The essential and the unnecessary

The NASA probe on the Chandrayaan-1 found water on the moon. The discovery has been hailed as pathbreaking, and it is said to open a whole new avenue in lunar research, and the greatest example of international collaboration in space. Let us keep any speculation on the truth of this declaration aside and consider only what we hear.

I'm not the usual activist-blogger to say that the amount spent on moon research is a waste and that it could be used better to improve our lot here (The project, incidentally cost Rs. 386 crore). Such expenditure may be necessary, as scientific advancement is also required; and there is very little anyone can do to stop it.

Can we look at this entire thing from a different angle altogether. We found water on the moon, which I would certainly call an achievement. But we haven't found enough water to drink on earth, where we need it more. After the discovery, there is talk of using the moon as a place where humans could settle in the future. And they could use the water there. With all the place on the earth, why would we want to go to the moon?

Are we preparing for the future, for the time when the earth would have no water or vegetation to sustain human life, which would've multiplied many times over by then. Why should we get into something more complicated and unnecessary, when we are unable to manage the simple things. I think this is true of life, in general. Man is appreciated not for doing the simple, basic things, but for more complex things.

If you consider an organisation, there are the toilers, the workers who strive to keep the organisation going, the system running, without whom the system would stop. But, invariably, they are not the ones appreciated and compensated. Instead, the brash consultant-management graduate is getting all the attention, for pursuing the new path. He would be specifically employed to do this, against the existing employee who knows more and is in a better position to take the organisation forward. Again, I'm not saying that all such persons are useless. But when you encourage an outsider manager and ignore the insider worker, you are setting up the scene for a cold-war.

And this fact is true in all walks of life. An organisation was just an example. The media likes the person going to the moon. But the person who is out there in the villages, doing his bit to improve the lives of the poor, goes unnoticed.

Andy Grove: The Paranoid

Andy Grove in his book 'Only the paranoid survive',  talks about a point in the life of a company where it will face a combination of internal and external unanticipated forces, that will conspire to make the existing business strategy unviable. He called it an 'inflection point'.

In the case of Intel, such a point came when its memory chips business came under competition from Japanese and Korean players. And micro-processor business was not a major percentage of Intel's business. But Andy Grove put all his energies behind the micro-processors business and Intel became what it is today.

In a recent article in The Economist, he says that the computer industry has always practiced a healthy attitude towards creative destruction, something that is not shared by other industries. Computer firms come and go all the time. He was probably taking a shot at the US government support to ailing banks, the automotive industry and the airline industry. He has asked for the health and energy industries to be run more like the computer industry for them to be more efficient. 

His with is still intact, despite battling Parkinson's disease, and his desire to provoke is strong as ever. But his achievements ensure that his provocations are worth paying attention to. Not many people in this world can garner such respect and attention. And it is the desire of every person to become like that; to be heard and respected.

And your ability to quote and be read later. And coin terms that stay on for a long time, become part of the dictionary. Like 'inflection point'. And 'knowledge turns'. 'Knowledge turn' is the time it takes for an experiment to proceed from hypothesis to results, and then to a new hypothesis - around 18 months for chip-making. This probably is what is the essence of Moore's law.   

Warren Buffett on scheduling meetings

The day went off in attending meetings with practically no significant outcome. And my routine work was severely held up because of this. These were scheduled a month back and so we had to honour them.

I was reminded of what I had once read about Warren Buffett and how he scheduled his meetings. Apparently he doesn't schedule his meetings more than a day before. That is to say, if you wanted to meet him tomorrow, you could call today. If you wanted to meet him the day after, you would have to call tomorrow.

This rule has a simple philosophy: I can't fill up my schedule any further in advance. That way one needs to be worried only about the next day. And not be too worried about not having any dates for the next few months.

But he is Warren Buffett. I doubt whether anyone else would be able to pull off such a schedule. But you could most certainly cut down on how much advance appointment you give. That way you'd be more in control of your immediate plans. And not spend time re-scheduling meetings to the inconvenience of yourself and others.

Bridge on the River Kwai - Courage and Adamance

I was watching bridge on the River Kwai a couple of days back. Some of the quotes from the movie are memorable and could be part of leadership lessons.

I have always admired this movie for the leadership example it sets. Colonel Nicholson is a perfect example of how chain of command and adherance to the rule works. And he motivates people, displays pride. 

Nicholson says 'One day the war will be over. And I hope that the people who use this bridge in the years to come will remember how it was built and who built it. Not a gang of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers, even in captivity.'

And 'One day, when, God willing, we all return to our homes, you will feel proud of what you have achieved here in the face of adversity. What you have done will be an example to our countrymen. You have survived with honour in this wilderness. You have turned defeat into victory. I congratulate you.'

Saito is no less when he says 'You are defeated, but you have no shame. You are stubborn, but you have no pride. You endure, but you have no courage.'

But I had not seen a facet of this movie which I observed today. My wife had a view that one could not be so adamant in the face of adversity. It got me thinking, and I realised that there may be some truth in that too. It was only later that I realised that this thought had been expressed in the movie by Shears. He tells Warden 'You make me sick with your heroics. This is just a game, this war. You and that Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind. Crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman. How to die by the rules when the only important thing is how to live like a human being. I'm not going to leave you here to die, Warden, because I don't care about your bridge and I don't care about your rules. If we go on, we go on together.' 

That for me summarised the other facet that I so long had not seen. 

Thou shall be judged!

It's a inviolable fact of life that you will be judged. All the time. And by people who are less capable than you, absolutely or otherwise. And these people will rate you, rank you, decide whether you are good or bad or pathetic.

So these people have their set of standards which they hold to be sacred, against which you are compared. And eventually more such people join together and form a coterie. This coterie will talk behind your back about how bad you are.  

I must admit that at times, even I behave in this fashion. When I look down upon people who I think are not up to the mark, I do precisely what I otherwise detest.

What could one possibly do in such a situation? Avoid or Endure! If you can, you move on to other things, where these people won't affect your life. Get out of the loop. And if you can't, and you need to be in the system, you have to endure. But most of all, believe! Believe in what you truly are. Belive in yourself, and be honest about what you are. If you are not as good as the world, try to improve; if you still can't, reconcile to what you can be. 

As always, you can never say what is right or wrong. It is a matter of perspective and circumstance. I was reminded of what a senior colleague had said a few years back, while referring to a star performer in our office. The person who is considered knowledgeable in a certain situation or environment is not necessarily knowledgeable in a different situation or environment. You are relative to where you are! 

There is little you can do to others! But there is a lot you can to yourself! The wisdom is in knowing the difference!

The eternal optimist

I call myself an eternal optimist, a cautious one at that, but I'm sure of the direction. The last few months have been quite challenging for me, but I'm not too hassled about it. I might've been worried several times about circumstances around me. But I feel I've remained positive about what will eventually emerge. I think of good things that will happen to me and feel better.

Why am I saying all of this now? I came across a website called 'Optimist World' this morning who claim to be an antidote to the pessimism that surrounds us in daily life. A good website that brings positive thoughts, good news and stories of inspiration every morning.

And I liked this quote that seemed to be apt to my current circumstance. "Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger , more skilled, more self-confident, and more successful" Exactly what I needed to do now.

And another one "When it comes to pursuing the life of your dreams, you can look at it like this. Best case scenario: the sun, the moon and the stars. Worst case scenario: the sun, the moon and the stars"

What am I waiting for?

How much do you earn?

Something distrubing kept me occupied all day yesterday. And for quite a while, I couldn't understand what it was. And then mid-day it struck me. It doesn't matter what it is, but I realised many things as I was observing how I reacted to this circumstance.

How much do you earn? You generally don't share this piece of information with anyone outside of family. It is meant to be kept confidential, primarily because people start judging you on this basis. How much you earn, is a key measure of how much you have accomplished in life. I was quite surprised when an acquaintance of mine asked me this question. And he seemed to derive great pleasure (That is my assessment of the way he reacted) from the fact that he was earning more than me, though he was younger.

I always maintain that this does not affect me. But I realised that somewhere in my sub-conscious mind, it was disturbing me. The fact that I am not interested in this race remains, but I stop to think.

Life is a mailbox.....

As I opened my gmail account this morning, I found that I had over 10000 mails in my inbox. And the percentage used was only about 25%. And I understand Google increases the capacity as you use. I stop to consider whether I should analyse my mailbox and delete mails to make it appear more managed, and leave it more manageable.

I was sure that most of the mails were junk or spam that I have nothing to do with. I also have a lot of mails that come in because I registered for some newsletter sometime. And a whole lot of forwards from friends. I concluded that the important mails in my mailbox were only a few.

But what were those important mails. I couldn't easily list down what was important. And I don't know whether to spend time deleting unwanted mails so that my mailbox looks cleaner. Because my experience shows that by the time you are cleaning up, more of the junk piles up. And I realise that the good article that I wanted to read is lost in time.

I guess life is like a mailbox......  

We are constantly met with situations which we have to deal with. Life throws at you a whole lot of things; you catch some, you leave some. Some things are good, some things are bad. But there is always so much that you are prioritising almost all the time. But never ever stop to pick up things that you think are unimportant.

It sometimes makes sense to just ignore the unwanted and move on with the good things.  So don't spend time deleting unwanted mails. Spend the same time reading something good. It makes better sense.....

PS: I didn't delete any unwanted mails. And by evening it is at 10200....

Put on an act

It's a great feeling to have done something after having gone through intense hassles and troubles. We are part of a theatre group and we write and stage plays. Most of our subjects are contemporary and the presentation is almost always, casual. 

Each of us had a view on what we had to do. We had our strengths and limitations. Some of us couldn't remember lines; some of us could not emote; some of us couldn't ham; some of could only ham; some of us couldn't react; some others could only react.

With such varied levels of theatre skills, we couldn't act to a script. We weren't all actors anyway. But the one thing that bound all of us together was the desire to perform, in our own ways. And that was all that we had. But that was enough. We developed the story, the roles and the lines according to our individual capabilities. And we created what we could.

Some members of our group have been invited by other associations and theatre groups to perform some roles in their plays. We recently had occasion to do such a play. It emerged this time that there was a wide difference in the way we approached a subject. We used to build up slowly to the d-day. And reserve all our emoting for the stage. That was not the way they liked it. They began putting up a proper stage performance right from the first day of rehearsal. But they forgot lines on stage.

We had earlier performed in one of their earlier plays an year back. We had our differences in approach, but we tended towards what they desired us to do, since it was their effort. We tried to be the director's actors. We put on an act to keep up with their style and approach.

But this time we had flashpoints emerging from an undercurrents, disturbances. In the end, we performed better than they did. And better than we expected to. We even helped them recover from situations where they didn't know what to say next on stage. So we were happy and thrilled. Happy that we had done well, and thrilled that we had beaten them.

What I have lived for.....

I'm a fan of Bertrand Russell. I haven't read all of what he has written; I believe that would take more than my lifetime. And it has always been, and will be, my dream to write a book. On philosophy, on life. And if I could end up writing a prologue as good as what Bertrand wrote for his autobiography, my life would be made.

Well, for a start I decided to read his autobiography to get some inspiration. In his prologue he says 'Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.' The entire prologue is invaluable; wise words. I'm amazed at the clarity of thought that he had. How he could summarise a life in a page, so clearly and wonderfully.

If I could even touch the shores of the ocean that Bertrand was, I would've known what I lived for.....