Hey, it’s Chaitanya

This quote by Simon Dixen highlights the importance of forging your own creative path something that I had forgotten over the last one year. What fuels my fire won’t probably fuel yours.

It’s important to recognise that there are many paths to becoming a professional creative.

Remember to stay true to yourself, find a way of working that suits your strengths, and collaborate with people who inspire you and help you grow. Be cautious of accepting any single approach to creativity, including our own!

Only you truly understand what works best for you. Seek that out, and you’ll build a more fulfilling career.

There was a time when you’d only hear two types of commentators – retired players and journalists. The players would give insights that were vivid, insightful, and full of passion. On the other hand, the journalists have always been more descriptive, informative and witty. But now, when I tune in to watch the Indian Premier League, there are a few more types of commentators.

Some commentators are actively playing – they understand the modern game and the players on-field better because they still play together. There are former coaches of teams who participated with these teams and understand team dynamics and decisions better. Lastly, there are team directors and other managerial staff members. From what I’ve noticed, they are all former players and journalists, too, but now they can give insights about why certain things were done in the auction the way they were done. They were part of the think tank that created these teams till the previous season.

There is now so much more you can expect from good cricket commentary. If players and journalists gave hindsight that was 20/20, these new perspectives make it tenfold even better.

However, I still wish to mute some commentators or pick and choose them for myself. Some of them annoy me sometimes, but that’s just my preference.

When I first learned in school about democracy and how elections happen in India – it made me feel proud. The collective power of people to elect their local representatives who propose confidence in one person among themselves to lead the nation. But the more I discuss politics with people, the more I realise they have no interest in electing their local representative. Their interest lies in one person only – who the Prime Minister is. I don’t always suspect this to be the case. People around me are a very small sample size, but that’s enough for me to be sceptical about how democracy, in theory, differs from democracy in practice. And that is the case for most things in life.

It is not supposed to be at this extreme. Generally, you’d meet a stranger, become acquaintances, develop a casual friendship, grow closer, and become intimate. Being intimate here doesn’t mean sex but an emotional connection. This greyscale would have different personal boundaries for all individuals. Yours would be different from mine. But I love how simple and stupid it is to be friends or strangers. If we had not met or talked to each other for some time, we might have changed and become strangers again. And we could become friends again, too.

I got laid off 2 weeks ago. As an individual contributor, structural changes necessitated by circumstances can’t always be avoided.

Did it get stressful after that? Not at the start. I was full of energy for the first week, but then it dawned upon me and the second week was very stressful.

Was this my personal failure? No, but yes. My work didn’t lead to my layoff. But my work didn’t also save me from getting laid off.

I have two choices now: get another job or pursue further studies. I seek answers and will have mine soon enough (from myself, of course).

But I also have to unlearn a lot of things. Unlearning and relearning right now is leaning life towards being uncomfortable. A necessary evil for my better future.

One of the first new things I was introduced to as a design fresher in the industry was how our product managers prioritise projects based on the effort required and the possible impact. But over time and in the end – it all seemed to not matter. Some projects kept going through iterations and changes in requirements without seeing the day in the life of users. There was no launch – I wonder if anyone believed there would be a launch someday for how things were going. It was disheartening.

When I first heard about Stripe many years ago, I landed on Patrick Collison’s website. The website features a page titled “Fast” containing examples of ideas and projects quickly accomplished.

• Amazon Prime – 6 weeks
• BankAmericard (Visa) – 90 days
• Apollo 8 – 134 days
• P-80 Shooting Star – 143 days
• iPod – 290 days

The reminder of these ambitious and successful projects begged to ask me – there has to be a better way, right? I found an excerpt in my notes from one of DHH’s post (July 2023):

Every company needs to have someone asking why we can’t launch next Monday instead of next month. Willing to accept and underwrite the risks needed to make it happen. And with a stomach for occasionally being wrong, eating the loss, but keep playing.

David Heinemeier Hansson

Working on anything, ask – why can’t we launch now?

The title of this post is an overused trope across WordPress installations. It comes from its use as the first program people write while learning a new programming language. I love it! It signifies a small beginning for something that could become so big one day. And this, my friends, is the glorious (hopefully) beginning of something… well, I still need to entirely figure that out.

See you around.