Inner peace

Working on a project that is tagged as 'social impact', I often think whether you can do good without being good yourself.

For instance, can you do charity without having any expectations? Are you good to people who beneath you in the pecking order?

If not, then you are doing it for the wrong reasons. People don't WANT your charity if you are doing it to massage your own ego.

This TED talk called "Shut Up and Listen" therefore struck a chord with me. It says any social work that is not aligned with the interests of the people you are trying to help is doomed to fail. But it also talks about the patronizing nature of the 'giver' which forbids him from 'listening' to the people he is trying to help.

Without being good yourself and without eliminating the ego you can never do social good.
A personal transformation is required before you set out to transform others. You have at peace with the world and more importantly with yourself.

That is a journey I want to begin.

Frictionless Serendipity

This article lamenting on how social media tools like Facebook make us miserable struck a chord with me.  I have been noticing the same for the past many months. What was a tool to share ideas and personal news has turned out to be a competition to capture attention.

But my take is that this experience is but a speed bump to the future. Where, it is not only sharing that is frictionless but also serendipity.

Clearly, we are creating more information about ourselves than we ever have. The photos we take, the places we visit, the songs we listen, the ideas we have, the books we read, the movies we liked, are all getting logged in some database. And a lot of this sharing is already frictionless. Maybe even a little too much (privacy).

The next problem is to make serendipity also frictionless. Currently, I need to visit my Facebook page to see what I am missing out on (fear of missing out). But instead, if serendipity was pushed when its needed, it would be more useful. If I search for a book, I want to see what my friends felt about it. My playlist should also weigh what my friends have been listening.  

Google Social Search is promising in this regard but it doesn't have the social data from Facebook. iPhone's Siri is another potential interface for frictionless serendipity.

So, until the serendipity engine is built and calibrated correctly, hold on to your seat belts. oops. News Feed.