Kedar's Log, Stardate 2009

When you talk about lifetime changes, you tend to think about getting married, having a kid, buying a house, getting divorced.. well, you know what I mean I went for a change in my life recently with the same bit of seriousness, as I would for any of the above, and it makes sense that I call it a “Lifetime change” too… Please read on, it is not a technical discussion.

The change was simply that I finally dumped my Windows machine, for a Mac, after about 16 years! For the non-savvy and non-technical, this may sound trivial. But having spent almost every day of my life, for the last 16 years, in front of different types of computers, I think they too, deserve to claim a piece of my life.

You know, I have ‘dated’ a lot of ‘damsels err, I mean computers.. a weird one called ZX Spectrum back in 1988 that ‘claimed to be a computer’ with a Cassette tape (!), the oldies – PC XTs, the ATs, Honeywell Unix terminals and many other Unix terminals whose names I have forgotten, the IBM mainframe terminals, PC 286s, 386s, 486s, Pentiums xxx, Dual cores… bla bla bla.

And I have seen the Operating Systems that control their behaviors, mood swings, tantrums – there was Unix System V, MS DOS 4, 5, 6, AT&T Unix, SCO Unix, IBM Mainframe OSs, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, XP Pro, XP Home, 2000 flavors of Linux’s (!), Windows -2000, -2003, Mac OS-X, Mac Leopard..

So many of them, but I managed to stay loyal to one family throughout this 16 yr journey – the Microsoft family! I have dated many from that family, keeping the family loyalty intact for all these years! I have enjoyed the closeness, their popularity, their riches, and at the same time, have suffered at their hands, defended them out in the world, got embarrassed because of them, but still, at the end of the day, I came back to them – in their palace, to their kingdom, back to my in-laws…. And now this.. call it disloyalty or my mid-life crisis, but I finally realized that it needed to end.. I wanted out!

On that fateful day in the last week of February of 2008, I finally embraced a bright, slim MacBook Pro and flew away on my vacation to India. That’s when my love affair with the Mac started after so many stale years living with the Microsoft family. I had a few flings with the Mac family before but it was always too clumsy, since there was no commitment from my side. And I used to always complain as to why someone did not ‘click right’ or ‘close their windows right’… I guess I never looked at their heart, which is made of pure gold – the Unix heart – one that holds steady..

And all those complaints, I realize now, were just because I was so brainwashed by the Microsoft family members! I didn’t have a voice of my own, nor was I allowed to think outside the Window! I was comfortable, because it was all too familiar to me – someone blowing their fuse whenever they want, not having anybody to depend on, always living in fear of losing everything you have.. I thought that’s how it is in a love affair – you know, being ready to sacrifice, giving, forgiving, undemanding.. And I didn’t realize when those love affairs morphed into hate affairs.. I continued on as if I was married to the family and there were no divorce courts! It was as if, I had to go from one cousin to another…!

And then this day in February, I said to myself – hey! you are not so old yet.. don’t give up. You will find a soulmate if you are committed to making this change. Linux was too complicated and couldn’t have been someone to go steady with. The only other option I had been eying all these days was the stylish Mac, the one I had complained about in the past like a fool. I poured my heart out in front of her and she was magnanimous in accepting me.

From that day, I began living my new life, accepting things that were minor inconveniences, adapting to the new way of life, new moods, new responses, all the while admiring the beauty of my new girlfriend. And I told myself, nobody is perfect.

I still live my life, there is still programming, surfing, storing, retrieving, shutting down, starting up, but it is just done in a different way.

After all, life is a way of living rather than the living itself! Everybody has one..

Read the 2nd part of this post here