Life in Bangalore

  The War of Art Steven Pressfield on his daily ritual of writing I get up;  take a shower; Have breakfast; I have a lucky cannon that I point at my chair; So that it can fire inspiration in me; I say my prayer; And then I plunge in ; And then for the next 4 hours - I keep typing; And then when I start making typos  I know i am getting tired- that's four hours or so How many pages have I produced? Are they any good? I dont care.  All I care is that I overcame my resistance for one more day! The secret is that - it's not the writing that is hard - sitting down to write- that  is hard!!!

Marcus Aurelius Meditations - pg.16 And remember , there are only 2 rules : Rule 1 : External things do not touch the soul!                for they are in constant change -                while the soul is permanent! Rule 2 : Our perturbations come only from opinion within!

Marcus Aurelieus pg.17 Meditations "I have been harmed" Take away thy complaint ; "I have been harmed" and harm is taken away;  Consider that everything that happens, happens Justly! As if it were done by One , who assigns to each thing its Value! Then , a person should have 2 rules in readiness :  1.    To do only whatever the reason of ruling suggests 2.     Change your opinion - if its preceded by reason and common good! (If you do so) With in 10 days, you will seem a God to those  whom you are now a beast  If you return to principle and worship of reason!

Marcus Aurelius  Meditations - Pg.17   Dont worry about thy neighbor! How much trouble (s)he avoids     who does not look to see What her neighbor - says or does or thinks (or feels)     but only to what she does herself (only) that it may be Just and Pure! As Agathon says :     Look not (a)round at the depraved morals of others But run straight along the line without deviating from it! My Notes: geometry analogy : point and line Have a singular purpose : a point Keep running towards that point along the straight line  . guard-railed by Principles! If possible , take people along with you! If not move on - without moan, groan or complaint!

  ( a light-hearted note- just for humor only no offence intended🙂) There comes a period in man’s life : when his hairlines are pretty active – I mean – busy falling off; Hair loss is typically considered the domain of aging men, and this can affect virtually anyone who has a serviceable head,.Particularly in mid-40s, — hairloss has many causes, the chief one being teenage children — Every man sheds about 100 hairs each day as part of the normal hair growth cycle. This principle doesn’t apply to Bollywood Actor Anil Kapoor though, who actually gains 100 hairs each hour.   My friend : Sridhar (name changed to protect identity) from his original name of Krishnappa – was follicle challenged  - politically correct word for baldness! Especially I don’t want to talk   much about baldness be “Will Smithed” had Chris "Rocked" Sridhar was going through a huge stress : because of baldophobia  People are so fearful of showing-off their hairless real-estate of their head!...that Hair Ex

I Think. Therefore I am wrong! George Saunders ,  A Swim in the pond in the rain Skaz meaning - unreliable first-part narration! The entire drama of life Skaz-headed person #1 - steps outside encounters Skaz-headed person #2 Both seeing themselves as the center of the universe thinking highly of themselves immediately slightly misunderstanding everything!

 A swim in the pond in the rain -George Saunders The instant we wake-up the story begins : "Here I am, in my bed, Hard worker, Good Dad, Decent Husband a guy who always tries his best " .... .... All of this limited thinking has an unfortunate by-product : Ego who is trying to survive ? "I" am The mind takes a vast unitary wholeness (the Universe) selects one tiny segment of it (me) and starts narrating from that point of view. Just like that, that entity (George!) becomes real, and he is (surprise, surprise) located at the exact center of the universe and everything is happening in his movie .... .... It is all, somehow, both for and about him In this way, the moral judgment     arise : what is good for George is - good what is bad for him is -bad! so in every instant , a delusional gulf gets created between Things as we think they are! and Things as they actually are!

Gratification is the 8th wonder of the world!!! From Twitter  Due to my "Goals mindset" I am getting into this "hedonic treadmill" - where even after a significant accomplishment - I f eel ecstatic at first, but after a while, I  get used to the new accomplishment and go back to the previous level of happiness. Result : I land with a longing sense of gap - not the gains accomplished...resulting in lack of contentedness and  gratification. For example, take case of my jogging: first day I run freely no expectations on running continuously or time taken;  But the second day the baseline sets in and I try to outperform myself over previous and so on each day; At some point fatigue sets in , I refuse to start ;  due to the goals I have to accomplish! The same happened with my podcasting and many other hobbies. So what I need to do: I need to put in my focus : without worrying about outcomes Attention without motive; Having started is the bonus ....This shall be my motto

 (Inspired and Stolen from Dan Koe 😉) The beauty of Human is - (S)he is both the marble and the Sculptor... Alexis Carrel Be a Self-Architect Take up a Challenge  Take up "One Thing" -To Fix your health - Say Chisel your body -To Fix your finances - Shape-up your Wealth -To fix your mindset - Sculpt your Mind and work on that "One Thing" every day , for at least 30 minutes Pure focus without motive Attention And then keep doing it day after day and see the ideas emerge  and coalesce and shape your personality!

 I try to be immediate, to be totally present for all my work" -Maya Angelou, Author "My responsibility as a write is to be as good as I can be at my craft So I study my craft...learning the craft understanding what language can do ,  gaining control of the language enables one to make people weep, laugh  or even make them go to war. You can do this by learning how to harness the power of the word. So studying my craft is one of my responsibilities. The other one is to be as good a human being I can be. So that once I have achieved the control of the language I don't force my weaknesses on a public- who might pick them and abuse themselves! "

 (From a post on Amazon narratives) Separate out Writing from Editing! Write a first draft without worrying about the clutter All first drafts of everything are garbage... Ernest Hemingway    Edit the draft into subsequent drafts using rules of Amazon below: see below an edit Hemingway quote above 😁 The first draft of anything is sh*t 😁  1.      Use shorter than 30 words per sentence!     Due to the fact that => because 2.     Replace adjectives     with data         we made the server faster vs we improved the server latency from 10ms to 1ms 3. Eliminate Weasel words     - nearly all customers should be  80% of Prime Customers 4.     Does your writing pass the "So what" test? 5. If you get a question reply with one of the four answers     a.  Yes     b.  No     c.  A number     d. I don't know (will follow up and let you know)

 Karaikudi Mani (Famous Indian Percussionist - Mridangam) Start with what you know Keep practicing. Until a new idea emerges Try it out. Keep doing it again and again Eventually you develop your own unique style

 Don't let outer noise drown your inner voice! Masud R Khan,  Hidden Selves 'Lying Fallow' -   a state in which  our inner voice becomes audible, the voice with which we sing the song of our lives; 'Lying Fallow' -      not one of Inertia     listless  vacancy     or idle quietism of the soul     nor a flight from harassed purposiveness and pragmatic action! Lying Fallow - is a transitional state of experience a mode of being that is alerted quietitude and receptive wakeful lambert consciousness Lying fallow - is how we begin to nourish ourselves. how we begin to take responsibility for ourselves against development     of narcissistic personality style one that makes myriad outward demands on the world with little comprehension of the necessity of the responsibilities for an inner relation to its own self!

 Things happen twice - once in brain and then physically Arnold Bennett, The Human Machine All stuff foolish or intelligent happen twice - once in the brain and then physically first in the psychological plane - as thoughts, ideas, hallucinations and then in the physical plane; actions Consider this scenario: Say someone did something wrong (in your opinion :-) ) This acts as a stimulus to your brain and you react!  This is what Fools do : Stimulus => Action (mostly mindless) One stimulus and you react ! Rather the question is can you train your brain for stimulus as below? Stimulus => Observe => Outcome Key aspect is self-awareness to observe what is happening in your brain?  Am i observing ; " What is" : happening to me  now :  I am happy ,  I am angry,  I am egoistic If so, Congratulations Sir and Madam you are living  in a different plane of existence! - the realm of the Spiritual!

There is an antidote to making a fool of oneself.  Say to your brain : From 9 am to 9:30 am today, you must focus without ceasing on a particular topic - which I will give you Arnold Bennett , The Human Machine  Focus is the foundational habit on which the edifica called Character will rest upon I need to be the architect of my character - not to be misled by  instant pleasure and impulses rather by thoughtful habits - forethought - by design - a blue-print for Life by below steps: 1. Set aside 30 minutes every day ,at same time , say 9 to 9:30 AM  2. Take one Idea (as if this is the central point of your life as of now) 3. Pure attention without motive (as J Krishnamurti Says) for the next 30 minutes...no goals...nothing...just be attentive on the topic on hand 4. Write about your idea as much as possible If you do so above, then you are better positioned to deal with the clumsiness of daily life - not behaving like a fool - veering from plan to plan

 We finish our lives amateurishly, as we began them;  -Arnold Bennett, The Human Machine Most of us live an amateurish life - focusing only on the preliminaries - Food, Clothing, Shelter - and more Shelter -  focusing on the materialistic possessions -The Gross and the Dross! without enough focus on Mind - The Subtle  And end up leading a life by default - not by design getting carried away by Others' - Ideas, Possessions and Positions Rather we need to be a : A Professional in Life  One who  directs attentional to Self as a Whole, traveling through this world with satisfaction to self as other who meet her enroute!

 Maria Popova Only a small portion of the creative work We can see and touch in the works of art, We can point to made possible and Alive  By all the invisible devotion and despair that animate the maker's life and full the days and hours that occupy the heart and hands these private practices are anchors of safetyanchors vital to the public work for they are vital to the soul from which creative work begins

Bertrand Russell Make your interests gradually wider And more impersonal Until bit by bit the walls of ego Recede and your life becomes Increasingly merged in the universal life!!! Maria Popova states this way about ego Don't act centripetally Focusing only on activity towards self and not the Universe Rather act centrifugal Unfurling from the self To the world touching More and more facets of it

 don't solve for the problem dissolve the problem not solution Dissolution is the answer!!! When it's about problems Be a Chemist  Not a mathematician !!! Mukund

 The book of life ...Jiddu Krishnamurti It is the man who is consumed by the intellect who has beliefs , because intellect is always  seeking serenity,protection; It is always avoiding danger and therefore it builds ideas ,beliefs,ideals behind  which it can take shelter. to understand 'What is' is more important than to create and follow ideals  because Ideals is false - 'What is' is the real; To understand 'What is' means to understand what is false in - My relationship -ideas -things about me because to perceive the truth requires understanding of the false when the mind sees that which is false then that which is true comes into being