Trust Deficiency

Posted on by pareen

This is a [[book idea]] in my Roam. But what the hell. It needs to go out in the world. So here it is.

I think this world has a problem of every increasing trust deficiency.

We can see:

  • People do not trust each others’ words, even when there is a pre-existing relationship, strong enough understanding of each other, and where stakes are low.
  • Someone talked about finding a great waterfall in Arambol and another friend immediately rolled their eyes. He had to show a picture for her to believe it.
  • A friend, after months of pushing, introduced himself as a singer. And a new acquaintance had doubt pasted all over her face. She probably did not even realise it. But when my friend started singing, she was blown away.

I don’t want to keep pasting examples from my life because they will never be wholesome enough for you.

What I want you to do is: Observe and Roam your conversations and feelings. See if people believe you. See if you believe people around you. Leave the truth and feelings aside for a minute. Just take their words in. Do you believe that?

If not, you’re stuck in a rut.

How do we solve this?

  • Do not lie
  • Mean something when you say it
  • Stay away from people who do not trust your words
  • Tell people that you trust their words
  • If they let you down, do not believe them again

PS: No amount of trustless permissionless blockchains are going to solve this problem for us. This is a people-to-people problem

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Roam it

Posted on by pareen

Daily:

  • Whom did I meet today
  • What conversations I had
  • How was I feeling meeting someone or in some situation
  • What did I read today
  • What work did I do
  • What relationships did I tap or tapped me?
  • Key thoughts of the day
  • People’s commitments: To me and to themselves

Whenever:

  • Literature notes
  • Key associations / nodes

Want to do:

  • Start noting habits, pre-designed checklists
  • Income and expenditure with attribution

Sanity is success

Posted on by pareen

I am convinced and been telling some of my close friends, “Forget about money, status, fame, creativity, everything. For our generation, it will be a miracle to be sane when are are 60.”

There is so much external pressure and the world is changing so fast, most of us prefer to bury our heads in the sand, which opens us up for leveraged rigging.

We are also making ourselves more numb than conscious.

Pleasure and hedonism instead of connection, contentment and love.

We have also reached a stage where we want to be able to work numb, have pleasure while working, and we think that is our right. That is such a load of bullshit. There is work and there is pleasure, separate from each other.

Externally focused generation

Posted on by pareen

At least for the last 50 years, we’ve been telling kids stuff even before they encounter a problem. We’re told what to eat, how many times to chew, when to sleep, right into adulthood. 

This makes us forget how it feels to eat a fruit versus grains, what kind of indigestion is caused by gobbling food without chewing, and how beautiful it is to wake up early in the morning.

This applies to every physical, psychological, and spiritual level.

But, these things have internal indicators in our body and mind. We are teaching generations to ignore these internal signals to follow a mom or even a random Keto stranger on the internet.

An entire generation of externally focussed people will inevitably feel lost, disconnected, stress, and depressed.

The Social Dilemma – Thoughts and notes

Posted on by pareen

Saw it with a few friends who have no clue about startups and tech. It was an interesting experience to see the contrast in reactions.

While the Netflix film surprised me with its simpler explainers for this alien and complex phenomenon, I knew most of it. It was not surprising to me. It just put together the different trends that I had been reading about.

For my friends though, it was a mind-blowing experience. Although the explanation was simple and intriguing enough for them to understand it intellectually, I could sense their disbelief.

My thoughts about the film:

  • It put forth a compelling argument to stop this juggernaut
  • It was really unbiased and made no villains out of anyone. It would have been a hack to blame some social media executive for embodying the heartlessness of an AI bot. But they took the difficult path and the right way
  • It made my understanding about this phenomenon holistic, filled in a few gaps, answered a few answered arguments
  • Small but significant thing is to give this phenomenon a name
  • Now when

The larger problem here is that there is no action that everyone can take to make it a mass movement. So when folks read and watch such disturbing reality, the reaction is to tune it out.

They become numb. It is just a passing thought that ends with ‘big brother is watching’.

Only a jolt could wake people up from this comfortable slumber induced by micro-doses of dopamine.

Cribbers, blamers, and complainers

Posted on by pareen

For a lack of better word at the moment, let’s call them Cribbers (PS: I wish this was Roam)

These are the people who will find something wrong with people, situations, systems, culture, anything really.

If. I was to box them in one line, these are the people who are always on the losing side because of something external.

Symptoms of a cribber:

  • Excuses
  • Talking about other people more than themselves, their purpose, or about ideas
  • Big Imposter syndrome

Opposite end of spectrum is:

  • People with a high sense of agency

Of course, that needs to be balanced too. But, generally, having a high sense of agency is better than being a Cribber.

Spectrum: Check if complainers are doing something about it. Is the complain about a person, place, thing, situation or a systemic complaint? Nelson Mandela was a complainer. So was Gandhi. Can’t say that about most complainers around me right now. They just want some other person to change so that their life will be easier.

Why you shouldn’t be complaining? Put together well by Andrew Kirby