Skip to main content

From GitHub to Grass - Thoughts on Windsurf, Davidoff and Potential


Recently I created my first GitHub repo. During those precious moments of flow, I felt like a teenage programmer - a prolific creator back in college. Sometime during my stint in Isha IT, I had this thought that creativity, the act of creation and the what we call creation itself can have multiple forms. That it need not all be direct, physical, visceral - it can be of higher order - one can "create" teams, products, culture. Then last few weeks, I got the experience of being the direct creator - without those pesky layers of management and indirection. It was something practical too. It was something that I could use - It allows the user to upload NSDL statements and allow you to create portfolio trendlines.

This excites me - enough to believe that I will be able to complete my planned tenure at Salesforce. More than anything (more than the Salary at least), this learning potential excites me - I notice that this excitement about learning stems from two very different things:

  • One that is based on pure potential accumulation.
  • One that is much more purer - based on pure curiosity.

Potential Accumulation - I think this is a wonderful concept. This is happening on multiple levels - Modern Society allows us to buy future freedom based on excess livelihood - what this basically means is - everyday office work means that we work (sell our present time), so that we have freedom at some point in future to not show up for work but still afford society's conveniences (buy future time). This for me represents the basic level of potential accumulation. The next level of potential accumulation is about investing/curating in one's capabilities, skills (especially in the new paradigm shifts (created by AI)). Absorb as much of the modern productivity memes, value chains so that as an individual, one can nudge the world in small and tiny ways. Just writing this down, makes it all feel pointless and stupid. But this is the game that I am playing.

I recently bought a new coffee brand. It looks all black and cool. And Evil. - It's called Davidoff. It has a bitter sting. This is the coffee that I had today morning. I put the chair on our modest lawn - I kicked off my sandals and felt my feet on the grass. I let the sunshine dazzle my face. I let the caffeine spread over myself as I listened to the birds.

I tell myself "Screw this Accumulation - Screw the potential - Screw the future". This moment is everything.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on Sandekphu and Salesforce

So I just reached back to Bengaluru and I keep thinking perhaps this is a good moment to write something. Some kind of mental snapshot is warranted. I am hoping to join a new company - Salesforce after working in Visa for just 1.5 years. I just completed another trek - some 80 kms walk in the park. During the trek, I wrote down a bunch of mental sticking points and the advantage of having such a list is to see which one of them are perhaps temporary and which ones might stick around for sometime and haunt one. During the trek, I kept reminding myself that I should not fixate on the destination - that lofty peak or that supposedly pretty valley. The trek itself was the prize that I have earned. And the one that I wanted to celebrate. And celebrate is the right word for it. There is nothing that comes close to describing what it was. Just stretching the body and mind and asserting its capabilities. During those walks, I got reminded of Illayaraja's song "Pitchai Pathiram" ...

Hotel California

I was dropping off S for one of her meetings. The conversation meandered into how some of our volunteer friends were talking about me leaving IYC. S was observing that we would have never got married if I was not a Isha teacher at that time. She also observed how my deciding to move to Blore was kind of thrust upon her. It was a fair observation yet painful for me to hear it. At some point, I felt the need to justify/explain/clarify that i am a seeker. Still a seeker. After I said it, I felt a moment of pause within me. Am I a seeker? I felt embarrassed that I have to claim me being a seeker in so many words. Am I really a seeker? What does being a seeker mean? Does it mean that I should be living in an ashram? Does it mean that I need to work 100% and more towards a larger-than-life goal? Does it mean that I am checking out of "Hotel California" ? i.e. I am done with the world and ready for something else? Does it mean to live a constant affirmation that I may not know every...

Revisiting America

I have been open about my obsession with America. I recently visited US after 7 years. Revisiting US was like discovering an old T-Shirt which was hiding at the bottom of your wardrobe for many years - feels alien initially but then it fits like a glove but then again, you sneer at your own juvenile fashion choices. I feel I resonate with US because it has some of the growing pains and dual identities that I have. It was interesting to see how some of my reactions to it have changed over the years. In a way, revisiting was an act of looking yourself into a time-machine mirror - feeling and juxtaposing your feelings with what you felt so many years ago. I went to the US for the first time in 2005 when i was a graduate hire for  Microsoft. Its been almost 20 years since i first set foot in the US. So a few things changed. America's juvenile antics amuse me less and less - I feel so sad/ridiculous that a country supposed so far ahead on so many things can get such basics twisted arou...