The Idea-Person-Thing

“The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.”

— Alexander Chalmers

In my attempt to distill happiness into its purest form, I thrust all three of these pursuits into a single idea-person-thing combination. That idea-person-thing becomes my all. I wake up to it, I breathe it, I eat it, I sleep with it.

It is always with me. It possesses me, and takes over everything else. I cannot give up until I win. And I cannot win unless I keep wrestling. There are a million things that badger me, that try to pry my attention away from this absolute purpose of existence. Even if my eyes leave it for a moment, I must return to it. I have been wired that way. I am obsessive, and I don't give up.

It is difficult to explain the past few months, that have flown by in breathtaking pace. I wake up, think about new ways to realize the idea-person-thing, feel let down by a lot of things that happen, pick myself up because I know I can't win unless I keep wrestling, win small victories that fuel me for weeks, and keep working until I'm too tired to work.

You cannot be unimaginably happy unless you go all in.

Entrepreneurship #3: Cofounder Dating (1)

As an entrepreneur, most knowledge comes in the form of trickle-down knowledge: blogs, entrepreneurship websites, rich and famous entrepreneurs, and folks who are perceived to have earned the right to voice an opinion.

Almost everyone will tell you about the importance of a core-team - most importantly, of a cofounder. A cofounder is probably the most significant relationship one develops outside of blood-ties and sex, or so they tell you. There is, obviously, no way to validate this when one first starts-up. I always thought I'd find out when I got there.

Why do you need cofounders?

While businesses with single founders have gone on to become smashing hits (e.g. Dell, Tumblr, Alibaba...), these are the outliers, the anomalies of the business world. Two heads are better than one for a variety of reasons: creativity, people-management, devolution of responsibility... But the most important role of a cofounder is support.

The media is full of success stories and unicorns, and one or two stories of past failures of successful entrepreneurs; the reality is quite the opposite. Failure is an everyday commodity, while success is a rare, incredibly satisfying, life-changing event. In an unstructured business, your life can change in a second, and therefore you live in hope.

In this brutal world, it is lonely at the top. I have seen CXOs give clear instructions to their employees while being terribly confused themselves. No money to pay rent next month, but you recruit a new developer. You count on a deal that may go through, and relocate the entire team.

Responsibility takes a heavy toll on the mind. Decisions that go wrong must be quickly forgiven, and viewed only as lessons. When there is no one else to turn to, these become incredibly difficult.

You'll be surprised to know how many founders go into depression.

Commitment is everything

A romance can go through frequent break-ups and make-ups, and actions that break trust in the moment, and still end "happily ever after". A private limited company is far more fragile.

While people talk of complimentary skill-sets and understanding, the most important factor remains trust. "Will he or she stand by the commitment, when things aren't too nice? (And believe me, they won't be nice for a long time.)" Promises are easy to make and easier to break. Such commitment, usually coming at a high opportunity-cost, requires tremendous motivation. At the end of the day, it is beautiful to witness an idea gain shape, momentum and eventually, glory.

While I have always believed the "startup scene" is overhyped, I now concede this: entrepreneurs are among the most energetic, motivated and committed people I have come across. And that, perhaps, is the only reason why a group of individuals, with vastly different methods and goals, sticks together, and then maybe, one day, builds a Unicorn.

World Peace 101

EXTENT

If the extent of the human being – not only in terms of physical dimensions, but also in philosophical scope – is determined and agreed-upon, the world’s problems will no longer exist. The loose definition of the individual’s jurisdiction, open to interpretation and debate, splits us into liberals and conservatives, jihadis and atheists, capitalists and socialists, cow-protectors and beef-eaters, haves and have-nots.

All issues are first fought in the mind, and then in the physical world. Laws govern what we, as individuals, are allowed to control and what we aren't. Citizens who have problems with existing laws campaign for reforms - this is the constitutional route - or work outside the purview of the law. What the individual perceives as his or her jurisdiction ultimately shapes all major debates in the world today.

The niche Western twin-solutions – liberalism and individualism – oversimplify the debate, but give us the most conventionally accepted definition of the individual’s jurisdiction.

OWNERSHIP

If it is agreed that the human being extends from the toes up to the head, and from the back up to the tips of the fingers, then rights and duties can be determined for this definition of the individual. Laws can be tailored to suit this requirement; any violation of the human body could then be termed a crime. If you get mugged at the street-corner, your personal space has been violated; this is a crime. Similarly, rape is a crime as it is forcible encroachment of personal space. Murder is then the highest crime possible under this system, as it deprives the body of life itself.

The individual’s limit can be extended, with some difficulty, to human-possessions as well. This would then cover issues such as theft, arson and cross-border infiltration. The complications in this extrapolation arise out of the concept of shared ownership. Does a house belong to the tenant or the owner? Do you – the owner – have a right to determine who is and who isn’t allowed into the house? Is it reasonable to enforce a No Smoking policy in the house, even though you – the owner – don’t currently live there? If you are a vegetarian opposed to animal slaughter, is it reasonable to ask your tenant to refrain from cooking meat in the kitchen?

Marriage can be seen as a contract wherein two individuals devolve certain strictly private rights in order to gain other rights over each other. Again, we ask ourselves: “Where do I end? Where do you begin?” We struggle to define these boundaries with children as well, because they are inseparable from the parents. Is it a good thing if a child is being forced to do his or her homework? At what age do we start respecting the child’s liberty? This is only the tip of a vast grey-zone, which even individualism and liberalism – which have worked well so far – struggle to pierce.

COMMUNITY

Drawing the boundaries with greater precision or defining rules with firmer bases do not help in tackling this grey jurisdiction. No matter how well you draw these lines, there will always be conflict. There will be conflict even if everybody agrees with a common definition of the limits of a human being.

Because an individual is created by a community, and a community, in turn, is created by a cluster of individuals, it is impossible to separate them from one-another. The society as a whole often carries powerful opinions, and these deserve certain respect. A blind shift towards individuality disrupts a system of shared communal-values. The individual's struggle against societal values must be acknowledged; it must not be opposed. But it also should not be glorified.

““I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.”

— "The Friends of Voltaire", Evelyn Beatrice Hall [1906]

IDEAS

In the light of Charlie Hebdo and the rise of Islamism, it has often been said that people have rights, but ideas do not have rights. Saying this repeatedly does not bring us any closer to a planet where this is true. Much has been said about the contagious nature of ideas, how they are bulletproof, how they cannot be destroyed by bombs and bullets… All these sayings are, interestingly, said about ideas which are considered positive. They are nevertheless true for all kinds of ideas. Shooting Parisians does destroy the idea of liberté-égalité-fraternité.  Similarly, bombing ISIS does not destroy the idea of a Caliphate.

The earlier quote (by Evelyn Beatrice Hall) about the Freedom of Speech and Expression is an important step towards liberty, but it takes a myopic view of society. In fact, it fails to consider the Idea as a serious force - more serious, perhaps, than the individual. This is because the idea does not ever exist alone, independent of actions and feelings. By denying the idea certain intrinsic rights, and by simply disapproving it and letting it be, we only create a more confusing, agitated world.

Ideas are shared possessions of humanity. The concepts we use to deal with them are far too limited in their scope, and thus yield statements such as “ideas do not have rights”. Of course, ideas have rights! The moment such a statement is made, it becomes true. We can choose not to acknowledge them, at our own peril.

Ideas usually lie in this grey-zone; they are neither mine nor yours. Yet, we expect one of them to be more correct than the other. Terrorism is an idea, counter-terrorism is another. Capitalism is an idea, communism is another. Science is an idea, not-Science is another. One of these sides can gain temporary ground over another; that is all what such a victory will ever be: temporary.

CONFLICT

It does not matter how strongly you believe in Science or, for that matter, Allah. There will be another side that does not agree. At this point, we have a choice. First choice: we can draw idea-borders (we can disapprove of each other), march to the frontlines and train our weapons at people on the other side. This is what we have been historically doing. According to modern sensibility, ideological wars are wonderful as long as there is no physical violation of another’s space. Since ideas do not have rights, it is perfectly acceptable (and sometimes, glorified) to decimate them. This, however, does little to settle a conflict. This constant violation of the individual’s space – in a realm that is abstract, but very real – is left unacknowledged until a physical action takes place.

The other choice is to create a world of shared possessions. Everything belongs to everyone, with varying degrees of influence. Boundaries, if they must exist, need to be fluid. In such a world, ideas can be acknowledged. Dialogue will not mean debate. Different viewpoints will coexist; the urge to unite viewpoints will give way to the urge to understand differences.

Not only will we allow for the existence of foreign ideas, but we will also understand them. We will respect ideas for being what they are: ideas. “So you believe that God created our world over seven days? I think we evolved from a Spaghetti monster. What do you think about that?”

The definition of the individual needs to be extended and softened. The world could then be a better place.