Month: March 2009

Vibrational Beings

I have varied interests and I read a lot of literature on the stuff I like. I like, other than computer science, Physics, Quantum Physics, Mathematics, Spirituality, Philosophy, Human behaviour, Human Psychology, Scientific History, Data Mining, Visualization etc. At any given time I am reading a bunch of books that mould my mind in various directions. At this time I am obsessed with an idea of  how we are all ‘Vibrational Beings’.

This sounds new-age-ey, so please bear with me. I believe that we are all vibrational beings. Like layers of onions, we are engulfed within various beings, of which the most apparent one is Physical. Everything in this Universe has a vibration to it. If you dig deep into matter, it’s nothing but a bunch of quantum stuff loosely coupled and vibrating at a very high speed. If you look around you, you will see visible, living world. A world which could be perceived with our 5 senses. Based upon which we build our beliefs, thoughts and mental models. I believe that we have 4 layers in our beings.

  1. Vibrational
  2. Feeling
  3. Mental
  4. Physical

As always, I think visually and I am very comfortable explaining things visually. Here is how I believe it’s structured.

4 Layers of Being

There are 2 aspects to it. First, Internal – meaning the things that happen within the person. External meaning – things that happen outside of the person/being. Here is how I think it’s laid out.

1. Physical Being – This is the default visible being you see around. This is the action seeking person we interact with. The outcome of this being in the external world is – actions, activities, decisions etc

2. Mental Being – This is the being that gets attacked a lot. Because this is the being that creates the separation. This is the level at which the so called ‘EGO’ lives. This level, we have an image of ourselves as well as others. We have mental model of the world and all our beliefs are stored at this level. Access to memory at this level is very high. If you draw parallels to computer, this being has access to memory on a magnetic Hard disk. Everything gets stored, but you will have to search to retrieve it. This being is also responsible for the rich imagination and visualization. The outcome of this being in the external world is – Thoughts, ideas etc.

3. Feelings Being – This is the being who feels things. Anger, frustration, love, lust, mercy, good feelings, bad feelings are all created and live here. This being also has access to memory, but if you think in terms of computers again – the kind of access this being has to memory is like ‘Solid State Hard Disk’. Meaning, it’s smaller but very powerful and doesn’t take much time to retrieve it. You will always be able to recall the feelings you had when you had your fist kiss. You don’t need to think about it. The outcome of this being in the external world is – Emotions.

4. Vibrational Being – This is the core of all. This being is what we actually are. At this level, nothing is different from the individual being. Everything and everyone is same when it comes to vibrational beings. This is the being that gets referred to as soul, atma, consciousness, Godness etc. This is who we all are. Unfortunately, there is no external representation of this being in the external world. How can it be? If everything is one, there is no external world at all. And that’s what causes a lot of confusion in our lives. This being is often mistaken as ‘Feelings being’ as that’s the closest to it, but they both are not one and the same.

All the practices we do in the name of religion, God, Spirituality are all pathways to realize or touch this vibrational being within us. Good deeds, Good thoughts, Meditation, Love etc are all a pathway to get access to this Vibrational being.

Well that’s theory, now how can you use this knowledge? If you look closely – Feelings are closest to this vibrational being and there is no other simple way to get access to it. Say, for example – you are looking for a new job. You would prepare your resume – that’s physical. You would prepare for the interview questions that’s mental. Various new age gurus suggest you to visualize the outcome, or feel the feelings. That’s true and correct. In addition to both physical & mental action – you need to be there feelings wise too. That’s how you land that job.

Feelings are the only way you can have access to the Vibrational being. Once you change the vibration of that being through a mix of Emotions, Thoughts & Actions – you will sync with whatever you are looking for in vibration. This sounds easy, but hard to do because – everything in our world happens at Physical & Mental level. So, many distractions and so much work to do. A part of it is also our beliefs which we hold them as true. We associate ourselves with the egoistic self-image we create of ourselves. It took us our lifetime to get here, and it will take some more time to get where we actually want to be. But, having a map of things always helps. This is my map which I use to look at things when I am in doubt. This is what bring me clarity to some extent.

Non-Technical Managers

I started working on computers in the year 1992. It’s been almost 17 years I have been working on software. As I left school to get a serious career in Software programming, I saw a clear cut pattern about people and software.

You see in this world there are 2 kinds of people –

  1. People who know Software
  2. People who don’t know anything about Software

people

But, I have realized that there is a third kind and the most dangerous one.

3. People WHO THINK they know Software

people2

And believe me there are a lot of people who are out there who fall into 3rd category. With technology advancing so fast, people who wield a iPhone or a Blackberry think they know enough about software. It’s because the software “using” has become so dumb and easy.

For example, take ‘iTunes’ – it’s the best interface ever to interact with music files. Period. It also comes with a Apple store plus a kitchen sink! People love it. People like one windowed interface to all their music. If you read that carefully – I said, ‘using’ software has become so easy. But the problem is ‘building’ software hasn’t improved as much as the ‘using’ part.

itunes
iTunes, the mother of all future software design

Now, coming to the point. Imagine if you belong to Group 1 (People who know Software) – you work hard to build software and you know it and you are confident about yourself. Then as your career progresses you become a ‘Technical Manager’. You talk to developers and you give out ideas, you schedule project plans, communications. You know which tools to use and you have got it under control. Awesome. Congratulations and my kudos to you.

Imagine if you belong to Group 2 (People who don’t know anything about Software) – you work hard, you buy a Mac, you have friends who work in software but you never talk to them about their tools. You talk about the outcome of the software process, a product or a service. You use, of course, iTunes. You buy legitimate software and you are happy with your Apple updates. No problem. In the alternate universe – you buy PC, go for Vista and cussing Microsoft & HP printers but you still end up loving how easy iTunes works and how fast Safari 4 is.

Now, Imagine if you belong to Group 3 (People WHO THINK they know Software) – You work hard, but you don’t know that you don’t know. You have software friends, but you yap away some jargon. You use iTunes and think every software in this world SHOULD look like iTunes (Kamal, I can hear you giggle). You think software is cheap and easy and so are people who work on it. You zoom through your life without any clue about software but still maintain your egoistic authority on it.

The major pain in the butt situation is when these Group 3 people become Managers – by some chance or luck or sheer Oldage or money (mergers). These people think they know how software works and how their developers think. They have no idea about software project management and no clue about versions, timed release of software and best practices of software. What happens is the slow decay or rotting of the company. I have been in so many situations in my career all-together that I saw so many of these so called “Non-Technical” managers killing off the product, service and eventually the company. But, the real problem is they don’t know that they are the problem. They move onto new companies, new acquisitions and killing many other future companies.

How do you identify these people?

Look out for these warning signs.

  1. When they say they want a new tool to create a website with 1 click.
  2. When they ask you access to FTP because they think the data is on FTP server
  3. When they want everything to look like some software they have used in the past (Hint: iTunes)
  4. When they refuse to give you access to server but still want you to build a website on it
  5. When they ask you to store passwords & Credit card numbers in plain text because they want to see them in daily reports.
  6. When they want everything to be exported to an Excel sheet
  7. Their favorite quote – ‘I wanted this feature yesterday’.
  8. When they want ’rounded corners’ on everything.
  9. They think Web 2.0 is a boxed product.
  10. When they treat ‘Testing’ as a ‘Delay’

Let me know if you come across anything I miss. I am sure there are many more.

How do you fix this?

This is tough, but with some patience and some systems these could be fixed.  Here they are:

  1. You basically have to educate this person who thinks he/she knows software. The education they skipped in the past needs to be put in their brains.
  2. You create a system. You tell them – this is where you keep an eye and I will update the status when it’s done. Use some online project management tool.

If these 2 fail, you become an expert in one of the software niche and become a freelancer that way you never have to work under a ‘Non-Technical’ Manager. You finish a project and you move on. You never have to educate anyone and you will be happy with your work. You would giggle inside when the ‘Non-Technical’ manager references iTunes in a meeting, but at least you don’t have to see him after the project is done.