Excursions

I published another issue of Slanting Nib today. I enjoy the workflow that I have struck with for these past few emails. It’s not a burden to draft them over the two weeks and publish with Ghost. Anyway, you can read the issue online. Please subscribe and share.

Hello Friend,

Over the last weekend, my wife and I decided to clean all the closets and drawers. Pretty soon, we extended the sphere to cover every nook and corner of our house. The idea was to go through each section of our home, find all the junk lying around unused, and get rid of it if it does not justify the space it occupies. In a way, I was working under the guidance of my wife - the most organized person in my eye. She is very particular about organizing stuff, and here is the process we had followed.

We selected a closet, took down all the contents, and then worked on them. We segregated them on multiple parameters – when was this last used, is that usage still applicable, is this here just for emotional value and so on. Then, we tagged and ordered them. Finally, we grouped them into containers whose sizes varied from small boxes to huge travel sacks.

As the sun was on its descent in the sky, we worked on an under-bed drawer. It was a massive unit - enough for a person to sleep comfortably, albeit breathlessly - but it had no compartments. So, naturally, the stuff was just spewed all around, making the whole drawer appear super untidy. Not that any of the items in there were soiled. Many were even untouched, unused. What the drawer was lacking was an arrangement of some kind. So, we got down to work. We grouped and stored the stuff into the large storage bag-cum-organizers that we had recently ordered just for this purpose. The difference that simple activity caused was immense. The drawer still contained the same things, but it didn't resemble the mess earlier.

As the night dawned, we breathed a satisfying sigh, proud of what we had achieved. The cabinets looked clean, and we made space in the whole home. I felt even the home must have breathed a huge sigh of relief - after all, we had relieved it of some burden.

The slight effort that we had put in to evaluate, dump, segregate and reorganize stuff in our home had made our abode look cleaner, spacious.

And you know what I realized? I do apply the same process we used to organize our home to my mind too. A slight effort I put in occasionally to evaluate, dump, segregate and reorganize my thoughts leads to a calmer and receptive mind. I dump the thoughts onto the pages of my diary, not trying to organize them in the process. I meditate as I evaluate the thoughts hovering around. Sure, sorting and reorganizing thoughts is not as easy as moving stuff to the storage bags. But to me, a form of bullet journaling helps organize the ideas.

This process of journaling and meditation is an act of housecleaning for my mind. It declutters it, makes it a lot less messy when I look inwards. At the same time, it frees it up to welcome more ideas. Just as it did recently to our home.

Anyway, here is the selection of three brilliant essays on life for this week.

"We Are All Confident Idiots" by David Dunning →

Because it’s so easy to judge the idiocy of others, it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all. And over the years, I’ve become convinced of one key, overarching fact about the ignorant mind. One should not think of it as uninformed. Rather, one should think of it as misinformed.

An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge.

"My Failed Attempts to Hoard Anything at All" by David Sedaris →

It helps to look at which shelves are bare. That teaches you, I suppose, what you should be hoarding. Most of the people I see in lines these days aren’t real cooks. I noticed at my neighborhood stores that all the canned spaghetti sauces were gone, the horrible ones that taste like ketchup, as well as the frozen pizzas and burritos—stuff we never eat. Toilet paper is gone, too, of course, as are paper towels.

"English Is Not Normal" by John McWhorter →

To be fair, mongrel vocabularies are hardly uncommon worldwide, but English’s hybridity is high on the scale compared with most European languages. The previous sentence, for example, is a riot of words from Old English, Old Norse, French and Latin. Greek is another element: in an alternate universe, we would call photographs ‘lightwriting’. According to a fashion that reached its zenith in the 19th century, scientific things had to be given Greek names. Hence our undecipherable words for chemicals: why can’t we call monosodium glutamate ‘one-salt gluten acid’? It’s too late to ask. But this muttly vocabulary is one of the things that puts such a distance between English and its nearest linguistic neighbours.

Postscript

I have recently started writing more long-form essays by choice, which I publish along with the issues of this newsletter. You can receive even these essays via email if you are interested. Just let me know. Or you could, of course, subscribe to the good old RSS feed.

I have published the below essays since I delivered the last issue of the newsletter.

• Realistic Expectations and Notion of Control →
• Be a Donkey to Relieve the Creative in You →

Have any recommendations or feedback for me? I would love to hear from you. Just hit reply, or you can even email me.

Thank you for reading and sharing.

-Amit

This trend of closing off the doors to the content on the internet is getting extremely frustrating now. You can’t read anything from even a slightly well-known publication before they ask you to create an account or subscribe. Absolute bullshit!

We respected the lone tree, standing tall. Alone.

“As some richer countries hoard vaccines, they make a mockery of vaccine equity.”

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the Africa director at the World Health Organization, said in an online news conference.

We’re providing more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined”

Mr. Biden said in another press conference.

Both might be be true - but one reeks of elitism, an indifference to the world’s suffering.

That’s one angry, cuddly Autobot! 🤖

I published my Micro Camp talk as a blog post today - a feedback I had received after the talk. In case you missed the talk or prefer listening to it in your own voice instead of mine, here you go. 😊

I started writing actively on the web some 15 years back. As I look back today to these years gone by, I realize I have discovered a few ironies of life, a few lessons for the writer within me. Today, I want to evaluate where I am and share what I have learned over these years. But let me start with a fascinating Aesop’s fable, though — a tale about a man, his son and their hard-working donkey.

A man and his son were once walking to the market with their donkey along by their side. Neither of them was sitting on the donkey. A fellow countryman suggested, “Why don't you ride on the donkey? After all, what is it for but to ride upon, you fool?”

When the man put only the boy on the donkey, another person complained, “Look at that lazy youngster who lets his father walk. Yet, he rides.” Tired, when he got on himself, a woman scoffed, “Shame on that lazy person. He lets his poor little son plod along. Yet, he rides.”

Well, the man took his boy up before him on the donkey, and the passers-by started jeering and pointing at them. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours,” they said.

The man and boy, at last, lifted the donkey over their heads and carried him on their shoulders. They went along as all who they met laughed at them. The donkey, though, knew just one way to live — to do his thing. So, he was still flapping his legs in the air.

In short, everyone had laughed at the man and the son, whatever they did. It's an interesting tale of how criticism, if paid any heed to, would just make things worse for you. However, here's how I look at the story.

Do you know who was unaffected as the town was laughing along? Yep, the donkey. Do you know who didn't get any criticism from anyone? Yep, the donkey.

As I began writing more on the web and making it public, I realized very early on that I cannot let the criticism or the scoff that I will invariably receive from the ugly Internet affect me. I wrote on my blog. I wrote on Medium. Not only that, I shared my writings at many places, not being worried about what others will say. That was so unlike me, the introvert. But if I hadn't done so, I may have stopped writing a long time back.

Try to please everyone, and you will please no one, the saying goes. So, be a donkey, stay unaffected by the criticism and continue your creative work.

Through these 15 years, my productivity for writing has not been consistent, though. I have been super productive at times, publishing multiple posts in a week, and then there have been times when I did not post for months. I have blamed it on platforms, the editors, my lifestyle, my likings etc. But I have come to realize it is cyclic for me, these are all phases. I do want to compare two specific phases that I have enjoyed a lot.

There was a time when was I was writing fiction pretty regularly. I made it a habit, a routine to write short stories and send them to publications on Medium. I was productive, and I had fun. But for some unknown reason, I had stopped reading. I now feel I had even stopped living, unaware of events that I was surrounded by.

That did not help. And I was reminded of another phase when I wasn't churning fiction from my mind. I just narrated things happening around me, and yet I was most creative and productive then.

I wrote posts about crappy elevator logic, stupid bets, my conscious subconscious or the time when I didn't claim my spectacles because I preferred not to hurt my ego. Were these posts great? Who cares? I felt good. I could never weave a better story than what life was weaving around me.

Keep your eyes open. Some of the most amazing stories surround us. Stay inspired — because life creates better stories than a writer's pen. You just have to pay attention.

And don't ever halt for planning what you want to write. During each of these phases of my writing, I thought I knew where I wanted to take my writing to. A life journal. Fiction. Humour.

It was as if I was deciding for myself what I was allowed to write, what I would enjoy writing for the longest, or what I would be good at. That was senseless — I now know that would have never worked. But as Chris Crutchly said, hindsight's never around when you need it.

There is no point planning too much, too ahead. Just create. Do what your heart says now, without thinking where it will lead you. Don't try to connect the dots while you are planting them — a genius once said you can only do that looking backwards.

Nonetheless, there are times when I do halt. After all, life does suck every so often. It has been doing that for the past 18 months. I was taken over by boredom, and yet didn't know what I could do with all the time I had at my hands. I was living through phases that weren't comfortable. And I followed the easiest path, I stopped writing. I have done such foolhardy multiple times in these last 15 years.

Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty, ⁣
only because there is ugliness.

Lao Tzu, the famous Chinese philosopher, says while talking about the duality of life. It is so true. It's easy to forget that things will eventually improve. We begin to label things. Negative and positive. Right and wrong. Sad and happy. But, as the masters at Pixar once said, “Sometimes the only way to really appreciate joy is to experience sadness”.

Lao ends his verse with these lines.

"When the work is done, it is forgotten.
That is why it lasts forever."

Yep, don't halt. Create. Write. Get bored. Be surrounded by negative thoughts. Get bogged down by them. But don't stop writing.  Don't publish them, sure. Let them lie forgotten in the pages of your diary. But write.

And definitely don't wait for the inspiration to come to you from outside. I have realized it's the worst way to get inspired to write. I read. I listen. I see. And that's when I write. I can't depend on others for inspiration. I need to seek it out.

Things tend to happen to you in life when you are not ready. So, I am always ready. I am always writing. What's written is not perfect every time. But when that one perfect thought does hit me, I am usually ready. And boy, I have written my fair share of imperfect posts. Stupid posts. When I read a few of these posts from the early days, I cringe.

I was told the tone of my posts is not right. Or the platform I am writing at is not right. Or my method of sharing is not right. But I didn't care. I was stubborn in what I wanted to write. It was OK if it came out stupid.

But you know what, at times I wish I could still be that same free self. The stupid one. I had the most fun then. I am a shadow of that person — but I have learned the lesson. It's OK to be stupid. Just be alive. I write what my mind wants me to write now. At this moment. I write what I want to read. It doesn't matter how cringe-worthy it sounds.

Be stupid. But then be playful. Be eager to learn.
Be stubborn. But then be cautious. Be friendly.

Do you know what other animal shares all these characteristics as per Wikipedia? A donkey. So be a donkey. But act. Write. Create.

I had delivered a talk with this content as part of Micro Camp 2021.

Cover Artwork by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

I started writing actively on the web some 15 years back. As I look back today to these years gone by, I realize I have discovered a few ironies of life, a few lessons for the writer within me. Today, I want to evaluate where I am and share what I have learned over these years. But let me start with a fascinating Aesop’s fable, though — a tale about a man, his son and their hard-working donkey.

A man and his son were once walking to the market with their donkey along by their side. Neither of them was sitting on the donkey. A fellow countryman suggested, “Why don't you ride on the donkey? After all, what is it for but to ride upon, you fool?”

When the man put only the boy on the donkey, another person complained, “Look at that lazy youngster who lets his father walk. Yet, he rides.” Tired, when he got on himself, a woman scoffed, “Shame on that lazy person. He lets his poor little son plod along. Yet, he rides.”

Well, the man took his boy up before him on the donkey, and the passers-by started jeering and pointing at them. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours,” they said.

The man and boy, at last, lifted the donkey over their heads and carried him on their shoulders. They went along as all who they met laughed at them. The donkey, though, knew just one way to live — to do his thing. So, he was still flapping his legs in the air.

In short, everyone had laughed at the man and the son, whatever they did. It's an interesting tale of how criticism, if paid any heed to, would just make things worse for you. However, here's how I look at the story.

Do you know who was unaffected as the town was laughing along? Yep, the donkey. Do you know who didn't get any criticism from anyone? Yep, the donkey.

As I began writing more on the web and making it public, I realized very early on that I cannot let the criticism or the scoff that I will invariably receive from the ugly Internet affect me. I wrote on my blog. I wrote on Medium. Not only that, I shared my writings at many places, not being worried about what others will say. That was so unlike me, the introvert. But if I hadn't done so, I may have stopped writing a long time back.

Try to please everyone, and you will please no one, the saying goes. So, be a donkey, stay unaffected by the criticism and continue your creative work.

Through these 15 years, my productivity for writing has not been consistent, though. I have been super productive at times, publishing multiple posts in a week, and then there have been times when I did not post for months. I have blamed it on platforms, the editors, my lifestyle, my likings etc. But I have come to realize it is cyclic for me, these are all phases. I do want to compare two specific phases that I have enjoyed a lot.

There was a time when was I was writing fiction pretty regularly. I made it a habit, a routine to write short stories and send them to publications on Medium. I was productive, and I had fun. But for some unknown reason, I had stopped reading. I now feel I had even stopped living, unaware of events that I was surrounded by.

That did not help. And I was reminded of another phase when I wasn't churning fiction from my mind. I just narrated things happening around me, and yet I was most creative and productive then.

I wrote posts about crappy elevator logic, stupid bets, my conscious subconscious or the time when I didn't claim my spectacles because I preferred not to hurt my ego. Were these posts great? Who cares? I felt good. I could never weave a better story than what life was weaving around me.

Keep your eyes open. Some of the most amazing stories surround us. Stay inspired — because life creates better stories than a writer's pen. You just have to pay attention.

And don't ever halt for planning what you want to write. During each of these phases of my writing, I thought I knew where I wanted to take my writing to. A life journal. Fiction. Humour.

It was as if I was deciding for myself what I was allowed to write, what I would enjoy writing for the longest, or what I would be good at. That was senseless — I now know that would have never worked. But as Chris Crutchly said, hindsight's never around when you need it.

There is no point planning too much, too ahead. Just create. Do what your heart says now, without thinking where it will lead you. Don't try to connect the dots while you are planting them — a genius once said you can only do that looking backwards.

Nonetheless, there are times when I do halt. After all, life does suck every so often. It has been doing that for the past 18 months. I was taken over by boredom, and yet didn't know what I could do with all the time I had at my hands. I was living through phases that weren't comfortable. And I followed the easiest path, I stopped writing. I have done such foolhardy multiple times in these last 15 years.

Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty, ⁣
only because there is ugliness.

Lao Tzu, the famous Chinese philosopher, says while talking about the duality of life. It is so true. It's easy to forget that things will eventually improve. We begin to label things. Negative and positive. Right and wrong. Sad and happy. But, as the masters at Pixar once said, “Sometimes the only way to really appreciate joy is to experience sadness”.

Lao ends his verse with these lines.

"When the work is done, it is forgotten.
That is why it lasts forever."

Yep, don't halt. Create. Write. Get bored. Be surrounded by negative thoughts. Get bogged down by them. But don't stop writing.  Don't publish them, sure. Let them lie forgotten in the pages of your diary. But write.

And definitely don't wait for the inspiration to come to you from outside. I have realized it's the worst way to get inspired to write. I read. I listen. I see. And that's when I write. I can't depend on others for inspiration. I need to seek it out.

Things tend to happen to you in life when you are not ready. So, I am always ready. I am always writing. What's written is not perfect every time. But when that one perfect thought does hit me, I am usually ready. And boy, I have written my fair share of imperfect posts. Stupid posts. When I read a few of these posts from the early days, I cringe.

I was told the tone of my posts is not right. Or the platform I am writing at is not right. Or my method of sharing is not right. But I didn't care. I was stubborn in what I wanted to write. It was OK if it came out stupid.

But you know what, at times I wish I could still be that same free self. The stupid one. I had the most fun then. I am a shadow of that person — but I have learned the lesson. It's OK to be stupid. Just be alive. I write what my mind wants me to write now. At this moment. I write what I want to read. It doesn't matter how cringe-worthy it sounds.

Be stupid. But then be playful. Be eager to learn.
Be stubborn. But then be cautious. Be friendly.

Do you know what other animal shares all these characteristics as per Wikipedia? A donkey. So be a donkey. But act. Write. Create.

I had delivered a talk with this content as part of Micro Camp 2021.

Cover Artwork by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Benches of varied colours and shapes- they always attract me. They have their ears to many wonderful personal stories.

Over the years, I’ve hoarded so much of electronic crap. Every now and then, I will find an odd charging cable or a dongle - I have no idea what they are for. I keep getting rid of them and the crap keeps finding a way into my home. It’s as if there’s a secret portal from an alien land to each of my closets 🤦🏽‍♂️

Currently reading the audio book : Made to stick by Chip Heath 📚

I am a coder and a writer. And it is absolutely painful to have these two personalities live within you.

When the coder wants to code, the writer is checking his choice of words or the structure of comments. Or the depth of documentation -- the writer wants the coder to write an essay. The coder wants to bloody put bullet points, command followed by command. What ends up happening is I take minutes to name one method because the writer didn't like my choice of verb. Urghh!

On the other hand, the coder makes the life miserable for the writer in me. All the writer wants to do is focus on penning words together. Get coherent, and impactful. And all the writer is whispering in his ears is, "Look at that font and the colour scheme of the editor. That doesn't look nice, right? What if there is a better editor? What if you make one?"

All the writer wants to do is read intently, and there is the coder shouting at him, "Why isn't your website this beautiful? Look how efficiently it uses JavaScript? Or doesn't use it at all." Anything and everything can get the coder excited.

Boy, given the pain this causes, I'm surprised am still a coder by profession and a writer by hobby. I, at times, feel they could very well kill each other one day.

Yellow is my favourite colour! ☺️

Setting up ElementaryOS has been a frustrating experience. Attempting to get the WiFi working with updates has broken the whole system twice now. I’ve tried all the fixed suggested on the internet - and nothing works. Sigh! Time to try another distro - it’s frustrating.

Current state - reviving an old MacBook Pro.

All I read on the timeline today is about Glass. A lot of people got the access and a lot are awaiting theirs. And I haven’t event attempted yet. Sigh! Long way before I get the access I guess. Plus iPhone only is a bummer. If not Android, at least iPad/Web support was must.

As I was planning my recent move across the state, I was, deep within, also thinking about what I can expect from this. What would be the benefits of moving away from the current place? What could I do that I am not currently doing? How would my mornings be? Or my evenings? How would my work-life balance change?

However, I spent no time first acknowledging the state that the things I do not own or control would be in. In short, I was setting too many expectations for myself, signing up for the resultant heartbreak that would invariably cause. Why do I do that? Is it not easy to plan only for things that depend just on me? The things that I do control?

Resonating with the thoughts I was living through, Jason Becker had recently posted how it is frustrating that he could never meet the expectations he sets for himself.

How often am I angry, frustrated, and disappointed because my expectations could never be met, even if what happens is great? The expectations gap has an outsized impact on my experience. How do I get better at discovering realistic expectations without shortchanging myself?

Even I got curious. What are realistic expectations? Cheri Baker pointed him to an article by Gregory Sadler discussing the Stoic concept of the dichotomy of control.

It is an insightful read — what was most enlightening for me was reading about the concepts of control and power. Here is the relevant passage from Epictetus's Handbook (emphasis mine) that Gregory examines and talks about.

Some things are within our power (eph’ ēmin in the original Greek) while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.

I always knew that I should not let things outside my control affect me and my day-to-day life. And I always struggled with that — how can you stay aloof to what is happening around you? Why can't you control your behaviour? I realized after reading the essay, though, that there is a minor distinction between control and power.

Control is too strong a word. There are times when I (and possibly each one of us) get frustrated and quip that I control nothing. In short, I am neither able to decide nor influence the things happening around me.

It typically happens when I decide to wake up one fine day, get ready and spend the whole day with myself, reading and writing. But the morning jerks me up amidst complete chaos — things are broken around me, physically and mentally. The tap has suddenly started leaking. Or my kid or spouse do not share my enthusiasm for a beautiful day. Sure, I might still have a wonderful day. But stay saddened by the fact that the day turned out to be so different from what I had fancied.

So, what does one do? To think that nothing is in our control and not set any expectations is effortless, yet wrong. Furthermore, setting realistic expectations is a lot harder than it sounds. Whatever expectations you set for yourself, there is a slight probability that fate has other plans for you.

Gregory suggests that I should mould my thought process. Rather than thinking that I would not let things outside my control affect me, I should reason with myself on these lines.

I am responsible for, and should focus upon, the things that depend upon me, i.e. my beliefs, my decisions, and my character. These are the things that matter, which determine if I am a good or bad person, and If I live a happy or unhappy life. I not mistakenly think my happiness or value is determined by the things not ‘up to’ me.

Here is my takeaway. The only thing I should focus on is the thing that is up to me, my character. Don't give too much attention to the notion of control. It is not fruitful. Set the expectations, the plan. But be aware that things will not always work out as per the set plan. It is only natural to hold the feeling of frustrations and disappointment as a result. But then realize that these feelings are only temporary, find ways to stay calm amidst disappointment. And definitely, a way to not do that is finding the right expectations to set — there's no right way to do that.

I have found my ways to stay calm amidst the disappointments. I listen to my favourite music, I write in my diary, I meditate. At times, I simply get back to the work I love. All these acts calm me down. What are the actions that do the same for you?

Blame and curse auto-correct as much as you want. But if not for that feature, I would still be spelling Thursday and Marriage incorrectly. Not exaggerating, the occurrence of these mistakes is frequent.

Liked Martin MacDonald’s tweet→

My brain is like Chrome. 237 tabs open, 3 are frozen, and I’ve no idea where the music is coming from.

I think all can relate to this! 😊

The Mysterious Street Snack →

Soon enough, I’d learn that my idle curiosity was, in fact, a mystery that has baffled and, at times, infuriated botanists for decades. This snack has been widely sold on the streets for decades and yet, somehow, no one seems to know what it is.

A fascinating read - so close to the home and yet I was clueless of this mystery.

I shouldn’t do that, but I tend to skip over the names, especially longer ones, as I am reading an article. It’s as if my mind applies a filter internally to label names as irrelevant to the larger story.

So typically I get the what, how, when of a story. But miss the who.

I am pretty excited about the upcoming Micro Camp 2021. Not because I am giving a talk – well, of course, there’s that. But because the whole line-up of the sessions is brilliant – each topic unique, different from another. Looking forward to learning and engaging! ⛺️😊

Amidst all the moving and settling , I finally took my second shot for the Covid vaccine. Finally. Yay! And I hope there are no side-effects this time around. I couldn’t sleep the whole night after my first shot. Fingers crossed, that doesn’t happen again.

Is 21.5-inch non-retina iMac still a good option to consider? What about 24-inch M1-based iMac? The way things stand I’m seriously considering buying an iMac - I don’t want anything portable. I wonder if the transition phase we are currently in makes this an untimely purchase.