morning boy's letters on serious matters and commentary on funny things aplenty
What makes you nervous?
Not making efforts, that makes me nervous.
Not experimenting, not exploring, that makes me nervous.
Not trying new approaches, that makes me nervous.
Misinterpretation makes me nervous.
The thought that the political party that screwed Indians for 6 decades, now under the leadership of a rank dumb leader, may even have a chance come back to power, that makes me nervous.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Let’s say I really can see myself in 10 years; it is quite an ability.
Once you see yourself that way, can you unsee how you have seen yourself? I have my doubts.
Once you see yourself that way, wouldn’t you repeat seeing yourself that way every other day, perhaps every day?
And then after this seeing, wouldn’t it make matters funny for you?
I do not have this ability. Thankfully.
In fact, seeing oneself in future could as well be a horror of some sort.
May be, I see myself doing the same pull-ups and sprinting the same 200 metres, with some more whiteness in my hair.
It has taken me so much time trying to find a manufacturer to launch a line of my pants, and I am still not there yet. In 10 years, I would make a million customers buy these pants I guess. Is this called seeing myself?
Positioning: The Battle for your Mind
It was written by Al Ries & Jack Trout
Typically it is found on bookshelves of marketing and advertising professionals. But it concerns itself with much more than just marketing or advertising. It is so wittily written that you may want to finish it in one sitting.
It is a strategy book unlike any other. If you are starting a start-up, and if you are looking to improve your chances of success as a start-up, this is a must read.
Open my eyes.
Search for the water bottle. Sip some.
Pick up the mobile phone. Check some stupid notifications.
Prepare coffee.
While sipping coffee, read something on Kindle. Or the newspaper. Intersperse the reading with some staring out of the window. Wonder about the silly words in the ads or the silly headlines.
Wonder if I can step out for a run… Or if I can do some movements with weights.
If the wonder-phase is affirmative, step out sooner than later.
If the wonder-phase is not affirmative, prepare for recording a short video which would start with my beautiful look.
Trick question. The question makes me think as if ‘aspects’ = genes. A collection of genes coming together to make one what one is, a collection of aspects coming together to make one unique.
An extended enthusiasm, stretching over a life time, for anything that he/she does, I sense that makes a person unique.
Are you enthusiastic about your sadness? Do you feel it with enthusiasm? Can you express it enthusiastically? Do you recognize this type of enthusiasm? That makes a person unique.
I hummed my first song-like, original tune while I was 55% asleep this afternoon.
I have forgotten it now.
It was original. That realization made me fall 100% asleep.
Strange are the ways of the mind… Am happy however. This evening, I wondered if only my dreams were my most original creations!
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
I have been named after a very big ancient man.
What can be named after me?
Say a flavor of coffee that can’t be identified with any existing flavor of coffee?
Would that remind one of me, or the big ancient man?
To have my name work, I must change my name and then attempt having something named after me.
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I was busy playing.
I wanted to be BUSY PLAYING.
Even now?!
What’s something most people don’t understand?
Most people don’t understand most of the things, myself included. Even so, I observe this silly thing.
With a Youtube-like storage system, video recordings can be stored without paying a penny. Looked theoretically, every moment is now recordable as video.
Videos can often be recordings of the most frivolous moments and labelled content-creation, simply because there is a storage system like Youtube, or your iPhone storage. Check the latest ad for iPhone, DON’T LET ME GO.
And of course, there are other storage systems like 1 TB SD cards. Micro SD cards too I guess.
Now when your 1 TB card fills, how do you run through the files to pick the right ones? Or how do you go to those moments which felt right and leave out others which didn’t? Or do you just let it all be and not bother much? Upload’em them all for your God? Amass the SD cards that can be gifted to the future generations?
Recording is merely a reflex-tap of a button on the mobile phone but these matters suck attention and time, and force one to take very cumbersome, sometimes stressful decisions.
How has technology changed your job?
In this question, I assume that technology refers to a particular set of things including internet, software, hardware, ‘digital’, data, analytics, and stuff like that.
I don’t think I have a good grasp of what my job was earlier and what it is right now. But I am pretty sure that many things have changed anyway.
For example, I think more about durability of storage of data whenever digital storage is in question. I have devoted a lot of hours, a lot of hours, no exaggeration, to organize my digital files and ensure smooth retrievability; while I found some cool techniques for certain types of files, it has been a mighty struggle. Now I don’t bother as much. I let things be for as long as possible.
In any case, digital objects have overwhelmed. Every picture, every word file, every excel file, every long video, every new version sucks. Overwhelming number of objects to handle.
Interaction and involvement with technology has exaggerated the realization that spending time indoors, in air-conditioning, sitting in the front of the screen for long hours, thinking of working using laptops, these are injurious to health, just as smoking may be. I enjoy my sleeping more, I value every moment of moving my body a little more and that helps me do my job alright so far.
Technology has made my job tougher, on the whole.
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
The goal is always to spend my time in my ways.
Anything that takes a bomb of my time, first response is ‘no’.
Then, upon some mulling and contemplation, the answer changes on some occasions.
What is your favorite type of weather?
Players love the weather that they can play in.
I love sprinting. All weathers in my part of the world seem to allow that.
I like reading. All weathers in my part of the world allow that.
I like sweating it out. All weathers seem conducive to since I do not go to the air-conditioned gyms.
Whenever I am tired, I sleep well no matter the weather.
I see littering all around, no matter the weather. It spoils every weather in my part of the world. What do I do?
No no, I can’t make up my mind about my favorite weather.
Which is your favorite part of the day? Now that is early morning. Surely.
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
School time. Long long back.
The teachers who influenced me the most slapped me because I was very enthusiastic, may be overly enthusiastic, and they didn’t like it.
They inspired me to stop paying attention to what they taught.
What do you wish you could do more every day?
Yes. I wish I could distribute more and more amazing messages every day.
Like:
FIRST YOU SHAPE THE BUILDING,
THEN THE BUILDING SHAPES YOU.
Or, like:
NOTHING IMPORTANT COMES WITH INSTRUCTIONS.
Some amazing messages, aren’t these!
These are not quotes. Quotes have become graphical. Cluttersome too. Favorite on Linkedin. Lost almost all meaning.
Even if they are quotes, they stop being quotes if you ponder a bit after reading them. They become worms. Cute worms. Sharp worms. Lovely worms.
What is one word that describes you?
One word to describe myself?
Sunday
2nd attempt:
River
3rd attempt:
Playground
4th attempt:
Atomic
Aah, that’s enough exercise for the morning.
That is a tough tough question.
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
Best compliment, does that exist?
Like, if someone compliments me for my smile, and if someone else compliments me for my collection of books, can I compare the two and decide which one’s better.
Best Compliment is a faux category.
But beautiful compliments can be regarded as best compliments anyway.
Now, beautiful compliments depend on deep perceptions or reflections. And wording a beautiful compliment is a compliment to the complimenter in the first place.
Look at the patterns of Polka Dots on any surface. Garments, upholstery, painting et al. Uniform and mostly looks beautiful.
Imagine that trees of a type are all uniform. Trunk, branches, twigs, leaves… That feels like horror.
Look at children all dressed in uniforms. Normally they look beautiful not because of their uniforms but because of the fact that they are children, in different heights, and faces with different characteristics of childhood.
Packaged food on the shop-shelves, am sure you can’t make up your mind to determine whether you’ve ever found them beautiful.
This is one of my diagnoses. Negative feelings emerge because of lack exploration in one’s life.
Quite obviously then, the strategy to cope with negative feelings can be expressed in one just word: EXPLORE.
But let me go a little further. Because once you offer a strategy, the next obvious question is “How?”
How to explore?
One of the surest ways of exploring is STOP LOOKING INWARDS. Repeat that with me. STOP LOOKING INWARDS. In other words, STOP LOOKING AT YOURSELF. In other words, STOP LOOKING WITHIN YOURSELF. Shift your focus. Shift it outwards. Sit at bench in a good busy street. Watch others as they pass by. Look at their faces. If anyone or anything interests you, try to imagine their past, even their future.
How to explore?
Attempt various movements. Like moving for dancing. Moving for exercising. Moving your fingers over musical instruments to extract some tune of them. Moving to just go about your town, especially the places you’ve never been to.
What activities do you lose yourself in?
Mornings, I lose myself in thinking about what exactly to do in the coming hours of the day.
Then, I lose myself in thinking about her. I just woke up from a long night in which I dreamt of being in conversation with her brother. I remember telling him, “Actually, you have been thinking too rationally and that has resulted in a loss to you, to me and to her. You didn’t think emotionally.”
And these days I have taken to recording some videos. Pushing those videos into different channels consumes me.
And then there is the ever dreadful mapping of software as a machine that is never fully made but stalks and haunts my credit card all the same.
Given these very unnerving things above, I try to lose myself in sprints, chin ups, push ups, kettle bell swings, and such…
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
Watching movies or TV series 5 times? That does not happen. Of all the activities, watching is the last thing on my list.
If I did that I would be quite ashamed of myself. Furious too perhaps. Bored too.
Reading consumes most of my time. What’s left, must be spent on moving myself to do things.
Reading involves a lot of sitting. And so does watching. I can’t sit that much.
Nothing deserves so much of watching. Least of all, movies and TV series.
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