A Storytelling Coach More details here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravishankar-iyer/
Welcome to the 100th edition of 'Story Rules on Saturday'! It's a bumper one and has a Republic-Day-special book recommendation to boot!
It is also a bittersweet one... so read on for some good (and not so good!) news in the form of the Announcement at the end of the email.
We open with a book called 'Early Indians' and then there are recommendations for several articles (I did say it was a bumper issue!).
โa. 'Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From' by Tony Josephโ
On 24th September 1924, John Marshall, the then head of the Archeological Survey of India announced this in the Illustrated London News:
This discovery was a seismic event in the study of human history. A long-forgotten civilisation had been unearthed on the banks of the mighty Indus river (and later also the Ghaggar-Hakra river system). The Indian subcontinent's history had just been pushed back by a few thousand years.
Over the next several decades, as the many wondrous finds that tumbled out from sites like Harappa, Mohenjo Daro, Dholavira and Rakhigarhi wowed us with their findings, they also gave rise to innumerable unanswered questions: Who were these people? What language/s did they speak? How come they didn't create massive structures for their leaders and Gods like the Egyptians or Mesopotamians? How come they did not have too many warlike depictions on their seals etc., in contrast with other civilisations? How were they able to impose their incredible order and standardisation in urban planning across cities that were thousands of kilometres apart?
What led to their decline? Why were the cities abandoned en masse? What happened to these people? Their language, their customs?
Also, did they interact with the band of Sanskrit-speaking horse-rearers called the Arya, who were said to have migrated to India sometime in 2000 BCE? What came of their interactions? Why did the Vedic Aryans not adopt the stunning city-building practices of the Harappans?
Also, which river was the mythical Sarasvati which is venerated so richly in the Vedas? Is it the current day Ghaggar-Hakra river system along which several Harappan sites have been found or a little-known river in Afghanistan earlier known as 'Haraxvaiti'? In any case, what led to the Ghaggar-Hakra river system drying up?
So. Many. Questions.
This book answers (almost) all of them.
Well not to 100% certainty, because a lot of these questions are still being investigated. (I would kill for the discovery of a 'Rosetta-stone' equivalent for the Indus-Sarasvati Valley Civilisation).
But this book makes full use of a set of key discoveries from a relatively new science which has revolutionised the study of our ancestry: Genetics.
As Tony writes (emphasis mine):
Speaking of genetics, Tony is impressive in the science-y parts and does a great job explaining the basics of genetics. (I understand it better now!)
But it is not just genetics. 'Early Indians' is an impressive confluence of the latest findings from several disciplines: archeology, linguistics, genetics and of course, written history.
If you would like a half-page summary of the book's findings, the best you can do is read this quirky pizza analogy that Tony uses to explain our ancestry:
So while we take a lot of pride in our Vedic ancestry, this book throws light on the prior migrations that made us who we are.
And if you wonder what happened to the Harappans, well you will find their imprints all around us:
This Republic Day, if you would like to get to know your own roots better, there's no better book I can recommend.
โa. High Variance Management by Sebastian Bensusanโ
This article by Sebastian uses a very interesting and useful frame - of 'high-variance vs. low-variance work' - for thinking about creative work, managing high-quality talent and knowing which aspect/s to optimise for a project.
I loved the way the article begins - with this evocative comparison between dancing for the theater vs. the movies:
The rest of the (short) article describes how to recognise high-variance vs. low-variance work, and how to get the best outcome from high-variance work.
โb. Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket by Oliver Burkemanโ
When the Information Revolution hit us and we faced a deluge of information from various sources, we grappled with the challenge of 'filtering' - separating the wheat from the chaff.
No longer so, argues Oliver Burkeman (author of the bestselling book on 'Four Thousand Weeks'). According to him:
I have the same feeling, not just for stuff to read or listen to, but also work projects to do - I have so many ideas I would like to work on, and just not enough time!
In other words, 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, ki har khwaish pe dum nikle'.
Sure it is an "archetypal first-world problem" as Oliver admits. Still it needs to be addressed. How? Not by applying prioritisation frameworks ad-nauseam, but instead recognising the limits of our optimisation techniques:
In other words, recalibrate your expectation from life and be happy that you have a problem of plenty!
(Hat/Tip: #ROTD by Swanand Kelkar and Saurabh Singh)
โc. 'AI is the end of writing' by Sean Thomasโ
The writing about ChatGPT can be broadly divided into two camps. The tech-optimists who say "Sure this is revolutionary, but we have had revolutionary ideas before and this can be used by good writers to become better. Plus you cannot replace the authentic content and voice of a good writer".
And then there are the pessimists, among whom stands this writer. He says:
Why does he state this gloomy forecast? Because:
He then goes on to outline the likely spread of AI to different forms of writing. From "easy" ones like college essays, entry-level journalism, copywriting, marketing content, tech writing to eventually being able to write magisterial novels with complex plots and characters.
What will happen to those who write then? Sean does not have a good prognosis:
For the sake of writers everywhere, hopefully his predictions are too pessimistic to play out.
โd. 'Why Indian players need to be more aware of caste privilege and oppression' by Sidharth Mongaโ
An eye-opening article by the excellent Sid Monga on the unfortunate tendency by some Indian players/officials to use casteist slurs in a 'harmless' way.
We are in 2023. Ignorance can no longer be an excuse.
โa. Early Indians - Tony Joseph in conversation with Amit Varmaโ
Before I pick up a book by an author, I try to find out if he or she has been interviewed on a podcast about the book. If that interview is by Amit Varma (of the Seen and the Unseen podcast), then jackpot!
If you don't get the time to read Tony Joseph's book, this conversation is a great summary. Listening at 2x, you can get the gist in about 45 mins.
This is a neat approach for professors to work with AI:
As a recent victim of this, I agree! Need to do more yoga...
Seriously Starbucks, no Tamil 'paati' can approve this:
"It is often during periods of climatic upheaval... that we see new dramatic developments taking place in human history, proving once again that our species needs either fear (lack of resources) or greed (promise of plenty) to propel it forward"
- Tony Joseph, in 'Early Indians'
โa. The Top 10 Ads of 2022 by Karthik Srinivasan (9:01)โ
Karthiks (@beastoftraal on Twitter) is a superhuman chronicler of ads from India and the world. In this delightful collection he shares his take on some remarkable ads in 2022. (Here is the link to the post with the actual ads).
Apart from the popular Spotify ads, I especially loved those by Sabhyata and Hyatt.
After Story Rules on Saturday #100, I'm going to be taking a break from this long-ish format and instead replace it with a lighter weekly email. I plan to use the freed-up time to focus on more long-form original writing, podcasts and #SOTDs.
But first some context.
It seems just some time back that I started this initiative of sharing my regular reads with an external audience. I looked up my files and realised that I had sent my first newsletter called 'Fortnightly Food for Thought', with a collection of summaries of five articles, way back on 20-Oct-2017 (through the firm Mind Matters then).
Since then, the format has undergone several iterations
And now, as I stand on the milestone of a 100 'Story Rules on Saturday' emails, I'm stepping back and rejigging the format again.
What will the new, lighter one look like? How exactly will I use the freed up time? What's in it for you? All to be answered in the next week's edition. But for now, it's a sign-off from this detailed and effort-intensive content recommendations long-list.
See you next week with the new format.
That's it folks: my recommended reads, listens and views for the week.
โTake care and stay safe.
Ravi
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A Storytelling Coach More details here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravishankar-iyer/
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