Casteism of the Elite

During a recent Fox News interview, U.S. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley stated that “America has never been a racist country”.

Everyone knows that she meant it as a joke (she did not). Is America not a racist country? It is. It has been forever, at least for the past 400 years. Subdued slavery still persists in the U.S. in terms of colour discrimination. If anyone says that America has “never” been a racist country, it is their illusion, rather than a practical reality.

Now let us forget America (for a moment only!).

I am an active member of several WhatsApp groups. Without giving any hint, I recently took exception towards an Islamophobic rant forwarded by someone I know well who is also an esteemed member of a group that I am associated with. I basically said it is an insulting forward (also meant it was unnecessary and unwarranted). To the credit of the individual concerned, he acknowledged (not apologised) immediately, agreeing basically with what I said.

But certain others in the group disagreed with me, essentially endorsing the insulting message forwarded. I could not just believe that some of the esteemed colleagues did not appear anymore to be secular or liberal when it comes to sensitive topics such as religion. The same group also forwards messages favouring other religions in a pious manner (!).

I then realised that the world is not what it was even a couple of decades ago. The same people that I knew then are different in their world and religious views today.

Not surprising however. Religious matters have a way of inflaming views of even elites, forget the common people. It aggravates sensitivities like no other topic.

Another WhatsApp group (of which I am an esteemed member as well) does not think twice before forwarding right wing views on the criticality of favouring Hinduism at all times.

What about Casteism in our backyard? It be damned. I know well that non-secular folks with anti-other-religious views also (mostly) took a positive view on the necessity of the Caste system in Indian society. It is all-pervasive – there was even litigation by U.S. government against a leading tech company in the Silicon Valley because few of its upper caste Indian managers actively discriminated against the lower caste employees, also from India.

Sometimes even secular people take a disdain towards ilk belonging to lower castes.

The message that is ALWAYS forgotten by all these folks is the essential nature of humanity which is not dependent on any religion or religious practices.

What is this “essential nature”?

It is the ability to treat every human the same in every pursuit of life. Our life, I mean. Did I ever see a difference between two employees belonging to two different castes or religions? No, I did not. Did I reschedule a meeting because its timing interfered with religious practices of ANY religion? No, again. Customers are not going to wait for employees of a vendor to complete his or her rituals. Religion should be kept outside of the purview of our business obligations and could never become a determinant of what a business does.

It helps that I do not follow any religious practices or rituals of my own religion. I have a sort of a “distant” relationship. I do have a relationship with my spiritual journey however. Those are different pursuits.

I have to conclude with the assertion that I am shocked with the lack of tolerance of people who I know well. The societal divisions are hardening and that is not good news for building harmony in life. Close friends could end up bickering, and might even become non-friends. Unpalatable views can be formed about companies (see what is happening to McDonalds and Starbucks to name a few for their close support of Israel). Discrimination could become active policy (it always was unstated or understated till now) in employment and promotions. Lack of respect towards people following a different religious faith could become institutionalised. Caste system could increasingly find its way into the court systems like it is already doing in the U.S.

So on and so forth.

Is that a good thing? No not at all. See what racism has done to the U.S. society.

Well, I cannot change anyone’s personal views or opinions or sensitivity. I could just try to become better. That’s all I can do.

Have a good week ahead, folks,

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

21st January 2024

How and Where you truly belong

Herd mentality is a rather common feature that we can observe in humans. You usually flock around people who are from your own nationality, language, ethnicity, caste, creed or colour, in a natural manner.

There are many reasons why such herd mentality is prevalent amongst us. There is some commonality of views, culture, practices, rituals, etc., There is probably a sense of belonging. But there is also a mostly false sense of security or support from others who look like you. Such is not the case obviously.

This blog post is not about such commonalities or differences between people of various kinds.

When we try to ally ourselves with other people because they are similar to us in a social sense, that may not be a wrong approach. Especially in new places to which we have migrated. As those are the people who would normally help us out in settling down.

But then, there is the danger of “too much alignment” to the detriment of exclusion from other communities who are not similar to you. I have seen this happening even in a cosmopolitan city such as Mumbai (Bombay) which is not conservative at all compared to most other cities in India (such as Chennai). It is very important to stretch out your hands towards people who are dissimilar, such as the real locals who do not speak your language. That way you build new bridges, new and interesting relationships, and friendships you could potentially leverage upon forever. Even today (after I left Mumbai some 11 years ago), there are only couple of dear friends that I call upon to have a coffee meeting – one is a Marathi, and the other is a Gujarati, and both of them have no pretensions of their ethnicities or languages. They remain as true friends who would help me under any circumstances. But these friends are also very different from me (I am a Tamil from South India) in their thinking and behaviour, and I learnt a lot from them during my association with them and their families.

I could have easily kept mingling with the other Tamil-speaking folks or with the people I already knew, but I deliberately did not. I never spoke in Tamil even when I was in the midst of a largely Tamil crowd, because I knew there were others who would be missed out.

When it came to business situations in Singapore, I tried to mix with non-Indians to learn how they think and behave, and how they choose to operate. The rationale was quite simple, 93% of the population was non-Indian. When I went down from the office tower for a coffee or a smoke (I never smoked, but others did), it was almost always a learning experience lasting some 30 minutes or so. By always mixing with Indians (from India), I thought that I would learn not as much, because I detected the herd mentality amongst them, and a similar line of thinking and reasoning. Of course, there were always exceptions, and there were Indians who were outstanding and anti-conservative in their business thinking, and I chose to make friends with them separately.

When you surround yourself with people who are mostly different from you, then you are building an “abode ” of contrarian views and thoughts, different from your own. Is that now a good thing? It is, but mostly underestimated. The alignment with similarity is overrated, not just for its de-innovation, but also for its false sense of security. It has not been uncommon to see that a friend of your own ilk does not think twice before stepping over you in pursuit of higher office, or nicely stabbing you unnecessarily. While I am not claiming others won’t do it in the same manner, your ability to think differently positions you better in anticipation of the chess moves in business career.

When people (whether in Mumbai or Singapore) see that you are truly “open ” for a networking association leveraged on a true friendship or partnership, they start to treat you differently, and not as part of a South Indian or just an Indian clique. Let me tell you, keeping a broadly open mind is quite difficult, especially if you come from a conservative upbringing hobbled by behavioural customs and practices coupled with an uncompromising attitude. Fortunately, I shed all my pretenses a long time ago, and refused to be allied with any religious or caste-oriented clique. That has helped me not just in building all kinds of relationships, but also in developing better as a human being without baggage of any kind.

If I am comfortable today in any kind of setting with a variety of people, I cannot just dismiss that capability as part of my ” natural ” evolution. I worked hard on it over the past four decades in a deliberate manner. One has got to invest in something seriously before that something will work for him or her, right?

This does not mean I do not have my own personal views on different kinds of people, different nationalities for example. Some of those views are not shareable (!). But mostly, people have been positive when I have made an outreach to them in a good manner, they do not have reason to decline such attempts.

Think about this topic, and you will find good examples from your own life……..it is nothing outstanding, just good common sense to build and sustain bridges of the uncommon kind.

Have a good weekend,

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

24th June 2023

The G15 Convivial Talks

You can say that I am down in the trenches when I can’t easily find a topic to write about. Or, have I written about all of the topics that I can possibly think of?

Again today is a beautiful, less cloudy Saturday here in Singapore, though the temperature is not helping combined with humidity. I refuse to switch on the air-conditioning given my “dedication”to climate change activism (!!!). In fact, I ran the ceiling fan for some 30 minutes and switched it off, so I am sweating now.

I can see that the kayaking activity is in full steam on the lake (as I had mentioned before, it is not really a lake, it is basically a water reservoir). I am reminded of the Kerala festival when they have those long kayaks with some 20 people all singing………I am not sure these folks here are singing though. Sometimes we have boat races, and it is nice to watch the very young teenagers trying to out beat each other. There seems to be many activities coming online in the water as we head deep into summer.

The G15 that I referred to in the title of this post is not the global meet like the G20 happening in India during this year. When some of us formed this group of friends (completely outside our business contacts) in 1995, we were only G12 (meaning 12 members and their families). Over the years the group has expanded and then shrunk. Now I think it is at the G7/G8 level, meaning the others have gone away from Singapore.

The G15 was formed as a group of people who came to know of each other and connected using various means. We all had similar social backgrounds. For me, it was one of the key mechanism to mingle together and have a no holds barred kind of talk on any matter under the sun. I was also member of other groups, most of them have now gone away.

The ladies would have their own intense talks going on, and the guys would likewise be engaged in heavy socio-political-economic-financial talks. Sometimes, we all mingle together, especially while playing word games. We used to meet at least once a month, and we also travelled together to overseas destinations like Australia in those early days.

I was always known to take a contrarian view on any topic being discussed around the coffee table. That was a deliberate strategy to bring out debating points, not really my actual belief or conviction. Sometimes people would be surprised, and even shocked at my counter arguments. Some of them thought that I was way too much of a social iconoclast, as an example.

I really enjoyed our discussions over the years, typically lasting for at least 2 to 3 hours over a Saturday evening, ending with a potluck dinner at some member’s home. It gave me a big release from my corporate business tensions. While I would have liked to keep my business pursuits outside of this group’s deliberations, I also knew that I could get some unsolicited advice on my next corporate whereabouts (where I was headed next). Given the conservative nature of the group, my revelations about what I intended doing next in my corporate life was always very interesting to the rest of the team leading to even more talk on the suitability or otherwise of my plan.

The most critical aspect of those deliberations was the mutual trust factor. It also helped that none of us were in overlapping business fields – one was in a bank, another one was in insurance, couple of them were in real manufacturing, another person was in a power utility, and so on……..so it was a good neutral testing ground for me and my radical thoughts.

A friendly yet challenging atmosphere is essential to develop oneself further from where we are, and the G15 provided me that kind of platform. I should say almost all of them (except me of course) were religious and mostly conformists to the social mores of the society – all of them being from India. Both Singapore and (South) India are similar (or were similar) in their conservative approaches to life in general. Coming from the Karl Marx kind of thinking from my very young days, I was not susceptible to religious or political persuasions, let alone yielding to societal pressures to conform.

However, back at the corporate life, I used to be one of the best conformists to corporate behaviours. It was a dichotomy I struggled with all through my corporate existence. It was thankfully not damaging to my psyche as such. I somehow managed to keep the two profiles independent and separate! My corporate friends were totally unaware, of course.

Am I like that even now? You bet. I am still the same person, no change in my two profiles which I manage depending upon the circumstances and the need. The requirement for the corporate profile is way down now, so I do not cloak in it often. It frees up my persona to relish in the cloak in which it loves to operate.

All of us need an escape valve from the pressures of life and society. For me it was G15 and couple of other groups (though not as tolerant as the G15). We all want to change the world with our radical thoughts and desires. But have you ever wondered why nothing changes at all? In any society, things only change when it explicitly benefits a rather specific group of people (I think this is a good topic for a separate blog post, I guess!).

So at the end of the day, things haven’t changed, you are where you are, others are mostly where they were earlier, and the world moves on. In this kind of a world, it is always exhilarating to meet up with a group which has almost survived for nearly 3 decades, where there exists a comfort to not only meet up but to bring up any kind of topic for a whole-hearted discussion, and then break up into heavy laughter at somebody’s joke or even predicament. At the end of every such meeting, I always leave with the feeling that it should have lasted somewhat longer.

Great, isn’t it? We all get the same kind of feeling and emotion when we catch up with our old classmates from yesteryears who are spread all over the world. Every such opportunity is a golden occasion.

Have a great weekend,

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

April Fools’ Day, 2023

Perfectionist

When I was young, I tried to be a “perfectionist” of sorts – a guy who would do the right things only in the most right way possible, and refusing to do otherwise under whatever be the circumstances or demands. Trying to set standards for others to emulate, though that may not be the objective.

It did not take me long (some 10 years!!!) before I realised that life cannot be executed in that manner.

Why you may ask………you may also be a perfectionist of sorts who would disagree with the notion that people cannot be always perfect and it would be foolish to try to be so.

There are several aspects of life experiences that only you can discover as you navigate your life. In your own “perfect” or “ordinary” way.

I discovered a few. One was that it becomes almost impossible to be honest with a perfectionist, for fear of getting beaten up (not literally) conceptually and morally. When you are trying to be honest, it almost always is about something or some matter on which you have erred, it is clearly a mistake, and you want to own it up. To a perfectionist, that is an admission of fallibility. He or she would not accept you in his/her circle, because the conclusion is that you are not one who could even think of being a perfectionist. You are an “ordinary” mortal, so to say.

Can you then be honest with a perfectionist? The short answer is no. It would not help your cause in any way.

When I arrived at the conclusion that being a perfectionist is a constant exercise in futility with no clear or even apparent benefits, it was difficult to change my perception of the surrounding world. But I changed.

I realised that the beauty of human beings lies in the small mistakes they keep making right through their lives. Humans are designed to come up with random thought processes which lead them to commit mistakes. Many a time, the mistakes are the result of emotions or emotional distress. But mistakes are mistakes, there is no two way about it.

We all know that it is excruciating to recover from bad mistakes. But even an attempt to realise our mistakes and try to recover from the impact of the same is to be commended. The critical outcome of that exercise is the learning which accompanies it. You “learn” from your mistakes, and convince yourself not to repeat the “same” mistake again.

Mistakes is what makes us human. Mistakes are often the result of a surge of feelings or emotions, or misunderstandings, and it is not uncommon to have those feelings or emotions. You can try to control these feelings, but you may not be strong enough to deal with them. As you progress through life, you learn more and more on how to deal with your feelings and emotions, and how to control them for productive purposes.

For a perfectionist, mistakes are entirely avoidable. He or she would have studied all the causes of mistakes and decided beforehand how to address the same. Each and every action will be taken in a perfect way so as not to commit mistakes.

Such an intense focus leads to instability and non-acceptance of other “ordinary” folks. The perfectionist then becomes an “isolationist”, alienated from friends and the larger society of which he or she is a part of. That would be a unhealthy development.

You do not want your friends and relatives to move away from you because of your tendency to always do things in the most perfect manner, not accepting any deviations, and insisting on behavioural compliance from others. People get upset and would slowly disengage from you. It would be counter-productive for meeting your life’s goals as you always require a social network to progress. There are very few who can excel on their own in the most perfect way. May be you are an inventor of inventions which nobody has thought of, and so you could afford to repeat your experiments without consulting anyone at all ad nauseum, till you get the desired result in the most desired way. Others are not so lucky!

As I learnt my way through my life experiences, the most crucial discovery was the necessity to abandon the principle of perfectionism. Staying smart and focused are important always, but trying to be perfect and cunningly clever all the time may not help you. You need others and you need to listen to others. Pushing your perfect way through the social ecosystem may result in mayhem.

And, is it necessary to be perfect to achieve your goals?

Not necessary.

You can achieve your life’s goals in the most comfortable way by focus, determination, and a positive attitude of conciliatory adjustments. Everyone want to help such a person, don’t you agree?

Does anyone wants to help a perfectionist?

I doubt.

Have a great weekend, folks,

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

18th March 2023

Stress Regulators

You guessed it, right?

We all need what I call as “stress regulators” in our lives. There is just too much stress all around, most of them unnecessary and some of them self-inflicted. And, we all know stress – especially of the mental and emotional variety – causes physical stress and leads to avoidable lifecycle diseases. It is very easy to write this (I am not using ChatGPT!), but very hard to practice a stress-free life in our daily existence. Am I saying something new? Absolutely not, you have read something like this hundreds of times.

But, what can regulate stress?

You also might have read that you can potentially avoid stress via meditation, physical exercises, daily walk for some 10,000 steps (!), controlled diet taken at the same time every day, avoidance of smoking and alcohol, et al. Again, nothing new in this list either.

Apart from the above things (which are of course important to follow), I believe that the one thing that can manage stress successfully is fostering relationships with a wide variety of people. Not necessarily in business circles (because they all tend to think the same way), but other social circles. For example, it could be participation in your condominium’s management committee wherein you can meet new people that you have hardly met in your own condominium environment! It could be social service, like working in soup kitchens and manning suicide hotline. In our usual livelihood, we do not think about these opportunities which are always present in our own society where we live, because we are blinded by the pursuit of material happiness and wealth.

Nothing wrong with that pursuit, but it has been proved millions of times that such pursuit leads to inevitable stress, which is what we are trying to avoid in the first place! Is it not? Think about it seriously. At some point in time during our life, we must stop pursuit of material happiness. I am not saying we must pursue spiritual or religious happiness. I am just saying that we must avoid totally avoidable stress and indulge ourselves in other stress-free, fulfilling activities.

Emotional and mental stress wreak havoc during all of our adult lives, but especially during our retired lives (we never retire, do we?). This means that all our lives we are plagued by some kind of stress. There is always expenses to worry about, children’s success to keep us awake at night, corporate and business pressures to think about, the next promotion, the next car, the next independent house, and so on – this list never ends, and before it ends, our life would anyway have run its course. Why not then worry about the afterlife as well?

We cannot stop killings and violence in this world. Unnecessary conflicts are taking away lives of people and children from this world. There are homeless people everywhere. There are people who do not have access to their next meal. There is no government in this world which has a plan to address societal inequality, what the French call as “the periphery”, the marginalized sections of society. Is there a parallel between the gilded carriages of monarch and princes in serials such as “The Empress”, and the private jets landing in Davos for a generally useless conference every January? Of course, there is, and a grouping of powerful elites distanced from the proletariat is not going to understand the daily travails of the poorest of the poor.

If you could change your thinking along these lines, you would see that you are getting energized. Not for a revolution, but for a fresh approach to how you manage your own stress. Have you not been selfish? Think Somalia and what is happening there due to a series of droughts again over the past couple of years. You need nothing more to bring yourself down to earth and forget your “selfish” self forever.

Relationships are key in understanding the societal shifts, while at the same time distancing yourself away from your own stress factors. Relationships are stress regulators for your life. I cannot overemphasize the critical nature of relationships in managing your stress. It is true that most folks are reticent about sharing their problems with strangers, but I think it is the best approach as there is absolute lack of motives on either side.

Sorry folks, I kind of wandered around in my thoughts while writing this post, as my mind went in a few different directions. But I hope you get the point. Avoid the stress in life by building relationships which would increase the creation of what I call as “social neurons” in your brain. You can then build an active brain similar to that of a young person, and avoid stress to the maximum extent possible.

Have a good weekend folks,

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

21st January 2023

Nobody knows anyone

Today is 1st January 2023, the beginning of yet another year. Hopefully (!) it will be a better year than what just finished off last night.

I was debating this morning on what to write (ChatGPT did not work out as I mentioned in my blog post of yesterday – no point in trying again as it refused to search the web on the topic that I wanted it to write about). I decided against writing on something that almost everybody knows (at least in my erudite! circle), and settled on discovering some of my writing skills on a rather inscrutable topic. Which is what I have chosen.

Does anyone of us truly and really know someone else that we claim to know? Like for instance, do I really know my closest friend – what are his problems or the challenges he might be facing in his life which he might have shielded from everybody else?

No, I don’t. And you don’t.

You would never know or understand what someone is going through. It may be the worst possible thing that you could imagine, but you would never know.

What is the reason?

Almost always we try to hide our innate problems from even the closest relatives or friends. We do not share, and we do not wish to share. Our fear is that our true status and situation would be revealed, it would be out in the open, and we might be subjected to derision. What we probably miss out is the potential learning we can secure from our closest associates, as no one is immune from similar problems – almost everyone (including Elon Musk) faces intractable challenges. So, what is new with us? Why should we not share our issues with someone very close to us and who does not have any motive?

I think we should. The rationale is simple. Even if we are highly educated, we tend to be illiterate in tackling some serious setbacks in business or personal life. We might really need some dispassionate advice. And that advice is only likely to come from people who know you intimately.

The point I am making is two fold – you need advice and it is always available without strings attached; and there need be no fear that your problem would be disclosed to a wider audience.

So why not try it out?

I recently used this approach to seek advice on a very challenging problem, and I was really surprised with the candid advice I got. I would not have myself thought about the solution offered by a close personal friend. I used it, and best of all, it worked. It shows that there are always people who are willing to help you out, and who have had the benefit of facing similar circumstances in their lives.

We must not stand on false prestige. Even if someone concludes that we are useless because of the nature of the help we are seeking, it is all right. There is no need for bemoaning the necessity to seek out help. If somebody that you are close to wishes to help, take it. That would be your best bet.

However, please execute the advice that you get, otherwise there is no point in seeking advice. Further, provide help to someone in your network in a similar fashion, if you could.

This brings me to the inevitability of maintaining and strengthening relationships with just a handful of close people that you have grown up with. We really need to know each other very well, not just the names of respective children. Occasional yet regularly spaced out coffee discussions would lead to more knowledge than we can ever get by other mechanisms, as such meetings almost always never have a set objective, except for catching up on either side. With no pressure from goal-setting, such meetings become a catch all, but can be directed and leveraged for mutual benefit. Remember, the benefit always has to be mutual – one-sided benefit extraction would not work out even for the medium term.

To truly know about someone, a significant investment of time and effort is required. It is not due diligence mind you, as I am talking about folks that you already “know” well. It is true learning of the other self, without any objective or motive. It does not come easily. Most of us do not have the skills necessary for intimate conversations.

Nevertheless, this is a crucial aspect of building sustainable relationships and seeking impartial advice/rendering advice to people who seek it.

I am kicking off this year with this goal (!) of enhancing my skills in this area. Some of you might have perfected the same, which can only mean that you have probably solved all your problems in life!

Have a wonderful year ahead, folks, and try to forget the bad things of 2022,

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan

1st January 2023

Benefits Extraction

In general, people are so self-centred that they even forget relationships which would have taken several years to build.

Money seems to the central theme of most relationships. If I cannot benefit monetarily from a relationship, then be it damned. There is no point in pursuing such useless relationships, right?

We have taken this principle to such extremes that people will never stop believing that they could get much more out of something, out of anything, or anyone, whether it be their marriage, their lives, their career, or their good old friends.

It is just ridiculous. I cannot, of course, generalise this phenomenon, but it is mostly true. There are always, and there will always be, exceptions. I am not denying that at all. All of us have had the pleasure of good fortune in cultivating some good relationships. Our circle of classmates still persist as a clear evidence that what I am going to write is not always the norm.

But then in life we come across various characters (after finishing the school!). Our ability to distinguish and make judgements on who is good and who is bad goes a long way in shaping our lives. Excellent judges of characters always go far in their lives.

If the idea of a new relationship is entirely predicated on what I call as “benefits extraction”, then there would be no long-term meaning in that relationship – neither would it prove to be sustainable. Obviously, most contacts are just non-starters as we treat them just as acquaintances to be forgotten the very next day. These are not real relationships which need to be nurtured after the person is qualified to be chosen as a potential long-term relationship by you. A relationship that you are trying to start just because the other person is wealthy, or can help you in whatever you are trying to accomplish for your own benefit, would not be tenable even for the short term. If you think you are super intelligent, then sorry, there are most others who think they are better than you.

Unfortunately the principle of benefits extraction start early in our lives and get solidified as a practice during our marriage. It is the normal practice in India for the men’s families to spell out demands and try to extract as much financial benefit as possible from the women’s side. This practice is prevalent even today in India, irrespective of the fact that the girl can be as educated as the boy, and is entirely capable of earning a livelihood. The benefits principle then continues through the marriage, and then percolates to friendships.

Ridiculous, but factual. I would like to be challenged otherwise. While the concept of dowry has mitigated itself over the course of the past couple of decades, it rears its ugly head in the under-developed parts of the country. Quite often. And even educated families insist on the practice as they think their boys deserve better in the dowry quotient. Dowry is never going to be totally abolished.

I have seen in my corporate life that folks are too self -centred to even qualify for a long-lasting friendship, never mind a serious relationship which usually extends across families on both sides. Short-sightedness and selfishness are often the causes of such impairment. I have been at the receiving end of such treatment a few times, and as a result decided to considerably enhance my judgement capabilities – no more “accept on the face of it” kind of friendships. Assessment and detailed evaluation are called for while establishing serious friendships, as though these were corporate investment decisions, no less.

While like everyone else I have hundreds of “contacts”, my serious relationships are limited to less than 20 (outside of my classmates from school and college) as my filter threw out most others. This count does not include relatives. The special characteristic of such relationships is that we hardly speak to each other – may be once in a while, say twice or thrice a year. But then, I know and the friends know, that the relationships are on very strong footing, rarely ever disturbed or challenged.

For whatever reason, you need to assume that certain people are always scheming against you – either they do not like you, your competence, or whatever ideas you have! Their existence is a fact, and I learnt the hard way to fish them out of the net. While I am not oriented towards a “tit-for-tat” kind of response, neither am I going to be a meek observer to a back-stabbing and reputation-spoiling initiative by gutless operators.

As we all know, serious relationships have long-term mutual benefits, and the operative word is “mutual” – it is never single-sided and never can be. For folks young or old, that is significant learning to be had. If they do not internalise this concept, then I would not be surprised if they are relegated to a weak sustenance throughout their lives. I have a few examples of such people from my own life, and I am dealing with one such senior example currently.

Well, life goes on, but it can be better if we do not focus on extracting benefits from each other.

Here’s wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

24th December 2022

Tech Loneliness

Technological innovations have changed the world almost completely over the past two decades, and will continue to transform the world in the foreseeable future.

There are countless applications which have hugely benefited from tech innovation, such as robotic surgery, cheaper space exploration, weather drones, self-driving cars, etc., Both industries and end consumers have been positively impacted by cost-savings and novel inventions which leverage digital tech.

However, the consumer-centric devices such as advanced video game consoles, smartphones with thousands of apps, laptop fixation of both business and individual users, etc., have increasingly isolated people in their own cocoons. The result is that there is less motivation to step out of your comfort space out into the open and network with real, physical folks.

The increasing comfort of young individuals with the loneliness afforded by smartphones and video game consoles points to one unmistakeable trend: the potential deterioration of mental health. The more inclination that someone develops towards loneliness, the more he or she is alienated from the real world. Such alienation will lead invariably towards eventual destruction of mental balance.

One can easily argue that advanced tech tools such as smartphone apps provide much needed “companionship” for youngsters and even for old folks. Yes, for some time but not for a sustained period of time every day. I do not believe any device will replace a human companion or friend. For young people, it is only healthy for them to get out of their homes and meet up with their close circle of friends often. For older folks, it is absolutely critical to be part of a social network – both online and offline.

What about my own experience?

I can more or less say that I use my devices for most of my waking hours, except when I travel (the usage drops) or when I am in meetings (I refuse to see the smartphone screen, even if the phone is ringing). When I am at work, I am almost always on my laptop – either doing emails or building a presentation deck or attending a video call. Given that such use almost fills the entire day, I have to concede that my usage of “screens” is very high, which I do not consider to be healthy.

But I will attribute it to occupational hazard.

What about non-business smartphone use? That is also fairly high in my case, as I enjoy reading the contributions of multiple groups of friends, and choosing to respond to some. I realised one reason for this high usage is to see what is going on amongst friends and classmates, and the other is the desire to be “visible”, even occasionally. You wish to make the statement “I am also around, talk to me”.

Sometimes, I randomly call old friends, just to hear their voice. It helps me to know that they are around and doing well (in most cases). I also send messages and get responses some 90% of the time, which helps to reduce the anxiety of not getting any response even after some time. If someone does not respond at all, I am of course, worried. I might even call the guy.

Loneliness resulting from over indulgence of tech tools is a real problem in the world today. It afflicts most of us – whether young or old. As devices gain more functionality such as the forthcoming Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality smartphones, our fixation is only likely to increase even further. Our spend on tech will keep going up, almost like a regular “sinking fund” expenditure, every year [the term “sinking fund” refers to expenditure of a capital nature as it pertains to apartment buildings, and is different from the monthly maintenance expenditure].

In my case, I always stretch the dollar. I am still on iPhone 11 (for the past 8 months only), and before that I stayed true to my iPhone 8 Plus for almost 3 years, skipping two intervening generations of iPhones. I buy new sealed phones at some 30 to 35% discount (not revealing how to you!) after a minimum of 15 months from their original launch, as I do not have the need to flash the latest and best phones to anyone around. And, if my current phone has no problem (like a cracked screen), then I will not replace it. And, now I have learnt how to replace a cracked screen on an iPhone!

After 9 long years, I just decided to replace my tried and tested MacBook Air workhorse with the latest MacBook Air M2 (just becoming available in Apple stores), but that decision was driven more because of my business need for reliability, not because of an urge to get the very latest. I controlled the cost by going in for an Air instead of the unnecessary Pro model.

If I can get a bit disappointed because a friend did not respond to my text message, can you believe the frustration of a young man (say a teenager) who is spurn by a girlfriend who does not respond at all? Like me, he will get worried and pursue the girl by repeated texts and calls. Ultimately, he is likely to get annoyed and angry (that would be unlike me, of course). The smartphone becomes an unintended victim of his frustration, because he expects it to get a response from his girlfriend.

Over time, he will witness an isolation compounded by his tech loneliness. This is not healthy at all in the near term, and could lead to bad repercussions in the medium term.

Parents and other close friends have to take cognisance of the young man’s situation urgently, to avoid bad occurrences which can easily be avoided by physical attention.

At the same time, advanced tech provides great opportunities to young researchers in advanced labs in university environments. The enhanced focus in solving mankind’s ever present problems using advanced tech then can only lead to effective and unimagined solutions. This is the ultimate benefit of technology. There are numerous instances of how tech has enabled a digital revolution in countries like India (witness India’s Digital Payments revolution).

It would be appropriate for governments to educate their population on the benefits and perils of digital tech. Often, the problems are not mentioned, with the exception of financial scams and frauds. What about the serious implications for mental health? Are health institutions equipped to deal with the emerging problems posed by over use of tech in peoples’ lives?

I doubt it as I have seen no evidence of such preparations anywhere.

Can I reduce the use of tech for my business or personal use?

The answer is a resounding no, as I firmly know and believe that I would always refuse to be a slave to anyone – whether tech or someone else. Just make use of the tech as a “service” and avoid “digital slavery”.

Be in control – always.

Have a great weekend – free of Covid and the new Monkey Pox.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

16th July 2022

Hiding vulnerabilities

In a war between two countries, it is essential to ensure that respective vulnerabilities are shielded from the prying eyes of the opposing side(s). Vulnerabilities exist in abundance on either side. No fighting side, irrespective of their military prowess, can claim to be without any of them. They are just waiting to be uncovered in the battlefield and on cyberspace.

However, when it comes to personal relationships, I have noticed one thing: the more sophisticated we are, in terms of our upbringing and education, the less likely we are, in terms of establishing sustainable and deep connections with others. We all want to maintain a safe “distance” from each other and exude a sense of “superior” complexity in order to impress the other side. I have not yet seen a strong establishment of ties between two people who exhibit the above characteristics in equal measure.

Whether it is personal relationship originating from a social event, or a business connection originating from a networking event, if there is no identifiable synergies and sincerity, we can rest assured that the relationship will not be nurtured going forward. There is just one chance – the very first one – to establish a sincere rapport with the other person (or the other side as the case may be), and that cannot be squandered away wilfully.

We all have some “secrets” or vulnerabilities that we don’t want anyone else to know or find out. We think it will be detrimental to the start of a new relationship. We always end up thinking that if others find out who we really are, then may be they won’t pursue the relationship any more. So we go on in our life in a rather superficial manner, always conscious of our secrets, weaknesses and vulnerabilities in every step of the way all through our life.

Nothing can be more suicidal in building a new relationship or partnership.

Think of dating – with the eventual intention of selecting a partner for life. In today’s “open” world of social media dominance, would you take the risk of hiding something of significance from the other person you are dating? At least when you have moved forward in the dating game deeply? Do you think such a relationship which hides mutual vulnerabilities will be sustainable for the long term?

May be in the past. No longer. If you are playing the “hiding” game, you would eventually lose with a lot of bitterness on either side.

The same thing applies in every meaningful relationship that you wish to build.

While you are assessing the strengths of the other person, he or she is trying to assess your existing and potential weaknesses. If you haven’t felt those probing eyes and heard those probing questions, then you are not witnessing the foundation of a deep relationship. You must be prepared to share what you think, instead of constantly hiding your thoughts and views on any matter of mutual interest. If you are insecure in such sharing, then simply get out. You are not worthy of any serious relationship whatsoever.

It is crucial to be open and transparent when establishing a connection with someone who you think is worth your while. Nothing wrong with that approach. Similarly, when you do not witness a reciprocal openness, then you must conclude (at least by the second meeting) that it is surely not worth your while to enter into a relationship which could ultimately prove to be costly for you.

I have noticed that folks (even those in my close friends’ networks) are reticent when it comes to discussing their medical or financial problems. Given that we are all in similar age brackets, I do not understand the need for secrecy here. Such problems will be common and someone in a friends’ group could have solved it in a novel manner – why not benefit from such experience. Are these guys going to use your medical vulnerability against you in a social or business setting? Is there any danger of losing relationships here?

You can, of course, argue that the close friends’ networks had been in existence for a long time, and so the situation is not analogous to opening a new relationship with someone that you do not really know. Yes, I agree. But I believe that the best way to create a long term partnership with someone you really like or admire, is to lay out the cards openly even during the first meeting – why you think that the association will be mutually beneficial, what is in it for you, how you can contribute in some way to the other person, what are your unique strengths, where you are likely to falter, etc., – if not all in the first encounter, at least in the second one (if there is a second one!).

Life is too short to haggle on your judgement calls. Make the right judgement on the people that you want to associate with, and then wholeheartedly invest in them. If that means there is some unpalatable sharing of sensitive information on either side, so be it.

In the long run, you and your new-found friend or business associate will appreciate the right manner in which you have gone about establishing the friendship or the partnership.

It is not a shame to have weaknesses. Show me one who doesn’t have any. I have mapped out both the strengths and weaknesses of the people that I associate with – such a mapping is absolutely crucial to build and sustain your own life. Think about it for a moment. Have you stopped and looked at either your mental notes or scrap book, before you go to meet someone? Usually we don’t, as we like things to be rather adhoc or as we call it sometimes, “spontaneous”.

I do not suggest that approach at all.

A few minutes of thinking will produce far better targeted outcomes.

And always be “OPEN” with your views and personal traits/behaviour, even if the other person does not subscribe to your views. It is the way you are, and you are not going to change your thoughts just to please someone.

You will see the difference.

Have you not seen the effectiveness of such an approach in the dating game, when you have almost accurately targeted your life’s eventual partner?

I am sure most of you did.

Have a great weekend, folks,

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

4th June 2022

The Declining Ego

Well, well, you say that I have finally hit the nail on its head, right?

I mean that our ego usually dominates our life and needs a strong knuckle occasionally, don’t you think so?

The world has many, many self-conceited people filling the ranks of corporate and government organisations. You do not even have to search for them. They are present all over the place. They are characterised by their big egos which they believe position them for the big league. They think “who will even look at you if you do not flaunt your position, influence, strengths and prowess publicly”.

They cannot be more wrong. We know this – don’t we? I always look for signs of boasting in the very first meeting I have with someone. There should actually be no need for any boasting or claims as I would have already done the research on the person that I am going to meet up with. So will the other person – he or she would have done their research on me. A polite positioning of the successes can be done in a nice way without being on the face. But that skill is usually found wanting.

This blog post is more about “the declining ego” with age. A great deal of our selfishness, boasting, and out-sized ego goes away with age. If it has not occurred yet when you are over 50 years of age, then there is something wrong, or you must be Elon Musk.

As you age, you watch yourself getting slower, more cautious, more careful, and also sometimes, ugly and stupid. You may or may not have kept pace with time and with the younger crowd. Is it then a surprise to you that your ego starts to decline? May be slowly, sometimes very slowly, but inevitably. You may not realise that you are slowly becoming a far nicer person to deal with!

As a consequence of the decline in the state of your ego, you no longer worry that much about your appearance, the condition of your car, the kind of shoes you are wearing, the type of corporate pen in your shirt pocket, and about the manner in which you are likely to be perceived by others as compared to some 10 years ago.

Instead, you start to worry more about other things in your life. There are other people in your life, right? Don’t you think they are important to you? And, if so, then shouldn’t you be thinking about them, their well-being, success and safety? You would have done all this in the past, but then the damaging effects of your big ego would have blinded you to the urgent needs of those people who you love.

Ego is self-destructive, and it also seriously damages the circle of people that you work and live with. Think how much of your unwieldy machinations – intended or not – had impacted your relationships negatively. Do you honestly think that a simple survey of people who you worked with would produce a litany of love songs about you? You must be out of your mind, and if you think so, then your ego still dominates your mind.

Our ego, however small or big it is, should have the maturity to decline as we get older. I would argue that ego is not a necessary constituent of a human being – self-confidence is……..only that it sometimes gets mistaken for ego. Being egoistic connotes selfishness – you only think about your own success and well-being, not about others who work for you or with you.

I have also seen people who carry their big ego even when they are old, simply because they believe that the world needs their advice more than ever. How can they be so ignorant? World does not need you or your advisory services. It is changing at such a rapid clip that no one can claim to be its advisor. Egos are not a replacement for the quick-thinking, fast-acting, analytical-minded young people that the world needs today. The days of having some 70 year old guy as an advisor to the board are rather numbered nowadays. Even big corporations want to have young advisors with fresh thinking to reflect the markets and consumers that they serve. Do they need big egos to deliver the goods on such a role? Absolutely not, completely unnecessary and irrelevant.

As I continue to age every day, I realise that I should have been more humble when I was coming up in the corporate ladder. Did I have ego and did I display it often? Not really, but occasionally yes. I needed to have some ego as I made up my own life without anyone else’s help, not even my family’s help. So every achievement in life boosted not only my self-confidence, but also my ego. However, since I was considered and treated as a relatively “soft” person who chose to punch only when absolutely necessary, the veneer of egoism that was resident in me largely went unrecognised. Some people thought I was a careful, cautious, humble (sometimes) and a relatively nice guy; whereas, some others thought I was balanced, humorous, and firm when needed, sometimes going to the extent of throwing my weight around to get things done.

Am I full of ego now within my own self? Not at all. In fact, the previous version of myself with some ego is now completely gone. It did not just decline, it disappeared completely and rapidly. Probably because I am out of the corporate world for the past 3 years which has been a good development, I suspect. Ego goes away when the accoutrements go away and you have chosen to make your life more focused with simplicity as a goal.

Whatever we do, we cannot teach egoism to our children. There are enough motivations in today’s world for them to acquire a bravado combined with an egoistic thinking. It should be untaught at all possible opportunities of our engagement with them.

I hope you would have a good weekend, folks……..

Take care, and Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

21st May 2022