The reality is that the Earth will never experience the kind of peace we dream about. Conflicts, distractions, wars, and so on will always be present. Waiting for all problems to be resolved before starting to live is not sensible. Let’s start right now. Let’s live as well as we can. Let’s laugh more, show more love, and work more effectively. Perhaps this very start will eventually be pieces of the puzzle of an ideal world and we’ll see our dreams become reality. And if not, we haven’t lost anything. We’ve lived our moments.
Author: Araz Gholami (Page 2 of 13)
I'm Araz Gholami. I build software, design things, read, write, and translate. I travel and discover. Right now, I'm living in Tabriz.
The heaviest days are those when change is imminent and you’re the last one to change. It’s like the feeling of the last member of a group facing execution, with even the fellow members absent to mourn. Or like the feeling of parents whose children have gone to the other side of the world, leaving them alone at home, staring at the walls. Or perhaps it’s similar to the feeling you get after imagining a longing glance, only to realize that the image was just a figment of imagination and not reality.
I am Jack’s broken heart.
If you have recently experienced problems connecting to Gem repositories (Ruby package management), it’s likely due to HTTPS restrictions. To resolve this, you can switch the default repositories to HTTP. Use the following commands in your terminal:
gem source -r https://rubygems.org
gem source -a http://rubygems.orgSome time ago, an old friend of mine called me and, after our meeting, handed me his wedding invitation. He convinced me with some persuasive threats to travel 700 kilometers away from my current location to attend his wedding on the first of October, or neither he nor I would be happy.
The text is under revision.
In less than a week, two animal shelters were attacked (!). First, the animals at the Varamin shelter were killed, and its owner was also stabbed. Then they attacked Mrs. Raoufi’s shelter, set it on fire, and both the animals living there and Mrs. Raoufi, the owner and founder, died in the fire.
I remember in a documentary, a gentleman in Germany says that there isn’t much pride in what’s happening here. Then he mentions that after World War II, Berlin was reduced to rubble, but within 60 years, its people rebuilt it. [So, we can rebuild our country too.]
I would love to tell him this news and ask for his opinion again. Physical ruins, yes. 60 years is a long time, but we can rebuild everything in 6 years. What about mental ruins? How do we deal with the stench of rotten thoughts? How do we rebuild it? How do we stand against the massive reproduction of these thoughts? What can we hope for here? What should we fix?
It’s August 21. There are 31 days left until autumn, and we’ve endured a few months of unprecedented summer heat, probably due to the drying up of Lake Urmia. Generally, Tabriz has a cool September and its nights have a certain good feeling that I’ve never been able to name. We have 31 days to make the most of these September nights and experience that good feeling. After that, there will be three months of autumn with café sitting, smoking, coffee, and songs by people like Ahmet Kaya. Hard days lie ahead.
Sometimes I wonder why people are always seeking good feelings. Assuming we know the meaning of good and bad, why should we label a feeling as good or bad? It’s like saying life is sweet when one of the best tastes in the world is the bitter taste of coffee. Why does saying life is bitter convey a bad feeling?
People generally, when with someone, have a limited number of songs they can listen to and a negligible number of books or other content that aligns with their feelings. However, when they are alone or have separated from someone, almost all songs, books, streets, sidewalks, parks, and everything and everywhere are available to them.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just trying to console myself.
If you or those around you have ever started a business or at least made an effort in that direction, you’ve likely encountered or are familiar with the dungeon of idealism and the endless “what ifs” of delivering the best product. It’s the endless loop of improving a design, product, or service that hasn’t even been launched yet and is only in the stage of trying to get off the ground. When you also ask for others’ opinions, the volume of things to consider increases daily, often resulting in confusion and, in most cases, energy drain and project cancellation.
Sometimes, even philosophical crises enter the business startup workflow, and a movement intended to create change in work life gets halted by residues of nihilism.
I’ve been trying for a long time to find a way to change this stage of starting a business. After many conversations with my friends and studying the experiences of related individuals, I arrived at a method similar to executing a project or launching a business guerrilla-style.
Wikipedia describes guerrilla warfare as:
Guerrilla warfare is a type of irregular warfare in which a small group of armed individuals use tactics such as ambushes, raids, sabotage, harassment, hit-and-run tactics, and rapid movement to attack a larger, less mobile military force and then quickly leave the battlefield.
Applying this method of warfare—which has proven effective several times—to business startup, guerrilla business launching can be defined with the following characteristics:
- Starting the project execution phase simultaneously and in conjunction with other phases.
- Performing tasks instantly and intensively as soon as the idea comes to mind.
- Allocating limited time for task completion.
What are the advantages of this startup style?
The main advantage of this approach is that it prevents the fragmentation of thoughts and switching from one branch to another, maintaining focus on the tasks. In essence, when you force yourself to work solely on the project, your mind is freed from mental pressure, knowing that the human brain is not capable of multitasking.
First do it.
Then do it right.
Then do it better.
Can everyone use this style?
It’s obvious that in this style, the research phase is either overlooked or given less importance. Naturally, for businesses with non-obvious value delivery (products or services whose value isn’t inherently perceived by the customer), the risk is much higher. However, for businesses with a simple or tested working method, the chances of success are high.
My own experiences don’t include business startups, but I’ve had projects that achieved notable results using this style. The HappyCart project was a service launched in Esfand 1392 (March 2014), where you could create and send greeting cards to your friends by simply entering basic information. The project took less than 8 hours to implement, and if it weren’t for a technical issue that arose, this time could have been even shorter. The service was advertised with a simple introduction on social networks. Over 10 days, 640 people used this service to create and send greeting cards. The project was supposed to be expanded, but unfortunately, it remained stagnant due to some personal issues.
Another example is the redesign of my blog. The previous version took over 7 months, while the current version took 14 hours. The current version is simpler and more functional, aside from being responsive.
In the coming days, I will write more about this in detail. In the meantime, if you have experience with this type of development and execution, I’d be interested in hearing the details.
This year started off well but has continued with great difficulty. Heavy experiences that I paid a high price for. At least life kept flowing; I didn’t drag 1393 (2014) into 1394 (2015) to continue it. I didn’t want it to turn out this way, but sometimes there’s nothing you can do except adapt to the conditions and events. In these moments, when those who seem very stubborn share their true feelings with me, I feel that maybe I haven’t strayed too far from the right path. It’s really sad that misfortune has become normal. Not laughing, depression, problems, running around—it all feels too normal. The situation is such that some songs you’ve had for years but never listened to become the only tolerable ones.
Aside from the two ducks I had in my childhood, we never had a pet. Later, we had a flask that would start making a gurgling noise whenever silence prevailed. It played the role of a pet for us and contributed to strengthening the foundation of our family.
Yesterday, after many years, it fell and broke. We threw it away. In its honor, I’ll refrain from drinking tea for a day.
My friends intend to hold the Lean Startup Machine event in Tabriz and need 500 signatures for this. Please visit this page and enter your email to support the unlocking of LSM in Tabriz: l3an.com/1FyZCOz
