Kapil Kaisare

To create is to be.

As a creator, I impose my point of view upon the cosmos. The nature of creative activity is thus deeply personal, to the point of being sacred. To create is to dream and build and grow and fail and learn. Nothing trivial, this. Creativity draws on all past experiences and one’s lateral thinking to produce something completely new. If this is not allowed to manifest into something tangible, my dreams and vision have no meaning. I must realize my visions and its consequences, or there will be no new challenges to overcome, nothing new to learn and nothing new to be.

Creation craves ownership. States of approval and decisions-by-committee and constant compromises are third-party interruptions of my internal dialog that needs to come to its own conclusions. If I am not able own the product and be creative, then I am not able to do my work, and if I am not doing my work then I am ceasing to be me. This results with me juggling a sense of self-loathing with a sense of entitlement.

The act of creation transcends commercial enterprise. It is a means to self realization first and a road to wealth and power second. The very fact that I, and others like me, indulge in it within our homes outside the graces of our sponsors and without serious expectations of renumeration is testament to this.

To paraphrase Ayn Rand: I need the world so I may build. I do not build because I need the world.

Am I a great friend because I stood by you when you were alone, depressed, insecure, troubled and disturbed, or because I gave you some manure on Farmville?

- Kapil Kaisare on Facebook

Joi Gin: Cantonese for ‘goodbye’

I’ve seen the light, and I’ve seen the dark
I’ve seen the brightness of one little spark
I’ve seen what I chose, and I’ve seen what I need
I’ve seen love cool, and served it cold as steel.
I’ve seen what I was and I know what I’ll be
I’ve seen it all – there is no more left to see.

Joi gin. May you all live in interesting times.

From HN,

From the vantage point of a 20-year marriage: it’s always about compromising, about settling. My wife and I had, I suppose, one of those romantic, instant connections. She’s from Sweden, my parents are from India and I grew up in the Bronx. We ran into each other at IBM Research, and we moved in together on our second date. Instant chemistry, very romantic.But during the 20 years of marriage, the way we met didn’t matter. Marriage is something else than about that initial burst of lust, or gushing romance or whatever. When you get woken up at 4 in the morning by your soulmate because the dog needs to go outside to pee and she certainly isn’t about to leave the warm bed, believe me, romantic love is not what makes you jump out of bed.

I think we have unrealistic expectations about romance. Living together is freaking hard; giving up one’s independence and having to be ready to compromise about every damned last thing in life (except maybe what you do in the potty) is hard. And once you compromise, if you’re smart and want to stay happy, you have to be enthusiastic about the compromise, or you get bitter. Be happy, even when you didn’t get what you want.

Still, despite all the compromises, all the things we had to work out, here I am 20 years later, and the love I had for her on that first day we met seems like a pale imitation to what I feel today. You have to work at it, and you end up with something a lot more. I don’t know about settling, but instant love connection or not, making the marriage work is the hard part, and the real love in life comes from that work.

Following a rather interesting discussion on HN, I have decided to  try and develop a few good habits – and break a few bad ones in the process.

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