Lockdown notes – 1

The lockdown has given all of us time to catch up with our lives. There is nothing much in the news apart from the virus. This is an attempt to put together some good reads that I came across in the last few weeks.

Understanding the pandemic has not been easy for the best of the experts. This piece in the Atlantic explains the reasons why it is confusing and another one in NYT tries to understand the heterogeneity of devastation across the globe. We are all awaiting for a vaccine to liberate us and 80 teams across the world are working on it. The Gates foundation is at the forefront of funding these attempts and Bill Gates has his view on it here.

The lock-down is leading to stressful conditions for many across the globe and the I found the following articles helpful in dealing with the situation:

a. Let us start of with a comic from Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes). It highlights his entry into Calvin’s world.

b. A perfect time to understand happiness is probably now. This read looks at few equations to make happiness achievable and this summary on the extremely popular Yale University’s ‘Class on Happiness’ gels in well.

c. The relatively stoic life that we have been forced to live might actually serve to improve our lives on the long run. A synopsis of the book on Stoicism will help us make more sense of this subject.

d. Don’t jump to conclusions. Focus more on your first impression and less on what everything “means.” This statement by Darius Foroux serves as an entry into his article on extrapolating our perceptions.

Webinars and video conferencing has never been this widely used. This is leading many of us to revolt against this medium of communication (but have little choice, though) popularly called ‘Zoom Fatigue’. It is an avoidable situation with remedies give in these two articles in Natgeo and HBR.

With more free time to catch up on music, many of us have started using our audio devices. Using the equalizer is an art and look at these two pieces (soundguys and digital trends) to get the right sound from your mobile/home theatre.

Just started on this excellent lecture series from Harvard on Rationality by Steven Pinker. Need to see if I will survive the 40+hour classes.

Lastly, I would like you to visit this website by Kevin Kelley (KK). He is the founder of Wired magazine and has lots of amazing stuff on the site.