Excursions avatar

Excursions

I understand link rot is considered as a huge problem. But why? I mean I technically understand why. But I feel it is a feature of every entity, digital or physical - if not taken care of, it gets lost with time. Rotten.

There are days when you just don’t want to do anything that you need to do. You know you should do it. But you can’t convince your mind to be focused at it. Having one such day – these are the worst. The days with roadblocks are easier to handle.

The only time I would trust a service like One-Time Secret - a way to share sensitive information - is if it is open sourced. Even with that, I would be extremely careful. I understand, without context secrets are gibberish. But still, I feel slightly uncomfortable.

My writing halts when my reading pauses. It’s frustrating to see the thoughts sit in the corners of mind. I want to bring them out, the inertia pushes it down.

Curious, was Goodreads recently hacked or something? There are random likes from my account to random folks' updates - scheduled every half an hour. And same the other way round, I am receiving notifications from random folks. I am worried for how long has this been going on.

The technology coverage across portals is so boring - The Verge, Engadget all included. Most bits are fed by the companies and so the writeups read as PR. Even when they publish something exclusive, it’s those companies pushing the narrative. Or it’s meaningless rumour.

I am in that state of mind where any book over 400 pages gets an instant rejection from me. I just can’t read them through and through. I know the books that I have enjoyed the most over the years have been long, but recently I dread them.

I love these peaceful few moments every morning when I pause, sit back and relax. Looking out to the greens spread out in front of my porch. Bird chirping, cooing amongst those branches - a green maze yet untouched by the human atrocities. A cool morning breeze gliding against my body.

All I do is focus my mind to nothingness - a soft focus, no thoughts, no plans. The regularities the life serves can wait. Not for long, of course. But I breathe my calmest breaths in these short moments.

So am logged into Clubhouse app now. What next? I think this service has one of the worst first login experience. Nothing I see there is interesting. Again, possibly audio is a costly medium to get in and out of?

I finally stopped reading The Guest List. A quarter in and not hooked yet to any character’s plot, I just couldn’t go any longer. It became tiring. I also didn’t enjoy the shifting view point across 4-5 characters. Interesting, but put me off every single time.

What’s the farthest you go into reading a book before you decide it just isn’t for you? I am a quarter into one and am still not hooked. I won’t continue anymore - it was only it’s high ratings that made me come this far. But no more.

What Holds You Back?

Hello Friend,

My daughter recently learnt how to ride a bicycle. I spent two weeks making her follow the basics, inspiring her to give up on the fear of falling. I had marked the first week to convince her that falling is how she will learn not to stay down. She should learn to get up and pedal again. It’s OK if you fall, you won’t cherish the efforts otherwise.

Once she had that thought imbibed, all I had to do was hold her and run along. I ran like crazy, like I had not in ages. I ran, and then I ran some more. Until one fine morning when I let her loose and saw her pedal along. I jogged next to her, a proud smile on my face. In being a parent, I was reliving a phase of my childhood.

Yesterday, we rode our bicycles together, with her alongside me when we came across a kid learning with training wheels. I could read her eyes wonder why didn’t I get those added wheels for balancing. I planned to tell her that it would have taken her longer to learn with that support attached. My mind was already racing along, talking to her, telling her.

The artificial sense of support holds you back, dear. Just like me running alongside you, never releasing you, will. I will always hold you back from riding away, from taking control of your path. I can make you aware of your fears, but it is you who has to surmount them.

However, she never asked. I never said. Maybe, she already knew.

What are the training wheels in your life - supporting you but thereby preventing you from taking the flight? Anyway, with that said, here is a selection of three brilliant works of writing.

"Attitude" by Margaret Atwood →

[N]obody ever tells you, but did you know that when you have a baby your hair falls out? Not all of it, and not all at once, but it does fall out. It has something to do with a zinc imbalance. The good news is that it does grow back in. This only applies to girls. With boys, it falls out whether you have a baby or not, and it never grows back in; but even then there is hope. In a pinch, you can resort to quotation, a commodity which a liberal arts education teaches you to treat with respect, and I offer the following: “God only made a few perfect heads, and the rest lie covered with hair.”

"Bookshop Memories" by George Orwell →

Many of the people who came to us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop. For example, the dear old lady who ‘wants a book for an invalid’ (a very common demand, that), and the other dear old lady who read such a nice book in 1897 and wonders whether you can find her a copy. Unfortunately she doesn’t remember the title or the author’s name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover. But apart from these there are two well-known types of pest by whom every second-hand bookshop is haunted. One is the decayed person smelling of old breadcrusts who comes every day, sometimes several times a day, and tries to sell you worthless books. The other is the person who orders large quantities of books for which he has not the smallest intention of paying.

"The Danger of Lying in Bed" by Mark Twain →

I could read of railway accidents every day–the newspaper atmosphere was foggy with them; but somehow they never came my way. I found I had spent a good deal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it. My suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that had won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested, but not an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I stopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was astounding. THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.

Postscript

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

Thank you for reading and sharing.

-Amit

Why is Apple TV+ available exclusively on Apple devices? Is is such a big pull towards Apple ecosystem? iMessage, I understand. But not TV+. Isn’t reach important for the shows?

I got overwhelmed looking at the color palette spread across Android 12 via Material You. I have spent minutes just choosing the wallpaper. This much customisation is not for me - I need customisation-as-a-service.

Free beer, money. Free rides to vaccination sites. And the incentives continue to pour in from the administration in US. And then there’s the struggle for vaccine slots in India & other contries.

Faulty, lethargic adminstration? Economic gap? Selfish, mindless leaders? Sure, the reasons are many. But how does one argue with a common man who is convinced it’s an unfair world? That it’s a world where the scales are always tipped towards a richer populace?

I hate binge-watching shows, but I fall for it so often. I like the weekly release of the new episodes. I wish the streaming services forced an episode a day even for released shows. I know they won’t - it impacts their key business metric.

“You can get rid of masks if you are vaccinated” is a faulty message. People are selective listeners. A section might ignore the later part.

What’s the recommended Text Expander utilities for Windows and Android? It comes so handy and is another thing I miss from Apple ecosystem. Only one that I’ve come across is Phrase Express.

Before there was Twitter and Facebook and other social media, was there any physical equivalent of likes and reshares. And hashtags? Because these interactions stem from the social instincts of us humans, right?

How crazy is the mind? It already believes mask is the normal attire. Just a thought of seeing people around without masks makes it queasy.

I always struggle giving titles for my regular posts - especially quick thoughts. Sure, if I’m writing a tech post or writing about a specific topic, giving it a title is easy. But forcing title on every post is fiddly. It can never encompass what the post is about.