Podcast
Teej Of All Trades
Hosted by Tejovanth N · EN
Tejovanth's journey and experiments in learning and making things, documented weekly, delivered every Thursday.
teejofalltrades.substack.com
teejofalltrades.substack.com
12episodes
Episodes
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34.00 - On being a multipotentialite
Jun 13, 202400:11:27Tap to summarizeDearest gentle reader!I turned 34 this week. I'm currently in full vacation mode. And yes, I just finished binging Bridgerton season 3. I'm writing this sipping on tea lovingly made by my maava, sitting on the balcony, listening to bird chirps and lorry honks.A theme I've been thinking about has been around reinventing oneself. A conversation from 2019 with a close friend of mine came to mind - about being a multipotentialite - people with many creative pursuits and interests. We recognised each other as fellow multipotentialites and discussed how our environment isn't built to foster people like us.Multipotentialite personalities don't necessarily stem from the lack of excitement from a single topic (in contrast to the Japanese's Shu-Ha-Ri to master something very deeply) but from a deep-rooted want to learn/practice many things. Similar to what Scott Adams advocates - becoming very good in multiple domains, and marrying them together.Let's jump into this week's edition! Do share the post with your friends :) -Teej🍞 Breadwinner meets laser swordsThe past week has been crazy hectic on our business front.First, the elevator gave way, and getting it fixed was a chaotic mess.There were numerous issues with service agreements, delivery timelines, and many he-said-she-said.Things are functional now, but it all feels like a bandaid rather than a permanent fix. We're yet to decide on a course of action for making this more hands-off.We got a name board laser cut for the building.One of my besties arranged for a visit, where we got to spend some time looking at large machines fire beams of light to melt steel and blow it off with Nitrogen/Argon. Precisely moving according to the design laid out in the control machine, with large gantries to hold up the heavy equipment and rows of spikes to secure the plate steel.The factory was huge, and it brought up all thoughts of the missed opportunities of being able to work in such a place. We were here on my birthday, and it felt nice to get to see these machines too!My father had been spitballing a few ideas on organising an educational tour of such factories, to experience what happens in these giant sheds - think Discovery's How It's Made, but in real life.I want to call it a theerthyatra for to-be mech-heads.Would you be interested in such a tour?🐶 Same, but differentThis talk by Randy Deutsch that I had come across years ago, had been instrumental in how I think about my career. My parents have also walked this walk - and shown me first-hand how important it is to have multiple concurrent streams of interests.I've been a hardware engineer, photographer, software engineer, engineering manager, and now most currently - a real-estate manager. And this list is just the main gigs. The side gigs are far too many to list or count. All in the last dozen years.The single line that connected all part of this career track was me being able to make a difference - and being able to scale this. And all this feels like something I've been doing for myself - and not for somebody else's idea of my life.What Randy talks about is having a Major/Minor career, and reinventing the minor one every few years - to keep things fresh - to permit yourself to explore things. These concurrent careers give you the room to have multiple creative outlets depending on how the markets/environments are.He calls this "alchemy" - where you're taking apart your skills and passions, and putting them together to reinvent yourself.He suggests looking at your career as a set of sigmoid curves - you start learning something new and become an expert eventually at it. Somewhere in between, you pick up something new again and jump off to a different curve (the dotted one). Doing this every few years, again, will help you learn a lot more and offer far more opportunities to grow. This also helps you control the trajectory of where you're going.What are your current side gigs?💿 Everything is a remixSpeaking of alchemy, this video is my annual watch (there have been previous editions).When you take something old, and use it in something new - that's remixing. That's creating. To build complex things from simple ideas.Sampling ideas and combining them into new ways is probably the most defining thing humankind does.From music (video has great resources on it), to stories (what Disney does with folk stories), to memes (no one can deny screenshotting and changing text labels anymore), to software (most are sampled and remixed), to even this language (context is adapted into the medium of communication).The idea of original thought is quite farfetched and rare.Sure there are laws on what is infringement, and boundaries of appropriation, but evolution at its core is about remixing and seeing what works.Copying ideas is essential to creativity. This is how we learn. This is how we grow.Remixing is not plagiarising - where one takes credit for someone else's work. Remixing is finding another interesting perspective when one puts multiple ideas into the melting pot.The three important processes while remixing are - copy, transform, and combine.In the context of a home cook, you copy a recipe that has worked for someone else, transform it into your own by switching out ingredients (switching tomatoes to tamarind is something I do often in the kitchen), and combine them to make new things (I reckon vangi-poha was made when someone tried making vangibath and realised they ran out of rice).Leaving this section with this Omeleto video on an original idea.🥱 Boredom as a path to funBack in 2009, one of my besties and I ended up at IIT Bombay's cultural fest - Mood Indigo. More of my besties were supposed to come, but life happened, and they didn't show up. We were part of a larger contingent from my college and didn't gel too well with them.To beat the boredom on the train, we spoke about weird and crazy possibilities. Like how the Hindu lunar calendar would look if the Earth had 2 Moons. Or what the course of evolution would look like if electron clouds formed just a little bit differently. The ideas were truly mind-boggling for a pair of 19-year-olds. I wish we had written them down!We ended up taking all the workshops at the fest. And I mean all of them.We explored DJ-ing, juggling, and a lot more, and found we were quite good in a few. Enough to consider alternate career paths if software wasn't our thing anymore.I think I'm at those crossroads now. Software doesn't spark that joy - at least working in a software company doesn't. And this has given me a chance to get bored with things. To find joy in just doing things. To have fun.Our environment too isn't conducive to boredom at all! Entertainment is so accessible, that the consumption of content is magnitudes higher than the creation of content. All because we don't allow ourselves to sit idle and get bored anymore.Slide into my DMs if you have ideas around this 🧮 Being a polymathAnd finally, on how to balance all these interests. I came across this video recently, which sparked the thread in my head.Embrace your inner multipotentialite, and understand that you may have an array of interests.Once you're able to come to terms with this hit me up (just kidding, but I would love to know what your current passions are).The key learning I've had is that not all hours of the day are created the same for an individual. Different tasks are meant to be scheduled or pursued at different energy levels. Example: It's easier for me to write at sunset than to write first thing in the morning, while I feel sleepless after working out in the evening.Understanding this internal clock, and energy bar is key to being able to pursue multiple passions.Other things like timeblocking, pomodoros etc will help to stay on track, and systems like setting SMART goals will make sure you don't get overwhelmed.A periodic stock listing of your passions can also help focus on what's interesting currently, and park your other ideas or close some loops.I haven't practised this well enough to preach, but documenting the journey can help pick up things where you left off instead of restarting things from scratch.Errata / Updates* I wasn't able to stream this week. I'm vacationing too hard 😅* Some of you loved the Masalapuri story. Hope the instagram feed sparks joy too! I will eventually get this rolling ❤️* A few of you resonated with the kids these days section. This was heavily inspired by Ryan Holiday's Daily Dad.End NoteIf you've liked this post, I'd love it if you could share it with a friend. You can get them to subscribe <a target="_blank" href="https://teejofalltrades.subs...
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33.51 - Stories and memories
Jun 6, 202400:11:41Tap to summarizeHello!Week 3! Birthday week! As a ritual, I spend some time walking down memory lanes to figure out things that have stood out for me - things worth talking about again.While the last year has been mostly about chilling, and doing whatever the reverse of getting burnt out is; the last couple of days have been hectic.Mainly because of operational issues with the business that my wife and I run - we have a set of serviced apartments that people love in JP Nagar. Our elevator stopped working recently, and we've had issues getting it repaired.Anyway, I'm excited about this edition of the newsletter - a wave of nostalgia coming up!-Teej🥗 Plate full of sunshineIt's pouring now in Bangalore—the perfect weather for a perfect meal - street-side masalepuri.Spotting a shop isn't difficult - they're ubiquitous - a 4-wheeled cart, with a cool white LED light these days. A cart with plastic covers full of fried puri, the usual suspects of onion-tomato-carrots, boiled potatoes, vessels with masala and peas - interchanged onto a stove to keep both hot and a pot full of spicy pani. A blue tarp keeps the rain out these days, a few plastic stools or chairs for their patrons to sit on, and a couple of buckets for people to keep their plates once they're done."Anna ond masale", and the vendor buzzes into a frantic one-person assembly line.Cracks a few maida puri into a white ceramic plate, spoons a ladle of peas, and another of the green (or brown) masala usually made of a potato-onion base spiced with pudina, adds a spoon full of finely chopped onion-carrot salad and diced tomatoes, pinches of chat masala and salt, and teaspoons of spicy green chutney and sweet-tangy tamarind chutney. Tops the entire plate with some sev, garnishes with coriander, and serves with a steel spoon.I honestly think masala puri is a perfect meal - if made at home. It has all the carbs from the starches, fats from the oils, and enough protein from the cooked peas.But... It never stops with one plate of masala puri, does it?"Anna, ond panipuri".What is your go-to snack?👨🏼🏫 Meeting an old teacherThis was 2015 and is a story that answered all the "did you get thrown out of college" questions on FaceBook.A few friends and I got into a random water fight in my pre-university college.For those who don't know, I spent a couple of years at Deeksha, which we proudly declare was a prison of sorts for high-achievers. I was in the 3rd batch and the college management was still getting a hold of things and how students could co-exist in the space. The place was quite strict about dressing and essentially tried to keep the focus on studying, and less on the teenagers-having-fun bits. Students carried tomes of textbooks, and sheets of homework, while all dressed in pinstriped white and blue shirts and blue pants that made us, unfunnily look like inmates. The college too, was in the middle of nowhere, at Thalekettpura Talaghattapura.After, I-don't-remember-how-we-got-into-a-water-fight, we tried going back to class. My friends were slightly faster than me, and I missed slipping into class before the lecturer came in. While I was waiting to get in, the principal spotted me as he was angrily walking upstairs - I reckon to yell at someone else. He asked me to wait, and wait I did.It felt like an eternity, and we heard him yell at other hapless teenagers. Imagine a gunshot dispersing a flock of birds - but a human-voiced gunshot.The principal finally came down, and "spoke" to me. He took me to the gate of the college and told me to not come back.While I was trying to figure out my options, the student counsellor came out of his corner office in the library and said, "How will you go home now? Come sit under the fan in the library."This core memory came flooding in, on my way to a run, when I saw this person in a flat cap, fumbling with his phone near my home.We spent some time catching up and reliving this story.BBB and chips kind of birthdaysI grew up in a quarter - an apartment of sorts, where at least one parent shares the workplace with every other kid's parent. Birthdays were meticulously planned and executed by my parents - and this was something I looked forward to at the start of the school year, to call all my friends home and celebrate it.Amma baked a cake a couple of times, and Appa was amazing at the decor, they would reuse the paper streamers, and confetti from the previous party. Amma would make a big batch of bisibelebath - a rice-lentil dish loaded with veggies - truly a one-pot meal, and Appa would bring salt and spicy potato chips from the local All Hot Chips. We would make some Rasna together, and move the furniture so that the TV isn't the centrepiece of the living room but one small table with the cake and me behind it.Friends of all ages. Many from the quarters who I played with daily. Loads of photos in old analogue film cameras. Good food - one can never go wrong with BBB, chips, and juice; and cake.Birthdays seemed so simple back then. And this menu seemed so universal (for a Kannadiga family).Epistemology and managing what you knowEpistemology - the theory of knowledge.Farham Street is an amazing resource for topics that make you think.The question of how you know that you know what you know (not even paraphrasing) is detailed here. This is something I've pondered about a lot.Sure, there are textbooks, and notes you've made as a child - to know what you've learnt. But as an adult, this slowly fizzles away.Sure, there are books in your library (or an anti-library), to know what you've read about (or what you're willing to read); but does this get distilling into your knowledge somewhere?A lot of the knowledge we acquire is via the lens of our experience - and subjective to our perception. This borders on solipsism, but it's important to think about knowledge as a social agreement of mutually consistent comprehension of things. For example: an apple is red because most people in society would call that colour red - and someone who is blind to the colour wouldn't be able to differentiate between the red everyone calls it and let's say orange. This is because all our perceptions stem from the same physical world, and hence there's room for consistency in understanding things as a group.Tying this into knowledge management, there's a great idea of zettlekasten - a personal library of notes of what you've come across.I've tried building this for myself - and I've kept falling off the bandwagon for ages. Mostly because I never thought I had an end goal for these ideas.But I've found a way to give them a fresh lease of life - most of what's written in these newsletters comes from my zettles - my notes about others' thoughts.Would you be interested in reading more about this meta-framework?Kids these daysThe world is in constant flux - with every generation having it easier than the previous one.I remember my father's stories of how he had to man up and shoulder his family when he was still a teenager - something I've been lucky enough not to go through at the same age. My mother told me stories of how she wanted to support her sisters before she could get married herself.But this doesn't mean being a kid is easy.With everything being so connected and accessible - it's a lot tougher for kids to break out of their shells, to get out of their comfort zones, to face the world while just being silly.I remember cycling on empty streets, slipping on sand, and returning home with bloodied calves. I remember climbing guava trees and hanging upside down, just because I could. I remember fighting with my best friend and returning to being besties the next day.Now, all of this is a lot harder. Children aren't allowed to explore what their bodies are capable of, in fear of getting hurt. With the advent of digital media, there's a permanent record of what was said, and kids are trained to become editors of their own thoughts, to remain politically correct at a very tender age. The youth aren't just allowed to be silly and stupid anymore.All this limits their chance to grow. To explore their minds and bodies. To experiment and make weird choices. To distance themselves from their immature selves. To just kid around.Errata & Updates* I'm thinking of switching to a daily schedule for code.with.teej instead of the current weekly version - more because I feel like there's more that can be done with a faster cadence. Rasika.life is live, and we're adding features slowly :) Let me know what you think!* A lot of you loved the garadimane post - places are teaching how to work with mudgars, gada etc too. One I go to is Tagda Raho, more for their structured way of teaching over the community-driven one at my garadimane.* Some of you reached out empathising with the curry leaf plant. This batch too shrivelled up and died.* There were a few questions about how I record the podcast version of the post - I use Apple Voice Notes and...
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