I used to absolutely love James Michener novels. Here is the list of bestselling authors whose books I used to read repeatedly when I was young: I have always been a loner and controversial. As such I had to do something to keep myself entertained. And reading the books written by the authors above was […]
Author Archives: nikhilmg
Career Advice from the Buddha
What career advice can you expect to get from the Buddha. In my opinion all that you need to know to master a profession – or any money making skill – is summarized in the following few verses: We are what we thinkAll that we are arises with our thoughts,With our thoughts we make the […]
On Learned Leisure
One of my earliest memories when I was young was being taught the virtue of hard work. My family and society emphasized working for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden. I am thinking in particular of my grandparents who lived through the Indian struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi. My grandparents were very […]
Psychological reasons
In this blog I will try to explain the psychological factors that may be preventing people with extreme views (example Islamists and Maoists) to understand any point of view other than their own. Specifically I would like the extremists to understand the points I made in my blog below: I will start by stating the […]
How to prevent a Nuclear Holocaust
Now you might think that I am off my rocker. Here I am with no experience in government, politics or managing people and I am saying I can help avoid a nuclear conflict. But if there is even one chance in a million that I have something worthwhile to say it makes sense to read […]
Why I got robbed and what you can learn from it
What follows below is my personal experience: A person whom I thought was my friend kidnapped me and forced me to sign away a large part of my savings which were held in the form of equity shares traded on the stock exchange. I had made the mistake of boasting about my shareholdings to this […]
How to make a Powerful Impression on People
You will notice that I have said, a powerful impression, not necessarily a good impression. If that does not deter you read on. The best way to impress people is by not giving a damn what they think of you. Quoting from Emerson’s essay on Self Reliance: Honor is venerable to us because it is […]
Reading for Self Cultivation
Following is a paragraph from Gurcharan Das’s book, The Difficulty of Being Good. Mr. Das had taken early retirement from a successful corporate career and decided to take an academic holiday in which he did a lot of reading and thinking and discovered for himself the meaning of life. Here is how he went about […]
Why War is good
There is reason to think that war is not only inevitable but also desirable. What do I mean by that? I read chapter 2 of Osho’s book on Jesus’ teachings recently. The name of the book is The Mustard Seed and it is considered by some people to be a classic. Link is below. The […]
Why don’t People learn
I first came across this question – Why is it that people never learn – while reading the opening chapter of Shogun, the popular bestseller by James Clavell. If you are looking to be entertained by a rip roaring adventure while being exposed to Japanese culture that this is a book you will want to […]