#85 - Notes on Wealth, Worries and Wandering
Education Coffee is a Newsletter on People, Ideas and Culture.
In each edition of this newsletter, I will share some inspiring web resources that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox. In upcoming editions, I will focus on sharing insights, notes and realizations that I gather from people, ideas, books, films and podcasts. This month I have taken up a #30DaySubstackChallenge. I want to challenge myself to write a newsletter everyday for the next thirty days. I have really enjoyed writing this newsletter and this is a way for me to build my skill set as a newsletter writer. I will go back to writing a 2xWeekly Newsletter in January 2025.
1. Learning from People
Naval Ravikant is an American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief executive officer of AngelList. I think he has some unique insights on wealth creation that he summarized in this podcast episode.
2. Learning from Ideas and Questions
James Clear throws light on how innovative ideas arise in this insightful article from his website. The article is titled, How Innovative Ideas Arise. He stressed the importance of building on past ideas to create future ideas by drawing inspiration from nature and the Toaster Project.
3. Learning from Books, Websites and Blogs
The Wandering Earth is a 2019 Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo, loosely based on the 2000 short story of the same name by Liu Cixin. I enjoyed the massive sets and bold scope of this film. It was also refreshing to see another country save the planet in a science fiction film. It tells the story of a distant future in which the sun is about to expand into a red giant and devour the Earth, prompting mankind to make an audacious attempt to save planet.
The multi-generational heroes build ten-thousand stellar engines in an effort to propel Planet Earth out the solar system, in the hope of finding a new celestial home. During the 2,500 year-long journey, a group of daring heroes emerge to defend human civilization from unexpected dangers and new enemies, and to ensure the survival of humanity in this age of the wandering Earth. I was just left awe struck with some of the visual and graphics in this project and it got me excited about science fiction again.
4. Learning from Films, Videos and Shows
A creator collective “committed to finding the authentic creator in everyone”, Kommune operates at the intersection of audiences, brands and artists. It discovers storytellers across the world, spotlights them through its content channels and enables them to learn, earn and grow. Spoken is Kommune’s flagship festival property. Babil Khan is an Indian actor. The son of actor Irrfan Khan, he began his career as a camera assistant, before making his acting debut in Hindi cinema with Qala. He has since starred in the miniseries The Railway Men. In this video he talks about his some lessons he learned from his father. It is a spoken word poetry piece and filled me up with a range of emotions as he narrated stories about his relationship with his father.
5. Learning from Podcasts and Music
Raghupati Dwarakanath Dixit is an Indian singer-composer, producer, and film score composer who is the frontman for the Raghu Dixit Project, a multilingual folk music band. Dixit prominently works in Kannada cinema as soundtrack composer. Lokada Kalaji is one of my favourite songs and here is a breakdown of the lyrics from sonichits
The lyrics of "Lokada Kalaji" by Raghu Dixit are a contemplation of life's struggles and how people deal with them. The song starts with the line "Lokada kaalaji madatheenanti," which means "What is the use of worrying about tomorrow?" The singer then goes on to say that people worry too much about their problems and don't have faith that things will turn out okay. He encourages listeners to work hard and keep moving forward, even if life is difficult.
You can follow this up with an interview that he did with Rahul Bose about he makes music. He is one of the most power packed live performers in India and I loved understanding his perspective on music and life in this interview.
Thank you for reading this edition of #EducationCoffee. I look forward to writing weekly editions of this newsletter this year. I hope to continue to share resources that will add value to your life. You can also review the archive of Education Coffee for free at this link (84 past newsletters).
Please do send me your thoughts and resources on any edition of this newsletter through email at abhishekashokshetty@gmail.com, Linkedin or Twitter @AbhishekShetty_. I love taking these discussions forward on those platforms and look forward to hearing your feedback. If you would like to read pieces in the future please do consider subscribing to this newsletter by clicking the button below.