A few months back, I attended Start-up Weekend Hyderabad in South India to validate a few ideas I had in mind, to meet interesting people and experiment concepts under construction. Well, I’d rate the event’s crowd far below the average start-up crowd in Chennai or Mumbai. We ended runners and it wasn’t so much effort.. but I definitely wouldn’t rate worthy of its registration fee, despite the interesting organizers. They tried pulling mentors, the so-called ‘angel’ investors and a few more Finance guys to help the participants. (In India, the investors are a bunch of MBA guys without much background about Technology or the start-up environment. Listening to them actually made me realize that they meant only money unlike the Valley were a guy investing in a start-up would have had a hands-on experience starting up himself understanding the team dynamics or would have taught the Math/Management behind a start-up in a university or would have raised the VC amount exploring the future potential of a specific market.. but in India, investors aren’t necessarily like the ones in the Valley who also mentor and talk Technology, they were mostly similar to the bankers putting a bunch of Rupees on table into the most explored fields widely. It’s usually a common investment pattern in the e-commerce Service sector or Social Media contexts where they expect to scale with a huge volume. I haven’t met all of them, but this view is based on the few that I’ve met so far in ~3 cities. )
Anyway, apart from the investors disappointment, I started networking with a few guys and found a few interesting people to talk to. One of them was a 19 year old guy from the same city of Hyderabad who was looking for a way to start-up. He was quiet an aggressive networking guy and he wanted to talk to me after doing some due diligence on my background. Looks like he was trying to get into the Thiel Foundation’s 20 under 20 program (now called as the Thiel Fellowship) and I got really curious to know more about him since only a very few in India have known it. So, we sat aside to talk for a few minutes at dinner with my Team Mates. From the few minutes of conversation, I could guess he was smart, was good at networking and was familiarizing himself with the big names in the valley. Then we started talking about his past. It startled me when I started realizing what he had done.
When Admiration roots too deep as Imitation
So, this guy dropped out of college (a decent one) claiming that it wasn’t making sense. He was proudly claiming that he makes not many friends because he was rude and arrogant. He started to mention that he avoided the not-so-bright ones in his circle and would only talk to people who were smart or intelligent because he thought many were a non-sense and would waste his time. He started to mention that he was having a “disruptive” idea to “revolutionize” publishing industry and that he was looking for a programmer/coder. He added that he was good at coding but wasn’t quiet interested in doing it full-time. He was wearing a Blue Jean and a Black Tees (it wasn’t a turtleneck, though). Half way through his story, I realized that he was trying to replicate the life of Steve Jobs. He was so much influenced by the man that he started imitating his entire character and lifestyle based on the versions mentioned in the books. This was when I realized how many such inspired smart minds have killed their own original Character trying to be someone they are truly not.
Having read the biography of Steve Jobs, I could find so many acts of imitations in his attempt to copy Jobs: style of dressing, speaking, self-proclamation of similar flaws and dropping out in Second Year of College… This guy in his true nature was probably a very good person, but in his fantasized world inspired by Jobs, he was Jobs, the ghastly visionary and so he tried to imitate him consciously every day in every way.
When we started talking about Jobs an instant sense of comparison cropped into his face and he began to find excuses to have not become him so far. I could guess he was possessive and he started defending his self-made version of Jobs. He started to talk about how Jobs was lucky to have found an ingenious Steve Wozniak next door to build Apple’s first few versions and that he had the resources closer to him including the universities that worked on incredible stuff. (Also, I am guessing that his choice to work on publishing industry must have been inspired from the same book.)
Suicidal Immolation – Character Immolation
I could very well understand him because I was someone similar a while back trying to race up with inspirations. The intent wasn’t usually the culprit, the mind was commonly that tricky savage. In our mind, we start with an early reference to an inspirational character, then we begin to compare with them, and finally we try to imitate them consciously or unconsciously to improve our self-esteem forgetting the reality that we quash our true self to do that. In this process, we end up living our life like someone else by consciously committing to burn our character in order to accommodate the newly found fascination of another character or identity. A suicide is not only about killing one’s own flesh and blood, but also killing one’s own true character and values. Failing to recognize our true gifts and talents, missing to explore ourselves by killing a sound mind that thinks on its own is definitely a redefinition of Suicide through character immolation or mind-murder by consent.
An inspiration is supposedly a version of admiration of someone when one could relate to that “hero”. When life gives lemon, these inspirations make us more optimistic to walk past that day just like in their history. They are stimulants who encourage us to push beyond our limits. These stimulants in small qualities are good to get away from pain or disappointment but an overdose could cause death to one’s own character, a true self. It takes a while to realize that one is under this addiction till someone asked a question, “Don’t you like you?”. May be they should read this book to realize that there is no hard and fast rule to the commonly acclaimed ‘success’ or ‘inspiration’ and that there are only a few basic principles. It is no book of psychology, but it points out the straight facts that all Great Men were not all having the same ‘Rags to riches’ story and that every person and every character have their own great story. We hear a lot more about Rags-to-riches, because that’s what draws more attention, that’s what the larger mass can relate to and that’s what sells more books for the publishing companies. But in reality, every single person have their own self to embrace, celebrate, to be proud of, to look in the mirror and smile at and probably to write their own biography to be looked at. Originality has far more value than a complete replication.
Steve Jobs’ story is definitely inspirational proving that even a college drop out can create a ‘revolutionary’ company. This explores the possibility of an exception and that there are no rules. Unfortunately, the overly inspired addicts misunderstand this as a rule to imitate, just like this guy. Remembering Oscar Wilde’s quote, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness”, one needs to understand that imitation only leads to a proof of mediocrity rather than an attempt to greatness. I’ve come across so many trying to replicate Jobs’ style while on stage and I’ve always wondered where their personal statement or style was and where their imagination was. Have they probably killed it already? It is good to have an inspiration but one needs to make sure to draw a line between admiration and replication so that one doesn’t end up becoming that mediocre copycat. Trying to replicate a hero killing the real hero within us is a definite suicide that we don’t want to regret in our later years.
This guy I met is probably not the only one. He probably has a ton of company in this world of Admiration Addicts. I felt sorry for his state and I really hope that he wakes up soon and embraces his true character. I hope that he doesn’t loose much of his age trying to live as someone forgetting his real character and value. I can only hope and wish.
Note: The title to this blog was inspired from Emerson’s quote, “Imitation is suicide”.
There have been quiet a few questions that have been bothering me ever since I started looking closely at some of those behaviors that is considered a routine or a norm. I thought it best to record it somewhere.. (These questions are mostly India-centric)
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