Onepod Podcasts

Vikram

Actually, in preparation for this episode, I started going down a rabbit hole on Google yesterday, I came across some really interesting things about this whole date system that we follow stuff that I didn't know before.

Subu

As in?

Vikram

Has it ever occurred to you why the month of October is numbered 10? Like octagons or eight, right? Like decimal, like decagon, December is all 10. But everything is shifted by two months. September is seven anyway, you get the point.

Subu

Yeah, oh, my God, I never thought of this.

Vikram

The thing is that in early Roman calendar was only 10 months actually. Okay. And some time around Julius Caesar's time, they realize that over the centuries, this does not account for a whole solar year, because they used to go by Lunar year before that. And so what happens is that Christmas never used to happen at the same season, it started to shift because of the way they defined the year. So Julius Caesar called one of his top astronomers and said, fix this problem. And therefore, the 365.25 day year was born. And then they added, they actually tacked on January and February, to the beginning of the year, because March used to be the start of the year. So they moved it two months before. So that's why every month has shifted by two now. That's why October is the 10th month.

Subu

So they changed from like a lunar calendar to a solar calendar at that point, something like that.

Vikram

Yeah, it became a solar calendar, because that made more sense. And it kept the seasons in check.

Subu

You know, this still sort of continues, right? I mean, every time I talk to my mom, I mean, I can never remember my mom's birthday, because it's, she never gives me a date, according to I guess it's called the Gregorian calendar. Right. That's what we follow. Yeah, you know, in India for most, I would say, practical purposes, like, you know, choosing a date for an for an auspicious ceremony, or finding out the birth date of a person is all done based on the lunar calendar. I'm born on on a certain date in March, but my mom every year tells me Hey, this year, your birth date is on on this day, and it keeps shifting between March and April for me.

Vikram

yeah, we get two birthdays every year, right?

Subu

We get two birthdays

Vikram

According to different calendars, and many countries in many cultures have had different calendars. But you know, it's 365.25 Days to a year, right. So they decided it's too complicated to account for that quarter day. So you throw that every quarter day every four years and make it a leap year. So that's when the Leap Year was born, but because of Julius Caesar's time, that was actually still the Julian calendar. Okay. You just mentioned the Gregorian calendar, right? What happened was that the calculation they made for 365.25 days was actually not accurate. And I wrote down the number here, actually, the correct value for the Solar year is 365.242199 days, okay? Now, the difference between this decimal point means that about 11 minutes a year was added in error. Okay, so by the year 1000, because the Julian calendar has been since the BC by the year 1000, there was one week off. And by the mid 15th century, it was 10 days off. So imagine like Christmas and everything was falling 10 days, like too early. So this guy, Pope Gregory comes and says, I hereby declare that 10 days from the month of October is canceled. I am hereby canceling 10 days to account for this mess. Of course people didn't like that. And they're like, you're not a real Pope. So we won't follow your calendar. You can keep your Gregorian calendar, you know, so there was you know how it is right. So that was like a problem only like, in the 17th or 18th century, things started to come together as we know it today.

Subu

Removing 10 days in October back then, it probably corrected the error that accumulated from the Julian calendar times. But we continue to accumulate error every year. Is that correct?

Vikram

We do.

Subu

Will we need to do this October cut down days?

Vikram

Exactly. Because we still follow the leap year system. We need to correct again for this in 1000 years. And the funny thing is that, you know, it's September to December is kind of obvious why you know, it follows that naming scheme. But what about like July and August, right? That's weird. So July was actually called Quintilius. But then after the death of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony who's like a loyal friend of Julius Caesar decided to change the name of Quintilius to July in the honor of Julius Caesar, basically. And Sextilius, which was August was changed to Augustus, for the next king after Julius Caesar. So it's this is how we have the names of four months and how all of it is shifted. And how we need a correction in our time in another 1000 years, we will need a correction. Some very cool stuff. I figured, yeah. Alright, I'm done. nerding out now. But hey, 2020 went by 2021 went by and now is 2022. So I guess it's the new year.

Subu

How was your 2021?

Vikram

2021 was fun. I did a lot of things that I never set out to do. For example, starting this podcast, I had no idea how even people made podcasts. But that's something that I think we both have learned along the way, right? We've been quite occupied with this project. Yeah, it's been quite uphill, we had a whole episode, called Starting Something New, where we discussed a lot of what we did to start this podcast.

Subu

So in preparation for this episode, I was trying to recollect and write down you know what happened. So in the last episode, which was the four lightbulbs, I spoke about how I usually look at the year as quarters, right, just like a company. So I saw if I have some, any sort of goals I may make, I sort of make it for a quarter. But when I was preparing for this episode, I was trying to write on what happened from Jan, to march, then April to June and so on, quite a mental exercise to remember all of that, in some ways this year was dud 2021. I think that the way 2020 went down with all the lock downs, I thought that in this year, we would have some more travel, I kind of felt that I would make a trip to India. But none of that happened. Because of all these new variants, we are essentially stuck. And there's very little travel this year, I think the only trip that we made was at the end of the year, to come and visit you guys in San Diego. So in some, in many ways, it was a dud. But, you know, being at home and not having to go to work meant that you know, and also, since my kid was in school, for most of the work weekdays, it was essentially my wife and I at home. And I think that I want to say that just spending more time with her just hanging around home, you know, we just doing mostly doing our own things during the day, not necessarily talking every single moment, but just being around each other, I think itself has improved our relationship. So I think that was probably the biggest silver lining for 2021.

Vikram

So one of the things I remember out of 2021 distinctly is the fact that the moment everybody went back to school, and Sam started teaching in the school this last year, too, I finally realize what total silence feels like. Because all of 2020 was a noisy year, the kids were at home, you know, Zoom lessons were happening. And we had to get lunch in time I had meetings, it's always noisy. 2021 was a year of silence, complete silence. And I don't think that we could have done as much on our personal hobby front word, not for the work from home thing. Because we all have meetings late in the evening, sometimes early in the morning. And nobody really minds if we take an hour off in the middle to record a podcast, we do it around lunchtime anyway, where we don't have our meetings or people reaching out to us. I don't think this would have been possible. If we had a regular work environment.

Subu

What in your opinion, didn't work well for you in this last year?

Vikram

What I didn't do well for sure, is manage my expectations. Because I know what plan I wrote down in the beginning of 2020. I wanted to do all these things. But nothing really panned out the way I expected it to. And that's okay. But I think going forward in this year, I need to temper my expectations and really understand that the time that I have to pursue my own hobbies or anything for that matter is very limited and have to keep it highly restricted. Unless it's highly restricted I cannot get anything done is what I have realized. What about you?

Subu

So while I think I sort of checked off most of the boxes of things that I wanted to this year, one thing that kept happening repeatedly is at several points this year I felt completely tapped out you know when I say tapped out it's different from getting burnt out right I mean, I managed not to get burnt out this year. But by tapped out I mean that I kind of felt like I just my all my energy was got drained out and I was like man, I can't work anymore. That kind of feeling. My work particularly wasn't that bad. So clearly it is the way I was perceiving things and I was I was letting the stress at work sort of permeate the rest of my life and like the morning and the nights and so on. So I think that handling stress is something that I didn't do really well this year. So what are your thoughts for the new year? So for the new year, right, I mean, this is what I'm thinking, for me, 2022, I want it to be the year of focus, I just want to pick a few things, and not worry about the rest of it. Because if I pick only one, or elect two or three things to focus on for the whole year, I can keep it in my short term memory, I can keep it in my head. And I can sort of remind myself every morning that, hey, you know, these are only two things, two or three things that I'm going to care about, if any new thing or new vector comes into my mind and starts worrying me, I can immediately just push it away. Okay. So to do that, this is how I'm how I'm structuring my focus. It's in two buckets. One is physical, and the other is behavioral, on the behavioral side, behavioral meaning, these are the these are behaviors that I've noticed about myself, which I want to change in 2022. And one of them for example, is you know, it's very low hanging fruit, which is every time Nidhi, my wife, asks me to do something, I procrastinate. Okay, if she asked me to like, say, like, for example, there is this one of the tabs in the bathroom, right? That thing is really hard to open and close. And she has been asking me to change that tab for the last three years, right? And I keep telling her yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. And then she gets frustrated. And then when she says, Look, I'm just going to hire some help and get it changed, then I don't I don't allow her to do that as well. Right. So finally, today, I changed the tap are after she asked me to do it for three years. So it's clear that you know, if something is important to me, I somehow find the time and somehow find a way to do it. But if someone asks me something, and if I'm, if I'm lazy about it, or if I don't want to do it, I keep procrastinating it. So I want to change that habit about me, I think that will make the people around me a little happier will make Nidhi a lot more happier. So that's one of the behaviors.

Vikram

Here's a little tidbit that might add to that. Sam has this policy, that she says, I do what I can when I can, she says this, like 20 times a day, it's ingrained into my mind, and I follow it as a consequence. And it's a very good one. And what it means is, if you walk into the kitchen to get a cup of water, and the dishes are still, you know, not unloaded from the dishwasher, just put away three plates while you get your cup of water. Just three plates, we'll do don't have to unload the whole thing or two spoons. Put that and come back. You know what I mean? Yeah. Incremental work. Don't pile it up for one grand finale? Yes, sir. incrementally do things.

Subu

That's a great mindset, actually. So I mean, I think I'm going to add that point, I'm going to append that idea into this point. So I'm going to do what I can when I can, and I'm not going to work as much as possible, not keep people waiting. So that's one of them. So this is one that this one, this is what I meant by saying I want to make some behavioral changes, right? So one of them is this. So the other behavioral change I want to make is this whole point of managing stress. So even 2022, I kind of feel like work is always busy, right? I mean, like, you know, they're paying you a bunch of money. And they are going to keep you occupied all the time. It's just that, along with the work, there is pressure, you know, your boss and the boss's boss, they are going to push down and keep asking, Hey, is this done? Is that done? Can you do this can do that. So I want to try and not react to, to all the pressure that comes down. Because the point is that, when it comes to work, I know my list of tasks that I got to finish, and I just have to go go through it sequentially and finish it. I mean, if things get delayed, it gets delayed, I mean, there's not much I can do. This whole point of getting stressed because of a person at work is actually optional. So I want to really put in some time and train myself to be a little indifferent to the other people or other colleagues that I work with.

Vikram

We want to have a neutral emotion to this kind of thing. And you can't get too emotionally invested in your job, it is important to be excited and motivated at your job, right? But try to turn down the negative aspects, there is something to the power of saying no. If there is too much work, and you're trying your best, and you're not able to get this deliverable done on time, maybe you can lay out clearly why this is happening and what it needs to get done.

Subu

Exactly. I mean, essentially I want to, you know, like I said, what the main negative for 2021 was that I felt tapped out quite frequently through the year. So you know, I would feel tapped out and I would take a couple of days off. I would feel you know, I would recuperate, I would feel better but then two or three weeks later, I'm you know, I was back to where I started. So my main focus is going to be to not let that happen. And I think one more way that I can avoid that from happening is doing everything I can to protect my sleep. When I sleep well, the following day is great, I have a lot of energy, my mood is great. And, and even if I sleep, say, six and a half hours, instead of my usual seven hours, then my mood and everything else, my energy levels are pretty bad the next day. So I'm going to do whatever I can to, to keep my bedtime routine. And, you know, just make sure I get that full night's rest.

Vikram

The great benefit of sleep, in addition to doing your work efficiently, you think better you act better is the great control on emotion you have when you are well rested. If you want to stay neutral at work, you have to get sleep. And that also, you know, carries over to your better half. It carries over to your children, you know, you don't get easily annoyed at them. You have the patience to understand that children are children and right you need to be patient. So that's a big contributor from my experience when you get enough sleep.

Subu

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, totally right. So you bring up such a good point. A couple of days ago, my kid kept waking up at night, so he didn't sleep well. And because of that, I also didn't sleep well. Okay. And the following morning, both of us are under slept. He was, he's clearly not in a good mood. We were getting really late. He was he kept wanting to do this and that. And I was trying to get him in the car and so that I can take him to school. Okay, and we really, really got delayed, I usually dropped them off by 8:30 and it was 10am and we were still trying to get him in the car. Right? So at the end of it, I lost it. I got really angry with him. He's not even three years old, right? I mean, this is not fair on my part. But what can I do I you know, I was so riled up at that point, I was so angry at him, that he wasn't listening to me. I told him, we are getting really, really delayed, and your teacher is going to be angry at me. And I kept saying the same thing. And so at the end of that before sleeping, he asks me innocently, Papa, what does delayed mean?

Vikram

That's awesome, right? Because you have this like entire thing that's gotten under your skin, and you're going crazy about it. But he has no idea what you're even saying to him.

Subu

He has no idea. And at that time, man, I almost my eyes welled up with tears actually, in a way. Because I realized that, you know, I'm as being an adult, we have all these things, and oh, we have a routine, we need to do work. We have this concept of time. For a kid, they have no concept of time.

Vikram

Not at the age of three, they don't. Yeah, at the age of three, they don't it's going to take another few years, I would say at least another couple of years before they start to develop that, from my experience,

Subu

right? And so he innocently asked me and then I mean, and I was feeling bad. When I was putting him down to bed. I was, in a way sort of trying to say some things to apologize saying that oh, you know, I was I shouldn't have shouted at you this morning. And

Vikram

it's a great thing. Never hesitate to apologize to your child. Yeah. Because we all make mistakes. And children understand that too. They make mistakes, we make mistakes, adults make mistakes, we don't have to portray an image that we are perfect beings, and they have to become like us. You know, we hand out plenty of apologies for things we do as adults.

Subu

Yeah. Anyway, so going back to my plan for 2022. So the two buckets, physical and behavioral. So behavioral, I told you, basically, I need to do everything to get good night's rest. And the other thing is to respect people's especially my wife's requests and do it promptly. You know that and all of that feeds into just trying to do everything I can to take regular, you know, time off from work and not get this feeling of being tapped out. So that's on the behavioral side. So on the physical side, I really have just a couple of things. Like I said, the whole point of having just a few things is that I can keep it in my mind every single day. On the physical side is there are two hobbies, which I want to put my time into the one of them is I want to spend a lot more time on this podcast. I think we both are enjoying this. And so I have one other side project I have called Onepod www.onepod.fm. I didn't do justice to that project in 2021. So I want to spend a decent amount of time on that. The other thing with the physical is, apart from focusing on work and hobbies. I also want to chart in relaxation, you know, so what ends up happening is at the point when I'm exhausted at that point, if I decide that, hey, I need a day off, somehow, taking the day off immediately after being exhausted, it doesn't really help as much. So instead, what I want to do for 2022 is right at the beginning of the year itself. I just want us to put it into our family calendar that look in March, we're going to take a week off in July, we're going to take a week off and so on. Just have it all planned out and all tickets booked right up ahead of time.

Vikram

That's exactly the point too you know, when you do vacations. We try to do that in advance as well. At least for the next few months you can so what I want to do this year is I want to book a lot of camping trips? well in advance, I just want to put, say, one camping trip a month, or once every three weeks or something like that, and just try to find places and put it down on the calendar. And we did something like this last year, actually, you already have something to look forward to you finish your vacation, let's say you go out in March somewhere, you know that July is going to come up very soon. So you know, in your mind that you are going to go from March to July and do what you have to do. And then you're going to get another break that mental thing that you have to look forward to is actually very stress relieving in its own Yes, yes. I don't know how else to explain it. Yeah. So it's a great idea to do that. Right.

Subu

I mean, you're essentially planning out pitstops at the beginning of the year itself. Yeah. So that's it. So yeah, my theme for the year is going to be year of focus. Yeah, just focusing on the podcast on Onepod, my side project, and then relaxation. And this behavioral stuff is obviously you know, it's just a personal thing that I want to improve on. Every year, I have a large number of things I want to do, you know, I want to improve and like, you know, usually I have finance, I have health, okay, now I sort of write down everything I want to do in like, four or five buckets. And this time this year, I decided, You know what, the finance is fine the way it is, we don't really spend that much money, we don't live extravagant lives. So I'm not even going to worry about my expenses. And then

Vikram

that's nice. That's where I think we differ. Because I have a pretty rigorous December review month, myself, it sometimes goes into January. Basically what I sit and do is exactly on the topic of expenses, I tried to understand what is our total expenses this year, because I want to see if there is lifestyle inflation that's creeping up or not. Because here is an example, just starting this year. And we should have done this a long time ago, we got some help cleaning the house. And okay, that is going to be an added expense, I might consider that lifestyle, inflation it and it is. But I think it's something that is worthwhile to us at this point in time. Because we are a family with two jobs. And you know, to kids who go to school, and the amount of overhead is just too much for us to handle. Sometimes, I also see how much we actually saved. And then I actually also see how much our portfolio has grown, you may save some money and your investments might have given you back some money, right. And I tried to see if all of these like makes sense, in the sense, I know how much the s&p went up last year. And we are primarily index fund investors. So the calculation is pretty easy. So I just want to have like a mental picture that these things all add up. I don't go to the last dollar, obviously. But then a broad picture,

Subu

all that you said, I want to do that at the end of the year, for sure. I think it's a good habit to the other thing similarly is every year I have some sort of a health goal, this 2022 is going to be the first year I think where I have no health goals. I mean, things are relatively okay. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm regular with working out. And it's not like I always eat clean. But I'm at a place where I'm comfortable. I'm sort of regular, it's become sort of a muscle memory kind of a thing that I have to work out like three or four times a week, I'm going to be okay with it. I just want lesser things in my head throughout the year. If I keep piling on goals for, you know, five or six different buckets, I kind of feel that by the time I get halfway through the year that starts adding a different kind of stress.

Vikram

So there is a certain benefit and keeping it simple is what you're saying.

Subu

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's not at a 10 out of 10. Say I'm probably at seven, seven and a half on a good day, maybe eight and I'm going to be okay with my help being there for 2022.

Vikram

I guess it's a 20-80 rule that I see people commonly talk about. Yeah, find out what when you do 20% effort gives you 80% results. Is that it?

Subu

That is perfect. That is great. Oh my God, you framed this whole thing. I think I used a million words to describe it and you you said it perfectly in a sentence. Yeah. So so essentially, you're right, if things which are 80% of the way that things like finance, things like health, and things like even work my career related stuff, it's 80% of the way that I'm not going to touch them, I'm going to be happy with it. And also, the effort to go from 80% or 90% is quite time consuming and energy consuming things that are not there, like I said, all the behavioral stuff, my sleep, my energy levels and my stress levels, they're like probably two or three out of 10. And I want to bring that to an eight out of 10.

Vikram

The one biggest concern that always is getting to me these days is I have so many hobbies and so many things I want to do. And I'm probably where you were like three years ago where you found all these amazing things and you want to do everything and it's giving you anxiety. I'm kind of on that cusp, so I'm learning from you not to do that. So podcasts is the major time consumer of the hobby thing that is going to be the biggest focus. The second thing is the number two contender is so many right?

Subu

Yeah.

Vikram

I have like open source projects I want do I want my blog has not gotten any attention whatsoever. And then the greatest of all that I don't want to give up on in my life is music because it's been a part of my life for the last, I don't know, 30 years, I mean, I cannot stop playing music that coming in second place for me I've chosen is going to be music.

Subu

Nice.

Vikram

Everything else has to get a very small percentage. If I write one blog post a year, so be it open source projects, I would really like to do much more of that. But my skill set just isn't there. It takes me a lot of effort to get even little results. I can't add a number three. I have only I'm only do podcasts and music. If music falls out. Or it seems like I can't make a few songs in a year. Maybe I'll bump something up later.

Subu

Yeah. You know, for your music, right? I don't know if you've thought of this. Maybe you haven't. When you say music as a project, you're really talking about composing music. That's usually what you're talking about. Right?

Vikram

Yes.

Subu

I'm wondering if an alternate plan,

Vikram

okay, I'm all ears.

Subu

Why don't you pick up, you know, something, a new instrument. And just, obviously, you're going to be approaching it from scratch. And I don't know what it could be like an air instrument. It could be like a saxophone or something that is challenging. Or maybe the violin maybe the vibe, because that was the last instrument your dad was learning? How about just starting off afresh and learning a new instrument? And let's say that, hey, you know what, at least for the first six months of next year, I'm not going to worry about the guitar or composing new music because that's old stuff. You're sort of always been doing it. And I'm going to maybe take classes, maybe do whatever it is to learn a new instrument.

Vikram

That's a good idea. And a new instrument. If I were to pick one at this point, is probably the drums because too many Larnell Lewis videos, who plays for Snarky Puppy. And I've seen too many Gavin Harrison videos who plays for porcupine tree, pineapple thief. And I see these guys play and I'm like, I've got to do that. I have to do that. And this is how I started playing guitar too. When I heard Metallica's Kill Em All album. I'm like, I have to play that I immediately I need to play that. So the first guitar solo I obviously have to try is the four horsemen, right? I mean, there is no easy song I tried. The first song I tried was like the hardest thing. I mean, I was I was 17 obviously have no sense. But anyway, but if it would be the drums, I think if I were I was playing with the idea of taking drum lessons. Remember, I asked you to last year, I'm like you play drums. I was also told by another drummer friend who I played with once in grad school. He's like, and you're like a really good guitarist and all that. But God, you lack a sense of rhythm. Yeah. Oh, my God. He's totally right. I totally lack a sense of rhythm. I need to fix that. Yeah, yeah, you're right. I think I should take some lessons. Because you know why? Because that is going to force me to put a certain amount of effort into it.

Subu

Yeah. And you know,

Vikram

It's like paying to go to a gym.

Subu

Yeah, that's perfectly right. Because the thing is that, you know, some of my friends who asked me, Hey, you know, how do I start learning drums as an adult? I tell them, look, there are tons of resources online. But I would say, Forget all that. And find a teacher, you're most likely going, you know, it's going to be like a one hour session with a teacher on Zoom every week. But the nice thing about doing that is, usually there's an expectation. So when you meet this teacher for 60 minutes each week, you may think that it's just one hour a week is not enough instruction. But the point is, you he or she, the teacher is going to keep you, you know, accountable and responsible. So when we when you come back the next week, there is an expectation that you will get this beat down and you will have this down. If you are learning from a curriculum that is purely online, and there is no like feedback and things like that. It doesn't work as well.

Vikram

It's going to be a lot harder to climb that hill. Correct. And for people like us who are time strapped as is. It's not efficient, right?

Subu

If you hire a trainer, and say, you see the trainer like three times a week, you don't have to, you just have to show up, you just show up. For the next one hour. You just do what this person asks you to do. And so it's like a load off your mind. You don't have to worry about it.

Vikram

Yeah, otherwise you have to also prepare to see what you want to learn and right yeah, you're right. So just for do as you're told, and you'll get better. Exactly. That's the fastest way to learn something right? Yep.

Subu

Yeah, that's great. So okay, perfect. You spoke about your two, the podcast and music is going to be your two main things. And we you also spoke about planning vacation ahead of time. what else what else is on your mind for 22? Do you have like a theme for the year?

Vikram

My theme?

Subu

Yeah, like year of focus, in my case.

Vikram

It's a good team. I'm almost inclined to steal it and jump on your bandwagon. But not for me it has to be the year of health because only last year after I have gotten on a regular pattern of exercise now. And I find it amazing the way I feel the way I sleep. And overall the quality of life has improved because of exercise. And so that's something I'm going to continue for this year. Come what may, you know, because it has to happen.

Subu

This whole thing of assigning a theme for the year I came across this, in a podcast called Cortex. It's one of my top three podcasts, you know, the nice thing about not having fixed goals like say, hey, most people have this goal that I want to lose 20 pounds of weight, right. But the problem is, the year starts and if you don't see enough progress, then you lose interest. And then if you set out to lose 20 pounds, anything lesser than that feels like a failure. But if you just forget all that, and just say that, hey, this is going to be the year of health, then that one feeling that this is your focus sits in your head and you keep chipping away at it. It doesn't matter how much weight you gained or lost, or whatever it is. Since this this theme is perpetually like floating in your on the top of your mind., when you go to a restaurant to order some food what I've seen is in a sort of brain reminds you that this is the year of health, you end up making healthier choices. Instead of drinking for beers, you will drink two beers, instead of having a fried chicken sandwich, you will have grilled chicken sandwich

Vikram

it's already started. And you know, the other thing you know about me from over the years is I really don't wait for integer times to start things. Like you won't even start studying that textbook till it's like 1pm. It was like 12:55 you won't start you will only start at one o'clock. You will just waste your time from 12:55 to one o'clock. I'm like why don't you start now? Yeah, like, no, no, I'm going to look I'm going to study from one o'clock to two o'clock. And then from 2:00 to 2:30. Why don't you just start now?

Subu

You know what? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one like this. Okay, so what used to happen for us when we are in college is that say Vikram and I sat down to study sat down to study or study for an exam at 1pm. Right? We sit down to study and after five minutes of reading, we start chatting. And then before you know it, it's like 1:35 and we really haven't we haven't really started studying. So at 1:35 I decide you know it's not an it's not an appropriate time to start start at 1:35. Right. So then I tell Vikram, that you look look for any wasted 35 minutes of the or how about we just waste the next 25 minutes and properly sit down and started 2:00. Oh, man, I don't know why I did that. But that's yeah, starting a new activity had to happen at an integer hour.

Vikram

That's what it is. I am not a very integer kind of person. I was telling Sam the same thing. She's like, Yeah, I like like what that thing about you? Yeah, you don't wait for a moment for something to happen. You want to do it? You just do it now. I mean, why do I have to make a New Year's resolution to eat a salad at a restaurant? eat a salad now?

Subu

Oh, man, we humans are flawed. What can you say?

Vikram

It's it's a mind game. Life is a perpetual mind game seriously.

Subu

Wrapping up. 2021. Do you have any book recommendations? Podcasts, movies and shows?

Vikram

Yeah, let's you know, have a little light banter on this thing. So first audio books

Subu

first audiobooks, but which is not the same as physical books.

Vikram

Yeah, physical books is a separate section.

Subu

Okay.

Vikram

But it's stil counts as a book, okay. Hearing a book listing or reading a book. Same thing. Okay. Says book, audio book is a book.

Subu

But it feels like cheating. I mean, see, this is one of the things that grinds my gears. When someone comes and says that, hey Yeah, yeah, I read that book. And then they pull out the audible app and they say we I know I, I listened to this, you know, a few months ago, then that sort of grinds my gears because reading is not the same as listening when you when you listen to an audiobook, to me, it is sort of like cheating. It's much easier to listen to an audiobook than read a physical book. Because when I read a physical book, it feels like a lot more work. I don't know why. But an audiobook is a lot more easier because you know, I sort of listen to listen to it when I'm driving or when I'm doing the dishes. In any case, I do consume both audiobooks and physical books and a lot of audiobooks. But it sort of grinds my gears when someone says, I read a book, but they actually listen to it.

Vikram

Yeah, that's why I have separate sections. I don't want to grind your gears. But I do agree. It's like physical books have a certain feel like you feel a different way than somebody reading out their interpretation to you. Their inflections of voice and things like that are their interpretation of the scene, right? But basically, I listened to this whole series of audio books by Pierce Brown called Red Rising. It's basically like a Hunger Games kind of thing set in the future. You know, it was okay. I think it will make a very good movie series at some point. But I wouldn't consider something worth reading. I think it's good enough as an audio book. Okay. So it's, it's fine. I missed a few things while doing dishes. It's fine. It's a light Sci Fi series done. What I really enjoyed, though what, even from an audio book point of view was the Martian, by Andy Weir, because it's very different from the movie, because the movie does not tell you all the engineering details. And both of us being hardware engineers. It's amazing because he calculates how much oxygen he needs to survive in the Martian environment, and how much you know his plants are going to need in terms of carbon dioxide and how much his plants will give him in terms of oxygen. So it's like a lot of calculations and planning and stuff goes wrong for him all the time. And at every turn that things go wrong. He does not, you know, flinch, he's like, okay, stuff has gone wrong. I'm probably going to die. Let's see how to fix this. I love that whole attitude about that book. You know, it's, it's, I highly recommend it. And then I started this Game of Thrones series. I never got into it. I don't know why. The the narrator Roy Dotrice is amazing. I think he has the world record for the most number of audiobook voices by one person. And he did this when he was at in his 80s

Subu

Oh, nice. So he enacts it out. So he's just not reading the book. He's actually it's is pretty much like a screenplay kind of thing. He's reading it out in different voices.

Vikram

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people do this when they read audio books. Like the Martian is mostly a monologue. So it's fine. But when there are many characters involved, they have slight inflections of voices. So you can tell who is saying this Game of Thrones has so many characters. It's kind of interesting, but I never got through it, though. I don't know why. But it's beautiful. I highly recommend it to anybody. The reading is just spectacular. What is your audio book thing?

Subu

This year, on the audio book front, I really listened to three of my all time favorite books, I relistened meaning. I mean, I previously read physical books. But this time I decided to give the audio book is shot. And they were great, right. So the three, three of my all time favorites, is Cosmos by Carl Sagan. So this one, the audiobook version was really good. And then Contact, yeah. And surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman. So those three books which had previously read many times, the physical books so this time this year, I purchased the audio books and listened to them. It was very nice. So those are those three are my audiobooks and I think you know, you're, I'm going to add Martian to this. I really want to listen to that.

Vikram

Yeah, you should do it. Anybody who asks me for a recommendation for audiobook as the first thing that comes out of my mouth. It's not like I've heard that many audio books too, but I really liked it. Okay, physical books, you want to talk about fiction? Well, actually can fiction physical.

Subu

Okay, so fiction, actually, one of the things I wanted to mention is, you know, I rarely read fiction, first of all, and if it is fiction, I usually end up purchasing the audiobook, I prefer the audio book, mainly because of what he said, you know, the details are not necessarily super important. I mean, I can listen to it while doing chores and so on, I

Vikram

will make one recommendation to you that you should not apply that policy to Okay. And that is a book called The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Oh, it is a beautiful book to read. Because even though it's fiction, the story and the feeling you have inside and the setting of the scenes that happens in your mind is never the same as somebody reads it to you. listening to audiobooks, I would recommend for the Red Rising saga for example, you know, just it's a story. It's light, you know, there's some people who will fight and there's some people who fall in love, and that kind of stuff is fine. But this book is about a girl called Liesel Meminger who grows up in Nazi Germany, World War Two. And the story is told by death, then is telling the story of Liesel Meminger.

Subu

Oh, my God, what talk of this incredible Yeah,

Vikram

I think it's one of the classics. It's going it is already one of the classics now. If it isn't, it should be. So that I highly recommend you read the physical book, and not the audio book. What's amazing, but other than that, in the fiction department, I've been going through the Dark Tower series. And I made a big mistake. I if there is an audio book series, and I don't know if there is I should have done that. Because it's a seven book series and I'm on like book six and I'm like, I can't give up now. I have to know the end and it is going on and on Stephen King. The first four books were great and then I'm like I'm done. I'm really done. But now I have to do five, six and seven. They are all like, at least five and six are gigantic books. I'm like,

Subu

That's crazy to finish are, are all of these, like 1000 page books? I mean, are they all each one of them?

Vikram

Not all. But they're all in the range of 500 pages, I think. So I finished six of them. And I'm telling myself this year. Don't start any more Series books. Yeah. No more Series books, right? Because I'm a kind of person who has to finish what I start. It's like a personal victory thing. Although, who cares? People say like, you don't like the book, why waste your time on it, just discard it and move on. Right? Just the book. Like, I can't do that. I can't do that. So I have to finish it. I have to know what the Dark Tower is. So yeah, so I have to read book seven. I also read this book by Ken Follett. Another guy who writes a million page book. Yeah, I guess

Subu

Jesus Christ, seriously.

Vikram

Because he wrote the Pillars of the Earth about, you know, a cathedral building in, you know, the Middle Ages, and has like, let me read this. This is very different than anything else right there. But it's an it's an amazing story. I really liked pillars of the earth. So this book came out called the evening and the morning, and it was supposed to be a prequel to Pillars of the Earth. Oh, my God. Biggest mistake. I should have not read this book again. 700 page book, I had to finish it. And I did. But it's just one big mother in law's story. You know, oh, my god, like, a bride and mother in law story. I'm like, Oh, my God, why am I anyway? So other than Marcus Zuzacks, The Book Thief, I wouldn't recommend any of the other.

Subu

Yeah, see, look, I'm a simple. I'm a simple being okay. I'm a simple man. When I see a book that's 1000 pages, I just don't pick it up. When when I started reading from page one, and after reading 100 pages, you know, the left part of the book, which you are finished reading feels so small compared to the right part, which is still remaining. I'm like, I can never get the right. It's just too huge a mountain. And, and yeah, I so you know,

Vikram

wait, when you say physical books, does Kindle count? Yeah, you can still read a Kindle.

Subu

Kindle is fine. So this is.

Vikram

So see, the problem you just said here doesn't exist in a Kindle? Because you don't really know.

Subu

That's right. I mean, when you sort of know that it would have bar, right? I mean, so you keep on reading and reading and that little bar, which says what percentage of the book is done barely moves. So I mean, the time we live in luckily, you know, you have all of the streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and you know, all these people, everyone has an Apple TV Plus, they're all trying to make new content. So and everyone's like, so hungry for content, right? So all of these popular books that you that you all of these popular 1000 page books that you mentioned, I'm sure they'll all become movies or series, eventually, so I'm just going to wait for that to happen and then watch it.

Vikram

The Dark Tower is already already a movie starring Idris Elba, but I haven't seen the movie because I don't want to give away the book seven.

Subu

There you go. I'm gonna go watch that. And also the wheel of time , you know, people really like this Wheel of Time series. I'm in I think it's yes. So it's it has or is going to become a series on amazon prime. So I'll just sit and watch even that's, I think that's also one of those 100 books, each being like 500 pages or something like that, right?

Vikram

Yeah, I that's another series. I mean, I've heard good things about but I'm like, I can't I can't start a series right now. I need individual books. I can't do this. Okay, I know you're a nonfiction book reader. So I let you do this.

Subu

I really enjoy, you know, Indian philosophy, Indian history, and all of those Indian epics, the Vedas and all of that. I really enjoy all of that this book called Jaya. It's it's sort of telling of Mahabharata by this author called Devdutt Pattanaik. It's an old book. It's been around for a while. And so I really enjoyed reading that. And then some more stuff around the Yoga Sutras will have links to all of these books. And on the health front, I read this book called Metabolical. So you know, like, a couple of days ago, you sent me this, this video by Dr. Peter Attia on longevity and where he says that, you know, a lot of this processed foods and other stuff that we consume most people suffer from this thing called as metabolic syndrome. Right? So this book goes a little deeper into that, saying, hey, how how the regular foods that we typically consume considered healthy, even they can be bad for you, and in what way they're bad for you how to sort of self diagnose if something's not working for you. So metabolically, is that on the health front?

Vikram

I should really pick up this book and read it given that my year of health is in the works and we should also link that Talk by Dr. Peter Attia. It is very technical, but it is good very medical, in my opinion. But he's a good speaker and he explains it very well.

Subu

Yeah, if you can sit through, I think it's like a one hour or one and a half hour video long video. And if you can sit through that you get a lot out of it. I think. Podcasts?

Vikram

Podcasts. Yeah, let you start on that.

Subu

Yeah, you know, this, usually podcasts is one form of media that I usually consume a lot of, but this year, or 2021, it was less than usual. There's this one podcast called All In Podcast, when you listen to listening to this, you will either really love it, or you really hate it. Okay, it's one of the two, there's no middle ground with this podcast. And I actually really like it. And this podcast is hosted by four really wealthy venture capitalists or entrepreneurs and so on. And they mostly talk about current affairs, what like, what's going on and their views and opinions on what's going on? It's a weekly podcast. And it's, that is one sort of one way I sort of get my news, I think their, their arguments are pretty balanced. Like, even amongst the four like, for example, there is one guy who is sort of Republican, others, which are Democrat, and they are, but their opinions are all, mostly in the center. It's not to the extreme left or the extreme right. Sometimes, you know, yeah, you know, you It's hard with any of these stuff, you know, you never agree with all the opinions of a person, right? I mean, so I do disagree with a bunch of their opinions and all that. But nevertheless, it's an it's an enjoyable in a world which is very polarized at this time. I kind of feel that this podcast offers opinions, which are sort of along the center. So all in podcast, so that's my that I listened to that. And then there is one podcast I keep going back to, which is sort of my relaxation podcast, which is the unmade podcast. So I spent a lot of time listening to that, which is just to friends, general banter and laughs and have a good time. So, you know, work and hobbies, and even our own podcast is enough amount of it keeps us busy enough. So when it goes to podcasts, I didn't want to listen to more serious stuff. So this one keeps it light. So the all in podcast, unmade FM. And the last thing I want to mention is the Lex Friedman podcast. So Lex Friedman. He is a prolific writer, I mean, he puts out like three podcast episodes every week, and each podcast episodes like two or three hours long. So I don't listen to every single episode of the Lex Friedman podcast. But every month, I sort of go back and see if there's something worth listening to, or if there is a guest that I would, that I would like to listen to. And I sort of go and listen to one or two episodes. And I think this year, Lex Friedman has had a couple of total bangers. I mean, he's he, I think couple of guests that he had, he knocked it out of the park with them. And we'll, I'll give you some links that we can put in the show notes.

Vikram

That's the thing about Lex Friedman, because he has guests from so many walks of life. It depends on your interests, you can pick and choose what kind of guests you want to listen to. Although it's a very long form podcast. My one recommendation would be the Huberman lab podcast, is that what it's called? I forget the exact name Yeah, the Huberman lab is good because he breaks down science in a very easy way especially like related to health and mental well being physical well being. And he does doesn't say stuff without scientific research. He gives you references to he is a very good teacher I would say and is definitely something somebody you know, who's interested in the health and well being topic can go listen to

Subu

Nice. Yeah, so a link a couple of you know, I don't listen to the Andrew Huberman podcast, both you and Nidhi have recommended it quite a bit. So put a couple of your favorite episodes there in the show notes and even I'll also listen to those.

Vikram

For sure.

Subu

Okay, the last one is shows any shows and movies that you want to mention.

Vikram

So many of them, this shows thing. I wasn't expecting squid game to be as amazing as it was as like, oh, probably another hype thing, everybody. And then I saw it. I was like, Oh my god. It might actually be my favorite TV show of all time. It really might be the favorite TV show of all time for me. Because the way the setting is the choice of colors on the screen. You know, it is very unique, the story, the acting all top notch. So I mean, maybe people will disagree with me, but I really liked it.

Subu

I just wanted to make two recommendations. And I was wondering if squid game will make it into my list. So my two recommendations are so there's I don't know if you've seen this thing called Alice in borderland.

Vikram

I have not seen it. I have heard of it.

Subu

It's a Japanese is a Japanese series. Again, similar to Very similar to squid game, it's sort of a game based thing. And I decided that I like Alice in borderland more than squid game. And I decided to put this in. And at least, you should definitely check it out. Yeah. And the second one is Queens Gambit. That's one more series, a limited series that I really enjoyed.

Vikram

That was nice. I started seeing it somehow it fell out on the wayside. But yeah, problem is, there's not much time to watch TV, given all the other stuff we do. It's really a very occasional thing. Yeah. In my household, atleast.

Subu

Actually, no. The other problem is that the stuff that we the the series and movies that we tend to like, are, they're not like romantic comedies are one of these laid back movies, right? They're all like, a lot of action and a lot of stuff going on. So, you know, the typical time of the day when you relax, which is at the end of the day. I don't want to watch it because if I start watching this, then I won't sleep.

Vikram

Yeah, that's totally true. And when you're watching with your other half, you don't always want to watch something serious watch. Just watch Bruce Willis movie just fine. It's Christmas time. Watch. Die Hard. Be happy. Home Alone. That's what you got to do. Supposed to be relaxing, you know? Yeah. Because if you want to talk to each other, you should do it and not worry about missing dialogues in this amazing movie. Right? Yeah. So that's where we are at. Because we are so busy in the week. You don't even talk to each other seriously on weekdays. Yeah. So movie watching has become an hour side affair. It is cool. Sounds good. Yeah, here's to a good year.

Subu

We'd like to wish ourselves the best for the next year and get going I guess.

Vikram

Yes, for sure.

Subu

Thanks for listening. You can find transcripts and show notes at www.halflife.show.

Vikram

We'd love for you to leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. And also write to us on Twitter at half life show

7: New Ideas for the New Year