Welcome to the Thought Palace of Rahul Rajeev

Why did I create this blog?

Thoughts Aug 12, 2021
Quicksplainer:
I created this blog as my digital garden to share my thoughts and write about the things that I am interested in or/and working on.

Two words come to my mind when I think of describing myself, curious and impatient.  I seek to find answers so as to understand, and thereby frame even better questions to ask. The trouble my curiosity gets short-circuited by my impatience.

This blog is a tryst with my impatience and an ode to the writer in me.

For the past three years or so I have been actively fighting impatience. I took up the challenge of teaching myself to draw and it is teaching me everything I need to know, about slow progress and growth plateaus. The whole experience has shifted my attention towards the need for slowing down and digging deep.

This blog is my humble attempt to collect, organise and refine my process of living and learning. What purpose does such a blog serve? There are many ways I can answer that question. But to be very honest with you, I am writing this for myself, a selfish act of preserving a part of me in our networked world.

I do hope by writing for myself, I will be able to produce something that resonates with some people on a personal level. The central idea is to connect ideas, that matter to me to the larger context of life with the hope that they will matter to you, at least to some of you.

When I think about life, I realise quantitatively it is too short. Right now, that is not something you or I can control. Maybe our grandchildren will live longer.  Maybe they will not even live on this planet altogether or maybe they won't exist. The thing is I don't know and I can't know. I don't even know how long I will last.

So enough with this rat race.

Let's measure the span of human life in terms of quality. Or simply, reframing the question of how long do we live to how well do we live?

I want to live well. To perceive life for its moments and to enjoy the beauty of being alive in this self-aware body.

I will be writing about many things here in this blog. The only niche that I can use to describe this blog is "On Life". It sounds cheesy and wishy-washy, I know. But understanding life from a qualitative perspective is the only thing I care about, from a first-principles perspective.

The general impulse will be to keep the article lite and easy to read. The self-imposed keyword here is "impactful writing". That is to convey the message with the minimum number of words. There might be occasional long-form essays.

I working on a public zettelkasten style to host my atomic notes to fortify the idea of creating in the open. I will have the link to it here or in the about section when I am done.

I read, listen, watch and talk about diverse topics and it will be reflected here. I expect the following topics to emerge here as this blog matures:-

  • Art and Design
  • Technology
  • Learning and Research
  • Cognitive and Behavioural Science
  • Productivity
  • Personal Knowledge Management
  • Digital Literacy
  • Philosophy

As for the website, this is self-hosted on GCP backed by a Docker instance of Ghost. I am learning to design and code now. So the site will continue to evolve in structure and appearance as I myself grow.

That is pretty much what I have to share for now.

This is a purely personal exploration, a chance for me to give back to the oasis of human knowledge.

I love to hear what you have to say, so please don't be shy and write to me or DM me. I read 100% of all my emails.

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