Knowledge from the aeons. Part one of many.

 

Any time that I feel like there is something to be noted about me capturing the knowledge of my time on this planet, I will do so under this title. 

This one today comes courtesy of my knowledge, execution and understanding that the limit that one feels is self imposed.

Let me elaborate. 

If a person feels that they can only get so much done in a day, that limit is self imposed and almost for surely falsely imposed by their consciousness. 

Why do I say this?

Think about it rationally. There are multiple ways of looking at this scenario. Lets start by a biological interpretation.

The human body is impossibly convoluted, but among its best attributes is its ability to grow. 

If you go to the gym and progressively lift heavier weights, your body will grow and make it possible and eventually easier. If you run marathons, you can both improve your time (if your fix the distance) or the distance (if you fix the time), or you can improve both, if you need to, and so on.

If you like playing chess, and do so regularly, choosing to leveling up, you have the option for improving your mind (for this is an innately mental, not physical activity), provided you invest enough time and energy into the activity, you can level up to the point of potentially achieving impossible status, be it grandmaster or what not. The only constraint here is you, yourself.

Note here that I am taking other humans out of the equation. 

This is you, versus yourself.

No matter what the challenge, you can overcome it, because the only true enemy to you not overcoming the challenge is you. The attribute that changes? time.

Given enough time to learn, develop, grow, every single human in this planet is capable of greatness. Provided they believe in their ability to overcome any and all challenges.

Just to ensure I take another way of looking at this problem, lets look at it as an optimization problem (considering my engineering background) - 

You have x days to solve activity y. You possess reasonable skills to complete activity y, but more knowledge is required to complete the activity, and you know where to start.

At this point, do you question yourself, finding excuses for why activity y cant be done...

Or do you get started on the task, giving it your best?

If you choose the latter, you have plenty ways of optimizing the problem -

You can choose to optimize the learning first, claiming that the learning will stay for a lifetime, and help in other endeavors, you can choose to delegate the learning, or you can choose to outsource the whole activity entirely. Or a plethora of better options better conceived than my currently drunk mind.

My whole point is if you had chosen to go the 'find an excuse route', you would have lost before you had even started.

So kindly stop being an idiot, give it your best.

And stop complaining.

Cheers.

KP

Things that must be noted.

 I started this blog a long time ago, pretty much when I was a teenager, and named it after an euphemism about how thoughts can be as fleeting as mirages in the moonlight. If you think about it mirages cant exist in the moonlight, and if they do, they are possibly infinitely rare. 

This was to be a place where I pen down my most random thoughts and hope feverently that nobody reads it. If it barely enough makes sense to me, how can I expect it to make sense to someone else.

That being said, life, being life, must move on. Challenges, if they arise, must be solved, experiences, if one is lucky enough to have them, must be experienced. And that is okay. Its just what life is.

I came online here today to note something interesting. Its been in excess of 10 years since I wrote in this blogpage. I resolve today to continue writing here, if nothing, for myself, as a form of catharsis. This is if nothing, a way to endure the world and its inexplicable twine.

Since the last time I posted here, plenty has happened, lots and lots of good and some extreme bad. There are going to be plenty more opportunities to talk about the good, but today, for the sake of posterity, I want to note about the bad.

About 6 years ago, in the beginning of 2014, I was chronically, irrevocably, depressed. Depressed to the point where I didnt see the point of getting out of bed. Robert Sapolsky in his seminal lecture on depression (Link here) notes, very interestingly that a professional dealing with an individual who is depressed to this extent doesnt need to worry about solving it quickly because the said individual 'doesnt even have the energy to get out of bed, let alone kill themselves'. While relevant to a professional practicing psychology, it does cut deep to someone who has recovered from it. That is the state I was in.

I have since then crawled my way back from those horrible depths of pure unadulterated darkness and I do see the light now. I try my level best to stay in the light now, finding meaning within my life, enjoying moments that are relevant and seeking the reason for my existence in this world. The gift of sentience can be both a gift and a curse depending upon how you look at it, and I choose to look at it as a gift, giving it meaning for my time on this earth.

That being said I am all too painfully aware of the things I keep locked up within me, my experiences and my learnings, I do strive to keep moving forward, I lost someone I looked up to to the same kind of affliction. While I was working with the guy, I had no idea he was in the same boat as me, and that he moved so quickly in life was because he was running just the same as me, if faster, from his own demons. Its been 10 months since this person has left this planet, but even today I think about him and the time I learnt from him.

A quote from another great soul lost to the same affliction comes to mind - 

And this fact is inherently true. While I can claim holistically, genuinely to have recovered from depression, I cannot claim that I live my daily life unafraid. Unafraid of it returning. I spend every waking moment in a series of steps that are designed to outwit that guy. The day he catches up with me is the day I will go along the same path as Neil (my old manager I spoke about previously), Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams and David Foster Wallace. 

Fortunately for me, I am not a quitter. I will persevere, I will win.

Nobody can appreciate the content of these gentelemen as much as me. Robin Williams spent every waking moment making the lives of folks have a little bit more cheer. Every story about him involves making others feel better about their lives. Bourdain taught us about the beauty of travelling, seeing this beautiful world that you live in. David Foster Wallace showed us that the beauty of existence lies in being cognizant of how well you are absorbing the world around you and how you are letting it affect you (link here) and my old manager taught me that acquisition of new knowledge was the biggest catharsis that one could achieve.

I choose to learn from these great men, I choose to continue my time on this world and I choose to do it not just for me but to also provide for my daughter, who came into this world on Oct 3, 2020.

And if push comes to shove, I will kill that guy, the one who Bourdain speaks about in the image above, instead of myself. I shall prevail and thats a vow to this world.

I`ll make another vow, that I will continue writing here, as long as the Google Gods decide to keep this website up. At that time, I`ll find a way to move to another platform.

Till the next one, 
From 2021,

Cheers,

KP