Thursday, July 28, 2022

 Imma vegetarian

Gonna feed myself vegetables when alive,

Gonna feed vegetables when am ded

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

on managing weight


someone once told me that after meditating for an hour you don't feel hungry

I used to feel that way after 1 hr yoga session, in around the time I was working in Strand  

I used to fast on Sundays at one time

I used to finish eating by sunset at one time, after reading 'Critical importance of time restricted eating' by Jason Fung - in which he mentioned a study in which intermittent fasting of 18 hrs helped reverse pre-diabetes in young-ish men

Both these have helped me so far

The Ekadasi diet prescribes a no-grain approach, seems similar in spirit to Keto or Paleo diets -  and the straight line in these matters - the SCD diet

also seems to work

The How-not-to-die guy looks at research to conclude that a vegan, plant based diet is they key to health *

The China Study seems to agree


Chan meditation seems to insist on the lotus pose no matter what, and the emphasis on working through the pain - however ,they say the chi rises, in a few years, rising through the stomach, then lungs etc, curing diseases as we go

James Nestor talking about Swami Rama to Joe Rogan in https://open.spotify.com/episode/58Drs6tKeuq82hMTbcDC0G


sources:
* https://nutritionfacts.org/book/how-not-to-die/

A Plebspective

 from watching The Americans, what I can conclude is that the US was formed by a bunch of rich successful people who knew what they were doing, and the prosperity continued until the 80s and 90s, showing cracks eventually

the Soviets were on a lurching dash for prosperity,  starting from starving peasantry documented in, say,   Flashman . While they could execute fantastically, the majority of the mindset was not that of the wealthy.


All revolutions that executed the top classes in their country were instinctively tackling what they hated -they 'have's while they were the 'have-not's.

These  have almost always failed (feels good to speak so authoritatively and definitively with no backing credentials whatsoever), or at least struggled until the 'have' mindset kicked in into the masses.

America kept the dream going - and folks could also get rich, for a while, and this is where the others seem lacking

American manufacturing was also a game changer. Drucker somewhere I remember saying the Americans came up during the war due to their management practices - esp training. From this I gather the general idea was of dumb-simple machinery that could allow anyone to be trained to operate them, and a complete lack of unions or Left  allowing for incompetents to persist in the jobs in the name of 'humanity'*

Reading Inspector Singh stories about the South East and East Asia , it's troubling how much death has been dealt out in the name of revolution and progress. Apparently , one thing the White Man got right was the idea implementation of egalite, without gulags.

from wherein comes the 'have-and-let-have' mindset ?

There's a concept called Pareto-positive. I came across this in the 'cartoon guide to economics' in around 2015? 16 ? I have been reading  'smart' since, say 2001 ? probably not as smart as I thought, However , that's a term or idea I believe that ought to be thrown about a lot more . 'Win-win' as a term has been there for some time , but only in management /consultant jargon, not plebspeak

however, fundamentals are always hidden , by the nature of the beast, and not any malice

the only others I see talking about this, stilling or suppressing the fight-flight-animal, is the likes of Ajahn Brahm and Gaur Gopal Das - their message is to un-conditionally chill - socially very  though they don't cover wealth

Gabriel in the Americans gives me the creeps. He is pure evil ; lying, corrupting and ruthlessly getting work done out of the protagonists. Reminds me of the tech-leads/project-managers early in my career. One of them happily told me in 2004 ? - that there is no more software development going in the world.

The middle-manager is the manifestation of the agent-principal problem. We don't see them as such, but that's what it is. The middle-manager is a broker, plain and simple, but masquerading as one of your own tribe.

Where are we ? we started talking about the Americans then escaped  segued into high-level analysis of Soviet era psycho-economics, with a compare and contrast with the American 'way' during the war2, added a mention of modern-day healthy psycho-economic attitude  name-dropped Drucker, then bashed our famous hate-candidate - the middle managers of the past ... no structure or goal, which is probably well, a bowl of soup is more focussed than a goulash... 

While we're here, I want to name the two latest sources on Asia - Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh series, and the Asianometry youtube series. 

What Asianometry mentioned in one small 5 min segment of the video helped me draw a straight line outline of Japan from the time of Gai-jin to the days of Rising Sun  (and also the mention in Liar's poker)- esp. the social make-up that drove society , and which changed over time.

Aside, Shinto-ism has been compared to Hinduism in some way, and has been said to be used as a tool to build national pride to make Japan into an imperial nation.  A map showing the extent of the Japanese territory during ww2, before the decline, is very impressive - they literally ownd Asia - parts of China, Malaysia, Philippines ... the Byomkesh Bakshi movie has them planning to enter Calcutta via Burma, and providing support to the Indians against the British. In typical Indian fashion, we don't mention Bose's armies lurking beneath the surface, awaiting to overthrow the status-quo.

Will the joy of consuming Bean and Douglas Adams overshadow the anger, sadness, dismay, terror of the negatives of the Raj in India ? Flashman's  Mountain-of-light is an extremely depressing story, lost my appetite at the end of it - and Rudyard Kipling's Kim was the opposite - energising and renewed an appetite for Indian cultural product and architecture

We are way past 500 words but then this is not an essay. An essay starts with the concrete, de-stratifies, and then re-calcifies. We are rambling, wandering , meandering. Not zen-writing -in which we don't edit any.

Asianometry also helped me to understand Korea and their socio-economics better.  The paragons of quality, efficiency and virtue - were/are as corrupt as India, and yet produce more - the take-away is that it's not corruption..

The Inspector Singh brings home the point that the Asia that we know of as Asia broke out from feudalism to communism in the 80s/90s - modernisation notwithstanding - and got aerially bombed by the US, then turned to a modern society. Probably the US tried the same approach to the middle-east expecting a similar result but was unpleasantly surprised when they quickly developed (or revived) their perennial j-crusade

With the abolishment of the gold standard everywhere, the economy is no more a zero-sum game. Inflation is the (literally) cost of that, coupled with growth in product? and services.
Product growth seems to be larger chunkier bulkier carsSUVs, and services seems to be Swiggy that gets you your neighbourhood idli-sambar-chutney for a 50Rs markup and 80Rs delivery/packing/service charge. Also IPOs of loss-makers.

I am piqued by the Qute and the Mahindra e2o than by the behemoths like Harrier and the Morris .There are billions without cars, or basic things, and the world seems focussing on selling to larger and larger cars to bangalore-ites

I keep leaking into ranprieur.com - the dream is to do an into-the-wild without the dying part, apparently mental health improves along with the physical, economy be damned. Then build a cabin of clay and wattles, then write another walden. Living next to a water body is probably the best thing you can do - read the opening of Moby Dick

What is the story of larger and larger cycles of debt ? looking at Evergrande ( also Asianometry ,thanks Am)

For another day:

1. hobsbawm vs sowell

2. when I was small, and in school, English had a short story by Roald Dahl, about a new car owner who gives a ride to a hitch-hiker.


* Is there a better way ? if you do know one, do tell me 

 

the hacking scene in Jason Bourne is too painful to watch

right at the beginning of the movie too


Sunday, July 24, 2022

 advantage        dis-advantage            un-advantage

necessary          un-necessary             un-necessary

rational.            ir-rational                  un-rational

mature.             im-mature                 un-mature


dear english, so much time and brain could've been saved 

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

The total number of minds in the universe is one. 
 -Erwin  Shroedinger 


I Am That 
 - Nisargadatta Maharaj


There is only one electron
 - John Archibald Wheeler, (paraphrasing)

There is no spoon
 - Andy & Larry Wachowski , in The Matrix, when they were Andy/Larry

Monday, July 11, 2022

 those are thinking of going to retail

those who believe in democracy

those who believe in the inner goodness of all humans

remember, Joshua Bell played a million dollar violin on a subway and earned a whopping $32 dollars in a day

Sunday, July 10, 2022

 the world should be a lot more at rest, letting natural patterns to rise and fall, and heal and regenerate

but it's not. it's a lot more active, gritting its mind's teeth and pushing forward and through and getting things done and what not

there's a lot more energy available, and it's usually suspect - malicious, if not misguided

gardens of delight to be opened at every corner, drawing in the wondrous-eyed, life wasn't & isn't supposed to be so glitzy, but then the stories they fill our heads with ...

the energy is made available because, once a baseline fire  of fear and terror is kindled, the engine runs all on its own, with greed stepping in to push you to greater heights where fear wouldn't do

watching 'the americans'

Friday, July 08, 2022

the anatomically accurate devotional dancer lost in the ecstasy


 

Sunday, July 03, 2022

 that professor's story of filling the jar with large rocks small rocks sand and  beer

breaking the abstraction

those large stones are  practices of eating right and fasting, exercising all 3 components and practising relaxing, and having a clue of what is one's business



the tiny cannonball