Outliers: the story of success

Wow! I have finished the entire book. Probably this is the only book I finished reading in last year. So you get kind of the idea of my reading practice! That's pretty amazing huh! I used to read a lot! I used to read 4/5 hours a day and now I read one book in entire year! That's an interesting statistics. I used to surf and write a lot too; and now I seldom even write! What the hell I am doing? I don't know! I don't even do the kind of research I used to do. So what the heck I am doing!!! I know photography took a fair share amount of time from my life and so is Lipa. Another fare share goes to cooking and stuff like that, anyway that's the reality. I am not too worried, all are part of life; and the whole thing makes me a little more Shiblee. bla... bla... bla.. Let's go straight to the point, the book "Outliers."

My research area is sort of outliers identification, so I borrowed this book to get kind of a feeling of other people (other than mathematicians) think about the outliers. I wanted to address the most fundamental question of my research, what makes something an outlier? Well I know I can through a bunch of mathematics but none of them makes sense unless the noun Outlier makes any sense to me. So, I borrowed the book. Well my intentions were not fully gratified however it was a good read. In fact it's a very good read.

However, there is a big catch. The book, kind of point out the idea of being a man. I had come up with the idea of I = f(t) quite some time before. What I essentially wanted to tell is, I am changing every moment of my life and every complicated dynamics like social, economical, etc are shaping me in course of being me. The book almost brought up the same idea. What we see in every people is a complex collision and cohesion of intricate dynamics. Every little things make a little difference and end the result is a entirely different story! Let's start with an example.

Think about Shiblee. Shiblee was brought up in a lower middle class family. His family always had enough to eat but that's it. They never had enough money to spend on anything else. So he grew up in a sort of poor neighborhood. Well at least back in those days his neighborhood was fairly poor. Shiblee's mother and father came to Dhaka city around seventies, I presume after independence. Let's start with his mother. His mother used to know a guy named Sekandar Ali. This is guy is particularly important in many respect, because Shiblee's mother used to live in his house when she first came to Dhaka. But he is even more important for another tiny reason. He is the most educated man known by Shiblee's mother and he was very successful in terms of monetary concern; and guess what when Shiblee's mom came into Dhaka and find Mr. Sekandar Ali's upper class lifestyle she was kind of moved. (important note: Shiblee's mom and Mr. Sekandar Ali almost have similar family background). Shiblee's mom almost immediately conclude this is the education that change Mr. Sekandar Ali's lifestyle. So, in rest of her life she was kind of hoping one day her son gonna be like that and the only way known to her was a better education! She almost in her entire life she did numerous sacrifices for her children better education. Now you can imagine how important education was in Shiblee's family and what an enormous push he felt. Apart from eating the only thing was a ritual in his family is study. 

Shiblee however was not one of the brightest kind in the school. Certainly he was not living upto his parents expectation. However everything changed after class nine. The curriculum for nine and ten was massively redesigned during 1996/97. Every text book was re-written and those days the governing body was talking about redesigning the way science is taught. In that situation the teachers who were teaching for quite some years didn't know how to handle the new way of doing science. So people like Shiblee got a break. He was never good of collecting notes from previous years and doing the good in class. The teacher new well about old paper but they had no idea of how to correct their paper. They simply had no standard of which writing should get high score and which not because of the new science. So he did un-expectantly great in his SSC and finally become interested about study. bla.. bla.. bla.. Long story short, he graduated from BUET and doing his PhD. So. the key things are Shiblee's mother enormous push and a break of the curriculum change. Without one of those this story could have been entirely different.

Well that's the idea, Malcolm Gladwell tried to bring that up into the front. Einstein in not an Einstein if you disregard everything around him. The entire purpose of the book was pointing out the minor facts that shaped the successful people in later in their life. It is true: it is always easy to connect the dots backward but the backward connection of Bill Gates could really show the forward path of a kid in Washington today. I know backward connection of dots of the successful mind would not help us anyway, but what we can do is provide a guideline for future generation. Whenever a parent is confused, he or she may look at those dots to get some clue for their kids.

I don't know what was Malcolm Gladwell's intentions about the people itself, but I have no intention to vilify them. All my points were there are something due to the master minds' surroundings too and I wanted to acknowledge it with all due respect to them. Anyway lot of talking about Shiblee and very little about the book but I think I brought the idea of the book in front.