Girish's Blog

In the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher and scientist, wrote: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."  One of my goals for 2021 is the ability to sit down in a room and examine myself, for (continuing the European philosopher theme) as the Greek philosopher Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living". As I set down, the mind is still whirling - absorbed in the past or thinking about the future. It takes a few deep breaths to bring a sense of control and awareness of an inner existence apart from the cacophony seeking my attention outside. It's tough - a few minutes later I realize that I'm back to mind-wandering. I still feel wrapped in the many roles I don -  father, husband, son, brother, neighbor, worker, citizen. It takes time to shed these one by one, feeling lighter as they all drop off. As Shankara says, in the NirvanaShatkam:  ...Nor was I ever born, nor had I pare...

The NY Times had an article on new habits and the benefits of getting out of the rut: ....brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives. And the New Yorker had a piece on generating big ideas , featuring the new venture of the former Microsoft CTO, Nathan Myhrvold and his innovation factory - Intellectual Ventures. Ideas weren’t precious. They were everywhere, which suggested that maybe the extraordinary process that we thought was necessary for invention—genius, obsession, serendipity, epiphany—wasn’t necessar...