Excursions

Over the years, I have realized that my mind is a pool of copious ideas from varied fields. It is like an open pond, extremely prone to ripples from externalities, big and small. There was a time when I picked every idea up and started working on it. I would spend weeks on these side projects. Soon, there would be a new one vying for my attention and I would hop onto the new hustle.

I have begun and shuttered so many of such side projects that I have lost count of them now. Some new platforms that solved no new problem for me. An open-source utility which I understood nothing of, except for the fact that its source was open. A self-hosted service that I had no use for. And the list goes on and on.

My fascination towards such unending projects affected me in many ways. The most troubling of them was that I had no time to pause and listen to my thoughts. I lent myself no time to not be busy, to slack. Here's Shane Parrish reiterating the importance of slack to be productive in our lives (as defined by Tom DeMarco in his book Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency).

Many of us have come to expect work to involve no slack time because of the negative way we perceive it. In a world of manic efficiency, slack often comes across as laziness or a lack of initiative. Without slack time, however, we know we won’t be able to get through new tasks straight away, and if someone insists we should, we have to drop whatever we were previously doing.

That is precisely the state I found myself in. I was too welcoming, with my arms spread, ready to embrace anything and everything that got recommended to me. Even a mention of such a topic, and I was all ears.

I no longer do that. Anytime I am faced with such a ripple now, I take a deep breath, blink and calmly say, "no, I do not have time for you. You, even though curious, are not my priority."

Priority is an important word that governs how we lead our life. I recently learnt that when the term "priority" was coined (somewhere in the 1300s), it was singular. It stayed that way for ages. Decades. Centuries. It was only in the 20th century that we, new age humans, muddled the meaning of the term.

By definition, "priority" means "the quality of being prior". The prior one. Basically, the stuff of priority is one thing that should get all your attention.

Then we changed the meaning of being efficient. Doing things as a group, per the plan, within time mattered no more. Each individual had to be manifolds more productive, pick up more things to do in parallel. And in our quest to do more in parallel at all costs, we introduced the plural form of the term "priority". We started thinking about those 2 or 4 or 10 things that we could divide our attention among. We assigned numbers to them. "This is priority 1. This is a P2 item."

Think about it - the usage of the words "topmost priority" itself is so redundant. If you call something a priority, it should get your special attention. It should be the thing of the highest importance.

I have realized the hard way that more often than not, doing less is doing more. When I am not doing many things at the same time, my attention is not spread too thin. Being busy and being productive are two different things. David Perell puts it nicely, contrasting these two distinctive states of mind.

Our best ideas rarely come alive in busyness. They spring to life in calm and aimless contemplation. In beer mode, you find inspiration. And in coffee mode, you harvest that inspiration.

The choice of words "calms and aimless contemplation" is so brilliant. That's what saying "no" to most instinctive side hustles, not always staying busy, allows me time for. I calmly sit idle for hours at times, contemplating on stuff that I read, hear and see. I take notes, jot down thoughts to elaborate on later.

Here's Parrish again, reminding us of the drawbacks of being constantly busy.

Being comfortable with sometimes being 0 percent busy means we think about whether we’re doing the right thing. This is in contrast to grabbing the first task we see so no one thinks we’re lazy. The expectation of “constant busyness means efficiency” creates pressure to always look occupied and keep a buffer of work on hand.

Amen. Could I, then, do more if I didn't hold myself back and said "yes" to more things? Maybe. But then, more is not always better.

Cover Artwork by Ken Cheung on Unsplash

My potential is mine to fulfill or to waste.

I completed agree with Kimberly Hirsh. When someone says live upto your potential, I don’t understand what that means. Who decided what my potential was? How did you decide that? And the bigger question is, why?

My potential doesn’t define me - what I do, does.

I have decided to stay away from all the timelines for the next two weeks. Micro.blog. YouTube¹. Netflix. I am taking time off, in a way, from the discussions & chatters to give myself some space to think. It unfortunately isn’t possible with views and perspectives from others always clouding mine.

I have, of course, subscribed to the RSS feeds of many whose voices I prefer not to miss. This old medium remains the best way I can control what I read.

Why’s there a fascination among the devs to reinvent the old tech that isn’t broken? Maybe the reason that the tech has stayed the same isn’t because no one attempted to change it. Can you fathom the possibility that the tech might be fine, as it is, to most common folks? Or perhaps it might not be one of those things that most give a hoot about? Yeah?

The two prime examples I see many developers take a go at are browsers and email. Please, both work fine as they are. Don’t try to reinvent them. They have reached a state in which they are open and standard enough already. Most people know the functionality they can expect while using it.

Stop reinventing it. Improve it, no doubt. Make it faster, simpler. Cleaner. But don’t change the definition of what that tech represents. Don’t mar the traits that make the tech great in the first place, universal accessibility.

Don’t attach a lot of muck around the fundamentals of the accepted tech and call it “2.0”. I will suggest call it “1.0” of whatever the heck you want to name it.

If you were to take a guess, when do you think the term “microblogging” was first coined? Another term that was gaining popularity the same year was “vodcast”. I am relieved it didn’t catch on — neither the term nor the media format.

I spent a few calming hours with my Kindle in the garden today. Away from the hustle bustle. Away from the tings and chimes of the technology. I need to do this often.

I love this Indian Test cricket team that has the belief that they can bounce back from any situation. They have shown it a few times over the last couple of years. Today’s win against England, after conceding a lead, is special again 🏏

Kids are free, untouched by the necessities of the life. The concept of “necessary” doesn’t register itself with them.

For a kid, everything is necessary and, at the same time, nothing is. Is it necessary to eat? Sure, if he is hungry. Otherwise, it isn’t.

A kid does nothing because it is necessary to do it. He does it because he wants to do it.

In that sense, a kid always emphasises inwards, focuses on what is important to himself. As we grow, we forgot what matters. We emphasise what’s external.

The societal pressures. The fear of missing out. A kid knows none. I like this is all he cares about.

Listen to the kid in you, he sits closest to your heart. And if you can’t hear him, life’s going to a difficult journey, my friend. Be quick and wake up that kid within you.

I modified my homepage today to group posts by date and sort in chronological order in the day. Why? I never liked the reverse-chronological order across.

I finished reading: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. In a way, it’s a must read for a lot many people 📚

I am certain it isn’t for dummies neither does it claims to be so anywhere. It is for folks in a hurry, sure. I can’t remember the last non-fiction book that read so easy for me. This feat is even more praiseworthy, given Neil deGrasse Tyson attempts to touch upon some of the most complicated and buzz-wordy topics from the past 13 billion of existence of this universe.

“The power and beauty of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. In other words, after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion,” says Tyson. I have rarely heard someone be so calm, yet extremely badass at the same time.