tanisha raghav

I'm looking for my first role in product design! Tanisharaghav.in

Effective ways of training the will

How to Delete 18 Years of Academic Mediocrity and Build a High-Agency Mindset LETTER FROM A FATHER Dear Son/Daughter, For 18 years, you were chasing a gold medal in a system that is fundamentally flawed. The issue is far deeper than NEET paper leaks and CBSE exam glitches. A Sea of Institutionalized Mediocrity The Indian education system was originally designed to create clerks for the British Empire. It was meant to reward academic obedience rather than ignite the mind and challenge the status quo. That system never really changed in independent India. At the 2005 Golden Jubilee celebrations of AIIMS, Dr. Manmohan Singh famously noted: “Neither institutions nor individuals can survive as islands of excellence in an environment of mediocrity.” The Foundations of Success Look at the foundations of the world’s most successful economies. They don’t succeed by accident. They succeed because their education systems are progressive. They are designed for agency, risk-taking, and building for tomorrow. Our education system, by contrast, is designed to demoralize and defeat the vast majority. So, my child, here is my counsel to you. If the system will not change, you must change. You must delete 18 years of standardized compliance and build a high-agency mindset. High Grades, Low Agency Why is such a large share of India’s youth unemployable in the knowledge economy? Because they possess "Academic Intelligence" but zero "Market Agency." Our education system is stuck at the very bottom of how humans learn: a. The School Trap: 90% of your time was spent on memorizing without understanding. "Originality" was penalized as "going out of syllabus." b. The New Reality: In 2026, Large Language Models (LLMs) perform memorization tasks with 99.9% accuracy at zero marginal cost. The "correct answer" you stressed over for 18 years is now a free API call. c. The Competition: While you memorize textbooks and learn the tricks of coaching institutes to clear entrance exams, progressive economies focus on the top of the pyramid: experimenting and creating. They train builders; we are still training clerks. The Psychological Prison In school, you were conditioned with behavioral traps that are toxic to a modern builder. You must break out of your mental cage. a. Fear of Failure: In entrance exams like JEE, NEET, or UPSC, a single mistake on an OMR sheet can be the end of road to an “island of excellence.” Failure in school or college leads to a lifetime of trauma. But in reality, innovation is a series of controlled failures. In the world of science and technology, failure is a badge of honour. b. Permission-Seeking Culture: While you wait for your teacher’s “instructions” and follow them without questioning, the progressive global education systems encourage High Agency. What is High Agency: The innate ability to bend reality, to find a way around obstacles, and to build solutions without asking for permission. c. Degree Obsession: My child, stop obsessing over a Tier-1 college tag as your ticket to success. The world is turning to skill-based hiring. If your teacher didn’t tell you this, let me enlighten you that a piece of paper no longer defines your worth or capabilities. d. Follower Mindset: Your school taught you to solve “closed problems” (clean data, one right answer.) That’s what made us a nation of great coders, and poor inventors. If you continue to do that, you will be competing with AI tools that cost $20 a month. The world rewards “open problems” (messy data, infinite answers, uncertainty.) Your value no longer lies in finding the “correct” answer to someone else’s question. Your value lies in identifying a problem, and solving it when outcomes are uncertain. Survival Guide to Unlearning a. Shift from “Syllabus” to “Stack”: Stop asking, "What should I learn?" and start asking, "What can I build?" Pick a project that genuinely scares you: an AI app, a micro-SaaS, a community initiative, or a hardware prototype. Do not join a coaching institute. Learn by doing and failing. b. Practice Strategic Disobedience: In any project, feel free to challenge a standard operating procedure. If something exists simply “because it’s always been done that way,” be sure it is waiting to be disrupted. High agency begins the moment you stop asking for permission to improve things. c. Replace Rote with First Principles: Elon Musk popularized this. First Principles thinking is the antithesis of everything they taught you at school. Break every problem down to its most fundamental truths (whether it’s physics, economics, or biology) and build your understanding from ground up. d. Build a Proof of Work (the New CV): Your public footprint is your new degree. Whether it is your GitHub repository, a Substack newsletter, a Twitter community, or a portfolio of real-world projects, publicly document your journey of hurdles. That creates a permissionless career. You don’t need an HR manager to "clear" you; you need a global market to validate you. Final Advice: No Pain, No Gain The system of rote learning and mastering exam skills gave you a strong discipline and an ability to work harder than your global peers. But this system also tried to steal your curiosity. My child, now let the world be your lab. Get ready to take risks and fail. As Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said: “Unless you have a tolerance for the pain of failure, you will never experiment. For all of you Stanford students, I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.” With love, Dad

I gave up on love & I found love

If design were defined by its tools, the field would have been reinvented every decade. Instead, it has survived every technological shift because its real foundation is a way of thinking. Everything is determined by the way it's designed, be it the career you choose, the person you end up marrying, or the app you use daily. Every single aspect of the human experience is designed and curated on a daily basis, which makes the field of design far more than the sum of its components. And that's why design cannot be reduced to the tools used to practice it. You deciding to pick up vibe coding, learn claude code, or use paper doesn't mean that you've become a designer yourself. Those are merely tools. Design isn't the outcome, nor is it the medium through which something is made. Design is the process with which something is created.

@lyricalherb @theralkia All this makes sense spiritually. Practically this need to heal ourselves essentially pushes us to reach a better spritual state which makes us even capable of the said analysis in the first place.

@theralkia Wow I feel so called out I was already of the belief that self hatred was inherently narcissistic but now I’m realising that the need to constantly heal from said self hatred is just another mask for the narcissism to wear

True The desire to heal is itself somewhat narcissistic because it’s predicated on the idea that you exist Eventually the spiritual path integrates and it’s not something you have to “do” as much anymore

@visakanv @vividvoid Facts

@moonsrabbit7 @vividvoid he said:

healed so much that I stopped caring about being healed enough

My 20s will be dedicated to freeing myself from the shackles of dopamine reward pathways

until death, all defeat is physiological

@PetricorLatente Ime this is better than to wallow alone and not take any action

@moonsrabbit7 so what about people who insist that their passion is making money and watching their bank account balances grow? They say: "This is my passion, this is bigger than me, this is what I'm willing to fight for." No family, no friendship, just a pure love of money.

@icalledthatToo wonder from whom

@moonsrabbit7 your gender keeps healing

Always wondered why love is referred to as the most powerful force. As I grow, I feel shaken whenever I'm met with honest love. It forces me to be & do my best for myself and the people who taught me love. Love's a force because it shows you that you're one too.

I love brilliant so much. It quite literally changed my life. Will get that subscription renewed

@swastibarjatyaa This is really cool! Excited to see more of you on the tl

Hey X 👋 I'm Swasti! I work in venture capital and spend way too much time thinking about startups, datacenters, and what it actually takes to build something from zero. Thought I'd finally introduce myself :)

@ashebytes I love this!! It's only when you expose yourself to multiple areas that you see the dots connect in beautiful ways. Especially relevant in today's time when tech needs more soul & inspiration

((playing with film style)) some things I'm finding inspiring ~ outside of tech ~ 00:33 quantum physics + consciousness 02:36 uninterrupted (un-agentic) long form writing 04:16 red lights 06:10 smoke breaks with incense papers 08:04 l theanine & relaxing my nervous system 10:41 gray makeup & self concept 12:49 1960s movies in theatres/projected up

We're both learning to be around each other (me more than him)

product is science science is art therefore, product is art

The work teaches itself

@itsreallyvivek Lovely edit

go out there and make a fool of yourself

@Cheekytogeeky I haven't 😭

@moonsrabbit7 How did you get diagnosed in India?

Is it a thing with adhd that you simply cannot get anything done when presented with a to do list?