Mukesh > Recent Status Updates

"For me love was just meant to happen once and it was forever.
How do I fill the same heart with love for someone else? Not that I never thought that
way, but whenever I thought of it, I couldn’t give myself an honest answer. And in the
absence of any legitimate answer, I would tell myself to simply leave it all up to destiny"

"The point is that romanticism has no value in creating a lasting marriage. George Bernard Shaw says that marriage is like tying to people in a ship together. It doesn't matter who you are tied up to, you will make the person a lifelong partner. Comradeship makes marriages last, not romanticism.
War veterans despise the war they are stuck in. But if asked to leave the battlefield, they will not because of comrades."

The divine interventions in Book 2—Zeus's dream, Iris's message—emphasize the gods' active role in the war. The gods are not passive observers but are actively shaping the course of events. The plan of Zeus, mentioned in the opening lines of the epic, continues to unfold.

The 2nd book establishes the scale of the conflict and the importance of the war for the Greek and Trojan peoples....

I wanted to hate this but somehow I'm kinda enjoying to see the opinions of "PUA", this has some solid advice, and it's definitely not directed towards toxic masculinity or red pill ideology

The divine walls of Troy held firm, and the Trojans kept the enemy out of their city for ten years. Many of the greatest Greek warriors were killed, including Achilles, shot by Paris with an arrow through his heel (which was, according to legend, the only area where he could be hurt). Odysseus and Diomedes crept into the city and stole the statue of Athena from the citadel...

I'm currently in a short hiatus in book reading because there are so many things going on in my real life.
Apparently, I have one call everyday in the morning to read the newspaper's editorial ands then I just start solving my exam related materials (which also has very significant reading comprehension).

I've also completed a lot of books this year, maybe 40s or something in 6 months, and I feel that I need break

Would anyone like to buddy read with me? The book is Brothers Karamzov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, it's a long one but I'm very much interested in it right now because of the premise itself (like there are two characters, one is sorta rationalist, and the other is religious.. now it's not a spoiler) If interested, then please comment!! Thanks for reading <3!!

It's time to read something long and interesting.
"The physical death of his mother in 1679 may have had fewer psychic consequences than the original lapse in the mystical union of mother and
child. Her death may even have been in some form a release for Newton, for it was in the early 1680's that, with Halley's aid, the Principia was put into final shape during a period of prodigious creativity."

Somehow I found a person through social media who was interested in me and at the same time.. interested in the same subjects I love the most.
Between the normal talks we selected some topics of my interests today and now I'll have to explain her nicely, and she asks so many questions which is very interesting.

Curiosity is rare, and who wouldn't love to talk to someone, she's like the female socrates I know.

The friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, which has been the emotional heart of the epic, ends in death, but its legacy continues in Gilgamesh's wanderings and his eventual acceptance of mortality. The funeral rituals in Tablet VIII represent the honoring of Enkidu's memory, while the wanderings in Tablets IX and X represent Gilgamesh's attempt to come to terms with his loss.

Enkidu's death brings home to Gilgamesh the reality of mortality. Despite their heroic achievements—slaying Humbaba, defeating the Bull of Heaven—Enkidu dies a lingering death, his fate sealed by divine decree. The grave goods and funeral rituals cannot prevent his death or restore him to life. They can only honor his memory and secure his well-being in the afterlife!!

"This was the world in which Black people lived with tuberculosis in
the U.S.—one where they were told by the medical establishment that
their illness was caused by weaknesses and susceptibilities inherent to
their race, or else by freedom and citizenship itself. we continued to blame it on the sufferer, but with a radically racialized and stigmatic lens that
caused more harm to the ill than previous forms of stigma"

My TBR is increasing day by day, last year it was 400 books to read but now it's probably 2 thousand books, and there's a reason why that's happening.
Whenever I open insta, I feel a sudden urge to save all the posts which consists of recommendations that's why I don't even open that app anymore because it reminds me of the number of posts I've saved and also I ask AI daily to give me the a lot of recommendations

Cato's discourse demonstrates that old age need not be a burden if one has lived well, maintained intellectual pursuits, developed good character, and followed nature. The key to a happy old age lies not in external circumstances like wealth and position, but in inner resources of wisdom, virtue, and active engagement with life through intellectual pursuits and service to others.

Gilgamesh urges Enkidu to forget death and seek life, invoking the wisdom that the careful man must be cautious but not paralyzed by fear. He quotes the proverb: "Let him who goes first be on guard for himself and bring his comrade to safety!" and declares that it is they who made a name for days long in the future.
"‘Forget death and seek life’—to live, one must stop fearing death. That's the hero's creed."

I'm changing day by day, nowadays I don't enjoy the same animes I used to watch before, I don't like the same comedy shows I loved 1 year ago, also for movies, I don't watch the most popular movies which depicts violence or just drama, like I would always prefer to watch "Young Sheldon" over Dhurandhar any day and today I watched Suits (the same law firm drama which I wanna see in my real life as well) which I loved!

Before Homer's Odyssey.. let's start with The Epic of Gilgamesh.. the oldest epic of humanity
It's very poetic, I liked the dynamics like how the Enkidu and Gilgamesh were rivals before but later on become companions and I already got the spoiler thanks to google search... Elegant story, must read

"DENNETT: If someone plays the "faith card" – saying "I'm Christian, I just have to believe this" – the polite response is: excuse yourself from the discussion, because you've declared you can't proceed with an open mind. If you can't defend your view, don't put it forward. We won't accept faith as justification. Defend your Holy Book in reasoned terms, not because it says so – that's arrogant and a bullying move..."

Interesting, very interesting...
A man's search for spiritual fulfillment

"....let us learn to increase our continence, to set bounds to our pride, to assuage our anger, to look upon poverty without prejudice, to practise thrift, albeit many are ashamed to do so, to apply cheap remedies to the wants of nature, to keep all undisciplined hopes and aspirations as it were under lock and key, and to make it our business to get our riches from ourselves and not from Fortune alone..."

"As soon as you have
devoted yourself to philosophy, you will have overcome all disgust at life:
you will not wish for darkness because you are weary of the light, nor will
you be a trouble to yourself and useless to others: you will acquire many
friends, and all the best men will be attracted towards you: for virtue, in
however obscure a position, cannot be hidden, but gives signs of its presence...."

"Evolution bypassed our intuition for relativity and quantum strangeness. Yet our evolved brains built mathematics to precisely predict these invisible realms. This mental power lets us grasp what we cannot directly sense. It's a triumph of abstract reasoning over biological limitation. We now navigate the universe beyond our senses"

Seneca says:-
"No one," I say, "that will give me no compensation worth such a loss shall ever rob me of a day. Let my mind be contained within itself and improve itself: let it take no part with other men's affairs, and do nothing which depends on the approval of others: let me enjoy a tranquility undisturbed by either public or private troubles."

Hobbes thought we're all selfish, driven by fear and greed. If society collapsed, we'd steal and kill to survive—because in a world of scarce resources, it's rational. Life outside society? "Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Why lock your door? Because we know others would take everything—and Hobbes says we're no different at heart.

Epictetus, a former slave and crippled Stoic philosopher, taught that while the body can be shackled, the mind remains free—because our thoughts are our own. His practical wisdom helped Vietnam POW James Stockdale survive years of torture and isolation by choosing not to be moved by what he couldn't control. A philosophy forged in suffering, but built for resilience.

I really miss the direct message feature we had here on goodreads, although I agree that there were some people who were not trustworthy and they would often promote their own agenda (crypto, scams etc.).
It was fun for normal people like us, who wanted to talk to someone with genuine curiosity and similar interests but nowadays even that'd get lost in their notifications.