Hello, and welcome to the PowerDrift podcast.
I love the fact that you love the podcast and it really inspires us to do more of these
and today for the first time, I'm going to continue from where we left off in the last podcast.
But before we go ahead, you know what to do, right?
Four buttons, do the thing, so we can move on.
Last time, we talked about negativity online and I think it resonated with a lot of you
because some of you participated in it, but a lot of you have clearly been irritated by
it, but that brings us to the next question.
The reason why some of this negativity exists on the internet is also because there is a
lot of misinformation on the internet and it's not just a matter of you reading websites
or going to YouTube channels that don't have accurate information, the fundamental question
I'm asking is, if you're interested in the subject, why don't you have better information
at all in the first place?
Let me give you an example, I was I think in class four or five or something like that
and my school had opened a new basement, which they proceeded to fill up with brand new table
tennis tables and I was very excited about this idea of new tables, basement, new space,
table tennis and on the way home that day and remember, this is before the internet
days, I don't even think my house had anything but an intercom in those days, I don't
think we had a landline back in that day, so I'm going back from school and we used
to pass this huge library, so this is the NCERT campus in Delhi, this is where I used
to live, my school was across the road from this campus, I'm walking back home, I'm have
my head buzzing with table tennis and I stop at the library, my mother used to work at
the NCERT at that point, so I had a library card, I walked in, and it turns out that NCERT's
library had a sports section and in the sports section, what, I think three books on table
tennis and even before my father agreed to purchase a racquet for me knowing that my
interest in sports sort of moved on, before I'd done any of this, the first thing I did
was read those three books on table tennis and by the time I actually showed up and my
coach said, whatever, hold the racquet like this, I already knew the theory of it.
The point I'm making is, that did make me irritating know-it-all in school, I had a lot
more theoretical knowledge than practical knowledge, I got screamed at a lot for that,
a lot of people got extremely annoyed with that and I've been threatened by my friends,
throughout school and college to be bashed up or beaten up at some point or the other
because of this, but, the point is, by the time I picked up the racquet and started playing
table tennis, and it didn't last long, honestly, it was a waste of time for me because it's
not a sport I really enjoyed.
I already knew as much as I could find out in that time about it, because that's how
I express my interest in things and the reason why I seem to know a lot about motorcycles
is primarily because I love motorcycles and therefore I chase knowledge about motorcycles
actively, it's not a reaction, it's not a passive pursuit, it's an active thing that
I follow every day, 21 years into testing a lot of material that I will read or consume
off YouTube or whatever is still motorcycle content and every day, I would like to learn
at least one more new thing about motorcycles that expands my knowledge base.
What that does is give you the ability to have perspective when something new is presented
to you, right.
So for all of us journalists, when electric vehicles start coming into our lives, and
they have our understanding of how an ICE engine works is obviously much stronger and
much more broad based than what we understand about electric vehicles today.
But, because we are happy to learn, because we are always chasing knowledge, I mean, I
know that Kartikeya Singhee, for example, he immediately signed up for a IIT free online
EV course which talks about the basics of electric vehicles almost as soon as we realised
that electric vehicles are going to be a regular part of our lives and then we would be expected
to test them, to have a basis on which to evaluate them and then to be able to give you formed,
informed and reasoned opinion about whether this was a good idea or a bad idea as EVs go.
The idea that I'm trying to present to you here is that, I have a feeling of disconnect now
because I feel like a lot of you are interested in motorcycles otherwise,
you wouldn't be here on PowerDrift at all right?
Most of you are also interested in cars for the exact same reason.
But this interest in cars, the passion for performance and cornering, and all of these
things doesn't seem to translate into you actively pursuing and gaining that knowledge
for yourself.
I'm not saying that having a lot of knowledge is what will help you race the bench with
your friends, it doesn't matter if at the bar, you know the most specification about the most motorcycles,
or somebody shows you three quarters of headlight and you can tell which year, which model,
that's not what we're going for here.
What I'm saying is, if I tell you that this engine is a high performance engine, and we
can determine that from the fact that it has a high specific output and a very high compression
ratio, this should form a picture in your head.
But if you are interested in motorcycles, and now you have to Google specific output
or compression ratio, or say that, hey, we need a Simplified episode on compression ratio
specific output, the only person you shortchange is yourself because if you're really passionate
about something and it could be anything, wouldn't you like to know more about the subject
that really makes you come alive?
A subject that makes you think harder the subject that makes you smile?
A subject makes life worth living.
At PowerDrift, we work with some of the best DOPs in the business, cinematographers who
are at the top of their game and how to compose each frame in the video, and you can bet that
they spend a lot of time trying to figure out, how does light work, how does it fall
on the sensor, what kind of cameras capture this light in what way, how will a lens alter
the capturing of that light, what settings do I use to keep it as natural as possible,
what settings do I use to create a completely different otherworldly experience?
They're in it because they love it, their love propels them to gain more knowledge,
and the more knowledge they have, the better work they are able to do.
But I'm saying, why should this be restricted to professionals only?
Let's assume that you're an IT professional and your work every day deals with some sort
of code, and you're a god at writing code, you didn't become a god overnight, right?
You chased the knowledge or the knowledge was thrust upon you, I do know that a lot
of IT engineers didn't want to be IT engineers to start with, it was forced upon them by
their parents or peer pressure or whatever and once they became IT engineers, they became
really good IT engineers, they discovered that they do have the aptitude, the scale,
the knowledge and the interest in doing this for a living.
Even these people have other hobbies that they're interested in, right?
The thing that worries me is that when we develop a passion for something, and even
if it's a passing passion, it's something that interests you for a year, year and a
half, two years, and then you move on from that even then, I find that a lot of us don't
seem to be able to pay attention and focus for a long time on that subject, and have
a deeper knowledge base rather than a widespread superficial, shallow base, right?
If you're interested in motorcycles, and your idea of motorcycles is limited to, it has
two wheels and a motor, Bajaj makes motorcycles like this, TVS make motorcycles like that,
Ducati is the Ferrari of the two wheeler world and they feel like this, it's superficial,
it's nice to have this knowledge, but is it enriching your passion?
Is it allowing you to do more with your passion?
Is it allowing you to bring more knowledge, more colour, more vibrancy, to your knowledge,
and I think that that is part of what is missing right now.
Now, I do understand that back in the day, when I was obsessed with table tennis for
the five days that I was obsessed with table tennis, there wasn't a way to easily gain
knowledge and therefore, you could focus your attention on something very specifically,
because you had to put in effort to get that knowledge, right, I had to go to the library,
find the sports section, which I didn't even know existed, find those books, bring them
home, read them, return that book, pick the other one, there was a lot of physical labour
involved in getting this knowledge into my head.
Today, the dam has burst, right?
The internet is there and if you were to search table tennis tips, you get, I don't know,
3 million hits and that's before you count YouTube, which would give you another 3 million
videos, which range from technique to match reports to everything else, right?
I think the world of motorcycling is even larger than that in terms of people telling
you what they felt about motorcycles, experts telling you how they felt about motorcycles,
engineers telling you how they design motorcycles, it's like a massive universe out there where
you can consume as much information as you're willing to handle.
The point of this podcast is it doesn't seem like you guys are consuming enough information
and it bothers me because for the fundamental reason is, if you love it,
then shouldn't you be doing it well.
I'm fond of saying this to a lot of people, including colleagues who work with me that
the biggest thing that my mother taught me was, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.
I think I've interpreted it in my own way, Ii's not how she meant it to start with, but
the idea was that look, I know that you don't like laying the table for dinner, for example,
or wrapping up the dinner table after dinner but if you're going to do it, then you must
do it well, you must pay attention to it, put in all the energy into it and do a good
job of it because if you've taken it on as a responsible, intelligent, skilled human
being, why would you do less and this was true for tasks that I love to do.
So when I was stamp collecting, my stamp collection book was amazingly detailed and there was
a lot of information in there about each stamp, including a section for Bhutan, which at the
time, I don't think the stamps for considered a serious part of any stamp collection, although
Bhutan stands for some of the most colourful, amazing looking stamps, for example, everything
that I did, I would like to pay attention to it, to read up about it, to gain more knowledge
about it and to me, that's how I approach passion and I agree that maybe this is not
your approach.
But the idea that if you're going to do it, you do it well is a very powerful idea.
If you're going to ride a motorcycle, you should ride well.
Riding well means you have to pay attention to how you ride the motorcycle, what skills
are needed, how much attention you're paying to the road, what you're thinking about, where
are you looking, when are you looking, what your safety gear is like, how do you achieve
safety, outside of the gear in terms of anticipating traffic, all of these are small elements that
build up the world of riding well and if you're going to choose motorcycling as your passion,
then you should do this well and to me, knowledge and understanding and research and context
is all part of that world and to me, you guys are willing to buy the best helmet you can
afford, you're buying the best jackets you can get, you're upgrading your gloves when
they get torn, you have good boots on you, you're upgrading your motorcycles regularly,
most of you have thought about going to school at some point or the other or a smaller minority
has gone to schools, I see the effort, but when it comes to knowledge, it's just a different
world and it's like, there is a firehose of information coming at me from the internet,
and therefore, I'm unable to focus, but why should it be like that?
We know your focus, you love motorcycles, there's your focus.
So I'm not going to make this a really long podcast, but here is what I'm thinking about today.
I am saying, if I love something, if something drives me so hard, should I not be paying
more attention to it to be able to understand that world in a bigger, more native more intrinsic
way, rather than the shallow way that you glean of some YouTube channel where I don't
know what the background of the person talking at all in the first place is?
And I'm not saying he's stupid, I'm saying, shouldn't you also be doing some research
into, who is this guy?
There are 8 million fitness oriented channels, right?
So when I started working out, I started looking at these channels and every time I've seen
somebody offering advice, I want to also know who this person is so that I can value his advice.
That's part of how I build my world of knowledge, that is how I invest my time into things that
excite me and what I'm trying to get you to do today, what I'm inviting you to do today
is pay the same kind of detail attention to motorcycling, because I know it makes you
tick, I know it makes your lives richer.
The more attention you pay, the more knowledge you gain, the richer your motorcycle world
will be and how can that be a bad thing, right.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is a very short edition of the PowerDrift podcast.
I don't want to pontificate, but the idea of negativity was bothering me the last time,
the shallowness of our knowledge as the widespread phenomenon is bothering me this time and
I'm inviting you to see a much much bigger, much more colourful, a much more vibrant,
a much more visceral world of motorcycling and all you have to do is focus your attention
and learn more about motorcycling.
And you can choose any aspect of motorcycling that tickles you from riding skills, to how
to be safer, to how to go faster, how motorcycles work, how engines are built, how tyres are
made, it's a huge universe of everything that's going on that comes together when a motorcycle
is doing its job and when you lean into that corner the next time with all of this research
and context and all of this buzzing in your head, your experience will be better for it,
that's what I'm inviting you to do.
Thank you so much for watching, please do hit the four buttons we love you to hit
and if you do like this video and you think there is a friend of yours who would
benefit from seeing this video, please do share it with him. Thank you so much for watching.