Category: commonlog

Two types of writing

You can write to express or impress.

Writing to express yourself means journaling and taking notes. Writing this way sharpens your mind, enhances your communication skills, and helps you grow. In contrast, when you write for others, like authors, content writers, or screenwriters do, you want to educate, entertain, or empower them.

You can keep your writing private or share it with the world, like I did here. There are countless platforms where you can share your thoughts, like Medium, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Even if you’re not a professional writer, I’d encourage you to write for yourself. It’s a great way to improve your thinking and communication.

“Man becomes what he thinks.” The clearer your thoughts become, the better you’ll be at everything – from seeing the world to interacting. Writing is the foundation of success. You should write and express yourself as a way to think. It’s up to you if you publish your work or not.

There’s an endless well of ideas when you write to express yourself. But when you’re writing for others, especially to impress them, writer’s block and anxiety can creep in. Because I’m writing for me, I don’t worry about what people will think. Sure, I read comments and engage with readers, but my main goal is to improve myself.

I’ve found this approach to be incredibly helpful in my own life. Go ahead, pick up that pen or open that laptop and start writing!

Dictation as a Warm-Up

Whenever I sit down to work, be it writing or coding, I face a wall of resistance. I’ll distract myself with videos, trivia, or Twitter. But all I need is a gentle push, like little stretching before a run.

Dictation is my warm-up. It lets me capture ideas while walking or whenever inspiration hits. Once I sit at my computer, I can polish the draft by reading, editing, or swapping words. This simple act gets me moving, like taking that first step of a walk.

Soon enough, I’m in the flow, adding flavor with metaphors and tidying up the text. As they say, you can fix a bad page but not a blank one. And when words already fill my screen, it’s so much easier to dive in and continue writing.

If you face challenge of writer’s block, may be try dictating your thoughts. Break the resistance. Get a page filled with rough draft. Then rest will take care of itself.

Corruption: India’s Silent Language

We have democratized and normalized bribery in India.

In India, bribery has become ubiquitous, crossing regions, religions, castes, and genders. It’s a language everyone speaks, whether you’re a Dalit, a businessman, a South Indian, a North Indian, a man, a woman, or a student. Bribery isn’t just effective, it’s expected.

You have to bribe to get a driving license, register a house, get a police verification for your passport. My friend told me that when his father passed away in sleep, the local authority demanded bribes to issue a death certificate. Either we’ve become numb to it or we’ve accepted it as inevitable.

As a society we have accepted this as a fact to the point that we even suggest, “Why not give something so things move faster?”

Is there a way out of this?

Citizens are mostly powerless. We can protest and demand change, if we are allowed to protest at all. Although we can push back, we can’t always refuse to bribe outright because we risk denied essential services. In India, bribes often facilitate action – unlike in some countries where bribes are paid to prevent action.

In order for real change to happen, those in power need to make a difference and punish wrongdoers. Until then, I’m afraid the corruption will fester.

Over the past 30 years, I’ve listened to people talk about a corruption-free India. Still, nothing’s changed; it’s only gotten worse. It used to be that government jobs paid little, but that’s no longer true. While they don’t match market rates, these jobs pay decently now. Still, greed and the belief that one can get away with corruption drive people to do it.

There won’t be any change unless those in power take the lead.

My Life Motto

My life’s motto: Run my race and finish with delight.

Just seven words. Easy to remember. Keeps me focused. Helps me enrich my life.

Too often, we chase others’ dreams, running races not meant for us. This leaves us dissatisfied, disillusioned, and dismissive of life.

My motto focuses on running my unique race – one suited to my talents, skills, and experiences. It’s a race only I can run, impacting people in ways only I can. But it’s not just about running; it’s about finishing with delight. To do this, I must constantly ask myself: is this race mine? Does it amplify my unique abilities? Is it in line with my potential?

As a Christian, I draw inspiration from Saint Paul but have made this motto my own. For the past 15 years, it has positively shaped my life.

Here is how I go about achieving this motto.

Systematically build skills to generate and exploit options.

Build. Generate. Exploit. I’m not waiting for destiny to push me forward. Though I believe in luck, I do what I can by honing my skills, meeting new people, and exploring various paths. I take initiative. When I act, the world around me helps me. Until I do, the world stands still. Newton’s law of motion applied to personal life.

I approach this systematically—a methodical, intentional way of building things. It’s not left to chance, but rather a thoughtful process of considering my current skills, potential opportunities, and what skills will be useful in the future.

Having multiple options is good. Say you are looking for a job. If you have only one offer, you’ll take it out of desperation. But if you have many offers, you can negotiate and pick the best one for you. Whether it’s hobbies or job offers, generating options gives you leverage.

But having options alone aren’t enough—you must seize them before they expire. By taking advantage of each opportunity, you get the capability to generate more options. If not, they fade away and progress stalls.

As I methodically build skills to generate options and take advantage of them, I develop talents that help me run my unique race. With acquired skills and experiences under my belt, I find joy in pursuing my own path.

I have been running such a race for the past 15 years. I enjoy this race. I’m sure I’m going to run this until the day I die.

2024 Paid Tools

Here are the set of paid tools I use constantly. I think of them as workers I hire for specific jobs.

Learning

  • acm – ACM comes bundled with Oreilly & Pluralsight. Though I don’t use them often, I turned to them whenever I have to learn a a technical concept.
  • Everand – Been using Scribd for a very long time. Recently they carved out the books service into a separate service. I read at least 1 book a month here. This year might be different though.

Writing

  • Audiopen – Bought the life-time plan when it came out. So much easy to dictate, transcribe, and blog daily commonlog.
  • Wordtune – Wordtune helps me edit the posts I write. It is an editor that I hire to polish my writing.

Podcasting

  • Descript – Google docs for audio & video editing. If you are a podcaster, Descript is a must-have tool. Make editing transcript, clips so much easier.
  • Riverside – Tool to record all my podcast interviews. Have tried different tools (including the one from Descript), but nothing is as user-friendly as Riverside.
  • Transistor – Where I host Gravitas WINS podcast. Amazing service. Plus been part of Justin Jackson‘s Megamaker too.

Networking / Coaching

  • Zoom – I use for all virtual calls. All my coaching calls happen via Zoom.
  • Linkedin – Been a premium user for 2 years. Since I write and post there daily, it helps to be a premium user. LI has morphed to be a first-class professional network. That is where I meet most of interesting people from a career perspective.
  • Twitter – In Dec’2023, subscribed to the premium plan to check out if it helps in getting a good user experience. So far no. May be too early to tell.

Others

  • Dropbox – All my files are here. Been a user ever since they started
  • Opalstack – Where I host all my sites & apps. I have been using their previous avatar (Webfaction) for more than a decade. Switched to Opal when Webfaction was sold to Godaddy.
  • Webflow – My younger son uses it to make his site

What are the tools you pay for?