Change

From an email from my friend 4 years ago, I want to know if it still holds...

In many aspects raghu reminds me of my diary.
The calls ,mails and chats with him are as sporadic as my diary entries, with abrupt beginnings and endings yet continuous.When it comes to raghu , though he is blissfully ignorant about the mundane happenings in my life, ( and so is my diary) more often than not, when in unpleasant mood or times he is one of the first few people who whom i reach out for as I can be sure that sensible advice will follow soon.According to me this is what describes raghu the best " He nver has any expectations nor expects anyone to have any"
Thanks pal!!!

A blank mind

Wouldn't it be awesome if i could just decouple the process of understanding someone else's idea, accept it completely and then analyse it?

Talk

Ive already decided i like her before even i know her.

There is this part of the brain that models people. When i talk to you, i first talk to the model, predict what you would say/react. im comforted if you do what i expect you to, a little surprised if you do "deviate".

All was well till i started to think how i formed the models in the first place. its almost full size 10 minutes after you meet someone, or even worse you hear about someone. after thats is a matter of correcting it, but its very difficult to. for one, 90% of the first version is based on the person's background. it takes ~3 years to reduce that to 40%. only way to accelerate this : talk! say stories.

This one person : i hardly know about her. and a funny thing happened, people even tell my modeling on background is way off. but i like her, logic completely falls thro

Problems

Aren't problems amazing? I usually write only when there is something thats really bothering me. In the last 1 year... not much. Touch wood, I have no commitments, responsibilities or liabilities, have a good enuf $balance. Thats a problem. With nothing at all to worry about, I obsessively try to answer the whats next question.

The funny thing about problems is that u are aware of only one and it bothers you the most. So can you be coolly happy by just controlling whats your top problem? Im trying that... a jolt from everything going on peacefully to a change in place/a pay cut/a totally new direction to life promises to make me happier. And im shit scared...

The advice part : forget to pay ur utilities bill and worry about it for a while, life will be awesome.

The loser

Steve was an intelligent student. He did fail once in his 1st std, but ever since its been pretty good scores. over his first 15 years of schooling, there was this subconscious liking that he developed, become an engineer, in particular electronics was his passion. His dad and mom were great inspirations, and like everyone else in his country, it was awesome to join the engineering school. he did, went to one of the best schools in his country, his passions became more focused. and as it was the best, this school helped him identify what he loved and gave him an opportunity to pursue it. Still as a student, he traveled abroad, interned for a year made a lot of money... was an instant success story in his family and the small community that his parents knew.

right after graduation, he makes a job, spends a couple years doing what he likes and starts thinking... he is extremely satisfied with his job, has established himself pretty well, can do whatever he wants and relatively in his field is paid pretty okay. but where has society placed him? hes a nerd, a geek, a good friend to have but definitely not a cool boyfriend. he earns peanuts compared all other professions. on the bigger picture he feels like a loser. looks at people who he went to school with, realises the jackass who repeated second year in college twice is on-site in Sydney working for a lame software company earning much more, having a great life.

the whole world caters to the people who form the middle part of the bell shaped gaussian curve. that talented 5 percent who form the tail struggle... a handful achieve, get a 2 Oscars after 40 years of a painful life. others just try convincing themselves that its personal goals that matter. is that it?

Steve is sad. he now believes the average ones are the luckiest. he was stupid all along, his ego is hurt.

-- Inspired by a colleague

The problem with the brain

The throughput of a system cannot be more than the arrival rate. And people hate the idle state. We become interested in stuff... to keep us occupied. force the brain to do some work (the anti-bore state). over time, we realise our IQ, what we are good at and more importantly what we suck at. The problems that we can just solve, the problems that are close to the border line of our intelligence/capacity begin to interest us.

here comes the catch. the problems at this level need to exist. else we create them (for ex., some people get married :) ). over the last week, I suddenly realised I had nothing to think about, a neat solution that I was working on was patented by a jackass and I went blank. In my problem pursuit, i started looking at what other people do (in the process pissed off my roommates), came to this simple conclusion : A person's intelligence / capacity / capability can be directly measured by the problems they approach.

Now, the usual argument that intelligence is measured/seen by behavior might be... might be wrong, I believe intelligence is how well we can predict things. (obviously the bankers are stupid :) )

PS : the word problem has a very negative connotation. its otherwise here...

She

She was cute.

A set of wishes, wants, requirements which would typically flow when you ask me what kind of a girl i want, i think id waive most of them for her. it was when i realised that when u see someone across the hall and and for a second ur mind goes blank, that feeling redefines everything. Ive had that feeling twice so far (hopefully atleast once after this :) ).

Earlier this year, i saw her. the hypothesis was set. she could be the one. i smiled for a second and moved on with a silent prayer that we should have a common class. that happened, awesome! we met...

over time each word, each minute that i spent was thoroughly enjoyable, though in the background i was doing : +10 awesome background, -10 not tamil, +10 loves to travel, +5 likes the same TV serials, -10 total non-vegetarian wtf +100 cute smile.

She eventually had to leave, the goodbye meeting happened. back of my mind the -10s i knew were atrociously undervalued (they were hard requirements not fulfilled) and at the end of the day it was just a crush. i do though still hope it went somewhere.