Hold on.. Neither is this a tribute nor a satire of the book by Chetan Bhagat. Apart from not having any time to write something substantially complex and confusing to sound profound on the book (which is quite impossible to be fair to the book), I personally dont give a shit to his books. The only one of the bestsellers of his that I forced myself to read was the above mentioned due to unforeseen circumstances. Quiet naturally due to strict negative inner reinforcement, I was genuinely and completely biased by the time I started flipping through the pages. This was about a year back I suppose. A lot has changed since then - the economic slowdown around the world, the "demise" of investment banking (the last straw for this company was hiring me as an intern during April-May 2009), Barack Obama, Slumdog Millionaire (and the ever growing love, fascination and respect for Indian slums) and bail-outs - even the porn industry wants a $5 billion "stimulus" to revive "sagging" demand. Charged with our knowledge of macroeconomics fundae, Keynes and Engles, a couple of us undertook a research study on determining the effects of such a stimulus package on reviving demand for porn and sex. After careful analysis through quantitative and quantitative techniques (aided by few pegs of a banned substance), we arrived at graphs showing a relationship. Unfortunately, the model was too complex to be understood for others the next morning due to the extensive curves and contours dotting the entire landscape of the paper. Thus came the demise of our first real thought provoking work. Undaunted by such unacceptability, we have vowed to come back stronger with more insightful and revolutionary work.
So here I was thinking back on recent times and short term capital gains and losses (aww screw this bschool terminology) and I was reminded that I had a blog which was so ironically named point blank shot. Coming to think of it, the only thing main point about my blog is that it is blank most of the times and I shot myself in the foot naming it thus. But those important things aside, I realized when I had so much content about screw-ups in my life why look beyond! Now came the bigger problem - how should I choose? The simplest way of doing this would be period wise and I realized that I should take the short-sighted approach and thus chose the recent 12 months. Post this classification and problem definition, I was left to evaluate alternatives. This exercise took me close to 20 hours since last night when I started with the first line of this masterpiece..
Practicality (cynicism?)
Aspired attribute widely regarded as a sign of growing maturity, balance, control, poise and the likes - for me it signals an end to dreams. You stop fantasizing about those impossible things, you are going to stop trying. If you thought you could do 100 and you were good enough for and did only 40 and you continue to think that you can do 100 or even 120 the next time - you are all set according to me (with my limited experience and knowledge). Somehow dreaming about these impossible things has drastically come down and I may call it practicality and realization of constraints. If it had/has come with a more than compensatory share of the complementary attributes, I cannot be too unhappy right ;)
Not going for it
It was there for me. I had travelled all for it. I had to do it because it was time for it. There had to be a decision made and a delay just amounted to pushing an important issue on the back-burner. I was prepared, both for the best and the worst. There were no dry runs on this. No one could teach you, and if you had prior experience it was not something that was valued too highly. I still did not go for it.
Blogging
Thats the funniest. Blogging has been symbolic of all the wrongs, all those things that have been given an eager start only to fizz out over time. Its been easier to defend it with the trite lack of time reason. How much time does it take to pen down one's thoughts..to reflect on the happenings around..to voice one's views..to cogitate.. to learn..to finish what one has committed to in the past etc. It is injustice done to one's own self...
But practically speaking, I need to get some sleep now, and stop rambling :)
