Philosophy

Do what you love, until you find what you love, love what you do!

/ prabasiva / 2 Comments

When I was in my 3rd and final year of my undergraduate computer engineering, I grew up considering and picturing Bill Gates as my hero and guru. I and my close friends (2-3) knew every interrupt and various AX (accumulator) values in MS-DOS and wrote numerous application using those interrupts including parallel port drivers, graphics editors (interrupt 10),Unix – DOS bridges, 8088 Micro Kit-PC communicator drivers and etc. We read almost all the books available in the subject during those days. Ray Dunkan books on MS-DOS internals were our favorites.

It was clear to us that we (I and few other friends) were passionate about solving hard valuable problems and always dreamed big and marched towards it.

Our singer software consultancy service start up company and its success was an evident we dreamed big and marched towards it. It was my opinion, that my friend was thinking tooo big at that age. He wanted to mobilize $200,000,000 at the age of 21 years old. In spite of significant success as a software company, I was scared to deal with that kind of money and that was the moment I thought money was not what I love. But money is required to lead a decent successful life but it is not all I’m after.

Before I started my software consultancy service,these were the ambitions I had tried and didn’t know if I really loved to do.

  • Intelligence officer (similar to FBI,CIA, wrote entrance exams when I was in 10th grade)
  • Indian Air Force Pilot officer (got admission as airman but decided not to join)
  • Cricket Wicket Keeper ( I was always the star wicket keeper at the age 14-20 in all the leagues I played and I always thought I would play for the state. When I was not selected for the University in my 3rd year engineering, I lost the hope. I would have had worked hard if someone more talented got selected for the university. I heard the person was selected for University had political and economical influence in the selection process) I lost my hope completing becoming a cricketer. It was better to have those kind of experience earlier in my life.
  • Movie director – It was my back up plan during my senior high school. In case, if I do not get into engineering school, I wanted to progress as a movie director. The days I grew up, if the students do not get into engineering or medical school, their life was 90% sunk. I didn’t have any hope I would become successful in my life if I do not get into the engineering school. In case, if I do not get into engineering school (I hate medical science, I know that very early on) my plan was to do go to cinema school to become director. I always analyzed the movies in micro level, screen plays, story, acting, choreography and etc whenever I watched movies.
  • Professor, I got a job offer at my college at end of my 8th semester. This was my second job offer I turned down before 21 years old. and always wanted to do it close to my retirement but not to start the career with.

The point is, we all try to find out what we really love to do. It is not that easy to find out. Generally speaking, we all do not know what we really love to do it until we put an effort to find out. The moment you know what you love to do, you can work towards it and thrive in that area like Steve Jobs. Nothing can stop you. Even if some one fire you from your own start up company, noting can stop you. You can turn around and fire up.

Until you figure out what you love to do, as Steve faced in his life, are you ready to face a tough road? (Like Steve encountered, are you ready to walk 6 miles to get a decent meal once in every week?) The moment you are married and have kids, you can not think just about what you love to do it. You need to do something to bring food on the dinner table to your family. So we all forced to do something. It may be practical for those are single and independent to sit and think what they love to do it and take a path similar to Steve Jobs.

My Proposal:

To thrive what we do, we need to know what we love to do and at the same time we need to do something to move forward in our daily life. I always have this mental model with in me. I think, I have been working for the toughest boss for past 15 years, my consiousness. Believe me, it has very standard than any direct boss I had in my career. I always work for me first before I work for anyone and my consiousness always have highest standard than anyone I directly worked for. By adapting this mode, the consiousness will be forcing us to love what we do. Either we do a quality work or we do not do it. Mean time, spend at least 1 hour a week to explore your self what we really love to do? and eventually find it and do it for rest of the life.

Do what you love, until you find what you love, love what you do.

A dangerous path to seek the ultimate truth!

/ prabasiva / Leave a comment

What is the ultimate truth? It is one of the most toughest question to explain. Let me try to explain contextually. We live in planet earth, as for we know, we are the only intelligent living being. Planet earth is around 4.54 billion years old. We are part of solar system and sun is our star. There are billions of stars in the Milky way galaxy. There are billions of galaxies like Milky way in the universe. Our universe is around 13 billion years old. Universe was formed by the big bang. There could be billions of universe but we do not know. Who triggered big bang, we do not know, what happened before big bang, we do not know. Why energy released in quanta, we do not know. There are lots of questions we do not know the answers.

Humans are around for last 30,000 years and only in last 100 years the modern human made a significant progress in understanding few basics in the entire human history. Putting things into perspective, our earth was 4.54 billion years old but human have been living only for last 30,000 years. There is a astronomical variance between our existence and earth formation. Are we the bug fix to the earth system when it failed with dynos. Who architected the whole sysetm, who designed it, who made the error and who fixed it? Lots of questions but no answers. Theologians always have one word answer for every questions listed here.

So, what is the ultimate truth? It is an understanding of our existence in the system. In my opinion, I do not think any one can answer this simple question, why do we exist? What is the purpose? This is very profound question need enlightenment to find answer for this questions.

Why do we exist and what is our purpose? I believe ancient people were trying to answer this questions and they might have reached closer to the answer than what we know today. I believe the ancients followed a meditation technique to consciously listen to the inner sub conscious. How a conscious mind can listen to subconscious mind? It may appear as a conflict statement. But I believe, it is possible and ancient followed that technique. (Some of the Monks in Tibet may be following the same technique). Consciously listening to the self (self discovery) is a path to seek the ultimate truth.

What is the path ?

Just listen to your self. Do nothing, consciously, attentively watch your mind. Based on number of nodes in each network of your neurons, depth of the network, weight assigned in each node of your network, your conscious mind will slowly fade away and at one point you will attain no mind state. At that state, you (the body) and your spirit (the observer) alone will be there. If you keep doing it, you and your sub conscious mind (spirit) will become integral and the observer will observe the observer. You will find and listen to your inner sub conscious mind (spirit)

Why it is a dangerous path?

There are easy answers for difficult questions. Normally, humans tend to find a difficult answer for an easy question. Complication is a necessary evil in an ordinary human life. The moment humans find an easy way out for difficult questions (what is fear, why do we fear, what is sorrow, why sometimes we feel down, etc) there is an extreme joy (bliss) within. That is the first lick of a powerful drug, the first moment of natural bliss. It will become an addiction. You want more. You will find answers for questions like who are you? and what is the purpose of the existence? You will become detached to the materialistic world. You do not need food, you only need water, weather condition does not bother you (you can live on street even if the temperature is below 20), you will become unmotivated, unenthusiastic about any thing (you will realize happiness is also a human problem like fear, sorrow). It is a dangerous path from materialistic world stand point. The moment you enter the gateway, you would not come to the materialistic world.

The person who found the ultimate truth will not come to materialistic world and the people who claim they found the ultimate truth did not really find it.