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Goal Hierarchy - What is it and why should I spend time thinking about it?

Mon, 17 May 2021 17:00:00 GMT

Goals¹ are hierarchical. All goals fall into tiers - you may or may not be conscious of this. There are tactical goals - your To Dos or action items. There are top-level goals - about your identity, meaning and purpose in life or about the legacy you want to leave behind. And there are levels bridging the two.

Here is one possible Goal hierarchy set², starting from tactical at Level 1 to a top-level goal at Level 7.

Write a blog post today. (Tactical)
Cultivate the practice of writing blog posts everyday.
Practice curiosity in public - learn in public.
Practice adventure in public - share your learning process, your thoughts, be bold and see which unknown paths this takes you.
Practice contribution - ship what you learn and make and contribute back.
Find your tribe - the people who believe in curiosity and adventure and contribution
Improve the community and lives of people by advocating for a life driven by curiosity and adventure and contribution. Offer them a complementary approach to live in a a capitalist, productivity driven, type A glorifying, fast changing world.

In this goal set, each level is a stepping stone towards the higher level. The top level goals are harder, there is no clear path to follow. You may have to trail blaze.

The lower levels provide immediate gratification. Higher levels are more work, more demanding, scarier - but provide immense gratification and meaning to our lives. They become the legacy we leave behind.

So when you plan your day, or your year, do you know what level the goals are and in what hierarchy they belong - since all goals live in a hierarchy, in relation to other goals.

Do you know how your tactical goal - “take my child to swim class” - affects a higher-level goal - “nurture openness, communication and bonding with my children so they are comfortable with me being in their lives as they grow up”?

Now, if you had to choose between you taking your child to swim class or your writing that blog post, what would you choose? And why? Which task is more crucial to to which of your long-term goals? Not doing what task has a huge impact on the long-term goal?

That is, when you have conflicting goals, how do you choose between them?

Well, once you figure out goal hierarchies, resolving goal conflict becomes that much easier. You make compromises knowing why you choose what you choose, and helps you plan for the consequences accordingly.

Do:

So go spend some time today thinking about your goals, writing them down in post-it notes and arrange them in hierarchies. Experience how the way to the peak appears.

Links:

Angela Duckworth in this episode of Freakonomics talks about goal hierarchy, at about the 10min mark.
A Vimeo video by Angela Duckworth

Angela Duckworth: Hierarchy of Goals from Mew Studios on Vimeo.

Footnotes:

[1] Goal: Something you want to achieve
[2] Goal Hierarchy set: A set of goals, all helping to achieve one top-level goal, arranged in tiers.

Continuous deployment via git and cPanel for your Gatsby (or other static) blog

Sun, 25 Apr 2021 20:00:00 GMT

Do you run your own static site / blog? Do you still have a shared web hosting service you pay for? Would you like to jump into continuous deployment using just your web host?

Sections

Today’s manual steps to update site on my web host
The automated way I would like
How to enable continuous deployment using git and cPanel
Final Process
Links I used to research and implement this

Today’s manual steps to update site on my web host

I host my blog my domain. I use Gatsby to build this blog. The source code is hosted on Bitbucket. Once built, the static files are hosted on Webhosting Hub .

Today, my process is follows:

Draft and edit post on Obsidian
Use VSCode to update my Gatsby blog repository with this post.
Test locally. Build. Test the build
Push the source changes up to Bitbucket.
UseFilezilla to FTP to my webhost’s file system and navigate to the correct folder
Drag + drop the recently updated distribution files (the ‘public’ folder for Gatsby) to Filezilla.
Refresh and test my live site.

The automated way I would like

While this works, I was looking to automate Steps 6 to 9. Once I push the source changes, I would like to have the web host files updated with the new build .I have setup Netlify pipelines for my Booknotes site which does exactly that.

However once I realized that thanks to Git + cPanel, one push deployment can be done, I wanted to try it out. Why - I like the idea of trying something new - I like the idea of relying /maintaining one less service - for my small needs.

Visually, this is the flow I want. Basically, what cPanel calls ”Push Deployment”

How to enable continuous deployment using git and cPanel

1. Here are the prerequisites:

Your web host offer shell access?
Your web host offer terminal access?
Your repo host allow ssh access? (Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab do.)
You have a way to build and compile your site to generate static files (Gatsby or Next JS or Create-React-App or some such)
You know where the built / distribution files live.

Then

2. Create an empty repository on your cPanel Git Version Control interface

youtube instructions

Go to your cPanel. Navigate to ‘Git Version Control’. Click on ‘Create’.
Make sure that the ‘toggle’ panel is turned OFF.
In the form, add the repository path - I use /repositories/repository-name
In the form, fill in the repository name
Click ‘Create.’
In the window which pops up, copy the remote / Clone Url

3. Connect cPanel your local development machine via ssh

In your local repository, check what your git user.name and user.email are.

git config --local user.name
git config --local user.email

If the username and email are not set, you can choose to set it or use the global email. To set it, use the same commands with the values you want to set

 git config --local user.name "My Name"
 git config --local user.email "my_git_email@example.com"

Make a note of this email address.

Create SSH keys on your system, using this email address and add it to the ssh-agent. Github has great instructions for this. Use the following command for generating the ssh key.

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C  "my_git_email@example.com"

Give the file a unique name.
After you run this command, the system will prompt you to enter a passphrase. Do not enter a passphrase, and press Enter to continue.
Add your SSH key to the ssh-agent.
1. Start agent in the background eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
2. For Macs, modify your ssh.config open ~/.ssh/config
3. Add the following lines to it
4. ```
AddKeysToAgent yes
UseKeychain yes
 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<your file name> ```
```
5. Add your key to the SSH agent. ssh-add ~/.ssh/<your file name>
Add these keys to your cPanel SSH Keys
1. Go to ‘SSH Keys’. Click on Import Key.
2. In the form which shows up, fill the following:
  1. name - I use the same name as the file
  2. Paste the private key (from the file generated without the .pub extension)
  3. Leave the passphrase empty
  4. Paste the public key (from the .pub generated file)
  5. Click import.

4. Add the cPanel managed repository as a remote on your local repository

Update the Clone URL you had copied in the last step of Section 1 with the port.
For example, if your URL was ssh://username@domain.com/home/{username}/repositories/{reponame} and your port is 2222, your new URL will be ssh://username@domain.com:2222/home/{username}/repositories/{reponame}
Go to your local repository and add this as a remote. To do this, run the command
git remote add <remotename> <cloneurl>.
<remotename> needs to be unique. Like many others, I use ‘cpanel’ for cPanel, and ‘origin’ for Bitbucket.
<cloneurl> is the clone URL you copied over form Git Version Control. Note: the instructions mentioned in cPanel name the remote as ‘origin’. However, I use ‘origin’ for my Github/Bitbucket accounts, and name this remote as ‘cpanel’
Push your changes to the cpanel repository.
git push -u cpanel main This should fail at this point with a timeout error
.gitignore setup for checking out publci only

5. `.gitignore` issues

Generally, for Gatsby repos, the ‘public’ directory is included in the .gitignore file and is ignored and these files are not pushed to the repo. In my case, I want my Bitbucket repo to stay clean, as they are. However I want the public files to get pushed to the cPanel repo. For this, I have to use a slightly clunky mechanism - branches.

The main branch with clean code remains ‘main’.
Create a new branch named deployment. git checkout -b deployment.
In the deployment branch, remove ‘public’ from .gitignore.
Commit the changes in deployment.
Push the ‘deployment’ branch to cPanel. git push cpanel deployment.
In cPanel, in Git Version Control, go to the repository and set the the ‘Checked-out branch’ to ‘deployment.

6. Setup automatic deployment via post-receive git hook

The official way using a .cpanel.yml did not work for me. I kept seeing the following error:

[username@domain hooks]$ ./post-receive
./post-receive: line 17: /dev/stdin: Operation not permitted

Digging on forums, I realized others had similar issue

Instead, inspired by here and here, I just re-use the post-receive git hook to

checkout the correct branch, ‘deployment’ in our case
copy the contents of the public folder in the repository to my deploy path.
send me an email

Create a file called ‘post-receive’ with no extension.
Open the file in a text-editor and use the following code

#!/bin/sh

# post-receive hook
echo "Received a push to repo. Checking out deployment branch via work tree"
git --work-tree=/home/{username}/repositories/{reponame} --git-dir=/home/{username}/repositories/{reponame}/.git checkout -f deployment

echo "copy updated files from repo public to deploy path - public_html/blog"
export DEPLOYPATH=/home/{username}/public_html/blog/
/bin/cp -R -u /home/{username}/repositories/{reponame}/public/* $DEPLOYPATH

echo "copy done"

In your script, replace {username} with your username,{reponame} with your repository name, and set the DEPLOYPATH to where you want to deploy.

Move this file into your web host folder under home/{username}/repositories/{reponame}/.git/hooks
Login in terminal in cPanel and make sure the git hook has executable permissions by running chmod +x /home/{username}/repositories/{reponame}/.git/hooks/post-receive

Now, when you push a file to cPanel from your local repository using git push cpanel deployment, this will automatically move the files over to where you want it to be.

7. Sending an email once the copy is completed.

I haven’t implemented it yet. https://forums.cpanel.net/threads/git-update-notification.645649/ has more information to do this.

4. Final Process:

Here is what my process looks like.

In VSCode, git checkout main
Make changes. Test. Commit changes.
Build using gatsby build. Test build
Push changes to Bitbucket. git push origin main

Update the deployment branch with these changes and commit.

git checkout deployment
git merge master
git commit -m "update: new blog post"

Push the deployment branch changes to cPanel git push cpanel deployment

And there you go! Easy-peasy.

5. Links I used to research and implement this.

I would love to hear from you (tweet @suprada) if you have an even better way of leveraging cpanel!

Why I blog

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 21:00:00 GMT

To share what I know
To learn what I don’t know
To practice clear thinking
To open up to the possibility that what I have have to say may be useful to someone who needs
To learn in public
To practice shipping my work
To practice deep commitment
To practice writing
To create something I can stand behind

This list is what I refer to, this is my rationale when my critic questions why I spend time on a blog that nobody reads. It is a touchstone to come back to on those inevitable days when I don’t ‘feel’ like writing here.

Why do you do what you do? Would you do it if there was no audience? Will an audience make you do it differently?

Seth Godin's Three Pillars

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:21:00 GMT

Seth Godin’s three pillars - from his interview at The Knowledge Project, Episode #105.

What’s the change you seek to make?
What possibility do you see to make the change you seek to make?
How much emotional labor are you willing to do, how much pain are you willing to take, what sacrifices are you willing to make in the approach for the change you seek to make?

After all , as Nir Eyal says, Time management = Pain management. And to achieve the goals, you need to put in your time.

The Pressure of the Big Other and The Housewife's disease

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 10:20:00 GMT

Does this happen to you? You start a task. While doing this, another related to-do pops up in your mind. You make a mental note to do it later. Then a second related to-do task pops up. And then a third. Your mental notes are growing. Soon these to-dos popping up are not directly related (or even remotely related).

Each of these tasks that pop up have two qualities. - It is ‘other’ than what you are doing - It is always Bigger, More Important, More Urgent than what you are doing.

All these Big Others stack up and put Pressure on you - so much that you stop doing, enjoying, focusing and completing on that one task you started, and get derailed to another. You have just experienced The pressure of the Big Other

As this continues, at some point one of two things happen.

You abandon what you are doing to take on something which popped up. And the cycle continues.
Or you get overwhelmed - your body tenses up: your mind gets agitated: you feel righteous about being so busy, you complain to yourself about how little time you have, you start a self-pity-party or a resentment-show about how you are alone with no-one to help. Your particular play may vary.

Well, this phenomenon has a name. The houswife’s disease, coined by Doris Lessing.

“The feverish need to get this or that done — what I call the housewife’s disease: “I must buy this, ring So-and-so, don’t forget this, make a note of that” — had to be subdued to the flat, dull state one needs to write in. Sometimes I achieved it by sleeping for a few minutes, praying that the telephone would be silent. Sleep has always been my friend, my restorer, my quick fix, but it was in those days that I learned the value of a few minutes’ submersion in … where? And you emerge untangled, quiet, dark, ready for work.”
— Doris Lessing

I first came across this framing of “The pressure of the Big Other” around 8 years ago in some podcast or blog post, the source I don’t remember. I would love to attribute it to the correct source if anyone knows about it, let me know.

The Craft of Writing Effectively

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 09:00:00 GMT

Writing - some of us are good at it, and some of us are not. However, the measurement of being ‘good’ at writing is a useless one. The yardstick we use to measure writing is “effectiveness”. As is any form of communication. For writing is a form of communication. Or is it?

Imagine my pleasure and excitement when I came across this lesson on Youtube - The Craft of Writing Effectively by Larry McEnerney of the University of Chicago? This lesson was targeted at graduate students (and leaders) on how to write effectively in the real world.

In service of learning in public (another one of my personal improvement projects), here are the notes I took while listening to this lecture and its sibling lecture “Writing Beyond the Academy 1.23.15”. Even if you find these notes useful, I strongly recommend you take the time to watch the lecture.

Notes from The Craft of Writing Effectively by Larry McEnerney

On thinking and writing

Out in the real world, we think when we write, as we write. We think our thoughts, our ideas, put it in written form and put it out in the world. Our writing may contain new ideas, original ideas, ideas and thoughts of great import.

On reading said writing

However, the mindset - when we read is not the same as when we write. It does not matter how ‘qualified’ the reader is. You yourself read differently compared to writing.

The reader, wants to know “What’s valuable to me in this piece of writing”. The reader does not care about YOUR new original idea. The reader cares about HOW DOES THIS PIECE OF WRITING ADD VALUE TO ME?.

Adding value to a reader

There are two ways to add value to a reader

Show them that they have a problem, an instability, an issue in their life which they didn’t know about. And provide a way to make it more stable

Give them a tool to help with a problem they already have.

That’s it. Those are the only two ways you can add value.

Some examples of showing the reader a problem, and what their reaction is:

“Oh gee! I didn’t realize my communication skills were this bad. Thanks for giving me a way to make my communication better.”
“Oh wow! I didn’t realize that I don’t understand how markets work! Thanks for writing this book to educate me on market design”.

And some examples of writing to help the reader with a problem they already know they have.

“I would like to be more succesful. Thanks for the 10 things successful people do each morning.” “I am working on getting my point across better. Thanks for helping me write more effectively”.

Rules of writing

That’s it. A reader will read what you write - if and only if they find it valuable. Or if they get paid (like teachers who get paid money, or friends and family who get paid via obligation).

What about all the other rules of “good” writing? Like

clarity
organization
persuasiveness
tenses
slang / no-slang
short sentences vs long sentences
complicated vs simple language

All these other rules of writing are extras. They are akin to salting your food.

We are told to write simply, use short sentences, be concise, stay away from acronyms. But what is concise writing? Concise writing is not fewer number of words - it is writing where the reader has to put in a lot less effort to understand what they want to understand.

If your work is not valuable to a reader, however elegant or ‘right’ or original it is, they will not read it - (unless of course, you pay them with money or approval or social status). All these other rules are about improving your writing once your value is in, in making reading a relatively easy and pleasurable experience.

A big caveat to this: SPELLINGS MATTER!

So what is writing anyway?

So, we circle back to the question - what is writing? Writing is NOT conveying ideas, slinging thoughts from my head to yours, its not ‘communicating’ - Writing is trying to change the readers minds, their ideas.

We don’t want the reader to read, think ‘that was nice’ and go on with their lives. Candies do that. We want to CHANGE their mind. We want them to convince them of something, tell them something, show them something, take them somewhere, try to influence them to do something.

And what is effective writing?

Effective writing is writing that changes the reader’s minds, which moves a conversation forward, that which makes the reader better understand what they already want to understand.

So how to write effectively?

So, when you write something or read something always ask two questions:

Who is the reader?
What does the reader care for? Value?

Knowing the reader

Knowing who the reader is going to be - is essential. Why?

We all form communities, tribes around certain ideas. And each tribe has its own code, it’s own language, it’s own rules, it’s own signaliing and values. When you write using the code of your reader, using the language of your reader, you signal intrinsic value.

Consider the language of corporatese vs. engineeres vs. doctorese. The language of silicon valley vs. wall street. Each of these have their own acronyms, their own meaning of commonly used words, which if used the wrong way, changes the meaning.

Why do this?

It is a subtle way to prove credibility - to say “I know you folks. You are awesome. You have done so much great work. However, there is this one small thing in which you are wrong!”

And let’s face it. If you have credibility, your opinions, thoughts and writing are more valued.

So you need to be valuable to the reader. You can only be valuable when you know what the reader cares for, what they value. You also have to signal belonging to their community. For this, you need to know, understand the reader’s tribe, their language.

Language, trust

To write effectively, you need to have good language. Language is NOT rule following. It is understanding how readers read.

Language is a relationship between people. And these people do not trust you. You have to earn their trust, prove your credibility before they will allow you to change their minds.

How to change reader’s minds?

Ok. so we know who the readers are. We know their codes. We are using their language in their writing. We have tools which will be valuable to them. So now, how do we change their minds?

By not explaining. Don’t explain your points to the reader. You are not explaining to a little child.

You need to argue for your points, like a lawyer. You are challenging their points of view - but inside the terms of the reader’s community - following their rules, using their language. And why will they listen to you? Because you are credible. You have earned credibility by listening and reading them, appreciating them, using their language and rules.

How I moved my blog to Gatsby

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 21:08:35 GMT

###What I just migrated my blog Rope and Tire to use Markdown and React using Gatsby.

###Why Gatsby As a React developer, the idea of having a blog written in React is appealing — I can maintain and experiment on my blog. And using this fancy new thing—Gatsby appeals to my inner neophile.

My blog used to be hosted on Wordpress. While quite good, I have longed for something simpler, easy to edit. And I was irritated with plugins.

###Why Markdown

Simplicity and Portability of plain text files
Rich formatting
Easy to read with formatting
Easy to learn syntax
Can be easily converted to HTML

I’ve always wanted to become a power-user of Markdown. Best way to become a power-user, that I know of, is to use it.

###How did I move my blog

On egghead.io, I saw this course on building a blog with react and markdown using Gatsby. I coded along with the course for an introduction.

Then I threw it all out, and used this tutorial on codeburst.io to build my blog. I used the gatsby-starter-blog for a quick scaffold, and the theme theme-de-young as a starting point for my customizations.

I then had to figure a way out to import my wordpress posts. Peter Akkies has a great tutorial on how to do this. After importing, I had to spend a bit of time cleaning up relative urls, converting http to https, updating the markdown file headers with the correct tags.

Another link I kept referring to how to update this gatsby blog from your phone

###Deployment

Today’s landscape of CI/CD using Github/Bitbucket and Netlify/now.sh is quite amazing. I wanted to try it out, and to reduce hosting on my shared web space at webhostinghub.com.

With this in mind, I created a new private repo on Bitbucket and uploaded my code here. Then on to integrating my repo on bitbucket with Netlify. This tutorial on codeburst.io, which we followed earlier, has instruction on how to set-up a Netlify account.

The final step is to point the netlify instance to your custom domain. All we do then is git push origin master. And your blog is updated.

How to package your React Component for distribution via NPM

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 19:31:53 GMT

I wrote a React component, transpiling using Babel, bundling and building using Webpack. I wanted to use it in another application via NPM. My NPM publish package needed to include component behavior, styles and images. So how difficult is it to package my React Component for distribution via NPM? An hour or so of work maybe right?

Well, it took me a lot longer to figure this out because of the following speed-bumps.

– React version conflict

– How to bundle and consume styles from a component

– How to include and bundle images

Here are the steps.

1. Make a package npm publishable

npm init

In the package.json, make sure these fields are populated:

package.json


{
    "name": "myUnflappableComponent",
    "version": "0.0.29",
    "main": "dist/index.js",
    "publishConfig": {
       "access": "restricted"
    },
    ...
}

2. Don’t bundle React. Use the parent’s React and react-dom.

In package.json, add React and react-dom in the project’s peerDependencies (And remove it from dependencies, but add it to devDependencies for development)

{
     "peerDependencies": {
     "react": ">=15.0.1",
     "react-dom": ">=15.0.1"
     },
     "devDependencies": {
     "react": ">=15.0.1",
     "react-dom": ">=15.0.1"
     },
     ...
}

In your webpack configuration, create a UMD bundle

module.exports = {
    ...
    output: {
        path: path.join(\_\_dirname, './dist'),
        filename: 'myUnflappableComponent.js',
        library: libraryName,
        libraryTarget: 'umd',
        publicPath: '/dist/',
        umdNamedDefine: true
   },
   plugins: {...},
   module: {...},
   resolve: {...},
   externals: {...}
}

And super-duper important, don’t bundle React

module.exports = {
    output: {...},
    plugins: {...},
    module: {...},
    resolve: {
        alias: {
            'react': path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react') ,
            'react-dom': path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react-dom'),
        }
    },
    externals: {
        // Don't bundle react or react-dom
        react: {
            commonjs: "react",
            commonjs2: "react",
            amd: "React",
            root: "React"
        },
        "react-dom": {
            commonjs: "react-dom",
            commonjs2: "react-dom",
            amd: "ReactDOM",
            root: "ReactDOM"
        }
    }
}

3. Set up your .npmignore file

If you don’t set up a .npmignore file, npm uses your .gitignore file and bad things will happen. An empty .npmignore file is allowed. This is what mine looks like:

webpack.local.config.js
webpack.production.config.js
.eslintrc
.gitignore

4. Add a ‘prepublish’ script to your `package.json`

To build before publishing.

    "scripts": {
         "prepublish": "rm -rf ./dist && npm run build",
        ...
    }

5. Extract out your CSS files for use

We use SCSS files for our styles. These are compiled into css and extracted out by Webpack.

Install the following:

    npm install --save-dev extract-text-webpack-plugin node-sass style-loader css-loader sass-loader

Update your webpack.config

    const ExtractTextPlugin = require('extract-text-webpack-plugin');

    module.exports = {
        ...
        plugins:[
            new ExtractTextPlugin({
                filename: 'myUnflappableComponent.css',
            }),
        ],
        module:{
            rules:[
                {
                    test: /\.*css$/,
                    use : ExtractTextPlugin.extract({
                        fallback : 'style-loader',
                        use : [
                            'css-loader',
                            'sass-loader'
                        ]
                    })
                },
                ....
            ]
        }
    }

6. Images in CSS

The way you include images in your component will determine if the consumer of your component will get them.

I include them in the css file using the content property. For example

.mySky{
    width: 20px;
    height: 20px;
    content: url('../assets/images/thunderSky.png');
}

7. Make sure your images are available outside your component

The issue I ran into was the relative paths of the images in the published CSS files were messed up. After a lot of searching, this article (also in the links below) helped.

Install the following:

    npm install --save-dev file-loader url-loader

Update your webpack.config like this:

    module.exports = {
        ...
        module: {
            rules: [
                {
                    test: /\.(png|svg|jpg|gif)$/,
                    use: [
                        {
                            loader: 'url-loader',
                            options:{
                                fallback: "file-loader",
                                name: "[name][md5:hash].[ext]",
                                outputPath: 'assets/',
                                publicPath: '/assets/'
                            }
                        }
                    ]
                },
                ...
                resolve: {
                    alias:{
                        ...
                        'assets': path.resolve(__dirname, 'assets')
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    }

Shoutouts and References:

How to publish your package on npm(all about package.json)
Publish Beta to NPM
Exporting images via webpack (webpack.config.js)
My full webpack configuration:

    const webpack = require('webpack');
    const ExtractTextPlugin = require('extract-text-webpack-plugin');
    const pkg = require('./package.json');
    const path = require('path');

    const libraryName= pkg.name;

    module.exports = {
        entry: path.join(__dirname, "./src/index.js"),
        output: {
            path: path.join(__dirname, './dist'),
            filename: 'myUnflappableComponent.js',
            library: libraryName,
            libraryTarget: 'umd',
            publicPath: '/dist/',
            umdNamedDefine: true
        },
        plugins: [
            new ExtractTextPlugin({
                filename: 'myUnflappableComponent.css',
            }),
        ],
        node: {
          net: 'empty',
          tls: 'empty',
          dns: 'empty'
        },
        module: {
            rules : [
                {
                test: /\.(png|svg|jpg|gif)$/,
                use: [
                    {
                        loader: 'url-loader',
                        options:{
                            fallback: "file-loader",
                            name: "[name][md5:hash].[ext]",
                            outputPath: 'assets/',
                            publicPath: '/assets/'
                        }
                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                test: /\.*css$/,
                use : ExtractTextPlugin.extract({
                    fallback : 'style-loader',
                    use : [
                        'css-loader',
                        'sass-loader'
                    ]
                })
            },
            {
                test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
                use: ["babel-loader"],
                include: path.resolve(__dirname, "src"),
                exclude: /node_modules/,
            },
            {
                test: /\.(eot|ttf|woff|woff2)$/,
                use: ["file-loader"],
            },
            {
                test: /\.(pdf|doc|zip)$/,
                use: ["file-loader"],
            }]
        },
        resolve: {
            alias: {
                'react': path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react') ,
                'react-dom': path.resolve(__dirname, './node_modules/react-dom'),
                'assets': path.resolve(__dirname, 'assets')
            }
        },
        externals: {
            // Don't bundle react or react-dom
            react: {
                commonjs: "react",
                commonjs2: "react",
                amd: "React",
                root: "React"
            },
            "react-dom": {
                commonjs: "react-dom",
                commonjs2: "react-dom",
                amd: "ReactDOM",
                root: "ReactDOM"
            }
        }
    };

Introducing Book-Notes – my notes and highlights from the books I have read

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 10:00:45 GMT

Today I’m releasing Book-Notes – a collection of my notes and highlights from the books I have read.

Reading a book is awesome. Blazing past books at break-neck speed is awesome for only so long. To enjoy the book more, to internalize and chew over what the book has to say, I realized that slowing down and reviewing might be key. So, I started marking out highlights and taking notes when reading inspired by folks like Derek Sivers, Ryan Holiday, Maria Popova (listen at the 31:45 mark) and Tim Ferriss.

This taking notes and highlights is convenient and easy when reading an e-book: on a kindle or the kindle app, or on the Google Play Books app. If I’m reading a paper book, I use the index method: I lightly mark the start and end of the highlight on the page and create an index on the very first page of the book. The index is just a list of page numbers which has these highlights and maybe notes.

I download the Kindle highlights from the Kindle – Your Highlights page using Bookcision. When reading on Play books, it stores the notes on a Google Doc in my Google Drive. Paper books are slower/harder/better/nicer/more-painful. I write down the marked highlights and erase the pencil markings as I go) into my Livescribe book – which gets transcribed and then moved to OneNote.

And now, these notes converted to JSON and will start appearing on the book-notes section of my website.

So, if you are interested in what I’m reading, what I think is thought-provoking in the books I read, come back here regularly to check for new notes and highlights (and some older ones which are being transcribed).

What I used to build book-notes

I used React – using Create React App to build book-notes. It is hosted on my shared hosting space at Webhosting Hub. The code lives in Bitbucket. The design is heavily inspired by Derek Sivers and the Kindle – Your Highlights page. Fonts used: the serif Alegreya for body copy and and the sans-serif Gandhi Sans for headers. Logo is from Flaticon.

VS Code – A tool for writers

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 10:00:03 GMT

Can this be? VS Code – A tool for writers?

Writers use various tools to write. For digital words, we have many options of text editors, word processors and apps. I have used OneNote, Evernote, Google Keep, the WordPress built-in editor, 750 words — in addition to the old-school style of college-rule notebooks, yellow pads and Moleskine journals — for various kinds of writing — blog posts, free form writing, brainstorming or stream-of-consciousness dumping.

However, till now, I had not used a text editor. So why not try to use VS Code – the coding editor I have fallen in love with?

But what exactly are my needs for a writing editor?

A distraction free writing environment
Should count words
Awesome if it can count characters
Spell Checker
Markdown support
Markdown Preview when writing would be so awesome
Auto-save constantly
Lives on the cloud – accessible from all devices

So are these requirements met with VSCode? VS Code – A tool for writers?

Yes!

A Zen mode and a Fullscreen mode (this shows the word and character counts).
VSCode has plugins for Word counter and character counter and spell checkers.
It has beautiful themes (I’m now enjoying the yellow pad looking Solarized Light Theme). I can install fonts (enjoying Hasklig with ligatures).
Markdown support and Preview with Auto-Open Markdown (opens in a preview window side-by-side when writing) and Instant Markdown (opens in a new browser) plugins. Even a plugin to convert markdown to pdf, html or text exists.
Auto-save – yes.
To save on the cloud, I’m going with the nerdy git + bitbucket. And for the truly obsessive, you can sync bitbucket to Google Drive via Zapier.

So yeah, VS Code is really awesome!

So what does VS Code not have, that I miss? Flashy Distracting Features That I still love like from:

OneNote: I love the feature where different text boxes can be moved around like a bunch of stickies on a piece of paper. But admittedly, that is not a distraction-free environment. Great for brainstorming – not so great for distraction-free writing.
750 Words:

I love the distraction free environment, the simplicity of the interface.

I love the badges

I loved the word counters and the notification when you reach 750 words.

I love the statistics.

I love the Seinfeld style – Don’t break the chain strip which counts the days you have shown up to write and met your goal.

I loved that it use the text-analysis system called the Regressive Imagery Dictionary to calculate the various emotional content of each day’s entry

VS Code Setup Guide

Wed, 10 May 2017 10:00:05 GMT

Sublime Text as the text editor of my choice for Front End Web Dev work (and to draft these blog posts). I wanted to try a different text editor (FOMO, next cool thing, need more fun … whatever) and decided to try Visual Studio Code or VS Code. This post is my VS Code setup guide.

VS Code is made by the makers of OneNote (which I adore), and it has good reviews from other dev folks. It is also free and has an extensive extensions market. In addition to the installation, in this guide, I list some of the many extensions to improve productivity from the get go and to try to replicate some features I loved in Sublime Text.

Here is the set of links I followed for setup, configuration and customization.

Installation

Installation Link
On Mac only: setup the command prompt for command line invocation.

Customize the Look and Feel

Nomo Dark icon theme: Icons in your explorer window to identify the files types / folders easily.After installing, enable the extension by going to File > Preferences > File Icon Theme > VSCode Icons. (On OSX it is Code > Preferences > File Icon Theme > VSCode Icons.)
Kary Foundation Theme Light theme: I pretty much use light themes. I like the color scheme and the recommended typography. Out of the box, the fonts and text color in this theme isnt’t that great. You absolutely need need to install the recommended Hasklig font, and then it becomes really good.After installing, enable the theme by going to File > Preferences > Color Theme and select “Kary Foundation Theme – Light”
Hasklig Font: A code font by Adobe Systems with monospaced ligatures, recommended for use with the Kary Foundation Theme. After installing the theme on your OS, enable the font. Then go to File > Preferences > Settings and update your settings with the following: {
“workbench.iconTheme”: “vs-nomo-dark”, “workbench.colorTheme”: “Kary Foundation － Light”, “editor.fontFamily”: “Hasklig, Menlo, Monaco, ‘Courier New’, monospace”, “editor.fontWeight”: “500”, “editor.fontWeight”: “normal”, “editor.fontSize”: 15, “editor.fontLigatures”: true, “terminal.integrated.fontFamily”: “Hasklig, Menlo, Monaco, ‘Courier New’, monospace”, “terminal.integrated.fontLigatures”: true }

Set up the editor conveniences

Path Intellisense Visual Studio Code: Plugin that autocompletes filenames.
NPM Intellisense Visual Studio Code: Plugin that autocompletes npm modules in import statements.
Auto Close Tag: Automatically add HTML/XML close tag, same as Visual Studio IDE or Sublime Text does.
Auto Rename Tag: Automatically rename paired HTML/XML tag, same as Visual Studio IDE does.
Expand Selection To Scope: This extension introduces a command that incrementally expands the selection to the nearest outer scope (delimited by bracket pairs).
Paste and Indent: Paste some code with “correct” indentation.
AB HTML Formatter: This tool is formatting / reindenting HTML code.
Rainbow Brackets: Provides rainbow colors for the round brackets, the square brackets and the squiggly brackets.
Guides:Guides is simply an extension that add various indentation guide lines.
Color Highlight: Highlight web colors in your editor.
Color Picker: Helper with GUI to generate color codes such as CSS color notations.

Set up the development conveniences

ES Lint: ESLint Integrates ESLint into VS Code. You need to have installed ESLint first.
```
npm install eslint
```
CSS Auto Prefix: Auto-prefixes certain attributes in CSS.
Style Lint: Modern CSS/SCSS/Less linter.Enable the linter, while disabling the built-in CSS and SCSS linter. Go to File > Preferences > Settings and add the following to settings.json:
```
{
"stylelint.enable": true,
"css.validate": false,
"scss.validate": false
}
```
HTML CSS Support: CSS support for HTML documents.
HTML Snippets: Full HTML tags including HTML5 Snippets.
HTML Boilerplate: A basic HTML5 boilerplate snippet generator.
Gulp Snippets: Gulp JS Snippets for Visual Studio Code.

Projects and versioning

Git Extension Pack: Popular Visual Studio Code extensions for Git. Contains the following extensions:
1. Git History: View git log, file or line History.
2. Project Manager: Easily switch between projects.
3. Git Lens: Provides Git CodeLens information (most recent commit, # of authors), on-demand inline blame annotations, status bar blame
information, file & blame history explorers, and commands to compare changes.
1. gitignore: Language support for .gitignore files. Lets you pull .gitignore files from the https://github.com/github/gitignore repository.
2. Open in GitHub / Bitbucket / VisualStudio.com: Jump to a source code line in Github / Bitbucket / VisualStudio.com.

Measuring (for the dataphiles)

Wakatime: Metrics, insights, and time tracking automatically generated from your programming activity.

Debuggers

Debugger for chrome: Debug your JavaScript code in the Chrome browser, or any other target that supports the Chrome Debugger protocol.
Debugger
for firefox: Debug your web application or browser extension in Firefox

Polymer Specific

These extensions are specific to Polymer – a JavaScript library that helps you create custom reusable HTML elements, and use them to build performant, maintainable

apps.

Polymer IDE: Provides linting, autocompletion, and more for web components.
Polymer Syntax: Polymer syntax highlighting for Atom & VS Code!
Polymer Snippets: Sublime snippets for Polymer and Web Components

Additional Settings

These are additional changes to the editor settings to make life easier. Go to File > Preferences > Settings and add the following lines to your settings.json file

Change tab size from 4 spaces (default) to 2 spaces.
```
{
"editor.tabSize": 2
}
```
Enable word-wrap – if you are crazy like me.
```
{
"editor.wordWrap": "on"
}
```
Enable the minimap to quickly navigate long files.
```
{
"editor.minimap.enabled": true
}
```

Show white spaces outside words

{
"editor.renderWhitespace": "boundary"
}

Enable formatting on typing and pasting.

{
"editor.formatOnType": true,
"editor.formatOnPaste": true
}

Enable copying the current line when Ctrl+C is pressed without any selection. – Enabled by default!

Enable Files Auto-Save

{
"files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
"files.autoSaveDelay": 8000
}

Enable Polymer to analyze the whole package, though it’s slower:
```
{
"polymer-ide.analyzeWholePackage": true
}
```

The settings.json file now looks like

// Place your settings in this file to overwrite the default settings
{
    "workbench.iconTheme": "vs-nomo-dark",
    "workbench.colorTheme": "Kary Foundation － Light",
    "editor.fontFamily": "Hasklig, Menlo, Monaco, 'Courier New', monospace",
    "editor.fontWeight": "500",
    "editor.fontSize": 15,
    "editor.fontLigatures": true,
    "terminal.integrated.fontLigatures": true,
    "editor.tabSize": 2,
    "editor.wordWrap": "on",
    "editor.minimap.enabled": true,
    "editor.renderWhitespace": "boundary",
    "editor.formatOnType": true,
    "editor.formatOnPaste": true,
    "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "Hasklig, Menlo, Monaco, 'Courier New', monospace",
    "stylelint.enable": true,
    "css.validate": false,
    "scss.validate": false,
    "files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
    "files.autoSaveDelay": 8000,
    "polymer-ide.analyzeWholePackage": true
}

February 2017 Reading Log

Tue, 02 May 2017 15:00:49 GMT

Here is my reading log from February 2017. Relatively few books but all were quite amazing. And I got to reread my old popcorn favorite series by David Drake – Northworld Trilogy (which seems to be free on Kindle as of today).

If there is one book I would recommend, it would be

The Subtle Art of Not giving a F*ck and The Art of Possibility (yeah.)

Mark Manson’s book is a sometimes-much-needed kick in the pants about what we care about. An excellent read when nearing burnout, dealing with overwhelm or when you just have too much on your plate. You can say that it is a very good time-management book. Ideally, of course, we would apply what he says (and other folks say) and never reach burnout. My favorite part of the book is the Disappointment Panda. He’s awesome. Read it and tell me what you think.

The next on the list: The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander. I first heard about this book from Seth Godin in his podcast interview with Tim Ferriss . Seth mentioned the set of books he listens to and rereads – again and again – so they can seep into his subconscious. This is one of those audiobooks which I enjoy listening to, and totally get why Seth Godin recommends it. You should try it too.

<th style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;" width="14%">
  Monday
</th>

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  Tuesday
</th>

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  Wednesday
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  Thursday
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  Friday
</th>

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  Saturday
</th>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  1
</td>

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  2
</td>

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  3
</td>

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  4
</td>

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  6
</td>

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  7
</td>

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  8
</td>

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  9
</td>

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  10
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; background-color: #ffff63;">
  11<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2p3WIiQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark Manson</span><br /> (library book
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  13
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  14
</td>

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  15
</td>

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  16
</td>

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  17
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  18<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2p41Xzi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Northworld</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">David Drake</span><br /> (ebook)
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  20
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  21
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  22
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  23
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  24
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  25
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; background-color: #ffff63;">
  27<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2plpH2u" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Art of Possibility</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rosamund & Benjamin Zander</span><br /> (audiobook CD)
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
  28<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2oLRx4D" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Undoing Project</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Michael Lewis</span><br /> (library book)
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc;">
</td>

<td style="padding: 4px;">
</td>

February 2017 Reading Log
Sunday

5
12 It’s Not About the F-Stop Jay Maisel (library ebook)
19 Venegance, Justice David Drake (ebook)
26

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

Introducing LittleReads – The most awesome book tracking app in the universe

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 15:00:48 GMT

This is a side project I’ve been working on since November 2016. Here is the grand reveal. I’ll blog technical about the making of Littlereads over the next few weeks. Meanwhile, here is the introduction.

LittleReads

The most awesome book tracking app in the universe

Do you have a child under 6?

Do you read books to your child?

Are you participating in the 1000 books before kindergarten challenge?

Do you want your child to be a super-duper-reader?

Do you want an easy way to track books you read to your child?

Yes? Join us at littlereads.us

Littlereads is modern. LittleReads works on iPhones, Android devices, desktops, laptops,
LittleReads even works offline!
(Told you … it’s awesome! Better than sliced bread even…)

<div style="margin-top: 40px">
  <h2>
    My Story
  </h2>
  
  <p>
    I have a superpower. I go places.<br /> <img style="margin-top:0px; margin-left: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px;vertical-align: top" width="350px" align="left" src="https://littlereads.us/images/OANYEQ0.jpg" alt="kids reading imagination image" /><br /> <!-- <img style="margin-top:0px; margin-right: 30px; vertical-align: top" width="250px" align="left" src="https://littlereads.us/images/03.jpg"> -->
    
    <br /> Utopias, dystopias, future time, past time, alternate time, dungeons with dragons, androids and superworms, new galaxies, universes, multiverses. All are just a book away.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    I want to pass this superpower to my daughter. So I read to her.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    We go to the library, hang out there, color there, read books there. And bring home a lot of books.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    I even signed up for the <a href="https://www.sccl.org/About/Staff-Posts/August-2015/1000-Books-Before-6">1000 books before 6</a> challenge. I tried the book provided to track read books, but wanted a more convenient digital option. And I have forgotten the books she loved (and I loved to read) when she was 1,2,3&#8230;<br /> So I went looking in the wild, for a way to track books. I found a few &#8211; but none of them catered to the young ones&#8230; you could not track when and how many times you read the same book.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    So I decided to scratch my own itch and develop a rash. I mean, an app which is simple, colorful, easy to use, which can track the books I read to her and show me that data in pretty charts. So after about 6 months of development, here is <a href="https://littlereads.us/?utm_source=gmail&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_campaign=intro1&#038;utm_term=littlereads&#038;utm_content=signup3">LittleReads</a>. </div> 
    
    <div style="margin-top: 40px">
      <h2>
        So please tell me&#8230;
      </h2>
      
      <p>
        What do you think about <a href="https://littlereads.us/?utm_source=gmail&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_campaign=intro1&#038;utm_term=littlereads&#038;utm_content=signup4">LittleReads</a>?
      </p>
      
      <p>
        Can you use it and tell me what you think? Any bugs, issues? What features you would like to see? Something not working the way you like?
      </p>
      
      <p>
        You can <a href="mailto:suprada@littlereads.us?subject=LittleReads%20Feedback%20alpha">email</a> or Tweet <a href="http:www.twitter.com/suprada">@suprada</a> with feedback. Waiting eagerly to hear what you have to say. </div> 
        
        <div>
          <p>
            Happy reading (and tracking),<br /> Suprada
          </p>
        </div>
        
        <hr />
        
        <div style="margin-top: 40px; font-size: 11px">
          <h2 style="display: inline-block; margin-bottom: 2px; font-size: 10px">
            Share <a href="https://littlereads.us/?utm_source=gmail&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_campaign=intro1&#038;utm_term=littlereads&#038;utm_content=signup6">LittleReads</a> with the world:
          </h2>
          
          <div style="margin-top: 0px" >
            <ul style="padding: 0; list-style: none; display: block; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 2px ">
              <li style="display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;">
                <a href="https://ctt.ec/hcaUN"><img width="25px" src="https://littlereads.us/images/twitter.svg" alt="Tweet: Parents, check out #LittleReads - most awesome book tracking app in the universe for your little ones!" /></a>
              </li><li style="display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;"">
              <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A//goo.gl/O6yadb"><img src="https://littlereads.us/images/facebook.svg" width="25px" /></a></li> 
              
              <li style="display: inline-block;">
                &#8230; or Just forward this email
              </li>
            </ul>
          </div>
        </div>
        
        <p>
          <img style="visibility:hidden;display:none;" src="https://ga-beacon.appspot.com/UA-96823264-1/mail/22-04-2017/lrintro1?pixel" />
        </p>

Side Hustle School Podcast – Cool Tool #6

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 15:00:09 GMT

This week’s cool tool is the Side Hustle School Podcast.

Details

Tool: Side Hustle School Podcast

Cost: Free

Type: Podcast

Works On: On Phones via Podcast App / Browser

Link : https://sidehustleschool.com

What is it about?

Side Hustle School is a daily podcast by Chris Guillebeau. That’s right. An episode a day. The episodes are short- mostly less than 10 minutes. The weekly recaps and extended cuts run slightly longer – still less than 20 minutes.

It features stories of real people with busy lives – full time jobs, families and other commitments – who have income generating side hustles. All these people share the value of wanting to create more opportunity for freedom in their lives – and multiple income streams is a big step in that direction.

Chris provides details – what they did, what were they trying to do, what lessons we can learn from these stories, what steps we can probably take toward our own side hustle. He provides useful working models for everyone who wants a new source of income in a limited amount of time.

Why I like Side Hustle School?

Why am I fascinated by this podcast? It’s inspiring. I’m learning about the various kids of hustles, what kinds I would be interested in, various kids of marketing, learning about the different attitudes I can bring to my side hustle and might I expect from this. The tools out there, these steps I can take and what I can do for 20mins each day and see where the hustle ends up in.

You should definitely listen to a couple of episodes and see if it’s for you. Here are a few recommendations:

Episode 9 – The Craigslist Photographer

Episode 64 – Long-haired men create tribal identity

Episode 26 – These Resume Templates Make $462/month in Passive Income

Episode 83 – Bridesmaid-for-Hire Posts on Craigslist; Earns $20,000/Month

About My Cool Tools

“Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. “

– From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

Other cool tools here

The nightly review

Sat, 15 Apr 2017 15:00:11 GMT

Over the years of listening to Tim Ferriss Podcast interviews, reading Ryan Holiday, reading Seneca, reading a lot of articles on meditation, productivity and being profoundly influenced by certain philosophies from Stoicism and Buddhism – these have led me to develop a night routine. As a part of this nightly routine (when I’ve not fallen off the wagon), before I go to sleep, I do my “Nightly Review” in my everything-book.

The questions I ask are

What did I do right today?

This can be a highlight reel of my accomplishments of the day, or just a list of tasks I did. Sometimes, it is a short list of keywords, sometimes I wax lyrical. I almost always answer this first – to start on a positive note.

What did I do wrong today?

This can be an emotional landmine or a wake-up call. This is the section where I list/write about tasks I didn’t do, goals I didn’t reach. More importantly, this is the section I take stock of my behavior for the day – especially the unsavory behaviors – was I mean? gossipy? was I distracted? was I angry? frustrated and vengeful? This is the log of my human foibles, to try to recognize them and better myself tomorrow.

What is left undone?

What needs to be done tomorrow? What should have been done today but didn’t get done? What was started today but not finished today. A launch-board for tomorrow.

Did I choose courage over comfort today?

This is a Brene Brown question which has made a big difference in what I tend to look for in my day. A way to push past my natural inhibitions and reservations. To be more generous, to step out of my comfort zone. I try to have at-least one occasion every day where I choose courage – so I have an answer when I face this question at the end of the day.

I also engage in an evening meditation, just before going to bed. This takes the form of a Marcus-style philosophical diary (not for publication!), during which I revisit the events of the day, asking myself the three famous questions posed by Epictetus: What did I do wrong? What did I do (right)? What duty’s left undone?

– Professor Massimo Pigliucci in this New York Times article

The Mildly Dissatisfied and Insecure

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 15:00:57 GMT

We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction, and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do most of the work to innovate and survive. We are wired to become dissatisfied with whatever we have and satisfied by only what we do not have. This constant dissatisfaction has kept our species fighting and striving, building and conquering. So no – our own pain and misery aren’t a bug of human evolution; they’re a feature.

– Mark Manson in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

Does this explain why we feel something is missing – when things are going well for us, and why a non-existential threat which makes us struggle makes us happier…

On time-luxuriousness

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 03:00:25 GMT

“Stopping = white space. Stopping = room to run free and create from the deepest place of being without restraint or compromise. Stopping = more time for what matters most. You know how to go, go go. Stopping, however, is the stuff of smiley Zen masters with all the time in the world.”

– The Fire Starter Sessions, Danielle LaPorte

What is the word to describe this:

the stuff of smiley Zen masters with all the time in the world

We have time-starved, rushing, busy. But what is the opposite of that? What is the one word for that? The best I can come up with is time-luxuriousness.

January 2017 Reading Log

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 03:00:48 GMT

Here is my reading log from January 2017. It has been a year since I last updated my reading logs here. But I am back. And with a new and improved clickable HTML table – as opposed to the images I was posting last year. Now, clicking on the book titles will take you to their Amazon pages via my affiliate link.

The best fiction book I read in January is Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. The world building is amazing. The plot is quite different, and the setting is muslim / arabic / desert. Something I just don’t get to read often. Very highly recommended for those who like well written, beautiful stories with unorthodox heroes. I am now eagerly waiting for the next instalment in this series. A very close runner-up was N.K.Jemisin’s The Fifth Season – again, the first book in the series.

For my fiction pick, it has to be The E-Myth Revisited by Michel E.Gerber – just because of the sheer amount I learnt about starting and running a small-business. Practial, eminently useful and the timing for this information was just right – and so this book won over both Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harris and **

Spark Joy by Marie Kondo**, both excellent books which I will be re-reading.

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  4<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2onQEzL" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tribe</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sebastian Junger</span><br /> (library book)
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  11<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2orcXXh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sapiens</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Yuval Noah Harari</span><br /> (book)
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  18<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2oxF5In" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Fifth Season</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">N.K.Jemisin</span><br /> (library ebook)
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  23<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2p49dMt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spark Joy</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Marie Kondo</span><br /> (library book)
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  25<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2oWa5my" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Throne of the Crescent Moon</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saladin Ahmed</span><br /> (library book)
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<td style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; background-color: #ffff63;">
  26<br /> <a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; color: #bd1818;" href="https://amzn.to/2nD99Dx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The E-Myth Revisited</a><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Michael E. Gerber</span><br /> (ebook)
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January 2017
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You can find all my previous Reading logs here

Debbie Millman on sensitivity and rejection

Thu, 09 Mar 2017 20:30:08 GMT

“I have noticed a pattern in my life of being very easily hurt by an initial rejection, so much so that it thwarts any other attempt at making something like that happen for a very long time. I am extremely sensitive and any rejection takes me off of that path for a very long time. It takes me a long time to recover.”

…

“I am somebody that has a very hard time taking ‘No’ for an answer. It takes me a long time to recalibrate and get my courage back to continue to keep trying.”

Damn. Is she talking about me or herself? I never considered myself the sensitive type – but this pattern Debbie is talking about, that’s me. And maybe, just maybe, it might be about you too. If so, this other part where she talks about what to do about this pattern might help us:

“Don’t ever accept that first rejection ever. Give yourself options. The timeliness of those options or the timeliness of those retries – do at your own pace. You are not in competition with anybody but yourself.”

From Tim Ferriss’s podcast interview with Debbie Millman – #214 – How to Design a Life – Debbie Millman

The Romance of Tangents

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 16:00:55 GMT

A tangent is a line which meets a circle at one point and one point only – the poignant point of tangency, and never ever meets the circle again, even if extended.

Can you hear the tangent singing James Blunt’s “You’re beautiful”?
“And I don’t think that I’ll
See her again
But we shared a moment
That will last ’til the end”
…
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
It’s true”

The Creative Bubble

Fri, 10 Feb 2017 16:00:32 GMT

“When I look back on my best work, it was inevitably created in what I call “The Bubble”. I eliminated every distraction, sacrificed almost everything that gave me pleasure, placed myself in a single-minded isolation chamber, and structured my life so that everything was not only feeding the work but subordinated to it. It is not a particularly sociable way to operate. It’s actively anti-social. On the other hand, it is pro-creative.”

– Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

What is your version of “The Bubble”? What is your deep work philosophy?

The Philosophies of Deep Work

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 16:00:45 GMT

In his book “Deep Work“, Cal Newport formulates a few different ways we can engage in deep work.

But first, what is “Deep Work”?

Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

Our creative work also falls under this “Deep Work”

So how do you develop a deep work habit?

The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration

Among other things, they’ll ask you to commit to a particular pattern for scheduling this work and develop rituals to sharpen your concentration before starting each session

You must be careful to choose a philosophy that fits your specific circumstances, as a mismatch here can derail your deep work habit before it has a chance to solidify

What are these philosophies of deep work then?

Monastic Philosophy

This philosophy attempts to maximize deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations. Practitioners of the monastic philosophy tend to have a well-defined and highly valued professional goal that they’re pursuing, and the bulk of their professional success comes from doing this one thing exceptionally well. It’s this clarity that helps them eliminate the thicket of shallow concerns that tend to trip up those whose value proposition in the working world is more varied.

Bimodal PhilosophyIn this philosophy, you have some clearly defined stretches of time dedicated to deep work. The rest is open to everything else.

During the deep time, the bimodal worker will act monastically—seeking intense and uninterrupted concentration. During the shallow time, such focus is not prioritized.

So the minimum unti of time for deep work for the bimodal philosophy is one work day.

Those who deploy the bimodal philosophy of deep work admire the productivity of the monastics but also respect the value they receive from the shallow behaviors in their working lives.

Rhythmic Philosophy

This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit. The goal, in other words, is to generate a rhythm for this work

… that removes the need for you to invest energy in deciding if and when you’re going to go deep.

Another common way to implement the rhythmic philosophy is to replace the visual aid of the chain method with a set starting time that you use every day for deep work.

Journalist Philosopy

…you fit deep work wherever you can into your schedule

Isaacson was methodic: Any time he could find some free time, he would switch into a deep work mode and hammer away at his book.

– about Walter Isaacson.

This approach is not for the deep work novice.

So, what is your preferred approach?

I would love to be monastic – but at this stage in life, that is not an option available to me. I have tried the rhythmic approach – but I work best, naturally, in the bimodal approach – once I start working on something, I tend to work on that the whole day.

Opinion and suffering

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 20:30:56 GMT

“Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is.”

– Seneca in Letter 78, Letters from a Stoic (On the Healing Power of the Mind)

How easy!

Once we decide to be unperturbed, we take most things in our stride.

Once we decide you are “busy”, every little task added to our workload becomes an insurmountable addition.

Once we decide we like rainy days – the week of pouring rain, which was dismal, irritating, annoying last week, becomes a chance to enjoy hot chocolate, hot pho and petrichor – the heady sensuous fresh smell of rain in the air and the wet earth.

The acquaintance, once we decide is “my kind of person”, becomes a good buddy.

How easy and how profoundly difficult – to actually change our opinion.

Myths and Legends – My Cool Tool #5

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 16:00:15 GMT

I have always been fascinated by fairy tales and folktales. As a kid, these tales transported me away to different fantastical lands – so like our own but really not now.

Growing up in India, the Hindu mythology was the dominant source of stories. The stories of the pantheon of Hindu Gods, their supporting characters and enemies were fascinating. One of my uncles, a secular Indian-flavored communist, had a collection of Russian and Ukrainian folk tales, which I loved to read. Add to this, the stories from Greek, Roman and Norse mythology I got to read as a part of my lessons in school, made a heady mix. Between Krishna and Hanuman and Tenali Rama and Birbal and all the Ivans and Baba Yaga and Hercules and Perseus and Medusa and Athena – what you get is a fan of the fantastical, of adventure, of travel, of the bizarre and of the strengths hidden in common folk, of the hero’s journey.

Some childhood loves don’t go away. Spice, salt, climbing stuff, making stuff and reading fairy tales – are apparently my loves which are here to stay. And so imagine my delight when I came across The Myths and Legends Podcast by Jason Weiser. He described his podcast as:

“Did you know that fairy tales weren’t originally for children and are way more bizarre, ridiculous, and interesting than you ever thought possible?

Maybe you’ve heard of characters like Thor, Odin, and Hercules from modern movies- stories stretching back centuries. Well, the originals that inspired the adaptations are even better.”

He retells this stories in a funny, modern way, cutting to the heart of the matter. Did I mention how funny he is? For example, here is his introduction of Enkidu of the story of Gilgamesh:

“If you think your job is rough, hopefully you don’t have a hairy naked man leaping majestically through your office with his gazelle friends.”

At the end of each podcast, he highlights the creature of the week: like the Splinter Cat, the Saalah, the Habetrot…

This is a show I enjoy so much that it is one of those I subscribe (as in pay real-world money to support Jason’s great stuff). If this at all looks interesting, you should listen to the free version.

Creativity and Parenting

Sun, 22 Jan 2017 16:00:34 GMT

Today, everyone wants to be creative. Not just use, we want our children to be creative too. But how? This is one way.

Many subjects indicated that as children they had enjoyed a marked degree of autonomy from their parents. They were entrusted with independent judgment and allowed to develop curiosity at their own pace without overt supervision or interference. MacKinnon noted of these parents, “They did not hesitate to grant him rather unusual freedom in exploring his universe and in making decisions for himself — and this early as well as late. The expectation of the parent that the child would act independently but reasonably and responsibly appears to have contributed immensely to the latter’s sense of personal autonomy which was to develop to such a marked degree.”

– Pierluigi Serraino in The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study quoted in Brainpickings in The Creative Architect: Inside Psychology’s Most Ambitious and Influential Study of What Makes a Creative Person

But are we ok to deal with what this increased creativity means? As parents, can our ego, our emotions handle this:

The offspring often reported a sense of remoteness, a distance from their elders, which ultimately helped them avoid, the scientists argued, the overdependence — or momentous rejection — that often characterizes parent-child relationships, both of which were believed to interfere with the unencumbered unfolding of the self through the creative process.

– Pierluigi Serraino in The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study quoted in Brainpickings in The Creative Architect: Inside Psychology’s Most Ambitious and Influential Study of What Makes a Creative Person

Impermanence of the creative life

Sat, 21 Jan 2017 18:00:21 GMT

The nub of living a creative life, as I see it, is to recognise that the only thing that is constant in our lives is impermanence. The way we see the world now, and the way the world is, is always changing and just because we said or felt or believed something one day, does not imply that it is still true another day. We are entitled to change and in fact we are always changing.

By accepting that things come and they go, gives me great comfort to understand that what I do, is just a transient expression of who I was at a moment in time.

– Bruce Percy in A Crisis of Abundance

I used to be a landscape photographer. Then I couldn’t get out to the landscapes and wildernesses. But I still considered myself a landscape photographer. I tried becoming a people photographer, a street photographer. But how could I? How could a landscape photographer be good at street photography?

It’s been about 5 years since I shot landscapes. Nowadays, I see lights, shadows, lines, splotches of color and I itch to make photos of these bizarre, fantastical, nonsensical things. So I am no longer a landscape photographer right? What am I then?

I mourned the loss of my identity – and then I realized: I made up that identity of “landscape photographer”. I can make up a new identity for this new me of today. So I shall become an itchy photographer – one whose photos scratch her itch-of-the-day.

The Great Thief

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 20:30:38 GMT

There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door:

“I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered.”

This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself.

When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found.

On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: “I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better.” So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail.

On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. “Sir Thief,” he said, “I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?”

The man smiled. “I am stealing ideas,” he said.

– From the “Tao of Programming“, 3.2

Weird

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:00:00 GMT

“It’s human nature to be weird, but also human to be lonely. This conflict between fitting in and standing out is at the core of who we are.”

Seth Godin in We are all weird

Startup idea viability

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 16:00:15 GMT

**

When confronted with any startup idea, ask yourself one simple question: How many miracles have to happen for this to succeed?

If the answer is zero, you’re not looking at a startup, you’re just dealing with a regular business like a laundry or a trucking business. All you need is capital and minimal execution, and assuming a two-way market, you’ll make some profit.

Most successful startups depend on one miracle only. For Airbnb, it was getting people to let strangers into their spare bedrooms and weekend cottages. This was a user-behavior miracle. For Google, it was creating an exponentially better search service than anything that had existed to date. This was a technical miracle. For Uber or Instacart, it was getting people to book and pay for real-world services via websites or phones. This was a consumer-workflow miracle. For Slack, it was getting people to work like they formerly chatted with their girlfriends. This is a business-workflow miracle.

– Antonio Garcia Martinez in Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

How do I know if the idea I have is a business idea, or a startup idea? Is it a viable startup idea? Who would have thought that “miracles” are a good metric for this? Bizarre but totally apt in this realm of Unicorns, Centaurs, Pegasus and Dinosaurs, fortune hunters and Silicon Valley pirates.

What we need

Sat, 07 Jan 2017 16:00:00 GMT

**… the self determination theory which holds that human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. These values are considered “intrinsic” to human happiness and far outweigh “extrinsic” values such as beauty, money, and status.

**

– Sebastian Junger in Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

Each and every day , from when we wake up to when we go to bed at night, what do we do to satisfy these – our three basic intrinsic needs? How many do we satisfy everyday? One? Two? All three?

Does catering to these needs truly make us happier? The theory says so. But to know at a personal level, it is definitely something to experiment with, monitor and analyse.

This would also be one explanation for our hesitation with learning (especially adult learning). How often does our need to feel competent at what we do, hold us back from exploring new opportunities, from learning new things, from risking?

What to do about it? Maybe one trick is to have areas in our lives where we feel competent, and expose select other areas where we experiment with short-term risks.

Hours

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 16:00:34 GMT

It’s time. Time is the way to get good at anything. There is no shortcut. It’s just hour after hour after hour of practice.**

– Trent Hamm in this Simple Dollar post.

It’s new year resolution time. Time for the next version of me. But those radical changes I want – they do not happen instantly. Nor do they happen radically.

From here to there is measured in units of time. And I have to go through hour upon hour, hour by hour to get there.

Remember to remember.

Fundamental business models on the internet

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 16:00:54 GMT

I contend that there are four fundamental business models on the internet.

One-shot purchases

Subscriptions: Or something-as-a-service

Ads

Tax: The tax model focuses on earning money when your customer earns money Rohan R at alearningaday.com

How to make money on the internet? Rohan explains very nicely in this post. I found the first part “I. The 4 core business models” especially enlightening.

Here’s Rohan’s sketch. Where in this sketch do I want to be? What can you build and sell to be there? Can I start with a subscription model and then move over to the tax model? Or can various parts of my product leverage each section?

2 week experiments and 6 week projects

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 16:00:29 GMT

I treat my entire life as 2 week experiments and 6 month projects because, and maybe this is just the way I cope with life and decision making, but I feel that if you make a 5 or 10 year plan that you can reliably hit, almost by definition, you have to set a plan that is below your current capabilities. Like, if you are an A student you must set a C+ plan for it to be 100% achievable. That I think is just a great way to paint yourself into a very unattractive corner. – Tim Ferriss in his Podcast #175: How to cage the monkey mind (45:08)

I tried this approach during the second half of 2016. It took me 3 months to iron out the kinks and come up with a system which worked for me. I eventually paired it with Trello and journaling. My productivity on side-projects increased exponentially. Prioritizing became simpler, easier. I was happier, more focused. And I spent the same amount of time as I usually would.

Why did this system work so well for me? Not for the reason that Tim is talking about.

To see why it helped me, I had to first identify the my pitfalls.

I like shiny new projects more than those I am currently working on.
I am unable to limit myself to just one project at a time. I start new projects whenever I have a good idea. The good ideas seem to occur more when when I am in “the Dip” (Seth Godin terminology) or entering the “Trough of Sorrow” (Paul Graham terminology) of a certain project. Seth Godin’s Dip Curve

Paul Graham’s startup curve
I end up working on too many projects at the same time
When I’m working on multiple projects I have an illusion of productivity and it feels good.
I end up scattering my energy. Too many projects at the same time
I have trouble finishing projects
I am unable to let go the projects that I cannot do – because of time or interest. That would mean accepting that I’m not productive. Who likes that?
So I am on a spiral of ever-increasing projects and ever-decreasing productivity.

My system helped me trick myself around the problems.

I commit to an idea for 2 weeks – just 2 weeks. This is not threatening to the other ideas.
At the start, I decide what the success criteria for this experiment are.
At the end of 2 weeks, if I do not meet the success criteria, the idea is abandoned. This helps with the ever-increasing projects problem.
Two weeks is just enough – I can hold back the temptation to postpone starting a new project. Invariably, this temptation hits me at the start of week one. I tell myself “Surely, you can wait for one more week?”, and I invariable do.
Two weeks is also the “good quit point” in Seth Godin’s curve. It is long enough to verify my interest, but not long enough to get suckered by the “sunk cost fallacy”.
And if the idea is really great, the next 2-week project can be a continuation of this great idea.

…

Initially, the “2 week experiment” approach by itself didn’t work well. It started to focus me once I started journaling about the idea in mind: making notes, exploring that idea and exploring why I was drawn to that idea. Once I added Trello to this mix, it really made me productive.

At the start of the 2-week idea period, I create a card in Trello. This card has the project name, the 2 week time period and my pre-determined success criteria. In its description, it also has a living list of subtasks: the idea broken down into many smaller atomic tasks. This list is a starting point. I update this list as and when these atomic tasks change, new ones are needed or they become obsolete.

I also mark the completed tasks and rearrange the order of tasks so that they are always in sequence — this way, I always know what’s next. Trello “2-week card” for a new project – “Redesign website”

So what about the 6-month project? I have one ongoing project — the recording of Moral Letters vol 2 for Librivox. I I can evaluate the 6-month project schedule when I finish it.

A Review of 2016

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 16:00:28 GMT

My successes and failures from 2016.

Planned and Successful

Goal: Change career and become a Front End Web Developer.
Goal: Work on developing and popularizing SoFoBoMoPartial Success: Michael is now a part of the SoFoBoMo initiative. We ran SoFoBoMo 2016. But I had planned a lot more which I didn’t get to.
Goal: Improve handwriting.Partial Success: I have tweaked my handwriting so that LiveScribe can transcribe my notes correctly 99% of the time.

Unplanned Achievements

Started recording “Moral Letters Vol II” by Seneca for Librivox.
Climbed outside at The Emeralds, Mt. St. Helena and Alabama Hills
Built a website for a friend, first using Polymer, then using plain old Bootstrap.
Family trips to Vancouver and Costa Rica.
Getting to learn Java on the job.
Better sleep. Thanks to sleep tracking via Fitbit, Yogi Caramel Bedtime Tea and earplugs.
Finding my productivity/essentialism strategy (for now): 2 week Idea / 6 month project by Tim Ferriss in this podcast.
Working on Project LittleReads.

Planned but failed

Goal: Develop and market a web app targeted towards readers who like to take notes. Project Name: ScribblerReason for failure: This project was too big, too complex. The project plan did not work. Also more interesting projects waylaid me.
Goal: Make a new wallpaper every month and submit to Smashing Magazine.Reason for failure: I underestimated the time needed to do this every month, and overestimated my enthusiasm for this.
Goal: Train to climb betterReason for failure: Many. Failure in commitment and discipline, weight gain are the major ones. I did climb a lot more this year and got marginally better, but am definitely stuck in my plateau.
Goal: Investment Reading PlanReason for failure: here
Goal: 4 Family Camping trips.Reason for failure: These were scheduled, campsites booked, but got cancelled at the last minute.

The Easy way

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 16:49:20 GMT

I don’t expect it to be a battle, and so it’s not.

We probably do this a lot—live with lifelong impediments only because we assume we’ve exhausted the simplest approach.

– David Cain at Raptitude

“I tried it once and quit because it didn’t work for me the very first time.” Which are these in my life?

“These skills are so hard. Onerous hardship is the only way of becoming proficient in these skills.”.

“I find these ways of being really hard. But I still need to do them. Oh, this is so overwhelming.” Which are these?

Time Management, Learning, Shipping, Selling…

If I decide these were really easy, what would be the simplest, easiest way of learning and implementing these skill? How would I feel doing them? What would my approach be?

How to choose?

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:53:52 GMT

You are overwhelmed. Too many things to do. Too many things you want to do. Too little time. You have to pick one because, after all, at any given instant, we can only be doing one thing. So how do you choose?

How about this criteria?

**When a life or plan feels ultimately unsatisfying, I find it’s because I’ve forgotten to include:

– what makes me happy

– what’s smart (long-term good for me)

– what’s useful to others.

**

– Derek Sivers in Happy, Smart, and Useful

Clutter

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 05:02:49 GMT

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds — the writer is always slightly behind.

– William Zinsser in On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing NonFiction

All kinds of clutter. Things accumulate all the time – on table tops, counters, closets. Mental clutter, physical clutter, emotional clutter, psychic clutter – must be magical clutter. What to do about it?

Look for clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away.

– William Zinsser in On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing NonFiction

Thinking Clearly

Wed, 14 Dec 2016 19:24:58 GMT

Everything springs from giving people the kind of education that allows them to think more clearly and express themselves more clearly. Everything springs from that.

– James Burke in conversation with Dan Carlin (Common Sense 312 – Re-Connections with James Burke)

And boom! Just like that, I find my one meta-goal for 2017.

It’s a pity that it took me three decades to first realize that there is such a thing as thinking and expressing “clearly”. It took a few more years to realize, and accept that I lack this skill.

Now, begins the process of learning. Finding resources, reading and teaching myself.

Addictive Substance

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 23:20:19 GMT

My favorite definition of an addictive substance comes from “E Unibus Pluram” by David Foster Wallace: something that “offers itself as relief for the very problems it causes.”

– Matthew Buttterick of Butterick’s Practical Typography

Today’s list: laziness, candy-reading, bad posture, irritation, overwhelm, distraction.

A history of website development of sofobomo.com Part II

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 15:00:30 GMT

Note: Part I here

Part II : Setting up a development environment for sofobomo.com

The question is, as a one-person team of sofobmo.com (until 2016 – when Matt joined me … Hi Matt!), how did I set up www.sofobomo.com, and how have I managed, updated, made changes to SoFoBoMo till now? Why, by myself of course. The site is live on a webhost. Any changes I need to make, I make it directly on the site itself – the production environment, so to speak? Are you cringing, shuddering reading this? You should be….

Crazily, until I started my job as a front end engineer, I never realized the magnitude of my mistake. No development environment, no version control, none of these safeties for my baby! (Shudder…)

Back in July, when SoFoBoMo 2016 started, I vowed to myself this would change. Because Matt joined Sofobomo, and it doesn’t help a team when one person makes random changes on the website – just to try things out. And also because of the massive UI changes we need to make to the website for Sofobomo 2017 – make the site responsive, add Facebook integration, add beautiful forums, some voting scheme and other features.

So I spent some time in September, setting up a development environment on my Macbook. I had, in the past tried to use the MAMP stack, but never actually got it completely functioning – mostly because I was not as motivated. This time however, I was as highly motivated as can be, and was commited to a development environment. As of writing this, the Drupal official site seems to recommend using Virtual Box and a pre-made Vagrant setup. I decided to try this out and use Drupal-VM.

The setup was super easy – following the instructions in the quick start guide. I downloaded my production site files, downloaded the current database from the production site using the Backup and Migrate module. I then downloaded and installed Virtual Box, Vagrant and Ansible. As per the instructions, I made a copy and updated the config.yml file to point to my downloaded codebase (Drupal files) (and disabled installing a fresh Drupal instance). I also updated the config file with the downloaded database details, and enabled Adminer as one of the development dependencies. Then a “vagrant up” on the command line and waiting for everything to be installed. And finally adding the VM IP address to my hosts file and I was ready to go. Simple, easy. In fact, much easier than what I was expecting. Now, if only my shared web hosting provider would enable Drush so I can just push updates via the command line!

And so, that’s how I have a development environment for www.sofobomo.com. Pair it with version control with Git and backup the files in bitbucket or github, and I am ready to start making changes for SoFoBoMo 2017!

A history of website development of sofobomo.com Part I

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 15:00:24 GMT

Part I :A History of sofobomo.com (the second SoFoBoMo that is…)

For as long as I have been running SoFoBoMo 2.0… That’s not a good way to start this post is it? Let me try again…

I made the decision to restart SoFoBoMo (or start SoFoBoMo 2.0) back in mid-2013 after obsessing about it for about 8-9 months. The first and most immediate thing I needed was a website – which I decided to build by myself.

Sometime in September 2013 or so, I built a plain HTML+CSS kind of website – and realized I needed something with more features, something a little more complex like authentication and user profiles and some such.

I then spent the next 5 months building a Ruby on Rails version of the SoFoBoMo website – this without ever having understood or learnt MVC or any other software architectural patterns. Indeed, I didn’t know of such a thing as a software architectural pattern. Now that I do this for a living, I appreciate how ignorant I was, and how brave I was in my ignorance. It’s funny how you always realize how ignorant you were in the past…, and how the more you learn, the more there is to learn…

I actually had a completed RoR website by March 2014– but I rightly realized that with my limited understanding and expertise, maintenance would become a huge issue and decided to abandon it. I did learn a lot with that iteration of the website- how much I didn’t know, how much my learning methodology needed tweaking and how eager I was to learn new things. There are good things to learn about oneself, if you ask me…

At this point, I was a little panicky as I needed a website by at least October to run SoFoBoMo 2014. Actually I needed it a little earlier – to add content, to reach out to the previous SoFoBoMo participants and to add their books to this new website I was building, start a mailing list etc. So I decided to fall-back to the easiest option – to use a Content Management System.

But which one? Word Press? Joomla? Drupal? Something else? Doing some research, I had to choose between Word Press and Drupal. This choice was easy. Since I had used Word Press for various self hosted blogs and such, I picked up Drupal. One always chooses the complete unknown over something one has tried and tested before, right?

And so today’s SoFoBoMo site is in Drupal 7. (I did manage to curb my enthusiasm for the unknown and chose 7 over 8).

And that is the short history of www.sofobomo.com – at least when it comes to web development.

On Habit Formation

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:00:24 GMT

**

“ Everything without exception requires additional energy in order to maintain itself, ”

**

– Kevin Kelly in The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

Everything requires additional energy, including habits. In the self-help, self-improvement world, habits are considered this “holy grail”. You take baby steps, you suffer, and you cultivate a behavior till it becomes a habit. Then you are done. You can now continue to enjoy the habit and its benefits for the rest of your life. And then you turn towards “habitifying” the next behavior.

Except, that which is not advertised. Habits require maintenance. Constant maintenance. I have found newly formed habits to be that barely-domesticated feral cat. You did the hard work of domestication, training. You showered love, attention. Still, you need to practice eternal vigilance so the cat doesn’t develop feelings of wanting to escape.

But really, is all this effort worth it? Is there an easier way? Is there a way to work with our tendencies than against them? I don’t know… Tell me if there is.

So, for now, I have started to view “building habits” as “test-driving” that behavior. Or more aptly, ‘working on a short project with that behavior’, noting down its pros and cons, and evaluating if the benefits of maintaining this behavior are worth the expense of maintenance.

Recording Moral Letters, Vol II for Librivox

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 15:00:48 GMT

I am back to an old obsession – recording audiobooks for librivox.

Of late, in the past 6 months or so, wherever I turn, there are references to Stoic philosophy. It is a background hum which has now reached a crescendo.

I have read “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, and “On the Shortness of Life” by Seneca the Younger. But everywhere, there have been so many recommendations to read the “Moral Letters to Lucilius – Letters from a Stoic“, three volumes of letters by Seneca to his friend Lucilius.

They are supposed to be an easy read, for us modern people – but still, it is a relatively heavy read , and after about 20mins of reading, the words all meld together and create wings and fly away from my head. I have found, in the past, that such books are way better listened to. That way, you can listen when driving, and pause and think and ingest while driving. Something about driving alone is very conducive to thinking in depth.. but that is a topic for another day.

And so, there I was looking for audiobooks on Seneca’s letters. I found The Tao of Seneca narrated by John Robinson (which I got to know via The Tim Ferriss podcast). This, costs money. Intriguingly, I found another audiobook on Librivox – a solo album of the first volume of letters – Moral Letters, Volume I narrated by Felipe Vogel. Which is of course free. So I started listening to it.

And then the thought struck me – I want to listen to a woman narrating this. Some of the writings, as a reflection of that age (and unfortunately our current age as well), talk about how virtue and such is manly ,and the effeminate are cowardly and without virtue. Aaargh… So that would be very interesting to listen to, right?

Anyway, I think there is a lot to learn from Seneca. And I did want to listen to the second volume as well. And there was no Volume II audiobook on Librivox. So I decided to narrate it.

As of this post, I have finished the first three chapters of volume II, and I can tell you this: It was a great decision. Reading, rereading, narrating, editing, re-listening and re-listening, for each letter, I am getting to know what Seneca says, agreeing with him, vehemently opposing what he says, contemplating my reactions and his words. Reading, in fact, the exact way, such a book should be digested. And as a side-effect, if there is an audio book which others can listen to as well, why not!

To rest or to push through?

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 15:00:46 GMT

If you are an athlete, or one of those humans who, for fun, engage in one or many masochistic activities that make you “feel the burn”, or “feel the pump” or “hit the wall”, you will know what I am talking about.

What do you do when you feel the burn? Do you rest or do you push through? How do you know what to do?

How do you know to actually rest the body because it is tired, and pushing through will cause injury? And how do you know that you need to push through because your body is fine – its your brain that is playing tricks on you?

At this point, most people will say, “You know your body best. Listen to your body and it will tell you”. I know because I have offered that line , hypocritically, to others. But the problem is that I do know myself and my brain, and have realized that my brain talks so loud and fast that it always cons me…..

“Oh yeah, you can do that climb. You are just dilly-dallying. You are fine physically.” And a finger tear. On the other hand, “You are so tired. You should take a break……” and the resulting ennui.

My only solution to this dilemma has been data. Whatever my brain tells me, I try to correlate. For the “you are so tired, you should take a break”, a brief look at my Fitbit logs, my sleep logs and my activity logs will tell me how true that is. And if I feel chronic aches that make me take ibuprofen for 3 days continuously, it’s time to rest.

I do wish there was some way to bypass my brain and better get in touch with my body, sometimes, when I need to….

What tactics do you use? What do you do?

From Texan in Tokyo

Techmart – making my SoFoBoMo 2016 book

Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:58:43 GMT

Techmart By Suprada Urval

The making of my Sofobomo 2016 photo book, just like years past, was a struggle – in finding a good subject to worth an entire book of 35 photographs. For those of you unfamiliar with SoFoBoMo, it is a photography challenge where photographers all over the world make solo photo books in .pdf format in 31 days from start to finish. They make 35 photos, write needed text, lay out the book, and produce their ebook, in one SoFoBoMo fuzzy month – a continuous 31 day period between July 1 and August 31.

So back to my book, or rather the troubling subject of finding a subject for my photo book – my problem is always that I cannot envision more than a handful of photographs on any given subject – in other words it is a problem of a limited imagination.

So, I default to a trial-and-error approach. I start with a theme, and then when my imagination runs out, abandon it and go to the next theme on my pre-prepared and well-thought-out theme list. Most times, as I look at the already taken photographs of a given theme, an alternate theme pops up. And once I actually shoot about 35 or so photographs, the photos in front of me suggest the theme.

Gift of the Commonplace by Ruth Bernard

This year was a little different. I wanted to shoot something “common” to me, something I see everyday. A big influence in this is my copy of Ruth Bernhard’s ” Gift of the Commonplace“, a beautiful beautiful book with amazing photographs about ordinary things.

I realized I love the light and reflections in my glass and metal office building. The reason I notice these in the first place is because of my previous SoFoBoMo book – Shadows and Reflections. In making that book, I had to closely notice the light and shadows and reflections of just about anything, and I have not stopped that after I finished that book… I digress.

After a couple of shoots, I had about 50 photographs, but just about 15 which were good enough to go in the book. I was at the end of my imagination, and didn’t have any alternate ideas for themes, nor enough time to brainstorm and go through an iteration of my trial and error method. I came home one evening and started looking at my collection of LensWork magazines. And then, sitting among other books, I found “Building Blocks” by Barbara Bender, LensWork Monograph #6. It is a beautiful book. After a little while, it is easy to forget that what you are looking at are buildings!

Building Blocks by Barbara Bender

Inspired, I shot some more. And then I decided to experiment with Lightroom develop presets. Especially those presets which accentuate or change the mood of the photograph. After some trial and error, I ended up using these, or a combination of these presets on some photographs

Dragan-Intense free lightroom preset by photographypla
Daido Moriyama Kit Free Lightroom develop preset by reallyjapan
Autumn Fresh Free Lightroom develop preset by Flixelpix

And so, I have my SoFoBoMo 2016 book. The book was laid out and converted into a pdf in the Lightroom Book module. I found the book module sufficient, but left a lot to be desired in terms of additional layout flexibilities. I definitely need to find a better software and create layout templates for next year.

So this was a first analysis of my SoFoBoMo 2016 experience. I might write more here as I ruminate more over this.

I hope to see you participate in SoFoBoMo in 2017, and show me your photo book, and tell me about your experience.

The Lilies of Dawn – book review

Wed, 03 Aug 2016 18:21:40 GMT

Lilies of Dawn by Vanessa Fogg

This is a fantasy tale of a slightly different sort – not your regular “protagonist beats up evil person in epic battle”. It is more real, more tender, more inward-looking, more fantastic, lyrical. Vanessa has done a great job with the world-building – beautiful, evocative, familiar yet different enough.

The story evokes loneliness, melancholy, and a the same time grit and celebration. I love the story as much as the world and would love to read more books set in this world.

But no review of this book will be complete without mentioning its cover by Likhain. Vibrant and detailed, beautiful. Matches the mood of the book perfectly.

A highly recommended short, beautiful read.

Disclosure: I received an advance review copy from the publisher Annorlunda Books

Buy book on

Format:

On Amazon (Kindle EBook / Paperback) – The Lilies of Dawn by Vanessa Fogg

Screen Free Hour – Experiment for July 2016

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 16:18:03 GMT

This month, I am experimenting with First hour – screen-free hour. No laptops, e-readers, and especially my phone for the first hour after I wake up every morning in the month of July. The only exception to this is that I can use my phone to turn off the alarm – but nothing else for the first hour after I wake up – that is, if I am using my phone alarm.

The inspiration for this experiment is partly the Slow Home podcast episode with Janell Burley Hoffman, partly my overconsumption, my addicted reading this past month.

Most days in June, as soon as I get up, while I am walking down to make my coffee or feeding my cat, or drinking my coffee, I am thumbing through emails (mostly marketing or promotional to delete them), checking and reading on my Feedly app (the light articles only please) or continuing to read some fiction book I was reading the previous night. It is not bad – this kind of first hour, but after that I feel a little tired and mentally fogged, but nicely relaxed some days and disgusted with myself the other days.

And I have not “created” much this past month – since the first hour in the morning is when I generally seem to generate the mojo for making. After a month of excessive consumption, it is good to reset, so I can start writing and coding and photographing again – and so, this experiment.

As we all learn in school, we do experiments to see what happens and learn from it, to test out our hypothesis. And to do that we need to collect the data and analyze it. So what will I measure? How do I quantify the effect of this experiment?

How easy or difficult it feels each morning D
In this hour how many “phone twitches” do I notice. The phone twitch – as I define it – is this habit of reaching for your phone, unlocking it and reading email or a game or whatever – all done instinctively.
How many “failed twitches” in this hour – when I actually catch myself only after have looked at my phone screen
The number of hours I slept the previous night (from my Fitbit sleep logs)
The number of minutes I was awake / restless (from my Fitbit sleep logs)
What did I do this screen-free hour
How do I feel about this first hour today?

This should provide some interesting, insightful data I’m thinking. I’ll post an update the end of the month.

March 2016 Reading Log

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 15:00:20 GMT

Here is my reading log from March 2016. I was back to my usual reading of so much fiction.

I have two recommendations from this month.

The first is the audio book I listened to while driving Goals: Setting And Achieving Them On Schedule by Zig Ziglar. This is the first time I am reading or listening to anything by Zig. After getting used to his accent, I really enjoyed this audio book. It left me energized, charged up and I did achieve a lot at work. This is one book I would recommend listening over reading (OMG! Did I actually write that?). Do get it from your library and give it a listen.
The next is fiction – Steampunk short stories from South East Asia to be precise of the genre, I read on Scribd. The book The SEA is Ours by Jaymee Goh (Editor), Joyce Chng (Editor) was recommended via The Tungsten Hippo. My favorite story was “The Last Aswang” – Alessa Hinlo. I hope you enjoy it too.

The rest of the books I read are below.

March 2016 Reading Log

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

Plans for SoFoBoMo 2016

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:00:44 GMT

As I write this, it is June 14. That is 16 more days to the start of SoFoBoMo 2016 .

If you have never heard of SoFoBoMo 2016, it is a photography challenge where you take photos and make your very own photo-book in just 35 consecutive days.

The book topic: anything you choose. The only constraint is that the photo-book should have 35 photos, all shot in your 31 day SoFoBoMonth, and you make a pdf photobook from it and upload it to the SoFoBoMo website.

You get to pick your start date. Start anywhere from July 1 to July 31. Finish up in 31 days from your start date and you are done. And it is free.

So as of now, I am sitting and thinking of the possible topics of my book. The first year I participated, in 2009, I made Gogol . This didn’t qualify for SoFoBoMo since I didn’t finish within my cutoff – but I was hooked. Looking at the book now, some photos are repetitive, but the cover, the last photo and two others – I love them.

Then in 2011, I finished my first SoFoBoMo book – “After Sunset“. Photographs of the amazing California coast between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, long exposures shot mostly just after sunset. I really loved making this book.

Then last year, in 2015, I made “Shadows and Reflections“. Photos on page 36 and page 37 are my favorites.

So what will be my topic for this year? As of now, here are the contenders.

35 – 360degree photographs – panoramas for print and the 360degree video for google cardboard on youtube.
35 star trails – this is probably very ambitious – it means I need to go out and take star trails every day – not to mention processing them
35 long exposure freeway lights from bridges
Something to do with beaches – After Sunset 2 maybe? Or Seagulls unlimited?

When looking at these ideas, I need to not only think about how good the topic is – but also logistics: Os it doable? Is it easily doable? Should I shoot during day or night? Can I batch the shooting to two or three weekend days and be done with it? Do I love the topic?

Also, I am considering if I should mix words / quotes like After Sunset? So many ideas, questions to think through. Glad I have 15 more days.

So, you, who are reading this, why don’t you join me and other photographers making books this year? You can sign up at www.sofobomo.com.

My SoFoBoMo page – https://sofobomo.com/users/suprada

Deep Work – Best book in April (2016)

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 15:00:18 GMT

‘The best book I read last month’ entry for April 2016 is Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport.

This is one book I have been looking forward to reading. And I read it at a right time for me (well, to be honest, whenever you read this book, will be the right time for you to read this book).

This book has the potential to be one the most important books shaping these years of my life. Potentially, because, it remains to be seen to what extent I can implement and then sustain at least some of its recommendations.

To be honest, the recommendations, those that resonated with me are simple. But we all know, simple doesn’t equate easy – especially when it comes to changing our ingrained behaviors …

So, why should you read this book?

This book will benefit you, it has the potential to change your life too, if

You already have / are trying to develop / have bought into the growth mindset (read Mindset by Carol Dweck to understand what this is all about.)
You know that what you need to do (in work / in real life / in afterlife) requires a whole lot of “something” (time, energy, money, magic etc) which you suspect you might not have enough of.
You run into roadblocks trying to achieve some of your goals / side projects. The roadblocks can be the “I don’t have enough time” roadblock or “I’m trying so much, working so hard, but not seeing results equivalent to the effort expended” roadblock or something other such.
Or you are just curious on how you can improve your way of life and presence and productivity.

Cal starts off with defining what deep work is: “Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

He explains why deep work is important, and how it is similar to deliberate work. Reading this part of the book was preaching to the choir. I already know, and am struggling with the debilitating disease of distraction, and suffering the consequences of not working deep.

The next part was very interesting – something I had not come across before. Cal explains about the 4 philosophies of deep work: Monastic, Bimodal, Rhythmic and Journalistic. This was an eye-opener. I always thought the Monastic way was the only way to work deeply and definitely out of my reach to implement. And the Journalistic way needs much more discipline than I possess currently. I decided that Rythmic makes most sense currently, but Bimodal seems to be just right – experimentation will tell.

Cal gives us a bunch of tricks and tips – which are very easy to understand, whose implementation can be planned easily, but whose implementation brings you in contact with piggy mind rolling around in the muck of busy work and distraction. And you see this, your own dirty restless piddy mind, with sorrow and horror and helplessness.

Anyway, Cal mentions a bunch of techniques, exercises to develop deep work. Some of these resonated with me, and I am trying to implement them:

Apply the 4DX framework for my personal use
1. Identify the most important achivements to work on.
2. Measure these achievements using leading indicators (this concept of keeping score using lead measures vs lag measures is game changing.)
3. Keep a visual, easy to read scoreboard.
4. Keep accountability using a weekly review.
Schedule deep work (in a calendar) through the week, every week.
Schedule each session of deep work in 90 minute increments.
Each day log how I do during the planned deep work times, for calibration.
Schedule your day – every minute of it – not to hold yourself accountable and beat yourself up when you don’t meet your schedule, but in an exploratory, self-calibration kind of way (this one I find hard to do…)
Identify every activity planned in your day and call out if its shallow or deep
Schedule breaks from focus (internet blocks) through the day, all days. Any internet stuff gets done only during these blocks. (And feel free to beat yourself up if you don’t adhere to these schedules)
Design a startup ritual.
Design a shutdown ritual.
Learn how to be ok with being bored (noticing the smartphone / email / IM / feedly / clash twitch, just observing and not giving in.)
The idea of productive meditation practice twice a week (I just don’t like the term….maybe active deep thinking?)
The idea of practicing “Rooseveltian Intensity” – peak focus in highly constrained time, once a week.
Indulge in social tools with care
Fixed-schedule productivity since constrains can help us reach our peak (as if moms – ok, parents – with young kids can even dream of any other kind of productivity?)

And the mind-rest part. Of course we need to rest our brain muscle after this kind of discpline and effort right?

50 min walks in nature everyday.
No work allowed after shutdown till tomorrow’s startup.
Saying ‘no’ before saying ‘yes’.

Well, these are my highlights. I am sure, once you read the book, your set of highlights might be quite different.

So, who is this book really for? It is for those of us in the quest of understanding ourselves better, and making ourselves better so we can be and do better at what we really love without expending extra time, and at the same time, having more time to enjoy with our families and for our hobbies. Yes, for those of us on the quest of the holy grail of productivity and presence.

Highly, highly recommended.

Format:

On Amazon (Kindle EBook / Hardcover / Paperback) – Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

Public Library – Check here to see if Deep Work is available in your public library.

February 2016 Reading Log

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 21:11:06 GMT

Here is my reading log from February 2016. I read so many good books this month that I was brimming with creativity, good intentions, resolve, commitment and all the good things that happen when you read wholesome interesting books.

This is the month where I cannot recommend one book – but I will recommend a set of them.

The first book is Mindset by Carol Dweck Why this book? Because it will change the way you understand yourself. Here is what Bill Gates has to say about this book. Here is what Maria Popova has to say about this book. Here is what Trent Hamm has to say about this book. ’nuff said.
The second book – an audio book – is The Art of Possibility by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander. I found out about this book in Seth Godin’s talk with Tim Ferriss. This book features in the list of the audio books Seth Godin listens to repeatedly, some once per month. It is an excellent book, down to earth and uplifting at the same time. The narration is excellent, soothing, melodious. I will be buying this CD soon.
The third book is also an audio book. This is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield .I have read this book many times. I read it once in 3 months as a source of inspiration, to fill up for my fight against Resistance and to remind myself of what it is I need to do. But this is the first time I listened to the book, the version I bought is narrated by the author himself. And I liked it as much as reading the book. The audio book recommendation came from Seth Godin’s audiobook list on repeat. February 2016 Reading Log

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

The search for the best ereader app for my Boyue – The e-ink reader saga Part 6

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:00:37 GMT

Cartoon by Tim Kreider

Last time, I talked about how I want to replicate the Amazon-Kindle-Whispersync ecosystem – for my e-books which I buy from stores other than Amazon, for other formats.

What should my e-reader app do? The following:

The app should work on my Boyue Gonyx which runs Android 4.2.2 (Kitkat) and my smartphone which runs Android 6 (Marshmallow)
I should be able to read my own books – upload / sideload books to my app. I don’t want to be tied to the stores the app provides
The books should automatically sync from one device to another (as long as there is wifi, of course) once I upload the book on any one device
The most recently read position should automatically sync between devices.
It should allow me to make highlights (one color is fine) and take notes
I should be able to download all the highlights and notes off the book/cloud/app
The highlights and notes should have the relevant page number when downloaded

The first thing I did, after trying to use the default reader was trawl the internet forums, and try and buy the Moon+ Reader. But then, I couldn’t test it out properly until I loaded my Boyue with Gonyx.

Essentially, the system I have been using, about 2 months now, 5 or so books in – is the Boyue Gonyx + Moon+ Reader (pro paid version) + Google Drive.

So what do I think about it?

In paper, it’s awesome. It does all of the above except 7. The highlights and notes have no page number, no metadata associated with them. In reality, I am quite underwhelmed by how it works – it feels very clunky in use.

The Moon+ reader has a whole lot of features. But I found the user interface hard to use. The menus are all over the place and quite un-intuitive.
You can potentially sync your reading position and highlights using Google Drive – but this doesn’t work 100% of the time. It works better with Dropbox, but still not 100% of the time (or even 90%).
I like to keep my books in my google drive account and read from there directly. However, Moon + reader needs me to download all the books locally, or to go to the google drive (which needs internet) every time I need to get a new book. If I open a second book when I am reading the first book, then if I need to go back to the first book, I need internet access and need to go back to the drive and find that book again. Very clunky and annoying.
It allows me to download my notes and highlights. It is in a custom .mrexpt format which can be opened in any text editor.
It has no metadata associated with it. This is the killer.

I love how easy it is to highlight. I love the theme customizations. I love how it is integrated with TTS. But these are nice to haves. The cons are just too frustrating.

So the search continues.

An ecosystem for reading ebooks – The e-ink reader saga Part 5

Thu, 26 May 2016 19:26:48 GMT

From Small labs Inc.

I love the Kindle – but I don’t like how Amazon provides a good ecosystem and the cool features only for the books we buy from them. I understand why they do it – profit, monopoly etc… . And I really like their ecosystem. But as a reader, I would love a alternative ecosystem which works for .epub, and whatever other format e-books we buy from elsewhere (non-Amazon stores).

OK, what ecosystem am I talking about here? What exactly am I looking for?

I buy a e-book. It is in a .epub format (for this scenario).

I want to store the book in the cloud for easy access, anywhere from any internet connected device (like how Amazon does this)
I want to be able to sync the book between all my devices which have access to the cloud location (like the Whispersync)
I want to be able to read the book on multiple devices
1. On my smart phone (like the Kindle native apps)
2. On tablets (like the Kindle native app)
3. On E-ink readers (like the Kindle Paperwhite, Boyue, Kobo)
4. On any browser (Chrome, Firefox)
I want to be able to take notes and mark highlights when I am reading the books (all Kindle apps and Cloud Reader allow this)
I want the last read position, my notes, and highlights to sync over devices when connected to the Internet ( like Whispersync with apps and Cloud Reader)
I want to be able to see all the notes and highlights I made (Kindle Your Highlights page)
I want to be able to download these notes/highlights off the cloud (how to do it?)
I want to be able to search all my notes, highlights of all the books I have read. and edit them on the cloud – Missing
I want to be able to keep these notes/highlights public or private as I choose – Missing

So, is this possible today for non-Amazon bought DRM free e-books?

This issue has been on my mind for a while – here is a previous post on the highlights part of this. It is something I have been thinking about for a few years at least…

So, is this possible? And is it possible to set this system up for my Boyue? In the next installment, I will talk about my set-up.

(An Aside: Maybe I should stop this mockery of the fantasy epics I read too many of?)

January 2016 Reading Log

Thu, 26 May 2016 15:00:08 GMT

Here is my reading log from January 2016. After a holiday month of a minuscule amount of reading, I was back to reading a few books. This was the first month of my reading experiment and I struggled with it. I finished my first book on my reading experiment list – Buffett: Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein – but then decided to give in to my urge to read something else.

The most enjoyable book I read in January was “The Hard Thing about Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz. It is an excellent book with anecdotes and advice on startups, on building companies and on being a leader. Highly recommended if your are into this sort of reading.

January 2016 Reading Log

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

Update on my reading experiment for 2016

Mon, 23 May 2016 20:36:46 GMT

At the beginning of the year, I decided to try a reading experiment. I decided on a list of books on learning investing and I put a plan and dates by which to read the books by order.

So what happened? The experiment was an epic failure. The only book I managed to read was Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist.

So, what went wrong with the experiment?

The plan was too structured, severe, inhibited my organic style of reading
The plan was too aggressive
Lacked the freedom to swap the order in which I read books
I overestimated my commitment towards the topic.

I like the semi-structured way I read. I pick books depending on what is bothering the most, what will help me the best, at the present time with one or two which catch my fancy. This helps me read and apply what I read. As an example, the concept / problem bothering the most currently is how to work better without working longer hours, what I need to change and how to make room for my other projects which have upcoming deadlines. If I had followed the plan outlined, then I wouldn’t have had the insight I gained by reading “Deep Work” by Cal Newport or “Rework” by Jason Fried.

The plan was too aggressive. In retrospect, spacing out the books, one book a month (at the least), or ideally, one every two months would have been ideal. This would have not impeded the organic way in which I read and at the same time helped meet the plan.

I have a perverse streak in me when it comes to schedules. I design and set the schedule myself, and follow it diligently (most often). But every once in a while, I go berserk and rebel against the schedule. The best way, I have learned, is to plan for this, but not schedule the rebelling. One thing which would have helped with this reading experiment would have been to allow to swap books, and to have a few books unscheduled and not planned out, but relevant which I could dip into.

And lastly, I was already doing a whole lot of heavy mental lifting, teaching myself more programming languages and frameworks, preparing for interviews, upgrading my job related skills. Because of this, I didn’t have enough mental energy for reading and learning about investing – basically, I was not as committed to learning about investing as these other topics, and the reading plan didn’t pan out.

Those were my learning from this experiment.

Will I try scheduling my reading again? Yes, sometime in the future, I plan to revisit this idea. That time I hope to incorporate these lessons.

What about you? Have you ever thought about planning your reading? How do you feel about the idea? Did you try it? Do you have any tips for me? I would love to hear from you!

Gonyx the Amazing – The e-ink reader saga Part 4

Thu, 19 May 2016 15:00:49 GMT

Boyue Gonyx Screen Saver

When we stopped the tale last time, the hero had found the magical ROM she was looking for… or so she thought.

Well. I was right. I did find my magical ROM. The Gonyx for my Android 4.2.2 based Boyue e-ink reader, a replacement for the tyrannical (and dearly loved) Kindle Paperwhite. I was hopeful but wary when I loaded this, thanks to my annoying experiences with the stock rom

But after about 2 months of using the Gonyx ROM, I am in love with it.

It is so much more responsive, snappier, and much more friendlier than the Boyue default ROM – even with Root an launcher installed. The screen savers on the Gonyx are amazing. The device is kindle-responsive, with the android freedom of being able to install Kindle, Scribd and other apps, and even use TTS to read the book aloud.

The user interface is simple, clean and nice. The touch screen doesn’t freeze anymore. The screen refresh works well. The page turning using volume keys works great as well.

There is one issue though – If you leave the Wifi is on all the time, the batteries drain out quite quickly, in about 2 days, even if you put the device on stand-by mode. This isn’t really a deal breaker – I just turn the Wifi off when not needed, and the battery lasts for about 7 days.

The brightness control works a lot better than the stock ROM, but still not as great as the Kindle. I will play with this in the future – I think finding the right app will solve this problem.

So, overall, I am excited, quite pleased and love my Boyue Gonyx monster. And did I mention the amazing screen savers, and lack of ads?

So, would I recommend the Kindle Paperwhite or the Boyue with Gonyx?

The Boyue with the Gonyx ROM is almost a winner. The device is as good as the Kindle Paperwhite.

But… and there always seems to be this ‘but’… the Kindle ecosystem is quite amazing, and I realize I miss that. So let’s talk about that next time.

Despair and the Quest – The e-ink reader saga Part 3

Tue, 17 May 2016 04:42:18 GMT

Via Ebook Friendly

Or the Boyue firmware redux (March 5 2016)

Ugh. Some days, you want to throw that Boyue out of the door. Actually make that most days. After I got it and set it up I used it for about two months.

Through this time I was miserable reading on it. I thought I would get over it. But I just hate how glitchy the ROM that came with the Boyue is, even though it was their latest and greatest version. In the stock ROM, the UI sucks, even with ReLaunch. The screen keeps getting stuck, only a reboot will fix it. So much that I avoid reading on the Boyue.

So I decided to do what any sane person would do. I decided to change the firmware.

You see, on the mobileread forums, this person with the username FOV ported the Onyx C67ML Boox firmware onto the Boyue T62+ which has rave reviews. So I decided to try it out – the alternative would have been to throw the Boyue out and go back to the Kindle with my tail between my legs…

So what exactly did I do? Here are the steps, in case other sane folks with Boyues need them

Backed up my Boyue firmware. I don’t have Windows OS and I couldn’t find a tool to work on Mac. So I used this link to help me backup the original firmware on a Linux Ubuntu machine.
I then installed the Gonyx firmware. I used the “Port full firmware with Onyx C67ML for Boyue T62+D, Energy eReader Pro+ & A6LHD ” entry, basically entry #4 in this mobileread forum thread titled Firmware for Boyue books T61 – B, C and D revisions and T62 – B, C and D revisions
I used the one with standard factory markings (System=512Мб, Data=1Гб, SDcard=5.5Гб) , downloaded from here
I installed it flashing the Extended version .img ROM on SDcard, as explained in post #65 in this thread.

What were my first impressions?

The UI is quite snappy (kindle paperwhite like, hurrah). The launcher, the navigation and the interfaces are elegant and simple and intuitive. Quite pleasing actually. The display crisp and clear. I am very hopeful that I have a ereader I can love again. But only extended use will tell… So stay tuned on how the Boyue Gonyx does.

Tweaks, despair and hope – The e-ink reader saga Part 2

Thu, 12 May 2016 23:15:20 GMT

In Part 1, I talked about buying my Boyue T62+

Once it was in, around Jan 28, 2016, it was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work. I knew before I bought the Boyue, that out of the box was not going to be good. I had to do some work to at least install Google Apps framework so it could function as a full fledged android e-ink tablet / e-reader.

So these are the steps I took

First things first, root the Boyue as per the instructions in this mobileread forum thread – [Guide][Root & MOD]Icarus Illumina (E653) AND Boyue T61+T62 . This was essential for two reasons – to install the google play store for android apps, and for the satisfaction of having a rooted device.
Once Google Play store was installed, sign in.
Installed the Nova Launcher and made it my default launcher (because the stock launcher really really sucks)
Installed the external sd card.
Install the Scribd app and see if it works. Yes! Do the happy dance.
Install the Kindle app and see if it works. Yes! Do the happy dance.
Install ES File Explorer and Google Drive

Next try to read personal book. I tried the default reader but hated it. So I tried FBreader and didn’t like it. I searched online and found other Boyue /Android e-ink reader owners raving about the Moon + Reader (One mobileread link here). So I bought and installed Moon + reader, the pro version and connected it to my google drive so I could have cloud sync capabilities.

At this point, I took a break and played around. I read a Scribd book, and was trying to upload, download to my device and start reading a .mobi book.

And I realized the home screen and launcher combo was driving me crazy. ‘Throw the device against the wall” crazy. So back to research. I found and installed ReLaunch launcher. Link and instructions in this forum thread – https://forum.xda-developers.com/nook-touch/general/relaunch-best-nst-launcher-version-1-4-t3060782 . The version I installed was 1.4
Then, I saw TTS capability somewhere and installed the free Ivona TTS and the Ivona Amy UK voice. When I tried to test the TTS, I could hear nothing! I was sad that my reader was somehow broken. Then I tried headphones, and the sound was nice and clear. I guess my Boyue doesn’t have speakers, or they aren’t functional. But it’s not a problem for me and I decided to not pursue that.
Then I set up Moon+ Reader, copied books onto my Google Drive, and enabled the ‘sync page position via Google Drive’ feature.

And then I read a couple of books over the next week or so. So what are my impressions so far?

What I like about Boyue

I can read Scribd, kindle and my other books!
Thanks to moon + reader, I get the kindle functionality – sync across devices via Google Drive, I can download highlights and notes on all my books (update: or so I thought at that time)
It is Android based and clunky and takes work. I really enjoyed the setting up, tweaking process.
I really like the Relaunch loader (update: or so I thought at that time)
I really, really, really love that I can use the volume buttons on either side to turn pages.

What I don’t like about the Boyue

Glitchiness of the stock ROM. My screen gets stuck at least twice a day and I have to reboot it. It is quite annoying.
The lack of good brightness control – only two modes – off or bright (and can be made brighter and brighter). There is no dim setting. Even with 1 bar of brightness, it is still too bright to read in a dark room, even with the Moon+ Reader in night mode. Turn it to 0 bars, and you can’t read anything in a dark room. I loved the brightness control in Kindle Paperwhite.
The crappy quality of the case. I loved the Kindle black case with magnetic closure. This seems such a silly thing, but every time I pick it up, I’m reminded of how crappy it is for $20.00. What sucks about it? The texture is horrible. The front flap is just a flap with no velcro or something to keep it shut. It just flaps around when you shake it. And of course, I loved how the Kindle would wake up when you opened the magnetic case.

So overall, what do I think about the Boyue? I miss my Kindle. The Boyue, going in, I knew will need some work and tweaking before I was comfortable with it. After this tweaking and playing around, I am still not in love with it. But I really enjoy reading Scribd books in it. So far I am on the fence regarding – if I like the Boyue or not.

Greed – The e-ink reader saga Part 1

Mon, 09 May 2016 22:11:53 GMT

I dream of Boyue

First there were only books – paper books. Then I saw my sister’s original Kindle and liked it. Then I became acquisitive. Then I bought me a Kindle Paperwhite.

Then I started reading books on Scribd. I talked about loving my kindle, but started looking at the Android based e-ink readers acquisitively. Over the months I did ‘research’ on the android e-ink readers and convinced myself that I needed one. Man is forever greedy…..

Well, then came December 2015 and post-Christmas, I ordered me one – a Boyue T62+. After finding a new home for my beloved Kindle Paperwhite, of course. I ordered a case for it as well – this one.

When the Boyue was on its way home, I had all these dreams about me and my Boyue. Oh, how I could would read Scribd books, and Kindle books on this device, how I would read pdf books and epubs and the occasional article as well! Oh my! How I would take notes, and how reading the Boyue at night would be so much better on my eyes than my smart phone, and less distracting. Same as the Kindle but better since I would no longer be tied to the Amazon Kindle ecosystem. What luxury. Me and Boyue would be best friends forever.

So, did the Boyue live up to my dreams, you ask? Well, you’ll have to wait till the next installment to find out, don’t you?

Laughs

Sat, 07 May 2016 16:26:35 GMT

I saw this right as I was planning on learning and using Angular 2 for a side-project, while being curious about React….Made me laugh.

From Classic Programmer Paintings

https://classicprogrammerpaintings.com/post/142631064154/frontend-developers-approach-newly-released-js

On verbal communication

Thu, 05 May 2016 15:00:54 GMT

What constitutes good verbal communication?

Good communication, I have come to realize, is first having a thought you want to convey. It needs us to know exactly what we are trying to convey… not vague, half-formed, deluded thoughts, feelings and emotions. Good communication is using clear, precise, unambiguous words and voice and tone and language to convey precisely what your thought and feeling and emotion was.

It is not just the how, but the what and the why. It is not just form, but function as well.

I realized I don’t have good communication skills – by this understanding of what good communication is. So what do I struggle with exactly?

I struggle with clear thinking. Very often, I start saying something and realize that I have not thought through completely, and the message I convey isn’t what I want to convey.
Deep, clear, un-deluded thinking.
I struggle with using precise words. I have a good vocabulary, good grammar. But I lack the skill to use that good vocabulary and good grammar to choose the right word among many words.
I struggle to convey what I feel, think, know. A part of this is the lack of full thinking. Another part of this is a rushed manner in thinking and speaking
I don’t use voice, tones, inflection to help me.

So what can I do to solve these issues?

Self awareness is the first step. If I was not working on self awareness, I wouldn’t have even realized that I had a problem with communication.
The second step is to try to slow everything down to a pace where I am slightly uncomfortable with the slowness. This is required to combat my tendency to rush. I realize that my problems manifest more in verbal communication than written – because written is slower and I am forced to slow down..
The third step is to review. I have issues reviewing anything. I get bored, and then distracted and then I give up the review and move on to the next shiny new thing. A practice for this is to learn to stay with the discomfort, the boredom, the urge to move on, but not give in to it. I suspect this is going to be a lifetime practice.
Journaling and writing helps with all of the above

From my pocket – April 2016 edition (on side projects)

Mon, 02 May 2016 15:00:09 GMT

Here is a post for the “From my pocket” series after almost 9 months. Looks like the month of April is the month in 2016 where I have actually hit my stride in posting here, and in the other projects I am working on. To celebrate, I decided that the theme for this edition should be side projects!

Make three lists by Seth Godin – The project starter lists – or what we need to think about before starting our projects
Great at Planning, Terrible at Executing: 10 Strategies for Becoming a Doer by Trent Hamm – On giving life to all our planned projects, on the process of becoming a doer than a wannabe-er…
It’s not the tool on the Gaping Void email – “the gods you worship, will be the ones that eventually kill you. So choose your gods carefully, my friend, for by choosing how to live, you are also choosing how to die.”
No more forever projects by Diana Kimball – On a phenomenon well known to me – the forever project which never dies…
** Your project deserves a good death by Christina Xu** – The solution to the forever project.

A favorite link: one of my all time favorite articles for those of us who like our projects a little too much – how to schedule our time – Paul Graham’s Maker’s schedule, Manager’s schedule

From my pocket

Like everybody, I subscribe to quite a many blogs, read many articles online and bookmark some of them using Pocket. This once-a-month series is a list of links in the past month which have stayed with me, resonated with me or entertained me. Basically, an eclectic mix of whatever-caught-my-fancy links.

The learning calendar – Or what works to keep me accountable and learning on a daily basis – Part 2

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 15:00:55 GMT

In Part 1, we decided that we believe in continually, incrementally, steadily learning – an hour a day every day. We figured out when in our day we are going to make room for this hour of learning in a way that doesn’t add too much stress to our life and makes it highly achievable. And we set a daily schedule for this hour of everyday learning.

So the next question is what should we be learning?

Part 2: The What

If you have actually read this far, then the chances are high that, like me, you have a bunch of stuff you want to learn. And the topics are probably disparate.

There are some topics which feel urgent but not so interesting. And some are so interesting, you don’t care how important they are – you just want to learn. Some of them have a time limit and some of them don’t. Some of them provide immediate gratification and some don’t. So which one to pick? What do I learn first.

Actually, you can pick up whichever one and keep at it. What is important is to not do one thing today and another tomorrow and just keep ping-ponging between topics. But for most of us, this is hard and some kind of priority order helps.

For this, I find my learning calendar very useful. Here are the steps to make your learning calendar.

Make a list of all the topics you want to learn
Next the fun step – the research! Give yourself a couple of days and enjoy this research / browsing to your heart’s content step
1. Per topic make a list of all the resources you intend to learn from
2. If these are websites, then list all of them
3. If they are books, list them and figure out which chapters in what order you will learn from
4. Then arrange these resources list in the order of learning
5. Then guesstimate how long (in hours) each resource is going to take
Now arrange the topics in a priority order. And sum up the total number of hours you estimated you will need per topic (add up the individual resource hours per topic)
Now you know how long you will take per topic. Add 25% to the number. Why 25%? Well, in the real world you will not be learning at 100% capacity every single day. Also, we have just guesstimated the time and we are susceptible to the Planning Fallacy.
Open up your logger application – I use OneNote and open the calendar view – or make a calendar – or use your calendar application or Trello or whatever. The key is to be able to see the entire month in your view, preferably, the next month as well.
Now fill in each day with the topic, the link/book/chapter you will be studying. If you plan to study for more than the requisite hour, the type in the hour estimate. Go on till you fill up two months or finish up all your topics and hour allotments. Add the buffer time at the end of each topic period.

Now when you the time comes for you study everyday, you know exactly what to study, to learn and what is your estimate. There is no dilly-dallying, no lolly-gagging, no doing ‘research’ on what you need to study today… basically you’ve put yourself in a spot where you have no legitimate busy-making excuses on not studying.

As you study, when links, other topics come up, make note of these alongside your calendar. The days you don’t study mark it in your calendar, if you take more time or less time write this down as well.

And so, you now have a plan, a track record as well as a progress record of your learning and you waste no time everyday with – “should I be learning this”.

Of course, as you learn, some links you realize are useless. So you can just note that down and move on or replace them with the same-topic additional link you found. You can also take the time once a week or twice a month to adjust your calendar to add the new links / topics you have found, remove irrelevant ones for the future, add on to more months.

And make notes and use Anki when you are learning (you can google why).

The downside to this method – the initial research and planning takes a few hours, maybe a couple of days – but in the end will save you multiples of the hours you spent. And will keep you motivated to learn everyday.

December 2015 Reading Log

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:00:09 GMT

Here is my reading log from December 2015. I read a total of 0 books! I was having too much fun over the holidays to actually finish reading any books I had started, and that is definitely a good thing!

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

The learning calendar – Or what works to keep me accountable and learning on a daily basis – Part 1

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 15:00:38 GMT

There is this is the problem I face all the time. I know I should continually, incrementally, steadily learn – every day. I totally buy into this philosophy, am committed to it and want to do it. I know that even one hour a day done every day will achieve wonders over the long term.

But when in the day should I devote this one hour? Do I have to do it everyday at the same time? What about weekends? Should I make it explicit and put it on my calendar or should I just use any free time I find? How do I actually implement this ideal? And what should I learn?

**Part 1: The When **

This part needs some self analysis and understanding how you live your life.

I have found my ideal When: scheduling my learning time in my calendar and assigning the same time everyday. In the ideal world, I like to get to office an hour early and the first hour of every work day is my personal learning hour. That way, I learn every day I work, and this learning is done before I get sucked into work.

On the path to find my ideal When, I have experimented with

learning while I’m eating lunch (challenge: my brain does really need a break, and this is not good for practicing presence)
the last hour of my work day (you’ll still have to come in earlier, and how will your workplace react to seeing you doing something other than working even though you came in early? Human nature, it seems is less forgiving when tired.. Also, if you are working on something with a deadline or are really tired or really into your work, how easy is it to break away?)
first thing in the morning (a great option)
learning at home after your cup of coffee (I have found this to be parent-unfriendly. But should work beautifully if you don’t have kids)
the last thing before bed (do you have enough energy, will power to actually do this)
or some other time…

I suspect, for you, whatever you choose, you will need to look through all your options and try them out before you find something that works for you at least 75% of the time. The other 25% life happens, and we need to be flexible and just make it happen – use your schedule but not be a slave to it.

I know I still cycle through the options as and when my life situation changes and I need to find my new ideal.

Do this for a bit and you will be able to consistently learn for at least an hour 10months in a year. So, in Part 1, we have tried to figure out the “When” part. In Part 2, we’ll figure out the “What to study” part.

Some Links for part 1:

The Simple Dollar – Spend Time Developing Your Career Skills to Avoid Getting Fired
Brian Tracy – One hour makes all the difference –
Shane Parrish – The Warren Buffett formula: How you can get smarter

November 2015 Reading Log

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 15:00:07 GMT

Here is my reading log from November 2015. This was a light month for reading.

The book I enjoyed reading was Okay, So Look: A Humorous Retelling of the Book of Genesis. Here is the review I wrote – Okay, So Look! book review

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

On learning and preparing for a career change

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:00:06 GMT

On my path to becoming a front-end engineer, what did I do right and what would I have done differently? I decided to write my thoughts down before I forgot them. Why post it here? Maybe it’s of use to others contemplating a similar move or my future self.

Question 1: Looking back, among the things I did to make getting a new job easier, what would I have done / what would I have learned differently?

I would have started working on open source projects from Day 1 or as soon as possible. Easy way to enter would have been trying to fix bugs on open source projects on Github.
I would have tried to get non-profit / not-for-profit work.
I would started attending meetups much earlier
I would have started interview preparation as a part of the learning process. When learning a topic, I would search ‘topic + interview questions’ to make sure I could answer those before moving on to the next topic.
I would have started algorithm / data-structures coding questions at hacker rank & such other websites much earlier

Question 2: What I did right in my learning process?

Using Anki to make flash cards so I could be fluent with the syntax and concept vocabulary.
1. Derek Sivers – Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software
2. Jack Kinsella – The Janki Method redefines
Putting together a monthly learning schedule for the next few months. Here is a sample of what my learning schedule for Jan 2016 looked like. This topic definitely requires its own post.
Putting together a daily learning schedule: Looking at what my typical day is, what I do, targeting a number of hours each day where I should study, planning precisely when those hours are going to be, and logging what I actually do, reflecting and modifying my schedule.
Putting learning over entertainment – except the life-saving sanity-making joy of climbing
Keeping my perspective and knowing that, when I am learning something new, I tend to feel that I really, really suck before it all starts clicking together and I start feeling better about myself. That it’s OK to be a slow or fast or whatever learner I am – it doesn’t matter as long as I am learning. And knowing that I really enjoy, and thrive on learning and doing.

October 2015 Reading Log

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 15:00:25 GMT

Here is my reading log from October 2015. The two books I enjoyed the most this month:

Nonfiction – Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration. This is a good book to learn a new way, to actually think about the space we live in, work in, use and how to set it up in a way that makes the most sense for us. I can say it is a interior design book in the broadest sense – it is a book which helps us figure out how to design our spaces so they help us, indeed inspire us in what we set out to achieve.

Fiction– The House of Shattered Wings. A fantasy book about fallen angels in Paris. A very nice and different read from the other books I have read in this genre.

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

How I changed my career in a few bullet points

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 16:00:15 GMT

As of March 2016, I am now a Front-end Web Developer. I left my almost decade long career as a Location Software Test Engineer who used to work with location technologies on cellphones to move to coding full time. Here is how I made that happen.

How I changed my career in a few bullet points

Dabble with front end stuff – CSS, Web Design, hacking PHP, HTML, JS for a few years as side projects just because I wanted to.
Decide that I enjoyed this front end work so much that I wanted a career in that.
Explored the market for front-end developers. What was the compensation, career growth possibilities, number of front-end jobs on the market, etc
Started learning to be a front-end developer on the side while working a full time job. I have to say that this was the hardest part. Trying to learn, everyday while doing justice to your paycheck, managing a new baby and the ubiquitous housework made for a very challenging time. How did I cope? Scheduling everything, sleeping early, waking up early, trying all kinds of essentialist and time productive methodologies, learning myself better and trying to keep me nourished mentally and energetically (thankfully food has never been a problem) and trying hard not to ignore the burn out. Think a 100 mile bike ride every day – for a year or more. There are downhills and tailwinds …and then there are not. I digress… that is a blog post for some other time.
Joining Udacity to get a Nanodegree to help structure my learning and to provide creds for the new field.
Finally quitting my job because I was totally burnt out with the juggling, and had decided to take the proverbial leap into a new career. So I took a break to study full-time for a few months and then find a new job. This was the hardest part. Well second hardest, this quitting my well paying full time job with great benefits and a solid reputation in my field and trying something new where I would be a starting engineer having to build my reputation all over again.
Finished my Nanodegree, put together my resume, started a few side projects.
Took a month’s holiday.
Applied for full time-jobs and got one as a front-end developer .

That is my story. And here are some links about career recycling.

My post from 2014 titled “How to reinvent yourself“
Derek Sivers – Change careers like Tarzan
Kevin Kelly – Here’s why it’s never too late to reinvent yourself
Psychology today – The “Turning Age 30, 40 or 50 Crisir” for women

Introducing Exifile – for your Scribd highlights

Sun, 28 Feb 2016 23:56:17 GMT

I like to take notes and mark highlights when I am reading, as I have talked about here. The paper book and pen is good for this. With online reading, Amazon kindle does an awesome job of allowing us to highlight and take notes and very nicely offers the kindle.amazon.com – Your Highlights service to access those highlights. Add to this the excellent Bookcision bookmarklet and you can download those highlights – a file per book – into your computer in JSON, XML and plain text.

Well, I also read a lot of books on Scribd – I like their collection of books and think their subscription is of good value. But I had been frustrated at the lack of so basic a functionality (at least for me) as notes and highlights. As of 2015, Scribd allows notes and highlights – however, they are trapped in the cloud. And there is no way of looking at all your notes and highlights in one page.

So I took the inspiration from Bookcision and wrote a bookmarklet – Exifile to release your Scribd highlights – in text and JSON format out of the cloud. And here it is for everyone to use – https://www.oddumbrella.com/exifile/

So give it a try and tell me what you think.

September 2015 Reading Log

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:00:49 GMT

Here is my reading log from September 2015. The two books I enjoyed the most this month:

Nonfiction – Badass: Making Users Awesome. This is a book I have used to figure out where do I want to go with SoFoBoMo and how to improve it. It is a must-read for those who are interested in making stuff for other people.

Fiction– A Tale for the Time Being: A Novel

A beautiful, uplifting book. A must read, specially suits the mood of fall.

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

August 2015 Reading Log

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 16:00:05 GMT

Here is my reading log from August 2015.

The two books I enjoyed the most this month:

Nonfiction – Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Fiction– The Steampowered Globe (Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy Book 3)

This is a collection of short stories, “First ever Steampunk Singapore anthology”. It was recommended on Tungsten Hippo. I enjoyed all the stories. My favorite = “Help! Same Angler Fish’s Been Gawking for Eight Minutes!” by Ng Kum Hoon

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

So Brave – Maira Kalman

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 16:00:30 GMT

“How are we all so Brave as to take Step after Step? Day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet Do Trip, and then Get up and say O.K. ”

From Maira Kalman’s amazing book The Principles of Uncertainty

Investment Reading Plan – Reading experiment for 2016

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 18:40:33 GMT

One of my goals for 2016 is to get more familiar with investing. For someone who has just the basic ideas of what investment looks like, and likes to read, this is definitely one of my easier-to-do goals. The way I want to go about this is by reading books on investing. Luckily for me, Tim Ferriss put out a podcast last year with recommendations for just this.

In his podcast, he laid out a set of books he recommends to get familiar with the types of investing and what success in those looks like. So I decided that for the first half of 2016, I’ll follow the recommended list, and plan reading the books out. This is what my plan looks like:

start date	Book
Jan 4	Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
Jan 10	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Jan 17	Berkshire Hathaway Letters to shareholders
Feb 1	More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Penguin Press))
Feb 15	Liar’s Poker (Norton Paperback)
Feb 29	Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
Mar 7	You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market P
Mar 14	MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom
Apr 4	The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read: The Proven Way to Beat the “Pros” and Take Control of Your Financial Future
Apr 18	A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Eleventh Edition)
May 2	What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars
May 9	The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility” (Incerto)
May 30	Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Incerto)
Jun 6	Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
Jun 20	The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less

Jun 30	Less Is More: An Anthology of Ancient & Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity

Why schedule my reading like this? This is my reading experiment for 2016.

I want to know

How well I estimate how long I take to read books.
Am I capable of reading according to schedule ? Will I enjoy it or will it become a chore?
By giving myself structure, will my popcorn reading reduce? I am guilty of doing too much popcorn reading – check out my 2015 reading logs to see for yourself.
Will my overall reading reduce?
If I follow the schedule, will I still read books which serendipity throws my way?
Will I get goal-oriented and get into the mindset of “checking off” the books?

I will follow-up with a post in the second half of 2016 with the results of this experiment.

Okay, So Look! – book review

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 04:43:37 GMT

I heard about this book at The Wandering Scientist when the publisher was talking about releasing the book and I put it on my to-read list. I saw the book available on Scribd, and after reading the dense Finite and Infinite Games, a funny short book is just what I wanted to read.

Once I started reading this book and I couldn’t put it down! The modern interpretation of the stories from the Genesis, and the distillation of their essence – these are very funny, entertaining, bizarre and icky – just as Edward promises in the beginning.

It’s quite amazing that these come out of “The Genesis” and some people believe them literally. Do all of us really believe in our religious texts so literally that we fail to see the humor in them?

The part I loved absolutely was the fun he has with the names of the people:

“Anyway, the text goes on, listing all of Israel’s descendants—including a pair of Benjamin’s sons named Muppim and Huppim, and seriously, what on earth is wrong with people in the Bible? Those are horrifically bad

names for your children. On the other hand, they’re pretty spectacular names for pets, so at least there’s that. ”

I so enjoyed reading this book that I am looking for future books.

Would I recommend this book Yes! If you like to be entertained, this is a very nice, very funny read. And it is a short book too (for those of you who prefer shorter books)

Well what is it about It is a modern interpretation of the Book of Genesis.

What I learnt from the book That Muppim and Huppim and Onan are probably not great names for people but awesome names for pets. And that God creates people in the first chapter, then forgets about them. And creates them again in the second chapter! Who knew!

Format:

Scribd: Okay, So Look!

Amazon: Okay, So Look: A Humorous Retelling of the Book of Genesis

Finite and Infinite Games – book review

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:31:00 GMT

This book was recommended by Jane McGonigal on the podcast with Tim Ferriss. This had been on my to-read shelf for a while . I was pleased to find it on Scribd and give it a read.

This book was quite dense. I enjoyed the beginning and found much to learn, much that resonated and much that I highlighted. But the book became steadily denser – and as I finished the book, I am left with the feeling that I maybe really ‘got’ a tenth of the book. Towards the end, I found the tone weirdly preachy – weird because the author does not preach in words, but the tone comes across as preachy.

Would I recommend this book ? Absolutely. But only if you don’t mind some dense reading, and actually are interested in the subject matter.

Well what is it about – About finite and infinite games and what are they, and about how everything we do falls in these tags

What I learnt from the book – A new perspective. Those who are forced to play cannot truly play. And that an infinite game is played to continue playing with one another, the end points do not matter, the winning, losing isn’t the point. I have been trying to look at all I do through this point of view and it has been very revealing of the motivations of what I do.

Formats:

Scribd – Finite and Infinite Games on Scribd

Amazon (kindle and paperback) – Finite and Infinite Games

Public Library – Check here to see if it’s available in your public library.

Cratch?

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 15:00:09 GMT

[ ][1]

Cratch – An STD in candy form?

From Maira Kalman’s amazing book The Principles of Uncertainty

On Vacations – 200 words project

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 15:00:37 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

“People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.

By going within.”

– Marcus Aurelius in Meditations: A New Translation****

Why do we go somewhere else, on a vacation?

Because where we usually live, our normal habitat is a constant reminder. It cues us sub-consciously, unconsciously and consciously our habitual way of thinking and doing. Going away to a new place removes these cues – and we feel free to act / behave in a new manner, maybe just for a little while before our habitual patterns take over again.

The change of scenery also makes us pay attention to, evaluate, and maybe appreciate or detest our nuw surroundings. We do not take many things for granted when on vacation in a new place. We tend to not be immersed in our heads. We look around – we are outside ourselves.

When on vacation, we know that we are on vacation. The intention is to relax. So it is easier to relax, with intention

The shock of change, the excitement and curiosity that change engenders – and the break away from our habits and our physical possessions – that is what helps us when we get away.

A break from our habits, a break from our stuff, a break from our intent, a break from our heads, being in the moment, back to that excitement and scare of being in the unknown – that is what going away on vacation provides, and it renews and refreshes us.

So, the question is this – how can you get away without actually going away? As Marcus says, “By going within”. But how?

The sub conscious cues are all still there. Maybe if we become aware of all our cues? Maybe if we own lesser stuff? Maybe if we can just be in the present moment? Maybe if we look at the world with new eyes with pre-conceptions stripped away? Is it even possible?

About the 200 Words Project

Once every week, on Monday morning, I will post my ‘200 Words Project’ post where I will ruminate on some idea which caught my interest in the current book I’m reading, or maybe (sometimes) from a blog post or podcast – in 200 words or more, never less!

What do you dream of? – Maira Kalman

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 15:00:29 GMT

Maira’s dream sounds splendid – except I would want to cycle too! And go climbing outside…dance on the walls!

What do you dream of?

From Maira Kalman’s amazing book The Principles of Uncertainty

Shadows and Reflections – A SoFoBoMo 2015 book

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 00:00:45 GMT

I am pleased to share my SoFoBoMo book for 2015. That this is the second year that I am running this incarnation of SoFoBoMo, and that I failed to make a book last year, this year’s book is quite special to me.

The inspiration for this book was in Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows (public library).

Here’s the story about this inspiration brought about by grandiose delusions:

I first read about the book in a In Praise of Shadows: Ancient Japanese Aesthetics and Why Every Technology Is a Technology of Thought that I decided that my SoFoBoMo book would be “In Praise of Shadows” themed – and decided to pair photos with quotes from the book – all without even reading the book! Well, getting hold of this book was a challenge in itself. When I finally read the book, I was in despair – there was no way I could photograph to pair with quotes from the book! No way! I didn’t even know where to start photographing.

Luckily, on my second read (and the essay itself is quite delightful, meriting multiple re-reads), this quote by Louis Kahn in the foreword written by Charles Moore inspired me and gave me my theme.

The sun never knew how beautiful it was, until it fell on the wall of a building.

– Louis Kahn

I hope you take a look at the book and tell me what you think.

Book Details

Format: PDF

Size: 52.7MB

_Free Download Link:SoFoBoMo 2015 – Shadows and Reflections (direct link here

_ Camera: Olympus E-P5

Lens: Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4

Shot: in “Monochrome”, processed in Adobe Lightroom using “B&W Look 3” preset or “Blue Hi-Contrast” preset

Book: set and PDF generated using Adobe Lightroom Book Module.

Text: set in Cooper Hewitt

The goal of happiness – 200 words project

Mon, 14 Sep 2015 15:00:57 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

“ I find the notion of happiness rather strange … It has never been a goal of mine; I just don’t think in those terms.”

“ I try to give meaning to my existence through my work. That’s a simplified answer, but whether I am happy or not really doesn’t count for much.”

– Werner Herzog in Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin >

When it seems like the whole world is engaged in the pursuit of happiness, when the media sells happiness, when it seems like the ultimate goal of humanity is trying to be happier, to read Herzog say that happiness has never been a goal of his – it is quite a shock.

How can you not want to be happy? I want to ask him. How can you say that happiness is not a goal? Truly, how can anyone not aspire to be happy?

But, assuming this were the case, if like Herzog, I was not concerned about my happiness as a goal to aspire towards, how would life be? Would I make the same choices I do now? Would my bad habits and distractions fall to the wayside, since then the brief pleasure of these distractions, the instant gratification, the guilty pleasures – these wouldn’t mean anything? Would I be content with the way the my life is?

If my work was the way I find meaning in my life, what would my work be? What would you and I do?

Would we just toil away towards our work and not worry about things like happiness and contentment? Would the only question be – are we going to do our work or not? Would we make the hard choices easily?

An interesting thought experiment indeed.

About the 200 Words Project

July 2015 Reading Log

Wed, 09 Sep 2015 15:00:02 GMT

Here is my reading log from July 2015.

I made up for not reading much in June by reading a lot in July. I also ended up listening to two audio books as well.

Here’s my reading log.

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

On Point of View – 200 words project

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 15:00:20 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

**

“ Point of view is worth 80 IQ points.”

**

– Alan Kay quoted in Badass: Making Users Awesome

I was listening to the Glenn Beck interview with Tim Ferriss, where he talks about short circuiting the system: “Short circuiting the system is a lot easier when you are somebody who is not trained to think like everyone else.”. He talks about Steve Jobs as a prime example on how he used what he learnt in calligraphy and other areas of life to change Apple. People like Steve Jobs and Glenn Beck – they were outsiders, not trained by the academy / industry. That is they have a different point of view.

And then there is Einstein, Newton, Galileo – all greats – all who have made these great contributions to the world – who all had a different point of view.

It is well known that travel, life-changing experiences, near-death events, harrowing, challenging, exciting events in our lives – these have the capability to trigger a paradigm-shift, to totally change your point of view – and look at the world differently.

There are no doubt immense benefits in learning to look with different points of view. But so far, they seem to be a product of who you are, and what happened to you, and your environment.

This begs the question – can one learn the art/science/skill of trying on different points of view? Not in a superficial, vague way, but in a deeply profound, original way? Is this even possible? Can a “trained” person throw off the tinted glasses of learning and see the world in a “fresh” way?

The only inkling I have found – that something like this is possible is in the Buddhist literature and philosophies. This is the idea of ‘beginner’s mind’ – that you start illiterate, then you learn and gain expertise. Then you need to unlearn everything – retain the skill-set but forget your conclusions and look again. Almost like climbing a spiral – where you end up at the same point – just a bit above the point you started, and the view is the same but different.

Can this be applied to other areas of our lives – work, play?

About the 200 Words Project

My Better than Before profile – or what I learned about myself through this book

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 15:00:45 GMT

In Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, Gretchen Rubin talks about the Essential Seven Habits which all of us want to learn.

A warning before you read ahead – in this post I unabashedly indulge in navel-gazing. You are forewarned.

Essential Seven Habits

Eat and drink more healthfully
Exercise regularly
Save, spend and earn wisely
Rest, relax, enjoy
Accomplish more, stop procrastinating
Simplify, clear, clean, organize
Engage more deeply in relationships – with other people, God, world

So I made a list of what habits I wanted to learn and mapped them to the essential seven. This is what it looks like.

What habits would I like to adopt:

– Wake up at 5.00AM everyday – Essential #5

– Write for an hour everyday – Essential #5

– Yoga everyday – Essential #2,#4

– Climb or elliptical or cycle everyday – Essential #2,#4

– Study everyday – Essential; #5

– Cook three times a week – Essential #1,#4

– Mindfulness in all I do – essential #4,#5

At first glance, it looks like none of my want-to-learn-habits belong to Essentials #3, #6, #7.

However, looking a little deeper, it is clear that the Essential Seven with the highest priority for me is actually #6, and everything I do tends to automating so I can get better at #6. It is also true that the one I have the most worry about is #5 – I do too much and want to do too much.

So learning #1

I crave simplicity, organization, clarity
However I want to learn and do too much which causes overwhelm and prevents simplicity

In the next section, Gretchen puts forth the four fateful tendencies – Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, Rebel.

Taking the quizzes and reflecting upon myself, I very solidly belong in the Upholder category – with shades of a Questioner. What does this mean for me? The good part is that I am self-directed and pretty much can do what I set my mind to. But the downsides – I definitely need to work on these:

– Compulsion to fulfill even pointless expectations (set by me and by others)

– I am very uneasy breaking rules

– I can be relentless and not in a nice way

– I can follow rules because they are there

– If I don’t watch myself, I can just go do that which gives me the most recognition

The fact that I have some slight leaning to be a questioner provides balance – those are times when I take a step back and ask myself, why exactly I am doing this?

There are some other quizzes there and I found the following:

– I am mostly a lark now – but I used to be an owl some 5 years ago or more. This is partly something I have worked towards and partly a stage-of-life thing.

– I am a Procrastinator who wants to be a Marathoner

○ My notes tell me to try to work more steadily and to try the strategy of scheduling

– I am definitely a good consumer – I mean an overbuyer (and not an underbuyer)

○ My notes tell me to remember that mere acquisition isn’t enough

– Between an abundance lover vs. simplicity lover

○ This was a hard one for me. I finally decided that I am now a simplicity lover , though I am sure, at one point I was an abundance lover. I am perplexed at this shift since I never consciously tried. Is this again a stage of life thing – or a getting older thing – or is it a reflection of how mainstream values are changing, and I am caught in this simplicity fad?

– I am definitely an Opener (and not a finisher) who loves to start new things and projects

○ My notes tell me : You are overly optimistic about your ability to take on additional habits

– I am definitely a novelty lover (as opposed to a familiarity lover)

○ Remember: Thirty day challenges are better for me than creating an enduring automatic habit. Or let me put it this way – a series of challenges will help create that enduring automatic habit

– I am promotion focused (not prevention focused)

○ This is obvious in my aims and goals and the way I frame arguments.

– I like taking BIG steps (as opposed to small steps)

○ My mentality of “Doing everything at once” is something I need to keep in check. It is definitely not a sustainable way of doing things

– I love blast starts. But I need to plan specifically how to shift from the high unsustainable intensity of the Blast Start to forever habit intensity

– What kind of transitions do I prefer? I love racing from one activity to other (and have not generally preferred unhurried transitions), since they make me feel alive, super powerful, super capable. However I am definitely teaching myself the pleasures of the unhurried transition.

Armed with this new self-knowledge, I realize that I am not the person I was in the past, and not the person I thought I was. And I will keep changing in the future. Now I also know what to look out for, what to be aware of so I can live the life I think I want.

June 2015 Reading Log

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 15:00:00 GMT

Here is my reading log from June 2015. I didn’t read much this month because I kept re-reading Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. It is the book I needed to read this month.

And I took a whole lot of time reading Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Incerto) by Nassim Taleb as well.This is a huge book – I needed a lot of time to read and digest this book. This is definitely on my re-read list, so I can understand what I read a little better

Here’s my reading log.

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

Lessons learnt re-staining a desk

Wed, 05 Aug 2015 15:00:26 GMT

We needed a new study desk. So I bought a West Elm Jay desk with hutch off Craigslist. It had marks due to regular wear and was a ‘chestnut’ color. So, I re-stained the Jay desk a reddish color – “Cabernet”. Now the whole place smells like wood stain and the desk looks awesome.

So, what did I learn from re-staining the desk?

Sanding the table down is a lot easier than I expected it to be
Staining the table was a lot more messier than I expected it to be
The first two areas I stained were a lot slower and not as nice as the rest of my table
Staining by brush and mopping the extra stain by rag was a lot of fun
Humming to yourself makes work super-enjoyable
Enjoyable work makes you hum to yourself
Staining is a dirty work. Is that why it is fun?
Cleaning myself and the area up took as long as sanding and staining

What I learnt also was that I absolutely enjoy making things, creating things, beautifying things and don’t mind the learning curve, or the time or how dirty it can get. And I also learnt that the things I fear and dread are not really that bad once I get started.

On Clarity

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 15:00:25 GMT

Clarity is like looking up at the night sky on a clear night, looking at all the stars and identifying “your constellation” right away.

It takes a bit of doing to make sure you are out there outside, on a clear night, with no light pollution.

It takes a bit of watching, studying, time and effort to learn about all the constellations and learning to identify them.

It takes a bit of listening to your heart sing to know “your constellation”.

But once you know it, every time you look up at the sky, your eyes take you to your constellation.

Musings of a caterpillar

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 15:00:29 GMT

The cocoon is spun. The tightness and coziness is sometimes a relief, sometimes a torture.

I will be here for a little bit and then I will come out into the world.

How will the world look when I break out of my cocoon?

What will I be when I come out of the cocoon? The stories say a beautiful butterfly. But then I have also heard rumors saying sometimes it can be a wasp or a hornet or a fly or a cockroach…

Is that true? Nobody likes cockroaches. I don’t want to be one, I definitely don’t want to be a cockroach, please… But if I am a cockroach, then what will happen to me?

I can’t wait to see who I become… and at the same time I don’t want to know…

Three Tenets of Essentialism – 200 words projects

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:00:18 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

“I choose to,” “Only a few things really matter,” and “I can do anything but not everything.”

– Greg McKeown in Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

The first tenet – “I can do anything but not everything”

– The idea of confidence in our own abilities, to do anything that we really want to do and set our mind to. At the same time acknowledging and embracing the limits of being human, the limits of having just 24hrs in a day, and also acknowledging the all-pervasiveness of our greed, our tendency to “do just one more thing&rdquol, to “ldquo; want just a a little more”

The second tenet – “Only a few things matter”

– The idea of knowing that though we can run around in a thousand different directions, if we want to get to one place, we need to use those thousand steps to head in the direction we want. Tis is recognizing that, ultimately, doing something that doesn’t matter to us is just a waste of our time and energy. And what matters to us may not be what matters to someone else. This is the idea of recognizing this, and following our own beat towards what matters to us.

The third tenet – “I choose to”

– When we realize that only a few things matter, and we decide to give up on others, it is a choice that we are making. It is not a lack of ability or scarcity or time. And once this choice is made, we empower ourselves, give ourselves permission to really do what matters to us the most.

These three tenets of Essentialism is a great process for the over-achievers, the super curious, the uber-doers who want to do more and are frustrated in the process due to lack of time etc. This also seems to be the real process for all those who really achieved something – the greats, the Einsteins and Benjamin Franklins and Thoreau’s who are looked up to and who have contributed something great.

So, why not try it?

About the 200 Words Project

From my Pocket – June 2015 edition

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 15:00:10 GMT

Here are 5 links from last month, which have which have inspired me, made me think, made me wonder or made me laugh.

On the Page as Your Mirror by Dani Shapiro – A beautiful post on writing, and what writing does and means to this author
Do You Really Want What You Want by Tynan – An interesting post about self-knowledge and wishes
Live Like a Hydra by Buster Benson on Medium – An awesome article explaining the concept of anti-fragility in a few words, and a way of becoming anti-fragile.
How to go faster by Seth Godin – On how decision hygiene affects your speed.
** The secret to happiness is regular audits at 99U** – Self knowledge by observation, and how these personal audits can lead to increased happiness.
There’s no right path by Rohan at A Learning A Day – Another post on decisions and decision making.Hope you find these links meaningful.

From my pocket

Live everybody, I subscribe to quite a many blogs, read many articles online and bookmark some of them using Pocket. This once-a-month series is a list of links in the past month which have stayed with me, resonated with me or entertained me. Basically, an eclectic mix of whatever-caught-my-fancy links.

The Advice Paradox – 200 words project

Mon, 06 Jul 2015 17:00:40 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

**

“The ultimate question of any advice, rules, or traditions is, What do you ignore and why? No one can ever follow it all. This is the advice paradox: no matter how much advice you have, you must still decide intuitively what to use and what to avoid. Even if you seek meta-advice, advice on which advice to take, the paradox still applies as you make the same choice about that advice too.**

– Scott Berkun in The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

This is a very important issue in this information age. We have so many ways to improve ourselves, so many suggestions on what to do. But we cannot possibly try it all, be it all, do it all. So what do we do?

We use our intuition to decide what to do and what not to do. But how do we build an intuition or hone what we already have?

A part of it is just experiences. A part of it is knowing ourselves. Another part of it is realizing the difference between what we really are (i.e. really, really knowing ourselves), and what we wish we are (and pretend to be to the wide world).

Then, a couple of habits appear to more crucial than the rest.

One of them is mindfulness – the skill of knowing where our mind is, at this very moment and in the process learning who we really are. A side-effect of this mindfulness is really seeing around us and listening to people around – not just going through the motions completely lost in our head, in our thoughts.

Another important habit is reading books and long articles. When most of the time, we interact with fewer real people and more online persona and these interactions happen in short bursts, reading books gives us a chance to understand other people, what they think and in the process learn about how we ourselves are changing and have changed.

And these two habits automatically help us expand our experiences – seeking those sights and sounds and thoughts and feelings, and beings which take us to our personal edges and help us grow.

About the 200 Words Project

May 2015 Reading Log

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 15:00:54 GMT

Here is my reading log from May 2015. In mid-May I made a Rule that I could read fantasy/historical/science fiction only on a cardio machine. Thanks to that, I just didn’t read any the second half of the month.

The best book I read in May was Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin. You can read my summary here.

I absolutely enjoyed reading Cry of the Firebird (The Firebird Fairytales Book 1) by Amy Kuivalainen . This was a very relaxing gripping read.

A very stimulating, thought provoking read was Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships (Nonviolent Communication Guides) by Marshall B. Rosenberg. This is a book I need to re-read in a bit, meanwhile try to apply some of what he says in my daily life.

Here’s my reading log.

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

Collating gender with sex – 200 words project

Mon, 29 Jun 2015 16:04:29 GMT

It was a dry week last week at Rope and Tire. A life-changing event left me with no mental energy to write anything. This week, I am back to writing again.

With that, here is this week’s 200 words project:

**

“People tend to conflate sex with gender and assume that all men are masculine and all women are feminine.”

“Sex is biology.”

“Gender is the collection of characteristics that constitute the social identity of men and women”

**

– Joan Williams and Rachel Dempsey in What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know >

We think that all men need to be masculine, and all women need to be feminine. As if all the men in the world have to fit this narrow bucket, and all the women in the world fit in this other opposite / complementary bucket, as if there can be no intermingling of the masculine and feminine characteristics. Indeed, almost as if it is not ok for women to exhibit masculine characteristics and men to exhibit feminine characteristics…

This is seen in the “pink-ification” and “cutifying” of anything targeted at girls and women. It is seen in the almost mono-chromatic styles of clothes available for men. It is seen in the curses and derogatory language we use to chide and correct and tease each other.

But the minute you realize that gender and sex are different and one does not absolutely imply the other, the whole world is looked upon with new eyes. Each characteristic – be it paying attention to how you look, or self ornamentation or espousing of self-decoration, of preferring dark leather or bright soft floral fabrics – each one can then be evaluated separately – as a quality and not confused with the biological sex of the person exhibiting the behavior. This separation provides us with a huge host of qualities to pick and choose from, which we tend towards or move away from – without getting enmeshed in the gender debates.

After all, masculine is defined as having the qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men, and feminine as having the qualities or appearance traditionally associated with women. This begs the question – which tradition? European? Asian? African? Aborigine? And what age are we talking about? And does everybody, when talking about masculine and feminine know absolutely which tradition and age are they referring to?

After all, Genghis Khan had long flowing hair, wore high heels (wooden ones at that). Does anyone think he was a girl?

About the 200 Words Project

Asking for help vs Independence – a false choice?

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 15:00:33 GMT

We start with valuing independence and self-reliance as valuable virtues. Over time, it develops into a pride point. And then the mindset of “If you want it done right, you better do it yourself” develops. Of course, this is the fastest way sometimes. But doing it yourself is definitely not the best way at all times. And we all know it too.

And then we learn that when someone says “No” to what we ask, it is personal. We ask someone for help and they say no, we are insulted and mortified and swear never to ask anyone for help. On the other hand, if they do help out, then we feel obligated to them – and we know that obligations are bad, they are very bad. We have learnt this too.

The craziness is that these so-called positive values have built up over the years mostly without conscious thought and have not been evaluated in the context of our lives and what we want .

Reading Amanda Palmer’s book The Art of Asking alerted me to this pattern in my thinking. I pondered about this asking for help, and independence and self reliance quite a bit. And realized that to grow, we need to ask. Anything “entrepreneurial” needs people, and we need to ask people. For anything “artistic” we need people and we need to ask people.

However, I still value independence and self-reliance – maybe not as much as before, and definitely not exclusively. So how can I ask for help and be independent at the same time?

I realized I was setting myself up with a false choice. I can be self-reliant and independent – but at the same time intelligent enough to know when to ask for help and humble enough to actually ask it, and generous enough to take no for what it actually means.

Better Than Before – Best book in May (2015)

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 15:00:11 GMT

Here is my May 2015 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

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Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin is my pick for the best book I read in May.

I have previously read and loved Gretchen Rubin’s previous books – The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. I also follow her blog, and I was waiting with anticipation (and a little bit of trepidation) for her newest book – this book on habits. The trepidation because I was prepared to not like it and expected the contents to be the same as some of the previous books on habits I have read and loved – Superhuman by Habit by Tynan, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and blogs like Nir and Far. I did not believe that there could be a book on habits which would not be a rehash of the same arguments, and which would be entertaining. Well, I was on the library queue for this book and got hold of the Kindle version from the library in May. And I loved it.

What’s it about:

It’s about habits, and how you can form them and what are the pitfalls and traps on the way to developing a sustaining habit. It is also about trying to know yourself and trying to figure out which way of habit formation works for you.

What’s it about:

Well, it is definitely not a complete rehash of the existing literature on habits. Oh, some of these arguments are common – for example the concept of plan to fail and plan contingency measures when you fall off the habit wagon. But what I really liked about Gretchen’s book was that she provides frameworks and quizzes (who doesn’t like quizzes?) about self knowledge, about understanding yourself. She acknowledges that all types of habit formation methods do not work equally well for all kinds of people and says that its pretty much up to each one of use to figure out what strategies work and what don’t. Her “four fateful tendencies” framework for understanding oneself and from that understanding, trying to figure out (by reading and/or by trying) each strategy of habit formation – this was pretty useful

For example, I realized that I am a person not motivated by external accountability – if I announce to the world, the pressure that I have done so causes me to give up – and this is not what most habit books tell me.

Who should read this book: Everyone. Well, it is a fun read. With all the quizzes, it makes it quite entertaining. Persons interested in understanding themselves a shade better, interested in habit formation should read this book.

Who should read this:

Everyone. It is a fun read. All the quizzes, make the book quite entertaining. Persons interested in understanding themselves a shade better, interested in habit formation should definitely read this book. I guarantee you will walk away with knowing yourself and maybe some of the people in your lives better.

Highly recommended

Format:

Kindle EBook – Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

Hardcover – Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

Paperback – Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

Audiobook –Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

Public Library – Check here to see if it’s available in your public library.

Tungsten Hippo – My Cool Tools #4

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:00:36 GMT

Tool: https://tungstenhippo.com

Cost: Free

Type: Website

Works On: Any

Needs: Internet / Web Browser

Link : https://tungstenhippo.com/

I love to read, and I read a lot. However, I find that the problem with long books is that they take up a lot of time. This is unfortunately a problem for me since I cannot put a book down once I start reading it. And so, the short ebook is a great solution for a person like me – I get my reading fix, and it is mercifully short and will not impact everything else I need to get done.

How did I find Tungten Hippo? I follow another blog run by the same author, and when she started her site Tungsten Hippo, recommending books – especially short books I started following Tungsten Hippo as well. I first followed along just in the spirit of supporting her new venture. However in the past year, I have totally come to respect and love her recommendations.

I have found some really lovely books and really lovely authors – like these

The Bone Knife by Intisar Khanani, books by Lindsay Buroker, the Tor.com collection

I don’t like 100% of the books recommended here, but so far, I have liked about 90% and really love about 25% of the books – which is a great ratio. And the best part – each new recommendation leads me to discover new authors and more fun books.

The website is nice to use, quite pretty and of course the name is super cute. So if you are into books, especially short books, and are always looking for recommendations, you should definitely follow this site.

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About My Cool Tools

“Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. “

– From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

My cool tools are the tools I use regularly and I really like. In this series of posts, I want to share my cool tools and review them. All cool tools in this blog

Need for a tool for consolidating book notes and highlights – Part I

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 15:00:10 GMT

As I have continued to learn to read better, over the past 6-8 months, I have restarted my habit of taking notes.

I think it was partly inspired by Tim Ferriss and Maria Popova podcast (listen at the 31:45 mark) and Ryan Holiday and reading “The Art of Reading” and “Becoming a writer” by Dorothea Brande. But it is mostly a fallback to my childhood habit – when I would take notes of anything I wanted to understand or remember. The writing of words on paper is a beautiful thing, even though I particularly don’t like my handwriting – which has been ridiculed by friends and family alike the act of writing, a good pen on smooth paper is somehow extremely satisfying.

So how do I make my notes? When you read both paper books and e-books without distinction, and in in ebooks if you read html, kindle, e-pubs, pdf – any format how do you then consolidate notes?

I considered using Ryan Holiday’s method of handwriting all notes in index cards and filing them. But then decided it’s not for me. I do not, at this point in life choose to indulge in the luxury of handwriting and storing and indexing all my notes. So the alternatives, as discussed by Maria Popova and Tim Ferriss was to digitize – Evernote or OneNote were the serious contenders..

Since I already use OneNote for a personalized GTD system, I decided to use OneNote.

For kindle books bought via amazon – I go to my “Kindle Your highlights” page , and then use Bookcision to download my notes and highlights in an XML format. I then copy out the pretty Bookcision formatted output into my OneNote page for that book and embed the downloaded XML file in the OneNote page.

I also need to find a way to consolidate the notes and highlights from epubs, pdfs and those Kindle books which I did not buy from amazon, but which I uploaded but read on the Kindle Paperwhite and made notes on it.

Ok. What about paper books? When reading a paper book, I use pencil to mark-out the passages and lines of interest and use post-its to flag those pages. Then I type out by hand, the highlights and notes into an XML file. The XML file format is based on the Bookcision XML template with the addition of a few more XML tags. I then embed the XML file in a OneNote page with that book’s title.

But here I ran into an issue – I wanted these hand-typed highlights to look pretty like Bookcision as well. So over last week, I used XSL to render these XML files as HTML pages. These seem to open nicely in Firefox and Safari (Chrome does not allow it) and look good. However, when I copy out the text from Firefox onto Word or OneNote, it loses the pretty formatting.

So I need another solution. And these are my requirements:

Someway to consolidate all my XML files online (like the Kindle Your Highlights page) for all the books I read – both digital and paper
These XML files should be available Offline as well since I write my posts mostly offline.
I need them to look pretty, like the Bookcision format with my additional XML tags – maybe using AJAX to load the XML files and use Javascript to render them in copy-able html like Bookcision.
An index page of all the books in this repository would be awesome
And then to make all the XML files notes highlights searchable
And edit it online if you are the owner of those files.

Sounds like a fun project right? Maybe in Part II, in the future, I’ll talk about what I do next.

The Marketplace – 200 words project

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 15:00:00 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“Some artists need to create in complete peace, but all artists are now empowered by technology to open the front door and chronicle their backstage and behind-the-scenes working processes. More importantly, they’re equipped to distribute the work themselves, sharing their writing, their music and their digitally reproducible wares infinitely and at their own will – without printing presses, without CD manufacturers, without movie theatres. The art goes from the artists’ lips or pen to the audience’s ears and eyes. But in order to share directly, the artist still has to leave The Garret and head down into the bustling marketplace, and that’s the catch: the marketplace is where you have to deal with people. To many artists, people are scary”**

– Amanda Palmer in The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help >

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This is a wake up call for me. As a photographer and as a writer and as a person who does other stuff which needs people, stuff I make and write for an audience, I am chronically incompetent in marketing. Reading Amanda’s book and actually thinking about her words, what is clear to me is this –

I suffer from the impostor syndrome – I fear that I am a “fake” photographer who photographs, a “fake” writer who writes, a “fake” coder who codes.

I suffer form “privacy” issues – my fear of criticism when I open up to the world is more than my love of people and my trust of people.

What she says in her book hits a nerve – I need to market myself – and when I say market, go down to the market place, show myself here, and when people come and look at my wares in curiosity – see them, smile at them, engage them in talk, and wave to them when they leave my stall -not skitter away like a crab when I see a person walking towards me. It is not going to be easy – it’s going to be quite hard actually. But it is something I definitely need to try.

This discovery about myself leads to further questions. Am I a shy, person by nature or have I become that due to circumstances? What circumstances? Or is it because I have always admired the strong silent artist stereotype whose work speaks greater than words – I don’t know? But whatever it is, I must pop my head out of my cocoon and engage with the world like another human being

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About the 200 Words Project

Scribd vs Kindle Unlimited – My dilemma

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:00:36 GMT

When ebook subscription services started, I subscribed initially to Scribd – first the free trial, and then a paid subscription for a couple of months. At around the same time, Amazon started their Kindle Unlimited. That was very enticing since we are Amazon Prime subscribers. So I signed up for Kindle Unlimited as well.

For a couple of months, I kept both subscriptions ongoing. Meanwhile, I got myself a Kindle Paperwhite and fell in love with it. And then, to adhere to my monthly budget causes, I had to choose between the two.

The contrast between the two services, I found was this:

Method of Reading:

With Kindle Unlimited books, I could read them using the Paperwhite or the smartphone app or the web browser reader app on laptops and desktops.

Scribd books were available only on the smartphone app or web browser. They did not support any e-ink readers, which are oh-so-good to read on (did I mention I absolutely love reading on the Kindle Paperwhite?). And I was quite sad about that.

I have recently found, however that there are a few Android based E-ink readers like the Onyx or the Boyue T62+. So this difference might become a on-issue for me in the future if I decide to go the Android E-Ink reader route.

Selection:

Scribd had a better huger selection of books. Kindle Unlimited seem sto have a whole lot of Indie Authors. Overall, I found that Scribd had more of the books I want to read.

Notes and Highlights:

This was the feature which made the decision: I like to make notes and highlight paragraphs as I read. And I love that Amazon provides a Kindle Your Highlights page which consolidates all the notes and highlights into one page. And then the, Bookcision – the Javascript bookmarklet helps make it look pretty and allows me to download them in a text or xml or json format.

What about Scribd? Well, at the time, they did not have a notes and highlights feature. And so I went with Kindle Unlimited in the past.

But why am I talking about it now? Well, there are a few books on my to-read list which seem to ebe available only on Scribd, and I was re-considering subscribing. That they have now introduced the “Notes and Highlights” feature makes Scribd even more attractive.

But for some reason, they have not yet provided a way to consolidate all the notes and Highlights and provide a copy or download option.

And so, I am quite disappointed and have decided to wait to see if Scribd will provide the consolidated notes and highlights feature.

Word Counter for Mac OS X – My Cool Tools #3

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:00:19 GMT

Tool: WordCounter for Mac OS X

Cost: Free

Type: Digital, Software

Works On: Mac OS X Only

Needs: Mac OS X

Download Link : WordCounter by OneKerato

This tool is an extension to Mac OS X. Author’s description: ”

WordCounter is a menu bar app that displays the word count of text on the clipboard. As new text is copied to the clipboard, the app updates the word count. You can temporarily disable or enable the app via a drop-down menu.”

When I write my morning pages, or my daily writing, I use OneNote for Mac. I also use OneNote for my blog drafts, for my 200 Words Project posts, my to-do lists etc.

For my daily 1000 words and the 200 Words Project post drafts, I need to count the words I have written, and OneNote does not have this functionality. On windows I use the Onetastic Word Count macro. But there is no equivalent for this in Mac.

So I use WordCounter by OneKerato. I basically select the words I want to count – paragraphs or the entire page and copy it out (Cmd + c). On copying, the Mac menu bar displays the number of words in my selection. Nifty.

Drawbacks: Works only on Mac OS. Counts characters only. Need to copy to the system clipboard before it can count.

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About My Cool Tools

“Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. “

– From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

My cool tools are the tools I use regularly and I really like. In this series of posts, I want to share my cool tools and review them. All cool tools in this blog

From my Pocket – May 2015 edition

Fri, 29 May 2015 15:00:24 GMT

This is the first posting of “From my Pocket” series in the year 2015. And so, here are more than 5 links which have which have inspired me, made me think, made me wonder or made me laugh.

What no means by Seth Godin – A timely, short and pithy reminder on not taking a “No” personally. Especially powerful post for someone like me who hesitates to ask because of the fear of “No”
My not-so-basic rules for hiking with young children by Cherie Galyean – A nice post on hiking with small kids. An educational post since we are starting to do climbs and hikes along with our two-and-a-half year old
Leonardo da Vinci’s resume by Marc Cenedella – An awesome example of marketing – just what a freelancer or tinkerer needs to do to get employed or gain followers. What is remarkable is his format’s relevance today.
The light choice is the right choice. Don’t say yes until it feels … light. by Danielle La Porte – An awesome take on how to make choices. “The light choice is the right choice”. But not always the easiest choice to make. I must confess – though I like some of Danielle’s posts, quite often, her style of writing and delivery turn me off. I’m still trying to figure this one out.
Freedom comes from how you live at Raptitude.com – An interesting look at why what we do everyday, what we choose to do and not do, what we give into and what we resist – these make up our freedom in our lives
Freelancer: 10 Questions with Seth Godin Hugh McLeod at The Gaping Void with seth Godin – The title of the post says it all. The answers make you think, care you and give you hope. Like “Stress is a whole other game. Stress is wanting one thing and doing another.”
**The complete and logical guide to winning at your own life in 19 super difficult steps by Paul Jarvis
Leave Yourself Wanting More by Zen Habits – On what being sated and not full will teach you
If you want to follow your dreams, you have to say no to all the alternatives by Oliver Emberton – On how and why doing the one thing only will lead you to success.

Hope you find these links meaningful.

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From my pocket

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April 2015 Reading Log

Wed, 27 May 2015 15:00:42 GMT

Here is my reading log from April 2015. April was another month where I binge-read fantasy / young-adult books. Yup. On April 2, and April 3, I was sick and wasn’t doing well. So I just read all those novellas!

Looking back at the past months of this year, I have identified that this binge-reading is a problem. So starting from the second half of May 2015, I now have a Rule which says that I can read fantasy / historical fiction only on a cardio machine like the Elliptical or treadmill or the spin machine – thanks to Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin, the current book I’m reading. I’m sure I’ll write a dedicated blog post about this rule, and about the book too in the coming days.

The best book I read in April was The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work by Scott Berkun. You can read my summary here.

Other books you should take a look at:

A Tale of Red Riding: Rise Of The Alpha Huntress by Neo Edmund – This is the first time I was almost tempted to pick a fantasy/steam-punk/re-spun fairy tale as the book of the month. I totally absolutely fell in love with this book. And it is available on Kindle Unlimited!

You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins – I really liked this book. It helped be get back to writing regularly and posting regularly here. The book is part kick-in-the-pants, part encouragement, motivation and has a few tricks which helped me claim my identitya s a writer. If you are a writer – as in write anything – you should take a look. And it is available on Kindle Unlimited!

Here’s my reading log.

You can find all my previous Reading logs here

No time – 200 words project

Mon, 25 May 2015 15:00:23 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“One afternoon at Garrison, Sharon Salzberg spoke about a Buddhist teacher in India, a widowed woman with many, many children who had no time to sit on a cushion, meditating. How had she done it, then? Sharon had once asked her. How had she achieved her remarkable ability to live in the present? The answer was simply this: she stirred the rice mindfully.”

**

– Dani Shapiro in Devotion: A Memoir >

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We complain all the time – about time. That we are too busy. That we have no time for mindfulness. That sitting to meditate, even for 5 minutes is a luxury which we of course, cannot afford. Focus, single tasking is for others, not us. Because we are so busy, really, too busy to learn to concentrate.

Well, for all my skeptical beliefs about religion, most religions of the world do show us a path to this. They say, whatever you are doing, do it mindfully. And so do a lot of thinkers of our times.

How about Joan Didion on driving mindfully. How about washing your dishes and brushing your teeth mindfully – as Leo Babuta recommends. Or drink your coffee mindfully as The Dalai Lama’s Cat recommends. Or maybe you would like Sherlock Holmes to help you with mindfulness?

The idea is simplicity itself. When making that PowerPoint, just think about the PowerPoint and not the meeting which comes after that. In the meeting, concentrate on the meeting and not what email just came in the inbox. When reading the email, just read the email and don’t ponder whether to buy that latest gadget or not. And when eating, just eat and don’t worry about texting that friend who is travelling in Panama city.

The opportunities for learning to be mindful are endless. But here’s the catch….Being un-mindful is easy, it is habitual, and we do that all the time. Are we willing to do the hard thing? And learn to be mindful?

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About the 200 Words Project

The Rope and Tire Logo

Sun, 24 May 2015 03:33:25 GMT

Rope and Tire has a brand new logo now!

I had planned for a logo even before I started writing here at Rope and Tire. But I didn’t know what I wanted in the logo, the imagery, the colors, the style and never got down to it at the start.

Over the past few days, I had an idea of what I wanted – the rope and tire swing. I just had to decide what kind of a tree the rope and tire swing was to hang from. Looking online, I saw a bunch of trees, I was inspired and drew a few sketches on paper. Of those paper sketches I liked, I drew the finalized sketches on my smart-phone using the free SketchBook Express App. The final two selections, I saved the sketches and emailed the .png files to myself.

I then edited it in GIMP.

Then came the arduous, exciting, heartbreaking task of deciding on a font. I always love and hate choosing fonts. I finally decided on the free Philosopher font.

And voila! The Rope and Tire logo!

The Year without pants – Best book in April (2015)

Fri, 22 May 2015 15:00:16 GMT

Here is my April 2015 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work by Scott Berkun is my pick for the best book I read in April.

I first heard about this book when listening to the Tim Ferriss interview with Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame. A couple of days after I finished listening to that podcast, I saw the book in the library “NEW” book shelves and I got it. I quite liked the book.

What’s it about: It’s a peek into how the company Auttomatic works, and about the people there. Or those who work in big corporations, this might be a refreshing peek on how someone can earn a living. You get to know a little more about Matt Mullenweg and his beliefs. But you also learn some management concepts and ideas,

What I like:

Easy to read. Interesting. It is like a huge book-sized advertisement for working at Auttomattic and I like it. I also liked how Scott explained some management concepts, and the open-source ethos.

But the most valuable thing in this book, for me, was Scott’s explanation of how they run projects at Auttomatic. The ideas of smaller, faster projects: faster to implement, faster to fail, faster to improve, the internal processes which they follow at Auttomatic – like writing the support page and announcement first, the challenges of project endings – these are what I can use on my personal one-person projects as well.

The techniques and tricks used in Auttomatic, as this book mentions it, can be extended to you the individual contributor (or a small team) to make yourself prolific, productive and increase the quality work of you work as you define it.

Who should read this:

If you are interested in business, how businesses are run, if you are entrepreneurial minded, if you think you like working from home, then you might find this book interesting. If you are a tinkerer, a creator, someone who has “side projects”, this book might very well be useful for you.

The value of the book lies in the fact that it is almost like a Project management, Employee management course for people like me who do things on the side by themselves for the fun of it. Since doing things for fun is definitely not easy, and definitely requires some management and processes.

AT the least, the book is still a fascinating peek into how a very different company than most of us work for works.

Highly recommended

Format:

Kindle EBook – The Year Without Pants

Hardcover – The Year Without Pants

Audiobook – The Year Without Pants

Public Library – Check here to see if it’s available in your public library.

Short guide to a joyful, happy, productive, satisfying day

Wed, 20 May 2015 15:00:05 GMT

How to plan a joyful, happy, productive, satisfying day?

1. Limit the number of “should do” tasks in our days – chores or stuff you think you should do because you are procrastinating

– I should clean the sink everyday (though I don’t enjoy it all that much)

– I should attend meetings at work today (though I don’t enjoy it all that much)

– I should clean the cat’s litter box today (though I don’t enjoy it all that much)

– I should check my email (though I just checked it 5 mins ago)

– I should “do research” on that topic (though that is just an excuse to browse)

2. Make a couple of “love to” things mandatory in our day – the stuff which at first glance seem frivolous / take too much time/ I would do it if I was not so busy (doing only should dos) – but once past the excuses, these actually make our day, have the power to change our mood, and are essential to our mental and physical well being.

– I love to climb (but I generally don’t get time for that – but I did it today and it makes me happy)

– I love to take long walks (but I generally don’t get time for that – but I did it today and it makes me happy)

– I love to write (but I generally don’t get time for that – but I did it today and it makes me happy)

– I love to do yoga (but I generally don’t get time for that – but I did it today and it makes me happy)

3. Force ourselves to do at least one “can do” task – invariable these are hard, fulfilling, long term focused which give us a sense of achievement. But the satisfaction for these can sometimes be delayed since they can be quite tough and might make us hit our boundaries

– I can study today (it’s tough, and I really want to but I’m afraid at how much I suck at it)

– I can cook today (it’s tough, and I really want to but I’m afraid at how much I suck at it)

– I can meditate today (it’s tough, and I really want to but I’m afraid at how much I suck at it)

– I can be mindful today (it’s tough, and I really want to but I’m afraid at how much I suck at it)

On my ideal, happy days I follow this and limit the number of “should”s (since the “should”s never end) Make sure I have at least one “love” to (a couple is awesome!) and definitely try to add one “can” in my day.

Onetastic Macros for OneNote – My Cool Tools #2

Mon, 18 May 2015 15:00:43 GMT

Tool: Onetastic Macros for OneNote

Cost: Free

Type: Digital, Software

Works On: Windows Only

Needs: OneNote

Download Link to Macros: Onetastic Macroland

This tool is an addition, an extension of OneNote and adds much needed functionality to OneNote.

Some of the Macros I use all the time:

Insert Monthly Calendar – This is an awesome macro which inserts a monthly calendar onto your one note page. I use this to create calendars for my reading, cooking, learning and activity logs. e.g. Look at my Reading logs posts .

Search and Replace – This macros helps search and replace text in the current page, section or notebook. I use this once in a while.

Word Count – Perfect for my morning pages or daily writing where I try to write a 1000 words. This macro helps me count the number of words. The lack of this functionality was why I looked at other digital note-taking software.

Word Count Selected – Counts the number of words in the selected portion of text. I use this heavily to count the words when I write my 200 words project posts

Sorting Macros – I use the sort pages and sort sections macro among these macros. I generally use them in my recipes notebook where I sort my recipes in alphabetical order.

These are just a few of the macros in Onetastic. If you use OneNote, you should definitely take a look.

Drawbacks: Works only on Windows. Not available for Mac OS X or phones. It would be awesome to have these functions replicated for OneNote on Mac.

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About My Cool Tools

“Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. “

– From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

My cool tools are the tools I use regularly and I really like. In this series of posts, I want to share my cool tools and review them. All cool tools in this blog

March 2015 Reading Log

Wed, 13 May 2015 15:00:23 GMT

Here is my reading log from March 2015. This month, I binge read the entire series from David Eddings and read only one non-fiction book the entire month! Talk about reading indulgence.

My book of the month was The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

I also very much enjoyed the first two books in “The Paper Magician” series by Charlie N. Holmberg. Looks like the third book of the series in now available on Amazon and amazon Unlimited

The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Series, Book 1) – Paper Magician Series, I

The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician Series, Book 2) – Paper Magician Series II

Here’s my reading log.

The lies of our lives – 200 words project

Mon, 11 May 2015 15:00:24 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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Carl Jung put it perfectly: “Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life,” he wrote. “Worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will by evening have become a lie.”

**

– Dani Shapiro in Devotion: A Memoir

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This quote from Carl Jung seems appropriate at almost any phase of life. We are all no longer as young as we used to be. But we are all, still, younger than we could be. What changes us is not just the time passing by but also the steady stream of experiences, responsibilities and aspirations which change along with age and phase of life.

When I was 20, I thought I would live life “this” way. And I am still trying to live life the way I thought I should at 20. But time has gone on ahead. I am older, I have a family. I have a job, I have a mortgage. I have the pleasures of being independent and of freedom and of earning a fair living. I have the additional responsibilities which come with that. But I still cling to the desire for life the way I envisioned when I was 20. And it feels like a cop-out to actually change my vision of life from what I decided for me at 20.

But what I have to remind myself all the time is that at 20, I had no clue what responsibility meant and what are the joys which come along with it (oh, yes. I do find some aspects of responsibility enjoyable). At 20, I didn’t have enough experiences, hadn’t met enough people, hadn’t done enough things, hadn’t lived enough life to actually know about what I was talking about. I didn’t know myself as well as I know myself now.

And so, isn’t it a sign of a smart person who updates when new information trickles in? Just sticking to something because it was “decided” even though it contradicts the newest findings sounds quite crazy and delusional.

And this challenge is going to continue as long as we live. At 60, the wishes of 20 might seem comically absurd, but the wishes of 40 might seem painful because they were not so far off. But they will still be a lie at 60.

And here is an HBR article I found interesting which talks about midlife crisis – which is what Carl Jung is talking about anyway – Why so many of us experience a midlife crisis

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About the 200 Words Project

Climbing trip to Smith Rock – packing list – May 2015

Fri, 08 May 2015 15:00:27 GMT

Yes. I have finally accepted it. I am a pack rat. I have almost never traveled light – any where, not even to work. However my interest in minimalism and simplicity have pushed me in the past year or so for me to at least try to be less of a pack rat. But nobody promised me that simplicity would be easy.

So one exercise which helps me in packing list is this:

making a pre-trip packing list a few days, preferably a week before the trip
Sticking to the list ( or at least updating the list when packing)
Noting down what was used and what was not used during the trip
Do a post-mortem of my list afterwards – what I did right, what I did wrong, and how should my packing list be next trip.

Of the above 4 steps, I have done Step #1 5 times so far. The rest, only once before. Here is the next attempt in my journey towards being a light packer.

Trip Details: Climbing trip to Smith Rock State Park, Oregon

Purpose of trip: Climbing

Duration: 4 days and 4 nights

Method of travel: Flying in to Redmond, OR and a rental care there

Accommodation during trip: AirBnB

More notes: I’m going with friends. An adults only, girls only trip. A friend and I will be pooling our heavy climbing equipment into one bag and checking it in. I plan to take some photos of us climbing and possibly some dusk photos of Smith Rock. I plan to download photos everyday and write my morning pages – so I need my laptop. I read before going to bed and on the flight. So my Kindle goes with me.

Given this, my packing list is as follows and my post-mortem notes are highlighted in red – what not to bring and green – what to bring

Seasonal rhythms

Wed, 06 May 2015 15:00:43 GMT

The idea of seasonal rhythms and routines is a very interesting one. The idea is to tailor your rhythms to your seasons of life. In certain seasons, the routine needs be packed and stricter – narrow and dense and piercing. In certain other seasons, the rhythm is a slow, undulating, deeply satisfying thing with fewer items in it- broad and fragrant.

But how do you go about identifying these seasons? What have my seasons been?

Calling these seasons of the heart is almost as valid as calling them seasons of life since, in my case, it is almost dependent on my internal desires and how much I heed them.

The ‘spring’ of my heart – is the season where I have all my goals identified and I am working on them happily, exuberantly. But at the same time, I am playing – climbing and cycling to keep me fresh and happy. There is a bounce in my step and everything seems so easy to do, and so exciting. There are almost no chores in my life in this season – all tasks, everything is fun!

And then the ‘summer’ of my heart – the season where slowly, my greed for doing more, for being more overwhelms my common sense. I am still doing everything but the bounce is gone. I am almost dreadfully focused on goals and everything starts becoming work. The play, the things which feed my soul slowly start disappearing from my daily life. During the dog days of summer – everything seems such a slog, so difficult to do.

And then the winter comes suddenly – where I abandon all my goals and I just rest and rest and rest. My mind, my heart, my entire being needs a break from the constant doing of summer. After resting enough, I start playing and playing only. Everything seems barren on the outside – but deep within new seeds are sowed – all the playing calms me and prepares me for next cycle to begin again.

When the seasons of the heart are so different, my daily rhythms should complement the season. It is when I try to force one rhythm to al seasons – that is when I get into a whole lot of trouble and causes exhaustion and overwhelm.

So have you thought about the seasons of your routines?

☂☂☂☂☂☂☂

Photo is a beautiful saucer magnolia which blooms outside my house.

OneNote – My Cool Tools #1

Mon, 04 May 2015 15:00:30 GMT

Tool: OneNote

Cost: Free

Type: Digital, Software

Works On: Windows, Mac OS X, Android phones, IPhone

This is my first entry in My Cool Tools. Fittingly, this tool is about the written word: OneNote

I use OneNote extensively, many times a day every single day. I started using OneNote back in 2011 and bought my first copy then. Over the years now I have tried other note taking apps – from plain old Notepad to Evernote to some Sticky Notes. But I have come back again and again to OneNote.

It is pretty much my digital notebook which I use to record, maintain and organize everything I write. Some examples:

– A notebook which hosts my recipes, with sections for my tried and true recipes, recipes to try, and recipes I hated

– A notebook for my GTD pages and collection, old GTD archives

– A section for my reading, cooking, activity and learning logs

– A notebook for my shopping lists

– A section for my morning pages

– A section for my blog drafts, a section for my posted posts,, a section for miscellaneous things…

All my notebooks reside in the cloud on SkyDrive. I have OneNote installed on my office laptop, home laptop and phone. And they can access the same notebooks and make edits. I just love the convenience of cloud sync. I love the fact that all my written stuff, all notes to myself – that are all in one place.

Drawbacks: Privacy, since the notebooks reside on the cloud. I wish it had better functionality on the Mac OS X version.

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About My Cool Tools

“Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. “

– From Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools

My cool tools are the tools I use regularly and I really like. In this series of posts, I want to share my cool tools and review them. All cool tools in this blog

The Art of Asking – Best book in March (2015)

Fri, 01 May 2015 15:00:01 GMT

Here is my March 2015 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer is my pick for the best book I read in March.

I first found out about Amanda Palmer like a lot of other people on TED Talks. Actually that’s not true. Sometime last year, I read Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” and fell in love with that book. And when I looked him up, I found that he was married to a singer, an artist – Amanda Palmer. I downloaded their An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer and enjoyed it. At about the same time, her Ted talk came out and I was hooked. Of course, I had to read the book when it came out. And the decision was emphasized when href=”https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/11/amanda-palmer-the-art-of-asking-book/”>BrainPickings featured the book and recommended it as well. As soon as the library bought the book, I put in a hold request and got hold of it last month.

So, with such recommendations and hype, how was the book? Very enjoyable. I really enjoyed reading it. I know I marked out a great many lines for future reference.

It is about the Art of Asking, as the title suggests, and about Amanda’s life. But it also has some of her lovely poems. It has interesting insights on what it means to be an artist, on what it means to be an engineer-artist who work full-time in the workforce. About what we expect of people and how our upbringing shapes our expectation. About social media, about controversy, about philosophy and her life experiences.

The book is written in an interesting format. It has no chapters, just short essays. Actually more like a series of interconnected blog posts, which adds to its charm.

It makes reading this book easy. You can read it all in one sitting or you can read it in short bursts. It does make it hard to reference quotes – since for that I generally use chapter headings for it.

What I like:

Written in a blog-post format. Very different. Can be read in small bursts. This means Amanda can get away with writing about anything and everything which interests her – without having to subject herself to the tyranny of chapter titles, and without boring the reader. Her life stories, her thoughts, her experiences and her philosophies are all interconnected but almost self-contained – as we move from one section to another. Her style of writing comes across as open, honest.

Who should read this:

If you are interested in auto-biographies, memoirs, if you like to read about the lives of the rich and famous. If you are an artist and are wondering how to make a living. If you are an artists and wondering how to get people interested in your work. If you are curious about relationships. If you want to read some nice poetry. And of course, if you want to learn what exactly is Amanda asking and how to ask in your life as well. If any of this catches your interest, you should read this book.

Other Interesting Links:

BrainPickings talks about this book – Amanda Palmer on the Art of Asking and What Thoreau Teaches Us about Accepting Love

Amanda’s Interview with Tim Ferriss (podcast) – Amanda Palmer on How to Fight, Meditate, and Make Good Art

Amanda’s Ted talk (video) – The art of asking

Overall this book is highly recommended.

Format:

Kindle EBook – The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

Hardcover – The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

Audiobook – The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

Public Library – Check here to see if it’s available in your public library.

Climbing with a toddler – Three takes

Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:00:18 GMT

Take 1:

About five weeks back, on a Sunday afternoon my husband and I dared to try to climb in the our “home” gym. We decided to top rope with our two year old daughter. Just the two of us. No other adult to help watch her while one of us climbed and the other belayed.

Our “home” gym is Planet Granite in Sunnyvale – which gets crazy crowded depending on the time of the day. On this day, the gym was fairly crowded at 3pm. But we were feeling brave (foolhardy you say?) and decided to give it a try anyway.

We decided to try the “reason and activity” approach. While roping up, we told my daughter not to run around, not to get into other people’s stuff, not to go bother everyone else etc… But of course, this two year old decided to do exactly what we asked her not to do and started running around right away. Luckily, I had a notebook and a couple of crayons in my purse. We gave her these and told her that Mamma and Papa are going to be climbing. You need to watch us climb and then draw us climbing.

That worked! For our second and third climbs, we moved to an area called the “Ice Box” which has one “wall” which are really shutters opening to the outside where she could un, along with a few other older kids.

All in all, we got three climbs each, and it was fun. It was slow, a little scary, but we did it.

Take 2:

So two weekends after our first but successful trial climbing in the gym, we decided to try it again. We packed up and left from home at 11.30am on a Sunday.

Even as we were entering the gym, things weren’t going well. This two year old decided to repeatedly ask for milk – like a broken down tape or a scratched CD (remember those?). We gave in and gave her the milk cup. Then she wanted more. Then when we were roping up, she saw some other kid’s toys there in the gym and wanted to play with them. The said kid or the parent wasn’t around and so we told her no, and instead gave her the toys which we had got from home.

I was able to do my one warm up after which my daughter had a full blown tantrum. Yikes! And I got so upset that not only could I not climb, I was on the verge of a tantrum myself (not pretty!). Of course, we just packed up and left.

This is what I learnt from a post-mortem analysis of this unsuccessful attempt: Timing, parental mental state and indoor- outdoor space need to be considered. Let me explain.

The first time we went, it was at 3pm – my two year old had finished her nap and was well fed. The second time, at 11.30, she was sleepy but too excited to sleep in the gym. The first time parents were in an awesome mood, but the second time I was hungry and not very patient. Also, the second time we went, it was raining outside – and we didn’t have access to the indoor/outdoor space near the Icebox area. So for future attempts, we came up with these three Rules:

Rule1: Make sure we don’t climb during nap times. A well rested, well fed kid is important if we want to climb

Best times to climb for us – around 10.00AM or around 2.30PM on weekends.

Rule 2: Parents need to be well rested and well fed to deal with cranky tantrum throwing two year olds.

Rule 3: Try to climb in an indoor / outdoor area where if she needs to run to burn energy, she can do so and not put and others in danger.

Take 3:

After the botched second take, we have actually climbed in the gym twice, one a solid 2.5 hour session , and the next time a fast one hour session but each of us did about 6 climbs. Both these times we were successful – we followed our three self imposed rules.

Why did I write such a long post? I hope if there are some parents out there who are despairing if it is even possible to climb with toddlers, I want to give them hope that maybe they can. They will need to experiment , and give it a few sessions until a scheme which works for them falls into place.

Climb on!

What is failure – 200 words project

Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:00:29 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“For instance, if you’re driving a car, and after three hundred miles the car runs out of gas, no one takes offense because the “failure” is inherent to the car, not to you. It’s not your failure to operate the car correctly. We all know that you have to refill the gas tank; that’s just the way it is. So if we think of failure in innovation in the same way—as having to refill the gas tank regularly—we can take it much less personally.”

– Sebastian Thrun in Make Your Mark: The Creative’s Guide to Building a Business with Impact (The 99U Book Series)

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This is one of the most beautiful and easily understood analogy for failure that I have come across.

Applying this analogy to my personal failure – of updating this blog as per my published schedule – I can indulge in self-flagellation for this sin, feel useless and give up.

Or, I can understand that this aspect of failure is built-in to me as a human. It stems from the fact that I cannot do too many things at the same time. Also it stems from the fact that I am still learning to be a professional in blogging. And then I need to recognize that this failure is really an opportunity, a lesson, a teaching which points me to where I should look at to improve next time.

From a diesel/gas car which needs to be refilled every 200 miles or so to the airplane engines which need to be refueled every 4000 miles or so to possible future cosmic energy powered space vehicles which never need to be refueled – this innovation can occur only once we hit the failure, acknowledge it and use it as the limit marker and then improve those points of failure, extend those constricting limits.

And all this can be done only if we don’t take it personally. This can be done if we look at it as a marker that it is, telling us “this is not the right path. Try something else” or “You are close but not there yet. Why don’t you tweak something and try again?”

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About the 200 Words Project

February 2015 Reading Log

Fri, 10 Apr 2015 15:00:28 GMT

Here is my reading log from February 2015. As you can see, all I read was fiction, and mostly fantasy at that. It was definitely a month of just reading indulgence.

January 2015 Reading Log

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 15:00:31 GMT

Here is my reading log from January 2015. My favorites among these:

– What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

– Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

– Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

– Book of the month for January was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo.

Here’s my reading log.

Rhythm vs. Routine

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:00:44 GMT

Rhythm vs. Routine

After losing my routines I have been trying to reestablish them. One of the articles which is helping me is this article at Slow Your Home on rediscovering my rhythm. Going through the steps here, I started wondering, what exactly is the difference between a rhythm and a routine? So I exercised my Google search muscles to find out.

My first stop was another article at Slow Your Home – Rhythm Over Routine where Brooke says:

“routine – a strict, sequential approach to our days.”

But she doesn’t really describe rhythm. She says this about rhythm

“Rhythm, however, was a much friendlier notion. It spoke of order, but also flexibility and movement and fluidity. It even sounded friendlier.”

Ok. But I still was still confused. Rhythm is friendlier and flexible than routine. But in what way? And so I started looking at what other bloggers have to say.

I found a better defined distinction here at (in)courage – Let the Rhythm Move You

**_“Routine: something cheerleaders did when I was in high school to 90s dance music. It had predetermined, robotic movements and it was either correct or incorrect, and it was obvious if you messed up. Routine focuses on rules and doesn’t like to be changed.

Rhythm: a frame of mind that suggests more of an art. If you have rhythm, then whatever you decide to do with intention fits in the dance. Rhythm feels like choice and nuance and paying attention to your surroundings. Rhythm is alive and open to adjustments based on the circumstance. Rhythm focuses on needs.”

_**

This is somewhat more precise. By this definition, my mornings are definitely ‘rhythms’ and not rules. But this definition still left me unsatisfied.

And then I found this definition in this post at The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking Creating Family Rhythm :

“I call our routine a rhythm because it’s not particularly scheduled. We don’t have a time that we do school, or chores, or even dinner. We have an order to things that helps us to flow from one activity to the next.”

So for me, a rhythm is similar to a routine – in that it is a pre-decided sequence of things to do. But there are no strict time bounds and no concept of ‘failing’. In my daily rhythm, the slower rhythm of some days means I skip some of the things in my ‘faster’ rhythm days and not have a sense of failure.

Losing my routine

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 15:00:23 GMT

I know I was supposed to start writing in the blog here two weeks ago. I fell off the wagon in Feb, and have been trying to get back on all of February and the early part of March. But this getting back has been very hard for me.

I have been trying to get back to my early mornings, my daily studying, my writing and other things, and I keep slipping again and again, frustratingly. I was wondering how to get back to my mornings, to my rituals, routines, and then I found this post at Slow Your Home – 3 Steps to Rediscover Your Rhythm. I thought I would go through the steps.

Step 1: Loss of Rhythm or lack of discipline

Am I just being undisciplined? Or is my rhythm out of whack? For about the first two weeks, it was lack of discipline. But now, no – I think something is truly wrong with my rhythm. Getting up early is good – but I need my 8 hrs of sleep. Yes, I should sleep early, but what to do when you are trying to put your daughter to bed at 8.00 PM but she fights it till 10?

Step 2: What’s new? What’s slipped?

Aha! Gold mine here. I have a set of new priorities. My highest priority right now is my well being and health – and this means getting 8 hrs of sleep, and playing everyday – climbing, yoga, hiking or biking – something. The other new thing I have is all the domestic chores of cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. – the everyday stuff, which I got a break from in December, January and February.

There have also been changes in the amount of works I need to do, and mostly my health – for some reason, I feel more fragile than ever before – both mentally and physically.

This is definitely an area which is going to take some exploration and figuring out.

Step 3: Be Kind to yourself

Yeah, this took some doing. But now, I think I am at peace with where I am at – at least I have stopped berating myself.

Now, to move on to exploring the changes and re-establishing my priorities.

The life-changing magic of tidying up – Best book in January

Sat, 28 Mar 2015 15:48:18 GMT

Here is my January 2015 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo is my pick for the best book I read in January.

On the surface, this book appeared to be just another book about organization / cleaning / minimalism / simple living. But as I got into the book, I realized that the author’s perspective was very interesting, different and thought-provoking.

I would summarize the book as follows:

You should love your possessions and the things you use. If you don’t love them, then you shouldn’t own / possess / have them.

Think of your possessions as you would think of people and honor them , respect them, consider their feelings, give them fresh air and space, and if you can’t do justice to them, then let them go.

Basically think of owning clothes / possessions etc. from the point of view of the item (not your point of view) – kind of like Woody’s perspective from Toy Story rather than the perspective of the little boy (who owns Woody).

What I like:

Easy to read. Once we get into it, the book gets quite interesting. The perspective is very different and as you read, you start think how the author’s advice can actually be used in all parts of life – not just the tidying up part.

Who should read this:

Persons who are interested / already into the ideas of simple living or minimalism or streamlining their lives and reducing their possessions will find this book useful. It is also useful for those who think they are messy / cluttered and don’t want to be that way any more.

What will you get from this book? The general guideline on how to choose / own / discard possessions. The author also gives quite a few suggestions for categorizing possessions and how to deal with each category.

Format:

Kindle EBook – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Kindle Version

Hardcover – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Hardcover Version

Audiobook – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Audio Version

Public Library – Check here to see if it’s available in your public library.

Cyclical nature of my goals

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:00:00 GMT

There seems to be a set pattern I follow. There is a period of setting goals and striving and straining to meet them. This period starts with ambition and thoughts of success and also with hard work. But at some point devolves into tunnel vision. The achieving is towards the metrics and not the actual thing itself. Towards the end of this period, there is exhaustion and burn out, discontent towards the

world and everything in it.

Then comes the period of rebelling, of giving up on goals. Of not doing anything at all, of seeking comfort and of self pity. But also of reset. Of trying to regain perspective, of trying to get in touch with myself and understanding the person I have become now.

As this understanding grows, the heart becomes lighter. Play and relaxation become more important. And the goals are almost forgotten. But then, this play only phase is not satisfying and the goals and dreams start…And the planning starts and the goals are formed… and the cycle begins again.

February, sickness and regaining perspective

Wed, 04 Mar 2015 15:52:30 GMT

In the first week of February this year, I had a bout of migraine attacks which left me crippled, whining, crying, curled up in a fetal position. There was nothing to do other than wait the attacks out. And try to prevent them from occurring again.

What did my migraines teach me? That I was completely stressed out – and it was my own doing. Late November, I decided on my goals for 2015, and I started diving myself mercilessly towards them. After about 2 months of striving towards those goals ,day in and day out, And I was so tired. Add the inevitable wrenches life throws in the way – sickness in the family, discontent at work and the house breaking apart – I was so tired.

And when I needed a break, or took a break, I just goofed off and I just got mentally more stressed. And the more stressed I got, the lesser I was working towards these goals. And in this vicious cycle, my sanity saving exercise habit – cycling / climbing / yoga took a hit. And my grounding habit of photography too, took a hit. And the situation imploded.

The upside of this is it once again put into perspective what is important for me. The goals are important yes, but not that important. The side projects, the self improvement projects are important yes, but not really that important.

What is most important? To sit with the afternoon sun on my back and drowse with my cat for a few minutes. To get up and luxuriously yawn and stretch and laugh. To just curl up with a book and read. And to just lie in bed and contemplate the horrible and funny popcorn ceiling in my house. To spend time with friends and family – talking, laughing and not fret that I’m wasting time.

The side projects and the career improvements and the self improvements are important but not more important than these. And I realized that it’s ok if I’m a serial quitter. It’s ok if I end up not doing anything worthwhile at all in my life, if I just start things, if all these projects I set out on are just beginnings with no endings. It is all ok.

And this is the great thing about sickness. It just reframes the whole entire world, and gives me just the perspective I need to lead a fulfilling life, my way.

Short Break …to smooth the rope…

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 21:12:29 GMT

I apologize for the break in regular schedule here at Rope and Tire. Sometimes, the rope does get knotted…

Between sudden weird migraines and LASIK surgery and craziness at work, the posts here stopped. I promise, I will be back on regular schedule in March (that is, next week!)

Relaxation, learning and touch-typing – 200 words project

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 16:00:12 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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**“And work itself, after a while, takes on a rhythm. The mechanical begins to fall away. The body begins to take over. The guard goes down. What happens then?

RELAXATION

And then men are happily following my last advice:

DON’T THINK.

Which results in more relaxation and more unthinkingness and greater creativity.

– Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

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The best example I have of this process which Ray talks about, in my life, is in typing. I am learning to touch type.

I went through school and college in that unique period where typewriters were outmoded, and PCs, “computers” were rare enough that I never took any typing classes. A decade and some later I find myself typing a lot, every single day, using a homegrown weird two hand, five finger system – two fingers of my left hand, three in my right. And I have to type looking at the keyboard.

This situation I found in equal measures, sad, funny and humiliating. And so I finally decided to teach myself touch typing.

The challenges of teaching yourself touch typing, when you are typing all day to make a living are enormous. When you try to touch type all the time, it is too slow, too hard. And you fall behind on work. And your fingers hurt. And it takes a huge amount of will power to actually follow through – which depletes you will for the other tasks.

And so, I decided to focus on touch typing for 5 minutes a day, for one month. After that, it moved to 10 minutes in the second month. And the third month, 15 minutes a day, every day. It has now been about 6 months. I still struggle. But I am much better at it.

As I was writing my 1000 words for today, I realized that the above sequence which Ray Bradbury talks on how to more creative, applies to achieving excellence in all manners of tasks and skills and abilities, and it mirrored my progress on learning touch typing too.

The progression seems to be something like this:

The student wants to learn and starts learning to touch-type.
The student takes classes but struggles to implement it all the time.
Every time the student wants to touch-type, she is tense and paralyzed that she doesn’t remember the position of the keys, that she is making mistakes, that this is so hard and slow.
Over time, with practice, the student gets over the paralysis part, and starts remembering certain keys. But the typing still remains tense – the brain is still trying to think actively (and this is very tiring) on where the next key is.
Over time, the student remembers most keys most of the time. But the typing remains tense – the student is worried about accuracy, about making mistakes, about not remembering what to type. She still needs to somewhat think about the placement of the keys.
After some more time, the student hits these periods of grace, these times when the act of typing is almost like breathing, instinctive, habitual and easy.
After a few more of these moments of grace, the student starts relaxing when typing. The elbows are not locked. The shoulders are low and relaxed. The neck is not tense. And the more relaxed she gets, the more competent she becomes and the easier it becomes, and more relaxed she gets.
She is now an excellent touch typist, one who seems she has typed this way forever!

And so the progression – learning to fear, to no-fear, to relaxation, to competence – to more relaxation, to excellence – this seems to be the arc we follow in all our activities – be it typing or creativity or meditation or cycling or calculus. This process seems to reflect on the huge impact emotions have on how we learn.

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About the 200 Words Project

Process for personal projects

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 16:00:01 GMT

Some people have troubling starting personal projects. Some others have trouble finishing these personal projects. I am of the latter category.

This is the way it works for me: I get started with one project. And about the first third mark of the project, that project spawns a few more side project ideas, which I will jump into enthusiastically, immediately. And those projects, at their one third mark spawn more – and so and so forth.

And the first project languishes unfinished. All these unfinished projects haunt me day and night. And this leads to the other problem I have – the inability to quit these projects which are not useful, which I am not interested in any more.

I realize that this is not an uncommon problem. And the way to deal with this is to go on with the first project and not sidetrack into these branches. So simple right?

But some of these side projects, in the past, have been awesome and were the most useful, fun. So what to do?

To deal with this, I am experimenting with this approach / process:

When I get an idea for the first project, I

First create a new folder especially for this project

(OneNote notebook section or Evernote notebook or a section of a paper notebook – whatever I am using at the moment).

Write down, in this notebook, before I start the project – what is this project about (the description), why am I doing this project (the motivation), what will I gain from this project (the benefits), and what will I lose by doing this project (the cost).

(Preferably I write longhand in pen and paper first, and the copy it out to the digital notebook. This cements my thoughts about this project even before I start out)

Before starting work on my project, I split it into 3 parts, mark the one thirds part, the two thirds part and the three thirds part. I put this in my notebook.
Assign timelines – write down how long do I think it will take to finish this project

(I try keep timelines real, not ideal)

Then start work on the project.
As I start the project, any links and thoughts about this project – I write down diligently in this folder – in a section called links and thoughts. Each link and thought is dated.
As and when new ideas for side projects come up, they will first be written down in a section of this notebook called “Side Projects”. These ideas will also be dated.
Then the important step – go back and check the timeline of the current project. Am I at the two thirds mark? Yes, then decide if I am going to quit this current project or am I going to finish.

If I am going to quit, then quit and go do the side project. If not yet at the 2/3rds mark, just shake my head at myself and continue with my current project.

At the end of the project, I am then free to follow the side projects.

So this is the process I will follow from now on.

I am hoping that by this process, most of the thinking and motivation is done BEFORE I begin the project. At any time in the project, if I am undergoing a motivation slump, then I can go back and refer to my initial motivations. Also, this process helps deal with the fear of missing out on my side ideas – all side ideas are documented in detail, dated and resources linked, so I can go take a look at them later.

So why divide the project into thirds and not quarters, you might wonder. That is my psychology. I generally give up projects at the 1/3 mark. If I reach the 2/3 mark, I generally finish them. So it is quite important to know yourself when coming up with your own process.

So that is it for my process. Do you have your own process? Do you even need one?

Listening with fresh ears – 200 words project

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:00:18 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project

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“A fixed idea should never prevent you from listening to something with fresh ears; it’s too easy to miss a lot that way.”_**

– Denise Shekerjian in the book Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born, author Denise Shekerjian

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This “fixed idea” is most prevalent, almost ubiquitous (at least in my life) when dealing with family – children, spouses, parents… When they open their mouths, we think we know them so well that we complete their sentences in our heads. And we think we know exactly what they mean, even before they complete their sentences. And most times we may be right.

But what about those few times when we don’t really know them and they are trying to tell us? These few occasions are precious gifts which we throw away because we already “get” them, and we don’t really pay attention.

So, my practice is this – to let my family say their words completely and listen as if I’m meeting this person for the first time, as if I don’t really know them that well. The truth is that I don’t really know this exact person in front of me. I know this person from the past – from yesterday or an hour ago. But I don’t know this person right now…for all of us change moment to moment. And this fixed idea in my mind – that I already know this person – doesn’t let me be with the person and understand this person.

But this listening with fresh ears, this practice comes with it’s own cost. When you go about listening in life this way, while listening and paying attention to the only one person in front of you at this times – this leaves no room for multitasking. Which might be a good thing after all.

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About the 200 Words Project

The no-snooze experiment

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 16:00:44 GMT

I have been not waking up as early as I want to.

With a toddler in the house, if I don’t get up early enough, it means that I don’t have enough alone, quiet, peaceful time when I am fresh and energetic – to do my stuff. Yeah, I can get evenings, but then I am too tired to do any of the hard thinking or doing.

As I was wallowing in my dissatisfaction and self-pity yesterday, I came across this article on 99U – “Your Snooze Button is Making You Tired“.

Mind you, nothing new about the article that I didn’t already know. But sometimes, the re-iteration of what you already know at the right time is what is important.

And so, as I read it, I am telling myself, “Yeah! I want to be one of those people who wakes up at 5.30am irrespective of what time they went to sleep”. And so I have decided on the no-snooze experiment.

Starting February 1,2015, I will, for 90 days – till May 2, 2015, wake up at 5.30am everyday. I will set my alarm everyday for 5.30am and wake up right away – no snoozing allowed. Once I wake up, I will be up for at least 4 hrs before taking a nap. Only outs for me – extreme sickness or medicine caused drowsiness.

I’ll check back and report every 20 days or so.

This is going to be an interesting experiment.

May 2015 Update: I give up. I have failed at this experiment and I still snooze!

Modesty or fear? – 200 words project

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 16:00:09 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“If you’re not proud of it, don’t ship it. If you are, sign your work and own the results. We’ll know who to thank. If you work for a place where work goes unsigned (internally, in particular) it’s worth asking why.”_**

– Seth Godin in ** Sign Your work

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I have an aversion to signing my work with my name. Why is that?

I used to think that signing my work is akin to boasting to the world that I did it. But is claiming my work same as boasting? And so I realized that was not it. That was the excuse I used, but that was not the reason.

The reason I don’t is fear – When I do sign my work, I am actually opening myself up to the criticism of the world, to mocking and laughter and I am not ok with that. Each critic, each condescending look, each “really? You think that is good?” or mocking laughter feels like a little death. And so, because I fear these negative feedback, I cover it up and call it modesty to soothe myself. (The adult version of infant thumb-sucking?).

But why do I fear negative feedback? Maybe it is because I am extremely possessive about the work I create, almost as if it is a reflection of me? It is maybe because I have not yet learned to let go of the creations. The creating act is personal, yes. The creation was mine yes, but once done, it is out in the world, it is its own. It does not belong to me.

And so I tell myself and start the process of opening up about what I do and what I make and what I dream.

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About the 200 Words Project

Endless variations or Why I Blog

Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:00:44 GMT

This week, my usual posts are suspended as I take part in the Your Turn Challenge. As a part of this challenge, those of us who participate are committing to a daily post for seven days, starting today January 19th to January 25. You can read the posts of other participants here. Why am I taking part? Because – I want to get unstuck.

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“One theme with endless variations.”_**

– Denise Shekerjian quotes Alfred Steiglitz in the book Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born

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I feel like that with this blog. It almost feels like I’m talking round and round about the same thing, trying to come at something from as many angles as I can, from as many perspectives as I can come up with considering my limited brain. And I will continue to do so.

What is unknown is this – what exactly I am trying to say?

With this exploration of what I think, what I believe, what my perspective is at the current moment, and how I am reacting. With what I am reading now and how its influencing me. With this, maybe in the future, I can map out my own sub conscious and maybe make sense of it all. Maybe I’ll know myself someday.

Till then, all I can say about my blog is this – it is an exploration of my mind and subconscious.

And what I see, and think and believe one day, may not be the same next day. In fact they might be contradictory, and that’s ok. Maybe through this exploration I can get a sense of the real rules I live my life by, the ones I actually follow, and not the ones that I think that I follow,. After all, that is why we write isn’t it?

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“What are we trying to uncover in this flow? The one person irreplaceable to the world, of which there is no duplicate. _You. As there was only one Shakespeare, Moliere, Dr. Johnson, so you are that precious commodity, the individual man, the man we all democratically proclaim, but who, so often, gets lost, or loses himself in the shuffle”_

– Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

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Tactics for “I don’t feel like working” days

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 16:00:18 GMT

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Yesterday was a very bad day productivity wise. The day started of great. But by about 10 a.m. I was caught right in the middle of my feelings.

I didn’t feel like working. I felt guilty that I was not working because I had so much to do. I felt angry that I had to work and could not take it easy. I tried but failed miserably – to just do and not feel. Then to make myself feel better, I binge ate lots of not-so-good-stuff which made me feel even worse. And the entire day was gone in listening to the craziness of my feelings.

Today, I was thinking about what went wrong yesterday, about how sometime sin the past I turn around such days and actually get my work done. So I decided to list the tactics I have collected from others and which I have used successfully in the past, which have worked for me use to circumvent this uselessness and procrastination caused by my feelings.

To just ignore feelings is not an option for me. Some days I am successful in not listening to my feelings. But some other days, I fall for the same old game. Such days, when my will power is low, and my feelings are not pushing me in the right direction – those are the days these tactics are the most useful.

So here are the tactics I use on good days:

Get my normal amount of sleep (8-9 hrs.) and wake up at my normal time (Yesterday I got up much earlier at 4.30 – I am building this new habit, and I got after 7.30 hours of interrupted sleep. Basically I woke up with 50% less will power than I generally do!)
A predictable morning routine. Nothing more, nothing less than the usual morning routine (Yesterday, I had to write 3400 words in the morning, to make up for a lack of words / lesser number of words the previous days, plus penalties Doing this exhausted me and my will power, it seems).
Set up my daily 5 stars – I have this habit of typing down the 5 most important things I need to do for the day, and when I do each thing, I give myself a star – a way to focus on the most important things to be done. (Yesterday, instead of writing it fresh, I just copied from the day before….Does not work. The act of retyping seems to be very powerful.)
When caught in the “I don’t want to do this” feeling loop, I generally tell myself “Just do it for 2 minutes. If you don’t want to do after that, you can quit”. ( I obviously didn’t do this yesterday).
After 2 minutes, if I still don’t want to do it, I drink a glass of water, use the bathroom, and try again. Three tries, and if I don’t want to do it, then I can get up. (Nor did I do this yesterday)
Get up and then go for a walk and drink water. A walk in the fresh air seems to clear my mind beautifully and air out my bad feelings. After that try again. (And not this either)
Even after the walk, and the two minute tactic and a retry of the three times tactic, I can’t bring myself to work, then it is time to call it day and go do something fun.

(Yup, didn’t do this. Instead of letting go and doing something else, something fun, yesterday I wallowed in guilt and self pity and pretended to try to push through, and finally gave up and zombied to click bait on the internet))

Drink a lot of water that day. I feel like if I don’t drink enough water on a given day, my will power does not recharge to pull the following day! (Anyone else like this?)

As you can tell, yesterday, if had paid attention, the start of the day would have told me what kind of a day I would have had, and that I would need to use all my tactics.

The unfortunate part is, on the days I need them the most, I seem to forget all about these tactics. So I’m hoping, by writing this post, I have guidelines for the next time I need to use these tactics. And maybe it might help you who are reading this too.

How to stay away from overwhelm

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 16:00:40 GMT

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It is my nature to get enthusiastic and so into something that I get over ambitious and over-plan and over-extend – to such a manner that I get overwhelmed. And then I give up and have to take a break from it. And come back and start over again.

That is crazy isn’t it? So much starting and stopping and starting and stopping.

So what might be a better approach for me? At first thought, it might be moderation. But then just trying to moderate my enthusiasm is very time consuming, tiring and counterproductive. The enthusiasm and the excitement completely die down – which hampers my creativity. The advantage of the momentum is lost.

The better approach might be to monitor my feelings closely, and when this enthusiasm is on the edge of pushing me to overwhelm, to then dial back, just a bit. Kind of like a speeding race car driver – who has to go fast, on the edge, but still on this side of control.

To do so, I will first need to be mindful and monitor myself carefully. Self knowledge and presence is key. Secondly, I need to totally trust my feelings and instincts. The minute I detect a slight “Oh no! Do I really need to do so much? Maybe this isn’t so much fun any more…”, I need to give myself a break and not push so much.

Easier said than done, of course (like everything else….is a practice.)

On exercise

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:00:32 GMT

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After a strenuous workout, it is amazing how good a body feels. The luxuriousness of aching muscles. The beauty of that heavy ache. It is almost languorous to move – with that aching body, and when every movement sends waves of aches (not pains) through, the mind congratulates the body on a task well done, on being pushed to do its best, on doing what it is meant to do.

In return the body smiles a shy little smile thinking to itself, “Oh brain, now you notice me? Now you are not completely caught up in spinning your wheels to go nowhere! Now that I am pushed to my limits, and you got a break because I needed all the blood, you are happy?. You are welcome, even though you don’t know enough to thank me!”.

And no such days, the sleep feels so well deserved and so deep and so good. Lying down, being supported by the earth. Heavy, yet the lightness and deepness of sleep enveloping you lovingly. Heavenly.

Why is it then, that I have lost my habit of exercise?

Books

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:00:37 GMT

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Books are so amazing and I am grateful for this gift – the love of reading – bestowed upon me.

The world is never boring with a book in hand. While reading the book, a good book, the ‘real’ world around you starts taking on the hues and colors of the book. I start noticing around me, what the author describes and writes in the book. In those really good books where the characters are powerfully and beautifully put forth, I have realized that I start to subtly behave similar to the character I most identify with. When I first realized this, I was taken aback, shocked and a little spooked. But I have now accepted this part of reading and it has become a fun game to be aware of my behaviors and notice when I manifest the book-influenced behavior.

It is not just the reading of books. I am most content working, studying writing at my desk, where I can see my beloved books. Over the years I have been trying to not just accumulate books – but only those I really really love. But what can I do if I love too many books?

There is a satisfaction in holding a paper book and reading it. But I enjoy reading on my kindle too. And my smartphone and my PC. I think I read flyers and road signs – anything with words, I can’t help but read.

I wonder if the other readers out there – do you react so emotionally and viscerally to books as well? Is your world when you are reading a book different from the world otherwise? How are your visceral reactions to a book/ I would love to know.

On relationship perspectives

Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:00:50 GMT

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There is a huge difference in attitude when I think of them my in-laws as my husband’s parents and as in-laws.

The minute I think in-laws, my brain it seems, is flooded with the stereo types , the stories and the culture of the relations between mother-in-laws and father-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, the stories and dramas between them. And the crazy part, the absolutely insane part is this: these thoughts are nothing to do with the people they are – or the person I am. It is just the mythology and the beliefs concerning that relationship, and how the stereotypes, however much you ignore them, pollute your perspective.

On the other hand, when I think of them as my husband’s parents, the shift in my thinking is profound. They become more human. And the individual behaviors are just that – just individual behaviors and nothing else. The actions are that of another human being, of another person who has seen more of life than I have. And the actions of someone with a different culture and a set of values.

When looking at them as my husband’s parents, the relationship is not so very personal but infinitely more human, more caring and more accepting.

It’s quite amazing to me, how the framework, the lens I use to look at people matters so much to my mind and thoughts. Look through the right lens and so much humanity and kindness can come through.

I wonder how the mythologies and my perspectives are affecting me in matters of gender, of race, of orientation and other hot button topics.

The Hill

Mon, 19 Jan 2015 15:00:27 GMT

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Every Sunday morning, we join hundreds of other people in walking up this hill. The gatekeepers keep everyone out till the sanctified hour approaches. 6.30 am. The gates open. People start walking. The way is very steep in some places, just steep in some places and pleasantly sloping upwards in some other places. Up and up and up, the path goes.

As the mass of people start, we all break up into groups…walking with our friends and loved ones. Some groups race to the top. Others meander … each footstep goes onward upward. We see the light at the top, what can be our destination. The sun rising.

As we walk, we talk. In this morning of the Sabbath, we talk about our worries, our angers. We talk about our sadness and our hurt. We talk about how we judge ourselves unworthy and try to give each other solace on what appears to be a fruitless existence, this daily toil, this constant struggle for me and mine and food and nourishment. Is this all life is, we wonder…

As we pass one group, they are talking about their worries, and we laugh…”Oh, so trivial! They are complaining about that?” And then we pass another group, and overhear their worries. We tell ourselves, “We need to be greatful we don’t have those worries!”. We pass yet another group, and we say “Ah ha! They are in the same boat as us”.

As we talk about all our worries, I wonder, what does the hill make of all these troubles it listens to? Does it care? Does it worry? Is it annoyed? Is this path made of just worries?

We reach a point where we decide to turn back. And our footsteps trace the same path we used to get there, but just downhill. Is it the downward incline, or is it that we have emptied out our cesspool of toxic thoughts? Whatever it is, there is a spring to our step and lightness to our bearing. We talk about all the good things happening to us. We are thankful, for what we have. We look with hope and promise and anticipation and gratitude for what’s coming. We make plans, we make promises, we tell each other new paths we might explore. We comment on how beautiful this life is, and what a gift it is.

As we pass another group of people going down, overhearing their hopes, we smile and think “May you be happy.”. Another group, excited, gesticulating widely. We smile and think “May you be safe”. More groups of people are running down, talking loudly, excitedly, pumping fists in the air. “May you be strong. May you be at peace”.

I wonder, is the hill happy for us? Did we clean out the toxins we left in the path with our own happiness? Does the hill think us silly, for not knowing our own minds? Does the hill care that we use it in this way?

We reach the bottom and time to get on with our lives. And I have one thought which doesn’t leave me. I wonder, we go to the hill for clarity. But where does the hill go?

December 2014 Reading Log

Sat, 17 Jan 2015 16:00:57 GMT

Here is my reading Log from December 2014. I read 18 books last month, but a lot of those were binge reading fantasy / science fiction books. Among the fiction I read,

I really enjoy books by Lindsay Buroker. I also enjoyed In the Skin of a Nunqua by R.J.Pouritt.

I would also recommend Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born by Denise Shekerjian, V Is for Vulnerable: Life Outside the Comfort Zone by Seth Godin and Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity by Ray Bradbury.

Of course, my book of the month was What to Do When It’s Your Turn by Seth Godin.

Here’s my reading log.

Forgetting how to laugh

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:00:25 GMT

I have succumbed to this problem of adulthood and only now do I realize this. I wonder when I fell contracted this illness?

I realized recently that I have this insidious form of amnesia – I have forgotten what it is to laugh heartily. I have forgotten what it is to live lightly. I have forgotten humor. My mind is filled with all the seriousness of adult hood. It is filled with all the pains of adulthood. And all the not so happy memories – these I am unable to let go. And when I do finally let go of some of them, I seem to collect more pains in that emptied space. And the good memories just slide of. Where are they sliding away to? And why do I struggle oh so hard against these pains rather than just accepting them as a part of my adulthood?

And so now I wonder how do I go about curing myself? The easy answer is to just laugh. But when the laugh isn’t from deep in your heart, it does not help.

And so this year, I begin my search for the lightness of being, for the laughter and joy which all the books tell me is right here somewhere around me.

Hungry about life – 200 words project

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:00:42 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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**_“To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. If not, it is a little late to start. Better late than never, of course. Do you feel up to it?

It means you must take long walks at night around your city or town, or walks in the country by day. And long walks any time, through bookstores and libraries.”_**

– Ray Bradbury in**Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity**

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On the question of how to live life, how to inspire creativity, Ray suggests this – that hunger of life is essential.

I wondered what Ray means by being hungry about life. And I decided that it means someone who wants to experience life – and in this digital age – the real life as well as the digital life. One who wants to explore all the senses. One who wants to sit around looking at people, just because one can. Someone who will just sit in a park, just because. And go window shopping. And explore that mountain. Someone who doesn’t mind getting wet or damp or a little uncomfortable. Someone who looks at people around behaving and instead of anger at why the world isn’t the way she wants it to be, is curious and amused by the way the people behave. Someone with an empathy for the human condition and all its silliness.

The question for me then, is how do I become such a person, who is hungry about life. Ray’s prescription on how to be hungry- the minute I read his words – bring up all these excuses of “Oh, I don’t have any time. Who does that anyway?”

And so I know his prescription is spot on. His suggestion to just walk along everywhere everyday, looking, combined with my own definition of what the hunger for life means to me, should help care for my muse.

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About the 200 Words Project

What To Do When It’s Your turn – Best book in December

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 16:00:19 GMT

Here is my December 2014 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

What To Do When It’s Your Turn by Seth Godin is my pick for the best book I read in December.

December was a good month in reading. I binge read a lot of science fiction and fantasy. But I read some really good books of other kinds as well. Among those I read, “What To Do When It’s Your Turn” has been the most hard-hitting and inspirational.

Disclosure: I am fan of Seth Godin. I read his blog and have read his other books. I decided to treat myself to a paper book in November and decided to buy this book. Once I got it, I couldn’t wait to read it. So I opened the package, dropped the second copy off with my friend, and sat down to read it. (They sent folks a two copies even if you ordered one). And all I could read was about 4 pages.

This book is hard hitting – so much that I can only read it in chunks of 4 to 6 pages, even for my second and third reading. Anything more and I physically feel tired, mentally overwhelmed and cannot absorb what he says. Over the month though I completed the book in chunks and I seem to reach back for it every other day.

What I like:

The format is very interesting. The book design is quite different and beautiful. You can just flip through the pages and read the bold quotes and highlights or you can just read the essays. You can start and end wherever you like as well.

Seth says a lot in a few words. He showcases interesting quotes.

The book is inspirational, a kick in the bottom kind of book. I used this book as a kind of index to go read about the other people mentioned in this book.

Who should read this:

I would recommend this book to the do-ers who are in the cusp of doing something big (for them), or wannabe do-ers, or people who need inspiration while doing their doing.

(I would actually recommend people not interested in doing to stay away from it). I would also recommend this book for folks who think they need to enhance the creativity in their lives, creativity in whatever and everything they do on a day to day basis.

Depending on what stage of doing you are in, you might be inspired, or you might feel like a pile of stinky trash waiting to be taken out. Either way, it will motivate you to do something for the better.

What will you get from this book? I got a sense of how hard, bad, doing stuff is, but why we should do it and some mechanisms of coping with issues which will definitely pop up on the way.

I highly recommend the book (to the do-ers of course).

Format:

Paper – <a https://www.yourturn.link/**AudioBook** –

The emptiness within

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:00:44 GMT

The emptiness within – is not big. Just like a small pail. Which needs, really needs to be just about halfway full. But the pail’s bottom has been cut off. And so however much you channel to this pail, however much trickles in here, it never gets full.

It’s not earth shaking – this emptiness. It does not ruin everything or cause life to stand still. But it never lets you rest in peace either. Whatever happens however happy the situation, the event is masked in gray, just a bit – but enough for you to notice it. You settle down and are calm and this empty pail hints at you ever so slightly – that it wants to be filled up, just about half way is ok. Can you not do that? This little thing?

How do you go about life like this? You can never ignore that pail. It’s consistent cries for help, it’s very smallness, it’s very reasonable request makes it such that you cannot ignore it. But then you can never satisfy it’s request either – the bottom has been cut off and you can’t reach in to replace the bottom or the pail….and it can’t grow back.

The Privilege of Life – 200 words project

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 22:15:04 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project

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“First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded to us. Life asks for rewards back because it favored us with animation.”_**

– Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

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Nothing in life free. Life itself is not free. We are given LIFE – and that is a gift and a privilege, as Ray says. Given this ultimate gift and this ultimate privilege of life, isn’t it rude to expect anything else just handed over to us? If we look at our lives from this point of view, we realize that we have to not only work for the rest of our needs and wants, we must also work at giving back.

How do we pay back, or pay forward – by helping the people around us, the community, the universe? This should be a question of our lives, and fortunately the answer is easy as well. We just give back what is given to us – use our capabilities, our creativity, our minds and hearts not only for our benefit but also to the benefits of all.

We can treasure these gifts which came along with life, treasure the creativity each one of us possesses and let it come to life, but never brag about it because it is not ours – this creativity and creating of beauty and happiness is our way of giving back.

And this is why art and music and culture and open source and uncopyright and non-profits exist right?

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About the 200 Words Project

Happy New year 2015

Fri, 02 Jan 2015 16:00:27 GMT

Wish you all a very happy new year, a year hopefully filled with fun and growth and learning and creativity and all that those imply!

Thank you for coming along and reading what is essentially, for me , a way of growing for me via navel gazing i.e. sub conscious gazing. I really appreciate all your comments and encouragements. Thank you.

Goals for 2015

Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:00:01 GMT

Goals for 2015.

Here are my goals for 2015. These are goals for the year, the way the mountain peak is the goal when you start off on the trail at the foothill – a guide to where I think I want to go. The trail is sure to change, to twist around, to appear to take me in the opposite direction. As long as I am on that path, I should be good.

This year, to set goals, I consciously and probably subconsciously too, put to practice the stuff I read through the year.

From Tynan’s Superhuman by Habit – the concept of habit loading.

From Zen Habits, Tynan, Seth Godin, Steven Pressfield, Anne Lamott and others- the power of everyday habits, on looking long term.

From Warren Buffet and others – of culling and simplicity.

And many more I don’t recall right now.

To get to what you see here, I made a list of all the things I really want to do this year, made a list of who I would like to be, sorted the list in terms of what would be fun to do, what is essential for my sanity, what will be useful long term. And then came up with this list.

Apart from the ‘new’ goals, this year, I have added a column on things to sustain which began this year – since sustaining these are an essential part of working on the new goals.

After coming up with this table of goals for 2015, as recommended by Tynan in Superhuman by Habit, I am writing down, in longhand, why I have decided on each of these as goals, what are the pros of doing it and what are the cons. These are for later in the year, when there are going to be dips on the road and I am tempted to give up on these goals.

Work Goals	Personal Goals	Fitness Goals	Things to sustain
* A challenging, fun project for work – which has the power to change my life, if I so dare.	* Run SoFoBoMo again in 2015 – Jul 1 to Aug 31. And follow through on planned improvements if possible.	* Top rope 5.12a at Planet Granite before Dec 31, 2015.	* Continue to write 1000 words daily.
	* Decide a design house and release new free themes under here for Flogr (and maybe WordPress and maybe Drupal).	* Start a daily yoga practice – minimum of 6 Suryanamaskar sequences everyday.	* Continue minimum 2 mins of meditation daily.
	* Start a daily photography habit as per article on The Online Photographer – The Digital Year.		* Continue to post 2 new posts a week on Rope and Tire, plus the two twice a month series.

Year end reflections – 2014

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 17:25:53 GMT

Looking back at 2014, it has not been a showy year full of big bold shiny achievements. But it really has changed my life for the better. It is a year which leaves me with a sense of contentment, that satisfied feeling where you know you have tried your best, and the results whatever they may be are satisfactory, and now you can just sit by the fire and relax and enjoy your wine.

This is the year where I re-learnt again what fear is, and how to dance with fear. And not just any dance. A beautiful dance of ever-widening circles of space and growth. And sometimes instead of fear, I danced with sadness. Sometimes it was excitement, sometimes joy, and sometimes, it was just me – whirling around – round and round. And as I danced his year, with the warm sun upon my back and a cool breeze whispering in my ears, the secret smells of fragrant jasmine and rose, I also grew.

Little by little. One whirl, one scent, one step, one tear at a time, I grew. A little older, a little wiser, a little more I know myself.

This year I have mostly woken up early and worked in the morning, other than when I did not. I have relearned the power of writing everyday, of sleeping for 8 hours at least everyday, of reading everyday, of cleaning everyday, of meditating everyday.

Yeah, I pretty much learnt the power of everyday – how a small thing done everyday for 2 mins, 5 mins – 30 mins can change you over the course of the year.

I learnt how to do more by taking on less. I am learning creating space in my life, space in my mind, in my goals, in my heart, in my actions, in my wants and needs. This welcoming and creating space, I suspect, is something I might be practicing for my whole life. How can us tiny humans with tiny bodies and tiny monkey minds ever be like the vast wide open sky? But that is the path for me.

So, I feel the need to list my ‘achievements’ for this year – more like markers on my life path.

In January (and Feb and March) I taught myself Ruby on Rails hoping to create a website on it. I did. Then I tossed it in the trash, for it was not good enough and recreated my website for SoFoBoMo using Drupal.
I restarted SoFoBoMo this year (check out sofobomo.com) with a huge help from the old SoFoBoMO community and a lot of people. I hosted it on WebhostingHubcom, the site is in Drupal and the blog in WordPress, files hosted on Amazon AWS and domain names via hover.
I am learning a lot more of web development.
I closed down my photoblog this year – something I had to do a while back , but only found the courage to acknowledge that it was dead and close it late this year. I had to do this to create space for the other stuff in my life.
I went on my first weekend out my myself to Pt. Reyes – almost 2 years after my daughter was born. I re learnt the magic of solitude, of the waves, of the ocean, of the birds and sunset and cold and dark and the moon and stars. I rediscovered who I have become.
I started writing more here at Rope and Tire, gave myself a sustainable schedule and decided to indulge myself in writing about my life, my subconscious and what I am thinking about daily. I also learnt that I am not one of those people who can magically write on stuff and so took Rohan’s idea and adopted it to become my “200 words project” series.
I learnt and am practicing a better way of reading, with kindle highlights, stickies, notes and summaries thanks to Maria Popova and Tim Ferriss (Podcast – Maria Popova’s note-taking system. [31:45] ) , Ryan Holiday – Remembering what you read, Ryan Holiday – Read to Lead , BrainPickings – Virginia Woolf.
I have started exploring a minimalist / voluntary simplicity mindset and rediscovering my relationship to things and objects.
I tried Project 333 for clothes / dressing earlier this year and learnt a whole lot about dressing and my attitude towards it.
I made so many new friends and rediscovered some old ones. Here are some of them, with whom I hope you get to acquaint yourself with:

– V Is for Vulnerable: Life Outside the Comfort Zone by Seth Godin

– What To Do When It’s Your Turn by Seth Godin

– The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

– Superhuman by Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time by Tynan

– How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell

– The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

– Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts

– Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey

– Shepherd’s Wolf by M. Andrew Reid

– The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie

– The Dalai Lama’s Cat and the Art of Purring by David Michie

– The best from Tor.com series:

○ Some of the Best From Tor.com, 2013 Edition: A Tor.Com Original

○ Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2012 Edition: A Tor.Com Original

○ Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2011 Edition: A Tor.Com Original

And so what didn’t I do this year? Here are some of my areas to work on which didn’t work out so well in 2014.

Anger – I have not been very good about seeing that anger is my way of expressing my indignation that the world isn’t doing exactly what I tell it to do.
Letting Go – I’ve had trouble letting go – of dead feelings, of dead things, of stuff which has moved away, of some ideals, of some behaviors even though I know they are bad for me / that they are long gone.
I sacrificed fitness for weight loss for a long while, and it took a toll not only on my physical fitness but my mental stability and calmness and creativity too.
My help / service for SoFoBoMo has not been what it should be. The blog is not what it can be, and the technical problems on the site are not fixed yet.
I did not cycle as much, climb as much, or give my yoga practice enough time this year.

But these are all small quibbles, and a map charting where I should be looking at in 2015.

Gods and midgets – 200 words project

Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:03:17 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“The people there were gods and midgets and knew themselves mortal and so the midgets walked tall so as to not embarrass the gods and the gods crouched so as to make the small ones feel at home. ”

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– Ray Bradbury says in Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

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What a beautiful thought. Can you imagine such a world, when no one calls on another person for their supposed limits, a place where everyone puts themselves in another person’s shoes and tries to see from the other’s point of view? A world where each one is sensitive to the other and so tries to adjust himself or herself in order to make the others comfortable. Would you like to live in such a world? Does such a world seem like the Utopia everyone seeks?

In this world where gods crouch and midgets walk tall, what happens when a god for some reason decided to be herself and forgets to crouch? Or when a midget gets tired of walking tall and decides to just be? In such a case, will this town of people look upon such a god and such a midget with horror? Will this god and this midget be ostracized for not toeing the line, for not fitting in? What if in the process of contemplating the wonders of the world, a few Gods and midgets decide that crouching and walking tall is not important and decide to forego this? Will this group, a minority then have to fight for the right, the privilege of just being? Will they be looked down upon and considered as outcasts from the society?

I see why Ray talks about all the sadness and happiness in such places – for it seems to me, however ideal a situation is, it always has an aspect of sadness to it.

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About the 200 Words Project

November 2014 Reading Log

Sun, 21 Dec 2014 18:44:34 GMT

Here is my reading Log from November 2014. I didn’t read much last month, but read some really nice books. I really enjoyed these three:

Here’s my reading log.

Apocalypse Mentality

Wed, 17 Dec 2014 16:00:25 GMT

A friend, during a conversation about her travels told me something like this – ” When I travel I just do these things you know, go check out the best, must see, famous out of the way spots. I just search for the top ten things to do and schedule my days to cover as many of those places and things as possible. I don’t really like to rest. Since I am there for only a short period of time, I want to see as much and do as much as possible.”

When I heard this, my reaction was ‘Aha! You have the Apocalypse Mentality”. And I sure recognize this – because I used to travel this way as well, used to live my life this way before. Before, because nowadays, I don’t know – something has changed..

I came across the term ‘apocalypse mentality’ for the first time in Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts.

It is the way of living like this is the only time you get to see the place, like the only time you get to live. Because after this one time, there is the apocalypse, and you can never ever be there again, never ever live life again.

Another friend of mine lives her life this way too. “Life is short. I want to do so many things. I don’t know how long I will live. So while I’m alive, I don’t want to waste time. So I try to do all these things. So I really don’t have any time to rest. Since resting is wasting time. ”

All very valid points. We really don’t know when we die. We don’t know what happens. Time is really short. And I totally see the point in this. After all, this is the productivity argument right?

I used to be a believer in this apocalypse mentality. But of late, I am not so sure that is the way I want to live my life anymore. Productivity is good. But how about presence?

Since this is the only time I’ll be doing it, how about just relaxing through travel, relaxing through life rather than being in a hurry to check that box and move on to the next thing?

How about travelling with the mindset that since I am here, and don’t know when I’ll be here again, let me plan these activities, and then these spaces between the activities, these opportunity windows to just savor the travel expeience and luxuriate in life?

How about seeing and living and really feeling and really enjoying…rather than living life like a series in a checklist – check one, and off to the next without a pause, without a backward or forward glance, without a breath?

From my Pocket – Mid December edition

Tue, 16 Dec 2014 16:00:19 GMT

Here are 5 links which have inspired me, made me think, made me wonder last month.

1. When Peace Goes Away, it Doesn’t Make a Sound by David at Raptitude

The connection between paying attention and reacting positivel,peacefully to the annoyances around us.

2. A Peter Corollary by Seth Godin

On upward mobility in today’s organizations and its relation to self confidence.

3. How To Do What You Love by Paul Graham

Relation between ‘work’ and ‘play’ and how the definition is all messed up and what to do about it.

4. What’s the Point, If We Can’t have Fun? by Robert Wringham at The New Escapologist

Need for fun.

5. The Art of Richard Thompson – A Vimeo video by GVI James Clear

An amazing, moving video on the cartoonist Richard Thompson. Found this link on The Online Photographer

6. Writer as Coder: The Iterative Way to Write a Book by Leo Babauta

A very interesting perspective on a way of writing books – inspired by softwrae development methodologies.

Hope you enjoy the links!

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From my pocket

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A line from the Talmud – 200 words project

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 16:00:20 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“As she speaks about her plans, quietly and with assurance, a line from the Talmud comes to mind: If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I?”

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– Denise Shekerjian about Dr. Joan Abramson in the book Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born, author Denise Shekerjian

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If we never take care of our own basic needs, if we don’t take care of our own mental health, if we are never our own champions, if we never pick ourselves, then who will?

A horse can be led to the water, but cannot be made to drink – as an often quoted quote says. And so it is important that we take care of ourselves, make an effort to know ourselves, our needs and wants, and we take that step towards ourselves – because nobody else can.

On the other hand, the other extreme, if we focus exclusively only on our needs, our wants and desires. If we completely forget to care about the other people in this world. If we never step up to help someone else, never help to lead the horse to the water so it can have an option to drink. If we never pitch in to make the world a better place, then who are we? Are we even human? Can we respect ourselves then? Will we be happy even if we get all that we need and want? Is that a desirable way to live?

At first glance, the two ways of living, might appear contradictory. But are they? Without me fulfilling my daily needs, I cannot possibly help myself. And one o the basic needs of us humans is connection, and love. And for that we have to help others – maybe just the near and dear one s- but help we must.

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About the 200 Words Project

The Obstacle is the Way – Best book in November

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 16:00:02 GMT

Here is my November 2014 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

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**The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph **by Ryan Holiday is my pick for the best book I read in November.

I didn’t read much last month. And among what I read nothing just stood out. However this book I read in October which was so good that I have to absolutely recommend it. It is “The Obstacle is The Way”.

I first read about this book in the Tim Ferriss book club , and then I saw this video interview of Ryan Holiday with Nir of Nir and Far. And at the same time, the book became available in my library.

This book was so good that after borrowing it from the library and reading the paper version, I bought the kindle book and reread it twice. Yeah – three times in a month, the last reading finished in November.

What I like:

It is a short book. A bunch of short essays with examples and stories, based on the writing of the Stoics. These essays punch you in the gut, give you your clarity of mind, and cut through all your excuses – valid or not. It is also a very easy read. You can just flip the pages and pick one essay to read, no need to go along in a sequential manner if you so choose.

Who should read this:

This book is a great one for those of us who are suffering from either a lack of motivation or a lack of energy or from the inertia of not having done something. The book will make you look inside yourself and figure out if

Is this what I really what?
Am I really going to work at this with the intensity it requires?
The excuses are useless, just do it.

I highly recommend the book.

Format:

Kindle ebook – The Obstacle Is the Way – kindle version

Hardcover – The Obstacle Is the Way – hardcover version

AudioBook – The Obstacle Is the Way – audiobook version

Public Library – Check here to see if it’s available in your public library.

Slight Loneliness

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 16:00:13 GMT

Is it true that, without sadness or loneliness, or some sort of melancholy mood, creativity – the poetic beautiful poignant kind does not strike? Or is it because in sadness and loneliness, we are stunned and pause to recognize the beauty in these emotions? Do sadness and slight loneliness makes us more sensitive to beauty in everything?

Like an albatross. With the wide wing span and it’s solitary wandering over the seas. Is it solitary because of its wide wings and it’s awesome abilities? Is it because the wing span is so wide that the closest it can come to someone – is still too far away?

Or is it because the albatross, so immersed in its gliding, contemplating the open seas and the open skies – doesn’t even see anyone close to it? Does the albatross, when it happens to come on land, feel imprisoned. Does it’s fulfillment lie in the wanderings, glidings and contemplation of wide open spaces? And in its slight loneliness.

Am I saying I want to be an albatross? I fear that I am a pebble in the shore slowly being eroded into sand… who once saw an albatross and is in awe, and deluded itself that it is an albatross, and now chafes that it is not.

Putting it out there – 200 words project

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:00:01 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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“He wrote a cantata every week. Some weeks he was tired. Some weeks he was sick. But every week he wrote a cantata. Sometimes he didn’t have much time so he copied stuff he wrote before. And they’re not all as good as the others, but the point is this: he put it out.”

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– Dr. Stephen Jay Gould about Bach in the book Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born by author Denise Shekerjian

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How many of us are closet artists or closet painters or closet programmers? How many of us in the deep dark recesses of our homes, offices want to become writers or singers or composers but don’t tell anyone about it, and worse not even try to write or sing or compose?

And for those of us who do overcome the ‘I suck’ mentality and actually write or bake or compose, we hesitate to put the stuff out in the world. Even anonymously. There is a fear whispering in our ear – “This is crap. Everyone will laugh at you”. As if being laughed at is equivalent to death.

We fear that we are not good enough or original enough or clear enough or just afraid to put out our work.

But does it really matter? What happens when we just put it out there? In whatever form or manner? At the worst, people will laugh. Or might get ignored. Whatever. The power is in putting it out there. It is in just doing it and relinquishing control.

I wrote it, I created it. Phony, fake or trivial it might be. A copy of a previous cantata it might me. But it is still my creation. I needed to do it. It is done. Now let it live it’s own life and I can take what I learned from creating it to my next creation.

And what joy in such creating – where you create and free it, to be what it will be, what it can be, what it is destined to be.

And then you can focus your attention on the next creation, waiting, crying, straining to be born, to be created. If they like it, great! They can enjoy it freely. If they don’t like it, they are free to ignore it. Their views are not a reflection of me or who I am – because my job is the creating, as much as I can create, as best as I can create. And putting it out there. That is a part of the creative process too.

And so like Bach and like all other artists through the ages, put your creations out there.

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About the 200 Words Project

Letting go of Habits

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:00:55 GMT

Some things we do every day. These things become habits automatically. Or it would make our life easier if they did become habits.

But if you are looking to add habits to your arsenal, which one to choose? There are so many out there. Waking up early? Meditating every day? Writing everyday? Learning something new everyday? Reading everyday? No-connectivity time everyday? De-cluttering for 10 mins in the morning and evening every day? Stream of consciousness writing everyday? Exercising in the morning everyday?

There are so many desirable habits out there. Once you start wanting to improve yourself by learning new habits and making your life more productive, you feel like the desire to implement them all in your life.

It is very much like a shopper going out-of-control with the desire to acquire – in this case, the desire to acquire all these habits.

Then, the questions to ask yourself are these – Do you absolutely need this good habit? At this point in your life, under your current living circumstances, does it make sense to try to cultivate this habit? If so what are the downsides? Will it stress you out? Are you trying to cultivate this habit because of HAS (Habit Acquisition Syndrome) or because you think someone else has this habit and so you want it too?

Because not all our lives are the same – and not all our priorities are the same. Even the good habits take some doing – and every one of us don’t need to do every single thing.

For a while, I used to write morning pages – as suggested by Julia Cameron in ‘The Artists Way’. 3 pages of long hand, on paper. While I was writing them, they helped me out tremendously, and got me to this place today. However, today, that particular habit is very hard to fit in my lifestyle, and if I do I have to give up on more important things in my life.

Not that anything is wrong with that habit – it is a great habit to have. But given the limitations of my time and my lifestyle and my current phase of life, I prefer to use that half an hour to try to write a little more coherently – like this piece.

Through each day, each year, each phase of life, we pick up habits, and things we like to do. But what I needed to realize is that like everything else, when we take on a habit, it is not / need not be with us forever – though some habits end up that way. All habits need to be let go at some point, so I can try living my life without it, and see if it really adds the value I think it is adding to my life.

Maybe let-go of the habit for just a short while – like getting up late if we travel to a different time zone, or not brushing your teeth if we go camping and forgot our toothbrush.

This letting go lets us know why we need that habit, and if you decide that it is not adding value to your life any more, so be it. Who knows, someday, you might need to reach back to that particular tool, that habit – in your arsenal to reach the next level of the spiral that life is.

On starting new ventures – 200 word project

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 16:00:19 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project

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‘To do all this, you have to be crazy enough to think you will succeed, but sane enough to make it happen. This requires commitment, tenacity, and most of all, single-mindedness’

– Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg in the book How Google Works

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This quote from the book How Google Works is from a section where the authors talk about starting new ventures or re-inventing established ones.

This quote is timely, for me as I am on the cusp of formalizing a couple new ventures. I had a few ideas for a few projects or ventures and I started to explore the ideas mentally.

Once I decided to do something about them as in start them, I talked to a few close friends and family. The reaction I got was mixed – some were like ‘HaHaHa! You doing what? HaHaHa!’. Others were cautious – “Sure, you should try that, but do you have enough time? Are you smart enough? You should not let go of the security in your life yet.”. Some were completely disinterested. ‘Whatever. Can we talk about something else? I just don’t care about what you are saying’. And some were super supportive. ‘Awesome! Sounds great. You should give it a go. I bet you can make that idea successful’.

After this mixed reception, the fact that the ideas had not died, but made them stronger in my mind was a good sign.

And then I started searching for someone who would feel as excited about this idea, who could be my partner in launching these ventures…and found no one. This was perhaps the hardest part for me, the idea that this Big Huge Project, all by myself? Am I crazy? Should I take this on with my current responsibilities, with my current workload?

“You must be nuts!”, I told myself.

But then myself replied back saying, “Ok I am nuts. But why don’t you give it a try? I bet you will learn a huge amount of stuff. And you will succeed, you know, all you need to do is put in the effort every single day.”

And then, I said to myself, “Every single day? I am bad at that kind of commitment. I am lazy you know.”

And myself replied back to me. Myself is a little fond of bodily elimination function analogies, I must warn you. So myself said to me , “Work like how you poop. Every single day, and also when you need to. If you have an idea diarrhea, work a lot. If you feel constipated, get somebody to give you a motivational laxative, and then you can work a lot. It is quite automatic you know. Don’t worry about it’.

And so, supported by myself, and the few who believe in me, I have started to formalize my ideas and ventures.

So, from this quote from Eric Schmidt, I totally get the crazy part. My ventures are crazy because what a group has done before, I set out to do myself. And I am doing it while doing other things, and these may not be considered ‘safe’ and ‘secure’. But still, I know that they will succeed. They have to. And the commitment, I have that. The tenacity and single-mindedness, only time will tell.

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About the 200 Words Project

Slave to my schedule

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 16:00:34 GMT

Does this happen to you?

You want to create time in your life to do certain things. So you painfully setup your habits. You start learning to get up early in the morning. To sequence your exercise and meditation and writing and singing and wood-working and cooking in a particular order which works for you. You set up your schedule so that on most days you ‘hit’ most of the ‘targets’ you set for yourself.

These ‘targets’ or ‘goals’ are supposed to be good for you, are supposed to improve your life and improve your mind. They are supposed to help provide peace and comfort and a sense of well-being. And they do. Mostly.

And then the vacation you longed for, you planned for happens. Or you have unexpected friends visiting you. Or you fall really, really sick. Life happens.

And then you find that deep inside, somewhere you are resenting that vacation you have planned – resenting yourself because you are sick – thinking “Why should this happen now? I was working on learning these very hard habits and I almost had them. Now I can’t do these and it will set me back by so many days/months. Ugh.” And then you feel totally disgusted at yourself for feeling this way, for this resentment. Has this happened to you?

Well, what has happened is that you have become a slave to the idea of the schedule. Not to the schedule itself. But the idea. The idea that doing all these ‘things’, these habits which are supposed to improve your life, – these are the only things that make your life a happy one. And the insidious fear that if these habits fall off, somehow you are a worse person, that your life becomes meaningless, that taking a break is a sacrilege. That taking a break means your habits will be undone completely.

When this happens, it is time to take a step back and think. Why did I want to do these things anyway? To make my life better. If so, then why can we not welcome this break, as a way to test my new-formed habits, as a way to actually live life than live in this mental bubble of my ideal life? After all, being a slave to your habits – is this a good thing?

On dealing with Power, Stress, Burden – 200 words project

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 17:22:28 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project:

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‘The power he held never seemed to go to his head—neither did the stress or burden.

– Ryan Holiday in his book The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

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In this quote Ryan Holiday, is talking about Marcus Aurelius, ‘known today as the last of the Five Good Emperors’ of the Roman Empire.

I have always thought that when one is in a position of power, not letting that power go to one’s head and succumb to hubris is a sign of greatness, a sign of being level-headed in the powerful. I had never thought to associate this ‘greatness’ with how one handles stress and burden.

Never having dwelt on this thought, I used to think that stress is somehow a different creature than power. Stress is something everyone deals with somewhat magically – with stress coping mechanisms. I had never considered the emotional component of stress.

Now that I am writing this, trying to make sense of this quote, it is obvious, isn’t it, that Stress is in a lot of ways similar to Power – both have to be handled gracefully.

Stress and Power might be different in this – everyone has stress, but not many people have great Power – the kind given to us to change the world. But we all have the opportunity to learn to handle Stress gracefully in our lives.

And by gracefully, I mean acknowledging that it is a part of our life, that it is not going to go away, but that we can use it to better ourselves, and not to give in to its urgent emotional response of a sense of doom and ‘Oh why? Oh why me?’.

What about burden? This part hits me home – because I am very guilty of this. I take on a lot of responsibility because I enjoy responsibility. And then when things get difficult because I chose to take on too much, and the stress gets too much, I lash out saying – ‘Why should I do all this? Why me? This isn’t fair.’ and give in to resentment and anger.

I am learning that burden voluntary or involuntary is ever-present in everyone’s life. However, what one views as a burden can be a privilege for the next person. Not only that, life doesn’t know what fairness is – because fairness is a human concept. And fairness is relative as well.

So to just acknowledge that yes, I have this burden , this duty, this obligation, this privilege – and I will do my best by it, rather than whine and cry – this is my lesson.

After all, burden is the other side of a blessing right? .

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About the 200 Words Project

How I manage the things I want to do

Wed, 19 Nov 2014 16:00:37 GMT

In the introduction to the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey writes “How do you do meaningful creative work while also earning a living? Is it better to devote yourself wholly to a project or to set aside a small portion of each day? And when there doesn’t seem enough time for all you can hope to accomplish, must you give things up (sleep, income, a clean house), or can you learn to condense activities, do more in less time, to “work smarter, not harder”, as my dad is always telling me?”

This is forever the question, isn’t it? I have found that, that self knowledge helps me with this striving, this trying to do all that I want to, in the limited time allotted me.

The first thing I do is figuring out how I am wasting my time. Wasting as in spending time on something I don’t really enjoy. I don’t really enjoy gossiping with some colleagues or watching soaps on TV – and so, the time spent doing that is ‘wasted’ time. On the other hand, I love to climb. Spending two hours a day, three days a week, climbing is time well spent. Your criteria for wasted time might be different.

Next I analyze and categorize all the activities / projects / chores into ‘I really love to do’, ‘I need to do’ and ‘I want to do’ tags. This analysis helps make sure that I’m not just going with the flow. It ensures that I am aware of what I am doing with my time. It also ensures that I know the activities I engage in actually mean to me.

Of the three tags, the ‘I really love to do this’ stuff gets precedence in my life. If I absolutely love to do something, then I will make time to do it, no excuses. After all, why live life when given my privileges, I don’t make time to do the things that make my life worth living?

In the ‘I need to do this even though I don’t absolutely love to do this’ category, I try to figure out why do I ‘need’ to do this. ‘I need to cook today’ for food on the table, to provide healthy food for my family and to save money. On the other hand, the ‘I need to watch TV to relax’ is not really a need for me – because I can relax by reading a good book, or even better – by sleeping.

After this analysis of needs, comes the hard part – the analysis of my ‘I want to do this’ activities. This is hard because, even though by definition this category is nice-to-have-but-not-mandatory, this category is the one which causes havoc, which causes stress – because I want to do too many things.

I want to go cycle. I want to photograph every day. I want to cook everyday. And I want to learn Angular JS. I want to participate in that challenge. I want to eat out for lunch. I also want to workout at lunch. I want to go to that meetup. And then I want to read for an hour every day. Too many ‘want to do’ things in a 24 hour span. When this conflicts with the ‘love to’ and the ‘need to’, and I try to satisfy as many of the want to’s as I can, I run out of time and get stressed.

The solution then, for me, is to analyze these wants. Do I want to do X because I think it is cool? Or because it will help me later? Will it help my family? Will it help my career? Will it help towards my long term goals? Will it help other people? Will it make me happy just when I am doing it or will it contribute towards my long-term happiness?

This digging deep into why I want to do these things, and evaluating their long term impact on my life helps categorize these wants. Almost always they sort out into a prioritized list.

And so, it becomes easier to now allot time to the top things on my ‘wants’ list.

And then comes the hardest part – to let go of the rest of the stuff which didn’t make the cut.

This is hard for me because I am bowing down to reality saying I cannot do this. Accepting that though I might enjoy this, I don’t enjoy it as much as other things. Accepting that I am human, and my time is limited, my ability is limited. Accepting that because of this choice, I might not be able to hold down a water cooler conversation.

And so my life becomes manageable again. For a while.

Originality in writing – 200 words project

Mon, 17 Nov 2014 16:00:47 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project

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‘Ancient philosophy never cared much for authorship or originality – all authors did their best to translate and explain the wisdom of the greats’

– Ryan Holiday in his book The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

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So much of what we strive to be today, what is highly valued today is being original, being authentic. Everybody raves about that brand new thought, that brand new idea, that brand new start-up. Newness and authenticity seem to be the most sought after values.

So what does a person like me do? Not a original thought in my head. I do not know what an original thought looks and feels like.

After all, what I think, what I say, what I write, is in some form out there already. It’s out there in the works of ancient and modern authors, in religious and secular texts, in the particular culture I was born in, in the culture I was brought up in or am currently living in. In someone’s blog post , from what my friends or parents or family think and believe and say.

Should I be ashamed of this? Does the lack of originality make what I say absolutely useless?

What I do know is this – that what I write is processed. The words and thoughts which come out have traveled through my system, my brain pipes and have assimilated and emerged. But still, I feel insecure about my lack of originality.

This quote by Ryan Holiday gives me some hope. It boosts my ego by making me think that I may belong to this illustrious group of ancients who didn’t care about originality, who like me tried to assimilate and put forth in the best way they could.

True or not, deluding myself that I belong, comforts me and frees me to just think, just be and just write.

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About the 200 Words Project

From my Pocket – Mid November edition

Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:00:59 GMT

Here are 5 links which inspired me last month.

1. Lessons from the Eiffel Tower by Seth Godin

Oh what we can learn for the Eiffel Tower. Short. Sweet. inspiring.

2. You Are Not A Machine. You Are Not Alone. by Paul Boag at Smashing Magazine

On how we try to work long hours and be productive like a machine…

3. Be A Better Designer By Eating An Elephant by Alexander Charchar at Smashing Magazine

A very nice post on how to tackle huge, intimidating projects – which are absolutely essential to our growth, but in which we hesitate to engage with nonetheless. Though this article is written in teh context of learning to become a better web developer, the concepts and ideas are very useful in all life projects.

4. The Physics of Productivity: Newton’s Laws of Getting Stuff Done by James Clear

Excellent analogy. Quote from the article:

“Newton’s laws of motion reveal insights that tell you pretty much everything you need to know about how to be productive.”

and the laws are

_“1. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Find a way to get started in less than 2 minutes.

It’s not just about working hard, it’s also about working on the right things. You have a limited amount of force and where you apply it matters.

3.Your productivity is a balance of opposing forces. If you want to be more productive, you can either power through the barriers or remove the opposing forces. The second option seems to be less stressful.”

A must-read article._

5. What it takes to make good stuff in the world. Creativity, cadence, core desired feelings. by Danielle la Porte

Oh how we sometimes must let go of our plans to help do the stuff we really want to do, and more.

Hope you enjoy the links!

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From my pocket

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On Self-Observation

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 16:00:00 GMT

It is 3pm in the afternoon. Today has been an exceptionally unproductive day, as days go by – unproductive in the non-busy meaningful work. I have done quite a bit of work – but most of them can be categorized as busy work – almost mindless, to-do stuff, admin stuff which needs to be done but is not very important in the long term. The kind of work which you do as an excuse to not do the harder, more important work.

And so by afternoon, when almost half a day is gone – I realized this. This is quite a breakthrough.

Almost always, I would go on the way I begin the day. and on a day like this, it is only at bedtime or even worse, the next day that i realize that my day was wasted.

Self observation (or meditating or taking a break from your thoughts and feelings – whatever you might call it) helped me today. I realized that I am feeling lazy, entitled and righteous. ‘I don’t feel like doing that work. Can’t I just get a day off. I work so hard anyways and I deserve to just goof off. I am so tired. But still I am doing so much work. Why are you picking on me?’ says me.

And then I know that it is one part of me, the lazy part of me saying this – especially since there is a whiny quality to this mental complaint. It is not wrong to get a day off, but it is wrong for me, today, because I am just giving in to excuses. And I know this because if I was truly tired, I wouldn’t have enough energy to complain. I would just be asleep.

Observing myself, knowing that I am mentally weak today, showing compassion to my whining brain, deciding to not give in to my complaints and do just one meaningful task today – I can still turn my day around.

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“When we become practiced self-observers we are less likely to trip ourselves up by acting out our hidden feelings, less likely to repeat self-sabotaging patterns and more likely to have compassion for ourselves and therefore for others.”

– Philippa Perry in How to Stay Sane (The School of Life)

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Whom do you write for – 200 words project

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 20:11:22 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project.

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“Not to an audience or for publication but to himself, for himself.”

– Ryan Holiday talking about Marcus Aurelius in his book The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

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Marcus Aurelius wrote for himself, not for an audience. Maria Popova writes for herself, mostly not an audience. Tim Ferris wrote for 2 friends, not an audience. Leo Babauta wrote for some member of his family, not an audience. Lewis Carol wrote ‘Alice in Wonderland’ for his friend’s daughter Alice. And on and on.

It appears that when we write for someone specific – either our self or a friend or family, it makes a huge difference in our voice. And the writing feels personal and we do our best writing. It is when we try to write for an audience that the writing deteriorates.

Why is this? Is it because when we write for someone, we are being true to ourselves, we are using a voice this person understands? Is it because when we write for some specific individuals or individual, we think about them as we write.

And is it that when we try to write for an audience, we are thinking about ourselves – about how good this writing will be, how well its going to be received, how popular and famous it can be (or fear the opposite) – but the end person affected is us?

When we write for someone, we see their faces, or maybe we glimpse ourselves, and so it frees us from being ‘correct’, or ‘good’ or ‘shocking’ or ‘popular’. We don’t really need to try to conform to someone else’s ideas and can just be ourselves – and the ‘ourselves’ of this moment – not the ‘our self ‘ we used to be last month or we are trying to be.

Maybe this stepping outside what we need, what we want out of our writing and just writing for someone else, with the hope of entertaining someone, or learning ourselves better or even trying to help someone is what makes writing good?

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About the 200 Words Project

October 2014 Reading Log

Fri, 07 Nov 2014 16:00:19 GMT

I thought I used to read a lot. Then I thought I don’t read enough. Then I thought I read too much junk (read mindless fantasy /sci-fi). Then I thought I didn’t read enough ‘light’ stuff (read fiction). And then I thought I don’t read enough serious intellectual stuff.

And then I thought, why think when I can track? And then I opened a new page in One Note, and pasted a monthly calendar and started jotting down the title of the book, the author, and from where I got the book – these under the date I finished reading the book.

And now I’m sharing it. (Why am I sharing this?)

Design everything you do

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 16:00:30 GMT

I have been reading design articles for a few weeks now, on and off. This post at somerandomdude.com has some great tips. The tip which inspired this post:

Tip#3: Design everything you do

As in, to learn to be a designer, design all the time, design everything. As in, to be a photographer look for photos everywhere, take photos all the time..

The idea behind this is – if you are constantly trying to practice design, if you are constantly seeing photographs – whether you are designing or you are photographing, the eye and the brain will be trained.

We tend to fall into the trap of thinking that being a great designer or photographer is a natural ‘talent’ and only some ‘gifted’ people can be good at it. Of course, talent and gifts help with the first few steps, but what are talents and gifts if not honed and sharpened with a lot of training?

This is just like writing isn’t it? When you write anything, if all your writing – be it an email or a note to yourself, gets the same kind of attention as your best piece, you get your writing practice everywhere, and your growth as a writer accelerates exponentially.

So the, this is the key – to totally immerse yourself, wholeheartedly into whatever you are learning – this has proven to me to be the best, quickest most wholesome way to learn and get better faster.

By totally immersing oneself, not only do you get better but your perception of the world around you changes. All of a sudden you notice things which you have not noticed before like that ray of light on that one flower in a sea of dark green leaves, or that beautiful turn of phrase, or that exquisitely designed font which looks so good on that website.

Whether or not your photography or design skills or writing skills are good enough to make something beautiful from that observation one , just the fact of you observing new beautiful things is a breakthrough – now inspiration and ideas are everywhere around you and without your knowledge you will grow and get better.

Total immersion – by designing everything, all the time is the way for me to learn , and a fun way it is.

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Link to post: https://somerandomdude.com/2012/01/10/transition-from-development-to-design/

On Ideas – 200 words project

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 16:00:39 GMT

In the morning, have you ever woken up happy, with a smile on your face. A head brimming with ideas and projects? So many ideas and projects that you are exhibiting repressed energy symptoms even without your morning cup of coffee? That’s how I feel this morning,. And it felt good and I felt great. I have so many ideas and I am unstoppable.

However, there is this thought I never used to believe. That any idea by itself is worthless. A bad execution is worth 1$ and a great execution is worth 5$. A great execution of a great idea – worth millions. Ideas are just a multiplier of execution

Well, now I am a believer.

What happened to me is this. Most of my great unstoppable ideas – they all tend to fall flat when I try to plan the execution. That is right – not even try to execute – but just the planning phase for executing the idea.

And then there are a bunch of ideas which could be good. But to implement them , I need to collect the materials, research and write long-term before it can even materialize in the simplest format.

These ones seem to just die because however good the idea is, it takes too long or I don’t want to do that much work or spend that much time on them.

But then there are some ideas which stick around and refuse to go away and leave me in peace. I start and give up. But the idea refuses to die. So I start again and go longer this time, but give up. The idea still doesn’t go away.

At this point I give up. I say ‘All right idea,. You refuse to go away. So I will implement it this time, for good until you are satisfied and you leave me in peace’.

And the blog you are reading is one such thing. I have started a few written word blogs in the past, but never been able to sustain it beyond a month. But the idea never died. It has always incubated and come back stronger.

So folks, the moral of the story which I am making it up is this (making up the story? Or the moral? You can figure it out):

If there is an idea in your head which refuses to go away, which has been with you for years, which just refuses to leave you in peace, give it a go and see what happens. You will be amazed at where it takes you.

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From Kevin Kelly’s interview by Tim Ferriss

** “I’d try to give everything away first, and then I’d try to kill everything, like, “No, that’s a bad idea,” and then it’s the ones that keep coming back that I can’t kill and I can’t give away, that I think, “Hmm, maybe that’s the one I’m supposed to do.” Because no one else is going to do it.”

– Kevin Kelly**

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Superhuman by Habit – Best book in October

Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:00:40 GMT

Here is my October 2014 entry for ‘The best book I read last month’.

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‘Superhuman by Habit’ by Tynan is a very practical, down to earth, DIY kind of book on habit formation. Tynan has done a great job with this book – I found the writing is simple, straightforward and enjoyable.

What I like:

I like how he categorizes habits. I really like how he lists the pros and cons of each habit. After all to gain something you have to give up something, and what you will need to give up for a habit is very good to know. He has suggestions on how to use habits as well as on how not to use habits. And he has suggestions on how to quit habits. He also has some ideas on how to figure out how to identify what habits will serve you best to reach your life goals (and a section on how to figure those goals out).

This is in addition to general tips on the pitfalls you will encounter during habit creation, the psychology behind those pitfalls and how to overcome these obstacles.

I made tons of notes while I was reading this book, and I think this is one book I will be going back to read again and again.

Who should read this:

I would recommend this book for anyone who feels that they should be doing more with their time on an everyday basis. The persons who are interested in productivity, time management or trying to create would be well served reading this book. Of course, those persons, anyone who is interested in forming habits, or those who are in the middle of habit formation. It is an interesting book which will improve your self-knowledge.

Format:

Kindle ebook – Superhuman by Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time

*Available on Kindle Unlimited

The best book I read last month – new series

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:00:24 GMT

I am happy to introduce a new series of posts – ‘The best book I read last month’ series, starting tomorrow, Nov 1st, 2014.

I read quite a bit. In the course of my reading I find quite a few bad books and some really nice books. I want to share the really good ones with you.

So, once a month, on the first of every month, I will write this post where I talk about the best book I read in that past month and what I liked about it.

If it tickles your fancy, I hope you read it too.

The Balance Wheel

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 15:00:00 GMT

A while back, over at Raptitude, I found this post about how balance should be in terms of years – not everyday.

The balance here is the balancing of priorities, balancing of the things I want to do and achieve. We all know that we cannot do every single thing we want to, every day. However, if we plan long term, we can actually achieve enough to satisfy us and get somewhere towards our goal.

This long term balance ties in beautifully to my observation about the cyclical nature of my interests. In the past few years, my main mainstays have been photography, climbing, cycling, words and some craft related activity.

Always, I have noticed, while one interest is at its peak, one is on the wax, another is on the wane , the fourth is queued behind.

It is as if all my interest are marked out on a wheel, a slowly rotating wheel, all queued up. The marker at the moment shows the interest which is at its peak right now, but the wheel inexorably rotates. What is at its peak will hit the nadir, but will be back again.

Over the years, the list can change. But it has been obvious to me that at any given point, there can only be one thing which is taking the highest priority.

Knowing this, balancing becomes an easier task. Knowing that every interest has its day in the sun, the feeling of guilt for not working on one particular activity goes away as well.

Input or Output – 200 words project

Mon, 27 Oct 2014 15:00:00 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project – from the Superhuman by Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time by Tynan

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We can think of everything we do during our lives as either input or output. Either we’re creating something new or we’re taking in outside influence.

– Superhuman by Habit by Tynan

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I want to examine this thought today – about everything in life being either input or output.

At a basic physical level it’s obvious. We are always inhaling and exhaling. We are imbibing and excreting, shedding.

At an emotional level too, it’s true. We all know how, in a emotionally charged situation, you are influenced by the emotions around you, and if you give in to the pull of strong emotions emanating from everyone around you i.e. take the emotions in as input, you just get more worked up. On the other hand, if you are calm, collected, peaceful, you can actually discharge such highly charged situations, i.e. your output helps to calm the situation down. Your serenity affects everyone around you in a positive way. So, at an emotional level as well, there is either input or output.

Intellectually, you are reading, listening, seeing, hearing – taking in ideas from around you. Or, you are writing, speaking, explaining your thoughts, ideas and learnings. Input or output.

Here, a state arises – of introspection which seems at first glance neither input or output. In this state, you are thinking through, sorting all the ideas you have collected. You are also making sense, understanding, simplifying and creating new insights from your inputs. So this state also produces output. Rather than a passive output, where someone else’s ideas are just transmitted, you are actually transforming the input in a more profound way and then outputting it to the world.

The only situation I cannot classify as input and output is the meditation process. Here we just sit and let everything be and try to concentrate on our breath or be empty of thought. We try to actively withdraw from taking in and being influenced by the inputs around us, and at the same time, stop the thinking, word-smithing, feeling part of us from constantly creating outputs. Maybe, that is why meditation is so hard.

The tomorrow-self

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 15:00:39 GMT

The last couple of days have been very busy for me. A relentless push at work towards not so far away deadlines, unending chores at home, general busyness and mental exhaustion – so much that I did not sit down to write. I did read, but not write.

Just two days of this and I am shaking my head at myself. I know life gets in the way. But writing is very important to me. However busy I am, I should definitely be able to dedicate at least 30 min in a day. In small chunks of 10 min – if that is all is really available. After all, I say that this is extremely important to me right? This act of writing?

I know that however busy I am, I do have 30 min a day to write. What has happened in the last two days is the classic excuse – ‘Oh! But I am so tired! I’ll do it tomorrow when I’ll feel better’. A slave to my ‘feelings’.

But this attitude is very unfair – unfair to my tomorrow-self. Why should my tomorrow-self have to deal with drudgery just because my today-self wants to relax and ‘feels’ tired and uses self-pity as an excuse?

If saying to my friend ‘Hey, I’m too tired to do any work today. I just need to relax. Why don’t you do the work and I’ll use the money you earn?’. Is this ok when I am capable of working but just ‘feeling’ like taking it easy? If this is not ok between friends, then why is pushing everything on my tomorrow-self ok?

The problem here lies in my perception. I perceive my friend and me as two separate entities. However my tomorrow-self is an extension of my today-self. I view my tomorrow-self as having no other identity than my today-self and thus no voice.

And I have realized that this perception is not fully right.

Tomorrow, or next year, I will not be the same person I am today. The essence might be similar – might be – because life-changing, personality altering, mind-bending events happen and we change drastically. My tomorrow-self is indeed an extension of me, but it is not my today-self – it has its own unique identity in its time.

So, what good is it holding our tomorrow-self hostage to our today-self’s whims?

How to reinvent yourself – 200 words project

Mon, 20 Oct 2014 15:00:19 GMT

So you want to re-invent yourself?

You feel stuck in your career or personal life or goals? You know you want to do something else, kind of know what it is, but not really. You kind of know how to proceed, but not really.

You certainly are very afraid, but are not acknowledging it. You just are not comfortable where you are, but you have responsibilities from which you cannot walk away.

Well, here are some thoughts from Kevin Kelly, Derek Sivers and others.

How to go about your re-invention.

– Experiment your way through this need to re-invent yourself

Whatever you feel like doing, try it. In a small-scale. Just for yourself . Try it and see if it feels right. Like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing if it sticks?

– One step at a time, incrementally

Don’t try to make a huge big massive catastrophic change since you are not ready for it. If you were ready for something like that, you wouldn’t be here reading this.

– Take a step – evaluate is its working, if that’s the direction you want to go – continue

If you like where you are heading take a step forward. If not take a step back.

– Do it deliberately

Think through what you are doing. Acknowledge you are going to do it. And then do it. No ‘unconsciously / subconsciously’ doing anything.

– Do it like Tarzan

Leave the old one only when the new one is prove reliable

Keep the momentum, the drive.

Ok, you say. That sounds good. But how do I know if the direction I’m heading is the right one?

How to find direction

– Do you get satisfaction out of it?

– Is it something you used to do as a kid and really really miss it?

– Are you pulled like crazy in a particular direction? Spending many hours on this when you ‘should ‘ be working on other ‘important’ and ‘urgent’ tasks?

Some Other Thoughts

– You cannot escape all other things going on – like responsibilities, taking care of your family. Accept it, but don’t be bowed down by it.

– Just bend in a certain / new direction. Slowly, steadily, like swaying with the wind, the wind of your own making.

– It won’t happen overnight.

– It’s the doing and loving what you are doing that matters

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From Kevin Kelly’s interview by Tim Ferriss

“I think you can experiment your way through this, you can do this incrementally. You can take small steps and do something, and then evaluate it, test how it’s going, whether you’re getting what you want out of it, whether it’s working, and then you continue in that direction. That’s sort of the pattern of people who have second careers or “reinvent themselves”, you hear that a lot. “

“I think it’s something that you’re going to … I’m a big believer in doing things deliberately, and I think that you begin by looking at those areas that you get satisfaction out of, and those areas where … I often find that people kind of retreat back to the things that they did as kids and really, really miss, whether it’s art or other things. The truth is, you’re not really going to be able to escape all the other things you have going. And that’s a good thing because that is part of you and part of what you do well. So you’ll probably just bend in a certain direction.”

– Kevin Kelly

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Binge Reading

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 15:00:44 GMT

There is a thing as bad as not reading – and that is binge reading. Blogs, news – yes. But also books, ebooks, audio books.

And I’m guilty of it. I am afraid that I read far too many books on any given week.

My fear is this – I read these books – but am I actually appreciating them? Absorbing, reveling in them as much as I should be? I have a sneaky suspicion that if I actually slow down, I will relish the books more. And get more out of each book.

And so I tried to limit myself to just two books a month. And I went into book starvation mode. I lasted one week, and I was back reading a lot.

So maybe, my limit should be two books a week? What is a good limit? Should it be a strict schedule of reading? Should I limit the genre of books I read as well?

What I am looking for is some kind of a book-diet. Something which will help me read a little slower and maybe appreciate these books some more. Does anything like his exist? Do you reader know of any such ‘diet’ available to help readers with a binge-reading problem?

Mild acts of kindness – 200 words project

Mon, 13 Oct 2014 15:00:21 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project – from the The Barefoot Warrior: The Journey of a Young Adult in Search of His True Nature

by Kyle Weaver

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The thought crossed Kyle’s mind, what if everyone on earth was an angel of sorts, poised and ready for mild acts of kindness each and every moment? What if the world’s greatest problem was that most people had just forgotten that simple fact?

– The Barefoot Warrior by Kyle Weaver

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After reading this, I decided to do an experiment. For the next few hours, I decided look at everyone as one of these angels. And it’s true, the angels were everywhere.

The car, on my way to work, slowing down to let me merge in, when they didn’t have to. My colleague, who held the door open for me. The admin lady, who upon seeing my oatmeal overflow, insisted on helping with the mess. My husband, who last night had not only cleaned the dirty dishes, but wiped the counter top, put away all the toys and tidied the entire place – all when he was tired too. My daughter who gave me a big hug and a sloppy kiss as soon as she saw me this morning. My cat who just came and petted me.

When I looked, these angels where everywhere. Then around lunch time, something happened – I forgot. There was this other person in traffic who cut me off, and then flipped a finger – and I was mad and fuming – and started looking at people around me as aggravating, annoying persons who should know better.

And sure enough, aggravation was everywhere. The bright, happy, sunny morning was replaced by this dank, dark afternoon of me simmering in my own discontent angry at people.

Thinking about my day at the dinner table, I was struck with how much of an effect I had on how my day went. My morning was beautiful. My afternoon was aggravating. All because I was looking for angels in the morning and I found them – everywhere. By afternoon, I forgot about angels, and I didn’t see any, couldn’t see any because I had forgotten what angels were like!

The Strange guilt of library books

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 14:00:02 GMT

I read a lot (said kind of guiltily like it’s not a nice thing to admit).

I borrow books from the library – books, e-books, audio books. I read the ones I already have and I also buy books in all formats. In my journey as a reader, I have found something interesting about myself.

I have realized that I have this vague ill-defined guilt when I return a library book unread or partially read. Like I am committing a sin. But I don’t feel this guilt for the books I buy. I might feel bad if a book I bought – I haven’t completed yet, but not this sense of committing a sin.

This phenomenon in myself is very interesting. Why should this be?

You would think that it should actually be the other way around – I should be hesitant in buying books – I am after all spending my hard-earned money on them. And when I don’t I should be feeling very guilty at almost spending so much money and not reading the books.

But the library books are free. And I can always borrow them again! So I shouldn’t feel this guilt at all right?

Why do I feel this way? I am clueless.

Do you readers, feel this way at all? If so, do you understand why?

Reduction of choosing – 200 words project

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 15:00:08 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project – from the Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.

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The idea – that whatever you choose, you lose something is a very powerful one. At first glance, I hear my thoughts cry out ‘Noooooooo….’. Harsh it might be, but true it is.

Choosing one path means closing the door to all other paths – for now. That is the nature of paths and choices isn’t it? Yes, you can choose to go in between paths – but that means you will now have experience walking in between paths – but lost the experience of walking on a path.

This idea, as traumatic as it sounds, can be very liberating as well.

Now that we have chosen, our options, parameters reduce to that of the path, the choice. Since we are done choosing for now, why not make the best of what we chose? Why not give this path, this choice our all – our love, enthusiasm, joy, best effort, hard work to this one path? Why mourn for other choices? Why give in to the nasty thought of ‘if only I had chosen otherwise’? Why compare ourselves to others or our other probable selves who made different choices and fell bad?

Why not see where this path leads and learn everything it has to offer?

**********

Travel, I was coming to realize, was a metaphor not only for the countless options life offers but also for the fact that choosing one option reduces you to the parameters of that choice. Thus, in knowing my possibilities, I also knew my limitations.

** Ultimately, I learned to stop looking at my journey as one final, apocalyptic chance to see the world, and started enjoying it on its own esoteric terms.**

– Rolf Potts in Vagabonding

…. that life is a series of choices, and whatever we choose, we lose something.

– Kiese Laymon’s mother in Hey Mama

Importance of mornings

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:00:59 GMT

Mornings are for important things. The rest of the day is for urgent stuff.

– somewhere on the internet

I get up in the morning and have my coffee. And meditate. And write. You might sit outside and enjoy the dawn. Or exercise. Or draw – or whatever our passion is, whatever we think is special and meaningful. After all, after this precious morning time, the rest of the day beckons.

These 30 mins or maybe an hour or more is dedicated to something we really want to do but cannot get to during the rest of the day – something important to us.

The urgent things – like laundry, like paying bills, like sending that email, or reading that article – these by their nature – of being urgent will happen anyway.

But then sometimes this happens:

I get up earlier than usual in the morning. All excited to work on my passion.

And then, just as I sit to, say write, the thought pops in that I should send this email out to this friend declining some invitation for tomorrow – it is so urgent. And I think, I’ll do this one things and then write. As I am sending this email out, I realize, I need to make the dentist appointment online. Let me do that – it’s just going to take a second. And while doing that I realize, I have run out of toothpaste. So I start a to-do list and add toothpaste in it. And then, oh, I need kitchen towels, and bananas, and milk, and some granola bars. Oh you know, my exercise shoes have worn out. Let me quickly order those shoes online. And once online, I start reading reviews and looking up shoes.

And then the household wakes up – time to participate in the daily dance and drama of the family day. But I am irritated and cranky that I never got to write, even after waking up early! All because of one email. I wasted my precious morning!

On the other hand, if I had suppressed that thought to send the email out saying to myself “Yes. I need to do that, but let me do that later in the day – in 2 hours. For the next one hour, I just need to write. After that I’ll get to these other things.”

When I can protect my mornings and do what is important to me, the entire day goes differently. I know that even if the rest of the day doesn’t go according to my plan, I have done at least one thing that I wanted to and love to do.

This prioritizing of the things which you want to do / which you like to do but are not urgent is so essential for our happiness and for our mental well being, However, in our busy, almost frenetic lives with so many things to do, this happens only if you dedicate a space and time for for it and guard it viciously – from yourself!

On Writing – 200 words project

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 15:00:39 GMT

Here is this week’s 200 words project – from the podcast interview of Kevin Kelly by Tim Ferriss.

“What I discovered, which is what many writers discover, is that I write in order to think. It was like, “I think I have an idea,” but when I begin to write it, I realize, “I have no idea,” and I don’t actually know what I think until I try and write it. Writing is a way for me to find out what I think. It’s like, I don’t have any ideas, it’s true, but when I write, I get the ideas. That was the revelation.”

– Kevin Kelly

***********************************

I always had this mental picture of writers – when they sat down to write – words would just come pouring out. And then I read accounts of writers who found writing difficult. Somehow I understood this as writers having difficulty with the actual mechanical process of writing. Not difficulties with ‘What to write?’. And I thought I was alone in this fear of ‘How can I write anything when I don’t know what to write?’

It is both humbling and exhilarating to find that everyone has issues with idea generation in written form, that by talking about the difficulty in writing, people mean even the ‘what to write’ part.

Kevin’s insight, this approach to writing – as a way to find out what one thinks, as a part of idea generation – this is an entirely new, different way of thinking for me. And I decided to write with this mindset. And it has worked!

This mindset has taken away the stress of having to be ‘good’ and meaningful every time I write. No more using ‘I don’t know what to write’ as an excuse. How can I know what to write until I actually explore writing it by writing it? And because of these two main reasons, I find myself writing more, as the somewhat regular posts in the past three weeks prove.

And I’m thinking, will this approach work in other ‘creative’ disciplines?

***********************************

Podcast Link: https://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/08/29/kevin-kelly/

“Daily Rituals: How Artists Work” – First Thoughts

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:00:07 GMT

The book I am currently reading, is a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, an intriguing look at the daily routines of some 200 creators – writers, composers, painters, scientists, sculptors etc. This book came highly recommended via two sources: BrainPickings and the Tim Ferriss book club.

I am skimming currently on my first pass, skimming through the book, and immensely enjoying it. As I do so, here are some observations, in no particular order, which jumped out at me:

Most of these people, these artists featured in the book seem to be addicted to substances – alcohol / tobacco / coffee / drugs (usually amphetamines) – and seem to depend on these for their creativity
Most of them have other people (wives / sisters / parents /servants) to take care of them (cook / look after children if they have families/ do laundry etc..)
Most of them are men
Of the people who are women, most of them are single or don’t have kids
For most of them, their creative pursuit is what they did full-time.

a. Is this a sign of the times? Is it crazy that in our present everybody is expected to ‘hold down’ a ‘real job’? In the 1800 and 1900s doesn’t seem like this was expected. I’m not sure – something to be researched.

Almost all of them took long walks at different times of day, sometimes multiple times.
Most of them seemed to entertain quite a bit – either at home or go out to pubs / theatre

a. This was quite surprising to me.

b. A few, of course went the other extreme way and became hermits

Seems like most of them slept very less / had issues sleeping / issues with insomnia

a. Was this a side-affect of substance ingestion?

As I re-read this book and savor it in detail, I’m sure many more thoughts will come up.

One thing I am bummed about is that there seems to be no examples for this category – women, with a full-time job in a non-creative area, kids, family and still trying to pursue creative fields. I wonder if in today’s would, there are such women movers and shakers? And I wonder how their daily routines look like?

Readers, can you point me to any such women?

Book Source: Public Library

On Walkabouts – 200 words project

Mon, 22 Sep 2014 15:00:08 GMT

This week’s 200 word project idea found in Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel

What is it that is so magical about walking? I’m not the first nor the last to wonder about this. This process of locomotion, of moving from one place to another on your own power, what is it about this act which seems to have such a huge impact on our minds?

When your walk is hard – a uphill climb, or fast – running, something happens to the brain that it relaxes and let go. And then, it kicks into a different gear and epiphanies and ideas all bubble up. A calm walk around the block can be a cure for the post-lunch lethargy in the afternoon or a release of stress. When you don’t know what to, just take a walk and the boredom is gone.

It appears that a lot of creative people, a lot of innovators all have a innocuous walk in their daily routine.

But the closest description of what walking does, is what Rolf Potts says in ‘Vagabonding’. Walking to find yourself, to make yourself whole. Walking as a way to come to terms with ones responsibilities?

When I read this, I caught myself nodding over and over again. ‘Yes. Yes!’ I know, I recognize from beyond logic, that this is what happens on those long walks taken to ‘clear the mind’ or ‘deal with the situation’ or just because ‘I want to feel better’.

“… walkabout acts as a kind of remedy when the duties and obligations of life cause one to lose track of his or her true self. To correct this, one merely leaves behind all possessions (except for survival essentials) and starts walking. What’s intriguing about walkabout is that there’s no physical goal: It simply continues until one becomes whole again.”

-Rolf Potts in Vagabonding

Book Source: Public Library

On Tilting

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:00:03 GMT

You know how it is.

Some days, home life is the most important. So we de-weight the rest of our life and take care of cooking, cleaning, sick kids. Other days, work takes on a higher priority and on such days, laundry piles up, the house remains cluttered, the family eats frozen mac and cheese and you shudder at the thought of visitors.

Some days, its your personal landscape, physical, mental, emotional – that takes the priority . You get out of work early and go to that yoga class or that nice long hike, or a soul-opening, mind-bending talk with a friend.

And then there are other days when everything seems just right, just so perfectly balanced that while utterly grateful for such balance, you marvel at the rightness of it, and its elusive quality.

Everybody wants this narrow idea of perfect balance. Everybody tries for a ‘balanced life’, works on their ‘balancing act’. But everyone is dismayed that this balance is so elusive, that we just see glimpses of it. And beat ourselves up that we have lost our balance.

And forget that ’tilting’ as Brooke McAlary says, is far more attainable and in my case, satisfying. And sometimes, even profound.

One thing tilting does is to remind us our humanness – we cannot all be exceptional in everything we do and do everything exceptionally al the same time. However we can do one thing exceptionally at any given time!

The other thing tilting teaches us is the long view. As we grow and thrive, we look back and realize that through tilting we have satisfied most of our obligations and duties and needs and goals, with less stress, more joyfully.

And so let us all tilt together and be free of striving for this perfect balance all the time. Let us tilt – crazily sometimes, like a motorcycle taking fast corners , and sometimes steadily like that unicyclist going uphill. And sometimes achieving that state of perfect grace and balance.

In the morning.

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:00:47 GMT

Bzzzrrrr. Bzzzrrrr. My phone vibrates. It’s 4.15AM on a Saturday morning. I get up from my sleeping bag in the floor of my daughter’s room. Sometime during the night my 20 month old daughter has rolled out of her bed and joined me on the sleeping bag, snuggling, cuddling. I check to make sure she is still fast asleep and tiptoe to the guest bedroom. There I change, in the dark, into the pants and T shirt I had laid out last night.

I tiptoe into the bathroom next door, take my contact lens case without turning any lights on and tiptoe downstairs to the kitchen. Here, I can finally turn the light on. Time check. It is 4.25AM. I use the bathroom, wash my face, put on my contacts and start my stove top espresso. Time check. 4.30AM.

Coffee is ready. Add some milk and sugar, reheat. Pour coffee into a travel mug. Send a text saying ‘be at your house in 15 mins’. I take my bag, packed last night, into the car and I drive.

You see, it is my weekly escape. It is my way of staying alive, of getting what I need. Of feeding my habit and filling my soul again.

I pick up my friend at her place. Its 5.00 am. And then we drive, for another 30 mins. Warm conversation. Needed conversation. Venting. Complaining. Praising. Sharing.

Here we reach the start of our hike. It is pitch dark. But the parking lot is already full. We park about 3/4 mile away and walk up to the trailhead. All uphill. And then the hike starts. It is a constant uphill, 2200ft climb in 3 miles.

We walk and talk. And there’s a break in our talk, but our feet keep moving. Uphill. Thighs burn. Hello hamstrings. Glutes, there you are!

The sky slowly turns light. The sun has risen far away and the light is reaching over the hill we are climbing. The clouds turn pink. Then glorious shades of pink and pale pink, and almost orange. We pause to drink in the beautiful sunrise. The feeling of a new day. The feeling of opening my heart to a loved and trusted friend. This feeling of newness. This blush of pink.

And then onward we climb. At some point, the fog swirls down on us, and we barely see a few feet in front of us. Onward we climb. Upward, ever upward.

And now we are above the fog. The fog has completely descended into the valley, covering up civilization. Overhead is the bright blue sky with the sun shining, a quiet breeze blowing. Beneath our feet is the path and the fog below.

Serenity. Is this sunrise just for us? Is this fog here to cleanse the mind, and the soul? Is this my gift from the universe – to sate my craving for wilderness and lofty remote places, which right now I just can’t get to? Gratitude for this beauty, for this moment. For everything I have.

And upward and onward we go. By the time we reach the peak, the fog below has started burning out. The sadness and worry and toxic emotions of the past week cleansed.

We start our descent light and cheerful. Blessed and cleansed and renewed. Ready for what lies ahead.

Living like a little wisp through time – 200 words project

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:00:39 GMT

In this thought provoking podcast interview between Tim Ferriss and Kevin Kelly, the talk turns to this idea of living in simplicity – the stoic notion of voluntary poverty, or the 60’s idea of voluntary simplicity.

The idea is to figure out the bare minimum you need to live, and to live like that for a while so you really know how little you need to live, to thrive. This frees you from taking the chase of stuff (material, mental, gold stars, approval….) seriously, because you know from experience that you are chasing it for fun, not because of need. It also frees you from worries about the future since you know what you need to survive, and it isn’t much.

I think this is a skill which a lot of immigrants are forced to learn – especially when the immigration is forced, not luxurious. In my own case, coming to the US with 2 suitcases, one semester of tuition paid, $500 and no more money till I find a job forced me to double down and focus on what needed to be done, to study, to find a job. And live simply, cheaply. It was hard, yes, but was also a lot of fun. I realized how generous people really are, what good friends are for, and how to live.

And I think this is the joy of the student years – money-poor, but time-rich. You have so little money, you make do with that, but still have a blast. Most people I know count their college days as the best time they’ve had in their lives.

But why should it be? Why not in our thirties or forties or beyond? Yes, even with family, jobs etc? Maybe this kind of practice might lead to that kind of profound unfettered joy we experienced in our college days. Maybe even more so because now our lives are so rich with so much love and responsibility adds just a tinge of spiciness?

Maybe that is what this new ‘Minimalism’, ‘Simple Living’ movement is all about. Maybe that’s what all the monks talk about, and maybe, just maybe we should try it again, voluntarily, starting today?

***********************************

Podcast Link: https://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/08/29/kevin-kelly/

Kevin Kelly: “think one of the many life skills that you want to actually learn at a fairly young age is the skill of being, like, ultra-thrifty, minimal, kind of this little wisp that’s traveling through time … in the sense of learning how little you actually need to live, not just in a survival mode, but in a contented mode. “

“That gives you the confidence to take a risk, because you say, “What’s the worst that can happen? Well, the worst that can happen is that I’d have a backpack and a sleeping bag, and I’d be eating oatmeal. And I’d be fine.” I think if you do that once or twice … you don’t necessarily have to live like that, but knowing that you can be content is tremendously empowering.”

Tim Ferriss: “practice of poverty. Not because you want to be poor, but so that you recognize not only that you can subsist, but then you can potentially be content or even, in some cases, be more content with a bare minimum. “

Showering and mindfullness

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:00:32 GMT

How do you go about taking a shower? Here is my 10 step process.

Rinse entire body.
Shampoo hair. Rinse.
Conditioner in hair. Rinse
Wash face with face wash. Rinse.
Body wash and scrub. Rinse.
One final luxuriating, cleansing lovely rinse.
Towel dry
Moisturize
Dress

Nothing special here – I’m sure most of the world goes about their bath in some variation of this.

I have found a curious thing for me however – this sequence matters.

Most days, when I am mindful about my shower, I follow this sequence exactly. Such days, I can feel the warm water or cold water on my body, feel my breath change with the temperature of the water, the shampoo suds flowing out of my hair, the rough nylon scrub sloughing off dead skin. And my showers are short and comfortable and luxurious, all at the same time.

However, there are days when I get lost in thought of some project of mine, or some fantasy of the wrongs done me and how I am a victim, or how awesome things are going to be in the future, or how things were in the past good, bad … you get the drift.

On such days, I tend to lose my sequence and sometimes, if I am aware enough, I find myself repeatedly washing my face or shampooing my hair! Those days I don’t really feel the water or the scrub or the soap…I am totally immersed in my mental world – not a part of the physical world at all. And also, on these days the showers on such days are much longer.

And so, I have found that most days, I prefer showers where I am mindful where I actually feel and enjoy and luxuriate my showers.

What about you folks, who actually luxuriate in long showers? What goes on in your minds? Do you enjoy it from a physical perspective or from a mental perspective? I would love to hear from you.

The 200 words project

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 23:27:54 GMT

In this morning’s RSS feed Seth Godin’s post: https://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/things-well-done-and-the-smartest-lt-gov-candidate-ever.html made me click on his links and I went to Rohan’s blog, and there I came upon this title: Amazon-style narratives – The 200 words project. Then I had to look up on what this ‘200 words project’ is. Hmmm. Interesting. And how very smart. And creative.

And so, I have decided to adopt his idea. Once every week, on Monday morning, I will post my ‘200 Words Project’ post where I will ruminate on some idea which caught my interest in the current book I’m reading, or maybe (sometimes) from a blog post or podcast – in 200 words.

As I muddle along and learn, I hope you, my readers will help me with your feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

Here’s Idea #1:

—————————————————————————————————————–

For a lot of people, including me, we have these dreams about writing, about expounding these deep thoughts on our blog and stunning everyone with our brilliance, lucidity and our wisdom. But when it comes to actually writing, all these fancy dreams peter out and challenges of

Actually sitting down
Writing
Thinking original stuff
Articulating clearly the original thought in beautiful prose
Writing for long durations

become so overwhelming that we don’t take even the first few steps towards our dreams of fame and wisdom and practical personal growth as thinkers and writers.

Rohan’s ‘200 words project’ is brilliant because

It forces me to provide a blog post once a week. Not too many, not too sparse either.
I don’t need to worry about originality – the idea itself calls for me to ruminate over someone else’s original idea. So no pressure there.
And to help with articulating clearly, there is the inspiration for the post itself – the words in the book, the blog post / podcast to help out.
200 words is mercifully short.
200 words is long enough that you actually have to think to write 200 words – regurgitating can only take you so far.

“So, why is this different from the daily learning a day? This is similar to the book learning initiative in that we will focus on ideas from books rather than learnings from my experiences and observations.” – Rohan.

Pacific Grove weekend trip – my packing list

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:25:32 GMT

In my quest to travel light, I posted last time about eM’s packing list for our weekend Pacific Grove trip. This time, I’ll talks about what I packed for me.

On the way in, I wore a dress with 2 pockets, leggings and a cardigan. This was the only outerwear I took on the trip and it worked out great.

I also wore my black Merrel Mary Janes. This turned out to be perfect – dressy enough, comfortable and can walk a lot in them.

I had a handbag and a cloth tote bag.

Tote Bag Contents:

My tablet, Tablet charger cable

Phone charger, Phone charger cable

Two dresses

I am partial to dresses – especially ones which are light, dry easily, wrinkle free (mostly synthetic fabrics, sleeveless, flowing). More on my dress obsession some other time

Two black full length leggings

I buy mine from Old Navy. These cotton leggings are comfortable , cool when required and warm when required. I wear the capri style leggings when its a little hot outside, but I still feel the need for leggings.

Two regular Bras

One cotton sleep bra

Three sets of underwear

Pajama top and bottom

Bathroom slippers

Camp/Travel towel – I didn’t need these since we were in a hotel.

Workout top and bottom, Vibram five fingers running shoes

I was too exhausted and relaxed to go running!

Toileteries Pouch

Glasses

Spare Contact lenses

Contact lens solution

I ended up taking a large and a small container – since I didn’t realize I already had a small one in my bag. Need to skip the large one

Contact lens case

Body moisturizer filled in a GoToob

Face cream for acne

Face moisturizer

Deodorant spray

A roll on would be better choice next time

Comb

Lipstick

Eyeliner pencil

Small hotel size shampoo and conditioner

– Skip this next time.

[Bare escentuals</a foundation powder

]5 Bare escentuals warmth

2 small bushes for foundation and warmth _ us ethe ‘Contour and Buff’ brushes from this ultra cute set Ecotools brush set

Next time I need to take all my stuff in a backpack, and maybe get rid of my purse? Any ladies out there who have given up their purse / handbag when travelling? How does that work out for you? What do you use instead? A backpack? Or just pockets in jeans? I’m interested in learning how I can streamline this even more.

Toddler weekend trip packing list

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:43:35 GMT

We stayed over at Monterey, Pacific Grove this past weekend – just a weekend trip with some friends. The trip was a lot of fun, but here I’m just going to talk about the packing list, what went well and what didn’t.

Why packing list? I’m on a quest to learn the secrets of travelling light – carrying all essentials, but not too much. And I realized, for me, writing my list down is the most concrete way of recording for future trips – since my I don’t remember as well as I think I do. And while I was writing it down for my reference, I thought – ‘Why not blog this? This might be useful to someone else? After all I did spend some time trawling the web to see what I could find on people who travel light and simple with kids?’. So here is the blog post.

For our trip, we left from the bay area on Friday evening and reached Pacific Grove Friday night – just a 2 hr drive. We stayed there two nights and headed out on Sunday afternoon.

The weather forecast said temperature in the 50s and 60s. And knowing the coast and its fog, I planned on it being a little chilly. With that in mind, here was eMs packing list:

1 Swim Diaper – this we did not use

3 sets of 5 diapers in 3 gallon size ziploc bags

The idea here was to be able to carry one in the diaper bag, one set in the car and leave one set in the hotel room. However what did happen was that we carried two sets in the diaper bag, and left one set in the car. The gallon size ziplocs are to put any dirty clothes / dirty diapers if needed.

5 overnite pullups

Just in case we needed more than one for each night – as we did on our last trip

1 set of diaper wipes

Ideally I wanted to carry 2, but we ran out at home

1 jar of baby Aquaphor

Essential for a baby with very dry skin

3 diaper changing pads

We need two – to accommodate eMs length in dirty changing rooms. Definitely didn’t use the third. However maybe we will keep it when we go outdoors as a cushion for her head or just keep it in the hotel room / car changing pad. Or is this my old think peeking in?

4 sets of clothes

4 pairs of leggings, 3 tops with full sleeves, one with 3/4 sleeves This was perfect . We didn’t need any more.

1 sleep sack

This is what she wears instead of a blanket

1 set of pajamas

Full sleeves. She wore another set in the car on our way in on Friday night.

2 cotton A&A blankets

2 pacifiers

Yeah…she needs these to sleep at home!

2 books in backpack

This we didn’t use, but we think we will need it in the future.

One large backpack

This was the biggest problem. The backpack we tried using was a two laptop backpack which we had at home. Big and bulky with zillions of pockets.

One Kidco Peapod tent, with air mattress, the quilt thing and an hand pump

And she slept in this on Saturday night and slept through the night! Yay! However need to change the quilt thing to a completely cotton one and attach it to the floor of the tent somehow.

Ergo Sport carrier

This is a lifesaver when she is upset / wants to be carried around / we want to walk without stroller

Stroller

Since this was an urban expedition, the stroller was useful. We have the Uppa Baby Vista – a definite splurge but pretty awesome!

Food Stuffs:

Snacks

1 small box of cheerios

7 small packets of crackers! (What was I thinking? One packet in my purse, and two in the diaper bag is great)

1 sippy cup for water

3 Zoli sippy cups for milk

One for each day. Next time will take two, and actually wash one at night. Need to take some dish wash soap as well.

Stainless steel water bottle / old Kleen kanteen

With milk to keep in diaper bag

In Cooler

Whole Milk

Oatmeal in sandwich ziploc bag

Salt Shaker

Grated pepperjack cheese

(Yeah.. Both eM and her Mom like to eat oatmeal with salt and pepperjack cheese and red pepper flakes for mom..)

Two containers of frozen food (just in case)

One container of yogurt (with very little in it)

We used the milk. I made oatmeal on Saturday morning but eM decided to eat bagels and muffin crumbs and a few bites of a (ba)nana. We ended up eating out all other times and she ate happily with us. So didn’t need the frozen food this time. Next time, I need to carry food which doesn’t need to be heated up to taste good, and I need to figure out what this can be…

And that is it This was eMs packing list. On the way in, except for the food stuffs in the cooler, I put the entire thing in eMs diaper backpack. (Yeah… it is that huge!) Once in the hotel room, I moved out most stuff.

The biggest thing I need to change from this trip is the diaper backpack. It is too big, and too many pockets. It is a problem of ‘things getting lost in too much space’ combined with ‘there’s space – so lets fill it!’ combined with ‘ummm…this backpack is a little heavy’.

So the hunt is on for a nice diaper bag / backpack. The husband did order a Diaper Dude messenger bag which converts into a backpack ($110! Wow..expensive!). My problem with it is that it still has too many pockets, is large and boxy. Also, if paying that much money, I will want to use that backpack after we are done using it as a diaper bag – and I certainly cant see myself using that bag. So the search is on. And the diaper bag I’m looking at right now is the Osprey Daylite Daypack&lt.

Its an ultralight daypack with both strernum straps and hip strap(yay!), super light at 16oz, small (13L), and fits other larger osprey backpacks when we need to take this bag climbing/hiking/backpacking. Which means maybe a larger Osprey pack can be in my future! This pack looks good on paper. So need to stop by REI and get one home.

My question to you readers is this: What do you use as a diaper bag? Especially at the toddler stage – which is not sold as a diaper bag? Also any more tips on toddler packing? Especially for colder / rainier weather?

Longbourn – Just Read

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 17:20:17 GMT

I have decided to add a category and write about the books I’m reading currently. I do read a lot, and it’s become hard to keep track of what I read when. And I think it’s fun to go back and read what one thought of a book at a certain point in time and how these opinions change over time.

Just Completed Reading: Longbourn by Jo Baker

From: Ebook from the public library

Rating: So-So

(Rating Scale: Awesome, So-So, Boring)

What I Think: I enjoyed reading maybe the first third of the book. After that it became a drag. After the novelty of characters wore off, I didn’t find the characters that engrossing. There were some great lines in the book, and the author’s descriptions were pretty decent.

Overall, if you like to read, and have nothing else to read currently, I would only then recommend reading this. I certainly won’t be rereading this again.

Life as is

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 04:49:00 GMT

It seems in eastern philosophies, , one of the important things I’ve read to learn is to enjoy life – each moment as is. Enjoy the pleasure and sorrow in it. To accept life as is and enjoy it.

This is easier said than done… However once in a while, this seems so effortless and easy.

Baby not sleeping? Ok. Exhausted? Ok. Lousy day at work? Ok. Fight with husband? Ok. Amazing sweet guy and kids from daughter. Thanks! And OK. Dinner which fills the stomach and eases the gnawing hunger? Thanks and OK. Talk with a close friend? Thanks and OK.

I wonder why do these moments of effortless have occur? Why and how? And when they go away, you are back to being buffeted by emotions and trying hard to regain that content state of acceptance of everything, of giving up trying to control everything around, of seeing humor in everything.

No Coffee Month – Fail!

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 14:42:40 GMT

YUp. I failed. On Day 2 of the new month long resolution. I had thought to not drink any coffee for the month of January. However, I failed on Day 2. now I don’t drink to0 much coffee in a day – 2 small cups (sometimes 3) max.

By Jan 2, I had a pounding raging headache and could not do any work. It was then I realised, there is a time and place for each resolution. How can I manage – with no sleep, with work, and house work and a 1 yr old baby with sleep problems, and climbing and yoga, and multiple side projects – to manage without my cup of coffee first thing in the morning?

So for now, I am back to my 2 cups of coffee a day. I think I will try the no-coffee month ago once my daughter figures out how to sleep at night!

2014 – New Year Plans and Ideas

Thu, 02 Jan 2014 04:29:59 GMT

Its the new year. The beginning of the year is a very powerful motivation to start experiments, to start anything, to make changes in one’s life. This year, I actually took the time to write down what I would like to try this year.

A photography related goal – to restart SoFoBoMo.
Photography related again – my LMMM challenge – ongoing, and later in the year to try the Leica For a Year challenge.
Life Experiments – to try my version of a year of living without.

January – No Coffee month

The other months are going to be

– Meditate for 2 mins first thing in the morning

– Brush teeth at night everyday

– Floss teeth at night everyday

– Keep my office desk clutter free this month

– No Sugar month

– Exercise everyday month

– Buy nothing new month

– A blog post a day everyday month

– Vegan month (except yogurt)

– Cook everyday

– Yoga for 30 mins everyday

To reduce the number of things I am involved in (already this is in conflict with the first three!)
Lastly, document and relish everyday life. It’s a gift. It’s precious – and ephemeral.

The hidden winter

Sun, 15 Dec 2013 15:06:35 GMT

Winter, I have found is a very deceptive time.

On the outside, it is all about nothing happening, rest, relaxation and letting go and even death! But at the same time, I have found that it is a time of conception, of replenishment of renewal, of seeds of ideas germinating in my mind – especially in the creative landscape of my mind.

Maybe without rest, the mind and being does not get to just settle down and contemplate all that has been done, all those which look like successes and which look like failures in the short term, and to just soak in the wide-wonderful-strange world that we live in.

Without the letting go part, maybe there is no room for new ideas, no space for expansion of the old ones. Without sweeping out the old cobwebs, there is no room to spin new ones.

Without the relaxation, the mind-being spins its wheels endlessly in the same rut, kicking up dust and cannot look through the haze, with tears streaming down its dusty eyes.

Come spring, the world sees what the winter wrought, the seeds of winter poke forth from the ground – and the world sees it. And calls spring the season of renewal. Is it?

One Saturday Morning

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 15:29:12 GMT

Cold day, freeze warning. Dark at the trail head. Brisk cold wind.

Out for a short hike. One step. Two step. One step two step.

Path lies straight up. Up and up it goes. Inhale exhale. Inhale exhale.

Sun comes up. Birds chirp.

One step. Two step. One step Two step.

High up. Higher still to go.

Silence all around. Cars on freeway far away down below.

Birds chirping still.

One step two step. One step two step.

Beautiful view. Lovely morning.

Heart beats and hammers and beats.

Breath in and breath out.

One step. Two step.

Apple cheeks. Freezing hands. Peaceful mind. Grateful for my life.

How lucky I am to have all this in my life? One step. Two step. One step Two step.

Becoming More and Less

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 16:47:18 GMT

You are chugging along life, all happy and content. And then you become pregnant. All of a sudden there is a new life in you – though at this point you don’t really understand what this means.

As the pregnancy proceeds, you become bigger – both physically and somehow emotionally – though you don’t realize the emotional part then. Then at some point along, you realize that there is another soul, another being in you – who is somehow you and not you at the same time! You marvel at this, and adjust to being you and something more.

And then the baby comes. You are happy that this new being who is somehow you and not you is now out in the world – with full potential to become someone who is their own person. You are relieved to not have to share your body with someone else…but you mourn the loss of a part of you….How is this possible? That a part of you is forever lost – given away willingly and happily – to your baby…and you have become lesser – lesser than you ever used to be…

As the months pass by, you adjust to having your body to yourself again – but somehow there is this extra space in your body and heart which used to be occupied by a part of you who is no longer with you. What do you do with this space?

Meanwhile, your life has undergone a seismic shift – you are coping day by day to the demands of the one who used to be you – but now is someone more than you…and your pour your attention and love to this new person. You revel in their being – the tiny toes, the innocence, the beauty. You do all you can to feed them, to love them, to keep them safe.

But in spite of all this, you are not whole…there is something missing…there is emptiness, there is a hole in your heart and your being. How do you fill this emptiness? You have become more, and then you became less…whats next? Does your baby help you learn to fill up again? Or is this a journey for the mother alone? To rediscover your identity and somehow become ‘just right’ again?

Rope & Tire Basket Lunch Bag

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 00:47:07 GMT

A while back, I decided to make a lunch bag to transport my daughter’s various boxes and bottles to daycare. The requirements were – something pretty, something big, something tall enough to carry her Dr. Browns feeding bottles. After looking around, I found this free design – the basket bag design by Pierrot. The design looked very pretty and do-able. The great challenge with this pattern – this design is a Japanese pattern. Meaning: there are no row by row instructions written in words – instead, there is a pictorial representation of what needs to be done.

However Pierrot have made it easy to understand how to decipher their design with very useful, minimal explanations on the side. I also found two other links which i have since bookmarked:

Craft Minx – https://www.craftyminx.com/2011/11/crochet-school-lesson-21-reading-crochet-charts.html

Dancing Barefoot – https://dancingbarefoot.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/japanese-pattern-reading-tutorial-lesson-1/

Here is what my bag looks like:

Basket bag – 1

Another View:

Basket Bag – 2

Here is the summary of my pattern:

Ravelry Link to my bag – https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ropeandtire/basket-bag

Pattern Link in ravelry – https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/basket-bag (by Pierrot (Gosyo Co., Ltd) – 213ss-39 Basket bag )

Direct Link to PDF – https://gosyo.co.jp/english/pattern/eHTML/ePDF/1304/213ss-39\_Basket\_Bag.pdf

Yarn Used –

Lily Sugar n Cream Solids and Denim – Stonewash (2 skeins)
Lily Sugar n Cream Scents – Aloe (2 skeins)

Crochet Hooks Used

Turn of the Century – Purple Heart in 5mm (H)
Lantern Moon – Ebony in 3.5mm
Turn of the Century – Bloodwood in 3.75mm

Total Time to make bag – Large ~ 10.5hrs

Crochet body of bag – 2hrs 07 mins (over many days)

Crochet handles – 34mins

Crochet Lid – 1hr 50 mins

Lining for body and lid, attaching lining and button ~ 6 hrs

Pattern Modification Notes:

For the large lid, the loops to loop around the button: the design called for a ch 10. Instead I used Foundation Single Crochet of 10. Here is a great tutorial on Foundation Single Crochet by futuregirl
For the large lid, I used ‘Aloe’(green) for the center chain, the sc row attached to the center chain and rows 1,2 (on both sides). The rest were in ‘Stonewash’(Blue)
The body of the basket needed to be taller – So instead of 20 rounds, I did 25 rounds.
I used two colors for the body as well. The bottom of the bag, plus side rows 1-7 were in ‘Stonewash’ (blue). Rows 8 to 18 were in ‘Aloe’ (green). Rows 19 to 25 were in ‘Stonewash’ (Blue)

I wanted the basket bag to be tall enough to hold feeding bottles – however I did not make it tall enough. for this purposes, I wish I had crocheted 5 more rows – bringing the number of rows on the basket side to 30.

Basket Bag – 4

After the bag was done, I blocked the bag and made the handles. I used some rope as a strong insert for the bag handle interior.

Blocking the Basket Bag

The design and pattern however did not specify a lining. And I definitely wanted a waterproof lining. So I went to my local Ross and bought a Vinyl tablecloth, flannel backed for less than $5.00 – which will provide lining for many many lunch bags or other projects I can think of in teh future.

Lining Table Cloth

I used this tutorial by futuregirl as a launching point to make my lining. I decided to cut out an oval, double it up and sew it as the lining bottom. When doubling, the two pieces of flannel were back to back – such that the bottom is waterproof from both sides. Here is my bottom lining cut out – one piece

Lining Bottom

I similarly cut out a long rectangular piece for the lining of the side.

Lining Side

I then used this tutorial by futuregirl to learn how to sew the lining into a bag. And this is what the bag with lining looks like:

Bag with lining

I then made the basket lid and blocked it. What a difference blocking makes! It is so evident in the lid.

Lid without blocking:

Lid without blocking

Lid after blocking:

After Blocking

And here is the lid with its own lining:

Lid with lining

And here is my final basket bag:

Rope & Tire Basket Bag

Learning Jealousy

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:46:23 GMT

I don’t think I have been a jealous person most of my life…however motherhood seems to have changed that. I am very good friends with that green-eyed monster now. Every time I talk to any friends, single or married or with kids, and they talk about travel..I almost lose it. I get all teary eyed (which I hide very well), and get very jealous. Sometimes, like today, I chide myself that I am never satisfied – why do I always need more…though the truth is that outdoors is almost necessary for my sanity as food and sleep…

I enjoy being with my daughter a lot. However, motherhood, for me is at the cost of all the things which used to satisfy me and I used to enjoy. Landscape photography, hiking, climbing outside …. I miss the outdoors. A lot. Being out, away from civilization, doing my thing – I used to need this at least once a month before I used to go nuts. Well – I haven’t been out by myself for more than a year now… it is like a raw aching hole somewhere in me…and the sad part – I don’t know when and if this is going to change in the next few years.

Going into parenthood, I thought deep and hard if I could sacrifice all that I enjoy for my baby. I thought the answer was yes. Now, my answer is…maybe…I am not sure. Yes, I can function. yes, I look happy and sound happy..but that ache is just too hard to bear sometimes. Hanging out with my daughter helps. But when I am not around her, it is hard.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not miserable or depressed..I do go climb in the gym at lunch. I try to go to yoga classes. To provide an outlet to my energies, I guess I craft and write here…it all helps. I have a good life. But still there is that ache. Will I ever get to go out again?

Baby Blanket Project – 2

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:23:40 GMT

Yes! It is finally done. I finished my baby blanket over the weekend, on Friday night to be exact. It was such a long project t that I had got bored doing the same thing over and over again. A month ago, I had finished the body of the blanket – all that was left was the edging and the border… And I sat on it till this past week.

What finally drive me to finish this was necessity. For the past week,it is cold here at nights and my daughter needed a blanket. The stored bought baby blankets were too small for her 24mos size, however the throws we have at home were too big for her. This blanket has turned out just right – 65″ x 42″ – about the size of her crib.

Baby Blanket

To make a blanket this size took a lot of yarn – I used about 10.5 balls of the Angel Baby – ‘Baby Daisy’, and one yarn of Jo-Ann Sensations – ‘Little Treat’. The Jo-Ann yarn was a mistake. My local Hancock Fabrics chain store had run out of Angel Baby Daisy and I was desperate. The Jo-Ann one looked similar – however the yellows in it were much darker and the the yarn felt much rougher as well. So I hunted around and bought more Angel baby Daisy.

As I mentioned in [my first Baby Blanket post][1], I used the [blanket stitch][2] for the main stitch in my blanket. I started out with 220 chains to end up with my 64″ blanket. I crocheted the rows longitudinally..as in, the 220 chains were for the length of the blanket. This way, I could stop whatever the width I desired.For the border, as planned. I used the border in the [‘Fluffy Clouds Blanket’ pattern][3] by [Alla Koval][4] (paid pattern!). I am very very happy how this border makes the blanket so feminine! It is a very pretty border.

Baby Blanket Border – 1

Another look at the border. Isn’t the satin ribbon insert very clever! I’m in love with this blanket and border 🙂

Baby Blanket – 3

The other experiment with this blanket were the crochet hooks. When I started, crocheting this blanket, i became enamoured with wood crochet hooks. So I used this endless blanket as a testing point for a few crochet hooks.

I used the ‘regular’ Susan Bates Aluminium hook to start with. Then I used the Surina 7″ – I hated it and then I ended up using my favorite – [a Turn of the Century crochet hook made out of bloodwood][5] – gorgeous and red!. You can go read my reviews on teh Surina Crochet Hook if you so desire: Part 1 [here][6] and Part II / Conclusion [here][7].

So that is my finished Baby blanket. I will be updating this post with reviews of crochet hooks, once I get down to posting it. Meanwhile, here is a summary of links:

Ravelry Link to My Baby blanket – https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ropeandtire/blanket-stitch-baby-blanket

Blanket Stitch tutorial – https://www.crochetspot.com/how-to-crochet-blanket-stitch/

Alla Koval Fluffy Clouds Blanket Pattern Store – https://mylittlecitygirl.com/products-page-2/?product_id=51

Turn of the Century Crochet Hooks – https://www.turn-of-the-century.com/hooks.htm

[1]: https://ropeandtire.com/2013/07/11/baby-blanket-project/ ‎Edit [2]: https://www.crochetspot.com/how-to-crochet-blanket-stitch/ [3]: //mylittlecitygirl.com/2010/05/fluffy-clouds-blanket-pattern-for-sell/ [4]: https://mylittlecitygirl.com/ [5]: https://www.turn-of-the-century.com/1ghook.htm [6]: https://ropeandtire.com/2013/07/12/surina-7-woode…-review-part-i/ ‎ [7]: https://wp.me/p30cNm-2o

Surina 7″ Wooden Crochet Hook – Review Conclusion

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 16:40:34 GMT

Here are my conclusions on the Surina wood crochet hook. As I mentioned in the [Part 1 of my review][1], there was no ‘love at first sight’ kind of deal with this wood hook. However I decided to give it a prolonged try to see if I could learn to love it. Maybe I was just so used to using a metal hook that the metal vs. wood, blunt head vs. sharp head, thumb rest vs. no thumb rest was such a big deal that it clouded my judgement on what was really a very nice hook.

So I used this hook exclusively for one entire ball of yarn (the Angel Yarns Self Shading Baby Daisy) in my baby blanket. Also, I ended up using this yarn for one entire project – [the rope and tire crochet hook case][2] ( [the rope and tire crochet hook case][3]) and that used a different yarn – the Caron Simply Soft Solids.

By the end, about 10 hours of crocheting (at least!) I had warmed up to this hook. The yarn was no longer snagging at the pointed ends – indeed I now was ok with super pointed ends. Now, every time I picked up the hook, I held it in the most optimal position. I was still not very happy with how the yarn flowed over the hook – but it was acceptable.

However I still wasn’t in love with this hook. And then my other crochet hook arrived – this one made of wood as well, African Blackwood from [Turn of the Century][4]. I used that hook for a set of 20 chains and was in love. After that I tried using the Surina again – I just cannot go back to the Surina anymore!

So here is my final Summary:

Recommendation for Surina Wood Crochet Hook – Don’t Buy!

Pros:

Pretty

Light

Very affordable – Costs approximately $8.00 plus tax

Cons:

Handle is too thin (and I have ‘small – normal’ size hands for a woman’) – makes it difficult to hold and crochet for a long duration (more than an hour at a time …ouch!)

Yarn does not flow freely on hook. Looks like they coat the hook with some kind of a resin primer. The feel of it is a little sticky and not smooth.

Yarn tends to snag a lot on the pointed top and the tip of the hook – until one puts in enough time to get adjusted to this hook.

I prefer using the aluminium Susan Bates over this Surina wood hook. Of course – my number one preference now is my Turn-Of-Century Hook! More about that in another post.

[1]: https://ropeandtire.com/2013/07/12/surina-7-wooden-crochet-hook-review-part-i/ “Surina 7” Wooden Crochet Hook Review - Part I” [2]: https://ropeandtire.com/2013/08/16/rope-tire-crochet-hook-case/ “Rope and Tire crochet hook case” [3]: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ropeandtire/aluminum-crochet-hook-case “Rope and Tire crochet hook case - ravelry link” [4]: https://www.turn-of-the-century.com/tchome.htm “Turn of The Century Crochet Hooks”

Rope & Tire Crochet Hook case

Fri, 16 Aug 2013 21:03:41 GMT

It is done! It is finished. My crochet hook case. At some point, after I started crocheting my baby blanket, I started researching crochet hooks. And then I started buying wood crochet hooks. And then I needed a case for storing the crochet hooks. So I looked up ‘Crochet Hook Cases’. On this site – https://www.mooglyblog.com/10-free-crochet-hook-case-patterns/ , I saw was the ‘Aluminum Crochet Hook Case’ – a free crochet pattern. And so that is what I made.

Rope & Tire Crochet Hook Case – 1

Here is my ravelry link: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/ropeandtire/aluminum-crochet-hook-case.

And here is the link to Priscilla Hewitt’s original pattern – https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/aluminum-crochet-hook-case

I made a few modifications to the original pattern.

The first was the length of the crochet hook case. The design calls for 31 chains – this is the length of the crochet case. However with the size F hook I was using and the yarn i was using – carom Simply Soft solids, my 7 inch Surina wood hook would not fit with room to spare. So I decided to increase the length of the case. Instead of starting with 31 chains, I started with 37 chains and continued on with the pattern.

The second change was for the crochet hook pockets. In the pattern (Row 2 instructions), the instructions say to use double crochet stitch (dc) for the back of the hook pockets, then dc for the front and close them using the single crochet (sc). However, the hook pockets made this way seemed too narrow to fit my wider wood crochet hooks. So I tried using treble crochet stitch (or triple) (tc). With the tc, the width of the pocket was good enough – however, there were lot of holes / gaps between stitches, (as is the nature of tc). Because of this when I would try to put a crochet hook in, it would pop out in between rather than going all the way down to the bottom of the hook pocket. So I decided to use three rows of sc instead of dc or tc – and this looked much nicer too. So here are my modified instructions for Row 2

Different hook pockets

Row 2 – Rope and Tire Modification for wider sc pocket: Dc in each of the first 10 sts, dc in the back loop only of each of the next 20 sc to form the back of the hook pocket;

turn clockwise; dc (instead of one of dc, here will crochet three rows of sc) sc in the free loops of the same 20 sc to form the front of the hook pocket; ch 1, turn; go back with sc in the previous 20 sc; ch 1, turn, go back with sc in the previous 20 sc; ch1, turn; insert hook through the ~~first dc~~ sc of the front of the hook pocket and through the first dc of the back of the hook pocket, complete sc; *insert hook through the next dc of the front of the hook pocket and through the next dc of the back of the hook pocket, complete sc;* Repeat from * to * 18 times to completely close hook pocket; ch 1, turn.

And then, I made another modification. Why should all the hook pockets be of the same length? So I decided to stagger them. So for this, in Row 2, I used the following: Dc in each of the first 10 16 sts, dc in the back loop only of each of the next 20 20 sc to form the back of the hook pocket;

Then for Row 4, Dc in each of the first 10 13 sts, dc in the back loop only of each of the next 20 23 sc to form the back of the hook pocket;

Row 6, Dc in each of the first 10 10 sts, dc in the back loop only of each of the next 20 26 sc to form the back of the hook pocket;

Row 8: same as Row 4.

Row 10: same as Row 2

I repeated the same stagger for the other side as well.

Staggered Hook pocket lengths with my wooden hooks

Other changes I made – instead of joining the inner and outer covers together all around, I left it open on the top. I now can store pattern printouts, paper etc along with my crochet hooks! Pretty neat!

Pockets to store pattern printouts papers etc.

I decided to go the zipper route – I first tried the button enclosure, but didnt like it. So, I redid it using the zipper. For the zipper edging, I made another change – I used sc instead of the sl stitch in Row 2 for ‘Edging for Zipper section’. And I embellished my case with a pretty puffed petal flower: pattern here: https://easymakesmehappy.blogspot.com/2010/07/6-petal-puff-stitch-flower.html After that came blocking. And then I hand embroidered the label on a satin ribbon and stuck it using fabric glue.

And voila! my pretty nice to use crochet hook case!

Total Time taken: ~7hrs

Yarn used: Carom Simply Soft in ‘Off White’ color with ‘Autumn Red’ for edging and flower.

Hook used: 3.75mm Surina 7″

Rope & tire Crochet Hook case

Excellence in every act

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 02:36:00 GMT

Have you ever tried this?To do every thing in the best way you can? For all of 5 minutes, try it out. To breathe in your best way – a nice slow deep breath. To sit in your best way – correct posture, erect. To stand in your best way. To read in your best way possible. With the right attention to every word, not skimming over words, reading what the author wrote and not completing the author’s sentences in your mind… I could go on and on.

I think this is what is called mindfulness – paying attention to even the smallest thing you do, giving it respect and doing it as well as you can.

You should try it. It is a little tiring. However the feeling of satisfaction is immense and I always feel at peace. However I almost always have difficulty sustaining it. My mind – the monkey mind – refuses the deliberate pace and trying to concentrate on one thing and keeps jumping from thought to thought, distracting me and I lose the mindful mind. However, it is one of the things I try to practice as often as I can, as often as I think about it – to do everything I do mindfully.

The aches of climbing

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 10:52:09 GMT

Oh, How I love it! After a session of climbing, if I have pushed myself, almost everything hurts. My fingers feel so stiff. Almost always I sport a new scrape on my fingers or elbows or knees. Sometimes, I end up peeling some skin too. The forearms are a little tight and tired. The arms, the legs all feel like they have been beaten – just a little.

The aches. When I walk, the whole body almost groans. Why do I like this? Why would anyone like physical discomfort?

I like it because I feel alive. Every ache is a celebration that I am alive, that my body is being used for what it was built, the body has moved the way it should. It is a celebration of how amazingly well the human body is designed. About how I am more than my thoughts.

In the end, I think I love this state because it is all about forgtting myself – the mind and totally immersing myself – the body, and in the moment. There is a purity, a simplicity in this which brings a deep joy and peace within. The pain make me human.

On blog posts – what to write

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:19:41 GMT

If writing a everyday blog, with no set topic, finding a topic first becomes a challenge. I have made it easier for me by writng about whatever I feel like writing about.

When thinking about different things through the day, some topics seem very rich and deep and thoughtful and intellectual and I think ‘Ha! I should write about that. That topic looks promising.’. But then when I actually sit down to write about it, I can barely write two coherent sentences about that topic.

And then there are topics like this one. Who knew I could write so much about what to write? I guess the point is to try to write about everything which seems even remotely pertinent. The posts then choose to either live now or come back again with better fleshed out ideas some other time.

Routines – Web Links

Mon, 15 Jul 2013 19:02:16 GMT

So here you go! Lots of links below on the good and bad of routines. Of course, reading these links over time is what has influenced my thinking on routines and rituals.

Zen Habits

Tips to Establish a Morning and Evening Routine – https://zenhabits.net/tips-to-establish-a-morning-evening-routine-with-an-august-challenge/

A simplified morning Routine – https://zenhabits.net/simple-morning/

A day in the life of a minimalist (or no routine) – https://zenhabits.net/aday/

Zen Habits – How to Deal with Routine Disruptions – https://zenhabits.net/how-to-deal-with-major-disruptions-to-your-routine/

Brain Pickings

Daily Routines of famous Writers – https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/

Brain pickings – How we spend our days is how we spend our lives – https://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/07/annie-dillard-the-writing-life-1/

The Happiness Project – Think About your routines – https://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2010/05/think-about-your-routines-daily-weekly-yearly/

The Happiness project – Why I try to some things everyday – https://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2012/10/why-i-try-to-do-some-things-every-day-without-exception/

QuickSprout – 10 lessons from Seth Godin – https://www.quicksprout.com/2012/04/05/10-lessons-seth-godin-can-teach-you-about-blogging/

Seth Godin – Habits, Making and Breaking – https://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/05/habits_making_a.html

Seth Godin – Why are you afraid of process – https://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/04/why_are_you_afr.html

Vimeo – Seth Godin talk ‘Backwards’ by ‘Creative Mornings’ – https://vimeo.com/66199953

Surina 7″ Wooden Crochet Hook – Review Part I

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:54:27 GMT

When I started crocheting again, after a break of almost 10 years, it was to make a baby blanket for my friend. I went to my local Fabric store – Hancock Fabrics and picked up some yarn and some crochet hooks in a few sizes. They were all Susan Bates crochet hooks made of aluminium, and I have been pretty happy with them.

Now, I have been working on a blanket for my daughter. Last week, I was looking around for some yarn online, and I happened upon a curious thing – wooden and bamboo crochet hooks. Till that point, my ignorant self had always thought that crochet hooks were always made of metal. Browsing some more, I fell in love with the beautiful wood crochet hooks. On forums, it seemed like people who use the wooden hooks once are hooked on to them (pun intended).

So I began my search for a wood crochet hook to try. Lantern Moon, Furls, Brittany, ChiaGoo, Clover all have wood or bamboo hooks. However, I came across the ‘Surina’ Crochet hooks – and they intrigued me.

Here’s literature from their website – “All our wooden knitting needles are made from Surina wood, which we have been purchasing from plantations around Sundarban. The tree from which Surina wood is taken is locally known as “the elegant tree”. And with good reason: these tree are tall, very straight, have tiny branches and produce the wood which is hard yet light in weight, light pink in color and very suitable for woodworking .In Kolkata (Calcutta), highly trained and skilled artisans turn this elegant wood into exceptional knitting needles highlighting natural grain, hyper smoothness of the wood, handmade perfect finish and the hot stamping in both US and Metric sizes gives it the unique look. The hardness though lightweight, grained look, hyper smoothness and luster-polish without the use of any harmful chemical or agent is the USP of the wooden needles. No other wood can provide with the look that Surina can.”

A crochet needle made in India? Of course, I had to absolutely try it. Off I went to eBay and ordered one – in US Size F – for $12.23 including shipping. The hook came in yesterday and today, I had the opportunity to try it out.

The Surina is a very pretty hook -with decorative carving on the end, a lovely smooth finish with beautiful color and grain .Compared to my Susan Bates Aluminium, the Surina is longer (7″ vs 5″). It also has a pointed sharp head. – Susan bates has a round blunt head. The groove depth of the Surina is a bit shallower than the Susan Bates. Also, the edge of the groove – the tip is much sharper in the Surina. The Surina has no thumb rest (Susan Bates does). Both are inline hooks. (The anatomy of a crochet -Here is a very simple and nice description at freshstitches.com).

When I started to use the Surina, in the first 10 minutes, I just did not like it! I am used to a thumb rest, and the lack of it threw me off. Also, since the head was sharp and pointed, and the tip was a little sharp too, I snagged the yarn quite a bit. Also, the flow of yarn did not seem very smooth. I was sooo disappointed! It is such a pretty hook!

However, I decided to persevere with it – I decided to use the hook for one complete yarn ball and then make a decision.

After about 45mins of using the hook I feel differently. I found that with the Surina, it is taking me some time to get used to the lack of a thumb rest. The lack of a thumb rest makes the angle which I hold the hook, and how much the hook is rotated very important, and it contributes to the drag of yarn and how much I snag the yarn at its points.

Now, I know the optimal position of holding the hook. And I don’t feel any drag at all. The hook is much warmer to hold – that is a good thing. However because of no thumb rest, it fells much skinnier. I have started liking the sharp pointed head. I can be more accurate in where I go and it leaves smaller holes in its wake. My speed with the Surina is also improving.

So far, the Surina hook is not a throwaway. Am I going to love it? Or use it for decoration purposes only? Its too soon to tell. I will complete my one ball of yarn or maybe two) with this hook and then post an update. One thing for sure though – it is a pretty hook.

Baby Blanket Project

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 23:10:26 GMT

A couple of years ago, when my friend was pregnant with her son, I had made – crocheted actually – a baby blanket and gifted it to her. So when I got pregnant, I fully intended to make a blanket for my baby too. But that never happened during my pregnancy – as I was too busy climbing, going to yoga classes, our kitchen renovation, travelling etc

Then baby M came home. I first decided to make the ‘Fluffy Clouds Baby blanket’ – https://mylittlecitygirl.com/2010/05/fluffy-clouds-blanket-pattern-for-sell/ bought the pattern too. The pattern is very pretty, but the picots took too much time and yarn. Looking online, I came across this link to a very easy and pretty stitch – blanket stitch at https://www.crochetspot.com/how-to-crochet-blanket-stitch/. So now, my blanket is being made using this blanket stitch.

I decided to make a ‘large’ blanket. As of now, one side of it is measuring 54″. This is going to be the ‘width’. I’m hoping for a length of about 54″ as well. After that, I plan to add a border to the blanket – using the border pattern from ‘Fluffy Clouds’. Make a few bright colored Japanese flowers and finish with some satin ribbon. That’s the plan.

More Details:

Hook Size: US F(3.75mm)

Yarn: Premier Angel Self Shading in ‘Baby daisy’ color.

Skeins used: 4 so far.

Project Ravelry Link: https://ravel.me/ropeandtire/bb

My Ideal weekday – Take One

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 03:13:48 GMT

This morning, by the time I reached work, I was super grouchy. After eating something, and taking a few deep breaths and reading two blog posts, I calmed down and started thinking. What would an ideal work day be for me, at this point? While I am doing tis, I thought I might as well turn it into a blog post – so I can revisit later on and either laugh at my foolishness or cry at my naivete.

Here goes:

5.30AM – Wake up. Make coffee and water the plants. Cut veggies / fruits and start the baby food steaming process.

5.45 – 6.20AM – Write my morning pages with coffee, and some Gregorian Chants – or as I do now, write my morning pages while pumping and drinking coffee.

6.20 – 6.40AM – Clean up the dirty bottles, prepare baby bottles and baby food, diapers for daycare.

6.40 – 7.00AM – Shower, get ready or work

7.00AM – 7.30AM – Baby wakes up. Play with her for 10 mins. Change her, sponge bath, get ready for daycare. Out of the door by 7.40AM latest

8.00 AM – Reach work. Make oatmeal and sit to work – no browsing, reading news and other time wasters.

11.45 – Go to the gym to climb / yoga. Once a week eat lunch with a friend / co-worker.

1.00 – 5.00 – Back at my desk. Eat lunch with work.

5.00 – Head home.

5.30 – 6.00 – Play with baby

6.00 – 6.30PM – Feed baby solid food. Feed me some solid food too

6.30 – 7.00 -Baby plays some more.

7.00 – 7.30 – Baby gets a oil massage, bath, lotion massage. Bottle.

7.30-7.45 – Read book, baby sleeps

8.00 – 8.30 – Write blog posts

8.30 – 9.30 – Work on photos / craft.

9.30 – 10.00 – Shower and sleep.

And that would be my ideal weekday routine. The reality of what I really do now?Why, that would be another blog post for some other day wouldn’t it?

Baby Lullaby CD recommendation

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 05:21:09 GMT

I have a CD recommendation for those parents out there looking for a lullaby CD . ‘It’s A Big World’ by Renee and Jeremy is worth your hard earned money. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Its-Big-World-renee-jeremy/dp/B000QEJ0X8 . I found out about this CD via cragmama – https://cragmama.com/2011/01/creating-a-cragbaby-sleepytime-solutions/

You can go to their website – https://reneeandjeremy.com/ – and listen to their music before you buy it.

I have listened to this CD every day, multipletimes a da for a couple of months now, and yet to tire of it. Soothing, calm, peaceful, baby and adults both like it. And the lyrics strike a chord too. The more I have listened to this CD, the more I enjoy it!

Highly recommended.

To Climb again

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 04:28:46 GMT

It’s been so long since I climbed outside. And I miss it so much.

Th fresh air, the rough rock, the dirt, the approach, the scrambling just to get to the climb. The nervousness when I start the climb, the sight of birds flying below me. The blue sky with the one wisp of a cloud. The sun warming me, then beating me up with intense heat, and then the calm of the evening sun. Eating soggy subway sandwiches for lunch along with trail mix for dessert. Taking a small lazy nap while waiting for my turn up the rope.

Patience, I tell myself. Patience. You will have that gaian, the sun burns, the chapped lips and chaped hands, the sore body with bruises because of swinging into the rock. The infinite joy, the happiness and feeling of belonging with the rock. The dwarfing of me and the expanding of everything else. I will feel it again…someday..in the future. Meanhile my baby is small. And I need to enjoy this…being bound at home, running chores for her and the rest of the family, being bound by everybody else’s expectations, tied down…

This too shall pass. And before I know it, I will be climbing outside….and will see the blessed happiness of the outdoors on my daughter’s being too!

Taking Responsibility for your actions

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 04:31:47 GMT

Why is it so difficult to take responsibility for my own actions? It is so much easier to blame other people or events. So easy to say “It’s beause of so and so or such and such that I’m not getting what I want, I’m unable to do this task.”

Well, I think I know the answer to my own question. Taking responsibilty means facing the truth that I am lackng somehow. It bruises my ego. It would mean that I actually have power to change myself and so change my circumstances. It means actually getting of my butt and doing real work, hard work – essential difficult work. And that is a daunting task. So much easier to bury my head in sand, to say I am powerless and blame everyone and everything else.

The Fortunate One

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 05:27:56 GMT

Am I? On a normal day,when everything is as it should be and humming along normally, some one close to you tells about their difficulties. What do you do?

Do you feel thankful and happy for what you have? Do you pity the other person? Do you feel bad that the other person does not have what you have? Do you feel guilty for all the things right in your life at that moment? Do you feel that you deserve all the right things in your life since you had tough times too? Do you judge the other person and judge yourself?

What is the right response? Is there one?

The Everyday Blogging Habit

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 04:28:59 GMT

Is something I am working towards. How is it going? The results are available for all to see an judge – not very well. However,I will persevere in this endeavour.

The challenge has been to find one slot in a day where I will sit down everyday without fail and type. For now, I have decided to suspend judgement on the quality of posts I write. It is important that I sit at around the same time everyday, for approxmately the same amount of time and write. Once writing becomes a habit, I will then worry about quality. Without the practice of writing how can I even dream of quality writing and quality thoughts?

Meanwhile, here is a link I found inspring. It from Quicksprout and is about blogging lessons one can learn from Seth Godin – https://www.quicksprout.com/2012/04/05/10-lessons-seth-godin-can-teach-you-about-blogging/

P.S. Though this blog is public, I dont know if anyone else will ever read. Even if no one else does read, I can use this blog as a refresher / bookmark of sorts.

Living in the head

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:44:51 GMT

Long ago, one of my yoga instructors, during a warm up breathing session talked about how we are in our heads all the time, how we should use the yoga opportunity to get beyond the head. That thought has stuck with me to this day.

Thinking about it: I go through the day thinking about things to do, thinking about how to do things. Thinking about people. Even work is very intellectual, with very little physical activity. For entertainment – TV, books, browsing etc are all ‘in the head as well’. Through the day I never notice how my posture is bad, how my shoulders are stiff or how my body is feeling. For the body to be noticed, for anything other than what goes on in the head to be noticed, the cause has to be quite extreme – pain or discomfort.

And then I go and exercise. If the exercise is strenuous, I am no longer in my head. All of a sudden I notice how tight all my muscles are, how stiff, how much ‘pain’ and ‘agony’ and discomfort the exercise is causing. Oh, the head does try to butt in – trying to tell me to quit because ‘you can be doing more fun things like browsing the web or other stuff. Basically just stay with me dammit’.

But oh, that brief respite from living in the head, just acknowledging the body, the breath, the energy feels so good and so refreshing. Not to mention the boost ion creativity and energy and joy it provides.

So then, why do I still live in my head all the time?

Drama

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:38:28 GMT

This is what all the creativity gurus say…You can either have drama in your life or you can do the work you need to do. Drama and work are mutually exclusive.

Oh, how true it is. All those feelings of anger, of frustration, of self pity. All those stories in my head of ‘How did they say this to me? How can they? I’m going to tell them this next time. And then they will say this. And I will retaliate this way. And they will do that to me. how horrible! How can anyone be that way?’ all over somebody telling me to get my act together! What a waste of creativity which achieves absolutely nothing except a wallow in self pity.

Whenever I’m upset, if I can somehow think about this, I m suddenly all right. After all, I do want to do stuff, make stuff, create stuff and be happy – not indulge in drama and be sad and melancholy and dramatic!

Friday Night

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:49:10 GMT

Its Friday night. I am home alone. With the cat sleeping peacefully and the baby sleeping almost peacefully.

The day’s work is almost done. A breeze brings the scent of jasmine. And of wet earth after a long scorching day. It was I who watered the plants earlier.

The day was long. I could have been better. I could have been worse. My baby is stirring. Her lullaby playing.

It is time to go to bed, to the gift of sleep. In peace. With gratitude.

On Choices

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:41:22 GMT

Choices are very difficult.

Do I get up at 5.30 am and lose half an hour of precious and needed sleep? Or do I get up at 5.30am and spend half an hour in a relaxing, calming way much needed to function properly through the day?

At lunch, do I eat lunch only? Or do I exercise? Or do I meet up with a friend whom I haven’t seen for a couple of months? Or do I do more work to catch up on my to-do list?

At night, do I rest for a few minutes doing nothing? Or do I do more work to prepare for the next day, to make the next morning easier?

For some, these choices are not so difficult..The problem with choosing arises when all the options are good..and not choosing that option deprives you of something you need..and you must choose. And for me all these choices are equally good.

I want to chalk this up to life after having a baby…but just thinking about it, life has always been this way. It has been this way since the number of activities / things I like to do, need to do surpassed the amount of responsibility – fee time available.

So what is one to do? Most times, I go with the flow…sometimes one choice seems overwhelmingly tempting…one choice seems more sensible. However the danger with this approach i have found, is sometimes the choice I make is the wrong one..and I chose so because of laziness…not because of the choice’s rightness. So i live and learn and hope that next time I can do better.

Pushing Through

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:00:14 GMT

The lessons I have been learning just watching my baby have been amazing. For about a month and a half, she could roll over to be tummy down – but could not roll back.

On her tummy, she would try and try to roll back, could not figure it out. She would then bang her head against the floor a couple of times, let out a big sigh and rest her forehead on her hands. Then she would take a deep breath lift her head up, try to push off on her hands and try to roll back. This would go on and on for about 15-20 minutes. Then she would start wailing for help. Once an adult would help her to sleep on her back, she would maybe play for 5 minutes on her back, then roll over on her tummy .. and the process begins all over again.

I was amazed at her persistence, at how she would get frustrated, how she would take a break, a deep breath and try and try and try.

When, in our growing up phase, do we lose this amazing persistence and ability to deal with frustration? How many adults we know can try so hard and keep trying, and not let frustration get to you? And then try some more and never give up until they succeed? How many of us actually push through the difficulties we face on our way to achieving what we want, without resorting to excuses and blames and other cover ups?

On Routines – The Dark Side

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:50:53 GMT

As amazing as routines are, they also have their own detrimental effects – like everything else.

For example, this morning, I woke up late – 2 hours later than usual. this threw my usual routine out of the door and I had to improvise and scram… This left me snappy and mean and in a hurry – overall an unhappy start to a day!

I kept thinking, if i were not so dependent on routines, maybe I would be more graceful in adapting? This is the biggest problem with routines – as I see it . A dependence on them makes you less flexible, and we all know how life keeps changing all the time!

The other problem is this – once a routine is set, I tend to try to stack on more stuff to do until the routine itself becomes so complicated that it implodes. And then there is this issue of routine evangelizing – if it works for me, I tend to try to push it on other members of the family – which is ok up to a certain extent – after which it becomes tedious.

So I need routines in my life, but I need to be vigilant about them and not get too dependent.. balance in using this tool as well.

On Routines

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:47:59 GMT

What would I do without them? I never realized how important routines are to my life until I had my baby. Now I think I would flounder without one,

When there is a lot of stuff to be done, when people are depending on you, when you have to take care of yourself too and your muse, when time is limited…how do things get done? Routine has been my answer. Stuff like what time to get up, what to do after I wake up, what time I go to sleep, what do i do at lunch…all these have become a part of my routine. This saves me valuable energy and time and mental effort to play with my baby or to talk to my husband or to read or take photographs or just chill…

What is not to like about routines?

On Work-Life Balance

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 18:29:59 GMT

What is it? It seems like the phrase ‘Work-Life Balance’ should be rephrased into ‘Work-Life See Saw . There never seems to be a balance – one side almost always takes up more than the other. And between ‘work’ and ‘life’ the essential space – both mental and physical – to just pause, to refresh, to rejuvenate seems to be lost.

And that is exactly what everybody else is looking for too, isn’t it? Unfortunately, there are no canned answers – only the ones we find for ourselves.

Climbing when Pregnant – Gear

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:13:48 GMT

Here is a list of gear I used when climbing (mostly indoor top roping, minimal outdoor toproping) during my pregnancy

Full Body Harness:

Climbing during pregnancy requires special gear – a full body harness if you plan to continue to climb after the bump starts making itself known. I moved to the full body harness at around the 15th week. My regular harness was feeling very uncomfortable – it was vaguely constricting my belly – nothing dangerous – but not comfortable either. At the time I was looking, I had a few options…

CAMP USA makes two full body harnesses – the CAMP Easy harness – approximately $45.00 on amazon, a basic full body harness with just one gear loop, and the CAMP Magic II $20.00 more than the Easy, and has two gear loops.

Petzl also has a full body harness which I have seen a bunch of pregnant women in my climbing gym wear – the Petzl 8003 a whopping $125.00 when I was looking.

I ended up picking the cheapest harness – the CAMP EASY – thinking that I might not climb past the sixth month (ha! that), so why spend a lot? I ended up using this harness a lot – climbing two to three times a week in the gym, till two days before my daughter was born. I’ll write more on the CAMP Easy harness in a different post.

Looks like Mad Rock is coming up with their version of a full body harness for pregnant climbers called the Mountain Mama in Jan 2013 – Mountain mama by Mad Rock

Climbing shoes – same old ones I was using pre-pregnancy – La Sportiva Katana (Womens version). Luckily my feet didn’t expand anymore…or maybe my shoes expanded to fit my new feet…

Climbing clothes

Well, I was not fitting into my old gym clothes….so I splurged on this awesome top from REI. https://www.buzzillions.com/reviews/women-rei-venturi-tank-top-reviews

Unfortunately, this top was available in only two colors..Green and Blue..and I bought one of each. Unfortunately, this is no longer available… REI has changed how the ‘Venturi Tank top’ looks like.

What was so awesome about this? The cool this about this top was that it is made for non-pregnant women, but the front pleats expand along with the belly! This is what I was wearing when climbing two days before my baby decided to show up!

Climbing pants

Well, I wanted nice material, comfortable, with a wide elastic belly band which would cover the under part of my (to me) huge belly, but at teh same time not constrict, be good looking and work post-pregnancy as well… and I found it…

The Stonewear Designs Meridian Capri – https://www.stoneweardesigns.com/p-310-meridian-capri.aspx

All the above and of course, your favorite water bottle..important to stay hydrated!

blog.suprada.com RSS Feed

Goal Hierarchy - What is it and why should I spend time thinking about it?

Continuous deployment via git and cPanel for your Gatsby (or other static) blog

Sections

Today’s manual steps to update site on my web host

The automated way I would like

How to enable continuous deployment using git and cPanel

1. Here are the prerequisites:

2. Create an empty repository on your cPanel Git Version Control interface

3. Connect cPanel your local development machine via ssh

4. Add the cPanel managed repository as a remote on your local repository

5. .gitignore issues

6. Setup automatic deployment via post-receive git hook

7. Sending an email once the copy is completed.

4. Final Process:

5. Links I used to research and implement this.

Why I blog

Seth Godin's Three Pillars

The Pressure of the Big Other and The Housewife's disease

The Craft of Writing Effectively

Notes from The Craft of Writing Effectively by Larry McEnerney

On thinking and writing

On reading said writing

Adding value to a reader

Rules of writing

So what is writing anyway?

And what is effective writing?

So how to write effectively?

Knowing the reader

Language, trust

How to change reader’s minds?

How I moved my blog to Gatsby

How to package your React Component for distribution via NPM

1. Make a package npm publishable

2. Don’t bundle React. Use the parent’s React and react-dom.

3. Set up your .npmignore file

4. Add a ‘prepublish’ script to your package.json

5. Extract out your CSS files for use

6. Images in CSS

7. Make sure your images are available outside your component

Shoutouts and References:

Introducing Book-Notes – my notes and highlights from the books I have read

What I used to build book-notes

VS Code – A tool for writers

But what exactly are my needs for a writing editor?

So are these requirements met with VSCode? VS Code – A tool for writers?

VS Code Setup Guide

Installation

Customize the Look and Feel

Set up the editor conveniences

Set up the development conveniences

Projects and versioning

Measuring (for the dataphiles)

Debuggers

Polymer Specific

Additional Settings

February 2017 Reading Log

February 2017 Reading Log

Introducing LittleReads – The most awesome book tracking app in the universe

LittleReads

The most awesome book tracking app in the universe

Do you have a child under 6?

Do you read books to your child?

Are you participating in the 1000 books before kindergarten challenge?

Do you want your child to be a super-duper-reader?

Do you want an easy way to track books you read to your child?

Yes? Join us at littlereads.us

Side Hustle School Podcast – Cool Tool #6

Details

What is it about?

Why I like Side Hustle School?

The nightly review

The Mildly Dissatisfied and Insecure

On time-luxuriousness

January 2017 Reading Log

January 2017

Debbie Millman on sensitivity and rejection

The Romance of Tangents

The Creative Bubble

The Philosophies of Deep Work

5. `.gitignore` issues

4. Add a ‘prepublish’ script to your `package.json`