Birthday Week

Here it comes, finally, my birthday. Not that it is something new this time, but surely one of the special ones because I passed another decade here on Earth. Last time this happened, I didn't realize how important it was, maybe because I was just 10 back then. But this time, it would be different. I realized I have moved around the Sun 20 times now, which is amazing, because I have travelled around 18.8 trillion kilometers, since my birth, relative to the sun. That is a lot.

On 3rd of October this year, I will have lived some 7305 days which comes to about 613 million seconds. Woah! Good going. I travel a lot, and almost all of it is from and to my college. My college is 61 kilometers from home, and I am into it for the last 2 and a half years. Considering a usual semester to be of 3 months (which is lower bound for most semesters) and a usual month to have 22 working days, in the last 5 semesters I have travelled around 40,260 kilometers; a little more than the circumference of the earth at the equator. I wish I had had the fortune to visit another country or even distant parts of my own, but that's all right.

20 years is a lot of time. From a pilot, to astronaut, to a star gazer and now a computer guy who talks code and science. My ambitions never ceased to motivate me. There have been some really nice moments, like getting into an engineering college, getting a personal computer and a mobile phone, good friends who love food and all. I was fortunate enough to be born in a family where I get all that I needed, to do things that I love, because what I am looking at is 20% of poverty in India; people who earn less than INR26 a day. Life has been really good, somehow. Hopefully I use it to the fullest, make some contribution to this world, earn money so that I can buy all those things I had wished for. Earn respect, value and more. I am a strong believer in Steve Job's "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's dream" quote. Our lives are too short for anything but these little materialistic dreams. Dreams in which we grow to be some mainstream professionals, to help people do their thing, which in turn earn us money which we use to do our thing, occasionally become millionares, buy fast cars and live in nice apartments, die. Some may not even see the Halley's comet in their lives, which is for me, something real. Whatever we have, is right here, right now. Future cannot be predicted, nor can past be changed. However, we still have our present in our hands. What we do with it is subjective.

Also, I am sharing my birthday with Free Software Foundation and GNU project. They have turned 30 this year, which is cool. RMS would be real proud at where his initiative has reached today. I would like all of the people reading this to hit the link once and read about GNU and it's philosophy. I feel they are amazing people, and their contributions to the community, especially.