Friday, April 11, 2014

Looking Back And Connecting The Dots

Sometimes, it seems amazing when you look back at time and try to connect the dots

I came back to America last November (2011) with a newly found interest in Biology and Business

For me, one of the best things about living in America at that time was fast Internet connection. When you have fast internet connection, you do stuffs that you wouldn't do otherwise. For me, it was downloading books - thousands of them!

If I find a subject area or topic interesting, I usually try to learn as much as I can from books and the web. Then while learning about the topic, whenever I come across a new topic that I find interesting, I start following the same procedure 
for the new topic of interest (recursively; if you prefer Computer Science terminologies!) – serendipity in action! 

I have always been fascinated by the prospects of improving health and brain power. Previously, my idea was to invent new technologies (e.g., stem cells, engineered organs etc.) for better health and more brain power. Books and ideas (e.g., human body version 2.0) of Ray Kurzweil and others have always inspired me. 

My interest in Biology led me to books - which helped me discover that both health and brain power can be improved dramatically by natural means. Reading those books, I became aware of the benefits that a sound health can bring into your life. I incorporated a lot of health practices to my life. A lot actually - 

  • aerobic exercises and strength training 
  • mindfulness and deep breathing 
  • lots of blueberries and strawberries and nuts and yogurt 
  • and a whole lot of other changes in my diet plus supplements 
  • and I even started flossing! 

My quantifiable success - I lost about 40 pounds in a span of 6-9 months (from 192/194 to around 150)! 

My interest in Business, besides showing me ways to handle social problems in more elegant ways, led me to an advice: "Isolation is dangerous". So I made myself a lot more social than I was.

Then, being social and conversing with others (time period: December 2011 - March 2012), I found out that I could actually think a lot better than I thought I did and I was amazed.

I was amazed at how much I had managed to learn by myself. I have never had the opportunity of learning from very good teachers or very smart peers (excluding a few days during Math Olympiad back in 2005). I had no one to guide me. I learned to guide myself.

I was inspired.

So when I came back to Bangladesh in March 2012, my inspired self returned to unsocial life spending time on nerdy stuffs!

Now, I am eagerly waiting to find out where my previous experiences take me next. 




Life is never this simple. I have left out a lot of details. But this is surely an outline.


(Written sometime in May-June 2012; enhancements later)

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