Amidst a swirling haze of abstract forms, the struggle to discern authenticity from illusion emerges vividly.
January 9th, 2026, time - 5:45 pm, I create my own domain - briskthoughts.org.
Well, why do I do so...I don't really know...I am on a personal leave from work and spending a little time reflecting upon various things. One such topic has been catching my fascination over the last couple of months, and that is life and its journey. So, I go on, following my impulse of creating a domain of my own and begin to pen down, or rather, in today's world, type to express my thoughts on the subject. As I reflect, what comes to mind is how my work experience of managing credit risk underwriting correlates to the path of life. Practices in credit underwriting, while they may be something completely related to financial processes, when thought through, help connect dots of circumstances in life. Before I get deeper into this connection, let me talk a bit about what credit underwriting is.
Well, to put it simply, it's a process to assess the probability of default of a loan application of an individual. This is serious business when it comes to financial institutions helping individuals or companies in holding up respective business cycle cash flows. It is also a process for the financial institution to deploy funds available, boosting the economic environment and in turn adding to its own bottom line. So, you see, this business is serious and has its own repercussions if it goes south.
Everything has a process, and so does underwriting. There are credit risks, operational risks, and fraud risks that need assessment. The process encompasses a holistic view of the profile, demographics, stability of income, employability, and a whole lot of factors. It must also include an understanding of empirical evidence of certain cohorts and their vectors. In all of this, what plays uppermost is the ability to logically conclude a decision. While leveraging a deductive analysis based on facts and available information, one may also have to look for inductive information. Now, here comes the overarching structure, more so like a superstructure, called the credit policy, under which one has to function to make a decision. So, there are possibilities that not every application meets the credit policy parameters, and a decision-maker has to take cognizance of such deviations from the policy. This is where human understanding of risk, probability of default, and mitigation of the deviations come into play for final decision-making.
As a parallel, when we look at life, the same principles of assessment apply during the course of the journey, albeit with many more complex layers of non-linear equations. Numerous decisions are made in our daily life and during life's journey as a whole; daily decisions like what to cook today since time is short in the morning, how to plan the day, whether to spend money on personal luxury or to save that money, and whether we should take the road to work that is regularly used or follow the GPS that is suggesting a new path are all little decisions we make every moment. Each such decision has its own risks, be it operational, cash flow risk, or life risk. Every morning when we step out to work and rely on the probability of not meeting with an accident, it is equivalent to taking a risk by believing in life's continuity.
These decisions are spontaneous and tend to become a part of regular life. We apply less weight to such items as risk but consider them more as routine matters. Similarly, some decisions that impact long-term life are also based on the same principles, albeit with deeper thought; for example, decisions on which school to choose for a child's education, which insurance to buy for the family's health, how much to save for a retired future, etc.
In all of this, where does the overarching policy structure come into play? Well, that is the individual's mind that has been nurtured since childhood by various cohorts like parental guidance, school teachings, and one's own effort to understand situations and experiences along the way of life. All of this, together, shapes the individual and creates that overarching policy design structure for life. But here comes the difference in the design of the written policy vis-à-vis a multi-layered mind. That mind is constantly going back and forth from one end to another, thus creating a complex structure of numerous, in fact millions, trillions, or even infinite nodes connected through linear and non-linear equations, even polynomial ones, to form opinions and make decisions almost every moment of life.
Here, now, how does the underwriting process of exercising deviations work in life situations? Well, this is where I equate the situation to the holistic decision-making of an application form for credit lending. An underwriter takes cognizance of all the information available and whether it comes under the ambit of the policy umbrella. If not, what are the other parameters, direct or indirect, that can mitigate the risk envisaged by the policy?
In life, this is what we constantly exercise, trying to tread on the path of that comprehensive framework of our own life shaped by our belief systems over time. That fundamental framework in mind is forever trying to separate out the risk of being factual and authentic for the broader view of life versus individual interpretation of a myopic view for one's own short-term benefit.
I would like to keep writing about things that interest me or invoke my curiosity. However, my next topic is hazy in my mind as of now. Hope to come back soon with all of you... till then, take care!
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