Rushing through Life!

The world has changed immensely in the last few years. Everything happens quickly, instantly nowadays. If we want some information, just Google! If we want to connect with someone, just WhatsApp or connect on Facebook with them. If we need something, Amazon is at our service. The physical boundaries on the planet have been surpassed, and no longer any obstacle or any iron curtain can prevent us from connecting with someone.

On one side, when we can have anything at our finger tips, but on the other side, this change has created quite a few problems for us. First, this fast and instant result oriented world has created a deficiency of patience in us. We are slowly losing our power to be patient. Our forefathers had an impeccable sense of patience. They used to wait for years for results to come, or even to get any information. They had to work hard to find that info, and hence, this tested their patience. But we on the contrary, can get that info within seconds, and so we are forgetting the value of patience. This generation seems to live a life where waiting is like waste of time, and when having patience is looked down upon. We want everything to be happened instantly, and hence, we rush our life to get what we want.

But in our natural lifetime, nothing can happen without having patience. We cannot grow up from childhood to adulthood instantly. We cannot get all the education or knowledge in the world immediately. Relationships and bonding cannot form within seconds. All this takes time, and that’s where the importance of patience comes in. But unfortunately, Google, Facebook and Instagram cannot teach us the importance of patience, as they thrive upon the need for urgency, rush hour and fast communication. For them patience is like a deadend!

Then, the next problem we are having is Fear. Yes, I am right. We are becoming more fearful than ever. Because when we rush things out, we tend to lose them quickly as well. As we are getting things instantly, we are no longer enjoying the fruit of the hard work to attain it. Because technology has made it possible for us to keep us away from actually being involved in the process.

Let me give an example. Before mobile phone technology came in, the only way we could reach out to our loved ones were the telephone, or letters. Unlike mobile phones or social media, it was not possible for real time tracking or connecting with them anytime ( 24/7). But our foretathers and generations before used to travel across continents, countries, fight in wars, explore forests and mountains, and still were brave and patient enough to remain away from their family and relatives for a long period of time. But in this generation, we see that we hardly can stay away from calling or texting our loved ones, if they are not at home or away without leaving any message. We can’t even stay away from our phone for more than few hours. Ofcourse, people say that technology was not available in old times, and hence, they had no option but to wait. I agree that we are very fortunate to have all the latest communication modes at our hand, but the side effect of urgent and fast communication has led to a form of conditioning of our mind, that we are losing patience, and becoming fearful if we are not able to reach out to our loved one instantly. That is a problem we are seeing in modern times.

And finally, I see the most concerning problem brought in by technology rush is the instant self-gratification. Its like a genie which has escaped out of the bottle! We make friends within seconds just by sending a friend request. We don’t even know about the other person whom we are sharing our messages and pictures. We see something on Amazon or Flipkart, and we instantly want to buy it. And the best thing is it gets delivered overnight. Google has made our life so simple that we don’t need to remember any facts, or birthdays, or even road maps.

Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are the universities of self-gratification. We spend a lot of our valuable time in studying in these universities, and we then learn to master the art of self-gratification. It leads us to becoming narcissistic, self-concerned, devoid of patience, fearful of what society thinks of us, and status conscious.

All these attributes are of no use in life. Infact, they are the vices which our forefathers avoided, and which our parents & teachers taught us in school to be careful of.

Hence, even though the modern technology and social media applications have made our life better, simpler & smarter, but this rush and fast paced world impacted by the technology has brought in its own vicissitudes. Even though many things can be done instantly today, but life itself has its own pace. As mentioned before, we cannot change the way our body grows, or how relationships mature. We cannot alter the time it takes for the seasons to change, or even for the human reproduction. Everything takes its own time. We cannot get instant peace of mind using some app, or neither can we attain mastery over a subject by googling over. It needs time, and patience, and hard work. And that is the only way to become proficient at something. Be it becoming an athlete, writer, doctor or even becoming a mother!

Technology has created an illusion that if we go slow, then we stagnate. But this is not true. Everything has its own pace. There is no need to rush or hurry for anything. Its okay if it takes time to learn or get a job or make friends. The technology and apps are designed to work faster, and give instant results. Because they are machines made of circuits. We are not. We are humans, and lets evolve at our own pace. Lets not rush over life, else sooner or later, life will rush away from us!

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© Abhishek Karadkar and abhiknotes.com, 2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Abhishek Karadkar and abhiknotes.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Nerds, Big Bang and the silicon valley!

Recently I have been watching the famous ‘The Big Bang Theory’ TV series. I must say that it is one of the best comedy series I have ever watched. Even ‘Friends’, of which I used to be a die hard fan of seems to be less funny as compared to TBBT. Anyways, this post is not intended for any sort of comparison between comedy sitcoms. Rather, I would like to write about the importance of nerds/geeks in the world.

Just like the fictional weirdo, nerdy, intelligent, genius physicist Sheldon Cooper character is elegantly portrayed by real life actor Jim Parsons, the world always have had many similar nerdy folks. However to the large extent these nerds might be laughed at, ignored or even ridiculed by the so called pragmatic self-concerned society, but they cannot deny that these bunch of folks have changed the world. If we just look at the history in science, technology, economics or arts, we see most of the inventions and breakthroughs done by the nerd scientists and engineers. Sir Issac Newton must have been a nerd in the 17th century England. The genius physicist Albert Einstein must have been a nerd in his college days who delved into the wonders of physics, and opened the universe of relativity for us.

Silicon valley is famously known as a valley of nerds. It was started and later expanded by a bunch of young minds like the trio Bill Gates, Bill Joy & Bill Atkinson. Bill Gates, as we all know became the richest nerd in the world after he co-founded Microsoft along with his friend Paul Allen, another nerd. Bill Joy who is lesser known as a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is more of a prodigy in programming. This post from Berkeley praises this genius as “Dubbed the “Edison of the Internet” by Fortune Magazine, Bill Joy is one of luminaries of tech. Years before personal computers were being widely used, he created software that would enable the rise of the modern internet…”. And Bill Atkinson is the gifted programmer who along with Steve Wozniak( the geeky genius behind Apple) gave Apple the recognition of being more than just a fruit.

Then, we have the Google founders, Sergei and Larry, who envisioned a world with a web of internet. And adding to that, comes Mark Zuckerberg, another prodigy in programming, who revolutionized the way we live in social life. It is interesting to see that a nerd like Mark, who struggled to be social in his school or college days, came up with the idea of Facebook, a social networking platform. I guess an online social networking platform idea was the least expected from a nerd, but we know, nerds have always surprised the world!

Then, we have the famous ‘PayPal Mafia’ gang which comprised of a bunch of nerds such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim etc. Elon as we all know went on to start world famous companies like Tesla & Space X, while Peter Thiel became the angel investor in Facebook. And the trio ( Steve, Chad and Jawed) went on to start YouTube which was later acquired by Google. This is the power of a group of people who are intelligent, hard working and visionary.

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PayPal Mafia.

I think the most famous nerd in the world would be Steve Jobs, who was not only a geeky visionary who rode on his imagination ride to change the world with Mac and Iphone, but also garnered the respect, admiration and cult following which nerds usually despise or avoid. Many nerds before Steve Jobs used to either confine themselves to innovating in their labs, or teaching & researching in University like MIT, Harvard or Berkeley. But it was Steve who broke the well accepted image of a nerd, which is generally introverted, shy, and not going after money or fame. But Steve Jobs was the exact opposite. He changed the way the world used to look or treat nerds. He proved that nerds can become famous, rich, and immensely powerful. And we see, Apple is the best example of innovation, and being different!

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History shows that whenever a bunch of visionary minds have come together, they have often succeeded to change the world. Silicon valley is the world’s largest group of nerds, geeks and tech enthusiasts. Atleast it started off like this, and maybe things have become more profit oriented today, when Wall Street executives and corporate raiders have invaded the innovative silicon valley into a profit churning machine. But still, the spirit of innovation and passion to change the world runs high among the geeks and techies. Starting from the “Traitorous Eight” to “Paypal Mafia”, the nerds and techies made silicon valley the most famous and revered place on the earth.

Thus, lets hope this spirit of innovation continues in the valley. Even though the companies which were started by young minds who were called nerds in school days, who revered books, technology, comics, video games more than dating girls, or body building, who were mocked as being weirdos by the social world, today we see the entire world is dependent on the technologies and innovations these geeks had started, be it Iphone, Google, Tesla, or Facebook. Hence, I remember some wall street trader had said during the 2008 crisis that “Goldman Sachs rules the world” But he was wrong. Today, its the “Silicon Valley that rules the world!”. And in Steve Jobs words…