Success V.2.0

I have always been a gullible fan of self help unaware of the dangers associated with the type of mindset created by reading such material. I realize now that self help is somewhat similar to marijuana or drinking, which gives a momentary high but in the end leaves you in an even worse condition.

My journey with self help started when i probably first got hold of a free internet connection. Carol Dweck, who is a psychology professor at Stanford, states that children who are told that that they are geniuses suffer in the long run than children who are praised for their hardwork. Unfortunately i was always told i was a genius, since i happened to be the bright one in a family of four, which isn't really a lot of competition. I never really did very well in school although i was an above average student. I had to carry this burden associated with being a genius and had to constantly prove my self. Whenever i felt i couldn't really pull it off, i would stop working, which made the posteriori justification of my failure easy without denting my belief in the genius of my abilities. I must admit that i secretly worked hard and always tried to hide it which was one of the few reasons that a few impressively productive people did mention and praise my intellect and genius. I was able to fool a few people into believing in my genius when in fact it was grueling hard work. I wish i had been more open about the fact that i struggled with grasping things just like a normal person, at least i would have gone an extra mile this way without feeling ashamed even if i failed in the end. I was a typical "fixed mindset" (Carol Dweck).

I can roughly divide my life into two phases when it comes to work. With the above mentioned "fixed mindset", i balked at the first real challenge in life. I did not know how to work but always thought i was a genius, and this would eventually completely crash me. I got a real good job, and this time the incentives and disincentives were real. It wasn't school, where it would be fun to get even bad grades. There was a real shame associated with the fact that i was the weakest link. Being the weakest link and being a genius got me all messed up in my head and i eventually quit this job by not showing up. My family members were completely shocked, since i was the bright one, and i had to justify my failure by making excuses. I convinced them that my riches lay else where and they believed me because they thought that i could do it.

After spending the most miserable few months of my life i eventually got a job as a teacher in a remote college. Everything was pathetic about the job, the pay, the work environment, i had to live in the worst living conditions imaginable...everthing. This is precisely where i first encountered self help literature like Paulo Coelho's "alchemist" or Stephen Covey. Paulo Coelho was probably the one who got me in this mess in the first place and during this time i actually thought that i was the kid in the novelette. Stephen Covey forced me into making a constitution which now seems utterly ridiculous. I made a neat constitution which had all my passions listed, the do's and the don'ts, every imaginable crap i could think of. It was some brain washing technique to fool your brain into believing stuff. I also fell in love at this time, and love has a strangely energizing influence. My depression about the hell hole i was stuck in soon gave way to this marvelously amazing emotion. Energized by self help and love, i started working my ass off....literally. I took on an impressive work load without ever sleeping. People were amazed with my abilities. In phase one of my life, i was obsessed with my genius, but in this second phase, i got convinced that i wasn't a genius and therefore i had to work my ass off. I worked hard to prove something to my family and friends who had finally started thinking of me as a failure which was an extremely liberating feeling personally. Being called a complete loser helped me the most and i am till this day truly grateful for everyone who treated me like one.

I stopped sleeping and worked late night and i did achieve a lot in a year. But then, some strange things started happening. I started to loose my motivation, the self help book, especially "the alchemist" stopped working. I slowly got weary of working hard, and it became difficult to wake up in the mornings. In simple words i was burning out. The fuel in the motivation tank was running low. The love started feeling more like a burden and a responsibility. I dint feel energized, because honestly a girl isn't your motivational speaker, in fact i did start to blame her for not feeling energized which was kind of ridiculous.

I kept my grueling schedule though, as i exactly knew what would happen if i didn't (failure lesson No.1). I worked harder, woke up early and slept late. Always full of anxiety about my performance. I couldn't work at work and most of the time stared blankly at the computer screen. My productivity kept on decreasing and what previously worked for me simply stopped working. I focused on nothing but my work. No movies, no television, no going out, no literature, no philosphy etc etc. My life was becoming ridiculously boring. I focused on one thing which all the self help books told me to. In the end my productivity fell so low that i had to stop going to work since there was no point going there. I was a nervous wreck, i had more on my plate then i could ever consume. I started hating work, the work which i thought i was passionate about. I started reading philosophies like Alain De Botton's on work and the pleasures and sorrows associated with it. I started reading Nassim Taleb and started owning his disgust for work. I honestly started believe that work was slavery. My relationship with work deteriorated to the point that i was about to quit again, but this time the reasons were different. I knew there must be a solution, but the self help books and my relationship did not provide a solution. I was completely burned out. I listened to TED and BIGTHINK lectures about slowing down and work life balance but these principles were contradicting the self help crap that i was reading. I was living in a world of contradiction when amazingly i read a blog written by a post doc from MIT. Now here's a guy from MIT where people work to death and this guy is talking about working less. I finally found my case study for a paradigm shit. Nassim Taleb said that he was a flaneur who loved wasting time and then sometimes would work intensely for one hour. It wasn't very believable for me, because the details were missing. Success for me was synonymous with extreme hardwork. Cal Newport (MIT post doc) presented a very detailed picture of work which is compatible with a healthy and fun life style. I quickly read recommended books like the "four hour work week" and similar blogs about having fun and working less. Newport talked about chasing multiple passions. He had already written 3 books, and 7 publications during his Phd which is an achievement in itself, and he never worked after 5:30. He probably, by his own admission worked 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening and stressed on intensity. I had to follow this magic formula as my last hope. I had read about the "state of flow" in carol dweck's book which is a state in which enormous amounts of work is accomplished with complete singular focus on the task at hand. Feynman was famous for doing his physics in a strip club so he could avoid disturbance and enter in this strange magical world of perfect work. Well, since i had stopped working all together mostly due to anxiety and depression about my work, i therefore thought of giving this idea a try. So, one day, i chose a perfectly beautiful spot (not my cubicle) and decided to work intensely for 40 minutes. I cut away all the distraction believing that i could live without all the distraction for at least that long. I soon started typing away a program, and the magic happened. In a few minutes i was in a flow and started chipping away a program that i wanted to write for months. The whole program looked as if it was writing itself and i was a mere spectator in this magical experience. After 1 hour i quit and took a break and loitered around without the slightest sense of guilt. I browsed a library and got myself a really excellent classic novel, a passion i had given up years ago. I worked for 1 more hour the same day and i was amazed at what i had achieved by simply working intensely in short bursts. It was the most amazing anxiety free and relaxing day as i had the remaining 22 hours to catchup on my sleep, exercise etc which i probably didn't do because i felt like wasting time which could've been spent working. I walked a lot slowly and enjoyed the beauty around me. Previously i was walking really fast to save time, which was mostly wasted by constantly staring at a blank computer screen. The whole transformation was brilliant. With all the exercise i felt less fat and much better about my self.

I am now well into my third week and i have hardly worked more than 2 hours a day, although i am planning to increase my work to 4 hours. I have almost completed my novel and i have written this entire post in just 40 minutes which is an amazing feat and can only be accomplished if you are completely immersed in the flow state. I am hardly distracted while writing this and the words just type themselves out. I am about to quit and take a break where i am going to roam around, breathe the fresh air, enjoy the sun and relax.

So Chaoo!!!

link to Cal Newport's blog:
http://calnewport.com/blog/

link to Carol Dweck's blog:
https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/cdweck

Muslim Concience and Guilt

The problems faced by muslims right now can also be attributed to the enormous burden of guilt that weighs down any intellectual capacity for progress. I live with individuals who hail from modest backgrounds, and who believe knowledge to be in essence evil and who frequently cite conspiracies as proof of the evil agenda that the world has towards them. Let me remind you first that muslims in general suffer from superiority complex and honestly believe that their way of life and outlook on this world is not only better then what the rest of the world has to offer but far far superior. Now this thinking creates a dilemma as in real socio, political and economic terms muslims are probably far inferior to the rest of the world. I cannot generalize my opinion to the rest of the world as i have only experienced pakistanis, but the children of maududi, syed qutb and al-banna exist through out the muslim world, hence i make the assumption that this problem must exist with all muslims barring a few countries like indonesia where secular parties are firmly in charge. To justify their inferior place in this world muslims, particularly islamists need to present a counter conspiracy which is aimed at destroying their much superior position in this world. The bloated ego can only be justified if small events are blown out of proportion to give some semblance of a collective conspiracy, the recent blasphemy events are examples of this. Muslims are happy when the Danish Embassy gets blown up but are equally happy when they get a Danish visa after standing hours in a line. The contradictory and conflicting emotions found in most muslims is making most muslims psychotic. The recent example of Faisal Shahzad is one example of this psychosis, the main plan is to enjoy all the guilty pleasures of the west and earn a lot of wealth and if that doesn't work out then they can blowup things as a back up plan. Faisal Shahzad may not be an isolated incident. The iron curtain of stagnant thought created by the mullahs is the root cause of this psychosis. Muslims work in christian/jewish/hindu/athiest companies for christian/jewish/hindu/athiest bosses but continue to bad mouth these hard working individuals for conspiring to bring down islam or muslim superiority. The islamist agenda is to introduce more guilt into the muslim thought. The recent banning of facebook/youtube/wikipedia is one such example. Muslims will continue to use these websites via proxy but will feel guilty the next time they use these websites. Islamists are successfully fucking up muslim thought and are enforcing psychological chains of guilt.

PS: Where is Ataturk when you really need one? The only recourse against religious bigotry is nationalism. Ataturk used turkish nationalism to bring down the mullah's in Turkey. If we look closely then Pakistan is enriched with a number of nationlistic movements, each secular in its outlook. Pashtun, Sindhi, Mohajir national movements are secular. ANP, PPP, and MQM are hardcore anti-mullah. Theological bigotry can only be useful as a tool for unity, and it works but the side effects are too many and we must therefore find a better and more democratic solution.

An Iron Curtain is Descending on Muslim Thought

As the world political situation unfolds daily with relentless breaking news updates, i am getting more and more convinced that the muslim world is heading towards another dark age thanks to the followers of Syed Kutb, Hassan al Banna, and Maududi. The response to the social, political and economic challenges faced by the muslim world is not only lacking but is actually regressive. Islamists are taking the muslim world for a ride and the darkest hour is yet to come. The only silver lining could be that once these Islamists are exposed, then reformists would have a chance to usher in a new renaissance which would build solid foundations for social, economic and political reforms. The only pessimism is that this is not the first time that the muslim world has to start from scratch, Allama Iqbal and the great Ataturk gave us solid foundations to build a civilization which would be beneficial to the world. On the bright side, information is now freely available thanks to technological development and no on can possibly sensor free information in this day and age. We live in a modern world, a world which is the result of a collective effort, a world which has been built by contributions of the greek, indian, chinese, arab and western civilisation. Its a unified world and it belongs to everyone. The very argument of islamists of "we" against "them" is hollow and would soon be exposed once the muslims suffer further because of this delusional logic. The myth of the islamic state needs to be laid to rest before any decent system could be built based on freedom of speech, and socio economic justice.

PS:
Coincidentally, just after writing about living in a free information world will change things for the better, i hear news that Pakistan has just banned both youtube and facebook. Can you believe it, this means we are heading straight to the dark ages. We are willing to ban knowledge itself because of our collective insecurities. The islamists are truly incharge right now and i think that the subjugation of atleast Pakistan is complete with the introduction of bans on the internet itself, the very thing that i was optimistic about is the first thing that has been targeted by the mullahs. The question still remains, can they really ban the entire internet because honestly there's a lot more things on the internet then just facebook and youtube.

Hard Work and Discipline

Success is all about discipline, getting up early, working hard, living in the present and focusing on the allotted tasks for the day and if there is time left at the end of the day then do something creative. This is what i have learned by watching my room mate who is a graduate of MIT. Success is also about a complete lack of fear, fear of failure etc which could possibly lead to over confidence but most of the time we just fear things that shouldn't be feared at all. Be open to failure and always believe that by working hard you can improve. By accepting failure you will not let anyone down, be open with people and communicate your weaknesses openly and not shy away from a challenging task which would obviously expose all your weaknesses. It would also give you a chance to improve and learn about your weaknesses. Success depends on doing things that are hard and which would make you err and make mistakes, which would eventually be a learning process.

Career Change and Mid Life Crisis

Naturally one gets bored with what one does on a daily basis. It is hard at times to keep up with the daily drudgery and it takes a significant toll on your motivation to work. Work was synonymous with slavery just a few hundred years ago. terms like passion and work do not make an interesting combination. One must always wake up and realize that work is hateful and one shouldn't waste time finding meaning in it. Work has its purposes, mostly related to economic gains, beyond that work could only be considered fleetingly meaningful. The real meaning rests in the hobbies that one has in addition to this daily drudgery. Hard work and commitment and discipline are the only things that would lead to economic gains. As Douglas Adams once said about writing books, you just have to stare at a blank piece of paper until your head bleeds. Work is not a pleasant experience and any attempt to market it as such would only lead to more dismal results. Work is effortful and painful and one can only get the economic gains by strictly promoting discipline. Hobbies are the wonderful passions that you must enjoy to make sense of this world and to keep a healthy life-work balance.

Tarek Fatah: Muhammad's Marriage to Aisha

I have recently become interested in the writings of Tarek Fatah who is a pakistani-canadian and frequently writes on topics related to Islam. He aims to expose Islamism or the islamic political establishment founded by the muslim brotherhood and the likes of Hassan Al-Banna and Maududi. I personally thought of him as a secular western intellectual whose soul aim was to expose and question islamic thought. Naturally I assumed a defensive posture to his writings but recently he wrote an article against Wafa Sultan, an extremist anti-arab racist hate monger who denounces everything that is muslim. She declared war on islam and put me in a very uneasy place, although i am a secular agnostic but to go against the very essence of an entire culture and mythology was something that i wasn't comfortable with.

Wafa Sultana visited a jewish synagogue and openly berated Muhammad's marriage to Aisha and calling him a child rapist and a criminal. Muhammad's marriage to Aisha was personally for me an eye opener a long time back and something which was for me very difficult to believe. Most of the religious exploration i did in my teenage years convinced me that Aisha was indeed 9 years old when the marriage was consummated. I never for once heard any religious leader tell me otherwise. I am inspired by Muhammad although not in a religous way but i do believe that he happens to be one of the most influential spiritual, political and religious leader. What troubled me was how islamists justified their own child marriages by citing this example over and over again. Child brides is a tradition of many arab and primitive muslim countries.

But then again, i read Tareq Fatah who completely anhilates the religious establishments view on this issue and gives historical evidences that she might be over 20 years of age when she got married to Muhammad. The entire 9 year old view is based on a couple of hadiths and the failure of muslim thought to question and intelligently debate hadiths has led us to believe that there isn't another explanation. Historical resources otherwise contradict these hadiths, hence from now on, no perverted islamist has any authorized reason to marry a child, thanks to Tarek Fatah.