| ஒத்திசைவு | प्रत्याह्वय | resonance |

A couple of posts ago on this blog, there was this recommendation of Mahamaho Richard Hamming’s brilliant essay: You and Your Research.

And, then Sriman, young TKA has actually read it in full (may be one of a very few who committed that crime?), reflected on it and has been sweet enough to share his thoughts… His essay is reproduced verbatim, below – with his permission.

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When I started reading this write-up, it pulled me into it.  Probably due to the style of this essay and my mood at that time.  The following is part of my thoughts about the essay. I am not sure any coherence is there in this thoughts.  I tried to look it into a perspective of a common man to see how the traits required for a great scientist is not much different from a ‘great’ common man. Below are my reflections!

This essay is about doing great research. I am not interested in any research. Neither I am looking for greatness in whatever I am doing, If at all I am doing anything.  However, reading the first few paragraphs forced me to go into the rest of this lengthy write-up, probably due to the state of mind at that time. I think the concepts talked about can be applied to everybody whether they are doing any great research or any other great work or just to live a great life. In other words, anybody who wants to be ‘great’ of any sort, the ideas told in this essay can be applied directly or with slight modification with respect to the type of ‘greatness’ one wants to achieve. One thing is for sure. Everybody out here wants to be ‘great’ in one or the other way, but may not be knowing where they want to be great and this ignorance spoil the game. Hence these principles are applicable to everybody – but many may need some more ideas to identify the ‘field’ of their greatness.

Before going further into this, the following is a list of ideas given in the essay for ‘great’ research work.

1.                   Luck favors the prepared mind.

2.                   Brain power

3.                   One success bring in confidence and courage

4.                   Courage – under incredible circumstances

5.                   Age factor

6.                   If one becomes famous, still look into small problems (which may grow and give new opportunities.

7.                   Best working conditions need not produce best results. Often bad working conditions produce  superb results.

8.                   Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.  Regular, constant investment produce extraordinary results

9.                   Ambiguity – Believe enough to go ahead and doubt enough to clear the issues.

10.               Keep your thoughts only about the problem at hand – Keep the subconscious starved, so that it works on the problem at hand and produces results.

11.               If what is doing is not important and does not lead to something important,  what, one, is doing here?

12.               Great thought time – provide enough time regularly for great thoughts.

13.               Pursue one important thing and leaving all others aside is a disaster

14.               Openness in mind for others – even if they are distracting

15.               The way of doing things is as important as the thing itself.

16.               Having the horizon in view rather than just one object in view at a time.

17.               `It is a poor workman who blames his tools – the good man gets on with the job, given what he’s got, and gets the best answer he can.

18.               Selling the job is more important than doing the job – things to do for selling

19.               raise enough voice in such a way without offending, to get the resources.

20.               Commitment to the activity on hand produces results.

21.               Rather than fighting the system, learn to take advantage of the system.

22.               Getting over the personality defect of “ego assertion”

23.               Friendly with people involved.

24.               Avoid anger

25.               Convert the defect into an asset

26.               Avoid self delusion – Finding reasons for failures

27.               Self knowledge – Understand the strengths and weakness of self

I could identify the above 27 ideas in this essay to become a ‘great’ scientist and then the essay asks the reader, “Therefore, go forth and become a great scientist”

27.          For this essay (or talk), ‘who is the audience’ is very clear and hence the 27th idea, with its limited context, may be sufficient. But this particular reader of this essay is neither a scientist/researcher nor a one who wants to do any specific great work. Probably one who would like to live a great life as a whole. For such readers the 27th idea must come in the first place with more wider context than that presented in this essay.

If one is aware of his personality, which is self knowledge in a limited perspective, then based on the personality traits, it is possible to identify where his greatness lies. If such a person wants to be great in a certain field few questions need to be asked and genuinely answered by that person – Will his personality traits allow to achieve greatness in the wanted field?  Will there be any possibility of conscious effort and commitment to modify the personality traits to become great in that field? If the answers to these questions are negative, then the greatness of such a person does not lie in the chosen field. Either that person must forgo any greatness in his life or choose a field suitable for the personality traits.

But how far are people capable of such self awareness? How far the society or education system gives a possibility of such self awareness to the common man or the aspirants of greatness in any field? As far as I know, such possibility is not available except a very, very few elites – elite in the sense of getting such knowledge. I am pointing to a society, whose culture embedded the highest value to the ‘self knowledge’ since the time the history is available about that culture.

If a person is having enough self awareness, for that person, moving towards greatness is a natural process. For such a person, there is no need for any more ideas to taste greatness. Unfortunately we are in a situation where nearly the whole population is not having self awareness or getting a bit of such awareness at a stage that it is too late to have any reasonable impact in their life. Hence there is a need for talking to other ideas as listed above, presented in the  essay. By going through these ideas, possibly one may become aware of the seat of his greatness.

1.     Coming down to reality,  without even knowing where(which field) the greatness lies for a person, the other 26 ideas need to be looked into. And one thing is sure – If one takes the trouble of reading this lengthy write-up,  there is a desire within him to be great somewhere. I believe, rather assert, luck favors such persons.  The catch is that Luck will not give greatness as a package, but through various situations. The desire of ‘to be great’ in that person will have to make the right choices in situations. The intensity of that desire is high, the possibility of right choice is also high.

Another problem with desire is that, very often people do not know how to desire. It is very common that two desires of the same person are with serious conflicts between them. In such a case, which desire should come into reality? – I think self awareness is the answer.

2.            This essay is targeted to a selected group. Hence it says all have the same brain power to become great. In the context of this commentary, for which there is no specific target group, even though the overall brain power is the same, the direction set-in in the brain are not the same. Hence everyone cannot be great; for the desire to become great is not with everybody. For those who desire greatness, for sure, evolution has given enough brain power. But that person must set his desire aligned to that set in the brain. Once the desire for greatness is there within a person and that desire is not in conflict with other strong desires of that person,  that alignment is possible.

4.            Courage to travel on an uncharted path is an essential quality for greatness in any direction.  But it should be real courage – not a made-up courage. Real courage is nothing but fearlessness. Made-up courage coexists with fear – which, more often, pulls down from greatness. Fearlessness does not mean, be blind to everything and go ahead, but it means see clearly and go ahead. 

7.            Within the limitations imposed on my horizon,  ‘Best working conditions need not produce best result’ is applicable to every field. This is one factor with a slightly modified perspective, according to me, is going to take a very big toll on the current young generation and if not corrective measures are taken, going to torture the generations to come.

Common life has become so simple and everything around life is systematically arranged for a mediocre life. A minimum level of wealth is the only necessity to have this easy life, earning that wealth is also relatively easy compared to the days of past. The brains of children grow-up in this well arranged society, added with extra comfort given by the parents under so many illusions, are not at all exposed to real life situations. When they grow-up and go to the outside world and in situations where they need to step out of the arranged systems, many such people do not know how to respond and psychologically collapse. Of course, due to the arrangement of society,  they can quickly step back into the system.  Those who fail to step back into the arranged system, lose their life miserably. This comfort given by economic prosperity and technological advancements, unless used consciously, will take away many of the qualities we call us human, from future generations. It will be the cause of the psychological suffering of the vast majority of the future generations.  I have such fear, but it may be just my illusioniory thought also.

In other words, if we are exposed to simple problems of life when we are young and probably guided to travel across, give the strength to face the much bigger problems of real life gracefully and can have a great life altogether. I have a feeling that, at least in the area of population available for my observation, in most of the reasonably well to do families, children are completely isolated from real life. They are almost growing in a virtual world.

9.            Believe enough to go ahead and doubt enough to solve the issues. This is one attribute, must have for any greatness, but in general missing everywhere. People tend to believe fully or doubt fully.  It is either – or, for almost everybody and is one of the main reasons such that greatness is a rare phenomena. But is it possible to cultivate this quality? May be possible, if constant education is given in this direction.

10.          ‘Think about only the problem at hand’ – This may be a speculative idea, which is possible for those who are very intense in the selected path or who have mastered their mind with lifelong work with that as their only aim. If one is having this quality, he is already a great, whatever field he is in. Further greatness just follows. But to cultivate this quality to become great is almost an impossible task,  as per my understanding of the functioning of mind.

11.          A very practical suggestion for everybody. We humans have a very, very short life span considering the potential we have to live our life, even if we are lucky to live a full life span of 80 or 90 or even 100 year, on a time scale of not even the universe, but just the earth’s life. It is like a single blinking, we come here and are already gone! In this short period, if we are not doing what we consider as important, leave alone all the greatness in social sense, at the core of our interior personality,  why the hell this creation gave a chance for us to have such a wonderful life  like this here.

As I write, it seems to me that I am deflecting from the actual ideas present in the essay and diluting it. And hence end it here.  

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Fabulous, TKA – thanks again. There is enough food for thought, over and above what Richard Hamming said, in your reflection…

There is also this young gent ‘Tamizhan’ who has shared his views & comments on Richard Hamming. Thanks to him too!

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