Water, water evreywhere...Not a drop to drink

How to find motivation, and the truth behind it in a world full of bookshelves..full of motivational books and a hoard of motivational speakers.

I used to like motivational books, once upon a time. I bought, downloaded and read a lot of them. I tried to follow them, and tried to find my passion so that I can align my career and studies with my passion, and be happy forever. Also, I wanted to be radical, such as leaving a menial job and then following my passion.

This process has been going on from class 11th, that's from 2004 and eight years has passed. I am not saying those books did not help me, but as a matter of fact most of the things were useless. After browsing hundreds of blogs, websites, videos and e-books... I found out a website called Study Hacks.

It changed my perspective and I really started to connect to it. it introduced to me the concept of deliberate practice, related to the 10000 hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell.  It takes deliberate practice to achieve a truly wonderful life. 

I started reading books related to this... Talent is Overrated, The Talent code, Drive and Flow: The Psychology of Happiness. I felt like I have finally found the Holy Grail. 

Meanwhile, I am still working on improving my life. I am not yet successful. But, now I know what it takes to build a truly remarkable life and career. Applying these principles to our lives is not easy, and I have not yet learned, let alone mastered, the art of delibearate practice.

Someday I will. Or, let me put a deadline 'coz a goal without a deadline is still a dream. I will master the art of deliberate practice within the next 365 days. 

What I gained, however, is that I came out from the rut of stupid motivational books. I am not reading any motivational books or watching any videos which talks about passion as something you find out one day just out of nowhere. I am buying the theory of creating passion, the craftsman's manifesto and deliberate practice.

Lets put this into action. 365 Days to a better life. In the meantime, you can google "Study Hacks," "deliberate practice," and "Craftsman's Manifesto."

Life is tough, but I know about deliberate practice.

Why we will never have immortal songs ?

There are old hindi movie songs that can still blow our mind. Kishore Kumar, Mehmood, Muhammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar have always been everyone's favourite. Some songs have been marked as immortal and rightly so, as they still have the capacity to blow our minds after decades of their release. 

Now, the new genre of songs.. I mean from the 90's are hardly recognized as immortal ones. I don't have enough data nor I am qualified enough to comment on the quality of songs to segregate which ones should be immortal or not.

But I have an observation, or may be a gut feeling to explain this. With the rise of internet and youtube, we can see the songs of contemporary movies along with the video from the time they start advertising. What happens is that all the songs are registered on our minds, not only by its melody and words but also as the picturization of it. It happens to me that when I listen to a song without looking at its video, I discover fragments of lyrics or music that is awesome which I have never cared for when watching it with the video.

A a large and mass effect, this phenomenon results in the fact that the popularization of songs are not limited only to the melody and words but also the picturization. Along with that, we have too many songs and too fast access to almost everything.

Therefore, may be we will never have immortal songs or if it is immortal, nay be it is released before the 90s.

Best self help advice

Yes, just do it.

http://www.socialanxietycures.org/best-self-help-self-improvement-myths-blown-to-bits/

Some rules to live by

This post doesn't come with the guarantee that I follow them all. But, if I did it would have been awesome.

I am trying. Well, as my professor Dr. Dibakar Sen says... lets start with that.

1. Triers try, doers do.
2. Wake up early morning and look at the sky.
3. Never, at any point of time, stop your relentless quest to find happiness.
4. If you want to be happy, nobody can stop you.
5. Be oblique, be eccentric, look everything with skepticism. Be creative. (Even look at this post with skepticism).
6. When going gets tough, love can get you going.
7. Never underestimate yourself.
8. Practice deliberately.
9. Have a notebook to write anything interesting you come across.
10. Read books, if you can't, read blogs.
11. Grow interests, work on them, and learn skills relevant to them.
12. Money is no evil, it is the way you use them.
13. Forget the past, don't forget the lesson.

Whoa, it finished with the magic, cult and interesting number 13. Well, read about that. So you are following rule no 10 already if you have clicked in that link.

Links

1. Here is a link demonstrating Weierstrass functions.

http://www.math.washington.edu/~conroy/general/weierstrass/weier.htm


I didn't quite understand the concept myself, but somehow it is hilarious. Zooming into a function !!! Well, I have never heard about that. 

Just I did !!



2. 203 fun facts on mathematics

http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/allfacts.shtml


3. Overcome fear

Via: The April Center for Anxiety Attack Management

Car wheel alignment, Eigen value problem and excellence

Today morning I was attending a class on dynamics taught by Prof. Rudra Pratap. He explained today in detail the process of mass balancing using simple linear and angular momentum balance theorem. It was basically a disk rotating on a rod with an angle. Refer to the picture below.

It was an enjoyable class and then, he started writing a symmetric matrix (After attending Prof Jog's class, I like to call it as second order tensor. It feels good.) of the moment of inertia of the . The moment of inertia about the three principal axes are the diagonal terms of the matrix. Obviously, the other terms of the matrix are zero. 

Now, from the result of the mass balance problem, it was deduced that if we keep the plate in certain orientations then there is no requirement of torque at the  support points. Subsequently, the orientations were those of the eigen vectors of the moment of inertia matrix.

So, car or bike wheel alignment is essentially a eigen value problem and subsequently any balancing problem involving two masses placed on a rotating rod.

Now, when we go for aligning car or bike wheels, the mechanic does it. He knows by practice that if the wheels are properly balanced and are aligned the support don't feel any reaction force. Even if he knows how to fix the problem better than you and me, he does not have the insight of the problem like we do.

So, what are we going to do with the insight ?

We deduce a lot from the knowledge. As an engineer, we can look at a similar problem and know the solution using this insight and that is where the difference and significance comes. As I mentioned in a previous post about my own hypocrisy, I don't feel that bad about it now.

Now, why the word "excellence" is there on this post title?

It comes from the fact that creativity has a lot to do with knowing something and associating that knowledge correctly to other problems. And that we can learn from this car wheel alignment problem. This skill of associating knowledge requires practice and thinking from the side of the person having that knowledge. To attain excellence we have to practice associating our knowledge to appropriate problems to find solutions.

And I took the less travelled road.

Ultimately, there is death and all roads lead to the same destination. However, there are only two kinds of roads.

First one is kind of a four lane highway. You drive smoothly, enjoy the view and think you are happy. But you are not, because ultimately that road becomes boring, it is the same view over and over again, and the monotony eats us like a bug.

The second one is more or less like a hilly road. There are bumps, and ferocious animals on the way and no street lights sometimes. But also the view, the enjoyable moments of sheer natural beauty and the adrenaline pump of near-escaping some mishap. And perhaps a tribal waving you ta-ta-bye-bye, a hitchhiker's breathtaking story... no food, so you survive on water and suddenly an inn out of nowhere and this and that. You don't even feel you are going somewhere. And without even knowing it you are happy from the core of your heart and that is what matters most.

I am in awe of (read utter jealousy to) people who takes the hilly road. Today he is a family man, and may be 10 days after in the sea, doing a somersault and then teaching some kids how to fly a kite, and then solving problems as a business analyst using one hell of technical jargon or whatever...

You can see them in the streets, in the bus, in the bookstore, and in malls and dusty village roads. They have something in their faces, a brightness that can not be seen by most of us because we are busy doing some s***. But, I sincerely hope, one day I will have enough courage, knowledge and the most importantly a large heart to become happy like them.

Aakax'r fale salu aru kolu - Muk dia ai bixalota'r ata tukura
Ai oximor ata tukura... Aru moiu tumar dore bixal hoi jau

[I looked at the sky and asked - Give me a part of this amazon
A part of this infinity.. And I will grow big and big like you]