Category: Personal Blog

Blog posts related to my journey.

  • Why Philosophers Philosophize

    Dear Reader, It’s late morning and I am sitting at my desk. I’ve had to turn on the light because it’s cloudy today and my room doesn’t get much light because the only window in my room faces North. No sunlight ever enters my room from this window. If I leave the door open, I…

  • The Death of Four Young Trees

    Dear Reader, My father cut down four trees today. He had planted these trees, 10 to 11 years ago and three of the four were mature fruit-bearing trees. One was a pomegranate tree and it hadn’t grown too big because when my father was planting trees, he did not leave enough room for them and…

  • Republic Day Nostalgia

    Dear Reader, Today is India’s Republic Day and also a Sunday. When we were kids, we always hated when a national holiday fell on a Sunday. We felt like we were being robbed of a holiday. But that doesn’t bother me anymore, especially as I’ve not grown into the normal adult world of weekdays and…

  • Moving with Purpose

    Dear Reader, I’m back in Himachal and experiencing real cold again. My trip to Ahmedabad ended with a short but fun holiday in Udaipur. After more than a month of dawdling about in Ahmedabad, it felt exciting to move with purpose, from the time we left for Udaipur to the time we got back and…

  • A Day Out in Ahmedabad

    Dear Reader, Yesterday I went out to spend some time on my own. It is important to me, especially as an INTJ, even though the MBTI is not much more scientific than astrology, that I spend some time alone. Even as a Pisces, alone time is crucial for me. And when the house is filled…

  • Self-Meta-Critical Letter/Journal Entry

    Dear Reader, How are you? How’s life? Can you really answer these questions? You can reply to this email and the replies will automatically get posted as comments under the blogpost for this letter. And if you do that, I will definitely read them and reply and perhaps even continue the conversation. But the more…

  • A New Year of Philosophy

    Dear Reader, The year is almost over. In a couple of days, we’ll be celebrating the beginning of a new year. I’ve never been one to celebrate New Year’s Eve because to me it feels too arbitrary. I think one’s birthday is a more accurate and personalized new year for a person because they’ve gone…

  • The Tragedy of the Human Condition

    Dear Reader, I’ve been thinking about happiness. I believe that most people in the world are driven by happiness. Underneath it all, we all just want to be happy; even the psychopaths and the evil warlords. The problem, of course, is that we disagree on how we can achieve happiness. If only we could convince…

  • A Recovering Anhedonic

    This is a tricky question for me because for years I was depressed and couldn’t feel happy at all. I was definitely experiencing anhedonia. I could only get excited about the prospect of doing something, like eating something delicious, but when I actually did that thing, I found it hard to feel anything at all.…

  • Good Manners and Propriety

    Dear Reader, When I was a child and we were learning about letter writing in school, they told us to begin each informal letter with some kind of sentence that informs the recipient of how you are and asks them about how they’re doing. One example I’ve never forgotten was, “I’m doing fine, and hope…