24 Comments
User's avatar
Rajat Gururaj's avatar

Echo what Vikram said below - it is truly courageous of you to share all of this publicly. And even more courageous of you to take the plunge to try Vipaasana. I have been meditating daily for the past 11 years and even I have not been able to muster the courage to try it. Wishing you good luck and peace of mind in 2026!

Karthik S's avatar

i really enjoyed the silence and lack of stimulus at the vipassana. suerly didn't enjoy the meditation!

feeling much better now btw. wish you a happy 2026 as well!

Vikram's avatar

Great courage to put something so personal in public Karthik . Wish you a super 2026 .. on all fronts .. health , family and the new job

Karthik S's avatar

thanks Vikram! wish you a super 2026 as well.

Pradeep Gowda's avatar

Wishing you all the best. Thanks for sharing.

Tyagarajan S's avatar

Best of luck to you, man! Wishing 2026 is calmer and less anxious.

Karthik S's avatar

thanks! wish you a calm 2026 as well!

Arun Simha's avatar

Take care of yourself. It can only,y get better. Best wishes!

Karthik S's avatar

back, and already feeling much better now! thanks.

Vignesh Kumar M's avatar

Sending you lot of good wishes, Karthik!

Karthik S's avatar

thanks Vignesh!

Sundaram Ramaswamy's avatar

Can take Babbage Insight as a learning experience and still keep the ideas alive for future implementation.

And you are hardly looking old when I see your Dubai picture :)

All the best for the next endeavours !

Karthik S's avatar

dubai picture - i'm wearing sunglasses. so you can't see my eyes! :)

and yes, this is precisely what i'm doing - "keeping the ideas alive for future implementation"

paradox's avatar

I hope the meditation streak goes well and family relations improve. I would love to read about both things when time comes. All the best.

Karthik S's avatar

didn't succeed in "meditating" much but the time off and lack of stimulus surely helped. feeling significantly better now.

Neel's avatar

Wish you a different year than the one gone by. All the best in your endeavours!

Karthik S's avatar

thanks Neel! Wish you a happy 2026 as well.

Karthik Rao Bappanad's avatar

Happy New Year, Karthik. May 2026 herald new and fulfilling ventures on the work front, and fabulous relationships with loved ones on the family front.

Karthik S's avatar

thanks Karthik! wish you a happy 2026 as well!

Neural Foundry's avatar

The timing paradox here is almost poetic. Shutting down while simultaneuosly entering vipassana means confronting both external failure and internal stillness at once, which is probably harder than doing either separately. Back when I worked at a failed startup, I found that having "something to do next" gave me an escape hatch from really processing the grief. Sounds like this retreat won't give that luxury, which might be exactly what makes it work.

Karthik S's avatar

with full benefit of hindsight, the silence really helped. if not for all the BS i would've done the full 10 days. and i took this ~1.5 months after the start of the shut down. so things had settled there.

anyway now on to the next thing - need to look for a job now.

Saji's avatar

Wish you strength to go through this. While everyone has their own journey I’ve found meditation and a transformative process like Ishas inner engineering very effective. May you find your path soon.

Karthik S's avatar

thanks Saji. Meditation didn't wokr for me but silence did!