#5 Issue
Mélange means a varied mixture in French.
I am sorry for the late letter. But the last month and a half have been a whirlwind personally. There were unexpected personal emergencies in addition to serious introspection.
I was meaning to fly to the Republic of Cyprus at the end of March to volunteer if not for COVID-19. Additionally, I think work from home is not as easy as I thought it would be. There are some days when I accomplish a lot and some days nothing seems to get done. Isolation has not been as kind as I expected but hopefully, things will turn for better soon. I will try to make up for the lost time.
Also, I need your help. Firstly, my mailers somehow are ending up in Spam. My hunch is that it might be because of the fact that I use MailChimp. The format of the letter with photos and an unsubscribe button is due to the use of the said service. Does anyone know a workaround or perhaps a way via Outlook? Or should I shift to more benign-looking format without photos? Please help with your suggestions.
I would like to introduce… optimisation meet love, love meet optimisation. This is a follow-up on the question on the article relating to monogamy. We have been trying to enhance our personal lives by optimising sleep cycle, dieting and exercises so why not love?
The author points out, “People who use spreadsheets, charts and planners to manage their love lives are different from the majority only in their conscious embrace of a fundamental truth — that relationships are transactions, and the work involved in creating and maintaining them is a form of labour.” I am not sure if I disagree.
A lot of my friends would fervently argue that you cannot quantify love into a spreadsheet. Though they will choose to prevaricate about their own definition of love. On the other hand, quantifying love seems incomplete and arbitrary. The last letter, I argued that not always we exhume rationality and are often run by contradictory emotions and frequent mood swings.
This is a great read for understanding some mental models when we approach love.
A friend is everyone except the designated enemies. I concur with the author that my acquaintances and possible love interests are both some kinds of friends. I am flummoxed even by my existing friendships as they are evolving like a living organism. People are constantly moving in and out of that circle.
That makes me wonder do I have any control whatsoever?
Though I think friendship does represent a rare kind of freedom, an “exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility” — Lewis.
Mental-wellbeing has never been more necessary especially in the time of social distancing and isolation. The author attempts to shed some light on psychological well-being of the animals. Her cat seems to have become depressed and she attempts to understand it.
Though I have no predilection for cats but like dogs, they do express a variety of emotions. Similarly, chickens and goats are no different. The author points out that some of the animals display fear at the meat house. Some of them are given a form of Xanax before they are butchered which makes the meat more tender. But the question is, does fear equate with anxiety?
I have revisited a few video games such as ‘Age of Empires’ and ‘Company of Heroes’ past this month. The idea in both is to skillfully devise a strategy to defeat enemy units with limited resources and sometimes limited time. The game offers a far more consequential role to innocuous isolation. I think we choose to reveal a lot about ourselves with the choices and the roles we play in those games. The author shines some light on that behaviour.”
I received a book this Christmas as a gift named, ‘Why We Sleep’. Though I never came around finishing my present but this twenty-minute video shares a summarised insight. It is really helpful if you skimp on sleep often or work an unusual schedule. Did you know that when daylight savings shave off an hour every year it causes(probably) a spike in reported heart-attacks?
A palette cleanser:
“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.” — Markus Herz
