8 August 2020

“Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers”

If you have a stressful job or are suffering from stress for whatever reason, this is an amazing book that explains how stress affects different parts of the body and exactly the process by which it happens.

Written by Robert Sapolsky (the author of “Behavior”), it is a little dense. Probably less dense – but since I am not a medical student, I am taking more time to sort out the various actions, names and organs he is talking about. I am ploughing at a rate of about 15-20 pages per hour, right now.

As of now, I am studying (and making a lot of notes) on Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. Reading up on Juvenile Diabetes (Type 1), my mind floated back to a really bright young gentleman – Ronit Ganguly – one of the most amazingly smart and well balanced kids that I have ever come across (we will not count his rooting for New England Patriots against him though 🙂 ) who was suddenly diagnosed with this. I got a better understanding – thanks to this book – what his body went thru. The frustrating part is that medical science has not yet fully understood why this happens and how to prevent it.

I am encouraged though that smart kids like Ronit (and his friends) will crack the problem sooner than later!

Category: Musings | 2 Comments on “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers”
31 July 2020

Throwback to forty years back

I remember in 1980 my sister had learnt how to sing this song. And I had accompanied her on the tabla. That was forty years back. The words and the tune are by the famous Bengali poet – Nazrul Islam.

“Musafir! mochh re aankhijol
Phirey chol aponaarey niya
Aponi phhutechhilo phool
Giyaachhhey aponi jhoriya

Re pagol! Eki durasha
Jol-e tui bnadhbi baasa
Metey na hetaa-y piyasa
Heta naai trishna doriya”

Roughly translated…

“Oh wayfarer! wipe your tears
Let’s return; collect yourself
The flower that had bloomed itself
Has also shed on its own

Oh madcap! what insane hope is this
That you will build your home on water
Your thirst won’t be quenched here
There is no fountain of elixir here”

Category: Music/Poetry | LEAVE A COMMENT
25 July 2020

Book Review: A Guide to the Good Life

William Irvine has written this book on Stoicism from a unique perspective – he teaches Stoicism in college and is a practicing Stoic himself.

Among other things, he does a good job of tracing the history of Stoicism. Most of us know and read about the Roman version of Stoicism. But Stoicism started in Greece and had a couple of more interesting facets – reasoning logic (if A, then B; A; ergo B) and physics!!! But they got dropped by the Romans when Panaetius of Rhodes took the philosophy from Greece to Rome.

He also does a good job of explaining the different philosophical schools that competed with Stoicism at that time – Cynics, Epicureans, Skeptics, Megarians and so on.

The practices that the author suggests to any aspiring Stoic are:
(*) Negative Visualization – to fight off “hedonic adaptation and appreciate what you have
(*) Dichotomy of Control – the author extends it to Trichotomy of control – to not worry about the things you cannot control and “internalize goals” when you have some control.
(*) Fatalistic about the past and present but never the future
(*) For advanced practitioners, practice “voluntary discomfort”
(*) Being selective of which social function you attend and who you associate with.
(*) Use self-deprecating humor to counter insults
(*) Deal with anger by reminding yourself of the impermanence

Some interesting quotes from the book:
“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes”
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing”
“If people think you amount to something, distrust yourself”
“To know how many are jealous of you, count your admirers.”
“If we seek social status, we give other people power over us.”

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19 July 2020

Saturday evening relaxation

“Pehlu Mein Hai Raqib Tumhare Khuda Ki Shaan
Kaanta Bi Hai Woheen Pe Jahan Pe Gulaab Hai
Kehte Hain Jaam Bhar Ke Woh Kaisi Adaa Ke Saath
Pee Lo Humaare Hath Se Peena Sawaab Hai”

I will need some help in translating the first line (or for that matter, all the lines) from somebody who is well versed in Urdu. I think it goes something like this…

“God’s grace is (unfortunately) on your rival’s side // raqib often refers to your rival with who you are vying for the lady’s attention
When you find a rose, there will be thorns too // meaning a thing of beauty will always come with pain
Filling my glass with wine, she says playfully
Drink from my own hand; drinking is my reward” // meaning your only reward is that you get to drink the wine she is serving

Category: Music/Poetry | LEAVE A COMMENT
6 July 2020

Report out on not cross posting to Facebook

It was three months back that I had floated the idea of not cross posting from my blog to Facebook. Was soundly denounced by all commenters not to do any such thing. Not exactly of sound mind or body, I went ahead and did it anyways. Actually took Parijat’s advice of “try out for some time”.

I thought I will try it out for a month. It has been three months now. That itself says something. Here are some learnings…

What I gained:
a. A lot of time and self control: It was preposterously difficult in the beginning – missing out on all the comments and counter comments and likes and a rewarding engagement model with the readers and commenters. But over time, I realized what a time waste it had become for me. Now I check Facebook for 15 minutes in the morning – usually there is nothing for me – so, I scroll thru updates of others, smile at the furious points and counterpoints on mask versus no mask, virus versus hoax, Democrats versus Republicans, BJP versus Congress and log out of my laptop screen.

b. Focus on the quality of my blog: With that extra time, I have started focusing on my blog. The writing is still as bad as before but I have started working on how the blog looks. That – and some great encouragement from Larry – led me to learn HTML and CSS (and now I am learning PHP) to make all sorts of tweaks to the blog. You remember how the first time a kid learns fonts and colors and soon the whole document is filled with all the colors of rainbow and all font styles and sizes possible? Yes, I am that dangerous now.

c. Learnt to tweak the model: Over time, I learnt how to mix and match for best results. I still post once in a while directly to Facebook (like this one). After requests from folks like Kenneth, I started a email subscription to my blog (initially I was against it). Instead of immediate email notifications, there are weekly digests that go out. And then somebody suggested – why not send the digest to Facebook with links. Which is what I do now. I am also getting good tips – from folks like Milind, as an example, how to make a lot of things in my blog still better.

I would have missed all this if I had not “tried” out this experiment, that I am afraid is here to stay with me.

What I lost:
d. What I miss most is all the random updates of friends. I had to ply thru a lot of political and other opinions to get those posts, but usually I would get one or two interesting updates every week. Spending 15 minutes on Facebook does not get to that.

Net net, I think Facebook had become an addiction. I think I have been able to get myself back to where I wanted – it is a tool and I will use it as I deem fit and not the other way around.

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2 July 2020

Beautiful poetry from Allama Muhammad Iqbal

“Sitaron se aage jahaan aur bhi hain
Abhi ishq ke imtihan aur bhi hain
Har ek maqam se aage maqam hai tera
Hayat zauq-e-safar ke siwa kuch aur nahin”

Roughly translated…

There is a universe beyond the stars we behold
There are even more tests of our love awaiting us
Your destination is beyond every known destination
The entire joy of life is in the journey itself ! (Not the destination)

Category: Music/Poetry | LEAVE A COMMENT
28 June 2020

Marketing gone awry?

This goes back a few weeks when Sharmila and I had this debate about distilled water. She had bought distilled water to make coffee at home. We get our water from our well and it can sometimes clog up small appliances because of very small debris.

I was arguing the case that we should not be drinking distilled water. Any water we drink needs to have some amount of minerals etc. Which is why all the cities process the water and add certain elements before it is sent out to the house taps. I also have very severe doubts if the water she bought is truly distilled – that would make the water very costly. It is probably super filtered or something.

Yesterday, when picking up water at the Kroger near our hotel, I noticed “Distilled Water” was the only thing left in the shelves (in the big size container I was looking for). What caught my eye was the marketing twist the label had.

It did state that it is produced by steam distillation. I can’t still fathom the costs of all the energy required to boil the water and then cool it back again after capturing the vapors.

But what made me laugh was mentioning that the source was “Deep Wells”. I suspect to give you a sense of pure and cold water?

My question was – How does it matter? You are distilling the water. The source can be from anywhere in this world – the output will be exactly the same. It is DISTILLED water. It will have no other molecule than H2O. You can boil dirt water and distill it and get exactly the same product.

But I guess these are the days of marketing. We have seen Smart Water, Vitamin Water … Why else would we pay exorbitant prices for tap water put in a bottle rather than have it from a tap?

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