Last weekend I went back to my hometown for a short visit to see my parents. My hometown by the way is a small town in the state of Negri Sembilan that I believe 7 out of 10 Malaysians will have difficulties locating it on a map prior to the March 11 elections. The reason why I believe it is more popular now is because our Member of Parliament just happens to be the Prime Minister’s son-in-law but that is another story altogether.
Whittling the time away in the afternoon and since it is Ramadan and lunch is literally off the menu, I sat down and spoke to my eldest brother on a variety of issues from politics to cars to renewable energy. My brother and I could not be anymore different than we are now. Even in our physical looks not many will say that we are brothers. He was born twenty years before me which practically means we are almost a generation apart. The types of education we received are also different. He is a retired teacher who received his post secondary education locally while I had the opportunity to study engineering overseas. By the way, he is the eldest and I am the youngest.
However, since we are the only sons, we seldom passed the chance to talk about things that concern us as a family and the nation in general. What I realised after our casual conversation the other day is, both of us tend to view things differently. But that I would say is the beauty of it all. We can still talk together even though we are different.
Our paradigms are different. Period. I take for example the discussion we had on cars using alternative energy. It just happens recently that the national car maker, Proton, has a prototype of an electric car that they were showing off to the public. I commented that Proton should just abandoned this type of technology and even the hybrid technology in favour of hydrogen fuel cell technology as I feel it has a brighter future and will outlast the other technologies.
My brother then asked why can’t we have a car that generates its own power. A car that runs on battery but also has some sort of a generator like the dynamo for our bicycle lights. As the car moves along, the dynamo will then constantly recharge the battery. In that way, the battery will never run flat and we will have a car that runs forever.
That triggers the engineer in me. I started giving ‘lectures’ about thermodynamics, efficiency of machines, definition of μ and why there is no such thing as a Perpetual Motion Machine. He listened intently and seems to understand what I was talking about. Anyway, a few hours later, while driving back home I realised that what actually happened was that I was stuck in my own paradigm. Having been trained as an engineer, anything that challenges my engineering principles got shot down almost immediately. To me (along with my paradigm) the idea is totally absurd.
Still thinking about it I do realised that the idea at least merit some consideration. Yes, there will never be a Perpetual Motion Machine (that is my paradigm talking), nothing can run on nothing forever but through some modification and innovation at least some of the target can be achieved.
The discussion does open up an interesting view point or in other words, it introduced an avenue that may be a bit unconventional but still an alternative nonetheless. I think that is the most important thing. What we do is being dictated by what we have learned and experience which than made us fail to see it in any other way or from any other point of view. A bit like the Swiss watchmakers who failed to see the advantages of quartz watches.
Back to my brother, we then talked about various renewable energy and the advantages of each one of them. As usual, he would ask me about things that I believe not many engineers would ask. This is down to the simple fact that those engineers, like myself, have and will consistently fall back to our education and basically disregard any idea that goes against our engineering background. I have to say, it is a refreshing way of looking at things.
In a way, I did experience a change in my outlook and views about the things around me a few years back. It happened when I was promoted to a managerial position. Life as an engineer for me is quite simple. Almost everything is almost black and white. You do get your ‘grey’ problems once in a while but nothing that cannot be addressed. For example, if a machine is not functioning, there must be an explainable reason behind it. It can be as simple as not having the switch on to major issues such as total breakdown due to wear and tear.
Being a manager on the other hand it is a little bit more complex. The ‘greys’ are too many. You not only have to rely on your technical skills but also on other skills such as finance, budgeting, human resources and communication along with other ‘human’ skills. It is the ‘human’ part that I took a long time adapting to. I noticed that my views and the way I made decisions change. In a way there is a shift in my paradigm.
When earlier I just could not comprehend why a certain decision is made by the top management, I would understand it fully when I myself started implementing it. I believe this can be attributed to the new experiences I have gone through.
In other words, even on a personal level, paradigms are important yet we have to give it room to ‘shift’ as we go along. Only then can we achieve the things that we aspire to.
Whittling the time away in the afternoon and since it is Ramadan and lunch is literally off the menu, I sat down and spoke to my eldest brother on a variety of issues from politics to cars to renewable energy. My brother and I could not be anymore different than we are now. Even in our physical looks not many will say that we are brothers. He was born twenty years before me which practically means we are almost a generation apart. The types of education we received are also different. He is a retired teacher who received his post secondary education locally while I had the opportunity to study engineering overseas. By the way, he is the eldest and I am the youngest.
However, since we are the only sons, we seldom passed the chance to talk about things that concern us as a family and the nation in general. What I realised after our casual conversation the other day is, both of us tend to view things differently. But that I would say is the beauty of it all. We can still talk together even though we are different.
Our paradigms are different. Period. I take for example the discussion we had on cars using alternative energy. It just happens recently that the national car maker, Proton, has a prototype of an electric car that they were showing off to the public. I commented that Proton should just abandoned this type of technology and even the hybrid technology in favour of hydrogen fuel cell technology as I feel it has a brighter future and will outlast the other technologies.
My brother then asked why can’t we have a car that generates its own power. A car that runs on battery but also has some sort of a generator like the dynamo for our bicycle lights. As the car moves along, the dynamo will then constantly recharge the battery. In that way, the battery will never run flat and we will have a car that runs forever.
That triggers the engineer in me. I started giving ‘lectures’ about thermodynamics, efficiency of machines, definition of μ and why there is no such thing as a Perpetual Motion Machine. He listened intently and seems to understand what I was talking about. Anyway, a few hours later, while driving back home I realised that what actually happened was that I was stuck in my own paradigm. Having been trained as an engineer, anything that challenges my engineering principles got shot down almost immediately. To me (along with my paradigm) the idea is totally absurd.
Still thinking about it I do realised that the idea at least merit some consideration. Yes, there will never be a Perpetual Motion Machine (that is my paradigm talking), nothing can run on nothing forever but through some modification and innovation at least some of the target can be achieved.
The discussion does open up an interesting view point or in other words, it introduced an avenue that may be a bit unconventional but still an alternative nonetheless. I think that is the most important thing. What we do is being dictated by what we have learned and experience which than made us fail to see it in any other way or from any other point of view. A bit like the Swiss watchmakers who failed to see the advantages of quartz watches.
Back to my brother, we then talked about various renewable energy and the advantages of each one of them. As usual, he would ask me about things that I believe not many engineers would ask. This is down to the simple fact that those engineers, like myself, have and will consistently fall back to our education and basically disregard any idea that goes against our engineering background. I have to say, it is a refreshing way of looking at things.
In a way, I did experience a change in my outlook and views about the things around me a few years back. It happened when I was promoted to a managerial position. Life as an engineer for me is quite simple. Almost everything is almost black and white. You do get your ‘grey’ problems once in a while but nothing that cannot be addressed. For example, if a machine is not functioning, there must be an explainable reason behind it. It can be as simple as not having the switch on to major issues such as total breakdown due to wear and tear.
Being a manager on the other hand it is a little bit more complex. The ‘greys’ are too many. You not only have to rely on your technical skills but also on other skills such as finance, budgeting, human resources and communication along with other ‘human’ skills. It is the ‘human’ part that I took a long time adapting to. I noticed that my views and the way I made decisions change. In a way there is a shift in my paradigm.
When earlier I just could not comprehend why a certain decision is made by the top management, I would understand it fully when I myself started implementing it. I believe this can be attributed to the new experiences I have gone through.
In other words, even on a personal level, paradigms are important yet we have to give it room to ‘shift’ as we go along. Only then can we achieve the things that we aspire to.
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