I’ve got 15ish years with various incarnations. My first was a LiveJournal created in the dying light of the 90’s. It birthed a few friendships/pen-pals and lasted a few years before I nuked it. I don’t remember what I posted, but I’m confident it was…

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Jul 19, 2014

creativity, inc

Great passage from our latest company book club selection, Creativity, Inc:

Hindsight is not 20–20. Not even close. Our view of the past, in fact, is hardly clearer than our view of the future. While we know more about a past event than a future one, our understanding of the…

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Jan 11, 2014

stimulus withdrawal.

A few days ago I decided that I’d start 2014 with a pretty simple change: To seek less stimulus. I wrote a blog post and a status update sharing my impending Facebook absence. I sent an email at work to no longer expect immediate email responses. The changes ended up being:

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Jan 2, 2014

The past is just a story we tell ourselves.

Prodded by the overwhelmingly good reviews, I saw Her last night. The most positive reviews called it was the best movie of 2013. The concept of a human falling in love with a smarter version of Siri sounded kind of ridiculous. But since writer-director…

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Dec 31, 2013

facebreak?

I gave up Facebook for the first few months of 2012. Cold-turkey stopped reading my feed + posting. In the lead-up to my summer of traveling, I got back on the Facebook-train and probably posted too frequently. Since then I’ve settled into a steady routine of trying my best to “like” pictures of friends’…

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Nov 15, 2013

RIP Alex Calderwood

About 18 months ago I was in the “green room” for the Charlie Rose show. I was in NYC working on a friend’s book launch. While he was out there taping with Charlie, I was backstage with the famous folks who were about to be interviewed, including James Fallows.

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Sep 11, 2013

september 11th

Today is a day of grace.

It’s my opportunity to give thanks for the life I’ve been given, the love I receive, the beauty I see everyday, the suffering I’ve endured & survived, and the bounty of waking up each morning to a day of wondrous possibilities.

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Sep 9, 2013

never waste your suffering.

“Never waste your suffering. … Suffering just happens, constantly and randomly, and if you don’t make anything out of it, then it happened to you for no reason. But suffering can also be the greatest possible invitation to transform — but only if you accept that invitation, and…

surya yalamanchili in suryasays

Jun 26, 2012

our anchors.

Traveling was a great chance for me to get lost in thought. A lot of the threads in my head were long-simmering ideas that I now could pull on further.

I traveled alone for most of my trips. In practice, this meant that I was constantly surrounded by new single-serving friends in…