Weekly Notes 23/2024
Writing
I heard about the #1000daysofsummer from a member of Amit Varma’s Clear Writing Community (CWC). I shared the idea with another writing community I am a member of — The Purple Pencil Project. I shared my writing progress with both groups.
I wrote many posts under the aegis of #1000daysofsummer:
1. I visited Tamhini Ghat in May but wrote about it on the first day.
2. My father visited us and we went to Panshet Dam together. I wrote about that visit for the second day.
3. I wrote a piece of fiction for the third day. This was an attempt to write linear fiction and try world-building there. I was not very happy with this attempt.
4. I wrote fiction again on the fourth day. This was an attempt to write recursive fiction. I enjoyed writing this.
5. I got back to writing my space newsletter. This was written on the fifth day but published on June 6 on Substack.
6. I don’t remember when was the last time I enjoyed watching a launch before. I wrote about the excitement of watching SpaceX’s Starship’s IFT-4.
7. I wrote a private note trying to build on characters based on the characters created by Prateek Arora for his MahaMachinist Politica. I did not publish this.
8. Did not write.
Some of the other things that I wrote that found some traction:
1. I wondered why there was a lack of writing for people in their 30s and 40s, compared to writing for people in their 20s.
2. Post on X and Mastodon about how a daughter attending school brings discipline to our life.
3. Post on X and Mastodon about my daughter’s efforts to switch on a feature phone.
Reading
I did not read much as my father was visiting. The little available time was spent writing. I did read a wonderful piece by Venkatesh Rao on how solar punk as an idea worked better for temperate climates than tropical and equatorial climates.
I made a little progress on reading Cory Doctorow’s Red Team Blues. I gave up on reading Book 1 of The Hidden Hindu by Akshat Gupta for now. I also gave up on reading Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert.
I have got the book, Saboteur by R V Raman from the Pune Public Library in Vishrantwadi. It is a look at the world of e-commerce.
OTT
I watched:
- New Amsterdam - Season 4 - English
- Game Over - Hindi
- Dhak Dhak - Hindi
- Scoop - Hindi
- Atlas - English
- Sisyphus - Korean (English dub).
YouTube
Why Does the Culture Feel Dead? | Ted Gioia | How I Write Podcast
David Perell talks to Ted Gioia for his podcast, How I Write Podcast. I think Ted Gioia is talking about Asia in the 90s when he speaks about The Honest Broker. He was given this advice by a drunk Australian in a bar, whose name he does not know but who had worked in Asia for a long time. The drunk Australian told him that the only way to get things done in Asia was to find an honest broker where he wanted to setup a factory or a business. An honest broker was a person respected by the community and who knew how to get things done with the help of the community. The drunk Australian warned him that he would do it for free now but expect things in return at a later time.
the attention economy is killing us.
This is a video by a YouTuber named Alice Cappelle. She introduces a philosopher from Korea who lives in Germany named Byung Chul Han. An idea of his that he shares here is that we have moved from a discipline society to an achievement society. I have bookmarked him here to read the book itself.
SolarPunk Cities: Our Last Hope?
This is a video by a YouTuber named Dami Lee. She is worried by the fact that the best representation of solar punk that we have in the world today is an ad by a consumer brand. She looks at the various architectures possible and those tried out in the real world (most are in the Netherlands).
I agree with Venkatesh Rao (see section on Reading) that solar punk is a misnomer.
Elections
The elections for the National Elections in India were declared on 4 June 2024. Maharashtra’s politics has been a confusing ride. I wish that at least at the state level, the two political parties, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party get merged again and return to their formal alliances with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress respectively. Given the news reports circulating, it may be happening.
I went from Pune to Mumbai to cast my vote after a request for a change of address I tried last year did not work out.
Miscellaneous
I was reading way too many self-help books in my 30s. A few years ago it was my wife who asked me how reading books had improved or changed my life. I had not stopped to consider this. I was reading books and adding them to the tally of the books I had read. I also found that most of the books that I was reading assumed I was somewhere between 25 and 35. I was two years past the age for which books were written for people.
I don’t remember a thing about what I read, what systems to implement, or what to learn to change my life now. Everyone’s situation is unique. So everyone must implement the system that works for them. Then with gradual improvement in the system over the years, you will have a system that works for you. This is what Cal Newport suggests in his new book, Slow Productivity.
The above insight helps me to do something, improve, and iterate.
I had read in Dan Koe’s book, The Art of Focus that when you share what helps you and then can charge for it, it may help you become a single-person entrepreneur. By the time I do this, this would be old advice.