The word’s been in my thoughts for quite some time now. Well, by quite some time I mean four to five years.

Let me begin by explaining what I mean by the term before diving  into my thoughts. Merriam – Webster did not give me the meaning I was looking for. Nor did dictionary.com. I am not talking about nourishment and keeping myself alive kind of sustenance. I am thinking more on the lines of sustenance of ideas. Sustenance of someone’s hard done work. Sustaining a concept. Beyond the lifetime of your own involvement. Keeping alive something non-human, something abstract, something tangible, something good while you are allowed to die is indeed sustenance. Sustenance for me is ensuring something that is good and existing keeps existing and hopefully improving and progressing.

That first step is the most difficult. Yes, a good quote to get someone motivated. I have used it too. I have met way too many people on this planet who believe that starting something is tough. Creating something is tough.  But how about keeping that project alive afterwards? Forever afterwards if need be? In my opinion, that might require much more dedication and efforts.

Let’s take a few failed examples. Look at this very blog. I started it back in July 2006 after being motivated by a friend. There was some spur of activity then. Which died off soon. The activity has seen an exponential decay since and the mean time between posts an exponential increase! Did I had a slight thought of sustaining it when I started blogging? Yes. Did I think of sustaining it after that in the past three years? Yes. Did it sustain? No. And I am sure I am not alone here. Reasons for the non-sustenance? Blogging sounded exciting back then, my interest died off later on, and not much motivation around, self or external. Actually, the interest levels follow waxing and waning cycles for me. Plus, the blog dies with me. So this is not a good example of sustenance beyond one’s life which is the centre of my thoughts. Nonetheless, it takes efforts on my part or others to keep me motivated to write here. Which is definitely much more efforts than having me coaxed to write that first post in the blog.

A better example is Robocon at VESIT (Vivekanand Education Society’s Institute of Technology) – the place where I did my bachelors. For those of you who have no clue on Robocon: Its an annual robotics event at the Asia Pacific level with varying and challenging themes each year. VESIT has been participating at the national level since its inception and has once represented my country, India, at the Asia Pacific level in 2004. So, you can understand if I classify Robocon as a big thing for VESIT. Well, it no longer is. VESIT no longer participates in Robocon. The activity is discontinued now. Why? I have little clue! It’s not that the college is participating in something better than it used it; there has been no progress, but a march back to pre-historic times. But I am digressing now from my thoughts on sustenance.

My two years working with Robocon has been a valuable life experience. And I have always wanted people to go through that experience. Still want people to go through it and still try to achieve it! I had picked up a lot of technical knowledge then. Towards the second year, the idea of sustaining my work was always around in my thoughts and in the fore-front of my actions. Documenting what I had done was probably the best option, but I did do that to a small extent for the future generations to use aware that new technologies will keep coming. Importantly, I made it a point to ‘pass on the knowledge’ to the juniors. And I may say I was successful with it too. Robocon continued in VESIT two years after I graduated. The juniors progressed a lot. I am highly impressed by their achievements. The technologies I had used were rubbished out as old and inefficient and replaced with better ones. And nothing makes me happier than that! However, the ’sustenance idea’ I had did not sustain with the juniors. True, doing something that you have never done before is exciting. But ensuring to keep doing something that keeps the flame alive is important. I was not quite happy with the last batch of students that participated; my colleagues told me their skills and energy levels didn’t match ours. My immediate juniors did not sustain their ideas and work; they did not pass on as much knowledge as would have been necessary and explored new technologies a lot by themselves. Result: the skills did not get passed on. I feel my hard work wasted now. And with Robocon stopping, its all back to square one.

One more organization comes to my mind when I think of sustenance. Its the Jain Student Association (JSA) at USC. JSA had been around in 2002, but was seeing a dying level of activity in 2004. It did not sustain beyond 2005 for reasons unknown to me. In September 2006, Rabbi Susan Laemmle contacted me and some more people to revive the group. Rabbi Laemmle was keen on restarting the group and invited us for a meeting. Things started getting exciting then. The first small step was taken.

JSA did well in the 2006-07 academic year, not a fury of activities, but it kept itself alive. Come 2007-08 and I was already in sustenance mode; most of us ‘re-founders’ were graduating in 2008 so getting current people involved was important. We did get some interested people on board and 2008-09 was taken care of. But, now when 2009-10 has begun, I feel the same disappointment I saw with Robocon at VESIT. No people to continue this wonderful idea, to keep people within the community bonded. The 2008-09 board, all of whom graduated in May 2009 recruited just two people in their lifetime. I, as a grandfather of JSA :P , am going to get more current people on the 2009-10 board now – there have been a couple of promising candidates who can shoulder the responsibility. But how long would a grandfather stay alive?

Which brings me to the real question my thoughts revolve around – How do I sustain something that can have a life beyond my own active involvement? Something that I either created, initiated, took care of, progressed maybe, revived, cherished? I do not want to be disappointed again. I can leave it in the hands of luck like my juniors at Robocon did, or expect another Susan Laemmle to revive and motivate people. But it would be nice if I could do something written-in-stone kind of thing to ensure the continuity.

How do schools stay afloat while their principals/presidents keep changing? How does democracy stay in a country for over 225 years seeing 44 presidents and counting? How does Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck ensure that the Wangchuk royal dynasty’s legacy continues ruling Bhutan beyond his own lifetime? How did companies like Godrej stay alive for over a century while others did not? What is it that they do that I have been failing at? What is it that I have yet to discover?

I have been trying to sustain ideas for the immediate generation after me, never beyond that. How do I talk to people ‘today’ whom I will not even be knowing until ‘tomorrow?’ Or to people I will not live to know? I not only have to talk to them, I have to convince them of my ideas. I am sure they will have questions I need to answer to. I have the answers. I will not live to answer. I need to get into their brains and find out those questions and answer them ‘today.’ How do you establish a two way communication with someone in the future?

If you were looking for answers, sorry, I dont have them. Not yet atleast. I am still trying to understand the problem and the above is a feeble and brief attempt of expressing my thoughts on it. I am happy to know and realize that my techniques have been failing, and that realization itself has taken time. I need to experiment more with this. Gladly there are enough guinea pig organizations and I have one in sight right now. I have thought over a new technique too. Let’s hope it meets more success and more insight than before. :)

Until then, I leave you with this:
Creation is a challenge. Initiation is a challenge too. But Sustenance is the bigger challenge than them all.