Category: post

On giving a fuck

I did a taster read of Mark Manson’s book on not giving a fuck. In the first chapter he goes on about how people give too many fucks and become overwhelmed and unhappy, or give no fucks and become uncaring assholes.

I thought about it on Chewie’s morning walk.

Sure there are people who fall in one of those two catagories—too many fucks given and not enough fucks given. But I don’t think most people fall in either of these. Most people give just the right the amount of fucks that they can afford/handle.

The problem isn’t with how many fucks we give, but what do we give a fuck about.

Often the choice is between giving a fuck about things/people that are

  • important but hard to satisfy, and
  • easy to satisfy but peripheral

In such a choice, easy wins most times. And that’s what causes the unhappiness.

As an individual choice, giving a fuck for something easy results in an easy win, and provides a nice emotional boost. But when the life becomes full of too many easy wins, and none of the important ones, that’s when the trouble starts. That’s when the heart starts hating even the wins. That’s what leads to the unhappiness.

[ Perhaps the book will move on to this distinction. After all I’ve just rushed through the first chapter for now :) ]

Continue reading On giving a fuck

My dog and his human

This is how he sleeps. With five pillows.

I use one. R uses three. I’ve always been on her case for using three pillows.

The boy has learnt from her, and then left her behind.

Then there’s me.

I’m not allowed, by R, to put dishes in the dishwasher. She has her method of placing the dishes, and I apparently mess it up.

I’ve been trained to rinse the dishes and place them on the kitchen top above the dishwasher. She puts them in later.

Last night I cleared the sink after dinner and placed the dishes above the dishwasher. Took me a moment to realise that she’s been in India for a couple of days, and I am allowed to put the dishes in while she’s away. My training has been thorough.

To confuse the anthropomorphizing further, my dog learns better than me, while I’m trained better than him!

‘I’m sorry’

A tree in my neighbour’s backyard has grown over his fence, across the alley between our houses, and into my backyard. It’s been squeezing a bay leaf tree in my backyard against the garden shed. If his tree is not trimmed soon, my bay leaf tree will die. I needed to bring this up with my neighbour so he could hire a gardener and get the tree trimmed back.

I am an uber conflict avoider. The thought of asking someone to do something, with even a slight potential of conflict gives me a shiver.

I am also Indian. So the idea of people refusing to do what’s their responsibility is almost the natural default for me.

The combination of these two characteristics meant that for last few weeks I’ve been playing the encounter with my neighbour in my head. My fears and my overactive imagination meant it had gone far enough that we were filing police complaints against each other for ASBO12.

Anyway, I saw him today when we returned from the evening walk. I waved at him and approached.

Me: Hey Scott, I’m sorry, but do you have a minute.

S: Yes, of course.

Me: I’m sorry, but there’s a tree in your backyard that’s grown over into mine and is strangling one of my trees.

S: Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t notice it.

Me: No worries, it’s right at the far corner.

S: I’m sorry. I’ll get the gardener to come do something about it.

Me: No worries. Thanks.

S: Cheers. I’m sorry. See you later.

No, we didn’t end up filing ASBO complaints against each other. We just said ‘I’m Sorry’ to each other a dozen times, smiled, and carried on.

I can breathe now :)

Continue reading ‘I’m sorry’

The Donald

The Benjamin, a 100 US Dollar bill, has long ruled the world. It is the highest denomination US currency note; nicknamed after Benjamin Franklin, one of the greatest US leaders of all time, whose image it carries.

Now that the US has a new greatest-ever leader of all the time, it is time to introduce a new highest denomination bill with his image.

The Donald.
A USD 500 note with President Donald Trump’s image on one side and a golden, instead of green, hue to the note.

Make it happen, USA. U S A. U. S. A. U. S. A.

Continue reading The Donald

Experiment to observe default choice

H: Hold this cardboard in front of one eye, and look through the hole in it at those keys on the wall there.

*I hold it up on my left eye, and close the right one.*

Me: Do you want me to read the text on the keys?

H: No, that’s it. Just wanted to check which is your preferred eye.

I loved the simplicity of this experiment :)

She gave me a deliberately vague instruction. This let my mind fill in the rest based on its default behaviour. She just wanted to observe that default behaviour.

 

Yesterday’s news Today

Over the last year or so, I have slowed down my news consumption. I have no news apps on my phone. I removed the two news channels I watched—BBC news and CNN—from the favourites. I unsubscribed from all news-related newsletters. I even unsubscribed from all news related podcasts, including NPR’s Indicator and The Economist’s Intelligence podcast.

I still consume news. Most of my world news comes weekly, from The Economist. But a few times a day I open news.google.com on the Firefox Focus browser1 on my phone to check on latest happenings. Once or twice a day, I also switch to BBC News2 (and rarely, CNN) on the TV to check on the news.

Yesterday I decided to also add a delay to the news. Make it slower still. To read yesterday’s news, today.

Instead of checking the news on the phone multiple times a day, and catching up on TV news a couple of times, I would only check news in the morning and then nothing during the day.

Most news takes a night of rest to come to a relative state of conclusion. By next morning, when I check the previous night’s news, it would have rested, matured, and analysed. It would also have moved from ‘he said this, then she said this, and now waiting for them to respond’ to an analysis of the bigger picture of what happened and why.

This is something I miss about having a print newspaper. I was a multi-newspaper subscriber in India. But printed newspaper subscriptions are quite expensive in the UK, so I’ve never had one. I miss getting a newspaper in the morning with a settled, digested, analysed version of the news. The version that also looks at why, not just at what and how.

Since I can’t afford buying a daily newspaper, I’m wondering how to get this delayed news. Online sources are focused these days on the day’s news, if not news by the minute. I don’t live close to a library where I can walk down for a catchup of day’s newspapers.

Subscribing to a morning news-summary newsletter is an option, but may lead to re-cluttering of the inbox. It would also mean opening email before I want to, and possibly getting distracted by other new emails.

I’m open to better suggestions.

Continue reading Yesterday’s news Today

I cooked a steak

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Cooked a rib-eye steak for the boys—a delayed treat for Chewie’s birthday.

It was my first time cooking a steak. I overcooked it a bit—more than was needed for the medium-rare that I wanted. I also put in a bit more oil than was needed.

It still turned out well, if I may say so myself. It was juicy and just the right amount of chewy. I didn’t really want to give it to the boys once I’d tasted it :)

Surprisingly easy to cook, and tasty. I may be cooking many more steaks once the weather turns cooler.

More photos.

Duolingo + Range—Learning with interleaving

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Interleaving—6 active skills + random test button

David Epstein’s book Range educated me on the value of interleaving and spacing for better learning. (Chapter: Learning fast and slow)

One of the places I immediately applied it is in my daily Spanish lessons on Duolingo.

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Block learning—completing one skill from start to finish before proceeding to the next.

Previously I used to start with one skill in Duolingo, say present perfect, and then complete it from start to finish. I only moved to the next skill once the previous skill was golden, or on the rare occasion when I gave up on it for being too hard.

The screen looked like the one on the left: all golds above the current skill.

Now I have six skills in progress at the same time. Every day I complete just one test from at least three of them. The next day I start with the other three. If I want to practice more, I use the dumbbell button in the bottom right—it tests me randomly from any of the dozens of skills I have already completed.

This mixing provides me with a bit of range. Each test daily is from a different skill; any skill reappears only after 48 hours; forcing me to remember, forcing more mistakes, and, hopefully, resulting in better learning.

Continue reading Duolingo + Range—Learning with interleaving