In this piece I will talk about specialization.

In particular, how it relates to your education and what benchmarks should you set for yourself. The contents of this piece emanates from my experience of specializing in Robotics. I have spent a decade working on the subject, spent time pursuing a masters and a PhD degree from good universities.

All the degrees that can attest to my professional qualifications, truth remains that I am still a student and a beginner.

Knowledge is indeed infinite, no matter how much of it is acquired, you will only be in possession of a tiny dose.

Contents

• Specialization: the usual strategy

• An analogy

• The problem

• Generalization

• Exploration and exploitation

• Insights

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Specialization: the usual strategy

Every one wants to be special and the best at a particular craft.

They want to excel and belong to the club of people good at that particular craft. A great ambition, one must possess.

How does one pursue such an ambition?

Usual strategy is to obsess and spend most part of the day working towards the goal. One begins by taking a course or enroll oneself at an university and earn an academic degree as a proof of qualification. All good, as it contributes to your knowledge.

With enough persistence you will become better than most in your chosen field. If you persist long enough you will master the field.

Is it enough though?

No. This path leads to unwanted consequences.

Not that it is a wrong path, but something crucial is missing.

An analogy

Specialization is a treasure burried deep in an area except, you do not know where it is burried. It is not a unique treasure. In fact there exist many such treasures, which treasure you find is unknown and rather random.

What you need to do is start digging.

The problem with usual strategy of specialization is that a university or trends in the current job market tells you:

• The location of the treasure where you need to dig.

• The skill you would unlock when you dig deep enough.

Once you dig deep enough you acquire all the skills (analogous to university education or a short term course). You possess all the skills in a particular field, but you do not know what to do with it.

You know what everyone does with it and are limited to such a knowledge.

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The problem

Your efforts in pursuing the course or the degree, digs a hole in the area you want to excel. Your need to specialize incentivizes the act of digging deeper. As a result, you may chose to pursue a masters or a PhD degree. Soon, you find yourself to be stuck in the same hole.

The need to generate wealth arising out of family responsibilities and your desires keep you hooked into the hole, which has now become your comfort zone. You want to get out, but fear that you cannot do much about it. After all you specialized in a particular skill.

This comfort zone becomes an impediment to further specialize and innovate. Your learning rate hits a wall and you realize lack of growth. You become mechanical. The need for creative expression takes over. It manifests as loss of motivation and the habit of procrastination, if left unexpressed.

Realize that your need to specialize made your actions exploitative (digging in the same area), as opposed to explorative (digging in different areas). Further, the exploitative decisions were chosen by an external entity, as opposed to your curiosity. As a result, you have deprived yourselves from varied experiences which are necessary for serendipity to occur.

If you wish to be a master and achieve a feat unique to you, you need the essential element of generalization.

Generalization

Mastery is not specialization. Although specialization is the visible part of mastery. As with most things, visuals are illusory. They only reveal part of the story, the tip of the iceberg, a beautiful tree whose deep roots go unnoticed.

Generalization is necessary to accumulate varied ideas even if it's at a superficial level. These generic ideas provide necessary support to your specialized skills, enabling mutation of ideas and thus increasing possibility of stumbling upon something unique.

Mutation of different ideas are necessary for growth in a particular skill or creation of a new skill. Serendipity drives innovation. Through exploitative actions of specialization we have blocked ourselves to the much need stimulus which drives innovation.

Is it a surprise we feel stuck, unable to generate unique ideas?

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Exploration and exploitation

I consider this exploitative behavior as a case of instant gratification when pursuing our goals.

One must learn to develop varied skills - delay gratification - which allows serendipity to occur in the future. One must remain explorative.

The ideas such as productivity, efficiency etc - terms that one would use for a machine - runs counter productive to the goals of specialization in true sense. Unaware, we associate with such notions and as a result, we get obsessed with the outcomes instead of learning.

To see this point, consider the great thinkers of the past when the vanity pursuits of high status academic degrees did not exist. Sages in ancient India were well versed with language, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, human nature and left behind a trail of literature.

Similar pattern can be observed in European thinkers who begun the era of science. They all had in common, interests in diverse areas, eventually be known for a subset of their works. Their failures and works of lesser impact buried with time.

Insights

The snide comment “ Jack of all trades and master of none”, in this context is misleading. Remember,

Generalization is explorative, specialization is exploitative.

You need both. You need to explore in order to determine what to exploit. This combination is what makes mastery a difficult task, a path paved with uncertainty.

Therefore I contend,

You need to be jack of all trades in order to be master of one.

Great ideas and great minds are not cultivated in isolation. This is opposite to the nature - which is anything but isolated. We do the exact opposite in our efforts to specialize.

Therefore, explore, delay gratification, be jack of all trades. Specialize through learning everything that evokes your curiosity. Allow the serendipity to work its magic. There are no certain solutions for the uncertain pursuits.

Mastery is an uncertain pursuit.

Thanks for reading! If you liked the piece leave a comment and share!

Recommended reading: Mastery by Robert Greene

Disclosure: The online version of above link contains an affiliate link. You can purchase the book through the link provided. It comes at no additional cost for you.

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By age 30 you should be <insert your fantasy here>

I understand such tweets are meant to drive engagement, tried and tested techniques to capture audience attention.

What value did you derive from such an advice?

Perhaps a spike in your dopamine which made you hit the like or the retweet button.

In this piece, I explore utility of such advises in further depth.

Contents

• Utility of advises

• Lost time

• The problem

• Path towards excellence

• Insights

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Utility of advises

Advises are for those who are lost in life and trying to gain a sense of direction.

It is not for those who have it going good. Advises provided to people who are not in the need of one, would consume them like platitudes and appreciate them at the outset.

The lost ones however, would treat the advises differently.

These are words that can make it or break it for them. They would consume, internalize and act upon the advises in order to gain some semblance of direction in their lives.

They would see these advises as a drop of water for a thirsty man in the middle of the desert.

Lost time

A common regret harbored by the lost is that of time that is lost. This is however unnecessary.

Being lost implies exposed to a situation that is undesirable. Since you're lost, you are finding your way back and hence you have lost time. This is only natural, particularly when you are navigating the complex journey of life, where every moment is your first moment.

This is main reason why advises such as "By age 30 you should be…" are moronic. These advises aim to optimize time. They are akin to what schools teach you and doesn't account for the vagaries of life. It assumes a singular path towards ascension, towards mastery, towards success. Study of life trajectories of many masters of the past will show you that success has no fixed age group, some achieve quicker and some achieve later.

Worst of all, it focuses on outcomes. Adhering to a philosophy that focuses on outcomes places you firmly on a fragile path.

You are so fixated on what should be, that you fail to notice what you can be.

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The problem

Let’s extend this logic further, if you can achieve something by age 30, what prevents you from achieving the same by the age 27? 28.5? 22?

Where does this end?

The problem is that these advises do not leave any scope for making mistakes, it assumes you know the right path and must pursue it swiftly. It does not account for randomness in outcomes, differences in initial conditions such as economic background and exposure to appropriate network to grow.

In most cases, figuring out “what is possible” in itself takes decades due to lack of information.

Example: I became aware of existence of possibilities of pursuing a masters degree at an alien country after completion of my bachelors degree in engineering and working at an university as an apprentice for two years. Knowledge which was common to many of my colleagues remained oblivious to me for I come from a family of farmers.

Hence rid yourself of timelines and focus on process instead. The process of mastery may begin at the tender age of 4 for someone like Mozart or late into thirties for many others.

Remember:

Who takes a rigid approach to mastery or education?

Schools.

Path towards excellence

A crucial element in building a decent life for yourself and excelling in your chosen field of study is to tinker, experiment, trial and error.

Randomness plays a major role in this journey.

By invoking randomness, I do not wish to deride your success. I am merely pointing to the fact that a single random event can lead to two different successful paths. You could either be a successful software engineer at corporate or a successful researcher at academia - two widely different professional areas and skill sets.

Tinkering is essential as it helps you understand the environment which is local for you and not the same for everyone. It helps you accumulate experiences unique to your actions. More, it helps you to learn about yourself, your weaknesses, strengths, your tendencies, and interests.

Nobody is born with this knowledge. A greater part of growing up is to know yourself.

Get rid of thinking that you're supposed to know everything.

This is life.

A person who has never made mistake is the one who has never attempted anything of his own will. That indeed is a mistake in itself.

Life is about making mistakes and mistakes cost time.

Then what is the optimal path?

None, as you cannot define a solution to life.

Hindsight bias will always leave you with the feeling “If I could do that again, I would do it differently”.

Insights

Start from where you are.

1. Make quick moves and mistakes. Focus on minimizing errors and avoid making mistakes of the same kind. When you run out of mistakes you could make, you reach success - which can only be considered as milestones.

2. Focus on process and be content with wherever you get in life. Do not anticipate results. If you gave your best results are irrelevant. If you did not give your best, results are still irrelevant.

3. Results must only be used to course correct. From this perspective, both good and bad results are welcome. If you know you are progressing everyday, you shouldn't concern yourself with your age. This is not an invitation to waste time. Rather it is to prevent you from setting age or time based goals. You cannot rush the process.

4. A smarter, hard working person will always outpace you. So what? You gonna go home and cry? No. You work at your own pace, make your life a little better everyday and be content.

You are here to test your own abilities, contribute your knowledge and not compete.

Competition ceases to exist when you begin to spot infinite opportunities that lie ahead.

With adequate trials and enough persistence you will learn to spot and create your own opportunities.

You just need to be patient.

Thank you for reading!

Recommended reading: Mastery by Robert Greene

Disclosure: The online version of above link contains an affiliate link. You can purchase the book through the link provided. It comes at no additional cost for you.

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A technique that will 10x your clear thinking abilities.

Bonus: You will build your audience in the process.

Caveat: As with all other techniques, this requires practice and insightful thoughts.

Contents

• The Art of Writing a Journal

• What is Live Threading?

• Why it works?

• What are the advantages?

• Conclusion

Let’s get started. But first make sure to subscribe to my newsletter to receive these essays straight to your inbox.

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The Art of Writing a Journal

A constant advice one receives is to write in a journal. A personal diary, it was called. The one for your eyes only. What to write in a journal?

Your thoughts and feelings.

“Dear Diary, While walking to the school a bird shat on me… I felt triggered!”

I am not a fan of “whining in your diary” approach to writing a journal, but it is inevitable as a beginner. It is natural to start to write about feelings. It is however unnatural to persist with writing about your feelings.

This is a topic for another issue of the newsletter.

Here is how a journal writing process progresses:

• Book 1: Feelings, venting, anger, tear drops

• Book 2: Feelings, optimism, venting

• Book 3: Optimism, feelings, fantasy dreams

• Book 4: Realistic dreams, optimism, insights

• Book 5: Actions, strategic plans, purpose.

and so on….

You get the point. You need to get to a state where your journal consists of plans, ideas, strategies, as opposed to bitch, moan and complain. Because actions emanating from these strategies are what keeps your feelings at bay.

This is the main purpose of writing in a journal.

As a part of those ideas and strategies, I started to write on twitter 6 months ago and discovered a technique which allows you to use twitter as a tool for writing an online journal. This technique, I have found, aids clear thinking.

I call this technique: Live threading, which I am sharing with you.

What is Live Threading?

As the name suggests, live threading is writing twitter threads, LIVE.

The process is as follows:

• Write a tweet on one chosen idea which resonates with you. Tweet it.

• You will get an immediate, linked thought. This thought is usually a clarification, exception, explanation or a logical inconsistency. Catch this immediate thought, convert it into a tweet.

• Tweet it as a reply to the first tweet.

• Repeat, until you run out of things to say.

You now have a train of thoughts as a twitter thread. Every thought translated into a tweet, each tweet linked to the previous one, until the idea is taken to its logical conclusion.

Result: Clear thinking due to constraints imposed by twitter threads.

Reasoning behind this strategy

When we speak or give advises to our friends over phone call or text messages, one idea follows another, like a chain. You might not be aware of it, but recall one of those occasions when you have advised a friend. You had a flow of ideas.

Live threading is capturing that flow and tweeting it to your audience.

Writing in your journal leads to sentences or ideas that are inconsistent, imprecise and unedited. There is no skin in the game or incentive to make necessary corrections as you do not have an audience. Perhaps you wouldn’t revisit the writing yourself.

Writing in public puts skin in the game. Now you are forced to edit and write in a consistent manner (more on this below).

Result: Clear thinking plus upgrade in writing skills as a consequence of writing live.

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Why it works?

This strategy work on many levels:

1. Every tweet is a brick: Tweet is a building block in a thread. If you’re constructing a building of writing consider each tweet as a brick with 280 character limit. You have to formulate your idea within those character limits in a concise manner. One idea per tweet is a perfect constraint to organize your writing.

2. Brick by brick you build your thread: One brick stacks on top of the other and so does your writing. Every idea builds on the previous one. A link of ideas, with each idea constrained in a tweet, forms a fully developed concept. This is making your consciousness aware.

3. Forced commitment to take the idea to its end: Once you tweet an idea into the world, there is no going back. You are committed to the thread and hence bound to take the idea to a satisfying conclusion. This in turn will upgrade your writing skills.

4. Forced to think along single train of thought: When you begin to write a thread, you will be presented with multiple branches of ideas. You can note it down elsewhere or discard them altogether in the favor of a single branch. Focused and targeted development of an idea.

5. Instant feedback from an existing audience or building new ones: If you are writing for an existing audience you will receive feedback on your thoughts (after completion of the thread). This is an important consequence of not letting your thoughts stagnate in your head or in a journal. If you do not have an audience, these tweets form the basis for building one.

Result: Clear thinking, upgraded writing skills, faster feedback loops for the ideas and audience building.

What are the advantages?

There are many advantages to this method of writing threads.

1. Make randomness work in your favor: Live threading is suited when you are inspired by an idea and is applicable for "Intuitive writing". These inspirations appear out of nowhere, randomly and take a much more random turn when you build on them live. You get surprised by your own thoughts and where they take you, as more than half of the content will appear after you have begun to write.

2. Content generation and refinement strategy: You have content to refine and publish. The thread forms the first draft, a better one since it was published in public. It can be turned into an elaborate piece which makes for an excellent content generation and refinement strategy. This issue of the newsletter is a product of such an experiment. See the associated thread here and compare the differences.

3. Deep work: Live threading enables deep work. Having troubles with focus & attention? Try live threading and verify how you have gained total control over focus and attention. I have noticed enhanced control while writing threads in a manner I outline here. Give this strategy a try when you begin to doubt your ability to focus and deep work.

4. Time saver: You'll have your chance to correct and build on your thoughts in a separate article or thread. The main point is to have fun and make your thoughts aware. This process saves plenty of time as writing a thread takes anywhere between 30 - 40 uninterrupted minutes. Compare this to writing elsewhere, editing and then publishing a day or two later.

5. Cure for perfectionism: You do not second doubt yourself since you are tweeting live. You do not have the possibility to do so with this strategy. Whatever thinking you need to do, you do it for the tweet. Once tweeted you forget about it and move on with the next tweet. You do not have to iterate due to perfectionism. Further, you do not need to fear being wrong, the purpose is to write intuitively.

At the very least, you will have an appreciation for your own mental capacity, or renewed appreciation for creators.

Conclusion

The main objective is to have fun while writing and not think about being perfect or even correct. With this strategy you will use twitter as your online journal and write in a manner which is far superior to your entries in the journal. Superior in terms of conciseness and clarity. After all, the main reason for writing is to gain clarity and explore your consciousness.

Hope you liked the idea and would like to give it a try.

If you do, let me know about your experience in the comments.

Thank you for reading!

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Power, everyone desires power, seeks power and when given squander it.

Power tests the person who holds it. You master power if you resist the urge to use it. You master money if you resist the urge to spend it. You master your desires, if you can decline the advances of a woman.

True power is willful abstinence, than indulgence.

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Power and Posturing

People who seek power, read up a couple of books on power, think they have mastered power and begin posturing.

People of such kind lose big time.

This is a sign of weakness and lack of power for starters. Hence, the posturing. Overcompensation as recognition of absence of power.

The difference between power and posturing is same as the difference between virtue and virtue signalling. Same as the difference between being masculine and seeming masculine. It doesn't have to be, shouldn't be.

True power is subtle, calming and not loud or pretentious.

What is power?

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Power

Power of two kinds:

• Intrinsic power is your innate quality. A quality that most fail to cultivate and exercise.

• Extrinsic power is the one you're used to witness. It is the external manifestation of intrinsic power.

This extrinsic power cannot manifest in the absence of intrinsic power.

So what is intrinsic power?

The intrinsic power is your RESOLVE or WILL.

The WILL that turns a layman into a king and places the power firmly in his hand.

The extrinsic power when manifested as consequence of will power or intrinsic power, is visible to all and it's not the same as posturing.

Absence of Intrinsic power

Let’s consider an example of availability of extrinsic power such as wealth, status, clout - but lack of will or resolve to contain or tame the power.

Such examples are commonly found among spoiled children of the wealthy, who have abundance but lack the character to do something meaningful with it.

The inherited power doesn't last unless there exists intrinsic power capable of taming the inherited power. Plenty of examples in the history where men have inherited power only to lose it, and bring destruction and disgrace to family, community, nation or civilization.

Problem with virtuosity

There is something worse than the absence of intrinsic power and that is of excessive virtuosity.

Specifically, men with both intrinsic and extrinsic power drunk on their virtuosity.

Such people underestimate the threat owing to their over confidence on their own power and hence pave the path for their own demise.

The sense of virtuosity prevents them from inflicting any costs of transgression on the aggressor & show mercy despite the transgressions. The aggressor with every renewed chance turns stronger in will and competence, which causes the downfall of the person drunk on virtuosity.

Virtuosity in this case is not a virtue because you fail to account for power of the aggressor in your decision making.

This is disrespect of power.

A powerful person who disrespects power is sure to lose it because power doesn't tolerate disrespect.

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4 Lessons on Power

Hence if you seek power:

Lesson #1: Stop chasing extrinsic power for it will be elusive, like money.

Power never manifests for a person lacking the intrinsic power of will. Even when power is handed, you will squander it due to your inability to harness it.

Don't simp after power. She dislikes those who simp.

Lesson #2: Cultivate your intrinsic power. Awaken your will and resolve.

Develop a habit of committing to a cause and seeing it through.

Passion or lack of it is irrelevant. Extrinsic power manifests around person with strong will and restraint. If a task requires completion, be a man who does what needs to be done. Hanging on to passion is a peasant behavior and peasants seldom get power.

Be a man that draws power towards you, not the one who eternally chases power.

Lesson #3: Power is not a magical pill which will make you mighty overnight.

It accumulates with every small win, losses, efforts and knowledge.

Do not see power as number of people who listen or fear you rather view power as number of lives you can influence positively. The former perspective leads to negative connotations of power, and the latter leads to the positive and true definition of power.

Posturing sows seeds for distrust among peers.

Possessing intrinsic power results in extrinsic power handed over to you by people voluntarily.

Lesson #4. Keep your virtuosity in check.

It is a chisel that chips away at your power.

Engage in activities that build power and hence trust. This is compensation for erosion of power due to misplaced virtuosity. The main message here is to prevent stagnation. The ability to move on and create new avenues, a diversified portfolio of power as a hedge against inflation due to bug of virtuosity.

Those who wish to do good, must accumulate power.

Accumulation of power is virtue and intrinsic power makes your character indomitable.

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In this piece I describe why and show you how to fix it.

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How does depression feel?

Depression ain't a constant feeling of sadness or low mood, although they are part of it. It is the state of lack of feelings, the void, emptiness, where you're stuck and cannot seem to get out.

No matter how hard you try.

You think you do things differently, yet magically end up taking the same actions. Same actions leading to same results. An endless loop. This gives you a sense of stagnation, where everything around you is changing, evolving.

Everything, except you.

I’ve realized, it's a TIME problem and how we perceive time.

Our perception of time

Consider the following quote:

We live our lives forward, but understand them backward.

— Søren Kirkegaard

This excellent quote makes an incisive observation and states the concept succinctly, which further aligns with our experiences.

Since we view our lives backwards, we fit stories in a similar manner and hence understand our lives backwards.

Meaning, our past determines

• Our currently held worldviews,

• How we view or predict our future, and

• The alternate realities we simulate in our tiny little heads.

The consequence is birth of fear and regret.

• Fear of the future, that everything has gone wrong in the past and hence it will continue to do so in the future.

• Regret of the past, that a certain action led to the undesirable outcome and hence the "I shouldn't have done that" feeling.

Since "I shouldn't have done that", we instantly assume that things would be great "If I had done that instead."

We rarely simulate worst case scenarios in the alternate universe. We rarely stop and think, the alternate reality could be worse than the present, manifested reality. The outcomes in these alternate realities are always rosy.

The need to escape current reality makes us want to assume that the grass is greener on the other side.

Similarly, we rarely accommodate optimism towards the future, or acknowledge the power of will. That we could steer the future in our favor. We fear. The regret keeps us hooked to the notion that alternate reality is better.

A skewed perception.

I believe the connection between our perception of time and depression, is now obvious.

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How is depression a time problem?

Time passes as your clock ticks.

Your friends get in and out of relationships, get promoted, married, get fat, have children, etc. And here you are feeling like Matthew McConaughey - watching the dynamic world, through the gaps between the books on your static bookshelf.

The problem is your messed up relationship with time.

You are time traveling in your head, revisiting and reliving the past memories, thus reinforcing your world view conditioned on the experiences of the past. This past then affects your simulations of future.

Future seems bleak, because your observations support the predictions.

In this process, the present moment - the NOW - where life happens becomes a casualty. You are too occupied to notice the present while oscillating between past and future, oscillating between regrets and fears.

The solution

The solution is to divert or rather place your focus and attention in the NOW - the present moment.

When you live in another reality mentally, you lay frozen in your tracks in the present moment. As a result, you cease to take actions which are essential in determining the course of your future.

If you think a different action in the past could have changed your future for the better, NOW is also the time to think so. Let go of resentment, for you could not see the future in the past, just as you cannot see your future now. Put conscious effort into looking forward.

The backward perception of reality is skewed. This also necessitates detachment from rewards or outcomes and taking actions with all your sincerity.

If things work out, great. If they don't, great.

I got this idea from the book "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.

The present moment is all you have. The past is unchangeable and the future is unpredictable. All you can do is add one unchangeable moment to the past depending on what you choose to do NOW.

This is THE first step in your recovery from depression.

Reading one self help book after another is not the answer, that I can assure. No fancy philosophy needed when you are in the midst of depression. You need to train to direct and place your attention, in the NOW.

How to do that?

Keep a copy of the book nearby, and read it whenever you catch yourself drifting in time. It works, because the author constantly asks you to direct the attention in the present, as you read the book.

It is a relief for a mind troubled by misalignment with time.

Train yourself for some weeks and meanwhile, go on with your lives as usual. Perform every mundane task, with attention in the present. Quit thinking about importance of a task or its meaning. Your current state of mind is incapable of answering those questions. Been there.

These answers will present themselves to you at later stages. View this process analogous to building your body. You do not hit the gym on day one with heavy loads and expect progress. You start with essential movements, and aim to set a HABIT.

Exactly, what you need to do.

CREATE a HABIT of being present in the NOW.

The presence of your attention will form the foundations for further growth. At this stage, the meaning of every mundane task is to train you to stay present. To prevent you from oscillating between the past and the future.

Remember.

Two activities that place your attention in present moment:

• A daily writing habit

• A daily physical activity. Lifting weights 3x a week, and a daily walk routine.

These are the things you can begin to implement NOW.

Good luck and stay present!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to relevant books, which allows me to sustain this newsletter if you choose to buy the book through the given links. It comes at NO additional cost for you.

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Partial knowledge is bad, for it gives you an impression of being knowledgeable while robbing you of the curiosity needed to learn.

It leads to an erroneous conclusion of mastery, which turns detrimental when such a conclusion is tested. It is the source of invisible errors which accumulate, until the time is ripe for it to blow in your face.

You’re taken aback when such mistakes become visible, the consequences manifest and it is too late for rectification.

This piece is about partial knowledge and lessons to be learned, explained through a story from Indian history.

The story of Abhimanyu

The story of the mighty warrior Abhimanyu, in the epic Mahabharata, is a great example for illustrating the ill effects of partial knowledge.

Abhimanyu, son of the Pandava warrior Arjuna1, had established himself as a pain in the ass for the Kauravas, by inflicting heavy casualties during the Kurukshetra war that spanned over a period of 18 days.

On 13th day of the war, the Kaurava commander-in-chief, Dronacharya (also teacher to Arjuna) decided to initiate a spinning wheel/maze like battle formation, termed chakravyuha to turn the heat on Pandavas. The goal was to trap Yudhishtira, the eldest of Pandava brothers.

The formation was an offense and a defense strategy meant to trap, weaken and capture the target or eliminate the target.

The two people in the Pandava camp who knew to break-in and out of the formation while decimating the opposition were Krishna and Arjuna. They were kept busy elsewhere and hence unavailable.

It would be impossible to breach the formation without entering the formation and hence the predicament. This is when Abhimanyu took up the task. He entered, fought valiantly and died.

He knew to enter the formation, which he learnt while in the womb (so the story goes2), but never got around to learning how to get out of it.

Lessons from the story

This story is used as a great example to illustrate the ill effects of partial knowledge.

You may very well be on the right side, with right education, but if you’re partaking in a pursuit with partial knowledge, it will cause harm.

However, there is more depth to the very same point, which is the main content of this post.

Here are the 5 lessons:

Lesson #1: Make hay while the sun shines.

Partial knowledge can be detrimental. In the case of Abhimanyu, he had to pay the price with his life. Hence, make hay while the sun shines, don’t start to dig the well after getting thirsty and acquire the necessary knowledge, while the days are bright.

Lesson #2: Be prepared for any eventuality.

Irrespective of how diligent you were in your learning process, there are bound to be situations when you have to jump into the battle unprepared or partially prepared. Do not shy away from responsibilities and duties when you receive your calling. Be Abhimanyu - fearless, and courageous.

Lesson #3: Do not lose yourself.

True knowledge is a two way travel . It is not sufficient to go deep into the ocean of knowledge, although this is what is usually valued. It is equally important to swim back to the surface. Otherwise, you risk being stuck at the bottom and drown or crumble under the weight of your own knowledge. Getting out is more difficult than going in.

Lesson #4: Knowledge must be humbling

You might be valiant, well versed, mighty and yet comes the downfall. The death of Abhimanyu can be considered as the death of ego. Not that he was egoistic, but a connection can be made regarding the humbling effect of knowledge on ones character. Lack of humility is ignorance.

Lesson #5: Presence of humility is not inaction

Abhimanyu had humility for he acknowledged his lack of knowledge on exiting the formation. However, it did not deter him from taking action. He took the chance conditioned on the partial knowledge and demands of the situation3.

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Speculation

I have wondered for a while, if the circular maze or the spinning wheel maze tactic is used in a battlefield, it is used to trap enemies.

Dronacharya was a master in military tactics, not a newbie. Implication is that the maze is designed to be easily penetrated, to trap the enemy and to bait the enemy.

Perhaps I am wrong. Either ways the following bonus lesson holds true.

Bonus Lesson: If it’s easy it might not be due to virtue of your knowledge.

Do not declare knowledge or celebrate victory because you won the first of battles. The true battle starts after initial victories. You receive applause when you’re half way through, when you get a good start. It gives you an impression that you’ve made it.

Always ask: How do you know there isn’t more to it?

Your journey starts after applause. After, WAGMI.

WAGMI is for Kings, the after journey is for Gods.

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Footnotes

It’s been close to 4 months since I started to write on Twitter. With this post, I dare to venture into writing essays on Substack. I take this opportunity to introduce myself with this post.

About me

I was born in an Indian traditional family, which explains my interests in philosophy, spirituality and religion. I was also born in an economically disadvantaged family, which allowed me to observe the human nature - visible in its raw form when you are a nobody. You see blood relatives who relish your losses and strangers who rejoice your victories.

Hence, my fascination with human nature.

On professional front, I am a qualified researcher in the field of robotics.

Reading and writing research papers, navigating mathematical equations, computer programming are a usual routine. I have spent a decade to hone my technical skills, in a career which was never planned or envisaged. Never settle for less is all I knew.

Put differently, I winged it.

Why do I write?

Profession allows expression of my intellect, but rarely provides an opportunity to tap into emotions or intuition. Interests which go beyond technology rarely finds expression.

Hence, I write.

As an introvert, I have proclivity to think more and speak less, than necessary. With silence comes the ability to observe. It is important to document the experiences and observations in order to refine thoughts.

Hence, I write.

I wrote a couple of blogs on Blogger, back in 2018. They were read by crickets and some friends. Asked myself, what is the point of writing, what am I writing, who is going to read. Perfectionism doesn’t help as I tend to iterate to eternity. Discontinued the blog as a result. I want to break these habits.

Hence, I write… and publish.

In these initial days of writing, I have received love and encouragement from those I admire. Without allowing the initial encouragement seep into my head, I plan to write. Just for the sake of it.

The goal? I am not sure.

I will just wing it.

Writing Philosophy

Knowledge multiplies when shared.

— my mother

Knowledge must flow like water and not be allowed to stagnate in the mind.

Nothing good comes out of stagnated water and knowledge. A loaded mind weighed heavily on me and I remembered my mother’s words, which I have quoted above.

My writing philosophy is to share what I know or learn, to the best of my ability.

I aim to write content that tends towards timelessness. Stephen King in his book “On Writing” explains how writing is time travel. I am here now, typing this post, to you who is reading in the future. You who is reading, these are the words from your past.

I hope my essays will be of use to those who read in the future.

Reason for anonymity

I prefer to be received for ideas. Identity is irrelevant.

I do not mind being out in the public. I would loose my anonymity, if I were to write about my profession. I intend to do it someday, perhaps from my non anonymous account.

Eternal Truths serves as separation between writing in professional and personal capacity. It would make a terrible twitter account if I were to post a thread about philosophy on one day and a thread about probability/linear algebra on the other.

For now, I will refrain from posting professional content.

Topics I will write about

Life is not lived in a niche.

It happens and brings experiences, unique to each one of us. Hence, I am not inclined to zero in on a niche. Although I hope to converge to a common theme which would denominate all my essays. This requires time, bear with me until then.

I will write about the following topics:

Human nature — As mentioned before, I have seen plenty of contradictions when it comes to humans. Kind strangers to cruel relatives. Close minded liberals to open minded traditionalists. Strong home makers to weak working women. Arrogant religious to humble atheist. Egoistic weak men to humble strong men. Turns out, the labels people attach to themselves are not how they act. Ignorance is the norm and not the exception.

Depression — I suffered and overcame depression, while being isolated in an alien country, far away from home, for years. I saw loved ones leave your side and a stranger you meet at a coffee room, stand by your side, proving to be a great friend. I learned a plenty about the working of a depressed mind, which I would love to share.

Philosophy, religion and spirituality — Born in traditional family gave me a worldview which has helped me in the hardest of times. Needless to say, I am fascinated by the ancient scriptures, which are as relevant today as they were in the past. I will write in order to understand these scriptures and share what I already know. Writing is the best way to learn from these scriptures as opposed to passive reading.

Writing, and reading — As a researcher, I possess skills when it comes to writing and extracting information from various sources. These skills would contribute in my journey to write about diverse topics. Good writing involves good research, and good research is communicated through good writing. I would be glad to share my insights on this sweet overlap.

On winging it — I have mentioned my habit of “winging it”, on multiple occasions in this post. A clarification is in order. Winging it does not mean being clueless, it means to operate and plan under extreme uncertainty. The situations where accurate plans cannot be made or its materialization, cannot be ascertained. I have followed my intuition, until recently when I became curious to explore these intuitive ideas through writing.

These topics are by no means exhaustive. I am a curious person and take pleasure in exploration of numerous ideas. If I stumble upon something interesting, I will write about it. They might be of interest to you.

Stay connected

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Happy reading!