Monthly Archives: November 2017

Book Review, Review

Blinked

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Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without ThinkingBlink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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I picked this up a second time. Thanks to Buffalo-Erie Public Library System for providing this free facility.

Blink takes the reader through some case studies and associated case studies on snap-judgements and its base on expertise, prejudice and autonomous nervous system.

It was interesting to wonder if some Kathakali artists could collaborate for the facial action coding system. For the uninformed Kathakali is an old art form mixing drama and dance, action and emotions. Kathakali artists spend a lot of effort in efficiently enacting the required dramatic sequences based on Indian (Hindu) mythology. It takes equal amount of effort from the audience to understand the performance. This art form is considered to be the height of acting. It is also an old saying in Kerala that face is the mirror of mind (മുഖം മനസ്സിന്റെ കണ്ണാടി). And blink re-affirms that mind reading (read face-reading) is for real.

Malcolm also says about well educated people doing blink judgements and actions which may be right or may not be right based on the habits built by exercise. While the policemen killed Diallo because of their bad exercise, and Paul Ekman could judge facial expressions to predict the nature and behavior of persona by good practice. Musical experts picked up good music performed behind the screen and also got dissatisfied by seeing a woman performing trombone , when the screen was removed later, due to prejudice of expecting only males perform high quality trombone.

In the afterword, Malcolm wishes to urge the US American jury system to adopt the “screen” to avoid prejudice in official judgement that may creep in due to the jury system of USA. This brings in a question about the jury system itself. The world class movie “Rustom” vividly portrays and adaptation of real story that used the last jury system based judgement that happened in India. I was wondering why the system was restricted to judgement by judge alone in India. If USA uses jury system that must be good. Ain’t it ? Blink reassures me that definitely, well educated individuals in jury hardly know legality and constitution. They are influenced by their prejudices and what the they feed themselves a.k.a media and opinions as demonstrated in the actual court case which inspired the movie “Rustom”.

In this same way, as a reader, I would have to read people by face, I can know their mind. Let rationality take over instead of pre-judgement in case of confrontation and confusion. Let me be guided in the right direction as the Gayatri Mantra states.

 

Book Review, Review, Uncategorized

Reading Napolean Hill’s – Keys to Success

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Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal AchievementNapoleon Hill’s Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement by Napoleon Hill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Having read Think and Grow Rich and quiet impressed by it, this was a natural choice to pick up from my wishlist. Napolean Hill does an amazing job in formulating the idea that we all have heard or seen practiced. However, we never got a chance study and condense them into these 17 principles that Napolean discusses. To mention them , they are:

  1. Have definite goals
  2. Form a team that actively improve by symbiosis
  3. Improve personality
  4. Have Faith with practice
  5. Do the extra work
  6. Be Initiative
  7. Have positive attitude
  8. Control enthusiasm
  9. Be disciplined
  10. Think based on facts
  11. Focus
  12. Inspire – Teamwork
  13. Learn from failures
  14. Be creative
  15. Be healthy
  16. Manage Time and Money
  17. Discipline the habits

This formulation works with any goal. I have personally experienced this by  revisiting some of my personal experiences where I set a goal and achieved it.  Though I had neither read this book at that time nor tried any self-analysis. But after reading the book it turns out true that I have actually followed most if not all the steps mentioned.

It is common sense that we are normally limited by resources at a specific time. Mostly these resources are monetary savings, emotional savings, personal health and accomplishments (read failures), facts available and the level of belief and confidence.

Like we notice with anything else, if we are really good at a particular thing we tend to perform better than the expected normal on other subject. Say , if you are a student in school. If you are really good in English you will definitely notice a great improvement in your social science or history test results because of your English and the confidence that it creates within you.

Habits are nice to have in which we auto pilot most of the stuff that we need done, so it becomes muscle memory than a strenuous mental computation process. This helps us put all the routine task to auto pilot so we focus on goals that need creativity and focus.

 

There are multiple other books that took some of these principles and expanded upon it.

Habits are nicely covered by Stephen R. Covey

Focus is touched upon by Cal Newport in Deep Work

Norman Vincent Peale had expanded upon power of positive thinking

Everyone has faced faith either by force or by habit, to realize it by applied faith and practice is upon the self. Whenever Napolean says about faith I pass through the paragraphs since I believe in something, that some people call religion. Every person has her/his own opinion and faith. If that works for them then look no further. This is de-facto covered by default.

I could easily relate to having used these principles in some of my job searched. The last search was highly effective. We had an awesome team of job seekers, all from my research group. All planning on graduating and we used to discuss our research and job search alike. Though we had different target graduation dates and goal deadline, we all achieved it. Did our graduation, defended thesis/defense, published it, got a job. The magic of working in groups and discussing is rare. To get such a group at the right time and to nourish and learn from the group was a great learning experience.

 

Throughout the 17 points listed , one theme is evident. That is control. A person in charge, in control of their destiny plans ahead, plans for failures, assimilates resources, focuses at the goal to be attained and devotes time, effort and resources in relentless pursuit with completely controlled enthusiasm. This is driven by positive attitude supported by discipline in actions and thoughts. This is exactly what the book articulates.

Overall this is a nice read, if you know something just skip that section and the book will yield what you picked it up for.

 

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Sense of Time

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I would wake up everyday. Just like any other day. This was yet another day. Exciting as usual. A running clock adds to the excitement of awaiting adventure. And I start upon a new one. This time it is about time. And it is time. Time changes and now it was forcibly changed. The circadian rhythm of the human mammal with all its intestinal fortitude could not hold the time. The norm of life in this part of the world. Fall back and change back from daylight savings to normal time. For whom, I asked ? I received replies of various tones, repeating the old farmer’s story who wanted to save time in the form of daylight savings, invariably the justification reassure that farmer’s depend directly on the daylight and sunrise, not the artificial clock. A farmer’s life is not a “9 to 5” joke with coffee breaks meant for gossip and lunch time focused on chitchat and not on satisfying the imminent hunger. A sense of time does not exist for such frivolous activities. Any real work accomplished in this way is really an achievement. Focus on the work than the focus on making work look like it is not work, can turn cumbersome. Why not get the work out the way, within the realms of time allotted? Free the rest of time and really enjoy the daylight and save time with a sense of time. Now, I am lucky to have a work where the sense of time is based upon the priority of work and work-at-hand rather than the hours-requirement. In this way focus brings in a sense of time and vice versa. Quality-time put in work releases dependency of work on time. In turn removing the sense of time. Focus, plan and a target goal within a time framework helps save time. And when next time someone says about daylight saving time and how it affects their daily routine and public in general, it will make no sense. Because, no one really saved any time by turning the clock hands. As an environmentally conscious human one may try to save the tube light time in office. Use the daylight time, keep the blinds open and let the natural light help us light up our workspace. Yes. A Tube-light Saving Time (TST) instead of Daylight Saving Time (DST) . In this way, time attains another dimension. A dimension of sense, or should I call time as another sense in addition to basic senses of humans?

-Sense of Time series-

  • Sense of Time - I would wake up everyday. Just like any other day. This was yet another day. Exciting as usual. A running clock adds to the excitement of awaiting adventure. And I start upon a new one. This time it is about time. And it is time. Time changes and now it was forcibly changed. The circadian … Continue reading Sense of Time →
  • Vanishing point - An average timeline of  a human can be drawn starting from birth to school, progressing to university and job and marriage and help repeat all the same for the kids. This canned solutions in life is a proven time tested sequence. The authority of which is questioned only by a few. So far, the biggest … Continue reading Vanishing point →
  • Wake Up - Work life habits are like rock. I would wake up at 5.30 am. Listen to the soothing sound from my phone. The wake up call with a Native American touch to it, resembling the flute of Carlos Nakai. In the background the birds chirp and the wake up call for a hunter, ready to pick … Continue reading Wake Up →
  • Blizzard - Nature is by far the best cure for passing time. Problem in passing time is a common boredom oriented disease. I have met extrovert complain about boredom. Even Issac Asimov said this. I do not have to believe it. It is belief that add weight to visions. It is this belief that converts the unreal … Continue reading Blizzard →