Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Random Post

I felt an impulse to come write here, even though I have to confess I have only the vaguest of ideas about what it is I'm going to write. It had been a while since I came here, so maybe I should explain my absence - even though there is no real explanation. I just had been busy studying and thought that writing blog posts wasn't the most judicious use of my time.

"Studying for what?", I'm often asked. And I never have a good answer. To be more precise, I don't have an answer that would be good enough for someone who would ask that question, because someone who assumes that one always only studies for a tangible near-term goal -- a job interview, an exam, a promotion -- would probably find it difficult to empathize with where I'm coming from.

I just study just to learn. And I learn because I couldn't live any other way. "But you could just learn from life, like people do, can't you? You don't have to be studying!" I know, I can, and I do, but there's scope for more. I learn to gather insights into things that I find hard. It is not too different from why anyone runs long distances. I'm guessing they do it because it is hard, because they don't know if they can do it, and they want to find out. It is only curiosity that drives every such action about which other people ask 'why would they do that'. Anyway, as I said, I can only answer this question in roundabout, unsatisfying ways for a person who has this question.

Recently, I've been talking and skyping with girls who are strangers to me. My parents tell me about them - they think that she and I should talk - and we do. Girls I've spoken to thus far are mostly unable to understand why someone would study, code, solve math problems just like that and more importantly why they would want to put up with such habits, and so the conversation sort of fails. On the other hand, the small minority which get this are invariably in other ways so opinionated that I imagine living with them would be a lifelong presidential debate, so the conversation fails again.

There was one particular girl who I actually met in person rather than on skype recently, about which I do have a funny story to tell, but I'll reserve that for another, a hopefully funny post.

So yeah, that's what's up as well, other than studying.

Other than that, Trump won today and I'm not saying anything about the election. Yeah, I'm not. I started having election fatigue 6 months ago, and now is time for relishing the absence of election noise around.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. I didn't get promoted. Yeah, still an associate; although some senior people did care to make aghast faces at the supposed unbelievability of it. I don't buy faces, though. Faces are deceptive. Don't base your judgments, emotions or decisions on reading faces. That's childish. Did you ask my age? I'm 30. It's OK.

Rohit is coming cross-country to NYC this weekend, although unlike all the earlier times, he will not be staying at my apartment in Princeton. He will be talking next week to youngsters at his alma-mater Columbia about start-up success, or something thereabouts. I will visit him on the weekend, maybe have food at the dhaba we used to go to every day back when I was interning in the city and sharing an apartment with him 3 years ago. Those were good times. Some sort of good times, I suppose, although when I reconsider I can recall that there are ample reasons to not categorize that time as such.

That's it I guess, given that I don't intend to unload my bucket of don't-even-get-me-started emotions on this blog.

4 comments:

  1. Arre presidential debates main hi toh majja hai! :D btw, offlate I am increasingly meeting people who study 'subjects' because they like to learn. It doesn't have to be coding or math always, but one of my close guy pals is a history addict. Another, is always learning about ways to make his body a machine. I can't stop reading about the evolution of the middle east culture, and which my company pays me to do. I never thought finding nerds is a challenge. You are right though, I assume living with someone who constantly argues would be hard. It makes for awesome combustible relationships though. I hope you find the perfect woman soon.

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  2. I am sure there are many such people. I am not increasingly meeting them, though, to a large extent because I am increasingly not meeting anyone.

    You said something important when you wished for me to find a perfect woman. That's the whole thing, I guess. And here I am, still referencing girls in my post, not women :)

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  3. Just go with someone who makes you laugh, holds you tight and you can talk to for hours. Rest, there are no guarantees. Much like the quantum particle, until you choose to observe, you won't get to know the final state, only probabilities until then. In 2017, may your heart and mind be not fettered by fear/skepticism but unburdened by hope.

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  4. Thanks so much for your kind wishes. The roadblock to me isn't so much not getting what I want as it is not knowing what I want, so as I first step, I should try to figure that out, I suppose.

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