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Srikeit's avatar

So this is what I was saving my first substack comment for...

Insightful, beautiful and emotional. And an absolutely relevant in a time where a growing number options of how to live often becomes a endless list of checkboxes to tick for social / personal capital. Godspeed to all of us in our journey of rejecting the most popular presets to find the best settings for our internal algorithm.

Meanwhile, I'm just waiting for the next listening session you subject me to. ❤️

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

<3 Totally. You have the "pantheon" list anyway!

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Shehzad irani's avatar

This was a real deep dive and a personal post. So proud of your internal journey, and being brave for taking us all along. Have seen things grow and emerge and can't believe its just been i guess 4-5 years? IA is a lovely thought and I wonder what my IA is too, and this inspires me again to take on that journey. May your iron maiden plans be fulfilled. Peace and light.

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

Thank you so much Shehzad. Do tell me what you think about "your own IA".

Maybe a later post I do should be about that - tips to help one find their own IA over a period of time. This is still a very new thesis in my own head!

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Shehzad irani's avatar

wouldn't this be the ideal segue - that "Getting Meta" was looking for i guess.? getting living books - discussing and zeroing on what their IA is, and how we can learn, adapt and create our own IA from their journeys.! time to re-visit that podcast!

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

You know what, I often thought that if I were to restart one of the older projects it would be Getting Meta. I have some thoughts. Watch this space :)

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Vijay Gopal's avatar

Great article, Deepak and some stunning photos. The concept of IA (and what a great antipode to AI!) is really thought provoking. It can help us navigate our lives with genuine autonomy. In this regard, I would like to suggest a gem - this book on meditation by Lawrence Leshan (https://amzn.in/d/gn20Bq9). The “Thousand Petal Meditation” is a joy to do and I believe an insightful way to discover one’s IA. Thank you for this post. Loved it!

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

Thank you so much Vijay. I hope this piece shows how much of an influence you have been for me! And I will check that book out, interestingly, just gotten started on meditation myself this month.

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Mumbai || Paused's avatar

Fascinating and true. And great insights here. The people you travel with on this journey seem to be a massive bonus. This is what we should've known when we were young.

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

So true - it's really the relationships you build along the way, which can never truly be quantified. You mentioned that during our interview, if you remember :)

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Mumbai || Paused's avatar

Did I ? :)

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

Yes - you mentioned that your main "metric" for social media was quality of conversations you had rather than likes / reach etc. So while you didn't say "people you travel with" explicitly, it comes from the same school of thought, yes?

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Mumbai || Paused's avatar

Yes. Always :) I think it was worth repeating :)

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Nikhil Mishra's avatar

It was a great, great pleasure to read this piece. Some sentences hit very hard and home as well. Going to read it again immediately.

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Deepak Gopalakrishnan / Chuck's avatar

Thank you, Nikhil :) Would love to know what resonated and (maybe later) how it might have helped you. This is still a thesis and I don't want my experience to be the only "training data"!

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