Life without Internet

I moved to a new place last week. I am flatting with four people. I like the look & feel of my room. It is spacious and there is enough free space for me to practise my cover drive with the full flourish or to bowl with a shortened run-up.

"Heyy...hows it? Oh BTW, no internet for next 3 weeks". I laughed it off thinking it was a joke. I bumped into another flatmate. He told me the same with a look of a child lost in a big trade fair. "Freakin Telstra". He was pissed off. The Internet connection was under the name of my room's previous occupant. When she moved, the Internet moved with her. When you snatch a candy of a kid, the kid cries. When you unplug a group on internet junkies, they fume. The world cease to make sense to them. They feel lost in their own homes. They feel lonely even in the arms of their loved ones. Everything is a blur. Our new ISP has advised us it'll take between 10-14 working days to get plugged in again. :

This weekend - like any other weekend - was for two days. But it was a one of looongest weekends I've had. It was pouring outside. With no Internet, I had so much time to do other stuff. I finished reading two books - RK Narayan's Horse and 2 goats & Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. Both books were fantastic read. I am planning to write a post on Blink sometime. I played Solitaire and Minesweeper after a long time. I cleared the sent items which had mails I sent during my first week at work (~2.5 years back). I defragged my HD, I have the cleanest desktop on the planet and all my music is fully backed up. My notebook feels light and is smiling at me.

Since I just moved in and I was running out of things to do, I decided to rearrange my furniture (read as: I am very bored and I'll do anything to break this state of mind). I wanted a different layout. So, I moved stuff around. Arranged. Re-arranged. Meddled. Almost broke one leg of the dining table chair. "Oh no...I'll google the fix for this... Crap, No internet". I then used a trick I applied in my 1st year engineering design project and managed fix/tighten the leg. Felt really good. Re-re-arranged. I realised I've come a full circle that I ended with a layout similar to the initial layout. There are only n amount layouts one can try in this room. Felt stupid and carried on. The power of boredom continues to amaze me.

Just like last weekend, the weekday evenings were quite slow as well. One weekday evening went like this: I come back after work, I walk into my room. I make myself a cuppa tea. Switch on my notebook to break the deafening silence. As I switch the notebook on , I realise there is no Internet. I lean back in my chair and look out of the window. For the next few minutes, I keep staring. Nothing in particular really. Just staring. I am neither happy or sad. A state where everything is perfectly neutral and blank. I keep staring. The staring is interspersed with sips of Earl grey. After a few minutes, I realise I am not doing anything . I look around and move on. This may look really weird to some of you. Perhaps this is the brain's way of adjusting to the absense of something which is a part of daily life, something it probably took for granted, something which it thought was critical to our digtalised existance. Perhaps the brain was trying to fill a void within itself while in the right-wad-do-we-do-now mode.

2 more weeks to go. Internet, I miss you. *sigh*

Passion, profession, both or neither?

A wise man once said "Make your profession your passion. Half your time in this planet will be spent at the workplace". When I first heard this, I felt it was an obvious statement to make. You work in a field that you are passionate about. Otherwise, what's the point in working? Right? Is it not important, at least for everyday contentment that you work in a field you are passionate about?

Before I decided to wear the garb of an Electrical Engineer, I was told by many to “Pursue your passion”, “Follow your passion and get paid for it”, “Turn your passion into profession” etc. Before I started BE, I was not completely sure whether EEE was my passion. I certainly did like EEE. While at Uni, the mere act of engineering something and seeing it work excited me. ‘Liking’ started to develop into passion. When I entered the workforce, the dynamics changed. The bird that was free, independent, doing all acrobatics in the academic world was now caged as it entered the big bad professional/corporate world - the real world. Hold that thought~

It is interesting the wise man (quoted in 1st para) did not say “Make your passion your profession…” This leads to the inevitable question. I ask you, dear reader, have you made your passion your profession? If you ask, “Well have you?” – I have observed most passions follow the theory of natural frequency and damping. They start out with a big surge, slowly dwindle and eventually die out over time. Some passions (e.g. cricket, violin) are reignited occasionally, but they are merely bright flashes than raging flames. I am slowly realising the damping theory seems to apply with my ‘passion’ for my current specific field of work (not Electrical Engineering as a whole, please. I don’t want that to happen!). The passion is ‘damped’ because of some reasons which I don't want go into. ~The bird wants to fly again. I like Obama’s campaign tag line (with a minor modification): The change that I need.

I’ll cut the crap and go to my questions:

Profession is to make a living. Why is that when you turn or attempt to turn, your passion into profession you don’t seem to enjoy it anymore?

Is it because - Passion is synonymous to art. Art doesn't come out well when forced. Art, like passion, comes from ones heart. Passion/Art does not flow if you force or pressurise (due to professional needs)? (What about pro artists then? Oh God. LOL). Profession is like science. Science adheres to logic. Science, like profession, whether forced/unforced can be done regardless. Passion/Art almost always can only take its natural course. When you force it, you lose it. Do you agree?

So, does it mean that passion can remain ONLY as passion and not as profession?

If you say “NO. Passion can also be as profession. I see a Tendulkar, a Rahman, a Jordan follow their passion. Don’t you think they are enjoying their profession...sorry passion? Both?” Tendulkar, ARR, Jordan et al are geniuses. They are products of Providence to show Man how good he can be. They can not be used as examples. They are glorious exceptions. To put it rudely, they are freaks. I am just an extraordinarily ordinary person. I am neither a genius nor a freak. There are many people like me. This thought/question is ubiquitous in our minds.

Why?

Feel free to post your thoughts, opinion, questions, kindal, nakkal, thuppal...