Writing on Janusworx

Blog Questions Challenge 2025

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 12:10:17 +0530

Ava started this, Kev modified this, and Saptak egged me on to write this. So here goes …

What the home page looks like in 2025

1. Why did you make the blog in the first place?
#

I write for me mostly. Because writing helps me think. My thoughts are too scattered otherwise. I can’t not write. I’ve always written. Privately, publicly, there’s always been some place where I’ve jotted things down.

2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
#

I use Hugo to generate the site, which I host on my own Hetzner VM. I use it because I outgrew my previous tool, Nikola, which still holds a dear place in my heart. While Hugo is enormously complex, it is also deceptively simple enough to get started with. And it’s fast. That’s what I love about it. It lets me write. It does not get in my way. It lets me preview what I’m doing with its live server. And it’s unbelievably fast.

3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
#

I’ve been writing in some form or other since the late 90s. So … yea :)
Livejournal, Blogger, self hosted Wordpress, wordpress.com, Posterous, Tumblr, self hosted Wordpress, self hosted Ghost, Nikola and now Hugo. It’s been quite a ride!

4. How do you write your posts?
#

I write them in Emacs (in Markdown, using Markdown Mode) on my desktop, with Hugo Server running alongside giving me a preview of what things will look like. Once I commit it to my self hosted Forgejo instance, an action publishes the site automatically

5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
#

I never do. I write because it helps me function. And yet, it always feels like a chore.

6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
#

I always publish it immediately. I almost never write something that is deeply thought out, that needs to stand the test of time. It’s the process, the writing, the putting words out of my mind, through my fingers down to paper, that leads to the result, the thought, the opinion, the aha, the insight. So I’m never quite done. Which means if I ever wait for finished, the post will never get published. The moment I publish something, is invariably the moment something needs changing. So I just go back and edit it. I never notify folks about updating things on the first day. If I ever edit something much later than a day or two, then I do.

7. Your favorite post on your blog?
#

None. All. They’re my thoughts, so depending on my mood, they’re either worthless or priceless gems!

8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?
#

Not really. For all my wandering, I’ve only ever moved when my tools outgrew me¹, or I outgrew my tools. For now, Hugo does all I ask of it, without getting in the way. The day that changes, will be the day I move.

I’ll ask Priyanka, Sreeram, Sandeep, Pradhvan, Rahul, Bhavin, Elia, Mandar, Saptak, Farhaan, Robin and Kushal to share more, if they have the time, energy and the inclination.

Folks, who’ve answered my call to arms! Go read their answers too!

Robin
Elia

Feedback on this post?
Mail me at feedback at this domain or [continue the discourse here][3].

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Wordpress.com too restrictive, Ghost stopped serving my specific needs etc. ↩︎

Several Corroborative Thoughts on Pacing Yourself

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 14:28:43 +0530

That is what I should have called, yesterday’s post.

Pace yourself!

Be disciplined.
Show up.
Do the work.
And know when to quit.

And in more serendipitious bathing and reading hijinks I came across several folks who resonated with that thought. Slowly pacing yourself and doing the work, leads to big things.

Here’s Ryan Holiday, in 37 (Or So) Lessons From A 37 Year Old.

I struggle with calibrating how to have high standards without hanging oneself on them. Of course, deciding willy-nilly what time you start each day is a recipe for slowly, steadily drifting towards starting later and later. On the other hand, sweating five minutes here or there—especially when what you’re rushing through is school dropoff or traffic that’s outside your control—is a recipe for misery and missing the point. A book, for instance, is a project that takes months and years. Pace yourself accordingly.

And Cory Doctorow in his very, popular Memex Method

These repeated acts of public description adds each idea to a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragmentary elements that have the potential to become something bigger. Every now and again, a few of these fragments will stick to each other and nucleate, crystallizing a substantial, synthetic analysis out of all of those bits and pieces I’ve salted into that solution of potential sources of inspiration.

That’s how blogging is complimentary to other forms of more serious work: when you’ve done enough of it, you can get entire essays, speeches, stories, novels, spontaneously appearing in a state of near-completeness, ready to be written.

And then there’s Cal Newport with his Slow Productivity.
I don’t even need his words to describe what he does. I have followed him and his output long enough to know his modus operandi.
The only thing I don’t know is how he latches on to some topic.
But once that happens, he starts blogging about it. (and now talking about it on the pocdast).
His very popular Deep Work was published around 2016. A cursory search for the word “deep” in his blog archive will show you what I’m talking about. You can see him writing, thinking, refining and coming to the core of what he wants to convey.
Further refinement happens over on his New Yorker column.
And then finally, after all that slow, steady drumbeat of work comes the book.
Small wonder, they then turn out to be evergreen titles.

So there! Like Cal espouses,
1. Do fewer things.
2. Work at a natural pace.
3. Obsess over quality

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Note to Self, My New Heuristic for Blogging

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:43:28 +0530

Rain lilies, from Abby’s tiny window garden.
They bloom only around this time of the year, on the onset of the monsoon.
Click the pic, for a bigger image

I love to write.
Correction, I need to write.
Writing helps me think, to be deliberate about things, to slow down.

At the same time, writing is also a slow, plodding process for me. Every post seems to take forever. So many years of doing it and it does not get any easier.
I agonise over what I want to say, the picture or quotes I want to include, the overall arc of my thoughts, the structure, everything has to be just so.¹
I’ve lowered the bar, to build consistency, with my #100WordHabit and now I have a new problem. First, I could not get started, and now I cannot stop once I get started.
I just have to finish my thoughts, my post, and that sometimes takes hours.
Which brings me back to me not wanting to start, for the fear that nothing else (that are in fact, more important) will get done.

This in turn, brings me to the brainwave I had a couple of days ago, in the bath.²
The pressure comes from wanting to publish what I write, the day I write.
What if, I didn’t?

Nothing has to change. With the exception of a hard stop.
One hour.
One hour to write and publish.
Or one hour to write and then put my pencil down.
And then I can come back to it the next day.
Yesterday’s post was the result of this approach.
I wrote it over two days, in two one hour sessions.
Very like Abby’s rain lillies up up above. They are prepping through the year, to bloom at this time, every time. Just because I cannot see it, does not mean nothing’s happening

One downside, that I potentially see, is that I will use this as an excuse to slack.
I hope I don’t.
But then on the other hand, without a pressure control valve like this, I can very easily see myself burning out again.

So let’s see how this goes.
I’m betting on me being a rain lily.

The end result might not be any good, but my mind needs to be satisfied, that all is to its liking and that I did the best I could ↩︎
Don’t we all? ↩︎

Why I Write

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 24 May 2024 20:53:48 +0530

Click to see a larger version, just as illegible

As I struggle to write, sometimes I wonder why I even do it.
And when I don’t, I then get this strange uncontrollable urge to write something, anything.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

And now in addition to that crazy struggle, I’ve caught myself getting upset of late. All because nobody “shares” the posts I put out.
And I worry if anyone even reads my stuff?
And do they like it?
And if they do, why would they not share it?
Not good enough?
Should I be doing more?
Write better?

All of which came to a head today.
And after a bit of laughing at my silliness, I decided to write down what I tell myself every year.

Because I do write.
Whether anyone reads it. Or not.
Which is why I wonder why I get trapped in this weird neurotic spider web every year.
I’m done comparing, in the words of Lamott, my insides to their outsides.

So a few thoughts to myself on why I do it. A non exhaustive list …

I love to read.
I love to write.
I write primarily for myself. First and foremost.
I write because I cannot help it.
I write because I cannot not write.
I write to document things and thingamajigs and doodads and small things and big things. Because I forget. And writing helps me remember. And then it helps other people learn. And then they teach me new things. And I learn more. And I write more. And the whole virtuous cycle repeats.
I write because everything in me, has got to come out on the page, so that there is space within me, to then function.
I write because then everything slows down to the pace of my fingers rather than the crazy light speed dizziness within my brain.
I write because I can then think.
I write because it sharpens my focus.
I write because it makes it easy to forget.
I write because I read what I write. Even if no one else does. Even if no one else wants to. Even if no one else can. And I love my past selves, who’ve scribbled their thoughts and feelings to protect me, shield me, guide me and give me comfort, solace and love.
I write because then, my heart then aches a little bit less.
I write because it’s brought me back from the edge of the void. Twice.
I write because it helps me be resilient. Persistent. To quote Taleb, Antifragile. And to quote Angelou, “You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I rise.”
I write because I have scars. And writing lessens the hurt. To quote Bareilles, it helps me hold on, till there’s something else to hold on to.
I write because …
I write because today I realise, that’s who I am.
I am a writer, because that’s what I do. I write.

There’s No Dearth of Things to Write About

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 18:27:36 +0530

Only a short note today.
I dreaded starting up this challenge, because I thought I’d run out of things to say.
What would I write about? Will I dread coming up with topics?
Turns out I needn’t have worried.

Writing seems to be like a muscle to be worked on and flexed.
The more I do it, the more I want to do it.
It is making me more observant.
Everything seems like cannon fodder for the page now 😂
This makes me very happy!

Note to Self: Less Research, Less Rabbit Holes

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 09:56:11 +0530

Alice’s Rabbit Hole, Sandra Strait / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Click on the image for the larger original.

Big realisation, I am procrastinating on my other, bigger priorities, with the 100WordHabit project.
Bigger realisation, if not this, I’d find something else.
Biggest revelation, even if life sucks donkey balls, I need to focus, be disciplined and do what needs doing.

So here’s a few stream-of-consciousness observations & suggestions, to future Jason, when doing the project.

The writing almost never takes you that long. You write at a fairly decent clip.
What does take you a lot of time, is that while you do know what to say, you take an inordinately long time, trying to figure out just the right way to say it, to present it.
It’s the rabbit holes that you get into.
a. You take too long researching, finding just the right image and the right words.
b. You just spent half an hour trying to figure out the right way, to attribute an image.
c. You spent another trying to find out how to jump to a specific column in Emacs (M-g followed by tab followed by the column number and return)
d. You started curating and tagging some mp3s that have being lying around for years now.
e. then you went and forked the music jukebox library you used on Github
You hate doing the hard stuff.
a. It makes you really uncomfortable
b. It makes you want to take breaks
c. You keep switching to obssessively checking all your feeds.¹
d. You then find something that you just have to learn more about and that leads you into another rabbit hole.
e. Besides you’re a completionist. All those tabs and notes to self, just have to be read and squirreled away
All of this is taking time away from stuff you really have to do considering your age.
a. You hardly get time to exercise. Yes life is busy, but you don’t have to make it worse.
b. The career pivot is going slower due to this.
c. You don’t have time to execute your diet.

Here’s a few things you could do …

Remember, this is only during your deep work hours. We need to make the most of them. Go nuts when you aren’t working.²
Figure out what your process is. I realise you’re a pantser, but a little bit of outlining will do you no harm. You already have a running list of topics to prevent writer’s block and time waste. You’ve already lowered the bar, to become more consistent. So see what else, you do in your writing process that takes the longest. In fact, what do you do? Will recording yourself help?
(Added, 2024-02-18,) Don’t check your feeds in the mornings. This one’s a huge timesink. You find issues that interest you. Then you go to find someone who speaks with a nuanced voice. Nuanced voices are rare. They’re hard to find! And if you decide to listen to Munger, and go do the work to have an opinion, by trying to find an opposing nuanced voice? That’ll take you even longer. Just STOP! Now is not the time to get better informed. Do it later.
Start clocking times with Org. You want to get a better idea of where the time goes.
Don’t spend too long reading the manual. Just figure out how to clock in, clock out, get a summary
Set a time block? Posts just have to be published once you hit a hundred words or a hour, whichever is longer? If you still want to continue, do it the next day. The posts could be part one / two / three / blah?
IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT! Be ok with “mediocre”, unstructured posts. This phase will not last long.
Don’t let this take over your life. You already have one vice.

The most important thing though? Kudos to you!
The meditation practice is really paying off in spades. You notice things. And you try and do something about it. You don’t let it bother your present. Most importantly, you don’t let it devolve into self loathing. You’re a lot less stressed, a lot more peaceful and a lot more resilient than you used to be.

courtesy Liniers / Comics Kingdom

There’s nothing new there, since the last time you checked, you twit! ↩︎
The point is also to make the time ↩︎

100 Word Writing Habit

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 18:42:43 +0530

I want to write better.
And the best way to do that, is to write more.
Thinking about which, immediately kills the urge to write, because I take really long to write anything.
And the actual writing, is very arduous to me.

So what to do?

I guess I need to just lower the bar.
Do less.
More consistently.

And then serendipitiously, as they say, when the student is ready, the master appears.
David Kadavy’s conducting a 100 Word Writing Habit Online Course, this month.

He seemed to be in the same rut as I am now.

I’m not a born writer. I hated writing as a kid.

But …

I’ve written three best-selling books, and I write an email newsletter every Monday, a 2,000-word article every other week, and a 5,000-word income report every month.

Well, that sort of consistency is exactly what I need.
David taught me how to setup and use a Zettelkasten. His short book, is the best resource I found on the topic.
And that is something I have been consistently building for a year and a half now.
Here’s hoping he inspires me to become a better writer too!

A few notes from his first lesson, that I am putting down here for me to remember; to not overthink stuff, to … just write!

It doesn’t matter what you write about. Just write 100 words.
It doesn’t matter if they’re any good. Just write 100 words.
It doesn’t matter if you repeat yourself in your writing. Just write 100 words.
If you miss a day, do it the next day. If you miss that day, do it the day after that.
You don’t have to publish the writing. (Feel free to share on Twitter, Instagram, or other social on the hashtag #100wordhabit, so your classmates can see.) What’s more important is you just write 100 words.

Mandy Brown Celebrates Fifteen Years of Her Blog

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 08:28:03 +0530

This was a thread on my fediverse account, that grew too long.
Posting it here, all together, the way my thoughts spilled out.

All I knew about Mandy Brown when I began following her a year ago is

she has a doggie called Furiosa
she thinks about books the way I do
she reads books and then writes about reading them, the way I always dreamed I could
she’s a prominent member of my circle of the Eminent Dead

Today, as she celebrates the quinceanera of her blog, I realised that she also:

is an awesome people herder
is one of the forces behind A Book Apart
is one of the leading lights of web design world
has put in time as a suit (CEO)

Which leads me to understand how she writes so resonantly.
It’s not just her beautiful mind, but also that she writes with her scars.

From her celebratory post,

And this is a home, in more ways than one. There are books here that have taken up residence in my mind. Or perhaps more accurately, I have lived long residencies within them, have curled up under their eaves and stretched out on the porch, have explored the basements and attics and crawl spaces. I read on paper still, so the evidence of time spent is visible in dog-eared corners and coffee stains, in curling covers and the occasional broken spine. I’m hardest on the books I love the most, so that more than one of them is neighbored by a newer edition: not replaced (because I would never forsake my margin notes) but accompanied by a copy that will decay in its own way, soon enough.

And maybe that’s a good way to think about blogging, too. The new stuff sits next to the old but doesn’t supplant it, doesn’t shove it out of the way. Each new post lays atop the next like sediment, and all the old layers remain exposed for you to meander through, with their mediocre sentences and lapsed claims, all the sloppy thinking ever on display. It’s a great exercise in humility, keeping a blog for this many years. But in exchange for the keen awareness of how far I still have to go as a writer, I have the space to keep going. I have the home to keep coming back to. And I will. I will return, again and again

Thank you, Mandy!
For all you do, for all you’ve taught me, for the worlds you’ve led me to, and the all the dreams you’ve shown me.

Feedback on this post? Mail me at feedback@janusworx.com

P.S. I now have to go catch up with thirteen to fourteen years worth of writing. There goes June!
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I Should Write Down and Summarize What I Did

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:37:17 +0530

I did a lot of research the other day about what I’d need to build a contact form for my website.
I bookmarked lots of pages.

And today, I come and look at this mountain of videos and sites and pages and woneder what exactly it is, that I am supposed to tackle.
Nothing makes sense.
I know I ruled out Sendy as an option. Or did I?
Do I need Javascript? How much? Can I get snippets to copy paste? Do I need to go learn Javascript?
What is spam protection? Do I need spam protection? How do I do it?
I’ll have to go look at it all again now.¹

Note To Self:

As you wind down your day, summarize what it is that you were working on in the eve.. (in however shitty a manner. does not matter.) Which also means, you need to keep some time in hand to do that. Or stop working a bit earlier
As you being your day, look over your calendar first², agenda next³, and as you begin each task review your summary from wheneve you worked on it last⁴.

I do this when I work all the time for clients.
Wonder why I never do it for my learning.
Time to treat myself as my most important client, and not assume that I will remember the important bits.
Time to make it easy for myself to pick up the threads again.

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Or god forbid, research it all over again. ↩︎
Which I normally do ↩︎
Which I also normally do ↩︎
Which I never do ↩︎

Noah’s in Emacs!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 18:41:31 +0530

I wrote the other day, about switching to Noah Webster’s dictionary everywhere, I possibly could. Now I did that after reading this lovely James Somers post. And that post seems to be resounding through the web, with folks integrating it into their workflows in different ways.

So I was really happy when I read Jon Snader’s post telling me I could have my beloved Webster’s dictionary in Emacs! This sounded too good to be true! I didn’t believe it!
Because why would I believe some old, wise wizard who’s only been writing about Emacs on a near daily basis for close to fourteen years?!
I had to try this out myself!

So I whip out ye, old, trusty scratch buffer, type crap into it and select it.¹

And then I fire up M-x dictionary-search, like Snader tells me to

This is the moment of poop … err truth! I hit return and …

How now brown cow?! It actually works!

the most beautiful dictionary in the world and my mind wants to look up crap. Of course. ↩︎

Thank God for Noah

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 21:30:00 +0530

This James Somers post, made me realise why my dictionary word lookups were so much less engaging than when I was a kid.

From the post …

[…] go look up “flash” in Webster’s (the edition I’m using is the 1913). The first thing you’ll notice is that the example sentences don’t sound like they came out of a DMV training manual (“the lights started flashing”) — they come from Milton and Shakespeare and Tennyson (“A thought flashed through me, which I clothed in act”)

And immediately, I realised that is what I was missing.
Because even as a kid, we couldn’t quite afford dictionaries, so I used my father’s old and tattered hand me down copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, which expressed meanings in the same thoughtful, expressive, authoritative manner (even if it wasn’t quite as beautiful as Noah Webster’s)
The language was old and graceful.
You could somehow sense the work and thought that went into it.
And that is what I want. That is what gives me joy as I learn.

And boy, did Noah Webster put in the work!

In 1807, he started writing a dictionary, which he called, boldly, An American Dictionary of the English Language. He wanted it to be comprehensive, authoritative. Think of that: a man sits down, aiming to capture his language whole. Webster’s dictionary took him 26 years to finish. It ended up having 70,000 words. He wrote it all himself, including the etymologies, which required that he learn 28 languages, including Old English, Gothic, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Welsh, Russian, Aramaic, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. He was plagued by debt to fund the project; he had to mortgage his home.

In his own lifetime the dictionary sold poorly and got little recognition.

A labour of love, this truly was!

I’ve immediately switched my kindle as well my desktop to this beatiful compendium of words.
The post has links to get the dictionary into your Mac, iOS/Android device, and the Kindle
The stardict file in the S3 link also works with Goldendict on my Linux Mint desktop, solving one of my last quibbles about moving from OS X to Linux.
I finally have a systemwide dictionary.¹
You can also use it online, here.

I’ll end with this quote.

And, toward the bottom of the entry, as McPhee promised, is a usage note, explaining the fine differences in meaning between words in the penumbra of “flash”:

… Flashing differs from exploding or disploding in not being accompanied with a loud report. To glisten, or glister, is to shine with a soft and fitful luster, as eyes suffused with tears, or flowers wet with dew.

Did you see that last clause? “To shine with a soft and fitful luster, as eyes suffused with tears, or flowers wet with dew.” I’m not sure why you won’t find writing like that in dictionaries these days, but you won’t. Here is the modern equivalent of that sentence in the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster: “glisten applies to the soft sparkle from a wet or oily surface .”

Who decided that the American public couldn’t handle “a soft and fitful luster”? I can’t help but think something has been lost. “A soft sparkle from a wet or oily surface” doesn’t just sound worse, it actually describes the phenomenon with less precision. In particular it misses the shimmeriness, the micro movement and action, “the fitful luster,” of, for example, an eye full of tears — which is by the way far more intense and interesting an image than “a wet sidewalk.”

It’s as if someone decided that dictionaries these days had to sound like they were written by a Xerox machine, not a person, certainly not a person with a poet’s ear, a man capable of high and mighty English, who set out to write the secular American equivalent of the King James Bible and pulled it off.

via Goldendict’s scan popup function ↩︎

Setting Canonical URLs in Hugo

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 21:57:42 +0530

I steal quite a bit from other folk, to put on my blog.¹
Case in point, is my last post where I stole the image from Tom Gauld.
Or a few Seth Godin posts, somewhere on the blog, that I have posted in their entirety.

While I do credit them in the post, I wished there was a way, I could programmatically tell the search engines and the bots of the world that I did in fact, steal from someplace and that they should actually be looking over there and leading people there.
A little bit of searching, reavealed that there is in fact, such a way to do it.
It’s called the Canonical URL.
In a nutshell, it tells the machines to guide folk there, because that is the source of truth.

And this is where my move to Hugo came in handy.
Hugo makes doing this a breeze.
The idea revolves around processing a canonical tag that we add to the front matter of said post.
Like so …

canonical: "the source html link to the original content."

Now to have Hugo process that, we add the following code snippet to the head section of our blog’s template.
In my case, I copied head.html from my theme’s layouts/partials folder to my own layouts/partials in the blog’s structure and modified it by adding this code block.²

{{- if isset .Params "canonical" -}}
 <link rel="canonical" href="{{ .Params.canonical }}" />
{{- else -}}
 <link rel="canonical" href="{{ .Permalink }}" />
{{- end }}

And that about does it.
I stole this code snippet from a CloudCannon blog post.
And if you check the HTML source for this post of mine, you’ll see that the canonical site, does indeed point to CloudCannon’s site.

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because just being on the web, for as long as I have, I know bitrot is a thing. ↩︎
if you do have a canonical line in the post, make sure to comment it out ↩︎

What Is a Real Book

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 20:52:06 +0530

Stolen from Tom Gauld’s Tumblr.

click pic to embiggen …

Writing as Gardening

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 11:32:28 +0530

GRRM in his latest not-a-blog-post, references this video on the two types of authors, he lumps writer-folk into.

Just like him, I try to structure and outline what I write, I really do, and just like him, I can do it fairly ok, and still never really enjoy the process.

I never quite understood why, until I realised I was a gardener.
This also helped me understand, why the recent move to the Zettelkasten process is helping me write without the stress that I previously used to encounter when I attempted writing something even a teensy bit long or complex.

Like he says, I know what I want to write about, a tiny bit of structure helps.
But the trick is in the syntopical thoughts, the seeds that germinate and the cross pollination of words and ideas and the thrilling uncertainty of waiting for my plants to take root and to see, in time, what comes of what I sow.

One of my favourite authors thinks and writes, just like I do.
The only thing that I need to become so good that I cannot be ignored is to show up and do the work and tend to my garden.

Today, reading GRRM reminded me of my Zettelkasten, which needs regular tending, which reminded me of Cal Newport’s ideas on slow productivity and showing up daily and whose book on being great was inspired by Steve Martin, all of which led me to writing this post.
This is where my garden path led me today!

Showing up daily to tend my garden!
This is liberating.
This is … freedom!

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P.P.P.S. And if you are a ASOIAF aficionado like me, definitely read the post to know what is happening in those lands.

Begin Again

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 06 May 2022 20:23:09 +0530

Moved over from Nikola, to Hugo today.

In two minds about what to do with all the old posts. Do I just shed them all, like I’ve done in the past? Or work to move them over?

Maybe, tomorrow’ll bring clarity.

In the meanwhile, this is a house under construction, y’all!
Stuff does not work, stuff looks wonky, and stuff both, looks wonky and doesn’t work.
I’ll be at it, on and off, over the next few weeks, trying to make this home.

Why did I do this?
Because I’ve been in a disheartening rut of sorts.
The long slog, to switching careers and all the learning that goes with it, is weighing me down.
So I wanted to do something fun.
Ergo, Hugo’s my new toy.

The blog looks the way it does, thanks to the good people at Hugo Headquarters and Aditya Telange’s PaperMod.
And I know of all this fanciness, thanks to my two young friends who run Hugo themselves, Bhavin Gandhi, and Pradyun Gedam.

On Woman Computers, Long Tails & Reasons to Write

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 05:45:00 +0530

This post was first sent to my newsletter on November 20th, 2021.
You really ought to subscribe :)

Ok, I’m a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short¹ :)
This work letter is going out to all of you my friends, because there’s not much technical stuff in here.

And because I have a spot of good news to share.
I got a jobby job!
I’ve been trying the past few years, to switch my career to something that wasn’t as taxing, as consulting on hardware and networks and integrating systems.
While I loved the work, it was a lot of work, for not enough money and it took a toll on my physical health.²
So writing software from the comfort of my home, is it.
And two weeks in, the team’s taken me under their wing and they are guiding me along and I’m loving it!

And now that’ve gotten all that happy Wheeeeeee! out of my system, on to our letter :)

*You know the drill. Click the headers to wonder off to the original articles (also, most emphases mine)…*

Human Computer: The Forgotten Women’s Profession
#

![mnwci][mnwci]

By WWII, with all hands needed for the war effort, the Army hired a group of women computers to calculate artillery trajectories. These women worked as support to the engineers and were brought on because computing was still thought to be menial and low status work; too dull for the highly educated men on staff who wanted more exciting jobs. This disregards the fact that in order to solve these equations these women would have to re-work the same calculations over and over again for hours. Former computer, Marilyn Heyson, recalled in an interview that the job was intellectually interesting, but a marathon. These calculations not only required great mental endurance, patience, and attention to detail, but advanced mathematical skill.

The dance between the long tail and the short head
#

The disconnect occurs when producers and creators try to average things out and dumb things down, hoping for the big hit that won’t come. Or overspend to get there. The opportunity lies in finding a viable audience and matching the project’s focus and budget to the people who truly want it.

And the dance continues.

Ten reasons to write a book
#

I’d say these translate well to just writing and publishing yourself on your blog, in general too!
Here’s four …

It clarifies your thinking.

It’s a project that is completely and totally up to you.

Because it’s a generous way to share.

It will increase your authority in your field.

So long and see you next month folks :)

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I used to think that this was something from the days of the American wild west; turns out this idiom came much later, probably during the Depression in the 30s. ↩︎
Folks say, they have the scars to prove it. Well, I have three slipped discs and daily physio to prove it. ↩︎

On Reading News, Remembering, and Why We Write

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 05:45:00 +0530

A few days late, but Happy Diwali, folks! :)

A small ask of you, to begin with.
Like I wrote in the past, I don’t have any sort of tracking in these mails.
There are no ads, nothing to push. Just a labour of love.
So I have no idea whether these posts resonate or I’m just howling into the storm that is your inbox.
If you like it, hate it, agree/disagree, write me :)
All I get to see are a couple of folk leaving, every once in a while, and my list, my tribe in fact is really tiny and it feels a bit discouraging.¹

So share this with friends and ask them to subscribe and write to me and tell me how much you love the letters and make me happy :)
What is a festive season without a bit of emotional, tugging of the heartstrings? 😂

On to our letter!
You know the drill! Click the headers, to wander off to the original articles and read them :)

Why You Should Stop Reading News, Shane Parrish
#

Rarely do we stop to ask ourselves questions about the media we consume:
Is this good for me?
Is this dense with detailed information?
Is this important?
Is this going to stand the test of time?
Is the person writing someone who is well informed on the issue?
Asking those questions makes it clear the news isn’t good for you.

“[W]e’re surrounded by so much information that is of immediate interest to us, that we feel overwhelmed by the never-ending pressure of trying to keep up with it all.”
#

— Nicolas Carr
#

Shane, once again on, How to Remember What You Read
#

If you only remember six things after reading this article, it should be the following truths about reading:

Quality matters more than quantity. If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone who skims half the library without paying attention.

Speed-reading is bullshit. Getting the rough gist and absorbing the lessons are two different things. Confuse them at your peril.
Book summary services miss the point. A lot of companies charge ridiculous prices for access to vague summaries bearing only the faintest resemblance to anything in the book. Summaries can be a useful jumping-off point to explore your curiosity, but you cannot learn from them the way you can from the original text.
Fancy apps and tools are not needed. A notebook, index cards, and a pen will do just fine.
We shouldn’t read stuff we find boring. Life is far too short.
Finishing the book is optional. You should start a lot of books and only finish a few of them.

Complement with Nicky Case’s amazing website, applet, spaced repetition teaching aid, explorable explanation, How To Remember Anything Forever (…ish)

Tony Stark nearly gasped as a gloved hand trailed down his spine. The steady pressure was smooth and almost reassuring. Obama chuckled. “You mean, the–

This is why we write, Neil Gaiman
#

This little piece on Neil’s blog is so heartwarming, empowering and inspiring, that I refuse to spoil it for you.
Go read and smile :)

So long for now, and I’ll play catch up next month :)
Remember to write! ²

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P.P.P.S If you love language and word jokes as much as I do, this should keep you chuckling.³ (once when you read the thread and then for the next couple of days as you keep thinking about it.)

Even though it shouldn’t be. I do it all the time, myself. Time and attention are the most precious things we have! :) ↩︎
in your blogs, or your journals or wherever! And write to me! ↩︎
via James Clears’ newsletter ↩︎

The Science of Interstellar

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 14:16:28 +0530

This was so much fun!
If I had teachers or mentors like Kip Thorne in my youth, I’d have never had such a crippling fear of mathematics or the hard sciences.
I’d have never plagued by doubt and fear, that I was not smart enough or good enough.
I have just one note to share. This is Kip as he closes the book …

Every time I watch Interstellar and browse back through this book, I’m amazed at the enormous variety of science they contain. And the richness and beauty of that science.
More than anything, I’m moved by Interstellar’s underlying, optimistic message: We live in a universe governed by physical laws. By laws that we humans are capable of discovering, deciphering, mastering, and using to control our own fate. Even without bulk beings to help us, we humans are capable of dealing with most any catastrophe the universe may throw at us, and even those catastrophes we throw at ourselves—from climate change to biological and nuclear catastrophes.
But doing so, controlling our own fate, requires that a large fraction of us understand and appreciate science: How it operates. What it teaches us about the universe, the Earth, and life. What it can achieve. What its limitations are, due to inadequate knowledge or technology. How those limitations may be overcome. How we transition from speculation to educated guess to truth. How extremely rare are revolutions in which our perceived truth changes, yet how very important.
I hope this book contributes to that understanding.

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Draft No. 4

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 09:06:41 +0530

Just finished John McPhee’s, Draft No. 4.

I could pithily summarise it as …

Practice a lot of things.

Work at finding your thing.
Practice you thing (lots! deeply! a fuckton.)
Work within established rules.
Bend the rules to fit your thing.
Break the rules once you know your thing deeply!

McPhee writes about the craft of writing.
But the advice could apply broadly to any creative endeavour.

This series of essays and lessons and backstory was also hugely confirming to me.
Because, while I may not have McPhee’s grace and economy, most of his advice is something I have always understood and done intuitively.
Like he’d say something and then illustrate it.
Like he struggles, even now, the way I do, every time I sit down to write.
That these things take time. (and that we can be ok with it)
That my prose is grasping at the way he writes. Sturdy, workman-like, no muss, no fuss.
The journey is hard work for most people, the gifted are few.

I’d would have called it the definitive book, the first book to read, on the craft of writing, if I had not already read, Caro’s, Working.

This is what I’d written about Working …

if you haven’t read the Power Broker, you should
if you haven’t read the Lyndon volumes, you should
this book is Caro’s account of the work, that went into those works.
the ceaseless toil, the thankless years, the people and their stories
Caro is Caro, master of the craft.
There are only a few explicit lessons here.
but plenty if you care enough to read between the lines
plenty if you make this an annual read, like i will

McPhee treads the same ideas on a different path, and I loved both journeys (I love Caro, only a little more).
So now, I have two books that I’d recommend as books to read on the craft.

Highlights from the book follow (all emphases, mine),

After putting the two cards together, and then constructing around them the rest of the book, all I had to do was write it, and that took more than a year.

It is meant to be about as visible as someone’s bones. And I hope this structure illustrates what I take to be a basic criterion for all structures: they should not be imposed upon the material. They should arise from within it. That perfect circle was a help to me, but it could be a liability for anyone trying to impose such a thing on just any set of facts. A structure is not a cookie cutter.

Certain Baroque poets, among others, wrote shaped verse, in which lines were composed so that the typography resembled the topic—blossoms, birds, butterflies. That also is not what I mean by structure. A piece of writing has to start somewhere, go somewhere, and sit down when it gets there. You do that by building what you hope is an unarguable structure. Beginning, middle, end. Aristotle, Page 1.

Each of those structures, from the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies, was worked out after copying with a typewriter all notes from notebooks and transcribing the contents of microcassettes. I used an Underwood 5, which had once been a state-of-the-art office typewriter but by 1970 had been outclassed by the I.B.M. Selectric. With the cassettes, I used a Sanyo TRC5200 Memo-Scriber, which was activated with foot pedals, like a sewing machine or a pump organ.

The note-typing could take many weeks, but it collected everything in one legible place, and it ran all the raw material in some concentration through the mind.

The notes from one to the next frequently had little in common. They jumped from topic to topic, and only in places were sequentially narrative. So I always rolled the platen and left blank space after each item to accommodate the scissors that were fundamental to my advanced methodology.¹

After reading and rereading the typed notes and then developing the structure and then coding the notes accordingly in the margins and then photocopying the whole of it, I would go at the copied set with the scissors, cutting each sheet into slivers of varying size. If the structure had, say, thirty parts, the slivers would end up in thirty piles that would be put into thirty manila folders. One after another, in the course of writing, I would spill out the sets of slivers, arrange them ladderlike on a card table, and refer to them as I manipulated the Underwood.
If this sounds mechanical, its effect was absolutely the reverse. If the contents of the seventh folder were before me, the contents of twenty-nine other folders were out of sight. Every organizational aspect was behind me. The procedure eliminated nearly all distraction and concentrated just the material I had to deal with in a given day or week. It painted me into a corner, yes, but in doing so it freed me to write

People often ask how I know when I’m done—not just when I’ve come to the end, but in all the drafts and revisions and substitutions of one word for another how do I know there is no more to do? When am I done? I just know. I’m lucky that way. What I know is that I can’t do any better; someone else might do better, but that’s all I can do; so I call it done.

It is so easy to misjudge yourself and get stuck in the wrong genre. You avoid that, early on, by writing in every genre. If you are telling yourself you’re a poet, write poems. Write a lot of poems. If fewer than one work out, throw them all away; you’re not a poet. Maybe you’re a novelist. You won’t know until you have written several novels.

Ben Jonson summarized the process when he said,

“Though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another, yet he must exercise all.”

Gender aside, I take that to be a message to young writers. Art is where you find it. Good writing is where you find it.

After all those one-on-one sessions discussing back-door plays and the role of the left-handed comma in the architectonics of basketball—while The New Yorker magazine hurtled toward its deadlines—I finally said in wonderment, “How can you afford to use so much time and go into so many things in such detail with just one writer when this whole enterprise is yours to keep together?”
*He said, *“It takes as long as it takes.”
As a writing teacher, I have repeated that statement to two generations of students. If they are writers, they will never forget it.

Shawn also recognized that no two writers are the same, like snowflakes and fingerprints. No one will ever write in just the way that you do, or in just the way that anyone else does. Because of this fact, there is no real competition between writers. What appears to be competition is actually nothing more than jealousy and gossip. Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing. An editor’s goal is to help writers make the most of the patterns that are unique about them.

Students have always asked what I do to prepare for interviews. Candidly, not much. At minimum, though, I think you should do enough preparation to be polite. You would not have wanted to ask Stephen Harper what he did for a living. Before, during, and after an interview, or a series of interviews, do as much reading as the situation impels you to do. In the course of writing, you really find out what you don’t know, and you read in an attempt to get it right. Nonetheless, you get it wrong, especially if you are an innumerate English major and you are writing about science.

But science, for me, is the exception that probes the rule. I have never published anything on a science that has not been vetted by the scientists involved.

Once captured, words have to be dealt with. You have to trim them and straighten them to make them transliterate from the fuzziness of speech to the clarity of print. Speech and print are not the same, and a slavish presentation of recorded speech may not be as representative of a speaker as dialogue that has been trimmed and straightened.
*Please understand: *You trim and straighten—take the “um”s, “uh”s, and “uh but um”s out, the false starts—but you do not make it up.

It isn’t all like that—only the first draft. First drafts are slow and develop clumsily because every sentence affects not only those before it but also those that follow. The first draft of my book on California geology took two gloomy years; the second, third, and fourth drafts took about six months altogether.
That four-to-one ratio in writing time—first draft versus the other drafts combined—has for me been consistent in projects of any length, even if the first draft takes only a few days or weeks. There are psychological differences from phase to phase, and the first is the phase of the pit and the pendulum. After that, it seems as if a different person is taking over. Dread largely disappears. Problems become less threatening, more interesting. Experience is more helpful, as if an amateur is being replaced by a professional. Days go by quickly and not a few could be called pleasant, I’ll admit.

“Dear Jenny: The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once.
For me, the hardest part comes first, getting something—anything—out in front of me. Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, heave out, babble out something—anything—as a first draft. With that, you have achieved a sort of nucleus.
Then, as you work it over and alter it, you begin to shape sentences that score higher with the ear and eye. Edit it again—top to bottom. The chances are that about now you’ll be seeing something that you are sort of eager for others to see.
And all that takes time. What I have left out is the interstitial time.
You finish that first awful blurting, and then you put the thing aside. You get in your car and drive home. On the way, your mind is still knitting at the words. You think of a better way to say something, a good phrase to correct a certain problem. Without the drafted version—if it did not exist—you obviously would not be thinking of things that would improve it. In short, you may be actually writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day—yes, while you sleep—but only if some sort of draft or earlier version already exists. Until it exists, writing has not really begun.”

Martha calls me up nine times a day to tell me that writing is impossible, that she’s not cut out to do it, that she’ll never finish what she is working on, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth and so on, and I, who am probably disintegrating a third of the way through an impossible first draft, am supposed to turn into the Rock of Gibraltar. The talking rock: “Just stay at it; perseverance will change things.” “You’re so unhappy you sound authentic to me.” “You can’t make a fix unless you know what is broken.”

She said, “My style is always that of what I am reading at the time—or overwhelmingly self-conscious and strained.”
I said, “How unfortunate that would be if you were fifty-four. At twenty-three, it is not only natural; it is important. The developing writer reacts to excellence as it is discovered—wherever and whenever—and of course does some imitating (unavoidably) in the process of drawing from the admired fabric things to make one’s own. Rapidly, the components of imitation fade. What remains is a new element in your own voice, which is not in any way an imitation. Your manner as a writer takes form in this way, a fragment at a time. A style that lacks strain and self-consciousness is what you seem to aspire to, or you wouldn’t be bringing the matter up. Therefore, your goal is in the right place.
So practice taking shots at it. A relaxed, unself-conscious style is not something that one person is born with and another not. Writers do not spring full-blown from the ear of Zeus.”

Jenny said, “I can’t seem to finish anything.”
I said, “Neither can I.” Then I went back to my own writing, my own inability to get going until five in the afternoon, my animal sense of being hunted, my resemblance to the sand of Gibraltar.

It is toward the end of the second draft, if I’m lucky, when the feeling comes over me that I have something I want to show to other people, something that seems to be working and is not going to go away.

After reading the second draft aloud, and going through the piece for the third time (removing the tin horns and radio static that I heard while reading), I enclose words and phrases in pencilled boxes for Draft No. 4.

If I enjoy anything in this process it is Draft No. 4. I go searching for replacements for the words in the boxes. The final adjustments may be small-scale, but they are large to me, and I love addressing them. You could call this the copy-editing phase if real copy editors were not out there in the future prepared to examine the piece.

You draw a box not only around any word that does not seem quite right but also around words that fulfill their assignment but seem to present an opportunity. While the word inside the box may be perfectly O.K., there is likely to be an even better word for this situation, a word right smack on the button, and why don’t you try to find such a word?
If none occurs, don’t linger; keep reading and drawing boxes, and later revisit them one by one. If there’s a box around “sensitive” because it seems pretentious in the context, try “susceptible.” Why “susceptible”? Because you looked up “sensitive” in the dictionary and it said “highly susceptible.”
With dictionaries, I spend a great deal more time looking up words I know than words I have never heard of—at least ninety-nine to one. The dictionary definitions of words you are trying to replace are far more likely to help you out than a scattershot wad from a thesaurus. If you use the dictionary after the thesaurus, the thesaurus will not hurt you.
So draw a box around “wad.” Webster: “The cotton or silk obtained from the Syrian swallowwort, formerly cultivated in Egypt and imported to Europe.” Oh. But read on: “A little mass, tuft, or bundle … a small, compact heap.” Stet that one.
I call this “the search for the mot juste,” because when I was in the eighth grade Miss Bartholomew told us that Gustave Flaubert walked around in his garden for days on end searching in his head for le mot juste. Who could forget that? Flaubert seemed heroic. Certain kids considered him weird.

In the search for words, thesauruses are useful things, but they don’t talk about the words they list. They are also dangerous. They can lead you to choose a polysyllabic and fuzzy word when a simple and clear one is better.
*The value of a thesaurus is not to make a writer seem to have a vast vocabulary of recondite words. The value of a thesaurus is in the assistance it can give you in finding the best possible word for the mission that the word is supposed to fulfill. Writing teachers and journalism courses have been known to compare them to crutches and to imply that no writer of any character or competence would use them. At best, thesauruses are mere rest stops in the search for the *mot juste. Your destination is the dictionary.

Suppose you sense an opportunity beyond the word “intention.” You read the dictionary’s thesaurian list of synonyms: “intention, intent, purpose, design, aim, end, object, objective, goal.” But the dictionary doesn’t let it go at that. It goes on to tell you the differences all the way down the line—how each listed word differs from all the others. Some dictionaries keep themselves trim by just listing synonyms and not going on to make distinctions. You want the first kind, in which you are not just getting a list of words; you are being told the differences in their hues, as if you were looking at the stripes in an awning, each of a subtly different green. Look up “vertical.” It tells you—believe it or not—that “vertical,” “perpendicular,” and “plumb” differ each from the two others. Ditto “plastic, pliable, pliant, ductile, malleable, adaptable.” Ditto “fidelity, allegiance, fealty, loyalty, devotion, piety.”

I grew up in canoes on northern lakes and forest rivers. Thirty years later, I was trying to choose a word or words that would explain why anyone in a modern nation would choose to go a long distance by canoe. I was damned if I was going to call it a sport, but nothing else occurred. I looked up “sport.” There were seventeen lines of definition: “1. That which diverts, and makes mirth; pastime; diversion. 2. A diversion of the field.” I stopped there.

His professed criteria were to take it easy, see some wildlife, and travel light with his bark canoes—nothing more—and one could not help but lean his way. I had known of people who took collapsible cots, down pillows, chain saws, outboard motors, cases of beer, and battery-powered portable refrigerators on canoe trips—even into deep wilderness. You set your own standards. Travel by canoe is not a necessity, and will nevermore be the most efficient way to get from one region to another, or even from one lake to another—anywhere. A canoe trip has become simply a rite of oneness with certain terrain, a diversion of the field, an act performed not because it is necessary but because there is value in the act itself.…

Writing is selection.

Just to start a piece of writing you have to choose one word and only one from more than a million in the language. Now keep going. What is your next word? Your next sentence, paragraph, section, chapter? Your next ball of fact. You select what goes in and you decide what stays out.
At base you have only one criterion: If something interests you, it goes in—if not, it stays out. That’s a crude way to assess things, but it’s all you’ve got. Forget market research. Never market-research your writing. Write on subjects in which you have enough interest on your own to see you through all the stops, starts, hesitations, and other impediments along the way.

Ideally, a piece of writing should grow to whatever length is sustained by its selected material—that much and no more.

Green 4 does not mean lop off four lines at the bottom, I tell them. The idea is to remove words in such a manner that no one would notice that anything has been removed.

Just like I do here! ↩︎

Thoughts on Setting Up a Blog

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 05:45:00 +0530

This post was first sent to my newsletter on March 19th, 2021.
[You really ought to subscribe][1] :)

I blame Mahe for this post.

Hey, Jason!
Can you please write an article on how to build a website like yours, where I can post my blogs?

Check out her blogs, here and here.

This one is squarely aimed at all the young ones, who are convinced that they need to be writing.
(Maybe, it was me who convinced you, in the first place.)
You are young (or like me, forever young) and broke (also like me).
You need a place for your thoughts to call home.
You need a place to write, and grow and focus more on what you want to say about life and what you study or what you work at, or the portfolio/showcase of thoughts you will slowly build.

What you use to write, does not matter at this stage!

So, what now?

Intent (aka, what do you want out of your blog?)

I have learnt the hard way, that the only way I can write better posts, is by writing [*lots* of crappy ones][crap]. I started a static website in the early oughts, then had a blogger blog, then a tumblr blog, then a self hosted wordpress blog, and then a self hosted ghost blog and now this self hosted [nikola blog][nb]. I sweated over the spacing. I fretted over which blog engine was best and most performant. I wondered about which ones protected privacy best. I had flame wars over which language was the best one to create a blog in, what sites were the best hosts, what frameworks would work better and how static blogs were so much faster than dynamic blogs but dynamic blogs offered so much power and flexibility. (all while I did not know how to write a single line of code.) I designed my blogs the way I wanted them, I bought premium themes, I bought fancy text editors and then figured out how I would write and where I would share them. I was all set.

And then? … zip, nada, nothing.
The blogs just languished.

This current incarnation of the blog is the only one that I have stuck with and written lots on.
Every one of those previous attempts just withered on the vine.
And not for lack of good intentions.
I was always going to write that perfect post.
I was waiting for more data, so that the post would be complete.
I was researching for depth, because this subject was not just a post. It was a whole series.
I never got around to actually writing though.
It was lack of focus. Lack of intent.
Think about why you are starting the blog and what do you want on there?
And that will give you direction about what to write.
You might realise that you don’t want to write, and just play with technology.
That is fair too. At least you’re being intentional about it.

Begin Writing!

If you have never written before, my advice to you is

to do precisely 1 hour of research, into all the free, hosted blog engines that are out there. Off the top of my head, Write.as, Netlify, Tumblr, Wordpress, and Medium come to mind.
make dummy blogs and explore all their features over the next day or two (at most). Figure out what interface you are most comfortable with.
Begin Writing.

I cannot stress this enough.
You will never write perfect posts.
How do I know?
Because I tried so hard, for so many years.
And failed.

What you can do, is show up on the first day.
Publicly commit to writing everyday.¹
And write.
Everyday.
Good.
Bad.
Ugly.
Whatever.
Just put words on the page.

The only two things that’d probably matter are,

That you show up on the time you committed to
And if your blog needs a general direction in the long run, you kinda sorta write your posts in that general direction.

Even that is a pretty distant second though.
First, master showing up daily.
Build that discipline.

Tools of the trade

Caveat, don’t even *think* about reading this section, if you have not written close to a hundred posts on a regular schedule first. You need that muscle built strong. The rest as they say, is window dressing. Once you have written a couple of hundred posts, you get a pretty good handle on what it is that you are writing and what it is, that the blog needs to do to serve that purpose. I can tell you why I did, what I did with my blog. It might help you build yours? I don’t really know. But honestly, once you get on with writing, you will figure out most of this stuff or know someone who does, or understand that maintaining the status quo is good enough, until you can afford to pay for a hosted vendor, who does this all for you.

I used Wordpress for a long time and loved it.
Then I thought I wanted to control it all, and so I hosted Wordpress on my own site.
Then I actually understood, what a headache maintaining it all really is.
Then I looked for something simpler.
I backed the Ghost kickstarter and as soon as they released it, I began using it.
It served my needs really well, until they decided to go in a different direction and abandon what I loved most about it. Writing in markdown. (I had written enough, to realise that any blog engine that I would use, needed to support Markdown.)

And by then, like I said, I had written enough to know what I wanted out of a blog.
I was writing for myself, so I did not want comments.
That eliminating comments also got rid of moderating people and spam was just a bonus.
If I wanted, I could actually go spread my message seperately. (the fediverse, email newsletters, social media networks and all that jazz.) But that is an intentional step. Separate from my act of writing.
I mostly wrote words. So I needed something that would have pretty text.
And since it was mostly just text, I could get by with a bunch of Markdown files rendered into static html files.
I did not want to upgrade and patch and maintain a blog engine some place.
I wanted something I could either host on my own server or just on some site somewhere else.
This would be easier once again if it was just a bunch of files that needed to be placed somewhere.
I wanted the ability to write from anywhere.
And finally I wanted a measure of control over where all this was.

All these considerations led me to realise …
A static blog, with a pretty looking theme would address both my bunch of files requirement and my show words well requirement.
There were tons of fonts that I could use. So I chose one that was free to use and I could host myself.
Not just hosting fonts, right now I can afford to host the site myself, so I have a Linode that hosts this blog.
The static blog can just as easily be hosted on some free place like github.io if life takes a turn for the worse.
I was learning Python, so using a static site generator that supports markdown and was built in Python seemed logical. So I picked Nikola.
(Did not really matter in the long run. I have used Go based Hugo, and Ruby based Jekyll too and all of them work essentially the same way. Even the theme I use on the blog, Lanyon, is originally a Jekyll theme, and can be found in Hugo as well).
So I learnt how to install it on my desktop, and customise it to use the fonts I wanted in the weights I wanted.
Then I learnt how to automatically deploy it via ssh to my site. Most static site engines offer to automatically deploy to github.io or are available as hosted services on Netlify. Here’s Nikola on Github/Netlify.
And finally, I’ve always wanted everything to be under my name, ergo the domain which I saved up for and bought.
It’s not essential to your writing, but probably essential to your identity in the long run, so that might be something to consider too.

So there we are.
One more post done :)
If you have questions, mail me! (jason at this domain)

or to a schedule that you are comfortable with and publicly commit to. ↩︎

What to Read, How to Read. Recommendations from Folks, I Admire and Follow (2021 Edition)

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 20:16:35 +0530

*Image, courtesy [Tom Gauld][tgt]*

This post was first sent to my newsletter on February 1st, 2021.
[You really ought to subscribe][1] :)

Welcome to the first, “serious” newsletter of 2021.
This was supposed to be my year end post, but life, as usual got in the way.

Now that I’ve jammed both the blogs together, most of the personal stuff is going to stay focussed on stuff about books and reading and writing and a few photos thrown in once in a while for good measure.
Seems like that is what I was doing most of last year, anyway.

Let’s get into it.

To start with, let’s get one thing out of the way.
You’re never to busy to read.

The fact is, people much busier than you have been prioritizing reading for centuries. They have been making wisdom part of their daily lives, no matter what’s going on in the world or in their jobs.

If Napoleon, commanding an army of some 40,000 men, could find time to read on a march some 1,600 miles from home, you can find it.
If Marcus could read while he was ruling the world, if Seneca could do it while studying the law, suffering from tuberculosis, while in exile, in the Senate, as consul, while he dealt with Nero’s insanity, you can.

— Ryan Holiday

My reading hero, Ryan shares the best books he read in 2020 as well as recommendations for 2021.

Books are an investment in yourself—investments that come in many forms: novels, nonfiction, how-to, poetry, classics, biographies. They help you think more clearly, to be provoked less, to be kinder, to see the bigger picture, and to improve at the things that matter to you.
Books are a tradition that stretches back thousands of years and stretches forward to today, where people are still publishing distillations of countless hours of hard thinking on hard topics.
Why wouldn’t you avail yourself of this wisdom?

How, does he do it? Year after year after prolific year?
Ryan shares it all here.

Susan Fowler, autodidact, whistleblower,all round hero, shares her list for the year.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized the importance of routine and structure.
I try to make every single day the same: wake up at the same time, eat at the same time, exercise at the same time, work at the same time, hang out with my daughter at the same time, read at the same time, and go to sleep at the same time.
These routines have become the foundation of my life and give my mind the space it needs so that I can be my best creative self. My brain doesn’t work well when it’s focused on figuring out when to eat, what to eat, when to sleep, when to read, etc. When I’m not in a strict daily routine, my mind wastes all of its time figuring out how to do the basics instead of being creative.
Without routine, I can’t write.
Without writing…well, without writing, I’ve got nothing.

Richard Meadows is someone, I’ve begun following this year. I love reading him, ergo, I love what he reads.
This is his list for 2020.
Love that he loves Peter Watts as well.

From his Love Letter to Reading …

Our brains are lumps of meaty plasticine, shaped to a large degree by the people we surround ourselves with. This influence extends to our reading material and even our thoughts themselves, which can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Toxic, ignorant and relentlessly negative influences should be excised before the cancer spreads.

Why not keep company with the smartest, funniest, bravest people who have ever lived? They will become your guides, your muses, the burning coals that light the fire inside. Sure, they can’t help you shift house, but they’re always there for you, only a bookshelf away. If you spend enough time hanging out with them, they will sculpt your brain into something beautiful.

If you want to know, how to read lots, he’s got you covered there too.

P.S. His book, Optionality, is the best distillation and explanation of the mental model, I’ve seen.

Brett and Co, over at The Art of Manliness don’t bother with pathetic, puny yearly reading lists.
The site has a dedicated section, on books and reading and they do it year round, year after year.

If you want to be challenged, they have a thousand books to read before you die. It’s an episode of their podcast, that is well worth a listen and takes an hour of your life.

Reading is serious business there.
From Embrace Reading for the Sake of Reading

there’s an argument for reading for reading’s sake. For spending time with books for no other reason but enjoyment, pleasure — even simply their sheer beauty.

Think about what happens when you go to an art museum. You wander around, looking at pieces of art, unmoved by some, but caught enraptured and unable to look away by others. You aren’t asking, “Are there practical takeaways from this art I’m looking at?”
You’re letting the impression it makes wash over you. You’re wondering what moved the artist to paint a particular brush stroke. You’re admiring the craft and skill of their work. You’re wondering what it is that so entrances you. Above all, you’re just enjoying it. Things that are beautiful inherently bring light to the soul and the psyche.

This is true for any work of art — books included. Most authors spend years crafting their characters, agonizing over every sentence, arranging paragraphs and dialogue in just the right way. And it’s not just novelists — you can’t read the likes of Robert Caro, Candice Millard, Erik Larson, and so many more, without seeing the art and craft of their books.
If you go into a book with the mindset that you’re simply enjoying a work of art, your mind is freed from the need to find the utility in it. It can be enriching and edifying (though in no specific direction and without quantifiable benefit). It can also be just plain entertaining. Consuming art, from paintings and sculptures to movies and books, isn’t just heady, it’s also fun! An escape. And using art — including books — to find that escape, is okay. It’s more than okay, in fact, it’s necessary.

This isn’t to say that you can’t learn something from books while enjoying their diversionary beauty. Learning is its own pleasure — one that you can pursue for the pleasure alone, with no real end in mind. No practical use, no career or personal development application, no note-taking to review later on, just as its own “useless” Good. I hereby give you permission to put down the highlighter and let your brain wander freely through a book, without the intent of finding applications for what you’re taking in.
Let yourself read with no ulterior motives and embrace the simple pleasure that comes from losing yourself in a text.

They also have an awesome plan on How to Read Long and Difficult Books

Make a plan for yourself.
Set a small amount of time or pages per day that you’ll read.
Engage/interact with the text.
Get an edition that you like.
Have a dictionary/encyclopedia handy.
Just get through the hard parts. and finally …
Take advantage of the momentum!

And having plowed through War and Peace, what is The Best Way to Retain What You Read?

If you’d like to retain and secure more of the information you consume instead of letting noteworthy knowledge pass right through you, here’s the best way to do so: share it with someone else.

Ben Orlin, he of the awesome maths and the bad drawings has his list.
Before I share it though, I’d encourage you to read his books.
Magical, funny, awesome, wise and insightful.
I never thought a bird’s eye view of Calculus would be so beautiful yet so easy to grasp.

Now, here’s his list for 2020. There’s all sorts, literary, sci-fi, nonfiction, everything.

Austin Kleon, author of the Keep Going trilogy, and prolific blogger has his list of great books.
Oh, and he’s been at this for years.
And if you have trouble reading,

Be promiscuous. Read more than one book at a time until one pulls you into monogamy.

Read old books! Read old favorites! (Every time you re-read a book you’re reading a new book.)

more here …

Tim Ferriss of the Four Hour Everything, and more importantly the publisher of The Tao of Seneca has a lovely monstrous page up, documenting his year in books.

Complement that with this video of his, on how he takes notes.

The penultimate one is the one that I learnt the most from, over the past decade.
To say, Shane Parrish and fs.blog have changed my life, is both, an understatement and doing them massive disservice.

The Mental Models books are going to stand the test of time. And we are still only two volumes in.
To see what I mean, have a look at the articles they love on their blog this year.

From How to Remember What You Read

“I cannot remember the books I have read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

and of course, Speed Reading is Bullshit

Better and quicker are not the same.
A good book, like good sex or a date, is something you don’t want to end. You’re not rushing to the finish (ok, maybe sometimes you are but let’s skip the quickies, shall we).
Instead you’re totally immersed in the activity — you want it to last forever. It’s supposed to take some time.

And without further ado, here’s the obligatory reading list for 2020.

We end as always, with Maria Popova and her Brain Pickings.
If Shane changed my life, Maria saved me.
It was her writing, over the years that got me through depression and the troughs of life.
It’s given me courage and hope and resilience and empathy.
When Munger spoke of the eminent dead, I think of Maria. Only she is eminently living :)
And I am grateful to be alive in a time when she’s giving of herself.
She taught me science, she taught me about the universe, she taught me poetry, she taught me art, she taught me syntopical thinking and Jesus knows what else.

I bought Figuring a year ago, and I still have not started it, beyond reading the Table of Contents and the blurbs.
I haven’t because I don’t want it to ever finish :)
It took her twelve years to write. I might as well savour it in drips and drabs as long as I can.

Here’s the 2020 list.
And just like the other crazy folk on here, she to has been at this for nearly a decade and a half now.

Two of Tim Ferriss’ most popular podcast episodes, have been with her.

So I bid you adieu with a quote from a post on her blog on how reading saves lives, A 100-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor on How Books Save Lives.
I hope you enjoy reading lots more, this year.

Dear Friend,

Could you imagine a world without access to reading, to learning, to books?

At twenty-one, I was forced into Poland’s WWII ghetto, where being caught reading anything forbidden by the Nazis meant, at best, hard labor; at worst, death.

There, I conducted a clandestine school offering Jewish children a chance at the essential education denied them by their captors. But I soon came to feel that teaching these sensitive young souls Latin and mathematics was cheating them of something far more essential — what they needed wasn’t dry information but hope, the kind that comes from being transported into a dream-world of possibility.

One day, as if guessing my thoughts, one girl beseeched me: “Could you please tell us a book, please?”

I had spent the previous night reading Gone with the Wind — one of a few smuggled books circulated among trustworthy people via an underground channel, on their word of honor to read only at night, in secret. No one was allowed to keep a book longer than one night — that way, if reported, the book would have already changed hands by the time the searchers came.

I had read Gone with the Wind from dusk until dawn and it still illuminated my own dream-world, so I invited these young dreamers to join me. As I “told” them the book, they shared the loves and trials of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, of Ashley and Melanie Wilkes. For that magical hour, we had escaped into a world not of murder but of manners and hospitality. All the children’s faces had grown animated with new vitality.

A knock at the door shattered our shared dream-world. As the class silently exited, a pale green-eyed girl turned to me with a tearful smile: “Thank you so very much for this journey into another world. Could we please do it again, soon?” I promised we would, although I doubted we’d have many more chances. She put her arms around me and I whispered, “So long, Scarlett.” “I think I’d rather be Melanie,” she answered, “although Scarlett must have been so much more beautiful!”

As events in the ghetto took their course, most of my fellow dreamers fell victim to the Nazis. Of the twenty-two pupils in my secret school, only four survived the Holocaust.

The pale green-eyed girl was one of them.

Many years later, I was finally able to locate her and we met in New York. One of my life’s greatest rewards will remain the memory of our meeting, when she introduced me to her husband as “the source of my hopes and my dreams in times of total deprivation and dehumanization.”

There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts. To read a book and surrender to a story is to keep our very humanity alive.

Sincerely,
Helen Fagin

Taking Notes, An Example

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 10:09:47 +0530

I have been telling the young ones, that reading the things they consider important, needs to be engaged.

Engaged with the words.
Engaged with the flow.
With the author.
Her ideas.
The way she makes her case.
Or tells her story.
To wrestle with what is being said, or left unsaid.
To build a mental model with the ideas being presented.
To write it all down.
To wrestle with the work and draw your own conclusions. (which might not necessarily be what the author intends).

It’s heartening to see, that at least one of my chipmunks listens.
Priyanka Saggu has taken to really engaging with the work she reads.
She read Getting Past No when she was getting ready to launch her career and do interviews.
Now that she has gotten one, she’s onto reading Cal Newport’s, Deep Work to buttress her foundations and make the most of it.
I don’t know, if she will ever make her work public, like she did with Getting Past No, but this is just a glimpse into what goes into the mind of an engaged reader/learner.

courtesy Priyanka Saggu. (shared with permission)

While you don’t need to do this with everything you read, there is certainly a case to be made for intentional, engaged reading.

Here’s to the rest of you, reading with engagement and sharing your work.

No letters for a while, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 09:30:00 +0530

My email program, was somehow hacked into last week, and close to 3000 spam mails were sent out in the course of a few minutes.

While I was able to serendipitously catch it as soon as it happened, I apologise if you were the recepient of unsavoury stuff from my email address.
I am now in the process of rebuilding everything.

letter at janusworx dot com is the new home from where these letters will be sent from.
Please add this address to your contacts, so that I do not end up in your spam :)

I am still picking up the pieces.
I hope to slowly do over everything. And I hope to resume in the New Year.

Before I put my pen down and bid you adieu, let me wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
And as ever, I wish you warmth!

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a badly knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say
we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the coldest season.

You have the right to be here!

— Neil Gaiman

Love and warmth,
Jason

P.S. The poem in beautifully illustrated link above, is a Neil Gaiman creation, which old letter folk will know, was how I wished you last year too.

Ryan Holiday’s Question to Change Your Reading Life

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Ryan Holiday, writes about a question, he purports will change your reading life.

And this was somehow surprising to me, because as a bookworm, I have been slipping this question (or a variant of it) into casual conversations with folks all my life.
If I need my reading queue to be always full, I need to always be closing :)

And since it has helped me so much, it’s only fair, I share it with you :)

Here’s Ryan,

Every time I would meet a successful or important person I admired, I would ask them:

What’s a book that changed your life?

And then I would read that book.

[…]

Which books should I read? Should I read books about physics or books about history or books about self-improvement? And even if I knew the genre I preferred, which authors should I read and why? Should I read new books or old books? The books getting rave reviews or the classics or the ones on the featured table in the front of the store?

I didn’t know.

If a book changed someone’s life — whatever the topic or style — it was probably worth the investment. If it changed them, I thought, it might at least help me.

This style of reading, might appear chaotic.
But in my experience, it has brought me the best books with the best lessons, at just the right time.

When I was neck deep in debt, I learnt about money, because I asked people who were good with theirs, on how they did it and what they read.
I learnt about computers, because my vocational teacher at the time (I was learning to fix televisions) thought it apt to shove copies of Tim Ramteke’s Networks, Malvino’s Digital Electronics and Jon Stoke’s Inside the Machine into my greedy little hands. (really expensive books which were way beyond my means.
I went in there to learn to fix televisions and came out learning to fix computer hardware.
I went to my grandpa to learn religion and he taught me the value of being open to good, universal values across all faiths, by giving me copies of both the Bible and the Upanishads. (It’s another matter that I haven’t learnt a thing from either set of books :P but I’ve learnt that kindness, being good, doing good, is universal)
I looked online to see how people dealt with unbearable stress and grief, and I learnt about the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.
I wanted to have an intentional outlook to life, and I found Shane and his mental models, and through him I found Munger and Taleb.

Each of those moments and authors and books, I listed above, changed my life in fundamental ways, moulding me into what I am today.

It did not matter if the book was contemporary or ancient. (actually, the older the better)

And that brings me to another part of the post I love. To make the ancients and the dead greats your teachers and confidants!

Here’s old man Munger himself,

I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend. That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education. It’s way better than just being given the basic concepts.

And here’s Ryan,

We should seek out the literature that has shaped the people we admire and respect — we can cut down even on the discovery costs of looking for those books. They’ve given us a shortcut to the treasure map.
Everybody seems to want a mentor. Meanwhile, they’re passing up the opportunity to learn directly from the people who taught the people you aspire to be like. When someone like John McCain spends his whole life raving about For Whom The Bell Tolls, why would you not check it out? Clearly, it got him through some shit. Peter Thiel credits Rene Girard and Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World with shaping his worldview. Clearly, it’s made him some money—you’re not going to pick that up? Angela Merkel—Forbes’ number 1 most powerful women twelve of the last thirteen years—lists Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov as her favorite reads. Add them to the list!

And of course, the ancients had already figured this out :)

Seneca writes,

Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if he were watching you, and ordering all your actions as if he beheld them. […]
We can get rid of most sins, if we have a witness who stands near us when we are likely to go wrong. The soul should have someone whom it can respect, – one by whose authority it may make even its inner shrine more hallowed. Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts!

Choose therefore a Cato; or, if Cato seems too severe a model, choose some Laelius, a gentler spirit. Choose a master whose life, conversation, and soul-expressing face have satisfied you; picture him always to yourself as your protector or your pattern. For we must indeed have someone according to whom we may regulate our characters; you can never straighten that which is crooked unless you use a ruler.

So, go on then.
Ask folks what books changed their lives.
And then go read them and be transformed!

Doing the Verb, is Enough

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 05:45:00 +0530

This week’s message is stolen, lock stock and barrel from an old Austin Kleon post.
I’ve often wanted to riff off this message, ever since I read it in his book and it changed my life.
But it is perfect and short as it is.

Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title without the work.

“Forget about being a Writer,” says novelist Ann Packer. “Follow the impulse to write.”

Let go of the thing that you’re trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb).

Doing the verb will take you someplace further and far more interesting than just wanting the noun.

Hat tip to this awesome Ryan Holiday post, which sent me to Austin’s delightful post.
Ryan’s post spoke to what you’d feel like, once you gotten it all. (spoiler alert: nothing at all)

Which is why you need to know your enough.

Quoting a quote from the post,

There is a story I wrote about in Stillness is the Key in which Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, the authors of Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22, respectively, were once at a fancy party in New York. As they stood in the home of some billionaire, Vonnegut needled his friend.

“Joe,” he said, “how does it feel that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel has earned in its entire history?”

“I’ve got something he can never have,” Heller replied.

“And what on earth could that be?” Vonnegut asked.

“The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Enough.

This is actually the best place to work from, to live from.

I agree.
As I age, I’m kind of falling in love with the craftsman’s approach.
The work, the process, the action, the doing, the joy of discovery, the building of grit; all of this is the reward.
And to me, that is enough.

Wasting Time

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 05:45:00 +0530

This is a short, punch-to-the-gut Seth post.
So I am just stealing it wholesale, for you and me. (mostly for me :))

When you bought your first smartphone, did you know you would spend more than 1,000 hours a year looking at it?

Months later, can you remember how you spent those hours?

When you upgraded to a new smartphone, so you could spend more hours on it, did you think about how you had spent so much of your ‘free’ time the year before?

If we wasted money the way we waste time, we’d all be bankrupt.

Pair with, How to Stop Checking Your (My) Phone.

P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list!
Forward these to your friends and get them to subscribe!
P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit.

Free! Not Cheap.

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 05:45:00 +0530

I found this image on Austin Kleon’s blog a few days ago, and it set me to thinking about these newsletters of mine.

I would love to think of them, the same way.
They are free, but definitely not cheap :)
Not to toot my own horn, but for all their recent brevity, it still is a process that involves a lot of reading, and thinking and curating and writing. (and a whole lot of slogging)

So yes, in that sense, it’s an expensive labour of love.
I’d like to think of it as something more than free, definitely not cheap but a gift, my gift to you.
Like Seth writes,

A gift costs the giver something real. It might be cash (enough that we feel the pinch) but more likely it involves a sacrifice or a risk or an emotional exposure. A true gift is a heartfelt connection, something that changes both the giver and the recipient.

So true! It works because you accept my gift with grace.
Like our traditional “Namaste” or the Zulu, “Sawubona”, you truly see me.
You acknowledge me and give of your time and your attention and your insight.

And most importantly, you push me to do more.

More Seth,

The key is that the gift must be freely and gladly accepted. Sending someone a gift over the transom isn’t a gift, it’s marketing. Gifts have to be truly given, not given in anticipation of a repayment. True gifts are part of being in a community (willingly paying taxes for a school you will never again send your grown kids to) and part of being an artist (because the giving motivates you to do ever better work).

Plus, giving a gift feels good.

Yes, it does. And I’m grateful you choose to love this craft of mine.

Some Words on Reading

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 05:45:07 +0530

image courtesy, Suzy Hazelwood

Austin Kleon, quoting Octavia Butler on reading more than a book at a time.

I generally have four or five books open around the house—I live alone; I can do this—and they are not books on the same subject. They don’t relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I’ll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another.

Ryan Holiday meanwhile, extols the virtues of reading a page a day, books.

Although I certainly read on some days more than others, I work hard to make sure I read something everyday.

That means I am spending time each day with whatever book I am trying to get through, but it means I spend time, daily, with a few specific books (and authors) that I benefit from each time I pick them up. Which is why I am sending this special Reading List Email with some recommendations of books (and sites) I try to look at every single morning.

A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy believed his most essential work was not his novels but his daily read, A Calendar of Wisdom. As Tolstoy wrote in his diary, the continual study of one text, reading one page at the start of each day, was critical to personal growth. “Daily study,” Tolstoy wrote in 1884, is “necessary for all people.” So Tolstoy dreamed of creating a book comprised of “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people…Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal.” As he wrote to his assistant, “I know that it gives one great inner force, calmness, and happiness to communicate with such great thinkers as Socrates, Epictetus, Arnold, Parker… They tell us about what is most important for humanity, about the meaning of life and about virtue.” It would take seventeen years for this book to be published, then ninety-three more for the English translation, titled A Calendar of Wisdom.

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Of course, I don’t actually read my own book each morning, but I did design that book to mimic a ritual I have, which is to pick up and read one passage from the Stoics each morning. Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, I want to put something from them in my brain each morning. Unfortunately, there was no book that put them all together until we made The Daily Stoic (which has now sold 500,000 copies and is translated in more than 30 languages). We also put out an email version (and a podcast) for DailyStoic.com that has continued the same service. More than 250,000 people check in with these texts this morning because it’s important. You want to start your day off with wisdom and when it comes to wisdom, there is nobody better than the Stoics.

Amongst other things Ryan also recommends James Clear’s, 3-2-1 Thursday & Maria Popova’s, Brain Pickings.

The Fastest Way to Raise Your Level of Performance

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 05:45:00 +0530

The fastest way to raise your level of performance:

Cut your number of commitments in half.
#

— via James Clear’s latest 3–2–1 missive

Jack Butcher puts it even more eloquently …

Do!
#

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Rules for Life

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 05:45:00 +0530

Ryan Holiday writes about 11 expressions that you will help you with life.

I have always used Memento Mori and Amor Fati.
This list has several more!

Festina Lente
Carpe Diem
Fac, si facis
Quidvis recte factum quamvis humile praeclarum
Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful)
Per Angusta Ad Augusta
Amor fati
Fatum Ingenium Est
Semper Anticus
Vivere Militare Est
Memento Mori

Go on, read about what they mean and how they can change you.

Life is Short

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 05:30:00 +0530

via Vishal Khandelwal

Vishal has a lovely article, on the shortness of life, over at Safal Niveshak.
That is where I stole the beautiful picture above from. (you can click the pic for a larger version.)

“So you must match time’s swiftness with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow.”
—Seneca

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
—Mark Twain

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”
—Seneca

Want to Write? Here’s a Simple 3 Step Process

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 05:45:00 +0530

In the vein of the old zen koan about enlightenment or Seth’s drip by drip approach to affecting change in the world, James Clear offers a simple 3 step process to becoming a writer (or painter, or programmer, or guitarist, weight loss person, or gymnast.)

Publish on a schedule. Consistency develops ability.

Share your writing publicly. Writing is a magnet. It attracts like-minded people.

Write about what fascinates you. You don’t need to be an expert. Curiosity leads to expertise.

It’s simple.
It’s not easy :)
Walking the path as I have, I can attest to both, its difficulty as well as its efficacy :)

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Reread Books

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 11:26:54 +0530

In the run up to exams in a few months, my life has turned super busy again.
So once again, I turn to wiser people and the things that inspire me, to keep my writing habit going :)

Let’s start with Ryan Holiday.
In his post, Ryan Holiday Picks 20 Books to Help You Live Better in 2020, he concludes with a sage paragraph on the benefits of re reading books that matter.

When I wrapped up my list of books last year, I made one final recommendation that I will repeat this year. Whether you read any of the books above or not — this year or next year — I do think you would be vastly improved by the experience of picking three or four titles that have had a big impact on you in the past and commit to reading them again. Seneca talked about the need to “linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.”

And no matter how many times you read a certain book, you never read the exact same book twice because you change from one reading to the next. So this year, go reread To Kill A Mockingbird. Give The Odyssey another chance. Sit with a few chapters from the 48 Laws of Power. See how these books have stood the test of time, and see how your perspective differs from when you read them last.

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Books I Read in 2019.

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 11:56:29 +0530

Want to know what I was up to, with my reading last year?
The whole big list is here.
I read in November and December too, but some books you just … cannot :)

via the ever creative, Tom Gauld

If you want to see the books I read over and over again, every single year, here is my Lindy list.

I hope to learn more, enjoy more, read more this year.
I got so much more out of my books this year, by being more mindful as I read.
I enjoyed my pulp and my crass fiction too :)

I owe some of you kind folk, loads of gratitude.
I started the [feed my reading, list][4] on a lark and some of you have actually gone and bought me books :)
This probably is the kindest thing, people have done for me and I internally squeal with glee, every time a book comes home.
From Rumi, to Computer Science Problems, to Market Cycles, to communicating well using drawing … you have indulged my every whim.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I start, as I usually do with the Lindy list and then lets see what the New Year holds.
I hope something from that list catches your fancy and you do read this year.

Because like Gaiman says,

Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over. There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which they were first told.

Einstein does one better,

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

I wish you, Happy Reading! :)

Year End Reading For a Better You

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 10:49:38 +0530

As much as I love books, I also like to read blogs, and listen to podcasts.

So here is the year end, most popular, best of stuff that some of the places I frequent, have shared.
And in turn, I share it with you, to help you get a good jumpstart to the new year :)

For times, when you just want to veg out, the Ars TV Guide should have you covered, at least for January

Let’s start with Austin Kleon, in Your output depends on your input:

Problems of output are problems of input.

These amazing curated playlists are just a feedback loop. They’ll tell you what to listen to next week based on what you listened to last week. And because they’re a feedback loop, they won’t show you anything new or interesting.¹
So what you need to do, if you really want to broaden your horizons as a listener, is to get exposed to new things. Pick somebody. It doesn’t have to be me…. Find somebody who you trust as a guide, and let them open your ears to these new experiences.

If you do that, you will be rewarded infinitely …

And here is Austin’s list of books he read in 2019.
(I just started reading Range.)

To get your finances in order, it always helps to stick with the basics.
Subra has a list of sensible suggestions to get stuff, ship shape.

I love Tim Urban’s ginormously long posts, like this one on SpaceX’s Big Fucking Rocket.
But what I really love about Tim this year, is that he’s started with a ginormously long series.
It’s called The Story of Us and it’s about, well, us.
From how consciousness evolved in us humans to how our animal brain still shapes our collective actions, this series has it all!
Read it all here. Definitely worth your time.

Tim Ferriss has started a series within his podcast, called Books I’ve Loved.
Short little episodes, from people, I love reading.
Tim kicks it off himself, here.
Seth Godin and Esther Perel share an episode. (I loved Thinking in Bets, a Seth recommendation)

Leo Babauta, the man who practically gives away darn near everything he creates and helped me find calm, celebrates a decade of writing on Zen Habits.
His list of posts are at the bottom of the page.
I personally loved, Working with the Heartbreaking Feeling That Something is Wrong with You.

Derek Sivers, argues Your year changes when your life changes.

If my post summarising James Clear’s Atomic Habits didn’t do it for you, then Ryan Holiday does a much better job with How to Develop Better Habits in 2020.

Daily Stoic has their best of the best up.
I loved You Have The Power To Straighten Your Back.

The Art of Manliness has a post on the highlights that made up their year.
I’m a big fan of all their Fireside posts.

On to the man who made me fall in love with learning, Scott Young.
He too had long guides this year, alongside all his other learning endeavours.
Find them all here.

Farnam Street were their usual incredible selves this year.
I am happy I live in a time when something like this exists.
Shane’s annual letters now rival Warren Buffett’s for their clarity of thought.
The podcast is a treat, I always look forward to. I loved the Kahneman episode.
And this years posts, somehow resonated with more depth, for me.
How Not to Be Stupid is one such example.

I’ll close with two people, who I cannot pick any favourites out of.

If you can, read all of Neil Gaiman’s tumblr.
The man is kind, patient, wise, and has incredible advice.

And finally, read Maria Popova.
I credit her, (after my dad) with opening my eyes to everything in life.
Art. Beauty. Tolerance. Kindness. Poetry.
Name it, and she beautifully explains it.
She has a best of, page, but seriously, you owe it to yourself, to just subscribe to her blog.

And with that, I bid you good bye for now.
See you warm folk, next year :)

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P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit.

Yes, I get the irony of quoting this in my curated list :) ↩︎

I Wish You Warmth!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Thu, 26 Dec 2019 10:36:16 +0530

Sandra Fabiani …

Warmth is a fire place in winter.
Warmth is the love of your family and friends.
Warmth is compassion end empathy.
Warmth is a smile and kindness from strangers.
Warmth is a hug when we are feeling bad.
Warmth is kind words when you are doubting yourself.

Monica Lewinsky …

Soul connecting hugs …

Ben Stiller …

Fireplaces, hearths, wood. Everything I didn’t experience growing up […]
Also puppies and Xmas music

Caitlin Geghan …

My dad’s last letter to me—words of encouragement & love, handed to me after he passed for our first Christmas without him. (Amazing how a single paragraph of love can push you through the hardest days. I reread it whenever I need his long-armed hugs.)

Sarah Hajar …

Warmth is “Sabrina’s Scarf”

December 2014. Amman. On a bus. Ready to move on. A little girl appeared. Our guide called to us. “Anyone has extra scarf for this girl. She is from the Syrian refugee camp.” My sister Sabrina took off hers.

Melinda Beatty …

The smell of cinnamon. The color orange. Coffee. Fresh bread. Low ceilings with dark, oak beams.

Roger Burks …

For me, warmth is togetherness. Shelter in family & friends. A feeling that, no matter what else is happening or what troubles await, that particular moment is safe, sacred & shareable. It’s a sense of care that endures. […]

Tina Knuth …

As a homeless single teen mother in November of 1981, Friends shared an apartment. 5 adults and three children under age 4. We kept everyone fed (barely) and were warm for that winter. Life sucked badly, but the apartment became our stronghold for 6 months.

Kit …

I grew up poor, our parents only let us turn the heat on when family visited on holidays. When I moved out I fell in love with cast iron radiators. They make strange noises and when I use them I get the sense my grandma is about to arrive for dinner.

“What reminds you of warmth?”
#

What reminds you of warmth?

Calling on your words/thoughts for both inspiration and inclusion in a special Twitter story I'm writing for UNHCR & @TwitterForGood to support Syrian @refugees this winter.

Reply to this tweet with #KnitForRefugees.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) November 20, 2019

That was the question [Neil Gaiman][1], posed to his twitter followers, hoping to crowdsource the best thoughts into a short poem to help the [UNHCR][11] with their ***[appeal to help Syrian refugees survive the freezing winter, far from home.][12]***

Easy peasy. How hard could it be?
It was only ridiculously difficult, as it turned out.
The tweet went viral and Gaiman found himself facing twenty five thousand words worth of replies.
And from there, he wove a poem of beauty.
I quote it, in its entirety here.
via The Guardian

What You Need to be Warm by Neil Gaiman

A baked potato of a winter’s night to wrap your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother’s cunning fingers. Or your grandmother’s.
A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.

The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.
To surface from dreams in a bed, burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.

Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an inside from the outside. To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning in the stove. Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.

Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.
Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.
An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens. Come inside. You’re safe now.

A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there. They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw. While outside, for some of us, the journey began

as we walked away from our grandparents’ houses
away from the places we knew as children: changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a badly knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say
we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the coldest season.

You have the right to be here.

So, on this Christmas day, I wish you all warmth!
I wish we be kinder, and more inclusive.
I wish we be more generous.
I pray that we start with the Man in the Mirror.
I pray for more warmth :)
And if you do need reminding, just look at the replies to Neil’s question.

Merry Christmas, all you warm and gorgeous people!
And a Happy New Year!

On Writing as a Discipline, a Practice

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 05:45:00 +0530

My brain is too scattered, so here are a few scattered thoughts on writing and why I write.

On the why?
#

Writing, to me, is cathartic exercise.
It acts like a pressure release valve.
It makes me calmer.
The very act of writing clarifies my thoughts, and helps sharpen my mind.
It gives me distance from my thoughts, makes me more objective.
It helps me learn better.
As I was learning Maths last year, the teacher constantly reminded me that learning, true learing and understanding, comes from written practice. Knowledge, he’d say flows upwards, through the pen to your fingers, through your brain and into your mind.

On how often?
#

Should you write regularly?
Thrice a day? Once every day? Once a week?
That does not matter.
The point is that you do write.
Often.
And to a rhythm, you find comfortable.

We need a routine.

Tim Ferriss on getting back to basics.

but without a regular writing practice, books eventually became terrifying. It was like committing to an Ironman every few years without doing any training in between. Even if you can muscle things on game day, and even if the outcome looks great from the outside, the lead-up and the internal experience are likely to be anxiety-ridden and unpleasant.

All because I stopped blogging.

Private journaling is a step in the right direction, but it’s not a replacement. I need to face the squirmy discomfort that comes both before and after publishing. So…

I’m getting back in the writing game, and I’m going to publish something on this blog at least once per week.

[…]

I hope that some of the writing will be decent, but a lot of it will be worth taking behind the barn and shooting in the head. Some of it will be long (e.g., unpublished chapters from secret book projects), and some of it will be short (e.g., terrible haiku out of desperation). As long as I publish something — anything — once a week, it doesn’t matter.

On writer’s block
#

Thing you will get stuck? I assure you, you will. :)
I do, all the time.
This post was supposed to be an quickie.
And ~~forty five minutes~~ two hours later, I am still trying to grasp at what exactly I want to share.

The best way out, is through.
Power through the block.
The Daily Stoic, has sage, stoic advice.

What about when a writer gets stuck? What about when the words don’t seem to come? John Avlon, the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Beast described writer’s block as “getting stuck in a desert, a nightmare.” Similarly, Esquire writer Cal Fussman has said this on his ten year war with writer’s block on a particular article: “On the sunniest day of summer the fact that I couldn’t write that piece hung over me like a dark cloud.”

The first key is simple: Do not despair. As Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself as consolation: “Not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit you’ve embarked on.” Marcus talked a lot about rhythm, about how important it is to return to it, to stick with it.

Again, this is why routine matters so much.

So you build a habit and a routine to write no matter what—that’s how you overcome writer’s block. John Avlon who we mentioned earlier has said that “writing is a muscle: it gets stronger the more you use it. If you let yourself fall out of the habit, it can be hard to get back in form.” Same goes for author Jeff Goins: “What do I do when I feel blocked? I write through the block.” How would you get rid of runner’s block or talker’s block? By doing those very things.

Of course it’s not just about putting your ass in the chair. The Stoic advocate and bestselling author Tim Ferriss has talked about how his routine involves just “two crappy pages a day.” The goal is just to make progress, anything more ambitious can be intimidating or cause paralyzing anxiety. But those pages add up and eventually crappy pages can be polished and refined in editing.

Being disciplined and establishing a routine can help you beat writer’s block, but the bigger lesson is this: Creating a habit and a routine is true for just about any profession and any desire to live a better life. Routine and habit are the only way to do it. You can’t just randomly improve. You don’t do great work or make great decisions on accident—not, by definition, with regularity anyway.

Routine is everything. In writing, philosophy and in life.

Like Seth says

Streaks are their own reward.
Streaks create internal pressure that keeps streaks going.
Streaks require commitment at first, but then the commitment turns into a practice, and the practice into a habit.

Read my summary of Atomic Habits, to help you build sustainable routines.
If you need more detail, go buy the book. I promise you it’ll be the best two hundred bucks, you will ever spend.

Writing is work
#

I used to think, that I could write whatever, I wanted, quite easily.
My language is fairly good. I have a decent vocabulary.
How hard could it be?

But now, after years of writing, it still hasn’t gotten easier much.
It might be easy for other folk, but I still struggle, every time, I put pen to paper.
One thing to note though, if I keep to my rhythm, the flow stays and the words come easier.
So all I need do, is to just keep ~~swimming~~ writing.

Susan Fowler agrees. This is her, reflecting on her writing.

Becoming a Better Writer (and Writing a LOT)
This year was transformative for me as far as my writing skills are concerned. I got to the point where I can now sit down and knock out 3000-5000 good words in one sitting, even when completely exhausted at the end of a long workday. My day job as an editor made all the difference here: since I’m so used to thinking of writing and editing as work, I no longer get writer’s block and writing has lost most of its mythical quality (which is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned). In addition to finishing my memoir, I also wrote a couple of pieces for the Times, two novels (which I am currently revising), and one very joyful screenplay.

Writing Isn’t Magic; It’s Hard Work I used to struggle to get my thoughts onto the page because the first time I put them down, they were complete crap. The second time I put them down, they were also crap. And the third time. And the fourth time. And the fifth time. But each time, what I was writing got a little bit better, and eventually I realized that by approximately the fiftieth time I revised something, I’d have something really good; therefore, if I wanted to write something worth reading, all I had to do was put in the time and effort to revise it enough times. This is a general lesson that I think applies to most things: if you want to get better at something, you have to do it over and over and over again and incrementally improve with each new try; given enough time, you can take something from crap to good (and maybe even to great).

But in the end, it’s worth it.
You’ll become calmer, more objective, more kind, more thoughtful.
You’ll become as immortal as you’d ever be, with your words carrying your thoughts after you are gone. Like Sam says,

That’s what death is, isn’t it?
Forgetting. Being Forgotten.
If we forget where we’ve been, and what we’ve done, we’re not men anymore, just animals.

Writing gives me, us, our humanity!
And so, I write.

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How to Stop Checking Your (My) Phone

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 19:16:15 +0530

As I battle my physical demons, the newsletter will probably be on this slightly off cadence as I struggle mightily throughout the week, thinking about what to write, failing and then at the last minute panicking and sharing a short snippet of something I love and enjoy.

I hope you do too :)

So where was I? Oh yea, my favourite personal development, web researcher, Mr. Barker has this to share on what the issue is with our minds and how we can all gain some perspective and a bit more happiness by not checking our phones ever so often.

From How To Stop Checking Your Phone: 4 Secrets From Research,

We’re not looking at the problem correctly. For starters:

You do not have a short attention span.
We have a “mind control” problem. But it’s not other people’s ability to control your mind. It’s your own.
We spend so much time trying to get others attention yet the true determinant of our happiness is where we direct our own.
So what do we do? Throw our phones in a wood chipper?

Well, I wouldn’t :) So what do we do?
We gain Attentional Control.
By strengthening the part of our brains called the Prefrontal Cortex (hereinafter referred to as the PFC), our thinking brain against the onslaughts of our lizard brain.

Here’s his 4 step plan in a nutshell.

1. Get your sleep. Get your exercise. Be healthy.
#

No sleep. PFC weak. That simple.
Even one round of exercise will improve your PFC strength.

2. Control your context.
#

Basically, what’s around you?
How is it that the phone slips into your hand and your thumbs go scrolling without you even realising it?
For me, I am a tech news junkie.
So if I am in a queue, or on the potty, or going to bed, I read!

And to fix that, I now rely on a simple trick I learnt in Atomic Habits.
Make any behaviour you want to encourage easier to do, and any behaviour you want to discourage harder to do.
So now, the news apps are not easily accessible, twitter is no longer installed, there are no notifications, and I have to type a complicated password to unlock the phone.
I am pleased to report, that while I am not completely cured, my consumption has dropped significantly.

3. Mindfulness
#

Well, this is my good habit!
Apparently it’s a good habit everyone should have.
Because, it is a superstrengthener of your PFC!
I even wrote a whole blog post about it.
Need I say more?

Well, I think Eric’s being a little sneaky here. When I look up, I see changes to mind, body and soul.
So in an even smaller nutshell, what he actually aims at is

4. Be the change, you want to see in yourself!
#

Once again, this is an idea I read in Atomic Habits.
The best way to sustain and build a habit?
By deciding that this is what I am like.
I hate exercise and physio, but I do it.
Why? Because I am a man with a broken back, who has learnt his lesson and wants to be healthy and pain free, and who exercises in order to stay that way.
I don’t stress about smoking.
Why? Because I am not a person who wants to ruin his life by being a smoker.
Vegetarians don’t stress about eating meat.
Why? Because they just don’t eat meat.

I decide, who I want to be :)
Like the old bon mot goes, It’s simple, not easy.
And it’s worth it.

My Friend

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 10:34:29 +0530

I have to learn to make time for reading and writing, which has slowed to a crawl ever since I am slowly getting back to life.
Hence these untimely letters.

This week, I present a little story I read when I was, oh, about ten years old.
Thirty years later, it still guides my actions and affirms my faith.
It has always given me a strange kind of freedom, when it comes to my how I go about life, encouraging me to do my best, and not to worry even if I stumble.
It planted the very powerful seed, that God if (s)he exists, is more loving than just.
I just ought to be a good human.

Malik, son of Dinar, was much upset about the profligate behaviour of a youth who lived next door to him. For a long time he took no action, hoping that someone else would intervene. But when the youth’s behaviour became intolerable, Malik went to him and insisted that he change his ways.

The youth calmly replied that he was a protégé of the sultan and so nobody could prevent him from living the way he wanted.

Said Malik, “I shall personally complain to the sultan.” Said the youth, “that will be quite useless, because the sultan will never change his mind about me.”

“I shall then denounce you to Allah,” said Malik. “Allah,” said the youth, “is far too forgiving to condemn me.”

Malik went away defeated. But after a while the youth’s reputation became so bad that there was a public outcry about it. Malik decided that it was his duty to reprimand him. As he was walking to the youth’s house, however, he heard a voice say to him, “Do not touch my friend. He is under my protection.” Malik was thrown into confusion by this and, when he was in the presence of the youth, did not know what to say.

Said the young man, “What have you come for now?” Said Malik, “I came to reprimand you. But on my way here a voice told me not to touch you, for you are under his protection.”

The profligate seemed stunned. “Did he call me his friend?” he asked. But by then Malik had already left his house. Years later, Malik met this man in Mecca. He had been so touched by the words of the voice that he had given up his possessions and become a wandering beggar.

“I have come here in search of my Friend,” he said to Malik, and died.

This lovely parable is just one of many, in Anthony de Mello’s beautiful compendium of parables, The Song of the Bird.

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I Am Here, (Trying Really Hard to Show Up)

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 09:15:10 +0530

Sorry, but not sorry about the lack of the weekly email yesterday :)
The phone is dead, the computer’s crashed and the net is not working.
In short, Murphy definitely has not left the building.
But if I am to be successful at what I do, if I aim to earn your trust, I need to show up :)
To quote Seth,

Showing up on time, with a smile on your face is almost always more important than what you actually say or do.

and this

“I am here”

Showing up matters more than ever, particularly if you promised you would.

Not just showing up in person, but showing up emotionally, or with support, or with a resource that was inconvenient for you to produce.

We’re no longer judging you by what sort of widgets your factory makes. we’re judging you by what we can expect from you in the future.

Which is what today’s little mail is about.
I am just writing this, so that I can say,
I am here.
I am showing up.
And thank you all for reading my little screed.
You folks, are wonderful people :)

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Books I’ve Read, October Edition

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 05:45:00 +0530

Before we begin the festivities, here’s a small aside to the techheads who follow me and the tech muggles who care about privacy.
(Which should actually be all of us, considering the various invasions of privacy happening)
My friend and mentor, Kushal writes short newsy notes on what goes on in that world. Why privacy matters and how the powers that be are stripmining our privacy and what we can do to protect it.

Go, subscribe now!

October
#

Alright, back to the music.
As you know, I spent most of last month cooped up in bed.
What do I do if I am sick?
I read :)
So this month is a big doozy :)

Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins
(absolutely must read. Lindy read.
My second Lindy read in a month! I must be really lucky.
I’ve been fascinated by David, ever since I read Living with a Seal.
This book reveals the mental mindset behind his superhuman feats.
If you’re wondering who David is, this will help.)
The 33 Marks of Maturity, Brett & Kate McKay
(absolutely must read. Lindy read.
this book is short and packed with wisdom, about what it takes to be, well, mature.
in the real adult mature sense.
it reads like your dad or your older brother talking you through life’s truths)
Our Magnificient Bastard Tongue, John McWhorter
(must read. this was one of the best and funniest pieces of non fiction I have read in a while.
if you are curious about why English is the way it is, this book provides a few answers.
here’s a quote, “German, Dutch, Swedish, and the gang are, by and large, variations on what happened to Proto-Germanic as it morphed along over three thousand years. They are ordinary rolls of the dice. English, however, is kinky. It has a predilection for dressing up like Welsh on lonely nights.”
McWhorter is funny, and insightful)
The Perpetual Beginner, Dave Isaacs
(Music maestro Dave, has a lot of advice for folk like me;
the beginners who cannot seem to get over the beginning hump, the ones who do not yearn for mastery, just the ability to be fluent enough to translate what they hear in their head into notes on the guitar.
worth a read.)
The Revelation Space Omnibus, Alastair Reynolds
(fun read. this kept me good company as I lie in bed sick.
it’s an awesome world to lose yourself in, taking you as it does across thousands of years of space and time.)
- Chasm City
- Redemption Ark
- Absolution Gap
- Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
- The Prefect
Retire Inspired, Chris Hogan
(good read. another Dave Ramsey title.
I reread this just to keep myself on track.
i may not have money now, but i know what to do once I reinvent myself)
The Greatest Trade Ever, Gregory Zuckerman
(the story of how John Paulson, saw the subprime bubble and made a killing.
If you liked The Big Short, you’ll like this.
Not Michael Lewis level writing though)
The Odessa File, Frederick Forsyth
(there’ll probably be a whole lot of Forsyth after this one.
all of them, must reads.
Forsyth is the master of his genre. fuck that. he practically owns the genre.
Nazi war criminals have been hounded because of his fiction!
and like Caro, he is the master of his craft.
you know how he develops his characters, you kinda know how it all works, but every new novel is still fun.
and for me, I am on my umpteenth reread of his work.
and I enjoy myself even now after all these years.)
The Deceiver, Frederick Forsyth
Avenger, Frederick Forsyth
The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
(my first Forsyth novel)
The Fox, Frederick Forsyth
The Kill List, Frederick Forsyth
The Fist of God, Frederick Forsyth
The Afghan, Frederick Forsyth
The Cobra, Frederick Forsyth
Icon, Frederick Forsyth
The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth
The Biafra Story, Frederick Forsyth
(Forsyth at his journalistic best.
a beautiful, haunting, empathic recounting of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war from the Biafran point of view.)
The Outsider, Frederick Forsyth
(lots of life stories compiled.
not quite an autobiography.
more like a drunk uncle telling awesome stories of his life.
(all of which happen to be true, however fantastic they sound.))
The Proximity Principle, Ken Coleman
(another book from the Dave Ramsey stable.
more common sense advice.
this time for your career.
worth a read)
Forever and Ever, Amen, Randy Travis
(it’s always sad, when you discover as you grow older, that your heroes are only human and your idols have feet of clay.
I’ve listened to every Randy Travis album ever since my cousin brother gifted me Storms of Life all those years back.
And it seems strange that for all I learnt about life from those songs, the baritone who sang them, did not.
I learnt from those songs and became a man. Randy stayed a man child.
It’s a raw book. Randy lays his life bare.
It’s funny, poignant, cautionary and uplifting.
And there’s the names and people parading through his life.
I did not know the Terminator gave Randy fitness tips.
Or that Dirty Dancing Swayze sang backup vocals for him.
definitely worth a read if you are a country music fan.
It’s a portrait of a flawed life yes, but also a life filled with lots of love and friendship and music and devotion and faith.)
The Body, A Guide for Occupants, Bill Bryson
(Bill is a guide. The best kind there is.
He tells it like it is. and tells it pithily and funnily.
Be it the evolution of English, how our homes came to be, or just a history of everything, Bill has done it all.
This time he tackles a new frontier. The human body.
From head to tail, err … toe, Bryson explores every part of the human body.
And as usual it is exceedingly awesome.
Sample this, “Although Funk coined the term “vitamines,” and is thus often given credit for their discovery, most of the real work of determining the chemical nature of vitamins was done by others, in particular Sir Frederick Hopkins, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in 1929—a fact that left Funk permanently in one.”
You will learn lots and laugh lots.
Go read.)
Morgan’s Run, Colleen McCullough
(I don’t know why, but this is the one of the few pieces of modern fiction, I re–read a lot.
Probably because Richard Morgan, the protaganist is a stoic hero.
And I love the Stoics.
It’s all about how Australia and Norfolk Island (the focus of the story) got settled, by the riff raff England did not want.
About how they struggled.
About how they made the most of the very meagre natural resources at the time.
I kept hoping against hope that she’d write a sequel, because I so wanted to know more about this part of history.
It’s a lovely read. A lose yourself in history book)

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Inessential Turns 20!

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sat, 09 Nov 2019 09:26:54 +0530

From the celebratory post,

Old proverb: “The best time to start a blog was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.” :)

This is what I want for my blogs to become too.
Not popular, but to have a long active life, full of stuff that inspires me and helps others.

Books I’ve Read, September Edition

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 05:45:00 +0530

Hello, folks!
Let’s get this show back on the road, shall we?
Before we resume, I just want to thank you for all your notes of encouragement and good wishes.
I still am not out of the woods, yet, but healthy enough to resume writing these littles notes :)

September
#

Everyday Millionaires, Chris Hogan
(must read. but only for folks like me who are a little slow with money. it’s a typical Dave Ramsey book. short. to the point. all meat, no bones. lots of stories.
the book itself is an exploration of their study of 10,000 millionaires in the USA. no, she does not own a fancy penthouse. she is more likely to be a high school teacher in her early to mid fifties.)
The Veteran, Frederick Forsyth
(must read. found my old copy and reread it.
this is a collection of 5 novellas of varying lengths, each with a twist you don’t see coming.
The Veteran is classic Forsyth.
My favourite, Whispering Wind, is Forsyth trying to do a L’Amour and coming within striking distance. Old western, time travel and reincarnation; this one has it all)
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths of Language Usage, John McWhorter
The Revelation Space Omnibus, Alastair Reynolds
- Galactic North
- Revelation Space

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Gaiman on Writing

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 05:45:00 +0530

The truth is, I think, […] for me inspiration comes from a bunch of places.

(Counting on his fingers …) Desperation, deadlines …

A lot of times, ideas will turn up while you are doing something else.

And most of all, I think, ideas come from confluence.

They come from two things flowing together, they come, essentially from day-dreaming. It’s … it’s something I suspect that’s something that every human being does.

Writers tend to train themselves to notice when they’ve had ideas. Not that they get anymore ideas or get inspired more than anyone else. We just notice. We notice when it happens, a little bit more.

You go,well, you know, everybody knows that if you get bitten by a werewolf, when the moon is full, you will turn into a wolf. You know that.

And then there’s that moment when you’re sitting thinking, so what happens if a werewolf bites a goldfish?

Or what if the werewolf sinks its fangs into a chair? And what if you’re sitting in that chair and the moonlight touches it? Slowly it starts feeling more and more wolfish and it growls and what about the … you know? And oh my god! Then you’d have to set it in the winter, cuz you’d need the snow for people to try and figure out why you’ve got chair leg marks in the snow. By the body. That has its throat ripped out.

And suddenly, you have a story!

The whole video is funny, yet so full of wisdom.

The old url was: https://youtu.be/xPN7vDu9Rsk (doesn’t work any more)

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Books I’ve Read, August Edition

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 05:45:20 +0530

August

Ultralearning, Scott H Young
(must read.
if you are looking to tackle something foundationally important, this book gives you one solid approach.
it’s mostly common sense.
but common sense that is laid out in a really logical manner.
i learnt to plan my project, that hard learning is normal, that failure is normal, and that persistence is a prerequisite.
all critical things, since learning no longer “comes naturally” to me.)
Memories, Lang Leav
(must read)
The Universe of Us, Lang Leav
(must read. Leav writes beautifully haunting poetry)
Dissent on Aadhaar, compilation, Reetika Khera (editor)
(must read. this insightful, erudite read, tackles the various issues of Aadhaar on multiple levels, with multiple experts from various fields, voicing their concern.
if you want to know, why Big Brother is Bad Business, why Aadhaar is a bad idea and what its fallout c(w)ould be, this is the book to read)
Learning Python, Mark Lutz
(this was a text book I needed to read to learn programming. loved it.)

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Write More

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Sat, 24 Aug 2019 10:16:08 +0530

via Neil Gaiman

chaot1k-daydreams asked: Hey, Mr. Gaiman, sorry to bother you. I just had a couple questions? I’m trying to become a better writer and write more, but I feel like I’m falling out of my own style when I write. I either write too much or too little, over-embellish or make it feel bland, and I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong by I feel like it’s both wrong and not what I want to write. I was hoping you might have some advice?

Write more.
It sounds a bit silly but that’s how you eventually find out what you sound like.

Books I’ve Read, July Edition

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 05:45:09 +0530

Lots of fantasy, a lovely book of poetry, a beautifully written nonfiction book.
All this, on July’s list of books :)

July

Love Looks Pretty on You, Lang Leav
(must read. in my imagination, leav is a talented younger sister, who has been through a lot more and writes her advice just for me, in her poems)
Working, Robert Caro
(if you haven’t read the Power Broker, you should
if you haven’t read the Lyndon volumes, you should
this book is Caro’s account of the work, that went into those works.
the ceaseless toil, the thankless years, the people and their stories
Caro is Caro, master of the craft.
There are only a few explicit lessons here.
but plenty if you care enough to read between the lines
plenty if you make this an annual read, like i will)
The Broken Earth Trilogy, N. K. Jemisin
(if you love fantasy, this is an absolute read.
world building at its finest.
The journey she takes me on! The magic she creates! The world she imagines!
It’s such a harsh world, but gosh darn it, I want to live there.
Jemisin’s awesome.)
- The Fifth Season
- The Obelisk Gate
- The Stone Sky
The Inheritance Trilogy, N. K. Jemisin
(This was Jemisin’s older trilogy and it shows.
The language is rougher and the characters drag on a bit
Minor quibbles though. It was a really good read)
- The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
- The Broken Kingdoms
- The Kingdom of Gods

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Epictetus on Books

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 10:34:18 +0530

“Don’t just say you have read books.
Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person.
Books are the training weights of the mind.
They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”

— Epictetus, The Art of Living

How Do You Keep Keep Going?

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 08:00:00 +0530

Or how do you actually go do anything else you committed to do for yourself?
I always got confused on what to do when the going got tough and life happened and my goals then got waylaid.
Other than feeling lost and giving up on projects and promising to do better tomorrow, or next time?
(which took a looooooong time to come)
What could I do?

James Clear offers a lovely heuristic, that I have been applying to my writing since the year began.
(along with Seth’s advice to queue things up)

3. Reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule.

I’ve written previously about the importance of holding yourself to a schedule and not a deadline.
There might be occasions when deadlines make sense, but I’m convinced that when it comes to doing important work over the long–term, following a schedule is much more effective.

When it comes to the day-to-day grind, however, following a schedule is easier said than done.
Ask anyone who plans to workout every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and they can tell you how hard it is to actually stick to their schedule every time without fail.

To counteract the unplanned distractions that occur and overcome the tendency to be pulled off track, I’ve made a small shift in how I approach my schedule.

My goal is to put the schedule first and not the scope, which is the opposite of how we usually approach our goals.

For example, let’s say you woke up today with the intention of running 3 miles this afternoon.
During the day, your schedule got crazy and time started to get away from you.
Now you only have 20 minutes to workout.

At this point, you have two options.

The first is to say, “I don’t have enough time to workout today,” and spend the little time you have left working on something else.
This is what I would usually have done in the past.

The second option is to reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. Instead of running 3 miles, you run 1 mile or do five sprints or 30 jumping jacks.
But you stick to the schedule and get a workout in no matter what.
I have found far more long-term success using the this approach than the first.

On a daily basis, the impact of doing five sprints isn’t that significant, especially when you had planned to run 3 miles.
But the cumulative impact of always staying on schedule is huge. No matter what the circumstance and no matter how small the workout, you know you’re going to finish today’s task.
That’s how little goals become lifetime habits.

Finish something today, even if the scope is smaller than you anticipated.

If you like this tip the whole post is even more awesome.
Go find out Time Management Tips That Actually Work on his blog.

P.S. You should subscribe to the mailing list, you know. :)
P.P.S I haven’t missed a single week since I started doing this!

Books I’ve Read, June Edition

feedback@janusworx.com (Mario Jason Braganza) — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 05:45:00 +0530

It was my better half’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Abby!

’Twas a good month for reading :)

June

The Song of the Bird, Anthony de Mello
(absolutely read. buy and give people copies.
this book for me, goes beyond a quake book.
it has shaped my life, and thoughts, since boyhood, subconsciously then and with intent now.)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot #1), Agatha Christie
(re-reading my way through the Poirot canon.
these books take me to the age I think I belong to, the late 1800s, early 1900s absolutely delightful)
Epigrams on Men, Women and Love, Honoré de Balzac
(beautiful set of quotes)
Mother American Night, John Perry Barlow
(a man who lived life. founder of the EFF and the FSF.
and more importantly (to me), lyricist for the Grateful Dead)
Word by Word, Anne Lamott
(must listen (it’s an old audiobook.)
excellent companion to Bird by Bird.
imagine Anne teaching you how to write using BbB as a text book.
she’s awesome.
the book’s awesome.)
Indian Love Poems, Peter Pauper Press
(absolutely loved it)
Love Poems and Love Letters for All the Year, Peter Pauper Press
Flower Thoughts, Peter Pauper Press
Thoughts for a Good Life, Peter Pauper Press
Epigrams by Oscar Wilde, Peter Pauper Press
Murder on the Links (Poirot #2), Agatha Christie
(need i say, you ought to read it :))

Writing on Janusworx

Blog Questions Challenge 2025

1. Why did you make the blog in the first place? #

2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? #

3. Have you blogged on other platforms before? #

4. How do you write your posts? #

5. When do you feel most inspired to write? #

6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft? #

7. Your favorite post on your blog? #

8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.? #

Several Corroborative Thoughts on Pacing Yourself

Note to Self, My New Heuristic for Blogging

Why I Write

There’s No Dearth of Things to Write About

Note to Self: Less Research, Less Rabbit Holes

100 Word Writing Habit

Mandy Brown Celebrates Fifteen Years of Her Blog

I Should Write Down and Summarize What I Did

Noah’s in Emacs!

Thank God for Noah

Setting Canonical URLs in Hugo

What Is a Real Book

Writing as Gardening

Begin Again

On Woman Computers, Long Tails & Reasons to Write

On Reading News, Remembering, and Why We Write

“[W]e’re surrounded by so much information that is of immediate interest to us, that we feel overwhelmed by the never-ending pressure of trying to keep up with it all.” #

— Nicolas Carr #

The Science of Interstellar

Draft No. 4

Thoughts on Setting Up a Blog

What to Read, How to Read. Recommendations from Folks, I Admire and Follow (2021 Edition)

Taking Notes, An Example

No letters for a while, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ryan Holiday’s Question to Change Your Reading Life

Doing the Verb, is Enough

Wasting Time

Free! Not Cheap.

Some Words on Reading

The Fastest Way to Raise Your Level of Performance

Cut your number of commitments in half. #

Do! #

Rules for Life

Life is Short

Want to Write? Here’s a Simple 3 Step Process

Reread Books

Books I Read in 2019.

Year End Reading For a Better You

I Wish You Warmth!

On Writing as a Discipline, a Practice

On the why? #

On how often? #

On writer’s block #

Writing is work #

How to Stop Checking Your (My) Phone

1. Get your sleep. Get your exercise. Be healthy. #

2. Control your context. #

3. Mindfulness #

4. Be the change, you want to see in yourself! #

My Friend

I Am Here, (Trying Really Hard to Show Up)

Books I’ve Read, October Edition

October #

Inessential Turns 20!

Books I’ve Read, September Edition

September #

Gaiman on Writing

Books I’ve Read, August Edition

Write More

Books I’ve Read, July Edition

Epictetus on Books

How Do You Keep Keep Going?

Books I’ve Read, June Edition

1. Why did you make the blog in the first place?
#

2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
#

3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
#

4. How do you write your posts?
#

5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
#

6. Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
#

7. Your favorite post on your blog?
#

8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc.?
#

“[W]e’re surrounded by so much information that is of immediate interest to us, that we feel overwhelmed by the never-ending pressure of trying to keep up with it all.”
#

— Nicolas Carr
#

Cut your number of commitments in half.
#

Do!
#

On the why?
#

On how often?
#

On writer’s block
#

Writing is work
#

1. Get your sleep. Get your exercise. Be healthy.
#

2. Control your context.
#

3. Mindfulness
#

4. Be the change, you want to see in yourself!
#

October
#

September
#