| | | Good morning! | | ONE I look very different today than I did a year ago. I’ve lost a lot of weight — but I’d rather not talk about it. I mention this only because I’m writing about life hacks, and you could say that I’ve hacked some aspect of my life. Nine years ago, when I launched Mint on Sunday — a web magazine focused on long-form articles, including a longish comics feature — I sought out my old friend Charles Assisi for a column called Life Hacks. Charles, one of the best business and technology editors in the business then, and now, was (courtesy his unique personal circumstances) hacking his life then, and continues to do so now (you can find some of his efforts detailed in HT Wknd.) Mint on Sunday no longer exists — one of my successors at Mint decided it was not worth the effort — but I believe we were early adopters of the whole life-hacking movement. It’s a full-fledged industry now, dominated by influencers, a few good, but mostly of the “a little learning is a dangerous thing” (Pope) variety. Sure, experts and books on life hacks are merely an extension of (or perhaps the same as) self-help gurus and books. But life hacks does sound a lot better and contemporary. I have two rules when it comes to life hacks (in which I believe; after all, all of us could do with some improvement). One, read widely (from Brooks to Hoff to Attia to Sinclair). Two, follow the science. The second is perhaps the most important rule in life hacking, especially if one were to look to influencers for direction. “It does not matter what the science says; it worked for me” really cut it. But personal journeys are different — and there is a lot you can learn from them, as anyone who has read Charles’s columns in both Mint on Sunday and HT Wknd knows. Which is where a book I’m currently reading fits. Sandeep Mall is a friend and I’ve observed his journey (in person but also mostly on X, on which he posts prolifically). I think Sandeep sees himself not as an influencer (he lacks the immodesty that being one requires), but a curator and pilgrim, someone who has read deeply, sought professional expertise, largely followed the science, and has the results to show for it. His book, Finding The Oasis, is a summary of his learnings (and not really a retelling of his journey), from food to fitness to diet to mental wellness, and needs to be read outside the fairly large community Sandeep has managed to build online. It is a good starting point for anyone who wants to effect a life hack (and most of us can do with one). | | TWO Just when it looked like the members of the INDIA bloc of opposition parties would not be able to hack a seat-sharing agreement, came the news that the Congress and the Samajwadi Party had finalised theirs for Uttar Pradesh — previous alliances, of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, and the Congress and the Samajwadi party in the assembly elections in 2017, haven’t really worked, and it remains to be seen if this will — and the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress theirs for Delhi (with some adjustment in Haryana and Gujarat as well). | | THREE Michael Sandel, described by some as a philosopher “with the profile of a rock star” is in India this week, and spoke to Hindustan Times on merit, populism, and the art of listening. He argued that “democratic public discourse” needs to be revived to address the “polarisation” in “democratic societies”, and that at the “heart of this” is “the art of listening”. “… not just hearing the words, but listening for the values the principles, the moral convictions that underlie our disagreements.” I’ll leave it at that. | | FOUR The problem with AI is not AI, but how people treat AI — and it is best illustrated by an anecdote on dogs and humans from a Father Brown story by GK Chesterton that I may have cited in a newsletter before (The Oracle of the Dog). “Yes,” said Father Brown, “I always like a dog, so long as he isn't spelt backwards.” And that is really the problem with AI (and I don’t mean people spelling it IA). So, one of the big questions in AI has been the ability of and pace at which large language models learn new things. In 2022, researchers described these abilities as “surprising”, “unpredictable”, sudden, and “emergent” — all suggestive of HAL — but newer research shows that the problem was with the way these abilities were being measured, and that the abilities were “neither unpredictable nor sudden” according to an article in Qanta Magazine. | FIVE  I’ve spent much of the week listening to the last contemporary live album released by The Grateful Dead, Without a Net, comprising tracks from concerts in 1989 and 1990. The album came out in September 1990, and I recently acquired a vinyl reissue. By the late 1980s, Dead concerts were a bit of hit-and-miss (though I believe even the band’s not-so-great concerts are far better than what passes for music these days), but Without a Net mines some of their best performances from this period. My favourites: Althea from a March 1990 concert in Maryland; and Eyes of the World, featuring Branford Marsalis, also from March 1990 (Nassau Coliseum, New York). | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
