Category: Flawsophy

  • Enough / Efficiency

    In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes predicted that advances in technology would increase productivity to a level that we would only need to work 15 hours a week. I wonder what he’d have to say about 996. It’s also ironic that despite  the amount of time that technology has helped us save  – Google Search, Facebook for easily connecting with an extended social network, Amazon Prime delivery and a host of other companies that deliver not just products but services as well – we still have a time deficit! I am generalising, if you have proven Keynes right, congratulations. But for the rest of us, what happened?

    A couple of reasons are obvious. One – the ease that technology brought into our lives has also made us spend more time on it, thereby negating the saving. Two – this time spend has also exposed us to more stimuli that makes us want more. The second reason, by extension, has gotten us hitched on to a never-ending ride – efficiency for its own sake.  (more…)

  • A plan to be

    One of my first posts this year was Certain, simple frames, in which I had written about my lapse-of-reason episodes, and my methods of overcoming them. I had also mentioned in the post the insight I got about myself – the lapses of reason were triggered by my fear of it upsetting the plan. The Plan is financial freedom for D and me – we shouldn’t have to work for the sake of earning for current or future needs and wants.

    In this context,  I found a quote by Ramit Sethi that succinctly conveyed a perspective that I have touched upon in at least a couple of my posts – Prisons of Happiness (conscious choices of freedom and understanding the trade offs) and Please Find Detached (on delaying stimuli and minimising lifestyle creep) – a rather distinct definition of frugality.

    quote-frugality-quite-simply-is-about-choosing-the-things-you-love-enough-to-spend-extravagantly-ramit-sethi-64-20-74

    I have been doing this for a while, but the catch, as I have experienced, is in “choosing the things you love enough”, and it exists because of the intent behind that ‘love’. The usage of the word “love” is important. In my view, it is used to distinguish the things that one really wants.

    But it is difficult to be objective about one really wants. Paradoxically, at different points, the intent could be a desire to belong, or a desire to stand out. A fundamental human need to connect and share that drives the first. A basic ego stokes the second. A desired destination here could be a kind of “reflective equilibrium”. Easier said than done!

    The ego first derives from societal benchmarks, the projected self, and then self image. Getting beyond the last one is extremely tough. And if one does get close, there is an immediate realisation that there are no markers, no play books, no goals. There is no unseeing this either. “And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally. ”All very difficult to get used to, especially when the mind continues to ask, “Is it going to be ok?”

    To quote Bill Bonner, “There’s the standard of living, which can be measured in dollars, and there’s the quality of your life, which can’t be measured at all.” The Plan is built on financials, and is therefore aimed at tackling the first part. The second is indeed an intangible, and speaks probably of a contentment that comes from being comfortable with one’s decisions. That’s why the plan is also an attempt to iron out the terms of one’s interaction with the world, and just be. The hope then, is that belonging will take care of itself because one is actively pursuing the wants that really matter, without money having a real say in it. The desire to stand out? Well, it will be forced to sit out!

  • Regression planning

    During our reindeer sledding tour in Tromso last year, our guide, who was a Sámi, gave us a glimpse of their way of living. A semi-nomadic life, built around their reindeer herds, which involved them traveling for several days twice a year across hundreds of kilometres. She told us how the capture and nurture of reindeers, and the lifestyle itself, has changed from a means of livelihood to a tradition that only very few are interested in.

    In Fahadh’s movie Njan Prakashan, there is a hilarious, yet poignant moment, when he is asked to help the other workers plant rice seedlings in a field in Kerala. The workers immediately start off and are soon singing in gusto. Fahadh, who has never done any of this before, stands with his mouth agape, and then asks what the language is! His boss explains how most of the paddy field workers in Kerala now are Bengalis, and they’re singing their customary song. “We’ve forgotten our job, we’ve forgotten our song“, he says (roughly translated). (more…)

  • Evolving against entropy

    ​In the last fortnight, I had two interactions with customer care teams. The first was Kotak, for a bank account. There were failures at multiple levels, but the biggest takeaway was how difficult it was to get through to a human. Chatbots have their uses but this was extreme! Twitter DMs weren’t a help either. The second was Amazon, and that surprisingly included being put on hold for about 15 minutes and transferred 5 times! Thankfully, the problem was resolved in 30. But given the famed Amazon customer-centricity, this was a disappointment, and I wondered if at scale, it was inevitable. 

    What causes it? The best frame I have seen is entropy. (via) Yes, that physics and thermodynamics thing – the degree of disorder/randomness in the system. Though the meaning remains the same, the application changes. In the context of a business, it is the tax applied by the system between input and output. Just imagine the effort that is required to get things done in a corporate structure as against a startup. While it is theoretically possible for a complex system to have lesser entropy than a simple system, I have not seen it in practice. I can imagine why it is so – the randomness that can be generated by different touchpoints, and their optimization for following rules as opposed to providing solutions. What happened to me with Kotak and Amazon were examples of that.   (more…)

  • Certain, simple frames

    I read an article recently on decision making, which among other things wrote about how instinct could beat analytical thinking. An insightful heuristic that I found in it was this – ..if you are in an uncertain world, make it simple. If you are in a world that’s highly predictable, make it complex.

    While the article focused on decision making in the business context, I could relate to it in the personal context. I see the world at large as an uncertain and complex place, and have spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to contain its influence on my own life. It has been an evolution. The expectations frame  I have written about does a fairly good job of reducing the variables, but it isn’t perfect. There are people and events that frustrate me, I sometimes lose my cool, and my remorse later doesn’t really change anything for anyone, including me. (example) (more…)