deepcontemplator

thinking deeply about things that matter

long-form reflections, arguments, and considered pieces

  • How to think about art

    It might be tempting to look at analyses of books, movies or any other work of art. This is specially useful as sometimes art can feel so esoteric so you want to understand what the whole noise is about! With Internet, there are a range of analysis videos now, which delve from the superficial to…


  • On consuming content

    There is so much content available these days, and pressure associated to keep up with it. You need to be abreast of popular culture, that TV show everyone is talking about, or the social media trend which seems to have become a craze. Sometimes lending an ear to the popular culture can be entertaining and…


  • On hope.

    (v) to want something to happen or be true In a world filled with definites, hope can seem like a remnant from the past. Pragmatists may say hope is only wishful thinking. But there is always space for hope, and we need to hope even. How much ever of a results oriented, task focused, real…


  • Who are you in competition with?

    Knowingly or unknowingly we can sometimes fall into the trap of competing with others. Maybe when someone casually mentions they travel at least once a month, we take it as our own goal. Or we start following someone’s lifestyle of excessive workouts and try to live up to their definition of a good workout. As…


  • What is your definition of enough?

    One of the things to think about in life is how much is enough for you? How many friends do you want? How many meaningful friendships you can really maintain? Or how big of a house you need? How many countries do you really want to visit and so on! You need to draw the…


  • Living life linearly

    Many a times we fall into the trap of living life in a linear fashion. Tying up the outcome of one event to another and building up a long chain of dependency. The ‘If this, then only that’, leads to being stuck in the same place. You find it difficult to move through anything. Our…


  • Be generative

    In the current times, it can be so easy to passively live away your life consuming content. There is nothing wrong with this. However to achieve anything worthwhile, you need to assimilate and integrate your learning and lived experience and generate energy, ideas and work from it. Being generative and producing work performs many functions…


  • Word of the month – advocate

    advocate (v) – to speak in support of an idea or course of action The past month I was thinking of how advocating for what you believe in and stand for is so important. It might come naturally for a few of us, and for others it might be tough to build this skill. We…


  • Striving vs living – finding the balance

    It can be sometimes be addictive to keep working on ourselves and strive to be a better version. Never living the life which we currently have as a result. It is important to be aware of areas where we need work. Where there is room for growth. And we can consistently work on these aspects.…


  • The limits of to do lists and planners

    There is the oft quotedFailing to plan is planning to fail So we end up planning our days by the minute with things to do. There are many apps and planners which help you do this (to the extreme sometimes). You are asked at the start of the year/month/week to meticulously plan ahead, tack your…