Gift Economy on its way!

Scarcity is an illusion....and yet we feed it....



The time for gift economy is coming......and it is interesting how forgiving others at an individual level is the equivalent of forgiving debts at the social level :)

Have a look at this interesting attempt :D

On starting all over

As I restart blogging I am encountering a lot of resistance from within..... and that is what I am going to look at in this post....

- A part of me is comfortably seated in the identity of 'the guy who stopped blogging'.... with this post i break that identity, I move away.....so often its so difficult to move in a different direction 'coz its not just a shift in direction, its a shift in identity

- Then again of course there is inertia.... as there is momentum, there is inertia as well.....the need and tendency to stay in steady state.....so thats another battle altogether

- there are also lines in my mind about endings and beginings .... so as i start blogging i also end the phase where i did not blog...every end is a beginning and every beginning, an end... And transitions are often painful...

-Writing this also somewhere is a commitment to continuing it...so while i might be very driven to post now...there is a fear that this might once again turn into a cob website...

However for now I have overcome this resistance and take the plunge...

Splash!

The power of Now

I must confess that I am slowly coming out of a period of self absorbtion and inaction.

(I am going to talk about myself, though I am so tempted at this moment to use a general "we" in talking about what happened)

So I was not acting - completely caught up in my web of concepts. Plans after plans and even more plans.....beating myself in my head to death about why I am not getting started when people all around are moving already, to living a life of their dreams......

I felt miserable literally - without knowing the reason why......just out of concepts in my head.....plain old thought streams that go on and on about the future and the past

At the peak of my vulnerablity I decided to reach out....amongst others, I talked to Vinod......and what he said hit me.....maybe because it came from him or maybe that was what I wanted to hear.......

I realise that a big deal about doing what you want to do is being centered totally in the present. I have spent long hours worrying about how things will be (without even realising that its worry - more like planning and thinking through)

A lot of useless thinking got to me. Inaction - beating myself up for inaction - random emotions.....a blackhole as Rashmi calls it.......

There is no single solution - but present moment awareness is a BIGGIE........

I can go on thinking about this and that and all that will and could happen - but my real power is in the now.....

So I have decided a few things

I have decided to be totally mindful at whatever I am doing.

I have decided to stop conceptualizing needlessly about the future but start acting in the present moment.

I have decided to live with mindfulness - to see myself with detachment and see the discomfort.

I have decided to start contributing now.

So NOW it is for me.

Thats all I have

I cant sacrifice the NOW worrying or getting nostalgic......

Happiness depends on me....

Yeah that was the thought this morning started with...it started with a beautiful thought that compells me to share it.....

That happiness depends on me

its a fact that we know so well perhaps that we tend to forget it......

I decide when I want to be happy.....what set of rules do I make for myself to become happy......

the fact that happiness is nothing but a product of what the mind believes, focusses on and my physiology....

its a liberating thought

coz it makes me free to do a lot of things that i want to

that i can be happy or not irrespective of what is happening outside of me......my mind is the ultimate controller of my happiness

yeah mebbe its a thought so profound that i am not able to articulate it.....

lesse if i can do another attempt to it

Happiness depends on me....

Yeah that was the thought this morning started with...it started with a beautiful thought that compells me to share it.....

That happiness depends on me

its a fact that we know so well perhaps that we tend to forget it......

I decide when I want to be happy.....what set of rules do I make for myself to become happy......

the fact that happiness is nothing but a product of what the mind believes, focusses on and my physiology....

its a liberating thought

coz it makes me free to do a lot of things that i want to

that i can be happy or not irrespective of what is happening outside of me......my mind is the ultimate controller of my happiness

yeah mebbe its a thought so profound that i am not able to articulate it.....

lesse if i can do another attempt to it

The Buy Sell game

Each time you buy something, you sell something too. I buy a new shirt. I sell my money. Shopkeeper wants money more than shirt. I want shirt more than money. Exchange happens. Both of us are better off than before.

This transaction would be a wee bit unfair if either of us did not know what exactly we are giving......the challange of the other side of course is to underplay what it is getting and hype what it is giving....its a classic game of persuasion......its a game being played with you and me all the time....and even when the domain becomes intangibles, the buy-sell game continues....

Think about it - this post comes with its own agenda to pursuade....to put some of the views I acquired across to you.... if you buy into what I say you might change a few behaviours (which is what I might want you to do....) the game is on all the time......

So one of these many evenings when I was dwelling on the perrinieal question of how much money is enough money, I realised something.....

I realised that I was constantly transacting with popular culture.....and each time I bought into the culture, I had to pay....pay with my money and thus, my labour and freedom.....

I am happy with my 300 rupee jeans I bought at Indraprasth Shopping Center, Borivali Station (West). I see a hoarding...a sexy one... of levis jeans......I dont know what it is about but it is stark....stands out.....I see a few ads on TV......I see a few friends wearing Levis..... I finally decide to go and get my first pair of new and sexy, longer lasting and more comfortable Levis Jeans - 1600 bux.....the price increase somehow doesnt justify the increased utility phyiscally.... a lot of it has now become psychological.......

All this while levis has been pursuading me that its jeans is sexy....paying people to do that....paying channels to carry this message...paying MBAs to execute all of this........

The moment I buy into this idea, I have paid some money of my own.....and to pay money you need to have money....you need to earn it......

So I think back ..... the cost of buying in (not into a single brand of jeans but a whole pile of pop culture brands, ideas and products) is a lot of money that I will need.....and I will HAVE to earn that money......and to earn that money I will need a job that pays as much.....

So suddenly the focus shifts to finding a job that can pay my 'other party' - the ever growing so powerful popular culture.....and the cost of the buy in into that culture starts blurring other factors......and I try to pick a profession that gives me the huge ransom I need to pay popular culture to sustain it....to stay 'bought into' it......

(And in all probablity my job is in someway going to be to make someone else consume more.....PERSUADE someone else to buy into the popular culture.....force seemingly irrational collective agreements on whats 'cool' and whats 'hot')

Of course the excahnge is a valid one....just that the cause has shifted so distant from the effect taht I dont realise that the price of a shopping spree at Westside could be having to take up a certain job just because it pays more......

So I am not saying consumption is wrong.....nor am I saying that this culture is bad or anything....all I vouch for is a sense of awareness....an awareness that buying into popular culture has a price to pay......not directly translatable but the choice of having an I Pod or a Nariman Point flat is traded off ... .you buy it by giving away choices of free weekends or doing something you love.....

With that awareness is born a choice....a choice to not buy in for a change....as someone trying to take that choice I wanna share my experience briefly.....on one end it means that when your batch meets up and people are out with their 6600s, Blackberries and communicators, you need to confidently remove your 1100 knowing that it can make the same phone call.......it means that the label above your ass wont read "Scullers" and nor will your cuff have the arrow.....

And yet on the face of it, it may seem that, but at the back end you've saved up all that you'd have traded....... choices....... freedom to be.....to be satisfied with what you have (and still of course want more).......time......intangibles.........

Let that exchange be a concious one.....and if you can, once in a while walk up and face that culture. When it asks you to trade and you dont want to, just show it the middle finger and walk away. Its a hell of a lot of fun!

(cc) Abhishek Thakore

P.S : As an afterthought I want to touch on the popular culture at IIM B and how it makes you buy into ideas that some types of jobs are perfect for some type of people (sterotypes), some jobs are the best to have and some things are just not done........ going for an I banking job just becuase you have a high CG is like buying something just because you have the money to spend....... try not trade and see what happens....... i'll wait to hear your story.

The need for "rightness"

I think I am born into a world where there is very little space for the wrong.........and a world where rules are more important than reality....

I was watching Nach Baliye.......a couple that could have potentially won the show lost......too bad for them......and as you'd expect any winner to do, they were bravely smiling

I just fail to understand why do we have to mask our emotions.....they felt like losers and I'm sure they'd want to wail and scream and curse their luck and the judges and everything......but all they did was smile and say feel good stuff.................

WHY????

Coz there was really no space ..... no space for the wrong.......

Its crazy because so often we make the rule more important than the reality.....

A rule may be that I cant get attracted to any relative - its incest......the bad words I learnt as a youngster were all about incest - abuses on ma and behen......

And yet the reality may be that I feel very attracted to some relative.......and thats very wrong as per the social rule........

Of course the rule has been in existence for its own reasons but I think its high time we gave importance to the reality and not the rule....when will we have a miss universe who comes and proclaims "I care 2 hoots about those dying children and I dont wanna spend my year caring for them coz I dont feel so.....I love my beauty and I want to be rich famous and beautiful......" The last brutually honest miss universe probably existed before the competition ever commenced :)

In one on one interactions too, there is missing space.....the temptation to agree, to align is so much there.....tolerance for discord is very very low.....rule is you dont fight....reality is you want to.....the rule wins......

I live in a world where its not important what we as people feel - homosexuality....euthneisia.....incest.....drugs.....meaninglessness of religion....

what is more important is whats right and wrong.....

Its about the "Right" all the time......

Like this post may set you thinking is reality.......and yet the final victory shall belong to the rule - the rule that such things are best left stuffed in some corner of the brain......

A simple approach to bargaining

Negotiation and bargaining have always been topics of interest......communication.....influence.....persuasion.....all of that......

Learnt this interesting lesson from the most unexpected source.....

It was a jerky cycle ricshaw ride to the Taj from Agra Cantonment Station.....Om Sharma was peddling Abhishek Thakore......merrily chatting away....

Bargaining is very simple.....when you see anything, before entering into the shop or talking to the seller just make a mental note of how much is it worth to you.....

With your internal benchmark firmly said, it is impactful when you say it too (i discovered that in retrospect)

and then if the seller does not agree to the price, simply walk away....(coz u dont want it at a higher price)....

Extremely simple I'd say....having an internal benchmark also gives you a sense of detachment to the bargain....you can walk away whenever you want to......thats' the kewl thing :)

Interesting how a complex life can be broken down into pieces and be negotiated with just one compass....the compass of common sense :)))