koolhead17
From Benjamin Franklin to Charlie Munger to Sam Zell.
All talk about frugality, a life where you spend as much as you need.
The current world of consumerism and frugality has become a dystopia. Buying on loans and credit cards is a norm.
We are in the era of hoarding.
Our happiness has transitioned into fast fashion and brand acquisition.
How will we live a cluttered life with infinite choices? Most of it is on debt. Is there any place for frugality left?
Many great authors wrote their stories that later became a masterpiece. It is their personal journey and life experience inside which they live constantly. It results in easy writing for the masses. Another trait that made them all write well is clarity, which comes with lots of practice.
We undermine the value of practice and let go of the art of thinking. As a result, we are not able to produce quality work.
We are all carrying a Scar within us.
It is our past.
Some of us come out of it and make a new life.
Rest others continue the baggage of the past and succumb to it.
As a result, they continue to be miserable.
They don’t want to live in now.
Their past becomes a scar and makes them vulnerable.
Every minute of their present life shadows their scar.
The loss, humiliations, and failures do not let them live now.
We humans become better with pain. The reality of life is that it is full of pain and misery. Most of us surrender to it, become slaves and sick, and continue to accept it as a part of life and die.
While pain adds patience and willingness to go against all odds for survival, it makes us more realistic. We start seeing things as they are. We start observing our thoughts and take action accordingly.
Many think surrendering is the best pain avoidance method instead of moving forward and accepting it head-on. The reason is that we are aware of the pain but scared of suffering.
I keep hearing from friends about being bored now and then. Most of them are earning well and have a lifestyle that less than 1% of the rich in India can afford.
How come someone gets bored with all these luxuries in life? Is it because most humans are animals with monkey minds taking over us? Or is it our laziness that makes us feel bored?
Is getting bored a phenomenon of riches?
Is it our flaw that we let others take us on a ride? Do we continue being in painful conversation for past sake? We can’t be rude. We cannot say no because something within us is scared or longing for a connection.
We are killing ourselves and letting others dictate to us.
Our inability to say no continues to hurt us.
I am reading The Founders, its story about building PayPal. One thing that stays all across the chapters is insanity. All these founders, be it Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, Luke Nosek, or early members, were insane. They had a determination and vision of building big.
The current x.com domain of Elon Musk has been around since 1999, a fintech platform that Elon Musk wanted to build. In 2023, Twitter is its incarnation.
The earlier version of x.com was merged withPaypal. The combined entity got later sold to eBay. How insane is that? Is Elon Musk leftover aspiration is V2 x.com?
Is social media a trash machine? Or a place where we try to showcase how good-looking we are, how amazing our life is to thought leadership? The left and right-centered world will have different ways of seeing the same.
I have been observing myself. I realize that most of the time, I get on social media when I am bored. Is social media a cure or a place to blabber? I don’t know. It can be both.
Have you noticed yourself? What and when are you spending your time on social media? Also, do you think social media is a trash agent for the brain?
We are living in a world full of choices. It confuses us, be it work, relationships, or shopping. We are lost. We are unsure and constantly seeking validation from others.
Our life has become a showcase where we are out to delight the spectators. What we want, we have no clue about.
We call ourselves progressive living in a modern world. In reality, we are part of a confused world where most are unsure about everything. This constant paranoia or our urge for the best is making us mad. We are a living checklist not a human anymore.
I was in Tokyo for a week. The country surprised me on many fronts in a good way. The person who gets credit for its modernization is Emperor Meiji The progress of the country in becoming a superpower goes to him. I visited the Meiji Shrine on the last day of my stay. It was in the middle of a city and built after his death. I get goosebumps thinking at how a person changed the fate of future generations with his farsightedness. So much to learn about him for all of us.
We are living in a divided world where democratic leaders are busy building their statues instead of changing our fate.