I was invited to deliver an inspirational speech at the Start-up Weekend for the global Jade network. KJ, a friend of mine, an international expert on e-gaming and netpreneur could not avoid a smirk: “Mukul and inspirational talk?”. He knew me well and was much updated about the contrarian me and our idea of glorifying the worst. Unmindful of KJ’s demotivation, I went ahead and delivered the following speech.
Odysseus has traditionally been viewed in the Iliad as Achilles’ antithesis. Unlike Achilles whose anger is self-destructive, Odysseus is renowned for his self-restraint and diplomatic skills.
I revisited a friend at his Balaton lake house last weekend. Balaton is the largest lake in Central Europe also known as the Hungarian sea. Just 500 kilometers away and the weather was warmer than the snow-packed Cluj. I had the sun, the view and more than a stack of books at his lakeside house. And as chance would have it, next to Taleb’s signed copy of Black Swan was a book, ‘Riding the waves of culture’ by Fons Trompenaars. The book had a complete chapter on Time. This is the chapter abstract with my interpretation for you.
Do you know how many times you use “Probably” in a day? The word is a part of our colloquial expression because society embraces uncertainty, disorder, and randomness as natural. Whether it’s a rolling die, a tossing coin, or an event, uncertainty is everywhere. This is why the society believes that a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas.
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason in November 1894. He was sentenced to life for allegedly having passed French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. What happened? In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during World War I, ending his service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
The societal quest for value is continuous, repetitive, similar, connected with cooperation and patterned.