The journey and the destination
I was asked by a former professor of mine to write a five minute stream-of-consciousness email about myself so that he'd have something fresh in his mind when he wrote me a letter of recommendation. After hitting send I went back and looked at what I wrote; I thought it was interesting enough that it was worth posting here.
I like to think that I'm someone who balances his interest in both the journey and the destination. Being at either extreme means missing out on a sizable part of life, in my opinion. If I generalize it a bit: To be focused on the journey means to live life in the present, while focusing on the destination means the predefined goals are most important. To me, these two things are complimentary. The journey is of little consequence if you don't know where you're going, and arriving somewhere is considerably more enjoyable if the path taken was itself enjoyable. So, I try to be aware not only of where I'm (hopefully) going but also where I've been, where I'm at and all the in-betweens.
The questions that interest me most are the "big ones"; you know, "What does everything mean?" and the like. I don't suspect I'll find any answers to these questions. Rather, I like to think that my awareness of them helps guide me in setting of goals and paths toward those goals. In that regard, success is determined somewhat by how well I know myself, so I try to be quite introspective and more importantly honest with myself. I regularly will "check myself" to see how I'm doing when it comes to my goals and if the path is making me happy. I also accept that change is only as scary or exciting as I want it to be and so I try not to prevent myself from making big changes in my life if I feel it is in my best interest to do so.
Franchised society
I recently finished reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson; one of my favorite science fiction novels. I'd read it once before, almost exactly ten years ago. I'm not sure what made me hold off from reading it a second time for so long, but it definitely was interesting to compare my impressions of it back in 1999 with those of today. The book struck even more of a chord with me this time around.
It's a decidedly weird world that Stephenson paints for the reader. Weird, but also quite familiar. Reading it this time I can see that while it definitely tells a fun story there is (like any good novel) a number of levels that the text works at. One of my favorite passages from the book does this very well.
The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder - its DNA - xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left-turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines.
In olden times, you'd wander down to Mom's Cafe for a bite to eat and a cup of joe, and you would feel right at home. It worked just fine if you never left your hometown. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look up and stare at you when you came in the door, and the Blue Plate Special would be something you didn't recognize. If you did enough traveling, you'd never feel at home anywhere.
But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. "No Surprises" is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin.
The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo [ed. glow from logos] outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles; Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave [ed. Suburban Enclave] street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.
Time is a funny thing (part 2)
Back in June (of 2008) I alluded to some of my thoughts about how the subjective experience of time depends a lot on our state of mind or consciousness in general. A later post also teased at the follow up to all those intriguing topics.
This post isn't going to be about any of that.
What this post is about, is the fact that it has been sitting in a draft in my WordPress for nearly a year. Eleven months! Why is that?
It really goes to show just how funny of a thing time really is. June 2008 felt like yesterday and oh my how the time has flown by. The second half of 2008 was an interesting time. I made my share of mistakes but set the stage for some great successes as well. And so far in 2009 those successes have been falling into place. Six months ago if you'd have told me that the love of my life would be moving in with me in late June I would have laughed.
Work has taken its fair share (some might argue more than its fair share) of time lately as well. It built to a head not that long back but I learned an important lesson in the process. I learned that while I have capacity for taking on a lot (not just work, but many other things as well), I do have some limits. A lot of that has more to do with keeping myself happy than it does with any actual "limits"; sure there are of course real limits to what I can handle, but the bigger question is how much do I want to tackle, why, and will it bring me closer to my goals?
It's interesting (to me) to see how my life has progressed to this point, and I'm really looking forward to the next chapters. Does that mean a new begining around here? I suppose it couldn't hurt.
Fast times and faster thoughts
A while back I wrote a post that talked very, very briefly about the subjective experience of time. The draft of part two has been in progress for a while, but this is not it. This is just to talk a little bit about where my head is at right now - which is a pretty good place - with some relation to that topic.
My birthday was a few days ago and now I am 26. Of the last eight years that I've "been an adult" I feel as though the last three have been some of the most formative ones. I may not know exactly what I want in the long run, but I have refined a usable philosophy for attacking the things I want to accomplish with my life that is going a long way toward that goal. It's even pretty simple and breaks down into just a few points.
Take nothing for granted.
In my opinion taking things for granted can be a very easy thing to do for someone like myself who has been well-advantaged for my entire life. Not just in material things but family, good friends, intellect and health. Like anything of value these all require attention and care and an un-selfish attitude to stop from thinking that I am inherently entitled to these things. Through this I can appreciate what it is I really have and come just that much closer to true happiness.
Good things require hard work most of the time and smart work all the time.
While I feel there can be a degree (albeit a small one) of luck in many situations, the fact of the matter is that actions are what count most. But I don't subscribe to the idea that all good things come from hard work. Rather I try to work hard at working smart. Patience is the key virtue here I feel. If more care is taken while planning great things, more productive work is the result, but that requires an individual (or organization) have the presence of mind to go about things in a thoughtful way that guarantees success, rather than initiating a flurry of activity that is likely to not be the best possible plan.
Don't force focus; focus on what moves you.
This one I will admit is something that I think works best for me because of my personality... Being honest I think that one of my real strengths is in the fact that I have a very large breadth of knowledge and interests. I definitely have quite a bit of depth in certain things (computer science and music for example) but even in those huge fields I tend to study a wide range of topics rather than specializing in a few things. Some people might not consider this wise and I admit it doesn't work for everyone; we all have different ways of doing things. For me I consider it a huge strength because I rely on it to see topics from many different angles.
That said, I'm like that because I'm honest with myself about if I'm enjoying whatever it is that I'm doing. Simply put I study, work and participate in the areas that are most interesting to me at present time and rarely force myself to focus on a topic if it stops becoming enjoyable just because I may have been working on it for.. however long I may have been working on it. Chances are that it will become interesting to me again and in the future I'll turn to it once more, but then armed with all of my additional experiences and things I've learned since.
...but you need to be able to know what you want to concentrate on.
Everything I said above about letting my interests take me wherever they may doesn't mean I go around life without a game plan though. I do spent a good deal of time thinking about the big picture and how all the little things I'm interested in fit in the grand scheme of things. This sort of planning is essential for me to stay productive and for me to keep myself in check; making sure that I'm always working toward my goals.
Some concentration needs to be forced occasionally then, if only to ask myself, "Is this really furthering to me toward goal x?" Balancing the whims of the present self against the long-term outcome is a critical aspect of all successful people I think. (Of course, you can go a little crazy with this notion as well and I'm definitely not advocating that.)
Always look at the world with wonder.
I mean this not in the sense of a yokel, but of someone who is not jaded to the truly amazing aspects of our universe. Appreciate that which deserves appreciation. In some ways this goes back to my first point of not taking things for granted. If I can continually look at things with fresh eyes I keep thinking about things from different perspectives. It's said that the wise listen first and talk second. I think this should be applied to how we see things outside ourselves as well. Listen to everything around you and become enlightened.
All that said I have felt a sense of productivity and clarity about the things I'm working on lately that is just fantastic. I think it's sort of a long-term form of tunnel vision. I sometimes experience that sort of complete concentration while working where I slip into the zone or the groove or whatever you want to call it and time seems to lose meaning as I accomplish things that might take me days if I wasn't in that state of mind. This feels like that but at a higher level; almost in the background. Needless to say I'm taking advantage of it while it's here!
So at 26 it's nice to see that while I've definitely made mistakes along they way I actually do seem to be in control of my destiny for the most part. I know there are times when it can feel like you're just going through the motions but when that moment of clarity comes where you snap out of it and realize that you have the ability to do the great things that you want... Well, it's liberating.
Time is a funny thing (part 1)
Now that hockey is over with and I've fully absorbed the championship I can move on to other things. Namely the fact that my perception of time seems to be speeding up. Case in point, I can't believe it was nearly a week ago that I wrote my last post about the Wings winning the cup. That said I'm going to keep this short so that it gets done.
It'll also be short because I think what I have to say is fairly common sense, namely that the more you think about and have to do, the less time you have for other things. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it feels like it's doing nothing but speed up lately. Gone are the days when it felt like Friday was an eternity away. Now it's more like I start worrying about the following Monday on Thursday morning. That's messed up.
Perhaps a lot of people don't explicitly think about what all this business about time implies in the more general sense. In many ways I feel it points to just how little we really understand about time as it correlates to consciousness. Not only does the passive experience of time flowing by seem to change pace based on your state of mind, we also actively deal with many different scales of time at once. Or at least people who are any good at planning do.
Music seems to change the way I perceive time quite a bit. If I'm working hard and listening to something I really enjoy it seems to keep my brain occupied in a way that keeps me from getting bored. More information to process perhaps... Time moves along very quickly when I drop into a groove like that. Music can have the reverse effect as well though, causing time to slow down if I'm lost in my own thoughts for a while.
On the other hand I've found that I can be very busy buy if my mind isn't occupied in a constructive way time seems to just crawl. Consider the statement "busy work." For me it means some set of mundane and time consuming tasks that make it feel like time is effectively at a standstill. Just because I'm doing a lot of stuff doesn't mean you're really thinking all that much. In these situations it just drags on and on... The opposite seems to be true for plenty of people though, so take from that what you will.
I guess this wasn't that short, and I'm not really done so I'll split it into two parts. More later!
Planning, persistence and patience
My sister Niku had her commencement ceremonies recently and in between feeling very proud of my sister for getting her degree in Microbiology I found myself reflecting a bit on my own accomplishments as well as the areas that I could do more. Objective self-evaluation can be a tough thing to do right and it's something that I always strive to be better at. While thinking about this I started to try and come up with some of the core qualities that help successful people reach their goals.
There are a lot of different qualities that a person needs to embody to attain their goals. Of course, a big part of it is what the goals are. But I think that there are also some common traits that are perhaps the foundation of success. I was able to come up with the following: knowing how to plan properly, being persistent and being patient. (Note that they all start with the letter P, which is just a lucky coincidence.) My list probably isn't exhaustive, but these seem like some of the most critical general traits.
To begin with, planning seems like an obvious one. If someone is not able to actually figure out what his or her goals are, how can that person possible accomplish anything? Past that she need to be able to reason out what the steps are to reaching a specific goal and then to be able to map out the steps for each of those subgoals. Being able to plan for a variety of circumstances is pretty critical too.
Persistence doesn't really require much explanation. Simply put once the plan is laid out a certain level of drive is required to stick with it. Depending on how difficult the goal is a little more persistence might be required.
The last one is the most important one I think. Patience might seem a little odd coming after a trait that might seem at odds with it, but I actually feel they go together quite well. First, a person needs to be patient with themselves. Not complacent or making excuses; that's quite a bit different. Patience is the trait that lets someone persistently execute his or her plan in an effective manner. Without patience emotion can take over and in my experience an over-emotional response won't help at all.
On that note, if I had to throw in a runner up I'd say passion. Funny... That starts with the letter P as well.
Getting mixed up
This is one of those posts that I had a good idea for, started the post by just putting the title into WordPress and saving it as a draft. Now, two weeks later I have no clue what I was intending to write about. But that's OK. I might not remember the specifics, but I remember the feeling, so I'll just make it up as I go along.
What I mean by "getting mixed up" is having so much going on that at times you feel like your sense of focus is completely lost and you're not making significant progress. It happens a lot these days and I see it as a consequence of the modern condition; people might not be producing meaningful output continually, but society does expect most everyone to be pretty much hitting on all cylinders non-stop. Productive or not, go go go is the way things are done these days.
Nowhere is this more apparent than work it seems. That's pretty obvious right? I can't really complain about it; I knew what I was signing up for when I chose this as my field. And honestly, for the most part it's not even that bad. Sometimes it can be a little trying, but that's when you really can see what you're made of in my opinion. The challenge isn't always just performing the task, but doing it in a positive way so that when you do succeed you feel accomplished.
Of course, you have to balance this with the knowledge that you're being used.
But I digress. The fact is that getting mixed up isn't necessarily a bad thing. At times it can certainly be stressful. And yes, if you let it go to far you end up killing your efficiency and getting much less done than you would if you'd focused (or been allowed to focus). But what can you gain from it? In this case I think attitude can make a big difference. Conditioning also helps too though... It's only through years and years of "getting mixed up" that I've learned to see some good in it.
For example, it keeps you expanding your horizons and trying new things. In the software industry I think this is critical. One of my fears is getting forced into specializing in one area and then getting stuck doing that kind of work forever. That would really be boring and potentially limiting to the career as far as I'm concerned. Being able to move around and have a broad set of experiences to draw upon for your resume is definitely a good thing if you want to be anything more than a cog in the machine.
It has its advantages beyond resume experience as well. Personally I have a hard time forcing myself to be productive in something that I'm just not feeling. Call it a muse or whatever you want, but meaningful, truly creative output can't be forced in my opinion so fighting your creative urges doesn't really do you any favors. I struggle at it sometimes, but trying to attune myself to what I actually want to work on and then laying out plans on different timescales based on those desires helps me plot a sort of road map to my personal growth.
If you're open to it a sort of cross pollination can occur between ideas at times too. Recently I've been working on house music, wanting to get into hands-on crafting and realizing I have very little art in my home. The more I let those things percolate in the back of my head I started to get some really cool ideas for some light-fixture sculpture that I want to try my hand at that sort of fits with that "musical aesthetic" or whatever you want to call it.
I guess the take home message is to try and look for the good in your situation no matter what, even when it's stressing you out. Turn that stress into creative energy and then act on those plans and you'll feel good about what you come up with!
Breathe
I've been listening to Pink Floyd basically non-stop for the past two days now. It's probably because we heard that tribute band the other night that got me going on this kick, but also because the philosophical nature of a lot of their lyrics is hitting close to home at the moment. The music itself is sublime (Gilmour is one of the greatest guitarists of all time in my opinion, saying nothing of the fantastic bass playing that Waters provided while he was with the band) and when you combine that with their lyrics I can easily say that Pink Floyd is one of the greatest - quite possibly the greatest - bands of all time.
Anyway, one of their songs that I like the most is "Breathe" off of The Dark Side of the Moon. I'll let the lyrics speak for themselves in this case:
Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don't be afraid to care.
Leave but don't leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.Run, rabbit run.
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.
I really need to learn to play guitar. Then I need to magically learn to play guitar like David Gilmour.
Coming up with ideas
Coming up with a good idea is hard more often than not. For instance, I've been struggling for five minutes now with how I want this introductory paragraph to sound. But, while doing this is, perhaps, somewhat challenging at the moment, it's no where near as hard as coming up with a good idea for a product.
The reason why is pretty simple. In general, a product will have many more concerns than something else that requires only (or mostly) creative thought. For instance, a painting has primarily aesthetic concerns. A piece of technical writing is (from a certain point of view) more complex. It needs to concern itself with both aesthetics (lexigraphic and syntactic) and functionality, as well as some other things. A product often has aesthetic, functional, business (economic), technology, manufacturing, marketing, supply chain, and competitive concerns, and many others. This isn't to undermine the skill it takes to create a painting. In some cases a piece of art completely qualifies as a product (graphic design for instance). It's just trying to show that a good product that will be successful is an inherently complex thing to come up with.
So, this is a problem that I'd like to try and figure out how to mitigate to some degree, because software can almost always be thought of as some type of product. No, it won't always be sitting on a store shelf, but for it to be successful it will need to deal with the majority of the elements I listed, and some I didn't. It's a pretty simple concept, so I won't bother spelling it out. The point is that coming up with a way to get to the good ideas early would be a really great thing. Less time wasted chasing ideas that go no where and more time focused on something productive.
So there needs to be an analytical method to evaluate if an idea for some software product (really any type of product, even a work of art or novel) is a good idea. This is a fairly challenging thing, actually. How can you know if something you come up with will be successful before you create it? Worse yet, something as complex as a product might have mostly good ideas and a couple bad ones and it won't be successful. How do you identify these issues as early as possible and then correct them?
In general, it's just a resource problem. If you had unlimited resources (including time) you'd just do every halfway decent idea that came to mind and see how it worked out. That certainly is an "analytical" method. Design it, build it, and see if they come. Of course this is completely unrealistic, even for huge corporations with tons of resources. It may be analytical, but it certainly isn't optimized. So we need to do something much quicker and get to the gold as fast as possible without throwing out too much in the process. But none of this is really that hard though, if you think about it. It comes down to a couple primary points.
Come up with as many ideas as possible, even if most of them are crap.
First of all, the more ideas you come up, the better your chances are of coming up with one that's good. That's simple enough. Secondly, if you come up with lots of ideas, and get in the habit of doing so, then those ideas also feed each other. So it isn't just a linear increase, but rather some sort of mild exponential ratio of good ideas to mediocre or bad ones.
Have a procedure for evaluating ideas as quickly as possible.
Over time I've come up with a pretty tight list of things to think about when doing a quick evaluation of an idea.
- A brief description of the idea
- What are any other offerings and how would this improve upon them
- Who the target audience is
- General types of technology involved
- Possible business models
- Long-term growth/development potential
Simple enough. The idea here isn't to write pages and pages, just enough to encapsulate the thought. Then, I do some pros and cons, maybe 3-4 of each. If a number of these ideas are of the same type, then that makes it easier to compare them. Sticking to the same method each time, and then doing pros and cons helps take any emotion out of the decision.
Nothing I said here is groundbreaking by any means, but sometimes getting a little methodology going can go a long way. I'd like to hear what other people do to organize their thoughts and decide what ideas are worth persuing, or perhaps I'm somewhat alone in my analytical approach to everything.
About Naim
Naim is a 27 year old software magician, electronic musician and puzzlematician. By day he is a pro software architect and developer. By night he is the illustrious potentate of KnowLogik, a software R&D, strategy and design outfit. In his spare time he learns, writes, takes photos, and is chill.
@naim
- I'm beat. But I live to keep fighting the good fight tomorrow.
- Work is moving along; past all the nitty gritty now and am getting to the deep stuff. But first, dinner! Chinese buffet - a guilty pleasure.
- This is just cruel. @vvergoth is watching Real Genius while I have to work in the other room. :( I love that movie.
