Tag: Kabir

Wk 24-25 – Weekly Notes

Weekly update from the 24th and the 25th week of 2025. This has Saurabh Garg’s notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else.

7 AM, Jun 23

I haven’t written for 2 weeks now (I was busier than expected). And while I dont have a lot of time today to write either, I will do it. I have promises to keep (Hi, AA). I will not talk about how busy I was and all that. I will merely get writing.

Here we go.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past two weeks

PS: These are not in any order. Specifically because I was all over the place the last two weeks. I haven’t had the time to process things that I was experiencing and living.

PPS: Since I didn’t get to write for the last few days, my thoughts and reflections will suffer from recency effect. A lot of my words are an outcome of what ive been thinking lately.

Let’s go…

A/ Taught some 300 people about Gen AI
It was not the best session in terms of my delivery but I got a reality check that the world out there needs a lot more education that the world of twitter has. In fact, we must encourage each person to get active on twitter and follow the silicon valley types and see where the world is headed. Not from the lens of being scared about it but from the lens of learning and being ready.

Here’s my feedback from the students.

B/ Kabir
Saw this reel on Insta.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by गुलमोहर (@kagazkephoool)

Insane lessons. And insane talent of to dissipate lessons from Kabir. The amount of wisdom from kabir made accessible by this music is fabulous.

At some point in time, I want to commission someone to do such things. In case I am unable to in my life time, I hope one of you (the ones reading) does it.

C/ Grateful that Vivek exists.
I just wish I was not so far behind him in terms of wealth. I would have got to spend more time with him and M, if I werent.

D/ The Flight
Everyone has been talking about the Air India plane crash. Since then I’ve taken two flights – both Air India. And in one of those, there was a very rough patch. So clearly, thanks to the recency effect, been thinking a lot about it. In bullets…

First things first. In the grand scheme of things, we are meaningless. Heart goes out to folks who lost their lives. Even tougher is the lives of the ones left behind. I wish there wasnt so much pain in the world around us.

Second. I am not afraid to die. Just that it would be a shame that I died without doing anything that I had set out to do. Heck, maine to achi achar bhi nahi daala! I have a lot to lose and the thought that I would go randomly, I get sad.

Third. I would’ve taken 500, if not 1000 flights in my life. And I was never the kinds to be scared. But thanks to second above, I am little scared. I was reminded of what a classmate from MDI once told me – while a plane going down is a Black Swan event, the very nature of the event means that it can happen to you and the destruction would be 100%, unlike a road accident where the destruction is not fatal.

Fourth. In the two flights I took in the last week, I was unable to write. I tried to but I failed. I could merely take bullet point notes. I need to fix this cos flights used to be me sacrosanct writing place where I could be in the zone and get a lot thought / written.

Fifth. Maybe I need to work on my attention span? Maybe get back to meditation? Maybe I am unable to write cos I am unable to focus on things?

So that.

E/ Events is a good business
Over the weekend, I was in BKK. For an event thing.

And I was reminded of all the reasons why I love it – there’s no set office, there is freedom of time and place for the most part, there is ample use of common sense and there’s some of the most interesting real life folks with real skils and not just keyboard warriors.

Oh, and it sucks as well – there is no scalability (the largest event agency would be like 500 crores), there is a lot of muck (relationships, under the table conversations etc) and no large impact on the universe per se.

So, its something that I would like to be a part of in some way. But now that I have Meru and some bits of C4E, I may not be able to.

At this time, I am merely cataloging. Oh, wait, events business is a brilliant training ground for life skills. I want EACH of my kids to be spend a year doing events. But then, I dont know where so I find kids who want to build their lives around mine (and then subsequently, I build mine around their’s). So that.

May be I will bring back SoG?

F/ Life without border and passport control
I pine for a life where I dont have to worry about my passport or about visas and all that. But then lately, with all the news around hyper-nationalism and flying horrors, I dont know.

G/ Health and Fitness
I have realised that I dont look great and I anyway don’t dress great. And thus I get judged and a lot of opportunities that ought to come to me, dont. So, I need to work on those. Maybe fitness with help.

Thing is, my looks or clothes never mattered to me. In fact, I looked at it as a giant fuck you to the world. But now I realise that this fuck-you attitude was not the best thing.

So, I will fix it.

PS: Is 42 the wrong age to admit this? Or maybe this is me coming out with my insecurities?

So solution…

I will make fitness my P1. You know, Yoga. I think I can do this. I’ve done it in the past. Then at some point IN THIS MONTH (7 days to go), I will add a better diet (where I prep things myself (I cant seem to find a cook)). And then at some point in the month, I will add a gym or some sport. I dont think I can do gyms yet. I need to pick a sport for sure.

My P2 would be better groomed. You know, more focus on shaving my head, beard etc. Perfumes, accessories etc. Better footwear (no shoes ;))

My P3 would better clothes. This may take forever. But I will try.

H/ Let go of a team member
Not the best feeling to part ways. But had to be done.

Have done in the past as well and no it doesnt get better.

And funny thing is that I will have to part ways with more team members in the next few months.

I/ Work hard, make money and give money
The entire world around me seems to be moved by money. I need to find a way to make a LOT of money. And then use that money to build better lives for everyone around me. And give great money to people that are around me.

I am a capitalist at heart but I love that people chase more things than money.

J/ SG on Mira Murati’s team
C pointed that Mira’s team seems to have a SG. I must gather all these folks ;P

K/ Biography writing for seniors
I am working on a cohort to help active seniors write their biographies. While the idea sounds good on paper, there are inherent challenges with that. I need to solve for those.

L/ Personal Brand
My sense is that world in the future would be run by personal brands. Think Elon. Think Tanmay. Think SG. Three different people. Three different spectrums. Each has a certain influence over things. Each has opportunities in direct proportion to their brand.

I need to work on this.

This has been a theme since I dont know when. I HAVE to accelerate this. I will probably hire someone for this.

On this, I will also put in motion my podcast and content. Just that in the post-AI world, I dont know what is the importance of all the content you put out.

M/ Ask. And the world shall give.
See this from Jim Rohn.

And this from Steve.

N/ Regrets in life
While I was in the flight yesterday, I made a list of things that I regret in life. While more details would go on my notes, here are four folks that I wish I could continue to be with – KG, RG, RN, Parents.

Funny most of my regrets seem to around people. And not around money, achievements and all that.

O/ Make a film
I have decided. I will make a film this year. It would be a short (while I will try, it may not be a full-length), But will do. And this is apart from my book (lol). That I will work on as well. More details in subsequent days.

Oh and all these things need one thing and one thing only – my decision that I will separate people and projects. I know it would require me to be tough and stern with my people but I will do it. Oh, and also marry this with my thing about personal brand (see J above)! And AI!

Wow, so many things seem to be coming together!

P/ Passive income
I HAVE to HAVE mutiple sets of passive incomes. Right now, I only have one source of income – that too needs me to be fairly active. May be a franchisee of something? May be something on rental? What else?

Oh and I need passports of 3 countries and bank accounts in 5.

Q/ Not deep
Lol (first time I heard this, it was from a kid I mentor – she said that no boys are deep – all they do is talk about pizza, games and sex).

So, while I was writing this, I reaslied that am an ordinary person. And while thats ok, makes me question the meaning of these notes. I mean why would you (or someone) read these notes? I dont talk anything deep. I talk about what I want to do, what I fail at and mostly these are reflections.

R/ “ai makes people dumb”, “money makes them lazy”
Everyone has read that research of less than 50 participants where they proclaimed that people that use AI tend to get dumber. No they did not use these words. Dont hold me for words. But try to get the drift.

Warikoo had an interesting take on it. He highlighted two things – AI and UBI.

I will do an episode on this. CC Anshika.

S/ If money werent an object…
Like I said, I was in BKK over the weekend and apart from one presentation for 3 hours, I had all the time in the world to explore. So I went around. And I realised that at different times, I wanted to buy…

Remarkable
AirPods
On Sneakers
Even thought about changing my phone

I realised, I wanted a new toy.
However, I chose to not get.
You know, money.
I wish money werent an object…

T/ Neosapian
Wrote a review of the Neo 1. Here.

Review of NeoSapien’s Neo 1

U/ Films
I saw a few films – dunno why or how. And I dont even remember the names (except Ritual Killer and Bonnie and Clyde that I remember seeing cos it was in the long / boring flight).

V/ Details
I am realising that I am unable to remember names of things but I can remember facts around them. For example, I wanted to write the name of the film I saw but I couldnt remember it. I remembered hunting and Africa. I googled. No response. But then I thought, lemme put the name of the actor. Again, I didnt remember the name of the actor. But I remembered he’s often refered to as the voice of God. And thus I made the connection.

I dont know what to do with this information. Maybe I will put this in some LLM and see what can I do about this.

Phew!
So that!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 24.

The one that I would like to plaster on my blog is…

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

Book 2
I didnt get time to even think about thinking. The person I was working with seems to have a lot on her plate and thus I am unable to move. No, I am not leaning onto her and blaming her for my inaction but I didnt move on this at all.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

☑️ What did I get done last two weeks?

This is a one-line report on things I got done on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

I may not have a lot to add this week but here is a report nonetheless.

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. No action. 0.

Meru. Again, like last update, moved the needle a bit. No large updates to be hoenst. 0.

C4E. No action. 0.

Brand SG. No action. HAVE TO PUT IN A LOT MORE EFFORT HERE.

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. Nothing. So, a 0.

So the overall score is -1 for this week. Also, like I said, the last two weeks went in a whirwind.

Trends from the previous weeks: 3, 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last 2 weeks.

Nothing to write home about. I have failed.

I will rise up again.

PS: I have noticed that each time I am on the road, I miss updating this. And once I am back to ground, I take a few days to get back to speed. And that causes the chaos. May be I need to find a way to do this better.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I have a lot to share TBH but I may not have the time to write about all of those. So, I will get to those in the next week’s update.

The best place to get these updates is via my TIL WA group. It is inspired by Sunanda’s fabulous book, TIL, and on this WhatsApp group, I aim to post VERY VERY VERY frequently. Like MULTIPLE times a day. About things personal (rants, overshares, thoughts etc), what I read, what I want to think about, what I need help on etc. Join here.

So, some links that I want to share…

  1. Ankush Datar on Thin Desires vs Thick Desires. Here. And here.
  2. Pentagon Pizza Index. Here. And their twitter account. Also read, Big Mac Index.
  3. Wrote a review of a note-taking device. Here.
  4. Why you MUST not read. By Kevin. Here.
  5. This NY Times piece talks about Grief Tech. I first heard a version of this on Sahil Bloom’s Twitter.
  6. This video of Boston Dynamics machines at America’s Got Talent
  7. These two resources (a video and the companion presentation) by Vinod Kholsa on Luring the VC.

There are a lot more but I will skip. You know, done is better than best. Progress > perfection.

🧠 Reminders from last week

This section captures things that I want to not forget. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates. I will also add these to SG’s Office.

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker. I played poker in bangalore and it was fun. I dint win a lot but I was able to read some players. So that’s cool. Other thing (pool) saw no action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

PS: Adding a section of things that I talked about in THIS post…

  1. Kabir
  2. Film
  3. book 2
  4. Personal Brand
  5. Podcast on AI and UBI (for adulting?)
  6. Meditation
  7. Yoga

Did I miss something?

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Experience.
That’s the world I would use for the last two weeks.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

—
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed)

PPS: Please do point typos. Grammarly is not working well and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

Notes from a conversation between Derek Sivers and Andrew Wilkinson

I heard this podcast. And like most times when I come across something interesting or inspiring, I write into people!

So I wrote to Derek.
And here is a part of that email.
Paraphrased for a blog post.

Derek’s honest talk made me reflect on my own life and at 42 (am at that age where I ought to have all the answers :D). Here are some things that I thought about

1/ Explorer vs Leader.

Derek says he’s an explorer. I think I am the same. An explorer at best. While at work, I am supposed to lead a team per se, I have lately realised that I am probably a modern-day hippie who’s supposed to explore. And as Derek mentioned, I need a Queen / King to allocate resources and a leader to go in one direction and do things.

So I am on constant lookup for people that can enable me and support me. I am lucky that I have some folks that have chosen me.

2/ Life optimised for personal growth (and not for status).

I won’t lie – I’ve thought about chasing status but the more I age, the more I realise that I am not very keen on status games. I am also inspired by Naval and his thoughts on status games. On Naval, he also talks about long-term games with long-term people and I recently read one of Derek’s essays about super long-term thinking.

I’ve always explored with the intention of doing the next thing and the underlying intention has always been growth. And personal joy.

I also tend to stay away from folks that are invested into status games.

3/ I am a Xenophile too.

Before I saw Derek’s website, I did not know I was one!

I mean I come from a place like India where we have a million subcultures and yet I pine for foreign lands. I am lucky that I’ve travelled to a few places.

Oh, Derek also talked about the stubborn visionary that built Dubai. This is my phrase of the week, till I find the next one to latch onto.

4/ Optimal level of fame.

You know, the more I think about life and what I want from it, I really want to have access to people, places and things that seem interesting to me. These could be the poorest of neighbourhoods and fanciest of hotels. This could mean an internet billionaire on one side and a lumber worker on the other. This could mean a ticket to ride to Mars or entry into a private forest in some hills.

I would love to have just that level of fame that gets me access to these places. I don’t know what I would do with this access. This also connects beautifully with being an explorer, accepting beliefs that are useful to you (rather than them being universally true) and of course, personal growth!

5/ Questioning your biases and beliefs

Derek talked about some of his. And I am inspired to change some of mine. Starting with the one that I’ve help for a long long time – that I don’t goto people’s homes. And I will change.

Thing is, for some reason, I’ve never been comfortable intruding on people’s personal space. Maybe it’s my reflection of my own space that I like to not share. May be its the manifestation of me never having a good home. I remember this idea became much more stronger during the lockdown when I lived in an absolutely bare shell space. And thus, I always meet people outside (at cafes, restaurants etc). Going forward, I will try to go to their homes and know their stories.

6/ What I really want from life?

Lemme break this into parts.

A – While answers may not be easy about what I want in life, I keep coming back to this one quote from a poet, Kabir.

Sai itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay,
main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye

This translates loosely into, “Oh, Lord, give me enough to take care of my family. Enough that I don’t sleep hungry and yet have enough left to support others that may ask me for it.”

The point is, I want to make enough to take care of myself, my family, my people and the one I feel responsible for. If you want to go down more rabbit holes, you may want to read these three posts.

B – I am gonna think about some hard-nos for me.
One of those is that I want to control my time and I will not rent it out. So far I have been fairly successful at that.

C – Where I live.
Right now I live in a concrete jungle full of pollution etc. I really want to move to a better place – ideally to a place in the lap of nature that is cold. But I need modern conveniences and I may not get to live there.

D – Connect People.
I will invest my time and energy into becoming a people connector. I do this already but I will amp this up. To a point, that this becomes my identity. I am yet to get clarity on this but I will find it for sure.

I also want to invest in communities. Not in terms of giving back, but in terms of the tribe of people that you want to be with. I want a lot of folks around me and I will build those networks.

7/ In the end

From the podcast, this quote Andrew caught my eye / ear- “treasure you seek is in the cave you are afraid and reluctant to enter”

This is what the theme for the rest of 2024 would be. That I need to act on things that I am afraid of doing.

Let’s see how that goes for me.

That’s about it.

As always, please poke holes in my thinking!

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030821 – Morning Pages

A longish post on the darkness in my head and the light shown by the story of Richard Williams.

5:41. Woke up a few minutes ago.
Saw Whatsapp first thing in the morning.
Saw a video by Vijay Yadav. This one.

Then I saw Nobody’s trailer on AnSr’s recommendation. Here…

Almost cummed in my shorts. I mean the team from John Wick + Saul (aka Bob) + Music + Visual Delight. Wow.

Also, this is the second film since yesterday that I have been tripping over. The first one is King Richard sent by VG.

This film is based on the life of Richard Williams (better known as Venus and Serena’s father). King Richard touched me like no other film has, in the recent past. I mean it talks about an ambitious man that wants to see success through the success of his daughters. Will come back to this film in a bit. Lemme park it here. Point A.

So, I feel human after two days.

Human as in, physically, there are no lingering pains anywhere in the body. I feel refreshed, energized, and all that. It was probably aided by the fact that I have been resting last two days. I had slept at 10:30. So good 7 hours of sleep. Or maybe because I did not eat crap yesterday. Whatever worked yesterday, I hope it works today as well.

In contrast to this feeling of greatness in the morning, yesterday was bad. So bad that it was probably the darkest of the last few days. It may sound like hyperbole but I could only survive because of two things – 1, Naval. 2, my ambition. Will come back to this in a bit. Parked point B.

So, for some reason (money situation primarily), I spent all of yesterday questioning my life choices. I mean where I am is an outcome of the choices I’ve made and the way I’ve acted on those choices. Clearly, I did not do a good job at either (choices and actions). If things were bad just at work / career front, I would still be ok. But things have been pathetic at other ends also. Lemme share a chart that I maintain on my vision board. I don’t think I’ve ever made this public. But here it is. As of today morning.

A screengrab from my Vision Board

I don’t know where I found this chart from but I think it’s a great way to evaluate and measure where life is. And you can then reflect on what needs fixing. On my chart, I can see that I am failing at all 8 important things in life. The only saving grace is my family (and even on that, I choose to live away from my parents).

Of course, like any other thinking, feeling, evaluating individual, I want to fix these. And these dark days are occurring frequently and like Steve would say, if things arent good for a few days on the trot, maybe it’s the time to change those. Let’s see what I change. And how. And when.

Lemme talk about King Richard.

Coming to Parked Thing A, King Richard.

Here. See this. In case you haven’t.

I could relate so much to King Richard. I had tears flowing when I saw the trailer. I bet the film will win all the awards there are! I wager that it would get at least 10 Oscars.

It is after all a story of one man’s fight against odds, the chase of impossible, trust, faith, patience, hard work, grit and more. Oh, and of ambition.

For all the use of the word ambition in my head, thoughts, and actions, I am as big a failure as they come. To a point that it hurts. And it’s suffocating.

The days when I am not busy with the general humdrum of life, you know, the days when you can take a pause and think? Those days I spiral so bad into the literal abyss that I take literally a week to get out of. I must admit that the days I go AWOL on friends and family, I am not physically unwell. Rather I am suffering from dark thoughts about where I want to in life and how far away from that I am. In terms of money wealth, impact, reach, work, fame, notoriety, even fitness. And the worse is that from where I stand, I don’t see things improving at all.

As I age, these bouts of dark days are happening with more frequency (I know I’ve said this already) and it takes longer to get out of those. The escape mechanism I had of taking a car and hitting the road is no longer a viable option. The other escaping method was to eat like a mad man, switch off the phone, and sleep. Even that doesn’t help anymore.

This is where I lean on what I learned from Naval. Will come to it in a bit. I want to stay with King Richard right now.

So, the other thing that I picked from King Richard is the reinforcement of the belief that I will probably not be a massive success as an individual. Rather I may be cut for being that person in the shadows, the one that works with these superstars and shapes them. You know, someone that sees their success come to life via others. In Richard’s case, it was his daughters. In my case, I am not sure. I mean I do have a few young ones that I am investing into. But I am still far from seeing them reach anywhere. I just hope that I don’t end up like Vikramaditya in Sur. Anyhow. Who cares.

I like the idea of enabling others. I just hope I am able to contribute to their lives and make superstars and massive successes off them.

The other thing that I want to talk about, from King Richard, is this entire thing about giving a hard time to the ones that are working for you. Remember Whiplash? I mean the entire premise is this hard-love for talented apprentices. Of course, I remain conflicted about what I take away from that. On one side, I like the idea of hard work, determination, sacrifice to achieve what you potentially can. And on the other, I know that mental health issues are real, especially with the dopamine-laced brains of kids around us. After I saw King Richard, I think I am leaning towards being a tough mentor. But then, to be one, do I have what a Richard had? Or Fletcher?

I dont know. Time shall tell.

Parked Thing B. Lessons from Naval Ravikant.

Lemme talk about Naval and Ambition.

So I read this tweet from Naval that said something like this – you can’t control your thoughts but you can observe them and choose to react to those.

Yesterday was one such day. When I was mindfucked. Probably because I was unwell and there were other things playing on my head. So I went walking. I walked real slow. I did like 5K steps in 2 hours. And while I walked I did not have a companion with me. You know, things like phone calls, music, videos, chess and more. I did not even pause to take photos that I’ve been trying to last few days. I merely watched my thoughts. And I tried not to react to the non-stop dark thoughts about my inability to do things. Or my inability to hold onto friends / relationships etc. I merely observed the thoughts as they came and went. It was tough considering I had to observe traffic in / around Lokhandwala as well. Lol. Bad timing.

So I while I was observing my thoughts, my head kept swirling back to the definition of success that I want to live my life with. You know, the outcome of ambition. It dawned on me that I believe success is the long-forgotten Kabir Das ka doha. It goes…

Saain itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay, main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye

Kabir the poet

Further, here are the things that I thought would look like success.

Mastery over time. When I can be the master of my time with 100% certainty. Right now, I am at about 5% in terms of how I plan my life and time. Long way to go.

Financial Freedom. When I no longer work for money. And I can choose to work on things that I want to, even if I am not rewarded for those things. Right now, I am in debt. So far far away from financial freedom.

Plus, I do not have those ambitions where I want to reduce consumption, etc. I really want a lavish life with all comforts and all that. I want to be able to buy anything from anywhere without thinking about the cost / price.

Giant with a shoulder. When I can support others around me with whatever they need / want. And then I want to help others in whatever way I can!

That’s it. Three things.
Wow, that simple!

Funnily, as I think and write about this, family (my family, not my parents) doesn’t feature in this. Maybe I will change with time. And my personal goals of Everest, Marathon, etc do not fit in here as well. Hmm. Funny.

So yeah.

This is about it from the walk yesterday. A lot of this was probably triggered by King Richard. And by the general failure that I’ve been. Films do have power like no other. Must must must fastrack the non-existent films career. Come on, Universe!

I guess this is about it for the day. Realized, I’ve been writing for almost 2 hours now! Oh, and here’s streaks…

  • OMAD – 1
  • #book2 – 0
  • #noCoke – 145
  • #noCoffee – 0. Had two.
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • Money spent – 30 + 232. Adding this from today on.
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 2
  • Surya Namaskar – 0
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • Minimaslism Counter – -2
  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 235

140321 – Morning Pages

Quick and dirty update from how I spent Saturday. Wish I the time to write more. The day was among the best.

6:24 AM, Mumbai.
Completed this somewhere on the Nashik highway at 10ish.

This is going to be one of those pages where I want to write a lot (I think I have a lot to write) but since I am short of time, I will not be able to get a lot of words in. I have to be at someplace real early. I had to be out and about by 6 AM, to be honest, but thanks to some snafu, I am still at home and that means I can get some words in. If not a lot, I can at least get a ToC of sorts in. Yeah, I have a table of contents of things that I want to talk about.

Here it is.

A. SG’s interview. There’s apparently some interview that I gave when #tnks came out where I have bared my soul. A stranger can read that and get to know who I am and what I think about. In that, I have even talked about my hatred for pets! To make matters worse, it has my photo on it. I need to do something about it. I can’t have my opinions floating around on the Internet like that. Lol. The entire life has been lived in making my life an open and public affair with this blog 😀

Need to find that interview and “fix” it.

B. Poker. A few days ago I was in this weird mood where I did not know what to do. None of my friends was around. Taarak Mehta felt like a drag. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was not funny no more. I couldn’t sleep. I had had enough of everything. I somehow remembered my love for Poker and after I don’t know how many months, I put money on a poker game. It was on Pokerstars and I sucked as bad I did when I played regularly.

Poker is one of those things that I think I can be really good at. There is an element of luck but you can control it to a large part. It just needs two things – knack for the game and the time required to build that knack. I suspect poker is like chess. You need to have some sort of inclination and “gift” for it and then you need to back it with consistent and focussed effort. You know, more you play, better you get.

Wait. Isnt this true with everything and anything? I guess!

C. SoG Grant. I saw a post on my Instagram last night and I reached this page on Thejesh GN’s blog. He’s started a grant in his mother’s name where he’s supporting independent creators on anything that they want to work on. I love the idea. I am so inspired that I decided on the spot that I want to start something. When I was growing up, I did not have the patron or the resources to chase what I wanted to. Now that I have some resources, I want to support others. An annual grant could be a great thing. Need to put things in motion. #note2self

D. Swiggy. Last night I was hungry and I decided to order something to eat. Good thing is that I ordered on Swiggy and that means the order was never delivered. Which is ok. I understand the business is run by people and they can often fuck up. But the way they handle these things is what needs fixing. The customer service is non-existent and the way they speak with you, they lack empathy. They assume that an order is a physical thing and if you refund the money, the customer is ok. They forget that it’s food delivery and the person on the other side could be hungry. And its well known fact across the world that when you are hungry, you are not the person you are. And you need to talk to hungry, angry, irate people in a different tone / manner etc. I promise I will make it a mini-project and try and teach these people how to be customer-centric and have some empathy.

So that.

E. NA. I also want to talk about this woman, NA, that I met via Lunchclub yesterday. Out of 30 odd people that LC has matched me with, she was only the second that I had wanted to meet.

And I goaded her into meeting me.
And we met.
And it was awesome.
NA is one of the finds of this year so far for me. I hope I can become friends with her and get her to do something with me. More about her on some other day. Today am kinda short of time.

F. Misc. Things that I want to talk about but don’t have time for. 1, I pet a dog at a friend’s place. My first time ever. 2, The realization that I am #foreverAlone and unlucky in love. Every woman that I seem to get close to tends to get away from me. The pattern repeats where these women think that am a loser and move on. 3, The feeling of heaviness and general lethargy and my desperate attempts to get over those. 4, Hunt for a new house (which I am hoping is a little better than the one I am on). 5, I am not sure. I forgot 😀

G. Streaks. Here.

  • Morning Pages – 92
  • #aPicADay – XX (will count at some later date)
  • 10K steps a day – 1
  • OMAD – 3 (thanks to Swiggy, the streak remains unbroken)
  • #noCoffee – 5
  • #noCoke – 5
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0 (adding this from today on)
  • #book2 – 0 (I REALLY need to start on this!)

So yeah, thats about it. More tomorrow. On a Monday.

280221 – Morning Pages

A longish post about thoughts on a car, events, friends, relationships and alcohol. Read on.

8:04 AM.

Hello, World! I have a lot to say. I hope I get the words. Though I am tired (physically) and exhausted (mentally), I want to try and pour things that are clouding my head. Most of these would be recurring themes and ideas – this text would be an exercise in finding arguments for and against that narrative. I have often done these brain dumps in the past to let the load off my head and they’ve been helpful. What comes out is more of a blog than anything else, but it is immensely helpful!

Here we go. As always, in no order.

A. I couldn’t publish morning pages yesterday. I knew I wouldn’t be able to. I had a lot happening. But I knew that I could easily write a couple of paras and upload those. But then I couldn’t even do that. I mean I wrote a para and I thought I had published but I realized late last night that I did not hit the publish button. The streak of I don’t know how many days (well over 60 easily) was broken 🙁 Damn!

B. At Spotlight, the monthly start-up pitch event at The Podium, for the Feb edition, we hosted Roshan Abbas to give feedback to some start-ups. This was the second in the series of such events and the interactions have been so so good. Listening to a brain like Roshan Sir give inputs on startups from relationships, ed-tech was such a learning experience. He said a lot of things that I intuitively knew were right. And he said a lot of things that I think I don’t agree with. Irrespective, I think it was time spent well. Need to somehow scale it and take it to bigger scale.

More than just advice, he was VERY very candid and offered these startups introductions to other angels, HNIs and even people who could work with these startups! This in itself is worth the time spent!

I also must mention that at some level, Roshan Sir is the next step in evolution for me. I mean he is from a communication, events, and marketing background. He has set up multiple companies and has run those parallelly. He has had an exit. He is an angel investor and enabling people to do more with access to capital and connections. He continues to work harder than most of his peers and continues to push himself. Sounds EXACTLY like how I want to live my life! Reminds me of that Kabir couplet…

Sai itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay,

main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye

By Kabir

So that.

C. Event. Last two days, I helped a friend manage a wedding event in Goa. While weddings is new to me and I have only done a handful of these, I realized, I love being on the ground lot more than making presentations. I mean given an option, I would be on the ground, in shorts and tees rather than being in a boardroom with a jacket on.

Since this was one of those events where I was detached from, a few things struck me as an epiphany. Lemme try and talk about those.

1/ This was an intimate wedding with just a handful of guests in the audience, each a friend or family. I loved the joy on their faces and general happiness all around. For once I felt human and I thought maybe a wedding is worth an ordeal only to make your family happy. The other thing is the realization that I’ve never had and will probably never have a group of close-knit friends that I saw yesterday. I’ve always been an outcast, dark-horse, odd-one out. The one that is ignored conveniently and forgotten easily. Even in the romantic relationships I’ve had, I’ve not been the person that got attention. Which is ok. Just that when I see such gangs, I pine for my own. And I don’t know how to fix this. I have done almost everything it takes to be able to make friends but I dont seem to have any left.

Of course I do have people that I can lean on. And have leaned on when the going was tough. It still is. And I continue to lean. But I feel most of my friendship and interactions are transaction-based. More on this some other time.

This tweet by Ajeet Sir caught my eye and I realised that maybe lockdown has made me a tad more detached from people!

No, I dont know how to fix it.

Do I want to fix it? Yes! I would love to have people that care for me as an individual and not as a designation. I need people to empathize with what I am going thru and not just label me as someone that doesn’t return calls. I need to feel loved and not left out of conversations and not taken for granted.

And yes, these expectations are not unfounded. I believe in long-term thinking and reciprocity. I do all these for my people. And in exchange, I don’t expect them to go out of their way to accommodate me. Just a simple, respectful, non-judgemental conversation would do. But I hardly get even that.

And yet…

I think I should title this post ‘rant about unrequited love and friendship of a lonely 38-year old man’.

2/ The entire events industry runs on a very simple sub-contracting model. The end-user of service hires a professional. The professional contracts things to multiple partners, each a specialist into certain trade. The partners further sub-contract it to the service providers. These service providers then use temp staff to get things done. More often than not, the dreams of the client are fulfilled by people that they don’t even know exist. Imagine a mason making a five-star hotel and that very mason being denied entry into the hotel. Imagine a carpenter making the grandest facade for your wedding and he is stopped from even taking a picture of what he created.

From a dream that the client has conjured in their head to the execution that happens on the ground, there’s this well-defined food-chain. And at each step, the respect that that person gets and the money that person makes goes down. To give you perspective, if you are spending 10,000 bucks on an event, the guy who actually puts the flower on the wedding mandap gets paid 10 paisas. Paisa. Not Rupees. From a kitty of 10000 bucks. Of course, there are multiple layers, and the value added at each layer is immense but the guy at the bottom gets paid shit. And worse, gets treated like shit. That level of people are so degraded that they themselves stop believing that they deserve more. If not more, then respect.

The sad part is that the entire industry operates like that. Lower you are on the value chain, worse you are treated. Even by the ones that are just a notch above you.

When you do events and meet people who come from as far as Bihar and Assam and more to work on events in Goa and are paid minimum wages and are treated like shit, your heart goes out and you question things. Of course, you can question all you want to, the answers are non-existent.

3/ Oh, this was one of those rare events where I did not have Diet Coke or Red Bull or even Coffee. What am I becoming?

D. Now that I am talking of vices, lemme talk of alcohol. Yesterday, I saw yet again how alcohol fucks your capability to think. It, of course, makes you lose your inhibitions and makes you do things that un-do-s all that you have worked for. I mean imagine a full-grown man making a fool of himself, in the middle of a party, just because he is drunk!

What’s the point of such “losing inhibition” and “letting your hair down”? I have always struggled to find an answer to this question. To a point that I have sort of given up. I just know that making a fool out of myself, because I am drunk is not for me. I am happy to be a fool in the way I think, the way I operate, the way I work etc. Those foolhardy things allow me to go beyond what I am doing right now. They help me grow as a person. They polish me, you know.

But being unable to walk, puking all over yourself and then “blaming” it on alcohol is not my thing.

I know, I know. I am being super judgemental here. I mean it’s their life and they can do whatever they want to. I get that. I also get that some people may want to feel free. I know that most people do not operate in their natural state on a day-to-day basis and this casual alcoholism helps them find an escape. But then the escape has to be a thing that makes you better. You know, how about you hit a gym if you want to feel the change? Write something? If you want a communal experience, how about you go dance? Join a volunteering organization? I hope you get the drift.

Anyhow. So after the incident last night, I promise that I will not have alcohol ever again. Even if its a very very special occasion. I am trying to stay away from coffee and coke. I shall stick to lime water and coconut water and other such things. Just need to figure out what I would have at a Starbucks ;P

E. For the last couple of days, I rented a car to get around Goa. I had to. You cant manage an event and not have a car that doubles up as your shelter when you are tired, your dumping ground when you have to lug things, your companion where you pile your anguish out. And since this was one of the most unorganized events that I’ve been a part of, I was running around a lot. I would have spent a large part of the day in the car yesterday.

But then, that’s not the point.

The point is a car. I realized my love for cars and roads and navigating and driving and seeing new places. I have to have to have to get one. I have had this dream that the first car I buy would be a Merc. I know I am very far from that with what’s happening at work. But I will make things happen and get to a car this year. #note2self #lifeGoal.

F. Fitness. Lol. I start smiling every time I use this F word. I mean really. Fitness. Lol. I have this note that I wrote to myself in 2012 (almost 10 years ago) where I promised that I will be 30″ by end of that year. I am nowhere close. I want to climb Mt. Everest. And I have a hard time walking 12 steps.

Sigh.

Ok, by mistake I linked to this video from Men of Honor. I am going down that Rabbit Hole where I want to make movies and inspire others. Wait. One thing is clear. Each action I take has to leave others inspired. The realization that Silver lining 😀

Ok, that’s it for the day, I think. Good to have poured out.

Nothing on #book2. Will start soon.