Category: Self

  • Signals, Trade-offs, Outcomes, Perceptions

    In S2E6 of The Good Fight, which was our first go-to drama during the Corona lockdown, the focus is on Adrian Boseman (played superbly by Delroy Lindo ). Thanks to his appearance on a cable news show as a legal pundit, he becomes a viral sensation. They invite him back for a couple of shows and increasingly try to channel (pun unintended) his angst into a stereotype. In his third and final appearance on the show, Adrian rebels and lets it fly, causing the channel to let him go. The episode’s last scene has him looking in the mirror, without the greasepaint. I really liked this story arc. It’s almost as though, after he experiences viral fame, he sees it for what it is, and how he can’t play along, and gives the system the finger.

    Or maybe I am projecting. Not that I ever became a viral sensation, but my favourite phrase in this context has been “Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige.” (Edward Norton, Birdman) Now that’s a very arguable point of view. In my defence, I don’t think of it in the scathing, condescending manner of the original quote. It’s a tempered, mellower, “I can’t bring myself to do this sh*t” perspective. (more…)

  • A space-time freedom continuum

    Spoiler 1: This has nothing to do with science! Signs, maybe.

    Spoiler 2: This has a lot of quotes. What can I say, smart people have already framed things so well. 

    I got an interesting response to Change Signalling – Sriks7 asked me what are the values based metrics you are thinking of for yourself? He also mentioned that in his case, they are seen to boil down to where to spend your attention and time. I can relate to that. In the words of Dylan, “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” I have noticed that my overall sense of well-being goes up when I allow myself unstructured time. I watch random things, torture D and twitter with bad wordplay, listen to music, and sometimes just watch clouds float. The last one is slightly more dynamic than paint drying. 🙂

    But my answer would have at least one more layer.  Though time is definitely a key element here, I think of it being part of a broader umbrella – freedom. My working definition of freedom is related to one of my favourite quotes “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl. Freedom, to me, is that space – to be able to choose a response that I can live with, always. Or, to paraphrase a bunch of Jean-Paul Sartre’s quotes, freedom is nothing but the existence of our will.

    As I wrote earlier, one approach that I have used is to reduce the stimuli. But increasingly, I find that there’s a limit to that.”The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.” ~J.R.R.Tolkien. My introspection therefore, has been in the direction of the response. I have found that my power to choose a response depends on how secure I feel. I further explored this “security” and realised that it boiled down to money. It seems like when I can afford it, and that’s almost literal, I am nice to those around me. When I feel that our financial independence plan is threatened, I tend to react badly. It doesn’t help that I am blessed with a scarcity mindset.

    My belief is that by the time we are ready to activate the plan, I would have an abundance mindset. That is based on the changes I have seen in myself in the last few years. But I am also reasonably sure, from experience, that though there are these small wins that happen organically on the way, a mindset switch requires effort. A couple of challenges are immediately visible. One, since I do have a few more years of a full-time professional life left, there are trade-offs on a daily basis, and they require a balancing act between knowing who I am and being who I need to be. The challenge is being rooted on the first while executing the second. Two, while the ego might have been reasonably tamed, there is self image which has its own demands. In this dual tussle, there are choices and actions that might derail me.

    When, between changing circumstances and myself, I have learned to increase that space (in my earlier definition) I’d have achieved the freedom I desire. I do wonder about Loki’s (surprisingly) deep thought though – “Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart, you will know peace.”

  • April flu!

    Covid19! As I watched people bang vessels, while washing mine, mopped the floor while waiting for the Sensex to please find one(!), and swept rooms while the lockdown enforced some sweeping changes, I also tried to step back and take a look – outwards and inwards – at what’s happening!  (more…)

  • Change Signalling

    The end of the year signals a time to reflect. The perfect opportunity presented itself recently, when a colleague was bidding adieu after 5 years. There seemed to be no better venue than Monkey Bar, which was itself in the last week of its operations. Our group was mixed – early and mid thirties to early forties – and we talked about life in Bangalore, kids or not, and where we planned to settle after work. When I said that I was considering Cochin, at least a couple of my colleagues wondered if I would be able to adapt. I explained that the biggest joys in my life, in addition to reading and travel, were Malayalam movies and porotta-beef, that I wear the mundu a lot at home, and nostalgia or not, my mind often wanders the roads of my hometown. (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…)