words ✍️

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Alone

• Living alone teaches you the importance of someone’s company

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Anger

• memory of pain in the past
• messenger that shows you that something important to you is being betrayed, squashed, or overlooked. A boundary, a value, a desire. Don’t kill (supress) that messenger (ofcourse don’t react).
• best remedy is to delay (any reaction)
• understand the source, when you get irritated, write and explain the feelings, it might help in identifying the source

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Anxiety

• worry about something that has typically yet to happen (future)
• guilt causes anxiety (eg: lying, procrastination)
• body’s natural response to stress
• Anxiety is not having clarity about what is within one’s control and what is outside of one’s control - partially correct?

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Argument

• “Behind every argument lies someone’s ignorance.” -Louis D. Brandeis.
• Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us—or, more accurately, what we think others think of us.

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Behaviour

• Behaviour is the external manifestation of your character that is visible to others ​

Bureaucracy

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Character

• Character is your thought process that helps you take decisions on how to behave
• We ought to define ourselves and limit ourselves within the boundaries of our own definations, we can do everything and anything. We are unable to imagine, when we see ​

Compassion

• Requires detachment and serenity

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Cool

• Being “cool” means being able to adapt to any circumstance, any situation

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Creativity

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Culture

• Culture is how we all behave together as a team, way of doing things
• Culture is a collection of habits and values which our previous generation folks collectively possess. The previous generation need not be 10-20yrs older, it could be our immediate seniors (office).

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Education

• “A good education is one where kids graduate being extremely aware of what they are good at, having had plenty of experience creating and building different things, failing and then trying again and getting feedback until they nail something, and having that desire to keep learning” - Ana Fabrega
• “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think” - Albert Einstein

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Egalitarian

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Ego

• Ego holds while love liberates
• Ego is you thinking what others think about you, and then comparing it with your own version of yourself. If the act itself is unjustifiable then it is fine, but if the actor becomes more important than the act, then it’s ego.
  • Self esteem is what you want to do, whom you want to meet. Its about you thinking about yourself.
• 99% of world problems are because of ego.
  Eg: religion is not a problem, problem arises when one attaches ego with it.
  Paul Graham on Identity

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Empathy

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Emotions

• thoughts that are linked to sensations in our bodies
  • emotions are feelings - feel sensations
• arise in the context of relationship (always ?)

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Envy

• Sadness at the blessing of another
  • Envy is sorrow which one entertains at another’s well-being because of a view that one’s own excellence is in consequence, lessened
• Admiration is different in sense that you are not sad, you are inspired
• Result of: Attitude of scarcity
  • Attitude that is numbed to the fact that I have an abundance of blessings in my own life
  • Remedy: gratitude, count your blessings

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Enlightenment

• When does one seek enlightenment? Or he has sought it? When he is fulfilled, when he doesn’t strive for hunger, when troubles of work doesn’t bother him, when he understands that the path, he is walking on, only can push him forward.
• The end of suffering is enlightenment, Nirvana.
  • Enlightenment cannot be described, only experienced.
  • All human beings have experienced glimpses of enlightenment

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Ethics

• Right Vs Wrong in a social context
  • Morals is right vs wrong in a personal context
• Eg: Where do you each the line with lying and when it;s wrong, what is considered disrespectful, how do you determine fairness, what cultural rules do you adhere to etc.

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Faith

• Any belief, which does not have any rationale/logic behind it, is faith
• From reason, faith is another word for stupidity

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Fear

• Phobia -> anticipation of pain in the future because of the pain in the past
  • Here the degree of pain in unknown
• unknown

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Feminism

• Tries to liberate anything and anyone that is feminine or that is perceived as feminine.
  Every human being has both feminine and masculine traits but our society is designed to look down upon the feminine and make it secondary to the masculine.
  For example, a man shouldn’t cry.

  Harmony only when we embrace both these sides of human psyche, unless we do we find ourselves constantly at war with ourselves.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jbZmvFoVCM

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Freedom

• It is not being able to do things you love, it is free will

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Friendship

• Measure of friendship is directly proportional to time, best/close friends are those tested over time.
• “All the benefits in life come from compound interest - relationship, money, habits - anything of importance.” - Naval
• How to make friends
  • Share your thoughts, your pov, talk about yourself. If the other person cares and wants to be friends he/she will listen, and eventually he/she will also want to talk about his/her perspective, his/her life, then you listen carefully. This is how you make connections.
  • You don;t have to talk about meaningless things, by meaningless I mean things which are niether constant nor does hold any importance (preferably long-term) to you or the other person, example: pop culture. Things you talk about defines your relation.

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Genius

• “Persistence and variety. These are the two primary ways to develop great ideas or to solve important problems.

  Keep leaning your head against a topic for a long time. Certainly for weeks, possibly for years. And along the way, try many lines of attack. Continue to generate options, explore paths, and propose silly ideas. Copy and paste concepts from widely different disciplines and see if it gets you anywhere. All the while, continue to refine the best solution you’ve found thus far.

  What looks like genius may simply be the byproduct of persistence and variety.”

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Gossip

• Group-ism promotes gossip

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Guilt

• blaming yourself
• causes shame, humiliation

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Hacker

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Happiness

• Joy comes from pursuit, confidence comes from pursuit of passion/work. Pursuit is happiness.

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Home

• A sense of belonging
• Home is where people notice when you are not there.

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Humility

• “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” - CS Lewis

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Intelligence

• Thinking one level deeper than the current level of operation, it could inference, experience, enlightenment

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Introvert

• Fear of people?

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Jealousy

• Jealousy is desire, it is a directional signal for you to take that step. Desire is blocked by fear or comparison or insecurity or stress.

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Karma

• Karma originates from a false belief in an ego, which prompts a chain reaction of defending that false sense of self and trying to maintain some security. However, there is no security anywhere and people can find no resting place. There is nothing substanial in the world of Samsara.
• People are ignorant of their true nature, and that ignorance causes them to suffer over and over again

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Leader

• “Having been brought up in a serf owner’s family, I entered active life, like all young men of my time, with a great deal of confidence in the necessity of commanding, ordering, scolding, punishing, and the like. But when, at an early stage, I had to manage serious enterprises and to deal with [free] men, and when each mistake would lead at once to heavy consequences, I began to appreciate the difference between acting on the principle of command and discipline and acting on the principle of common understanding. The former works admirably in a military parade, but it is worth nothing where real life is concerned, and the aim can be achieved only through the severe effort of many converging wills.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/923421-having-been-brought-up-in-a-serf-owner-s-family-i-entered
• Embrace your first few followers as equal, if you do that, it becomes about them (about the movement) and is not about the leader anymore
  • First Follower:
    • Underappreciated, needs guts to be the first follower
    • Leadership is over-glorified, it is the first follower who transforms a lone nut into a leader
    • Courageously follow and show others how to follow
    • https://sive.rs/ff
  • Be public, be easy to follow
• People follow the one who shows the light, and eventually unfollow if the light goes dimmer or doesn’t shine anymore. Leader is the one who in tough situations says I will get this fuckin done. Courage, taking responsibility of one’s decisions.
• Absolute justice and impartiality: By this way you may not be liked by all but be respected.
• Qualities must possess:
  • Influence: Most of the time we are stuck in opinions and never come on a common ground, this affects productivity. A leader must be able to influence in these times to move a certain way.
  • Courage and thick skin: Needs guts to stand alone and look ridiculous
• “Organizations should reward risk-takers, even if they fall short once in a while. Let them know that promotions and glory go to innovators and pioneers, not to stand-patters who fear controversy and avoid trying to improve anything.” - fs blog

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Life

• Give yourself a second chance
  • “I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.” - Jeanette Winterson

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Love

• Love is a habit, an addiction
• Love liberates
• The highest form of love is “self sacrifice”
• “Love is not a relationship, love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not “in love”, one is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love – but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.” - Osho

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Loyalty

• Two-way street, one can rightfully demand it from subordinate if he/she is also loyal to them. Also if I’m asking for it from you then you’re getting it from me.

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Maturity

• Having independent thought and following your own path, taking actins and confronting reality with compassionate answers

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Morals

• Right Vs Wrong in a personal context
  • Ethics is right Vs wrong in a social context
• Rules you live by: do you cheat, are you generous, are you patient, are your truthful etc.
• “If you crush a cockroach, you’re a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you’re a villain. Morals have aesthetic criteria.” - Nietzsche

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Networking

• “Networking is overrated. Become first and foremost a person of value and the network will be available whenever you need it.” - Naval

• How to network

  • Help
  • Ask for help
  • Talk about your thesis (Talking points, your essays, your words)
  • Ask them about their journey, their unique experiences
  • Listen: To be a good listener, you have to stop talking and be interested
  • Questions:
    • What is the one thing that you know that others don’t?

• Example: Tanmay Bhat

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Nitpickers

• Littleman - Contribute to nothing and try to bring other poeple down, they don’t like the words you use, they don’t
• Eg: “Vulnerable - Oh I don’t like that word, it doesnt fit, what you mean to say is open, human and natural”

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Nostalgia

• Best and worst feeling (of a past memory) at the same time

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Objectification

• What is objectifying? What is the measure of it? If you do it in a relationship, is that fine? What sort of objectifying is bad? You cannot stop objectifying completely, see the racism example.

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Optimism

• Hope is what keeps us alive, if not for hope there is no point in living

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Parenting

• We are already like our parents, if not by genes then by cloning their small-small habits (learned behavior). Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
• We collectively think of
• Read Kahlil Gibran’s notes on “On Children”

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Party

• Doing stupid fun activities, intoxicants are enabler

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Perspective

• Perspectives have/are assumptions (biases)

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Politics and Twolitics

• Politics happen when there are more than 2 people are involved, it could be a discussion, a game, anything.
• Twolitics is when 2 people are involved, a term coined by Amitu.
• Holding information to oneself makes other dependents, twisting/hiding it for selfish needs makes it a game
• Happens in absence of availability of information

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Pop, Popular

• Short for popular
• popularity = high visibility
• You become popular, not by being a good creator, you become popular by visibility, quality is secondary, shitposting is one way
• Being popular is just one quality, often misjudged and overvalued

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Power

• It’s the ability to direct or influence another’s behaviour or course of events

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Professional

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Propaganda

• Propaganda is sophisticated half-truth, selective truth, truth out of context

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Racial Vs Racist

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Racism

• How would you describe a person if you don’t know his name? In this case calling a black person black is justifiable? why or why not?
• Racism as a mean to oppress/bully is incorrect/unjustified

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Rejection

• Rejection (by someone else) is nothing but projection of someone’s own fears and insecurities onto another person

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Salary

• Selling freedom
• “I don’t care how rich you are.
  I don’t care whether you’re a top Wall Street banker.
  If somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear and how to behave, you’re not a free person.
  You’re not actually rich.” - @Naval

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Skill

• “There’s a quick and easy way to test whether an activity involves skill: ask whether you can lose on purpose.”
  • Michael Mauboussin, The Success Equation
    • You cannot lose on purpose at Roulette, or the lottery, which makes them all about luck. But, you can lose on purpose at Chess, which means there has to be skill involved.
      Being able to lose on purpose proves that an activity is not all about luck and that some skill is involved.

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Sophist

• A person who reasons with clever but fallacious and deceptive arguments
• different meaning from etymology

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Spirituality

• Is this the outcome or the idea - Having control over your feelings ?

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Shame

• “Intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” - Brene Brown
• Superego kicking the shit out of the ego
• It is an auto-vivisection of the soul. As we are all well aware the painful flush of shame feels terrible. But there is something specific in this terribleness that you might not have noticed. It’s in your inner dialogue - shame is self-directed. With shame you are the problem; you are the crux of all that has gone wrong.
• Shame Vs Guilt
  • Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behaviour

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Strategy

• an overall plan to reach your goal
• Tactic: the individual actions that support your strategy

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Stress

• “Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over” - Jeff Bezos
• Procrastination is the mother of stress.
• It is the gap between our expectations and the reality, the bigger the gap more the stress. Expect nothing and accept everything

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Success

• A person is successful if they know where they are and they know where they are going and they are progressively moving in that direction.
  “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” - Earl Nightingale

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Talent

• Talent is nothing, it is simply enthusiasm. Whatever you are enthusiastic about, you read more about it, you write or engage with it a bit more. And over a period of time, you will know more than the others. ​

Target

• target vs goal vs objective
• ecstasy vs exaltation vs elation
• psychosis vs neurosis

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Wisdom

• Wisdom is proactive, not reactive. Wisdom opens your mind to the most viable options given your specific situation and enables you to act appropriately to help avert dire situations.