The year comes to an end
you get a recommendation, you get a reccomendation, everyone gets a reccomendation
Dear reader, it is the last day of the year. By this time you must have scrolled through 35,006 ‘2023 recaps’, ‘2023 dumps’ and what not across social media platforms. Don’t worry, this would not be 35,007; this is not my recap post.
Even though I throw shade at these internet recap trends, it is very important to reflect upon one’s own time. However, self-reflection, dear reader, is not a seasonal activity reserved for the eve of a new year. It's the compass guiding us through the randomness of life, helping us navigate the twists and turns that life brings us. Without reflecting and trying to be self aware, we risk being mere puppets to the flow of time; a hero’s friend to your own life.
Time is fleeting. One day you are here reading this post lying on your bed “And then one day you find ten years have got behind you” . It has been ten years since I finished school. Looking back, the years have just bullet trained past us. I say this not with regret but as an observation of how all of this can feel hazy and busy (rhymes) at the same time. Especially in 2023, many a times, I have felt lost amidst the crazies of the everyday; losing sight of the journey and the destination.
Anyway, this is a digression. We will go there another day. Today, I want to share with you, dear reader, some things that I love. I know. This is an exercise in narcissism. Nevertheless, I’m just going to go ahead and do it.
Podcasts
The seen and the unseen by Amit Varma is the best podcast ever, period. (Do people also add the period after spelling it out). It has been my gateway drug to so many interesting things from economics to history to computer science and so on. The episodes are a bit longer these days and it is a feature not a bug. Give it a listen. Gold
I have also been listening to Yascha Mounk’s the Good Fight podcast. If you are interested in the various political issues across the world, you can listen to it as well. You can also listen to the Ideas of India podcast by Shruti Rajagopalan, an economist from the George Mason University. And yes, Lex Fridman is a star. You can listen to him if you find everything in the world interesting.
Books
2023 has been bad in terms of reading for me. Before Dec’23, the last post in this newsletter was in November 2022. Meaning, I have been lazy, unproductive and lost.
Nevertheless, I have two recommendations for you. One is the Empire series by William Dalrymple. I got my Anarchy book signed from him when he came down to Chennai for an event. Also listen to the podcast that he hosts with the same name. The East India Company is always an interesting phenomenon.
The second is a book that I read in the beginning of the year. It is called Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. The world is a gambling arena. Every decision we take is a probabilistic one. This books, as the title suggests, helps us on how to think about decisions in terms of bets. Interesting read.
Music
Growing up, there were only two kinds of songs my mother played at home- MGR songs and Tamil christian songs. I repelled both. So I only listened to songs from the movies I was exposed to. And I watched only (mostly) Vijay movies ergo, only listened to Sivakasi, Thiruppachi and the kind. Even after growing up, my music library was only restricted to Tamil songs. English music was alien to me.
However, for the past few years, I’ve been exploring english music and have grown a liking to 60s-70s rock. But it is only in 2023 that I listened to Pink Floyd consciously. And I’m grateful. I need not tell you how cool the songs are. If you are like me and have not listened to much english songs, I urge you to shut up, close your eyes and listen. Oh and listen album wise.
Another guy who you must listen to is Kaber Vasuki. He is an independent Tamil musician. He is one of my all time favourite musicians ever. I watched him perform live a few months back. Amazing.
If you're wondering how I began this post by stating it's not a recap and have proceeded to kind of do just that, well, yes. It is because you are a fool.
Hopefully you are not a fool in the new year. Click here
the usual. drink water. sleep well. until next time!
Happy new year folks.
More Reccos:
Continuing on the same lines of last week’s post, Ajay Shah and Amit Varma help us understand how to think about the State (watch here)