Author: manuscrypts

  • The Molecule of More

    Daniel Z. Lieberman, Michael E. Long

    The ‘molecule of more’ whose machinations make you desire what you don’t have, and drives you to seek new things. That which offers rewards when you obey it, and punishes you when you don’t. Dopamine, whose fingerprint is visible in most of the thoughts and actions we do on a daily basis, is the subject of the book. Discovered in 1957 by Kathleen Montagu, and first thought of as a pleasure molecule, only .0005% of brain cells produce it, but it has a disproportionate influence on us.

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  • Hortus

    We’re shifting geography a bit – to the Queen of the Arabian Sea – Cochin. Hortus is located on the third floor of The Avenue Center Hotel in Panampilly Nagar. Think of the area as Cochin’s version of a love child of Indiranagar (which has a past, and still tries to fight commercial infiltration), and Koramangala (which is increasingly looking like the future). Houses and fancy eateries continue to coexist in a tense standoff. But let’s digress a bit more before we think of digest.

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  • Happy Money

    Ken Honda

    I’m a big fan of The Psychology of Money and really didn’t think there’d be another money book that would interest me to this extent. I bought the book thanks to an article about it (at CapitalMind), which convinced me that the book had several insights that would be helpful.

    As with the other book, this one too is less about investing/trading tips and secrets, and instead deals the subject with a light touch. By attaching the quality of happiness to money itself, he quickly points out the difference between happy money (e.g. being paid by a happy client for work you love to do) and unhappy money (e.g. taxes, salary for a job you hate). Money, according to Honda, is energy (current – currency) and the energy with which you give and receive money defines your relationship with it. It has some common functions – saving, exchange, growth, but our relationship with it is subjective. And we all want to win. But the big insight here? ‘Winning is not how well you do financially. It is how good you feel about playing.‘

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  • Three score and ten

    He was a shadow of his former self, and his memory was not what it used to be. But I could see his eyes light up when he was reminded of who I was. We spoke a bit, and I like to think that a bit of his joviality returned in those brief moments. My interactions with him are more than three decades old, and our memories of each other are probably a bigger bond than any relationship we have. He complimented my demeanour, much to the annoyance of the other M. He passed away a few weeks later. These days, I am ambivalent about meeting old people. On one hand, I think I’d like to remember them in their prime. But then again, there is a good chance that I’d be meeting them for the last time. So these days, when I do meet, my behaviour factors that in.

    The worst thing about death is the fact that when a man is dead it is impossible any longer to undo the harm you have done him, or to do the good you haven’t done him…They say: live in such a way as to be always ready to die. I would say: live in such a way that anyone can die without you having anything to regret.

    Leo Tolstoy, (via Arthur C. Brooks’ From Strength to Strength)

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  • Walking Towards Ourselves: Indian Women Tell Their Stories

    Catriona Mitchell

    That it took Catriona Mitchell, born in Switzerland, and raised in UK and Australia, to edit and publish this anthology – about and by Indian women – is perhaps a statement in itself. In any case, I am glad she did. The flap describes it as a kaleidoscope of distinct and varied real-life stories, and I think that is just about accurate. Just about because I don’t know if it sufficiently captures the distinctness and the variety.

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