Day 37 of the lockdown.
Day 43 otherwise.
Category: Death
Rant – 8 Jul 2019
Ranty post ahead. Talks of things that may not be polite or nice or good. Read at peril.
At the end,
Even though we believe and behave as if we are immortals, all of us have a super finite time here (about 80 years if you are lucky). And while the average is about 80 years, we never know when our time runs out. I mean a meteor could hit us right now and before I “publish” this post, it could all be over and I won’t even know. Neither would you for that matter! If I do get to publish this post, I could get into an accident on my way home from Starbucks. I won’t know how many people did this post reach and all that. Or I could die at the old, ripe age of 80 after posting 10000 blogposts (I am at 1500 something posts, written over the last 13 years) and doing all the things that I wish to do!
So, I was reading something and somehow I stumbled on to this post by Kevin Kelly. I pick two things from that post.
A. KK starts by talking about when he was 29. Back then he lived as if he only had 6 months to live (P.S.: He’s still alive and kicking at the age of 65). All his actions and thoughts were guided by the knowledge that he would be gone in the next 6 months.
After those 6 months, he estimated the time he had left (he calculated the approximate date of his death, by looking at statistics and other medical information). He used/uses this expiry date as a goal post. He put a widget that counts the number of days left in his life. At any given point in time, he knows the exact number of days that are ahead of him. And this “fear” (or may be “awareness”) helps him decide the things that he wants to spend focus his time on. A ticking clock time-bomb is such an important tool for motivation!
B. The other thing that he talks about is how one of his friends (Stewart Brand) sees life in 5-year chunks – he says that anything worth doing takes about 5 years. In my experience this is not true but I am sure this is how things are.
So, if we combine A and B, it could probably become yet another system that helps us do more. How? By buying a time-bomb!
Lemme talk about me as an example.
While I want to live forever, I will assume that I am going to die on 1 Jan 2026. And that leaves me with little less than 8 years (3174 days to be exact). And thus, apart from personal things, that means I have just two things that I can do well before I die. One of those things is C4E. The other, I dont know yet.
So, all I ought to do is focus on C4E. All other things become recreation, for the lean days, for the days when I am so tired that I don’t want to work on making C4E the greatest entertainment business in the world. Of course in these next 4 years, situation could change and I am ok with adapting to the change. But the endeavour would be to focus on just C4E! Every act, every investment will be towards that one goal.
Does that mean I will leave all other projects hanging in the limbo? After all I am the kinds to have multiple things running at the same time – in fact it makes me who I am!
No it doesnt. Two reasons. A, I have traditionally been a bad finisher and now that I have started to finish things, I will take all open projects to respective conclusions. And then, either handover to others or find a way to merge them with C4E. B, this multi-tasking, inter-disciplinary approach, swinging on multiple trees is what makes me, me. It has served me well and I enjoy it. I just need to reshape the priorities and I should be ok.
So yeah. The time is limited. 3174 days in my case. How about you? How many days do you have? How many 5-year long projects can you take up? What are those? Tell me about it. Lemme know if I could be help. Please?
Thats it for today. 3173 more to go! Thanks for reading.
P.S.: And the meteor did not hit us before I hit the Publish button. Let’s see if I reach home.
P.P.S.: Some books that you may want to read about life and death (especially in context of today’s day and age) are: When Breath Becomes Air, Being Mortal and The Last Lecture. You may also want to see Steve Jobs’ address at Stanford. Here.
P.P.P.S.: Here’s some trivia – Steward (KK’s friend, the one that talks about 5-years) is also the creator of Whole Earth Catalog that Steve Jobs talks about in his Stanford talk. Plus the phrase “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!” originated on the last issue of the catalog. Here…
The Inquiry into (our) Immortality
Note: This is the second time when I am considering my morality. Last time, it was a Hernia. This time, I dont know yet – I still need to see a doc. May be by EOD today. Or tomorrow first thing.
So, something happened and I am worried that I am dying. Of course with each passing day I am walking a step toward to my death, but in the normal course of things, its not happening anytime soon. I think I have another 50 years or so, if all goes well. And if they find a solution to the ageing problem, who knows. What I meant by ‘I am dying’ is that I may have a disease that could expedite the process and I may not have those 50 years. Far less. Something like less than a year.
A week back I thought I was going to die. Despite my known aversion for doctors and hospitals, I went and went through the process. At the end of which the doc has still not been able to find out what caused it and if there would be a reoccurrence. But they’ve given me a clean chit of health.
While I am relieved, there were a few days when I thought my time has come. And all sort of thoughts clouded my head – good and bad. Motivating and depressing. There were questions on the reason of our existence. The future. The life after death. The non-stop wheel of life. The tick-tock. And…
Anyhow. The thing is I realised that the suspense hurts more than the actual outcome. Probably, the actual outcome hurts more. I wont know till I go. But if I knew, I could prepare for things. I could move on. Actually, come to think of it, this is a good time to plan for it.
So, hypothetically, assuming I have less than a year, what would I do? Here is a list, in no particular order.
- Spend as much time with my family as possible. Of course you cant be just at home and while away time. I will have to find a vocation, some work that fills in large part of the time. What it essentially means is that I will not waste time in commute, long meetings and all such things.
- Try and make as much money as I can so that my family has it comfortable once I am gone. Of course not do things that make random people chase them.
- Say sorry to everyone who I my’ve rubbed the wrong way. While I try to not do it in the first place, I am sure there are people who’d have a bone to pick with me. I will fix those relationships.
- Work on my fitness. Well, funny as it may sound but till the last minute I dont want to be supported. This is the scariest and sorriest image I’ve ever seen (alert: open at your own risk).
- Write more. You could write all you want and it will always be less. I dont know why I love to write. I dont really have anything great to give back in terms of what I write. My writing style is super simple. What I write is not deep. My grammar is anyway limited. So, why write? I dont know. But I have to. May be, do it for the sake of doing it. Its about time I start working on it. Today.
- Clean my tracks. I am not sure how to go about doing this but I mean when I am gone, I dont want someone else to sort through my books, my drawers, my almirahs, my phone, my email and other “my” things and go through the agony and pain. May be this is why minimalism is such a revered way of life!
A. I am little more on track – I still dont know what I want from life but I think I enjoy life on a day to day basis (including work, personal relationships, family etc). I have some savings. I have a vague plan. I have people who are helping me put those plan in motion. I have identified my purpose in life (which is to help others achieve their purpose – lol but I am serious). I have started taking some action. Brings me to the next point.
B. This time there is action. Unlike all my life where I have just planned, I am actually doing things. Rajesh is in a large part responsible for this. Agony aunt is for the other large part. sgMS remains a motivation. The point is, now there is action, I dont want to stop. I can not die without achieving what I am destined to. And if I do die before that, it would be a shame. On me and on Universe.
C. I believe I am more ready to give back. To impact. To pay it forward. Something that I have largely believed to be my life goal, my life purpose (read A as well). And now that I am so close to it, it would be a shame to go without doing it.
So yeah. This is it. Apologies for a not-so-happy post to start the day and the week. But its something that sooner we confront, better it is.
And in case you want to help me, point me to things that help me do A, B or C faster. Or better.
Thanks!
P.S.: I sincerely dont know if I am dying or if this is a mere hyperbole, I do believe that life is short.
P.P.S.: Why a blog? Because I dont know how else to confront it. I am too weak to talk about this seriously to someone I know. Does this tell me something about myself? May be.
P.P.P.S.: There are more times when I’ve thought of dying. While flying, while thinking about sgMS (I dont want to die ever when am with her). When Steve Jobs died. And lately I’ve been reading books by people who knew who were dying and they wrote memoirs – Paul Kalanithi, Randy Pausch, Eugene O Kelly. In fact last night I saw this video where it echoes my feelings about love. The point is, it is such a powerful thing that you realise the insignificance of it all. Everything that bothers you, has bothered you is of no freaking consequence!
The Aviation Abnormality
Funny thing happened. I must have taken some 300 200 flights in my life, including 11 in this year alone – thanks to my job as an event manager. And I have never been scared. Even when I took my first flight when I was at MDI.
But for some reason I was scared of this one (I am actually writing this while I am aboard 9W 304 and so far so good – not a single bump so far).
So, why am I scared of this one? You see, I am someone who believes in signs. And I believe in vibes. And feel. And for some reason, I have this really strong feeling that this one isn’t going to be the nicest of flights that I’ve been on. Don’t ask me why, don’t ask me how I know it. I just know. Of course I am often wrong and so far I’ve been proved wrong. Hope I continue to remain wronged till I land. And I post this. I did!
The sign actually came up the day before. There are times when I remember my dreams and day before I saw this weird dream where I was on top of an aircraft for some reason (top as in on the roof of an aircraft that was in the air and doing its thing of flying 30000 feet above the sea level). The aircraft I am on top of, suddenly takes a dip and it eventually crashes into the sea (yes a sea). And as it crashes, like it happens in the movies, I jump off it just at the right time to escape unhurt. I don’t recall the rest of the dream exactly but there was someone else who was on the roof of the aircraft and escaped with me. And I remember pinching myself to check if it were reality and it did feel like real. Damn the vivid dreams.
To cut the long narrative short, I escaped. And for the last 24 hours, I have had this lingering feeling that I am going to be in a place crash. And I was scared before I boarded this one. I am still on the aircraft and I am still writing and it still is pretty smooth so far. But before I boarded, I was scared. Scared out of my life. I actually thought about cancelling the flight – but I cant. I need to earn money to stay afloat. I am paying a lot of money to be able to attend a meeting that can potentially lead to work.
In fact I was so scared the whole day today that I had planned for my folks, my sis and sgMS after I am gone. Though sgMS doesn’t need me, I still ought to think about her. I even thought about the airline I was flying with – Jet Airways. I checked their safety record, thankfully I could not find any reports of a missing Jet Airways jet, unlike the Malaysia Airlines.
The flight is not over yet. I am not done yet. If anything were to happen to me, please see this link. The post has my last and final will that I wrote in all hosh-o-hawas. Mr. Gawri, please ensure that you execute it.
Update: As you would’ve guessed, I did land safely. And here is the post, almost unedited. Guess the dark cloud is over. And trust me guys, I am super serious on this one – while I know that commercial aviation remains the safest most of mass transit, I did feel weird getting into the aircraft. But as I did get in, the familiarity with so many previous flights took over and gave me this sense of comfort. And here I am!
And while we are on the subject, please do read this blogpost by my writing guru.
Life and Death
I woke up on Monday morning to the news of demise of Parag Parikh in a car crash, in Omaha. He had gone to attend the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder’s meet.
Although I did not know Parag but I knew of him. He was part of the small close-knit value investor community in India (spearheaded by Prof. Bakshi). And since I have been wanting to be a part of this community, I knew of most people in the group (some are friends that I often exchange email with). Of course I am not good enough to be a part and thus I just knew of Parag (and others).
And even though I did not know Parag, for some reason, his demise has moved me. Probably because he is was one of those few who were working on something that they loved!
In contrast are people like me. The ones who have a million dreams and aspirations and yet we dont move a muscle to get closer to those dreams. We don’t realize that the life as we know it could be over in a minute and all those dreams would be left to rot after we are gone. We continue to breathe and do non-useful things and occupy space and resources on Mother Earth and kill time. Waiting for that inevitable end.
What use is the life of mediocrity when the great ones are not allowed to live to their fullest potential? Remember Steve‘s words? If you don’t it, now would be a good time to revisit what he said. Here is a snippet.
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Via @adatar on twitter |
All I can say to Parag is thank you so much. You were an inspiration. I was envious of you. Always wanted to be a friend (there were so many stories about you from people I know who worked with you). I promise I will make my life count!
Also reminded me of something that I wrote way back in 2009. And for some reason that Earthquake in Nepal that brought the country to its knees did not affect me. Neither did any other accident or something. Although Parag’s accident is just a news for me, it moved me. So much that I am reevaluating a lot of things.
Rant. On Writing.
I have heard from a lot of people that writing is one of the most strenuous and lonely pursuits that us humans can undertake. Of course its not as extreme as tight rope walking or mountain climbing or cross country swimming but its a very taxing thing to do. I have been (posing as) one for some time now and I can totally vouch for the lonely and stressful bits.
And unlike mountain climbing or tight rope walking or tennis, the rewards of writing are rather scarce, to say the least. If you have conquered a high peak, you are at the top of the world, literally. If you have walked on a tight rope, you have conquered, not one but two of man’s greatest fears – height and nature (gravity, wind, nerves etc). If you have endured a long swimming route, you have pushed your physical limits and placed yourself in top 0.001 percentile of all humans to have walked on the Earth.
But writing, even if you manage to finish a short essay, what do you achieve? I dont understand at all why would someone want to write. Take me for example. Why do I write?
One may argue that once your have finished something, you get a shot at immortality. At least temporary immortality. This is true for all artists actually. If not for The Count of Monte Cristo and other such brilliant pieces of work, no one would have known Dumas. If not for Godfather amongst others, no one would have known Puzo. So on and so forth. So writing gives you an opportunity to create something that outlives you. And if you do it well, it can outlives your next few generations as well.
I, being a religious follower of the Society for Hedonist Indians, believe in instant gratification. And I know that things that give me fame, money, notoriety, etc after I am dead are of no use to me. So what could the pursuit of writing get me in this life time? From a few friends who have been able to do so, I think the right answer is audience. In this connected world, where every human has not just one mouth but multiple outlets and platforms (blogs, twitter, facebook etc) to rant about things, being a writer gives you access to certain audience. And that audience allows you to create something that may outlive you, even when you are alive.
There are no guarantees mind you that there would be audience, glory, riches or anything else. For every piece that gets successful, there must be 1000 others that rot in anonymity. But I think that shot at immortality is too tempting to let go. No?
RIP Steve Jobs
I woke to the news about Steve Jobs. My sis had left a message on my phone. With blurry eyes and hazy head, that only sleeplessness could do to you, I checked my iPad for news about Steve Jobs. Before anything else I wanted to verify and somewhere deep down I wanted to dismiss this as yet another hoax. And the first report that caught my eye was Bill Gates’ note about Steve. And this is when I realized that hes actually no more. Then I read more eulogies by Zukerberg, Obama, Larry, Sergey and everyone else.
Initially, my brain processed this as yet another news article. In my mind I automatically thought of all the things, both good and bad, that would be triggered by his death. And then all of a sudden, it struck like a bolt of lightening. Steve Jobs, the nearest thing to God, has died. With him died an extraordinary brain, probably one of its kind. With him died a visionary who could predict see the future and make it happen. With him died a willpower that could move the mountains. With him, died my hero.
No other man, single handedly, has inspired me as much as Steve Jobs has. I have enjoyed watching him present perform on the stage, have been inspired by lore about him, awed by his fervent attention to detail, humored by his candor in his interviews and speeches and most of all, inspired by his thoughts and opinion about computers, technology and impact these things could have on humankind.
I would sincerely miss him. I wish the company he created keeps his legacy alive and stays at the forefront of technology and continues impact lives of millions. I really really wanted him to live. Not just for me, but for all the other hopeless souls who found comfort in his mere existence.
For me, he epitomizes greatness and there is no one else that I want to be. I dont want to be the greatest, the richest, the best, the happiest or anything else-ist. I dont even want to be Saurabh Garg. I just want to be Steve Jobs.
But then, as he said in an address at Stanford, the new must replace the old, now that Steve has passed on the baton to us, we need to do things that would make him proud and smile on us from heavens above.
And in the end, thank you Steve. Thanks a lot for everything that you gave/taught the world.
The near near death experience
Note: This was originally written on 27th May. Never got around to finishing it. Forced finished it today.
Last night (on the night of 26th May), while driving home, I had a near near death experience.
A near death experience is when you are almost dead and you come back from the verge of that long white tunnel. Survivors (of the near death experience) often indicate that they saw a long white tunnel and a magnetic force pulling them towards the eye of the tunnel. They also describe in vivid details that their entire life flashes past by. Some people talk about how time slows down when you are so close to extinction.
I have got one word for all those people. Bullshit. Will go in the details later but right now, lemme describe briefly what actually happened. So I was on the elevated Barapulla road and I was doing about 80 kmph I think. Side note to Delhi Traffic Police. Please do not send me a ticket. So I was doing 80 on the road and was yelling out a song into the air. And was high – on music, freedom and the wind in my head. (Note: I dont booze). I took a turn and I see these two cars parked side by side on the road, leaving just one lane for other traffic. And they were not even 50 meters ahead of me. I had two options. Bang into one of them. Drive off the railing, about 30 feet down, in a drain. And since I hate getting my hands dirty, I decided that I would rather bang in them. But then, like all miracles, the ones that happened at the right time, one happened for me as well.
Somehow, to this date (almost a month since the incident), I dont know how my hands moved the steering about 900 degrees and my car wedged between the railing and the other car. I can bet my hair (or watever is left of it) that there was no space between the railing and the car and if I was in the situation again, I would not come out alive.
And no, this is not fiction. And please do NOT try this at home. Or School. Or roads.