Am I Back

And if I am, will I owe Michael Arrington any royalty?

The right to preach

Priests have a right to preach. After all, they lead a celibate life, go through a rigorous study of the texts, and then are selected through a tenuous system. Why do people who don't go through all this, confer unto themselves a right to preach?

Inner peace

I'm sure that many of the best minds in the world write or make movies. Earlier in life, I condescendingly thought that those who couldn't hack it in real life wrote books or made movies, soon learning, as I took off my boots (from inside my mouth) that these projects themselves when well executed had a higher impact on a Human Wellness index than did a lump of machinery on the GDP.

Now, most of my inspiration come from movies, animated ones at that, intended to entertain and ingrain moral into kids. So, to borrow from Kung Fu Panda 2, like Master Shifu, I'm searching for inner peace at an old age.

Inactivity

Sometimes inactivity can be more productive than a frenzied attempt to stay busy. In the recent past, I have witnessed many examples which attest to this hypothesis.

Stated simply, it is like folding a bad poker hand and waiting the next turn, or letting an outside ball fly past you in cricket.

If you're running a fund with a long only mandate, then you stay put in a turbulent market and wait for things to settle before picking stocks.

In ones' life too there could be long periods where activity may prove counter-productive. at such times, work doesn't produce results or worse still causes damage; efforts don't yield earnings; farming doesn't yield crop.

All this is counter-intuitive to a young, career oriented mind to whom, at first sight, inactivity is tantamount to laziness. It is only wisdom and experience that helps reconcile this line of thinking.

Perhaps that is why a large-bellied and usually reclining Buddha always smiles and is considered wise.

Discipline

No matter how talented, a key ingredient for success, for proficiency before that, is discipline, in thought, word and action. This discipline is important in thought - a stray and wandering mind that cannot hold on to an thought long enough will most certainly fail to hold a powerful thought or idea, which is the beginning of any successful venture. An undisciplined tongue will chase away well-wishers and make foes argue back with increased vigour, will render the holder incapable of rousing support or sympathy. Finally undisciplined actions will mean insufficient practice, poor proficiency and success if any, will be accidental.

Read today - do not make someone your priority, if you are only an option in his eyes. even good friends have inflated egos, posture unnecessarily. Don't deify them.

Money where the mouth is

Yesterday, i realized yet again, that I'm not a customer to Facebook just as I'm not to my newspaper. I'm 2 times 10 to the power of minus 7th percentage (0.2 millionth of a percentage point) of its inventory. Now Facebook isn't going to charge me for usage. Then through Facebook, I read The Economist Newspaper. I'm part of its inventory too - why because I'm subject to the advertisements that it sells. Unlike Facebook, The Economist, or FT, and suchlikes want me to pay for being their inventory. I won't. Today, I donated to Wikipedia - someone for whom PLUs (people like us) are the customer in two ways - mind you customers twice over and not paying inventory! The information helps almost everyone who uses wikipedia to hunt for information and secondly wikis can be set-up by those who want to showcase (or showoff) their knowledge. Don't pay to be inventory because it doesn't pay to be paying inventory.

Slowing down

In my teens / preteens, I was a prolific writer. In fact I wrote a 32 page novel. Since then, I've slowed down. Damaged brain cells? I don't think so. What happened then? Something also happened in online Poker - my chips levels stagnated. My midriff's expanding, I'm not exercising, not drumming, not walking, not doing anything intense. I've been lining more than my share of 0.27% of my life on facebook. Wake up!