The Master of The Game

For three days he has been working on it.
Finally he got it. ‘Is that it? That’s all? Aww’ he thought. He could now do it in a mere two hours. Instead of rejoicing that his labour had finally borne fruit, he was unhappy. A person with experience could do it in 2 hours. But could anyone have experience in every minute thing in the world?

Experience means recognizing patterns. Attribute the observed pattern to something that you have already done. If you have competence in that field, you must have done something similar. You must have read about something on similar lines.

Some time back RV had told me what he had learnt in some programme that he had attended - about different levels of competence. There are 4 levels of competence

1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence

You are in the first stage if you don’t know that you don’t know. The second stage is when you know that you don’t know. The third is when you know that you know. The fourth when you, after having transcended the knowing stage, aren’t even aware that you know. For instance, when you become very adept at driving, you can do it skillfully without even concentrating on it. Is it possible that you have qualities that put you in level 4 directly with regards to doing things ? That you are gifted from birth ?
Nah ! you gotta work for it. Only experience can get you to level 4 when you can perform the magic of doing a task in 2 hours which a CC would take 3 days, CI couple of weeks and a UI cannot hope to do.

He doesn’t remember why they were on the dark unlit road. But there he was.. listening to R as he was walking. R’s words sound so clear even today - “When a master does something, it appears as magic to you. But what you fail to see is the effort that had gone before it.” R was a master at public speaking. Did R mean that he practiced hard at home to deliver beautiful speeches? Excellence in speech seemed natural to him.
They keep talking..
Suddenly he realizes that it is too late. He has to get home. They run towards the bus stand and he manages to catch the last bus to Thiruvanmiyur in the nick of time. Things are so calm and quite in the bus. He looks around and realizes that he is the only passenger. He thinks over everything that R had said. R seemed like a prophet. He had felt so many times in school too. Sometime later he looks into his bag. It is heavy. R had given him a lot of books. ‘Take how many ever you want’, R had said. There were 2 boxes full of books. He had taken around 8 or 10. He now takes them out one by one and starts reading the back covers. Somewhere in the middle of the journey he sleeps.