I write about stuff that interests me

 "Passive forms of media aren’t supposed to make us happy and strong, they’re supposed to make money for someone."  Things to know ·        Flow is a state of complete immersion in the activity being performed where everything outside of it becomes irrelevant- one forgets about the frustrations and worries of daily life. During flow, the sense of time is messed up- hours can feel like minutes, and minutes like hours. A professional violinist forgets about the outside world and becomes one with their instrument while performing, they are experiencing flow. ·        Attention is a major resource of our mind. How we choose to use it determines our quality of life. In this book, psychic energy refers to attention. Pleasure and enjoyment are different Many people might have the mentality that they shouldn’t put effort into anything unless it brings forth any extrinsic rewards, like money and fame. Although pleasure c...

We experience reality from two perspectives. If I point to a dog and ask what that is, everyone will say that it’s a dog. But, the sight of the dog isn’t the only component of the experience. Two people looking at the same dog might have different emotional reactions to it. Maybe one of them loves dogs and might feel happy by the sight. The other person had got bitten by a dog, so they look at it with fear. In short, we constantly interpret the objective reality – according to our experience, wants and desires – that we experience, making it subjective. Meursault, the protagonist of “The Stranger” written by Albert Camus, doesn’t seem to experience reality subjectively. He perceives reality just as it is, without any interpretations. That’s why I think everything feels meaningless to him. The opening of the novel reads “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don't know.” Meursault isn’t affected much by the death of his mother, noting that nothing in his life had changed a...

I’m running. Every time I step on the ground, a jolt of pain from my knee spreads itself to my thigh. If I don’t stop immediately, it feels like an internal organ inside my lower ribs is going to burst. The cool wind gently brushing on my body is the only delight, so I focus on that. The pain is still there. I look ahead at the trees slow dancing with the wind. “It’s impossible to go ahead without a rest”, emerges an inner voice, but I ignore that and keep going. After a while, something strange happens. I no longer feel pain, but just feel incredibly grateful to be alive. A sense of bliss washes over my body. I feel energized, so I run faster. My brain was lying to me. Had I listened to it, I wouldn’t have felt the runner’s high. The storm before the calm isn’t limited to running. Whenever we have to take action, our first instinct is to put it off. An inner voice convinces us that it’s going to be boring, that it can be done any other time but now. If we don’t succumb to this voice...

The central ideas in the book are simple. The first is that we cannot eliminate poverty (as of yet), but that is no excuse for inaction. Poverty leads to a waste of life and talent, which is undesirable. Therefore, we should do whatever we can to reduce it. The second is that simple actions can have a sizeable impact. These actions include deworming children (makes them healthier), adding chlorine to water (prevents diarrhoea), providing adequate Iodine to pregnant women (creates healthier babies), using bed nets (prevents malaria), and many others. Unfortunately, easily preventable problems cause many deaths and misery. To discuss the content of the book, it is important to understand some concepts. A stable job differentiates the middle class from the poor. One is in a poverty trap if their future income is projected to be lower than their present income. This implies that one cannot get out of poverty themselves (hence, “trap”), and intervention is needed. How do the poor spend ...

After playing “relaxing music” on YouTube, I sit down - cross-legged - and close my eyes. I have one objective: focus on the rhythm of my breath. For maybe 10 seconds, I succeed. Inevitably, my mind wanders off by conjuring memories from the past or making up scenarios for the future. For the mind to do that, we don’t need to close our eyes. Think about how many times you didn’t notice something happening in the present because you were lost in thought. It’s a common experience to be looking at someone speaking to us, but only listen to the voice inside our head.  Our thoughts mostly contain instances that are blurry and lack details, but we get the gist of it. Dreams aren’t that different. One way to know if you are dreaming is by counting your fingers. If you look at your hand in your dream, it certainly won’t have 5 fingers. It seems as if the fingers were placed on the palm by a lousy architect.   We cannot predict our thoughts and they tend to bounce from one context...