Having gone through an extended period of emotional turmoil, every ray of hope seems delusional. Things seem to be turning around for the better. I feel more calm despite the swarm of thoughts. The past few weeks of pondering and flexing the idea muscle has brought much needed calmness to my mind. There are still bouts of emotional upheaval but I would like to believe that I am getting better and improving as a person.
I still hold very strong beliefs despite knowing that there is so much I do not know. Probably – it is not a bad thing as it allows me to have an intellectually stimulating conversation with anyone. I can be fun and quirky and stupid with one cousin, while being all romantic and nerdy with my loved one. I love playing these different roles in an obvious non-chameleon-like manner.
Anyways, back to flexing my muscle:
‘One new idea related to technology‘
How can we leverage the human evolution to revolutionize technology? We are already starting to leverage neural networks to construct AI platforms. In an advanced version, can the memory storage be also built through neural structures such that only contents that matter to us more is highlighted in the memory? It will help in bringing up the critical contents to the user much faster and fade away the rest. Basically, prioritizing the storage memory for the user.
In a further advanced human society, probably just a few years down the line, when technology is able to record everything our eyes see into a memory chip, it will be even more critical to be able to have a memory like our brains so we do not expense it on unnecessary useless information.
‘One new scientific learning‘
I recently listened to another ‘People behind the Science’ podcast that had Dr Adam Gazzaley as a guest talking about Neuroscience, a field that does seem very exciting to me. He works more specifically on the cognitive aspects of the impact of video games. He provided a glimpse into the future – where the virtual and augmented reality will have such a critical role to play, and more importantly, how video games will lead the way in this exciting highly innovative field.
‘One new life lesson‘
Religion is not useless. I had weaned myself off religion over the last few years. But with all the emotional turmoil, I could have used religion to bring some sense of calmness into my life. Anyways, better late than never as I have realized that religion is very personal. It does not have to fit into the typical societal definitions. I do not believe that there is a Ganesha sitting above the clouds watching over us or for that fact, any such force. Maybe I am wrong about it as I probably could be, since we as humans, ‘probably’ know a very very tiny fraction about how this universe works.
Back to religion, I want to use it as a meditation tool. Singing religious hymns is a practical way of forcing your mind away from the daily mundane matters – essentially meditation. Today being Diwali, I decided to force myself to perform puja and it wasn’t that bad. I felt quite after those 15 minutes of puja specifically singing Hanuman Chalisa and trying to avoid thinking about anything else.
‘One new idea related to work’
Just need to explore other opportunities so I can get out of Xeljanz CDA role. I am excited how things are already happening possibly due to this blog series – one, I was able to create a slide about my vision at one in the morning, but it was appreciated and brought into the main deck. Second, I reached out to others to be part of a market research project, so that I generate exposure to other functional areas. Keep up the good work.
‘One new idea related to love/relationships‘
Have patience. Forgive others. Stay calm.
‘One new idea to further explore‘
Though financial investments has evolved to become a large part of my life over the last one year, I fail to write more about it. I do spend a large chunk of my free time either listening to music, talking to my loved one or following the stock markets.
I learned over the last few weeks about tax-loss harvesting and I need to complete that tactic by end of the year. Basically, claim loss of over $3000 dollars that will be offset against any gain (that I do have from Netflix shares and all those dividends piled up). I plan to combine this tactic by switching over to much lower expense funds or ETFs. I am paying too much in expenses reducing my overall returns.
Next – I need to write about the value of stock markets. The time spent is worth the vast amounts of knowledge and learning that I get about not just the financial markets, but also the global economy as a whole that in turn runs the world.
In Pursuit of Purpose 