Light Years Ideas Of The Week — #004

My top 10 ideas of the week (September 1st week 2024)

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

It’s yet another week (or a couple) that’s gone by. Today is Ganesh Chaturthi & as usual, Mumbai is lit up in festivity. There’s something comforting & heartening about Ganpati & the festival celebration, typically celebrated fervently & with great pomp in the city — it’s only a phenomenon that happens in this city. It’s strange but lovely.

As the Ganesha idols make their way through the streets of Mumbai, engulfed in the drums & horns to make their way to the myriad places where they’ll be displayed, I found some time to curate this article on this lovely morning on the 7th of September.

I’m planning on making this article series bi-weekly or perhaps monthly instead of every week because I have a lot going on so finding the time to sit & curate and write this article does take a considerable amount of effort. That being said, this week’s curated content gets a bit heavy but it’s balanced enough.

I hope you find it interesting.

Let’s get into it…

1. Towards the end of last month, I uploaded my own mix on Mixcloud inspired by one of my favourite musicians Radiohead’s Thom Yorke who posted a mix on his Mixcloud account. My mix was an answer to his mix, which involved various influences & has been doing the rounds on Mixcloud’s charts. It’s a mix I like very much, you can listen to it here:
   Ghost Intent - After Thom’s Monday Mix.
   
   

2. This article on Medium describing Entropy in simplistic terms & relating it to life in terms of how difficult it is to create something & how easy it is to destroy it was a thought-provoking piece applying the concept of Entropy in real-world scenarios. Entropy is the disorder in systems & according to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy & randomness only increase over time. The article is written by an ex-Spotify VP & Anchor co-founder & it’s a short read titled ‘Difficult Creation, Easy Destruction’, & explores how creating something is far harder than destroying it.
   
   

3. I stumbled upon this article correlating the Higgs field to musical instruments & how the Higgs field imparts mass to elementary particles. For those of you who don’t know what the Higgs field is, it’s described in the article as “There’s this substance, like a soup, that fills the universe; that’s the Higgs field. As particles move through it, the soup slows them down, and that’s how particles get mass.” I’m planning on writing a separate piece on it on my Medium account, and it’s a nice article to base an explanation of a bit about the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the Hadron Collider & how the Higgs Field works. But you can read the short article titled ‘How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles’ on Quanta Magazine here.
   
   

4. Coming to this month’s YouTube explorations, I stumbled upon this channel called ‘Pursuit Of Wonder’ which was rather fascinating. It’s got some annoying ad placements here & there but it’s a pretty intriguing & interesting channel, although tending slightly to Albert Camus’ philosophy of absurdity. This particular video on 16th-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne was interesting for its contrarian & anti-intellectualisation philosophical conception. Montaigne mocked philosophical stances made to glorify intellectualism & the use of ‘reason’ for self & life mastery. Montaigne studied himself & the inner workings of his self, free of “pretence & artifice” as he put it & based his philosophy on introspection. The video explains his life’s work & why it’s different from regular philosophical standpoints based on his self-portrait work titled “Essais”. It also touches on why it’s practical in today’s times.
   

5. An Indian philosopher who I think was an expert at amalgamating his principles of self-discovery & self-inquiry to both Western & Eastern thought & exploring the human condition — Jiddu Krishnamurti’s work is rather exceptional. His philosophy, although easier said than implemented, of observing without attaching words or thoughts is something advocated before, but Krishnamurti’s explanation of simply observing, i.e. just plain observation of everything & being aware goes a long way in helping achieve a peaceful state of mind. It comes with practice but can help you considerably.
   

   
   

6. Coming to some music, this live version of “Ranjish hi sahi”, written by Ahmed Faraz & performed by vocalist Ustad Mehdi Hassan remains an essential classic. The song popped up on my feed, and I added a tagline I’ve written in my book Interludes To The Indian Buddha while sharing it. It’s an iconic ghazal. Here’s the song in somewhat decent quality…
   

   
   

7. Jean Luc-Godard is a highly celebrated director from yesteryear. I’ve yet to watch any of his films in their entirety but he’s a director who is definitely on my watch list. This monologue from his 1965 film Alphaville was rather interesting both for the cinematography & the monologue.
   

   
   

8. I’ve recently been binge watching the Lord Of The Rings TV Show Rings Of Power. While I’ve been a huge fan of the movies, especially because they released in theatres while I was growing up, the Rings Of Power TV Show is average. However, it’s worthy enough for a binge. I just finished season one & I’m only starting season two, so I’m hoping it gets better. Rings Of Power is streaming on Amazon Prime. Here’s my short review on Letterboxd.

   

   
   

9. Former Pink Floyd lead singer & lead guitarist David Gilmour released his latest album yesterday. It’s called ‘Luck & Strange’, but I wasn’t too impressed by it. A few tracks are nice, like the one featuring Gilmour’s daughter Romany & the last Barn Jam track. But after a while it feels like it should just stick to Gilmour’s guitar as opposed to the elaborate vocals — it should just stick to those trademark Gilmour guitar licks. It’ll take a lot of ‘luck’ to become popular given how ‘strange’ it is. But you can stream it anyway. Rating (5/10)
   

   
   
   

10. Finally to cap off this week’s piece is my latest playlist on my YouTube channel #1PlaylistAWeek. It’s called ‘Hitchiking Trail’, based on a recent hiking trip. Have a listen — Hitchiking Trail playlist #1PlayListAWeek

    

    
    Thank you for reading & checking out the links! As always, stay tuned for this series called ‘Ideas Of The Week’ on my publication Light Years!
    
    You can find Ideas #003 here:

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