Body on Fire

Last week I picked “Body on Fire: How Inflammation Triggers Chronic Illness and the Tools We Have to Fight It.” The title says it all. The book is written by practising doctors and gives good advice about our body and how it fights inflammation.

The book is a simple read, and anyone with knowledge of English can read and relate to it. It requires no medical science knowledge.

The book covers every aspect of our living and how it makes us sick. Be it what we eat to not doing enough exercise. The book mentions the benefits of enough sleep, vegetarian food, yoga, and meditation.

Not that most of us are not aware of most of these, the way the author has presented it by adding personal health issues makes it more relatable.

Post-COVID, I am in search of reading more about inflammation, Gut, and GNOME. This is the second read from the list of books I have bought.

Gnome

Last week was fun reading “Matt Ridley: Genome” book. The book talks about our building block: Gnome. There are too many things to unpack from the book, one being we all in the animal kingdom has the same source.

The other thing author talks about is how newer technology like gene editing will cure many incurable diseases.

The author also speaks highly of Gene Editing and a better future considering the green revolution, GMOs, and how world hunger is getting cured. 

However, the three ethical sides of the conversation made me think deeply about technology. 

  1. Designer babies: Will this not create more disparity? Everything comes with an effect; what will be the repercussions here? Will these kids be more vulnerable to diseases? 
  2. Gene screening: Would you like to live in a world where you will not get insurance because of future illness predictions? Will this not also result in being alienated from society? Will this also lead rise in abortion on account of an unhealthy womb?
  3. Eugenics: Will it bring back Eugenics from history books again? Do the police predict the chances of someone committing a crime because of their gene? Or the killing of a specific family because of an unaltered gene causes a burden on the healthcare system.

I am hopeful that government will come up with enough restrictions and checks for the technology usage in a good way. 

learning

Life is a never-ending learning process. Whatever happens to us: good, bad, or ugly; it teaches us and cements us for a better tomorrow. Once the learning stops, our will to live starts deteriorating.

Remember all the fights you were part of the college football team, siblings, friends, or ex-lover. They must have taught you one or the other things. You would have gotten things or two from it.

We live in a society, and observing people, animals, and nature can teach us many things. How did our ancestors find what plant is eatable or herbs are good for us, or animals that can be domesticated? Is it not observation?

Where did Yoga come from – Most asanas are animals poses. I will also add that people rejected by society too have something or other to teach us: their fearlessness and breakfree attitude.

That’s how our DNA and brain evolved and made us superior to the rest in the animal kingdom.

slow

We are so much in a hurry that we have forgotten the joy of slow. We grew up in the era of pen friends and priced international calls or Internet usage and connections. It required lots of thinking, and we had content to converse over. We are overburdened with mobile notifications with less substance to talk over now.

As we progressed with globalization and capitalism, the infrastructure improved. Everything is at your fingertips, makeup, breakup, or ordering vegetables. Sadly Ambulance still takes more than 10 mins to reach our doorsteps.

Slow is no more virtue. The wait to watch the next episode of TV series for next week or waiting an entire year to buy Levis jeans in November from the end-of-season sale at half price is no more.

Are we a robot, enjoying less of our life with these little joys? Is this fast pace killing us?

crowd

Our urge to know everything, be part of every conversation and accomplish as much as possible in a shorter time is making us clueless and miserable.

The virtue of mastering one thing and making a life out of it is undervalued.

Like hoarding furniture, clothes, or gadgets, we feed our brains with too much information and garbage. Most of it won’t help us in our careers or leading a peaceful life.

Minimalism is not for everyone in either consuming content or buying unwanted products.

simple

I feel happy reading tech or medical books and journals that simplify content for non-core users. I am currently reading Matt Ridley: Gnome and Body on fire: Monica Aggarwal, Jyothi Rao. One talks about human GNOME and the other about how what we are eating is making us sick.

I liked the simplicity with which authors have covered these topics. I wish more complex subjects were covered in such simple terms.

It will give non-medical practitioners more to get more educated on these subjects.

World

The more and more I see war in Russia-Ukraine, the more I feel sad. It gives a clear indication of a divided world. One side is NATO and US, and the other is Russia.

The sudden need for weapons has increased, and nations like Germany are increasing their Defence budget, buying more weapons from the US. In the end, the arms race has increased.

Are we heading to a new world where every country will order more weapons instead medicines and food grains?

Food, oil prices, and joblessness are on the rise. But instead of addressing it, we are churning more weapons. How much will the next generation suffer because of all this? Will the world survive the next 50 years?

U-turn

So, are we moving on, asked Shreya?
As if we have any other option, replied Sanjay.

Shreya got admitted to a college in the US and wanted to reboot her life. She had no time for long-distance relationships. Sanjay stayed in India to build a non-profit providing education to unprivileged kids. They were together from the first sem of college for over 4.5 years. It took just a coffee at Cannaught Place to call it off. I was sad and amazed both. Not sure how it was so easy for them. They were more mature than me. I studied with Sanjay and Shreya in the same college. That is why I am narrating this.

Last night from nowhere, Shreya reached out to me after 15 years. I wondered if she was back in India, which was not the case. I enjoyed the conversation and praised her for her accomplishments in all these years.

I asked Shreya if she was still in touch with Sanjay, She paused, and a gentleman said hello to me. I was watching a Karan Johar movie in real life because it was Sanjay on the other side. He mentioned after setting up his non-profit, he kept in touch with Shreya, and it was during COVID they decided to get married.

COVID made many of us realize the importance of many things in our life, one being the importance of loved ones.

Not all love stories have sad ending in real life too. I wished them good luck in the future. Looking forward to meeting them later this year.

Thank you list

We all make a bucket list. How about we also make a list and keep it near us of all the things we are thankful for. 

  1. Born in India
  2. Great parents and siblings
  3. Amazing teachers and education
  4. Friends who are to give shoulders in pain
  5. Great team to work with.
  6. Mentors guiding and showing the part to the success
  7. Customers who believed in us and guided us.
  8. Everyone else who parted teaching a thing or two in life. 

Ashtavakra-Gita

I was reading Ashtavakra-Gita yesterday. Thanks to Nirajan for recommending me. It is a 60-page discourse between King Janak and his guru Ashtavakra. I found the section on Bondage and Liberation hitting hard to me. I felt like sharing the same here.

When the mind desires or grieves things, accepts or rejects things, is pleased or displeased by things– this is bondage.

When the mind does not desire or grieve, accept or reject, become pleased or displeased, liberation is at hand.

If the mind is attached to any experience, this is bondage. When the mind is detached from all experience, this is liberation.

When there is no “I” there is only liberation. When “I” appears bondage appears with it. Knowing this, it is effortless to refrain from accepting and rejecting

Other quotes I had shared on Twitter earlier.