PS: I have returned from Goa and it was really really hot. But I got to explore the place very differently. None of the regular shack & beach stuff but more on the lines of meeting people in co-working spaces, cafes, quiz nights, and dive bars. Maybe I write about it, later.
PPS: if you need a killer list on the bars and restaurants in North Goa. Check this out.
I also mentioned earlier that I will write one new thing each week. And we are at the 4 week mark. Do share any thoughts and obviously I loved hearing back from y’all.
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I did not anticipate the amount of words I have to write on this topic, until I started writing, so I am breaking it up in two (or three) parts just like the book. How meta.
The one book to rule them all.
As I look back in life, I can see heaps of personal influences being derived from this one piece of work. Clearly, it has inspired me, connected with me and to think of it - it was a chance pick up in the Basant Lok market in Delhi.
When I was twelve, My dad and I used to get McDonalds ice-cream at this market and at the entrance sat a bookseller, selling (obviously) pirated books. Ever since buying it, I have read this book more than 5 times and now looking back, at the three-O, I see that it has shaped me in life in certain ways.
Also, this market has clearly inspired me in more ways than one or perhaps I was just an impressionable kid then, coming of age.
Reading Frodo's journey from coming of age in Shire, to traversing the middle earth, and Tolkien peppering stories about forgotten forests, glorious songs about folks long gone, of rich tradition and history, inspired me to meet people, to hear them out, to see their perspective, and their life stories.
There is something beautiful and magical in getting to know people. To know what troubles them, what makes them love, hear their parent's stories and their parent's parent's, which lands they come from, and what makes them tick. To live vicariously through Tolkien's window, through my window, through them, living me.
I am pretty sure I imprinted my own partially nomadic life on this book - my dad's job transferred him every couple of years and I had to find my folks again.
It made me realize that the meaning of life is derived from the wonderful people around us. People inspire us with experiences and contexts, into writing a book, surfing a wave or discovering microwaves. Because of people, we decide to send rockets into space, do activism, or invent vaccines. In a very meta way, people give people their purpose. There is no purpose if no one exists, except you - a singular entity.
Imagine for a second, being all alone in this world - just one of a kind, with no one around. Why would you bother doing anything at all? Take an AI. A really smart one. It has one big hive mind. I bet it would have a hard time finding meaning in life without any AI buddies. Maybe that's why all AI futuristic work is so dystopian - with it just eating everything up - probably existential dread.