I am writing this note in December of 2024, after completing the book, a few days before it goes to print. I had started writing this book in December of 2017, sitting in the balcony of my friend’s home in Goa. I used to feel that happy people seldom create art, as they are too busy cherishing joys of life. To want to create something, you need to have a void, or an innate sadness. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I did.
In this duration, this book kept oscillating between crippling self-doubt and reassuring confidence. It got buried many times into the graveyard of promising ideas, but each time got resurrected back with a new life, stronger than before. The final version bears little resemblance to the original idea that I started with, proving to me that a book writes itself and an author is nothing more than a typist taking dictation. This book manifested itself through me.
Why does someone write a book? I have been having a reasonably successful, comfortable, and fulfilling professional career. Why should I subject myself to intellectual scrutiny? Why should I open an avenue of potential stress? Why undertake a journey which could turn out to be excruciating, arduous and uncertain? These questions echoed in my mind, much like thoughts that crop up during the grueling stretches of a marathon or a challenging trek: Why should one do these things?
Following some personal setbacks, I had embarked upon a journey of self-discovery. It was a long, painful, and difficult journey wherein I stripped myself of the multiple fake personalities, I had covered myself under. The outcome was very stark and liberating. Seeing the world—and myself—without any illusion leaves little room for pretension. You lose friends, you become lonely, but you also become peaceful. And you get firmly grounded in truth and become unshakable. I realized this about myself, that I am full of ideas, I am good with words, but I am also prone to laziness. I am more of a thinker and maybe a story-teller. And I came to understand that I must write—because I can.
This story is a curated expression of my knowledge, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, and feelings. I come from a legacy of knowledge workers, and staying true to that, I have both a responsibility and a privilege to express my ideas. As my mind is only a receptor of the idea and not the creator of it, I must express it in the most earnest way.
Finally, it is a reader that completes the book. So here you are, culminating this journey. In your hands this book finds its purpose. The ideas presented here, now belong to you. And if this book kindles any hope, joy, a warm feeling, an enthusiasm, or a perspective, then my job writing it is fructified. So, thank you for making this book complete. This book is now yours.
Om tat sat.