Top reads from this week.
Reading and writing while travelling.
Dear Friends
I have been on a crazy trip last week and I can tell you I had the most amazing conversations with folks from across the country.
I wish I could write down about all the vibrant conversations I had but that will become a book of it’s own.
This reminds me that if you want to read the Bolti Bandh book which also has a toolkit of how to initiate Bolti Bandh dialogue, please just feel free to reply to this email and I will send you the PDF.
Here is what I was reading or watching this week
1. It is not bragging if it is true, if you are looking for creative inspiration this is one of the best conversation I have attended & hosted #PepperSocial ft Roshan Abbas
"Don't fear failure because you have so many opportunities. If 1 thing is not working, try 30 things and at least 40% of things will work." - Roshan Abbas on #PepperSocial
“Watch something that no one is watching. Read something that no one has ever read. That’s how you can keep feeding creativity.”
2. Side Hustle Stack is a FREE resource to find platform-based work, ranging from gig work and side hustles to platforms that help you start a small business that can grow.
Side Hustle Stack is a resource for finding various platforms to earn income—ranging from side hustles to building a full-time standalone business. With COVID-19, many people in our communities are looking for ways to supplement their income, and we wanted to create a resource for those looking for work.
In recent years and months, there's been an explosion of online platforms for making money, and it can be overwhelming to navigate all of the options. This ecosystem benefits from a centralized database of information—and that's where Side Hustle Stack comes in! We're personally users of some of the platforms on this list and are always discovering and evaluating others.
3. “We live in complicated times. India is bursting with creativity. But the dark shadows of authoritarianism are also hovering over us, putting us all in often uncomfortable and sometimes dishonourable positions. We will have to find principled and intelligent ways of overcoming this condition.”
I never thought a professor resigning from the college could be such big drama for the country, but this is interesting.
4. When influencers make fools of themselves.
Over the past year, the more my world shrank, and the gap between the sunset cruisers and the hollow-eyed homebound grew, the more I needed Influencers in the Wild. It can be too much if consumed all at once, but it is remarkable in its natural habitat, tucked among the images in your feed, periodically reminding you that the perfect video looked ridiculous while it was taken. The couple squabbled as they squeezed into the frame together; the food got cold while they tinkered with the lighting; there were five belly flops for one swan dive. It is all just a show, and Influencers is a backstage pass.
5. A thread of threads on Twitter that is enough gyaan for a full week of motivation.
First principles thinking is a powerful mental model for driving non-linear outcomes. It also requires a willingness to ask difficult, uncomfortable questions.
6. No better time than now to become a content creator
But through these ups and downs - 1 thing I’ve learnt is to follow my intuition - because it knows about the lessons I need to learn, the spaces I need to inhabit & it takes me there
I’ve felt growth, fear, failure and faith - and Yoga, as always, has held me through it all
7. I am reading and adapting Stoicism recently in my life and while I am yet to fully understand it, but would love to share what I am reading currently.
You see, Stoicism—and philosophy—are not the domains of idle professors. They are the succor of the successful, and the men and women of action. As Thoreau put it: “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school…it is to solve some of the problems of life not only theoretically, but practically.” The mantle is ours to pick up and carry.
It is an introduction PDF to the philosophy.
8. The true power behind Stoic Indifference.
We have so many strong opinions. Especially about things we don’t like. We don’t like it, and we want you to know that we don’t like it—that musician, that politician, that restaurant, the way that so-and-so talks.
It’s almost like we take pleasure in the misery these things cause us. Needless to say, this is not Stoic. You think Marcus didn’t have things he didn’t like? Of course he did. Seneca, too. But they worked to get from a place of hate or dislike to what the Stoics called “indifference”—almost Zen-like nothingness towards what displeased them.
9. Malcolm Gladwell asked Joe Rogan (in their epic interview on Rogan’s podcast) what kind of comics he didn’t like. Rogan responded that he actually didn’t have any.
One of the things I've gotten really good at as I've gotten older is not paying any attention to things I don't like. Just letting it slide right out of my brain and onto the floor, I'm not interested. It's just, I spent so much time when I was younger and stupider, worrying about things I don't like, being upset at things I don't like—well that sucks, why do people like that, what is wrong with them? And then I realised, like, what a gigantic waste of resources that is, just a huge waste of energy. I don't care anymore. You know as long as they're not stealing material, as long as they're not you know doing something terrible to other comics, victimising, as long as they're not doing that, I really don't care. If they're doing well, good luck.
"We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing," Marcus Aurelius wrote, "and to not let it upset our state of mind—for things have no natural power to shape our judgments." Beautiful.
10. Sharing something from the book ‘The Art of War’
The ‘strategy’ that we use today in the context of business/growth has borrowed heavily from military strategy. One of my favorite quotes from The Art of War is,
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Hope you all are doing well and are healthy.
If you read something interesting this week, please feel free to add it in the comments section so that others can look upto more stuff.
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A podcast that you all should listen to - https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/31-disinformation-then-and-now
Loving the podcast...