Right vs Wrong Its the quintessential philosophical battle. What is right and what is wrong? I am not sufficiently philosophical to attempt to answer that question. But I have, for a while, believed that there isn't anything right or wrong. These are just social constructs made up by societies to ensure their own peace. Which is to say, anything that is wrong isn't necessarily universally wrong - it is wrong in that context....
So I am an entrepreneur now. And I turned 41 last week. Despite all this, the year has been extremely eventful. We took two vacations, I attended two conferences; presented in one, my wife found a good position that challenges her and gives her the space to grow, my son completed a year learning to play the drums, finished level 1 of swimming. Not all was bright though: I got covid twice this year; my immunity seems to be in a terrible place, i've been dealing with a variety of stuff with my body - results of not taking enough time to exercise in my twenties are showing now....
Rest In Peace Manoj. I will miss you. I keep thinking I should have made some time to meet you - either here in Singapore or back home in Chennai. I think we met in the second year. And I don't think we hit it off all that much, though. We became friends much later, though, if I recollect right. I knew you wanted to be a pilot back then....
2022 was a lot of ups and downs. Its the year we traveled to meet our families after 2 years of lockdowns and restrictions. Its also the year we got vaccinated for COVID. And still got COVID anyway. Its the year I spent learning ROS. Its the year I almost shipped my side-project. Almost. Its also the year we decided that our impermanence in life is probably a good thing....
Earlier this year, we all got our booster doses and were eligible for traveling. And the situation also seemed to ease a bit after the initial Omicron wave here in S'pore and in India as well. So we took a quick 2-week trip to Chennai in March. Flights were empty, airports were empty and the whole experience was so chilled out. Am getting ahead of myself. Let me just look at how the year has fared so far....
2021 was not the best year I've been through, going by how tough things got for me - personally and professionally. But it is highly likely that this is the year that taught me the most about every aspect of myself, my life, my aspirations and motivations. Instead of pouring over everything that went wrong, am just going to reflect on the learnings and see what I can do better for the next year....
Hello Hugo! Today I moved my blog to hugo. Frankly it doesn’t make intuitive sense to run a blog on a static site generator. But when I think about it again, my blog is my expression of ideas. I rarely engage on the comments section. And the best way to let me know your thoughts is still to tweet at me. Given these, it makes sufficient sense to run the blog as a static site....
I am a paranoid guy. But my paranoia borders on a potential disorder. I am paranoid about things that might not even happen. For example, I always worry that I cannot do great work. My fear is not about failing, though. My concern is that someone will dig up something I said on my twitter feed that I can’t entirely agree with today. Is that rational? But when has fear been reasonable?...
My favourite TED talk is the talk by Larry Smith on “Why You Will Fail To Have A Great Career”. It is also my worst nightmare. It is what keeps me looking hard for problems that I believe in, that I want to be assosciated with. I take part in multiple forums just trying to see what would interest me. After all, if you want to commit all your time to working on something, you might pick up something that you really believe in....
The biggest update since the last time I posted something is that I have moved to Chennai. Singapore is fun and a great place to live, but perhaps it didn’t work out very well for my career aspirations. It did work great for the wife, but she is happy to back in Chennai as well. Besides she is on the planned break for Sid, so maybe it doesn’t matter all that much in the short term....