“Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that happen every day”

The renaissance man was best exemplified by Leonardo Da Vinci but I had scarcely any idea that Benjamin Franklin too could, quite snugly and comfortably, fit in the shoes of a renaissance man.

Though Benjamin Franklin worked on many things from military strategy to static electricity, I think his most important work was on himself. The way he was continuously looking to improve himself, coming up with a whole set of value system and taking lessons from every failure or life event, is noteworthy and worth emulating. His non reliance on a single source of morality or ethics like religion has left an impressionable mark on me.

There are innumerable quote worthy sentences in the book like:

” Look around the habitable world, how few

know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!”

Throughout the book, there are instances where you would be amazed at just how much accomplishment was this man capable of simply by looking around and coming up with solutions to the problems. From dust on the streets, community centres, street lights (and even coming up with a more efficient design of those lights) to matters of national importance, he displayed swift proactivity on a host of things.

Thinking on the feet, statesmanship and diplomacy, and being steadfast to principles; these and many more qualities like them shine through this man’s character. In his own words, he made a ‘habitude of the virtues’ that he considered worth integrating in himself. Reading about this wonder of a polymath has reaffirmed my belief in the value of habits, hard work and optimism.

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“..so long as the questions are still being asked, what binds us together might somehow, ultimately, prevail.”

Barack Obama is no ordinary man. Of all the great men and women to have ever been raised to the highest echelons of power, he must rank among the very top of the list. Of course, when this book was first published in 1995, his journey to fame and dizzying success had only just begun, but his story, even up until then was far removed from being ordinary.

Written with complete authenticity and a rawness that is rarely seen, Obama weaves many stories into this eclectic fabric of the days and times that would shape his life, character and personality in the years to come. From an uncertain, confused school kid in Hawaii who only knew his father through anecdotes and legends to a proud African-American man as sure of his roots as any one can be, this novel, through its pages, traverses a whole gamut of emotions, landscapes and even continents.

An underlying theme of struggling against the odds and of keeping the flame of hope burning runs throughout the novel from Kansas to Jakarta to Nairobi. Belonging to a minority group myself that is often caught at the receiving end of hate and ridicule, it was touching and uplifting to read about the Black experience in America. The loss of hope and the descent into delinquency and crime of a few, the hardening and apathy of others and the extraordinary achievements that are celebrated in the community and also are held up as a proof of unbiasedness, this cauldron of conflicting emotions and the opposing ideas of future is all too familiar for me and left a bitter-sweet aftertaste. In this respect, there is a lot of inspiration to be drawn by how Obama goes about the task of community organization and how he just never gives up trying.

The last part of the book details his journey to Kenya, trying to understand not just his own roots, his own relatives and people, but more so the culture of Africa and the predicament of black community as such even in their homeland with the colonial hangover being all too apparent. It is fascinating to read the lengths he goes to understand his own story, of where he came from, the stories of people that came before him and how it all connects to the character, aspirations and frustrations of those generations or cultures. For me, this book would always serve as a useful reminder to move forward, work tirelessly to bring about positive changes while never forgetting who I am, my identity and my roots.

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“…Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving”

This has to be my best read of this year so far. Also, it has striking parallels to this year. The search for the meaning of life and suffering in the middle of this chaotic dance of strenuous work, the constant reminder of death and the struggle to prioritize what we really want in life.

This is the life and death story of Paul written by himself but is not so much an autobiography than a treatise on what it means to live on the borders of life and death, making life altering decisions for your patients, pushing yourself to excel in your work as an obligation towards morality and finally to become what you see everyday: a probability event on a curve but much more than just a statistic; a whole universe of feelings and ambitions that has to ultimately come face to face with the inevitability of death.

This book is a work of an exceptional mind, someone who probably didn’t know of any other way to live but to work hard, keep learning and to excel exceedingly well at whatever he did. Paul was someone who almost always chose the path that involved the most rigour and the deepest meaning. When Breath Becomes Air is an incomplete and unfinished book. It ends rather abruptly when in fact, you would be thirsty for a bit more at least. This is because he kept working on it up until his last days, racing against time while going through the debilitating disease of Cancer.

I will probably re-read this but when I have got greater strength to acknowledge and accept the reality of an unfinished life, poised to achieve greatness but cut short drastically by the vagaries of nature. Embedded within this book are gems of philosophy: from pragmatism to idealism; atheism to revelation. Yes, I’ll probably re-read this many times over to understand the ramifications and the various meanings of each sentence, thereby expanding this book within me to hopefully complete the unfinished message of the author.

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I never imagined myself to be reading this book, much less talking about it in a public forum! A tantalizing clickbait of a title with a formula for growing rich and a short description that tells you how thoughts can be converted into action, all this is a perfect recipe for the kind of book that is as far away from my liking as water is to fire. However, repeated references to the author and oft cited quotes nudged me to give this book a try and well, it was certainly worth a try!

The tone is instructive and that may put off a lot of readers, in fact, at times I had to tell myself to trudge on and ignore the didactic pitch of the author. It is as if you are in a class, all alone, and your martinetish professor is bearing down upon you, boring into you with his glaring eyes and sharp words. The only thing is, if you can survive a few initial onslaughts, this might prove to be one hell of a class and leave you with a deep imprint on your mind.

Sentences in bold letters, repetition of the central theme and a lot of numbered lists; this book is as hardcore as it gets in the domain of self-help. I think what has really propelled the popularity of this book is the insistence on practical approach rather than a theoretical one. It is almost impossible not to feel motivation well up inside of you, no matter which page you pick up and start reading. Now, the title of the book may indeed be a bit misleading for it is not merely riches that the principles in the book aspire and guide you to achieve but rather success in any form or shape that you may conceive. The thread that binds the whole book together and makes up its fabric is made of ‘intense desire’ and of ‘knowing yourself’. If you know yourself well enough to understand your motivations and fears and if you have a burning desire for something, then more than half the battle is already won.

Self-help books have a market of their own, however, there is a class of readers who would rather not be comfortable in gulping down instructions from a supposed know-it-all. A hot steaming coffee or a cup of tea, a lampstand and a book that would transport them into a fictional world of real struggles is lot more relevant to this class. And I would rather identify myself to this group of aficionados, but I am not a purist and of late I have been enjoying sufficient non-fictional stuff. Certain sections of the book might surprise you in the depth of its meaning and in its understanding of human nature. If you are willing to part, for not too long a period, with beautiful play of words and the magic of literature to enter into a practical workshop full of examples bubbling with excitement and motivation, then do consider giving this all time bestseller a try!

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“If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.”

I have never been big on habits and for a very long period of time, I used to pride myself on that. I have always seen myself as someone who is driven by inspiration more than habits. Spontaneity over planning. The big picture more than small daily recurrences. I picked up this book (along with The Power of Habit) more as a way of deriding this habit-philosophy than anything else. However, things were about to unravel a bit differently.

A lot of self-help literature that I read is an exploration of myself and a quest to be better than yesterday. Inherent also is a lurking admission that I am not really what I would want myself to be. Reading this book (along with the Power of Habit) made me see some part of the truth of my identity crisis. Can I really be someone I want to be if my everyday habits (the ones that I repeat every single day of my life) are not aligned with that aspiration? Point being, we can’t simply imagine ourselves to be a particular something if our habits are not well-directed.

For instance, if am sleeping at 4 am everyday and then waking up at 11 am, having maggi for lunch and spending the rest of the day on laptop watching random things or indulging in meaningless conversations, all this when I should have been attending classes and focusing on learning as much as possible, then how can my big picture dream of being a pioneer in cutting edge robotic engineering come about or even a long cherished dream of writer-poet stand any chance? But it’s not really even about the outcome, the crux of the matter is, would I call myself a good student or an eager learner? And what kind of a person would these habits make me?

Well, everyone could have a different dream and everyone might have a different identity to aspire to. At this point of time, even after all my failings, I have made myself prove to be useful enough for gainful employment, financial independence and professional excellence. I am not prone to beating myself over for all the lost opportunities. But yes, I have discovered a potent tool in the form of habits and I have made no qualms about using it. In fact, this blog is one of the many effects that this book has had on my life. I fully intend to define myself and build my identity habit over habit over habit.

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“The best way to verify if you are alive is by checking if you like variations”

It took a long time for me to complete this book. It is not the most voluminous or opaque book that I have read but it was, by a long shot, one of the most uncomfortable ones, so much so that I had to frequently stop reading it to absorb and discern the ideas in the book.

The tone of the book is, admittedly, arrogant and harshly dismissive of those that the author disagrees with. And there a lot of people that the author disagrees with. And there is a high possibility that you may find yourself in one of the groups that the author abhors. I was quite reluctant to go on with this book at several stages because it went against so much of my modern education, milieu and beliefs.

However, the ideas were presented in such a robust manner with cogent evidences and practical examples that it was tough to dismiss it as just another mumbo jumbo and slowly but surely the gravity of what the author was saying sunk in and made me shed a plethora of modern biases and a super large ego of the educated and well-formed but opinionated mind. Slowly I began to see fragilistas all around me (and within me) and began looking at things in terms of convexity effects and the triad of antifragility, robustness and fragility.

There are several important ideas discussed in the book but one theme that connects them all is our collective (mis)understanding of risk, volatility, and optionality as a society and why this is making our systems (and indeed us) more fragile. While the adoption of everything that Taleb says may be a bit of a daunting task, we can certainly apply a lot of his ideas to gain from the prevalent and inherent disorder all around us and by extension, make an attempt to fix the broken systems. To me, the mere putting into words of the concept of antifragility, which is so pervasive in natural systems, was nothing short of revealing and shocking at once. The idea that things rather than breaking or simply withstanding pressure from a random disorder can actually gain from it, is in itself inspiring and a pretty robust (rather antifragile) philosophy to live your life by.

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Erwin Schrodinger’s intellect, knowledge and intelligence were extraordinary. Netizens generally know him by the strangeness of the eponymous cat and those with a scientific background would have encountered his mind-bending equations of wave particle duality. But Schrodinger’s depth and breadth of knowledge goes much beyond quantum physics and this book is an apt representation of not only Schrodinger’s erudition but also of the insights that careful thinking and extensive reading can produce.

It is a daring attempt on the part of a scientist to present a holistic picture of life encompassing philosophy, religion, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. It is breathtaking in its expanse and there is no attempt by the author to merely touch upon the subjects, Schrodinger makes sure that this is not merely the work of a dabbler but indeed of someone who has read and understood various branches of knowledge itself, thoroughly. The book usually comes with subsequent sections namely: mind and matter and autobiographical sketches, and all of the sections are as engrossing as they are illuminating, throwing light upon the personality of the author and the character of reality and experience itself.

From Kant and Plato to Einstein and Darwin, Schrodinger leaves no stone unturned in his quest to solve the question of life. Yes, this book is demanding and may leave you enervated after a few pages but it shall surely make you more alive to the quest of knowledge and the pursuit of meaning through investigation of nature using the prism of philosophy and science.

Throughout the book, you would never get a feeling that this is a man that is completely removed from simple pleasures of traveling or socializing with friends or that here is someone who is completely cut off from the political realities of the world he lives in. Far from it, this book shall even lend you glimpses of personal accounts through defining moments in world history and how it is not just possible but also thoroughly important to be a person of both theoretical and practical knowledge.