Pareen's Blog

v0.5

I cannot think about the next meal, next appointment, or filing my tax return. It is just too mundane. My mind is moved by larger things. I tend to lose focus when I’m dealing with smaller stuff.

This is just how I am. But it has harmed me much of my life.

I couldn’t operate within the machinery of human society for a long time. Also developed an ego thinking everyone else was too small to understand my grand thinking.

While my peers were playing Counter-Strike, I was re-watching documentaries.

I tried productivity hacks, discipline exercises, and every possible thing internet told me. But I couldn’t get myself to breakfast on time because I was reading Paul Graham’s essays.

Last few years, I’ve realized this during my yoga training.

We need to pursue higher goals. But there is always a maintenance cost to this body, family, love, social relations, and for our jurisdiction.

Like maintenance of a motorcycle.

This also applies to a startup. Nischal told me: ‘we can do all the grand things. But if we cannot pay for next month, none of this will matter’. This was a constant struggle in my web2 startup life.

We got to decide on philosophy and account for this.

How do I do it?

• Keep my needs at minimum. This means less food, less material things, less relations, as far as possible, live without having to encounter the law (which means less-crowded areas). This means low maintenance.
• Consciously allocating time to maintenance stuff. Like connecting with family and friends on festivals. I used to see this as a cost on my energy. But now I see this as a pitstop, something that energizes me.

This is something that I thought about first in 2005. I saw my college friends compromising on our values with the help of this peculiar phrase ‘at least’.

At least I did something, at least we got this, at least we will get to here.

Something didn’t sound right here.

Over the last decade, I’ve heard this from various folks that I’ve worked with.

Every time I’ve ended up not liking these people.

What I’ve analyzed so far:

• At least sounds like you’re breaking down the problem and solving it part by part. Science, engineering, code. I love this approach
• But whenever someone says ‘at least’, this is not what they mean. My experience says, they mean I care only about this part. Which is mostly a short term goal.

At least theory:

Whenever someone says ‘at least’, they’re not motivated enough to solve the entire problem in the first place. They just want the team to take care of a small part of the problem that they care about the most.

Countering at least theorists:

The problem is that you cannot get the team to focus on the humongous task at hand because it just seems impossible. But that is what most of us try and do. Tell the team how important the larger goal is. But it doesn’t work.

Persona propagating ‘at least theory’, let’s call them ‘at least coward’, they will try and distract your team to smaller goals that they want to be solved.

One amazing way to counter this is: there are 4 smaller parts to this large problem that we can’t solve right now. Let’s take another part. The one that does not immediately benefit the ‘at least coward’.

Another way, of course, is to champion the larger cause and keep slogging for a while. But we’ve got to balance the long term with the short term.

Short term, choose something that makes you stronger. Most likely it is another piece of the puzzle. The team will split but those who join you will be those willing to work harder and will be focused on the larger problem.

Those who join the ‘at least coward’ will only go so far because without trust, which will be broken once they realize their words didn’t matter after their short-term goal is achieved.

So you have two pieces solved but their energy is done!

This blog is my way of sending signals into space looking for other weirdos. Comment here if this resonated with you. Or DM me on Twitter!

Source of thought: Having seen houses in Dubai and watching shows like Worlds’ most extraordinary houses.

I will never feel at home in a house made out of bridges. It may be the coolest thing and cost a shitload of money, but as a Bombay guy, for me flyover bridges are just hands of the devil.

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1. We need a home that makes us feel comfortable. That is the feeling of homeliness. Where we’re safe. Where there is space for community. Where we celebrate.

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2. But we live in our minds most of the time now. I could live in a castle and be in a room on my laptop all day.

1+2 and we have two choices. First, the stop living in mental metaverses and live in a physical location. That is great but we cannot isolate ourselves from the knowledge and connections from across the world.

So if we got to be connected and live in our minds, why not build a good home for our minds?

How to build a home for our minds?

This is a challenge. And I think feeling of safety and warmth are no brainers. How they manifest is to be figured out.

More on this as it develops….

v0.3

Leadership happens only when both the outcomes – success or failure – mean the same. When a person is on a mission, there is no success or failure. There is only moving forward. Every step is its own reward. Where we die, new ones carry the flag forward.

That fearlessness is often referred as leadership.

Experimenting in public is good. We are not inventing electricity these days. We’re mostly buidling human systems and architecting society today.

The biggest variable in these experiments is people. You cannot model that in a lab or in an equation.

But we still need the iterate faster. And collaborate with folks who are on the same mission.

That is why it is important to experiment in public. This brings the fellow scientists/philosophers/tooling providers out of the woods + can be iterated well.

Things that are critical here:

– messaging should be right. Every word matters. The biggest reason to experiment in public is to find people who can collaborate

– no one should lose money or a significant amount of time without explicitly knowing the downside of this experiment

As long as these things are okay, experimenting in public will be good for human progress.

Failure in public would be even better.

On another note, no person who:

– is insecure about themselves

– has some hidden agenda

– wants unjustified upside

can experiment in public.

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It will truly separate those with and without courage.

What do you offer someone who doesn’t need anything?

A worthy challenge.

Thought was concretized when I was talking to an OG Bitcoiner from India.

We want people who are incorruptible. Like Andreas Antonopolous.

We want people who will stand by the truth and will do their dd before walking a path.

Most people can’t do this because they can be lured with something or the other.

Also, they can separate their wants from needs.

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Western thought says if someone doesn’t need anything, they will not be motivated. Such an unwise thought.

As an experiment, I’m making a club of people who do not need anything. Contrary to what most people might think, this won’t be full of billionaires. Most billionaires are still in the rat race. Almost every millionaire I’ve met is definitely in the rat race.

How to visualize such people?

Frank Sinatra’s song “To say all the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels”

Visualize Gandhi in an ashram.

Let’s call this PWN experiment. Inviting a few who can invite a few. The number of referrals required will go up as the size increases. Will post the math some day. This could be applied to every tightly-knit club that doesn’t want to “scale”.