My budget is for the stationery that I added – not the gizmos I had painstakingly collected over these years – that will be my next post – the stuff that runs on electricity.

If you have been following the last few posts you know how much I am troubled by these books – in a great positive way. “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand is no different like the great books I have read earlier. It puts a twist on individualism by linking it to creativity and how collectivism is crass base and all the bad things it represents. You can read the entire book to appreciate Howard Roark’s speech or if you are still curious to know what the ruckus is all about without spending a month or two you can see the speech here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4 . Don’t worry if you are intending to read this book its not going to take anything away.

The book is still sinking in. It kind of justifies some of my actions so far – and kind of makes me feel a little uncomfortable on what I could have / should have done. Instead of mulling over spilt milk this book focuses me like never before – to achieve an objective – can be anything – signing the 1000th autograph of your book and taking a break for your paining knucles, turning on the ignition of an audi and catching yourself in the rear view mirror with that wicked smirk,turning back and looking on the fast disappearing steps in snow on top of K2’s peak. …can be anything. And to achieve that objective you need not compromise on what you believe – the end is not the means by itself. Its the man who is the means. Integrity and uncompromising ideals is what one needs.

I remember another great stretch in this book where Howard Roark explains about “owning” other man’s work. You listen to Beethoven or Richard Wagner ( both I have been listening a lot lately ) and kind of get it in your own way – need not be the way Beethoven intended to be appreciated – but in a sense you have owned Beethoven’s master piece. You say “yes” in the sense of getting it – and you have owned the master piece. Howard Roark too says that if a person has said “yes” to his work, then that person now will own the building. I know it feels like lot of bs but it made sense to me..”yes’ Ms.Ayn Rand 🙂

Do read it – the love story between Howard Roark and Dominque Francon is kind of weird – not the run off the mill(s and boons) for you – made me uncomfortable reading it in the bus – wondering what my co-passenger think of me if he reads what I am reading – but otherwise it is one “swell” of a book.

I guess I will steal Murakami’s short stories from my wife for sometime. Gotto give the guy at the top a little break.

This book lasted 2 days. Started on a Friday after a colleague of mine managed to steal the book from his wife to keep his promise or to escape from my embarrassing remarks I made about not keeping your promise ( hey Georgie just joking 🙂 ). And I finished it on saturday. I am not bragging – its a simple read and its only 160 pages. The book is full of metaphors and inspiring thoughts. Perhaps I would put it along with Art of the Start by Guy kawasaki. Forget entrepreneuring – its all about thinking through the pathetic mediocre life one is having – and ask oneself – where are you headed.

I remember lying on top of the water tank of my second year hostel along with a friend called Musk. We were watching the flights on the landing path right above our head – with their wheels extended before they touch down minutes later at Meenambakkam. We did not know what business we were going to do but we were multi b and were doing quite some serious globe trotting.

Fast forward 10 years ahead and here I am – living an ordinary life. Day in and day out – the same routine repeats. Work, weekend, work, weekend. Fire up the editor, open word to read the stories ( agile you see !! ), work on a hobby open source project, read some tech blogs and nod or disagree about the latest rant on java or ruby or xml or whatever. Where am I heading? Is this the destiny I am set for? What if I pursued one of the what ifs. Reading this book made me feel – perhaps I should get fired and no one take me back as a salaried employee any more. Perhaps they steal everything from me, like our hero in the book, and he relearns new techniques. This bad book will make you think. There are lot of chains – home loan, kid, responsibilities, but now I feel these are all excuses I keep telling my heart. All this noise has made my heart go quiet. Perhaps it was telling lot of things to me but I kept shutting it up. The hero in the book learns to listen to the heart – perhaps I should try listening to it.

Anyway tomorrow its monday and I join the millions sleep walking through their lives. But tomorrow like Neo in the first part – will wear my black vogue -5 powered sunglass,and step out of my apartment aware that I am not sleeping any more. The Wachowski brothers will shoot the scene from above our apartment’s cracked roof – and ….yawn. Tomorrow is IPM and I have to catch some sleep tonight else I will not be able to understand what the stories are all about. Hello reality. Atleast you feed me. And heart..err..some other time. You prepare what you have to tell me – perhaps as a mind map – you know I do not like power point presentations. Not that I hate microsoft but power points are too mind numbing…will rant more in one of my posts.. you read it ok. Ciao.

I was in between books. Had a heady read of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance and had to unclog my brain !! And what a pick this book is. Totally mindless and riveting. Forget the story – cats talk, stones listen, time stops – it was fun to have a peek at the author’s mind.

* Archduke trio – Beethoven’s last composition I guess. One of the characters goes on and on about how good it is. I am trying to lay my hands on it – and on the way I am discovering Beethoven. Still I do not know what a minor C or D or symphony or sonata whatever means – but the discovery process has started. Also at the same time my son Mr.Prithvi awakened me about the power of classical music. The other day he was wailing uncontrollably and I was making stupid noises to no awail. Then I started singing the basic Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ne and he became quiet. It was a repeatable experiment. Now when I do variations of it as A B C D E F G H in the same tone he listens. Why -I cant fathom but one thing is certain. Music, especially classical music has some magic. So Beethoven is no more a deaf guy in my Dictionary – getting to know him more.

* This is kind of sick – so kids you can log off now. Our hero kid in the book reads a book – its about the trial of a german nazi general who oversaw the cleansing of Jews. He did his job with no feelings whatsoever. In his trial he outlined the challenges he faced – poor quality of the gas, how to manage the “operation”, how he had to over come red tapism. Finally when he was asked dont you feel bad for what you did his response was – I was just carrying out my orders in the best way possible. Is the general to be blamed?

Probably I am the millionth person to read this book and go ga-ga about it. This is my second attempt. First was in 1998 when I was in college a friend of mine ( who later turned out to be my wife 🙂 ) – was reading the book and it piqued my interest – so got hold of it and started reading. Did not survive more than 2 chapters.

Now again I gave it a go and what a read it turned out to be. Here is some gist of what I felt reading it.

Things in no particular order :

* Robert Pirsig, the author, says about “gumption“. What an idea – gumption is kind of an energy cum enthusiasm. You have to earn it by doing things – when you acquire gumption it gives a good feeling – kind of smug and happy feeling. I have felt it lot of times when I fix a problem or do some thing useful. The author says it in the context of fixing a motor bike – but you can feel it at lot of places – installing ubuntu on an old worn out computer. Now the trick is to watch out for the things which will drain gumption.

Ego is the biggest one. If I start doing the work to satisfy my ego it will drain all the gumption. For instance I say to myself alright here I am a linux geek. Now let me get this machine up and running with linux with some nifty hacks – thats a bad start. Now the simplest hurdle – lets say your CD got burnt with a bad sector and installation fails midway – or you cannot get the network up – will quickly drain the built up gumption. Because you started doing this work to satisfy your ego – not to reuse an old discarded machine to do things it was not destined to do when it was built. Now if the approach had all humility – alright let me have some fun in making this old guy see how 2008 looks like – and any small hurdles that come my way I can just hum and fix them – because my goal is not to satisfy my ego. I have felt it more than once – and I get frustrated and throw things away. Gotto watch out for this in future.

* Zen state: Zen, or chen or our own hindi word – dyan- means meditation. There are 3 ways of zenning – forgot the first 2 – something like you sit and meditate with no material thoughts. The 3rd one is the highest state – you do your work live your life and yet be aware of yourself and the outer world and you earn gumption living your life.

Also in another place he says how having a composed and calm mind helps create a great product. All you have to do is take a look at microsoft and ubuntu or OS X. Now microsoft has better developers, more PhDs than apple + linux GNU developers combined. But how can microsoft regularly dish out a sucky operating system – when compared with apple or linux volunteers. Its the state of mind. Microsoft employees have to put up with middle level managers who have to put up with high level managers who have to put up with a chair. Sad. The end result shows the turmoil of mind of the developers. The crazy volunteers blast music rippoed of bit torrent and create a rocking OS that is changing the world.

*Quality: What is quality. He starts by saying how quality splits classic view and romantic view. Oh I forgot to tell what is classic and romantic right. The parts of the motorcycle, the property, the science behind it – its the classic view. The beauty of the parts jelling together, the hum produced by the bike – just the joy of seeing a well built machine – its all the romantic view. Art vs hard facts. While reading it I got a feeling that perhaps I have not made much of an effort to appreciate the romantic side of things – trying to appreciate art, classical music – the right side brain of things. Perhaps with my educational background had always a classic bent on things.

Anyway, he first argues that quality is the entity that splits the world into classic and romantic – but then he dwells more into this hypothesis and comes with a brilliant analysis of how quality does not split the world but actually binds them and its the third entity. Kind of a trinity.

*Reference to Illiad : Now last december I read Illiad and there was a passage which Robert Pirsig had quoted in this book. Its about the villian ( but you will not get the feeling reading the book ) – Hector – going to his final battle where he will be killed by Achilles. His wife pleads him not to go and Hector speaks how heros speak with valour and pride. I was pleasantly surprised to see this passage getting quoted. Now the author brings this up to bash poor Aristotle. It seems till Aristotle came around the Greeks cherished such virtues – like how Hector speaks about destiny and living his full life and dying at war. Aristotle came and tried to define everything and there are things that cannot be defined – why will a man go to die or display his valour? – and that was the beginning of the end of romanticism in life. Everything has to be defined – else it does not exist according to Aristotle.

Now the author does not stop here – he goes on to make a connection between quality, virtue and dharma. – my brain just froze. You have to read this stretch to appreciate the philosophy.

*Mu : This was very interesting. Mu is a japanese word. Now a zen scholar was asked is there God in a dog. His answer was Mu. Its neither a yes or a no. It is one of the tri states – and in fact it means the question has too broad a context. Narrow your context or change your question. Pirsig in his onslaught of Aristotle explains this word – we cannot split everyting into two – and so on – we have to appreciate this fuzziness.