10,000 Hours...

Thanks to all the endless waiting at the airport lounge and few cups of crappy coffee – I have managed to knock back Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.

I wasn’t too excited about the book until Bani read it and finally I saw this young chap’s interview on CNN. With his mop top hair and the spunk in his attitude, he resembled a rock star more than an author...My initial lackluster response could be because his earlier books failed to impress me. Tipping Point and Blink made it to the never ending list of hip business jargons...yet like all jargons they only sound nice and mean nothing...

Outliers is different...It’s a concept that’s interesting and backed up with a lot of research where the data has been sliced in a rather intuitive and interesting manner.

Besides, various concepts – the one that caught my fancy is the 10,000 hour hypothesis. This bloke proves that to excel in any field (sports to music) one has to put in 10,000 hours of practice. He has done a fine job in convincing his readers with examples ranging from Beatles to Bill Gates.

In fear of emerging as an ordinary rookie – I tried to analyze what have I done for 10,000 hours? The first activity that crossed my mind was “sleeping”...firstly the number far exceeds 10,000 and my back of the envelope calculation reveals a whopping 90,000 hours. More importantly, it counts for nothing...Similarly Bull Shitting doesn’t count either!

Finally I arrived on something that’s a little more respectable...I have watched television for 10,000 hours. Everything on television…sports, music, movies...the works. Here is the calculation – I got cable TV at home when I was 10...thus the last 20 years into about 90 minutes of television a day adds upto a little over 10,000...

Infact as a kid I used to watch television much to the chagrin of my parents. The only time my dad grudgingly approved was when I won a quiz with the clincher being a question on Doogie Howser MD! Ofcourse I could never figure out if his respect for the idiot box went up or his respect for intellectual quizzing plummeted!

However warped this analysis...I’m left with a nice feeling...Guess one day the world will see some sense in why I gave up more lucrative offers from TCS and Philips to join a television network during b-school placements!

Blow Hot Blow Cold

This was an idiom we often used to describe the behavior of giggly girls in schools. Today I relate it to the weather and my current mental state.

Picture this – On 30th I was frolicking on one of the beaches in Sri Lanka in my trunks and guzzling some local beer. To borrow a phrase from Lewis Carrol – ‘The sun was shining with all its might’. The very next day, every part of my body was freezing as I was ringing in the New Year with my family in North India. This was more like a case of the Prodigal ‘Sun’. I resembled an Eskimo as I draped myself in multiple layers. My body is still in a state of shock.

This winter seems a tad too severe. Being a Bengali from Bombay is as bad as it gets. My ability to withstand the winter chill is similar to Tiger Wood’s ability to practice abstinence (from Golf dummy...What did you think?)

On a more philosophical note – This extremity is exactly what we all witnessed in 2009. The year began with fears of a global meltdown and ended with cheers of a recovery. The instability in the stock market was balanced by a stable government in the centre. The constant fear of losing one’s job was overcome by all loved ones regrouping.

So while we all hope for a Happy New Year...The extremes will continue to haunt us. As one learned idiot said – Aal iss Well!