Beginning to answer this question is hard, but I’ve found a great starting point. “Never do anything in secret or anything that you would wish to hide.” Jawaharlal Nehru (The first prime minister of India said this in a letter to his daughter Indira Gandhi, the first woman prime minister of India. This is the same understanding I received from “Crime and Punishment”, but Nehru said it succinctly.

You can’t honestly say, “Hey, yeah, I stole that,” or “Hey, I lied to you.” If you can’t honestly say it with your chest out and be proud of what you did, then there is an issue there, and the logic, the part where it breaks, is when you think it’s okay. What if you think stealing is okay, and then you’re proud of doing it as well? I think that’s when you really have to go deeper, and some of that is answered by looking at Plato’s Republic. Plato/Socrates points out is that education is a very important part of justice. He talks about censorship of anything bad, anything evil, shouldn’t even be mentioned in youth. There shouldn’t be an alternative way of thinking to Plato’s prescribed justice. ( There are issues with that aswell)

So if I had to go back and tell myself how to act as a good person, I would definitely think a great starting point would be: how do I feel about it? When I do certain things, how do I feel about it? Can I say that with my chest? When I’m confused about when something is good or bad, is that something I’m okay saying with my chest? Honestly, it’s comparable to Kant’s categorical imperative or the golden rule is saying, “Treat others the way you want to be treated,” but there’s such an easy loophole in that. You can say, “Hey, I wouldn’t mind if someone stole from me if they had nothing and really needed the money.” There are ways around it, but adding this to your morality tool kit can defnitley fill some of thos gaps.

By this standard there are many things I’ve done in the past that I’d like to stay hidden. I’m not too worried if those come to light. My fear stems from the actions that I continue to do, that I’m ashamed to do. This is a seperate affair from making mistakes, that’s natural and I can forgive myself. However what about the mistakes that I know I am making. I keep stumbling on the same rock over and over again. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough, or maybe I’m doing too much. I guess this is what keeps life interesting. I’m not giving up on being as good of a person as possible.

Side NOTE : OMG I’ve caught myself giving unsolicited advice so much, and I need to stop doing that. I hate it when people do it to me, and unsolicited advice, isn’t really good even if it’s good advice. The person hearing is just trying to get out of the conversation. Me lecturing them on anything isn’t going to do anything, just like how when my parents told me not to lie, about things I never listened. Yeah just on the look out for that, I’ve done it twice, and I really don’t want to be that guy.

I love summer so much.

1. Maximum Efficiency : The best of use physical AND mental effort to get the best results

2. Mutual Welfare and Benefit : Honestly we don’t talk about this enough, and this is definitely something I need to work on.

3. Perfection of Self : Judo is more than just the the physical, it also strengthens your character and disciplines your mind.

Besides the philosophy, fighting for me, whether it’s wrestling, judo or bjj is when I am truly happy. It’s not even about winning or loosing, its more about being in that moment when you forget everything else, it’s just you and that person you are fighting. Time slows down, you are just focused on getting your grip, feeling their weight, looking for opportunities, seeing a weak spot, going for a throw, and then kablam, you get throwed because you didn’t go in fast enough. That’s a great feeling, that feeling is amplified when you can talk to your partner and ask them what went wrong. For example I saw one of my senseis put his leg up twice, and I was ready to sweep him all the way the third time, and bam he swept me with his other foot. The curiosity of how every fight breaks down is so beautiful to me. There are infinite number of permutations/sequences of throws your opponent can do, and some of it can be drilled, and some of it is just noticting the small little breathing, when they feint or noticing the slight shift of weight before a throw. Noticing this things require skill that is learnt outside of the Dojo, it is how you go about your everyday life. I believe it truly matters, to be a good judoka, is to be an aware person. Noticing the small little things, like closing a door the whole way, things like sitting with proper posture. Respecting people when they are talking to you. Being on time when you get invited to places. All these things affect your Judo because there is only one practice and one way. Miyamoto Musashi said the way is in everything, and this is the way.

Shoutout Sunil for reminding me of the way

I watched a TED talk a couple years ago that talked about how generalists that specialize later in their career tend to make more money than those that specialize early on. The reason I find this believable is because the generalists would have a wider array of experience to draw on verses the specialists. One thing I do struggle to articulate is the scope of generalists and specialist, in essence are we measuring specificity by number of hours worked on something? At what point is the generalists becoming a specialists and when is it a good idea to specialize.

Charlie Munger provides a great explanation of this in Poor Charlie’s Almanack. He proposes that one should know the main ideas in all the sciences specifically the ones you are not trained in, and ones not directly taught in school. The reason Adam smith’s division of labour is fantastic is because it’s labour, its doing the same thing over and over and over again. It doesn’t change, and the more times you do it, the better you get at it. For example driving, I’m sure everyone had a sensory overload when driving for the first time, but now people are texting, scrolling, and keeping a conversation while driving. The reason division of labour doesn’t apply so well with knowledge work is because it is not a complex environment, it’s like you’re going from a bicycle, to a car, to a semi-truck, to a airplane. The main purpose is still to move from A to B, but the controls are much different. This is where you have to think about how everything fits together. If you’ve ever made anything for people, you know that you can’t rely on the masses thinking rationally. It’s like telling all your friends to work out, something that’s clearly rational but their interests may lie in something else. I definitely botched the example but what I’m trying to say is that when you are in the real world doing something the formulas don’t work, you need to think about all the different things, and specifically all the different incentives involved. It’s hard to think about all these different things if you have only one specific mode of operating. As Charlie would say, you would have a man with a hammer tendency, to a man with only a hammer, everyone problem looks like a nail. Trying to live in this complex world like that, would be to be a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest.

What I’m trying to say is division of labour works better when it is a complex task in a simple environment, an environment that doesn’t change, and the output and input are predictable. This is not the case with knowledge work, specifically the type of work that will change the world, dividing each segment amongst people is not going to solve any complex task in a chaotic environment without each discipline knowing the others on a general level.

What I’m not saying is to be a generalist forever, but to not ignore the principles that affect your discipline. Charlie Munger advocates for constantly learning things outside your domain, using any organizational ethos that works.

Another thing I realized too was that my writing was dry because my brain wasn’t really getting any new interesting information. Now that I’m reading the Republic it’s like the thing between my ears is working again.

Take all of this with a grain of salt obviously.

Shoutout Gurmehar for this photo. I’ve been staying put in Edmonton

I’m kinda crazy about living life in the right way, which I don’t even think exists as a universal but it definitely exists for myself, and perhaps there are some general principles that we can adopt universally.

I’m super gun-ho about doing the “right things” even if it causes me discomfort, and I hate it when I catch myself doing that was working for me so well, and having to change because I don’t think it’s right.

For example, getting into an event that I really wanted to attend during AI conference ( one of the biggest in Canada). I didn’t buy tickets and the people at the door were not checking lanyards. I could’ve easily gotten a friend to slide me his lanyard, and then proceed to network like crazy, but I didn’t because it wasn’t right. I talked to the reception to finesse my way in, and she said there’s no way. I waited another 10 minutes, revised some jokes, came up with some objection handling, and went back in, this time she got mad, and I have to leave. Honestly, I don’t blame her, she’s just doing her job.

Anyway, the point of this isn’t to illustrate that I am a saint, for that you’d have to meet me in person( just kidding). The real, self-serving reason I choose to always follow the rules is so that I don’t start slipping ethically. Today it’s just parking and getting into an event, but I don’t want that to snowball into me cheating on my wife or anything.

I used to be the most devious man I knew. I did not have a moral compass if it didn’t mean killing. I remember the first time I stole something in grade 6, and I got caught so I stopped stealing entirely. If I didn’t get caught I’d probably steal a lot more. I cheated on the chemistry test in grade 12, I had the answer key in my calculator, and I wrote a song about it. Recently, I don’t think I’ve been the best friend to people, and I wish I had treated people better, something that I wasn’t really thinking about it.

I don’t really believe in hell, but the version of hell I do believe in is me hurting the people that I love the most.

Now the reason I WAS SO EXCITED to share this is because in Plato’s republic he says

Which is essentially what I believe too, but I couldn’t have said so concisely. I don’t want to breakdown the entire argument, if you want it that bad you can ask me. However, the part I enjoyed the most about it was the disharmony in the soul. If you commit injustice against your fellow man, it is disharmony in your soul that you have to live with.

The natural question is what if you don’t feel that disharmony, GREAT QUESTION! This is why Plato/Socrates says education is super important, because only education can show what an ideal situation would look like, and yes the ideal situation probably doesn’t exist, but if you feel guilty about not doing the ideal things, especially in the big things in life, we will have a better world, a more ideal world. Even though people say that the world is evil, and everyone is out to get you, it’s still a lot better than before, women have rights now. I’m not a slave in India, I do feel like we are making steady progress to a better and better world, a more ideal world, but it starts with education of the ideal.

NOTE: If you are really interested about if you commit a crime and don’t feel the guilt, a great book to read is Crime and Punishment, that book changed my life, and I really started to think about truth in a different way, but Dostoevsky’s so good at writing that you might take something else away from that book.

Connection to Calculus

This makes a little rectangle. Let’s say with these little rectangles you can make any shape(dog)

|          _ _
   |         |   |_ _
  _|         |       |
 | |_______|         |
 |         |    _    |
 |   _ _   |   | |   |
 |  |   |  |   | |   |
_|__|___|__|___|_|___|____

Now let’s imagine these little rectangles shrink so small into parts called infinitesimal units.

Now since we have really really small pieces we can make a better dog

|         
   |          _..__
   |        .'     `-.
   |       /  (o) (o) \
  ((_     |            |
   \  `'-.|      __    |
    )      `-._______.-'
   /                  \
  /   _.._      _.._   \
 |   /    \    /    \   |
_|__(_\____)__(_\____)__|___

Now, thank you for reading this far my point is our life is made up of these infinitesimal parts. Parts that seem like they don’t matter but they do. Over time as .

All we can really control are the tiny little moments, even as small as the thought you are having at this every instance.

The reason I wanted to write this is because the dx better illustrates why you should care about all the small moments in life, specifically our thoughts, because thoughts →actions→habits→life. I would always tell myself ‘‘just this once”, or “I’ll start tomorrow”, or a “small little bit can’t hurt”. These statements are true, it doesn’t really matter if I start now, and that little piece of fast food isn’t going to cause cancer, but its much deeper than just a moment. Infact, that might be the last time you thought about it, because pretty soon the next time someone brings up fast food you are probably going to eat it without thinking about it. I can admit this has happened to me so many times, where I’ll say I’m going to listen to podcasts and take my laptop to bed, and just watch videos all night long, ruining the next day.

Taylor Swift has released over 280 songs. I’m sure she’s tried to make really good music from day 1, but now she’s getting really good at it.

I don’t listen to a ton of Taylor Swift but I think her music has a good overall message.

Shoutout Rahul for giving me this photo.

Travel Bug

I really want to travel, it seems like everyone on instagram is backpacking through Eurasia right now. I’m honestly kinda jealous but, I’m gonna try and make time for it.

However, the plan is go on mini side plots to quench my thirst for new experience. That’s all I can really do right now, so I’m gonna try new side quests. I’ve been trying to learn Hindi for a minute now so I’m gonna get back on that, and I’ve been tryna do the backflip since last week.

Here’s my best attempt so far

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

I was talking to Alan, who previously interned at Tesla and he challenged my thought process, made it difficult for me to maneuver around his calculated barrage of questions. He said I couldn’t give a coherent answer, he said I didn’t know why, I tried to break his logic by taking his approach to higher levels of abstraction, knowing deep inside he was right. I wanted to walk away with my pride, but that was my first mistake. Alan was right on the money, I bet he sniffed it out within the first minute. He figured out I had no idea what I was doing, moreover my attempt at figuring it out was lack luster. I love Alan and I learnt so much from him.

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

I give up meat on Friday, (except fish) and I forgot to tell my mom. When I checked my lunch it was paneer instead of chicken and I felt so loved in that moment. It may seem small but it put a smile on my face

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

Inspired by Alans thinking, I researched the way how Space X and Tesla were ran. Everything is questioned down to first principles. If they can do it within the laws of physics they will find a way to do it.

If I could learn this much from Tesla and spaceX How about Apple, Amazon, Google, What can I learn about the people that shaped those companies. Even though some are dead, and I can’t talk to others I can read books, and understand their thinking.

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

Every single week at least someone tells me I can do it. They believe in me, even though I am having fun and learning. I do feel immense pressure on me, questions like is construction the one? Can I break this wall down by myself? Do I have enough experience? Am I working hard enough? The community around me gives me the strength to go on.

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

Thank you for reading : )

I went to a normal high school, played sports and did all the things an average highschooler would do. All my friends did the same.

Never thought about what I was doing whether it was ethical or not. No one really cared and it was fun. Now I’m in University and my friends that I see everyday are all Muslim, and they practice restraint by eating Halal, praying 5 times a day and so on. This forced me to take a look at myself unconsciously and now I pray a lot more and I’m more invested in my spiritual side as well as being a better person. Not by increasing money or faith but through practice of virtues like truth, honesty, temperance and courage.

I didn’t plan to be more truthful or constantly be nicer to people, but arguably this is the most important thing in my life. You could say that I would have gotten to this stage without any friends through introspection and you are right. Man is a social creature. I would have had to fight to my some of friends on not listening to bad music and following virtue whereas my current friends that’s the default state.

Now my epiphany is that you should always try to find the best people to be around. I used the word “best” so the reader can define the best for themselves. I do want to point out that this can lead to silos in your thinking. In order to be opened minded. I should read more especially authors that I don’t agree with and spend still amount of time with everyone although the core group of people is crucial.

Not everyone needs to have a front row seat in your life - Joyce (my friend’s mom)

Though it’s been 3 years since she said I’m only beginning to understand it now.

Not only the the core group of people, but also the authors that you read. I idolize Benjamin Franklin, and even though I can’t spend time with him. I can read his biography, thereby knowing him as a close friend.

What actions going forward

• Be conscious of people you are around, you don’t have to cut anyone off but give everyone what everyone is due. Friendships like wine only sweeten with age, so I want to keep as many long term friends as possible.

• Try to find people that you want to be like and be around them more. This should be effortful like planning workouts with people that have common goals. ( Reach out to me if you are interested in entrepreneurship)

This week I’m going to Edmonton Unlimited to learn more about the startup community.

Someone I admire

Adven Villa, this guy might be the most committed guy on the planet, in all my friends, including myself. He’s been making videos for 2 years now and his podcast is at 182 episodes. Take that in 182 episodes, he’s found so many people to interview. This guy has 1.3k videos which is a testament to his conviction, like he just keeps going. I sent him a text the other day about this and he says “I do it for the love of the game”. Love it, he’s gonna be successful no matter what and yeah .

Let’s goo Adven.

Something that I think about is whose better off, the man who wants everything and gets most of it, or the man that doesn’t want anything, and probably gets something. Epictetus the slaves headstone capture’s this perfectly.

Here lies Epictetus, a slave maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favored by the gods.

I’m not sure what the future holds, but sometimes I worry that I’m engrossed in business. Maybe, once I get there, I’ll realize it’s not worth it, but if I stop now, and take the moral high ground of being poor for the sake of virtue. That would be a cop out in my books.

Anyway, a long way to say why I don’t have a 5 year plan, but Cody convinced me that I should think about what it looks like, and told me it’s a good exercise to see where you are headed and where you want to go.

My vision:

I wake up super early, probably around 4-5 AM, and then I work on something I care about. For the time being it’s probably going to be the business but in the future, I want to just learn, understand math, music, literature physics, biology, and economics. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb found Coulomb’s Law which explains how force and electric charge is related, he did this when he was still in the military, after he retired and focused on science . That would be so cool, if I can write or figure out some relationship to contribute to humanities knowledge. Paradoxically, I don’t think I’ll contribute if I make that my goal, but if I can earnestly be curious, it might work out, but even if it doesn’t it’ll be an honour to understand the works of the great people before me.

Honestly that’s it, I’d like to get a workout in later in the day, and I imagine in 10 years or so I’d have kids so probably spend time with family. I’d be a happy camper as long as I get my 4-5 hours in the morning of uninterrupted work.

What’s cool is that I’m kind of living the dream life right now, although I don’t have the financial freedom to spend it solely on my interests I have to find a creative way to find interesting things that still make money (essentially a startup). Which is also cool, since I’m forced to think outside the box to discover something where the venn diagram of my interest and what the world needs.

Side note : It’s not everyday that you are forced to learn something that you would have never learnt through your own curiosity, so that’s been cool too. I’ve never wondered about how houses are made, but I’m learning more and more about it everyday.

THANK FOR READING THIS IS MY 150TH POST!!!!

I really appreciate all my dear subscribers. There’s people on this list that I’ve known since Elementary school all the way to present day. I’ve been sharing my life in this blog since my gap year in 2023, from selling cars, stand up comedy to engineering. I’ve covered a lot of ground delved into everything I found interesting and have had some great conversations from this. This whole thing was inspired by having good conversations with people, and my hope is that we’ll get to talk about something interesting soon.

It’s not all bleak for people like me, I’m sure you have to consume good literature to some degree but moving forward I’m going to understand rather than regurgitate.

I haven’t felt sad or depressed in so long, like it feels so weird not feeling like getting up and not having an automatic smile on my face. Why do I feel this way? My head hurts all the time from sinus or whatever, but why am I not excited about waking up tomorrow? I don’t want to do a construction startup is that why? I don’t want to go to work and build things. I don’t want to clean dust, shovel snow and drill into walls. Is this where the startup before me stopped, is this the point at which they said okay, I’m tired of uncertainty let me get a job and enjoy life? Is this a genuine “I don’t want to do this moment” or am I just getting tired of this? One thing that saddens me is that I’m not reading or writing as much as I should be and it’s frankly making me feel like I’m not having any new ideas. I have to start reading and writing again I feel like it was truly a north star in my life. I could write out all my worries and let them breathe on paper and once I’ve seen the issue I could see how it can have a better ending than the way it’s going.

Awareness

I bash people that aren’t motivated and lazy, the same way I bash myself about being lazy, but a friend recently told me that awareness comes from God. Awareness is something that has “God/parent/someone/something” has to give you, because we aren’t living in a single player game. I am extremely thankful for being aware of myself and what I could do to get become better, but for those who aren’t it might not be their time yet. I bet there are so many things that I’m not aware I should be doing, however I don’t know what I don’t know. In this case all you can do is wait till you are more aware, and I’m not sure where that comes from.

Empathy

I learnt how to have more empathy. I feel like I definitely did some silverning to friends, instead of trying to relate to them and understand their plight.

(Shoutout Josh and Week of Welcome)

The LEAN STARTUP

The book is split into 3 parts

Vision

1. Start

2. Define

3. Learn

4. Experiment

Steer

1. Leap

2. Test

3. Measure

4. Pivot

Accelerate

1. Batch

2. Grow

3. Adapt

4. Innovate

As I’m reading this book I’ll be thinking of mistakes that common startups made and have that as list of mistakes that I will justify before making or avoid entirely

1. Start

• Avoiding all forms of management pross and discipline leads to more chaos than success, the authors first startup faliures were of this kind.

• Lean startup comes from Lean manufacturing revolution developed at Toyota

• Lean startup is looking at progress through the eyes of validated learning (chap. 3)

• Allow entrepreneurs to make testable predictions

Build -> Measure -> Learn -> (back to Build)

Rant

One thing that’s truly been pissing me off is that I can’t take my own advice to the extent that I want to. I try to live a life based on simple principles, but it seems I can’t abide them. like for example waking up at 5 AM, it’s not that hard to do, but I miss days or another simple thing is being talking to people. I wouldn’t say I’m horrible but I do forget things sometimes. It’s like theres someone in me that’s thwarting my progress towards virtue, that someone's me I guess. I’m not sure what I’ll do the in future but I’m getting really frustrated with not being able to follow my own principles. It’s not even like I want to be perfect but I know I can do better than this right now. I’m not talking about being rich, gaining power or fame. What’s pissing me off is why can’t I do the things I set out to do? why do I always fall to the wayside, sometimes I feel like this is out of my control. I can make my system tighter, and set up guard rails to prevent outburts, but systems in real life always fall apart. I’m not stoic enough I think is the reason, things get me down. If someone yells at me or if I accidentally do something dumb on the road, and someone honks at me, or if I act in a way contrary to how I should’ve acted I’m not able to get back on track immediately. I let it mess some of my day up, so I wanna get better at remaining centered.

One thing you can never know is if something will be worth it in the end. It’s almost futile to think about such things but I wonder how I’ll look back on my time. Even though currently I’m missing out on hanging out with friends and going on trips. I don’t think I’ll look back on this and feel regret. I’ve noticed that I always look back in a positive light, especially my childhood. My childhood was fun, but it’s not like I didn’t get into trouble, there were plenty of tears shed, but I still think it was a great time.

I wonder if I should be spending more time having fun with friends, and doing things people in their 20s do. I guess the biggest fear is having no friends, and no one to share my wealth with.

Thanks for reading guys, I apologize for the delay, and I know I can write better than this but I was just super lazy this weekend.

I was alone, in a cold building just sweeping, vacuuming and cleaning the site overall. I didn’t listen to any music or podcasts, just focused on tidying the place up. It was serene, almost mind numbingly so. I found it interesting what my mind went to. I was genuinely in a flow state making the funniest jokes imaginable. I was so funny, unfortunately no one heard these jokes to confirm, but I came up with some comedy gold.

However, I also wondered about if what I’m doing is right. Am I playing around by trying to start a startup in the construction industry? I don’t know the answer to these questions. I’ve been here before, faced with uncertainty about the future. There is no correct answer, but the best thing I can do is put my best foot forward into the construction startup. That is the best mechanism to salvage this experience if it goes awry.

I also found some satisfaction in taping perfectly. If you have to paint over something, you have to tape up the edge so you don’t get paint everywhere. The straight edge corners are easy to do but curves can be tricky. When I first started out it was jagged the curves were just a series of edges, but towards the end I was flowing, the curves were smooth. The bigger picture was finding passion in the little things no matter what you are doing. There is a sense of pride that comes from doing a good job, no matter what job it is. I’ve always thought about the satisfaction that comes from work, I think it’s important that you choose something you want to do, and something that can make you money. Lately, I’m shifting towards doing a good job, no matter what it is, which takes away the formal “passion”, instead of worrying about if this is the right thing for me, or finding different things to find satisfaction in, maybe I should find passion/satisfaction/pride in the work I do now.

Origin of Speices:

I don’t like reading this book, I genuinely feel like it’s saying the same thing over and over again.

Instead I picked up a new book called “The Learn Startup”, which is not only productive,currently, considering my own startup it is also good and easy read.

One thing that stood out to me, was how important the customer is in the business. Trying your best to understand the customer’s problem is at the heart of every company. I want that for my own company as well, that’s why I’m working in construction, when all my peers are doing fancy internships in big buildings, I’m sweeping floors and taping door hinges.

The second reason is religious intolerance. I don’t ever want to be mean or unfair to those that don’t believe in what I believe in. At the end of the day, religion is something most people were born into, not actively research and chose.

The ‘ulterior motive’ behind wanting to become a better Christian, is to get closer to virtue.

To summarize my life’s mission, it is to be an individual of virtue. What is virtue? Essentially perfection within human reason. There are many things I do, that I know are bad things. Important note: this does not mean selflessness, a virtuous individual can still enjoy life, just within bounds.

Coming back to Christianity, I’ve been praying the Hail Mary, and reading the Bible before bed. I found that experimentally I was a more virtuous person that day. It could have been a second order effect, maybe something about acknowledging that I am just a human being with barely any control of my life, sparked humility in me. This humility may have caused the result, who knows. The important consideration is Hail Mary is a prayer I don’t even fully understand, like why are we even praying to Mary, when we have God? I feel like ‘Our Father’ truly makes sense as a prayer, and I believe in every word in it. The point is that this is irrational, but I’m not gonna sit here and say I only do rational things, because all my vices and sins are largely irrational. Perhaps to solve an irrational problem I need an irrational solution. Moving forward though I will try and really hone in on Christianity because it is helping me become a better person. However, I do want to stay on guard against religious intolerance which comes from my ego and find the balance between tradition and modern how it ties into virtue.

One thing I’d like to have an open question to everyone is,

Is religion ultimately a path towards virtue?

My Friends

I’m genuinely so thankful for my friends like I am so blessed. A couple weeks ago, they wanted to go snowboarding and I straight up said No, because I have no money coming in. I feel like most people would have just went that’s okay next time, but they were so persistent in working with me, like you can borrow my snow pants, you can use my boots and whatnot. I really appreciate it, because it may seem so small, but it means alot to me.

Photo of a bagel, an omelette and fish curry. I thought it was really funny because it’s like fusion of all cultures. I’m literally eating a bagel with fish curry

I think life is the most fun when you have a little bit of everything, to expand I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning as working on projects because it’s just so much fun when you are knee deep in your project it gets exhausting and you begin to detest the thing you loved so much, I see this with Math during finals, as with anything for a long time, as in just one single thing, you can make a lot of progress but it’s so exhausting. There’s no breaks ever it’s just so go-go-go. That as was me last year, I did take breaks but everything had a productive ulterior motive.We went to toronto for a concert but I brought a suit and went to a networking event. I don’t think that was bad, but I didn’t chill. I never stopped thinking about work and career which is good, but I do want to not worry so much that I cannot live right now in the moment. I think that’s the biggest takeaway, this year for me personally this year was + wayyyy more fun than last year, career wise I want to post on LinkedIn and pump out lots of startup content, write weekly on the blog.

I still have no idea how this year we’ll be making money with the start-up. I don’t even know if it’s the right choice but in order for this move to work properly, I’ll need social media exposure, I’ll need the people’s support. I’ll need to learn a lot of new skills primarily product development, the electro-mechanical side, ordering from vendors, inventory, shipping.

Virtue

Benjamin Franklin wrote about how he focused on one virtue a week. For example he would focus on cultivating the virtue of patience one week, and write about the flaws in that sphere. I want to do something similar in my life, I believe that character is as important as career, even if I’m the most successful person career wise, I wouldn’t be very happy if I had to sacrifice my integrity for it.

I want to be more humble. This has been a focus for some time now, my grade 12 teacher pointed that out. I rejected it at first, but I now I can see how my character was clouded by arrogance, and not confidence. I’m still working on being humble. I can catch it, right before/after I say something not modest, but the true virtue I believe is not having that thought at all. One day, through practice I will not even have the temptation.

Here is Franklin’s system : https://fs.blog/the-thirteen-virtues/

Origin of species

I’m so tired of reading this book. Darwin’s great, but I feel like he’s saying the same thing over and over again. Species vary over the course of time, dependent on nature,i.e competition, predators, habitat, and the ones that vary away from success eventually die off, and the ones that adapted right will live on.

Some things also don’t make sense to me, like when he talks about grass, and how its species vary in a certain way.

This probably is the cause of not reading regularly. Every time I come back to the book, it’s like I started reading from the middle of the book. I’ll read better next : )

Jan 3rd

I saw my old mentor and we caught up. He said you should study everything you can take notes on it, while trying to understand from everything around you.

Jan 5th Angamaly
We left at 4:30 AM to a hospital and we checked in and sat down in the eye ward. There were so many people on a monday, on a random monday, there were more people in just the eye department than what I’ve seen in our hospital’s in Canada ever. It’s amazing that there are enough doctors for all the patients. Kerala’ s healthcare is one of the best in India.

Jan 4th - 6th

I spent with my maternal grandparents though I spent 3 years in India ( grade 7 - 9 ). We only only went to my moms house during breaks. I felt like I didn’t really know my maternal grandparents that well. This time around I got to spend so much quality time with my grandparents. My grandad loves reading books he knows a great deal about the Formation about the catholic church as well as Indian history. Two things that I learned via school, never an active effort to learn about the history that makes me. My grandpa even gave a picture of amsterdam that he had from 20004. It’s a picture of a highway beneath a restaurant, that’s still pretty cool today so it must have been an engineering foresight back in the day.

[ADD THE PHOTO OF THE BRIDGE]

Me and my grandma were talking about why married couples in kerala aren’t staying together ( I don’t know why we got to this ). She said it’s because both parties aren’t ready to compromise and that since now women are also contributing financially, you don’t really need to be married to enjoy life. I asked her why they aren’t comprosming and she said the parties don’t really need each other, back in the day. If you left your husband and moved back in the your parents they might have not had the finances to support you, and furthermore you would be taking away from your siblings, back in the day you would have like 5+ siblings. Now that everyone is somewhat independent there isn’t incentive to tough it out and see the marriage to fruition.

On the flipside, if you get married and your spouse wasn’t really everything they said they were, you would have a miserable life. Stereotypically It’s the guy that drinks a lot or doesn’t take care of the family. In my humble opinion the current system does eliminate the extreme cases by a significant amount, so we may be headed in a better direction for everyone.

In all fairness , there are cases where the guy stops drinking and starts taking care of the family, purely because of a good wife. I’ve seen this happen in real life, and now they are doing really well. I think in general, all relationships can do well, if you both parties love each other, but what do I know?

This is on the way to my Mom’s house in Erumeli. There’s a pilgrimage that Hindus partake in, where they go to Sabarimala. I’m don’t know too much about it, but they go through a Mosque, and they’ve been going through that Mosque even since my mom was child. It warms my heart to see Hindus & Muslims getting along. It might seem normal to us, but I can’t say the same for the rest of India. (Sorry for the video, I didn’t want to see it through a screen so I was watching it live)

Jan 10th

I’m definitely going to regret not writing as much down in my trip to India. Everyday has been super busy.

Anyway this is a half eating Bonda, might be the most underrated Indian snack, I have see it mostly in Kerala, and it’s so good. The best Bonda I’ve had was from Ooty, in Tamil Naidu. It was big, a perfect sphere and delicious I could write a poem about it, inside it was white and fluffy like you just bit into a cloud. It wasn’t overpoweringly sweet like cotton candy, just right. Did I mention there was also crunch to it too 🤤. This was like 10 years ago so I might have forgotten some of the details.

Origin of species

This paragraph isn’t tied to a chapter in the book, but an interesting idea called Division of Labour

Why do we have genders? The book doesn’t really break this down, it more so touched upon how even in species have an advantage in cross breeding every couple generations even if they can propagate by themselves (hermaphodites). Breeding from two different individuals increases fertility and vigour so it makes sense that male and female exist so they can maximise good characteristics every single time they breed. That’s really smart since it would mean propagation would always mean more fertility and vigour.

Another reason we evolved in this way is Division of labour as pointed out in the book. The reproductive organ is very complex, and having both female, and male organs would take away from an organism’s ability in other areas. The idea of division of labour is concept most know from economics, namely Wealth of the nations by Adam Smith. The truths present in evolution must also be present in everything after evolution if that is the reason we can think, and do these things. If Natural selection is how every evolved then it must carry a key insight to how knowledge itself evolves. There should be patterns that must be followed or atleast parts of it should explain variation/evolution in everything. The patterns that form the foundation are ever present in the system that arises from it.

Happy late Valentines day!

Side note : Now that I’m back saying I went surfing in Goa is not even close to going surfing in Goa, so it’s not a social justification.

This time when I went to India, I was observant of how people treated each other, specifically how buying and selling works in India. The concept of building rapport is under played, transactions have a transactional nature that consumes the exchange. The server and the customer (at restaurants) are just server and customer, there is no identity besides that immediate exchange. There is barely any smiling, politeness, from both parties. This explains why Indians are the hardest to sell a car to, because they are looking to buy a car, and that’s it. When I was selling cars, it bugged me that Indians would just come in, no being Mr. Nice guy and everything would come down to price. At the time, I just thought Indians are just rude people. Now after this trip, that’s just how service is in India, no ones complaining if you don’t say please and thank you. Not saying it’s good or bad, but it tripped me out. If anything it’s more subtle, like a smile, or head nod.

Now this would be very different if you visit India for yourself, since I look Indian and speak the native tongue, this is how I get treated. I believe foreigners would be treated better. At Least it seems so, they probably get scammed more too.

Origin of Species

Chapter 3 : Struggle for existence

Struggle almost invariably will be most severe between individuals of the same species, for they frequent the same districts, require the same food, and are exposed to the same dangers

Geometric progression - If species were able to propagate with no checks then they would soon dominate the world. An example of this would be humans, since we have found ways around even natures checks,i.e medicine for diseases.

Natures checks - Everything from climate to the co-existing species are ways of keeping a species population under control. In the case of plants, each plant is competing with other plants on which could make the best nectar for the bee, for the bee moves pollen from anther to stigma which fertilizes the next generation of plants.

Due to these factors, and more the structure of every organic being is related. I found that to be interesting. In any environment the beings present in that area are related, not through relation of being in the same genus, or having a common ancestor but structure has been adapted to fit in with all other species.

This is obvious in the structure of the teeth and talons of the tiger; and in that of the legs and claws of the paradise which clings to the hair on the tiger’s body.

Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Classics of World Literature, Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1998.

What I’m reading

I want to start off a new section where I’ll cover what I’m reading. I forget some of the cool things I read about, but if I share it here maybe I’ll remember more of it and my readers can learn too. This would also challenge my understanding of the book, since I’d be forced to explain it through my own logic. This is not meant to be a comprehensive summary or critical analysis on any book. It is simply my incomplete thoughts about topics I am trying to understand. If you get lost in my exploration, I’m probably lost too : )

The central goal of my reading is to understand myself and others, therefore I want to read wide. I want to be able to discuss things with experts that I come across. I don’t want to know every minusha of knowledge but I want a framework of knowledge that I can leverage to understand people better. For example, If I was talking to person X, I want person X to be able to talk to me without dumbing down their work too much. I want to be able to ask questions about their field and understand how it connects with everything else.

I read a great deal growing up, and I still try to read everyday. When I first gained a smidge of intelligence, I started reading a bunch of self help books. This was good at first, and I don’t think theres anything wrong with the category I’ve learnt quite a bit information especially surrounding the mentality you need in life ( a positive one!). Nowadays I’ve been really trying to diversify my reading, to try and fill in the gaps that I have in my knowledge, and specifically not try to read too much of one genre. The books I read last year were, Crime and Punishment, The Making of a Surgeon, Nicomachean Ethics, Fastlane Millionaire (second time), Lessons of History, Notes from the Underground and I listened to Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Poor Charlie’s almanack, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, Zero to One, Autobiography of Leonardo Da Vinci, The Creative Act, The Tao of Seneca. Totaling out to 7 books and 6 audiobooks, I gained more knowledge from the real books rather than the audiobooks, I don’t like counting the audiobooks as something I fully know because listening is too much of passive activity in my books, nonetheless great listens.

The best book I’ve ever read was Crime and Punishment, changed me as an individual, pushed me to write this post about truth. All the books I read last year were informative, specifically about philosophy and ethics.

However I must admit in the grand scheme of things, factoring in my studies as an engineer there are fields that I haven’t touched, and will probably never touch if I don’t read about them. I don’t know all my blind spots but one that I know exists is Biology. I haven’t studied a lick of biology since grade 10, and biology is cool, I love how organized it is with all species and such, specifically referring to taxonomy. I bought the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and that will be the book I’m reading for the next month or so.

Origin of species

I’ve finished the first two chapters Variation under Domestication and Variation under Nature.

To give some context, Darwin and everyone at the time, initially believed that all species were created different, meaning at the dawn of creation. There was a flamingo, dove, chicken, and many different birds and they were all separate, and will continue to stay seperate.

Darwin first saw this when he was on a voyage he noticed that in the same species of finches, on a certain island their beaks were poised to open nuts, while on an other they were better for preying on insects. This was a clue among many others that were some sort of adaptation going on. Darwin too was reluctant to believe this, in fact he wrote his entire book in secrecy, and spent many years preparing the defense so that when he would receive the backlash he could provide the evidence.

Chapter 1 : Variation under Domestication ( what I found interesting)

I didn’t dive into the evidence but all pigeons are said to come from one pigeon. Anyway that means that we all have one common ancestor, and I think that’s just so beautiful. There is the theory that we came from monkeys and I thought that was cool but even before that everything that is living came from one thing.

Variation under domestication basically says that we pick the animals/plants that are allowed to breed. Let’s take plants for example, plants that produce sweet and high yield fruits are chosen for the next generation of fruits, over a couple generations, the plants that had non-ideal characteristics that we chose would die off. To further illuminate this, this isn’t just something that started recently, even the early man could have influenced what plants continued and what didn’t.

This manifests both in plants as well as animals. Darwin uses pigeons as an example as pigeons have been domesticated and preserved for a very long time.

Take a look at the picture above, these pigeons have slight arc near their tail, this might have started as an even smaller arc, but through selectively breeding we can get a pigeon like below, with an even bigger arc.

The man who first selected a pigeon with a slightly larger tail, never dreamed what the descendants of that pigeon would become through long-continued, partly unconscious and partly methodical selection.

Chapter 2 : Variation under Nature

This is what one would expect to happen due to nature itself imposing certain checks upon the species, this chapter also went into the genus of animals as well, which is the family of species. For example the lion, tiger, and jaguar are all part of the genus called Panthera.

I found it especially interesting how there isn’t a set standard to standardize species from varieties. Species within large generes (plural of genus) resemble varieties rather than species. This whole chapter was basically saying you it’s hard to differentiate between varieties and species, especially within a large genus.

Terms

Taxonomy is the branch of science concerned with classification, especially of organisms; systematics

Incipient : beginning to exist , a new species is incipient