This week’s post of Ideas comes live from the sunny shores of Goa, India. As I write this piece I’m just a couple of days into my visit to Goa after quite a bit of time. Things have changed considerably here & it’s way more commercialised and crowded than it was the last time I visited over 5 years ago, even for February.
I’ve come here for a bit of work and to find some inspiration. With the main meeting out of the way, I’m exploring all the beaches I hadn’t gone to before in both North & South Goa. For all my international subscribers, Goa is a town in India you must visit. Here’s a pic of mine at Ashvem, North Goa which I clicked only today.
Of course, as I’ve recounted in an old post of mine here on this newsletter: I strongly prefer Gokarna to Goa as my favourite beach destination in India. The old post recounts the story of my first visit to Gokarna & why I think it’s better than Goa. But if you haven’t visited either, both places are a must to visit if you’re in India & want the best beaches in the country.
For those of you who don’t know what Ideas of the Week here on my newsletter is, it’s where I curate the most interesting & thought-provoking things I’ve come across online each month. I intended to make it a weekly thing, but I’ve opted for monthly instead because it’s more manageable with my workload.
In this week’s Ideas post on Light Years, as always, I try my best to collate the top 10 ideas I’ve come across from the good ol’ internet to share with all of you here. So let’s dive right in…
Sometimes getting everything you want isn’t the answer. There’s a quote by actor Jim Carrey about this, where he says: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.” While this could seem like a farcical comment on the surface, there’s a lot of truth to it. This example is that of Adriano, an extremely physical, fearsome and deadly striker from Brazil who was living the dream of playing in Europe as a footballer; something that’s every Brazilian kid’s dream. However, fame & success caught up to Adriano and he couldn’t take it. So despite playing for Inter Milan, in Italy, Adriano coveted his quiet family life in his home in a favela in Rio. It seems rather shocking but Adriano ditched making $ 10 million a year to go back to his slum & live amongst his loved ones. Here’s his eye-opening story titled ‘A Letter To My Favela’ for The Players’ Tribune.
Another cool video that typified heritage is that of humble British jazz drummer Yussef Dayes. Dayes was born into a middle-class family on the outskirts of London. But in this performance/documentary Dayes, his band and his family visit Japan to perform a set against the backdrop of Mt. Fuji and they also explore the streets of Tokyo visiting record shops, cafes & cultural places culminating in a gig to end their stay. It’s a lovely musical set that Dayes and his band play as the documentary’s shots cut in between each song in the set. The documentary was made in partnership with Audio Technica, and the factory visit was intriguing as well.
Short films are almost a go-to thing for me because they tell so much in so little runtime. The first short film I stumbled upon this month was this heartwarming and incredible story of a man named Jadav Payeng who planted an entire forest by himself. He began planting it in 1979 and did it to save the island of Majuli he calls home. Now the forest is now larger than Central Park in New York City. Here’s his amazing story.
Another lovely short film I stumbled upon was a slightly old one titled ‘The Drummer’. Since I’m also a musician apart from being a writer, this was a great and heartening watch. It tells the story of Dave, a 40-year-old drummer who is struggling to make a living and his uncanny yet fitting turnaround. The film perhaps elucidates the struggles of musicians, how anything can happen in life, and that there’s always time for comeback if we’re willing to persevere. The video quality is average since it’s an old film, but it’s a great and short 18 minute watch.
This week’s long read is all about the decline of art. Now, I’m no art buff & I’ve rarely been in any museum other than the Louvre in Paris, and some others I visited in Europe on an exchange program I was part of in my teens. My art consumption & creation starts with music, and ends with film and writing. But this article on how modern “contemporary” art has been destroyed & basically become sh*t because of politics is pretty eye opening. It’s a supermassive & very long read but as one paragraph says: ‘Contemporary art had become so popular, so urgent, so cool, and so well-funded that a fall, in retrospect, was inevitable. As soon as it reached its peak, the height of its great flourishing, it had already begun its precipitous decline. Slowly at first, and then all at once, the music faded, the guests vanished, and the party was over.’ You can read it here in the article titled ‘The Painted Protest’ on Harper’s Magazine.
It may seem straight out of the Terminator movies, but AI just revealed it’s first high priority red flag. Researchers who were testing the possibility of AI having self-awareness or autonomy & the possibility of it going rogue led to some scary results. The researchers ran tests on the AI model to detect whether it would try to save itself i.e. it would replicate itself before it could be terminated & was about to be shut down and it did! In the other test, the AI model was instructed to clone itself and then program its replica to do the same — setting up a cycle that could continue indefinitely. This resulted in a 50% and 90% probability in each respective case, terrifying researchers. This article on Space.com explores it in detail.
Technology is speeding up pretty fast but in music there’s still the human touch that prevails. However, electronic music has been techonology’s gift to musicians & music. In a non-paywalled, free article on my Medium, I charted my top five most essential electronic music albums. The list is pretty definitive. You can read the article for free here.
If you’re into listening to podcasts, or if you like audiobooks, you can perhaps dabble in poetry reading as well. This video is by one of my favourite poets of the ‘Beat Generation’ — Jack Kerouac. This is a mishmash of Kerouac’s poetry readings to some jazz music & it’s perhaps his most famous poem, which I’ve also sampled in my music production & DJ sets. You can listen to it here.
Reflecting on hyper-consumerism & why we don’t need the sh*t we don’t need in this modern age where products & services are being thrust down our throats everywhere online, I looked at the economical & philosophical implications of consumerism in today’s times. It’s on my Linkedin newsletter ‘With Your Sound You Kill The Inc.’ Here’s that piece backed by data & why we need to be more mindful when we spend on products & services in today’s ultra-consumerist landscape; it’s titled The High Price of More: Consumerism, Its Costs Backed By Data & the Way Out — read it on Linkedin.
Ending this article with some music, here’s what I’m listening to on this Goa trip. A few playlists on my YouTube music channel #1PlaylistAWeek
& an album by Cell called Live at Kumharas. Consider subscribing to my channel 1PlaylistAWeek On YouTube — it’s where I curate music that offbeat but smooth nonetheless, and as the tagline reads, it’s ‘your destination for the coolest music recommendations’.
Cell — Live At Kumharas:
Link: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nCBoTQRGCIceiK5VCLHe5QMt5bHgkgCgM&si=_3Rwdpv6isDBcROY
Thanks for reading & checking out the links! As always, stay tuned for this series called ‘Ideas Of The Week’ on my publication Light Years!
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