Aug 29th, 2024

So I have made it to the milestone- when it did look for a while in mid-2021 that that well may not have been the case. I have had numerous wishes on whatsapp and social media and I cannot keep up with responding to them The work day was fun too- the team had a mango cake for me and many wished me within the company intranet system. All in all, no matter my cynicism regarding the hyperbolic celebratory behaviour connected with something like a birhtday, it always feels great o see the wishes. It is dopamine after all. I shared my version of “Killer Queen” on FB as well- and that got some little attention too. Speaking of this song, I must mention the arduous though utterly enjoyable journey that I embarked when trying to cover it on piano and vocal. It is a very wordy song and the vocal lines are busy and precise. As I tried to sing the mouthfuls, I was always conscious that I will lose the beat because there were too many syllables  per interval. And hence I would over-compensate and sing too fast, and miss the beat on the other end of the timing spectrum. Imagine, I think I will be slower than the beat and it makes me fast than the beat. But I just cannot stay on beat. Eventually I came close and that’s when I recorded the piece- but not before some serious sweat. Every song that I try to master takes me to such a nvoel journey and I discover so much about msyelf that I did not know. In fact I always considered myself as someone with a good sense of time- which is why I always locked perfectly with a really good drummer. And yet for Killer Queen I could nto keep the beat for days- it was a drain on my confidence more than anything. But with the rigour of practice I got there- or thereabouts. All was well in the end and now I just need to complete my write-up and log off.

Today was spent mainly in making a Manpower proposal for 2025- a fairly complex task which involves filling of various spreadsheets and also making a realistic estimate of what is truly needed. As always happens, my team asks for more than they need and they feel they will get pulled back. This brings me to the big thought of today- sand bagging. This is a game that is very fundamental to managing one’s life. Certainly one’s career but also life. You keep a safety cushion for yourself, in case of a rainy day. The problem ofcourse is that if everyone does the same across a supply chain- then the demand goes to the stratosphere and there is a criminal waste of resources. A much better way is to ask only what is needed, commit what is possible and not half of it. Everyone is about under promising and over delivering. Who can really challenge sand bagging?  Maybe to a small extent but no one knows the intricacies of your own space like yourself. Also, benchmarking is a complex thing to accomplish because no two situations are exactly the same. So the smart chap sandbags his way to corporate paradise, with little or no challenge. He then becomes a big boy who is well respected for being an “achiever”. Contrast that with someone who promises and sometimes misses to deliver on the promise. This person gets no quarter. He is relegated to the garbage bin of corporate glory. Unless of course he has a special privilege- he knows someone powerful, has advocacy from a senior person who himself or herself would have credibility questioned in case the person advocated messes up. Such people, structurally, cannot fail. But for normal people, success must be actively managed, staged, curated and organised. There is a moral dilemma here, but there is no point of exhibiting it because our society does not reward you for being so upright that you end up under-achieveing on the conventional measures. In some narrow and nebulous corridoors of social currency, you may have somewhat of a good impression. But overall, it is too little to do anything for you. You don’t get any money- which is understandable- but frankly I think you do not even get the dopamine – like you do with birthday wishes for example. This type of behaviour is a total lack of integrity- but it does not get characterised as such nore penalised. There is not a leadership principle on the planet that precludes integrity- and there is not an institution on the planet that does not reward the creative lack of it. What a tragedy! And yet we all accept this and move on with our lives. No one person can lead a crusade against this and hope to make any change to the fabric of human behaviour. These are uncomfortable thoughts, and I struggle with them and especially so because they cannot be avoided. And if I have to offer parental advise to my kids- what am I supposed to say? And herein lies the power of the hindu faith. It has long realised the fundamental tragedy that is the human condition. It has never preached any virtue. It has always been about a multi-life modality that somehow is expected to keep one on as much on the straight and narrow as possible. All other faiths preach virtues- which, while it sounds really nice, does not really amount to anything- it is not practicable to pursue these. And so if you belong to these faiths you are always in breach of something or the other- whether you feel this way or not. But it isnt that the Hindu idea is substantitively better. It does nto solve the human condition any more than Islam or Christianity. And the faithless solve the condition the least of all.  It isnt solvable. We have a big brain- that is why we enjoy a life that is more predictable and comfortable than that of animals.  The price of that, unfortunately, is utterly tragic human condition.