Tag: mind space

Thirty to twenty nine

I turned twenty nine today. Yesterday to be precise; I see the clock has just ticked past midnight. And I’m sensing that my “project thirty”, where I had decided to not take up a full time job until I turn thirty and do “all the things I ever wanted to do”, is already in trouble.

Sensing that over the last two months of joblessness I hadn’t been spending my time usefully (Parkinson’s law and all that), I decided to sit down today and make a list of all those things that I’ve ever wanted to do and haven’t been able to, which I want to do before I’m thirty. It took me a couple of hours maybe, maybe a little less than that. At the end of it, I had a grand two page bullet-pointed word document to show for my efforts. To be honest, it looked rather skinny.

I started a (time) budgeting and planning exercise, and figured out how much time I would need to do all that. Apart from a few big holidays I’ve planned, I realized that the rest of the activities can actually be worked around a “normal” work schedule, as long as I don’t take up a job that will eat away all my time. Yes, the list of “things I always wanted to do” include entrepreneurship and freelancing, but again, bereft of concrete ideas I’ve started getting doubts if this is the right time to do that. Things are quite unclear right now.

I’m more open to taking up a full time job now than I was a week or so back. I need to not make the mistake again of taking up something that I’m not suited for, or something that won’t inspire me, or something that wouldn’t allow me to do the other things that I’ve wanted to do. Again, I personally don’t mind a “portfolio life” also, where I have a couple of part time gigs rather than a full time job. Ideally, something that would allow me the time and mind space to do my side projects on the side, while also generating some revenue.

I know I want to live in Bangalore. I know that I don’t want to take up an offshored job again (a mistake I’ve done twice in the past; not something I would want to repeat, ever). I have a reasonable idea about the kind of work I want to do, though I’m quite flexible about it. I want to do something that I feel for and be proud of doing – something more than just a “CMP”. And again, something that gives me the time and space to do my own things also. And yes, I know it’s going to be hard to find something to fit these constraints (Bangalore and non-offshored reduces the sample space quite a bit, I know). And I’ll continue my Project Thirty while I seek to find something on these lines, I guess.

Or maybe I’m giving up too early. Or maybe not, that I’m just being pragmatic. Maybe I’m bowing to pressures, both internal and external. Maybe I’m just taking a rational decision. Nevertheless,

I shall not take up a job that I won’t be proud doing.

I shall not take up an offshored job.

I shall not give up on the agenda of project thirty, which is quite exhaustive. It remains a priority.

I want to have a fulfilling life, and not feel like I’m wasting time.

I’m going to keep my mind sane, and try not to succumb to pressures.

Collateralized Death Obligations

When my mother died last Friday, the doctors at the hospital where she had been for three weeks didn’t have a diagnosis. When my father died two and a half years back, the hospital where he’d spent three months didn’t have a diagnosis. In both cases, there were several hypotheses, but none of them were even remotely confirmed. In both cases, there have been a large number of relatives who have brought up the topic of medical negligence. In my father’s case, some people wanted me to go to consumer court. This time round, I had signed several agreements with the hospital absolving them of all possible complications, etc.

The relationship between the doctor and the patient is extremely asymmetric. It is to do with the number of counterparties, and with the diversification. If you take a “medical case”, it represents only a small proportion of the doctor’s total responsibility – it is likely that at any given point of time he is seeing about a hundred patients, and each case takes only a small part of his mind space. On the other hand, the same case represents 100% for the patient, and his/her family. So say 1% on one side and 100% on the other, and you know where the problem is.

The medical profession works on averages. They usually give a treatment with “95% confidence”. I don’t know how they come up with such confidence limits, and whether they explicitly state it out, but it is a fact that no disease has a 100% sure shot cure. From the doctor’s point of view, if he is administering a 95% confidence treatment, he will be happy as long as his success rate is over that. The people for whom the treatment was unsuccessful are just “statistics”. After all, given the large number of patients a doctor sees, there is nothing better he can do.

The problem on the patient’s side is that it’s like Schrodinger’s measurement. Once a case has been handled, from the patient’s perspective it collapses to either 1 or 0. There is no concept of probabilistic success in his case. The process has either succeeded or it has failed. If it is the latter, it is simply due to his own bad luck. Of ending up on the wrong side of the doctor’s coin. On the other hand, given the laws of aggregation and large numbers, doctors can come up with a “success rate” (ok now I don’t kn0w why this suddenly reminds me of CDOs (collateralized debt obligations)).

There is a fair bit of randomness in the medical profession. Every visit to the doctor, every process, every course of treatment is like a toin coss. Probabilities vary from one process to another but nothing is risk-free. Some people might define high-confidence procedures as “risk-free” but they are essentially making the same mistakes as the people in investment banks who relied too much on VaR (value at risk). And when things go wrong, the doctor is the easiest to blame.

It is unfortunate that a number of coins have fallen wrong side up when I’ve tossed them. The consequences of this have been huge, and it is chilling to try and understand what a few toin cosses can do to you. The non-linearity of the whole situation is overwhelming, and depressing. But then this random aspect of the medical profession won’t go away too easily, and all you can hope for when someone close to you goes to the doctor is that the coin falls the right way.