“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’” the writer David Foster Wallace told a class of graduating college
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“Once it happened: a young boy and girl in a local college fell in love. They had really become very passionate and intense. Then, of course, coming from traditional families, the parents came in the way because of caste distinctions. They said, ‘No way. Over our dead bodies.’ Usually, this is a common proclamation the parents make. It is just a threat; they will not die. If the families do not oppose, most love affairs will fall apart. But the moment they resist it, it becomes like a cause. It is like they are fighting an injustice and people will rally behind them. So it went on and a big social scandal happened. When this happened, the lovers thought all this trouble is because of themselves, so they decided that they will end their lives. So they went up the Velliangiri Mountains. On top of these mountains, there is a place where you can leave your body. From there, you have a clear 700–800-feet drop which will give you a free fall without touching anything before you are splattered on the rocks. Some people have discarded their bodies consciously,18 others fall and do it. So the boy and girl reached the top and stood there, hand in hand. They were just about to jump, when the girl said, ‘Raju, I am so scared. You jump first.’ (Somehow the name of the idiot in all the romantic movies is always Raju!) The boy was in full form, so he said, ‘Come, hold my hand and jump.’ She said, ‘No, you do it first, then I will come. I will be right behind you.’ The boy had seen too many Hindi movies, and he jumped. The girl stood at the edge of the cliff and screamed, ‘Oh, Raju, I love you.’ Then she started thinking very pragmatically. ‘Now, Raju is gone. My love is gone. All of the problem is gone. When the problem itself is over, why waste one more life.’ So she walked down, and because she could not go back home, she came and settled down at the Isha Yoga Center.”
― Death; An Inside Story: A book for all those who shall die
― Death; An Inside Story: A book for all those who shall die
“every man lives the present time only, and loses only this.”
― Meditations
― Meditations
“A powerful intervention is to take 400 to 1,000 mcg of chromium picolinate daily with 25 to 100 mg of vanadyl sulfate, ideally at the same time you eat carbohydrates.”
― Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever
― Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever
“The Seeker—in real life, as well as in Rowling’s Potter series and its Quidditch game—is he or she who takes that sense of significance more seriously than anything else. The Seeker is therefore the person who is playing the game that everyone else is playing (and who is disciplined and expert at the game), but who is also playing an additional, higher-order game: the pursuit of what is of primary significance”
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
― Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life
“I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.”
― How to Get Rich
― How to Get Rich
Mayank’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mayank’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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