Realizing Reality… Part I

I will become an astronomer and discover a new planet.

I will grow up to become a policeman and fight crime.

I will be the scientist who discovers the cure to cancer, the doctor who saves lives, the engineer who builds the greatest machines on the planet.

I will be the racer who cannot be defeated, the athlete who cannot be out run.

I want to be the software programmer who taps furiously on the keyboard and save the world (against alien attack..??!!??), while people await with bated breath.

These were the dreams we children had while we grew up.

Then… we grew up…

We became engineers, doctors, software programmers, scientists, and much more, but the glory… where was the glory?

Engineers spent all their time making micro parts for inane machines. Half the time they don’t even know what the final machine is going to be.

Doctors spend their time treating kids with fever and others with broken bones, exactly what every other doctor is doing.

IT professionals?!?… hehehe… the worst joke was played on us. Programmers write lines of code which somehow fail to work the first time… then they spend time trying to fix bugs… then one after another… again…

In the field of e-learning, working for a smaller company, I at least got to see a larger picture… But most off us don’t even see that….

Hell… half the time we don’t know what exactly it is that we are doing. What it is that we are creating? What problem we are solving? Who is gaining by all of this? They don’t know us… we don’t know them… are we really effective..?? Are we good at what we do…??? No answer… the room remains silent.

With every “task” being split among many many many people and many more vendors. With micro mini tasks being delegated lower and lower down the “chain of command”, what are we trying to do? to achieve?

Sure… we get a fat salary packet at the end of the day. But for WHAT? What exactly is it that we have achieved? Who have we affected? Where is the change?

Where is the glory…? The applause? The accolades? My 15 minutes of fame that was promised to me?

I am not bitter… No sir… I realize this is the way of life. But what I am not comfortable with is… In times where most of us don’t know what we are doing, and for SURE don’t know what others are doing. How are we sure we are “progressing” (indeed what is progress)? Who is looking at the bigger picture?

The uncomfortable silence frightens me.

I need to know...