Crashy Model of Narcissism

When privileges are mistaken as rights, that is a first mistake.

If the first mistake results in violence, that is a second mistake.

If the second mistake results in denial, that is a third mistake.

If the third mistake results in stress or a general unwellness, that is a fourth mistake.

Such is the cascade from narcissism to depression.

Well, well, unwell ...

High-context and Low-context : Friend and Family

I was negotiating a relationship with someone whom I consider to be a friend.

My advice was : friendship does not mean, you can expect favours from someone - but of course, some people will disagree with this definition of friendship.

The way I think about people, you can ask anyone for anything ... but you would realistically expect nothing. Others of course, might believe that you can NOT simply ask for things - but they similarly also expect things from certain people.

This part of the definitive dichotomy between high-context, and low-context cultures.

Similarly, this occurs in people's usage of the term "family" - I treat my family as a subset of my frends, there are no expectations, and I will shamelessly ask anything of them, while expecting nothing.

Anger Management

I was discussing protocols with a friend. At the end of a series of conversations, I couldn't figure out how to help them holistically address anything on a laundry list of actionable items which had been discussed. One common pattern throughout the chats, was that they would frequently fluctuate between a state of serenity and a state of agitation ( one might check for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder ), based on external triggers, whereby their verbalisation of the experience would be anecdotally ( not logically ) related to past memories.

After multiple attempts at firefighting, I decided that a much more resource-conserving approach should be applied. I have decided that the one thing I will focus on helping them with is anger management.

"if you are angry with someone, it is your problem to act on"

"if someone else is angry with you, it is not your problem to act on"

Mainly this is the lens I will apply, when talking to them about it.

\\\

In the end, some of us decide that feeling hurt from language use, is a security vulnerability which must be patched.

And while we can patch it in some people, other people are not receptive to being patched.

And while we can empathise with people infected by this vulnerability, they may not identify the pattern as a vulnerability, rather they may prefer that everyone ought to feel hurt from language use.

Thereby it is a culture war, of two programs attempting to eradicate each other, or to coexist.

Haha, timely reflection against the recent popularity of The Three Body Problem.

Governance : Startups and Marketing

Marketing budgets : It depends on the original plan. So budgeting is a valid lens.

Sometimes it is part of the plan to spend 100% on product development.

\\\

There's a clear argument for not (having a marketing budget).

If you are doing a high-enough risk startup, your one job is to answer the question, does this idea deserve to go to market? The answer may be no. Here you do not have a marketing communications budget.

If you are doing a lower risk startup, then you are sure your product is already viable, then you have a marketing communications budget.

I make a distinction between marketing (very broad), and marketing communications (what 70% of people mean when they say marketing).

\\\

I think people sometimes forget that running startups is like being cannonfodder in an army.

The industry has a job. Sometimes the individual company's job is to die.

If you don't understand this, you cannot command an army. Hehehe

( And more importantly, you can't command a startup, effectively, from a high-risk fund manager's point of view. ) 

\\\

Sustainable entrepreneur : this is not what startups do.

It is not every startup's mandate to be sustainable.

\\\

follow the money!

\\\

The nature of all business, and relationships in general, is cute. And perverse.

No one actually has final knowledge of what is good or bad - everything is a gamble, even the selection of objectives/goals is a matter of gambling.

So commonly we see people who do not believe in the ethics, or even the success possibility, of certain goals ... the same people will work hard on chasing the goals, and they may even professionally sell these goals.

So the game goes on.