Walk with Yash 5-31-20

Walked with Yash, and had a lot of great conversations and insights, as always. Here’s a small collection of topics that we discussed, based on what I can remember the day after:

1. I talked to him about the Algorithms book I’ve been reading (202005302204), and practiced conveying my ideas about something that I’ve read and supposedly digested to other people. I think it went pretty well.
2. We talked about our time with comp civics (and also Peter Ernst)
3. We talked about mortality, and the WeCroak app
4. We talked about weed, and how Yash has a bunch of thoughts going through his mind, and he’s pretty good at getting them out when he’s talking about them, but they don’t really come out otherwise.
5. We talked about tech companies, how dominant they are, and why Microsoft isn’t at the same pedestal as Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon (it’s because their peak was when tech was more of a niche than it is today.)
6. We talked about how Uber and Lyft grew to occupy the same niche (when Lyft first started out, they had to figure out how to be slightly cheaper than Uber, but also have sufficiently high quality that people wouldn’t just never take their product. It was also the fact that people were a little more trusting than they are today, so they were willing to try a totally new product that didn’t have a wealth of reviews already built up for drivers on their platform).
7. We talked about how medicine is moving towards palliative and hospice care a lot recently, over the last 20 years. There is more and more of an emphasis on doctors not just being these mechanical people, who just have tools to fix a person’s body, but also improving their mental health and overall wellbeing as well.
8. Met Holly Cheek along the way, which was slightly awkward. Interestingly enough, she transferred to Berkeley from UCSB, which I didn’t realize was a thing
9. Talked about of course everything that’s going on 202006031231, and the combination of the fact that things are just getting to a natural tipping point, and a lot of people are at home/unemployed so they don’t have too much else to do, that things are just exploding all across the country.
10. Talked about being happy with what you have (I told him that I got amazon and DS100)
11. Talked about how we’re both fundamentally good people. Yash mentioned that there are like 5 people (and the rest are much older than me) that he can have deep conversations with like the ones that he has with me, and I show a considerable amount of mental and emotional maturity. I think it might be one of my greatest strengths - this calmness and maturity.
12. Talked about TV shows briefly towards the end — Yash like Seinfeld a lot, and is currently going through Arrested Development
13. Yash accidentally dipped his foot in some mud, and so for the last few minutes he was walking while holding his chappal in his hands, true Indian style. I mentioned, what would happen if someone just dressed as an Indian beggar and walked across Pleasanton for an entire day. I wonder how people would react, and if people would be racist/disgusting.
14. The fact that I’m just learning about the different streets in the neighborhood, and how going for runs is great for that.
15. In the beginning, we talked about the 10k that Yash did, and how that in the beginning, why he would struggle with running was because of his heart and lungs, but at this point, it’s the fact that his legs are literally so tired that it’s hard to move them.
16. Yash has struggled with anxiety for a while - basically because he tends to take on too much for himself, and tries to do too much to help people. Over the last couple years, he’s been trying to bring things back into his “locus of control” - only focus on the things in his immediate vicinity, like his family and friends, and try to help them as much as possible, while not putting on the burden of the world onto himself.
17. Somewhat related, but he talked about how in his childhood, he was pretty naive about America - he thought that like him, people were mostly out to help other people, and generally wanted good for each other. Now that he’s realized that that’s not really the case, it’s allowed him to be much more at peace with his view of himself and America.
18. Yash doesn’t take on too much, but when he does, he has really high standards for himself. This came up in the context of him talking about how he spent a long time on all his English essays, even all throughout college. He said that he wouldn’t really write for himself though.

19. Also talked about the disconnect

    uid: 202006010927 tags: #insights #talks

---

---

---