A moment of Eureka!

If there is a problem then there is a solution. It totally depends on how much time one is willing to devote to it. Depending on the comlexity of the problem the solution could take ages to strike. And at the end of it all it takes is that one moment of intense thoughts warfare, not controlled, which results in that ingenious solution which you always believed was there. What follows is a feeling of excitement, a feeling of stupidy of not having solved it earlier and above all the joy of success.

Its 3 A.M in the morning and I am nerd enough to have these thoughts. I have been thinking about blogging on this subject for a while now. And one small experience  finally provoked me into documenting this at this hour. I had a work related problem irritating me for a couple of days now.  It had reached a point where somewhere in my subconscious I had assumed that there is no solution to it and I would have to start over again and find ways around it(the usual give up tendency). I sat in front of my comp at around 11 PM today and worked another hour without any success towards it. Frustrated I decided to lay off and started my usual Internet chores mails, orkut and messenger bla bla. A continuous thread of thoughts were still hovering around that problem without any concience effort of doing that.  Somewhere in the middle of all this there was this spark, a feeling, which made my adrenalin rushing, heart pumping. A sudden sense of excitement gripped me. And the best part was I had no idea why was this happening. Some intution told me that I had found the solution. Did I? If I did then how? What was it?  All these quesitons still unanswered.  Careful cogitation revealed that the back of the head processing had actually come up with  a solution to the seemingly impossible problem. It took me about 5 minutes to relax myself and collect my thoughts and "BANG" the solution was there. I had no idea from where. It felt like it was always there right in front of me and I always turned a blind eye towards it.  How could it be so simple. There has to be something wrong. How could it be so perfect. Well it was, it had to be, its right there in front of my eyes.

All that was an hour ago. The solution as it turned out was flawless and unbelievably simple mocking me on the face for not having seen it for so long. That moment was a small insight for me to the feeling of Eureka. When after years of probing into a question people finally find answers to something that they been trying to figure out for ever.

Simon Singh in his Code Book cites many examples of how the code breakers never say die attitude helped them achieve the impossible. Outcome of World War I was changed because of one such dedicated cryptographer.

Einstein always believed that his wave theory was correct even if it meant proving centuries of study by millions of scholars wrong.

Its like a poet fighting hours together to get that one word right. Nothing but perfection satisfies him. Achiving that perfection is his problem. His fight is to find a solution to it. One could call it his profession, they might beg to differ though.

Just for this moment I would like to believe Impossible Is Nothing. A cliched sentence which has been used just too many times with too many contexts.