Some Thanksgiving Meditations

The year 2020 is about to enter its last month. For most of humanity, it has been the most intense year in at least half a century.

I think about my own experience. 

Walking in idyllic Menlo Park, fall foliage painting my vision in chrome yellow, vermillion orange, crimson red. 

I feel nothing but gratitude.

Millions of migrant workers walked hundreds of miles at the onset of the Indian lockdown. The government forgot about them in a mad rush to check the virus. With no work and no means of subsistence, they tried to get back to their villages, their families, from the cities where they worked as day laborers. 

The super spreader nursing homes in Italy killed en masse their fragile denizens. The virus caught them off-guard, and spread like wildfire. Hospitals overflowed. 

My father’s friend, his parents, wife, and son – all died of Covid within a few days of one another in Hyderabad. His daughter returned from abroad to this carnage.

Restaurant owners have watched their hard work crumble into dark nothingness.

What can I possibly feel other than gratitude?

And yet, I hear people in my entitled milieu complaining about boredom and monotony from their Atherton (one of the richest zip codes in America) estates. Their chief complaint: can’t go to restaurants. Can’t go to New Zealand on vacation.

I feel ashamed.

Intense experiences of other kinds have also peppered the year.

America saved Democracy. 

Eric Yuan’s net worth ballooned from a modest $3 billion to a staggering $25 billion. 

The world learnt to work from home. Zoom, the company that Eric founded and leads, has become the key enabler of this phenomenon.

Scientists raced against time and discovered vaccines.

My year has been rather familiar. 

1Mby1M has tried to offer entrepreneurs the one thing missing from the world today: Normalcy. 

In private, and because we have not socialized at all, I have spent more time being present.

Present to Nature.

Present to Colors.

Present to Words.

Present to Food.

Minimalism, I experience, is liberating.

Retreat, I observe, offers clarity.

What a luxury it has been, to have this opportunity to immerse deep within.

If you have experienced true tragedy this year, I offer you my sincere condolences.

Otherwise, be safe, this Thanksgiving.

And be deeply grateful.