Running and Solitude Are My Best Friends

“I only run when I am inspired. Luckily I am inspired everyday, more or less ;).” __Madhav SBSS

I love running. In my 10th Grade, in a nail-biting cricket match, I got out early but I helped my team win the match by becoming a by-runner for the last batsman. I ran between the lines like crazy, as if my feet were on fire, we won the match. In my XI and XII grades, I ran barefoot and competed with my arch rival (who wore spikes) and won the 100m and 200m races.

Growing up, sprinting was something I enjoyed a lot. However, I completely let it slip from my routine for 16 years. When I was at MIT, a classmate of mine mentioned that he completed a Marathon run. My ears perked up as I heard the word “running” and then I got curious about Marathons. I had no clue what a Marathon was. I did a little bit of research and found that Marathons are these long 26.2 mile running events. It sounded challenging and fun to do, I wanted to run one. I thought, if my friend could do it I could do it too.

It took 2 years for that thought to become action. In December of 2004, I searched for the upcoming marathons in the Boston area. I came across KeyBank Marathon in Vermont. My Dad had died of Brain stroke in 2002. I wanted to do some good in that space. I looked up American Stroke Association and found out that they were running as a team in the KeyBank Marathon. I attended a meeting organized by the ASA to register for the run.

My wife and daughter were in India at that time and that helped a lot in jumping off this cliff and building the wings on the way down. At the end of the meeting they said, pay $100 non-refundable registration fee, if you decide to run, this fee will count towards your fund raiser. I thought to myself, if I sign-up now and dropout later, I may lose $100 but if I don’t sign-up now and go home to ponder, I may never sign-up. I may be richer by $100 but I would feel terrible not taking the chance to run for a cause. I signed up in the hopes that I will work hard to complete the long run. At that point I was terrified because I wasn’t sure if I could raise the committed $3500 funds and run the 26.2 miles without hurting myself.

I had a brief coaching session from the ASA trainer. He gave me a training packet with good information on diet, running schedule etc. I used to run every other day. Since it was winter and roads were filled with snow piles, I took membership in Ballys fitness club that had an indoor running track. The track was just a 200 meters long loop. I recall running my first mile in six and half minutes and feeling exhausted, dejected and close to throwing up. Next day on, I paced myself at 12 minutes per mile. There were many evenings when I was the last one in the fitness center running like a madman, when I got closer to the race date I used to run 150 rounds on the 200 meters track to complete my practice. I felt dizzy at times but it was fun.

After KeyBank I used to run on and off with breaks every few days. I then set another goal to run the most prestigious Marathon in the world. The Boston Marathon. I practiced for it, signed up with Dana-Farber Cancer Research to raise funds for them while also fulfilling my dream of running the Boston Marathon. In 2009, I completed the Boston Marathon. I stopped running after that for a few months. I signed up for Boston 10k and Boston half Marathon in 2010 just to get back on the track. I realized that I love running, but running loves me more!

My complete recount of the Boston Marathon is here in the original writeup from 2009.

For the past 2 years I have been running 3 miles a day, 6 days a week. Simple, no nonsense routine and I look forward to it every morning. On Sundays when I don’t run, I feel strange.

Running Marathons was just a pretext to have more of what I love, running and solitude, my best friends.

I enjoyed Illayaraja’s soothing violin during my Boston Marathon, you can listen to it here

I was able to carry my ipod using this nice little running gear, it was a gift from one of my good friends. The Under Armor gear helped with the sweat and protecting my body from getting too many blisters. GU Energy Gels are a godsend when you are running up against the heartbreak hill.

A pair of good running shoes and I totally recommend Asics Gel, which I used on both my Marathons, are a must.

Lastly, I could have never run the Marathons without the love and support of my family and wonderful friends in Boston who came to cheer through the course.

Leicester Codex: Leonardo’s Notes On Water Flow

“The painter is the rival of nature” __Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci spent many a day watching the water flow, hitting rocks and other obstacles along the way. He made a binder of his notes on water, popularly known as the Leicester Codex.

In his observations of nature, he is said to have remarked “The painter is the rival of nature”. Leonardo compiled the Leicester Codex while in Milan during the years 1508 and 1510.

“He wrote on 18 double-sided sheets of loose-leaf, linen paper, each one folded to make a total of 72 pages. The notebooks are distinctive for two reasons: his use of ‘mirror writing’—writing from right to left—and the links he created between image and text. He recognized the power of combining words and images to develop and communicate ideas.” –Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Bill Gates now owns the Leicester Codex now, he won the bid at an auction conducted by Christies on 11th November 1994 for $30,502,800 dollars (~$31 million). That price makes it the most expensive book ever to be sold on this planet.

“Leonardo documents his observations of water currents, whirlpools, waves, heads, canals, banks, locks, dams, tunnels, projects for docks, for land reclamation, lists of machines for making use of the energy supplied by water and projects for the use of water for military purposes, accompanied by texts dense with theories.” –Hammercodex.com

Furthermore, he captures how mountains arose from the sea, how fossils formed over the mountains of Parma and Piacenza, erosion due to water currents, ideas for constructing bridges over water, the great landslide of Monte-Garnier and the origin of spring waters at the top of mountains.

Leonardo was fascinated by Ptolemy’s Cosmographic studies and seems to have used Ptolemy’s maps, rivers, lands, mountains in his exploration of water flow.

Interesting thing about Leicester Codex is not only the power of observation Leonardo demonstrated but also it is a study of how to study something. Leonardo leaves spaces on one or both sides of each page to make room for pictures and notes. On the Leicester Codes, he starts the page numbers from the middle and goes out to sides, what could be the reason for that?. He uses mirror writing that can be read easily in a mirror but harder to read as a normal book. Why did he do that, people say that’s to make it harder for others to understand, really, this great genius could be so selfish and conceited? How silly! It appears that the reason for his mirror writing is because writing right to left would not smudge the ink as he wrote (I learnt that from Bill Gates in this video on the Codex), could that be the real reason? What do you think?

Playing Defence.

“You don’t need more time. You just need to decide” __Seth Godin

Yes that’s defence as in the sport of Cricket. Defence is important, that’s the way you protect yourself from getting out to good deliveries but I just realized that I’ve been playing too much defence for too long.

A good delivery needs to be respected and defended against but most deliveries are not that good, they need to be sent to the boundary and yet I have continued to play defence because it seems safer.

How to play offense and still stay in the game? Well, it’s by taking action. It’s by doing; not by thinking, not by dreaming but by acting on your ideas. As Seth Godin puts it, “You don’t need more time, you just need to decide”.

It’s tough to get out of the zone that I am in right now because I fear going into a suckier zone. Really, is that possible? Well it depends on what the zone feels like, is it mind numbing, uninspiring, monotonous, meaningless, or is it great but just super hard? If it’s any of the former reasons, then doing something you like and want to do will definitely feel better.

If it’s the latter reason (great work but hard work), then welcome to being an adult. There is nothing to change here but your attitude. You are late, get going and good luck.

1% Better Everyday And Other Lies

“You can paint a horse with numbers but you can’t whisper to the horse like a real artist!” __Madhav SBSS

There is a trend now a days of talking about percentages, numbers and quantified wisdom. Trust me, I love numbers; at MIT, everything was numbers including our restrooms, desks, computers and classrooms. The issue with trying to explain how to live a good life with numbers is like “paint with numbers”. You can paint a horse with numbers but you can’t whisper to the horse like a real artist could!

Only machines might understand what 1% daily improvement really means. To say, “improve your craft by 1% every day” is a bad advice for humans because humans don’t think in terms of percentages when living their day to day lives. When was the last time you said, how can I make my coding skills 1% better or cooking veggie chili 1% better, probably never.

A better way to put this concept of improving every day in every thing we do is to say “put one foot in front of the other” and keep moving forward. I understand this “cliche” lacks the cool sounding percentages, it sounds cheesy and less analytical and it does not say anything about improvement. What does it mean to say put one foot in front of the other when I am learning to paint or swim or cook?

The way I see it, one foot in front of the other means two things, first, just doing it and second, doing it in a way that makes the next step slightly better in some meaningful way, actually doing it consistently is a big win in itself, it doesn’t always have to be about efficiency, it can be consistency or a qualitative improvement e.g.

Can I walk 100 feet more today?

Can I mediate for 1 minute longer today?

Can I read 1 extra page today?

Can I practice violin for 1 minute longer today?

It is as simple as that.

Can Psychedelics Cure Depression, Addiction and Cancer?

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” –Carl Jung

I’d have never thought I will be interested in entropy ever again after my thermodynamics classes during high school. Well who knew!

I am reading up a bit of literature around entropic brain, psychedelics and experiments. Johns Hopkins, UC Davis and others schools are pursuing psychedelic experiments in treating diseases of the mind, addiction and cancer, it’s super fascinating. I came to know of this paper on Entropic Brain from one of Tim Ferris’s podcasts and I’ve read it, it’s hard to understand but it is a good starting point to get an overarching idea of the topic.

“It does not seem to be an exaggeration to say that psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology and medicine or the telescope is for astronomy. These tools make it possible to study important processes that under normal circumstances are not available for direct observation.”
(Grof, 1980)

Psychedelics have been observed to help humans relinquish ego’s primary hold on reality, bringing us to our “primary state of consciousness”. The idea that psychedelics cause more entropy (disorder or uncertainty) in our brain and when there is entropy in the brain, it seems to make us not have boundaries and delineation of “me” and “not me” and yet be able to observe the unity of “me” and “not me”. Yes, it sounds crazy and it might be. It might even be that people hallucinate and have this self-fulfilling outcome they were told would be experienced. I don’t know, I have not done LSD or psychedelics but I am intrigued by the prospect of feeling one with this cosmos around us and not feel like I’m living a small, “me me me”, self-centered life.

Enough of feeling one with the super consciousness. What might be the coolest thing is if psilocybin (a psychedelic) could help here and now in treating cancer, depression, addiction or OCD.

“Specifically, it is proposed that psychedelics work by dismantling reinforced patterns of negative thought and behavior by breaking down the stable spatiotemporal patterns of brain activity upon which they rest.”
Robin L. Carhart-Harris et al https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020/full

Above all else, treating diseases, unifying with super consciousness and everything in between, the most interesting thing I am learning as I read about psychedelics is that meditation can bring about these exact experiences in us if we are open to experimenting with it and are patient enough to sit quietly amidst all the wonderfully magnetic distractions of this physical and not-so-physical worlds.

Other sources:

MAPS.org

Maditations

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
― Patanjali

Image result for ripples in water — “*Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the Seer’s own form.*” ― **Patanjali**

Meditation has become a regular part of my daily life. I had meditated quite a bit when I was in middle school, fell of the track for a long time and then it was on and off for many years. In summer of 2018, a stressful day shook me up and harshly reminded me of how much I have been gifted in abundance and how I’ve been sleepwalking without ever thinking about these gifts.

Over the past few months, I have been trying to sit down in meditation for 5 minutes right after waking up and about 20 minutes in the evening before bed and it’s been helpful in calming the mind. It has been helping me clear out fears and anxieties and clarify my thinking. What is my meditation like, it’s just silent sitting, observing my thoughts, my body, my surroundings, listening and being fully present. It’s hard and I have not been able to do all of these things consistently for longer than a few seconds at a time but I know it’s a muscle that needs to be built over time.

I have tried a few meditation apps including Calm and Headspace and the one app I have come to use regularly is tarabrach.com. In particular I use the smile meditation which runs for about 25 minutes. It relaxes my mind and body. When I’m really distracted, and desperately trying to come back to the present moment, I use the Be Here mediation which is roughly 20 minutes. Thanks to Tara Brach for her dedication, great gift of meditation to the world and for inspiring me to meditate.

“Distractions arise from habitual thought patterns when practice is intermittent.”
— Patanjali

I’ve heard my friends say that meditation is hard, that they can’t sit quietly for so long and they get bored or distracted easily. It is true. Meditation can be hard and like many good things in life, meditation will get easier as we start practicing in small sessions, my recommendation is to do it immediately following an activity that we already do and in the beginning keep it tiny, like 1 minute. So tiny that you can’t say “I get bored, it’s long etc”. From there as you spend a few days or weeks doing 1 minute meditation, increase to 2 or 3 minutes. Meditation is a mind game and tricking the mind into believing that we are not “wasting” time sitting quietly requires increasing time spent very gradually and not trying to do it 20 or 40 minutes on day 1.

“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns…We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”
–Tara Brach

Meditation can be a life long practice that can only get better and more beneficial as we grow older. As I make progress over the next few months, I’d like to wean away from guided meditation to going solo. Guided meditation is an amazing tool to keep us engaged and focused on the present moment, it’s like giving the monkey a task to repeat e.g. going up and down the totem pole. It’s necessary but it should not become a meditator’s crutch.

Develop Attachment to Detachment

“Penchaga Penchaga Perige Aasalu, Thrunchaga Thrunchaga Tholagunavi”

(Just as we steadily grow our desires, we can eliminate them by steadily nipping at them) –Padakavitha Pitamaha Sri Tallapaka Annamacharya

Attachment to stuff hurts. You are in the Apple store, someone looking at an iPhone drops it on the ground and shatters the glass. You might say “Uh oh” but you won’t lament over it. Suppose, you had just bought that iPhone and dropped it on the floor, how would you react?. It’s the same device a couple of minutes ago, now that it’s “yours”, you lament that it’s broken. Attachment to that phone causes grief.

Annamacharya, thoughtful poet, writer and philosopher from South Indian sings about how one can eliminate attachment to things just as one grew attachment to them in the first place. Reducing it slowly, steadily and bit by bit. He calls out for practicing a ceiling on desires in this beautiful krithi “Veggalamintha Vrida“

Veggalamintha Vrida Vrida by Annamacharya
Sung by Prince Rama Varma

Stranger Parents?

“To show your children unfeigned love”

I find it strange when parents ask someone else to counsel their own children. They say “my son doesn’t listen to me, can you talk to him?”. Can a parent be any more stranger than asking someone else to counsel their own child? If the child doesn’t speak to me or vice-versa, first, I need to realize that there is a problem and find out what that problem is, because parent and child can and should have the first line of communication. Always. I don’t believe there are any exceptions, if you can have a baby, then you can connect with her.

“To show your teachers ungrudging respect (the Domitius and Athenodotus story), and your children unfeigned love.”
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

If she is not communicating with me, I need to fix it, not someone else. The problem could lie in 3 places, within me, within her or in the communication between us. It’s not very helpful to say “why are you not talking to me?” or “what’s wrong with you?”. Instead, look within, am I being closed? what can I do to be more open? Many a time, we are not patient enough to listen; just be a listener, don’t jump to explanations and advice. Be patient and listen to what they have to say.

“How have you behaved to the gods, to your parents, to your siblings, to your wife, to your children, to your teachers, to your nurses, to your friends, to your relatives, to your slaves? Have they all had from you nothing “wrong and
unworthy, either word or deed”?
Consider all that you’ve gone through, all that you’ve survived. And that the story of your life is done, your assignment complete. How many good things have you seen? How much pain and pleasure have you resisted? How many honors have you declined? How many unkind people have you been kind to?”
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Being kind to unkind people is hard but necessary to living a good life. If I must be kind even to unkind people, can’t I be kind to my own child? After all, I brought her into existence. Being kind will not solve all problems but being unkind is a sure way to break communication.

Are there situations where a third person might be a better option to help her than me? Certainly, when it comes to career planning, addiction or health issues there are experts who can do a better job. When it comes to personal or psychological issues, it’s always better for parent and child to work them out first. More than anything, let the children express and think through things for themselves. Treat them as individuals. Assuming that I know all the answers and believing that I have been there and done that, is presumptuous and borderline stupid.

Be patient with her, like tending to growing flowers in the garden. Figure out a way to be useful, not helpful, just useful. Trying to help comes next, trying to be helpful is subjective, what one might consider help might in fact be annoyance. Trying to be useful is more straightforward.

“be tolerant with others and strict with yourself”
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Unfeigned love towards the child is the only way that I know can bring about the change I need to communicate with her. What is that unfeigned love, how can I practice it. It’s being open, listening, trying to be useful to them, not trying to be helpful, it’s being patient, it’s being kind in thought, word and action.