Jul 20, 2025.
Sunday.
I normally start writing this on a Friday evening. And by Saturday I have a vague draft in my head. And then by Sunday I polish it. Today, I am sitting on this at 7:15 PM on a Sunday. So, I will not be able to do reviews and edits. And thus, if you spot any errors or bugs, you know what / who to blame.
Also, this week has been the fastest since the beginning of time. Days blurred into each other and it came to a point where I lost track. I wanted to take a breather on the saturday (very unlike me) and I planned for it. But I couldnt. So, I havent had the time to reflect.
Without further ado, lets dive in.
Oh, am listening to this – Forever My Friend.
I discovered this at a Starbucks. Far cry from the world of Terence where says, and I quote…
Parker’s a young kid, pretty good on the sax, gets up to play at a cutting session, and he fucks it up. And Jones nearly decapitates him for it. And he’s laughed off stage. But the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And he practices, and he practices with one goal in mind: Never too be laughed at again. And a year later he goes back to the Reno and he steps up on that stage and he plays the best motherfucking solo the world has ever heard. So imagine if Jones just said “Well, that’s okay Charlie. That was alright. Good job.” Then Charlie thinks to himself “Well, shit. I did do a pretty good job.” End of story. No Bird. That, to me, is an absolute tragedy. But that’s just what the world wants now. People wonder why jazz is dying. I’ll tell you, man – and every Starbucks “jazz” album just proves my point, really – there are no two words in the English language more harmful than “good job”.
Anyhow.
I heard it.
And I love it.
And here it is for your viewing / listening pleasure.
💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week
PS: As always, these are not in any order.
1/ The F1 Film
I am yet to watch this film. VG has told me to see this a 100 times and I havent been able to find time to do so.
Each person I talk to seems to be raving about it. And I havent had the time to see the film. Let’s see when.
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2/ The #TNKS film
Staying on films, its a well known secret that I want #tnks to be adapted into a film.
I’ve even written a script. I shopped it around a bit and I realised that no one is as interested in it as I thought they would be. Plus I didnt want to invest time, energy or effort into chasing and pushing. So, the project went on a backburner.
But lately, with AI, I think it may be possible!
Naman and Vishal have taken my bait to accept it as a challenge and work on it. They’ve even made a teaser. See the teaser here.
What do you think?
I’ve given them a 6 month window to see if we can make a film out of this. The best case scenario? We would have a film. The worst case? They would learn.
So that.
Ready. Fire. Aim. FTW!
3/ Walking has been a challenge.
I have said this multiple times and I say it again. Mumbai and India is not built for walking. I know people who do it despite the dust, heat, strays, traffic and all that. And no, I am not those people.
While in a different country, I can easily get 10-12K steps in. Here, despite all the concious effort, I cant get more than 6-7K.
I know folks in Bangalore and Pune and Goa and the hills find it easy. But again, I am not there and I dont see myself there either in the forseable future.
But then I want to be fit and till I snap out of my slumber to start lifting weights, I need to start walking. Any tips / ideas anyone?
4/ Figo Mag
Balram showed me a copy of this magazine (see it here – Figo Collective) that a couple of people put out. Love it.
Reminded me that I’ve wanted to create something tangible that people can touch and feel and play around with. Brought me to another point that I told C while walking around. People who chase one singular passion all their lives end up creating things that move you so much that you start questioning the meaning of your life and all that. Just that while you are in the questioning zone, you are comparing your life of a generalist who’s going wiht the flow with someone who’s chased things with a singular passion!
I have three images for this. Here.
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5/ AI experiments
I tried to learn n8n and I found myself struggling with it. And, its not a great feeling. to bes honest, I dont want to learn how to code but I want to be able to take advantage of things. Especially these tools that are now lot more accessbile to us. The things that enable us to do more!
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6/ Speed and Urgency
Life is anything but predictable. So, sooner you do things, better it is. And I am unable to rally people around me to run with a certain speed. Even when I push for things, I’ve seen that I am unable to bring about a change. I need to learn how to be more convincing.
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7/ Writing Cohort
As part of Meru, been running something for active seniors where am assisting them in writing their biographies. I have one person right now and its a brilliant place to be. Each interaction teaches me new things, makes me challenge my existing notions and at the same time enriches the repotoire of my awwareness.
One of the lessons from a session was to not hoard books. I was told that since there’s only little time, you will probably not re-read some of your favorites and thus its better to give those away and help people discover your favorites.
Today, I met Parth for lunch and gave him a couple of books.
Oh, fun fact, when I met him, I told him that I was once fascinated by Kurutoga pencils and I could see on the Amazon page that I bought one in 2018!
PS: In case any of you wants your elders to write their biographies, please let me know.
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8/ Health.
Multiple concerns.
More spots. More headspace.
Seem to be forgetting a lot. See this.
Unable to control what I eat. Wont talk more.
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9/ Personal Brand
I have to find a way to build my personal brand. I think in the times we are alive it has to be in shape of video. And may be text. For someone who’s hated his face all his life, this is a tough one.
With Adulting, I have started to release some of my words. I need to now accelerate it. I want to start doing things like MFM where they routinely get to talk to interesting people. I have the machinery and the meachnism and all that to manage the release. I just need to shoot!
Come on, Mr Garg!
Maybe I will ready fire aim at this and record some. The only times I have is towards the evening, post office hours. I want to cram in workout, reading, experiments and all that in it. I will have to find a way to record these too. Adding to my TDL for the week.
Let’s see when.
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10/ Three Cups of Tea
Datar told me about Three Cups of Tea.
I will save you the effort of clicking. From wikipedia…
The book’s title was inspired by a saying Haji Ali shared with Mortenson: “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family…”
The point is, recurring games with recurring people.
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📷 Some Photos from the week gone by
Here are some photos from week 29. The one I want to post on this blog is…
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🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?
Book 2
ISTG I want to pick this again.
I dont know how.
I have way too many things happening to think about this.
May be I will drop this as well?
PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.
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☑️ What did I get done last week?
This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.
PS: I have skipped this for the last few weeks. I HAD to bring it back this week. So, things that I work on (in order) are…
- Health
- Meru
- C4E
- Brand SG
- People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
- Book2
- Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)
Health. No action. And I’ve not had the best last few days. I will give myself a -1 on this.
Meru. Moved the needle a bit. However it is not enough. I need to do more. I will give myself a -1.
C4E. No action from my side. But things seem to be ok there. All credits to folks at C4E. So, a 0.
Brand SG. No action. HAVE TO PUT IN A LOT MORE EFFORT HERE. At this time, I will give myself a -1.
People. No action on this. I’d say 0.
Book 2. Lol! -1
Shauk. Nothing. So, a 0.
So the overall score is -4 for this week. Need to buckle up.
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📊 The tracker from the last week
I missed this last few weeks. This past week I have been deliberate in filling this in. Here we go…
The first couple of days were good. I slept well and had great recovery. And then life happened. And then work took over. And then it went downhill. I’ve also had many more days in the red / yellow zone compared over others!
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📖 Interesting Reads from the last week
Couple of reads.
1/ Seth Godin on Terms of Service.
2/ Naval on Arena. He says, “So the right way to learn is to actually go do something, and when you’re doing it, you figure something out about how it should be done.”
3/ From Sahil Bloom -A very useful list of things that you could immediately act upon, especially if you are young.
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🧠 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.
Skipping this week as well. I will get back to this next week.
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🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?
Blur.
This went past by too fast. There was a lot of work and very very long days at Meru. Need to find a way to streamline those.
Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Fast, Uncool, Disappeared, Experience, Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.
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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), 25, 26, 27, 28
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.