Here’s a situation I’ve experienced quite a few times:
- I come up with some cool idea or approach to solve a problem
- I tell someone about it
- That person tells me that I ought to patent it and/or make money off of it
It kills me when this happens.
First, this perspective directs the motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic. I came up with the idea because I thought it would be cool if it existed. The mere fruition of the idea would make me very happy. It’s not about the money or the credit. It’s about solving some issue to make my or other people’s lives better.
Second, we put too much importance on “protecting†our ideas. Honestly, it’s unlikely that someone will steal your idea. There’s an enormous amount of work that goes into turning an idea into reality.
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.†– Thomas Edison
If someone does happen to do all the work of following through on your idea, then they probably deserve to reap the benefits.
Third, ideas don’t really belong to anyone. They simply arise in the process of creativity, which builds upon ideas that others have come up with.
Fourth, ideas become more useful when they’re allowed to mingle with other ideas, especially from different minds. Something idealistic might turn into something practical. Or perhaps an approach to one problem will solve another problem.
The bottom line:
- Ideas are cheap
- Execution is expensive
- Ideas multiply in effectiveness when they’re shared
- All of the above are required to get something valuable
As for my situation, it’s clear that I need to be even more open with my ideas. So that’s exactly what I’m doing. Check out my new project at http://ideas.sonicans.net where I’ll be sharing all sorts of ideas. Some will be ones I have or intend to follow through on. But this won’t be the case for most of them. So if you see something you like or find interesting, feel free to take the idea. To share and discuss it. To remix it. To bring it to life. I hope the world will be better off for it.
Note: I refer mostly to the reading of non-fiction books in this post
“I love to read!†These are some words that every school teacher and parent would be enthralled to hear from their kids. And our teachers and parents work so hard to get us to read, telling us that it is essential to our success. Yet, through multiple metrics, like the repeated statistics that kids aren’t meeting reading standards or that adults do very little reading in general, there’s a clear disconnect between the the desire and the reality. I’m not sure what the perfect solution is to get people more interested in reading, but as someone who has gone from non-reader to a voracious reader, I share some experiences that provide light on the matter.
For most of my life, I didn’t like reading because iit was something I did only in school or had forced upon me by authority figures. It felt like something that was work and it was neither fun nor something that I chose to do. In most cases, I found the literary works uninteresting. But for school, I was required to read it and then participate in class discussions (and by discussions, I mean the desperate teacher prodding us students to guess the bazillion hidden intents made by the author). I found the whole exercise pointless and didn’t see how it connected to real life matters. I’m sure many of my classmates shared this sentiment. And we marched on through our school lives, reading only when we had to, associating it as some necessary and boring activity that required a lot of effort yet yielded little legitimate value.
It wasn’t until my third year of college – near the end of my formal education – that I saw a tiny light indicating otherwise. At the time, I was looking into ways to improve my eating habits and my exploration fueled my desire to learn about the machinery behind our food system. I picked up The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Despite the elegance of Pollan’s words, it took me about four months to finish the book. This wasn’t a surprise considering that this was probably the first non-fiction book I had ever read on my own accord. I wasn’t used to reading such a long work so it took an exorbitant amount of time and effort to get through it. However, the experience was very eye-opening – it revealed that reading such a work is enjoyable and a great way to learn.
Flash forward to now – four years later. I’ve probably polished off about seventy-five non-fiction books since. And my rate of reading has increased exponentially. That is, I read a handful of books when still in school, and even more after finishing school. And then it exploded – I feasted on books, reading one after another, or as more often the case, two or three in parallel. Despite that I began working full-time in 2011, I began to read even more, stuffing sessions into my commute and weekends. I’d become addicted.
So what happened? How did this transformation occur? The first and most significant factor was that reading allowed me to learn about the things I found interesting. And it became self-perpetuating – as I read more about things that interested me, I became interested in other things that the books discussed, and I ended up reading books on those topics. It was also self-fulfilling: because reading allowed me to delve into subjects I was passionate about (or became passionate about – the order is sometimes a blur), I became passionate about reading itself.
The second factor is that it became easier to read as I read more. The ability to read is much akin to training like an athlete or artist – it requires a lot of consistent practice and concentration – especially in the beginning when we’re prone to fumble around. The ease and grace comes after a lot of initial work. I sense that most people that don’t like to read, if not all, never get over this hurdle. They never get to a level where it’s easy to get into a reading groove and breeze through long or complex works with ease.
The third factor is that our school teachers and parents are correct – reading goes a long way to make us more intelligent, wise, and conscientious individuals – essential qualities to do well in our complex world. This is especially the case for non-fiction works. In my own experiences, I’ve found that I better understand the world and how it operates on a deep level because of all the explorations, research, and insights I’ve become exposed to from all the various perspectives of the authors. Likewise, this has bolstered my creative ability by providing more parts for my creative toolbox. Reading allows my experience in education to continue despite that I’m out of school. My formal studies involved the natural sciences and computer science, and I also had some informal study of the social sciences. But through reading, I’ve learned a great deal about psychology, economics, world problems, self improvement, social etiquette, business, history, media, and marketing. Here’s a handful of books that illustrate the breadth of knowledge out there:
Children of Jihad by Jared Cohen – Â an American student reveals the story of the Middle East youth through a blend of his firsthand experiences from exploring the Middle East and the history that has brought its cultures to the present state
The Lucifer Effect by Phillip Zimbardo – the creator of the legendary Stanford Prison Experiment dives into details of his study and the analogous Abu Gharib tortures to show how human morality can be altered almost completely given the right environment
Food Politics by Marion Nestle – this nutrition, food studies, and public health professor exposes the relationship between the food industry and our political system and how it produces the our food system – one that is geared for the industry at the expense of our health
Linchpin by Seth Godin – this marketing genius shows how the way we do work has shifted away from an industrial model to one that allows us to become indispensable individuals that do meaningful work
Each of these works explores something that affects us profoundly – it’s difficult to argue that any of them don’t explore areas that are relevant to our daily lives. This is why I so strongly believe that reading books is so important for us as individuals and as a society. Likewise, this is why I find reading to be so interesting. I love to read. Why not say it too?
As those who know me know, I’ve become pretty much impossible to get a hold of by nearly any means of instant communication. This might come as a shock, as it rides against the convention of our always on, always accessible culture. This isn’t a matter of disregard or a lack of consideration for others. It’s actually the opposite – by using these communication tools this way, I’m free to provide my full attention to the experience at hand, and the people I’m with.
We have so many technologies that allow us instant communication – phone calls, texting, emails, instant messages, and video chat. It’s not that I’ve stopped using them – in fact, I have access to all of them on my app-phone, a device that I almost always have with me. But I keep my phone on silent most of the time – it’s only allowed to get my attention when I’m expecting an important call or message. So for the most part, phone calls, text messages, and instant messages are used in a delayed response fashion (this goes doubly so for emails, where notifications are turned off altogether).
I do check on up on messages, but the interval varies immensely. If I’ve got some dead time while walking somewhere, or waiting for code to compile at work, or actually using my communication device to do some light reading, I’ll take a look and triage or reply to messages. But if I’m out doing stuff like skating around the city or spending time with friends, or if I’m in the middle of a coding spree at work, it could be hours before I check on messages.
Now this seems like quite a bit of inconvenience, for me in that I may miss important or urgent messages, and for others that are trying to reach me. But there’s two major points that ameliorate this concern. The first is that messages are hardly as urgent as they seem – many of them can be replied to later. Likewise, many seemingly urgent messages are artificially urgent, often due to a lack of foresight in planning. For many folks I interact with, this isn’t a problem [anymore] because they know to mention things to me early and not at the last minute if they wish to get a response. I find that this actually helps to make everyone’s plans more consistent.
The second and more outstanding point is that by ignoring my phone, I’m allowed to achieve flow, a mental state of intense focus, efficiency, and enjoyability. This is something we induced constantly in karate class, where we took the time to meditate at the beginning of every class. This served to put us in a mindset where nothing else mattered in the world outside of the dojo: any concern or problem was irrelevant and the training before us was the only thing we were to have in mind. In a pragmatic sense, this held very true, and this intense focus was necessary to push our minds and bodies to new levels. At the end of our training sessions, we meditated once more to  prep our minds to return to the real world. This tenet in karate to train only with an absolutely focused mind applies to most other aspects of life – when engaged work, play, learning, and with other people. I experience an enormous sense of liberation when I’m in such a state of mind – that there’s only one thing that I have concentrate on.
Fittingly, I feel most connected with the experience at hand when I’m disconnected from everything else – the benefits are incredible: At work, it permits me to engineer a solution to some complex and mentally demanding problem. When reading, it allows my mind to drift into that of the author, where our ideas mingle to form new ones. When writing, it means i can surface the months or years of experience and learning into a concise article, like this very one you’re reading.
Being inaccessible to others for the sake of the above examples seems to come off as a selfish act. But the application for flow applies when engaged with people because it imbues that one is completely accessible. At work, this means I can devote my full attention to answer a coworker’s question. When out roller blading, it means I can push my friends harder while minding the roads for hazards. When with friends and family, it means I can listen to their thoughts and ideas and make for a meaningful conversation. You can’t put a value on giving a person your full attention.
This manner of using [and ignoring] communication technology has come through a lot of mindful experimenting and observation. In the process, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and even offended a few people. But I’ve come out with a strong sense of how to make the best of these tools, gaining the ways to connect using new technologies while keeping intact the more sacred connections of here and now. I suggest trying your own experiment with this. Evaluate how you use phone or emails. You might find a life more focused on the things that matter most.
Many folks consider me to be a creative person – that creativity is one of my more positive traits. Although endearing, I always found the compliment to be awkward because I feel that all people can be creative – that it doesn’t require being in a special class of individuals. I recently came across this quote on creativity by Steve Jobs. He’s pretty much spot on:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people have.
Creativity is indeed about putting ideas together. The more ideas you have (and the more varied they are), the more “parts” you have to work with in forming new ones. That’s really it. The upshot is that this makes creativity more a skill that can be developed than a talent that one is fortunate to be born with (though I suppose it helps to some degree to have a pattern mind).
The opportunity to develop creativity is better than ever before, considering the world of knowledge available to us today. But it requires an open mind. It means accepting different perspectives. It demands questioning what’s conventional. These are not easy things to do, but the payoff is massive. Creativity allows us to find wonder in new places. It provides us that aha! moment when we come up with a better way to design something. Most importantly, it instills progress. The “gift” of creativity isn’t about the individual – rather, the gift is what creativity gives us and the world.
I feel very fortunate to live in this ever evolving information age – that attaining knowledge has become so easy. There’s a story I love to share that really illuminates how amazing our time is. It is about encyclopedias.
When I was a kid growing up in the ’90s, I saw advertisements on TV for print encyclopedias. It was knowledge in a condensed form, but not condensed enough. It took up 3 bookshelves and cost quite a lot of money. In the late ’90s, when I was around twelve or thirteen years old, I had a personal computer in my house – something fairly rare among my peers. And with it, I had a CD with an encyclopedia on it. How amazing it was at this time, to have a boatload of knowledge in my home – I recall how awesome it was to look up information about the Hindenburg disaster, even watching video of the event itself.
Flash forward to today. There are three very interesting forces coming together. The first is the addition and organization of information. We have Wikipedia. We have YouTube. We have TED Talks. We have online video lectures. We have e-books. We have web access to newspapers archived into decades. We have Google to help us sort through all this. Nearly all of this is free. Almost none of this existed back in 1998. The second astonishing thing is the ease of access of this information in our modern world where high speed internet is common and, in metro areas, we have ubiquitous internet access between cell networks and wifi hotspots. The third is that the “computers” we use to access this information fit in our pockets. App phones are part of our daily carry. Tablets and netbooks are litter our travel bags and living rooms. There is little standing in the way to learning – neither time nor space.
I imagine the 14 year old version of me living today. He encounters something he’d like to know more about. So he pulls out his iPod Touch, connected to a free wifi hotspot, and finds what he’s looking for on Wikipedia. Then he finds a related video on YouTube. Then, when he gets home, he incorporates this knowledge into some project he’s working on. This kid, because he has such easy access to knowledge at an early age, has the potential to be smarter than anyone that has come before him.
In a sense, this principle applies to each of us, regardless of age. We are each presented the opportunity to become more knowledgeable today than anyone had just a few years ago. And as interesting as this world is today, I’m even more excited for what’s to come in the future. Imagine knowledge, in the pervasive and accessible form we have available now, multiplied across billions of individuals. Some amazing things are in store.
As you may know, I’d been looking for work for a while and recently started at Google. Many friends are astounded by this news and are so happy that I landed the dream job. Likewise, I know many folks that are looking for work so I’d like to share the things that helped me get to where I am now.
Unconventional {Methods, Companies, People}
Much of what I discuss here is unconventional and even backwards seeming. Bear in mind that consistency is important: while the process below is unconventional, so too are the companies I targeted and the kind of person I am. What I did would not work for most potential jobs. Likewise, these methods may not work for many people. Let’s get a few definitions straight for the purposes of this article: the dream job resides at an unconventional company (and the world would be better off if we had more of these). This is the sort of company that offers much freedom (like work hours, working conditions, and projects), a nurturing environment (one that promotes learning, growth, and little bureaucracy), and solid compensation (salary, benefits, perks). 
By the same token, this job expects incredible work out of their employees: solving hairy (but interesting) problems, using creativity and thought to make significant decisions, and taking responsibility for getting stuff done and done well. I consider it more than a fair tradeoff. (Note: the dream job is not something that is easy where you can just cruise around on your managerial chair, raking in the dough.) Â I feel it takes an unconventional person to take on this role (I could be wrong, but the description that follows won’t suit everyone). These are the sort of people that are go-getters. They’re the ones that like challenges and may take on difficult work (like in school) for fun. They don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. They’re troublemakers for sure, but they also make the impossible a reality. They’re the ones that want to do work that matters. If this applies to you, then read on.
Think Long Term
Pretty much everything I cover here involves a long term approach. I can almost guarantee that you won’t find any instant results. This entire process took about one year for me – but it was well worth it and my success would have been impossible if I didn’t invest in building for the future at the cost of the present. Don’t be discouraged if things don’t work out. Keep pressing on – your efforts will compound and at some point you’ll pass the tipping point.
Some Good Reading and Great Ideas
It seems I’m not alone in these unconventional thoughts. Desire for meaningful work has grown in the past few years. Seth Godin, marketing genius and someone who has his head on straight regarding good work, has discussed this for at least a year. His book, Linchpin, chronicles his thoughts and offers unconventional advice to practically do work that matters. Many of the strategies below were inspired or solidified by what he says. I highly advise checking it out, along with his blog, which is filled with succinct yet insightful posts.
Know Yourself
What is it that moves you? What is it that drives you to get up every morning? Knowing what you care for gives you a strong foundation for every part of your work and approach to finding work. It’s surprising how elusive it can be to determine what exactly this is. Having been involved in so many disciplines myself, I was especially unclear on this. I had so much in my head, but it was a jumbled mess. So I began organizing it, in the form of a blog. As I discussed in detail in my previous post, this helped immensely. The blog also helped to establish other attractive traits: from exhibiting my unique thoughts and insights to showing communication skills. A blog presents a great opportunity to show what you can do as I discuss below.
Show What You Can Do
A common error is to spend a lot of time polishing a resumé and not on much else. While having an acceptable resumé is important, it rarely makes someone stand out (resumés actually serve to weed out applicants more than anything else). Instead, focus on showing off your work and abilities in a tangible, visible, and lively way: through a portfolio. Unconventional people, without a doubt, have an arsenal of work, past and present, that they can show off. These don’t have to be anything outrageous or complicated – most of the larger projects on my own portfolio are from my university courses. Conversely, a portfolio is an opportunity to show off your original style and personality.
Learn at Every Moment
We’re surrounded by information – way more than we ever possibly consume. The upshot is that there’s more opportunity to learn than ever before. Will you take advantage? Or will you spend your time watching tv and playing video games? In 2010, I read more than 30 books, most of which were non-fiction. I watched many TED Talks. There’s no doubt that these things drastically improved my understanding of the world. Likewise, I invested much time in broadening my technical knowledge, whether it was learning the tried and true (through computer science algorithms video lectures) or the new hotness (iPhone development and jQuery). These were things I started doing long before I seriously considered delving into the tech world – I understood that the knowledge would prove useful in some regard.
Do Interesting Things
Perhaps you find a lot of what I mentioned above less than exciting. That’s fine; there should be space for fun – there’s plenty that’s also “productive”. Over the past five years, I took up two forms of martial arts (Kyokushin karate and capoeira) and joined the NYC inline skating community. What did it cost me? A great deal of time and effort, along with some money. What did I gain? Enjoyment, discipline, good friends, good health, and character. People like to be around (and work with) interesting people. You have nothing to lose by taking on some interesting hobbies and it’s another thing to make you stand out.
Try Different Things (and accept that some things won’t work out)
In one of my earliest blog posts, I discussed how it takes many bad ideas to come up with good ideas. This process applies well to finding the right calling and job. Don’t be afraid to try different and interesting things. There’s a good chance that some things won’t come to fruition. Don’t let that discourage you. One – you never know what might work out to an incredible project or experience. And two – just about anything can be a learning experience. Over the course of last year, I had several projects that didn’t pan out. It seemed that I’d wasted time and energy. But I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything. Likewise, I did manage to add a few pieces to my portfolio and also had solid things to discuss at job interviews.
Tell a Story
Another critical error is to skimp on the cover letter (or not have one at all). I followed the generic advice on cover letters and found that this pretty much didn’t work. So I tried something unconventional (naturally). I told my story. I was honest and real and personal. Go ahead and read the one I sent to Google. It teems with something that can’t be quantified. The meat of it (the second and third paragraphs) don’t even pertain to the position! And I actually copied this section nearly word for word in cover letters for other places I applied to. Note that these words couldn’t be “copied” by anyone else. It stood out as unique to me – no one else shares my story. I conveyed competence, curiosity, and leadership skills in a subtle way (which is often more convincing than a direct approach). This cover letter was the tipping point for me. This is when I started getting callbacks and interviews. The cover letter is a legitimate chance to wow someone; don’t throw it away.
Go Above and Beyond
Going the extra mile is effort; most people don’t bother doing more than the requirement when it comes to applying for work. Hence, there’s a big opportunity for those willing to put in a little more (also an easy way to stand out). What I covered so far (like the portfolio, blog, and cover letter) are a part of this. Is there room for more? I think so. I snuck in some unconventional material (see above) in my LinkedIn profile. I’m sure that this is a turn-off for many hiring organizations – probably the very type of companies I wouldn’t want to be a part of anyway. Conversely, this can grab the attention of organizations in which you’d have a good cultural fit with. Strikingly enough, a recruiter from Google reached out to me after seeing my LinkedIn profile. The potential cultural fit “visible” in my profile did play a role in this. There’s a thousand other ways to go. At a job fair, I snuck in a general version of my cover letter with my resumé. One company I interviewed at told me that this made a profound impact.
With Google, I pressed harder. I knew they wanted references at some point, so I included them with my resumé and cover letter. Not just names and phone numbers, but also a photo of each of my references, a short description of their incredible work, and a description of my work with each of them. Even more: I included a picture of myself in my home workspace (which I felt matched their culture very well). I have no idea if this helped, but considering that I got the job, I’m sure it didn’t hurt.
Prep, Practice, and Be Real
Know the companies you’re applying to inside and out. For technical positions, know your stuff and be ready. I spent a few solid weeks going over computer science stuff after receiving contact from a Google recruiter. I was sure to practice writing code by hand. Let your potential future employer know how important this is for you and how deeply you’ve prepared. I asked my Google recruiters on what to expect so that I could prep. On the interview day, I brought my own whiteboard markers (it helped immensely to have thin, functioning markers considering the amount of code I wrote that day) and was unashamed in telling my interviewers of this (at least one of them seemed impressed at my “unusual level of preparedness”). I learned from my progress – every interview with a company inadvertently served as practice for following interviews (the Google one was the last one I had so at that point I was pretty comfortable). Lastly, it helps to get along with those you meet. If you’re the interesting, knowledgeable, and capable person you claim to be (according to the unconventional advice above), then you should have little trouble connecting on interview days.
Don’t Be Shy to Ask for Help
Too many of us have this idea in our heads that we have to make it on our own – that we must prove ourselves this way. Not only is this a terrible way to approach things, it’s also potentially damaging. I’ve had support from so many people in the years it took me to figure out direction in life. My parents unconditionally gave me a home, meals, gas money, and trusted my judgement. 
Two professors I worked with fought bureaucracy to help me get some pocket money in exchange for helping them on their university course. They also allowed me to be a part of their own organization. Another two professors, in technical disciplines, offered their advice in career matters (one of which truly understood my creative nature and helped to shape my portfolio). All of them offered fruitful discussion without imposing judgement. Friends provided great emotional support (and sometimes covered my tab so I could come hang out with them). A mentor like friend helped me meet more folks in the tech world and offered his wisdom in looking for work. There’s no question that all this support went a long way. I was sure to take whatever help I could get, while giving back as much as I could – I still have unpaid debts to many of them; I’ll be sure to reconcile these in time.
Odds, Ends, and Some Final Thoughts
I haven’t really mentioned resumés. I don’t consider them as important as the other factors I discussed. Likewise, there’s plenty of good advice around for resumés. I’ll mention a couple of things: Avoid buzzwords and don’t blast your resumé. If you’re gonna go for real, meaningful work, then go all out. You won’t be able to apply to as many places, but your success rate will be higher, and it’ll be with interesting organizations. Quality over quantity.
Another thing to mention is that having a good academic record helps, especially if you don’t have much experience. I’ve had many classmates consider me silly for really pushing for solid work in every one of my courses. This is a testament to show that it did make a difference: my GPA and transcript was looked over during my job application process.
A little bit of luck always helps out. I was fortunate that interesting companies were hiring and that I wasn’t blown away in some important interviews. Still. you can make your own luck by being prepared – tip the scales in your favor.
Overall, I was determined to not compromise and not sell out. I was fortunate enough to have support so that I could stand by these principles. Not everyone has this option and I don’t hold it against anyone that’s trapped in this position.
I hope you enjoyed the story I shared above. Likewise, I hope you find some of the ideas helpful. There’s no right way to go about landing the dream job, but I’m sure there are plenty of wrong ways. There are other great ideas to consider still. I didn’t follow every one of them but I did find a path that worked for me. No matter what the process, expect it to take great effort and time – it’ll be worth it.
It was about one year ago that I decided to start this blog. It was an interesting and difficult time for me – I was at the crossroads of life. I understood that I had something special – between my abilities, knowledge, and desires to better the world – but no clear direction. This blog’s purpose was to help rectify this with two specific goals from the beginning:
One – to figure out who I am and what I care for. To me, everything in the world is interconnected. My formal and informal education provided me with knowledge the spans the natural sciences, the social sciences, and engineering; from life to people to technology. One goal in this blog was to take all these interconnected thoughts – a huge and jumbled mess of ideas and insights in my head – and organize them in tangible ways.
Two – to build a repository of my thoughts, opinions, and insights that can be shared with others. Every single article I posted here was a conversation. As someone who spends many hours absorbing the world’s knowledge and even more time thinking over all I come to learn, these posts represent a window to my mind. But even beyond that, nearly all the posts are conversations I’ve had with other folks. I’ve found myself sharing the same insights with many people, retelling what’s on my mind. They connect me to others in deep ways and I understood that exposing my thoughts would help to forge connections with others that may help me find direction in life.
So what does this all mean a year later? Quantitatively, I made 75 posts in 2010 – most of them in the first half of the year, but the latter posts being significantly deeper (and longer). My writing and communication abilities improved manyfold – it was not easy to transform my unorganized thoughts into readable words but the practice has helped immensely. Most importantly (and qualitatively), I accomplished my goals – of both the blog and of finding direction in life. Many of my posts seemed of disparate topics. But as time went on and the number of posts grew, a pattern emerged. Seemingly unrelated discussions such as those involving antilock brakes and eating better actually have something in common – along with every other post I wrote: it is the mindful application of technology (in a broad sense) to better people’s lives. This is what the blog is about. This is what I am about. It’s about the intersection of humanism and technology. Perhaps the greatest insight regarding myself is that I am every bit an engineer as I am a scientist.
Having direction in life is not only comforting, but also deeply empowering. It allows one to apply his or her abilities in a precise manner – one that bears fruit. I am no longer at the crossroads of life; rather, I’m about to embark on an incredible journey. I will be surrounded by other incredible minds. I will work on interesting projects. I will be offered financial security. Most importantly, I will be in a nurturing environment that will help me to develop myself while simultaneously allow me to contribute to something that makes the world a better place. (To be specific about all this, I’ll be working as a Front-End Software Engineer at Google in NYC.) I’m excited.
Life has always been meaningful to me, but it’s enthralling to see meaning in a concentrated form. Much sweat, support, and luck has helped me reach to this successful place in life. Finding myself. Sharing my mind with others. Staying positive and proactive about the journey of life. Getting that encouragement and wisdom from friends, family, teachers, and colleagues when I was down and confused (I’m so thankful to have these people in my life). Having the stars align. Perhaps the unexpected shouldn’t be so surprising.
It’s now time to set some new goals, in life and on this blog. With life, it means forging along this direction, scaling up, and doing some incredible things. As for the blog, the first goal is officially complete. The second goal – while it’s done its job of getting me noticed for meaningful work – is also one of greater aspirations. It’s been a long term goal of mine to share and record my unconventional approach and insights (and this blog is certainly not my first attempt to do so). There are many things I wished to discuss but was [mentally] preoccupied with figuring out direction in life. It’ll all be out in coming posts; so many ideas have been churning in my head. It’s also now appropriate to set a goal to build the readership on this blog. It’s been near zero so far (which is fine since that wasn’t a goal the past year and also so I wasn’t pressured to produce). However, my network is about to expand; best I make the most of this opportune moment. This means I’ll have to post regularly; probably a good thing. I’ll do my best.
Consider this the real launch of this blog. See you soon and thanks for reading!
It’s rare to come across something that touches the very fabric of our existence in such profound ways – it’s mesmerizing. So it is the case with What Technology Wants, by Kevin Kelly. In one of the most insightful books I’ve ever read, Kevin Kelly weaves together thoughts on the journey of technology (which as a whole, he calls the technium) and ties it in with all other parts of life, the universe, and everything (quite literally). This is of course through a broad interpretation of the definition of technology, going beyond just gizmos – to inventions and knowledge. It’s quite similar to the a crucial perspective I take on this blog and hence I welcome this understanding. With this, Kelly connects technology with the very birth of the universe and the increasing complexity that has emerged from the universe itself – from simple hydrogen atoms to energy-dense microprocessors. He likens technology to a sort of unstoppable force and considers it another kingdom of life. As strange as that seems, it’s very plausible in my eyes. His incredible comparisons between technology and evolution fit well in presenting such arguments – these comparisons are so thoughtful that I felt my deep background in evolution was strengthened with his discussion (and there is no question that he blew away my understanding of technology).
Kelly reconciles two opposing concepts – ordained-ness and free will – in an a strangely convincing manner. He states that technology, to elaborate that it’s an unstoppable force, builds upon itself and that its agents (we humans) inevitably bring it to greater life. This is the basis for his explanation of why similar ideas and invention seem to appear simultaneously from different areas of our globe. He shows that such convergent “evolution” is very much the regular case in the technium as it is in the [other] kingdoms of life. At the same time, he assesses the free will of technology and goes down to the very level of the seeming free will that appears in the random noise of subatomic particles.
There is a practical element to Kelly’s discussion as well. Kelly provides a framework by which to consider technology – new and old – providing guidance as the world around us is increasingly transformed by technology. For example, because he believes that the emergence of any technology cannot be indefinitely thwarted, he presents some rules on how to approach any technology in a manner that beneficial for the global human community. He discusses such rules in the seemingly extreme case of the Amish. Interestingly, many groups of Amish are not quite the luddites we typically perceive them to be. Rather, they’re extremely mindful of the technology they use: they take care to consider the potential community problems arising from inventions and often experiment and observe with a small adoption – one can’t help but respect such mindfulness. (In fact, this discussion is so striking that I suggest that you check out Kevin Kelly’s blog post on it.)
There are a couple of points where Kelly is off. Well, not quite off, but rather he’s missing a level. For example, he states that advances in human communication – such as the inventions of language and writing – were the cause of our uniquely human power. Based on the research of folks I work with, these communication technologies were instead a consequence of a more precise cause of our rise to dominating the planet – solving the conflict of interest problem on larger scales thus facilitating greater level of human cooperation. This Human Uniqueness Theory that I work with does well to explain the Behavioral Modern Revolution of 40,000 years ago and the Neolithic revolution of 10,000 years ago, among our other technological revolutions that Kelly mentions. It’s understandable why one would assume that communication tools were the catalyst for human advancement, especially given how closely they relate to our uniquely human trick of cooperating on large scales to do incredible things. Still despite these minor details, Kelly’s insights are very telling and completely appropriate.
As someone entrenched in technological and humanistic disciplines, I’ve had a real pleasure reading this book. Some of Kelly’s thoughts are sure to raise a few eyebrows, but it seems he accomplishes his goal to get us to step back and think over the technology our lives are intertwined with. At the very least, you’ll see how thoroughly he has put together his thoughts, and so eloquently too. I recommend this engaging book deeply to anyone with an interest in technology and to anyone that wishes to learn more about the world around them. Â I especially encourage those in technological fields to consider Kelly’s points.
We’re fortunate to live in the information age. Not only do we access to news and blogs and such, but there’s also formal learning such as online video lectures. Access to learning is especially accessible because many of us carry the internet in our pockets with app phones. But the argument is made that we’re suffering from information overload. There’s the constant stream of news feeds, be it articles or other updates. I propose an idea that brings agreement to these conflicting issues.
Basically, there’s two parts to leaning. The first part we know very well: consuming information. The second part is less obvious: processing and reflecting upon the information. An easier way to understand this idea is to compare it to the two parts of training your body, where the first part is the physical activity itself and the other part is the recovery. Just as the body needs to repair itself and reconfigure muscles to work better for the activity in the future, the mind needs to reflect upon new information and fit it with all existing knowledge to bring an overall deeper understanding of something.
So just consuming information doesn’t result in learning. New information must be mindfully considered. The scientific process occurs and information is tested against all previous knowledge and experience. Bad information is thrown out. Perhaps old knowledge is tweaked or looked upon in a whole new light. We all know this process – it’s that moment of clarity that emerges when we relax into deep thought (why does this always happen in the shower?).
So while we are blessed with the incredible technology of having information at hand at all times, we should be mindful in how we consume it. That is, we’re best off consuming as much as we can so long as we can maintain the opportunity to reflect upon and think about it.
Under the definition that technology is a tool that helps us advance our lives, science represents a very ancient yet still essential technology. Science is the tool of analyzing and making sense of the world. Its primary weapon is doubt. By constantly subjecting any concept [explaining some part of the world] to skepticism, we test its plausibility. What is left (but still subject to doubt) is an understanding that we can rely on more so.
The creative process is also this scientific process. The way we form ideas follows this. Every idea is subject to critique and it is the good ones that stand this test. It is imperative to have lots of ideas, including seemingly bad ones, because you never know which ones will actually be good ones. It likely takes ninety-nine bad ideas to make a good idea, but the creative (scientific) process will allow good ones to prevail.
Another place that the critical scientific process is present is in our genes. The process of natural selection (evolution) uses the ability to replicate genetic information as the critical yardstick. And while the changes that appear in genetic information are at first random, the critical process determines which changes are better. Consistent with the creative process, there are a large number of bad changes for every positive one. But it is those few positive changes that matter so dearly, as with those few good ideas, and these positive changes or ideas can only exist through having all the bad ones.
So don’t be afraid to explore thoughts that are outrageous. You never know which crazy ideas will turn out to be fantastic ones. And don’t be afraid to mess up or be wrong, because the only way to put out some good things is to put out lots of bad things.
Where else in life do you see the critical process at work?
