Read on Twitter
Reading about Coronavirus all the time is getting me down, so I'm going to try an experiment. Every day, for the next 15 days, I'll post an interesting non coronavirus read. These aren't necessarily recent: I've collected these over the years.
Day 1: "Buddhist Economics: How to start prioritizing people over products and creativity over consumption." via @brainpicker https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/07/07/buddhist-economics-schumacher/
Day 2: I love this piece on how the escalator transformed spaces, public and private. What will bring about such changes in the future? Self-driving cars? Good, wide-reaching mass transit? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-escalator-forever-changed-our-sense-space-180972468/
Day 3: In this time of travel restrictions and social distancing, it's worth remembering why we travel. One of my favorite authors @PicoIyer on travel: "We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves." https://www.salon.com/test/2000/03/18/why/
Day 4: Another one on going places (this time: Tokyo). A lovely meditation on rushing, waiting and the weird signaling involved with long lines. https://www.afar.com/magazine/tokyos-long-lines-lead-to-magic-and-life-changing-ramen
Day 5: A great piece by @udupendra on a noteworthy aspect of one of my favorite cities: Bangalore. I speak 4 1/4 languages. However, I too am guilty of learning hardly any Telugu after moving to Hyderabad. http://brownpaperbag.in/bangalore/intel/with-tongue-a-polyglot-is-the-most-bangalore-thing-ever/
Day 6: Re-reading "The Great Gatsby" with a grown-up lens. I see Gatsby as a quintessentially American creation, but this grown-up re-reading puts a fatalistic twist to it that makes you see the book and Jay Gatsby in an entirely different light. Read: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/books/review/jesmyn-ward-great-gatsby.html
Day 7: We live in an age where just achieving isn't enough. Running isn't enough: running an ultra-marathon is where it's at. Hiking isn't enough: summit Mount Everest, or bust. What if there is a different way? https://hbr.org/2018/06/in-praise-of-extreme-moderation
Day 8: Since eating out is now verboten, some history on the food that most of us only eat in restaurants. Vice did a wonderful piece on the origins of Indian-Chinese cuisine: https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/mgykeb/inside-the-birthplace-of-indian-chinese-cuisine
