Tag: horizon

Project Thirty – Closure

Today is the last day of my twenties. Which means Project Thirty has come to an end. I had a long list of things to do, and as the more perceptive of you would have expected from me, most of them are undone. Nevertheless, it has been a mostly positive year, and I’m glad I gave myself the year off in an attempt to find what I want to do.

The biggest positive of the last one year was that my mental illnesses (anxiety, depression, ADHD) got diagnosed and started getting treated. Yes I’m on drugs, and face severe withdrawal symptoms if I don’t take my antidepressant for a few days, but the difference these drugs have made to my life is astounding. I feel young again. I feel intelligent again. I have more purpose in life, and am back at the cocky confidence levels I last saw in 2005. I suddenly feel there’s so much for me to do, and for the first time ever, have started enjoying what I’m doing for money.

Which brings me to professional life. I decided to give myself a year to become a freelancer. I must admit I got one lucky break (one long-term reader of this blog was looking for a data science consultant for his company and I grabbed the opportunity), but I grabbed it. My improved mental state meant that I was motivated enough to do a good job of the pilot project I did for that company, and I have managed to extract what I think is a reasonable compensation for my consulting services.

There are other exciting opportunities on the horizon on the professional front, too. I’ve started teaching at Takshashila and am quite liking it (I hope my students are, too). There is so much opportunity staring at me right now that the biggest problem for me is one of prioritization rather than looking for opportunity.

There has been both progression and regression on the “extra curricular activities” front. Thanks to demands of my consulting assignment, I haven’t been getting time to practice the violin and abruptly discontinued classes two months ago. I did one awesome and rejuvenating bike trip across Rajasthan back in February but wasn’t able to follow that up even with weekend trips. I wanted to start on adventure sports but that remained a non-starter. I started preparing for a half-marathon and gave up in a month. I took a sports club membership, tried to teach myself swimming again, but have been irregular.

Personal life again has been mixed. Increasing excitement about work means less time for the family, and have been finding it hard to balance the time requirements. I seem to be putting on weight again, and now look closer to the monstrosity I was four years ago rather than the fit guy I was two years ago at the time of my wedding. I blame my expanding waistline and neckline on my travel, but that is not an excuse and I need to find an exciting way to get fit soon.

For perhaps the first time in several years my car didn’t take a knock that year, but I had two motorcycling accidents (one major and one minor) this year. The former led to the first ever broken bone in my body (the fifth metacarpal) thanks to which I don’t have a prominent fourth knuckle on my right hand. The latter led to major damages to my laptop.

My “studs and fighters” book still remains unwritten, and not a word has been added to its manuscript in the last one year. I was hoping to capstone my Project Thirty by organizing the first ever “NED Talks” but I seem to have bitten off much more than I can chew in terms of work, so that has again been postponed.

So let me take this opportunity to define my Project Thirty One. I want at least two published books by the end of the year. I want to do at least one major motorcycling trip. I need to find partners/employees and expand my consulting business. I want to travel a lot more – at least five weekend trips over the next 12 months. I want to become fit, to the size I was at the time of my wedding. Hopefully I can get weaned off anti-depressants. And I hope to resume music lessons, and start jamming. Ok let me not promise myself too much.

And I have a five-year plan too. By the time I’m thirty five, I want to have written a book on the economic history of India. Ambitious, I know. Especially for an NED Fellow like me.

Yet Another QLC?

An article I was reading on Cricinfo a few minutes back had this line:

Taylor sat quietly beside his captain, no doubt trying to soak up the moment.

Thinking about it, I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve had such a moment. A moment which had a sense of achievement, where I just sat, quiet, trying to soak up the moment. It’s not that I haven’t felt this way before; it is just that this kind of thing hasn’t happened for a long time. And looking forward, there doesn’t seem to be much scope for this kind of a thing.

It seems like life has been reduced to short occasional moments of intellectual wankery, and nothing surronding them. Life seems to have become, to an extent, mechanical. It doesn’t seem like there is anything on the horizon which will give a sense of achievement. It seems like whatever good I will do will be slow and incremental; like an innings by Shivnarine Chanderpaul; rather than like a hostile spell of pace bowling by Jerome Taylor.

I’m only twenty six, and occasionally I have trouble convincing myself that I’m ONLY twenty six, and that twenty six isn’t that old, after all. When this brought up in conversations, most people like to comment that it is time for me to get married. I’m not sure if the tenure matching on that is right. Apart from perhaps one “achievement moment” when I finally end up successfully pataofying someone, I don’t see how that will solve the problem that I have described here.

Thinking about it yet again, I wonder if this “achievement model” is faulty and unsustainable, and if I should reorient myself to work towards incremental benefits. Kodhi (ok before I forget, I should credit him for the discussion that led to this post) said “Tendulkar of 98 is not the same as Tendulkar of 08”. It was a poignant comparison.

Maybe a time comes for everyone – when this time occurs is not a matter of importance, and varies across people – when ticking off achievements is not the priority, and priority is to just go on and do one’s duty (which, in Tendulkar’s case, is to play excellent cricket, and win matches for India). It is not exactly an encouraging thought, but is probably true. What do you think?