I love my day job. When I speak with very close friends about it, it’s when i’m down. With others, it’s usually details and economics. but the core of it that I want to bring out more– I love my job. I wonder if I can communicate why. The thing I love most about it …
Author: Varun
Conservation and Progress / Homines Ex Natura
If the word “unnatural” is colloquially defined as “anything which humans do that the earth wouldn’t or couldn’t have on its own”, agriculture and animal husbandry are fundamentally “unnatural” endeavors— whether it is done in vast fields of noxious chemicals or a permaculture food forest painstakingly built over three decades. However, this point of view …
Deus ex Natura
When someone uses nature, their own or in the abstract or a dispassionate concept of evolution as the reason for something drastic, my first question, with real curiosity, is “whose death or suffering are you willing to accept on their behalf, whose death and suffering do you support?” If you want to make Nature your …
Self Esteem
A foundational obstacle to self-esteem which undermines any amount of internal work or external achievement: Asking for permission to exist, thinking that any interaction with another’s existence is an intrusion until proven otherwise. There are a couple of ways this expresses itself: Treating yourself as unwelcome by default in every space and looking around for …
Scale, and The Legacy of Slavery
A lot of discussions around big topics seem to forget that a majority of the “great” things done in the past were only possible because of brutal slavery. We slowly realized slavery is evil, but inherited systems that need it, so, shoehorned modernity into that framework. It is difficult to overstate just how much depended …
Natalism
If you’re a young parent, you’re more likely to scar your children with your psychological issues that might have had time to resolve if you had children later, when you’re likely wiser and calmer. The young parents who get this mature rapidly, and become great parents. In a lot of trad circles, they get this …
The Virgin Evolved Ape vs The Chad Cosmic
Sharp Dichotomies for Thee, But Not For Me? ☸ I’m going to start by making a seemingly disconnected point: Humans are not “built” for physical fights. All fighting features/instincts are tacked on to a *comically* fragile body, and it remains that way no matter what you do. Learn to fight because you need it or …
Bad Citizen, Good Complainer
Note: this was originally a thread posted by me during the peak of COVID, in 2021 How disgustingly entitled is it to literally *mass delete* a contact tracing app (Aarogya Setu) and not use it for *a whole year* because “it’s a fascist data collection system for bhakts” and then be surprised about surges in …
Individualism and India
Individualism has a surprisingly high LD50. Which is why it is so convenient that the East needs to learn only one value from the west to see prosperity beyond anything they achieved even in history: Individualism . a.k.a the ability and willingness to leave others the alone, to admire ambition and achievement, to venture to …
Bisexuality
A big subconscious reason behind bisexual “erasure” is that without social pressure and resentment.. bisexuality is pure upside, and zero downside. This is intolerable to most people. It not only negates sexual orientation, it also negates spaces, habits, control and predictability. A bisexual individual often comfortably inhabits both male and female spaces and discourse. In …
Male and Non-Binary Body Image
It’s not that masculinity is inherently less aesthetic than femininity (a cruel meme) it’s that it’s easier for masculinity to look unaesthetic than femininity, because there are less default natural curves and many more rough & abrupt textures/emotions to work with. This is why even a moderately large belly looks asymmetrical and maybe even comical …
The “Masculinity Crisis”, Its Vultures and Bleeding Hearts
I keep seeing questions like this: “masculinity is in crisis. what should we do about it?”“who should we give men as examples of healthy masculinity?”“now that we’ve deconstructed/destroyed masculinity, what should take its place?” And the unpleasant answer is:Nothing. Nobody. Just pull the plug. Where is the growth or selection from crisis if you’re supplying …
Ruining Dogs
What have we done to man’s best friend? We confine them to apartments and our busy schedules– we rationalize it as a better life. We forcefully excise an entire organ system before they have even grown, the vital organ that supplies a mammal’s most important hormones and modulates their growth, vitality, moods and desires– we …
The Wasted Potential of Villains
I wish more movies & shows steelmanned their villains. i.e made them heroes in every way on the other side of the fence, rather than the same old boring “the world is grey and complex” or “humanize/intellectualize the bad guy” or childhood trauma stuff. For example: All these shows can seriously strengthen their case by …
Toughness and Empathy
If you were able to mind-over-matter something, to push your body’s limits, perform some feat of resilience or training, overcome great pain, then your body was always capable of it. You were gifted with it, it’s not something you should take full credit for. If you are disabled, and you managed to overcome that by …
Manners
Why are you so prickly? Your life would be 10x easier, happier, better vibed, if you had manners, and you would find it trivial and *fun* to learn if you stopped trying to find excuses for why you can’t or don’t need to learn them. manners, its subset, politeness, and their superset, communications skills, aren’t …
Nutrition in India
The historical devastation of India has left many Indians believing we’re naturally small-made, injury-prone & needing diets, herbs, medication and monkishness. And that if something in our last 300 years made us evolve this way, then it is our fate to stay this way. We matter-of-factly say things like “Indians have bad knees”. In reality, …
Unique
Everything everyone does is a trick, a conspiracy or *unforgivable* incompetence. Except you, of course. Only you (or your friends) are earnest & rational. And when you mess up, especially when stressed, you deserve benefit of the doubt, because humans make mistakes. *Your* decisions have to be evaluated fairly, in context. And if these are …
Love
Ask a partner or an amicable ex whom you had a real connection with about a picture they find themselves looking at or remembering you by: it’s always going to be something plain, blurry, goofy, cute, dressed down, overly cheerful, cheesy, dangerous or even downright ugly. The little insignificant notes, every hurried scribble and todo …
When The Brain Betrays You
This is a difficult article for me to write, because avoiding talking about the fact that my own mind can betray me so terrifyingly helps me cope with the fear of it happening again. I still don’t know where the line is between keeping stories to yourself for your self-preservation vs putting it out there …