Friendliness and professionalism

Power of timely love

 The 8 minutes catch up with a friend by Simon Senek:

The 8 min catchup

The perfect hug:

5-10 sec hug

A concept by John Gottman

The 6 second kiss

In conclusion, spend at least 8 min with a friend, a 10 sec hug to a loved one and a 6 second kiss to your partner.

Good Love v/s Bad Love

Good love sets you free. Bad love enslaves you.

Good love changes you for the better. Bad love forces you to unwilling changes.

Good love is supportive. Bad love is dominating.

Good love is empowering. Bad love is disempowering.

Good love is based on trust. Bad love is based on jealousy/ fear/ need to fit in/ not to be alone.

Good love doesn't demand you to give up on friends/ colleagues/ family. Bad love is obsessive and demands other sacrifices.

Good love helps you grow. Bad love enslaves you physically / mentally / sexually / emotionally.

What is a good photo?

I love good photos.

I love good authentic photos.

But what is a good photo ?

I googled to check.

The top answers were:

1. If you always consider these three variables, light, subject, and composition. You will have mastered perhaps the most critical part of photography, and learned how to actually convey an emotional message with your shots.

2. What Are The Qualities Of A Good Photograph?

• Timelessness.
• It doesn't need to be explained.
• Tell us a story.
• Be selective about just what you allow into the picture.
• Attention To Detail.
• Unusual Point of View.
• They create emotion.

3. What is the definition of a good photo?

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” – Irving Penn.

So here is my view of what is a great photo.

Photos consists only of a few things like the game we used to play as a kid: People, Places, Animals & Things.

To understand what a photo is, we have to understand that it is a slice of time. Everything is so unique about it because it is that unique slice of time we have captured. 

But, any photo is not a good photo.

If it is a person or people, it has to capture an emotion. It has to be candid so that the emotion can be captured in all its honesty and reality, in the moment and unconsciously by the subject. An emotion that when looked at later brings nostalgia to the person and brings back the feelings in them what they experienced at that point in time. It should be like a time travel. If any other person sees it, it must convey the story and the emotion of the person and what they were going through.

If the photo is of a place, it should take you back to that place mentally (good or bad depends on that place) and give you the highs or the shivers.

If it is an animal, it is must be about it doing something unique or focussed and about to do something.

It is a thing, the contrast of it vis-a-vis other things should define the traditions, culture and context of the human civilisation.

If a photo captures more than one of these 4 elements together, it would be an outstanding photo.

Success & failure - A difference of Motivation

We all have goals in 3 categories - stated, unstated and undefined.

A stated goal could be buy a house by next year.

Unstated goal could be vague as in get healthy.

Undefined is something we have not even given a thought of it yet.

To achieve goals, there needs to be motivation.

There are different levels of motivation:

1. Determined by self motivation 

2. Determined by external motivation

3. Work for pay (clear give and take relationship)

4. Voluntary (doing partially or half heartedly)

5. Needs nudge to do

6. Doing with push from other(s)

7. Doing after a threat

All goals or activities can be classified under these different motivation levels.

A comparison of the bar chart of the motivations against goals of a successful and unsuccessful person would be a contrast even with the same goals at X axis.

The level of motivation determines the success.

Having a good time - What does this mean to you?

I recently mentioned to someone that I had a good time and I am looking forward to the good times again. The phrase lingered on my mind for some time after the conversation. I didnt actually know how else to mention the time I spent as it was literally "a good time" that I enjoyed with actual only ingredient: "interesting / knowledgable conversation".

If anyone outside the context heard it, "a good time" could mean a lot of things.

So, what does having a good time mean?

For some, it is partying.

For some, it could be drugs and/or sex.

For some, it could be the company of someone while enjoying a movie/ show, etc.

For some, it could be a few good laughs with friends with or without pulling each other's legs.

For some, it is a romantic evening with a date/ partner.

For some, it could be a deep or interesting conversation on a certain topic for a pleasant experience and some insights.

This more or less follows the Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

As we go from partying, drugs, sex from physiological and safety needs to friendships and love to  recognition and self worthiness to the highest level of self-actualisation.

So what does self-actualisation mean?

Self actualisation refers to feeling fulfilled, or feeling that we are living up to our potential. One unique feature of self-actualization is that it looks different for everyone. For one person, self-actualization might involve helping others; for another person, it might involve achievements in an artistic or creative field. Essentially, self-actualization means feeling that we are doing what we believe we are meant to do. 

Having actually had a good time in Self-actualisation zone, I have to say it is very addictive as it is the highest form of mental feel good, one can have.

There is no formal guidance for anyone to anyone to actually understand how each person can reach the self-actualisation zone. Understanding oneself through a proper system of coaching is one way I have found out.

Conflicts in love

 I recently watched an avant garde movie called "Love Lies and Bleeding".

The movie took a few things to the extremes with the plot and with clear decisions to be made.

On introspecting the movie, there were different kinds of love: Sibling love (to protect the other), Husband-wife love (the wife loved him despite he being a physical abuser), father-daughter love/ dislove (where one daughter separated from the father due to his alleged killing of her mother) and lesbian love (2 ladies loving one lady).

The clashes and conflicts that came:
One sister wants to protect her sister from abuse and is ok with killing her husband while the abused sister wants to continue her troubled relationship with her husband. Priority and purpose of love.

One lady loving another while a stranger loves the same girl. Competition in love.

A father wants to protect her daughter from cops while she says mum about the killing of the mother and others by her dad. Love to not hurt.

The conflicts came when one love or the purpose of one love came in confrontation or a higher priority of another love.

In modern worlds, these conflicting loves are there but not shown explicitly.

One of the most common substitutes of love is giving time. When one relationship gets more time (or assumedly more time than required) than another, this comes as a conflict in love. These relationships could be grandparent-parent v/s parent-child v/s parent-in laws v/s spouse-spouse v/s friends time v/s relaxation or hobby time.

It is almost impossible not to have conflicts with the limited resources of time.

How we keep what relationships we want for the future, manage/reduce the non-value added relationships to get what we want out of life is the question.

Open Mics and Stand up comedies

I have discovered Open mics (The precursor to the stand up comedies) about a year ago. I have visited about 10 open mics over this period. 

There are multiple things I look forward to these:
Hilarious takes on situations, Good jokes, Open talk on societies' taboo topics and also the Gen Z's thoughts, perspectives, online tools and in general being in touch with that generations' ecosystem.

An example:
I just knew about a dating app called Tinder. But an artist's full fledged stand up of 10 min comparing the people you find on each of the popular dating apps was both hilarious, cringy as well as very informational for an outsider like me.

Relationship between Time and Money

The relationship between these 2 things is interesting:
The middle class and poor, value money more than time and give their time to earn money.

The business class and the rich, value time more than money and spend money to save time.

For this class, money is time. 

Money is a tool with multiple purposes - to buy something for someone and make someone happy, to attend the best schools and gain the best knowledge to use, to travel around the world for business meetings, conferences and build and keep connections and build the networks. To get the best of the services to solve the problems than spend time to figure it out.

The middle class and the poor, don't know many ways to make money apart from trading their time to earn money with the particular set of skills they have.

For this class, time is money.

As potential to earn is limited, money is scarce and cannot be thought to spend on things, services that could have been outsourced.

For the business class and the rich, know that there are multiple ways to make money, but time is limited. They have seen their money and wealth go up and down many times and understand it much deeper. They sometimes have connections (trust from customers, suppliers, associations, bank credit, mortgaging assets) they can leverage to get back from a bad position.