Social media is a loudspeaker with an unlimited scream, a battleground for thought leadership without knowledge. It will be difficult beyond a point to distinguish between a dog or an expert shoving theirs thought leadership.
During Covid, these folks were fighting with the doctors and experts. During the India-China standoff, they were the ones throwing their tips for our soldiers.
The side effect of this is that the new generation is more interested in becoming a showman, bragger on this platform instead of building, doing the real thing.
Yesterday I giggled seeing an 18-year-old kid fighting over hiring & funding challenges with someone in the industry for a few decades. I consider myself lucky to have not been born, growing up in this social media frenzy life.
It must have been around 9 pm and, the DVG market was buzzing. There were folks busy street shopping. I saw this kid staring at the box of earrings the hawker was selling. I felt like she is imagining to be wearing one of them from the collection. The city was going for a night curfew in an hour and, I had to eat.
The curiosity and imagination she was staring at those earrings reminded me of my childhood. In my case, it was about those mangoes from Raja’s bagaan.
I asked the kid if she needs one of those earrings and, she immediately said yes. She must have been 6-7 years old. I got her the earrings, paid the hawker, and ran for my dinner.
Last week in the afternoon I went to the market again to buy some dry fruits and, while crossing the hawker, he stopped me and told me what happened after I left.
Hawker: Sir, please buy it again. Me: Why? Hawker: I had to give 100 rupees and take back the earrings from that kid’s mother. That was the only sale I made the whole day.
I paid him 100 rupees and bought it. I will give it to my sister next week, meeting her for Rakhi.
It can be the weather or, I don’t know what, sometimes I get in the zone of complete numbness when I feel like doing nothing. Just stay still, sleep more, listen to some instrumentals along with reading some fiction.
It adds more perspective, makes me think and, I end up writing a few fictions or stare, blink and disconnect from the rest of humanity. I kind of like being in my rabbit hole in short.
I wonder if sages, Jain monks, and other religious leaders practiced slice and solitude for themselves or their disciples.
We conflict within. Our actions, decisions, approach, acceptance all are fighting within. The conflict of eating healthy or eating unhealthy. The war of watching Netflix or reading some fiction. Drinking or not drinking coffee post-lunch. In every instance of our life, we are fighting with ourselves and trying to convince ourselves for our actions. That’s why our little brain consumes 60-80% of what we eat every day. Our forefathers and monks found a way to put our mind at peace with meditation, fasting, spirituality, and eating less. For a misfit with a buzzing brain, they ended up crowding it with art, science or engaging in unanswered.
The battle is constant, so is the struggle and our conflict within.
I have been following the commentary on hiring over Twitter. Most of it is a rant. As in how impossible is hiring and building, retaining a team.
I am not part of that brigade. I have been on a startup journey for over four years and running a tight ship. We have had attrition, people left us and, we hired new members. It has not been as difficult as others. Our friend circle helped, trusting freshers helped, seeing them grow has been a great pleasure.
Everyone cribs about hiring crunch, and very few hire freshers or allow college dropouts.
What has changed since 2007 is that our ecosystem has gotten flooded with cash, team members have become a resource, managers a Trello board monitor. There is cutthroat competition; everyone is instead of building together fighting a battle.
A founder is busy building Unicorn, hiring his college peers to run the team, creating a miserable culture, and expecting team members to work as a slave. How long will incentive on money keep anyone motivated?
Isn’t an organization about building together? Is success not about growing together and bearing fruits from the success of it? Is a successful team not about knowing the circle of competence among the peers, liking or dislikings?
In the end, we all live to be loved, trusted, and respected. No money can replace this.
There is so much fluff, showmanship, and thought leadership around entrepreneurship. For me, it has been for one reason: finding people like working, spending time with, money is the by-product. Are we growing every day individually along with team and organization?
Our life is limited. Every breath of ours, we are getting closer to death. How much does materialistic possession or societal bumper sticker should matter?
What will you do with all the money; when you have no time to see your wife giving birth to a newborn kid. What kind of successful CEO are you when you don’t have time for your ailing father? How successful is your company when you have to slash salary for the least paid team members?
Those pyramids are heaven for the scavengers and looters in Egypt. What did those Pharaohs get in the end?
I keep thinking about things that I expected to continue with me in life, our relationship with peers being one of them. We, humans, are a slave to our habits. As as we grow old, our habits and tastes change.
What happens to our brain when we grow old, our eyes, our bones? Do they not get worn off? Once we move away from our home country, hometown: all we accumulate are its memories.
We have to realize early on that everything changes; love fades; money starts becoming meaningless; hoarding becomes useless. After all, none of this matters.
The idols of our freedom fighters are for pigeons to shit on it. Once or twice a year, if municipalities have a budget, it will get cleaned with garland and sweets distribution.
I am home this year for Holi. I think I am home after a long time. Holi has a special love and hate relationship with me. Hate because it would come during exam and love because we have so much to eat. And no one asking to attend the study.
Holi has been memorable during childhood when I would get to be with my grandparents. The eating session would be as early as 6 am with aloo paratha and other sweets. We would have had over 20-course meals as the day finishes.
Post breakfast entire village would be on its toe. People sedated on bhag, ganja, and alcohol would be roaming, dancing, laughing. Everyone singing phagua songs, some beating dhol, some jhaal, or others varied instruments. One day in their life, the pains would have disappeared, their fights among fellow villagers would have taken a back seat. Most of us would have been in our torn dresses as after playing Holi, that will get thrown.
We had some miscreants who would paint everyone in grease or other chemicals that would take days to clear, unlike natural colors. We would look like a rainbow or absolute dark gutter with only teeth and eyes visible.
In the afternoon, our platoon of kids would be in the nahar or boarding pump cleansing ourselves. It would take at least a week for color to disappear. By late afternoon, early evening, it would be time for Gulaal. We would bow to elders, put them abeer, get blessings and eat maalpua, dal puri, and mutton.
Thankfully, I see the tradition has been kept alive with a new generation. I am an observer now, watching them run breakfree, fight and paint their peers. It bought back all my memories.
Holi hai and Rang Barse songs are on loudspeakers all around. This time holi is different, more people, more joy and, feel like a festivity.
Why are we alive?
What is the meaning of all our actions?
What matters to our soul?
In short, what is the purpose of all our actions? What differentiates humans from other living organisms in our consciousness. But in the world we are living in, we are on autopilot, slaves to technology. With the rise of industrialization, we have turned into a hoarder. We are increasing our material wealth at the same time die finding the purpose of our life.
Hidden Brain is one of the few podcasts I listen to regularly. The recent one talks about the same topic. I enjoyed listening to it. The sooner we figure out the purpose of our existence, the less miserable our existence becomes. It will free us from external slavery and take us on the journey of acquiring self-knowledge. Finding the answer: ‘Who am I’ makes life worth living.
Stop everything, spare you 45 mins and listen to this. Thank me later. Good Luck.🥳🙃🙌 https://t.co/fg2SWiONgr
