I woke up feeling grateful for all the people who have been enriching my recent moments. Along with gratitude came joy, from joy grew mischief. That manifested as a light-hearted taunt at Cam Houser, who incidentally is putting together this kick ass course on video production. No, he's not paying me to say this, though he probably should. And he did! When my inane attempt at hilarity led to a light bulb moment that has me charged!
Most would be upset if we were accused of being 'silly.' But the word 'silly' comes from the old English word 'selig,' and its literal definition is 'to be blessed, happy, healthy and prosperous - Zig Ziglar
I don't know how many of you have watched 'Indian Matchmaking' on Netflix. If you're on the western hemisphere of this planet, you're going to be mighty amused at how Indians attempt to manufacture the 'serendipity' of a match made in heaven. The series is about a matchmaker from Mumbai who travels to the US, to match her clientele with their ideal life partner. The process involves an interrogation.. oops I mean interview to discover the individual's desires. Not only personalities, but even living quarters are also taken into consideration to ensure better compatibility. Horoscopes are sent to experts and professionals in the field to calculate the odds of the relationship ending in despair. Who needs a prenup when you have a premonition? But your planetary alignments aren't enough to decide your conjoined destiny. A face reader can tell more about you from a cursory glance at your image on a palm-sized screen than Sigmund Freud could deduce after hours of analysis. If this appears a tad much for your rational mind to digest, there are life coaches who help you understand yourself and your expectations of this 'till death do us apart' adventure. Most Indians believe that a marriage connects the couple together for seven lifetimes. Forget divorce, even death won't provide a reprieve.
Now you know what happens when East meets West. Despite the matchmaker using every tactical trick, modern or ancient to secure the ideal match, she insists that marriages are made in heaven and she's merely a facilitator. Imagine if matchmakers started providing the same service in the Valley, matching founders to VCs. If I'm behind the curve and this is already a thing, write in and share a few stories. But here's where it gets interesting. I decided to make a spoof of the series!
Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great - Cher
Picture this. It's a zoom room full of participants, some eager and some barely so. The moderator is unsure of how to pair participants into breakout rooms and decides to invoke the GPT3 version of Sima Aunty, the Indian matchmaker. The deep neural artificial intelligence kicks in and initiates child processes which study the profiles and filled in forms of participants. Their date of birth and GPS cordinates at the time of birth are used to generate their astrological chart. Now the planetary positions reveal the cosmic conspiracy that is our lives. There's always room for more data, as facial recognition scans and maps musculoskeletal features. The participants' environments are 3D mapped to get a lay of the land and correlate that to their psyche and personality. After collating all the data and calculating the odds of heavenly serendipity, breakout rooms open and paired partners walk happily down the virtual aisle to eternal bliss. Or atleast until the end of the session. The moderator is happy so is the AI, having gleaned more data to crunch on.
Now if you're wondering what I'm even considering creating this and why you should even care, here's why. In a world of knowledge management, process optimisation and mental models for productivity, exploration without a map is vital. To your sanity. To your creativity. Pranav Mutatkar says 'embrace your lazy'. Let's add 'embrace your crazy' to that. If you want serendipity, leave space for stupidity. Make a fool of yourself if you have to.
When you're 80 and looing back at your life in hindsight, the pie-in-your-face moments aren't going to be embarrassing, only amusing. The creativity you find in that chaos will only grow into something more colorful than you imagined in your rainbow colored vision. Don't underestimate the kaleidoscope of human perception. Don't limit yourself to processes and recognised patterns. Even when you attempt something you know will fail, you still chance the rewards of making a friend who will laugh at your sheer audacity to even think of it.
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I'm going to spend the rest of my week on this silly idea and if you want to be part of this quixotic adventure, reply back here or on Twitter. Let's get started.
That’s all for this Manic Monday folks. Remember, I don’t curate but I will converse. I don't give out freebies but I intend to instigate thought. I don't share mental models or process pipelines but I will be a catalyst for your personal evolution. If you have questions on how you can chart your exploration from my experiences, DM me on Twitter. If you don’t know how you wound up here, yet felt strangely at home, listening to me talk about movement, madness, and mortality, subscribe for more.
This is a crazy idea. Made me laugh. The spoof series of doing matchmaking of VC with startup is actually crazy, hilarious and I will definitely enjoy the part of being on the ride. Unassuming people being pranked and made to align on basis of horoscopes. 😂😂