Creativity or the lack of it.

As I keep going through some blogs on the net, I am amazed by the amount of creativity they contain. And they show how much creativity mine lacks. Its a revelation. I always try to post something that sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I never complete it because I run out of ideas the moment I type, "It was a dark and stormy night." I never go past that line. Must be something to do with the so called "writer's block". Or it could be that creativity is the domain of a select few and I don't belong to that club.

So I decided to abandon blogging and pick up writing (that way I can keep myself busy and be off blogging for a long time). I keep reading about so many people who quit their cushy jobs and then wrote a book which eventually became a NY Times bestseller (raking millions for the author in the process) that I am frequently tempted to follow the road taken by them. So far, better reason has prevailed and I am still sticking to my job which is the sole source of my bread and butter (and jam). But then I couldn't resist googling "How to write a book?". Result? You guessed it right. I come up with so many hits that I could easily write a book about it. But some people have already beaten me to it and come up in the search hits. There are books which teach you how to write. There are workshops that teach you how to write. There are tips given by other authors on how to write fiction, non-fiction, science-fiction, etc. And then there are podcasts. Whew! The information is overwhelming. I guess that there are so many souls out there who want to write or want to teach someone how to write that I can say for sure that there won't be a library in the world that could store all those books. Which is good. Books are always good. But now the challenge is to find a good site. I have been sifting through some and it will take some time before I can even go through at least 1% of them. I might as well write a book first. There's something even on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y99p13p6hvE).

I will go through these sites and see what works for me best. Lezzee. So for now, I am planning to do my homework about writing. And then I will write. Till that time, I blog. Ah! for the want of creativity. Ciao.

A Dip In Merc-curious Rising

Whenever celebrities are interviewed and are asked about their secret of success, there is almost always a stock answer. "Dream big" and "hard work". These terms are no longer secrets for someone's success. You can use "Dream big" and "hard work" to safely summarize an entire content of a famous person's 1000-page bio or autobiography without even reading a single page. Yet, both these terms are as elusive as they come and are still the privilege of a select few.

In my case, my idea of being big was to own a Merc (a CLS to be precise) by the time I knew how to drive a car. Yea, I am quite a material guy. Yet I am still searching for that elusive Merc (just as the Spanish conquistadors searched for the El Dorado) though its been some years since I learnt to drive. So I started looking back to analyze on what went wrong. A sort of a reality check on why I still can't afford a Merc. One thing sure did stand out. I could never accuse myself of not dreaming big. I was dreaming big while I was supposed to be studying. I was dreaming big when I was supposed to go out and play. Whenever I picked up a textbook, I would doze off like a granny counting on her rosary beads. I preferred to stay inside rather than play ball with other kids. Caught napping was a term that was associated with me like swimming is now associated with Michael Phelps. So in a way I was dreaming big uh.. big time rather. And I dreamt about Mercs too which is definitely a "dream big" thing. Goes without saying that "dream big" part did happen in my life.

So that brings up the question again. Why don't I still have a Merc? My investigations continue. The next thing in my list is "hard work". Now, if you ask me, hard work is a relative term. Some guys can just go on working for 15 hours straight and still look fresh as a daisy. Workaholics! For some, a 2-hour paper-pushing job exhausts them to an extent that you get the feeling that they have been working beyond all human endurance levels. I fall somewhere in-between. Around say, 8-9 hours? I haven't tested myself beyond that. For me that's productive hard work. So looking at where I am today, I think that in-between thing is what is keeping me in-between. Neither a spectacular success nor a spectacular failure. Just a normal average VJ. So I guess I'll still have to wait for that Merc. That wasn't hard. A normal average VJ. Honestly, it is a hard truth to digest. A normal average VJ :-( . Even after popping half-a-dozen antacid pills and downing an alka-seltzer bottle. Normal and average. It would sound real good if I were are celebrity and when interviewed, I'd say, "beneath this famous exterior personality lies just a normal average VJ. A guy-next-door VJ." Dream on. Sigh! For now the spartan Suzuki will do.

Going Green..

Olympics 2008 has started. And the Chinese authorities had been doing their best to make Beijing cleaner. Some of their moves to clean up the city have been really cool. But I don't know how the people of Beijing are taking it.

Looking at the way my city has grown in the past decade-and-a-half (its no Beijing but its surely been growing), and the problems its started to have, its amazing to even to think that its the same sleepy town it used to be when we had first set foot here. The wheels of development can surely move fast if people take the right initiatives and implement them. Anyways, since now I call it my home, I have decided to give something back to help my city in my own small way. So I have decided to go green to some extent. Its been some years since I had cut down on commuting by vehicle. I walk down (though the pedestrian walks are almost non-existent) to nearby stores. I wish the city civic authorities make the city more pedestrian friendly. No more plastic bags for me as far as possible. And of course, water. The city had a severe water shortage sometime back. Its taught me a valuable lesson in conserving water. I will never forget that lesson.

I had read somewhere that to save an email it takes around 20 tonnes of coal (no kidding!). So while I was backing up my system, I deleted a whole bunch of .pst files which contained some pleasant and unpleasant memories (I'm sure I wouldn't have read those emails again anyways). I have also cut down on my time in front of the computer and TV to save a few kilowatts of power. And from now on, will try to keep my posts small too. Slowly but surely, these are small but significant changes coming into my lifestyle. Its tough but I'm hanging in there. And if it can save a few trees and keep the air clean then I guess its the least I can do. I wish more people from the community start doing their bit too. Good for the city and good for the planet. Just like the Olympics.

Bullet lovers, kick this guy out of your clan

I guess the easiest way to go from uncool to cool is to go buy a motorbike and stride it. And if its a Royal Enfield Bullet then you rule the roads. So there are some morons who take this easy way out without learning the responsibility that comes with driving such a royal beast. Thus they end up giving a bad name to the clan.

I came across one such moron, who I guess thought that striding a Bullet would make him an unaccountable lord of the street. In my opinion he was an arrogant menace on the road (who is yet to know how to keep the machine running in bad traffic). Why do I think so? Well, I am waiting at this traffic light when this guy on a Bullet cuts across from left and stops right in front of me because I try to maintain a safe distance between the other vehicle in front. With shades (which I'm sure he must have bought at a flea market sale) and iPod earphones minus the helmet, he was looking every inch a guy the road could do without. And just as the signal turns green, his bike stalls (no fault of the Bullet). Instead of giving me the way by pulling to the left kerb, he tries to start his bike and fails while still standing between my way and the signal. After a full 30-second wait, with the vehicles behind me blaring their horns, when I try to alert him of the outside world by giving a friendly toot, he turns around to give me a glare that almost melts those flea market shades. Nutcase. Just before I think he's gonna get into a road-rage tirade, with almost perfect timing, heaven comes to my rescue and his machine starts and off he goes. Mr. Wiseguy now cuts across two entire right lanes to go straight leaving me stranded at the red-light for the next 180 or so seconds. Some traffic sense this.

I've got no axe to grind with the Bullet lovers. My good friend is a member of Bullet Riders club and I hope to belong to this exclusive club one day. But if you are a Bulleteer just make sure that you kick this guy out of your clan. You don't need such black sheep in your fold.

Easier said than done

It had to happen someday. My laptop crashed last week deleting my profile. So now I have learnt my lesson and have started to back up. I had never bothered to back up stuff earlier (not that I have much stuff worth backing up, but that's another story). To start with, I was supposed to pick up files from couple of folders and put them in the portable drive so that the sys admin could re-configure the system. Unfortunately, with the way I organize my files, its becoming an unmanageable task. And driving me nuts! Wish there was an easier way out. Backing up is a task easier said than done. Period.

How fast can you run?.. back to school

Some years back, a friend of mine challenged me, "how fast can you run?" What he meant was not how fast I can run on my two legs but how fast I can grow in my career. His principle was that the faster you run, the faster you can climb in an organization (flipside, you can fall harder as you climb higher and you happen to miss a step). Now looking back at what I have done so far, I see that I might have been "running" consistently but have reached nowhere (I get a feeling that I was running on a treadmill all this while). So, I went back to my friend and told him that his "how fast can you run?" strategy is zilch. He smiled at me and said that he now had tweaked his theory. His latest line is, "how fast can you switch tracks while running fast?" For him the new mantra is "change". If you cannot change, or if you cannot adapt (without missing a step) to the competition while you are running, rest assured you are a dodo (yea the extinct bird). Yea, he sounds a bit like that English bloke Sir Charles Darwin. I listen to my friend's advice because he's been quite successful himself. I guess by changing his own fundamental mantra, he's stayed ahead of the competition. Lesson learnt. The next time I get some words of wisdom from him, I will make sure its tweaked according to the prevailing conditions. Now I feel more assured and ready to switch tracks.

So, as a part of this exercise (of running and switching tracks), I recently enrolled myself into a part-time course in Financial Management. Don't ask my why. I wouldn't know the answer anyways (its hard to think and do stuff while you are running). I had a vague feeling that its a start (a worthwhile restart, to be precise) and I hope I can achieve something by the time I finish the course (at least get to understand such bizarre terms as "credit" and "debit" or hopefully know how to balance my checkbook). If I finish the course, that is. People joining part-time courses are notorious for dropping out after the initial drive is gone. They feel that this is one new dimension they cannot handle in their already busy schedule. I hope I don't succumb to this syndrome. Wish me luck.