Reflections

I sometimes like my job but most of time I don’t. It is uninteresting, routine and high pressure work. I dont see any meaning into it. And yet I do it. For three reasons:

• It pays kind of well – So I can pay my loan and live comfortably enough
• I am lazy – I am a very lazy guy addicted to internet and FC Barcelona. I dont want to move out of my comfort zone too much
• I dont know what I like and where I should go – I suffer from two major problem. I dont know what i like and I canot focus on anything for long duration. One day I am reading science, then economics, then Philoophy and then Data.  One day I feel sadnes for the society and resolve to do something about it and the other I meditate on the meaninglessness of it all.

But anyway here are my options:

• Preferably dont marry or get lucky – Frees me of lots of responsibilities to try something new on my own later on
• Go Onsite – Hopefully travel onsite to help pay off the loan
• In the meantime prepare for the future but what is the future?

On finding a passion

I have long tried to find things I am passionate about. It seems there is nothing except football and Barcelona for which I would be willing to wake up at 1 in the night. But apart from this waste of time, I have never been able to nurture anything of note. That probably makes me one of the most boring people imaginable. But it is not my being uninteresting that I dont like. What I hate is the fact that I have never been able to produce anything of worth, something which I can be proud of.

This year atleast there was some improvement on that thanks to the time I spent on teaching students at  a government school for visually impaired in Kolkata. Teaching the kids gave me the firsthand look at the problems special kids face. I probably did 6-7 classes on Saturdays and taught 5-6 class 7 student. Some of the observations that I had after teaching them are:

1. Unsurprisingly a lot of students did not know basic English or maths. It is easy to read the statistics and reports about poor state of education in the country but seeing it first hand I saw the magnitude of the problem.  How are we going to develop this country of the future of this country is inadequately trained or educated?
2. It was a public school where I taught so often heard refrain about lack of books and teachers. Looking at the class rooms the facilities did not look as bad as in most government schools in Bihar but looking deeply,it was quite sad. Specially the story that we heard from one of the staff members that school gives extended holidays as it cannot afford to keep it open due to budget constraints.
3. Teaching is a profession like any other that needs preparation. And communication is its most important part. I tried to be a teacher but I need better preparation on teaching in a structured manner. And clearly I need to work on improving my Bengali.

If I look at everything together,it was a rewarding experience. Not only was the experience new that brought me face to face with problems education faces, it seemed meaningful and interesting on several levels such as how do you frame best course, how do you allot capital and labour  in education etc.

After having spent such a large part of my life learning maybe I can play do my part in doing something to help education in the country. That ways I might finally find some meaning in what I do and also would have found a passion.

On John Wick and Existentialism

After hearing that John Wick is one of the better Keanu Reave’s movies to have come out recently I went to watch it yesterday. I had heard that it is gaining some kind of cult status due to its simple storyline and straightforward characters whose actions display the kind of minimalist emotions one would associate with  existential characters of Camus. I dont thnk I was too disappointed by it. Unlike Interstellar that I watched last weekend, John Wick never promised too much. But what it lacked it grandeur or plot, it made up through its style and minimal dialogues. In that respect it seemed very similar to Drive, another movie whose chief protagonist acts without emotions.

Another aspect of existentialism that I saw in this movie was the apparent lack of any thought about future or  what happens beyond the act of revenge. There is no reference to the background or future for the key characters in the movie. Its as if the director has rejected that the purpose of movie (that could be the metaphor for life)  is to go beyond present. So the attractiveness of the movie, in a nutshell, lies in the lack of storyline, or plot. That might not work if the execution is not good but creidt t the director and the camerawork who made it work.

New Start

After realizing that my mind is a constantly buzzing with thoughts (some welcoming but most distracting), I have decided to start a blog where I can put words to my feelings. I hope this will help me think more clearly about stuff I care about and want to do. So here are the things that I hope blogging will help me achieve:

• Write about my interests – I like a lot of thing like movies, books, economics, science and philosophy. It will be good to write about them instead of just reading and browsing about them endlessly.
• Think more clearly – That is my major objective. Whether it is about my career or hobbies, the problem is I think about them a lot like starting a new habit, charting a new course of action etc. but mostly I am not able to figure out how and where to start. Putting them into words will be useful I guess.
• Improve my writing skills – I guess whatever career I pursue, it will be important to write clearly. My hope is that writing more frequently on this blog will help me achieve that.

That is all from me. Lets target writing one post everyday and see how it goes.