koolhead17
Humans like to leave their legacy. In princely states, kings would build castles, water fountains, and gardens. Tyrants, dictators and mass murders left us with many scars.
Our legacy should be our contribution to society and people around for good. How we have changed millions of lives in a positive way.
Most of those statues and castles are pigeonholes.
I read “the wizard of Menlo Park, a life of Thomas Edison” recently. All this while I saw Edison as the guy who killed Tesla. I am not sure if that is true, but reading this book made me know a few other things about Edison.
I am happy that I read about Edison, at least in the next coffee conversation I am not going to say: Edison killed Tesla. Lastly, our man Edison was deaf.
There comes part in everyone’s life where he/she feels completely broken. The lucky ones end up finding a sail, a person/book/hook which takes us out of our screwed up present.
I have had many friends, sail in my life and it helped me in shaping who I am now. Help others, pay it forward. Look around, there would be many of your peers who want someone to listen to them.
Be a sail.
I spent a few days reading, For the love of India: The life and times Of Jamsetji Tata. Not much has been written, taught about him.
It made me realize the influence of the Parsi community in industrializing India.
Some learnings:
These are too little to write about Jamsetji Tata. I would strongly recommend everyone reading this book. (Thanks to Santosh Panda for recommending).
Our individuality is constantly at a test. We get influenced and drape ourselves with externalities.
Are we not a unique individual with our own brain, body?
Why do we have to pretend, act like someone else?
Our identity which should have been our individuality becomes a copy of someone else.
Imagine a life without any influence from externals. It will be like a blank slate.
People say read, listen and watch to gain knowledge. How does it affect us and our behaviors? But is this much learning enough? Or this limited learning can leave some blind spots?
Is it difficult to be rational after gaining all the wordly knowledge?
The more I read I find I am nothing. It is like exploring into uncharted territory.
Excerpt from a book Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin
Overthinking is a cause of depression. We end up imagining situations which have not happened. The fear of its happening itself makes us miserable.
Our brain is hard-wired to think negatives. That came with our Homo Sapiens DNA. Always in fight and flight mode.
The only thing we can do to avoid getting stressed and stop overthinking is to be in the present moment.
Charlie Munger in his commencement speech on June 13, 1986, to the Harvard School, talks about four ways to become miserable.
Munger continued from where Johnny Carson had spoken. Carson’s prescriptions for sure misery included:
1) Ingesting chemicals in an effort to alter mood or perception
2) Envy
3) Resentment
On top of this, Charlie Munger added 4 more :
Complete speech can be found here
How many of us are living in isolation? We resort to social media applications, news feeds. Do we feel we don’t belong in this real world where we would interact humanly?
Why do we have to take shelter to anonymous platforms to share our pain, happiness?
Is it because with the advancement of technology has affected our relationship in a different manner?
Are we more comfortable sharing and caring for remote strangers than the ones we grew up playing gully cricket/football with? Or is it we are all displaced from our native and we don’t have those friends anymore at walking distance?
Civilization has come far, we are living a better life yet more isolated and glued inside the gadgets?
How many decades are we away from the singularity?