Lag

Dear friend,

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you had to deal with ‘lag’? To me, lag (or latency) is one of the worst things as a gamer. But how can we use this analogy of ‘LAG’ in real life?

What is ‘lag’?

First of all, we must address the question:

What is ‘lag’ — and why is it a bad thing?

First of all, I would define lag as:

The delay between an intended action and the feedback.

For example, if you’re playing Counter-Strike (1.6) and you see a counter-terrorist you want to kill. You use your AK47, and click your left clicker to start shooting. But there is a half-second of lag, and you end up getting spotted, and you die.

Now the unfair thing is that when I was a teenager, the kids with the better computers had an edge– having better ‘GeForce’ graphics cards gave them faster “FPS” (frames per second), which meant they had a ‘smoother’ experience, with less lag (latency) — something also related to internet connection speed.

So I guess the frustration with lag is that you would die and lose games, not because of your lack of skill, but the fact that you had worse equipment.

Real life feedback

Real life is great– the maximum frame rate, highest resolution, and there is no “lag” or latency in real life.

I think it is in our human DNA to know how “reality” works. We do something (like chop a wood), and it should break into half (without any lag or latency). So perhaps the problem with “lag” in video games is that it doesn’t reflect reality — because we expect instantatenous response.

But another fun question:

Is there such thing as ‘lag’ or ‘latency’ in real life?

Latency

Latency means ‘delay’. Digging deeper into the etymology of the word “latent”, it is defined as:

“Existing or present, but concealed or inactive.”

So if we think about physics– ‘latent energy’ is energy which lies hidden, yet hasn’t been put into action yet.

From a random philosophical idea– I think a lot of us have ‘latent strengths’ or ‘latent talents’ — yet either we don’t know we have those skills (it lies hidden within us), or we just haven’t put these skills/strengths into action!

Another good word to define ‘latent’ is “dormant”. A lot of us have strengths and skills, yet they lie dormant in us.

And it is our duty to ‘manifest’ our strengths, and put forth our skills into the real world.

“Lie Hidden”

‘Lateo’ in Latin means to “lie hidden”.

So a fun question to ask yourself:

What kind of strengths, talents, or great ideas do I have which lie hidden within me? And what can I do to put forth these ideas into real life via motion?

Sorry I’m totally off-topic.

The real word we are looking for is ‘lag’ which means “to delay”. We hate delaying or waiting. Because I think humans like speed.

Also interestingly enough, to “lag behind” means to fall behind, or to run too slowly.

So in real life, when we are “lagging behind” we are “falling behind.”

So from an entrepreneurial perspective, we don’t want to fall behind. We want to be the leader — the person leading the pack!

How to not lag behind in life

Be at the cutting edge. Be the trail-blazer. Be the person paving new paths.

Do research on cutting-edge technologies: For example I read lots of Google Research scholarly papers on image recognition, machine learning, AI, etc. When it comes to any topic you’re interested in, try to read more academic papers on it.
Put your mind into motion: It ain’t enough to just have ideas // you must put these ideas into reality! This means if you got an idea, blog about it and publish it to your website-blog. If you got an idea for a photo project, just go out and shoot it, then process the pictures, then share them. You must do it, create it, and sharing it is optional — but it certainly helps in boosting your personal confidence. Remember the Latin saying, ‘Mens agitat molem” (The mind agitates/moves physical matter).
Never stop moving: Lag (delay) happens when you delay.

Ruthlessly cut what slows you down

Practical idea:

Whatever delays you, ruthlessly cut it from you.

If you’re Icarus and want to fly to heaven, you must subtract any superfluous weight which is holding you back.

Never stop pursuing your dreams!
ERIC