we love laugh stories

This Saturday I had a whale of a time. It was my lecture after a long time and I went mad. Literally crazy. It was a 90 minute lecture in which I think I taught for not more than 10 minutes. The rest of the time I was just making the kids laugh. That’s it.

I think somewhere in life I figured that I am a standup comic with a flair for comic timing. I can go on and on and keep cracking jokes on everything. In this lecture I just kept cracking jokes and making the students laugh like crazy. Even while teaching them something I was simply making them laugh.

It was so much fun. I know I getting them to really enjoy when the laughter erupts in loud noises and people start clapping at the jokes. The energy is so high that they don’t know what to do and clapping starts. When you hear that you know you have the audience and then you can teach anything.

I like to keep things simple and teach less. Teaching less is teaching more. A key few simple principals well told is my new motto. Teach less, laugh more and enjoy the lecture.

Yesterday I was called for some stupid rewards and recognition program in office. I went mad there as well. Someday I am going to get into trouble for all this. It was a division in which we were doing decently well and the kids were all the high achievers. I just refused to make any sense. I started of cracking jokes and I ended up cracking jokes. In the middle I insulted every department there was including my own and tore everyone to pieces. The crowd was in splits. They started clapping at the jokes and had a whale of a time.

This self-deprecating humor is the best one. You can say the truth without really offending anyone. And everyone enjoys. I think that’s the way it should all happen. Laugh your way through everything. I wish I would be able to give my own standup act in my own funeral meeting. Laugh at my own death and life. That would be something nah?

I find most comics too boring. Laughter is awesome when the situation is real and fun at the same time. I take real emotions and real incidents and make people laugh. My jokes are spontaneous and not rehearsed. That’s what I like about my own jokes and speech. Then of course as the occasion demands it, I intersperse with real intelligent comments and bring the seriousness back on the table. I actually taught the kids something on both the occasions and what I taught was significant.

To my students of case studies I taught them that by themselves case study is useless and with no ability to help them. But if you see it as a story and enjoy the story telling then you figure that it’s more fun and from there it’s up to you to take what you can from it rather than force a moral down your head. In office, I explained how significant their job is within the firm and within the finance industry.

When you try and teach, one thing I have learnt is that there is no such thing such as teaching something. It is up to the person receiving to figure what they want to learn from it. You can push anything down in anyone’s mind. Teaching is a process of drip irrigation at best. Keep putting small small things into people’s mind and see how they take root. A lot like inception.

Inception as a kick ass crazy movie. The key point is that to put an idea in someone’s brain is very difficult. You have put it in a way that they believe it theirs and once it takes root it is impossible to eradicate. How do I put an idea into a person’s mind in way that it is his? It cannot be by brute force. It has to be by smaller drips. The mind has to be fertile enough to bear fruit as well. The seed must be dropped but the fruit must be that of the recipient.

What a subtle art this thing is. It requires immense amount of patience and a willingness to let go of the fruit.

Recently with a startup that was seeking my advice, I simply asked them to reorient their brains on some basic parameters on how they look at business and boom – sales soared. Just a realignment of objective and the way you look at them. Simple. I hope the seed dropped in his head and now it’s up to him to see the growth the way he deems fit.

See movies are like this. Stories are like this. You take a story and see what you want to learn from it. That is the best way to learn. Not by teaching. Moral science class, no matter how stupid they were, I think they were effective explaining the principals by stories. Same is religion and the myths and the epics. Story telling can give context and richness to behavior. Stories.

simple life

20 years of being married. This Saturday. But it’s already been 28 years of knowing each other. So it’s a difficult milestone to celebrate. And for a couple that is highly practical parents of a young child, it no big deal. Where do we celebrate? Should we go somewhere?

This is similar to the question that I ask my self – what is Jispa’s life untested by faith. Just because we haven’t taught her to pray, I wonder what will happen in adversity. Who will she look to for help? Will it better or worse for her? Similarly – Jasmine and I have been a practical couple. We have known each other for 28 years and I guess since the last 20 years we haven’t really given each other gifts for anniversaries and birthdays. We figured that both our lives are fairly intertwined. We have equal and joint control and visibility on our bank accounts. We know how much money is there or not. We know exactly what the other wants and we buy what we want. It’s not like we hold to expensive things. If it something we want and we will use, we buy. There is no real gifting opportunity.

If it’s impractical to buy it then we don’t buy it. It might be expensive or will not be used or whatever, then we don’t buy it and we don’t bother about it. Hence we can’t buy each other anything. I know she feels and I know I feel that we should gift each other something from time to time but whenever we think about it we look at each other and go… nahhh!

We have even told each other that we would NOT appreciate a surprise party. DON’T EVER DO IT! We have warned each other about it. Probably we are too bored about celebrating it or too practical but definitely we would appreciate a surprise party. Forget surprise, we don’t even appreciate parties.

In the new house, for sure our socializing has gone up. Significantly. We can have larger groups of people coming over and enjoying together. We seem to like people coming home and we play games together. Which reminds me – I have to buy more games. Whenever I get an opportunity.

But in the new house we have stocked enough and we have structured our house in way that we cater to more people having fun. We have a well-stocked pantry cupboard next to the dining table which in turn in next to the windows, occupying the best place in the living room. Cause that is where we figured is the best place to cater to our friends. When we have friends over and we are playing games, no one moves from that place for hours. We practically spend the entire evening/ night or day sitting in just one place. The secondary fridge is also next to it making getting up only a matter of going to the loo.

That’s been our life. We like to keep things simple and practical. You don’t need too much to enjoy. You work hard, save enough, invest more. That’s it. I think we are too practical for anything. Too practical to enjoy gifting.

But I remember my tenth anniversary. We had an event the next day in Grand Hyatt. I want to remember the 20^th. What should I do? Let me see if Jasmine’s wants to book a restaurant for dinner. Let’s see. Just a quiet dinner at a nice simple place. That would be nice. Let’s see.