Warrier's blog

Good Morning Smile alone During 1960's, I used to stay alone in a single-room in a fairly large hostel-type accomodation behind Thiruvananthapuram Secretariat. There were some 20 single rooms and around 60 double rooms in "Cooperative Home" Room No 3, Cooperative Home https://share.google/OaofAzl4P6lCPoh9M 20 to 30 residents were Reader's Digest subscribers. Some of them read the Digest cover to cover and the content became topic of discussion in post-dinner group meetings which sometimes crossed over to 00 00 hours. In some rooms there were accumulations of copies of RD safe in their wrappers. Some read only the jokes and "Life's Like That", smiled alone and kept the magazine on the table to show that they were "subscribers" Today, cover price of RD is Rs125/- When I started reading Digest, single copy price was less than Two Rupees. I may live for few more years to see the price going up to Two hundred Rupees. Nice Day M G Warrier

Good Morning Book on my table : "On The Shortness Of Life" By Seneca Last week while reading Seneca's book "Letters from a Stoic", I found a mention about this book in the introduction, with equal emphasis. Curious, I tried to know more and I was surprised to find that the book that has survived hundreds of years and covering a subject like "shortness of life" has only 56 pages and is priced just hundred rupees. Ordered a copy. Amazon description about the book reads : "De Brevitate Vitae (English: On the Shortness of Life) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, sometime around the year 49 AD, to Paulinus. Seneca's biting words still pack a powerful punch two thousand years later. According to the essay, nature gives people enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. In general, time is best used by living in the present moment in pursuit of the intentional, purpos...

Managing stress The article "Stress Spaces You Out" (ET- Speaking Tree :Narayani Ganesh) concludes with this para : "Regular lifestyle practices that pre-empt any kind of stress include pranayam, meditation, chanting, walking and prayer. Self-affirmation can help auto-banish anxiety and stress." Pranayama is scientific/yogic management of breathing and is composed of 'breathing in', 'retaining breath' and 'breathing out'. There are different types of pranayama and to practice any of them, guidance of a teacher is necessary. Just as stress is the result of multiple physical and psychological reasons, managing stress also requires proper diagnosis of stress-triggers and following lifestyle changes, medication where necessary and exercise as advised by professionals in the respective areas. M G Warrier

Stoicism : A brief introduction Prayer https://youtu.be/YrO8qs5lOrA?si=mPCJRDp35mSjebDv There was a reference to Stoicism today in ET Speaking Tree(June 27, 2026) Stoicism My quick search to know more about Stoicism took me to a book "Letters from a Stoic" by Seneca : https://amzn.in/d/01Ul2uj3 Amazon description : What is the importance of friendship? How do we deal with challenges in life? And how do we look death in the eye and be not afraid? Letters from a Stoic is a compilation of carefully chosen letters that Seneca penned to Lucilius, letters which are personal essays that answer the questions stated above and many, many more. Translated from Latin into English by Richard M. Gummere, these are letters on a wide variety of topics, such as on having quiet conversations, on suicide, on the dynamic of a master-slave relationship, on grief, on god, and even on welcoming death. So, here is a book to give you a peek into a rich and complicated mind, a book that hol...

India growing! An experience while traveling by train from Bhusawal to Goa today... "Suddenly, my friend's 2-year-old son developed a fever. We didn't have any medicines with us, and there were still 7 hours left before reaching our destination, Madgaon. We thought about getting off at the next station, consulting a doctor, and then continuing the journey by road. Casually, I told a vendor selling goods on the train : “We need some medicine. Can you arrange it at the next station? I'll give you ₹500 for your effort.” The vendor replied, “No need for that. Meet the TTE (Ticket Examiner); your problem will be solved.” We immediately met the TTE. In all my life, I had never experienced such promptness from a government employee. He stopped what he was doing, made a phone call right away, noted down our seat number and the medical condition, and asked us to return to our seats. Honestly, we didn't expect much. We had already decided that if necessary, we would g...

Battles & Wars I do not know whether the Mahabharata (Kurukshetra) War was really fought on the field. Or, may be, it was an epic symbolising the churning, measuring and the tsunamis that happen in the human mind. Let us not worry about the epic. We know wars and battles have all along been the pastime of greedy and powerful rich individuals and families. Once the Kings & Rajas were replaced by various types of governments, the legacy of fighting and defeating the neighbours was maintained in different forms. No, history is not my subject. Fast Forward to the present. Look at the resources being wasted for maintaining weapons including nuclear warheads, ships, aircraft and large armed forces. These resources along with hoarded assets across the world, if deployed productively, can make this planet poverty-free and improve the standard of living of 7 billion people on this planet multifold. All literate people are aware of this situation. Across centuries, many have raised thei...