Laziness: The Mother of Innovation

What is Innovation? Well, to me, it's the product of laziness, plain and simple. Innovations usually stem from the desire of a person or a group of people to sit back and relax, and watch as their work did itself. Take the example of the spell-checker - use existing online dictionaries to automatically scan what you're typing and tell you if you're wrong. How about Google Goggles? Too lazy to ask someone about your surroundings? Just whip out your cell-phone, and you have all the info you want.

A week ago, I had to wake up at 4 AM to get some work done, and yes, I innovated. I may seem a little too proud of it, but the fact remains that I proved my own long-standing hypothesis. There are some of us in the world today, who may go to extraordinary lengths to get work done, but only if it pleases us to do so. Anyway, back to my 4 AM story.

Well, I had a math test the following day, and I'd had my fill of revision for the night. I just couldn't stare at any more θ values or sine ratios, and it was already 9 PM. What would any sane person have done? I don't know, maybe study their heads off until midnight. What did I do? Ah. I innovated. :)

You see, my mom had just left to Cochin (on one of her weekly visits to the motherland), and I had noone to wake me up in the morning. As you all probably know, I'm an amazingly sound sleeper. What did I do?

Well, here's what. I flipped open the laptop, scheduled a task on Windows to play "The Catalyst" by Linkin Park at precisely 4 AM the next morning. If you've listened to the song, you'll know that it starts off with a bang, literally. It's a jolt of sound that can make a thunderstorm seem like the purr of a Toyota Prius, and if it doesn't wake you up, you're either in a coma or you're Balaji Subramanian. Needless to say, I knew who I was, and so I took further steps to ensure my awakening at the appointed hour. A phone alarm and two alarm clocks later, I was Go For Mission.

The next evening, my mom was shocked to hear that I had woken up at 4, so much so that she actually googled erratic sleep patterns to find out if they were an advanced symptom of some violent form of brain fever. I, on the other hand, prepared for my math test as if there was no tomorrow, and entered the exam hall brimming with confidence. This confidence did not extend to when I left the hall, nor when I went up to see my score, but these are trivial nothings, not at all germane to the issue at hand.

What I'm trying to say is, laziness is one of the main prerequisites to be an innovator. An innovation is a device or method that adapts existing technology in a way that reduces workload. And what do you call a person who's obsessed with reducing workload? That's right, you call him downright lazy.

As you can see, there exists a region where Lazy Pigs meet Out-of-the-Box Geniuses, and that region needs to be large enough to accommodate both species.

It is that region that I call home, though I know not whether I'm merely a Lazy Pig, or something more else.

bala

Chronicling Doom as it comes

Yes, I know. 4 months is a long time. Then again, these last four look like they've flown past like a comet blazing across the night sky. There are a number of reasons for my internet silence. There was school, for one. That energy-sapping, zombie-creating asylum would have been reason enough to not write a single word for the many decades of life I (hopefully) have in front of me. However, there's more than that. I've suffered a range of disappointments in these last 4 months, ranging in magnitude from Chelsea's slight dip in form to things which are best not mentioned in the public forum of the blogosphere. And even as I write this, my earphones are echoing what my mind is telling me - "What I've Done". And yet, it hasn't all been bad. I've taken up my first job, and like all great men, I start off working without pay. However, I've (successfully, I hope) morphed from the guy who just blabs on the internet between increasingly long intervals, into a guy who encourages other people to do the same, and then criticizes them gleefully.

And then there's...oh wait, there's nothing more. That's the only positive in the last three months, so I shall now proceed to list out the negatives. If Blogger doesn't have a word-limit, that is.

Where do I begin? Well, in August, I went on my usual pilgrimage of Chowdiah Memorial Hall, only to see Giri Balasubramaniam hand out those two coveted laptops, not to Anoop Gopalam and self, but to a couple of bums from Jain College. That wasn't the worst part though, not by a long shot. The real stab was how close we were to taking those notebooks home. Anyway, that was just the first of my series of unfortunate events.

In September, I attained the distinction of having the lowest ratio of Academic Potential to Marks, with the figure reportedly being so low that China invented a new supercomputer to calculate it.

In October, I was exiled from football, banished by His Royal Highness KM Gopinath, my ortho. Apparently, I had a layer of soft tissue growing around my right big toe, and this tissue thought it would be fun to give me a jolt of sharp, shooting pain every time I touched a football with my right foot.

In November, well, it will be sufficient to say that things have happened. Things that are beyond words. Things that struck me below the belt, and struck me particularly hard.

Well, it's been a good four months, hasn't it? You tell me.

Like they say, so far, so good. Smite me, oh Mighty Smiter!

until next time,

bala