'To The Moon', the rules of modern love, and the purpose of life

So I just played this Japanese-made (but English language) game called 'To The Moon'. Japanese games handle emotional themes much better than American ones and they tend to have the courage to take risks when it comes to exploring sensitive themes. This can result in certain flop ideas within otherwise great games (such as the Metal Gear Solid series) as well as flop games altogether, but sometimes it results in beautiful works of art such as 'To The Moon'. Two scientists are hired (probably in the future) by a dying man to alter his memories so that he can die having fulfilled his ambition of going to the moon, by connecting a device to his brain. I had to play as the scientists who traversed through several memories across his life in order to understand why he wanted to go to the moon and which memories had to be altered in the initial stages so that he ends up in the moon in the later ones. <Spoiler alert> But it turned out that his desire to go to the moon wasn't exactly a desire to literally go to the moon, but a metaphor for wanting to be with his recently deceased wife, and it is possible that during his dying days he himself did not realise this. After their first meeting as kids staring at the night sky while atop a mountain near a carnival, they promise to meet on the same spot next year and possibly as a child fantasy they agree to: 'meet on the moon' if they were unable to meet the following year. This results in the dying man subconsciously wanting to go to the moon <Spoiler ends here> It all sounds very dry when typed out here but the game is a fantastic exploration of love and the purpose of life itself and the writing is intelligent enough to throw in some humour and practicality through the scientists' dialogues into an otherwise all-out romantic story.

 Now, I know that it's not exactly a manly thing to be talking about love and it is even less manly a thing to be writing about love but as someone who doesn't give a shit about such stereotypes, I will go ahead and do so. The hero 'John' likes the heroine 'River' not because she is popular in school, but because she is different. She doesn't hang out with the usual crowd or do the usual things that usual girls do. In general, this is seen as a bad thing in the society (to be more specific, a risky thing) and such people are seen to be more likely to be a liability than anything else. For John, this is a positive. River is not mundane or commonplace, but special and unique.

There are hundreds of people, magazines and blogs which advise on love. And almost all of the advice points to a certain set of consistent ideas. You and your lover should ideally be independent of each other emotionally and if possible, financially as well. You should keep a reasonable distance between you and your lover and not share literally everything amongst each other, in order to preserve a sense of mystery and attractiveness about the other person. The guy should have a strong set of guy friends and the girl should have a set of girl friends who would cater to certain emotional needs that the partner cant. Also, it is common for you to feel good about your lover only after a good number of mutual friends feel good about him/her. These ideas are commonly advised by everyone, and I have myself set similar targets in the past and will do so in the future as well to an extent. However, I wish to point out that this is not the only way of doing things. Love doesn't have to be between two independent people who don't need each other at all apart from for having fun. This is a commoditised and practical version of love which has a higher 'success' rate in terms of partners not splitting up as much as in other relationships. The success rate, if measured in terms of a less measurable but more relevant metric: pleasure for the lovers, would possibly point towards a relationship where the lovers are comfortable just being themselves instead of practical targets set by the society; One where both of them are completely open with each other and end up being so close that they cannot survive without each other. This is a riskier way to go about things (and the relationship will be more volatile; quick example of the passion of Maria Elena vs. Vicky, from Vicky Cristina Barcelona) but at least for some people the risk is worth taking. To put it simply, there are certain rules in life which we follow on the basis that the rules make us economically more productive as human beings and as lovers, more likely to stay together. We shouldn't mistake these rules as being able to give us happier and more fulfilling individual or love lives. Take a fucking chance and BE your unique beautiful self and fall in love with someone else who is equally unique and beautiful. You may end up being in a few impractical relationships and suffer a few heartbreaks but it's worth it if you finally find the person you're meant to be with (and it's worth it even otherwise because at least you tried). It all sounds a bit too romantic, but all I'm asking for is for people to be a bit more romantic than they are now, for - what is life about but loving and being loved?

Well, life's actually a lot more than about loving and being loved! .. but to go slightly off-topic before coming back, WE the people on earth are now richer than we have ever been before. There is also better technology than there has ever been in the past (some of the technological improvements don't translate into GDP and hence the separate mention). We are however, not significantly happier than we have been in the past (according to polls, and also.. common sense). Happiness of a certain kind can be attained through money or food or even having a functional relationship. But to be really happy in life you need a purpose, and you need love. There's sufficient psychological literature which suggests the importance of purpose for long-term happiness and Maslow's hierarchy of needs (which isn't without critique) outlines this through the term 'self-actualisation'. The mention of love along with purpose and thus its addition to the self-actualisation part instead of the 'basic needs' part is just a personal touch that I put in , which I believe is true for me (and possibly for some others, likely not a majority though). People are different in some ways (and similar in many other ways), but within a reasonable time of you life on earth you should figure out your personal values and the things that you are willing to stand up for. Your work should at least indirectly assist you in standing up for these values and help you in serving as a role model for others. We are social creatures however and we will need to talk to a large number of other people, belong to some groups and have different experiences before we have an idea of who we are and what values we believe in. These values would no doubt be influenced by a wide array of factors from your DNA to your personal experiences, but make you unique nevertheless. Copying others and doing things that the society does will help you get basic needs such as food, money and a sense of belonging - all without taking much risk, but doing more of it will not get you higher levels of happiness which purpose can give you. Now, being efficient and productive in life and feeling purposeful are indeed things that give you long-term happiness but for me that's still not enough.

I have to be myself, forget all the wisdom imparted by the society and practicality out of the window and fall in love, and not just have an efficient and functional partner. Love for me, is a crucial part of long-term happiness and as important as my purpose to life and my personal values. You may have a different idea about these things and all I'm saying is that you should strongly believe in them and have good reasons for doing so.

Middle-class morality, content neutral robots and Love

A philosophy where there are a fixed set of rules which clearly demarcate right and wrong, and those who either disobey any of these rules or are from a background sufficiently different (which makes them possibly have different values from the society in question) irrespective of whether they try to fit in to the society are shunned or considered inferior, depending on how different they are. Right and wrong are decided by the society at large and individual opinions are not entertained (unless the individual is very rich, and in that case people will at least act like they listen to him). Well, Nazism was at least more forthright when it came to what it preached. Maybe middle-class morality is just a milder version of Nazism.

Before I start out, I want to clarify - Do I hate middle-class morality? Yes. Why? Because it stands in the way of truth. Why do I care about truth more? Because the material gains from middle-class morality- the money, the friends, the security are all aimed at satisfying the bottom part of Maslow's hierarchy- a part which is already more or less satisfied in me.

All of us have read about middle-class morality. It's what the rich and poor do not have. It's this set of values which exist due to some reason, which have to be followed in society. But why? It's possible that the only purpose of middle-class morality is to make the middle-class people richer than they are. But the thing about MCM (abbreviation for middle-class morality henceforth) is that it never lets you be happy. It doesn't let you be content with what you have. And that's because any hint of satisfaction or intrinsic happiness will prevent you from earning more and spoiling your children with gifts. And once indoctrinated completely, its difficult to break free of MCM and consider personal values or morals. Coming back to the purpose of MCM- the summary of how MCM works is this : (the first para kind of outlined the effects of this working) People live by rules set by the society. That doesn't sound too bad right? And the set of rules are more or less consistent across the world at an elemental level. For instance, you have to be polite to everyone you meet, or you have to study hard get good marks and marry an have children. Of course in some countries people are more individualistic or just have enough money to not care about these things and thus in the US or Europe you may not find as many people following MCM as in India. Now, these rules are aimed at letting you reliably access the wealth of the rich, with minimal risk. Study (education is good, but when it's purely aimed at getting reliable employment- MCM is responsible for that) -> Get a good paying job (pretty much the most important part of MCM's objectives) -> have a large number of acquaintances and a just a handful to zero friends (large number of acquaintances with whom you never really speak honestly even if you hate them - MCM wants to utilise these people when you are in need and allow limited utilisation vice versa as well. Having good manners, being smart and talkative etc. let you achieve this goal) -> Have children (this is again very important- since you lived your entire life according to MCM and basically did very little for yourself, mostly choosing arbitrary things such as the food you like and the movies u want to see and the like. Having children let's you focus your efforts away from yourself again. You now have to work towards making your children happy. Or else, the society will shun you and kick you out - without telling you of course; MCM does everything discreetly. ) -> Die.

My suggested alternative is : Live - > Do whatever you want -> Die. It's admittedly not as elaborate as MCM's plan - I devised it in 10 seconds (as opposed to the millenia which very slowly shaped MCM, while keeping the underlying principles same). Also, my alternative doesn't guarantee anything- you might end up being very poor and find no meaning in life. But it might lead to something very special. You might fall in love with life and everyone in it. It's kind of like setting your adolescent child free and letting him do what he wants. He might get fucked up but then he might do something fantastic as well. The same with MCM - if you set a person free from it.

Let's look at each phase- The studying and getting a good job part is pretty straightforward. In the sense that, there's nothing too middle-classy about it. And it's difficult to question the morality of it was well. Of course, the rich may let their kids do what the want and this might result in them starting their own ventures (where the middle class eventually get employed. But in a place like India, even entrepreneurship requires you to graduate from an IIT (it's not mandatory but it helps immensely in getting attention and funding) and so you can't really question this part. Unless you're a gifted footballer or musician or something. Or you want to waste away your life. Maybe it's the middle class moralist inside me taking over. Let me come back to the point- Next thing in line after getting a job is to have excellent social standing. Now, ideally your parents would've set you on track to be a social butterfly from a young age- else it's a little hard work after becoming an adult but hardly difficult. You need to now do basically what everyone does. Watch movies in the local language, eat what they eat, (When in Rome, do what the Romans do if you want to be part of their middle class- goes the wise old saying) and make yourself a review and opinion aggregator. You shouldn't really have any strong opinion on anything since it might hurt others.

Perhaps a second objective of MCM, now that I think of it, especially in India - is to have an old age where your children take care of you. In another country, this objective might be slightly differently defined as a happy old age where you have enough resources- and this might be a subset of being sufficiently rich in the first place, and thus may not warrant a definition separate from the first objective. And in a country where it is difficult to do business, the rich tend to get richer and the poor, poorer. Similarly, money tends to remain with the older people quite a bit as compared to more entrepreneurial economies where the young can start ventures and make money out of the merit of the ventures. Having an economy where the older people are more powerful has a definite impact on morality in a society- it is a relatively pessimistic point of view which gives more importance to money, fame and being 'settled', without taking much risk.

Let me digress a bit and talk about robots. So, Microsoft launched its 'teen girl' robot on Twitter called Tay, who can learn language and understand ideas based on what people tweet to it. Soon after, Microsoft had to take it down since she was turned into a Nazi-loving, racist and highly sexual creature with no regard for humanity. The whole episode reminds me of how people are more or less what society makes them to be. And the only difference between the average person in the society and you, is your personal values. If you don't have any personal values that stand out- you can be turned into things as evil as the Nazis or ISIS supporters and you wouldn't even know it.

Coming back to MCM to make one last point- people put a huge amount of importance on how the society perceives them. They have essentially no opinion of theirs which is truly their own, regarding anything. People pitch ideas to each other and reach a consensus on what is popularly liked. Things like MCM and general stupidity on this planet cause movies like Batman vs Superman to have a 30% on Rotten Tomatoes and a whopping 7.7 on IMDB. "The previous Batman movie- I think it was called the Dark Night, that was so cool. This one's not that great you know but not so bad either". I digress.

So what's wrong with a society filled with average people, some more average than others and the different ones living in shame at not being average enough? A lot of things, and as I'd pointed out earlier, anything above the bottom part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (which are not representative of the absolute truth of course, but fairly accurate in my opinion) is beyond the reach of MCM. But for me personally there are two very specific issues I have with MCM- One is that I cannot deal with fake shit. Fake manners, lies, talking behind people's back etc. The second and far more important thing is how MCM prevents people from truly falling in love. MCM imposes a set of expectations on your partner which are centred around what the society expects from an average person. It makes you and your partner average, alas but love is when you find the best person in the world. There is no love in loving a person more average than most- a shallow being with no individuality. And a person who is completely independent of idiotic societies for her self-esteem, and having original ideas; the confidence to stand up for herself and her people when it counts without worrying about 'what others would say' is the only kind of person I can even think of falling in love with. And for movie lovers, the trade-off between the comforts of middle-class life and it's reliability as opposed to wild and unhibited love is best portrayed in Vicky Cristina Barcelona- where Vicky falls in love with the Spanish painter Juan Antonio, over the her well-paid and well-settled American fiance, and in Before Sunset where Jesse falls in love with the French girl Celine, over his well-settled and well-paid American wife.

'Boring' Blogs, self-critique and truth

I got an interesting response to sharing the blog on FB. It received literally 0 comments on FB and all suggestions (quite a few of them) and appreciations came via Whatsapp/Facebook Chat. The current post is a slightly narcissistic one which will talk about the blog itself and other blogs like it, partly based on the reaction that the previous post on FB created. But first, let me digress.

I've been considering moving to another country for some time now and have been confused between quite a few countries - USA, Europe (I know it's not a country, thanks), Canada and Australia permanently. And being very risk averse, I don't want to rush into the decision only to regret it later on. I've grown up watching American cartoons and TV shows (Cartoon Network and Nick) as well as sports (NBA, NHL,MLB and the terrible MLS) and thus can relate quite a bit to American culture as compared to say the Australian or French cultures. America is also naturally supportive of immigrants unlike Europe - and decidedly much cooler than Australia (which has it's share of immigrant hatred) and Canada.

But then you've all the problems in America- some conspiracy theories, some facts- and for me, none more staggering than the NSA's violation of all kinds of personal privacy of not just American, but citizens of several countries across the world. Then there's criticism of how America tries to bully other countries through war, diplomacy etc. and also criticism of the American corporate culture which focuses on results without much importance given to methods. However, societies which receive the most criticism might be the best and no the worst, especially when most of the criticism is from the inside, as is the case in America. It's not that Australian or Canadian spy agencies are less intrusive or that their corporates are less cut-throat . The main difference here is that American society is a freer society with more information flowing through media and having people who are more pro-active in criticising themselves. A couple of examples to illustrate this- one being the difference in bad loans reported in India and China (India has a much higher figure in % terms, but is considered safer since the Indian classification of bad loans is considered more honest and transparent). Another recent influence for thinking along these lines was the massive self-critique the feminist movement does, of itself and how they are proud of it.

Now, we love to be correct all the time and don't like to be questioned much (myself included, to an extent). It's only the highly scientific thinkers who insist on knowing the absolute truth and thus wish to be questioned on everything (myself included here too, to an extent). All of us have questions, doubts and weaknesses but we hate to admit them. Most of us get depressed, have anxieties and face extreme isolation at some point in our life - but we shrug it off as a weakness and do not wish to talk about such feelings even with close friends, let alone approach counselors. We would rather talk about Cricket (that T-20 match between Indian and Pakistan which India won so comprehensively let's you make fun of Pakistan along with your friends and makes you feel good.) or Bollywood or local events and traffic and weather and work rather than the things that actually mean something to us - such as fear or ambition or love, especially with acquaintances. But why? Is it mainly because one is shamed of these things, thinking that only he/she faces these problems? In my opinion, no. It's more about us being afraid that others have different opinions. And, in things like cricket - you have more or less facts and numbers to look at, and so when someone says that Kohli played a great innings yesterday or that he's a great batsman, you normally have the numbers to back your statement. The risk of being wrong is minimal. Of course, you have interesting conversations about the team spirit of a captain allowing his player to score a double hundred at the cost of a late declaration and so on- but arguments on both sides here are backed up by facts too, with relatively more opinion but still, nothing much to be scared of. When it comes to Bollywood or other more subjective topics, it's more difficult to back up statements with facts, but facts accompanied and mixed evenly with popular opinion, rumours and urban legend help cement opinions and make people confident about them. There are also well established groups for each opinion - for instance, there are enough Salman lovers and haters (both extremes have become popular opinion) for it to be normal for a person to be in either group.

Now, why do we want conversations which are completely impersonal? Reason one is that we meet a lot of people and need to connect equally with all of them. Common topics help substantially in breaking the ice while meeting new people. This applies to acquaintances as well- you may want to spend time with an acquaintance without actually connecting with them. This could be by going for a road trip or going to a mall or just having a drink with them. I myself try to be good at as many of these common interests as possible, for these same reasons among others. However, having these common interests shouldn't stop one from pursuing interests that make you unique.You shouldn't feel lost in all the madness of trying to blend in, because that it when you lose all individuality. If you feel like not drinking with friends, dont; If you don't like Bollywod movies, don't watch them; and if you love reading scientific journals (for some reason), do that; and if you feel like sleeping the entire weekend, do that as well- as long as you have a plan.

And in societies which have the habit of telling only one side of the story (historically though, we have had truly rich stories in Mahabharata and Ramayana which have had thousands of re-interpretations, some of which go so far as to say Ravana was a hero) the danger is even more. The singular truth these days has been a mixture of hard-work, development and love for the nation. People who don't stand by these artificial 'truths' are considered evil and intolerance is growing if anything. People who have a love for  the actual truth and who criticise the government (or the country- India isn't a perfect country by any means) or social revolutionaries- who help bring about immediate chaos but often sustainable long term growth and prosperity, are questioned. And, since this is the popular opinion, it is very easy to go along with it without criticising because that's the easy thing to do. Now, this is obviously not just happening in India but across the world given the poor economic conditions, and it includes all developed nations as well (Donald Trump  and his support for instance; or in the Middle East (and surprisingly, Japan) where it's very difficult for an accused to get a fair trial)- but most countries thankfully have people who consider 'black and white' morality as a minority.

And in this madness, the only thing I can say and hope for is 'Satyameva Jayate'. I hope the reader values the truth and actively seeks the truth and practices self-criticism whether it's critiquing oneself, one's family or friends or government. I request you that if such writing (mine or otherwise; I write less about society and more about general philosophy) which seeks the truth and appeals to you, to not be ashamed of admitting it either to yourself or to others (irrespective of the caste, wealth and success of the person who preaches it). Remember that Germans once believed as a huge majority in Nazism

Growing up

I had a happy and almost completely protected childhood and thus, leaving home for higher studies (Engg. and then the MBA) and more importantly- working in the corporate world have all been very different experiences from my childhood. I hope to thus highlight the major ways one is considered a 'grownup' and the actual ways in which one can act more mature and whether one should make an effort to grow up at all in the first place.

Growing up destroyed a lot of the dreams I had as a child but helped me build (possibly) much better ones; or more realistic ones, at the very least. My idea of adulthood (as an adolescent) had me working in a high flying corporate job  getting paid handsomely and having a hot wife in a huge bungalow and chilling during weekends. The problem with these kinds of dreams is that almost everyone dreams the same. And, in a world with limited opportunity and resource, you have to either intimidate/dominate others, be extremely skilled at something, or just get lucky/use unfair means to achieve this. Naturally, the most attractive option is to be extremely skilled at something. While it would be nice to have 'God-given' talent that makes you play football like Messi or compose music like Mozart, not all of us have that and not all of us have practised enough to know whether we do actually have (I have this weird feeling I might've been really good at football :P). Thankfully, as I've written before, talent is not the only deciding factor even in highly technical field and so practice can help you get a long way ahead.  Practice is thus the mantra for someone who wants to succeed without leading/dominating others to make them do things you feel would make money.

Now, leadership is indeed a skill of its own- but a skill that requires a certain attitude and certain moral values in addition to the skills. And, structural leadership and power arising out of position do not excite me at all- I like leading with soft power and leading by example; and not because others are forced to listen to what I say. The value of leadership, historically, has continually gone up in the world in my opinion and it is the only skill which will probably continue to grow in importance. The reason for this is the increased productivity arising out of division of labour (thus requiring large organisations) and the basic human need to connect and relate to good leaders, in order to feel that their work (no matter how boring) has a purpose. Leaders sometimes have to be harsh- since fairness (and honesty) is the most important trait for a leader

Coming back to the point, the biggest difference I see in adults as compared to adolescents is that they're self-satisfied and willingly ignorant (you could call it confidence but there's a thin line between both). If a 15-20 year old kid is told that they're not good at something and repeatedly so by a handful of people, it is very likely that he will either become depressed or change himself to avoid criticism. This is particularly relevant in changing environments, which can be due to several reasons including growing up itself (different schools, grades etc) or due to changing houses or even friends circles. The adolescent (15-20 yr old) doesn't yet know what he is good or what he should be good at. This lack of self satisfaction leads to growth and self-improvement. This comes at quite a big cost though- the cost of uncertainty about yourself and what you want to do or what you should be good at or even the things you should be proud of. Highly volatile people often end up being too depressed to do anything, since there are a 100 different points of view for everything and many of them may be conflicting. For instance, a person who wants to be 'cool' in a group of studious kids and in a group of movie lovers and in a group of football lovers as well, may find it difficult to balance time between the three and simultaneously be the best football pundit, nerd and movie critic. He should either reduce his interests and focus on something (since his time is limited) or reduce his expectation of being the best at each and everything. To be more specific, there are three things that limit a person from doing everything he thinks is cool - 1) There is limited time and you cannot expect to spend enough on each thing to be good at everything 2) It takes a huge emotional toll to be continuously open to different points of view and 3) Being too 'open' is a thing. If you don't believe in certain values yourself, it is difficult to have the conviction to do things (or even live life) at all. Certain decisions need to be taken first (from instinct) and thought about later.

However, if you can live through the pains of having an open heart, it will let you grow wildly as a person. Both your soul (knowledge) and body (physical skills) will grow far more than those of closed people. For instance, a person who feels belittled in front of others with well built bodies (and thus starts working out), feels dumb in front of finance geniuses (and thus starts reading)  and feels bad that he doesnt watch enough movies or play enough sports to be cool - will end up doing all these things and eventually become reasonably good at all these things. And since success begets even more success, learning often becomes easier later on since others also understand how capable/willing you are at learning new things.

Coming back to the self-satisfaction- This is not exactly confidence. From my experience, even adults are mostly clueless as to what they want to do- and given enough provocation, they will show the lack of confidence they have in themselves. Ignorant self-satisfaction on the other hand, is a good substitute which says "I'm a  pretty awesome person. I don't ave enough knowledge to be sure, but I don't care". It may not even define what 'being the best' includes, but it still works for a lot of people. It works because there are also others who are actually (in relative terms) a lot more confident about what they do and have a broader perspective about themselves and about life. Confidence on the other hand is having an awareness of what you know and what you do not know, combined with the wisdom of things you should be knowing and the things you're okay with not knowing. Now, there's a lot of subjectivity here and hence no one can have perfectly confident selves and perfect knowledge of what they know and don't- however, one can always work in the general direction of confidence and knowledge rather than self-satisfaction and ignorance (if one wants to)

So, what should one do? Be closed or be open? Be confident or be self-satisfied? It all depends on what you want out of life. For this, you need to have a clear idea about yourself and what you want and what your values are. Unfortunately, this requires you to be open to experiences so that you have an unlimited amount of things to possibly like and relate to. Thus, one should start off with an open mind (and heart). At what stage of his life he wants to become more confident/self satisfied is a call he has to make. I've personally felt that mid 20s is the best time to be more confident, and yes I strongly prefer confidence coming out of knowing myself, my surroundings and everything I can possibly know about- rather than fake self-satisfaction that tries to emulate the confidence.

And well, the most important thing is to enjoy it all and be happy- while not forgetting to add a bit of purpose to life, so that you retain long-term happiness as well. Also, if you're of the highly open kind (like me), just remember that most people are idiots.

The best way to learn

From the roughly two years of working experience and roughly four months of teaching experience (along with the several years of 'learning' in school and college) I've formed the opinion that the easiest way to learn something is to practise repeatedly. And also, that irrespective of how unintelligent you are, you can be a master of practically anything- given that you practise enough. If you're not smart enough, you might have to repeat for that IIT-JEE of CFA level 2 a couple of times or even more, while the smart guy might crack it the first time without preparing much. In the real world, there is practically nothing which i believe is beyond the reach of hard work- given a fair share of time. Now, this would open several avenues of opportunity for the intelligent kids much earlier in their life and so, they would on average reach much higher positions compared to their 'dumber' peers (factoring in other things such as emotional intelligence, motivation etc.)

Not only is practising the best best way to learn, it is also the most natural. Human beings are far more comfortable doing things and interacting with people and learning by repeatedly failing/succeeding rather than sitting with books and imagining scenarios and theories. Of course, there are certain fields of science which cannot be put into practice more than a certain extent, but for all fields where this is possible, the former holds true. So the question arises- what kind of field do you want to be in, professionally? Do you want an abstract field where you sit at home and imagine scenarios or do you want a practical field where you can fail repeatedly in the real world and learn from your mistakes? The problem with practical fields is that most people would want to get into them (since it is human nature to want to learn in such a way) and so it would be difficult for you to differentiate yourself from others and thus earn more money. Theoretical fields are more boring but possibly higher paying if you factor in individual hard work (hard work here considers the socialisation requried in the practical field as well, which may not be required in the theoretical one)/motivation required. A mixture of both would be interesting and is something I am particularly interested in. Working in finance is something I thought would be a good mixture and theory and practice, but my experience in consulting and in finance has taught me that the only kind of useful learning that happens at the work place is the learning you get from your teammates, as well as what you learn on the job- rather than concepts from outside. Even the concepts from outside which are sometimes useful are often things which you've seen in a previous organisation. Experience is trusted much more than theory at the workplace.

Gaming is a very interesting profession- one would think that sitting at home by yourself and playing all day would be enough to succeed (given you have the required high skill level cap )but that is far from the truth. To keep abreast with latest ideas and to continuously be motivated, gamers have to socialise extensively on a regular basis or else they are shunned by the gaming community- gamers and followers alike and will likely be financial and professional failures in spite of being skilled individuals. Nonetheless, gaming requires a reasonable mixture of theory and practice- all top professionals stay at the top by regularly playing against each other.

Teaching is another interesting choice which intersects both world nicely. You can be fairly good as a teacher by just being individually brilliant and hard working, but it is difficult to stay motivated without connecting with other teachers and top students continuously. Networking in the academic world is important nevertheless and co-authoring papers with top academicians can get you a long way in terms of knowledge and in terms of recognition by others.

To come to a quick conclusion- So what does it all mean? If practising is the better way to learn in general (except in a few fields)? It means that motivation (to actually try and do things and to fail and learn from them) is the biggest indicator of success in most fields - the ones which require practise i.e.and intelligence/skill does not contribute as much. In certain others though, intelligence is more prominent. But as an individual it's good practice to be good at both -practice and theory.

God, hope and power

Done with the 5th season of Game of Thrones and so far the least impressive (as in, did not make an impression that will last long). Don't worry- there won't be spoilers if you haven't seen the season yet, except for a very minor one. You have been warned, nevertheless.

The idea of God is an interesting one. As I've probably written about him in the past, I firmly believe that he is a construct of human imagination which serves a very real purpose- one which has become less relevant over time but is still very important to a majority of human population. The fact that all Gods of all religions have such strong connections with humans as compared to other creatures is a basic indication that this is the case. But I will not go into the details of proving why God probably doesn't exist and rejoice at the fact that his existence doesn't really matter- since he is all loving and would not differentiate between his children on the basis of the love his children have for him. Thus I am sure that I will be loved by the God who does not exist- even more so than others who waste time trying to impress him.

While the idea of God and the cause of his creation are interesting things (kings and noblemen probably created him to authenticate their power, and to control citizens through fear of divine punishment in case they escaped punishment on earth)- what is even more interesting is how God has completely overdone his stay. A concept created thousands of years ago, it is amazing how God is well and truly alive to this day- where thousands of people die in his name every year.

One reason I've always thought of is the hope that God gives us- humans don't always get what they want, and can lose hope and thus the willingness to live. The fact that there is someone looking after us gives us the hope that better days might come. Thus, a sense of purpose is also created within people and thus they lead happier lives, and have a sense of purpose while doing things to survive. The hope that God will help you with getting a better job, or in getting a better girl, or in buying that new phone will keep you from giving up altogether.

Only recently did I think of a side-effect of this hope creation. Certain people who are highly intelligent, yet realise the true meaningless of life may not be able to live with their sense of powerlessness and hope. They might not survive long enough to reproduce and even if they do- may not do well enough in life with all their sadness. A highly philosophical person would find life much less fun to live than a high flying investment banker who fucks around in Beverly Hills. Thus, by a process of natural selection people who are highly skeptical- at least some of them become extinct and are replaced by people who are have hope and faith (and God certainly helps).

 A connected, and less important reason might be the difficulty people have in comprehending the choices in front of them and in knowing they have an eternal father figure to protect them even if their real world parents are not. God can also be a convenient construct who will help you reinforce your beliefs (which may include questionable ones like killing Jews or killing non Muslims, or indeed less questionable ones like cheating or stealing to help your own family survive).

The most recent reason I observed has to do a lot with the corporate world. While this reason is again connected to the other two, it is a fresh perspective and helps explain the often seen higher amount of faith that adults display in God, compared to their younger folks in the same society.  In GoT Season 5 *Minor Spoiler Ahead* Cersei is kept in the dungeon by the High Sparrow and his followers. This is probably the worst time Cersei has gone through till now, even though she's had pretty much half a dozen blood relatives murdered. She's deprived of food, water and company and placed in a dungeon. Once in a while she is teased by a lady- lets call her 'lady' for now. This lady confidently defies all the threats that Cersei (the queen mother) makes about how she will make the lady regret every bit of what she was doing. The lady goes on to tease Cersei with water and ensures her of being given water if she confesses to her sins (of incest). Cersei's stubbornness in refusing to beg or plead for mercy is understandable given her family's position. However, the same amount of stubbornness is shown by the lady (who ends up being the more stubborn of the two in the end). BUT HOW? The lady is an absolute nobody, yet she gets the power (along with the other followers of the 'High Sparrow') to keep Cersei in their prison in spite of being absolute nobodies in the real world. The answer of course is their faith. They believe in the power that a queen has- but more than that, they believe in God, who has higher power than those who have power over them on earth. From our horrible bosses, or the parents that we hate or the corrupt politicians- to this day it is a problem for humans that they are governed by people whom they despise. A higher power which no one can see, which supports their beliefs is so much more convenient than reality.


For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention a bias believers have in perceiving events that often helps sustain their belief- they would notice successful prayers more than failed ones and this also contributes a lot to how adults have stronger faith over time. Another reason is the high amount of responsibility adults tend to have, resulting in lack of self belief in handling all the responsibility by themselves. The list is far from complete, but Ive highlighted the important reasons hopefully.

To conclude I should say I do love God- not because I am selfish and expect anything in return (I do not assume God is selfish enough to love only those who love him), but because I am in awe of the magnificent creation of man that gives billions of people a reason to live. I should also mention that a strong morality, and love of human beings is absolutely essential for sustained happiness of an atheist, in case you're a non believer.

"Games like Portal"

There are several automated and manually created lists for games which are like other games. Google "Games like <insert random AAA title here>" and you should get a fair number of hits. Each link generally contains at least 10 games which are 'similar' to the game that you just mentioned. Now, this works well in some cases- for example, googling for games like Bioshock can give you System Shock or Dishonored and googling for games like Mass Effect can give you Knights of the Old Republic etc. but a certain game for which I've barely found similar games is Portal (I know it's similar to Narbancular Drop whose developers were consulted for making Portal, and a few other minor titles but let's be realistic guys). There are games with distant similarities, but absolutely no game comes anywhere near to Portal at doing what it does. But, why?

From the Business point of view, Portal was created by Valve which is known for its brilliant Half Life series as well as other good games like Team Fortress and this helps the cause of course. During development, there was an incredible amount of playtesting done to figure out how players reacted to things in the game and the game was modified in order to make the players feel challenged yet not exhausted by the game. The human touch in the game was also modified to ensure that players did not feel 'alone' while playing the game- a feature that has become very important in the current generation where games are either open world such as Skyrim where you can interact with hundreds of people including kings, mages, farmers and what not.. or MMORPG style or MOBA styled, so that there is interaction with other human players.

Looking at the game itself, there are a few things that stand out: Firstly, the game never tries to 'cheat' on you. All information about the portal gun (which is used throughout the game to traverse obstacles and puzzles' and about the world around you is carefully explained by Glados, the computer in charge of conducting tests on human beings by putting them through puzzles. And in spite of this, the puzzles are actually fairly challenging from the beginning, though learning curve is fairly smooth. Several puzzles which we spent a few minutes on during the first playthrough would be done is seconds during the second playthrough (yes, I've completed both games multiple times). But since we already know the rules of the game and do not have to do a trial and error to figure out how things work (as is the case in a lot of critically and commercially succesful games these days- Dark Souls for example) we never feel cheated.

Secondly, the puzzles naturally fit into the storyline of the game. OK let me explain this- in a game like Skyrim while it is understandable how puzzles would be there for entry into an ancient ruin, there is no explanation to justify how all puzzles can be solved, and on top of that all puzzles can be solved without needing additional equipment/passwords from anywhere else. Also, most puzzles in the game tend to be very similar. The same is the case with several games involving puzzles. In fact, this is not an issue with RPGs/adventure games with puzzles. Take a game such as Mass Effect- the fact that you have to go around collecting the green alien like things in the citadel the first game as a side quest, collecting chocolate frogs in Harry Potter games, collecting random minerals by clicking on planets and scanning them in Mass Effect 2 or even opening locks using the minigames of Fallout 3, Bioshock etc. are all things which are fitted into the game so that we can enjoy the game more eventhough realism is being sacrificed. Portal sacrifices none of these things and there is no minigame to open locks or random items and loots to collect or side missions. The game is pure and feels highly realistic. (It is worth mentioning that the features mentioned in the above games are intended to reward people who explore the game world more- however, people explore these days for the sake of getting bonus items and rewards and not for the sake of exploring. Realistically, very rarely should exploration be rewarded with bonuses, but in the world of video games very rarely does it go unrewarded. The second you find a hard-to-reach location, you realise that there is some epic loot somewhere nearby- which is very unrealistic.)

Thirdly, and most importantly it is a game which considers human emotions. There is handholding through the initial stages of the game when we are explained what to do. The game is genuinely funny with Glados being extremely intelligent with her jokes, comments and practically everything she says. Wheatley manages to be just as funny in the second game. The cute robots which fire laser and insta-kill you are also fun and never appear to be scary. Even they crack dialogues when the protagonist appears in front of them and then disappears (they sense that you're nearby). There's the much talked about companion cube of the first game as well. I could go on with several other things that make the game fun for a human being to play. Now, I say human being because there are certain games which are incredibly fun and realistic but may not connect with us much, as humans. Take a game like Tetris- a classic for its time and it still is. The game mechanics are absolutely robust, but there is no human touch to it to take it to the next level.

I'm right now playing a game called Swapper (2013 game) which is a 2D platformer similar to 'The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom'. Very different from portal but yes, there is say a 10% similarity. The Talos Principle which came out around a week back looks interesting but won't run on my current lap- can't wait to get a new lap and play that.

Learning Gray

As I've written in a few of my posts before, I tend to think a little bit in black and white- that there is either an objective good or an objective bad, objective right/wrong and so on. I realise that the world is Gray but am not comfortable thinking about things like that. Knowing the absence of God (though I also know that believing in him would've helped me) also does not help at all. There are other ways of describing this kind of personality- introvert, thoughtful,quiet etc. and they all would have similarities but I'll stick to my usage of black and white- mostly since I dont think that these sets do intersect fully; plus there are minor differences.

A lot of people criticise the educational system we have wherein we sit in a class full of peers and read about things that other people do(history), the results of what they do(economics/geography) and what we should do(decision making stuff- like how to choose a project which has higher returns) instead of actually doing. Thus the system is criticised for not being practical enough. This is a criticism I've seen across the board- right from primary school days to high school (teachers didnt show some chemical reactions, physical phenomena, some great books by great english authors etc.). And, I've always wondered- what is the amount of 'practicalness' at which the amount of practicalness becomes too much? Surely there is some sort of tradeoff here (as there is in almost every subjective decision in the world). The answer probably lies in the fact that the amount is different for different people.

 For a black and white guy, a very small amount of practicalness is what he would be comfortable with. A lecture on branding strategy for automobiles might be more comfortable for a black and white guy as opposed to a case study where the students have to create one in a team and present it in front of an audience. It doesn't mean that the latter wouldn't help him learn better- it just means that the person would be more comfortable with the former and it is entirely possible that the lecture can help him learn easier than the case study if he's used to learning in such a way (though it's unlikely). The average human being is fairly gray however, and thus would prefer a lot of practical inputs. As I mentioned earlier, black and white people can learn just as well from both methods and it's all about being comfortable with one. Perhaps one reason why I decided to go for an MBA instead of a more technical field (was into Mechanical Engg) is since I wanted to be more comfortable with Gray methods of learning and Gray life in general. Although I can handle the Grayness and learn, I would probably be way more comfortable in a more black and whitish field and would try and balance it out in the future. Academics is relatively black and whitish (at least compared to working in a firm in the same field) and I might end up there. 

Work experience is greatly valued by employers since it indicates a tendency to excel in the Gray world. Someone who has worked somewhere and been fairly successful is good at handling the Grayness around him or is fairly Gray himself. This can be a huge complement to your Black and White credentials (marks (not 100% Black and white since group projects and stuff are there but fairly black and white), certifications etc.). Around 2 years of experience is probably enough to judge the Grayness quotient. Someone with good marks and a good short stint of experience is the ideal candidate (given of course that he will stay with the company for a fairly long period). This kinds of reminds me of looking for a like partner- you should look for all the features that make him/her the right candidate but always keeping in mind to be practical, since super-amazing people may not give a shit about you. Anyway, catch them young they say- these people are targeted by B-School recruiters since they are currently jobless (so no hassles of making them want to switch etc. ), have a proven track record by themselves, have the track record of being selected by a top B-school (if it IS a top Bschool i.e) and also if the candidate turns out bad, the college also shares a bit of responsibility.

While mentioning in the previous para that Gray compliments your black and whiteness, I forgot to mention that Black and White thinking is also extremely important. You should ideally have a mix of both. Actually, when it comes to inexact sciences, I'm very skeptic about everything. If someone says that Modi is going to make India grow, my question is how do you know? If someone says Tata Steel is going to do well, my question is- how do you know, plus have you not heard of the efficient market hypothesis. It is perhaps a fallout of by black and whitishness that I'm very skeptic in inexact fields of study (like say economics).

Mediocre companies and mediocre human beings

In corporate finance you come across theories saying that if you're not as good as your competitor you might be destroying value in certain sectors. This is the case in most natural monopolies (like electricity, water) and certain other sectors where scale is large (like say, cereals). I've asked the question to myself- if a company knows that it's not going to be the best at something why try at all? Why not join these huge corporations and help reduce costs by increasing their scale? If you're worried that these corporations are evil you can either join one of the regulators (which regulate competition/financial markets/whichever area you think they're too evil in) - given that you feel these people add enough value and compensate fairly for your work. No company can systematically do evil things and still be hugely successful anyway. The numerous cases that we here of are companies which do certain things like exploiting poorer economies' labour instead of hiring local people, underpaying wages etc. - but these are just normal decisions making economic sense- which hurt some people but benefit others. One could however argue that big investment banks are truly evil(funding terrorist related activities/helping with money laundering etc. ) but this is probably the only sector (perhaps along with law firms) where even the most successful firms can do truly evil things.

Coming back to the point- although I've thought of why mediocre companies try and compete with established ones for eg. Parle competing with Coke and Pepsi or Tata competing with Ford and BMW(in sectors where acquisition is common, it makes sense to have a local competitor- since the strongest competitors are usually taken over- examples of such sectors include technology, telecom etc. ), I have never asked the same question about human beings. But what do companies and human beings have in common? Well, everything  really. Countries and companies are considered as individual human entities in media, when doing political/corporate analysis and even by law. While it might seem absurd to compare a country of millions of people, industries and companies to an individual person who is just composed of himself, it really is not that big a deal. In the top down approach, it makes sense because after all human beings are made up of billions of cells and hundreds of muscles and dozens of liquids- yet we do not analyse these things when talking about a person.   

The guy who comes 8th in class(who wants to get into academics) is not asked to kill himself. And the coder who came 3rd in the computer coding event isn't asked to either. We have a hundred reasons to give these people in their moments of truth to tell them that they are special and unique and how they contribute their own bit to the world just by being themselves. Just think about it- if people in the stone age(or whenever) were happy with eating raw food and no one questioned it we would still not have invented cooking. And small things like this make your existence worthwhile. If you're a person who gets angry quickly it reminds the calm people to get angry once a while as well to get things done. And it reminds them perhaps how great other calm people are and makes them love these others a bit more. There is no good without evil and no progress without questioning the status quo. It doesn't matter in what way you're different from others- you are still adding something to the world (as long as you're not in ISIS and killings hundreds by the day). The advice goes something along these lines. The same applies to companies as well I believe.

Another comparison between companies and people is with respect to margins/capabilities of a person. We all hear a lot about the lazy guy/girl who doesn't work hard enough. (While this comparison does not have any underlying causative similarity- it is something that can be empirically observed.)   Success for a person is  a mixture of capabilities (which may be intelligence, talent in some field etc.) and hard work. The hard work and the capabilities might come for certain other things such as motivation by parents or training or natural DNA etc. but this is the bottomline. And the bottomline for companies is the ROA/ROE. ROA depends on asset turnover and margins. Margins show the capability of the company to charge high and sustain demand, and turnover shows the amount of work they out in- high asset turnover means that the company works hard to push a large number of products on to the customers. (ROE is closely dependent on ROA- applying leverage on ROA gives ROE). Of course success can be defined as being helpful to others in the case of human beings and contributing to the society in case of corporations,  but I'm talking about financial success.

Too Cool For Work

Well before I got into my first job, I remember teachers talking about how a casual attitude and a 'cool' approach to life affected your career prospects. I never took it seriously at that point of course. I remember a math teacher as far back as 11th and 12th grade talking about this. I don't remember it being mentioned by any of the engineering professors, but come MBA again senior HRs tended to value a serious attitude a lot more than a laid back attitude. I've had interviewers knowingly act over-casual in order to elicit a casual response from me. Something like 'I know you didn't perform that well during Sem 2- It's not a big deal though.. I mean you did top the class in the other Sems and getting low marks once isn't a problem.. you can fail once a while right?' digs a pit in front of you, and he awaits you to jump into the pit by agreeing with him. Having mainly worked on technical fields until the start of the MBA, I had become to a large extent not-so-serious. Now this is not a conscious effort I put in to try and have a chilled out attitude- it is just something that comes naturally. And it had nothing to do with how good I was at whichever thing I worked on. And in technical fields, to a large extent it doesn't matter how chilled out a person is. There are highly eccentric scientists and programmers who have even higher levels of success. Being weird or unsocial does not affect their career prospects too much as long as they are excellent when it comes to subject knowledge. Of course if they end up in managerial positions in the company, it can be more of a problem- even if the field is technical.

However when it comes to working in non technical fields, a casual attitude is a huge issue. And to be honest, after having a few months of work experience I can see why. There is an incredibly huge correlation between casual attitude and not doing your work properly. At this point I think I should clarify what I mean by casual attitude , so that the previous statement doesn't seem too obvious. Someone who plays Ludo in office irrespective of whether his manager sees him has a casual attitude even if he is the most hardworking guy and does his job way better than a pretentious guy who acts as if  he's working while browsing through facebook. Now that we have that clear, let me go through the reasons.

Firstly, it is relatively more difficult for non-technical fields to quantify how good a person is at his job. Thus we are forced to look at things like seriousness, attitude, language, dressing and so on- whereas a programmer might be hired just for his coding skills(which can easily be measured). And to be fair to HRs, fields such as sales and in fact any field which involves direct interaction with the client DOES require people to be well groomed, serious and all of that in order to be successful. Secondly, since people know that having a casual attitude is not looked upon favourably, it results in naturally less self-conscious people also acting serious. Thus, only those who really don't care about their career prospects end up with the casual attitude, along with a few hard working people who still haven't figured out the importance of acting serious.

And because of these two reasons (and possibly more), I do find that casualness is an amazing measure of a person's seriousness towards work. There seems to be a very strong empirical link. And So, I will try to be as serious as possible during my next interview which is up soon.  

Dating outside your league

If all of us could think objectively about other people with absolutely no bias, there is a fair chance that a guy's favourite girl may not be his girlfriend and the person he admires the most may not be his dad, but an uncle or even a distant acquintance. However, thankfully for us, we have our weird biases which ensure that it is indeed our childhood sweetheart (or the arranged marriage spouse) whom we love the most in the world and by some amazing co-incidence, we all have, individually, the best parents in the world. The probability that we all believe this at an objective level is very low- and if so, would greatly undermine human capabilities for reasoning. And I strongly believe that we know better than to be so naive.

I say 'thankfully for us', because had a person not had this bias, he would be completely shunned by the society. A guy who doesn't love his home-made food more than anything else? A guy who likes his aunt more than his mom? A guy who likes a girl he last talked to 10 years back more than his current wife? What kind of idiot would he be considered as? An honest idiot, but the degree of idiocy is unquestionably monumental. A completely logical(a person who thinks in black and white, without the grays) human being would really struggle to survive in this world. There should be an evolutionary explanation for loving all that is related to yourself- your town, family, close friends etc. more than things that you haven't experienced yet, or things that you have experienced but are not close to- for example people beyond your league. And the explanation is probably just selfishness- you like people more when there is a higher likelihood of them being useful to you, and not because of them being good human beings.

When it comes to a guy's relationship with his girlfriend, while there can be moments when the guy sincerely believes that there is this one person he came across due to sheer coincidence and happens to be the most amazing female in the world, it is unlikely that he thinks the same for a majority of his life. Think about it- out of 7 billion people, and around 3.5 billion females- say around 800 million of an age you can marry- of which say 100 million can communicate with you- and you think you found your dream girl after meeting a few dozen? The times when you sincerely feel so can be attributed to errors in human judgement (which are helpful at several instances, including at this aspect of loving your not-so-perfect partner) . A point to be noted here is that there may be people who do not really care if their partner is their ideal match, and a good number of people I am sure fall in this category- but I am a dreamer, and I write for dreamers.

As you might have figured out by the previous para, I do tend to think relatively more in black-and-white than the average person.

One thing to consider, given the things I've mentioned above is what you would do if you met a girl (or a guy in the case of girls; I've not mentioned counterparts elsewhere but please consider everything as being applicable to guys and girls) who is amazing and you do not think that you deserve her? On one side, you can try and 'get' her and if you were right initially, she might end up being worse off than she otherwise would've, with a 'better' guy and a happier life in general. And on the other side you can ignore her and not take the risk of (i) trying and failing to woo her (ii) successfully wooing her and making her life miserable. Point number two may not be considered by a lot of people, but a person who thinks in black-and-white- a person who believes in objective truth, will. Human (and animal instinct) is to go after her and so, it is not very feasible to not try wooing her, since your heart often doesn't understand our brain. Meanwhile, your judgement about the girl being in your league can always be wrong and hence it might be correct to err slightly on the side of trying to woo girls than to not. After all, losing out on a girl because of your mis-judgement is a bigger loss than trying for a girl and not getting her because she's out of your league.

 Unlike my other posts, I do not preach 'answers' in this post, and I'm still looking for an answer to this question. I've obviously tended to 'try' outside my league, but I've always had my reservations (and probably will continue to have them) and never gone ahead with 100% commitment. Perhaps the fact that such a question has popped up in my head will cause me to be inadequate for the girl in concern. But should it? This, and the other questions I leave to the reader to figure out. And as a friendly advice, even though it is good (probably) to think about such things, when it comes to practice, always go for it :P And in case you don't think you'll find the perfect girl/guy, the only thing I can say is that reading this post was a complete waste of time for you, unless you start dreaming because of it.

To HS or not to HS (and other things)

This post will be relatively more personal than the rest and I don't really have a plan for it but let's see where it goes.

I'm about to move to Mumbai in a few days time and since I had a minor surgery in my leg, I can't wear footwear and thus I'm mostly limited to my house and nearby places. I've been playing a LOT of Hearthstone, the CCG (Collectible Card Game) from Blizzard and it's a pretty interesting game and there'll be a future post on the relationship between financial careers and HS (Hearthstone). I've also been playing quite a bit of guitar, and I finished Season 4 of GoT a couple days after the last episode came out.

So here I am, a guy who can do relatively large number of things for my entertainment (not going to mention all of it)- things which obviously help me socialise, think deeper and mostly just get rid of boredom. This might seem obvious, but all of my skills in doing any of these things (I've become pretty good at HS by the way) will not help me get the basic necessities in life. I don't really have problems feeding myself or getting a place to live, so it's not too much of an issue, but it's more of an issue for me than it is for a richer guy. From childhood, I've always found it easier to connect with kids who are considerably richer than I am, thanks to the slightly high level interests that I've developed- things like gaming and music and movies and football and so on and in an in depth way as well. An average guy with my level of monies would probably focus more on knowing the city more or finding out places where things are cheap etc., watching some local movies and watching IPL- to be honest I don't even know for sure, but I do know that the interests would differ by quite a bit.

Hence the question of morality- is it justified for a poor dude to have high level interests, if he is unable to make money out of these interests? The HS community itself has several interesting people- most of them players of course. A guy called Trump (TrumpSC on all major social media places) is kind of humble and really dedicated to playing HS. He does have other interests like playing Poker, but he's pretty dedicated to HS and he makes quite a bit of money. The average twitch stream of around 2 hours gets him around 700-800$ through jsut donations by viewers (My guess) and add to that the money from youtube views and twitch views and winnings from tournaments and appearances in tourneys etc. and you get a decent amount of money- definitely comparable to a day job(he's a management/finance graduate) and he obviously has a lot of flexibility and the added bonus that he loves his work. The average HS professional is however more like Kripparrian (his id on all major networks is the same) who is a bit of an asshole but in a nice way, rich enough to not need the money out of HS, but makes a decent amount anyway. Krip plays a wide variety of games like WoW and Diablo 3 and his networking skills enable him to be invited to host most important HS tournaments across the world- which don't pay much, but he doesn't really need the money anyway. The question of morality is irrelevant to both of them because Trump makes enough money out of it and Krip doesn't really need it anyway. Thus, is it OK for the average dude to 'waste' hours developing such obscure interests when he can just watch a few bollywood movies and learn some item numbers, watch some IPL etc. in order to be socially relevant.

I guess it's not really about being socially relevant. People do these things mostly out of their interest and if it becomes socially relevant, then- great! DOTA for instance I started playing for fun, but I made at least a couple dozen friends with the only real connection being DOTA. Secondly and more importantly, there should always be a limit to these side interests, especially the obscure ones. It's OK for a guy to skip work if India was playing in the Cricket World Cup final the previous night, since most colleagues might doe the same in India. But it's not OK to skip work because the last episode of a GoT season came out late night the previous night- I hope you get the drift. Also, as long as these interests don't majorly affect your actual job (or studies if you're not working right now), it doesn't really matter too much. Instead of doing A or B you can always do A and B. I myself am too lazy for this of course and I therefore would always do things the 'or' way- especially when I'm in Trivandrum. But, as work starts, hope to do more work and less play! Alright, back to some more Hearthstone.

Kripp's channel- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBMccz-PDZf6OB4aV6a3eA
Trump- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsQnAt5I56M-qx4OgCoVmeA

Good jobs and good wives

What's common between them? Well they're two things that the average MBA guy looks for, at least in India. The latter being mostly preferred in singular of course, but then I'm talking about the concept in general and hence the topic is thus.

People have different tastes and passions and it's difficult to formulate a common code for a 'good' job. However I remember a lecture by some Indian entrepreneur gone abroad who said that the best job is at the intersection of three sets- Makes Money, Passion and Skill. A job which is balanced among these three things is according to him an ideal job. Although there are exceptions and he himself was one he admitted, since he had earned enough to move to the intersection of the latter two and money was no longer an issue. For me personally, jobs can to a certain extent be objectively evaluated. Not all jobs can be of course. But the same way I believe there is a certain objectivity to ethics in spite of cultural heterogeneity and so on, I do think that some jobs are better. Passion plays a part and people with a strong passion for something would naturally have a tendency to do something related to that. Apart from the three factors above, there's value addition which I consider as very important. Now the job of a sweeper is not a very high value added job since he does not do much to change the world. Yes, the world would be dirtier without him and if all sweepers decided not to sweep, the world might even come to an end but a practical argument would say that he doesn't add as much value as say a banker and thus his job is worse. I'm not saying that he is a lesser person or that he's doing a bad job. This is just a way of analysing jobs from the value addition point of view. Value addition is not always translated into higher salaries due to inefficiencies in the labour market, but it is a fair approximation to use salaries to measure the amount of value addition. So by this analysis, the Federal Reserve chairman or the president of the US or the CEO of Facebook should be the best jobs in the world right? Well, no. No, because apart from the fact that the three criteria mentioned earlier (as sets) may not be satisfied at all, you may be too lazy to work hard enough for these jobs. These jobs require full time dedication and you may not be able to provide it. Not that you're not capable but you may just not be interested enough or may be, just may be you're too lazy (which can be a good thing as I've written before). Which is fine by the way and again it doesn't make you a lesser person. As long as you bring something unique to the world, your contribution is important and the sweeper's contribution although not as much in value addition terms as the president's, is a contribution nevertheless, and it is particularly important to follow your passion as well since other people may not share the same passion as you and thus may not find working in your profession as satisfying as you do.

A good wife for me is both fun and dependable. Now the following paragraph should seem tasteless to the average reader but I'll go on anyway. Fun implies many things including looks, smartness, intelligence, knowledge, wit as well as talent in any field. Naturally, fun can be the only criterion for someone as well, especially people who are highly fun themselves. High achievers may not look for anything other than these qualities. But I know that I'm not going to be successful forever and thus I would definitely need some support at times. This is measured by the dependability of the woman. Highly dependable women can be trusted; they can empathise with you and they care for you. A right balance of both would be perfect. Now you may ask how I can arbitrarily classify something like good looks or money into fun even though they have nothing to do with the word. To be honest, I actually see both fun and dependability as a single quality. Like light, which dictates whether a room is dark or well lit. Dark and well lit are two states which are governed only by the presence of light. Let us make dependability the only criterion now. People who are highly rich or people who are extremely good looking are generally not dependable in the sense that they may be dissatisfied with you. Of course most of these things are generalisations and won't be true always but as any student of economics (or ay other inexact science) will know, you don't have to be always right and in fact you never will be when talking about things like this- but that doesn't reduce the importance of an opinion that covers the general trend. Now fun and dependability are not the right words to use I realise now and something along the lines of order and chaos would be the right terms. This is true in the case of the economy as well. A certain degree of order is required but without innovation (chaos), the economy becomes stagnant, and well...dies off. A human life also needs a certain balance of both. Childish philosophies like libertarianism preach only chaos and this leads to things like the sub-prime crisis once a while where everything goes hay-wire. I personally cannot stand such a large amount of hay-wireness and thus prefer some order as well. Alan Greenspan's policies, if they were translated into our wife-analysis language would be called 'shallow' since it looks for highly successful, rich and good-looking women much the same way the capitalist system encourages the rich to become richer.