5 Things I Consumed Last Week (ritual)
on memories, advice, Mama Dút, Mint and no escape
Dear reader,
If you have been associated with this newsletter for long, you know that I am a woman of habit. Not following a daily ritual makes me cranky. Here are things that I look forward to everyday: good food(cooking), workout, reading, studying (just for a few more days) and listening to music/podcasts.
I spent a larger part of this year only studying but I am trying to get my daily rituals back. This issue is about each one of them.
P.S. : My last post about Season Finale was for Dear Hummingbird: ‘a syndicated advice column I run for CA aspirants’ which will be on a pause for now. This newsletter continues as usual.
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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Sci-fi. Dystopian. Love. Sex. Friendship. Memories. Mystery.
It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I’d known, maybe I’d have kept tighter hold of them, and not let unseen tides pull us apart.
My affair with dystopian fiction started with watching Handmaid’s Tale and reading it thereafter. I jumped from Margaret Atwood to 1984 and hopped my way to Huxley and what not. However, this book is something different.
Unlike every other dystopian work, it unveils and goes in depth about humanization of science fiction. It raises questions about what it is to be human, what you choose to do in the face of an impending death and what happens when science is not accompanied by ethics. Subtle, eerie, chilling, and poignant.
No wonder it won the Nobel!
What’s the Best Advice You’ve Ever Received? on No Stupid Questions Podcast
I always pass along good advice. It’s the only thing to do with it. It’s never of any use to oneself. ~Oscar Wilde
Among discussing best pieces of life advice received to when you should stop taking advice, Angela and Stephen, hosts of Freakonomics podcast discuss a plethora of things.
Sometimes, you get advice from somebody, and you had never thought of it before. You’re like, “Oh my goodness, you are right.” But I think, sometimes, we are just reminded of things that we knew in some way, shape, or form. And I think there is a lot of unused wisdom lying around inside of ourselves. (Podcast Transcript)
Street Food USA - Episode 2: Portland, Oregon
*Goes on Netflix* *Searches ‘food’* *Checks out every show*
That’s me every other week. I have grown up watching street food shows on Fox Life and TLC and shows like these takes me back to my childhood.
Street Food USA is the third season after Asia and Latin America, both excellently shot.
Watch Thuy Pham as she talks about her journey from Vietnam as a child to creating a food business. Mama Dút comes from the word Vietnamese word “dút,” which means “to feed,” a nod to a phrase Pham's daughter would use when she was hungry.
Good food should belong to everybody. ~Thuy Pham
Through the episode, we dive deeper into Pham’s life story, the pressure she felt to assimilate growing up, the struggles she had with identity in her late twenties as a hair stylist, and how cooking sparked joy and helped her find herself.
Smuggling of precious flowers on Mint
I started reading newspaper religiously after graduation. Picking up the newspaper everyday to office and underlining things in the metro felt like a true hustler life.
Pro tip: If you use Jio as your network provider, you can access it for free on Jio News app.
After a long break, I resumed reading a physical newspaper. One of the rituals I missed for a long time. This long story is about smuggling of rare orchids and other precious flowers from India, a term and practice I was unaware of. A network of collectors and middlemen in India sends rare orchids to Myanmar, China and Vietnam. Read more here.
No Escape on The Imperfectionist
If you have read ‘Four Thousand Weeks’, you already know Oliver Burkeman - the author. If you don’t, read his newsletter.
In this issue, he speaks about taking responsibility rather than focusing too much on technique to get things done.
We want to find some person, or some philosophy of life, that will spare us the fear or discomfort or self-doubt or tedium that so often seems to come along for the ride, whenever we try to make progress on things we care about.
He mentions an excerpt from the book ‘If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage Of Psychotherapy Patients’ which lit a light bulb when I read it:
Still, if the bad news is that there isn't One Genius Technique you haven't yet discovered and that someone else might yet be able to impart, the good news is that you don't need one. Your internal resources are entirely up to the task.
Adding the book to my reading list.
See you next week🙆🏻♀️
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With love and gratitude,
The Hummingbird🌺