Muddle of Thoughts

My four sources of meaning in life, in a strict order - beauty, love, knowledge, and work.

Did commercial Bollywood always make films with longer runtimes than a typical commercial Hollywood film?

Poor Charlie’s Almanack documents Munger’s talks spanning decades. And all these talks are consistent in the handful of themes they discuss. Such conviction is quite impressive.

The Dutch saying,

We are too soon old and too late smart.

and George Bernard Shaw’s quote,

youth is wasted on the young

both seem to come from similar realizations, one expressed with stoic enlightenment and the other with frustration.

My girlfriend claims I have an all-or-nothing attitude, and she is right. Despite understanding compounding quite well, I still fail to put in small effort at the gym everyday because I know I’ll fail to get my nutrition right. Despite having small wins, I fail to appreciate them in the hopes of a bigger win. This attitude is broken.

Every time I leave home in India for NYC, I get a stinging sense of conflict between ambition and longing for home. Then, I look at my bank account.

It seems quite obvious to me now that being a good soldier is much easier than being a good general. May be all those business books did have something worthwhile to tell.

Just incredible that instead of economists making predictions about the future of India in 2025, Aaj Tak has invited a panel of 25 astrologers. Feels like a lesson somewhere for policy makers in India.

(Academic) writing is largely an exercise in answering the three questions: “Why,” “What,” and “How.” However, the real question always is “What if?”

The stasis of a small town life is infectious.

Every time I visit my home in India, I feel like so much has changed and yet everything feels the same.

The Battle of Helm’s Deep was brought to life by the spectator sounds of a rather ordinary cricket match. Two worlds collided for me.

The world has forgotten Jaspal Bhatti. Full Tension is an incredible commentary on the status quo. Stand-up comedians are barely scraping to fill that gap, but none with audiences as large as primetime TV.

How does one develop healthy narcissism?

If you want to see Two Indias, take the window seat on Vande Bharat Express from Delhi.

I have a new found respect for rituals. By appealing to authority, they convey expectations and quash disagreements.

As we grow older, life becomes less about oneself and more about people around. A relentless force coming at you hard.

Introductory paragraphs of some research papers start with starry-eyed vision for a world where the proposed method would be useful. In practice, however, the problems a method solves for turn out to be largely irrelevant. This is the angel dust of research.

Much of my PhD was driven by being married to a single tool. I want to be driven by problems and goals.