Monday, February 11, 2008

Understanding Irrelevance..

19 or 20 year old me would have definitely killed me had she known I would say this in the future..

Today I realized something really important. Something that has been important to me all my life, but I only understood it now.

You know how we always curse those extra classes we take in college? Economics in Computer Engineering college, Accounts in Advertising college, Feminism in Urban Planning college, Hindi in Science college, E-Commerce in Mechanical Engineering, Great Social Thinkers in Civil Engineering, Sociology in Aerospace Engineering. The list goes on.

One of these were my cribs too. I am sure everyone can account for at the least one subject in their college years which were absolutely ridiculous. Or so it seemed then.

Today after attending a class on sexually violent video games, I realized, that understanding these studies, researches, people's way of thinking, deciphering, deriving is an understanding process too. Struggling to understand a research over the span of the entire night, with anatomical jargon, terms and biological measures, I realized that I did not hate this. I liked it. I liked the fact that I was studying something that did not do anything directly to my career field, but it contributed to my knowledge base, to the library within me I call intelligence. To helping me form more credible, and valued opinions.

I remember being asked when I was 19 what I wanted to be in my life. I had said, "Knowledgable and wise. Well read and someone who has a holistic understanding of whatever is being discussed."

I am not there yet, but I realize that reading about P300 amplitude in Brain Functions and applying it to advertising and every other thing I can think about, is what will get me there. For a start.





I know this is not my normal style of a post, but its a thought. A very valuable thought for me, and that's what this blog is here for. To record my thoughts, even after I don't last, which I actually meant as a record of thoughts once I cease to exist. And I aimed to achieve the exact same thing with that. Have a record of my thoughts, opinions, dreams, ideas and emotions.

5 comments:

Satish K Mantha said...

Good for you. This reminds me of a debate that I had with a good friend, very long ago, about Thermodynamics in Civil Engg. It was meant to be a debate (just for the hack of it), but took serious turns when it got personal, and I had started arguing seriously with him. Things are different now and I deal with thermodynamics on a daily basis now, but, I wish I had not had that debate with him that day. It left a different impression of me in his mind, and things had not been the same since then!

Well, as Chandler says, that's not my point! Nevertheless, post this comment. :D

Anonymous said...

More and more I'm finding myself quoting something or applying something I learnt and thought would never be useful.

Besides, knowledge really is its own reward, isn't it?

Jam said...

Hey there,

Considering my Commerce background in undergraduation it was destined that I would finally end up in a job somehow related to Finance, which it is right now in the FSI domain in an IT company.

However, this did not prevent me from specializing in Marketing during my MBA. I consciously did this because I knew that this was probably the only chance that I would get to explore all those wonderful marketing concepts and techniques in life.

Although I don't use them at work at all, the fact still remains that I enjoyed studying all of them during those days.

I completely agree with Ideasmith when he says that knowledge is its own reward.

Cheers.......Jam

~The Dream Catcher~ said...

Piks- And as always like Joey, I have that look on my face..

Idea- Knowledge is like a high, a kick in your system. Can get pretty heady sometimes..

Jam- Ditto. Plus isn't marketing the fun-nest thing in the world? Sometimes it feels like too much information overload, and other times it feels like its a cake walk, just so obvious.. :)

Anonymous said...

Jam - just butting in to say that IdeaSmith is a 'she', not a 'he'. :-D