Tag: period of time

Disconnected Life

The last forty eight hours were spent without internet connection, perhaps the first time I’ve spent an extended period of time at home without being connected. At first, it was incredibly peaceful, as without distractions it gave me enough time to finish off in 2 days all the 3 books (none of them very heavy, mind you, and all were “funda books”) that I’d brought home from the British Library. What was incredible was the amount of time I had in general, for everything. With the internet on, there are way too many distractions. Tweetdeck buzzes every minute. You are keen to “unbold” every mail as soon as it arrives in your inbox. Out of sheer habit, you periodically check out facebook and cricinfo. Lots of time gets wasted, no doubt.

I’d be lying, however, if I were to seay that I didn’t miss the net at all. Foremost was the need to check email, which I did though my phone periodically. I didn’t bother, however, unbolding all the stuff that was there. I only checked the mails that I thought were important, and the rest were “cleared” after I got back my connection this morning (the outage was because I’d applied for a new data plan, and the worthies at BSNL (bless them) decided I should go through some pain for having put them though the pain of changing the plan).

Then, there was some research I was trying to do yesterday, and I was looking for some data, which I wasn’t able to get since there was no internet. I went out of touch with my usual gtalk/twitter friends, but since it was only for a day I don’t really mind that. Most importantly, I missed regular updates of Ranji trophy scores, since those weren’t available anywhere else. It was too much of a hassle to be only via the phone (I don’t have 3G) for extended periods of time. There was also a lot of writing I did in the period, and all those blog posts are now sitting on my hard disk. I’ll upload them one by one with sufficient gaps so that I don’t flood you.

The worst part of no internet was the loss of the “option value” to stay connected. The best part was that it gave me a lot of time to do whatever I else really wanted to do without all the distractions the internet brings. I hope to go on an “internet break” for some time every day, switching off my modem for a few hours. Hopefully that’ll help me make better use of my time. For now, I’m glad to have the 4Mbps connection!

Project Thirty, Hippies and Capitalism

After getting out of Goldman Sachs (phew, now that I’m out, I can “out” myself. Was majorly stifling working for a company that stressed so much on “reputation” and stuff) two months back, I’ve put myself on a fourteen month long scholarship which I’ve titled as “Project Thirty”. As the title suggests, this scholarship will last till the day I turn thirty, which is in a little more than a year. There is no fixed amount of scholarship, but the funds are to be drawn out of the considerable savings I made having been a fat cat banker for a little over two years.

During the period of the scholarship, I’m forbidden to take up full-time employment. I am, however, permitted to pursue other money-making opportunities (as long as they don’t end up in my taking up a full time job). I’m setting myself up as a freelance quant consultant (right now the biggest pain point is it’s tough to explain to people what exactly I can do for them), and if things go well, that should provide some good supplementary income. However, the intention of this break is not to just take a shot at entrepreneurship, or explore non-linear opportunities for making money. It is fundamentally to do all those things that I’ve always wanted to do but never got down to doing during the first ninety percent of my twenties.

The Eureka moment happened some three-four months back, when I was reading some article on the internet about life expectancy. It was around the same time that I read the famous Steve Jobs speech, and I started thinking about what I’ve achieved in life so far. IIT, check. IIM, check. Brand name employers, check. Beautiful and intelligent wife, check. Some sort of local fame, check. I would be lying if I were to complain that I haven’t had a good life. However, several gaps remain. Found my calling in life, no. Stuck around in a steady job for an extended period of time, no. Made lots of money, not really. Traveled the world, not really. Wrote a book, no. Played for a band, no. And so it goes on.

It was around that time that I realized that it is not so bad to have regrets in life when you are twenty nine (which I’ll be next week). Thirty is still not too old, and you are still reasonably fit, and able to do all those things you’ve already wanted to do. What is not okay is to have regrets in life when you are fifty, or sixty. There is only so much of life ahead of you to make amends, and it could already be too late to do some of those things that you’ve always wanted to do but never gotten down to doing.

Project Thirty is the result a culmination of a lot of things. These thoughts. The fact that I’ve never really been happy in any of the high-paying high-pressure jobs I’ve been through. Stress. That though I’ve been married for a year now (today’s my anniversary), we still don’t plan to “start a family” for a while which gives leeway in terms of finances. That I haven’t yet really “found myself” and need to make an effort to do so.

So far, though, two months on, it has had mixed results. On the minus side (let’s quickly put that away) there’s been a lot of NED. I think I end up wasting too much time doing nothing (ok I’m not sure I should call that a “waste” but still I don’t feel good at the end of it). Then, a lot of writing which I want to get published in the mainstream media is lying on the hard disk of my desktop, as I haven’t really mustered the confidence to reach out to editors and send these out. I’ve identified one client for my quant consulting shop, but again haven’t been confident enough to approach them.

On the plus side, though, I have got a lot of writing done. I have started learning to play the violin again, this time in Western Classical style, and so far I’ve been really enjoying it. I’m associated with a public policy think tank and am doing some work for it. I gave (what I think is  ) a rather well-received speech on auto rickshaw economics. For the first time in my life I set a quiz which didn’t receive much flak. Watched cricket and football. Traveled a bit (a week in Turkey). And overall I’ve had a lot of peace of mind.

So what are the hippies and capitalism doing in the title of this post? Essentially given my current situation I don’ get why hippies are anti-capitalist. Because capitalism is precisely the reason I’m able to afford a sort of “hippie life” (using Aadisht’s definition) currently. Had I been living in a communist country, under the “from each according to his abilities” paradigm, I wouldn’t have been allowed to take this time off!

Discrete and continuous jobs

Earlier today, while contributing to a spectacular discussion about ambition on a mailing list that I’m part of, I realized that my CV basically translates to spectacular performance in entrance exams and certain other competitive exams, and not much otherwise. This made me think of the concept of a “discrete job” – where you are evaluated based on work that you do at certain discrete points in time, as opposed to a continuous job where you are evaluated based on all the work that you do all the time.

A good example of a discrete job is that of a sportsman. Yes, a sportsman needs to work hard all the time and train well and all that, but the point is that his performance is essentially evaluated based on his performance on the day of the game. His performance on these “big days” matter significantly more than his performance on non-match days. So you can have people like Ledley King who are unable to train (because of weak knees) but are still highly valued because they can play a damn good game when it matters.

In fact any performing artist does a “discrete” job. If you are an actor, you need to do well on the day of your play, and off-days during non-performing days can be easily forgiven. Similarly for a musician and so forth.

Now the advantage of a “discrete” job is that you can conserve your energies for the big occasion. You can afford the occasional slip-up during non-performing days but as long as you do a good job on the performing days you are fine. On the other hand, if you are in a continuous job, off-days cost so much more, and you will need to divide your energies across each day.

If you are of the types that builds up a frenzy and thulps for short period of time and then goes back to “sleep” (I think I fall under this category), doing a continuous job is extremely difficult. The only way that it can be managed is through aggregation – never giving close deadlines so that you can compensate for the off-day by having a high-work day somewhere close to it. But not every job allows you the luxury of aggregation, so problem are there.

Now, my challenge is to find a discrete job in the kind of stuff that I want to do (broadly quant analysis). And maybe give that a shot. So far I’ve been mostly involved in continuous jobs, and am clearly not doing very well in that. And given my track record in important examinaitons, it is likely I’ll do better in a discrete job. Now to find one of those..