Man can be free only when and if he’s able to rise above his insecurities

Here & now, here & now, here & now, I chant in my head as that’s all we have.

All labels create division, intended or not. There is oneness in all living beings, we know this when we are born, but by the age of 5, we develop our own identity, we see the you & I as separate, the haves & the have nots, & suddenly we have two-ness. Early Eastern religions also taught this.

Here’s the bigger picture - or the self-actualization I have reached - you & I are the universe, on a journey that spans billions of years, we have come alive just for a few decades at most, in a way for the universe to experience itself, & experience we do, but we lack awareness of who we are (one / the universe), what we have (here & now), & what we truly yearn (experience the universe / connect with each other). Everything else is Leela, the most engaging movie or play you ever saw. It is so gripping, we can’t look away, but it’s just a show!

Absolutely, we all need bread, so we all gotta do what we all gotta do. But that never stopped me from dreaming a few revolutions. Now I just have more time on me :)

I will give you more - I was a capitalist, in that I ran a business, but I might have been the worst capitalist ever, turns out I had too much empathy, I treated my customers & employees as not just humans, but as family, fuck me, am I right?

Speaking of understanding of those systems - I want to share this golden nugget with you and the world - even the most capitalistic of organizations run on the engine of cooperation & excellent teamwork under the hood. In short, cooperation runs the world, competition only ruins it.

Human minds are simple. We understand numbers, but not abstract patterns. We understand temperature, but not weather. If we try to view the world or businesses in just terms of data, we don’t capture / understand the real world. Real world is far too complex & nuanced to be captured with data & numbers. You have number for CAC (cost to acquire customer) but nothing for brand recognition. You have number for LTV (customer lifetime value) but nothing that explains their use case. You have number for customer retention & NPS (net promoter score), but nothing for customer loyalty. You have a number for MAU (monthly active users) but nothing that explains their breakdown or the relative importance of them to your business (for Reddit CEO for example, a top contributor and an AI bot are the same, which is one active user). We can only visualize things that have numbers, graphs, trends, top 10s. Anything that doesn’t have a number associated with it, plays no part in business decision making. It takes wisdom & humility to know the data might not be painting a true picture.

PS: take it from someone who’s been a numbers & data person all their life

Because in the current form of capitalism, the CEOs & leaders at the top cannot correctly prioritize for long term. Their incentive structures (all the way from Wall St analysts down to CEOs & regional directors) are aligned only for quarterly growth metrics, even if they hurt the business less than a year or two later. The CEO gets a bonus for laying off 1000 people thereby making the business leaner & profitable this quarter, who cares about even the next quarter. They are short sighted, which is also clear from the assumption of endless growth from finite resources. I will also say that folks at the top (typically MBAs) are too data obsessed without understanding nuance of their own business model.

I will just say it was somewhere between those two extremes, lol

I was at the lowest points in my life when I sold my business. I wanted an out, I got one, I consider myself lucky compared to the rest who didn’t get an out. Sharks gonna shark & they’ve wronged me by laying me off. I’m not even mad, glad actually to be outta there & free to pursue what I think matters.

Acquired / sold business

[email protected]

Call me a coward, but I’m more of a problem solver. Within these tinted walls of depression, if I squint really hard, I can see the light in the corner. Yes, I do see the light. Don’t kill yourself, you’re more valuable just being there for your brothers, or better still, helping create the world we all want. We have no choice but to accept the current reality, and live with it every day, but still - keep your chin up, & keep working towards the future you want. #WeRiseTogether

[email protected] https://lemm.ee/c/we_are_one