To: Freshmen GOP members, 117th Congress
Subj: Protecting Our Republic

REPLY REQUESTED

Dear Senators and Representatives:

Please accept my brief but sincere congratulations, and wish for success in your new office.

WE ARE IN A CRISIS.

@POTUS @realDonaldTrump has...

1/13

1/ The first 18 months of starting a company is often life or death. I must've made 5 different companies that each failed within 9 mo. 😭 Each time the company failed I figured out what I could do better. Eventually startup #6 got to $40K/mo by month 18. Here’s what I learned...

2/ Stay focused! Ignore things that are a waste of time: meetups & conferences, meetings with no clear agenda, fundraising if you're not fundraising, reading lots of tech media articles, etc. Every week should feel like significant progress in the first year.

3/ Your first 5 hires will be the difference between life or death. Choose carefully. Be picky. Many of the things we do at the company still are a result of those early hires' legacy. Have fun as a tight knit team. It will change & evolve as you get bigger so enjoy this moment.

4/ Growth may be flat for the first 9 months. It's gonna be okay. Almost every company has experienced this: Airbnb had to sell cereal in-between, Slack failed as a gaming company first, Tesla sold only 147 cars after 6 years! You probably won't be an overnight success either.

5/ In the beginning, do customer support yourself. You will learn a lot about why your product sucks. I did 5,000+ support tickets when it was the two of us. Delight customers & fix things fast while you learn. It will help you build an amazing intuition about your customers.

Black movie goers know which movies are for us and which films aren’t. We really don’t like our stories being made into films that center (and humanize) people that hate us. The filmmakers/studio know that by naming the film “The Green Book”, black movie goers...

...are going to be expecting a story about black people trying to safely navigate the country (real history) and instead will get a white savior film. Like folks went to see Detroit thinking it was about the riots...

Anywhoo, I know Mahershela is fantastic in it. He was the best thing about the trailer. As rich as the history behind the creation of ‘The Green Book’ is/was, as amazing as Dr. Don Shirley’s story is, WHY is this film about a random, racist driver and his family?

This feeds into the ignorant anti-Black American stereotype of “Black Americans don’t have any culture/history/mythology” or whatever. That our stories are still both being used while simultaneously erased in 2018 is wild to me. It’s gonna clean up come award season. 🤦🏾‍♀️

And now, if black filmmakers WANTED to make a film about The Greenbook, guess what it can’t be called🙃. Just like if someone wanted to make a film about the actual Detroit riots, guess what it can’t be called? Then those filmmakers would run into...

Hello Dear Tweeples!

It’s Siddhars time of the week! Last week I shared story of Guru (Machamuni or Yogi Matsyendranath), this week I bring you information on his Shishya.

#Thread on Gorakanathar Siddhar.

@LostTemple7

His origin story is interesting, though I couldn’t verify it’s authenticity, so not sharing the story here. He’s shishya of Machamuni Siddhar and also learnt from Agasthiya Siddhar.

@HelloNNewman @RajiIndustani @Kishoreciyer1

Unlike other Siddhars, he is depicted as either with a Tiger or seated & wearing Tiger skin. While I couldn’t find any explanation for this. My interpretation is as follows:

Tiger is a predator that lurks around and attacks unexpectedly.

Our 5 indriyas and 5 vikitis also similar to Tiger, they lurk around and attacks our thoughts when we’re least expecting. Gorakkar is said to have mastered these aspects, thus to denote this, he shown with Tiger.

@Itishree001 @VarierSangitha @jananisampath

Gorakanathar or Gorakshnath (as he’s known in the Nath Sampraday) is celebrated Guru in both Northern and Southern part of India. He’s one of the NavNath in Nath Sampraday and also 18 Siddhars of Tamil tradition. During his life, he’s travelled Indian subcontinent extensively +

1/People I know on the Right tend to be obsessed with the idea of "crimethink", taboos, and the (supposedly) oppressive, omnipresent enforcement of liberal cultural norms.

Why?

My new theory: A lot of it is guilt.

2/It's true that in some circles - the media, universities, many big corporations - liberal norms *are* enforced to some degree, and the enforcement has probably gotten stronger in recent years.

But I don't think this explains all of the Right's obsession.

3/The stereotype is that people on the Right tend to be more threat-sensitive. That would help explain the perception that liberal norm-enforcers are lurking everywhere, ready to pounce and anathematize anyone who makes a misstep.

But I don't think that's all of it either.

4/And of course, it's always fun - whether you're on the Right or the Left, or playing a video game, or whatever - to style yourself as the brave iconoclastic rebel fighting against the oppressive forces of blah blah blah.

But I don't think this is all of it, either.

5/The reason I think it's more than these things is that even *in private*, people on the Right express their "crimethink" ideas very gingerly and hesitantly.

I get the sense that they're not just afraid of external censure, but have also internalized liberal norms.