The Social Network

As much as i am embarrassed to admit it, I finally saw the movie some 2months after it released. And you would think that me, being a Facebook addict, would've probably seen it a million times and started celebrating Mark Zuckerberg's birthday in a bigger way than my own. Wrong. I saw it just day before. So before I share sme musings about it, I would like to mention that this is a very personal opinion, and ypu are most welcome to contradict it. i don't hate/love Mark and have no intention of popularizing/defaming the movie.

My first reaction when I started watching the movie was that I had probably downloaded the wrong movie (yes, I use torrents. Piracy FTW! You all do it, c'mon admit it! In case a cybercop is reading this post: Sir, I'm really sorry I don't make enough money to buy DVD's of every movie that is released. The day I get a well-paying job, I'll stick to Original prints only. Please put in a good word to my boss about it asap.)

Anyways, coming back to the topic. The movie. So it starts in a dark bar with mysterious conversations about Final Clubs. And while I'm still trying to figure out whether it is infact, the movie that i intended to watch, someone says 'Mark'. Hmm. This is it. As the movie progressed, the character of Mark was neatly sketched out for all to judge. And as the story unfolded, I had decided that he was a complete A-hole. Now, the point is, if he's such an A-hole, why is he where he is, after a mere 26yrs in his life? What made him the man we know today. Many of us worship the guy and can't thank him enough for giving us facebook: second life as I might like to believe.

Creating a phenomena at 19, and owning a company worth 35-50billion USD isn't child's play. Yet, he is infamously known as the 'toddler CEO'. 

Intrigued as i was by his character, I couldn't see why a man with his morals deserved what he has today. I chanced upon Mark's interview on 60minutes and it gave me a deeper insight to him. 

There were two things that Mark had. It wasn't money, or resources, or an entrepreneur's mind set. What drove hi was simply passion. Passion and luck. Harvard churns out thousands of brilliant minds every year. Most of them graduate to get extremely well paying jobs, which they begin to like in a while. Some are passionate about them even. But how many of them stick it out and do something that their heart tells them to do? hardly any. And that is what Mark did. What he did was somewhere unethical, but no one knows the truth. If someone else had the idea before him, why did they not work on it for 2 years? Why wait around for 2 years till someone eventually thinks of the same idea anyways? Mark rightly said, 'had you invented the facebook', you would've already made it.'

Its strange, how passion can drive a man to do something that he never thought he would do.
And that's how life is! You gotta do something that you're passionate about and that is the only way you will excel at it. It's never too late to follow your dream. In Mark's case, he realized it soon enough. Maybe some of us are at the edge, waiting for a slight push. Even a nudge. The Social Network is that very nudge. It makes you think 'why not' instead of 'why'. Better than any motivational speaker by far. And you know the best part? It compels you to get motivated without asking you to do so.