desirability

I had posted a question on Twitter a few days back.

I got many replies. I was chatting with Subbu today and, he mentioned our quest for desirability. We want to be liked and appreciated.

We all know that capitalism thrives on our loneliness, boredom. We should add desirability as well to it. The three pillars have fostered civilizations, empires, and everything in past and present.

Charles Darwin said only things which matter to our species boils down to propagating our DNA or reproduction. The desirability bug of ours works towards ensuring that.

Paneer

Paneer(cottage cheese) came to my menu on one of the Thursday nights during dinner. I was studying in class 4th in a hostel in Ranchi. I was lactose intolerant those days. The smell of milk would make me puke.

Paneer was served in a limited capacity. My dislike of it got noticed by one of my prefects, a senior. Every Thursday, he would sit next to me. I would transfer all of the paneers to his plate.

Our hostel had a colonial system intact and, prefect, housemaster, lead were some roles allocated to one of our seniors. Those folks were super powerful and dictators in most instances. I remember incidents of our classmates, juniors beaten by them for not following rules of lights off or evening preps or waking up on time for PT.

I was talking to my colleague yesterday while cooking paneer and, this past came up. I never got ragged or beaten by those seniors apart from those mass punishment sessions for the entire house. It feels like I had paneer diplomacy and, it served me well.

Carnegie

We all know Andrew Carnegie as a philanthropist, industrialist, and robber baron. At the early age of 16, Carnegie joined the Pittsburgh telegraph office and became Thomas Scott’s private secretary and telegrapher. Later on, Carnegie joined Thomas Scott at the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he became general superintendent. Their relationship continued and, Carnegie learned, prospered, and worked out of poverty.

One has to be lucky to have some mentor, believer, and teacher. I am still 100+ pages of a book: Andrew Carnegie, David Nasaw.

lucky

I watched: Lucky, the movie, last night. The song hit my nerves. Added lyrics from the comment someone had added to it.

I stole the right to live as if there was no time.
I stole the eyes of God as if those eyes were mine.
I took and did infuse a light that was to shine.

Oh, Mercy! Lord, have a pity!
I’m only traveling; I don’t have no place to go.

I walked the streets of gold and heard the silver tongue.
I passed out on Satan’s Hill and made my bed on stone.
Forsaken hearts I wandered; I left them all alone.

A long ways goin’ out and have no destiny.
A long ways to believe dreams that come to be.
I swear they’re true a-bloomin’ here before me.

Oh, Mercy! Lord, have a pity!
I’m only traveling; I don’t have no place to go.

poor

I was reading his post on hacker news and, it talks about being poor. I am not sure what to make out from the entire thread and original post as a conclusion. But one thing is clear that the definition of poor depends on what we are seeking. It boils down to our needs.

A castle will be nothing to a rich if he wants to own a country. A hermit will be fine with a hut.

less

We are living in abundance. We strive for a big fat salary, car, house.
That is society’s definition of being successful. Consumerism has taken it to the next level: ice cream scoop, soda drinks, clothes, jewelry, or chicken buckets. All are part of the system in making us feel good.

But think within, is more really you need? Or on the contrary, you should subtract most of your possessions. The less you have, the more you will value. It can be your friends, money or a meal at a restaurant.

Our mind dislikes multitasking. Creativity comes with focus. Seeking for more or owning more, one is getting into decision paralysis, essentially short-circuiting the brain for every single decision.

Atrium, lessons

Justin Kan opened up about his journey of building Atrium, a company working on disrupting Legal Tech and helping more transparency. The company is no more; Justin returned the rest of the money to his investors. 

In the video post on YouTube, he mentioned things he learned after its failure. I have added some of the notes after listening to 17 minutes of his video. 

  1. Know your customer: Be obsessed with knowing who your customer is and doubling down on their pain points. 
  2. Growth: Once you raise a lot of money from VCs, you have to show growth. As a result: too many quick hirings. It can adversely impact a company’s culture.
  3. CEO’s fault: If a company goes bonker. It is the CEO who is going to be responsible for it. 
  4. Risky journey: Startups are a risky bet for everyone. It is not for everyone. A few succeed, a million others fail about whom media never talks.
  5. Product first: Building a product should have taken priority over sales and marketing hype. Product any day is the true differentiator. 
  6. Empathy: As a founder being empathic takes a long way instead of being a narcissistic asshole. 
  7. People leave: Once you fail, you are on your own. The same friends you shared booze will walk away in seconds.
  8. Honest to self: You have to be honest about the purpose of starting a startup. Are you doing it because of FOMO or, you truly, believe in the journey? 

freedom

We want to live independently and seek freedom. For each one of us, the definition of freedom differs. Some want enough material wealth to retire early. Some others seek for fulfilling their parent’s wish list. Many others give back to the community by opening non for profit or spending hours in a month for a cause.

Above all, true freedom is about knowing who we are and being aware of our actions. As long as we are in it with complete awareness, the purpose will lead to the cause for freedom.

castle

I was speaking with Jay last night. We got deviated from regular chit chat to wealth. The summery was short in simple: what will I do with 100 castles when in the end I have to sleep in one each night.

The difference between a poor and a millionaire boils down to our needs and how we see our world. A poor can be happy, healthy and a millionaire can be sick, vulnerable.

The castle is our mind, our thoughts.

noise

The recent Hidden Brain podcast features Daniel Kahneman author, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment.

The author describes noise as a mental construct loaded with our bias and environment in making decisions. He cites examples of various court judgments which resulted in people spending too long or less time in prison. Kahneman suggests the use of algorithms to work alongside judges in making better decisions.

We are in an era of algorithms. Be it dating, getting married, picking a cab, watching movies, ordering vegetables: algorithms are part of life.

Another specific term author mentioned was naive realism, our defined worldview. Most of us don’t see the world beyond it and don’t even care if it is right or wrong, In simple being ignorant and sedating our narcissism.