A Letter to Self.
At the cusp of graduation, finally, and at the dawn of a totally new life, I just wanted to make sure I keep some great learnings, enthusiasm, awareness and passion, going on ahead, and well drop some beats on creepiness ;) . College somehow became memorable due to people I interacted with, things I did, things I felt, mistakes and blunder I made. Currently after almost one year of leaving college, midway, due to covid, I fear lot of college inside me might fade away. So here is a special ode to 2020, average ode to years before.
2020 was an exceptionally tough year, primarily emotionally. Physically, it was almost okay and better. Some people had it worse, some people had it better. But in hindsight, it was the year, where I experimented a lot, introspected a lot, created a lot, took more risks, heard more stories, met awesome people (over job interviews, lots of). But you see, all the progress and growth, it’s not free, all these things have a cost. It fucks you in unimaginable ways. You loose lots of moment, which you should/must have remembered. But so does, not doing anything. True, Moving forward for me is always better, than staying at a place. Staying is too dark and darker. Progress marks you, inflicts you, but it gives you light, you are not the same, you don’t have to be.
Everything starts with 0
“Dream Beautifully, Continuously, Childishly, Charmingly, Courageously, Foolishly and Idealistically”
“This is so childlike” or “That’s so foolish”, “This is madness”, these statements are meant to show naivety, to discourage people. Wear this as a badge of honour. If you are hearing this a lot, believe me you are on right track. You are doing something, which offends sensibilities of mature tired worn-out lost people. Keep offending people with your dreams. Dreams are the genesis of great things. Dream and Dream and Dream. Without a dream we are just meaningless. Everything worth having, is painful, avoiding pain is not the way, Some Dreams will break, rebuild it time and again. Never let your dreams wane away. Wait be patient, prioritise, but never let it go. You might be living an average life, you might have average academic skills, but dream like Michaelangelo painting, or Beethoven composing music or Shakespeare writing poetry, like no one before.
“Will Power vs Your Strength”
Nothing New, like Love, this concept has been fucked up by the society as well. Will power helps you push, in small burst of time for small burst of time. In contributes in your strength, but it’s not your strength. David can’t win against Goliath, just by might of his will power. If you can 5 push ups in a go, having an awesome will power, you can push it up till 7 or or maybe 9. But after that it’s physically impossible. That’s the extent of your will power.
Strength is something more. Strength arises from harmony of your body, mind and soul or heart or whatever. Everyday you just somehow wake up effortlessly to do 5 push-ups and try to increase it day after day. You just somehow know, “just somehow know” you want to have a billion dollar, all liquid or do continuous 50 pull-ups. It might be unreasonable, to do, to fulfill, but that’s a dream, that’s what dreams are. That’s the essence of dreams.
Your dreams demands your strength, your dedication, your conviction to somehow unreasonably do it everyday, feel it in your bones, every fucking day. The most awesome way to make your dreams a cheap commodity, is to pull of their strength,. I very humbly ;) request you to not make my dreams and hence yourself a cheapo. Fight for our dreams. Never ever let it go.
“Balance and Harmony”
It’s all a matter of balance, harmony, of consistency and creativity, of conviction and fluidity, of insanity and sanity, of practicalism and idealism, peace and chaos.
“Conviction”
Dumb people are in a race, in a fight to have a conviction, about everything I guess. The highly intelligent people are in a race to keep everything fluid, and not to have any conviction, any opinion, any biases and hence any risk.
Having a conviction starts again with a dream. Dream is the root of all disaster ;). Moves on with exploration. Exploration about what it means, fundamentally understanding, who, what and how are the actors involved, keep exploring until you have some linear simple or quadratic model of how things works. That’s how conviction is reached. Conviction is reached when you have the courage to be wrong, to be embarrassed, courage to fail, courage to improve. More you move in habit of exploration, better conviction. More curious, you are in how things work, better conviction. Read books, listen to podcast, listen to people, discuss with them, in short keep good company. Premature conviction is dumb and dangerous.
Even having a conviction, always in evening, look sideways.
“Concept of Time”
Aren’t we all lost in some time. We are everywhere but now.
Past is the fabric of your existence, your dreams, and a benchmark you have to exceed. That’s all that past is. It’s an asset you can monetise. Be like Rupi Kaur.
Future, is where your fabric wants to be. Highly, Highly uncertain in nature. You can plan everything do everything, and not have anything. Does this mean to not plan anything. Probably yes, Probably no, doing more helps though, in this ever evolving world. Doing more, helps more than planning. Have an action bias, even if Fyodor Dostoyevsky says otherwise in his books. This world is changing so fast, so…..
“Fear is Creepy and parasitic”
If you don’t take good care of fear, it shows it’s faces in various ways. You won’t even know how or when it has creeped up in your conscience and paralysed you in various ways. Always push scan local songs once in a while.
“Cost of Mistakes”
Get Better at doing damage control, than I am. Contain the fires. Try harder not to repeat those with small genetic variations. Get better at getting things correct in one shot.
“More Experience and Less Regrets”
This is what I am optimising my life for.
“Pro Growth”
This is how I want to proceed. I like change, changing fast, changing for good, changing for better.
“Morality”
Morality is a plague to erode experience. The only morals important are those, of whose removal, society collapses. The only morals important are those which provides a positive sum experience rather than negative sum experience. With ever evolving world this world requires lesser set of virtues than before. Honesty as a virtue was required for trade and interpersonal relationships before. Now the role of honesty in trade is being aggresively replaced by algorithms. Make sure you analyse your morals and function with the least set of morals to have a positive sum game.
“Curiosity”
This is a fire, keep it burning more brighter than ever. If you feel you know too much, start looking for finer intricacies, in orthogonal fields than yours. That’s how you will keep your curiosity alive.
“Bias and Detachment”
With less bias, and lesser attachment, your best version gets online.
“On Meditation”
The act of meditation is not to focus but to uncondition ourselves from a habit of overthinking. In simple words this your only way of unfucking, if that’s possible.
“Rethink”
Time to time, Rethink your beliefs. Do they still hold ?
“Too Much Risk ?”
There is no such thing as too much risks, what there is, is a bad risk to reward ratio. Even if it destroys your self, even your identity, if there is a reward that excites you, it’s too bad to have regrets later on.
“Laws of Nature vs Desperation”
Desperation is again a valuable asset. You can’t win against laws of nature, but if you are mindfully desperate you can just find ways to beat the system.
“Execution ?”
Not one of the strongest point. Requires tons of work here.
Some Great books or reference, to reread
- Sapiens
- Magic of Thinking big.
- Rich Dad Poor Dad.
- Buddha in Blue Jeans, sweetest smallest book I have ever read.
- Marina Abramović
- Siddharth, Hermann Hesse
- The Magicians Way
- We All Fall Down
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
- Pour Your Heart Into It
- Lets Build a Company
- Incerto Series
- Geeta
- Fear: Essential Wisdom
Some Poets/Writers I intend to follow
- Rumi
- Keats
- Neruda
- Edward Hirsch
- Byron
- Plath (Read When Too Happy)
- Spinoza