Sanity

At 33, I stumbled upon philosophy. This time it was Jiddu Krishnamurti, thanks to Twitter and one of the tweets of Naval Ravikant mentioning his name.

Over the years I have realized that most of the modern day self help books and motivational content are nothing but recycled philosophy.

With time, my interest in reading philosophy increased. I read a good number of philosophers ranging from different schools of Philosophy.

I have realized that I relate the most with the discourses of Socrates, Diogenes and Epictetus.

Reading philosophy keeps me sane.

I am hopeful that before I die, I will have some smaller notes published covering the teachings of them. A small note that I can carry in my mobile and look at instead of checking email or wasting time.

Socrates said: “I know that I know nothing”, I am in the same zone. The quest of self knowledge is a work in progress.

Meeting

In this super connected world, we are seconds away from introducing our friends for business or other advice.

We think it will help them, but is it really so? Who are we to decide on their behalf? Why can’t we ask them?

And once we are done connecting, we feel that we are done with our job.

We tend to forget the after effects: what happens if either one of them are not trustworthy or valuing the importance of time.

We end up losing respect and get the wrath in the end for making the connections.

So if you are connecting people, be aware of the side effect. Be very aware.

This has been my learning today. I have to respect and value others time and do not take the time of our friends for granted. Also, I don’t want my friends to be mad at me because the connection did not bear any positive outcome.

What I am going to do now is :

  • Connect people only if they ask for it.
  • If things don’t work out or either party keeps rescheduling meetings, I will not be responsible.

This ensures my friendship stays intact and that my friends behave rationally with me.

My time is limited and I want a sane life.

Raw

I like interacting with people. Most of them help me and give great advice. At times I also help a few of them – with their job search, work related projects or financially.

I like those who are raw, honest and humble. The ones who say things as they are. I tend to dislike fluffy conversations.

Stay away from me if you are pretentious. I have limited time in my life and I would like to live it in harmony.

Your pedigree, class, race or nationality means nothing, if you are an animal: egoist, angry, opportunist.

Those who matter

Sometimes, people will avoid you.

  • They will not pick up your calls.
  • They will not reply to your emails.
  • They will keep rescheduling meetings.

You should not feel bad about it. You should give attention to all those people who stood by you

  • When you were nothing.
  • When you were broken.
  • When you were clueless about everything in life.

Mother

She is one of a kind.

She cared when I had nothing to share.

She was there when nobody else was out there.

My mother is everything for me. She has been there for for me always. I was never a loser in her eyes.

I remember getting extra pocket money from her to buy all my favourite food.

We are both aging. Her confidence on me is at an all time high. I feel blessed to have her around me.

One of the side effects of being a small town boy is having to live away from parents. My mom and dad are enjoying their retired life back home. They love the serenity, connections and silence there.

Thankfully after working for 10 years in the corporate world, I have some time for myself now. I have decided to go visit them every quarter. I have made 3 trips in past 9 months, so things are going according to the plan.

Sometimes, I still worry about their health. Looks like in 5-8 years we have to come up with some mutual agreement. That way I would get to spend at least a few months with them.

That said, dad has played his role in my life as well. He is strict, jolly and crazy at the same time. I love him too. 🙂

Feedback

Feedback plays a key role in our life. It is not just limited to our profession. Our seniors at work are not the only ones to give us feedback. If we have an open mind we can get better.

Life is a journey and we are time traveler’s. 

In the end, it depends on us. We can either improve our journey or keep living like animals.

Design

Last year I was reading on product design. I was fascinated seeing the innovation in this domain.  I picked up a design book (don’t remember which one) and made some notes after reading.  I found this file after cleaning up my system’s drive.

  • Design implementation takes time, working on iterating and incremental upgrades helps.
  • Communicate with developer as much as possible during the design process
  • Design process
    • Product description (summary in short)
      • User brief (What a customer needs)
      • Developers brief (How will it be developed)
    • Research & Insights (Digging to find out, who is going to be users)
      • User Flows(A diagram showing journey of user inside our product, mostly user experience)
      • Personas(Various user roles and levels of different category of users who will be using the system). Non-Users(How does system reacts when a user tries to access, log-in or lands in the system without access)
    • Getting closer to your customer and understanding challenges.
      • One to one interview(Talking to each team members and understanding the challenges)
      • Questionnaires(Sending list of questions and asking for information which can be helpful in building product)
      • SWOT Analysis (??)
    • Idea Generation Phase
      • A stage where all stake holder join hands together and work on the use cases of product.
    • Solution
      • Prototype
        • Use pen paper or software, get mockup ready and tested.
      • Build and Iterate
    • Product (Build the real product)
  • Idea Brief(Make a short description defining aim of project. It should be short, concise and open).
  • The funnel of focus(Concept –> Idea –> Absolute focus).
  • Research (In Detail)
    • Asking questions from stakeholder
    • Trying to understand the problem on which solution will be built
    • Usability testing(Seeing in front of you, how a user is using the product)
    • Visual Research(Materials which a designer will find useful for current project/system/flow)
    • Mood boards(Competitors aesthetic, typography, color over all experince learning)
    • SWAT Analysis (No clue, WTF ??)
  • Competitors audit
  • AN.A.B.C
    • Audience Need(Who is it for?, Are they crying out for it?).
    • Approach(How are we doing it, incrementally or all at once with 100% features?)
    • Benefit(Why should it be done? Will there be competitive advantage? Will you be first market with the idea?)
    • Competition(What will be your place in the market?)
  • Typography, Color and Layout (Left it for now, will get back when getting into design part)

Ps: I am not an expert design guru or product manager. 🙂

Arguments

Partnership gets a hit because of heated arguments. We turn into a beast,  our ego takes over: rationality and logic takes the back seat.

We get passionate and forget about empathy and virtues.

Why does this happen?

Is it because our lizard brain takes over?

A solid partnership requires respect, empathy and rational conversation.

We don’t have to fall for machiavellianism.

Being an asshole or running like headless chicken does no good.

Socrates died but his discourse on rational conversation is available.

Divide

Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others were murdered. We got racial equality added in our constitution.

But what about society? Are we treated equally? Has our bias on looks, color, beard or tuban got any better?

We are living in a united country divided by caste, creed, religion and colour. A society where separate plates, teacups serves people from other caste, religion.

We call ourself independent while living in dogma and superstitions.

How easy it is to divide a country and win elections on basis of religion?

Are maulavis and pandits working as agents for the politicians? Or was it written in our holy books to kill people from other religion?

We shoot or lynch people on fake propaganda spread via social media. What has happened to our rationality? Where is our brain and our power of thinking.

A society which turns Inter-religious marriage into a crusade. The leftover division happens over news channels and internet discussions.

Our self consciousness and self knowledge is the only cure. Sending kids to madrasa or temple is not going to make our kids any better.

This divide is turning us into monsters.

Greed

We inherited greed from apes, our ancestors and it evolved.

We fought for food, women, land and supremacy. Later religion came: mercenary killed many.

These days it is about selling more arms, controlling oil fields.

The quest for profit by food giants has given rise to many disease.

The easy access to loan, credit card for all has added race to accumulating more.

Government tax has increased but what about our prosperity?

Healthcare, education system, public transport, infrastructure: has it gone any better?

Greed is part of everyday life and we are all affected by it. It is making us more angry, disease prone and unhappy.