We are unofficially entering the sixth month (atleast in India) on whatever we are going through as humankind. Life has changed dramatically and as we have evolved over the million years, we will get through this as well.
A few things I have stopped doing/using are perfumes, work shoes, jeans pants, formal shirts, watches, yoga classes, scooter, motorbike, metro ride, reading while commuting, ordering lunch from restaurants (I had a MTWTF schedule), building social capital during lunch/chai-sutta breaks, efficiency improvement conversations with the metro station guys, badminton and cricket over the weekends, taking that two hour rushed date with Sharon at some place outside while Kabir slept, a sense of normalcy (which I didn't know then) and looking forward to a break/holiday.
We all stopped using or doing a lot of things from our yester lives. What was yours? Think about it!
This biggest lesson that these five months have taught us is that it is okay to be imperfect. We don't have to lose our mind in pursuit of perfection. We need to indulge ourselves with things that would make us feel better.
It's okay if we put on a little weight.
It's okay if we turn in that presentation a little late.
It's okay to be not okay with the things the way they are.
It's okay if we procrastinate a little.
But, it's important that we come out alive along with the people whom we love and care for.
Where is the fun without watching people do their stupid and hilarious people things!
Let's dive into The Week Mind
A. Political
The Amazon, Giver of Life, Unleashes the Pandemic, Tyler Hicks, Julie Turkewitz, Manuela Andreoni, Jeremy While, The New York Times
This photo-article should be viewed on a big screen to be appreciated. If there is a poetic way to narrate the sadness without ever using any negative words, this article is precisely that. It's an amalgamation of photos, words and graphics to convey how a pandemic spread through a river. How people are affected and how they react to it! In the end, it's all about hope and a lot of us put it on the God above to rescue us. As a cliche disguised atheist cleverly put, "God helps those, who help themselves".
B. Technology
How India became a hack-for-hire hub, Prasid Banerjee, mint
After or while reading the article, when you are gonna search for certain terminologies like 'Tor', 'deep web', 'dark web', etc., I suggest you use DuckDuckGo search engine. At least to an extent, Google wouldn't track you and send your coordinates to someone who shouldn't have them.
Prasid has lucidly written about how the whole dark web operates. There are still a lot of questions that will come to your mind and that is the reason why you should use DuckDuckGo. While watching Mr. Robot on Amazon Prime, there was a lot of questions on where these dark web guys based out of and how does anyone gets in touch with any of them. Tor may be an answer. But, it is the dark side of technology where it is better to be a prospective victim like the billion others on the planet rather than the perpetrator. Nevertheless, a fun read!
C. Marketing
Nothing great I came across!
D. Economics
Nothing great I came across!
E. Sports
Stuart Broad is a fighter and he proved it time and again with a magical performance in the third test to win the #raisethebat Wisden Trophy for England. For someone to be ignored for the first test, to come back and win the second and the third test for his team along with the Man of the Series trophy is sensational. Well deserved 500 wickets as well!
How Marcelo Bielsa steered Leeds back to the Premier League, Samarnath Soory, Sportstar
The Madman coach, who left SS Lazio in two days and Lille OSC in a few months, has resurrected one of the success craving, aristocratic clubs of English Football, Leeds United. He could have been back to the top-tier last season by being a stickler for rules and playing foul against Aston Villa. But, he held sportsmanship above everything else and undertook the hard journey to the top. Welcome back Leeds United to the EPL!
F. eCommerce
Nothing great I came across!
G. Behaviour
Resign or be terminated is not really a choice once Option A and Option B for severance pay are explained, Cyril Sam, Medium
This is reality and this is happening around us. A few of us have been spared but that doesn't mean it won't happen to us. For everyone who has been working for someone else, this will happen at least once in our working career - being fired. And it will happen in the most unexpected and ruthless fashion. We need to be cognizant of the fact that this will happen and equip ourselves with skillsets that we can trade for a monthly income. Today, it may be the economic slump due to a virus pandemic which is making the organizations fire employees with zero humanity. Tomorrow, it will be AI (more on that next week)
This article is the must read for this week where Kavitha Iyer's email to her colleagues at The Indian Express is reproduced by Cyril Sam with her permission.
How to stay productive when the world is on fire, Alan Henry, Wired
The inspiration to my rant! Although Alan Henry has written it from an American perspective, a lot of it is useful hacks for the folks working from home. I loved the Pomodoro technique of working deeply for 25 minutes, then taking a break for 5 minutes and repeating the cycle for 4 times or so. Will implement this from tomorrow and see if my mood gains uplift or not. There may be some useful hacks that may help you out as well. Check it out!
H. Books & Cinema
I am still reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond since 7th Jun. No changes there.
Just like the whole world, we are watching Indian Matchmaking as well! First I thought, it is so bad that it is so good. Then I thought that non-Indians view Indians as people who sweep equality under the carpet of traditional values. That's atleast a step above snake charmers, so I will take it. At times, the narrative is staged and biased, but there is a lot to learn about ourselves and our biases.
Our bias for good looking people, that they don't cause any harm.
Our bias for inequality, but portraying to the outside world that we stand for equality.
Although implicit, our bias for money, caste and religion.
The list never ends.
We all end up saying that these are the rules of the house and we need someone to abide by the rules than rewrite them. We are comfortable in our zone and wouldn't want to experiment. That is us. Us, the humankind!
Take care of the kindness part in humankind and we will be alright!
With that, we wrap up this week's musing.
Do share your list of interesting articles that you came across.
Do share your thoughts on what was good and what can be improved.
And that's word no. 1211
A few things I have stopped doing/using are perfumes, work shoes, jeans pants, formal shirts, watches, yoga classes, scooter, motorbike, metro ride, reading while commuting, ordering lunch from restaurants (I had a MTWTF schedule), building social capital during lunch/chai-sutta breaks, efficiency improvement conversations with the metro station guys, badminton and cricket over the weekends, taking that two hour rushed date with Sharon at some place outside while Kabir slept, a sense of normalcy (which I didn't know then) and looking forward to a break/holiday.
We all stopped using or doing a lot of things from our yester lives. What was yours? Think about it!
This biggest lesson that these five months have taught us is that it is okay to be imperfect. We don't have to lose our mind in pursuit of perfection. We need to indulge ourselves with things that would make us feel better.
It's okay if we put on a little weight.
It's okay if we turn in that presentation a little late.
It's okay to be not okay with the things the way they are.
It's okay if we procrastinate a little.
But, it's important that we come out alive along with the people whom we love and care for.
Where is the fun without watching people do their stupid and hilarious people things!
Let's dive into The Week Mind
A. Political
The Amazon, Giver of Life, Unleashes the Pandemic, Tyler Hicks, Julie Turkewitz, Manuela Andreoni, Jeremy While, The New York Times
This photo-article should be viewed on a big screen to be appreciated. If there is a poetic way to narrate the sadness without ever using any negative words, this article is precisely that. It's an amalgamation of photos, words and graphics to convey how a pandemic spread through a river. How people are affected and how they react to it! In the end, it's all about hope and a lot of us put it on the God above to rescue us. As a cliche disguised atheist cleverly put, "God helps those, who help themselves".
B. Technology
How India became a hack-for-hire hub, Prasid Banerjee, mint
After or while reading the article, when you are gonna search for certain terminologies like 'Tor', 'deep web', 'dark web', etc., I suggest you use DuckDuckGo search engine. At least to an extent, Google wouldn't track you and send your coordinates to someone who shouldn't have them.
Prasid has lucidly written about how the whole dark web operates. There are still a lot of questions that will come to your mind and that is the reason why you should use DuckDuckGo. While watching Mr. Robot on Amazon Prime, there was a lot of questions on where these dark web guys based out of and how does anyone gets in touch with any of them. Tor may be an answer. But, it is the dark side of technology where it is better to be a prospective victim like the billion others on the planet rather than the perpetrator. Nevertheless, a fun read!
C. Marketing
Nothing great I came across!
D. Economics
Nothing great I came across!
E. Sports
Stuart Broad is a fighter and he proved it time and again with a magical performance in the third test to win the #raisethebat Wisden Trophy for England. For someone to be ignored for the first test, to come back and win the second and the third test for his team along with the Man of the Series trophy is sensational. Well deserved 500 wickets as well!
How Marcelo Bielsa steered Leeds back to the Premier League, Samarnath Soory, Sportstar
The Madman coach, who left SS Lazio in two days and Lille OSC in a few months, has resurrected one of the success craving, aristocratic clubs of English Football, Leeds United. He could have been back to the top-tier last season by being a stickler for rules and playing foul against Aston Villa. But, he held sportsmanship above everything else and undertook the hard journey to the top. Welcome back Leeds United to the EPL!
F. eCommerce
Nothing great I came across!
G. Behaviour
Resign or be terminated is not really a choice once Option A and Option B for severance pay are explained, Cyril Sam, Medium
This is reality and this is happening around us. A few of us have been spared but that doesn't mean it won't happen to us. For everyone who has been working for someone else, this will happen at least once in our working career - being fired. And it will happen in the most unexpected and ruthless fashion. We need to be cognizant of the fact that this will happen and equip ourselves with skillsets that we can trade for a monthly income. Today, it may be the economic slump due to a virus pandemic which is making the organizations fire employees with zero humanity. Tomorrow, it will be AI (more on that next week)
This article is the must read for this week where Kavitha Iyer's email to her colleagues at The Indian Express is reproduced by Cyril Sam with her permission.
How to stay productive when the world is on fire, Alan Henry, Wired
The inspiration to my rant! Although Alan Henry has written it from an American perspective, a lot of it is useful hacks for the folks working from home. I loved the Pomodoro technique of working deeply for 25 minutes, then taking a break for 5 minutes and repeating the cycle for 4 times or so. Will implement this from tomorrow and see if my mood gains uplift or not. There may be some useful hacks that may help you out as well. Check it out!
H. Books & Cinema
I am still reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond since 7th Jun. No changes there.
Just like the whole world, we are watching Indian Matchmaking as well! First I thought, it is so bad that it is so good. Then I thought that non-Indians view Indians as people who sweep equality under the carpet of traditional values. That's atleast a step above snake charmers, so I will take it. At times, the narrative is staged and biased, but there is a lot to learn about ourselves and our biases.
Our bias for good looking people, that they don't cause any harm.
Our bias for inequality, but portraying to the outside world that we stand for equality.
Although implicit, our bias for money, caste and religion.
The list never ends.
We all end up saying that these are the rules of the house and we need someone to abide by the rules than rewrite them. We are comfortable in our zone and wouldn't want to experiment. That is us. Us, the humankind!
Take care of the kindness part in humankind and we will be alright!
With that, we wrap up this week's musing.
Do share your list of interesting articles that you came across.
Do share your thoughts on what was good and what can be improved.
And that's word no. 1211
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