Weekend Musings 18
Who Am I - the question still burns along with Google and Amazon Indian consumer trends and Facebook Ads detailed targeting changes
“A monk is a man who is separated from all and who is in harmony with all.” - Evagrius Ponticus
Ego is The Enemy - Ryan Holiday writes - In 1879, the preservationist and explorer John Muir took his first trip to Alaska. As he explored, a powerful feeling struck him all at once. He’d always been in love with nature and he felt the entire world was coming into sync. Thankfully, Muir noticed and recorded in his journal the beautiful cohesion of the world around him, which few have ever matched since.
Stoics would call this moment sympatheia - a connectedness with the cosmos. French philosopher Pierre Hadot has referred to it as the “oceanic feeling.”
It is in these moments that we’re not only free but drawn toward important questions:
Who am I? What am I doing? What is my role in this world?
Ego tells us that meaning comes from the activity, that being the centre of attention is the only way to matter. The ego blocks us from the beauty and history in the world. It stands in the way.
Ryan writes - “Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. They are part of us, we are part of a tradition.”
If you have felt what Muir felt in Alaska then call yourself lucky and embrace this great universe and the process.
The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has described it well - “When I look up in the universe, I know I‘m small, but I am also big. I’m big because I’m connected to the universe and the universe is connected to me.”
In 2017 I first asked myself the question in a slightly different way - “What is the value my startup is creating in the industry. Why should my startup exist.”
Back in those days for me, everything was my startup since I would want to prove to myself that I am good at something. And in a way drive fame, money and attention.
After touching rock bottom in my life - I realised the question was wrong: “I should be asking what is the value I create. What is my role and Who am I.” So from looking at the answers in the outside world I looked inside myself. It started with the process of cleansing or at least accepting that these are my fuck ups and I am sorry.
In 2022 I started looking at the question again - Who am I and what am I doing? The question is first internal and then external.
Recently my therapist shared a beautiful thought:
“Don’t create a relationship with the outside world at the cost of your relationship with you.”
Today I am at my best version mentally and physically. This has been possible because of my growing relationship with myself. And every day I wake up with the feeling that I will be my best version of yesterday. This applies to everything I do in life - personally and professionally. Somedays I fail and some days I am happy. But I keep going.
Jubin Mehta - a beautiful soul who I know for the last few years recently shared: While LinkedIn timelines are filled with professional updates (after all that is what the platform is meant for), I take the opportunity this Sunday and share this inspiring picture for all of us to dive within and think about the eternal question- "Who Am I?"
Not as an identity in terms of what work we do but what do we really mean when we say "I"? Is there a world beyond this limited body mind-consciousness? Do we give some time to dwell and ponder on this beautiful question?
He shares some more thoughts while providing a travel guide to Tiruvannamalai - Ramana Ashram, Arunachala Girivalam, and more.
“When Arunachala calls, you come. Every place has a certain field of energy and depending on a person’s frequency at a point in time, the person reaches a place where the frequencies are in resonance. As Advaita (non-duality) says, everything is playing out perfectly, everything is divine play orchestrated perfectly to the tiniest detail. The question of free will and such only occurs to the mind and as soon as the mind subsides, rests in the heart, there is only existence. Perfect existence remains. Sat Chit Ananda (Existence Consciousness Bliss).”
A few years ago when I was looking up the website of Vipassana to find short courses around Bangalore I discovered Arunachala - the stories and why people visit the place. Last year I shared the stories of Arunachala with my mother and during the year-end, she made a solo trip to the beautiful place. She was moved by the place. My calling is yet to come.
She recorded her travel journey on her YouTube channel. In fact, in the last few months, she has created more than 100 videos. In creativity, she has found a way to accept my father’s absence. Feel free to subscribe if you find value.
After providing the logistics on his blog, Jubin writes about self-inquiry and in doing so he shares thoughts from his gurus. Post that he shares: “According to Advaita, there are two “I’s” we refer to one is the limited body-mind complex ‘I’ which we generally refer to. I want to do this, I like that, I don’t like this, the I which is a writer or a painter or an entrepreneur or any such limited identity”
And then there is the greater ‘I’- which we can call God or consciousness or any other word one wants to call it. This consciousness is all-pervading- in advaitic terms, it is called the ‘Brahman‘.
“And once a person starts relating with the greater ‘I’, the great calm- the problems of the smaller ‘I’ just become occurrences and don’t cause any ripple in an individual.”
In 2018 during my second Vipassana camp at Hyderabad, I asked my teacher - At the age of 40 you are asking me to love someone without passion and without an attachment.
How can I love someone by being in samta. If I am not giving 100% then am I true to that person. Do I need to become a monk?
The teacher laughed and shared that it will be tough but the more you accept and live in the present you will slowly be on the path. And you can practise this by being in the normal world.
Obviously, it made no sense to me but today I know what she meant.
Jubin further adds :
“If you’re asking- “What is the purpose of life?” or “Should I renounce and become a monk?” or any such question; The answer the inquiry suggests is to ask the question- “Who is this ‘I’ that wants to know the purpose of life?” or “Who is the ‘I’ that wants to renounce?”
The idea is not to ignore any question but that once an individual finds the source of ‘Who Am I?”, all such questions dissolve and find their answer in the heart in the form of everlasting peace. The person will still continue to act in the world according to his or her ‘prarabdhkarma’ but there will be no suffering. The same pains and joys will continue in life but there will be no attachment and hence, no suffering. There will be constant union with peace; rather one is peace itself. Because all is peace. Peace alone exists.”
Don’t get confused. Even I don’t have the answer. The idea is not to reject such thoughts, live with them observe and document. I have found some answers like this your process might be different but don’t stop.
“Everything is perfect in the now, as it is. The realization alone exists.”
From the internal world let's now look at the external world - Indians love for cricket is supreme so the IPL dominates the search list of 2021 along with CoWIN. However, we are an amazing bunch of people who searched for the Olympic gold winner Neeraj Chopra and at the same time Aryan Khan - SRK’s son who was arrested in a drug possession case. All this and more you can find in Google’s Year in Search 2021.
Search is no more happening only on Google but Amazon too. The company says that the eCommerce portal is the number one for online product research.
The Indian consumer in 2021 has shifted from prevention to longe term immunity. And the year also witnessed the increasing complexity of long searches.
“Consumers are more expressive in their searching than ever before. They are looking for more accurate results and are willing to spend extra effort in making their search query more illustrative.”
No surprises - vernacular keeps growing with voice searches also increasing. For more check the Search Trends of 2021 from Amazon Ads.
Facebook on the other hand suffered a massive stock drop, which instantly wiped out roughly $200 billion in market value. “Meta spent $10 billion on the metaverse in 2021,” The New York Times wrote, “dragging down profit.”
Not only was user growth across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp essentially flat last quarter, but the main Facebook app lost 1 million daily users in North America, where it makes the most money through advertising.
It is being said that Facebook might lose $10billion this year to the impactful change Apple made last year. "The impact of iOS overall as a headwind on our business in 2022 is on the order of $10 billion," Meta CFO David Wehner said during the fourth-quarter earnings conference call.
According to early reports, over 95% of iPhone users who had downloaded the update were opting out of ad tracking — thus, the prediction from Wehner that Facebook's ad revenue will take a $10 billion hit in the coming year.
End of last year when the world was hoping that the new year brings some peace - Meta changed the way Facebook Ads Targetting would work in 2022.
Starting January 19th, Facebook announced that it will remove detailed targeting options in four main categories along with niche segments. At places, it will give you options to replace but from my experience, it is removing the targeting options.
Examples include:
Health causes (e.g., “Lung cancer awareness”, “World Diabetes Day”, “Chemotherapy”)
Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage” and “LGBT culture”)
Religious practices and groups (e.g., “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”)
Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures
As a fundraising consultant for Nonprofits if the entire section of social issues and causes is being removed then it is a concern for me. I don’t have answers on how big is the impact but it is a concern.
When I am creating Ad Sets on Facebook the idea is to create 3-4 ad sets with 2 being wider range and the rest 2 focussing on the detailed targeting. Then you give Facebook time to learn and you also start optimising. Along with this, you have your custom audiences and look like audiences. With detailed targeting almost gone Facebook now becomes a platform with more broad targeting. Will you get better conversions? I need to think and study.
Meanwhile, Facebook says to focus on: Website Custom Audiences, Customer Lists from a Custom Audience, Lookalike Audiences and Engagement Custom Audiences.
Facebook is further working on expanding controls that will allow people to choose to see fewer ads about certain types of content.
This means a greater impact on the advertising world and hence on the profits of Facebook. Marketers will need to think beyond Facebook, even in India. Metaverse has time.
That’s all for this week and I end with this thought from Hillel:
“If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I?
May peace be with you.
PN