A less taught aspect of engineering

"Many people think engineering is applied science. It works the same in Perth, Pune, Paris or Pocheon: you will get the same results from the same experiments.

However, engineering is much more than applied science. Engineering is a coordinated social performance of many people with the technical expertise distributed among them, like an orchestra. Social interactions constrain the results just as the strength of steel limits the height of our tallest buildings."

This is such a beautiful and articulate expression of a rarely taught fact about engineering. It's a fact that all engineers would have experienced but not all would have understood. Not until they saw it in plain words as quoted here from this article. I now realize that it was there at the back of my mind, as a funny feeling you get when you use a theorem that you don't fully understand, or when you read a proof that doesn't seem to add up. The article itself may or may not go well with you but this one excerpt, I thought, was worth preserving.

My problem with religion

I think I finally articulated my problem with religion in the popular form. Thanks to Ritika Dusad - discussion with her was instrumental in achieving this. The biggest, and likely only, problem I have with religion is that the way in which you are introduced to it, preaching or reading, starts with the premise that there is a superior way of life than yours. It ends up convincing you that what you are doing is not the best and therefore, you are not there. You come out humbled and feeling inferior to yourself, or your ideal projection and thus, become your own competitor. And perhaps that is what makes this mode of propagating religion so effective that a slight tip into it pulls you all the way in - nobody, and I mean nobody, can be spared this inferiority complex, because the competition is not with another human, but with yourself. And it doesn't stop there. You are also convinced that religion is the only way to self-upliftment. That's the glue.

Therefore, no matter what your state is, no matter how good you are (whatever that means - don't ask me to define good, but I won't be able to, but just think of it as a measure of how close you are to that ideal projection), you will always be split away from what you want you want to be, that is, when religion kicks in.

Ever heard of a religion starting with "You are great! Think of all the reasons why that is true."? Nobody is totally devoid of good. And that's the irony - the path to improvement has to begin with realizing your shortcomings. It's just that the goal religion places on you is so far ahead that it could make you recoil, stoking self-condemnation to the extent that you lose the ability to identify and, therefore, nurture the good in you. All that dominates is negativism.

Religion may be great. Its intent too. That's not even the question. But the popular form is surely not for the average person. And perhaps that is why so few really attain what religion aims. Why do you punish the laborer for not being an astronaut?

Obsession is bliss.

You learn about life as you live, and the other way round. Learning and living are in bijection. One doesn't beat the other. Living probably stays a step ahead most of the times, but not always. This figment is one such case in my perpetual discussion on life and its purpose.

You are born innocent and ignorant, though programmed with some "fore-knowledge". Then comes your first acquisition of worldly knowledge in the form or material perception. You learn about a few "things" and, unknowingly, obsess with some. In the next stage, you learn about "obsession" as an article itself, along with another multitude of non-materials. That's exciting, and you also know you're "excited". You're probably an adolescent now. You spend the next couple of years tearing the hair from all metaphysics and, in varying choices, teach yourself to master some of these meta-articles. Desire was definitely one such for me.

I taught myself, or so I think, to make my desires voluntary, and to be indifferent. Voluntary, I said. That is the demon in hiding. When you finally do encounter it, things begin to fall apart like never before. You doubt all that learning and principles you developed on your first meet with the meta-world. You doubt the very foundation of it. And if you happen to read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" somewhere around this time, things only get worse.

You don't know anymore why "reason" should be superior to "feel". You're not sure why you wanted that control over your desires really. The control is not the bother. It's what to do with it. There isn't a straight direction to take. In fact, I don't know if there is any objective to life at all on which to base your decisions with that sacred control you so worshiped. And you think, think and think but it gives you no lead. All you wish now is to be that innocent and ignorant self again, governed by involuntary nature-programmed emotions; to be no longer holding that leash to yourself. And be obsessed once again, without reason. And to live in it than the void.