Reaching There

Writing is like living a life. You have your glory moments and other times it’s just hard work at its best. Sometimes a brilliant thought flows through the mind like honey and other times it just takes ages to even get a sentence on the page. There is an age old adage we all have heard; which just says patience is virtue. Yet the patience is like that elusive 'A' in the grade reports of our lives. We all love straight A's yet there are some C's that matter a lot and patience plays an important role in each of these. This is my post dedicated to those C's that help us move on through our daily grind called life. The First C Confusion is a word dreaded by most. It’s a word that unfortunately carries with itself all the wrong connotations. Yet it could be the best friend you might ever have! Confusion points to all possibilities surrounding a situation we are part of. It opens up a world of possibilities that exist. Confusion also acts as a catalyst that fastens the ...

राधे राधे  “Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.” Kate Reid. An interesting quote to say the least. Expression is defined as "communication of your beliefs or opinion through various sensory mediums". It is the single most important tool for us, the social animals. It is the way to define who we are, not only to others but to ourselves too. Most of the time our opinion about us is based on the external inputs we get from our parents, peers, friends etc. But we have always lacked the courage to sit down and define ourselves. For in defining ourselves we come across flaws we have so far ignored for our own mental benefit. But like a beautiful building the weakness lies not in the facade we see but in the dark corner of the basement where a beam is slowing rusting. It is the dark corners in ourselves we have always ignored but continuously worked on improving the facade.  Laura Linney in describing a good actor's brains says the ques...

Why is red red? What is an amphibian? What is a right angled triangle? What is a galaxy? What is efficiency? Who was Deming? Who is God? What is spiritualism? Who are we? These are some of the plethora of questions that arise in our minds during our lifetime as we grow from an infant to an adult. Sometimes we struggle a lot before we arrive at an answer. And arriving at an answers through research and struggle brings us joy and increases our wonder.  Well, I am not going to answer any of the above said questions. However the question I am worried about is "Why do we stop asking such innocent questions as we grow up"? Particularly the last three questions which play an important role in our lives. The last three questions came in our mind a lot of times but we never delved into researching and finding answers. The inquisitiveness and sense of bemusement vanished as our age increased by a one every year on our birthday. Although the concept of learning organization is...

राधे राधे  "Look at the bigger picture".  We have heard this phrase quite a few times in our lives from our parents, teacher, managers, peers etc. I have wondered at times what exactly does it mean! Is it looking at things in a holistic manner or does it mean putting myself out of the equation to observe something? I was never clear about it until a few days ago. But when it hit me I could not stop thinking about it. I have finally figured out what it means to me. To understand the roots of my understanding you will have to bear with another understanding of my own. I have believed for some time that we create a bubble of all things we are comfortable with around us. Whether it is our favorite newspaper or our family. This is the bubble which gives us a feeling of protection and warmth. We don't want to venture out of it. The same goes for our thinking. We have practiced thinking in a particular way that familiarity leads to monotonicity. In a movie called "Proof...

The Japanese work " kaizen " means improvement. In more common practice, especially in the world of manufacturing, it is interpreted as "continuous improvement". While going on internet looking for meaning of "kai" and "zen" I came across a myriad of meanings. The following are some of the meanings: Kai: change, effect, use, world, story Zen: good, meditation ( from Sanskrit word  dhyānam,  "meditation") If you search the word "kaizen" on web you'll find hundreds of link related to productivity improvement. But for a moment if I leave my industrial engineer mind and just concentrate on the word itself I get a whole new perspective on "continuous improvement". Let us try and see how can we relate with kaizen. Someone has wisely said "Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely". Everyday we see changes happening around us. The whole universe itself is in a continuous series of motion...

Inside an Actors Studio: Steven Speilberg I recently watched Steven Speilberg's interview on James Lipton's Inside the Actors Studio (on youtube!). One of the biggest piece of adivce was his answer to how he direct child actors in his movies. There are quite a few movies in which his story was told from a point of view of a child (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Empire of the Sun). He answered "I don't treat them like children I treat them like my peers". He further added that the moment he begins treating them like children he would become the overbearing adult. This gave me an indirect lesson on how manager or a team leader should treat his team members. He should treat them like individuals who have their own individuality, personality, aspirations and emotions. He should respect their existence in the team and listen to their opinion with a "porous" mind. The reason I used "porous" mind because such a listener gives the oppor...