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