Are Engineers Susceptible to Stress?

Take a walk!.  Thats what i do.. when stressed..  stress in the sense that... i intend or try to do something and the situation does not allow me to do so.. may be i dont have the conviction or whatever the inference is.

The interesting thing is.. after a walk... the stress takes a walk.. :-) and i am relaxed. so... who am i?... But the big I is not the topic for this blog.... it is all about sress and engineers....

I happened to take a walk on one such.. what else... a stressful situation..   The question that rushed internally was and is.. the title of this post.

Yes. I am an engineer... no no no. i as a person... holding an engineering degree certificate.. thats all. thats how i got my 12th certificate and my 10th earlier to that... The certificates were not earned.. they were conferred based on some vested interest of some one else.. I thought i was worth it... little did i realize then... how foolish i was and am...I am also part of I scratch you scratch community...

A sincere someone asked... a valid... very valid question.. "so, what have you engineered so far?".  in that sense, i am not an engineer and i cannot be stressed. so.. what else....

The train of thoughts...  random thoughts...  as it occurred...

As much as a "point" is for geometry.... "acceleration"  is for classical mechanics.... "velocity" is for relativity.. the "pulse" for a traditional doctor.... ofcourse modern doctors rely on engineered instruments to track the origin of the pulse in the name of stethascope.... The "stress at a point" is fundamental to a mechanical or civil engineer.   Not sure what is it for an electrical, electronics or a chemical engineer.. some say its all about electrons....

As a certificate holder of mechanical engineering, all i know is that... Stress at a point requires 9 numbers in a 3x3 matrix to specify it... further more... to understand it... and use it for prediction... may be thats what engineers do...it takes differential and integral calculus.. Who knows calculus? May be newton.. may be leibnitz... may be maxwells, gausses and feynmens... But not faraday for sure..  Had faraday tried to understand calculus... he might not have had the time enough to conduct experiments with electricity and magnetism.... (this is bad inference... may be...)

After all the random thoughts have subsided through the brain.... there was a nasty flash....

An engineer tries to recreate or duplicate nature. In the process, engineers have gone far away from understanding nature.....  the plants... the animals... the birds...  the air... the fire... the water... the earth... the sky....the social psychology.  How can an advanced engineering community live in harmony with nature?....  It seems to be a contrary... an Irony....

An engineers pursuit of understanding the stress of a physical object.... seems to result in exceeding the safe and yield stresses (ultimate stress for brittle materials ) of the environment.

Naturally .. nature will withstand the stress... what about us? engineers?  ... the lesser mortals.. ?

This reasoning aint self-defeating.... A realization or an opportunity for .... alas we all like to play with words... ...awareness engineering or mindful engineering.... dont forget... there is environmental engineering....

We love to pass the buck... the famous question... "Who kills Creativity?"... The most loved answer seems to be schools... and then the teachers.... we do not want to accept the fact that... the very reason being the parents themselves...  we dont accept. dont we?...

Some day... we engineers too might realize...

Note:
Dots were used very liberally in this article.. Just because, i did not know, when to put a comma and when to put a fullstop.. so....  thanks to the dots. though they are abstract, they seem to somehow connect.. to reality....

The Tek Monk

Who are you? 
The question that makes us think, explore and reason enough to live for.  Our perspective,  couple of years ago for this question. A 2014 post - The hard part is to introduce onself.

The answer seems to be Tek Monk.

Tek Monk is an identity and a way of life. For the average and ordinary people.

Similar to a businessman, an entrepreneur, a startup founder,  social entrepreneur, social activist, Nomad, Banjara etc, 

Who is a Tek Monk?
A Tek Monk is one who follows sustainable living, self-employed, a science entusisast, a researcher, a mentor and optionally an educator. The most important is to "walk the path of truth". Thats the identity.

What do you mean by Sustainable Living?
Sustainable living as per our understanding is to lead a life in harmony with nature and consume minimal resources. An ecology centric life.

Can we quantify minimal resources?
Quantification is a real challenge (seems hypocrytic) as it is very much dependent on the environment (urban, rural etc) in which we live and also subjective.

 As of now we are considering earning/living within the income tax slab as our annual need. This should take care of the basic necessities of an individual like food, shelter, clothing, health and continuous learning. Anything more would go into research or payforward activities.

Why Self-Employed?
Every one is unique and would have a calling. So, being self-employed provides an opportunity to pursue ones dreams. It can also be seen as a spiritual journey. Living at the mercy of nature.

A group of Tek Monks may collaborate to form micro-ventures to share their expertise.

Why Science?
Nature seems to be a game based on some rules. Rules are revealed to the inquisitive minds. To play the game (to live in harmony), we need to understand the rules.

Science is a method of understanding some of the rules of nature ( of physical reality). Rules ofcourse  are revealed incrementally.

Why be a Mentor?
Assist others willing to explore and become a Tek Monk. We believe in collaboration and sharing.

Why be an educator. Why optional?
Sharing our knowledge with others helps in a deeper understanding of the subject. More importantly, the mixed audience would give different perspectives of the same subject.

Being an educator helps improve the expertise levels.

This is similar to "chicken and egg" paradox. An expert can be a good educator and being an educator helps build expertise.

Being an educator is considered to be a unique talent and hence left optional.

Why do you call it a Journey?
Nature reveals its secrets; Incrementally. The more rules (of nature) we know, the more we dont know. So, this is a continuous journey with pitstops. The pitstops are to refresh, reflect and rediscover oneself. The Journey is Life.

Money is necessary in this world. Where does it come from?
We earn a living by doing blue collar and odd collar jobs or by sharing our expertise.

For jobs other than green collar, the monetization basis for our man day/manhour rate is on a 3 day work week. Remaining 4 days of week are used for self-improvement, research and green collar jobs.

Green Collar jobs and research activities are taken up on a total voluntary model or based on food, shelter basis.

We are open to investments that are returnable or in a payforward model. The funds will be used only for infrastruture, research and to assist Tek Monks in skill development.

We do not accept donations.

Why these collar jobs?
For a Tek Monk, every job is a prime job. We wish to take up physical work as much as possible. It helps us keep our health and also utilize the energy consumed.

In situations where the nature of work is considered hazardous to self or ecology, we shall take an effort to minimize the impact. Human powered machines would be the first choice. Science, Engineering and Technology might help us convert blue collar to Virtual Collar Jobs.

The inspiration?
There are many. This is a collection of our experience from observing the lives of the likes of
K L Muralidharan, Puvidham Meenakshi, Thangavelu Ayya, Manikkam Anna, Felix Anna, Ankit Banjara.

Friends who wanted and made Aatrral happen.

More importantly, well wishers who prodded us with the deep question; Who are You?.

What it takes to become a Tek Monk?
This is a self-taught, self-certified identity. You may already be one.

We are taking an effort to put everything in writing.  Might take some time. In the meanwhile, you may talk to one of us who have taken up the Tek Monk Journey.

Any Road Map to embark on TekMonk Journey?

Its a didactic and level based self-learning process between being a monk and tek. 16 and above age group.

Monk 1: Get introduced to the concept of sustainable living  (a few minutes to few days)
Tek 1:    Earn your living and become self sustaining. This depends on skill gap.

Monk 2: Acquire skills for sustainable living (learn from experts)
Tek 2:     Learn the fundamentals of science and Technology (1 to 6 months)

Monk 3: Volunteer
Tek 3:     Attempt to solve real world problems or purse research in pure sciences.

Monk 4: Explore life of a Banjara
Tek 4:    Become an expert

The levels are self designed. You may seek assistance/mentoring from other Tek Monks.

How do we contact tekmonks?
Please send us an email (tekmonks@gmail.com) and one of us shall get in touch with you.

Proposed Logo.

Art of Nature vs Nature of Art

Am not a linguist, nor an anthropologist or a recognized philosopher. Which could mean that I fit into the profile of a layman.

So, this is a laymans inference of art made by humans. The paintings, drawings, architecture etc and how it could influence ecology?

We, as a family, happened to go on a 45 day (we did not plan the number of days). It just happened so. A 10000km, learning journey to the Northeastern states of India.  Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya were the states visited. The onward journey was from Coimbatore to New Tinsukia in Assam, a 4500 km and 78 hr train journey.  We lived mostly in villages and economically backward areas.

We also happened to visit Mowlynnong in meghalya which was declared cleanest village (2003) in Asia , the Live Root Bridges and Gompa in Itanagar

The return journey involved  stopovers at calcutta (Kali Temple and Science City), Bhubaneshvar (Konark and Puri Temples) and Vijayawada (Panaka Narashimar Temple)

When we observed the lifestyle of people, scripts, buildings of different places and their art forms, a suprising inference emerged out of the mind.

The observations - Starting from the Northeast to down south:
+ The scripts for the languages are straighter in the norteast (assamese) and becomes more and more curved as we travel through bengal (bengali), Mostly curves (Odiya), Only Curves (Telugu in Andhra) and a combination (Tamil).
+ The farm lands in northeast surronds the untouched forest areas. But as we come to south, it is more of cash crops and very minimal natural forests. The root bridges in northeast are a symbol of harmonious living with nature rather. How ever, the concept of sacred groves seem to be prevalant throughout.
+ The place of worship start with Plant and Nature in northeast, Idol worship in West Bengal and Odhisa  (they do have some resemblence with human form) and starting from vijayawada, the idols assume human form.
+ The buildings are more functional in northeast and becomes a little artistic as we cross orissa (as seen in puri and jangannathar temples) and become more artistic in Andhra (Kanaka Dhurga Temple)


The inference that came out of these observations were crazy and seemed irrational. But however, this is the summary.

"When people get more and more artistic, it is an indication that they are moving far away from enjoying the beauty of Nature".

Be Happy - Just Like That

We had an opportunity to visit northeast states of India. 

Since reaching Assam  on 2nd july, having interacted with some 200+ children from economically poor backgrounds and some 30+ families and observing some passersby, it was nice to see that most of them were "rich in happiness" and we're leading a contended life.

The question that arose was "how to be happy". More or less understood the reason from 2 different incidents.

One, after visiting a tibetian monastery in Arunachal, we wanted to buy a souvenir for some low budget. We identified an item which would cost somewhere around 50₹max (our economic perspective). We were surprised to hear that it costed 250₹. Our friend was shocked and could not resist asking for the reason. The prompt and instantaneous reply was "just like that". 

The second incident happened during an interaction with children of age group 10 to 16. They were learning drama, vocals, craft and also the "science through life" program we were offering. When I asked  them why do they learn arts, drama etc; just to build a similar case for science, the quorous answer was " we just feel good"

That was the point of realisation. Be happy. Just like that.