Self-pity is horrible.

Express it to your closest friends and they'll highlight your privileges. You have money, you have love, you have family, you have health, you have freedom. And it won't help.

In fact, you'll rant about "why bad things happen to good people" and "it wasn't supposed to be like this", because you feel entitled to your privileges. Your struggles are undeserved, but are your privileges too?

Let me take you through pity and then blow it all away with gratitude.

posted at: 18:02 | path: /philosophy | permalink | Tags: public, philosophy, relationships

If you are anything like me, you know the fear I'm talking about.

Even if you are not, you've probably thought about that fear you have. The one that you'll take to your grave without cause or reason, having spent a life proving beyond doubt that you ran towards it and not away.

There are many fears like this, but this one is mine - it is a very contemporary one for the age I am. I fear that my life has peaked and what tomorrow brings is more or less the same, most often just less of it.

This is not supposed to make sense.

Having climbed the first mountain, all you realize is that there are still more mountains to climb. You haven't run out of mountains, but what you question is whether you will pull yourself over the next one and the next and the next.

It is a stupid question to ask yourself. It's an even stupider question to ask others.

posted at: 22:12 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, fear

2020 was a terrible year for the world. So much death, unemployment, isolation and suffering all around.

Except, I was exceptionally fortunate.

What happened in my household in 2020 was almost exactly what I needed to rebuild myself from within.

Not to say I would have wished that on myself, but the crisis is the crucible of character and I feel like I came out of it sharper, stronger and with an inner core which keeps me burning even now. Because of that steel in my heart, I could tackle what came next in 2021 with some level of serenity. 2021 was the year where all the losses, death and destruction happened in my family. But we're getting ahead of ourselves right now - stick to 2020.

posted at: 22:07 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: experiences, unexpected

I'm holding my breath. And counting.

I should breathe, but I'm staring at my son, willing him to start breathing again too. We'll exhale together.

Kavi is on the 911 call, the paramedics are coming. They can't be far away.

He exhales, I don't know how long. I've lost count when I coughed. His lips are a little blue or am I just imagining it. The next 3 minutes feels like an eternity. The next three days are a blur.

I never want to feel like that again. That was back in 2016, but that fear runs through my veins every time I put on a mask, get that whiff of sanitizer. And if that is how I feel when this story has a happy ending, I can't imagine what a tragedy would feel like on my conscience.

posted at: 22:27 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, experiences, family

I fell in love with computers because of Ctrl-Z.

Until that moment, I loved Chemistry with all my heart.

During high school, right upto the time I was sixteen, I had all but assumed that I would be a chemical engineer of some sort. Inorganic chemistry was not just a subject in class - right around commuting distance was ISRO's Liquid propulsion labs and right over there near the beach lines were the Titanium sands of Kerala waiting to be smelted. I took trips to the CSIR-NIIST from school, seeing cryogenic superconductors levitating over magnets and was dreaming of changing the world wearing a lab coat and safety goggles. And if I wanted a different pathway than pure research, the Tatas were the next stop for an engineer who wants to melt things and pour them.

I had chemistry oozing out of my brain, but very little could be done without actual equipment or supplies.

Even today, I watch NileRed to indulge in this part of my childhood fantasy.

But besides the obvious problem of reagents and facilities, Chemistry had two other main problems for me.

posted at: 01:13 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, philosophy

This is not something I ever tell myself. Usually at least.

In fact, I've often said the opposite in anger and sadness.

Being alive is such a lazy thing to accomplish, that it takes no effort to do it. But nobody is going to call it effortless. Often, it takes effort to find ways in which life is worth living; To raise your voice enough over the default drone of everyday life and tell yourself that "I'm alive!".

But for a thousand miles now, I've been hearing it loud and clear over the roar of my motorbike.

posted at: 22:51 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, philosophy

It is the summer of 1994, I'm in a room all by myself. And the room is bolted from the outside, for everyone's safety.

I'm twelve and angry, because obviously nobody loves me. In my anger, I've also bolted it from the inside. My father is outside, telling me to open the door, but go to the bathroom & wash my hands while he's leaving my lunch next to my bed. He's losing his patience, but I didn't have any to begin with. And that lunch he has, it's going to hurt to swallow - my throat hurts, my gums hurt and to make things worse there is no salt in any food. My mom has made a different dish for me with something like salt (ഇൻഡുപ്പ്) in it, but it tastes like licking copper (it's really magnesium and potassium, but who cares).

I've been quarantined, because I have chicken pox, a slightly virulent strain of it. And I had carried it home. This was my punishment (I thought, unfairly).

posted at: 16:50 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, quarantine

Almost exactly to a year ago the merger between Cloudera and Hortonworks went through.

I've had a fairly inside field view of the process and the rollercoaster has been fun or at least never boring. Along the way, I kept having these four questions.

Four questions which are like an organizational rorschach test. But they all look like butterflies to me.

posted at: 15:11 | path: /observations | permalink | Tags: public, work, valley

In 2018, I've have spent more time interviewing than I have ever done since 2004.

I went through the entire interview loop at five companies in total. At two of those places, I had two cycles of interviews as I got referred sideways by the original interviewers. Including the recon visits, lunches and phone screens, I've spent about two whole work weeks of my 2018 talking to recruiters, managers, engineers, architects and directors.

One half-hearted offer (pay-cut included) and one golden one (wow) later, I'm still working for Hortonworks till it doesn't. To make sense of this, I'm trying to distill those two weeks into something that can be bottled for the top shelf.

First up, the Bay Area is special and you are not.

posted at: 19:07 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, valley

Often Software (with a capital 'S') is not built, it is grown. And a lot of green digits are involved, not always thumbs.

When I got an education which taught me how to build software, the process emphasized on sitting down in front of my computer, pushing my will upon a barely explicable machine which was built to resemble advanced technology on some days and complete magic on others.

In fact, when I think about it, every part of my computer science education was about imperative commands to a system which, if you give it adequate commands always throws up unsurprising results everytime (and all surprises were bugs). Everything I was taught about this fit that model, where when I had a "Software Management" class it was full of Gantt charts and PERT charts, going over how to schedule time for different engineers to work on the same project in parallel. The recommended reading was The Mythical Man Month and that was hilarious to read, at least. Mostly that class was taught as a way to have an engineer understand what a manager might have to do, not exactly explaining the operational realities.

This post is about the third time I realized I was ill-equipped to deal with the actual demands of being an engineer with the industry. Because none of what I describe works the way I've been taught - at least, when it comes to these skills I'm entirely self-taught.

posted at: 11:26 | path: /observations | permalink | Tags: public, me, work

This isn't about leadership, but the events leading up to it. There's nothing new for me to say here, except to walk you through the path I took reading Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Though this truly started because I read Men At Arms again and wondered what Corporal Carrot is made of (& Vetinari and Vimes too).

Because reading it made me pick up H2G2 and look at Zaphod Beeblebrox & the man who rules the universe. But that's for a different episode, about presidents with a penchant for orange sashes.

In the Republic, Plato records Socrates's argument about the nature of leadership. That guardians of the state are not necessarily the leaders, but leaders employ themselves where they can show the way and to do that may abdicate power when they observe a well functioning, if not perfect state of affairs.

Weighing between the potential advances they could make from mastery of their art against the heavy burden of leadership, they choose to advance their mastery instead and indicate to others that their mastery is advancing the world.

The world changes shape, right at the moment where those have ignored politics realize that the state of affairs is regressing, despite their progress through life. In those moments of chaos, they consider leaving their avowed profession and take up the unthankful jobs that they had left to others before - leadership. There is no longer a question about comparing the rewards of leadership against anything else, since the alternative is to lose out on the most relevant of common goods - peace.

And I quote

And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now
saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take
in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without
remuneration. 

For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another,
the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of
his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule,
they must be paid in one of three modes of payment: money, or honour, 
or a penalty for refusing. 

What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment
are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand,
or how a penalty can be a payment. 

You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which
to the best men is the great inducement to rule? 

Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed
they are, a disgrace?

And then Socrates explains.

And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for
them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing
and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves
out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being
ambitious they do not care about honour.

Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to 
serve from the fear of punishment.

And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office,
instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable.

And Socrates goes onto explain the punishment that awaits a good person who sees a leadership vacuum and does not step up to it.

Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable
to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.

And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office,
not because they would, but because they cannot help --not under the
idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves,
but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task
of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good.

And that's how Socrates concludes that leaders are forged out of a crisis, not out of peace or prosperity - not by intention, but by choice and circumstance.

That does paint the progression as sort of inevitable, but it is entirely rational to observe the choice ahead and just leave.

PS: Republic talks about doctors getting paid for good health, women being educated equally and rulers being enlightened - it's hard to think of it being written two millenia ago, while most of that is still fought out. Read the whole thing.

posted at: 13:52 | path: /philosophy | permalink | Tags: public, work, philosophy

Money is just misplaced effort.

Most of my waking hours are spent working on things which are not part of my long term goals in life. There is a implied social contract that if I turn my hours into money, there's some way to use it to accomplish those goals much more efficiently than if I worked on the goals on my own in those hours.

I've been thinking about where all I misplace my efforts, but for extremely good reasons.

posted at: 01:39 | path: /observations | permalink | Tags: me, public, money

Tech interviews are very strange. The whole process makes no sense in general, when it actually comes to being hired to do actual work. This gets worse when you're dealing with a specialization that is all about identifying trade-offs and fitting solutions to them.

But let me explain this with a car analogy.

posted at: 17:11 | path: /rants | permalink | Tags: public, work, me

For the last decade, I feel inconsolably sad about my dad's death and its circumstances, as Dec 2nd draws nearer.

For some reason, this year was different. Perhaps, it is because my mother is here with me - it is the first time in a decade that I've talked to her on Dec 2nd. But it is not just that, there's been a shift, which I barely understood till I sat down to write this.

My sadness has changed over the years. I no longer feel that sadness the same way - it is not a soul sapping feeling of despair, but a different and new emotion, that is still sadness.

I feel sorry that my dad couldn't be here to participate in our lives. He would've loved to sit around and do literally nothing, on this other side of the planet he never saw. I'd have enjoyed sitting with him, drinking tea every few hours and arguing about the legal drama that surrounds today's political news.

For years, I imagined how my life would be better if not his death ... for a brief moment today, it dawned on me how his life would've been better, if he were still here with us.

The burden of my loss has suddenly has turned into empathy for his loss. Because I'm still here, a decade later, finding light in unexpected places.

Because for once, as a parent, I know what I'd lose if I wasn't on this planet when I'm done with my working years. I'm getting ready to spend my final years observing and rambling incessantly.

Actually, I feel old enough start already - the good old days when things were really uphill both ways to school, but we did it anyway - you kids won't understand it anyway, but we had to ask people who was calling when the phone rang and all that, except these days you all ask "hey, where are you ..." instead.

Just smile, listen and nod, because that's what I'm doing for my dad, in memoriam.

posted at: 16:04 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, dad

I have started to remember more details about problems than I do about code.

Code used to occupy a large amount of my work-time thinking roots - algorithms, data structures and architectural concepts. Over the last two years, the organization of my thoughts has shifted onto understanding parallels with the real life structure of the problems. I'm looking through my attic for my brain and finding new uses for all that I've already done, which makes a better part II.

So for a while I've been putting thought into revisiting ideas, to feed them through this new lens. Here are some of them which I'd like to work towards thinking more clearly about them over 2018. If any of you have one of these problems or would like to enlighten me about how you are solving them, I'd like to buy you a beverage of your choice.

posted at: 18:17 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, me, work

August is the single month every year, where I go looking for a better job.

Because everytime August comes around, I'm reminded of a very specific day of my life - Aug 11th 2003.

Very clearly a bad day to recall, but first impressions are often very deep.

posted at: 11:58 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, career