Alternate Thinking

What is worldly wisdom? Let’s take each word in turn. Worldliness means being concerned with ordinary life. Wisdom, on the other hand, implies knowledge of the big picture when it comes to life as a whole. But there’s more to it than that. 

Simply knowing lots of isolated facts isn’t particularly useful. As the American investor Charlie Munger once put it, “If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in useable form.” 

And that’s our definition: worldly wisdom is about plugging our knowledge about life into theoretical models that illuminate everyday problems. So where do you find those models?

Daily Leadership: Part 1

We all are leaders in one way or another. We generally deal with two problems: urgent and emergent. Urgent ones are in front of our eyes, and require immediate attention. We can solve a few urgent problems without much hassle, but the real issue is ability to foresee problems that can, in the near future become urgent.

How do you solve unknown problems? It requires awareness: awareness of the situation and the surrounding, and most importantly self awareness.

We have the option of choices, animals don’t. If they don’t react quickly, they might get killed. We on the other hand, take our time, assess the situation, weigh the options and react. However, these choices can be both boon and curse for us.

Boon: Choosing the options

Curse: Conflict of options.

There is no such thing as conflict in reality. It’s all a creation of our mind, arising from the numerous options we create. Conflict also arises when we are conditioned to a situation and refuse or are reluctant to adapt and change. This resistance is nothing but another conflict we have to deal with.

Delirium from choices, reluctance to change: its all happening inside our mind

There’s a battle going on inside us, created by our own mind. Instead of freeing us, offering us a solution, our mind becomes our prison. This chaos in our mind blocks our thought process. There’s like so much activity going on in our mind that we are unable to focus on a single point of action. Our body reacts to our mind, and when the mind is itself trapped, body doesn’t react purposefully. The will to act ceases and we look for alternate solutions. When we can’t fight, we look towards “flight”, someway to abandon the situation, to run away from it. Our desired state of action is replaced by “flee” action.

Efficiency vs Effectiveness

Almost similar, yet very different. We encounter them in our everyday life, using them to analyse our efforts, predict our results. Yet we often misunderstand their meaning.

Say we want to climb a wall with the help of a ladder within a given time, and there are two walls facing each other. We put the ladder against the wall and start climbing, going up at a decent pace, with the aim of achieving our target before time. But what if our ladder is set against the wrong wall? We are definitely making progress, giving it all in, sweating it out. We are being efficient, but to no avail. It won’t bear any positive result.

Effectiveness is analysing our steps, every moment, to make sure we are on the right path. Take a pause to reflect on our actions, whether it will drive us closer towards our goal or sway us away from it.

For some of my previous posts, here’s a few of them.

Alternate Thinking

by wordsnomad February 6, 2021

Daily Leadership: Part 1

by wordsnomad September 26, 2020

Efficiency vs Effectiveness

by wordsnomad May 29, 2020

The Sweet Air of Freedom (Part 4)

by wordsnomad May 24, 2020

The Sweet Air of Freedom (Part 4)

Read on the previous posts to follow on this one.

The First Encounter (Part 1)

The Clash (Part 2)

High on Adrenalin (Part 3)

Every beginning comes with an end. In the case of freshers, it’s the end of second semester which  heralds a new beginning. Time for transition from being ragged to become raggers (I wonder if that’s even the word). Well that’s the normal case scenario. For us (the three/four of us), it was, as one would say “Judgement Day”. But the not so obvious thing was that we didn’t know when it would be, at what time, at what place. 

“Mass Ragging” or abbreviated as MR, was the hotly anticipated event. For freshers, it would be the last day they would be ragged. For seniors, it was the most fun filled event. They could just do anything, and I mean literally anything. The end would be booze filled, drunken aftermath. Booze would drown all the enmity, animosity, anger, hatred whatever, and seniors and juniors would live happily ever after. 

High on Adrenalin (Part 3)

February is the time when you could feel “Ecstasy” in the air. It’s the annual cultural festival, and the time when college romance reaches its climax. Our second semester had started, and we were, to some extend, acclimatised to the college air. Ragging was rampant under the aegis of second year seniors, who were the most excited, for they had just gone through the phase through which we were passing. They had the responsibility of training us for the third and final years. Third years were bit scary, final years were the dangerous ones with short fuse. You never know what would piss ‘em off and then bear the brunt. But even then, they were the ones that cared and showed compassion, even if it’s in a simpler way. 

The Clash (Part 2)

(To read the previous part, here’s the link The First Encounter (Part 1))

It was only a matter of time when the action would show its reaction. And that reaction was something no one could be prepared for, for it is unexpected. The thing is, you can either follow a goats herd, or dictate your own direction. Whenever you try to break the shackles, to free yourself against odds, you need an extra impetus, some extra courage and the ability to be immune to the popular hearsay. We were going through this same phase, and in someway, if you relate all this, the seniors too! For they had not encountered any resistance, and this was something new for them. So, this is the narrative of me and my two other mates. 

Needless to say, my zone mates, were fucked up. Either they were brainwashed completely , or their cowardice was simply too much to let them decide for themselves. I had a clear vision, that I would stand against them, for they had given me ample reasons to. They were scared, cowards, dumb-fucks and goats. 

There was a small incident that I would narrate here. Saraswati puja is an auspicious occasion, and since we were in college, it was bound to be celebrated with all the austerities. Guys would dress in traditional clothes, girls would don their beautiful sarees, and an air of festivity and love would loom around the college, for this is one of the few occasions where guys were allowed inside girls hostel, if only till the front porch. 

Welcoming The Highest Authority

The Higher Authority is now dominated by The Highest Authority, demanding all the care, devotion and attention. I, on the other hand, go to the bottom of the chain.

The Highest Authority

The Higher Authority

Me

The Highest Authority turned 1 month today, so this is a dedication to her. From the hospital bed to home, to the late night cries, to the musing humorous faces, to those small bright eyes to the fluffy red cheeks of yours, you’re the candy of everyone’s eye.  All eyes are on you now, nothing seems beautiful than you, nothing entices or excites us other than you, for you are The Highest Authority. You’re the one that will guide our life now, for when you wake up, we will wake up; when you fall asleep, we would gladly join you in your slumber.

It’s a tragedy, in the wake of Corona, I am not near you, though you’re never far from me. I hope to see you soon, and be your subject, enchanted by your magical spells.

P.S: You can read a few of The Higher Authority posts here, I’m sharing the link. For all the posts, look under the menu for “The Higher Authority”

The One where The Higher Authority Domesticates the Party Animal.

The One where The Higher Authority takes over…

The One where The Higher Authority pampers me…

The One where The Higher Authority puts me Under Arrest

The First Encounter (Part 1)

It’s related to something, something which is a trademark of every college…the liability that every college fresher has to go through…a sort of welcome ritual…I guess you might have guessed it by now…yeah RAGGING!

The day I put my foot inside the college campus, inside the man gate of my college, the thing that caught my attention, which I really hadn’t expected, was a big board saying “RAGGING IS STRICTLY BANNED IN THE CAMPUS”. Suddenly a chill went down my spine. “If it’s banned, why the fuck do they have to publicise it?” Somewhere in the corner of my mind, I had a feeling that it’s rampant here, and boy, was I wrong?

Fast forward a few days…

Our first year hostel had a strict rule, to enter the premises by 6:30pm sharp. The gate would be closed then, and anyone outside was on its own. Flood of questions would be asked, blah blah. Everyone knew, yet ignored it knowingly. I was in the hostel, after my classes, when someone came from behind and asked me, “Are you from Bihar?”

Heads Up!

A series of stories, more of real life incidents, will be posted soon. They will contain some offensive, abusive words (not that I want to, but they were all part of my real life incidents). So, read at your own risk.

They are the incidents of my first year at Engineering College (and its been over 9 years), and you know what happens in the first year to the freshers. RAGGING! So, events that transpired over the course of those two semesters, have been narrated and compiled in series of four stories. If you have seen/or a fan of Bollywood masala, I’m sure, you will be entertained, but keep in mind that it’s no movie, it’s my real life.

Begin Again…shall we?

I don’t even remember when was the last time I had posted something here (well, unless I looked at the timestamp of my last post)! I had always seem to possess a very unpredictable nature. I might take up one thing, follow it passionately, making it the purpose of my life; and then suddenly on a fine sunny day, you’ll find me following some other passion. Some might say “Jack of all trades, master of none”. It’s just that there are so many things to explore in the finite time we have, I don’t want to deal with myself in afterlife, filled with remorse.