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Next year it will be 200 years since the story of Frankenstein was first published. Not sure how was the horror fiction landscape back then, but it must have been a scare-inducing read. I can’t shake the thought on how fast the monster was able to learn. How come he wasn’t like a baby if he had just came to being. And then that would have taken years and years to develop language, emotions and a conscience. Anyway, it serves its purpose as a thriller. I’m not quite sure how to feel pity for the monster. Because he went around murdering people out of revenge. The book is basically written in the form of a narration by Victor Frankenstein to a group of explorers. He tells of his childhood, growing up, his family. Then goes to a different place to study Natural Philosophy. There he meets other scientists. He creates a “monster” born from different parts. It is not mentioned how the creature came to have life. Distraught at what he had done, he becomes ill then recovers. The creature ...

It flew by. The last part was bland. It’s hardly inspiring. Or maybe that’s the point. There were some funny bits. These four people inexplicably meet on top of a building on New Year’s Eve with the idea of jumping off it in mind. All for different reasons. They don’t jump. They go down. They mess with newspapers for a bit. They go on holiday. They try to fix each other’s issues. They talk to people that are important to them. Really it ended up on just waiting it out and realizing that their lives aren’t so bad. Doesn’t beat High Fidelity though.

Confucius lived around 551-479 BC. Far back in time. Sometime around or after that period, his disciples compiled his teachings in what would become The Analects. He probably didn’t write any on his own. Had he been alive today these would have been his words posted and re-posted as quotes/memes by his people. A wise teacher to say the least. I was looking for that quote about the difference between teaching a man how to fish feeds him for a lifetime, instead of giving him a fish that feeds him only for a day. Never saw that quote. He had however many others that serve better in terms of living morally, respecting family, following the rites and virtues, humaneness, serving in government, being a gentleman and so on. Here are some: 1.16: Do not worry that other people do not know you. but be concerned that you do not know them. 2.20: Ji Kangzi asked, "How can I get the common people to be respectful, to do their best, and to encourage each other to strive forward?" The ...

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked. “Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.” So is with our lives… Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. -- The author seems to be...

"Warren Buffet has always said the measure is whether the people close to you are happy..." -Bill Gates at a Reddit AMA

So long honey babe Where I'm bound, I can't tell Goodbye is too good a word, babe So I just say fare thee well I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don't mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don't think twice, it's all right Don't Think Twice, It's All Right by Bob Dylan

Person A rose to success because he/she was really good. The best. The basic premise of success seems straightforward. It is not. It may seem like a person had an innate ability that’s why he/she stood out. It isn’t. Circumstances, when and where, culture, what the parents did for a living mattered to the story of Person A’s success. Gladwell splits this book into Opportunity and Legacy. I guess he split this in the message that success came from circumstances and from the environment one came from. It is more non-fiction than a self-help book. It doesn’t tell you directly how to be successful. It tells you how some of the prominent people now became successful. It appears more anecdotal than scientific. It is the perspective of a writer/storyteller first. It will almost be a decade upon release of this book. Much has been made in the science of hard work since then. Works like Angela Duckworth, K. Anders Ericsson, Carol Dweck etc. Some of which would have related to what Glad...

This seems heavy for a children's book, but it's a good story. It tells of  friendship, sacrifice and service. M aybe we should all strive to be like Charlotte. W hen the opportunity presents itself to take care of the Charlotte's in our lives, we should really take care them. The symbol that the web represent just might be that it is the product of the efforts of a person to make someone else's life better.

2 years after 2015. Back to the future’s timeline of 2015 has passed. It’s still pretty far from what it looked like in the movie.  There’s something about a very well written story that stands the test time. I could only now imagine how big these movies were back in the day they were released. It would have stimulated minds and created interest in science. Heck even literature might have had a push, especially Jules Verne. Suddenly I connected something, I remember being very young. The movie, The Martian was out. The doctor was the same in the Back to the future movies. Interesting. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one. You can do anything if you put your mind into it. And I found this is where these lines came from. It’s amazing how messages permeate over time. And learning where they come from is like a solved puzzle.

It’s an uncomfortable look at what really happens. One that is often unexplored. From all the “look at the bright sides”, and all the “look at the silver linings” material produced nowadays, we often forget the duality of things. It’s not even philosophical. The reality is bad things happen. But you can listen and put yourself in a position to act appropriately when it does. The capacities of a human being can both be remarkable and terrifying. We are capable of making pancakes and nuclear bombs. In the book, Gavin de Becker discusses fear, intuition, prediction and survival signals among other things; violence by people, in the workplace, in relationships, in high stakes contexts etc. He also goes on to distinguish two emotions that seems to overlap; Fear and Worry. At one podcast, De Becker goes to say something along the lines of “it is a rare message to hear that in times of danger, what you need is already in you”. This he attributes to our Intuition. Intuition being the corn...