I tweeted long time ago — the best gift you can give anyone is a point of view. But to give someone a point of view, you first have to have a point of view. Not what the popularly held idea is, not what “others are saying”, not a poll/ census/ survey statistic and certainly not what you believe may be well received, much less not the one that is well accepted.

To have a point of view, you should have — at a minimum — two things. One is integrity and another is a quest to find truth. The quest will gather information from the world outside you and the integrity will process them through what you consider your values and ideologies — and your conviction and honesty will help articulate your point of view to the world outside you.

The first step to this process is gathering information. You gather information by keep your senses awake — but the information you receive is filled with subjectivity, bias, noise and corruption. You have to separate grain and chaff and decipher what is as closely objective as possible — it is an acquired skill, but can be learned. But make no mistake; your point of view is also ultimately subjective. Your point of view is not the truth, but your truth.

Your point of view is colored by your values and ideologies — exactly why it is equally important who says something, as what is being said.

Any other gift is a sham, a trade, barter or a bribe, with the exception of symbolic/ gestural gifts.