Philosopher's Notes

Who Am I ? Sometimes I think, Am I the pain or the joy ? Am I the restraint or the openness ? Am I the naivety or the wisdom ? Am I the fracture or the healing ? Am I the ruthlessness or the kindness ? Am I the weakness or the strength ? Am I being crushed ; or being molded ? Maybe I’m both ... - Snippet from a conversation I had with myself...

The story of failures are often more interesting than successes. You start with a goal in mind. You break it down into multiple smaller goals. You schedule your time, and work diligently towards completing each one of them.  You put all of your heart , mind, soul , time , energy and sacrifice to make this one thing work. Then you put it out in the world. But the world owes you nothing, and that one thing fails. You have dedicated yourself to the results, but still the results elude you. This is failure. Failure sneaks up on you while you are unaware, and now you have to face the consequences. You get "feedback" from others. You ask yourself, how could I let this happen ?  You start seeing yourself get stuck in a loop of reflection and guilt, and it all seems to crumble down. Meanwhile, the world is oblivious to all of this. The birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and the sun completes its cycles. The disconnect between an internal whirlwind, and external calm, is mind-bo...

Vim 8 interface This is a series of blog posts, in which I am trying to share my learnings about using Vim, which I have gathered over the course of 4 years of my software development experience.  This post is the part 2 in this series, please read the first part before continuing forward  Part 1   https://vikramj74.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-learn-vim-project.html The core commands and the different modes of Vim, should be clear to you by now. We will now talk about some of the more advanced tools available in the Vim language. Let us begin, with combos. Action-Modifier-Limit As discussed in the last post, Vim allows us to use a text modification language to alter the text documents we might have. The language, certainly has words, which correspond to the commands that we learned about the first part. But no language can be complete without having sentences. Sentences, should be combination of the aforementioned words, which convey an independent meaning. The Action-...

Over the course of my programming years, I have come to absolutely love Vim. Vim IMHO, is one of the most efficient, fast, and reliable ways to edit any kind of text whatsoever. Many people won't agree with me, but let's not start the IDE/tool wars right away.  In my mind, if notepad is an old Nokia phone, and Sublime text is the iPhone, Vim would be the PDA that Spy-Kids had on their wrists. The point I am trying to make is, that Vim takes text editing to a whole new level, by making a "text editing language". So just as you have programming languages for programs, markup languages for markup, you can basically start using a text editing language, while using Vim. This is going to be a multi-part series, going from the absolute basics to an intermediate level. Let us get started with the very basics. 1. Modes of operation :    To edit or create a file with Vim, you need to just give the filename as an argument with Vim. ( vim mytext.txt ). Once you do that, you will ...

I am pretty sure, that as an informed member of the internet, you must have very bad connotations attached to the word "Social Media". It is one of the new "evils" that you must fight back against, and protect the young generation from. I think it is time to part the curtains and look at this evil clearly. How exactly does it function, and is it really an evil entity, or have we been making up opinions about it without proper analysis? The Problem  Let's first try to articulate the details of this problem. Most people would agree that the following points make Social Media, a bane : Attention Addiction: The tendency to value other people's attention very highly, and to have an affinity to go to any limits, to just get that next "Like".  Comparison Conundrum: The tendency to observe all the positive aspects in other people's lives and then to start comparing their "results" to our life's "results", without real...

Gratitude and ambition are concepts which every life coach, psychologist, or leadership guru talks about at some point. But all things considered equal, they would probably have a strong natural inclination towards one of these concepts. Is there a conflict between gratitude and ambition, and can this be resolved ? Let's explore : Gratitude  Gratitude can best be explained as "enjoying the view, every step of the way whilst climbing the mountain". It is a simple and often undervalued component of a happy and fulfilling life. The influencers who lean towards gratitude, tend to focus on the benefits of just appreciating each moment of peace, and counting your blessings.  Key idea : 'Live in the moment'  Ambition If gratitude is about enjoying the view, then ambition is about "focusing on what reaching the peak would feel like". Ambitious people, create a strong drive within themselves through their strong desires and visions. They are often the ...

Stories have acted as a mechanism of transferring learned experiences with other human beings within small tribes,since our hunter-gatherer years.  Even before we had written communication mechanisms, such as books, ( or even paper for that matter ), all human tribes were communicating their ideas, through story-telling. It would be a fair assumption to make, that all these stories were generally used by the senior members of a tribe, to educate the young and bright minds, who were just starting their journey as a tribe member. Since, oral communication was the norm, oratory skills must have been the key differentiator, between charming leader, and the other senior members of the tribe. Good storytelling has been the key tool in a leaders toolkit, for as long as human tribes have existed. If you, as a leader, can convey your ideas effectively, and convince the other members to agree on your version of a story, you were a very successful tribe leader. The ...

Meet Mr. X, a corporate professional who's work day takes the lion's share of his time and energy. The other parts of his life, are given the remaining leftovers, despite being equally important. As a result, most of his personal tasks are lagging behind further, and further, and he never seems catch up on them. He understands this imbalance and wants to fix it somehow. Can you relate to Mr. X's situation ? I certainly do, and was in a similar position, a few months ago. No matter what I did, I just could not find the time to work on my personal life, alongside my professional life. And this imbalance, was clawing away at my conscience. I realised that because I was doing better professionally, there must be something I am doing right professionally, which I was not doing within the personal sphere of my life. Upon a careful review day-to-day professional activities, I uncovered the most striking difference  : "Writing down the goals" Professionally, ...

Over the course of 23 years 6 months 8 days 8 hours 19 minutes now, on this rocky mass revolving around a gaseous nuclear reaction, I have gone through a lot of experiences in my life. I have been fortunate enough to have been living a 'privileged' life, where food, water, air, security and a place to rest my head were never 'real' concerns in my life. In the beginning of every life, you begin your life by observing the people and activities around you, with the inquisitive nature that we as a human beings have developed. This allows us to gain knowledge and learn from the mistakes of others, without actually having to make those mistakes yourself. This by itself is the single most important factor in the exponential growth that the human society has seen. However, what we don't realize in those moments of learning is that the system is beneficial but not absolute. Yes, it is very valuable that you observe and learn, but it does not have to be the only strategy...

Are you dealing in absolutes ? Throughout life this question can help you understand, where you fall on the faith scale. On one end is blind faith, and the other is complete skepticism. "Change is the only constant in the world." This question of absolutes applies specifically to the people in our life : People that we communicate with on a daily basis People that we follow People we don't particularly like If you are following a leader's instructions, have you made them an absolute authority, who has no flaws ? This is dangerous for the other person, as they won't be exposed to the possible flaws in their thinking in time. This does not mean that we challenge authority everywhere we go... We should however, be critical of the ideas and concepts that leaders use, to decided what to do next. Never will an idea, be absolutely sacred, it will need improvements, always. Similarly, there are people, who we feel won't be capable of changing for go...

What you think, forms your perception The same conditions and experiences, produce very different views of the world, in the minds of many people. And there is a simple logic, behind this. What you think about, is what you focus on. Whatever you focus on, you act on. Whatever you act on is bound to get you some results. And since you keep thinking, you keep doing, and after a series of failures, you emerge triumphant. The song 'What a beautiful  world', was written by Louis Armstrong at a time when apartheid and discrimination on skin color was a reality. Yet he produced this brilliant masterpiece by focusing on what he thought was beautiful. His legacy is still cherished. We must remember as logical beings that all perception is a part of your mind and your mind only. Nothing exists for you, if you shut down the mind. The future you dream of ( or fear ), the past you regret or rejoice, does not exist. The people you love or disregard are all a part of you because you choose ...

I have been on many trips, but this one is very special to me, as it marked many 'firsts' in my life. This was : My first trip to Jaipur ( and Rajasthan ) My first MozStumbler trip My first outing with the Mozilla Delhi Members ( MozPacers ) Let me try to summarize this amazing journey, as best as I can. The trip began late at night at around 4:30 am. Our travel vehicle, the MozBus, picked up all members from ISBT bus depot ( near Kashmere Gate ). Since, I live in South Delhi, I took an auto to Dhaula Kuan, from where the MozBus picked me up. We left Delhi at around 5:00 am. On board the bus, I was glad to see the community leads, from the Mozilla Delhi Community : Anup Kumar Mishra, Ajay Singhi and Bhuvnesh Dogra. I also met, many of my fellow Mozilla Delhi Contributors. At the beginning of the trip all the members were informed that this trip, was also a competition to see who can collect most points, by stumbling throughout the trip. It was also declar...