Random Musings 😏, Part-9
Soul Letter #34
Hello👋 folks, Shubham here.
I am back with another edition of Random Musings.
I Removed 50 Subscribers Because the More Isn't Always The Merrier :)
If you guys read my initial posts you would remember how obsessed I was with the followers, views, open rates, and other stats.
Lame, wasn’t it?
But hey! I have moved on from dwelling on numbers to creating good content (I don’t use GIFs nowadays).
In the process, I decided to cut some deadwood.
I removed close to 50 subscribers who hardly read the newsletter (most of them hadn’t even viewed a single newsletter).
Many people signed up just because either I or someone close to me requested them to support my writing stint.
Credit to them, they did sign up but they were never really keen on it. Maybe my writing doesn’t resonate with them or maybe the mails are going to their spam.. who knows😏
Therefore I decided it’s time to remove these sound-asleep readers. It is better to have a few genuine readers instead of having a bunch of pseudo ones.
QUALITY > QUANTITY
I am grateful to them for keeping my numbers up for a while and making me register the futility behind it.
Most of us believe in the notion the more the merrier. I thought more readers was proof of how well the newsletter is doing but not anymore.
People have thousands of followers on social media and still struggle to find real connections.
That’s not what I want for Soul Letter🗞
A few loyal readers are more than enough :) For the curious souls, the subscriber count is at 160 as of now.
Bookshelf 📚
This month I read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne.
Judging by the name you would have guessed the book is associated to concentration camps.
Our nine-year-old protagonist Bruno is the son of a German official who gets promoted and is being transferred to overlook a concentration camp.
Against his will, Bruno is made to leave the comfortable life of Berlin to move to the camp.
It’s tough to adjust to his new life. There’s not a single soul (apart from his sister) he could play with. His days are spent reminiscing about his school friends, his old house, and the streets of Berlin.
With time Bruno adapts to his new habitat.
From his room, he can see a community that lives behind the fence where he is strictly prohibited from going. What intrigues Bruno is to see everyone wearing the same striped clothes, looking famished, and having the exact same haircut.
The innocence of his young years leads him to believe that they must have well-built homes, food stores, and other basic infrastructure like any other society.
Occasionally he would observe people in uniform like his father on the other side of the fence.
Bruno is an explorer and during one of his secret expeditions, he befriends another nine-year-old boy named Shmuelin who lives on the other side of the fence.
Finally, Bruno has a friend to talk to whom he visits daily.
During their encounters, both of them discuss their reflections of the world which are polar opposites. Bruno often finds Shmuelin’s records absurd and tries innocent yet rational take to make sense of all the wrongdoings. He can’t imagine his father being an oppressor.
The book is a work of fiction accounting for cruelties faced by the Jews from the point of view of a nine-year-old.
It’s a nice simple read, do add it to your read list.
For other lazy souls, there’s also a movie you can view. The movie has an IMDB rating of 7.8🍿
The Hallmark of a Good Friendship
I recently watched Kumar Varun’s podcast named Random Musings featuring Rohan Joshi.
During the podcast, Rohan says a measure of a good friendship is if years down the line you have their contacts saved with the same name with which you saved them in the first place when you met them.
Most of us like to use witty names to save contacts especially those of our loved ones. Unfortunately, not every relationship pans out as expected. With time the connection weakens, people evolve, priorities change and we are no longer as close as we once were :(
Eventually, the contact names get altered as per the status of the friendship. The comical names no longer hold true and are replaced with monotonous first names.
Take one look at your contacts and you will know your true homies.
Another thing which he said worth sharing was that at least once in your life leave your hometown and live in a new city for a few months or years.
For example, Rohan belonged to a privileged family who lived in urban Mumbai. He felt there weren’t caste issues in India anymore. But when he moved to Chennai to pursue a course in Journalism he realized caste was in fact still a serious issue.
Growing up in the same place leaves us with a limited view of the world. All our biases and prejudices are based on the events around us. And with time we get accustomed to the luxury of home and everything associated with it.
Leaving the comfort of home will help you grow as a person. You will discover new things; it will break your biases and help you gain new perspectives.
Hope you enjoyed this edition.
Signing off for today :) Until next time, Houdoe! 🙋♂️