Turning 35 ...

Tonight, this identity that I have assumed in this life on earth will complete 35 full revolutions around the sun in the heliocentric orbit since coming out of the mother's womb! I do not know how many more years I have left on the earth, maybe another 35 or 45, or maybe even 10, or 5 or 1 or maybe even a few days, few minutes, or even few seconds, who knows!

Wife is out planning for a bash tonight, daughter is out playing at a friend's place, I am here all by myself at home in my apartment. My brother just went to Goa with his wife on a short vacation. I spoke to my mother yesterday on the phone and she was unusually happy and jovial. Dad's health also seems fine. These apparently fortunate turn of circumstances in the present afford me some time for quiet reflection!

These past 35 years have been filled with all kinds of experiences. My earliest memories go back to the time I spent at my Uncle's place in UP and me playing on my cousin brother's tummy next to a tree and tearing apart his vest,  my Aunt (Chachi) giving me a shower, my uncle giving me a tight slap for not going to school!  I am told,  I went to study at my uncle's place when I was all but 3 years old. Aunt passed away a few years later, probably it was around 1989 or 1990 and I was about 6 years old. She took good care of us, although I rarely saw her happy, she always seemed frail and yellowish and complained of headaches. My uncle loved me and Aunt took good care of me. Overall, I seemed to have a good time at my uncle's place. I moved back to stay with my parents after my Aunt's untimely death. The next 7-8 years from 1989-97 at my parent's place were filled with challenges and economic hardships, Dad had a really bad temper and frequently I was a victim of his ire. Those years were largely made endurable by my mother's and grand mother's love and affection for me. The next three years I spent studying in Patna and preparing for the engineering entrance exams. As luck would have it by a turn of circumstances I landed up at Indian Statistical Institute in 2000.

The next 5 years at ISI were very educational. I learned mathematics, Statistics, conquered a lot of my insecurities, read lots of books and overall enjoyed a life of independence, minimalism and free thought. In the final year 2005, I fell in love and as luck would have it got my heart badly broken. This broken heart led to a lot of pain and suffering over the next few years. In the year 2005, I joined UW Seattle as a Ph.D. student largely because I was not ready for a full-time job at the time and liked the opportunity to explore a new country and have some free time to explore my interests.  I had a great relationship with my Ph.D. advisor and wrote a fairly good-quality Ph.D. thesis. After a year of being in Seattle, my headaches and running to several doctors for its treatment started. I still continue to get these headaches, however, now they are attributed to sinusitis and other related causes.

 In 2009, I had had enough of Seattle and was ready to move back to India. I joined GE research Banglore in 2010 and got married in 2011. The time immediately after marriage was a roller-coaster ride, at times great and other times stressful.  Although, over time largely due to the efforts of Priyanka things have been much more pleasant. Mahi was born in 2012. At first I didn't seem ready but, she brought a lot of joy in our lives. Our lives started revolving around her. Between 2012-13, I was at a start-up called Mzaya and enjoyed the work there, then when it became clear that Mzaya wasn't going to survive, I moved to Amazon in July 2013. At first, there was a lot of learning at Amazon, however, after about a year I didn't get along very well with my manager and decided to move to Seattle in December 2014. I am still here at Amazon Seattle, the first three years in retail business, and now more recently in AWS.

This concludes the major events in my life so far. I am not going to speculate on what the next chapter would bring, largely because the specifics are uncertain and hard to say. Though, the general trend can perhaps be forecasted with a reasonable accuracy. Getting older is likely, death is certain. A gradual decrease in health and stamina over time is expected. An increase in work and family responsibilities are expected. Parents will get older and would need more support. Mahi will grow older and go to high-school then college, get married, leave home, another child might be born.

The real question to explore now is what is it that I want to do in my remaining life?  On the professional front: Do I want to attain great career success- become a VP or a CEO? Do I just want to enjoy life and work just enough to get paid and make money? Do I care about the impact of my work on the organization/ people? Do I want to teach?  On the personal front: what kind of life do I want? Would I want a lot of money or would I rather want time to spend with family?  On the health front: Do I just want to carry along or do I want to take steps to get more fit and reduce my health problems?   On the state of mind front: Do I want to remain short-tempered and easily get provoked or do I want to attain a measure of calmness and serenity? On the family front: Do I want a happy family or a family where people are always mad at each other.


To answer the career question first, it seems to me that while  I do not care or want to be a VP or a CXO, I do care to have impactful work. This means the work I do, should carry the organization forward and should have significant impact financial or otherwise. I enjoy teaching and an opportunity to do that in the organization would be welcome.  I want money, however, not too much to get fat, but enough to live my life without any sort of financial worries. To always have something extra for parents, travel, a friend, relatives, rainy days, bad health, organizations I want to support, etc.  Also, if possible, I would like financial freedom so that I can do stuff I enjoy without having to worry about getting paid for it.  It is also clear that I do not want to work just for the money but primarily for the enjoyment and impact of work.  On the health side, I definitely want to get fit, have any health issues under control and stay active.  On the state of mind front: I wish to achieve a sense of calmness and serenity in my mind and not get easily perturbed. On the family front: I definitely wish to have a happy family. Below I list where I am on different issues and where I wish to be.

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On Poverty

Reading through the Ideas of Muhammad Yunus made me ponder over the question of poverty. It is a very serious problem in the world now and perhaps has been throughout the ages. Particularly in countries like India, Pakistan, Bengaladesh, Africa it is a real menace. In western countries also some people are poor. However, these people as far as I have observed are poor because of their own follies where employment opportunities exist. They needn't become millionaires but they can definitely earn enough to take care of their basic needs. They seem to me poor because they have bad habits and are not able to get out of it.

But the scene is entirely different in countries like India. Here even making a basic living is a struggle. There is rampant corruption. Most people in countries like India do not have their basic needs met. The envirnment is such that most people get sucked into poverty.

Life Is

Several years ago, I started writing these blogs and had given up since then owing to circumstance of life, (got married and had a kid and therefore, was quite busy). I wish to take it up again. The main difference is that at that time my thoughts were mostly on lofty philosophical topics on how things shoule be, rather than how they actually are. I wish to correct that error and would now focus exclusively on the present situation. Not that I disown the earlier idea, but, simply because a focus on how it should be may divert the attention from what is and life cannot be experienced in should be terms but only in "is" terms. So, any description or meditation on it must also abandon that language as much as possible.This empahsis on "what is" is inspired by my forays into Vipassana meditation several years ago under the guidance of our beloved teacher Late Shri S. N. Goenka.  He passed away about an year ago but, continues to remind me of this fact.

On Wisdom

Now I am going to take up a topic which is very close to my heart. Not because, I claim any understanding of it but, because I feel it is the most important factor for right and proper living. So, what does this word mean ? If you browse through the web you will find different definitions of the word. Some of which are good but many are confusing and inaccurate. I would define the word as "that quality which enables a human being to act and live in the world with internal joy and happiness amidst all circumstances however difficult". So, wisdom is that quality which helps us maintain a joyful mind in the midst of all the vicissitudes of life like loss, defeat, sickness, old age , death. Wisdom is a factor which enables one to live in a state of internal freedom from the circumstances of the life. In other words, it is the proper art of living. A wise person should be free from worries, anxieties, fears and should have found lasting joy and satisfaction in life.

Now, I am sure all of us would find that state very desirable. We might say if only I had that my life would be great. In fact this is what most of us lack in our lives. The question is how is wisdom to come about ? Can it be taught by others in school ? Can we receive it from the religious or spiritual teachers ? Is wisdom accumulated knowledge of the past ? Is wisdom something akin to the art of swimming - something which can be perfected with practice ? Can we get wisdom by reading books or participating in debates ? Is wisdom to be acquired by analysis of our thoughts and feelings ? Is it to be gained by practice of various disciplines which promise a reward if only we practice hard enough ?

To understand this let's look into the question. Wisdom we have defined as the ability to live one's life with joy and freedom in all circumstances. Let's assume for the time being that wisdom is knowledge acquired in the mind either by reading of books and scriptures, imparted by a teacher or guru, learned from past experiences, from various forms of exercise or by analyzing the experiences of our life with our thoughts. In all these cases wisdom is a form of thought or a conditioned response to life. Now can an action based upon past thought or conditioning be a wise or skillful action ? Don't our thoughts and conditioning's basically give us a colored perspective of any situation, isn't all the fighting in the world a result of having different perspectives or thoughts based on different conditionings? This being so, how can any action based upon thought be a wise action ? How can wisdom be a product of thought ? Isn't it the thought which creates all the dangers and mischiefs in the world ? Any thought however noble can be contradicted by another thought. Thus if man were to rely on thought alone there will be no end to problems in the world.

Thus it is clear that wisdom cannot be acquired by any of these means. All acquired things are product of thought which color and interfere with our direct perception of the situation we are in. Therefore, wisdom must be a radically different way of living which is free from all the conditioning of the past and is based upon the direct perception of the situation in the present.

On Thought

We all have thoughts. In fact without thoughts and ideas we will cease to function. All the knowledge of our civilization constitutes of thoughts. It is thoughts that have occurred to us and our forefathers define our civilization. What is now an airplane was at some time a thought in someone's head. All the arts and sciences we have acquired are results of our thinking. If humans would not have thought we would not have houses, agriculture, social institutions, music, literature, various arts and sciences. So, it is safe to say that who we are is a product of what we have thought. Even in our lives, a person becomes what he or she thinks. Those who value money most have their thoughts turned towards money and concern themselves with it. For them the end of life becomes money. For the scientist his aim becomes the exploration of physical laws and his mind is turned towards that. For the musician it is music and so on. Now if you were to put a scientist and average person on the street together chances are that they won't be able to relate to each other's preoccupations. They live in their own separate mental worlds each with their peculiar concerns. Thus thought plays a crucial role in our lives.

This being the case it is necessary for us to inquire whether thought has any limitations. Does it constitute an inviolable basis for action? Does action based on thought the right way to act? To understand this let's take an example. Suppose I am walking alone in a forest and have heard that there are wild animals in the forest. Now as soon as I start walking the thought of a tiger flashes in my mind. The leaves rustle a bit and immediately I get alarmed. I look all around and see nothing. The thought of the tiger has made me fearful and I cannot enjoy my walk anymore even though I haven't seen a tiger. To take another example, I go to write an exam and my mind starts thinking that the paper is very tough I might fail, and as a result I get tensed and am not able to focus on the exam thus I fail to perform well. These are common scenarios where thought creates imaginary dangers. Thus it is clear that thought breeds fear.


To go deeper our thoughts about an object is never the object itself. It is just a model or representation of the object. However very commonly we mistake the thought to be the object itself. For example we have thoughts about people. Some people we think as nice and some people not nice. However, many times a nice person speaks or acts in a harmful way or a not so nice person does something really beautiful. How do we account for such situations? Thus it is clear that our thought about the person don't describe the person accurately. Any thought or description of a person or object however useful cannot describe the object fully or accurately. There will always be different perspectives. However, more often than not we take our thoughts to be the real description of the object and our perspectives to be final. Thought is just a convenient representation of an object colored by our conditionings, prejudices, biases or in short our knowledge. Many times the same physical object or situation evokes different thoughts or reactions in different people. Seeing a snake will make an ordinary person fearful but to the snake charmer it is a sign of luck. The communist thinks something as great and the capitalist thinks it to be bad. So, based upon their thought they are in conflict with each other. All the hatred and the violence in the world can be attributed to the process of thought.

This being so the question arises, what is the real place of thought in our lives? On the one hand we see that our civilization and we ourselves couldn't function without thought. On the other hand, thought alone breeds fear, insecurity, conflict and one sided view of things. Is there a different basis for action when we realize the limitations of thought? When we see that our thoughts about a situation are merely a product of our mind and may not have any real correspondence with the situation itself, we won’t be tied to our thoughts. Perhaps, there is an action based upon the direct perception of the situation rather than on the basis of thought?

Leisure

Leisure is a very important component of our lives. We need it to refresh and re-energize ourselves. Regular routine work generally puts our mind in a groove. Thus we need to escape from it from time to time . Vacations, outings etc help us in this respect and they make the ennui of the regular life more bearable. However, the real place of leisure in human life goes much deeper.

Usually we are occupied in purposeful productive work. This is of course important. Our complex society has wide variety of demands and needs which need to be fulfilled for us to live comfortably. Thus we need to do purposeful work towards this end. However, I must say this is just one aspect of life. Nature on the other hand is not governed by our human needs and desires. It flows with its own rhythm. Hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes come, global temperature rises, people have diseases and die, epidemics spread all against human desire.
So, it is clear that the universe is not governed according to the human desires and fantasies. Our purposeful mind might ask to what purpose is all this ? Why is nature the way it is ? Why is there diseases and death ? Why do we have natural calamities ? All these phenomena are terrible and bad looked at from the human perspective. But, nature doesn't seem to care about all this. What to us is heat and cold to nature it is just the play of seasons. What to us is birth and old age and death, to nature it is the drama of life. Looking at this any intelligent observer would discern that all our human struggles and frustrations seem to serve no purpose if they eventually result in loss and death. Whatever we have health, beauty, money, sex is eventually lost and we die with empty hands. So, to what end is all our purposeful activity in which we seem to have lost ourselves ?

What is a terrible tragedy for us is just a law of nature. So, the question is have we gone wrong somewhere in our thinking ? Why doesn't our thinking align with the nature ? What purpose does the natural world have ? Or is purpose just a product of human mind divorced from nature ? It may be that we humans are imposing our own purpose driven thinking on the natural way of things. Nature doesn't seem to care about our losses and gains. What is a loss to one person is gain to another. The victory of one nation is a defeat for another. What is a disease to one is a business for another. When humans die insects and vultures flourish. When insects die they make the land fertile. So, it is clear that gain and loss are the facets of the same coin.

This being the case lesiure from purposeful activities becomes all the more important for us. What I mean by purposeful activity is all those enterprises which are underetaken with an object or agenda in mind. This leisure gives us an opportunity to look at nature and its ways more clearly. Normally in our purpose driven world we operate with an agenda to accomplish something, to conquer nature. The rest from purposeful activities is big rest for us. For here there is a possibility for us to cease our struggles and to familiarise ourselves with the ways of the nature.

Work

Work is one of the important activities of our life. For most of us it is a necessity. Either because we need to earn money to support ourselves and our dependents or because we like to occupy ourselves with some productive work to keep us from boredom and feel useful . A rare few work simply for the love of it. It is to this class the highest kind of men belong. They are generally men of genius for whom work is the expression of their lives. In the following lines I do not wish to address such men and women , they know better and will mind their own business. What I am concerned here is with the majority of us for whom work is for the most part drudgery and struggle with occasional sparks of quality and beauty in it. Overall the kind of people who constitute the great majority of our workforce.

We are generally frustrated and stressed about our work. We always seek external authorities for the approval of the quality of our work and are not sure about it ourselves. As a result we are fearful of the authorities and lack independence of mind. Needless to say we are discontented in the depth of their hearts. The question now is why is this so ? Why can't we enjoy what we do ? Why do we always have to seek other's opinions to assure ourselves of the quality of our work ? Why can't we do our work to the best of our ability and forget it ? In any case that's our best bet. Why can't we stand on our own feet ?

I undestand that some of us are more talented than others. So naturally some of us will do higher quality work. But nobody stops us from doing the best we can. And once we have done that why do we worry about the consequences ? What can be gained from this ? Our part in the play is done. Why do we seek approval ? If we go deeper we will find that reason for this attitude in us is fear of the consequences we might have to face. Generally we work to make a change according to the perceived metric. We fear that if we don't accomplish that we will be in trouble. We assume that somehow we are responsible for the consequences of our effort. But, except in the most routine cases the consequences are generally unpredictable. We won't know in advance what may happen. So, why do we worry about consequences? The answer is simple. We think we are the doer of our actions, we imagine that I am the one who is doing the work , and we feel that I must bring about that change. Once the job is done we own it and shout at anyone who might disapprove of it. What we don't generally see that we are but one of pieces in the universal design of creation. The wind blows because it must not because of its will. It blows because that is its role and function. So, do we work because we must. We have no choice. It is not according to our will. Our thoughts are not our own they are the thoughts of the world or the nature. We are but the players in this universal drama the script is not our own. It is scripted by nature.

It is only when mind starts to realize after careful observation of our experience that we are not actors but action is done through us then, this perception of the doer will gradually begin to fall away and so will our worries and anxieties towards work.