Love
Since this blog was named after the original cartoon, I had to post the Valentine’s Day version.
N.E.D. – The Rocking Docs
One of the wonderful benefits of blogging is the serendipitous contacts. I’ve written about cancer on this blog only twice, but because of those posts, someone wrote and asked if I would talk about a unique band. And while I’m very late, here it is.
N.E.D. is a band comprised of six board certified Gynecologic Oncologists who’ve come together to put out a really cool CD. What impresses me about these specialized doctors is that in addition to their day jobs, they have taken the effort to put out a CD where all sales goes to fund research at the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation. In addition, one of the doctors, Dr. Nimesh Nagarsheth, recently released a book called Music and Cancer: A Prescription for Healing.
The music is really wonderful – these are professional musicians and look the part.
I’ve bought the CD and I encourage you to the same. Great music and a good cause – a perfect mix.
And I absolutely love the name! N.E.D stands for No Evidence of Disease. The best words a cancer patient can hear.
Happy New Year, 2010
And happy new decade. Am I glad to be done with 2009 or what?? I think that’s true for almost everyone I know.
What a crazy decade it’s been. I still remember standing on the beach in Hawaii watching the fireworks to welcome the new decade, the new millennium. It feels like yesterday in many ways. It feels like a century ago in many ways.
It is incredible to think about how much media production and consumption has changed in the past decade. We’ve had the iPod, YouTube, Kindle, xbox, netflix all emerge and flourish in the past decade. And it really feels like just the beginning. Entertainment will continue to democratize but I believe true quality will still (and always) be valued.
Anyway my fellow adventurers – here’s being cautiously hopeful for the decade to come!
Thanksgiving
Is a really good idea. Makes one pause and be grateful for our wonderful lives. Whatever is going on, if you can read this, you are blessed compared to many in this world.
The only thing I hate about Thanksgiving is the turkey massacre. Tofurkey for the win!
Peace, love and vegetarianism to you all.
Willing to pay
There’s some chatter about the New York Times survey to their customers on whether they’d be willing to pay $5 per month to access the content. They also asked if $2.50 would be acceptable. I didn’t get the survey, but as a long-time NYT reader, my answer would be an unequivocal “Yes, absolutely”.
What’s interesting is that this debate comes on the back of the larger debate around Wired editor Chris Anderson’s book, Free. I haven’t read his book (although I have read reviews) and I also read Malcolm Gladwell’s retort. When Chris Anderson says “free”, he means free to the consumer – but the reality is that nothing that takes time or effort to produce is ever free – someone is paying. Either the producer is paying for her own costs and giving away the end product or advertisers are supporting the product.
And that’s what is important to realize. The cost to produce something is not free (even if the cost to transmit and disseminate it may be close to free). So what happens when the producer has to get paid?
Let’s come back to the NY Times. Everyone is jumping up and down saying newspapers are dead. Agreed – I haven’t bought a printed paper in over 8 years. But journalism is not dead. Not even close. Today, I cannot go to one place and get the incredible breath and depth that the Times offers me. I can’t find exceptional political insight and funny technological coverage in a blog. If you point me to the Huffington Post (a site I was addicted to during the elections), I’d say, yep, great example of online journalism.
The journalists at the Times are fabulous at what they do. And they have to get paid to be able to continue to do what they are good at. So what’s the solution? It appears that advertising revenues online cannot cover those costs. It comes down to having the consumer pay something.
My recommendation is to allow consumers to get a certain number of articles free each month – say 10 articles. After that they get charged the $5 fee and they can read anything they want, including all the archives, for the rest of the month. For a frequent reader, like myself, I’d rather just have them autobill me. Forget the 10 free articles a month. I’ll blow through that on day 1 or 2 at the latest.
For the customer who comes to the NY Times site very rarely, their experience doesn’t change either – they can read their one or two articles and leave without feeling any pain.
The middle section – the group that reads maybe 20 articles will dither. But, $5 is about 1.25 Starbucks coffees. At $2.50 it is less than a Starbucks. Quality content written by journalists who are the best in their fields, edited by a top team of editors, across an incredibly wide range of topics for an entire month on one hand. One cup of coffee on the other. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
The issue is that we’ve been trained to expect content on the internet to be free. Retraining ourselves will be hard, but not impossible. If it is a question of not reading the NY Times or paying $5, I’d gladly pay the $5. I think they should offer a family rate too – so for something like $10, up to 5 people can read the Times.
Now for some caveats: I’m willing to pay to sustain the journalists and editors that bring me the content. I am not, however, willing to pay to sustain high-cost printing technology and all the infrastructural and organizational fat that is needed to support the print side of the business. As a consumer, I can’t really make that allocation, but I hope the Times will do the math and when paying print consumers stop supporting the cost of print, the print section gets shut down. Please do not make the eco-friendly online users support the dinosaurs’ tree-killing addiction. Oh, and while I’m at it – if I do pay, I really want the ability to embed the NY Times’ photos and videos. They are awesome and by allowing bloggers to embed them (with links back of course), the Times will actually get more traffic, not less.
Finally, the Times has to consider if someone else will fill the gap they leave with a great product that is free. The asset is the journalists. Unique individuals with unique voices. Not so easily done. And even if someone could do it free for a while, they’ll hit the same economic issues as the Times.
The Times seems to have explored a number of options – a couple of years ago, they had people pay for Times Select (and yes, I paid). I’m sure they’ve come to this after a lot of thought (I hope they have, although their decision to disable embeds gives me pause). To term paying for things online as old-school and therefore unacceptable is silly. And I, for one, am willing to pay.
Here’s to the crazies
The crazy people will change the world for the better. The people who hear they are insane, it can’t be done, it’s silly to do it *now* and still go ahead and pursue their dreams – these are the folks that will have a positive impact on large groups of people.
The crazy people are special in many ways – most importantly, they are super-smart, very capable, confident, and almost universally acknowledged for their capabilities (unless you are an emerging crazy, in which case you have yet to be universally acknowledged)1
The people who rely on the status quo, have never earned a job or title on their own, and skate along trying to fool people might be fine now, but average is all they’ll ever be. These people look down on the crazies. They may secretly want to be one of the crazies, but only for the glory that will eventually await the crazies – they don’t want to do the hard, grinding work that it will take for the crazies to succeed. And therein lies the core reason they’ll always just aspire to mediocrity.
The truly bold ones – the ones who may fail big, the ones jump off the treadmill of safety – are the most likely to win big too.
This wonderful piece talks about how young crazies from Yale are pursuing their dreams.
it’s refreshing to know that the world keeps minting idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act, but are starting their own projects and driving innovation.
I know of a couple of others who had the courage and capabilities to walk away from secure, stable jobs to venture out on their own. To those crazies, whether you are in Madras, London or New York, my most sincere good wishes. May you soar. May your hard work and your idealism be rewarded. I’m rooting for you – you’re inspirational.
- My “crazies” are different from Hugh’s Crazy Deranged Fools in some ways. CDFs seem to be creative or artistic, my crazies can be pure business folks although successful business folks have to be creative too. And my crazies may not pay the bills for a while – they will live without if they have to, they will adjust their lifestyle downwards. CDFs could work alone but my crazies want to start companies/ventures/projects. I am not quite a crazy, but I am a CDF. [↩]
What you can control
It’s easy to get into funks about the state of our lives. Our lives have many components and there’s usually at least one of those pieces that’s off-kilter. And with the global economy the way it is, let’s brace ourselves – things will get worse on some dimensions for sure.
The only way to get through it is to focus on what you can control and ride the rest of it the best you can.
“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.” – Brian Tracy
The same is true for negative people who are in your life. Negative people can drain your energy, but it is your choice whether you have them in your life and how you deal with them. I chose to cut out a lot of the negative people from my life (some still stalk me on my blog!) But letting negative people change who you fundamentally are is letting them win. If they make you wary and untrusting when you are fundamentally a trusting, open person, then they win. So screw them, cut them out and live your life.
Is this hard advice to follow? Sure. It’s very hard for me and I struggle at times to remain positive and ignore the negative. But it’s the only way you can remain true to yourself and be happy.
Hello 2009
Ah… 2009. I finally feel well enough to blog and here I am.
And what better way to start than with a most excellent (yet pithy) post from Seth Godin…
Not having a goal lets you make a ruckus, or have more fun, or spend time doing what matters right now, which is, after all, the moment in which you are living.
The thing about goals is that living without them is a lot more fun, in the short run.
It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact… those people have goals.
My publicly stated goals are then – to find the time and inclination to blog more. Specifically to blog more about movies on Tatvam – that starts today. Besides that, all of my goals for 2009 are personal.
Hello my year… please be kinder and gentler than 2008 was!
What’s in that tab?
After a particularly horrible day today, I was decompressing when I found a song I’ve been looking for for a long time.
The song, called Praan (I discovered), is the song from the “Where the hell is Matt?” video. The song is fantastic (listen). What’s even more fantastic is that it is from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. It is Stream of Life set to music.
Stream of Life
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
It is brilliant. It is on continuous loop and it gives me hope that tomorrow will be a better day.
But… back to the topic of the post – I tried twice to post the audio file to this blog. Both times WordPress collapsed. And that’s why I have In The Moment.
The tab is where I post stuff as I experience it. Quotes, songs, inspirational videos, creative brilliance, an image from the No on 8 protest, whatever. It is what I experience in that moment. I hope you’ll visit to experience stuff with me1. And since it is so much simpler to post there, the quick and little stuff will go there – more stuff and more frequently…
Being thankful
Thanksgiving was spent being glued to the computer. Monitoring the #Mumbai twitter stream, tweeting like a maniac and watching NDTV and CNN-IBN online.
It didn’t feel like there was much to be thankful for.
Like so many have said, this felt more personal than any other terror attack. I never spent much time in Bombay before I met R. But Bombay is as much home for him as NY is. He spent a year living and working in the Oberoi Trident and every time we went to India, we went to Bombay. We stayed at the Taj. We stayed at the Oberoi.
The last couple of times we were there it was to contemplate moving to Bombay. I hated the thought of it. I’d just gotten my mind around living in NY and now I had to move to a(nother) dirty, crowded, overwhelming city? No, thank you. I still remember a late night drive from the Oberoi to Oval Maidan to get advice from a friend on how to deal with scary prospect of having to live in Bombay.
Circumstances changed and we never ended up moving to Bombay, but R spent a lot of time there each month. And every time he was there he did a dozen meetings at the Oberoi and the Taj.
Because of the limited time I spent in the city, because of the fact that I’d stayed in the two hotels briefly, because of having eaten at the restaurants, this felt so personal.
But imagine if I had grown up there. Imagine if it was part of my life – woven into the fabric of my being. That’s what it is for a lot of people in Bombay and it is those people and the people who were caught in the nightmare who have the right to feel truly overwhelmed.
When R heard the news, he smsed everyone he knew in Bombay. Almost everyone smsed back. One of our friends did not. So I emailed her just to check in. She emailed back. She’d been a hostage for 11 hours. One line in her email has stayed with me all day and will stay with me for a long time to come – she spent the 11 hours “… waiting to be slaughtered”… But providence in the form of the commandos, or destiny or fate stepped in. She walked out of the Taj alive.
2008 has been an incredibly difficult year personally. One filled with minor and major struggles including a very serious health issue of an immediate family member that we are still dealing with. But this Thanksgiving, there’s actually a lot to be thankful for.
I am thankful my friend is alive and okay.
I am thankful so many were saved in Bombay.
I am thankful R’s trip to Bombay is this week and not last week.
I am thankful that J&G are in my life – adorable and incredible.
I am thankful that we identified the health issue when we did and am hoping and praying the person recovers completely.
I am thankful to have R in my life.
I am thankful for my family and their love.
It is easy to be thankful in a great year. This thanksgiving tested that. But even in the bleakest of times, it is important to me to realize that I am so fortunate. Important to me to pause and appreciate what I have. So even though this post is late, it was something I had to do.
Despite everything going on around us, I hope all of you have a lot to be thankful for as well.
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