Excursions

I am not excited enough for the T20 World Cup this year. Rather, I am finding it a lot difficult to watch full cricket matches now a days. I can’t connect with this sport anymore. And I can’t say it’s just the sport that has changed.

The final issue of my newsletter went out today. It was a wonderful journey writing each of these issues. But all good things have to end some day. I didn’t want to leave the newsletter dangling without tying things up. Today’s letter does that.

The final issue of my newsletter went out today. It was a wonderful journey writing each of these issues. But all good things have to end some day. I didn’t want to leave the newsletter dangling without tying things up. Today’s letter does that.

When I published the first issue of this newsletter, I had no clue I would do that 20 times over the last fifteen months. I had started writing it with a hope that each issue brings some value to a few writers. Sure, the format did change a couple of times. I decided to make it more personal along the way. But I continued to curate links to some of the most wonderful essays I came across. My intension was to inspire the writer within you.

That's 60 brilliant essays found and shared since that first issue. I have been happy with the journey till now. Greg Anderson reminds me of why that is important.

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.

Yes, I have enjoyed writing every issue.  Sometimes it was the letter I was writing to you that I was excited about. Other times, it was the attachment to an essay I was sharing that mattered to me. Whatever the case, I was excited about every issue that I sent to you.

But that hasn't been the case recently. Sure, I continue to enjoy writing on my blog – as I had said in one of the recent posts, "writing something, anything, makes me focused. It calms me down." So, it's not the process of writing that I have stopped enjoying. It is the format that, I have realized, I can't give justice to any more.

"If you don't want to do it now, you don't want to do it at all. Let it go," suggests Derek Sivers in his brilliant new book "How to Live".

So, here I am letting this go. This is the last issue for the newsletter Slanting Nib & A Keyboard. I hope you enjoyed reading the issues as much as I did writing them.

What does it mean for the subscribers? Well, first off, I will stop sending you any more letters to you, even if you continue to stay signed up. I prefer not to break your trust. You had signed up for something which I no longer intend to deliver.

With that said, this place Slanting Nib will continue to stay active. As I said earlier, I still love writing. I will post a few stories that are closest to my heart.

So, if you wish to receive these stories from me via mails, please drop me a note. Just hit reply, or email me. I would be glad to send you my personal stories, with a promise of not doing so more than once a week.

Thank you for subscribing and reading my newsletter. Goodbye for now!

It was a terrible first day at T20 World Cup. I hope the second day is a better. For one, there’s excitement for the India-Pakistan match - that’s always a special occasion 🏏

I don’t remember the last book before How to Live by Derek Sivers that made me contemplate so many times while reading. The moment I was done with the last page, I had my diary out to capture my understanding from each of the 27 answers to that one principal question, how should I live.

As Derek says in the subtitle of the book, they are all conflicting answers. But the conclusion is not weird at all — for one, Derek is a masterful and a deep thinker. Each short chapter has most knowledge presented in the least number of words possible. Wisdom to words ratio is pretty high with this gem of a book.

At the surface, the book is pretty straightforward to read. Short chapters. Short, easy sentences. But, dig deep, and it is one of the most difficult books to fathom. It will force you to question what you have believed throughout your life, and it’s that questioning that will leave your mind unclouded.

It’s easy to write long, elaborate prose. But it takes time to shorten it, and I am glad Derek took that time. In his words, it took him four years, often writing 16 hours a day, to condense it down from the first draft of 1300 pages to 115.

What results is one of the most powerful and important books ever written. Take time and read it slowly. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

I enjoy writing posts in Drummer. One of the many reasons for that is I can see all my posts in the same editing space. It is so easy to scroll through all your posts and find reference to just that one old post.

One thing that missing, though, was there was no easy way to get the url for that post right in Drummer. So, I got scripting. I have created a script which does just that. Select any node, run the script, and it will present the URL for that post in a dialog box. Here’s how you enable it.

• Copy the below Drummer script and paste it in your special opml file for Scripts menu (File ⇾ Special files ⇾ Scripts menu…)
• You will see a new entry in Scripts menu
• Select any node, even the headline (a titled post), and select the newly added script menu item

You will get the URL for the selected node.

Get Post URL
	var created = op.attributes.getOne("created");
	var baseurl = opml.getHeaders().urlBlogWebsite;
	if(typeof(baseurl) == "undefined"){
		baseurl = "http://oldschool.scripting.com/" + opml.getHeaders().ownerTwitterScreenName + "/";
	}
	var dt = new Date(created)
	var day = (dt.getUTCDate() < 10 ? '0' : '') + dt.getUTCDate();
	var month = ((dt.getUTCMonth() +1) < 10 ? '0' : '') + (dt.getUTCMonth() + 1);
	var year = dt.getUTCFullYear();
	var hour = (dt.getUTCHours() < 10 ? '0' : '') + dt.getUTCHours(); 
	var minutes = (dt.getUTCMinutes() < 10 ? '0' : '') + dt.getUTCMinutes()
	var seconds = (dt.getUTCSeconds() < 10 ? '0' : '') + dt.getUTCSeconds()
	var post = opml.parse(op.getCursorOpml());
	var isTitledPost = typeof(post.opml.body.subs[0].subs) != "undefined";
	var postUrl = "";
	if(isTitledPost) {
		postUrl = baseurl + year + "/" + month + "/" + day + "/" +  hour + minutes + seconds + ".html";
		postUrl = postUrl + "?title=" + op.getLineText();
	} else 
	{
		postUrl = baseurl + year + "/" + month + "/" + day + ".html#a" +  hour + minutes + seconds;
	}
	dialog.ask("This is the URL for the selected post:",  postUrl);

A T20 with less than run a ball required, going into the 19th over, still in balance. Now, that’s not too common. This is going to be a different T20 World Cup.

I really liked what Frank Meeuwsen did with his script to crosspost to WordPress from Drummer. I did attempt to get inspired by it and create a script to crosspost to Micro.blog. But, I hit the CORS issue and then I stopped. I have already signed up for too many side projects to spend my time on. I don’t want to add to the list.

Reminder to self: Don’t join another community now. If you can’t contribute or have strong feeling about any discussion in-progress in there, it’s not for you.