In Psychology, they teach us about the Spotlight effect, where people especially teenagers, ‘overestimate how much others notice their appearance, behaviour, and mistakes’.

My spotlight is a tad bit different from the book definition. I was one of the smartest people in the room when I was younger. I used to love books.

Recently, I read about the fact that kids who enrolled into school earlier than later from the average age, end up developing differently from the other group. The development in toddlers happens to be so rapid that the gaps in both physical and academic traits are massive between them. The group that lacks both, is the younger lot

Now that was the research, my belief is that the younger lot, ends up buried in books, either to study and ketchup (intentional) or to escape the sport motif.

I following the same notion, didn’t spend nearly any time outdoors. I spent that time reading books, encyclopaedias and watching some of the most peak television. This led to a few major differences between most people and me.

First, I could form comprehensive sentences before I turned 4. How do I know this? My parents tell me this story, where I went to a clinic, I spoke in perfect English with the doctor, no body in my family spoke English at home, so he asked me, “Where did you learn to speak so well?”, I replied “Television, cartoon”. Well that’s quite literally how toddlers learn to speak, immersion. I just had a whole lot of it. I kept on getting better, where before finishing preschool I had a “this sounds right” voice in my head which structured my English. When I was younger, If I used to follow a person, I followed them blind. In 1st grade, we were told that you should only speak English, apart from the Hindi class. I followed it by heart, used it every single day, every single hour. I started speaking words from the books I were reading.

Second, I had more opinions and things to speak about that came from all those books I was chugging down. I was reading ~3 books/day back in 3rd grade.

Third, I could easily connect with people much elder to me. I understood their casual conversation. This gave me a considerable spotlight growing up. However, I never had the same emotional maturity, of course.

Later ahead, I joined tech. Spaces, Communities, Meetups, where I got the spotlight yet again. Overnight, at the age of 12 when your GitHub Repository suddenly hits a 1000 stars, people tend to think you’re cool. You’re somebody.

I went to virtual (COVID days) hackathons, mentored some. I was asked to speak on topics, share opinions, soon enough, I became veteran-enough to have a lot of questions be directed towards me as well. Eventually, I even spoke at a couple virtual and in-person conferences. Oh and the number of Twitter spaces, I’ve spoken in, is a number I would like to stay hidden.

When I was 12/13, I read the most life-changing book of my life. I never finished it, the results of just the first few lessons gave me the taste of success, the perfect dopamine rush. After reading the first three lessons, and applying them for the week, I gained 1k followers overnight and went viral, and I knew almost everybody, I was so excited as a 12/13 year old lad.

Slowly, I made more friends on Twitter and elsewhere in tech. Now, the more people you know and are friends with, the more people speak to you and you feel wanted. You feel like you have a place in the world, previously it was books, then it became tech for me. That place in the world, that was the spotlight that shined on me for ever so long.

2024, I made either the best or the worst decision of my life. I left tech. I like to say I took a break, but I genuinely felt that something else might be it for me. I never really ventured into the outbreaks of society to experience what will lead to my self-actualisation.

One day, one decision, 7 years of spotlight, gone. Now you’re wondering that what happened to the spotlight of the bookworm Krish?

Well, did I tell you, that I was never on Instagram until 9th grade? I lost nearly all contact with everyone from that circle of life. I met them again in 9th grade, but a couple years of absence, when the best connections are being forged, does it for you. You lose relevance, you lose your spotlight. A spotlight that everyone else around you still possesses.

The next two years, I yearned for a spotlight again. I organised two of the largest model UN conferences in Delhi. I ran elections to be the President of my school’s student council and won. Never did I receive any self-actualisation from them, but they made me feel I stood with a shell of something I used to be, and that was all the belongingness I needed.

Earlier this month, I joined Centre for Academic and Professional Support in my university, as a group peer trainer. I did it because I love to teach people that is why developer education has been such a vital part of my life. In group peer training, we teach our university-mates (is that what you’d call them?) things that do align with my soft skill pool.

The first session I went to was one about Public Speaking. Oh the irony, I was a shadow I was just meant to observe the session. Somebody came up to me at the end of it, and made a statement so sarcastically funny, “My contributions in group presentations is the same as yours in this session”. It made me laugh.

Reflecting over the past month, I’ve realised…

“There’s a reason why spotlights stand above the person they enlighten.”

I wish to be the spotlight, not the one beneath it. That is another thing which may end up being either the best or the worst decision of my life, time is to tell.

Icarus

King Minos prays to Poseidon, Poseidon lends him a magical bull, and tells him that he’ll take the bull back after some time. Minos impregnates the bull. When Poseidon comes back, he curses Minos for his child to be a half bull half man monster who would eat humans alive.

Minos commissions Daedalus (a master inventor) to build a labyrinth to keep the minotaur and occasionally send in people for the minotaur to devour. After it’s built, Minos locks up Daedalus and Icarus (son of Daedalus) in a tower, surrounded by the sea and the sky, such that they could never escape.

Daedalus invented wings for them to fly. He warned Icarus to not fly too close to the sun because the wax on the wings would felt and he’d meet his fall. Similarly Icarus was told to not fly too low as the sea pray would make the feathers of the wings heavy and he would fall yet again.

Icarus takes flight, up and up he goes. He flies too close to the sun, and he falls, even if he falls, he died knowing he soared as high as he could.

This tale is my favourite, it has the concept of both complacency versus the need of greatness and the concept of doing things to prevent you from regretting not having done them ever.

I believe icarus would have regretted if he never flew that high in his life even if he survived without soaring.

Funnily last year i build a platformer game and it won 3rd place at a game jam as a solo participant. (I dare you to get to level 20)

Eros and Psyche

Eros is the god of love (sort of the cupid), Psyche is the representation of the human soul.

Psyche is a princess, a princess deemed to be even more beautiful than Aphrodite (goddess of beauty and lust). Aphrodite doesn’t take it well when people prettier than her exist (why the Trojan war happened btw).

Aphrodite sends Eros to ruin Psyche’s life, but one of Eros’ arrows hits himself and he becomes infatuated with Psyche. The same happens to Psyche, and the two of them in fall in love deeply. Aphrodite does everything in her power to keep the two of them apart.

True love finds its ways (and all the other gods help Psyche) and she get togethers with Eros.

They then have a child name Hedon (personification of joy/pleasure).

To me the tale sort of says that happiness is born from the union of love and the human soul. Somewhere it also says that material beauty and lust suck and keep humans from achieving love and happiness.

Achilles

So now where this all started, back at Achilles. The tale of achilles is funny, devastating and sad.

According to legend, helen is the most beautiful lady on earth, she’s married to an irrelevant man in the story, but all of her suitors have a binding vow to protect her marriage.

Now in another story, the greek goddess Eris (goddess of discord, not the chat platform, discord means chaos) plants an apple which is a prize for the most fairest greek goddess. Athena (goddess of wisdom and victory in battle), Aphrodite (goddess of beauty/Venus) and Hera (wife of zeus, queen goddess) are in contest.

A random dude named Paris is given the task of deciding which goddess wins. Now all three goddesses negotiate with him and agree to gift him with lavish rewards for if he declares that goddess the winner. Hera offers to make him king of the world. Athena offers him victory in battle and conquest. Aphrodite offers him Helen’s hand in marriage.

Yes. Aphrodite offers to get him married to an already married lady. and he picks that one, over kingship of the world?

Now every suitor of Helen is bound to get her back. every single important king from Greece. Now, Achilles was not even born when Helen was looking for marriage suitors, ergo he was never bound by any oath or vow.

But his mother had a prophecy that if he went to Troy, he would die, but if he went there he’d be remembered forever, if he didn’t go there he’d live a long but obscure life.

He chose to die and leave his name in the books of history. I think that’s the Greek way of saying, an exciting short life always trumps a boring long life. it’s a tale on how to do whimsical things without worrying about the consequences sometimes, I think.

Meanwhile the person in the middle will go around and hit their head on every signboard cross town. We came up with “first-principles” to break down a problem into smaller fundamental chunks to make our solutions more basic.

Sometimes, I feel like people don’t understand the person in the middle up there. The reason why they hit their head on every sign cross town is not because they want a “different” solution, but because they fail to see the basic solution as something worth considering.

How many times in life have you had a killer idea, that you’ve killed because in your head it was stupid? Then, you see someone else go along, do the exact same thing and succeed.

Most people I know, they just assume, whatever they’re thinking of is “worthless”, “trivial” and “insignificant” and they don’t act. One man’s trash in another man’s treasure. People who don’t know about XYZ topic and are interested in the niche, they’ll find the information you considered worthless to be valuable.

Back when I was 12, I made a stupid project on the internet, a CSS reset, one of the most boring things in frontend, you add it and you forget which one you were even using. I built one and published it on GitHub. I thought it was worthless and stupid, but millions of people ended up using it and it pulled me into the tech ecosystem.

This is where I reel in and blame floccinaucinihilipilification. If we just stopped, dismissing ourselves, we’ll be so much further than where we are today.

Last month, I emailed a YC general partner to get feedback on my idea. If it were me two months ago, I would’ve never emailed, but guess… because I didn’t think that the attempt to email would be futile, I did it and received a response. His advice… You will never know what works, until you do it.

To end it on this note… Do things, don’t dismiss them. Your thoughts are incredible and they should live to see the light of the day.