Falling

I have been skating for quite a long time now, and one of the first things you learn is to learn how to fall. Literally. I clearly remember the first time I fell from a skateboard and scratched my palms about 5 years ago. It felt like everything was going in slow motion, and I remember my heart working harder than usual and my palms stinging like crazy afterwords. But it felt good, because after taking very small tentative pushes on the board for a while, that was the first time I had pushed a little harder, ventured beyond my comfort and actually skated for the first time. After that first fall, I felt more confident about skating around everywhere. But that’s not the only time you fall. With every new trick you want to learn, you have to fall a hundred more times.

Very generally, before you start any skill, learn any skill and reach mastery with any skill, you have to overcome the metaphorical fall (multiple times). This is literally true for the very basic skill humans learn - walking. You cannot learn to walk without falling. As every good Go player will tell you, you have to lose your first 100 games as fast as possible to get better at GO. But falling and “losing” don’t feel nice. It creates a barrier to push past your limits and makes it easy to stay within the comfort zone of what we already know. There’s nothing wrong with that, you can still continue learning new things, but at a much slower pace and at a much more of a safety net.

This is especially true in Science, ( One of the best articles I have read on this The importance of stupidity in scientific research ) where my career now lies. You feel stupid and get to be stupid, because literally no one else has ventured into this path other than you. That’s the meaning of research, if someone else knew the answer, what is the point of doing that specific thing again?

Recently, everything feels a bit monotonous, meaningless and a little too safe for me ( Don’t get the wrong idea, it’s anything but. It was just my feeling ) almost like I am just following someone else’s story. This also an occupational hazard in science. Although the direction you are heading in is new, most of the day to day work you do are very small things added on top of each other, repeated over and over in a very monotonous loop. Research is a marathon and not a sprint. As someone who has always wanted to push the boundaries, there is always more to do. I could work forever and still have more to do. This comes with the job. I have been focused on work, sleep and nothing else. After all, You have finite time to explore, learn and adapt and there are simply too many things to do. Your horizon of possibilities also shrink the older you get, so why would you not dedicate all your time to improving in work and nothing else? This is where the tug of war between exploration and exploitation collide and you have to decide which path you want to go down. Work has always been enjoyable for me. But I don’t even have spare time to do stuff that I also enjoy outside of work - like finishing the hundreds of unwritten draft blogs or finishing my paintings. ( Burnout might be an accurate term for this feeling, but I am not too sure. )

In my mind, work enables you to explore and the exploration enables you to work more. Only working or only doing your hobbies are both unhealthy. There is an argument to be made about your work being so interesting that you get both work and play at the same place. My work is super interesting and I can continue working 24 / 7, but this is where the conundrum also starts. Where does this stop? What other sacrifices are worth your work? Does it mean if your work is good, you don’t need any friends or anything else to do? Personally, I can work on my research a lot more if I can be in touch with my hobbies more. And just because I have hobbies does’nt mean I don’t focus on work. In fact some of my best and favorite ideas have come when I’m on my downtime not fully focused. My belief is that you have to work as much as you play, otherwise you lose meaning in what you do. (I have skated for way too long but am nowhere near as good as I should be. I think it’s because I never really fully went into skating, but that is okay, it still gives me the kick I need to continue working. If we were all good at everything we do, why would the world even exist?). And I think I have gotten comfortable in prioritizing work over everything else that I have began avoiding doing the other things (The metaphorical leaps that used to be easy for me). It’s almost easy now to say, “Oh, but I have work to do, so I’ll continue doing that.”

Recently, the pressure to produce has also only risen to such extreme levels with all sorts of AI companies rushing to make human lives meaningless. This has not been helping either (Story for another time, sorry every story ends with AI). Monotony and the burnout are exactly what gives these corporations the power to reduce meaning from humans. If AI can do both your work (like coding) and execute your creative ideas (like music and art), then what do humans do? (although I have split these, I don’t think these two are uncoupled. Algorithms can be art, and music can be your work, but for this particular blog I am defining two as separate endeavors).

But I feel personally that both my work and my hobbies are being overrun with AI. I am pretty sure that AI could have wrote this entire blog in like 2 seconds, but for it to write and convey these exact words in this exact structure, it would have to know me and what I am thinking right now (Take that AI). But therein lies the difference between you the human reading this and you AI bots reading this. AI’ll never understand what I am trying to convey, even though it has read every statement every human has ever possibly spoken. Even if I provide this entire essay to AI it’s only going to find mistakes in it and how to improve, and that gives me the satisfaction and purpose to not let other corporations dictate me and my life. Do you want the best blog, or do you want your blog? ( I know very few to no people read this blog and that gives me the sort of freedom to write whatever I want ). In my mind, AI is still matrix multiplications on a huge scale and a tool. There’s no way I’m going to let some matrices dictate my life. After all, I did learn linear algebra.

A lot of my friends say that when a lot of good things happen, something bad will happen immediately after. I disagree. Good things happen after big leaps and big leaps naturally lead to bigger falls. But the fall does not define you. It only gives you the grit and pushes your skills farther. It’s not about if you fall. It’s all about where you land.

I was never a stranger to falling and getting bruises. It is fall season and I fell from my bicycle today doing a crazy turn very fast on fallen leaves. I got the same feeling I had all those years ago on the skateboard and scratched my knee after quite a long time. I felt the adrenaline and even though it was a small moment, I felt like I learnt something new and was more productive today than most days. This fall prompted me to break away from the monotony and start this blog. For the future, I don’t know where everything is going to, but I am happy that I used this hour of writing to pursue something that is not research ( I am writing this during the peak of my productivity - 8PM to 3 AM 8^D ). And I think this is a personally huge leap for me to break out of the monotony and comfort I have been experiencing.

P.S. Unironically, fall is my favorite season, the colors, the sweater weather and the sunlight together, I couldn’t wish to be anywhere else. The balance of being on the verge of catching a cold but still feeling the warmth of the sun just makes me happy.

With my jacket pulled tight around
I hear a breeze blow brightly past,
closing my eyes to the rustling sound

Expectant of the freezing cold
you'll leave the trees bare to the bones
In a brief respite, everything's burning red and bold

The sun's beam falls on my lids
breaking through the fading foliage
splitting the chillness to thin bits.

I can't help falling for you, fairest of the four
Till winter bares her teeth, bitter and sour.
Oh Fall, will you be mine, forevermore.

Leaves My Fall Fall

P.S. P.S. Above is an ode I wrote to Fall. ( Hey, I never said I was a good poet. Maybe I should just stick to writing papers ). Onwards, to more blogs and more falls.