#173 My brain is a dump of random things
Things I learnt/found fascinating this week
Dearest,
Hola Hola!
I've always been a very curious cat.
Thankfully, not about people’s personal lives. Phew!
Once you start working—or even right before that—a process of singularity begins.
You're asked to focus. To figure out the areas where you excel or can make money. And then you focus, focus, focus, letting the rest of the world, with its million offerings, pass you by.
And if you’re responsible for the fam jam, you have to double down on that focus. Because it’s not just about you anymore; others depend on you.
So, you pack your curiosity into a suitcase and give it away to someone who has better use for it.
But after everything that’s happened in my life in the past few years—losing my childhood home of 27 years (2021), both my grandparents (2022, 2023), and my father (2024)—I don’t even know what the hell I’ve been running a tight ship for.
There’s another way of looking at it too.
I’ve lost 90% of everything my childhood stood for, which means, now more than ever, I need to keep the child in me alive.
And that child? She was always a curious little bum—opening up toys to see how they were made, trying to unlock her wardrobe with a safety pin (don’t worry, I failed massively), getting obsessed with random subjects for a couple of weeks and devouring everything she could find about them.
She never once thought, Is this the subject that will run my house someday?
So, call it letting go, saving the child within, or a late quarter-life crisis (early mid-life crisis?)—I’ve summoned curiosity back, and she’s been living with me again.
Here’s a list of things I learned (or got curious about) this week:
🔹 You cannot escape the Pareto. The Pareto principle (80/20 rule) states that 20% of causes are responsible for 80% of outcomes. But that doesn’t mean you can optimize and focus only on the 20%—you cannot escape the Pareto.
🔹 Don’t be patient with action, but be patient with results. (Not fully convinced, but might help with procrastination.)
🔹 There are diminishers and reflectors—diminishers make you feel smaller than you are, while reflectors make you feel bigger. And guess what? You’re sometimes a diminisher and sometimes a reflector.
🔹 High intelligence with optimism is a potent combination. But above all this comes integrity. Applies to both work and romantic relationships. (Points 1,2,3,4 from Honestly with Tanmay videos on Naval’s tweets.)
🔹 The easiest way to appear bigger than you are is to lie. (The Honest Liar documentary) This one is about the magician Amazing Randi, who spent his later years exposing paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.
🔹 Speaking of Amazing Randi—what a guy! Supremely intelligent, extremely funny. Fun fact: He was the first person to perform a card trick in space! (Though he was stationed here.)
🔹 I’ve been super obsessed with flags lately. Now I know the flags of all 195 countries—and honestly, that helps me sleep better at night.
🔹 Romania and Chad have almost identical flags. No wonder I keep getting them wrong—I am not the problem.
🔹Turkmenistan ka kafi effort wala flag — I appreciate. Belarus ne uska Insta version banaya hai — also appreciate. (This is verbatim from my brain.)
🔹I asked ChatGPT what my flag would look like if I were a country. This is what it spat out:
(I would be the first one to change my citizenship. Imagine having to draw this during exams.)
🔹Apparently, purple is the rarest color in national flags—only two modern flags have it: Nicaragua and Dominica. Why? Because the dye used to be ridiculously expensive and was reserved for royalty. By the time purple became affordable, most flags were already designed, and it was associated with monarchy—therefore, against democracy.
🔹 “Any freedom that leads to the desire for more freedom is not freedom.” (Kapil Gupta) This guy turns a lot of things on their heads. Sometimes I feel like it’s just to sound different, but… it does make you question the concepts you take for granted.
🔹 Circumstance doesn’t cause pain; it reveals it.
🔹 It is about the destination, not the journey. (Thought deeply about this and then started questioning all sayings and phrases.)
🔹 Occam’s Razor: The simplest explanation is often the best. Used in science and design to identify the most likely answer. How to apply it in life?
Simplify your message. When discussing issues or expressing feelings, use clear, straightforward language. Avoid overcomplicating things with too many details or assumptions.
Example: Instead of saying, “I feel like you don’t care about me because you didn’t call me back, and it seems like you’re always busy with other things,” try: “Abhi bhi waqt hai, sudhar jaa.”
🔹 France shares its longest border with… not Spain, not Germany, not Italy, but Brazil. WHAAAT? (It’s between French Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá.)
🔹 My friend is taking art history lessons and has been sending me resources—I’ve been going nuts. Now I know things like:
How photography birthed abstract art.
That there’s something called Minister of Propaganda. (Looking at you, painter Jacques-Louis David from 18th-century France.)
🔹 I bought myself a hula hoop (the crisis is properly crisising), but now I understand centrifugal force better than I did as a Class 12 pure science student.
🔹 AND AND AND—I’ve been talking to DeepSeek, and it’s been very interesting:
Since this is the future, might as well embrace it!
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This was such fun to read! You ARE making sure your brain has fun!!