The Road Is Long
Some #LinkyBrain Streams of Consciousness
If you haven’t figured out what this whole LinkyBrain thing is about — welcome to the club.
The last week or so, amidst the clamour of voices and upsurge of thoughts that have permeated our digital feeds, I have had a chance to reflect on a number of things; not least what I bring to the table and where I see things going.
I don’t really know the other linkys out there, and most don’t know me, or how I define my linkyness, so let’s start with those…
I’ve always been the black sheep.
I was an avid student, because I thirsted after knowledge — but not for any outcome, just the love of learning.
As an East African Asian living in North London, your path is normally pretty clear — school, uni, job (banking, law, accountancy, medicine), wife, kids.
Rinse and repeat
My journey has been one of contrariness and serendipity.
I studied languages at uni, as those of you who do know me, I love talking, understanding others and seeing them from their point of view. What better way than immersing yourself in the language. It opens a raft of perspective that is otherwise a closed room — from the nuance of the idioms to the cultural idiosyncrasies.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily lead you to a high paying job in the city.
So what.
I met my now wife when I was 21 and we had our first child a year after that. I didn’t attend my graduation, I spent it in the hospital awaiting my daughter’s birth.
She (and her sister) are beautiful.
I spent a few years trying to fit the norm, became an accountant and have consistently tried to disassociate myself from the moniker since.
But it taught me something wonderful — when I look at numbers, I can see the shape of what could be, not what is.
I then spent 10 years out in Papua New Guinea learning, learning, learning — real life lessons come when you have a rabble of raskols in your office trying to rob you blind, when your factory burns to the ground and you have to figure out how to transform the phoenix from the flames.
I was a less than perfect husband and father, spending weeks away from my young family. This is time I will never get back, a deep connection that I’ve lost the chance to forge.
Since being back in the UK, I’ve had the luck to work with some great people and great minds. But I’ve been restless. Constantly looking for something else. Constantly striving to redefine myself.
Constantly battling my inner impostor
I don’t like being pigeon holed, so whenever I am, I fight to break out of those chains.
So what does this have to do with LinkyBrains? Well here’s my biggest confession:
I DON’T KNOW
- I don’t know if I fit
- I don’t know if I am capable of more
- I am constantly in fear of not being understood. Or worse. Ignored
- I look around the virtual table and see passion and purpose, and whilst I love what LinkyBrains has sparked, I don’t know that I can say its purpose is clear (more on that later)
- My biggest fear is that an opportunity will be lost…
But here’s who I am, not what I do:
Words Move Me
Almost every morning, I write some verse. Freestyle or rhyme, it’s how I release.
I love reading, and have a dozen books on the go at any one time. Who knows if I’m really taking in any of it, but every now and again, I see something out in the world and make the connection back, and then make the connection forward.
I Get Lost in Music
Once the beat drops, I’m hypnotised. Whether that’s some beautiful sanskrit chanting, or the D&B I have pumping through my brain as I write this.
When there’s music, the world melts, and I see clearly. Nothing distracts, nothing enters, it’s just me and my thoughts, my words. My soul.
I Don’t See in Pictures, But I See Stories in Them
I’ve never been able to sketch my thoughts. Words are my preferred means of communication. But I take photographs of the world. Because the world is beautiful, inspiring, terrible and frightening always.
I Despise Ignorance
I don’t have a problem with people having a point of view, but cannot stand it when they can’t support it. Or, in reality, aren’t even open to exploring someone elses.
We’re all so diverse, we have such incredibly random and different events that shape and mould us, that when even the most ‘intelligent’ choose to ignore others’ knowledge seems to me to be the definition of stupidity.
If you’re no longer curious, can you even say you are living? Or at least living up to your potential?
I Don’t Move Enough
I get a rush out of exercise, it helps me think, it helps my thoughts coalesce — but I’m inherently lazy I think. I go through fits and bursts of activity hoping I will maintain. I know I should do more.
When I Talk I Lose People
When my thoughts start looking at the future, I know the connections exist, but often can’t articulate them in a way that others understand.
It’s frustrating that others don’t see what I see.
I’m a Cheerleader
No I don’t do somersaults and wave pompoms around, but I have an inherent belief that if you support others and their strengths, you have the ability to maximise their impact by orders of magnitude.
I’ll always cheer on.
I’m Inspired by The Opportunity that Tech has to Impact the World, But Disappointed that it Isn’t
OK, that’s a broad statement, I know. Serendipity has led me to work in impactful business. I see so much opportunity for tech to fundamentally change the way we do things, especially in sectors like education, health and financial inclusion.
But often, the impact is overshadowed by the goal of investment or income.
I’m Not A Closer
It’s the journey, not the destination that inspires me.
This means that I’m constantly looking for new journeys. Even when I know I’ve had an idea with potential, when it comes time to move it forward, I’d rather look for something else to challenge my curiosity.
I Can’t Write Code
This annoys me. I had a BBC Basic when I was a kid (until I plugged it into the TV to see what would happen and it blew up). We used to write music on there. I loved it.
Then as I grew, IT was about knowing how to use word. Not how to programme. How mundane.
And now, I have had many aborted attempts to at least get myself a working understanding of Python. Oh well. Can’t learn everything I guess.
I’m Nowhere Near As Successful As I Would Like To Be
For a given value of success.
I Crave Acceptance
I don’t know from whom. Just that it’s important to me. Maybe it’s acceptance of myself.
So having delved this far, what does it mean to me to have been swept up in the LinkyBrain madness, and where do I see it going?
I’m glad to have found a community that thinks differently. That seems to be guided by something other than the bottom line, or the publicity, or the next investment round.
I’ve connected with some incredible minds and will continue to do so.
I’d been thinking of setting up a Medium publication for the last 2 years, but never did. Then LinkyBrains happened, and I just got it done.
I think there are lots of people trying to find the angle and impatient to convert this into something ‘tangible’ — I’m not sure I agree that needs to happen just yet.
Once we construct a framework, we’ll define it, and once we define it, the opportunity for it to be more than disappears.
That’s not to say that shouldn’t happen ultimately, I just think that we all bring our experience but also baggage to the table.
To make this work, we need to lose our baggage and approach this differently.
Because I truly think this is different
I believe there will be hijackers, FOMOuters, people who will use and abuse and people that will wait till there is a bandwagon to jump on to.
I believe I feel like I am part of something nascent, at the inflection point of minds yearning for change.
And I want to be part of that change.
LinkyBrains, collectively, could effect this change at all levels, in the corporations they work in to battle the ineffectiveness of bound innovation, to the poverty ridden streets of the world because they see things differently and don’t approach problems with the same heuristics as those that have come before them do.
As individuals our impostor syndrome might stop us from believing we can make that change.
As a LinkyBrain Collective…
We can.
The road may be long. But it’s beautiful.
