On Resilience, Philosophy and Creative Success

This post was first sent to my newsletter on September 5th, 2021. You really ought to subscribe :) It’s September! Time for a new letter :) As usual, click the headers to wander off to the originals. Leo Babauta on the First Two Steps to Creating Resilience If you’ve known me for any length of time in the past decade, you know I set great store on being Antifragile.. While Leo says these are two beginner steps, to my mind, these two will bear the brunt of all the resiliency / antifragile weight....

September 12, 2021 · Mario Jason Braganza

On How Reading is Like Love and Rules for a Better Life

This post was first sent to my newsletter on August 1st, 2021. You really ought to subscribe :) *Clouds sailing across [Pangong Tso][wpt]. Click to enlarge* New month, new letter! As usual, click the headers to wander off to the original articles Maria Popova on How Reading Is Like Love Now you are being read. Your body is being subjected to a systematic reading, through channels of tactile information, visual, olfactory, and not without some intervention of the taste buds....

August 8, 2021 · Mario Jason Braganza

White Eyes

This post was first sent to my newsletter on May 2nd, 2021. You really ought to subscribe :) Snow clouds rolling down a mountain peak, near Se La. Click to embiggen I don’t know the name of this bird, I only imagine his glittering beak tucked in a white wing while the clouds— which he has summoned from the north— which he has taught to be mild, and silent— thicken, and begin to fall...

June 6, 2021 · Mario Jason Braganza

A Eulogy for Mai

I lost my Mai today. Until my mid 30s, I rued the gulf that stood between Mai and me. While my parents insistence on teaching us English, as our primary language has benefited me immensely, in most everything I do, the one thing that I feel sad about is that I speak my mother tongue (Konkani) in a slow halting manner. 1 Which meant that I never could talk well with my grandmother....

February 24, 2021 · Mario Jason Braganza

9

Now we are here at home, in the little nation of our marriage, swearing allegiance to the table we set for lunch or the windchime on the porch, its easy dissonance. Even in our shared country, the afternoon allots its golden lines so that we’re seated, both in shadow, on opposite ends of a couch and two gray dogs between us. There are acres of opinions in this house....

September 10, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

Mountains, Holy Lands!

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! Donate to Goonj, to help our daily wage earners and labourers. click to embiggen … I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike!...

May 25, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! Donate to Goonj, to help our daily wage earners and labourers. click to embiggen A young boy became a monk. He dreamed of enlightenment and of learning great things. When he got to the monastery he was told that each morning he had to chop wood for the monks fires and then carry water up to the monastery for ablutions and the kitchen....

May 18, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

Reflection

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. click to embiggen The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine....

May 11, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

Vastness

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. click to embiggen In the vast abyss before time, self is not, and soul commingles with mist, and rock, and light. In time, soul brings the misty self to be. Then slow time hardens self to stone while ever lightening the soul, till soul can loose its hold of self and both are free and can return...

May 4, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

Idleness is a Virtue

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! Donate to Goonj to help our daily wage earners and labourers. click to embiggen “I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spent in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days....

April 27, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza