Serendipity and Learning

 Two decades or so ago, blogging was a big thing. This blog was started in 2011 - 13 years ago to this month. Blogging was great, because now suddenly everybody got a place to write and you read thinkers off the mainstream and hear their raw thoughts. Among others, Seth Godin, Marginal Revolution and several others and quite a few in India as well. And I started off a blog in 2004 and wrote it till 2014. Parallely, I started this blog in 2011 and it continues.  But over the years, as twitter appeared, blogging disappeared and it became micro blogs and slowly blogging and bloggers disappeared.  But as it happens, it has made a rather lovely comeback - initially via medium - and now via substack. And we can read entrepreneurs, writers and their thoughts on substack.  So, one patterns repeat and two, on the internet, there will always be space for good content!

When something happens, everyone is happy to latch onto it as a trend. The latest in this is a story about a particular quick commerce brand is doing very well. There are similar such conversations - and they mostly pertain to what is currently making 'news'.  Very often what is making news is not necessarily a trend. It is trending for a variety of reasons - but to scratch the surface and see what it is about - that is not something that the news will tell you.  When AI suddenly became big, everybody latched onto it - and continues to - but in the days leading up to it, there was notorious silence - simply because for a lot of people the news is the trend - but that is too late.  So, beware of gyaanis who come bearing news as trends - if the trend makes it to the news, it is already old news and you are late to the party. 

  This note made me think about my childhood.  Yes, we were children of scarcity. Anything we wanted to buy would undergo multiple layers of scrutiny before we spent money on anything. Our needs were frugal - whatever we wanted was an excess unless we really believed it would add value.  There were entire train journeys (38 hours plus), where we were completely self satisfied. Did not even have to buy as much as a banana from outside. It was very rare for us to eat outside - we went out and came back and ate mom cooked stuff. When we went for picnics, we carried everything (and more). Resources were to be conserved. And definitely nothing was to be spoken in in the open - everything was a secret unless otherwise mentioned.  Todays children are children of abundance. They get what they want (within limits) immediately or even before they want it. We eat outside when we feel like trying out something new or when we are bored with home cooking or when we travel. Food i...