God Object

I started tracking my runs in college. I liked all the graphs and data related to each run. I was always insecure about my body, and it stayed with me in the back of my head. I used to run 5KM with a pace which averaged near 6'30" (pathetic). I never could've imagined how much it was gonna deteriorate in the next couple of years due to the lockdown.

I barely moved, didn’t go out, and sat on my laptop or lay on my bed the whole day. For a year or so, this continued, and I gained a significant amount of weight. I decided to start moving more as the cases started dropping. I started running again, but now it took around 10’00’’ to complete a KM whereas it was around 6’ a year ago. I felt pathetic, my legs got sore the next day, got cramps and stopped again for the next few months. Tried to start again, but the same result.

I decided to buy a cycle after saving for a couple of months. I thought it will be less boring to go around the city, which I did. I continued for a month or so, but then went to a wedding, and lost my flow.

This time I skipped for around 5 months, but now I am feeling confident about it. My pace is somewhere near 7’30“ still pathetic, but at least I can see myself improving gradually. This keeps me from quitting again. Writing this today because today’s run was quite special. I learnt a thing or two about myself.

Post-run Deepak is a confident person, who does not shy away from putting out thoughts. Running makes me feel alive, I can feel my heart thumping which was otherwise at rest for the last two years. Even though there isn’t much going on in life, running makes me feel good about myself. My mind feels unclogged, and new thoughts come up. I even get clarity about existing topics that usually clog my thought process.

I am nowhere close to being healthy, but this part of the day makes me more optimistic about the days ahead. Such a thought came up while running today. My legs were not able to bear my upper body weight, and I was feeling rusty because of that. I knew I had the strength in my legs to keep running, but my brain gave up and classified it as impossible. Then something that happened baffled me, my brain, was trying to push… itself?? to run, and believe that there is still strength in those legs to cover the next 1000meters. It worked, but funny how it works in mysterious ways, we have to work against ourselves to move. This also applies to other things that I do in my day to day basis. I know I have it in me to code the feature before sleeping, but the brain works against it and tells me to sleep. I usually walk around the house to overcome this part. It continues to make me think, about what my true potential is. I have always been mediocre at things. One reason could be not being able to negotiate with the part of my brain which wants to give up.

I wouldn’t have thought about this if I hadn’t gone for that run. However, another thought came up, which was about how the brain and the central nervous system control almost everything in our body. The funny thing is, we as humans try to bring in hierarchies, which can take decisions on their own. Then the workload on the top-level component is just to manage some organizational tasks which holds the organization. The same examples can be found with CEOs taking strategic decisions, but not building products. Which are delegated to someone way below them. A College where the Principal or Dean, does not come to the classes to take subjects. Something like the ReactJs application, where we have Higher-order components or providers. These are wrapped around another component which does most of the dirty work.

In Software development, we even have a name for this Anitpattern, which is called the God Object. A god object is something that has a lot of moving parts. Data flowing in and out, connected to multiple services, and so on. Our brain which is basically a god object tells us not to create god objects. This is fine because software systems and organizations are not as versatile as our brains. But it makes you wonder what are the potentials if we take inspiration from the brain. A lot of people are working on replicating it, and even though we have a lot of things which are inspired by it. Nothing actually allows you to create a God Objects, except dictatorship. (suggest a few more maybe)

We can even relate it to monolith vs microservice architecture. We have interconnected applications, which are altogether in a single instance in a monolith. Compared to a microservice where each component is isolated into its own instance. Brain asked us again to separate things. Maybe we are not designed to handle these complications, and we should not challenge them unnecessarily. but how do we understand our true potential without challenging it? Your legs can take it, but your brain tells you, you can’t. I wonder how many such opportunities I missed because of not believing in myself and surrendering to my own brain. Hope the number doesn't increase significantly in the future. Hope I continue to better my pace.