Hello World! It took some effort to wake up today. Had to put a hundred alarms and keep hitting on snooze. Need to stop having all the coffee. To be honest, I can. Just that I don’t know what to sip onto when I am whiling away time at cafes to work. Like I said yesterday, I cant work from home and thus I need this feeling of downing something all the time. So, if not coffee, what? Green Tea makes me pukish! Diet Coke? This is becoming an existential question now.
Anyhow, so the brain has started to get back on track. In the sense that wherever I go, I try and sniff some opportunity. Not that I have been able to capitalize on those in the last so many years but I liked the idea of being able to think in terms of numbers, action points, and all that.
The other thing that I must say is that this is after ages where I am putting myself in uncomfortable situations. I am walking up to strangers and chatting them up. I can see from their faces that they think I am a fool. I can hear the subtext in the conversation that they want me to get out of their face asap. I know from their body language that they want to escape. And most times, they do. This is the first time probably where I am trying to sell something that people don’t want. Wait, I am not selling anything per se. I am merely talking to them about their lives. And that itself is deeply unsettling for them. And more so to me as someone that’s instigating them! Oh, damn, the that and the who.
I don’t enjoy these conversations myself but this is probably the only thing I’d get to learn while I am here. Each conversation makes me aware of the limitations that I have when I speak with people (you know, fidget, speak fast, interrupt often, jump from topic to topic, merely scratch the surface, etc). And with each conversation, I try to be mindful and improve how I am doing. So far I haven’t had great success. But I am hoping that there would be some impact somewhere howsoever little it is. If you read this and you and I talk, lemme know if you think am getting any better.
So that.
What next?
Thinking…
Damn this is hard.
Is this what Julia meant when she said morning pages are hard?
Grrr…
So, I tried to digress by checking on some messages, tweets, and all that. Lately, I have started to use FB a bit (to try and connect with people in Goa). I find it far better than Twitter on Insta. In fact, I need to rethink how I live on social media. For all the fuckeries that it piles on you (with all the random ads, FOMO inducing pictures from friends, triggering your insecurities when you see others doing well etc etc), it works for sure. I was able to connect with 3-4 people, thanks to just one post. Maybe I need to get active on FB again?
I do have a philosophical issue here with the concerns around privacy and how FB as a Big Brother bullies smaller businesses into spending more. But then, free market. No?
Also, while writing this bit about FB, I realised how little I know about these concerns. I dont even know what’s wrong with FB. I know that they suck at preventing spread of misinformation or hatred and all that. They are said to side with bullies (Redhat Jr, Kisan Ekta Morcha etc). They are now a giant corporation that kills other businesses with monopolistic behaviour. But do I know the details? No. Do I really know what is the real issue? What is at the core of this? No.
I conveniently trust and follow the opinions of a handful of people (I shall not name those here on the public post) that I *know* for a fact know more about these issues. These people are passionate about causes and things. And they spend all their time chasing things that they are passionate about. And they are not “selling” what they know. There is no vested interest. Say films. I know Shikha will die but not stop reading, talking, researching about films. So I trust her opinion.
Books? Prak would not stop.
Business? Ajeet Sir will have the most informed view.
Loyalty points? Sujoy.
Growth? Annkur.
Tech in general? Kunal.
Career? Anubhab.
Digital Media? Mihir.
Goa? Nupura.
Life advise? Vanita.
Commonsense? AD.
Scrimping money? Vivek.
Showing reality when I am flying high? Sonali.
The list can go on. I am lucky to have so many people give me so much attention and mindspace. And thus, I have people for each thing that I may want to know about. And they are honest and upfront. The value they give me is the reward they expect when they talk to me. I am lucky to have people like that around me!
So, when I am stuck, I just ask these people about the issue and they come back to me with actionable and decision-makable inputs. So I have sort of outsourced my research and thinking.
To me, that works. At least, so far, it has. I am not sure if I want to change it as I go along.
Or may be this is what is stopping me from getting to greatness? May be.
Something to think on. No?