Fork in the road

So, Yogi Berra apparently said, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it."

Here's a fork.

Starting today, I am moving my personal rants to a closed blog. No access to it ever. Its like an echoChamber.

This makes the number of blogs I (try to) maintain upto 523321842. Of course apart from this one and the one I maintain for C4E, most remain dormant. I will work on those at some point in time.

For the time being, to know more about the fork, please refer to this short QnA I did with, well, myself!

So what happens to the War of Words? 
It stays! Stays the way it is. Except posts where I get super critical about myself. Those go on my personal blog.

I will not post things related to work here. Those things go on C4E blog. Or may be on S101. Or I dont know where. But not here. This has been and shall remain a place where I park my personal thoughts (dude, all thoughts ARE personal). Fuck all the jazz about building personal brands and all that. This is me. And thats how it will be.

Oh, some posts will go on multiple blogs. But this blog will become a repository of EVERY post that I write. Except the ones that I write for myself, for the echoChamber.


Why this segregation?
As I grow up in life (lol), I am beginning to realise my raison d'etre (though I cant pronounce the word yet, damn French or whatever language is) -- a billion lives, a billion dollars and The Everest. And to do that, I need to be able to get access to people, ideas, opportunities and other things that will enable me to fulfill the purpose.

And that wont happen if I am known as someone who's super critical about things.

Thing is, I think, to do large things, you need a tinge of irrationality, the blind faith in your ability and a big dollop of hope. Not a pragmatic, critical, type A personality - which I think I am. So I need to get out of the mould. And to do that I will have to do some lot of things that I havent done in the past. Such as be conscious of the signals that I send out. No, I dont mean that I will stop being who I am (last few days, have got so many lessons on authenticity that I would be a fool to get away from it). But that means that I will consciously chase things rather than letting them happen to me. And if that means changing how the blog sounds like, I will do it. This year, by hook or by crook, I have to make it big. And I am on my way.

Ok I am digressing. Next question please.


You must be nuts, dude.
You dint know that already?

Actually, more than nuts, I think I am like Louis. And this blog, is like Norma - a consistent echo-chamber that has been around since I think I have started thinking.


Coming back, what about your fans? The ones who read this blog religiously? 
Lol! You gotta be kidding me! Fans hote hain #bhairoxx ke. Humare to readers hai. Wo bhi ek-do. And they'd understand. Any more questions?


How will the shape of this blog change as we go along? 
I dont know that. I gave it a cursory glance and tried to read it like a stranger would. Here's what I think of WoW as a stranger.

First thing is that most posts are long by the snacky-listicles standards that we are used to seeing on the Internet. Boring for most people who spend time online. Assuming that someone does stumble upon something they do want to read, to people who dont know the author, all the posts would remain meaningless. Each posts requires way too much context before someone could make sense. Even if you have "fans" from the book, dont think they'd be keen on reading what you rant about. Agreed there are posts about how you're trying to improve and all that. But then, as a stranger, am I interested? Dont know. 

Also, side note. Most blogs tend to have a theme - say technology, writing, design, marketing et al. This blog has no theme. Its a potpourri of things that the blogger is interested in. I will never bookmark because the interests are so varied that its tough to track. Plus none of the posts is deep. I mean the dude is clearly not an expert on any topic that he writes on. So, why would I read it? 

Ok. So, if I need to chase the ambitions, I need to try and talk to people who's push me ahead on the path of those ambitions. That means I will have to talk about impacting people and inspiring them (essentially about making better decisions, pushing thyself, learning new things, identifying the limitations, failure, life, making the world a better place, et al), money (work, opportunities, ideas etc. P.S: Of course I will not get into specifics. Those will go on work blog. Here, I will talk about lessons am taking home, the mistakes am making and pitfalls that I am getting stuck in) and the Everest (fitness, the journey, baby steps that am taking towards it etc.).

I will need to create deep, meaningful content that has to be contextual to the themes that I am chasing. For example, if I want to write about brands, I need to make it so relevant, so interesting that marketers actually want to read it! Makes sense.

May be the blog needs to get three distinct headers. Say, wow.in/inspire, wow.in/work, wow.in/everest. And each talks about a certain thing. Whoever is interested in whatever section can choose to read that section alone and then come back to it. Or not. Depending on how they like it.
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Wait. Where do things like poker, travel, short stories et al go? 
Ummm... they could go under personal?


Lol! that's where you started. No? 
Ok. They could go under inspire. And the content could be lessons I learn from various incidents that prompted me to write that particular post.

For stuff like short stories and other projects that I announce regularly, may be I do need to create a section called misc. or something that I can dump everything in. And with time, try and reduce the amount of content I create for the misc bucket.


Yes yes. Makes sense. Carry on.
That's it dude. Nothing else to carry on with. Lets just do it. So 4 sections or themes as we go along. Be Better (inspired by well, inspire), Work Better (inspired by work), Live Better (inspired by Everest) and Misc. You'd probably notice em on the sidebar (for the time being till I figure out the new design etc).


All the best! 
Thank you, it was a pleasure. Oh, if you are reading this, any thoughts? Inputs? Please?


P.S.: Love this echochamber!