HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ gabereiser

I only listened to the first few minutes. I’m not a fan of podcasts or talk radio at all. I grew up in a household that followed Buddhist and Hindu teachings, even though I’m as white as it comes. I studied zen, buddhism, hindu beliefs, practiced martial arts, and even took chi-gong meditation courses. I’m also an engineer and found that the zen achieved in programming to be as close to mindful bliss as I’ve found so far. Intent, purposeful, thought and actions.

That said, I collected several books by Thich Nhat Hanh that really helped me in my early 20s to shed the past, reduce self to its pure form, and approach each challenge with mastery. At least that was the idea. 20 years later, some of it worked, some of it didn’t.

I continue to conquer my mind, it’s an everlasting struggle with self. I just wanted to add that I do believe there is substance to these teachings. I don’t have the credentials to explain what that is, to me it’s just a feeling. I remember when I changed. I remember what I was before, who I was after.

If you haven’t done it, I highly, highly recommend martial arts (I studied Kung Fu) or Tai chi, or anything that can help you channel your mental gymnastics into a force for unlocking your mind.

Be like Neo in the Matrix.

Sadly, I haven’t found the secret to luck which is needed in varying doses to be a successful founder. I did find success, which is a result of dedication and hard work.

⬐ factsaresacred

It may be that there's nothing new in what Kapil says, yet I do value the way in which he says it.

I prefer his direct and succinct approach over what you hear from popular sources of counsel such as Tim Ferris, Gary V, Tony Robbins, and - dare I say - Naval.

And unlike their advice (work 3 jobs you hate, delete emails you don't like, practice not finishing things), most of what he says won't ruin your life.

I spent the last few years building a business and Kapil's writings got me through some of the lower moments:

- A man is who he is. Until it is no longer acceptable to him to be who he is

- Humans do not like being alone. The ones that do have a chance at Freedom

- The Mind does not assault man for his mistakes. It assaults him for the cover-up

- If there was one single thing that stands between man and his freedom, it is the belief that he has time

At the end of the day, there's nothing new under the sun and so the value of a person's words lies in the impact that they have on you.

⬐ ketamine__

What are the best resources to become a guru?

⬐ factsaresacred

Take your pick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritua...

⬐ teatree

This is the one podcast on Naval's Youtube channel that I found wired. Most of what Naval says makes clear sense to me, but the conversation with Kapil & Kapil's twitter+website gave me all kinds of wrong vibes. I have seen too many of these guru type scams in India.

Naval is the only reason I want to explore Kapil's works a bit more, despite my instinct shouting at me not to. If a guy who has understood the game of life and money far better than me finds this guy a true intellect, maybe I am missing something ?

⬐ codr7

It's called the age of false prophets for a reason.

Trust your experience, it's as close to your reality as you will get. If it feels off, you don't need evidence, and that goes for everything.

Right now you're acting like someone standing outside in the cold, freezing like crazy; but refusing to accept it because someone else says it's warm outside, and you think they might have figured something out that you missed.

There are plenty of real teachers out there, no need to settle for scraps from the table.

Which leads to the question: how do you know? You know because they will tell you to trust your own experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHvZp-mrKk

⬐ jdmoreira

I listen to everything Naval records and I find him quite insightful but then again he is no golden god, he is just a person like us who won't be right 100% of the time.

I personally disagree with his view on bitcoin and that's fine.

⬐ timmytaplands

I feel the same way (like Kapil might have something to say) but a little put off by the fact that his content is locked behind pretty steep paywalls. He seems very intent on cashing in by courting high-end exec / VC clients like Naval, dismissing those who won't pay as "not serious".

On the other hand, he does have a book that you can find on Amazon which I haven't bothered to read. So maybe it's all in there.

⬐ dkarl

The way I see it is, there's no benefit to you if your involvement with a guru is to follow, support, admire, and believe. If that's all you do, then the benefit only goes to the guru. On the other hand, if you believe that any benefit will come through building your own understanding through work, thought, and experience, and they influence you to do this work, then you will benefit, and it hardly matters if they personally have any great insights or not.

There are gurus who encourage the first kind of involvement at the expense of their students, but different people can take different things from the same teacher. Some people are strongly predisposed towards one or the other forms of involvement. Some people want to just sit and listen, and they'll get little benefit whether they're listening to a saint or a fraud.

As for intellect, when someone is presented to you as a guru, all or nearly all of their specific insights are going to be well-worn, recycled cliches. A guru is more of a coach than an intellectual. An intellectual's job is to say new things, or old things in new ways. A coach's job is to say what you need to hear even if it's been said a hundred million times before.

For some reason we get this all mixed up when it comes to "spirituality," and we believe everything hinges on the quality of the ideas. Instead, imagine your kid's soccer team is being coached by the great soccer manager Carlo Ancelotti. Imagine that they spend every practice sitting on the ground and listening to him lecture them on technique and tactics (not that he would make this mistake.) Meanwhile, the other teams are coached by parents who know nothing about soccer, who run their teams through dribbling and passing drills they looked up on the internet, followed by some chaotic scrimmaging. Your kid's team is not going to win a single game, even though they have a "true intellect" for a coach, and the other teams are coached by frauds.

⬐ rramadass

Well Said! This is why blindly following somebody creates more confusion and is generally useless.

Always think for yourself.

As the saying goes; "A Teacher/Guru can only show you a doorway, you have to walk through it yourself to the destination".

⬐ beaconstudios

He's talking about how as you specialise in something you have to systematise your disparate, formulaic knowledge of the topic into a systemic understanding that you can draw new insight from. Working in that field goes from applying learned techniques to having an instinctual understanding of it as a whole, and consequently being able to be flexible and creative with your approach. I think this is what happens when something "clicks" and what were previously seemingly-disconnected rules of thumb join up to make a cohesive mental model.

⬐ crossroadsguy

The first few sentences made it sound like it's going to be a mix of Quora and Paulo Coelho, and I stopped, realizing that would be beyond my realms.

Is it vastly different from what I assumed?

⬐ maxFlow

Buddhist regurgitation.

⬐ tovej

I'm 2:40 in and he invents the word "prescriptionize" instead of using the perfectly useful "prescribe". My gut is telling me this is likely to be a bullshit self-help lecture.

⬐ beaconstudios

I think he means "formalise a rule of thumb", and in my mind "prescriptionise" just sounds better for that is case than "prescribe". The "ise/ize" suffix is usually used for a transformation of the subject, which is appropriate in this case, even if its a made up word.

⬐ tovej

"Formalize a rule of thumb" is one of the definitions of "prescribe"

⬐ beaconstudios

I know but its most common use is to tell someone to do something. When a word doesn't feel right in context, sometimes people make up a word using the syntactic rules that feel more correct. Same story with "solutionise", a word I hear semi often in industry that's just when people don't want to use the word "solve" for the process of solving because it's most associated with the completion of said process.

⬐ systemvoltage

Also, this whole spiel can be summarized simply: When you're at the cutting edge of any endeavor, there are no instructions to follow.

Well... isn't that obvious from the definition – "cutting edge"?

The more I listen to this stuff, the more I realize, it is a verbal extravaganza with nothing of substance. It is taking the most obvious things in life, making an intoxicating narrative and interpretation, and master it with excellent spoken skills and voila - you got Naval/Kapil.

⬐ bestowingvirtue

I believe it refers to the process of generating prescriptions and on a deeper level untethering away from the corrosive nature of words that already socially abstract a certain behavior. For words and reality interact much like the stomach and stomach acid.

⬐ tovej

No, he really does speak like an undergraduate that doesn't have much to say about a subject but has to write a 10 page essay on it. As someone who writes academic texts, this is painful to listen to. I understand every word, but quite often the words are simply badly chosen. They are more difficult words than necessary, and they often mean the wrong thing. He doesn't even seem to understand the words and phrases he's using. He talks like someone who wants to __seem__ smart.

The whole talk's been stretched out, muddied, and fed through several thesauri.

⬐ ivank

It makes perfect sense to me because I'm familiar with the phenomenology he talks about. He's referring to real changes in experience and perception that a lot of yogis/meditators discover. Usually a lot more words are required to convey useful information here, so other writers might be a better introduction: Shinzen Young, Rigdzin Shikpo, Chogyam Trungpa.

⬐ aryamaan

Care to talk about these things with some examples?

My gullible brain thinks that he has something valuable to say and that requires more efforts from my side to extract that.

I feel same from reading his books too like.

⬐ inakarmacoma

Honest question, do you have any direct or indirect relationship with the speaker/author, closer than the average HN reader?

⬐ aryamaan

Well, I find this question... Interesting. Why do you ask?

No, I don't have any different relationship with Kapil Gupta but I did feel that some of his points (in this talk and from books) hit the chords. Specifically for the problem part but for solutions, I feel he uses mystic language and don't leave me any wiser.

⬐ tovej

The main point of this discussion seems to be the old "don't concern yourself with material things"-spiel. And I agree with the general idea. I also agree that to succeed, you can't just follow rules of thumb blindly, you need to understand your field of work.

I don't really take issue with the content, but there's not much of it and he's not very efficient at communicating it.

Examples: When trying to say "don't let the means become an end" he uses the 5-dollar word "intermediary", which typically means a person, instead of the simple "means". He says "my speech is fraught with peril" instead of "If you don't listen carefully you might misunderstand". He says "the solution isn't the solution, the problem is the solution" instead of "There is no arbitrary solution that's applicable to all problems".

He's really just paraphrasing common aphorisms with bigger words or wrapping them in koan-like phrasing. I think that's why he sounds appealing. He's telling us what we already know, but in grandiose terms.

⬐ trynton

@tovej:

I concur, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

⬐ vishnumohandas

You should start a religion. :)

⬐ thevardanian

Like others here, what the dude is saying is completely... unoriginal. But originality is not the mark of truth, in a sense. However what is problematic is the use case, the instrumentalization of this stuff, which has always been a huge taboo within the system this kind thought comes from.

On the other hand, if anyone else wants to indulge in this kind of frivolous/masturbatory meanderings, U.G. Krishnamurti (NOT THE FAMOUS ONE), is far better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1exoQ3W-6E4

⬐ systemvoltage

I am listening to it, this whole spiel in first 10 mins can be summarized simply: When you're at the cutting edge of any endeavor, there are no instructions to follow.

Well... isn't that obvious from the definition – "cutting edge"?

The more I listen to this stuff, the more I realize, it is a verbal extravaganza with nothing of substance. It is taking the most obvious things in life, making an intoxicating narrative and interpretation, and master it with excellent spoken skills and voila - you got Naval/Kapil.

They are also rehashing Feynman, Krishnamurthy, Neitsche, etc. and pawning it off as their own.

Top comment on YT summarizes this well:

> This is first I heard about Kapil! What an amazing articulate man. Blown away by how calm and steady he speaks

That's indeed the seductive aspect of their podcasts. The moment you peel it off, it is just basic common sense and nothing actionable or insightful. It is podcast porn.

⬐ kumarvvr

>it is a verbal extravaganza with nothing of substance

Perhaps it is a reflection on the underlying anxieties & fears of a society which enable such people to rise up and gain a following.

⬐ dmos62

> first 10 mins can be summarized simply: When you're at the cutting edge of any endeavor, there are no instructions to follow.

That's not a good summary. I think you jumped the gun on making a judgment.

A better summary of that section is this paraphrase: even if a great, accomplished man retraced his steps and followed his perception of what he had done the first time around, he couldn't repeat the accomplishment. That's because, the talkers argue, it's the details that matter and they're unknowable in the sense that an algorithm is knowable.

I find their discussion filled with substance that's lacking in most "life insight" blog posts around.

⬐ bulleyashah

Yeah dude, I think so too. Some of the ideas I liked though we're about prescription, and then him saying it's all about destination. And trying to look beyond words and towards an understanding.

And I agree, most of it can be summarised as "life is a complex system. You can't marry any kind of ideology if you want to achieve any goal, but instead keep listening to feedback and tune accordingly"

⬐ codeproject

thanks for your comments. it is insightful. really appreciate it. If you read the current self-help books, you will find there is really nothing original or new there. but that stuff sound so engaging. it keeps your reading.

⬐ yantrams

I felt the same after sampling a bit of Krishnamurthy. I’ve seen people go all gung-ho about him with cultish levels of reverence but found nothing original. Eloquent prose yes but nothing remarkable at all. After everything you said, it was surprising to see you casually drop Krishnamurthy’s name next to someone as original as Nietzsche.

⬐ systemvoltage

You're probably right about this, I haven't studied them deeply.

⬐ ketamine__

Glorified ASMR. Is one of these two people advising Gwyneth Paltrow yet?

⬐ senthil_rajasek

I've never heard of Kapil before but why are Naval and Kapil grouped together?

Why not Kapil and Ryan Halliday ?

Is this because of a subconscious bias?

⬐ systemvoltage

Well, this podcast is a discussion between them.

⬐ senthil_rajasek

Apologies, I thought it was a youtube video of a talk.

⬐ ghoomketu

Thank you and glad I am not alone finding this mostly fluff.

This is sadhguru level stuff imo and weird that it is something Naval is associated with now.

⬐ systemvoltage

May be I am being a bit harsh, perhaps there is value in listening to this and it brings peace to some people.

As far as they are doing this without exploiting people, ripping them off like Deepak Chopra and deluding them, I am fine with it.

Naval appears to be doing his thing just purely out of boredom and to attain fame.

⬐ tartoran

You’re right but some people in really dark places may benefit from a bit of positive delusion. It is when reality is starting to become obscured by it that it becomes a serious problem. I remember being depressed years ago and it’s not that I was irrational but I didn’t see any sense at all and this kind of thing could help in such circumstances. Luckily I got over that and I’m not seeking this type of fluff. Now Im in a good place, married, kids, a lot more reasons to go on but if I think about it, mainly things haven’t changed in the sense that it is still all kind of pointless, it just depends what spin been put on them.

So I think there’s a benefit in having people saying positive stuff even if it’s just meaningless words

⬐ creamynebula

Most people maybe are lacking in common sense and don't know these references as well, so I too think it can be helpful and it's fine as long as he isn't ripping anyone off.