Receipe of life

“Take twelve months and wash them clean of bitterness, greed, pedantry, and fear. Divide each month into thirty or thirty-one parts so that each part suffices for exactly one day. Fashion each day out of one part of work and two parts of joy and tranquility. Add three heaped tablespoons of optimism, a teaspoonful of tolerance, a grain of irony, and a pinch of tact. Pour over the whole a generous portion of love, garnish with a bouquet of small courtesies and serve daily with humor and a refreshing cup of tea.”

-Mrs.von Goethe, NewYear’s wish for her son

The myth of the Third World

The Man in the arena

"...It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat..."

- Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic
Speech at the Sorbonne - Paris, France April 23, 1910

You can't predict who will change the world

"...discoveries we claim come from research are themselves highly accidental. They are the result of undirected tinkering narrated after the fact, when it is dressed up as controlled research...

...America's primary export, it appears, is trial-and-error, and the innovative knowledge attained in such a way...

...American undirected free-enterprise works because it aggressively allows us to capture the randomness of the environment...

...Random tinkering is the path to success..."

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

Reason and Passion

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore, let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Five components of Obituary

1. What is the cause of death?
- Did the individual have an exciting, vibrant life that ended gracefully or lived life of a dead man/woman, in vain, counting days or something in between?
2. What did the individual do while alive?
- Being aspects - What roles/positions/recognitions held? and
- Doing aspects - What lasting contributions did the individual make? Built a lasting organization, built a dam, built schools, etc.
3. What impact did the individual have on the world while alive?
- Helped the world in anyway, hurt fewer than those helped or hurt the world mostly?
4. What legacy did the individual leave behind for the future?
- An example/message to follow/imitate/look upon/be inspired by or a mistake to avoid?
5. Who will mourn the death?
- No one or just the family, kith and kin, or a state or a country or an ethnicity or the entire world?

The totality of every life is viewed from these five angles. Heros, rebels, leaders, followers, peasants and everyone including you and I are weighted by this scale in the end.

Adversity and "Alchemists"

Adversity is one of the most potent forces in life. It shapes your character, clarifies your priorities, and defines your path. It can also fuel your greatness.


- Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind person to have climbed the "Seven Summits," the tallest peak on every continent.

The Dilemma

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your feelings is to risk rejection.
To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure.

-Source unknown


“This above all else: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as night follows day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
–William Shakespeare, Hamlet


“Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind.”
-Dr. Seuss

Love, Attachment and Duty

This scene brings tears in my eyes everytime I watch it.

Is money the root of all evil...?

"Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"

The Money speech

from Atlast Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Sensory explosion...Nirvana!

A brain scientist experiences a stroke.

Subjection and Election

"Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day, and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive them to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated; whereas that obedience, which is exacted on a few important but rare occasions, only exhibits servitude at certain intervals and throws the burden of it upon a small number of men.

It is vain to summon a people, which has been so dependant on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however, important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity"

- Alexis de Tocquivelle, Democracy in America

Speed of Progress/Change

I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.

- Marie Curie

I agree with that assertion in general and believe that progress is slow and requires focused, intense work by an individual or a team of people.

In the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about change that is quick, dramatic and of epidemic proportions. That is completely contrary to the "slow theory"! Granted not all change is progress. But it is true that some of the changes do happen pretty quick, especially those which involve large number of people.

Another example is the cellphone adaption in India as shown in the chart. Are there different kinds of progress, some quick and some fast...?

Story of LinkedIn

"I had a plan. What's the minimum amount of time I can work for companies before starting out on my own? I had a check-off list: need experience designing, need experience in product management, need experience shipping product, need experience in building a team. I wanted to make sure I learned everything I needed."

How I did it: Reid Hoffman

Differentiation and Integration

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert Heinlein

That is an interesting quote. But I find it difficult to agree that every single human being should be a generalist and be good at everything. Can really a jack of all trades be the master of all as well? That notion sort of trivialises the need for specialization and team work among specialists to accomplish tasks. It is true that more and more specialized tasks are eliminated by machines now. That only frees us to move ahead with finding new areas to specialize on rather than become generalists.

In an increasingly competitive world, individuals survive and thrive if and only if they have something unique to offer the world that others cannot. i.e. Specialization and differentiation is what makes the world grow in multiple dimensions simultaneously and allow us to exchange best value for value as individuals, as businesses in societies and across nations.

With the vastness of everything in the world and given the choice that an individual has today, even in theory it is impossible for someone to try to do more than a few things; let alone being good at them.

I think the value of integration remains in our ability to come together as specialists for the collective betterment of all of us. Not in trying to become self fullfilling individuals who can be good at everything. It is a romantic notion to imagine individuals as super heros and dismiss that specialization is for insects. It seems like an outdated view of life that has no relevance in the modern society.

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced."
-Swami Vivekananda

Now that is a powerful idea!

Articulation is not accomplishment - Narayana Murthy

Q Talking about higher education... even the recommendations made to the Knowledge Commission have not been implemented? Why does this happen?

A "The Indian society is a society of ideas. It is a society that has revered talk. In this society, articulation is mistaken for accomplishment. We are quite satisfied with our voice, with our writings. This is not a society that is focussed on execution.

Frankly, the problem is due to our caste system and the dominance of Brahmins in our society for long period. The Brahminical system said my job is to think of the higher worlds. My job is to think of connecting you people with God. I don't want to do anything that has a relationship with the real world.

Now that is a problem that has played havoc with the Indian culture. So, here in this culture, if you do anything with your hands, it is considered less honourable that anything to do with your brain.

Here everybody wants to be an engineer, nobody wants to be a technician. So when a society does not value implementation, execution, what happens is you create more and more reports and nothing gets done.

For example, (Reliance Industries Chairman) Mr Mukesh Ambani and I gave two reports on how to improve the higher education system: one to (then prime minister) Mr Vajpayee and one to Dr Manmohan Singh.

Second, there has been the Knowledge Commission. Nothing has happened. Third, in 1998 I was a member of the IT Task Force -- which was headed by Mr Jaswant Singh -- and that task force submitted its report somewhere in 1999 0r 2000.

Nine years and I don't think even one suggestion has been implemented. And we made 108 suggestions! So that is why I am not a big fan of ideas in India.

My brother-in-law is a famous professor of physics at Caltech and he tells me it is very easy to come out with an idea. But to validate that idea he and his doctoral students will have to work hard for six months, one year... sometimes two years. That takes 20 hours of work each day for two years. So it is important to come out with new ideas, but it is even more important to execute them.

We are not a nation of doers; we are a nation which believes that our articulation is our accomplishment."

http://specials.rediff.com/money/2009/apr/24slde8-narayana-murthy-interview-part-2.htm

The link above has invited 100s of comments on his views.