koolhead17
Haruki Murakami speaks about his audience in “Novelist as a Vocation.” He writes for himself first. I liked this honesty. If your creative fuel depends on an audience, how is it creative and not some work?
Most lost artists of the past created music, art, or literature for themselves then the world took notice. We can name them Dostoevsky, Kafka, or Van Gogh. They lived and shared their thoughts in stories and art.
Haruki Murakami speaks about his writing practice and creating content buckets in “Novelist as a Vocation.” The idea strikes a chord with me. Unlike him, I add audio notes or write notes on my mobile.
When you have a bucket of content, you know what part of the story will go where. In my case, it has been short stories, poems, and random thoughts.
I loved knowing that for writing, he had to spend hours every day and jazz music and coffee working for him and writing a minimum of ten pages.
He also talks about revisions in which he leaves content for a week doing nothing before further edits. He repeats the process a few times before his wife gets a copy of it for user feedback.
This process of adding stories to a bucket and then writing,re-writing, leaving it for a week, and coming back makes me realize writing is not for everyone.
Time has changed since I graduated. We would do one or two internships and contribute to open-source projects. In the last year, we have been actively looking for interns. I am witnessing a pattern where most folks want three months of paid internship. Some are in 4 sem having 4-5 internship experience in their CVs.
I am limiting this post to a tech/engineering background. But what will you be learning and contributing in three months? Is the internship about adding company names to the CV?
I am yet to understand the motive behind adding internships. Learning is a gradual process. It takes time to master. Staying focused on one thing and finishing college would be of better use than running for a new company’s internship.
It is easy to compare others and run the FOMO. But attaining that ultimate skill requires grit, time, and patience.
Have you been around people who influence you positively with their actions or work? We are social animals. We crave inspiration, care, and respect. Once we are part of a community, group, or company of friends who are all progressive, we will start showing our spark. We will be motivated enough to go against all odds. The reason being we have people with us who have got our back. They are helping us glow, run and chase our dream.
You have to be very lucky to find such a company. In most instances, we live in a flight and fright zone. We have no room to experiment, fail, and make mistakes and learn from them.
Our monkey mind is scared and born pessimists. For it, survival is the default. Hence, most of us never reach that sparked state in our life. Some of us are not lucky.
We go out chasing love, relationship, and whatnot. Marketers and Hollywood make the most out of it.
Instead, we should find a company that inspires us to do the impossible. Those who make you better every day. Those who inspire and keep igniting the spark. They make us better in all senses.
As we grow old, our looks will fade. The likes on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube will not matter. It will be company and consciousness. Having the right company will define the end of life. It will make our living and parting less miserable and filled with a spark.
My encounter with Haruki Murakami happened six years back. I wanted to get into running. His book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” helped. I have read half a dozen other works of his. I always questioned his mental state while writing that fiction. I often joked about what he smokes during his writing session.
His recent book “Novelist as a Vocation” sheds some light on it. He is one of the misfits living in his zone and delivering continuously. He speaks about originality in one of the chapters and talks about an artist qualifying as Original. I felt like sharing it.
You can relate to it all by reading Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway or looking at the paintings of Picasso or Van Gogh.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about the mental state called: Flow in his book with the same title, where we are super focused and lost in one thing. We become obsessed and work all along. There is no time or days in consideration. We get lost in a unique world of our own. We become super creative and find ways to do the unknown.
I see flow in one more aspect of life: living to the maximum now. It saves us from wandering in the past or worrying about the future.
We are in it now at this very moment.
We enjoy and live in it.
There is no clutter, anguish, or pain about anything.
Living in flow is about living in now. And it is not easy.
Working with a team means having multiple minds. It’s an assembly line. The complete product requires working like an orchestra. That means everyone has to take responsibility and ownership.
A leader’s responsibility determines predictability and quality deliverable in a defined time. It comes with experience and deploying capable and efficient resources in the mission.
A leader defines multiple strategies for smoother deliverables. It can include enough buffer time for outsourcing. There is no one right fit.
Everything boils down to shipping quality products with the right resources and on time.
There is limited certainty and mostly uncertainty. That is where the planning and forecasting, and backup plans help.
At times I keep asking myself the cause for my existence. The feeling differs from time to time. I quit my full-time job to build a better life for myself six years back. A better life, essentially being master of my own destiny and riding life on my guiding principles. We have done well for ourselves, built a great team, and got enough customers who believe in us, our way of doing business, and pay us sufficiently to solve our financial needs.
Now and then, the question comes, is this it? Is this life? I am still looking for answers. I have made a few friends, learning from their journey and trying to learn from them.
I still don’t have an answer. But thankfully, there is no void in life. Even if I die today, it will be peaceful. My soul will not torment others. I won’t be the ghost troubling others.
Change starts from the top. Monkey see, monkey do. If the leader is complacent and not paranoid, how do we expect the team to deliver? Can you change the default overnight? Human beings’ obstacle is fighting with themselves and bringing change within.
Everyday PR stories and startup news reporting speak of founders announcing about conserving cash, cutting free food at the canteen, and not taking first-class flights. It is a tall ask that employees will change overnight because of macro conditions and not having enough in the bank.
Why was top in chill all this while? Why did they not plan for this adversity early on? How do they expect the entire culture to change overnight?
Kal tak apni naakami ka maatam manaye za rahe the.
Aaz hamara zanaza ja raha hai.
Apne na-umeede me hum simte rahe zindgi bhar.
Kisi se kuch paya nai, bas lalak se reh gaye the dil me.
Sab tha uper wale ka diya hua hamare paas, bus ek jine ka zariya nai tha. Koi maksad aisa tha he nai ziske liye hum ziye. Ek kisam ki kami se the zindgi me, ek dard sa reh gaya tha. Apne bete hue kal me dub dub ke filsal se rahe the ham. Apni aaz me jina chor diya tha, bite hue kal me he dubki lagaye za rahe the.
Ab dum nikal gaya, ab mitti me mil gaye ham, wo siyasat, wo kaamyabi ka pulanda bhi saath jala diya auroo no. Kya kisi ke paas kuch waqt baza hai auro ko yaad karne ka is duniya mae. Kaun kisi aur ka kalma padhta hai aajkal. Sab khoi hua hai, sab gum hai is duniya ke chakachaaundh me.