Dealing with Change

There are times when I need it, times when I want it, times when I hate it and then there are others when I just cannot make up my mind. A few days back I found myself dealing with two events at the same time, each of which promises significant change, but in one case I'd planned it and in the other I had to well..let's just say... just deal with it. That's when I thought... hey, why not bug you folks with this?

Now you could plan it out, write it down & measure it or it could be completely unexpected or it could be something in between, but in either case I often look at Change as an event, a noun which occurs at discrete points in time. And almost every time I do, it's never fun. Either I'm extremely upset about it(like when there's no oregano topping with my Pizza) or even if I'd planned it, it's never mind-blowingly awesome, coz well... it was planned!

With these thoughts in mind, as I sat typing & waiting for my favorite breakfast (steaming aloo parathas), I looked over my shoulder to see that the folks at the counter were furiously packing some parathas in silver foil and I was thinking 'how much longer?'. Exactly then,  I'm served with my breakfast, just that, it wasn't what i'd ordered. Turns out my parathas are now on their way to Indiranagar & I've been served with a bowl of steaming poha! Lemme describe it.

A western Indian dish made from soaked flattened rice, potatoes & diced onions, lightly spiced with salt n chilly, garnished with coriander, groundnuts and sev and sprinkled with a dash of lemon for that extra zing, it is lighter than air and legend has it that its aroma can melt the hearts of the strongest of Maratha warriors. When I taste it, I feel safe, I feel that all is well with the world and I'm reminded of all things noble and kind and beautiful. I'm no match to it's powers.

I know I started writing about Change. Maybe my next post should be about 'Focus'.

A surprising affirmation!

In my last post, I wrote about how it's all about the stories we tell ourselves. Found this TED video in which Shekhar Kapur voices similar feelings, albeit in ways far more interesting and striking. Especially loved the bit where he explains the significance of the architecture and why the camera's looking down at the actor in a particular scene. Gave me goosebumps when I realized the effect these things have! WOW!

Another bit I liked was about how he consciously puts himself in a state of panic and chaos to find the few moments of 'truth' (as he calls it) which matter. Besides the obvious feeling of 'do u really have to lose it to be creative?', I realized how many times it's happened to me. Its 01.30 AM, I'm sitting at my computer, trying to finish a paper I must submit in a couple of hours. I finish a couple of sections, revise them, they still look funny somehow. I google around to find ways to say it better. When I look at the time, an hour has passed! Finally, clarity promptly shows up minutes before the deadline, immaculately dressed and with solutions to all my problems, and I say 'Bless you Jeeves, come on in!' Somehow, panic works, everytime!

And after I'm done with the submission, the only moment I remember is the one where clarity dawned on me, when everything seemed to make sense. Praaaabably that was my moment of 'truth'!

Storyteller

It was New Year's eve and I was on the phone, talking to my friend when she mentioned that she wanted to do something special for her parents that day. Something personal, not just picking something up from a store, which would make them feel good. When I asked her if she had anything specific on her mind, she said wanted to bake a cake, her first one ever! I was a bit taken aback by that idea and recovered by mildly reprimanding her.

"Baking a cake is not child's play! Did she know how tough it was? She would in all probability mess it up since it was her first time. Did she wanna mess up stuff for her parents on New Year's eve?", I asked her.

It was too big a risk I felt. But as usual, she just laughed it off & said it wasn't that big a deal, she felt pretty confident about it and she would do it anyway. I just rolled my eyes, but as soon as I hung up, I had this uncontrollable urge to bake one myself! I dug up a book with the recipe, went out & bought the ingredients and two hours later, voila! The cake was ready! So much for taking a stand against baking it earlier.

This got me thinking about what it was that made me do this. What made me to do it? Why did I have so much fun while doing it? The answer I came up with was that I did it because it made for a great story! When I had hung up the phone, my mind had thought, "What a fun story it would be, if I could tell my friends I baked a cake, all by myself, just like that, for no reason at all!" And that had got me going.

I've always believed that people tend to think of themselves as stories. When you interact with someone, you're playing a role in her story. And whatever you do, or whatever she does, or whatever you want her to do, needs to fit into that story in some satisfying way. 

When you want something from someone, ask yourself what story that person is trying to tell about himself, and then make sure that your role and actions are enhancing that story and in the right way ;)

So when I think about it, I realize I have a story about myself too. I want to think about myself as a guy who does stuff thats not expected of him at all. And I love to tell others about it!

The 'not expected of me' shows up in many different ways. For example if I'm paid to do 9 jobs, and the 10th job is not expected of me, I'd rather do the 10th one rather than the first 9. Needless to say, this gets me into a lot of trouble regularly. But doing the 10th job makes me feel that I overdelivered (inspite of the fact that I underdelivered coz I didnt do the 9 I was expected to do), that I exceeded expectations, that I'm different, and that fits into my story.

And I feel this is true not just for me, but for a lot of other people too. But if you think about it, it's quite contradictory to the way our system works. You would normally think that the more you pay someone to do their jobs, the more motivated they would be, but on the other hand it seems like we would rather do something for no money at all & be more motivated about it, if only it fit into our story and enhanced it. Amazing isn't it?

It's all about which story you want to tell!

19/12/09

Graduation Day!

I'd decided I needn't blog about this day since I would never be able to forget it, but realized a few days back that I was wrong. I'd received the official Commencement pics from the university by mail and while I sat looking at them, I found I had already forgotten many lil moments. So here is what I remember, lest I forget.

We (Kavi & I) woke up early in the morn & whilst Kavi made dosas for BF(correct me Kavi if I'm wrong here), I quickly got dressed & ready. Butterflies & dosas in the stomach is a well.... interesting combination, I realized. I was wearing a blazer for the first time in my life for what was in my head, the biggest day in my life, and when Kavi asked me to wear his new Invicta wrist-watch, it didn't exactly help the combi in the tummy (explained above). This was one of those moments which had convinced me I wouldn't forget this day.

Kavi'd already booked the train tickets and we caught the train to Champaign which took nearly forever to get there. A long train ride invariably throws up at least one interesting & difficult conversation, and this was no exception to the rule. At the end of it though, I was convinced I had spoken longer than required and had been successful in confusing him thoroughly although my intentions were to do just the opposite(speak lesser, listen more & not confuse him). Pardon me my generous host.

When we did eventually reach Champaign, it was snowing and very very COLD! We were also running about 45 minutes behind schedule, so we quickly hired a cab & reached Krannert Hall, a huge, imposing structure & the venue for the ceremony. We were greeted by a huge crowd assembled around a balcony cheering and applauding someone downstairs. When we peeked down, we found a steady stream of students, dressed in rich blue and orange gowns and hats, diplomas in hand, emerging from the auditorium, smiling and waving to the cheers from upstairs. Wow! This was it, and I was here!

I asked around to find out that the College of Arts had just finished its commencement and the College of Engineering would be next. I then got my graduation gown and regalia from the stall and went downstairs. We set about trying to figure out how to wear the gown, hood, tassel and hat properly and Kavi turned out to be quite the ace here. In fact, once I was done, he was helping out other students with their gowns n hoods too! And after he returned to the auditorium, I found my name card on the wall(Phds followed by Masters and then the undergrads) and began the seemingly never-ending wait in the queue for the ceremony to begin. Here I found one of my batchmates, Scott and had a nice lil chat until we were summoned. And then began our procession towards the auditorium This was the moment!

We entered the audi to a standing ovation from the audience with a band playing the welcome note for the procession, and boy did it feel great! Mellow yellow lighting, the applause, Kavi waving from the crowd, the HUUUGE audi and the band on the stage with immaculately polished brass instruments, it seemed like straight out from a James Cameron period classic. Surreal. We settled down and found the commencement brochure which had the name of every student graduating today, and I quickly flipped through it to find my name and re-assured myself of my place here. After the customary speeches, the Head of each Dept welcomed their students on the stage one-by-one and they received their diplomas from the dean as their name and the degree was being announced. There were a thousand thoughts flitting through my mind. "What if I trip & fall on the stage?", "What if my hands are too sweaty when I shake hands with the Dean?", "Do I look at the Dean while receiving my diploma or at the camera?", "Where's Kavi?", "I think I'm feeling  a bit hungry, I'm glad we had that burger on the train" etc etc.....

But when my turn did come, I was surprisingly calm (and blank) and didn't even hear how my name was called out(Kavi later said the Reader was struggling with my surname, chuckle!). Once all the students were done, the Dean pronounced us as Graduated and asked us to move the tassel from the right to the left on the hat.

I guess you might say I'd done a good job till now and played my part well, but this is when it just got too much to handle, and I finally broke down with tears streaming down as I moved the tassel and I was sniffing around for some time after that. So much for playing cool till now. Ah well!

After the ceremony, we left the hall in a procession again and were greeted by the same scene I mentioned earlier when I first entered the hall. Only this time, I was in the procession! And now, Kavi decided that it was appropriate to get lost in the crowd (he must've said the same about me), and it took me all of 15 mins to find him again. And then after all the official and unofficial photo sessions, I finally parted ways with the gown n hat and returned, albeit unwillingly, to my normal, routine life. Sigh! But I did get the tassel as a souvenir, so.. Yay!!

And after a sumptuous meal at... err.... Pizza Hut (I'm sure to get beaten up for celebrating this day in Pizza Hut) and some shopping at the campus, we took the bus to Chicago at night.

I know it was an amazing day and I might never experience this kinda joy again, but at the end of it all, if I look back at the past 2 years, I realize that what made it so memorable and why it meant so much to me, they were the days which were probably the most frustrating, when I would be scared, days on which nothing would go right, when the amount and difficulty of the work to be done seemed insurmountable, when people around me told me I wasn't good enough and when I doubted myself, days when I cried, and not with 1000 other people in an auditorium, wearing a hat & gown, but alone in my room. Without them, Commencement would be just another day.

I know the tone in some, if not most of this post might seem exaggerated, and cliche, but then I don't know how else to put it. It doesn't feel right to me if it's not over the top!

:)

Of headache-cows & black neon lighting

It began with plain LED text scrolling across 2 lil screens.

"LETS TEACH KATIE SOME EXERCISES BECAUSE SHE HAS A HEADACHE"

"KATIE, IMAGINE YOUR HEADACHE IS A COW"

"NOW SHOOT IT IN THE BELLY AND KILL IT AND DISTRIBUTE THE SLICES TO EVERYONE FOR SOME SUPPER"

I thought it was kinda weird, and got interested immediately. And then began the riot of colors, lights, strumming of guitars, the most wonderful percussion instruments, fluorescent paint splashing on drums and of course these guys and their histrionics.

Whether it was the wry humor, the music, the visual effects or the interaction with the audience, I loved every bit of it. The acts I saw today were:

* Paint on drums

* Airwire

* A romantic evening with audience (the lady being sucked right out of the painting was awesome I thought)

* Blue men on a taxi

* Pipes (Grooovy!)

* Paper rivers. I thought this was the best act of 'em all. Infinite reams of white paper glowing in the black lighting and flowing throughout the hall and filling up the stage. Oooooo it was surreal!

Every act was so complete & so finished, and inspite of it being enacted hundreds of times, there was still a freshness to it. Needless to say, I was totally blown away at the end of it all and I wasn't speaking for several minutes.  An experience of a lifetime. Thanks for taking me to this show Kavi!

If you are in a city where the Blue Men are performing, don't miss it for anything!

16/12 approaches!

Koi na jaane Ande ka kya hoga,

Life milegi ya tave pe fry hoga?

The Baby

"Some mysteries I will never understand.

The way the Earth rotates around the Sun three minutes short of every day.

Or the way the dead are gone by putting down the phone

Or turning a corner.

The future.

That's another whopper.

We can never know what we can never know.

Except that whoever you are and whoever I am,

you made it all right to be me."

-From the movie Driving Lessons

Its a funny thing, growing up is. Sometimes you do it, bit by bit, every day. Sometimes it happens in an instant. And sometimes you stop, for years together.

At times, there are friends and you grow up together, and it's fun! And then there are others, when you are all alone, and you don't have a choice but to do it, and its not exactly a party.

Sometimes its aboout realizing what you are, sometimes what you aren't, and sometimes its not about you at all!

I could go on & on. But I just wanted to say, that the best times growing up are when no matter how bad it looks, there's someone who lets me know its all right to be me.

I guess I'll never stop seeking attention! :)

Thank You

I want to thank my friends who keep me away from my biggest fear, loneliness & sometimes from myself when I get scared.

I want to thank my parents for being my touchstone and compass in the truest sense of the word.

I want to thank my teachers for teaching me humility even when I wasn't ready to learn.

Faith

A JUNOS clock on my table
tells stories I want to hear

The Raging Rhinos shirt drying on the cable
I can hear my mates cracking up - loud & clear

Dressed in blue I cheer
as the Men in Blue lift the Cup

Draped in scarlet I gasp, 'O dear!'
as Kumble's men tumble at the cusp.

A billion Indians rise, and so do I
when the anthem plays... Jai hey!

The shoulders seem broader, the head held high
when the world rises for... Jai ho!

The dash of vermilion on the foreheads at the temple
The women in burqas at the masjid

The splash of vibrant pagdis at the Gurudwara
He stands up on his tiny feet & bows his head before the Lord,
he' s but a li'l kid.

Cover her pretty face in a veil she needn't, its because she chooses
Tie his hair in a turban he needn't, it's because he belongs

I'm a Braveheart, I take the road less travelled
I'm a Star, I stand out in the crowd

Who am I kidding...
I take the trodden path, it takes me home
I don't stand out, I long to belong.

It makes me part of an identity
makes me feel good,
gives me strength,
makes me look beautiful,
makes me proud,
makes me belong.

Numerous are the ways of expressing it
Varied are the ways it is perceived

FAITH is a such a wondrous thing
It is but easy to be deceived.

And the winner is... The Swiss Army Knife!

Every year since I started working, the products that I was working on would get nominated for these awards and it was made out to be a big deal, but we never won. That is until now....

http://www.bestofinterop.com/2009/#infrastructure

And this is even more special since I got to do so much this time around.

It's a fine feeling!

Click!

So we went on this lil trip to my friend Suyog's grandmas' houses in their village near Udupi last weekend & what a weekend it turned out to be! I thought of many ways of capturing or describing this trip in words & then decided to just put down in words a few pictures in my mind which captured the essence & all the fun we had.

- The history: 1 month before the trip
- Close to 200 emails
- 1 weekend, Suyog will play host
- 15 people on board

- Day 0: Friday
- I rush back from office, pack my bags, gobble dinner & say goodbye to my folks at home
- Its drizzling in Majestic, Ravi's firefighting issues at work on the phone, the rest of us are sipping LMN, waiting for the rest.
- Manju's arrived but none of us realize she's Manju.
- Priya, Jag & Mesh make it just in time.
- Call from work telling me I haven't done a good enough job at work. I wanna kick myself. Will I ever be different?
- Snuggle under the blankets in the Volvo.

- Day 1:
- I wake up to find that we have reached NIT Suratkal.
- We get off at Dekkatte to get into our Red Bull TT which takes us through Neverland to lil Ajji's house
- Viggi is confused - should he stay back with the girls & miss out on all the fun with the guys? Or vice versa? Vik & Jag don't have a choice.
- We get off at Dodda's house. It takes my breath away, I've never seen anything like it. The huge shady courtyard, the wooden trunkfuls of rice, the plethora of vessels of different sizes for measuring rice, the antlers, the sautekaayi's hanging from the ceiling, the sun swept backyard with the well, the cats lazing around nonchalantly, Suyog's tales of his childhood antics, the attic... I can go on & on.
- Krishnan & me try to get to Kavi while he's .... Funny!
- We fret & fumble over the wooden locks/latches on the main door. That was really neat!
- A mountain of heavenly Idlis & Neer dosas vanish within moments as Granny gasps with surprise.
- Its DC all the way to Murudeshwara. Pati Fauj mein... being the highlight.
- The Shiva statue & the chariot of the Sun God are by far the most imposing structures I've seen besides Gomateshwara & South Block. They exude power of the kind I crave for.
- It's burning hot & we are all sweating in bucketfuls. We run to the Kamat hotel nearby where we find an AC room. God bless the inventors of the AC, I experienced relief of this kind only once later on this trip.
- The Someshwara beach(I think) looks really inviting, I wanna go & play ball all evening. We go crazy in the water & then play 3 games of some very competitive volleyball followed by some mindless giggling & running on the beach. Jayaraman is cramped & Raghuram goes "Koi veterinary padha hai kya yahan pe?".

The worst part about playing in the sea is the phase after you get out of it. Sand gets lodged in places it shouldnt & the salt & the dampness make sure its just the right amount of stickiness to get to your nerves.

- I run for a quick bath the minute we touch base. The relief after getting rid of the salt & the sand is what I was talking about earlier in this post. All the mattresses are laid out on the floor & its sooo warm n cozy! We then lay out all the food, finish dinner & then off we go on a late night hike through the village. It's fun to see even Krishnan a bit petrified of the darkness & the wilderness. Suyog cooks up this wonderful Koggiraja story & the Human-shaped tree. Ooooo I just love it! Just the feeling of being up with friends all night & sharing stories, experiences. esp scary ones is so much fun! Krishnan & I try to watch at leat 5 movies one after the another but we just cant seem to get though even one for more than 10 minutes, so we decide to go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. He's changed a bit now, in a good way. Life's funny that way, eventually gets to you.

-Day 2:

- I wake up to find some awake, most still fast asleep & Mesh prancing around feeling very proud of something only she knows. I've seen her getting into this mood a few times before, so I know that asking her would be spoiling it, so I just let her be, watch her & smile to myself. She seems almost oblivious of us, like in a trance or something. Something tells me its gonna stay this way all day.

- After lazing around on the bed, many glasses of tea, a lot of chatting & many photos, we head for breakfast to the other house. Ive never believed in ice-breakers. I mean how can just a line, a remark or a question break the ice bet'n 2 strangers? It takes time & effort for that to happen. But I'm proved wrong here. Just the one remark from Vikesh made Pi a part of the group in a way that nothing else could have. I'm very grateful... for all this.. everything. Touchwood.

- After Udupi, we head out to St Mary's island. Pleasant, serene, peaceful.

- On the way back home in the bus. I wanna chat all night again but this time sleep gets the better of me & I just can't keep my eyes open after some time. Mesh goes "Esh..... Esh.... Utho Esh" but in vain.

Thanks Suyog! I don't think Im gonna forget this for a while.

What if...

... the TV was never invented?

I started thinking on these lines when I was reading this book titled 'Cosmos'. It's a wonderful book about the history of astronomy, & it's packed with these fantastic lil stories & anecdotes about how someone discovered something in the sky one day & things like that. It seemed so exciting, & I started wondering about how many times I have looked at the sky. I wondered why I never got any of these simple questions about the sky, stars & planets.

This thought stuck in my mind & then over a period of about a couple of weeks morphed into 'why don't I ever find out the answers to the questions in my mind?'. If I think about it, almost all the stuff I know today, I've learnt because either someone taught me that, or told me about it or I just happened to come across it while reading a book, or watching TV or during a conversation - basically I was never looking to find out the answer to a question; either I had to, or just happened to find out.

And then over the next couple of weeks, that thought morphed again into 'would I do that if there was no TV?'. Sounded a bit silly to me, but the fact remains that I do watch a LOT of TV. I mean I wouldn't even be writing this right now. I would've been watching it.

So here's a lil experiment. Every time I'm about to go watch TV, I'll ask myself 'what if there was no such thing as TV?' & then lets see what happens. I'll probably write about the outcome after a month or so.

Chatter

You know it's been a while since I chatted away with someone for hours together. So let me do it now!

So I've been here in California since the past 3 weeks or so, & it's been a bit different this time around. First of all I came here with so much of stuff to do I felt my brain was gonna explode. Travel, explore, trek, drive, stay up all night, gorge on Pizza, cheesecake, ice-cream, subs, chips & soda & watch movies, shop, meet up with people, O & yes some exams & work too. Needless to say there's been very li'l time for anything else(donno what that is though).

But at the end of it all I guess I managed to get it all covered, well almost. I messed up one exam, got blocked at work a li'l bit, didn't really explore, but nothing serious that the Pizzas couldn't make up for!

And then, this time it wasn't new, it didn't feel like I was 'away', just felt like I was coming back to something.

Another difference was that this time I bumped into so many people I knew! I mean I just loved it. At some store, restaurant or at the movies, you know you just run into 'em. I don't think I've bumped into so many people even back home! O well, I guess I stay really far away from the city.

Met my sis, the one I'd met 2 years back the day she landed here, & boy has her life changed. Met this other friend, an ex-colleague whose life's changed in a pretty dramatic way too, but he so hasn't & in each of the above cases, it's good to see 'em both where they are now.

And obviously, when you meet people, & you find out all that they've been through, you tend to think about yourself & try to recall what the hell you've been up to during the same time. So I got down to it too and it wasn't too bad after all. Also read this stupid book, which I loved btw, but what was annoying was that I didn't wanna like it! Something somewhere touched a chord or a nerve or something.

And today, you know how it feels? I don't feel I've done or seen or been or known anything great, but it's been good, good enough really, & I can keep the smile on, a little longer.

It's like what Gump said,

"Bubba: Have you ever been on a real shrimp boat?
Forrest Gump: No, but I've been on a real big boat. "


And I guess that's all I have to say about that ;)


Thanks for listening. So how've you been?

How's it out there?

A novel concept I came across recently was an internet forum where you could talk about, rate, rant, rave & review your workplace. Criticat & Glassdoor are trying to reveal the truth behind companies where anyone can talk about their experience with a certain company.

I've come across user-review sites for electronic gadgets, cars, bikes, books, so why not your workplace?

What is questionable though is the accuracy of the information on these sites. But then, as with any other site which is dependent on its users for content, the quality & the utility of the information on these sites will improve as the user base grows over time.

Full marks for the idea though.

Blogging on the move

I tried this new Firefox 3 add-on called ScribeFire, which is a blog editor that integrates completely with my Firefox browser. I just need hit F8, type out my blog & hit 'Publish', & that's it! The editor has all the options for adding pictures, videos, links, the works.

O and hey, it's exactly 3 years since I started working! Hi-5s to Girish & Vikesh who did the same, 3 years back.

Cheers to everyone!

Dial F for Food

As I lay on my bed with a cheerful book in my hand on Ugadi, with a cool gentle wind lapping at my feet, the proverbial mind wandered & I found myself in my Granny's house during my class 6 summer vacations.

It was an average middle class south Indian household. We did not normally have breakfast and managed with two cups of coffee. This was because lunch was eaten very early, around 10 am, and it was a substantial meal. Rice and sambar, rice and rasam, rice and curds, vegetables, appalam, sandigay, mor mozhaga and pickles.

On the days when it was a holiday and the folks remained at home, there was a second lunch around 1 pm which consisted of rice, curds and pickles. We joined the elders for tiffin served at 3 pm and had the appetite to wolf down dosas, idlis, adais, vadas and similar delicacies. Dinner was again rice-based and similar to lunch. In between, there were snacks to be had.

My granny used to say that I was a growing boy, used to fret a lot, and therefore the snacks had a special significance. These were mostly crisp murukkus, thengol, thattai, manoharam and so on. You could conveniently pop them into your shorts' pockets and run out to play, distributing them to your friends or exchanging them with the goodies that they had brought from their homes.

This procedure of constant eating was called poha vara which, roughly translated, meant 'going and coming' - we were eating all the time, whether going or coming.

Despite eating so much all day, I never fell ill, lost my appetite or put on weight(even if I did, I'm sure I didn't notice).

This was also the time when my obsessive addiction to all kinds of pickles began. My granny had.... I donno how many varieties of pickles all stacked up in pingani (porcelain) jars on top of the kitchen closet. But I was allowed to taste just 1 variety of pickle with each meal, & that too only with curds. So after she had served me the curds, she would ask me to select which pickle I wanted & would then serve me exactly one spoon of that variety. And those decisions... to decide which pickle to select, were probably the toughest decisions I had made during my entire childhood life.

I can never understand how pickle could be anything but just GREAT for anybody's health.

More on food... next time.

Raj Pari

वो है इक अनोखी, परी जो है उतरी
अपने ही हाथों से, जादू है करती
उसके ख़यालों में, इक प्यारी सी दुनिया
जहाँ चमकीले रंगों में, सौंधी सी खुशबू हो कोई

मछलियों से है वो बातें करती
मीठी झपकियों में सपनों में टहलती
और उन सपनों में मिलती फरिश्तों से कोई

प्यार की थपकियों से मुझसे बतियाती
भीड़ों में खामोशी है दिखलाती
मेरे सन्नाटों में
खुशियों की जैसे हो झड़ी

ये तो धुन है सरगम की
है ये सरगम बूंदों की
ये तो बूँदें है खुशियों की

भिगो दें अगर...
तेरी किस्मत हो बड़ी

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Wiki

Well I guess I have done all that I can do, said all that I can say, and given as much as I could give. I've played my part as best as I could with the very little bit I knew then & now.

But the meeting halfway never happened.

I guess some people just lack taste.

So I sit down to decide

I'm faced with a decision: I could manage my time better by applying any number of techniques I've used in the past, though frankly I don't really want to do it. I'm tired. Or I could shut out the world and pour all my attention into the tasks that I want to get done.

• The advantage of managing my time is that it's more sustainable---if I accept that what I get done every day is going to be incremental and feel very small. I personally have little patience for incremental change, which is why I probably suck at it. The one exception to this is when I am actually observing incremental change in PEOPLE...that fascinates me, because each small change in a person's behavior can indicate something much larger. I guess I am naturally curious about what makes people tick, not the number of ticks I can count.

• The advantage of shutting out the world is that it is a more exciting commitment to action; kind of an adventure, really. I like getting ready for adventures, strategically planning my moves, getting everything ready for the big push. The problem is that it is an expensive contextual switch, on the order of planning a vacation without the relaxation, and it always burns me out at the end. This may, however, be the natural way I work by myself. It is a recurring pattern.

My gut reaction is that I should avoid going into hermit mode, but instead triage what I am focusing on.

Whoosh!

An absolutely fantastic day Karting @ Race Pace!