Blog # 10 - Perception is everything

One of my friends is known by his trademark dialogue “Perception is everything”. When I first heard I just shirked this off, everyone knows “Presentation is everything”. At least that is what I grew up believing but he was onto something, something big. This one is for him.  BTW, I am back to serious writing bitches ;)

What is perception?

§  Well as you have realized by now. It is everything

§  Perception simply put is how you perceive things around you, how you understand everything is/was/will be in this world/universe

§  It’s about how you absorb information about everything which surrounds you

§  Perception thus defines what you understand, and importantly how we understand things

Why is perception so important?

§  To those of you who are supra-logical, it must be obvious that if perception defines what we understand, and how we understand things it is the basic step in our learning curve, our tastes, our experiences, and our decision making

§  Now walk with me for a moment here, perception forms the building block for your decision making! Every decision you make is colored by perception.

§  So now comes the next question?

 How exactly does perception color your decisions?

§  Well, the very first thing is that we are humans we intake information about our surroundings through 5 senses but unfortunately our brains are not built to handle all the information which is actually available through our senses

§  So!! They compromise, well not compromise! They optimize. As we grow older we realize that some things are more important than others. We “give a fuck” about some things and not about others

§  Our brains then begin to focus on information around those areas and that is how our perceptions are shaped.

§  Now of course a large part of what we give a fuck about actually comes from our surroundings, or perceptions of our surrounding based on our education, genetics, our past experience. So our perception thus gets into a positive loop. Actually it is not so positive for many people but that’s for another day.

§  What happens effectively is that we end up having different “world-views” or models into which we try to fit everything we sense around us to make our decisions

Where is the issue here?

§  The issue here is that two people having different genetics (hence different senses), different surroundings while growing up will never perceive things the same. They might perceive them similarly but they will never make the same decision. They will never have the same tastes, and will never experience things in the exact same way!

When is this important?

§  This has never been more important! In the modern world as choices explode, expression of opinion becomes easier, and finding people with similar interest spread across the globe presents no difficulty.

§  We can either chose to isolate ourselves further by shunning everyone who does not dress our way, listen to our music, and know our knowledge… In abstract make the same decisions as us. Or we can learn to respect and allow to communication age to actually allow us to widen our perception.

Who should you be talking to?

§  Anyone who is not you! Well exactly, a little self-conversation wouldn't kill ya! It helps keep the head clear

§  But basically the idea is to converse with people having different perception than yours. People having made different decisions than yours, or people who are or will make different decisions that yours. Try to understand where they are coming from.

§  Talk about everything! – I know it’s comfortable to make polite conversation with people who have conflicting views and even more comfortable to reaffirm your beliefs in conversations with people similar to you.

§  But, that’s now how learning is done! That not how we realize our blind spots! So go find your blind spots.

Blog # 9 - Simple Is Beautiful

Beauty is enchanting to all animals and us humans are no exceptions. It is almost inexplicable and hence has an unlimited power over us. Anything said beautifully is more influential than even the most logical but dry arguments.

What is beauty?

• Beauty is that which appeals to you intuitively, that which rouses your brain into action, takes away the pain from too much action. It creates thoughts, causes desires and motivations.

Why is simple beautiful?

• The power of simple lies in the ability to be remembered easily
• You thus get these simple and vivid messages which act as guiding lights

When to use the simple ?

• There has never been a better time, with so much noise out there
• Break the clutter with the power of simple
• Use them to ease communication, help people understand you and things easily, help them remember the same

How do I get good at it?

• Practise!! ... but before you do this, learn to trust your heart
• Try to feel it.... Does it feel powerful? Does it sound beeautiful?

Blog # 8 - Beer Bread

Hold tight, ladies and gentlemen, after the innovative and much loved Malik Style Long Island Ice Tea… Pramath Malik has come out with a new, breakthrough way of ingesting alcohol.

And while the previous innovation was duly admired, it was still only an incremental change!!... which shall only be dwarfed next to the greatness… nay!!.. sheer AWESOMENESS of ….. wait for it…. Beer-Bread!!

Yes!! You read it right… Beer-Bread!!... for the first time.. beer in a form where it can be eaten, for all those who left their beer drinking after being told they don’t deserve to drink beer because they can’t do a bottoms up!!

After centuries of efforts to make a beer for the people who just can’t get used to the taste of the beer!!... I, PRAMATH MALIK, the world’s greatest man, has come out with…. BEER BREAD….

Now hold your horses and read the f*cking blog!!

What is Beer-Bread?
- Yes! Yes! I know… you all are probably thinking, this is just another hoax, another sham! something so incredible can only be there in fairy tales and dreams. Well be happy ladies and gentlemen, Pramath Malik has done it..
- For the first time, beer and bread together, and that too in a single edible form :)

Who is Beer-Bread for?
- Many a great tales are told about the Earl of Sandwich, who in his laziness invented the Sandwich
- Beer-bread has a similar story!
- Bread as is quite obvious, a staple diet of the lazy… and beer the much beloved drink of men
- It’s wouldn’t be untrue to say that all men are lazy bastards.. wait.. let me correct myself. All cool men are lazy bastards… aah much better… I love the clarity beer gives you in thinking [If you are unaware of the buffalo theory of Norm .. click here.. http://oregonmag.com/ERFDBuffaloBeer.htm ... and thank me :) ]
- So… now it is pretty obvious who beer-bread is for….. really cool mofos :)
- But, hold on I ain’t a sexist… neither shall be my invention, any girl… deemed cool enough by atleast 5 men can have the beer bread too

When is Beer-Bread to be had?
- It is known that us men are constantly fighting a never ending against our worst enemy…. TIME
- Nobody has yet defeated time, and even now, all of humanity is working hard to work to find a breakthrough to make time machines!!
- How else do you explain every single person on the planet… going to school, learning all the bullshit sciences, language etc… then working hard to pay taxes!!... when we can be on trees with nude girls ;) and eating fresh fruits… :)
- Anyhow, Beer-Bread is a drink which shall help mankind in his quest to beat time!!
- Whenever a man feels like he is in dearth of time, but needs a quick sort of energy… Beer bread is the answer
- With Beer, sugar and bread being its primary ingredients, it is expected to have a high glycemic index which shall provide us instant energy… :)
- Besides this function, beer bread may also be used as a substitute for food, when too lazy to cook, e.g. when too drunk to cook!!.. no playing with fire when drunk ;) or when too drunk to drive out for food!! .. no drinking and driving… we want as many soldiers in our war against time as possible!!

Where can you find beer-bread?
- Come on, beer-bread doesn’t go on trees, you have to make it..
- All the ingredients will be in your kitchen though, all you need is sugar, bread and beer
- Girls conscious about their calorie intake can use honey instead of sugar :) … I take care of everyone’s needs :)

How do I make beer-bread?
- I know!!.. I know!! … by now you much all be cranked up about… How do I make this awesome … Hold your horses, I am going to tell you
- So, beer-bread is quite easy to make, keeping in mind that it is for supercool lazy mofos :)
- Step 1: Take four slices of bread. Break them into small pieces with hand
- Step 2 : Sprinkle sugar on the bread pieces
- Step 3 : Add beer to the sugar sprinkled bread (preferably Budweiser, only one I have tried, you can try others too)
- Voila!! … eat like a Rassagula :)

Why should you have beer-bread?
- OMFG… why are you reading my blog??
- This blog is only for cool people!!
- Anyhow…. Like Mahatama Gandhi says, hate the sin not the sinner!... I don’t hate you.. I hate your uncoolness.. so I will slay it!!
- Read on be a little cooler.. but remember lot of effort and hardwork goes into being cool.. laziness is not an easy thing… you have to be supersmart to survive … Imagine an active monkey and a lazy monkey, who has higher chances of survival? The active monkey.. duh!! , hence lazy monkeys had to develop super-huge brains to compete with active monkeys!!
- But in the process, the lazier monkeys became so smart that they roped in all the girl monkeys and then just evolution took its course, we evolved into Human Beings
- Ever wondered why us Humans are so much calmer than all our monkey relatives?? Laziness!! Evolution supports it…… I can go on to explain how all scientific inventions are also a result of laziness but I want to keep this blog short… too lazy!
- Anyhow you should try beer-bread because a) It has beer in it.. duh! B) it is easy to cook and it c) it tastes a bit like rassagullas only with beer, d) It’s awesome… duh!! , e) if you are not convinced yet, you are a lost cause, go f8ck a goat!!

Ladies and Gentlemen.. Beer-bread… thank you :)

Blog # 7 – GAF (Giving A Fuck)

Ohk Guys!! The thing is I am writing this totally drunk, I know this because I had over 20 liters of alcoholic drinks in my fridge last night and now it is in people’s systems hopefully ;) … and because I have great meta-cognition .. haha!!

But this is the thing, I was having a conversation with two guys (Charanjeet Singh & Sidharth Shah for people who GAF) and I realized something, now I know a lot of you guys and gals think he is just another drunk guy with his great eureka moment. Ohh!! Ohh!! I have too much alcohol in my system and confusing a pee with an epiphany. But the thing is even Socrates, and all those Greek dudes used to have to arguments after getting drunk ;) … Let me pee out my Eureka

Or as my dad puts it, you need to talk things through to really have your logic straight. And the three of us were the last people left standing after the Housewarming. So enough with the suspense, the blog is about Giving A Fuck or as I want to label it GAF … I am a marketer kill me for branding anything that is conceptual.
What is GAF?
- GAF literally translated would be caring
- It’s about caring about stuff, it’s about things/people/ideas/anything that concern you
- It’s about your willingness to listen to other people’s opinions, their ideations and their solutions to problems which might or might not even be relevant to you

Why is GAF important?
- Well, GAF is important because it sort of defines you. We are labeled by what we do, what we say, how we do things, what we wear, what we express and what we don’t express, the things we don’t do
- GAF-ing or Not GAF-ing pretty much plays a pretty important role in defining and shaping who you are and will be, because according to me, everything at time (t + Delta t) is pretty much a result of the events happening at time t and so on and on
- The good thing about being human is that we are sentient, we are conscious and if we are aware about things not being the way or having a probability of not turning out as we intend, we can make efforts at time t (present) to bring about change in the time t + Delta t
- Well the changes might happen or not happen depending on the comprehension of the system and the quality of effort put in but the thing is this…. Our consciousness is actually pretty limited. It’s limited to things we GAF about and we ignore things we don’t GAF about
- So!! As you can understand now, all that happens in time (t + delta t) is pretty much a result of three things a) GAFing and not GAFing b) Ability to change things at t and c) Your ability to understand how the overall system works

How is all this important?
- Well this is important if you GAF about your future. If you are one of those who just live in the moment or even want to revel in the moments of the past, well I am really happy for you, but I somehow have this constant zest to better myself day in day out and if you are a bit like me I think you will find this important
- One of my friends Prashant Saurav once put things beautifully in perspective for me and I will quote his "crystal clear" vision to you “You have an unconscious and so does the universe, when they align you are successful, when they don’t you fail”, simple and beautiful wasn't it? So effectively the whole idea is to align your actions with the state of universe at time t for a better (t + delta t)
- The thing about b) is that it is very very hard to change it in short term, it takes a lot and lot of hard work and time to change things at a given time or maybe just plain luck always helps =)
- The thing about c ) is pretty similar too, like b) where you have a given position and past c) too is defined by similar things
- The thing about a) is that is mostly conscious or at least it appears the same to me. The things you choose to care and value are often either programmed into as a kid or you choose them consciously in your adolescence or if you are super-special maybe some part of later life too
- So the thing is that even though b) and c) at any short term are not that much in your control, changes in what you GAF and not a GAF about can help you with the same

When do I know that it is time to change the things I GAF about?
- Well the thing is according to Erikson and his psychosocial model, it just happens, it is part of growing up and getting older so if you listen to your heart, it will itself modulate those things. But Hey! If you have read this far, you probably aren’t one of those people who trust every other thing their heart says that easily
- You probably over think things at times, paralysis by analysis and often end up wondering why even though you tried your best you ended up messing things instead of creating a wonder
- So??

What to do if you are not able to listen to your heart that easily?
- Lol, well first of all, I don’t know. I have always trusted myself and I realized this while telling Sidharth Shah a story and this is what I remember myself saying “I obviously only care about what I said because I am the only person whose goals are aligned with myself”
- And now that I thought about it, that statement isn’t that accurate. Often our own goals are conflicting with each other and this in-congruence is what causes the whole problem
- So here is my solution to the problem, because you know what I believe “If it doesn’t have a solution, it’s not a problem” (old Jewish adage)
- Anyhow here is the solution… most of what you think is in your heart is an unconscious sum of what has influenced you and your own personal genetics/special sauce whatever you want to call it.
-The thing is that you have three forces acting on you x) you special sauce y) you conscious thoughts z) the social influences around you (shaping your unconscious)

Where are you taking us? Get to the point... =P
- Lol, come on guys, I am a little drunk still, the thing is you can’t change x), at least that is what my understanding of x) is
- So effectively you have just y) and z) left … now you can either be one of those people who is just moved by every social stimulus you get and change according to everything around you
- Or you are the type y) wherein you just need to figure out everything yourself, and unless and until you know the answer it is just not right!
- The problem with being either is that… in y) you will have a huge lag; your cognition alone is just too slow!! (Accept it!) … When there are 6 Billion other processors just as powerful as you, how can you even expect that you will outdo them alone!
- The problem with just z) is that you find it very hard to maintain a competitive edge and in effect the only differentiating factors would be your peer group and the situation you are in time t
- So the thing is you have to figure the perfect spot in between y) and z) for the Gold!!
- Or as Hadi Alam would put it you have to find “Aurea Mediocritas” the golden mean =)

Fig 1: Aurea Mediocritas Frontier (GAF Frontier)

Now I am so serious about this thing that I actually went out and made this diagram in MS Paint! For the people who are visual thinkers, sorry auditory thinkers you i don't have a podcast =P ... now there is no statistical data behind this thing, but intuitively feel that the curve above would closely depict the performance of a person if you keep the luck factor constant { lol, like that is ever going to happen ;) } … the success a person can expect in the long run is depicted by the radial distance of the frontier from the origin on the vertical axis you see a point where the frontier intersects the z axis, this would be a person who is completely social dependent. Similarly on the horizontal axis you see a point where the frontier intersects the z axis this would represent a person who is more reliant on his/her intelligence.

Now again I intend to clarify, these are my estimates for the average; the thing I am concentrating on is the ratio between z and y or the slope of the line and as the input and the available output. The axes in themselves do not indicate the effort put in. The points I want people to notice are
1. Somebody who is completely socially dependent is performing a lot better than somebody who is completely self-reliant (The exact values would depend on your peer group which affects the intersect at z and your intelligence, which would affect your intersect at y but these are my guesses for the average are in the curve)
2. The line in green indicating a more social person is no longer than the line in red which indicates a more self-reliant (introverted) version of the same person
3. The Aurea Mediocritas is the sweet spot, now I feel the graph would vary from person to person (and a person can have multiple golden points too ;) ... yay!! More places to strike gold) but the thing is you just have to find your golden point… and voila!!
4. So hence the point about GAF (if you haven't figured yet, GAF is measure of z/y)… to find the sweet spots you need to find the right amount of GAF for the given domain, as you give more fuck and are more willing to listen to others to you will move to the left and slope of the line increases

Thanks everyone who came for our Housewarming and every person I have ever met =)

Blog # 6 - Getting Back On

I am back, and with a punch, the punch is not mine but it is a big punch J - read the Words

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you, no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son, you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.” – Rocky to his Son, Rocky Balboa, 2006

Why this quote?                                                

ü  There are two reasons, reason number one is the quote above and reason number two is the one below

ü  “It's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you” – Rachel Dawes to Bruce Wayne, Batman Begins, 2005

ü  We are what we do, nothing else.

ü  No matter how “put an adjective here” you think you are, if you don’t do it. You are not it.

ü  I made a promise to myself, and I am keeping it. That is me. I am back

What do I have to say?

ü  Not a lot, the quote sums it up so beautifully that any explanation would be trying to touch up something perfect, a futile effort.

ü  I am using it to tell you that I am back J more importantly to myself.

How does this help you?

ü  If you understand it and believe in it, I think this is the kind of stuff which will make you life a lot easier and importantly real

ü  It is not one of those “the world is beautiful”, “look at the bright side” or “It wasn’t your fault” approach. It ‘s very honest and straightforward appeal

ü  It is a father’s appeal to his son. A  father who is trying to pass on what he believes to be his core learning in his life to his only son

ü  It can help you all that optimism/excuse-making about life made you feel stupid and ignorant. You own the responsibility of your life, and only you get to decide who you give it to

When to use it?

ü  Like it says, when you know you what you are worth, then you go out and get what you are worth. You do this, Always

Don’t ask how do you I know if I am worth it. You have to know it inside you, and if you really are you will get what you are worth. Being is different from thinking, be what you are worth.

Hiatus... To Be Continued

I am now on my Summer Internship in Axis Bank, Mumbai.

Thus, not able to update the blog every sunday. I shall resume the same when I come back. Peace :)

Hiatus #1

I have my exams coming up so small break :P