The Curious Corner / Issue #7

My hometown of Nagpur has received its highest amount of rainfall in the last 10 years. I should be happy. But there are some signs of changes in weather patterns everyhere to be seen. I hope we can still turn around things.?

But I am not an expert.?

So what I am going to do is share (with this delay), the things that really got me interested in the week that went by -?

If you are a user of any social media platform, you most definitely have felt this big-brother feeling of the platform influencing you more than you’d know and like. It’s good to know that this feeling is widespread. What we could all do with is a better understanding of the algorithms powering these platforms and managing your experience. I latched on to the term ‘algorithmic anxiety’ from?this insightful read around the big web platforms and their algorithms.?

It can feel as though every app is trying to guess what you want before your brain has time to come up with its own answer, like an obnoxious party guest who finishes your sentences as you speak them. We are constantly negotiating with the pesky figure of the algorithm, unsure how we would have behaved if we’d been left to our own devices.

One of my warmest memories with my friends have been dinner parties. Cooking together, sitting down to eat together, the endless conversations that felt like hugs and the warmth of those evenings - what a perfect recipe for warmth. I have not hosted a dinner party in ages but this comforting read about how dinner parties are no longer about showing off but about the deep value they bring in being connected?to each other really made me want to call up my friends immediately! I really wish someone writes an Indian version of this article because I have seen the stark difference between what hospitality means for my parents’ generation and mine. It would make for a lovely read. Bon appetit as you dig into this article.

The psychological benefits of a modern dinner party are real, says Jerome Burt, a clinical psychologist who has spoken widely about how they can save your life. Anticipation, laughter, physical affection like a hug, and resting turn on a variety of systems in the body that contribute to well-being. A dinner party “can activate the ‘will to live’ and ‘I love living’ circuitries like nothing else,” he says.

I have immense love for reading. Reading has given me so much that it is now difficult for me to imagine a version of myself who would not read. And reading has given me so many thought and perspectives that sometimes I have a mini-episode of panic where I feel all my thoughts (ALL of them) are actually sentences from books. But then, that’s not a bad thing. At all. If you love books, you will love?this love-letter of a piece on books, libraries and the whole reading experience. About what it does to our mind and psyche.?

A book is a gift. A commodity has value, and a gift does not. A gift has worth.?Value is the comparison of one thing with another. Worth is something that we prize but we cannot put a price on.

The most important things in the world seem to be impossible to measure whether it be meaning, knowledge, curiosity, beauty, kindness, justice, wisdom, and love. And books.

Observe yourself the next time you have to choose between two really good options and make a decision. As I noticed after reading?this accurate piece on the costs of analysis paralysis?- we spend too much time choosing between two outcomes that have roughly the same value or the same reward. Irrational time allocation indeed!?

This idea is satirized in the philosophical paradox of Buridan's ass, where a donkey that is equally hungry and thirsty is placed exactly halfway between a stack of hay and a bucket of water. Unable to choose between them, it dies.

Can’t not have a marketing example I loved from the last few days. Big congratulations to the England Football team for their Euro 2022 victory - making this their first major women’s tournament win. What a wonderful achievement! I loved what Nike did to celebrate this victory.?

Simple. Understated. Powerful.

Over the last week, I enjoyed reading?The Art Of Fairness : The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean?by David Bodnais. A wonderful collection of stories and anecdotes about some great people who put fairness and decency at the centre of their being and never let anything shake that. If you believe nice guys do win, you should read this book.?

A mix of some lovely quotes to end this issue -?

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.

Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? “People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. “‘And satisfaction brought it back.”?

―?Tamora Pierce

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”?

―?Gustave Flaubert

One of the primary ways we connect with each other is by eating together. Some of the connection happens simply by being in the same place at the same time and sharing the same food, but we also connect through specific actions, such as serving food to one another or making toasts: ‘May I offer you some potatoes?’ ‘Here’s to your health and happiness.’ Much of our fundamental well-being comes from the basic reassurance that there is a place for us at the table. We belong here. Here we are served and we serve others. Here we give and receive sustenance.

—?edward espe brown

“Be softer with you. You are a breathing thing. A memory to someone. A home to a life.”

—?Nayyirah Waheed

Till next week! Stay curious