Thought Crimes

Bloggiversary. I know. It sounds really stupid. But I couldn’t help myself. Its my bloggiversary today. Lefty’s Blog just turned a year old. Applause. 365 days, 12 months, 19 posts. I’d hoped to have 24 posts by this time. Two for each month so as to speak. But as the left side of this page would tell you, I was unable to achieve what I had hoped to. Aalas factor won out in the end. Nothing unexpected about that.

Summer interns are in full swing. I never thought this day would come, but I’m actually busy with work. A complete dilettante in the world of meetings, trousers and reports, I find this ephemeral phase in my life really weird. Leaving home when the clock shows 10 and coming back to be greeted by the same face of the clock is not particularly enjoyable. And to think that people do this kind of thing everyday. Even though this is probably a great learning experience, I’ll be glad when the 6th of July comes. Lazing around at home has never held such charm before.

The beginning of the internship put me into a lot of turmoil. I didn’t enjoy what I was doing at all. If this was what the corporate world was all about, I figured, doing an MBA doesn’t look like such a great option. Academic pursuits and intellectual satisfaction having ended the day I set foot at R, the future looked bleak. Hazy, obfuscated, uncertain. I went around asking for advice from the high (represented by the admirable KR) to the low (represented by…?). OK, I only went around taking advice from the high. Consolable words and better days at office later, I find myself pacified and not so saturnine anymore. But I’m still uncertain about what I want to do. I was supposed to know it by now, but haven’t a clue. The work I’m doing during this intern isn’t too bad. I wouldn’t mind doing this for a living. Even though it would mean the 10 to 10 thing that I thoroughly despise, I’d still do it. But it’s not something I’d really like to do.

During one of our wisdom filled conversations, Sajal and I touched the topic of what we wanted to do. Sajal made one of his occasional sagacious observations. “All I really want to do, Lefty, is play AoE,” he said. I enjoy AoE too, but it would be too monotonous for me. Which brings me back to where I was. I like quizzing. I wouldn’t mind doing that for a living. Maybe even go ontro on the path that Ashu Bhagwan illuminates. It’d be something I’d enjoy. But I’ve seen the level of quizzing and right now, I’m definitely not there. One day, I aspire to be. And whether I reach that level or not is something that scares me. Do I have a chance in a place where there are already such brilliant people? It’s the Computer Fest Syndrome all over again. In school, I was a pretty good programmer and a decent tech quizzer. But visits to the ubiquitous computer fests brought me face to face with the geeks that existed and made me decide that there was no way I was going into computers. It’s true that there will always be someone better than you everywhere (except in case of Ash who is definitely superlative when it comes to beauty), but in the Comp Fest Syndrome, I didn’t particularly want to reach that level of technical geekdom either.

I still haven’t found an answer to these questions, but I guess someday I will. Mankind hasn’t found an answer to Life, the Universe and Everything either (42 doesn’t count). An almost overconfident belief in my ‘talents’ and Ke Sera Sera should be enough to see me through. So till then, I’ll just enjoy my Bloggiversary. May there be many more.