October 18, 2019.
Reading, discovering, viewing and more…Here are the highlights of the past week.
1: Reading.
Khomeini: life of the Ayatullah is the book I'm currently reading. It's written by an American Iranian, Baqer Moin, whose father himself was a mojtahed. In his words it had taken him 10 years to write this book, because there were less factual information available, and more controversial ones. I myself have never been interested in Khomeini, while others I met either loved him or hated him. But after reading and researching about The Satanic Verses by Rushdie, against which Khomeini issued a fatwa on Rushdie, I got interested in the life of Khomeini and who he was as a person. And let me tell you, this book is thrilling from the start. Let's see what more we learn from now on. Until now, I've found Khomeini a real impactful Muslim man, who studied both highest teachings of Islam and mysticism and philosophy. No wonder he brought an inqilab.
2: Watching.
I recently watched a TED talk by Johann Hari on the causes of depression and anxiety. It is such a humane and deep explorative talk about our disconnected societies and lack of sympathy and care. He says that, "you're not weak or crazy to suffer from depression, it's just that your human needs are unmet.'' And that's true indeed. Depression is the outburst of consistent struggles of the past trying to live in this cold, fast-moving and demanding world. We hardly have any humans to love and receive love; we live entirely for other purposes. Highly recommended TED talk.
3: New Apps (for Readers and Listeners).
I came across two great apps this week which really helped me learn more in a short time. Now I understand that not everyone has time for reading a whole book, so they can instead use and application called Blinkist; it extracts the juice and big lessons from non-fiction books into 15 minutes of either reading or listening, whichever you prefer. It is a paid app, but a week of free trial is available. Try it out, it's really good.
Deepstash is the second app I came across. It is free and it provides you with quick learning cards about a specific topic. For example, I received a set of cards regarding the topic 'more hours or more tasks' where it was shown that more tasks done are better than more hours spent on a project. It sends you one daily notification regarding a new topic to learn from, and you can also visit the app to learn more and more.
4: The Need to Quiet Down.
My life is rushing at point. University, presentations, cricket, movies, social media, reading, writing, listening: all of these take immense chunks from my energy and attention. Not that I don't enjoy these, I love these! Especially reading - but I do feel a bit lost in all these whenever I start talking to myself about how am I feeling deep down. So then it becomes clear to me to take some time out, go sip some tea alone, no phone, just sit and think and feel and self-talk and make a sense of where you are, and where you are headed. Your mind needs it, and your soul feeds on it. It's where you discover new things that are happening in your life and you start to give more importance to yourself for doing what you are doing. A date with yourself!
5: Quote
"Life, and all that is in it, is and always will be - a choice!" - myself (not to brag!)
In a nutshell: life is a choice. Either you choose to live, or there's always the option of ending it whenever you badly need it. Seneca, father of stoic philosophy, always said that death is available, so you don't have to suffer when there's nothing left. But if you choose to live, then, down the line, you have to make countless choices, consistently. Thus, wherever you are right now, you've chosen it - willingly or unwillingly. And you can un-choose it as well. So think again about the choices you've made and are continuing to make - you can change your life!