total timepass...

Last year I did a course on a topic completely unrelated to my academic background - a course at Oxford on the 'Philosophy of Ethics'. The course choice was driven by questions I have about what is the right thing to do - a question we often face in our work and personal lives. We had 4 months of (online recorded) lectures, discussions with ‘classmates’ (all online) and multiple assignments. It was an intense journey and so insightful! Sharing below some of my theoretical and practical lessons from the course:  Overall, we delved deep into four major theories on ethics: Virtue ethics by Aristotle : According to Aristotle, the right action is the one that would be chosen by a virtuous person, and the virtuous person would know what is right, will do what is right and does it for the right reasons. In this theory, reason trumps everything else and is the only driver of virtuous actions. Also, Eudaimonia (happiness) is the aim of life. Eudaimonia is a lifelong pursuit that ...

I read the book, 'The Art of Travel' by Alain de Baton in 2021, on a trip to the Greek islands. I read it within a few days and was blown away by it, totally. It's been a long time since I read it, still I wanted to somewhere post what the book talked about. Below are some of the highlights for me. The anticipation of what to expect on travel is sometimes much better than the actual travel because we forget the tough realities of the travel when imagining them (I think I feel the same about travel too now. It is never perfect, the place may not be as perfect as we have seen in the photos, and there is immense admin associated with planning longer travels. So my expectation from actual travels has gone down a lot also nowadays) How you get to a travel destination is also interesting as the planes and trains used as transport are a huge part of the travel effort  What someone finds exotic and interesting to travel to is mostly based on what they don't get at home (It m...