Ambition

One of my friend Varun, once said, that slow learners are better teachers because they pass through so many corner cases in the code called life. The execution of this code has so many for loops. Some are programmed to be simple like python, and some are delighted to be complex and lengthy like java. Java process is quite well established which is why java like people are in demand.

In this whole mess, I was coded by a lousy newbie coder , and that too in matlab. :) The most nasty variable in all this is ambition. Think of it as an associative array in senitinal loop trying to grumpily absorb all thats in the way. Ofcourse there are timeouts like death, RAM limit. 

Jokes apart, in my life from very childhood, I was inspired to do something big. I was inspired by the competitive aroma of neighborhood gossips to make parents happy by being top. Slowly it was not just parents, but me to measuring myself by being on top. But my subtler self was deeply artistic in its nature. Being in science, and living under the rooftop of classic Indian engineering money dream, So what did I do?

From very begining, I started to develop a crazily deep admiration for mathematics, physics,chemistry,biology all of them. I used to read Arihant's Animal Kingdom with such fascination like some James Bond Classic . Oh  and organic chemistry was like learning a new language.  Maths was like entering a new space of abstract concepts and ofcourse one of the fine application of maths was in the intricate solutions to physics problems.  Oh and if you solve HC Verma, DC Pandey, you will be delighted that those 108 problems in 2 nights used to like a challange for us to solve . . . :)

Then came BTech where my fascination for mathematics grew deeper and crazier, for I felt it as amazing art piece. The beauty it radiates, is simply mind blowing. One of my professor Samaresh Chatterjee, claimed to be descendent of Newton in teacher student tree.  He stoned us in the unreal reality of algebra. SVD, QR, Cayley, and 100 other theorems . . . He used to get a bath in his own sweat while teaching,  not just physically but mentally. I have never seen someone as passionate at 78 like him.

Then I got a internship, didn't feel good, so prepared for GATE, to get baptized in the holy water of science again at the awesomest Indian Institute of Science. Meanwhile my passion for art started to expand beyond the petty walls of ambition.  I got passionate into short films, and posters. I became the contact person for making promos for event. On the other end the concepts of machine learning  and computer vision blew my mind away. 

I got back into job again  in most amazing company. I had cool Datascience work and wonderful opertuinities to implement ML Algos and also learn problem solving. Despite all this, I still felt empty somehow. It is like classic case where you have everything, but still hollow. And so, here I am back to getting into short films. 

I want to be excited, stoned, transported but the world want long faces, job,money, security, and all. I realized the culprit in this whole drama. It is this this thing called ambition, which created the big tycoons. All these people made a life choice to lead a challanging life according to their inclination. But not everyone needs to ambitious ? Ambition is like the tranqualizer or anesthesia which makes pain disappear when the damage is being done. Bangaloreans are just mad about startups, trust me. Everyone wants an idea to bloom into a buisness which is amazing, but at the same time scary.

Imagine a world where Machine learning has learned to learn. Biotechnology has learned to create baby out of organic compounds.  It has replaced all jobs. Now everyone is free. Think now?  what would the first think you would do ? You are useless now, what would you do? I think the beauty is lost in mad rush toward the eutopic vision of mimicing and scaling up of human capability. Everyone is looking science as holy bible, not as a workshop book. It(esp ML Community) has created a benchmark of success, a new bread of dominance structure, a new class of elites. Even the classical mathematics popularity growth rate is reducing. 

But what if I want to read my science book as Sherlock Holmes book, not a Holy Bible ? What If I don't want to be worried about scaling up, of reaching pinnacles of success. What if I want to simply learn? Well thats to first step. The biggest tragady of middleclass and uppermiddle class is that they can earn living simply but they make it long and complex in order to get a sense of dignity and hegemony. That proverbial "beta tarakki kar raha hai"(my child is progressing well) has been a graveyard to some of the most beautiful expression which could have found a way, if this religion of applied science had not overtaken us on a roll. 

I want you to be an atheist in true sense and look at the situations of life. Are you getting truely crazy everyday? Are you free and relaxed to sit under moonlight with no qualms whatsoever. Well then congrats. But if not, then its time to change. Remember, not everyone has same brain, some are artistic bend who can be ambitionless in the society obsessed with ambitions. To clarify, I am not talking about people who really bring a difference at grassroot, but those who hypnotize themselves to think that they are going to make difference, while in reality they are just creating a big wave, which just makes a few people earn buck and give you sense of possessiveness and responsibility.

Do you know about Phoebe Buffey, she was a neurobiology student. Once hearing to radio comedy, she had a hunch, she can have an amazing way of delivering the same joke differently. She left her "so called elitist" career, and jumped into sitcoms. The got rejected for a lot of TV Shows before she got into "friends".  Moral of the story is that, it is never too late to try out your passion. You are just in 20s, if so, why are you so uptight? You can still decide the course. I am fortunate to have friends who have rejected this idea of elitism, and become chess player,  theoretical mathematics researcher. Maybe you fail to scale up, but who cares about reaching on top? Important thing is how your journey was as an individual. To get stoned and surpised to a level of insanity in the journey.  In India, an IIT/IISc student easily gets tutions and can earn money. Why not give passion more time than just earning a few bucks more and getting more lines in resume? anyways job-security is already taken care of . . . Isn't it a superwonderful thing?  Thats what I am planning to do. I hope of success and plan of philanthrophy therafter, but never want to work for the same(success), rather work crazily to find better and better expression. The only thing that is certain is death, then what is the point of overcomplicating life into burning furnance, just because some people say, you need to burn before to shine the world around.  It is like, corporate don't take you as serious startup unless you are at least one phase of depression, or stress breakdown.

I would only conclude with saying that ambitions are too overrated. It is like you are running mad at a not so important(in your head can be important) aim opposed to exploring new places on a long drive. 

In India, a sage once said, destiny is like marriage counceller's dilemma. Here no norms of logic can be applied. This logic can fail misarably or suceed amazingly , hence it is super subjective. So is your life . . . People will apply their logics(solutions which worked for them) on your situations, which 

may fail miserably or succeed.  People will say, you are fluctuating, jumpy, unstable. But tell me honestly, In this short span of life, wouldn't it be a great tragady, if you never tried something really worthwile, or kept postponing it till death on the alters of  the world views of stability which means stable job, stable family. Just tell me one thing, do you want to be stable lifelong by stable resume or tenure and compromizing in what you think and feel is worthwhile? or switching to what you think is worthwhile , with small backup plans. Simply put, do you want to simply live and die with a complex stable job,  opinons of the world, defending your past choices? or do you want to 

 give a shot to teeny tiny chance or doing something worthwhile?

Problem is not with ambition, it is the net of deception, and a sense of confidence it instills in human being that he is always right. Of-course changing courses over and over again is not good. There is a tradeoff between making a completely new choice and using the pre-existing capability to move ahead. One needs to make this choice from time to time in life. Hardly 30% of what we studied in highschool is useful in day to day work right now. Still we studied . . . now thats a tradeoff. But no matter what tradeoffs you have to pay, if you get a very clear indication of limitations of the path, you must decide critically, wheather you want to move on.

After all, no matter what you choose, you fall dead. Death is the best parameter to consider when you decide the course. You should think that what if I fall dead today, this moment, will I be happy allocating my time and efforts in this direction? will I be happy having these tradeoffs. No need to make impulsive rash decisions, or go for instant solutions  because of bieng aware of death, because worthwhile changes may take time, but at the same time not to be oblivious of the obvious fact, and hence not stretch the tradeoffs, beyond its limits, or rather stating differently , it is about being critical about the choices, and having some kind of clarity.