BLOG OF MAYANK JAIN
The Curious Case of Receding Interest
On why we lose interest in the things we love. And what to do about it.
Picture this diary entry:
Day -90: "Man, this song is so great. It would be so cool to play this in front of thousands of people."
D -70: "Slash is my God. He looks brilliant on stage. What a trip it would be!"
D -50: " {Insert friend’s name} plays so great. It would be so cool to do this on a moonlit night around a campfire at the beach.
D -20: "Okay, I've decided. I want to play guitar in band."
D -5: "Guitar class enrolled. The best guitar bought. Let's do this."
D 1: "Hmmm. This is hard man. My fingers hurt too much."
D 3: "This is soooo slow. I can't play a song yet."
D 5: "Fuck it. I am sleeping in today."
D 6: "Oh, I can't go today again man. Have to go to that party."
D 7: "What, it's 6 again? Fuck it, I'll go tomorrow. I need to finish this TV show tonight."
D 8: “Oh look - cat videos!”
D 9: "Wowa! These guys have gotten so better than me at this. We started at the same time. I guess I don't have it in me."
D 10: ....................................................................................
Insert something else instead of learning guitar - running, painting, writing, photography, designing, dancing - whatever it is that is your passion. Can you see this happening to you?
I call this The Curious Case of Receding Interest. You pick a thing you think you like and want to become better at. Over a course of time, you find it tougher to maintain the level of enthusiasm with which you started it. You invest less time. After an accumulated lack of effort, you give up and move on to the next shiny thing.
Most of us are susceptible to an attack of this syndrome. I learnt this the hard way while writing this post. Two months have passed since I started working on it. Here's what happened:
Sitting 1: A light bulb switched on shining light on this idea in my head. I scribbled down the thoughts and the basic structure. This gave me instant gratification of creating something. And, instead of finishing the post, I moved onto something else.
Sitting 2: The drudgery began. Now that I had the idea written down, it was a lot less fun to do the hard work of completion. So after writing a little, I opened Facebook and whiled away my time.
Sitting 3: I had some free time on my hands. But, I decided to clean up the house a little bit. And then wrote during whatever little time I had.
Sitting 4: Wrote some. It was becoming and arduous task to finish this. So, I opened a few football videos and watched those.
Sitting 5: I got frustrated with my indiscipline. Thus, I sat down with a pledge to not get up before finishing this. I made decent progress but still couldn't make it into a finished product.
Sitting 6: Today, after 2 months since the beginning of the post, I sit again hoping to finish this.
Can we find a cause and solution to this problem? Let’s investigate. The irony of being the victim as well as the healer isn’t lost on me. But, let’s give it a shot.
WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?
1. It gets tough - Most things, when looked at from the outside, are simple. Only after getting into the nuances do you realize that growing beyond an amateur level needs a lot of hard work and dedication.
2. Novelty wears off - I like doing a lot of things to experience them. But once I learn the basics, the novelty wears off. Once the curiosity is satiated, I move on.
Read: Two Weeks Sprint - The Technique I use to learn a new skill efficiently
3. Is less fun than you imagined - Browsing Instagram pictures of travel photographers, it is easy to assume that their lives are fun (not saying they are not). But, glamorizing the lifestyle at the cost of forgetting the realities of the job is suicidal. You don't know how many hours they spend in the editing room or how many shots do they painfully discard to find that single right one.
4. Has steep learning curve, high OFF* and not enough time - Complexity increases exponentially. You'll find that there’s a lot you don't know that you don't know.
*(OFF - Optimal Fun Frequency) Reference: How to Have More Fun at Fun
5. You find a new, shinier toy and expect it to provide you all the fun - Growth, engagement and DIMs** are present when we extend ourselves beyond the ordinary. For example, say you have a new toy car. You can play with it by running it on a flat surface. Or, you can immerse deeper by making race tracks using pillows, books, hard surfaces (something I used to do).
**(DIMs - Deep Immersion Moments) Reference: How to Have More Fun at Fun
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?
- Prepare yourself with the knowledge of how tough a certain thing is going to be. This is not to deter you from doing that activity but to give you a fair perspective of what you are getting into. I read about the personal experiences of people who have lived the life I want to live. During my struggles with practicing my craft, I found comfort in knowing that others have faced similar challenges before me.
- Take one small step at a time. Writing this post was hard for me. So, all I did was to take one paragraph at a time and make it the best I could. Learn one chord, run for 5 minutes, paint one element of the picture, take the first step, however small it may be.
- Observe the feeling which causes the interruption in your practice - whether it is procrastination, difficulty level, laziness or attraction towards a new thing. Observe the feeling, and then sit with it for some time. Notice where your mind is taking you. Do you want to go there? Do you really want to open a new tab and check Facebook? Give yourself a few seconds to deliberate what you want to do. Often you’ll find that with a few moments of thought you can overcome that barrier to creation. But if you can’t and your mind is still seeking distraction, ignore it*** and do your task anyway.
***Reference: The One Skill to Stick to your Resolutions
Receding interest is a big barrier to experiencing deep emotions that come with the mastery of a craft. I hope this post helps you in constantly choosing the tough but useful over the easy, and momentarily satisfying. Thanks for reading.
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Two Brothers and A Cat
It is a bright sunny day. The landscape is dry with little vegetation. A distant train bellows smoke. A house stands alone in the scorching heat. It is a ragged old wooden shack in dilapidated condition. An armchair lies rocking in the porch. An emaciated cat sleeps beside it.
An old man is inside the house. He has a wrinkled face, droopy shoulders and exhausted disposition. He is wearing a blue toque. Soup brews in a pot on the stove. There is a cube of cheese on a plate.
The kitchen is divided into two identical parts. Utensils, refrigerators, microwave oven - there are two of everything and are positioned in the same way. A white line divides the two sides.
Another old man enters the kitchen from the right side while the first one works on the left. He is well built and walks about with confidence. He is wearing a red toque. And he proceeds to cook on his side of the kitchen. The two men mill about ignoring each other's presence.
The first man looks at his plate of cheese. It is empty.
"Where is my cheese?," demands the first one.
"What?" says the second one as he turns around to face him.
"Where is my cheese, Lee?"
"What cheese, Bruce?"
"The cheese that was here on my plate on my side," says Bruce as he clenches his fist angrily. He is trying very hard not to shout.
"I don't know anything about your cheese, Bruce."
"Don't lie to me. You've always bullied me. Not this time. Give me back my cheese.", shouts Bruce and throws the plate angrily onto the floor. It shatters into pieces. Lee wonders why it broke. The salesman had said it was made from unbreakable chinaware. He shakes off his head. He has more important matters at hand.
"Listen. Calm down, brother. Here, have a tub of olives. It'll go well with your soup," says Lee and slides the tub of olives to the other side.
Bruce isn't impressed. He lets out a huge breath and storms out of the kitchen to his room. He opens his bedside drawer and pulls out a revolver. He comes back in the kitchen and points the gun at Lee.
"What the hell do you think you are doing?" Lee is clearly not amused. "You need to calm down." He steps towards the other side stepping over the broken plate hoping to grab the gun from Bruce.
"Where is my cheese?" shouts Bruce. He has lost all control over his emotions. He is really angry. His finger is on the trigger. His hands are unsteady. He is shaking.
Suddenly, the cat leaps across the kitchen stepping on Bruce's feet. This startles him and he accidentally fires a shot. The bullet goes through Lee's left eye into his head. He collapses and dies immediately. There is blood all over the floor. The white line turns red.
"Aaaaaaaarrrgh!" screams Bruce. He is crying uncontrollably and stands there shell-shocked. "You fucking cat! Where are you?"
Bruce is blaming the cat for this tragedy. He looks around the house for the cat and finds it in a corner behind the bookshelf trying to scratch at something. But, it isn't able to get through to whatever it is scratching at. The space is too narrow for its claws.
"Come here you little cunt", says Bruce even as he is crying and shivering. He grabs it by the belly. The cat screeches. It has a premonition of what is about to happen. Its tail stands on its end.
Bruce looks at it despicably. "You killed my brother. Who will tell me now where my cheese is? It definitely ain't you. What use are you then, you little cocksucker?"
He takes his gun and shoots the cat through its right eye and drops it on the floor. There is blood splattered across the books and the walls. He exits the room.
There is movement behind the shelf. A book has fallen down. It looks tattered. There is a mouse eating a cube of cheese over it. A gunshot is heard from the kitchen and it seems as if a man just dropped to the floor. The mouse is startled and runs away. And we see the name of the book - 'Who moved my cheese?'
How to Have More Fun at Fun
When was the last time you felt truly alive? That moment when your chest filled up with breaths of your soul woken afresh after a deep slumber. Your eyes lit up and cheeks swelled with overwhelming emotion. You felt an inexplicable sensation that you knew was something special. Extreme happiness comes close to what it was but that’s just one dimension of it. Excitement. Thrill. Energy. You felt like God.
I have a term for such moments - DIMs or Deep Immersion Moments.
I theorize that you find yourself in such moments when you are deeply immersed in any activity. In that instant, your mind, body and soul dance together to the same tune, focused on doing the task at hand. There is nothing else but that moment.
Sometimes we find DIMs in our hobbies. Painting. Running. Playing a sport. Riding a bike. Meditating. Exercising. Listening to music. Reading a book. Listening to music while reading a book. Internet Surfing. Checking Facebook. Smoking weed. Or perhaps something else.
How did you decide which one to partake in? Was it a spur of the moment decision? Perhaps someone great in that field inspired you. Or you thought it would be ‘fun’ because you saw someone else having fun at it. Was it a conscious decision? Or you just went with the flow?
This brings us to the next question.
Why should I care what I do for fun?
Look, you have limited time on this earth. And it has a nasty habit of flying by when you are not paying attention. You have just 3500 odd weekends, half of which you’ve already spent. And as the wise saying of our generation goes - YOLO!
I am assuming that you are not a masochist and want to spend most of your life being happy and content. And if you could feel absolute exhilaration in some of these moments, it wouldn’t be so bad, right?
You want more of those sexy DIMs.
Thus, it logically concludes that to live a better life, we need to position ourselves in situations where the density of DIMs is the highest. This means that you want to choose the fun activity which gives you the most DIMs.
How do I find these super-sexy rainbow-farting sons-of-a-unicorn DIMs?
Let's start with this curve.
DIM-Frequency Curve
- On the X-axis is the frequency of your fun activities. (More frequent as you go to the right)
- On the Y-axis is the number of DIMs (Increasing as you go up)
- The section marked Happy Place is the maxima of your DIMs. Or, in other words – this is the area that will light up your fire.
- How often you should do something to find the Happy Place is the Optimal Fun Frequency or OFF.
What you want is to consistently find the Happy Place.
Happy Place = max DIM = Fully lit fire
Understanding the curve
Why do DIMs decrease if activity is done very frequently?
Fun is a way for us to relax, unwind and recharge to be able to perform at our peak at our work. Thus, fun is a secondary activity which supports our primary function of doing meaningful work (from which most of us derive contentment and purpose). Without the primary function, there is no fun. When fun takes centre-stage in your life, it stops being fun. Excess of pleasure becomes work itself.
Example: For me, watching too many movies means I feel guilty after a binge. So instead of enjoying the movies, I just go through the motions of just watching something. Overall a less happy place.
Like drinking out every day. It gets repetitive after a time and one day you find yourself puking on the curb outside the pub, passed out and wondering how it ever came to this.
We all need a break from taking a break sometimes.
Excess pleasure comes with guilt (of not doing work), exhaustion and less complete involvement in an activity – which means lesser DIMs.
Why does it taper off if done very rarely?
To relish something, it requires for you to be good at it. Your intellect (as is its habit) desires constant improvement in your execution of it.
By doing things very sparingly, you devoid yourself a chance to progress because of a lack of momentum. Our minds and bodies have a recall of our past experiences whether good or bad. This recall comes with a due date. Once you are past this date, you can no longer recollect this knowledge and will have to start from scratch. Call it rustiness if you like.
Thus, to constantly find the Happy Place, we need to find the OFF. Here's an example of my snooker habits to illustrate this better.
Example: For my snooker game, less than once per month and I am bound to forget the mistakes I made, the positions I found myself in. I would not necessarily forget the game, but the nuances of the gameplay discovered only in more frequent competitive playing. 1/week < 1/ OFFSnooker < 1/month
Choosing your fun activity
Let’s recall what we know so far.
- We want more DIMs
- DIM maxima is the Happy Place where we want to stay most of the time.
- The frequency at which Happy Place appears is OFF
Given the above, how do you choose what you do for fun? To answer this question, you have to answer another one - How much free time do you have?
This is needed for a very simple reason. OFF of some activities is low, for some it is high. If you have little free time, choosing an activity with high OFF is a bad idea. Let's take some examples.
The OFF of learning a guitar is high. You have to invest a lot of time and energy to reach a level where you can enjoy the instrument. Free time of say 2 hours a week would not suffice. You need a lot more hours to find DIMs in guitar playing.
On the other hand, with the same amount of time, choosing to watch a movie would be a good idea. It has a low OFF and could be achieved in whatever little time you have.
But, more often than not, you would have more than 2 hours a week of free time. So you could choose multiple activities with different OFFs. For example, you can learn guitar (high OFF) and watch a movie. Or, you could learn coding (high OFF) and play Pictionary with friends (low OFF).
This time is not just for execution, but, for study and research too. This is because intellectual growth cannot just be by purely practical methods. So, if you enjoy whiskey, you would be well served by reading about how it is made, what is the difference between the many blends and so on. Or for movie buffs, learning about the cast, the movie trivia, comparing the movie with the director's other works and so on. If its rolling a joint, perhaps watch a YouTube video of learning new ways to roll. This study enriches your experience of the activity the next time you do it.
THREE OTHER FACTORS
1. Randomness
If this calculated approach to fun seems a little stuck-up, add in a healthy dose of Randomness. It is generally good for a fun activity since it adds an element of uncertainty and spontaneity, both of which are good for our Happy Place.
Having said this, ensure that randomness is a deliberate addition. For example, a randomly made trip with friends would be fun only if you are enthusiastic about it. And not when you have been dragged along to participate in it because of pushy friends or social obligations. So tread this line with caution. And always keep tweaking your ratio of randomness/planned based on the free time that you have.
Randomness is a factor but only if it is a deliberate choice in your idea of fun.
2. Passion
This post has ignored passion so far. The thing about it is that if you are extremely passionate about something, even if it is tough, you can find a lot of DIMs in the suffering and the struggle. Thus passion overpowers everything - to an extent. For example, at an age of 50, passion alone won't help you make an exceptional football player. However it might give you those DIMs.
3. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
Often, saying no to things feels like you are missing out on fun. The FOMO kicks in. Although, we know that some of those things are social obligations that we have full control to say No to.
Avoid these social obligations like you avoid your clingy ex. The reason is simple - because of your reluctance in participating in such activities, you would never be able to find the DIMs. At the back of your mind, there will always be the thought that you could have spent this doing something else. You will not be in the moment. It will result in sub-optimal experiences. You will have to make this choice often because frankly, there just isn't enough time to do everything you want to do and still be able to find the happy place. That's just the nature of time - limited and passing.
For example, I have a friend who is exceptionally good at a certain sport. But, he doesn't play with us (his friends), because he knows it would be a less than awesome experience for him (we are donkeys at the game, present little challenge for him). Or personally, I have a huge list of things I want to do, but I know that if I pursue them all, I'll end up being mediocre in most of them.
Conclusion
You can ignore this made-up science and still have fun. But, that will not be optimized to allow you to stay in your Happy Place for long periods of time. For that, you need to go deeper into any activity to unfold layers of intensity. As you go deeper, your Happy Place may even be happier and you might discover pleasures which were unknown earlier and attain a nirvana like state.
Participate in everything, learn new stuff, do new things everyday by all means. After all novelty is the elixir of the mind. But, don’t make every one of those your regular fun activities without investing time to grow in them. The crux is to learn deeply about your hobbies. All this to avoid sub-optimal experiences and live a more meaningful life.
Hope this post helps you. If it does, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Or email me at mj {at} mayankja.in.
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Notes from Elon Musk's Biography
For an extended period of time late last year, I was obsessed with Elon Musk. I consider him my modern day hero. I have mentioned him before in my essay How to Live Life.
Through his story, I wanted to understand, what drives the high achievers to take incredible personal risks and have the drive and intelligence to see them through to the end. So, I picked up Musk's biography Elon Musk : How The Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping Our Future by Ashlee Vance. It offers a unique perspective inside one of the most brilliant minds of our generation.
The following are my highlights from the book and my notes on the basis of all that I have read and watched about Musk. His story gives me inspiration and some important lessons. I hope you find it useful too.
NOTES AND HIGHLIGHTS
(Lines from the book are in italics)
His most fundamental philosophy:
“When thinking, go down to the fundamentals of a problem, instead of deciphering it via analogy.”
This right here is to me Musk’s most endearing trait - his hyper rationality. By going down to the most basic entity of a problem, whether it is business or personal, we can find a better solution. I cannot stress this enough. Take this for example:
Acronyms Seriously Suck - Musk wrote a long email to his employees urging them not to use acronyms for common technical terms. This is to ensure that any new joinee doesn't have a problem in catching up with things. Because when people discuss things in acronyms, you don't want to be the one who looks dumb and asks to be explained the meaning. It seems trivial to mention this in a company-wide email but highlights his uncompromising rationality in even the most basic tasks.
Quotes from his employees:
You did what Musk asked or were prepared to burrow down into the properties of materials to explain why something could not be done. “He always said, ‘Take it down to the physics"
He would place this urgency that he expected the revenue in ten years to be ten million dollars a day and that every day we were slower to achieve our goals was a day of missing out on that money.
If you told him that you made a particular choice because ‘it was the standard way things had always been done,’ he’d kick you out of a meeting fast. He’d say, ‘I never want to hear that phrase again. What we have to do is fucking hard and half-assing things won’t be tolerated.’
And when he's building any component of his product, however big or small, he wants it to be the best:
“We have to decide what is the best sun visor in the world and then do better”
On building a culture:
Next is his quality of building a comradeship and responsibility among his people. These folks genuinely believe they are working on things that will alter the course of humanity (which they are).
“Every person on that island was a fucking star, and they were always holding seminars on radios or the engine. It was such an invigorating place.”
Straubel was stalking the solar car crew, trying to talk them into building an electric car based on the lithium ion batteries. He would fly up to Palo Alto, spend the night sleeping in his plane, and then ride a bicycle to the Stanford campus to make his sales pitch while helping with their current projects.
An undergraduate, Berdichevsky volunteered to quit school, work for free, and sweep the floors at Tesla if that’s what it took to get a job.
At a time when Tesla was running out of money, and Musk had to lean on friends to try to make payroll from week to week, as he negotiated with investors, this is what happened:
“A bunch of Tesla employees wrote checks to keep the company going,”
On his work ethic
His work ethic and ability to handle stress is second to none:
“Elon would come home at eleven and work some more. People didn’t always get the sacrifice he made in order to be where he was.”
“He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met”
"I’ve just never seen anything like his ability to take pain.”
And he wasn't immune to feeling dejected like normal humans:
Musk had come to Russia filled with optimism about putting on a great show for mankind and was now leaving exasperated and disappointed by human nature.
On his commitment:
‘I will spend my last dollar on these companies. If we have to move into Justine’s parents’ basement, we’ll do it.’
“God is our witness, come hell or high water, I am going to do it"
On the kind of people he wants to work with:
One thing that Musk holds in the highest regard is resolve, and he respects people who continue on after being told no.
What Musk would not tolerate were excuses or the lack of a clear plan of attack.
Spotting engineers who have exhibited type A personality traits over the course of their lives.
The object is to find individuals who ooze passion, can work well as part of a team, and have real-world experience bending metal.
Where a typical manager may set the deadline for the employee, Musk guides his engineers into taking ownership of their own delivery dates. “He doesn’t say, ‘You have to do this by Friday at two P.M.,’” Brogan said. “He says, ‘I need the impossible done by Friday at two P.M. Can you do it?’ Then, when you say yes, you are not working hard because he told you to. You’re working hard for yourself. It’s a distinction you can feel. You have signed up to do your own work.”
People who await guidance or detailed instructions languish. The same goes for workers who crave feedback.
And of course he is super intelligent:
People who have spent significant time with Musk will attest to his abilities to absorb incredible quantities of information with near-flawless recall.
Musk expresses empathy at a different level:
His brand of empathy is unique. He seems to feel for the human species as a whole without always wanting to consider the wants and needs of individuals.
Musk's endeavors are grand - on the scale of humanity and probably beyond. His efforts in all the companies together surmount anything seen ever before. Granted that he may not have started Tesla or Solar City but without his drive to get things done, they may not have reached the state they did.
I leave you with this quote, which to me is his most powerful one:
"It seemed like one should try to make the world a better place because the inverse makes no sense.”
I hope you get a chance to read the book. It is deeply inspiring and finds a place in my list of Best Books I read in 2015.
FURTHER READING
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Best Books I Read in 2015
I read 20+ books this year. For some it is a lot, for others just a few. Personally, I am very happy with having read so many good books. I invest a lot of time and thought in picking them. Thus, most of what I read this year has been brilliant. Making a best-of list is hence difficult. But, I'll give it a shot.
You can also check out the lists from the last couple of years.
1. A Personal Matter (Audiobook) - Kenzaburo Oe
A few years ago, I visited the hill town Mussorie with my family. One evening, while roaming the streets after dinner, I found a thrift store selling books at throwaway prices. Among the many I bought, there was one called 'Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere' by John Nash. It is a memoir of an American who had migrated to Japan, learnt Japanese and translated many Japanese books into English. One of them is by Kenzaburo Oe. And my word, what a book it is!
A personal matter is a dark, poignant piece of art. It requires patience and lingering on the words to admire their beauty. It is a semi-autobiographical work where the protagonist deals with the birth of his mentally disabled child. In real life, Oe has a son who is under developed and forms the basis of many of his works.
I consumed it as an audiobook and found myself rewinding multiple times. Reading it would have been preferable. It is one of those books which make you wish you knew the original language to truly understand the magnificence of this work. If you are still not convinced, did I mention that Oe is also a Nobel laureate?
2. The Martian (Audiobook) - Andy Weir
Another Audiobook. I discovered this via a blog I follow (Wait But Why) much before the movie. And as most books-movies go, it is so much better than the movie version. I actually slept in the movie, literally. Even if you have seen it, I would recommend reading/listening the book. There are so many details, incidents and twists and turns that have been missed or changed in the movie. The performance on my audiobook was outstanding to help the matters.
A fun fact: This book was released iteratively in a serial format with feedback from people on the internet. On completion this was released for free only for its rights to be later bought by a publishing house.
3. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
This was the book on which the movie 'Everest' was based on. It is funny that so many of the books I pick up are later made into movies. Again, this was much before the movie was released. And unlike 'The Martian', Everest and Into Thin Air are quite comparable in their execution. However, like always, reading is much more recommended.
4. Elon Musk : How The Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping Our Future- Ashlee Vance
This is a great insight into the life and mind of Musk who is a modern day hero for me. Musk’s most endearing trait to me is his hyper rationalism. His endeavours are grand - on the scale of humanity and probably beyond.
His efforts in all the companies together surmount anything seen ever before. Granted that he may not have started Tesla or Solar City but without his drive to get things done, they may not have reached the state they did.
5. Boats on Land (A Collection of Short Stories)- Janice Pariat
I don't remember who recommended it. Perhaps someone in my Facebook feed. It is a collection of stories from the North East region of India. The author, Janice, has done an incredible job at weaving beautiful, dreamy stories. You know the times when you read a book and instantly want to be transported to that time and place, that is what this book did to me.
6. Jaya - An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharats - Devdutt Patnaik
It doesn't matter if you are religious, atheist or agnostic, you have to agree that Mythology is interesting. The stories are colorful, grand and capture your imagination. Jaya did all this and more.
7. Shatranj ke Khiladi (Hindi Edition) - Munshi Premchand
A simple short story by Munshi Premchand. I read this in Hindi and it was a delight since we don't really read much in Hindi nowadays.
8. The Art of Asking: How I learned to stop worrying and let people help - Amanda Palmer
I read this non stop on a flight with sleepy eyes but found it unputdownable. It is a brutally honest autobiographical account by Amanda Palmer.
Other Notable mentions:
- How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - Mohsin Hamid
- Hatching Twitter - Nick Bilton
- The Catcher in The Rye - J.D. Salinger
- On Writing - Stephen King
Now Reading and probably will find place in the next best-of list:
- Atlus Shrugged
- Man's Search for Meaning
- Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I hope you get around to reading some of these. Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on them. After all, what does a good book do if not incite deeply polarized discussions.
If you like these recommendations, check out the rest of my reading list here.
Further Reading
An Elaborate Guide to Spiti Valley - Part 3
In the third week of August this year, 6 of us embarked on a trip to the less popular, but equally surreal cousin of Ladakh: Spiti Valley. We drove about 1200 kms on motorbikes plus 800 kms by car to and from Gurgaon. What follows is an attempt to create a guide to Spiti with a generous topping of my experiences sprinkled over it.
This is the 3rd and final part in the series.
All pictures in this post can be clicked on to open an expanded version.
6TH LEG: KAZA TO CHANDRATAL
After a slow, elaborate breakfast, we loaded our bags on the bikes and left for Chandratal lake. Upto this point, the roads weren't great but manageable. The scenery was what you would come to expect of Spiti - huge, barren mountains highlighted by a single snow capped peak and wide open fields all the way with the river lining the side.
Our first stop was at Losar. There, you should halt for lunch at the first shop on your left as you enter the small town. They serve delicious home made food. As we were chilling outside the cafe, soaking in the warm sun, we chit-chatted with a biker returning from Chandratal. He said that Losar was the first sign of a road he had found since Gramphoo (which is on the way to Manali). This should have been our first hint of what kind of route lay ahead of us.
Human flag at Kunzum Pass
It was a difficult ride up to the Kunzum pass which stands at a height of 4551 metres. The wind will be quite strong, so more layers are recommended, even in the scorching sun. In our exhausted state, it seemed like a non event to cross one of the most sought after bikers' milestone in India. We clicked a few mandatory pictures and rode our way down the trail.
CHANDRATAL
After a long, gruelling and the toughest ride thus far, we reached here at the last stroke of sunlight. At an altitude of 4300 metres, life here can get difficult. Chandratal Lake isn’t exactly where you would pitch tents. But, there is a vast sprawl of flatland 3 kms away where you would see a small tent-town which would serve as your resting place for the night.
On the way to Chandratal. Your camps would appear in one such flatland to your left
We stayed at Parasol Camps which is the most reputed and popular tent around. The people at Deyzor can help you get a place there so you don’t need to worry about it once you get there. The caretakers are jovial folks, much like most of the locals we found on our way. When questioned that whether 6 in the evening (which is when we had arrived) was a good time to go see the lake, Bishan (the chief over there), answered that the sun dried up the lake yesterday. Some of us weren’t attuned to that kind of humour. Suffice to say, the lake wasn’t dry, it is never dry, it will never be, and we now have one less joke to fall victim to.
At the camps
There would be a lot of bikers and car-riders at the camp. You would chill with them at the common tent area where you would all huddle together for hours around a heat source since it would be so cold outside. There would be booze, music, good food, nice stories and stuff from all over Himachal that people have brought along with them. It would be fun.
Having traveled so far, and only a 3km hike away, next morning, we decided not to see Chandratal against our wishes. Don’t raise your brows, our schedule (damn you schedule), didn’t allow us that. I still have a little regret left from it. Additionally, the high altitude wasn’t helping. At any time, at least 2 amongst us had headaches, shortness of breath, dizziness and a general sense of discomfort.
Breakfast is served, you bid goodbye to the nice folks and they wish you smooth journey ahead as if they meant that we might need it (or was it just me who understood it that way?). Those few words from them should have been our second hint.
7th Leg: Chandratal to Kasol
Via: Kunzum, Gramphoo, Rohtang, Manali, Kullu
THE MOST HORRENDOUS JOURNEY RESUMES
Leave early in the morning from Chandratal. It would be a long ride to Manali and beyond. The roads ahead are the worst you would have ever set a wheel upon. Hold on. Allow me to rephrase. There are no roads. All that you would find is a narrow trail of stones, boulders, nallahs climbing down and up all the way to Gramphoo. The scenery around you will be surreal but you would hardly have enough spare attention to look at it.
On this route, we covered about 60kms in 6 hours. You could go for a run and outpace the bikes. It’s not just that the roads were bad. They were also unpredictable, constantly rising and falling, twisting and turning, and we had to be extremely alert while riding. It was miserable. We don’t often hear people acknowledging that a part of their trip was less than perfect. Personally, I think there is no shame in accepting that this route was bad. In hindsight, like all things, I look at only the positives - how it tested our riding skills, the adventure it presented, the immense feeling of solitude. But, in those moments, we really were on the edge. Luckily Chandra Dhaba came soon enough on our left where we halted for refreshments, some shopping and to relax our nerves.
Approaching Gramphoo
As you approach Gramphoo, the scenery would change drastically. The bare, rocky mountains would be replaced by lush green peaks with signs of life in the form of shepherds, sheep, goats and sheep-dogs. A massive traffic jam caused by these cute creatures would make you chuckle and irritate at the same time.
Gramphoo is a non-existent signboard of a town where we couldn’t even find a place to eat. Not that we tried very hard. We were in rush to move on. A gang of 15 American bikers, who had ridden along side us thus far, bade us goodbye here as they turned right for Ladakh and we took a left towards Manali.
Unlike yesteryears, the traffic on Gramphoo to Manali route is minimal. Once you get closer to Rohtang pass, you would find dirty snow hanging over the ledges of the roads. The pass itself is unremarkable (or perhaps this judgement was caused by exhaustion). I mean there is a vantage point but we passed through it without stopping. I am told that a few years back it used to be alive with tea stalls and various shops, but now it’s blank save for a few parked vehicles and people clicking pictures. The roads were finally strong, reliable concrete and we made good speed to a highway eating joint. My feet were wet to the core on account of having traversed many nallahs and balancing the bike on my feet across them. Shivering and teeth chattering, I took the shoes off and laid them out in the feeble sunlight in hopes of drying them. It didn’t work too well.
Resuming our journey, we crossed the pine-tree rich mountains that overlooked the Manali Valley. I had not been to Manali earlier, so I was thoroughly surprised by the massive commercialisation that had eaten up the valley in the form of endless hotels and cafes on both sides of the roads. Perhaps it was just me, but there was a distinguishable, even if faint, smell of marijuana in the air. This is Himachal after all. So, don’t be surprised to find Marijuana plants on your way all along the route.
Some dude paragliding around Rohtang
Next stop was a cool bike repair workshop in Kullu. We refilled our food supplies and headed to Kasol. It was a day before full moon. The moonlight bathed the streets in gentle white light. The small huts we saw along the roads resembled a ghostly town. It was a good ride.
Entering the Parvati Valley, the loud roar of the flowing river to the left of us, a smile crept out of me under my helmet. We still couldn’t see it, but the feeling of finally approaching our destination late at night was brewing inside.
KASOL
I had fantasised about reaching Kasol all day long. Two of our friends (not on this trip), planned to visit Kasol around the same time we did. I imagined entering Kasol, roaring on our bikes, and our friends welcoming us outside Evergreen Cafe. Hugs, smiles and happiness. I imagined going into the cafe to chill before checking into a hotel. And that’s exactly what happened.
This was my second visit to Kasol. The first one happened at a very different time in my life. Luckily, I had written a post about my trip. Here’s where you can read it.
FINAL leg: KASOL to SHIMLA TO GURGAON - SIGH!
Nothing remarkable to report here except that driving back from Kasol to Shimla late at night was a little spooky. I wouldn't recommend it - way too many trucks ply on this route, much safer to leave early from Kasol and arrive at Shimla in the late evening.
AFTEREFFECTS
Traveling, going on adventures, seeing new things, meeting interesting people - all this is fine. But, few people talk about what happens when you come back to the reality of everyday life in the big city. The fixed schedule with 5 days of work and a weekend of drinking. Well, I’ll tell you - life becomes boring.
Boring, not in your regular definition of the word. But, boring in a way that constantly nags you to do something extraordinary again. The comfort of your bed becomes suffocating, the monotony of daily grind becomes a veiled attempt at living life. This is what I call Travel Withdrawal Syndrome or TWS.
Common symptoms of TWS:
- Soon after your return, even before the expenses of the trip have been detailed out and money owed returned, plans of a new trip begin taking shape.
- The number of work related tabs on your browser shrink to a small percentage, the majority being taken up by blogs of people describing beautiful new places and experiences.
- You start wondering how to travel full-time without having to beg for food and accommodation.
- At least once, you seriously consider quitting your job and doing something more interesting.
- At least once, you seriously consider moving permanently to the place you just returned from and opening up a cafe.
- You start dissociating yourself from all the others around you who are not doing something similar.
- You think of taking up another activity along with your work seriously - biking, photography, travel blogging.
How to cure TWS?
The answer lies in the last symptom. After a rush of adrenalin on your trip, there is a lot of residual energy in you. Channel it in learning something new. Acquire new skills by investing time in not just doing them but studying their deep lying concepts. Immerse yourself in it as you did with your travel. Say, for example, you were to take up photography. Watch some YouTube lessons, join a common class, do a small day photography trip.
This allows you to not only grow intellectually, but also, gives you a reality check on how passionate you are about something. Especially if you considering an alternate vocation, this helps to answer the question of whether it is just a passing fad or something that you could seriously consider.
And write. Seriously. Even if you don’t consider yourself a writer, just noting those experiences down in your private diary helps.
END NOTES
There’s not a lot to do in Spiti if you don’t count chilling as something. You see beautiful places, get a lot of time to be on your own. Read a book, look at the scenery, talk to friends, talk to the locals. Meet fellow traveler, share stories. Your travel would be often and taxing. So, be prepared to be very tired throughout the trip unless you take proper rest. Drink lots of water, it’ll help with acclimatisation. The novelty of the scenery might fade off just a little bit, the adventure will not. Don’t go there with a constricted schedule. Go with some time on your hands.
Finally, here are some vanity pictures. And Spiti in 10 bullet points.
Spiti in 10 bullets:
1. Landscape is surreal. Looks like a painting.
2. Altitude sickness is a real thing.
3. Roads are tough. Horrible even.
4. Food is slow but delicious.
5. You’d be constantly amazed by how fit the locals are.
6. There are bikers all around you and you share a genuine feeling of being in a community.
7. The locals are funny people.
8. With time, the landscape becomes so common that you stop noticing it.
9. Your plans will go haywire on account of unexpected changes in the road condition.
10. Many times, there will be no one around you for hours. Absolute solitude.
Hope these series of posts was helpful ( Read earlier posts: Part 1 and Part 2). Have a great trip yourself!
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An Elaborate Guide To Spiti Valley - Part 2
In the third week of August this year, 6 of us embarked on a trip to the less popular, but equally surreal cousin of Ladakh: Spiti Valley. We drove about 1200 kms on motorbikes plus 800 kms by car to and from Gurgaon. What follows is an attempt to create a guide to Spiti with a generous topping of my experiences sprinkled over it.
This is the 2nd part in the series. By the end of the first part, we had laid down the basics. This, Part 2, is where we immerse ourselves completely in the journey. There are tons of beautiful pictures too.
THIRD LEG: KUMARSAIN TO KALPA
Suggested Route: RAMPUR to KALPA
Again, the distance isn’t much, but the roads get very tricky at the fag end of this route. Since this would be the first day of your trip when you tread a difficult mountainous course, doing smaller distances is recommended.
Roads for the first half of this leg are solid tarmac and predictable. Good to ride on
Another hour after this natural tunnel, less friendly roads await
For most parts, you will find concrete roads, reasonable traffic and you would traverse at good pace. We led the group ahead and and took a few minutes break to wait for the rest to arrive. That spot was about 30-40 kms before Reckong Peo which in turn is about 10 kms from Kalpa. It took us close to 3.5 hours to cover that distance.
Chilling is important
A stream to your left before Reckong Peo provides an opportune moment to take a small rest
The concrete roads gave way to rock laden pieces of land which we call roads. Thick mud lined the roads. Our overloaded bikes squelched and squealed as we navigated our way through it at a cautious pace. The pillion kept mum lest they distract the rider. The bikes' lower-sides took the majority of the brunt of the stones scattered by the wheels. We narrowly missed two shooting stones which shot down from the hills just a few feet ahead of us.
A scissor appears on the road here, one leading to Kalpa, other to Nako
At Reckong Peo, climbing up to Kalpa
Eventually, it got better. We climbed mountains and then came back down again, only to climb up again into Kalpa. Slow moving trucks ahead of us threatened to slip back down. Sharp turns, overlooking the steep drop into the valley below, waited for us longingly. Young school kids waved us goodbyes with a smile on their chubby cheeks.
A river to our left was a welcome sight. We relieved ourselves of the dirt with the cool, refreshing water, took a status check, and went on ahead to Reckong Peo and further ahead to Kalpa.
KALPA
Kalpa is located at a height of 2960 metres. Height is important throughout this journey because we climb high enough to cause altitude sickness in the city-dwellers that we are.
Like most hill-towns, it is remote and not easily accessible. However, it is still untouched by the mass commercialisation that you find creeping in most hill stations. Our navigation for most of the journey (at least till our cell phones worked), was a friend who had stayed back in Gurgaon, fondly named Chunnu - the one who knows it all. Chunnupedia told us that the best place to stay would be Kinner Kailash, a Himachal Tourism guest house named after the mountain it overlooks, and boy was he right.
Kinner Kailash is at the dead end of Kalpa. Seriously. There is nothing beyond it. Thus, it provided us with an uninterrupted view of the imperious mountain ranges. The Kinnaur Kailash mountain stood tall, majestic and wore a white snow cap which was partially visible through the clouds engulfing it.
The view at the cottage
The guest house has spacious wooden cottages which we negotiated down to 3000 bucks for a company of 6 (2 cottages). The host is a chirpy, good-natured middle aged man with one glass eye. His hospitality was genuine and warm. At night, when he came out in his monkey cap and pyjamas, he looked liked a caretaker of a Dak Bungalow from a scene in a dark Bollywood movie about snakes and rebirths.
The food is delicious. They have a nicely placed garden where you can rest your tired asses and talk with fellow travellers. Just sitting there filled us with energy. And what do you do when you are filled with lots of energy without anywhere to let it out? You drink. A word of caution though, you won’t find any thekas near the guest house. You would have to climb down 10kms, to find the first sign of a market. Thus, be well stocked.
What not to miss: Sitting outside your cottage at night, looking at the well-lit starry sky, soaking in the light reflecting from the mighty mountain snow-cap. Talking about your little place in the Universe is also recommended.
4TH LEG: KALPA TO TABO
Distance: 150 km
Time taken: 7 hrs (including multiple stops for rest, food, and a long stop at a beautiful lake just before Tabo)
Via - Pooh, Nako
Make sure to get your petrol cans, and bike tanks filled up at Reckong Peo since this would be your last petrol pump before Kaza. Moving out of Kalpa, the roads improve at Pooh and are lovely to drive all the way to Nako and then some.
The landscape changed quickly from light vegetation to completely bare mountains
You can stop to eat at Pooh at a small dhaba. It is closed on Tuesdays and guess which day we went there - yes, Tuesday. But, we found the lady who runs the place walking nearby. And she was kind enough to make Chowmein and Parathas for us. You can also get your water refrigerated at her shop since you are going to be driving in scorching heat. But, if you have reached Pooh, you would have realised it by now.
Some pictures of the route
Some people also stay at Nako lake camps. But, we overlooked that even though it was on our itinerary. One reason was that we were short of time and secondly, that place isn’t that great anyway.
So, we went straight to Tabo.
The river
What not to miss: A few kilometres before Tabo, you would find a river to your left. Park your bikes on the side of the road, and walk down the hundred metres to the lake. The water is cold and clear. The surrounding mountains are smoothed by years of flowing water and the rushing winds. It is a good spot to chill for a while.
TABO
Suggested: Spend a full day in Tabo
You know what, Kalpa, Pooh, Nako are all fine. They are all great places, no complaints. But, the careless abandon of travel that you unknowingly long for would present itself to you, for the first time, in Tabo.
You should enter the hard to miss, huge Monastery gate on your left to find a rest for the night. The first place you find to park your vehicles would be your resting place. That would be Tiger's Den Guest House.
Tiger Den Guest House
The moment we arrived there, we didn’t even unload our bikes to keep the bags in our rooms. Straight up, we headed to a theka nearby to buy some Beers. Then, we pitched ourselves in the Tiger's Den cafeteria.
It was evening and the faint light of the overhanging bulbs reflected against our oily, dirty and happy faces. There were smiling faces. Or maybe it was just me. But, the point is, it felt great to be there. The beers were opened, the food was served, and the conversations resumed.
What not to miss: Visit the monastery. Lounge around the garden for hours at length. Meet the fellow travelers who stop by at Tabo in their journey to nowhere.
5TH LEG: TABO TO KAZA
Next is a short 3 hour ride from Tabo to arrive at Kaza. You will be climbing down into the valley for most part. Here are some pictures.
KAZA
You have arrived. The first big town, or, the only relatively big town in Spiti Valley. This would be your base for the next 3 days. A lot of places to visit nearby, good places to stay, and great food all around makes this a perfect place for you to pitch base.
As you enter Kaza, the Spiti river will run along your side. The roads leading up to the town have a lot of trustworthy straights that you can race your bike on. The river bed would make you want to climb down off the road and lie there for hours at a stretch. And sure enough, one amongst us did do that in spite of the searing heat of the afternoon.
The local market welcomes you inside with its narrow lanes, lined on both sides with sundry shops, cafes and hotels. We stayed at Hotel Deyzor which is quite popular among the travellers. The free WiFi probably has something to do with it.
A word of caution: Everything about Deyzor is cool, except the food. No, I don’t mean that it’s bad. Rather, it is quite delicious. But the slow service is a pain in the ass. And your abdomen. We had not ridden a long distance but had alighted on our bikes with a light breakfast. So, we were super hungry by the time we reached there. Upon reaching Deyzor, we left our bags on the bike and went straight to their garden cafe. But, the service was so damn slow. It didn’t help that the altitude was high enough to cause headaches in some of us. Sadly, this trend remained for the rest of our stay at the hotel. So, just be sure to not be hungry to the point of becoming cranky. Your food will arrive in its own due time.
You would meet a lot of interesting folks at Deyzor. Some who organise bicycle tours, others who go on bicycle tours, writers, an Israeli group with a guitarist among them (not stereotypical at all), a military trained dog, a group of high school Australian graduates traveling the world and riding bikes in Spiti when only one of them actually knew how-to, and the rest of them learning as they go - on only the most treacherous roads in the world. Weird world.
What to do in Kaza:
Key Monastery
En route to Key Monastery
Your first excursion from Kaza should be to Key Monastery. It is about an hour’s drive from the hotel and the route is picturesque. Literally. I mean this route inspired my intro to this series of posts (ref: Part 1). I found myself lost in the surroundings even as I was driving. It is so easy for that to happen to you. And if you try to bring your focus back on the road, which you should, your head spins around itself. Luckily, the roads are predictable and smooth winding up to the monastery.
Key Monastery is situated at a height of 4166 metres. I wonder why they make monasteries so high up. Last one I went to was in Paro, Bhutan which we reached to after a particularly taxing hike of 2 and a half hours. You don’t really do anything in such places. Just soak in the peace and the quiet. Have a chat with the monks, get some water into the system. Sit inside the prayer hall and watch the monks do their preparations. It doesn’t sound much, but trust me, it is a lot. My friends had to pull me out of the trance to ask me to go back to base.
This is where you will again have one of those - ‘What’s this life for?’, ‘Why do we work so hard to make money’, ‘What should we do with our lives?, ‘Let’s quit our jobs and settle in a monastery’ - moments. I’ve been told that the food inside the restaurant adjacent to the monastery is particularly fulfilling. You might want to give it a try.
Kibber
Kibber is a tiny village close to Key. Ride into the village, go as high up as you can and then park yourself in the restaurant there. Have tea in their cafe, look around as you see small houses you can count on your fingers, and people which you cannot since there won’t be any. Seriously, there was not a single soul to be seen when we arrived there. Only after some time did we see a few people milling about, probably coming out of a conference since they all appeared from the same corner in a beeline.
There isn’t much to do in Kibber (sleeping in the wide open fields is a recommendation which comes from a friend) , which itself is quite a nice thing to have on a vacation. But, it can get old soon, so you can come back by the evening. Here, I would like to highlight that driving at night isn’t a good idea anywhere in Spiti. They call these roads the world’s most treacherous ones and not without good reason.
Couple of other places that we couldn’t go to were Hikkim (apparently, India’s highest post office, send your loved ones postcards from here) and Gue Monastery (where a 600 year old Mummy of a monk resides; legend has it that it still grows its hair). Google will tell you more about it than I can.
End of Part 2
In the next and final part, we look at the journey back from Spiti valley via Kunzum and Rohtang Pass. We also made a 2 day stop over at Kasol.
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An Elaborate Guide To Spiti Valley - Part 1
In the third week of August this year, 6 of us embarked on a trip to the less popular, but equally surreal cousin of Ladakh: Spiti Valley. We drove about 1200 kms on motorbikes plus 800 kms by car to and from Gurgaon. What follows is an attempt to create a guide to Spiti with a generous topping of my experiences sprinkled over it.
This is the longest piece I have written on a single topic yet. For ease of reading and for my own sanity, I have broken it down to 3 parts. This is the first one.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine the world of Gods. They live high up in sky, a million galaxies away. 4.54 billion years ago, their council decided to manifest a planet with life. They would call it Earth. The responsibility of the creation of this planet was assigned to a promising young artist called Vincio. His method of creation was to paint vivid, meticulously detailed pictures of Earth. Once finished, Vincio would breathe out a lungful of air into them to bring them to life.
At first, Vincio created the different landscapes that would form a habitat for Earthlings. Mountains, rivers, deserts, great oceans and their meeting points. He then progressed to creating simple life forms like bacteria, viruses and weeds. As he developed his art skill, he started making more complex life forms culminating into humans. But, the true test of his skill was when he would devise a sophisticated mechanism of co-habitation of these life forms with the aforementioned geographical landscapes. This gave rise to agricultural societies, villages, towns and eventually the big, shiny cities that we now inhabit.
After a millennia he came out of his self-imposed solitude where he painted the most complicated planet ever seen by the Gods. The Council was impressed. They decided to hold an exhibition of his work for the whole Gods community to see. The critiques would be invited too, so that they can comment on this elaborate plan of bringing the first life into the Universe. All that was left for Vincio to do was to let out a gentle breath into each of his pictures to bring them to life.
Here’s what Madre, an acclaimed critic, wrote about his work.
Review - Vincio's Breath of Life, An Exhibition
“It is not with regularity that one sees work of this magnitude by a single artist - both in terms of the sheer amount as well as the complex patterns and their interplay with each other. Today, we have seen a work of extraordinary brilliance from a prodigious talent. By creating the human life, Vincio has outdone himself. We see that human life will build mega colonies and call them cities. They would build modes of transportation and communication which would surpass anything ever built outside of the Colony of Gods. Their collective intelligence as a species would generate great progress. However, this would come at a cost.
Humans, even with their advancements, would feel a certain emptiness in their hearts. Cities after cities which look soulless burial grounds of dreams and contentment have been a constant theme in Vincio's work. These big cities would stifle humans. The irony of working hard to seek progress and yet feeling shallow inspite (or because) of it would not be lost on them. Thus, a small number of them would frequent out into the unexplored.
Beaches, mountains, forests - they would all serve the humans as a reservoir of peace of mind, joy, even exhaustion yet fulfilment. However, they would all lack a sense of wonder which could move the human race to contemplation. In creating these, Vincio had been predictable and seemed afraid to break his boundaries until we chanced upon his work titled Spiti.
Carefully situated in the Spiritual Heartland of Earth - India, surrounded by the Great Himalayan mountain ranges and fed by the river Spiti, it would be a view to behold. Men traveling to the valley would gape in wonder. For many years, Vincio’s breath, in the form of winds, would create intricate patterns on the mountain ranges. It would not be easy for the men to reach there. But once arrived, they would experience profound moments that most would find difficult to express.
It is in Spiti that they would first come close to Vincio. They would see the landscape as not just another geographical form. It would seem to them as if they are the brushstrokes of a masterful painting. Yes! That would be, in opinion of this humble critique, the true pinnacle of Vincio’s work. Spiti would elevate humans from merely existing as yet another life form, to being truly one with the God’s process of Earth’s creation.”
GURGAON
We were to leave at 2 o' clock in the night. I turned in early to bed to get some sleep before the long ride ahead of us. But, it was futile. Before a trip, as you await the time of your departure, multiple thoughts run around aimlessly inside your head. Have you packed enough? Have you packed too much? How dangerous would the roads be - Did I mention this was going to be a motorbike trip? 3 riders + 3 pillion.
I had planned to write about my experience after coming back. But, writing about Travel on a blog which which professes the value of mindfulness is tricky. On one hand I preach living in the moment but on the other, I also realise that travel writing requires capturing the moments as they are lived in the form of timely notes rather than just writing about them later by recalling the incidents from memory.
As I struggled with these thoughts, eyes wide awake, mind racing from one thought to another like a distracted toddler, tossing and turning, I also had an evil thought. What if, at this moment, I decide not to go altogether? It would be easy to do so. No sleeplessness, no uncertainty about the roads, I could stay tucked inside the safe comforts of my bed. Had I not so meticulously planned the trip myself, I would have probably given those thoughts a little more weightage. I have done this kind of thing before.
If we try to look for such patterns in our life itself, it leads to a philosophical introspection. How often do we ditch the brilliant, exciting, if only a little dangerous, step we think of taking, to settle for the monotony, ordinary and the familiar. Perhaps moving out of our comfort zones, to give ourselves a jolt of adrenalin, and some vitality to our existence might be just what we need.
First leg: GURGAON TO SHIMLA
Unlike Manali, Shimla doesn’t have many bike rental companies. Thus, it is advisable to book your bikes beforehand. So did we. A word of caution: Please research your rental company thoroughly. Some of the companies out there lend bikes which are in poor condition, unserviced and might have potentially dangerous hidden flaws. It is a matter of your safety so please be careful.
We left Gurgaon on Thursday night to arrive in Shimla the next morning. We had not slept the night before. But, a healthy dosage of Red Bull, music, adrenaline and the open road kept us awake and interested.
We drove rash, we drove safe, depending upon the depth of our conversation and the tempo of the music we were streaming off the internet. The Internet. The Fucking Internet. Our hyper-active, frenemy, like a faithful dog, which because of its constant attention craving, sometimes becomes a nuisance, following us even this high up in the mountains.
Mountains ornamented with carpets of green welcomed us all the way. Trees ubiquitous to highways across India formed a natural tunnel. The casual playfulness of light and dark flora on the mountains seemed like shadows formed by a play of light and clouds. Perhaps they were shadows. Trucks, with their poisonous exhaust fumes and life-giving one-liners on their backside never left our company. Roadside cafes, with their unoriginal names but fulfilling food greeted us at every few steps. One of these is Nik Bakers, just outside of Chandigarh and to your left. They serve one of the best Cold Coffees I have ever had. In case you are looking for something more filling, Haveli, the highly popular restaurant would be your best option.
SHIMLA
At noon, we arrived to the quiet air of Shimla. We had not yet entered the main bazaar area, so there was still scope for us to enjoy the peace away from the cacophony of noises at the Mall Road. Most part of the day was spent on checking bikes, test riding, get any repairs done and buying spare parts if needed.
Our stay was at Hotel Achman Regency. An average hotel on the highway by all means. The reception stood on what they called the 4th floor. The elevator took us down to our rooms on the 2nd floor. As we sat on our damp beds, the quiet engulfed us only to be broken by incessant spam calls offering me credit card limit enhancements.
Ready to roll
As we looked out the window towards the erect pines craving to touch the blue sky, we felt that we could just spend the next 7 days here. Again, this is the comfort zone talking. At night, as we sat in our room, a cloud engulfed us. How did we know? Well, for one, the window shut itself. And second, we couldn’t see a damn thing beyond a few feet outside the window. It was all hazy, misty, and cloudy. We were floating high above the idiosyncrasies of daily life, if only for a few days. I wish I could have seen ourselves from a hill 500 metres away with a binocular. That would have been cool.
Second leg: SHIMLA TO KUMARSAIN
Suggested Route: SHIMLA TO RAMPUR
Pass through: Kufri - Narkanda
One thing you should set very concretely in your head is that your average speeds would be very low. It is reasonable to assume an average speed of 20km/h including the stops. If you are not riding pillion, you can probably push it to 25km/h but that’s it. The roads from Shimla to Rampur are good. But, beyond that, things get rough.
Apple orchard along the way. Freshly picked apples are delicious
We had planned to leave early from Shimla and arrive late evening at Rampur, but because of some unforeseen bike issues, we had to halt at Kumarsain.
The Incident
KUMARSAIN
We spent two nights spent in Kumarsain for reasons which were out of our control. One of our bikes gave up, and for us to rearrange something else took time. Not much to report here except that the folks were super friendly and arranged a place for us to stay at the Forest Reserve Guest House, kept their shops open for us to get dinner and happily helped us repair our bikes - without expecting anything in return. There's just one single thread of conversation here that the world should know about:
The Dynamics of a Human - Pizza Relationship
Shruti: You know I read a funny news story recently. A girl in the US married a Pizza!
Mayank: Dafaq! (Laughter) Man, people are weird.
(Laughter all around)
Mayank: I have a question. Did the girl marry a single pizza or pizza-breed in general?
Shruti: Oh yeah! That's an important question. I don't know. Perhaps pizza-breed in general otherwise she'll have to keep the single pizza deep-freezed and never eat it. That defeats the purpose of falling in love with and marrying a pizza.
Mayank: Hmm. Suppose the girl is traveling on a flight. She knows she is going to be hungry once she deboards the plane. So, she had called a pizza place in advance to get her pizza ready. Then this would be called a long distance relationship.
Shruti: (Laughter) Yeah, and if she has a pizza in the flight then that's cheating.
Mayank: (Laughter) And if she has more than one, then she is just a whore.
Both Shruti and Mayank laugh uncontrollably at the brilliance of their own jokes hoping that they remember this exchange of intellect to share with the world. The world needs to know this.
End of Part 1
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After-Office Productivity Hacks
Notes from How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett
Picture this hypothetical scenario:
You wake up in the morning full of energy to go win the world. The day is already planned in advance:
Go to office and work
Go for a run after coming back
Eat some healthy dinner
Study/Paint/Write/Work on your startup (or fill it up with something else you like to do)
Read before bed
Sleep early
Here's what actually happened:
You reached office full of energy and with a smile on your face. But then you had an altercation at work with someone. One of your tasks got stuck because of someone else’s inefficiency. You felt lazy yourself to finish your work. On your way back from office you got traffucked.
You probably do not come back right away. You go out with friends for drinks to get wasted. Or if you come back home directly, you feel exhausted mentally and physically. It was a bad day - you deserve a break, don’t you? You think of watching a movie. Actually, 'think' is too strong a word. Thoughtlessly, you choose to drown your inner voices, almost subconsciously, by watching a movie or maybe the fancy new TV series that has just released its new episode. And then, you bore yourself to sleep checking your Facebook feed on your phone while lying in bed. All those plans of being more productive and creating something go down the drain.
Sounds familiar?
This hypothetical day has become my reality way too many times. But, I hate feeling unproductive - it permeates into other aspects of my life (love, work, health) and makes them miserable too. Thus, I picked up this short book called How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett.
In this book, Bennett puts forth many techniques of hacking your day towards more productivity. The most important of which I found is this:
If my typical man wishes to live fully and completely he must, in his mind, arrange a day within a day. And this inner day, a Chinese box in a larger Chinese box, must begin at 6 p.m. and end at 10 a.m. It is a day of sixteen hours; and during all these sixteen hours he has nothing whatever to do but cultivate his body and his soul and his fellow men.
Treat 6.30 pm after your return from work as the first light of the day, the beginning. And now you get to schedule your day however it is you like it. What would you do if your day began at 6 in the evening and you had the next 16 hours all to yourself? How would you fill it up? What if your day was a blank slate or as Leo Babauta says an empty container, what things would you fill it up with?
We like to believe that we are tired after work and cannot actually do something useful. But, that is just your mind rationalising and trying to distract you away from doing the hard things. You are not tired. Your mind can do much more than you think it can.
It is more a mind hack than an actual technique but it still works - I’ve been trying it for the last couple of weeks to remarkable results. In fact, these very lines have been written using this same technique (I could have chosen the easier option of watching a movie instead). So, if you’ve ever felt like a vegetable, incapable of moving your limbs to doing anything productive to save your life, then this is the book you should read.
Seriously, go buy it right now. I’ll wait for you. It is cheap. I’ll even give you the link. Here. No excuses now.
Hope you have. Even if you did not, here are my highlights and notes from the book to convince you to do so.
#NOTES FROM THE BOOK
(quotes from the book in italics, my notes below that)
You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste to-morrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you. The chief beauty about the constant supply of time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoilt, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your career.
Instead of worrying about the wasted years, months and day, look ahead. You haven’t yet wasted the coming day.
We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.
There can never be enough time. Let’s just agree on that. 24 hours is all that you, I and everyone else you envy get. And 24 hours in a day is all every great man had to achieve what they did.
Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure. Let the pace of the first lap be even absurdly slow, but let it be as regular as possible.
Start small. Instead of 30 minutes exercise everyday, start with 5 minutes. 2 pushups instead of 20. Write 10 word instead of 1000 words. Nothing defeats like failure. And fewer things motivate more than success, no matter how small. Give yourself the validation of being able to stick to your promises.
If a man makes two-thirds of his existence subservient to one-third, for which admittedly he has no absolutely feverish zest, how can he hope to live fully and completely?
The one-third is your day job. He argues that energy begets energy. If you laze around at office, you cannot expect energy for your passion projects. I discovered this some time back myself and documented it in this post called Doing is a State of Being.
Newspapers are produced with rapidity, to be read with rapidity. There is no place in my daily programme for newspapers.
On changing newspaper reading habits. Read them in passing - don’t devour them.
You don't spend three-quarters of an hour in "thinking about" going to bed. You go.
Stop wasting time preparing or thinking about doing something. Either do it or don't
Half an hour at least on six mornings a week, and one hour and a half on three evenings a week. Total, seven hours and a half a week. The full use of those seven-and-a-half hours will quicken the whole life of the week, add zest to it, and increase the interest which you feel in even the most banal occupations.
These boxes of time are your own to use. Don't give them up for anyone or anything else. It seems a small amount but much can be achieved in it.
Your inability to perform "The Maiden's Prayer" on a piano need not prevent you from making yourself familiar with the construction of the orchestra to which you listen a couple of nights a week during a couple of months!
The simple joy of learning about the world around you should not be ignored by you - especially the items in which you involve yourself regularly in. The more you know about it, the better you are equipped to appreciate it.
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How to Live Life
Suppose you have two choices. Two concepts, either of which you can mould your life after: Greatness or Happiness. Which one would you choose?
Suppose you have two choices. Two concepts, either of which you can mould your life after: Greatness or Happiness. Which one would you choose?
Let's start with an example. You have two job offers:
Option 1. A young, fledgling startup with promising potential.
No one is sure how it is going to pan out in the long run. But, in the wise words of Sheryl Sandberg, the company is a ‘rocket ship’.
You will get good money, maybe not as much as your market value. You will get stock options which are potentially worth millions. You will work on something that you are passionate about. You will change the world - whether that is top 1% of the population or sub-Saharan Africa is a topic we’ll cover later.
You will be surrounded by brilliant people. As they say, you become average of the 5 people in the room. Accordingly, you would find personal intellectual growth. You will wake up every morning excited to go to work. You would be aiming for greatness, 'putting a dent in the universe'.
There is no downside right? Except:
You will work unimaginably long hours and most weekends. You will not take vacations. You will not spend enough time with your family. Your hobbies will take a back seat. You risk losing your job any time the company fails. There will be a lot of stress towards making sure that the startup survives and then grows at a rapid pace. For better or for worse, the startup would be your life.
Nope, Option 1 is not this kind of job
Option 2. A medium to big sized organisation.
It is in a stable state with no tangible chance of drowning. You are assured of the best market salary. You work 8 hours a day. You get 20 vacation days a year + 10 public holidays. These are besides the sick leaves which you take on Fridays to devise an extended weekend. You go for one foreign vacation a year. An yearly appraisal of 10-20% and a decent sized bonus the size of a month or two’s salary is assured. You get time to pursue your hobbies and spend time with your family.
Life is rosy. But:
You will live weekend to weekend. You are not excited to wake up in the morning to go to work. Monday morning is a punch in the stomach. By Wednesday, you start looking forward to Friday. On Friday, you go to a happy hours place to drink your miseries away. You are not the master of your own time - 40 hours every week. You are a cog in the wheel, at the mercy of your boss who is a character straight out of a Dilbert comic strip. You will have existential angst.
So? Where would you want to work? Would you want to go for number 1 and chase the romantic notion of changing the world? Or would you choose number 2 and seek contentment with life as it comes?
Let me help you out by elaborating a bit.
#WHAT DO WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GREATNESS?
Greatness no. 1
The standard narrative of greatness is one of overcoming odds and tribulations to effect lives of a large number of people. The hero of the story conquers the devils on the road with hard-work and determination. These are the people whom we consider our inspirations - Entrepreneurs, scientists, social change makers, sport stars. They have moved the human race forward and left a legacy behind for others to learn from.
Moonshots aim for Greatness no. 1
One of such people is Elon Musk - my modern day hero. If you don't know who he is, you are browsing the wrong websites. All of us would agree that all of what Musk is doing, has done, and plans to do, is super humanly. He fits the bill of our narrative perfectly.
In an interview, when asked whether he gets to spend time with his children, Musk replies that he emails them sometimes. Ponder over it for a few seconds. He doesn’t see his kids often, and sacrifices this time to build a better world for us instead.
Do you, like I, who has grown up with conventional middle class values, find this shocking and painful? Would you be willing to take this route?
Perhaps he has made a choice he is ready to live with. After all, building epic things does have a charm of its own. And the money isn’t too bad either.
But, money can also be made without having to break virgin grounds everyday.
Look around you, for example, to your next browser tab. Does it say something like the following?
- 10 hilariously grumpy cat memes that have won the Internet today. 5th one made me laugh so hard. LOL!
- This man went into a cave. You wouldn't believe what happened next.
- 17 MUST-GO places that you HAVE to go before you turn 30
This - creating lists based click-bait headlines which coerce us to devour poorly researched, badly worded, piece of crap they call an article - is a lucrative business.
But, such work is not taking the human race forward, not creating any dent in the universe - this is probably shitting on the fucking thing. But, they make money. Lots of it. Because they have understood how to suck out our most valuable asset - our attention. The junk food they serve is gratifying in the moment but leaves us feeling hollow.
It's not just them. There are many others whose end-all of existence is making more money and how they get there is besides the point. But since they make good money, they are considered great businessmen. This horse vision towards making more money by hook or crook is Greatness no. 2
Do you see yourself working in such a company? Would you be able to sleep at night knowing that you've essentially wasted half of your day and by proxy, half of your life, doing nothing but moving the needle in some company's revenue sheet?
If you said Yes, then you would love what I have to say next.
One of those dots is probably the big blue planet we call home.
The context of your hard work (for e.g. top 1% vs sub-Saharan Africa) may actually be much less important than my grandiose proclamations betray. I mean aren't we all going to die after spending a nanosecond on the grand cosmic scale. Then, who is to judge that building space travel ventures is grander than conjuring up 10 funniest cats with santa hats lists? You might as well do whatever makes you decent money without worrying about the bigger questions of life.
Don’t rush into choosing any of these definition over the other. There is yet another form of Greatness no. 3: Overcoming your own personal limitations and achieving something larger than your own self.
The worthy of this glory are the single moms who work two jobs to earn bread for their family.
Or the young kid who studies hard to become a decent human being fighting against poverty and deep rooted social inertia.
Or maybe, it is one of you.
For example, one Mr. G3 has financial troubles at home. The bread-earner of the family encounters a tragic accident which renders him incapable of doing any meaningful work. Mr. G3 thus takes it upon himself to support the family. He works at a regular job to send some money home. He has killed his dream of building a company or becoming a painter because he knows that the journey to it is fraught with risks and uncertainty given the condition at home.
Where do all these acts of courage fit in? Are you willing to call this a life well lived?
Let's bring in the other bad boy in the fight. Presenting you, drum rolls please - Happiness.
#WHAT'S THIS MUMBO-JUMBO ABOUT HAPPINESS AND CONTENTMENT?
When we talk about contentment and happiness, we imagine bald heads and orange robes assembled in an ashram to practice meditation. Like this ex-Top Gear anchor who became a Buddhist nun. We think of these lives as stripped away from reality and irrelevant to our society. Though, we acknowledge that they do seem serene.
On the other extreme, we look at dope-heads and addicts and feel that they are living shitty lives and wasting it all away. They live what in our minds are unhappy lives.
But, life is absurd. All your pleasures, pains, fights, lovers are going to die with you in some years. Nobody knows for sure what happens after we die - whether all our good deeds have any effect on our after-life, if any such thing exists. Thus, a lot of our consented social norms and values break down. If there are no repercussions of your present birth's actions on your after life, then you can do whatever you want to. Love, compassion, not hurting others, theft, murders all become just choices without anyone to tell which one's right and which one's not.
So, are the extra 2 hours you spend in office every day to rise the corporate ladder faster really worth it? Is sacrificing the weekend worth the higher salary (and the extra stress that comes along with it)? What is the need of all of this extra misplaced labor?
I believe that more than happiness/greatness, we need to feel Relevant- through fame, fortune or respect. The act of me writing these lines itself is a clarion call to have my thoughts acknowledged. This need of acknowledgement is a common phenomenon often veiled in one or the other form. Violence in the name of religion, spreading gossips, sharing our life’s stories on Facebook are all ways to seek relevance. These are methods (sometimes of madness) to validate our existence in this world. These acts comfort us by showing that our actions have effect in someone else’s life.
How does it fit in the context of greatness?
Great things call for sacrifice, pain, labor and many things which we otherwise would not endure in our daily lives - People giving up on parties to stay home at weekends to focus on their work - preparing for entrance examinations, writing a book, building a startup.
Or extreme sports people- the fliers (video below) or the no-rope mountain climbers. What drives them to take such risks?
Would you take such risks?
Perhaps, these driven, over-achievers and risk-takers, like Elon Musk, have found their purpose in this seemingly meaningless life by drowning themselves in what they do. It may not seem worth the pain from the outside but their work gives them a reason to wake up every morning and not want to kill themselves.
But, if the sole reason is to find purpose and a reason to exist, can we try and find it in things that are less taxing on ourselves and on those around us? Can we lower our ambitions and instead be content in where we are?
Good life, eh?
What if you don't have to BE something to be content? After all, isn’t happiness a state of mind?
What if you don't need to find a purpose? Let's say that making the most of each moment as it comes is your purpose?
What if you don't care about leaving a legacy, creating a dent whatever?
Can you spend your time watching TV the whole day, everyday?
Can you find peace with going to your office daily, providing for our family and living a regular life like the most of us around? Many people have.
#WHAT ARE WE REALLY AFTER?
Here’s a personal story from a few month before the release of my book:
It is a Friday night and I have just finished editing my book. It is meant for March end release and I am under pressure to finish it in time. After working on it for a bit, I felt like relaxing. I could have chosen to watch a movie, chill with my girlfriend, or get a drink.
But, I came to write this? Why?
1. Because I felt like I had to say something.
2. Because I've been conditioned to believe that by sacrificing your time with your loved ones, by giving up on temporary pleasures, you really achieve greatness. Whether it be a sport-star, or writer or anything. Thus, I am willing to forgo these momentary pleasures to spend time on my long term goal of becoming a better writer.
Is it worth it?
I guess for now it is, because during this act of writing, I don't feel that I am missing out anything else. There is no place that I'd rather be or there is not other thing that I'd rather be doing right now. I feel these are the kind of moments we find in our areas of passion. Even without all the comforts and pleasures, I am OK, in fact I am more than OK. I am perfectly content to be doing this right now.
This is what we all crave for. To find that one thing, that passion which makes you feel, not just once, but over and over again that this is what you'd rather do than anything else.
There is a cathartic pleasure-pain dynamic in the act of doing such things. Even my writing is a sacrifice. I mean, I could be doing simpler things like watching a movie, reading a book or even cleaning the house. But, I know that writing will eventually give me more contentment and that is why I persevere through it even though it is a harder thing to do.
And being true to one’s own self, not only the bravest thing to do but also the surest way to achieve greatness/happiness.
#END NOTES
Each one of us has to find and follow our own definition of Greatness/Happiness. We are susceptible to jealousy and fear of missing out. But, the worst way to live life would be to emulate someone else’s version of greatness/contentment. Slightly less worse would be to judge others whose version of it is different than yours. And almost criminal would be to just float by in this sea of human mass for whatever little time we are here.
Each one of us has to MAKE and not just find their own meaning in our lives. To find peace, contentment and relevance in whatever we choose to do. That one thing for which you are willing to go through all the troubles. All of us, our own different one. Let's just settle for that. I'll search for mine and I wish you bon voyage on the journey to find yours.
By the way, which job offer would you take?
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Apathy is worse than criticism for a writer, thus I would love to hear what you thought of it - leave a comment below or email mj at mayankja.in
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All images on this post via Unsplash