Re: [silk] Gaurav Vaz - Introduction

[Ramakrishna Reddy]

On Sat, Jan 21, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Gaurav Vaz  wrote:

> Hi Everyone!
>
> I finally managed to join this amazing group after years of hearing and
> reading about it. Thanks a lot Udhay for the invitation :)
>

Welcome to Silk, Unlurking myself. Proud to have known you buddy,
right from the chaddi days in vyalikaval.



>
> I am a proper jack of all trades and I might have interacted with a few of
> you in different capacities. I play the bass guitar and am the artist
> manager for The Raghu Dixit Project, a contemporary folk band from
> Bangalore and am quite active in the Indian indie music scene in different
> capacities.
>
> I work as a web consultant with my start-up, The Random Lines, and am also
> a very small scale angel investor who loves working with small businesses
> and start-ups in various capacities.
>
> I am really looking forward to catching up with all of you at some point
> and being part of some great conversations here.
>
> Thanks,
> Gaurav
>
> --
> If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!
>
> http://gauravvaz.com
>



-- 
Ramakrishna Reddy   GPG Key
ID:67E226F5
Fingerprint =  BA51 9241 72B9 7DBD 1A9A  E717 ABB2 9BAD 67E2 26F5

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Venkat]

On 23/01/17 10:49 AM, Udhay Shankar N wrote:

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 2:48 PM, Venkatesh Hariharan 
wrote:

"What do you.love the most about living a slower life?"


​To be able to do things on the spur of the moment. This is more a goal
than an achievement at this point, but still.​

​Oh, and naps.​ One of the great pleasures of life and a criminally
underrated productivity enhancer.
And travel. Although I would not call mine a slow life, I took off for 
Kabini on a whim last Tuesday and spent a few days there. But I am 
gainfully employed with some freedom.


--

Cheers,
Venkat

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Tim Bray]

I’m getting kinda old and I’m still in the heart of the furnace, helping
keep AWS on the air, watching the savings expand as the shares vest.  Some
days I really don’t feel like going to work.  Some days I feel criminally
lucky - I get well-paid to write software that affects huge numbers of
lives, and occasionally nudge the Internet’s steering wheel.  One half of
me wants to step away, the other tells me that’s crazy talk, what would I
find to do that’s as compelling as what I’m doing?I have no shortage of
amusements, some of them - like sitting in libraries and editing obscure
Wikipedia entries - very nearly free.

So I probably wouldn’t be bored.

My Dad retired very poorly, hadn’t figured out what next and so didn’t do
much at all, then the dementia was on him in his early seventies.

Color me baffled.

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 9:19 PM, Gautam John  wrote:

> I took a year and a half sabbatical to be a stay at home parent. While
> I'd hesitate to call it slowness (heck, anyone with a toddler can
> never be slow - put that dnnn *runs*) what it did allow me
> was re-evaluate the things that I want to maximise for and, more
> importantly, truly understand the intrinsic value of these things. It
> was otherwise very abstract - to spend time at home, to cook on a
> daily basis, to get some exercise etc. So yeah, when I did go back to
> work I did choose to find something that offered balance between the
> things I found new value in. That said, it is a luxury I am fortunate
> to have and did not involve as much sacrifice. I do not know how I
> would react to such a decision had it involved a greater than 40% hit
> on finances.
>
>


-- 
- Tim Bray (If you’d like to send me a private message, see
https://keybase.io/timbray)

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Gautam John]

I took a year and a half sabbatical to be a stay at home parent. While
I'd hesitate to call it slowness (heck, anyone with a toddler can
never be slow - put that dnnn *runs*) what it did allow me
was re-evaluate the things that I want to maximise for and, more
importantly, truly understand the intrinsic value of these things. It
was otherwise very abstract - to spend time at home, to cook on a
daily basis, to get some exercise etc. So yeah, when I did go back to
work I did choose to find something that offered balance between the
things I found new value in. That said, it is a luxury I am fortunate
to have and did not involve as much sacrifice. I do not know how I
would react to such a decision had it involved a greater than 40% hit
on finances.

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Udhay Shankar N]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 2:48 PM, Venkatesh Hariharan 
wrote:

"What do you.love the most about living a slower life?"


​To be able to do things on the spur of the moment. This is more a goal
than an achievement at this point, but still.​

​Oh, and naps.​ One of the great pleasures of life and a criminally
underrated productivity enhancer.

​Udhay​
-- 

((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Mohit]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 7:49 AM, John Sundman  wrote:

> I realize that all of the above is likely Too Much Information, but I
> suspect that my experience with regard to the question below is about as
> extreme as one is likely to see on this list, so in that spirit I offer it
> as an anchor point.
>

​This was useful, and enlightening. Far too often we are sold a certain
lifestyle as the "true way". It's important to hear these experiences first
hand to realise life is significantly complex.

Thanks John

Regards,
Mohit

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[John Sundman]

Not sure I should attempt an answer at this, but what the heck, here goes. I’ll 
try to keep it short.

After 15+ years in US computer industry as technical writer, manager of 
publications, and manager of software engineering, including 9 years working 
for Sun Microsystems when I had offices in both Massachusetts and in Silicon 
Valley California & spent much of my life on airplanes flying across the USA, I 
quit the high-tech, rat-race life and moved with my young family to the rural 
(and touristy) island of Martha’s Vineyard, 5 miles south of Cape Cod, 
Massachusetts in 1993. At that time my children were around 5, 10 & 12 years 
old. Since then we’ve lived various places on the island, but for the last 13 
years we’ve been in a small house on an unpaved road that dead-ends into a 
nature preserve. (Our children have long since grown up, although for health 
reasons our 28-year-old had to move back in with us 3 years ago. . .)

Moving to Martha’s Vineyard was a total change in lifestyle for us and the 
reasons for it were complex.

My intention was to earn my living writing technical books for publishers like 
O’Reilly. That didn’t work out so well. 

Over the last 25 years I’ve had one 2-year gig at a company in Cambridge, MA, 
and one 5 year gig at a company based in San Francisco. These jobs required me 
to rent minimal lodgings near Boston, but also allowed me to do some amount of 
work at my home on the Vineyard. Over the last decades I’ve also had dozens of 
short freelance technical writing contracts for clients all over North America; 
I did virtually all of that work from home, with the occasional trip to San 
Francisco or Palo Alto, etc.

Over the rest of that period I’ve made my living as a manual laborer, including 
warehouse work, furniture moving, and construction labor. 

I’ve also written novels and stories and done journalism of one stripe or 
another. I’m sure that it’s my novels that got me onto Silklist, for example.

My wife and I have become enmeshed in the island community. She runs the 
lecture series at our library, which brings in locally and sometimes nationally 
and internationally-known speakers, and she is also a prominent figure in 
fighting food insecurity here. 

http://www.vineyardstyle.com/marthas-vineyard.php/114/The-Serving-Hands-of-Betty-Burton
 


I work with her on the food insecurity stuff and I’m also a volunteer 
firefighter. Here’s where I was last Wednesday: 

http://www.mvtimes.com/2017/01/18/chimney-catches-fire-vineyard-haven-house/

I still make most of my income doing manual labor.  See for example

http://eepurl.com/cxC4mn 

It’s a far cry from Silicon Valley. 

I wish I could make my living as a writer. I still dream of that. I still work 
towards that. But it hasn’t happened yet. I do not miss the high tech/high 
stress life of Silicon Valley. I enjoy construction work, moving heavy shit 
from here to there, demolishing buildings, clambering up unsteady walls, 
swinging sledge hammers, and so forth. But the pay is crap and I’m not young.  
I’m strong and fit, but I’m 64 years old and I’m not all that stupid, so I know 
that some day, maybe soon, my body will give out and I won’t be able to do this 
kind of work any more. And then what?

But as to lifestyle choices, my concerns are different from anyone considering 
a move such as I made who has financial resources. Things are so much different 
when you’re poor.

For reasons I won’t go into now (children in health crises being a big part of 
it), money has always nearly always been an issue for us. For various reasons, 
even when I had high-paying jobs 30 years ago, money was an issue. 

I feel guilt over the stress my wife has endured, and especially for what my 
children endured, as we went from middle class to working class to poor. 

So why did we move to a remote island, where making money is hard to do, from 
mainland Massachusetts, where it was theoretically easier to make a buck?   
Again, the reasons are complex. They mostly have to do with complex medical 
situations.  Why did I attempt to write novels instead of going back to make 
money in the computer industry, before age discrimination shut that door for 
me? That’s too hard a question for me to deal with right now.

In retrospect I don’t know what I would have done differently. But I wish 
everything hadn’t been so fucking difficult. I wish it wasn’t so hard now. 

Maybe my next novel will bring a change in my situation. I have high hopes for 
it. But then again, I may be nuts.

I realize that all of the above is likely Too Much Information, but I suspect 
that my experience with regard to the question below is about as extreme as one 
is likely to see on this list, so in that spirit I offer it as an anchor point.

jrs

P.S. I see that I failed to keep it short. Oh well. Believe me, it could have 
been much, much longer. 

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Thaths]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 8:18 PM Venkatesh Hariharan 
wrote:

I am now thinking of cutting down my consulting assignments and decisively
slowing down my life, to stop hopping from one task to the other like a
maniac, and to relish reading books and watching plays, and the company of
friends. To those who are ahead of me in this ambitious path, my question
is, "What do you.love the most about living a slower life?"


Though my work:life balance is reasonably good at the moment, it is not
where I would ideally like it to be.

There have been months and years in the past when this balance was in the
right zone. So I speak from this past experience.

What I loved about it?  Having long lunches, going for long walks, spending
months traveling slowly through a country absorbing the local
culture/food/politics, going on long retreats practicing meditation,
reading only printed material (nothing online), learning to make
(carpentry, electronics, programming, etc.), being more mindful of how I
spend money,...

Thaths

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

[Bruce A. Metcalf]

On 01/22/2017 04:18 AM, Venkatesh Hariharan wrote:


I am going through a transition into a slower pace of life. Knowing the
eclectic nature of this list, I wanted to hear from others who have "been
there, done that." ...

I am now thinking of cutting down my consulting assignments and decisively
slowing down my life, to stop hopping from one task to the other like a
maniac, and to relish reading books and watching plays, and the company of
friends. To those who are ahead of me in this ambitious path, my question
is, "What do you.love the most about living a slower life?"


Well, it's complicated.

I tried going cold-turkey on full-time work, and lasted ten months, 
picking up a part-time job just for fun. I wasn't ready for that much 
downtime all at once, and fortunately I found something useful to do, 
rather than taking up golf or an affair.


Over fifteen years, the part-time job ramped down from four shifts/week 
to one shift/month, providing a nice glide down from full-time to 
nothing. I've now been at "nothing" for two years, and retirement seems 
to be sticking this time.


As for what I love about slowing down (gradually), I'd have to say it's 
a sense of time to do new things. In my case that was cooking and 
getting back into model railroading, but those are specific to me. It's 
not that I didn't have time for these before -- for one can always make 
time -- but now I have utterly no excuse for not living the life I 
imagine (save SWMBO's ideas for my time).


SWMBO has filled some of my time with travel. Living in Florida, quick 
cruises to the Caribbean are a commonplace, but in the next year we'll 
be sailing to Australia/New Zealand/lotsa islands; the Northwest Passage 
(Vancouver to New York the hard way); and a loop around South American 
and back through the canal (not sure if new, old, or Chinese).


But to your question, "What do I love most?" I think my answer has to be 
that it is an opportunity (more honestly, an excuse) to give myself 
permission to live more of the life that I imagine I desire. I may find 
that my imagination is false, and that this life does not satisfy, but 
that is already expected, and I look forward to what I will learn of 
myself as a result.


I hope you also find the search of value.

Cheers,
/ Bruce /

Re: [silk] Examplars of genre in Indian movies

[Hari Shenoy]

A great example of a road trip movie that I really enjoyed was neelakasham
pachakadal chuvanna bhoomi (Malayalam), which involved two guys biking from
Kerala to the North East.

On 22 Jan 2017 5:37 am, "Thaths"  wrote:

The other day I was thinking of whether there was such a thing as a "road
movie" in Indian cinema. After just a few minutes I could list a handful of
Indian films that could be considered road movies:

Madras to Pondicherry (Tamil)
Bombay to Goa
Chennai Express

All these films were road trips on a mass transit system. I wondered if
there were films where the protagonist(s) traveled more independently. I
didn't have to think long to come up with:

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
Swades

to add to the list.

This got me thinking about two things:

1. What is an exemplar Indian movie for each genre? Wikipedia, helpfully,
has a list of genres .

2. Are there genres where we have not had an Indian film made? For
localized genres (such as Mexican sex comedy, Yakuza, Blaxploitation,
etc.), what the closest Indian genre?

Let me get things rolling with the following:

Spaghetti Western: Sholay
Black comedy: Jaane bhi do yaaro

What are other exemplars in Indian cinema of various genre? Are there genre
('Space opera', for example) where you can't think of a single Indian movie?

Thaths

[silk] In praise of slowness

[Venkatesh Hariharan]

I am going through a transition into a slower pace of life. Knowing the
eclectic nature of this list, I wanted to hear from others who have "been
there, done that." After years in the corporate world, I decided to quit
the fast paced life anf become a consultant. My goal was to have more
control over my time, but somehow I found myself living an equally busy
life.

I am now thinking of cutting down my consulting assignments and decisively
slowing down my life, to stop hopping from one task to the other like a
maniac, and to relish reading books and watching plays, and the company of
friends. To those who are ahead of me in this ambitious path, my question
is, "What do you.love the most about living a slower life?"

Looking forward to the answers.

Veny

PS: Yup, confirmation bias :-)