2017 – Abhinav Bhatt

Importance of not taking holiday on January 1, 2018

There’s a common joke that if you do something on the first day of the year, you do that activity throughout the year. That’s not only highly improbable but also stupid, to be frank.

All the past years, my workplace had a holiday on January 1. But this year, because of the ‘policy’ of at max 10 holidays per year, we have no holiday tomorrow. Although most people will extend their leaves until January 2, I have decided to wake up early tomorrow and go to the office. Bring it on!

Why you ask.

There are some things which are tough to do. There are some things which are uncomfortable. There are some things which might make you look like a fool to others. But when you accomplish those things, there’s a beautiful jet stream of dopamine release. That release is much more genuine than that one which you get from Likes and stuff.

So I am going to try that this year. Apart from learning something new every day and 1000 other resolutions, one more resolution is going to be Not Hitting Snooze button. And not caring about what others think of you.

You may still enjoy some more sleep. Or you can do something uncomfortable early tomorrow and get a good chunk of dopamine released into your system.

If you are reading this before Jan 1, you have a really good chance to do the latter. Try.

Let’s talk about Postcards

Recently, I heard a beautiful little speech from a fellow Toastmaster Sivaranjani about Postcards and Pen Pals. She talked about how, as a kid, she used to send out postcards from her family to the relatives. She went on to tell about her meeting with one of the pen friends she had made during the time when it was cool to have pen friends. The speech was reminiscent of the time without Internet which now seems like ages ago. She ended her speech with a beautiful gesture of handing out actual postcards to the members of the audience.

One of the important points she raised about Postcards was the analogy with the social media of today’s time. She said that Postcards are like Tweets: One has to deliver the message on a limited space for writing. Also, Postcards are also like the infamous Open Letters which you intend that the original recipient would read. Although, except that person, everyone else reads that.

In a rather personal plus fictional story combination book by a friend titled ‘And we remained’, a major chunk of the story is told via the email-exchanges between 4 friends. One could read this book if you want to go back to your nostalgic college days, first crush feelings and the time when sending emails to and fro used to exist. Anyways, point being, communication recently has taken a weird turn.

I have not sent or received postcards or even a letter since last 15 years or so minimum. I did use to make greeting cards during school time which I used to give away to friends and teachers before summer vacation or winter holiday breaks. But that practice diminished as I grew up. I also haven’t received/sent a proper email from/to anyone in at least last 3 years in which we could have just shared information about each other’s well being. The only letters I receive are actually cardboard containers from Amazon. I did receive few physical Greeting Cards from my wife when she was away. (I felt pretty awkward initially as I didn’t expect that people would still be dealing with Greeting Cards. But that was a wonderful gesture, so thank you R if you are reading this. Sorry that I didn’t reply back with another greeting card of my own. I am a bit tech-savvy that way.). Obviously, ego gets in the way of communication nowadays. Despite being so closely connected, we hardly talk to people. I had even written a satire piece a few days ago about replying to Whatsapp/Email has become optional. You may read that here.

Whining about this isn’t the solution. The solution would be to reopen the communication channel with old friends in some way. One can still send out postcards. One can write emails. Even a Poke on Facebook might help in rekindling the friendship, who knows! Wish someone new year in an original manner and not HNY! Of course, I am not suggesting to you that pick up the phone and call that person. Who would do that!

I got this postcard by the way after that speech:

Recommended Sites, in case you are interested:

People who used to use blogpost.com would remember about lettersofnote.com. If not, you can still go ahead and check this site. They publish postcards, letters, telegrams from the past. Soon, they should also start posting emails from the early days of the Internet. That would be fascinating to read.
I found this website which does this amazing thing even today: postcrossing.com. I am copy pasting their stats from the site below:

P.S. A picture of Postbox with address if you want to send someone a postcard from Bengaluru

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A post shared by Abhinav Bhatt (@abhinavbhatt)

This, I saw at MG Road Boulevard, Bengaluru. It is a bit sad that the caption I put in the second comment on the picture there was ‘#historical’.

So I recently watched: Justice League

Has it ever happened to you when you took a turn anticipating less traffic but ended up getting stuck with no turning back? Now, when you have taken the turn you decide to continue with it, albeit with a sore mood.

DC, with its movies, is at a similar crossroad/junction where it knows that it has taken a path which leads to nowhere so it thinks okay what the heck, let’s buy something on the way, enough with the somber mood, time to light up and make the trip slightly merrier.

After getting hugely disappointed with Batman v Superman (and later ending up finding some sense in BvS Ultimate Edition), getting immensely saddened by Suicide Squad, liking Wonder Woman a lot, I thought, alright we can surely give one last try to the Justice League. So, I recently watched it and following are my thoughts for your perusal.

Lee Bermejo Justice League Movie Poster Released for MondoCon

Throughout the movie, except a handful of moments, I didn’t feel any excitement for any character. I liked Barry Allen of course but probably because of the Flash TV Show knowledge. Not sure from where Aquaman and Cyborg came into being and it was left for future movies to tell about their origins. This is a somewhat similar treatment to Hawkeye in Avengers where the character is just a character for whom we don’t need to care about much. Batman cracked some PJs and suddenly fell in some bro-love with Superman only when Superman had left after BvS. There was a scene where Wonder Woman looks at Batman’s bruises and then suddenly turns like a Hindi Movie Bhabhi and helps him get at ease with his muscle pull. Seriously? The antagonist was also as forgettable as the villains in Marvel movies. Do you remember any good one?

There are some positive points though. And that’s the lighter mood brought by Aquaman and the Flash. And the return of the MAIN DC CHARACTER also brings some sort of hope. I don’t want to comment on his lack of mustache though as enough has already been said. This light mood saved the movie from being a total bore and I hope future movies take some lessons out of it.

They also did a comic-animation-tie-in in the post-credit scene where the Flash and Superman compete in a race. That was a good note to end with. (I didn’t see the other post-credit scene during the movie but later on Youtube which turned out to be okayish)

Sometimes, if we do take the path which didn’t turn out to be as good as expected, it is better to enjoy it with much more confidence and moving on from the regret. Hopefully, DC would have realized now as to which path would be best to take from here.

So I recently read: ‘Faster than Normal’

This is going to be weird. Although the book ‘Faster than Normal’ is about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or popularly known as ADHD and how to make it work for you, by a renowned Author, Speaker, Ironman Triathlon Athlete, Podcaster, etc. named Peter Shankman, the title might also be my own Tagline, if I do get a tagline.

Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHDBrain — Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD brain

Let me share some of the traits (as I would refrain from calling them symptoms) of being Faster than Normal:

Speaking fast. Very fast. I mean really fast. (Although in my mind I am being normal and others are being slow to understand me)
Getting easily distracted from uninteresting things (BORING!)
Being a Morning and Monday Loving Person / Extra-Energetic / Borderline-Hyper (Yes!)
A believer in ‘Either my way or highway’ philosophy (Although this doesn’t work in real world. Still, I try.)
Suffering from Imposter Syndrome often.
Uncontrollable hands. Sometimes tongue too.

This isn’t written in the book but rather my own traits if I may be frank here. So, I don’t know whether I really have ADHD or not but reading this book gave me so many examples of my own life. And even if I might have had ADHD, this book continues to state that ADHD is not a disorder. Rather, ADHD is a superpower which can be utilized to maximize one’s output. The best part of this book is that the suggestions, tricks, and tips given in this book would work for anyone who wants to be optimal at their game, ADHD or not. I would pause here and state that if someone really has ADHD, I cannot even comprehend what all would be going through their minds all the time. But when this book tells about people who have been diagnosed with ADHD and still made it big, that is very reassuring. For instance, names like Seth Godin, Richard Branson, Will Smith have been diagnosed with ADHD at some point in their lives.

So, reiterating here that whether you are normal or faster than normal, this book has a plethora of tips by which you can enhance your general productivity. Peter gives his own examples at every instance and also brings in guests who share their experiences with how they used their faster brain to accomplish great things. From getting up early, journaling your schedule, keeping your room tidy, choices minimum, following rituals, and making the best of the time when you are in your zone, are some of the tips which are explained in details with daily life examples.

In the modern day life where we have more distractions than a normal sane person can handle, focussing on a single task at hand is certainly a huge deal. When you know that if you are to be given only one hour of time with no distractions, you can wrap up the work which otherwise might take a day with distractions, then you probably you would enjoy this book.

I have gained a lot of insights about things which I had kept on the backburner due to laziness but after reading this book, I am pumped up again. This review is the 7th blog post on my blog in 7 straight days. I think if I am able to continue this streak further, this book would be one of the reasons behind that.

The actual title of the book is: Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain. You may buy it at the given link.

What’s Social Media for you?

What’s Social Media for you? A place to connect with friends and like-minded people? Right. That’s the original definition though which was somewhat true a few years ago.

What is it now really?

A place where your friends and like-minded people give their opinions all day long.
A place where your friends (read acquaintances) and (so-called) like-minded people share what they had for lunch.
A place where all your friends have become highly political and ready to chop everyone down from their armchair via WiFi if there’s any disagreement.
A place where you are given a notification about your as distant as Pluto relatives liking the photos of their as close as Charon relatives whom you don’t care about.
A place where you hate to go now… You get the drift. Right?

In my previous few posts I have shared that I have been successful in, to a good extent, subsiding myself from the main crowd. I have tried to curb my FOMO if I may by indulging in discussing irrelevant things with strangers. I have basically made myself distant from the happenings, trendings and the agree-to-disagree endings.

Today, I came across a very interesting episode of the Ask Gary Vee show where his guest was Seth Godin. The show format is mostly audience asking the guests questions and them replying to that.

Here’s the episode for your entertainment and enlightenment:

In this, Seth Godin said a beautiful thing when asked about how he can only blog in today’s day and age and why not he is on all the social media platform which could further enhance his brand. As in, who doesn’t want that?

I will try to summarise his answer to that below:

On the Internet (or even in traditional media format), there are 2 kinds of people: Consumers (for whom the modern day algorithms of social media sites are optimized on regular basis) and the Creators (who have to work hard in order to get noticed).

All websites want to keep the consumer addicted and stuck to their sites. They make logging out difficult by keep feeding stuff to Like and Retweet. There has been so much said already about this so I don’t even need to say anything more. Even Facebook recently admitted to the fact that people who just like others end up feeling depressed.

Creators, on the other hand, are people who are trying hard to create worthy stuff. They are the producers. They are constantly learning and updating themselves so that they can be better. If creators only consume, they won’t be able to create. This is as simple as that.

Seth went on to give the examples after examples. But he also mentioned that if you are consuming things for your entertainment and for self-improvement, then that’s understandable. However, there must be a limit of how much one should consume if one wants to be a creator.

Check that video out and ponder, whether you are a consumer or a creator?

Pictures:

Are you a Consumer? (Designed by Freepik)
Are you a Creator? (Designed by Freepik)

The Stinking Attack of Nostalgia

It was Saturday morning. I was in a Cab traveling to a distant part of the city. The Driver had put the radio On and it was playing songs in Kannada in very low volume. By now, I have developed a mental system of phasing out sounds on the road which I cannot easily comprehend out of my mind. Then the advertisements started, which are sometimes in English which I understand, sometimes in Kannada which I try to understand and sometimes in Hindi which is my mother tongue. And sometimes they’re in a combination of all the 3 languages, which nobody understands.

Then came a public service announcement commercial about Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Cleanliness Mission by Government of India) which was as ignored as we ignore the heaps of garbage on the road. But the advertisement ended with a small jingle in Hindi. I will put the link to the song at the end of this post.

And that hit me. Let me give some context first:

Back at home, in North India, and I assume it happens everywhere there, we get a garbage truck in the morning. The peculiar thing about this truck is that instead of knocking people’s door and asking them if they have any garbage to dispose of, the truck plays this song in a continuous loop. So, when you are at your home relaxing nonchalantly in the morning, first you hear a faint sound of this song. That hints us to keep relaxing but stay prepared for the truck, as it would be coming towards your house soon. Thanks to Doppler Uncle, this sound keeps increasing as it approaches nearer and nearer. Only when it is 100-200 m from your house, you actually get to hear the words of the song. And only then you need to get up, collect the bins and hand over to the municipal people your precious garbage which you held dear for the whole night. Then the truck goes over to the next street and the song becomes fainter and fainter and eventually diminishes. This has been happening since last 2-3 times of my home visit. So it had become a daily ritual of hearing that song and dumping the garbage till I was home. (At least this much I can do at home, right?)

After coming back down to South India, I forgot this song. Days passed. Months passed. This song went into the recycle bin of my mind. And then yesterday, I heard it again. Even though, I heard only a line. But it hit me. The stinking nostalgia of days at home hit me. Sigh. Weird, but true.

What is the most weird thing that makes you think of your home?

The human mind is an amazing thing of beauty. It creates filters to push irrelevant things out. But it leaves some holes, wide enough to bring your memories of the past back when you least expect. We all have senses which crave the sounds, smells, and colors of our home. Of course, no one wants to remember stinking garbage trucks for that. For me, it was the jingle rather.

Here’s the song by the way:

Ungoogled

If you wake me up at 3AM in the night and ask me do I love Google? My answer would be, without flinching an eye, YES, Of course I love Google. Also, you should not wake me up at 3AM. But coming back to the topic at hand, I indeed love Google and its products. Till few days back, I would have said:

My main email is Gmail. Search = Google.com. I use Chrome on all my devices. I keep all my notes in Keep. Me and Google Calendar are inseparable. When I get reminded of a thing called ‘my health and its importance’ from time to time, Google Fit is my Fitness app. Google Documents are life savers. Maps, please don’t even get me started. Photos, Drive, I could go on and on and on… I ♥ Google.

But not anymore. Now, I am in the process to get my Internet life:

My main email is still Gmail. Search = ~~Google.com~~ DuckDuckGo.com. I use Chrome on ~~all my devices~~ on my laptop with DuckDuckGo as the search. On my mobile, I use Firefox Focus browser which instantly deletes history so it becomes difficult to log in to Facebook and Twitter. Did I tell you that I have uninstalled Twitter & unfollowed everyone on Facebook. Moreover, I have enabled 2 Factor Authentication to login to social media sites. That means, I have made logging in to these sites difficult. Firefox Focus is super at erasing history and thereby going to social media sites very tiresome! I keep all my notes in ~~Keep~~ Evernote and recently been using Wunderlist for tasks and Habit for tracking how am I keeping at my resolutions. Also, thinking of going even more analog with BuJo (I cannot promise this yet though. We shall come back to it after a couple of months). Me and Google Calendar are still inseparable. Occasionally, when I am reminded of health and its importance, Google Fit is was my Fitness app. Now, there is not any app as there’s no fitness also. Point is that you can use Endomondo, Strava, Nike+, Runtastic, etc. Google Documents are still life savers. Maps, that is probably the best application ever. Why not use Dropbox more?

If you have not paid attention to the above paragraph, specially the search part, check again. Who would have thought that life can still go on without using Google search? But it is possible, kids! So, what made that happen?

I have this one huge bone to pick with Google. Bloody, AI part of Google. Google Now (or your Siri, or your Alexa). It had become as annoying to me as AADHAR linkage to everything you have. All your search history, bookmarks, calendar events, contact list, email and whatnot gets fed to it and it provides you assistance and notifications. This is the part I chose to differ with. I think, 2017 is still a bit early to do this much for you. May be a decade later, when people will totally stop using their brain, then this much assistance could be of use.

I had written in past about ways to dumb down the smartphone in which I told about the procedure to make your life simpler with shutting off all your notifications, sounds and vibrations from all the apps which you think are not necessary. This post is about ways to ungoogle your life. There are several great applications and services which still work as good as your Google apps. Just unlinking them to the main Google account giving less feed to Google Assistance will make it less nosey and life will improve. I suggest, clean your browsing data on Google from Day 1, clean up your full web-activity and start afresh.

And, I still ♥ Google but I have blocked everything Google uses to track me. Even if it still tracks (of course it tracks), it doesn’t remind me of it. Give Ungoogling a try.

Yearly Archives: 2017