A bit of inspiration

Lights out Alice!

I have been starved. Starved of inspiration of late. Starved of good ideas, good people, good management skills and among everything else, starved of intelligence. Intelligent people are inspirational. You want to do better. You want to go ahead and give your best for them. You want to put in that bit of energy more and give one more crack at it. 

I still remember the "nuts and bolts for beginners" workshop conducted on a chilly evening outside the venue in Jamshedpur way back in 2014 in my first year of college as well as first year of participating in Formula or Baja Student events. It was not complexity that has stuck with me all these years. It was the simplicity of the message, conveyed succinctly and in a manner that the audience can remember as heuristics. No, it did not cover all the theorems or formulas. Yes, it could be classified as just as broad overview presentation that anybody could narrate. But therein lies the difference. Very few can take difficult to visualize scenarios in complex engineering situations and explain it in a manner that makes everyone immediately create a mental picture. What made it truly amazing was that people did not just stop at grasping a complex concept in a simple manner, the workshop made them ASK WHY. It made people who did not know how a certain type of bolt functioned or how forces were distributed to go on to ask why the distribution was designed in a certain manner and how it would be more suitable for it to go an work in a specific situation better.

I don't think I could ever convey the beauty of this transition aptly enough. In five minutes, disinterested or at least disengaged audience was transported to a realm where they started devising scenarios and questioning each other on what would be a better solution to a hypothetical problem presented on screen. This is what presenters dream of. This is what zenith of teaching and understanding the audience looks like. But more importantly, this is what a great teacher does. 

When I sometimes ponder whether a phd is the right decision for me, given the obligation in most part to turn into a teacher, this is what scares me. I have zero interest in being a mediocre, slide reading, question dodging teacher. What scares me is what if I become one? What if the realities of life or complacency soaks into me to the extent where I no longer care if I am doing my best. It is my true nightmare.

I already see complacency seeping into a lot of my life. I have been slacking and the simple litmus test of it is to check if I am thinking of taking a break or the next thing to strike off my to-do list. If I am procrastinating, I will try to think of ways of getting off a task, a surefire way of failing and complacency. If I a doing and am enjoying the task of getting things done, well, even then I need to do a second step check whether I am doing the things I am supposed to be doing or whether I am procrastinating on doing the things I am supposed to do by doing other important but not urgent things.

Anyhoo, this was inspired by the video of Neal Mohan going back to his Alma Mater, Stanford where he explained his processes and how he goes about this work. Inspirational and definitely filled me with gusto.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwHn-O_GeSg

Lights out Alice!