Desperation doesn’t work. The harder you try to be happy, the lesser you’ll be. The more you try to be trustworthy, the lesser you appear as one. The greater you try to conquer fears, they eat you up more deeper, and likewise,
the more you aspire to impress, the greater the chances that others simply brush you off aside. The classical example is love. More the love, more the suffocated the others feel, lesser the love you get in return. Love grows in freedom, as they say, is 100% accurate. Isn’t it?
Do less, get more. Eat less, and live longer. Forget and you will find. The simple is the highest sophistication. Minimalism is meaningful. Got it?
This also reminds me of the famous Indian king Ashoka who gave up wars because he waged too many wars in the first place. I guess the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
Life and Meaning
At some point in our lives, probably after a tragedy or so, for at least a brief moment, one stops and asks the damn question- What is the meaning of this life? Our consciousness somehow cannot fathom this wonderful existence without a grand purpose behind it. Maybe because we never trust someone especially when they give a free gift like life here without scheming something fishy. We always expect something in return when one does charity, despite what people say. Help always demands acknowledgment even if it is a humble thank you but how can god or someone up above give away something precious away freely or with a massive discount like in a china shop to us? The ego’s suspicion expects a solid answer for all this.
Speaking strictly from egoism, life is neither a blessing nor a charity given by someone. We are part of creation that somehow for some wild reason developed metacognition and consciousness that developed a fragile ego that could for a brief moment in time separate itself through an illusion and think that it is different and great. For the existence, we are in no way different from an asteroid moving randomly in space.
Arthur Schopenhauer for this exact reason warned us not to enquire about meaning in life, as it leads to disillusionment as everything in life and everything we value is transitory and vanishes away like a soap bubble as soon as we try to grasp and grab it.
It is correct. As long as we are slaves to time, change, and decay. It is not worth it. And moreover, what does one do even if he or she knows the purpose and meaning of his/her life? We get satisfaction and die. Hence we just long for satisfaction which roughly translates to the release of chemicals in the brain. How is it different from the satisfaction we get after watching a TikTok video or a YouTube short?
In short, one should not waste this brief time on earth over this useless question when it is nothing but ego playing a trick on us for mere chemical reactions.
The one thing
In mathematics, multiplying by zero gives us a zero. No matter how complex the multiplication is, if in the end it is multiplied by a zero, we end up with a zero. It’s a powerful metaphor that we can apply in life. Even if we take high-value productive choices consecutively like acing tests, going to a top-tier university, learning life and job skills, taking good enough risks, and landing up with a good enough business to take care of, one bad choice like the zero will spoil everything and make the pack of cards fall just like that. It could be doing drugs or cheating or stealing and selling the company’s secrets, one wrong friendship, or something else. The point is one thing if it has the good potential can blow up everything that one has built thus far. Thus, beware of the zero.
Size and Decision
If there are 10 options before us, then suppose we have picked option number 3. Here we can easily judge and evaluate whether we opted for the right one or not. In other words, we can say how good our picking was based on a comparison with the other 9 options. (Assuming that you have a decent amount of time on your hands)
However, if there is an overload in a number of options, probably 10 million or so then we can never know whether our decision was accurate or not. we can only at best assume that we made a smart choice. As the sample size (Using the lingo of statistics here) increases, our ability to decide decreases, and the analysis falter. Unless we have a supercomputer in our heads, it is hard as we progress into the information age. Big data and AI will aid us for sure but a common man or an ordinary individual (not organizations) neither have the resources nor the technical know-how under the belt to do so.
Unable to handle this gap, the mind invents more heuristics, shortcuts, use-less logical fallacies, and unknown biases which hide in the Freudian unconscious rarely accessible to 6-7 seconds attention-owning sapiens.
Framing effect
How you say matters more than what you say even when both have the same meaning. There’s a hell lot of difference in how people will react when you say there is a 90% chance you will survive this operation, don’t worry vs but there is a 10% chance you will die from this operation, so, are you up for this?
Advertisers often use this to their advantage. The commonly referred example is the frozen yogurt one. The 20% fat yogurt is shown as 80% fat-free. It is simply the old adage glass half-full, glass half-empty, branded intellectually.
Often it is used along with anchoring bias. 50$ on a t-shirt is struck off and sold for 35$, and we never question the fact of whether does it have the value of 50$ in the first place. And
If possible, always stick to the positive frame and avoid the negative one, as humans have loss aversion in them inherently.
By the way, 399$ price tag works over 400$ price tag.
Black and White thinking
We find it hard to accept that we don’t fall on extremes. If you are not a genius then it doesn’t mean you are stupid.
we probably fall somewhere in between them. Likewise, you are not a complete failure if you haven’t got
the so-called success. A person too is not completely bad or entirely good, most people fall into grey zones.
we commonly fall prey to this when we usually do some math. It’s not like you either know the solution or you do not.
The answer is in the middle. The first 50 meters of the road are visible, not the entire highway. But we need to enter
the dark territory of the unknown. However, eventually, something clicks, probably some theorem in geometry or rule in algebra and it’s solved.
In common relationships too, no one absolutely hates you (Unless you have seriously hurt them which is altogether a different ball game) or loves you to the core of your being/existence. we like each other in parts and pieces. It’s
not weird and we do it unconsciously all the time. We watch just the fight scenes of a movie and skip the rest. Listen only to starting 30 seconds of a song and remove it from the playlist.
The “All or Nothing” doesn’t work. By the way, technically it is called Polarized or Dichotomous thinking. Avoid this cognitive distortion.
Freedom
Being free doesn’t mean partying till 5 A.M. in the morning, and definitely not traveling to a god-forsaken place
on a motorcycle. It also doesn’t mean doing a job you like or should I say pursuing a passion.
It’s not about not having problems related to health, sure it helps but still doesn’t count. Does it?
For a while, I thought it means to have decent wealth and savings. It for sure helps to live a comfortable life
and also offers independence to do what you have an interest in, no matter how bizarre it is. And even accountability
crossed my mind. Maybe freedom means not having responsibilities and not being answerable to anyone for our actions
and their consequences.
However, of late it hit me that freedom is about the quality and the state of the mind one has in a moment.
I am free if I can experience a moment(time) without any conditionings of the past, illusions, burdens, fears or
any frame of reference/images.
It means being available completely in the present with an empty slate to write and ready to wipe it off for the
next moment without any longing for what happened or anxiety and anticipation for what will happen.
if it sounds spiritual then maybe it is.
Life is impersonal
The fates neither favor you nor fight against you is the lesson that I learned very late. We don’t know why
a 7-year-old girl gets an inoperable brain tumor whereas a 56-year-old rapist walks away scot-free. A man or woman wins 3-4 consecutive million dollars lottery while the man or woman next to them lives in a gutter living on a state pension or charity of Insta-celebrities.
It is what it is. No one is cursing or blessing up above. In fact, what the other planets did so as to not have life and what earth did so as to have life in terms of karma/prayers is a big existential question. This whole universe is
a cold system operated on chaos and randomness. It is not cruel, it is plainly objective and has no intention either
to give a gift or take away one. Neither happy nor sad endings.
Check Assumptions
Before deciding something, first, check whether your preconceived notions and assumptions are true or not.
For instance, when everybody assumed that people cannot listen to 3-4 hour-long podcasts, Joe Rogan stopped
and challenged this belief. He asked the question what if the opposite were true?
Henry Ford used to emphasize this thinking a lot. In fact, if a candidate when taken on lunch by him
automatically puts in salt and pepper without first tasting the soup then he used to reject them as the employee
assumed that chef hasn’t put in the right proportion based on some hunch or previous non-relatable experience from
a different restaurant.
Likewise, we assume that a person isn’t valuing our friendship or some sort of relationship when he might be
plainly busy or stuck on a deadline to finish a project. In businesses also, don’t assume that customers
don’t want your premium product or service when instead your marketing was poor and most of them do not know about it.
Giver and taker
Be both in relationships. Don’t always give or receive. When you always give you get a feeling of pride
or start to see the other person as unequal or stop learning from them. Likewise, when you always receive
you feel entitled or don’t make any effort to bring value into their lives which again hurts the relationship.
Switch freely across the spectrum without any inhibitions.
Thy Vox 