Social psychology

Social psychology experiments are a fashionable field. The celebrated author, psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel prize. He also happens to be the author of the best seller: Thinking fast and slow.

I got to know about this field via Freakonomics and Hidden brain podcast. I was hooked to Social psychology. Fast forward, 600 days later I feel most of these are gibberish and unproven.

I wonder if these authors and researchers did controlled observations and experiments for grants or publishing books.

While watching the marshmallow experiment on YouTube and listening to the research outcome the question kept hitting me: What if the kids were fed marshmallows in all their meals, a week before conducting the experiment.

Power posing, affirmation, similarity, fear, persuasion, etc are all packaged and sold to us.

Thanks to the society signaling, social media noise and smartphone (because we are dumb), these authors are leaving more impact on our consciousness.

Control

Epictetus wrote enchoridian centuries ago.

The paragraph where he mentions what things we have in our control and we don’t have has been a principle for me. I consider lucky getting to know about it, soaking it up.

Many things we do in our lives with our best efforts. But if we decide the result or expect the outcome in our favor and it goes opposite we get miserable. At times anger takes over.

Going by Epictetus, I know it is a difficult life to lead. Leaving outcome aside and focusing on putting the best effort. Life is more content. We do not regret not trying.

Life with action as prime motivation does more wonders that has a goal.

Timeline

I met Akshat sir today. I have known him since 2004. He is my college senior and more like brother to me.

Meeting him was so refreshing. We were lost in past, so many memories kept flowing. It was like going back in a time machine.

We spent the whole day together over coffee/lunch/pizza. He is heading back in a few days.

We realized how all our worries, anger or insecurities were of no importance. We were kind of rebel and misfits in our college days and we have no regrets.

The day flew by like few seconds. I am sure many of you would have witnessed the same in your life.

Positive

Being positive is key to success in this journey of life. At every juncture, we have to choose our path and not being positive will let us down.

I was a super pessimistic human until a few years back, then thunder lightning struck. Why am I doing this?

In the end nothing matters, we all die. Some leave a legacy while others find a mistake in everything.

The feeling of positivity has fueled what I call radical fearlessness. I am feeling a better version of myself.

In every situation, my mental model reminds me: nothing can go wrong, I am breathing and all my body parts are well intact.

Capitalism

My tweets and previous posts must be signaling about my disliking towards Capitalism. To clarify, I am a product of capitalism. So having a biased approach against it is irrational.


This independent life of mine, the freedom to do whatever I like and wherever I can travel is part of Capitalism. The meritocratic rise of you without your caste or fathers reference is one such example.


Like our life Capitalism also has the other side aka consumerism. The industry of need creation. The constant reminders by advertisers on what we should eat, wear or buy. The imaginary mirage of earning more on account of killing present life is what I hate.

Disruption

My ear hurts everytime I hear about disruption. I don’t understand why marketers, growth hackers, VCs, journalists or entrepreneurs make use of this.

How can we disrupt something when in reality we are rebuilding it on the same base.

Should disruption be not called progress? The enablers of any market become better with time.

Disruption sounds like nuking for growth.

Read

There is a saying: You are what you read. I subscribe to this philosophy. Past few years have been great, I have been reading in bulk.
I have also realized most of the new age writing: productivity, efficiency, and self-help writings are old wine in new bottle.
Some of these best sellers are personal experiences or summary of research papers. Nobody knows if they will work in real life.
I have decided to limit my reading this year. I will spend more time re-reading some of my favorites.

Wealth

Death is a great equalizer. It treats rich and poor equally. The materialistic wealth does not go anywhere with you.

Famous kings and pharaoh had their tombs built with all the amenities. What happened to those? The thieves are digging for that wealth and pigeons are shitting all over those tombs.

The famous Greek and Roman empires have fallen and their wealth has disappeared.

It took me 33 years to realize that true wealth is not money but the cherished moments of life. The company of friends and family.

I still miss my mass college bunks and hostel bunks for 11 am shows at PVR. We had no money, we would eat cheap burgers at McDonalds’s but I still have a memory of those.

I am not mad at my physical education teacher who beat the shit out of me for skipping early morning runs. I am reaping its benefits now.

Silo

After leaving my fulltime job, I have been living in my own world. I decide and plan my day in accordance with my nature.

When to surf the internet, whom to reply and whom to join for coffee is my decision.

This living in my own world, like Silo mode, has made me better. I am less distracted and not entitled to respond to anyone’s opinion.

The amount of learning I have had in past few years is more than what I had learned in any job or during my graduation.

I wish I could have done this much earlier in my life.