impose standards, can you?

The great things that exist in the world today, which inspire millions to live, were not created within the security loop. They were created due to man's passion for his work. Due to his patience to test nature, and the patience to endure. Due to his ability to enjoy and appreciate the beauty in all things.

You see, a good design has to be creative. And creativity cannot be instilled through injections, or formulae. It is inherent, inborn. Comes out of careful observation and passion. Implementation on the other hand, can be considered a science. After all, all science is nothing but the documentation of things that have successfully worked till now ( and also of those which haven't).

There are people in this world, who just live a life in the secure loop. They treat it as a punishment, some sort of a unwanted mundane routine they have to go through, inorder to remain alive.. Then there are others, who are so impressed with their thought process, that they keep on thinking without bothering to check their thoughts with reality. Mankind needs a combination of both. If you try and look back in your own lives, you'll probably find that some of the happiest moments came when you lived your thoughts.. When you realized them.

Thinking is one thing, and taking appropriate action is completely another. Do both, and you'll see life the way it was never before.. Stick to only one of them, and you'll miss out on the other..
To be happy, you need both O Brother...

Closing Mood:Reflective
Closing Song: Nocturne for Piano no 9 - Chopin.

Hack and Hack until it Yields!

Opening Mood: Chirpy...
Opening Song: Chandu ke Chacha ne - Aasma ( on 91FM)

Hi.. Back after a long long time.. I was casually going thru my own blog yesterday, and I observed my own categorization of the blogs I read.. There's the Regulars consisting of Theg, N, Kripal, Barki, Numbskulls, wattever and many more.. Then there's the Not-So-Regulars club, who write very seldom or used to write some time back.. I saw the date of my last blog.. June-20th.. The day when bangalore traffic was the worst( Atleast for me!). And it's gonna be a month soon.. I was wondering if I had to put my own blog in the not-so-regular category... Naa, a post in time saves all that trouble...

Blame the corporate world for me not being so regular..

Yeah, the *big bad* corporate world, which makes it's employees slog to death untill the last ounce of energy is squeezed out... This pathetic monster , gives so much work that employees have no time to go back home and enjoy even the teeny-tiny joys of life, like going thru the newspaper, or watching pogo... And the attire.. *yuck yuck* Decked in formals, top to bottom.. With polished shoes on the feet and a smile( a fake one) on their faces. And speaking in polished lingo all the time..

My impression before joining the corporate world, was exactly the same.. However, in these six weeks, the corporate world has proved me wrong..

I work in an organization, that is nothing like what I described above.

There's flexi-timings - meaning you come and go as and when u want. As long as you get the work done, no body has any problems what-so-ever.. I haven't seen most of my fellows in the office for a whole week, but they were working... Working from home!

And the attire, I must admit, I was completely wrong in thinking about all those formals.. The first day, I entered the office *all decked up* and I see my mates in t-shirts,jeans and casual shoes... I was like, have I even entered the right place! To make it worse, my mentor comes to me eyes my formals and says , "We don't dress like this in here... :D" .

The work's even better.. My company pays me for doing what I love the most... Hacking an operating system, trying out all the stunts I want to and writing papers on the results I get!!! (Not to forget filing patents, if the *hack* is really innovative). The entire day, I spend looking at the code openly available, and trying to improve it - adding new features, helping my fellow hackers if they are stuck somewhere, and of-course , reading the LKML the place where you get to know what's everybody else working on... It's like absolute freedom... you get to choose what you work on.. Though, you also gotta take the responsibilty for what you code... But then,responsiblity is always the price you pay for the freedom and I have no hassles with it... And the best part is that your team members are distributed all over the world... Most of them even have other day jobs, and kernel hacking is just a hobby.. Most of them don't even have the computer science background.. But boy, can they code! One of the most-respected persons in the kernel scheduler domain is a doctor by profession!

When you like what you do, work ends up being nothing but play! As a result, I've had no time to post and crib about anything for the past four weeks... But I have no regrets...

Let's hope this honeymoon with kernel hacking continues forever!! Hack and Hack until it yields...

Closing Song: Gapuchi Gapuchi Gam Gam (what does that mean?? ) - Trishul
Closing Mood: Gotta go to work!!