Hi there!
This lockdown has given me a fantastic opportunity to rediscover the things I love doing the most.
One of them, particularly, is walking. It's a habit I picked up from Amma (my mother) and I wish to continue pursuing this habit till the day I die.
I am fortunate enough to live close to the beach - a mere 20 minute walk from my house and I reach the first public entrance of Juhu beach. From thereon, I walk till I reach Sun-n-Sand hotel. Until now, I thought it was a 3 km walk one way but when I checked on Google maps, I can see that it is a 4 km walk! Feels good to have walked a km more daily! :)
This is the path that I follow.
I like to stop my walk at Sun-n-Sand because it is relatively less crowded and I can get a spectacular view of the sunset from this spot. This is what the sunset looks like:
This picture does not do justice to the amazing view that I witness - it is best left unsaid and it is something that you must experience when in Bombay! :)
I sit down here for about half an hour and continue watching the stunning colours of sunset.
As a side note, please bear with me on the following content. It somehow connects to what I have written so far. Read on.
I've always been interested in how the human brain functions. Isn't is fascinating? Billions of neurons in the brain, all working with each other to make us function the way we are today. It is of special interest to me because it is my field of studies as well. I am going to be venturing in the field of data science - particularly in the field of machine learning.
I got interested in the field of machine learning in my final year of engineering where I used artificial neural networks to price European Call options. You can read more about options here.
After that I started working in data warehousing and I drifted away from this field only to be back 7 years later as part of my graduate studies (coursework in M.Tech.) and my interest.
I am currently in my second semester of M.Tech, and I have courses in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. I would like to work in the area of machine learning, in future, where I would want to help companies identify patterns or anomalies in data and help solve business problems. An example would be to identify cancerous tumors in the brain by detecting unusual growth in parts of the brain. This actually is a subdivision of machine learning called deep learning, which I will learn in the third semester which deals exclusively with the workings of artificial neural networks.
Deep learning is learning how the human brain works and how we can model it in computers to help solve problems or identify patterns. Let's say that in childhood your parents told you how jam looks and in which glass bottle it is stored. Over the years, you may have associated a jam bottle to look like this - at least I have:
Now whenever I see this bottle, I know that it will contain mixed fruit jam. It is this "learning" that needs to be taught to the computer by modelling an "artificial" network of neurons just as they're present in our brain. Obviously, it is a very difficult task to model 86 billion neurons! Complexity time alone would be in multiples of exponential time - a very costly endeavour in terms of time. One can also imagine the magnanimous amount of cost with respect to space. We would need petabytes of space!
Anyway, enough of my geekiness.
I've been trying to meditate. My time in South Africa was quite scary and things got a little rough for me, mentally, after I was shown a gun. I think I may have slight PTSD. You can read about it here.
To calm myself down, I've come to learn that meditation does wonders. This video helped me a lot understand the power of meditation and this is something I am trying to incorporate in my daily life. You should too! It's a brilliant video by an expert in consciousness who lectures about the power of meditation.
I feel so happy to meditate at the beach! The last few rays of the sun falling on my face as I close my eyes and listen to the waves breaking. It is almost as if the waves are following the Normal distribution!
The waves start to rise from the left and right sides and peak in the middle and then suddenly all come crashing down. This cycle then repeats. The funny part is, I can only visualize this with my eyes closed and I am getting this information through my ears in the form of sounds waves as my primary source of input. I can also feel the winds becoming stronger as I feel the breeze making me happy. It is as if I am reaching another state - I need to explore this more as I read more on meditation and perhaps go through that Stanford lecture again.
But all of this disappears as I stop meditating! This is quite funny - nothing really has changed, has it? The wind continues to blow, the waves continue to crash but why does it feel different? I think it has to do with my concentration.
This got me thinking. Why did it feel different with my eyes closed? My visual input was blocked as I closed my eyes. I only had my ears and my skin working for me (my nose, tongue, and eyes were of no use in this situation). Through my skin, I was able to feel the cool breeze and my ears helped me with hearing the waves and simulate the Normal distribution-ish curve.
Personally, this was an interesting breakthrough for me. It got my thinking how bad multitasking really was. I had been reading and hearing about is but to experience it first hand is something else. The level of focus that I reached while meditating for 5 minutes was unmatched! I will definitely try to implement this while studying, reading a book, or listening to music. Focus on one thing 100%!
This will also be how I model my neural network in future - taking in only the needed inputs and focusing on getting the right results. My network will focus on getting only ONE output perfectly, nothing else will matter, it will also NOT multitask and try to accomplish what it intended to achieve in the first place. Each network will have only one specific function. What a great takeaway, isn't it?
After all, I will be modelling my artificial neural network based on the biological neural network, so it helps to gain such insights!
Anyway, coming back to my day, I then proceed to head back home on the same path before clicking a few pictures at the entrance of the beach while enjoying the stunning dusk colours! See it for yourself:
I am so previewed, fortunate, and lucky to have Juhu beach close to where I live.
I feel so happy to visit this place almost daily because it offers me an opportunity to play with dogs, see so many types of people enjoying the beach, and most importantly it is part of my ongoing fitness plan - the results are to be seen. Let's see how that pans out.
Until then,
Cheers!
Thanks for reading.
Rupak
