Category: Reflections

There is this scene in Young Sheldon uses quote to shut down his psychology lecturer. or similar one of Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam which helps us to question the reality.

Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum. (I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.)

I liked it, and it’s quoted on this website’s front page.

The doubts/questions makes you think, and those thoughts proves that you exist. The questioning is the pro0f we have, and not the answer.

This morning I saw a post on IG (find it below).

The way I see it, as the head is being replaced, rest of the body intact, doing its functions. I believe, this is how humans are now, or might be in the future. I am not a pessimistic here. With the new models every week, the thinking (GPT), deciding layer (JEV) , and choosing (MUSE) layers are slowing getting replaced. I am not sure if the questions are decided by them, or no doubts arises in the first place.

Earlier, the internet took our answering part, meaning we are outsourcing the answers. We survived. Now, the agents take over the wondering apart. So, what is left of/for us?

The body maybe. We would still feel the hunger, tiredness, still needs to be touched by something that touches back. I am not quoting death (which is obvious, but keep Bryan Johnson in mind, we might extend it.)

We still perform. We have our opinions and ideas but curated by the agents. The screens are one way. It can’t embarrass you or disprove your theory or at least to serve you more of what you asked for. This friction is what makes us evolve or grow by the end of the day.

You don’t get changed by the things that agrees with you. We are touching the glass, hearing whatever, eyes on the feed. All are frictionless. That’s why stuck feeling prevails. The previous post argued about whether we can still differentiate an AI image from the real one.

This one points towards whether the doubt will arise in the first place to stop and do the check. It is whether doubt survives the next years.

If doesn’t then, I think, therefore AI?

Cheers

Check out the previous post: Does God exist?

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My mother and I used to argue over this one for ages. Neither of us haven’t agreed on each other nor drawn a convincing solution for both of us. Maybe most of the arguments weren’t really about God. They were mostly about the things that happens to us that we didn’t choose and can’t explain.

Randomness, God, Karma or whatever name that suits. Even call it a black swan (Taleb). This all points out to the same gap between the things in our control and the things that are not. The above words just fills the gap with whatever words makes us feel less exposed.

I have a few more thoughts on the previous post on What the brain shouts and what the gut whispers. My theory, half serious and half fun. Maybe God was invented to bring a discipline mechanism. More morals, ethics and humanity. Very useful, even it is not provable. Of course, being useful doesn’t prove. Maybe that’s why it stayed even now.

There are two possible things that humans co do with this gap

One, you become your own certainty. You trust yourself. You are the creator of your life, no one or even the universe is not going to rescue you, Your meaning, your outcome. Call it the atheist mode.

Two, you borrow certainty from somewhere else. You trust the nature or universe or god in any religion or in any form. You outsource the faith from something.

Most of us live somewhere between the two, trusting ourselves on some days and something bigger/uncertain on the other (hard) days. But either way, the belief becomes part of who we are.

At the both cases, you have to jump before you have proof. A leap of faith in one self or in something bigger/unknown. If you refuse both, you get paralysis and fall into the abyss. That is the consequence of not choosing at all.

One such powerful quote of Andy to red in The Shawshank Redemption

Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Maybe that’s the closest thing to a proof or conclusion to arrive at. Choosing hope. God may exist if you want God to exist. In whatever form you want it to take. Or at least, a belief of God works for you if you let it.

Cheers

Check out the previous post: When did being fit stop being enough?

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I came across this HYROX poop tweet recently.

An athlete lost control of her bowl during the race and continued, completed at the end. The body doing that wasn’t strange. Most of the athlete could relate to this induced GI distress/runner’s diarrhea. I too have experienced in the initial days of running (I am not a pro). It differs for people when they cross their threshold.

What bothered me was the finish line. At what point does finishing becomes something more important rather than the reason of beginning it?

HYROX is all about the fitness. You have to run, push, pull, carry, jump, lift and finish. There is this rank list, time and you can compare it with other people. This helps us to improve better, identify the weakness and issues. Yet, somewhere in the middle, improving fitness become proving fitness? Does it ? Maybe to others or to oneself? I still can’t comprehend what was in the athlete mind!

HYROX makes money through race entries, tickets, sponsorships, merchandise and its network of affiliated training gyms. Globally, the scale is huge and enormous. It had reported about 1.4 million participants in 2025-26. It is projected to generate around $270 million in revenue in 2026. It is recently acquired by an L Catterton-led consortium valued the company at roughly 600 million euros.

Maybe more of a business built around fitness behavior? An Identity that comes with a prize ? This can be motivating and there is something to prepare for.

But on the flip side, what happens when the body says No, because of an injury or something? Does the brain listen or will it be too narrowed to complete the finish line? This is where I am still trying to understand the brain behind it. The psychology behind it. What makes the finishing louder than body’s signal to stop?

All these begins with the focus/goal of having a healthier body. Maybe this is the paradox. I don’t think HYROX is wrong. But, I think the problem arises when the sentences changes from I want to see what my body is capable of to I need to prove what my body is capable of. The former is curiosity and the latter is a demand. I am not sure whether body does well with demands.

Recovery does matter. That’s the actual proof that you were listening to body whole time.

Your thoughts?

Cheers!

Check out the previous post: Can we tell whether is AI or not? & The Left Column

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With the era of AI and the Instagram trends rising every week, there are new videos, edits and photographs popping up. I am not very well educated about the editing apps and the AI. All I knew was this Midjourney?

I always had a notion that we (humans) would be able to predict or differentiate the AI slop from real photos and videos. Then there was this one incident where a set of images actually taken by humans looked like AI. I am not sure if they were edited that way. Felt like a setback.

Even the platforms are guessing I think. When you post a real image, Meta labels it as AI. I am not sure if I am understanding the backstage of it. Most of the time, we don’t zoom into picture. Just a scroll up. No skepticism in vacation photos, food or health related ones. We remember the one that catch our eye and miss the rest.

With all these feeds of AI slop across social media, will the brain still be able to identify and differ? With writing, it is easier to identify. Maybe once we get used to it, we will? Or will AI keeping pushing the boundaries?

Cheers

Check out the previous post: Can the algorithm really understand you? & The Left Column

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Few days ago, I was listening to a pod (Link) where Andrew Huberman shared quite a few to many interesting and practical frameworks that can be taken in one’s life. One of them looks simple yet it is hard to imbibe. It is about creating a list of the things you want to do or the pressing ones. This is not similar to four square Eisenhower matrix. No delegate it or do it.

The above one helps you manage your tasks. The stated one is more of psychological one, managing where the mind goes. Separate the list into two columns, left and right. The right column holds the things you have control over, or acted on or planned for. Meanwhile, the left column holds the things you don’t have control. You can control the effort, but not always the outcome. Same as many stoic philosopher spoke about and the idea I have being circling around last two weeks. (Check out the previous one on uncertainty, the untested ones and more)

Creating this list might sound east but the hard part comes when something shows up in a day. This where you have to rewire the brain to stop ruminating or looping. Saying it out loud helps too. I am still practicing it and bad at catching the loop in time. But it is good (Controlling what you don’t have a control over, lol).

Cheers

Check out the previous post: Can the algorithm really understand you?

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Can the algorithm really understand you? Or can you make the algorithm understand you ? The question arose after watching a pod. I am not sure whether both are feasible or solvable problems.

For the first one, it is more about the system. What it is capable of seeing. One of the easiest pattern to study/understand/know the algorithm is that it gives more of what you react to.

For the second, it is more of question about oneself. What you can push through. There are things you want and there are things you react to. The algorithm doesn’t have access to the things you want unless you search for them or liked them on the internet. Unstated desires are not captured by it. The former part is what the algorithm is optimized for.

Each reaction (like, scroll, pause, watching the whole reel, staying on that post) is an input/preference to the algorithm and the feed get optimized accordingly. The algo assumingly concludes that’s who you are and what your preferences are. Now, can we manipulate the algo? Is it easy to fight against n number of techy people who are constantly working to keep you hooked into this ?

Not impossible but it is the hardest thing to do. Controlling/regulation your own triggers in the moment. To put this in simple terms, become Zen. The easier move is to like what you want to focus on. For example, liking the content about what you want to learn. It’s searching more and pruning harder. Deliberately not as a reflex. Or opt for things that have no feedback loop like books or conversation with people in person. Nothing gets optimized when there is no feedback.

So, it is possible to make the algorithm understand you but only by translating a want into a like (a language it reads), which is the trigger it understands.

On the flip side, the same asymmetry follows. As a creator, it is really hard to predict what might trigger consumers to get the content moving. One might stop the scroll and another might not. The only strategy that survives this unpredictability is the volume (as Gary Vee or Alex Hormozi says) inside a niche. Sometimes you can get fooled by a randomness (in a good way).

As a consumer, you can force a signal but as a creator, you just have to create until something sticks, rather than trying to make an algorithm understand you.

The system is such that triggers are cheap to measure and the wants are not. Friction is a metric for whether you are inside the optimized system or not.

Cheers

Check out the previous post: On the Way Out!

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Am I being creative or if it is just finding an another outlet to let the thoughts and words to take a form. I am not quite certain on that yet. I have been writing on this platform for almost three years. Whatever was circling or ruminating, I put it here. I think I believed that was what expression meant. Thoughts, give it some form, pour it out and it is outside. Done!

Then, a few months ago, I started with oil pastels. Mostly mimics scenery, imitating the pictures that were already on the internet. Recently, I started drawing the thoughts themselves, as shapes and colors. TBH, this new form (Oil pastels) has taken up more space and time than writing. It does makes me wonder whether I see a difference between the two. I believe, there is.

Should we call this as venting or dumping? I am not sure whether it is right as well. Dumping is merely taking the looping thoughts in the same form and vomiting it in the same form. The loop survives it. But writing or expression, gets processed, takes a shape, gets edited and then leaves. Closer to an expression. There is clear distinction between dumping and expression.

When it comes to pastels and writing, writing goes deeper for me. Words are necessary to name things. You cannot write a feeling without identifying and deciding what that feeling is. Bu, pastels doesn’t ask anything. Those color and shapes can hold the thing which can not be named. No questions to answered.

So which is better medium? Is there a way to measure any of this? I do not think there are any scoreboard or metrics. It is subjective. But there is one rough metric, I circle back to. Does it feel better? Does it loosen the loop? This is the only measurement I have right now. The pastels give a shape to a feeling. The writing makes me go deeper. Maybe the question isn’t about the current form. It is about which channel to what form. It helps to decide whether to hold that thought or go deeper to understand it.

So, find a form, wander in it and see what it does to the thought/feeling on the way out.

Cheers!

Check out the previous post: What keeps you going & Motha Rathiri (2026)

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I am not sure if I can title this as a movie review, since I want to talk about the role played by Muthu. I am not sure if it was her acting skills, the role she played, or the plot that made me write this. I see this as a rural version of Malargal Kettean (a short film) with regard to the female lead. Maybe an extended version of it.

The core theme of imposing marriage onto individuals was clear. The movie brought out so many layers that play into an arranged marriage, or into marriage itself: the parents, relatives, caste, money, friends, and even one’s own ability to handle a relationship. Before proceeding to Muthu, the director (Nitiz) himself played an amazing role. Not every man has the guts to say no based on his ability to handle a relationship. He was honest rather than wasting Muthu’s life, late though! In reality, many don’t do that. “No” is the best thing.

Back to Muthu. Very fine details of Muthu’s character were established in the beginning. She had very few dialogues, but the emotions were conveyed. Most daughters are trained right from birth to take care of themselves and the family from household chores to earning an income for themselves (a recent update). I felt Muthu was looking for a rescue through Nitiz, a way to escape her home. To her surprise, that failed too. I am not sure if Maruthu was also her rescue option; even so, she doesn’t have a choice to pick. No cards to play at her end. Or his words (Assurance) made her stay.

Maruthu did have an event that brought out the changes in him and in his feelings towards Muthu. The most subtle thing the movie focused on was the space Maruthu gave Muthu to think, rather than rushing her decision. There was no pressure to rush. The dance on the stage and the screaming in front of them were beautifully portrayed, for when her words couldn’t be communicated. Maruthu had the choice to move out of town to grieve, while Muthu doesn’t. Maybe that stresses the role of Maruthu in Muthu’s life. Reassurance or accountability or maybe both. All she wanted to was to have someone listen to her.

People were comparing this to Dude. In that, Paari was confident about Kural. Such comparisons can’t be made when the access and the choices are different.

The reason for the marriage was reasonable. That reminded me of the movie Care of Kadhal. The roles played by the others (each one took their space to be remembered) were also good, the team of men and the team of women separately. Their conversations were entirely different from each other. The humour worked in most places. The movie subtly pushed you to think in a few places: the training for a long jump, the touch on the bike, the frequent calls from the partner.

Fun to watch. Will stir an impact? Not sure. Maybe If Muthu had a few more dialogues to go with those emotions. Yet, Highly recommended.!!!

Cheers!

Check out the previous post: Story Time #02: Salt Biscuits! & Other Movie Reviews

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Every process or goal requires pain, discipline, consistency, courage and innate ability to handle the uncertainty of the outcome. Most of the people do the process for the end goal, such as reward or profit or prize or medal or more. For a few, the journey might be enough and for other, a witness is enough to run the journey.

It is not fair to rank which is better. But each one has a failure mode too. Reward people collapse when they lose. Witness people go hollow when the room is empty (including the inner self). Journey people never finish (finish line never appears). Nothing is better or worse here!

But how does one identify that? By the starting something, finishing and identifying the outcome (to know the shape of what’s missing at the end). You will realize which one is your need or want.

Some goals are short and a few cost years. Obviously, the activities, goals and outcome are subjective.

Start is hard, finish is also hard, identifying what is working for you is even harder!

Cheers!

Check out the previous post: Untested are not the Same as the Safe

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The brain is a complex system, yet too protective of us. Basically, it has been trained for years to filter out the unnecessary ones and feed us only the important things. I have read and written about the RAS how our brain picks up on what we give attention to. While I was reading this book called Fooled by Randomness (I had wanted to read this author’s work for a long time), the concept of the narrative fallacy came into the picture.

Everyone might know the act, but not the label. I am still in debate over whether labelling is necessary for everything. But the label helps us identify the things we were doing instinctively, and brings awareness. The brain, in order to protect us from bad outcomes, creates a false story around it. Let’s say something good happens. We might assume that good things will happen forever, without considering the uncertainty or the unhappened data points which could affect the entire graph. The outcome could be positive or negative. It filters out the rest and gives us only one version, as if that were the complete picture.

For eg. I am healthy, so I don’t need insurance is a narrative fallacy too. Forty years of not falling ill feels like evidence to oneself. But it is only evidence of the years that have already passed. The rare event gives us no warning.

I am still not sure about manifestation, but neuroplasticity, rewiring and doing the hard things can change the system. Focusing on the good things, or being slightly optimistic, would help us. In the end, exploring all the worst-case scenarios helps us forecast how much of the uncertainty can be absorbed. So, as Taleb says, be pessimistic in absorbing the risk and optimistic in the rest of life.

Take the example quoted in the book, that of John and Nero. Nero had the capacity to bear the risk, and John didn’t. But the beauty is that there are n number of Johns who are not affected by the randomness.

We can call it karma, the butterfly effect, nature or even God, the rare event and its occurrence are unpredictable. And this is where the narrative fallacy comes into the picture, where we create stories and narratives to stay inside.

It all takes a bit of awareness to absorb or handle the randomness. Otherwise, it is likely to be a disaster.

Cheers

PS: You never know!

Check out the previous post: On Purposes and Desires & DC Movie Review

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I think I have written something on desires previously, but I don’t remember on which post I have associated with. These thoughts are on loop for the past few weeks. Such are the purpose or desires, or what it is that is pulling you, or keep calling you, how do you take your life in the next five years? I am not sure, whether I have found the answers to the above.

I think I’ve been evolving with these questions on. The answers that I have been arriving was not same across. Last month was too different from yesterday and from today. I don’t know whether I think the same tomorrow with the inputs that I collect. I have been giving attention to each and every detail regarding the purpose and destiny, or what is your karma? Or will whatever you want to call it, or even you can call it as passionate if you want.

I would say, maybe I have identified how to find your purpose, or to know, or to identify. I am not sure whether I have identified my purpose yet, but I think I found the path to which it can be obtained. The purpose can be anything that you desire to do with a strong burning sensation of doing it for a longer time, without getting bored.

The major differences between the them is to identify whether it is fleeting or deep one. And some of the desires fade away. Right after you chase it, or you get it, or the satisfaction level does not give you much happiness, and there is no much exploration, or there is no wanting of more.

This I found out while I was running for marathon last week. I did like the process of running, but I didn’t like the heart of getting a medal, and that part wasn’t exciting enough. I enjoyed the most in the marathon was like, I made a conservation with stranger. we helped each other. I think that was more, the process which I like, than the process of telling myself that I ran at this space and got this medal. Maybe that helped me find out like the medals where the fleeting desire and the deep desire was the process that I liked the most.

Maybe I should run another marathon with her. I could do a 10K. The running didn’t stop in me, I think it is the same that I had with the writing. Maybe it is around four years, though the audience are very limited, I don’t think that I have stopped myself from writing. That is what I could say as of now.

And coming back to the purpose question, I think it is more of finding out, what is yours? Through exploration and through trial and error. The process helps you to identify, what are the things which you do not like? No’s are easier to find. For some people, some things like a found at a very young age and for some people, it appears late. And that burning desire, I feel like it will never stop, I don’t think so. I think you just have to listen to yourself little more to find out, what is that burning desire that you have and keep working towards it?

And one more interesting quote that I saw while I was watching a YT today. He said it was about a Sanskrit quote, which said that what you become on following that burning desire is is your destiny. I would say, it did help me to a greater extent on identifying how the deep desires lead you to more branches, rather than fleeting. A deep desire is one that survives the absence of reward. No medal, no audience, still doing it.

Yet, I do not know whether these running and writing are my destiny, but I think I will keep exploring more options. These will keep pushing me to become what I am becoming today and tomorrow. Hope this helps you to identify your deep burning desires.

Cheers

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I think I asked a different, possibly irrelevant question last time (The real metamorphosis). Could be time relevant. The question now has been re-directed towards something else this time.

In the last post, I got stuck on usefulness and and which kind I meant. Whether it was something I made for myself or just the price of being kept. I left it open ended because I could not close it. Nor I found the answer. But the book does not end nor focus on usefulness. It ends on liberation.

Gregor dies. The next morning the family does not fall apart nor grieve much. They take the day off. They write letters to their employers. They ride out to the countryside and there is warm sunshine. Somewhere on that ride the parents notices their daughter has grown into a young woman. That is the last page of the book.

Kafka does not punish them for not grieving nor rants about their behavior. He just lets it be true. Last time I read this book from Gregor’s room. This time, I am inside the Grete’s mind.

She is the one who feeds him and tried different foods. She cleans and even tried to looking at him, whatever his body had become. Yet, she is also the one who finally calls him “it“, and says they have to get rid of it. But at the end of the book, her young body stretching is the final piece of words. Young, livelier and ready for a life. The one who cared the most is the one who looks the most free. Liberation over grief!

So maybe usefulness was not the question then. Was it death? I don’t mean death as an ending. But death shows you which kind of love you were living inside. The kind that survives the person, or the kind that was only there because something was needed/meant useful.

So, does death mean liberation? Liberation for whom? To Gregor or Grete?

This liberation didn’t sound like betrayal in the book. Not from Grete’s POV. It is what is happens once the caring stops from being required or even forced upon.

Here is the part I keep getting confused or was wrong about earlier. I used to think relief comes first followed by grief once the shock settles. But, it does not come like that in all scenarios. It is more of subjective to the individuals on which comes first or the second. For Grete, grief followed by relief.

Maybe the ending was never closing Gregor’s story. It was opening theirs or even Grete’s. The tram ride is the honest scene in the whole book, because it is the first time nothing has to be performed for him.

This is what death actually does to everyone when it is allowed to. It does not just remove a person. It removes the performance that grew around keeping them. One more thing is that, Gregor’s last thoughts were about his family. He thinks of them with love. He decides that he should disappear.

So the book does have that kind of love in it. The kind that does not need usefulness to keep going. Maybe this is the answer to my previous post.

I am not sure about it either.

Cheers

PS: Every re-read gives a different perspective.

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There is always saying that “Prevention is better than cure”. I believe this most of the time.

But, the uncertainty always exists. Uncertainty doesn’t ask us permission anytime. It hit us at its own time, place, intensity. We never know.

All do we do have is a playbook or mental models we have built over time with the experiences. But these doesn’t help during the uncertainty. But they definitely helps us in deciding what happens after.

Take Noah (my fav name) for an example. He works out well. Watches his diet (carbs, proteins, fats). The micronutrients or fiber are not missed out. Does this mean this person won’t fall sick? No. He might or might not.

But if he falls sick, he comes back faster. That’s the difference. The recovery matter more than ever.

The more Noah walks this health path, more the realization. It’s not about how many days he stayed well. It’s about how many days it took him to recover/ come back to the self.

Maybe, prevention was never about avoiding the fall. Maybe it was always about the comeback. How fast is yours?

Cheers!

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A few years ago, FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) was everywhere on LinkedIn and IG. Every fin-influencer would talk about it. I don’t know if it still the norm. But the underlying question is very simple. How much of your life do you actually need to fund vs how much have you decided to fund by default?

Money psychology isn’t universal. It’s shaped by how and what we have lived through through our childhood. Mostly through scarcity, excess, a parent’s anxiety, a childhood that taught you either to save or to spend. So when I read a post like the one going around in the X. A man in Gurgaon, ₹26L a year, ₹15,000 left at the end of the month. My first instinct isn’t to judge the number rather than on the behavior. I don’t know. I am heavily influenced by Morgan Housel on this one. Few things to stress on.

Lifestyle has to be a conversation: Every couple has a spendthrift and a saver in some proportion. TBH, gifted if you could get one in your desired way. But, neither is wrong by default. But if that was never discussed and if one partner is optimizing and the other is drifting, then it will be a total chaos. the math would eventually break and the math game would turn into blame game.

Maximizers vs. satisficers: A distinction I keep coming back to link to my old post. One always wants the best available option and the other wants an option that’s good enough and moves on. It is quite important and maybe worth spending time on identify the areas of maximum and minimum.

Morgan’s line: No matter what you earn, maintaining the lifestyle is what costs you. Income solves today’s number/problems and creates tomorrow’s ceiling. The ₹26L earner isn’t broke because he earns too little. Maybe among the top 5% earners in Indian population? He’s stretched because rent, a car EMI, and ₹50,000/month for one child were never weighed against what the household could actually absorb/handle.

Some of those could be reduced. A family of three has room to renegotiate rent, groceries, even school costs and toys. None of it is fixed the way it’s posted across.

And if the answer is my wife should also earn. It is fair enough in this economy and with rate of inflation, but that has to be a conversation. Women re-entering workforce after a maternity gap is not that easy. The hurdles between the kid, job, household has to be managed. Very few get the resources and the additional support.

None of this erases uncertainty or unforecasted events. Health issues, jobs disappear, rent rises. But blaming a partner (irrespective of the gender) for the shortfall rarely fixes the shortfall.

Cutting expenses does. Saving as a habit does. Constant lifestyle does.

Cheers!

PS: Haven’t installed IG yet

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