Paradigm Shift

Paradigm: Fundamental change in a view of an individual or a society of how things works.

Paradigm Shifting

Its a paradigm shifting experience as told by Frank Koch in Proceedings, the magazine of the Naval Institute.

Though I came across this story through a book I am reading these days which is '7 Habits Of Highly Effective People' and this one was impactful. How our paradigm shifts when we understand a situation from different perspective. I tried to shorten up the story so that it can be understood in less time as we all know we do not have time though we are going to do nothing still we are running very short on time. Just kidding. So here it is.

Two battleships were on training in heavy weather for several days. Captain Frank Koch was serving on the leading battleship and he was on watch on the bridge as nigh fell. 

Visibility was poor with patchy fog like horror movies when you cannot see anything and all of a sudden ghost appears right in front of you.  Just added this ghost line to grab your attention it has nothing to do with the story though.

Shortly after sometime , the lookout on the bridge reported,

"Light bearing, bearing on the starboard ( when looked upon the ship from rear left side is called as port and right side as starboard) bow". 

 "Is it steady or moving"  captain asked out.

"steady captain" lookout replied" which means they were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.

 The captain called the signalman , " Signal that ship: We are on a collision course we advise you change course 20 degrees".

Back came the signal " advisable for you to change course 20 degrees" .

 The Captain said "  say I am a captain change course 20 degrees".

" I am a seamen second class ," came the reply, " You had better change course 20 degrees".

By that time captain was furious. He spat out say I am a battleship. Change course 20 degrees".

Back came the flashlight, " I am a lighthouse"

Battleship changed the course.

We also come across such paradigm shifts in our daily life. We perceive reality as we see it and most of the times we see a reality which is superseded by our limited perception- reality which is certainly not easy for us to see just as captain who got confused due to the  fog. 

So have you came across any such situation of paradigm shift when your pre notion of reality changed when you came across the real truth and you end up thinking how wrong you were at first place. Please leave your experiences in comments. 

Road to Kaza

Too many quotes I have heard about travelling but this one excites me the most " Mountains calls us all the only difference is what we say back" . I have heard this on a commercial of Royal Enfield bike and that day I said this to me that I am never going to say no.

So this is the trip which started on April 29th for which we have planned on April 28th. Yeah! we planned it in a day suckers.

All with the planning 

So lets not wait anymore and start the trip. 

We started our trip on April 29th. We did a little prior research to it but results of that did not came that well for us. As we come to know that the roads which leads to Kaza via Rohatang Pass and Kunzum Pass were closed so I ve informed about it to Prabhjeet in hope that we are going to postpone our trip to first week of may but that did not happen. I do not know why he was so obsessed with Kaza and key monestry, but I think the last trip he went to with his colleagues to this some place in Himachal has something to with this. Whatever?! I never tried to know the reason for it. All I can see is the obsession in his eyes for this trip, so we started looking for other ways to go into this valley.

THE OTHER WAY

So I get into the serious mode and my thought was " he wants Kaza so he will get Kaza". I was quite aware about this other way through which we can go to Kaza but that was the last thing I wanted. If any of you has guessed it you are right I am talking about via Shimla via Reckong peo to Kaza.

You must be thinking that why this could be the last thing I wanted? The reason for this is that I have heard too many stories from my Himachali friends that how ruthless and rough this way is ( stories are going to be in my next blog )  and moreover if we go through this road we have got to travel extra 9 hrs to reach Kaza. So we tried to find out the availability of buses  from Shimla to Kaza and that did not go too well. We came to know that there is no direct bus from Shimla to Kaza. The only way is that we travel to Reckong Peo by a hired taxi or HRTC bus and from there one bus runs to Kaza at 0700 hrs in the morning. Just one f'king bus are you kidding me, I am not going on this trip. I mean can you see how much planning this trip needs and we do not have any time for that. But then in back of my head voice over played " he wants kaza, so he will get kaza" . 

So like always we planned every thing on our motto which we have been using since our freshmen year of college " WE WILL SEE" . So next thing was to see the weather condition of the place and you will not believe the temperature google showed us was max: 04* C and min: -09*C. I have never experienced that cold weather. So just to confirm I made few calls to the hotels in Kaza from them thankfully I found out that conditions are not that bad its pleasant during the day though quite chilling during the night. After seeing that temperature I have realizes something that there is something wrong with us I mean usually a person should get a little afraid after seeing those weather conditions, but believe me we got super excited like " HELL!! YEAh!! we are going to freeze and die" . 

So we overlooked everything and Prabhjeet reserved the tickets for our bus to Shimla.

Next: It starts. 

Random thoughts of a chaotic mind

What is real and what is not? 
What is a fundamental basis of our being in this universe.
Many of the great minds are debating over this and same debate I have been doing inside my brain from last couple of years or may be more than that. 
Most of the people of my  age must have gone through the same problem . At some point of time everybody must have tried to get the answer to the one of the most simple question, " What should I do with my life" or some one who has been touched by spirituality might have asked themselves " what is the purpose of my life"? Isn't it...? 

I am a mechanical engineer so a lot of options came into my mind believe me tons of options.....

I can be a manufacturing engineer, banker, government employee, defense service, singer, actor and then I observed changing trend of the society and the market so comes the idea that I can be an entrepreneur. Cool isn't it.?  

But most astounding thing came into my mind at last. May be it means astounding to me but many of other people will think that it is a loser's way to think because right now there is no profession named that way. I certainly think pay rate is not that good or you can say might be possible you will not get any paychecks. 

What came into my mind was, " IS IT POSSIBLE THAT I DONT DO ANYTHING" ?!

Is it possible that by not doing anything I will be able to sustain my life.? 
Are my parents going to be proud of it.? 


Before answering above questions I would like to support my choice with a valid sets of points which seems great to me.

Not doing anything will give me a scope to learn a lot of things. I mean like I am writing this blog right now because I want to and I am enjoying this experience . What if tomorrow I don not want to write a blog but I have to do painting or learn to play an instrument or you can say I want to learn some designing software with which I can design models of cars,turbines, space shuttles etc. and if I will get bored with it in a year or two may be I will switch to the next thing which excites me.This sounds vague isn't it...... 

 But if you think clearly and add a little taste of imagination to your thoughts this might sound legit. Think of a life in which you have done so much, learned so much, experienced so much.

Now the next hurdle is how we will be able to sustain with this kind of lifestyle. That I have to figure out but I would love to take suggestions from the geniuses who will go through this blog.