Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Weeks are passing by slow and fast at the same time. Losing focus and getting into anxiety is very easy at the moment. But I’m finding pouring my mind over a journal page every day and meditating 10 mins every day especially useful to distress. As the lockdown is getting extended it’s still difficult to sit inside, but at the same time, we have slowly gotten used to the whole situation. Even though we are alone at homes but still as connected humans species (thank the internet) we are moving through the rough waters.

Moving on to the book listening progress, I didn’t make any progress on below two books, this week–

  1. “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
  2. Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway.

But I moved forward on below books (added 2 new ones) –

  1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 10% read on kindle.
  2. Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 10% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
  3. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 20% finished (an amazing book recommended by David Perell)

So making small progress.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

An interview I loved —

Pretty Big Deal by Ashley Graham- Casey Neistat – This was a really casual looking interview but Casey opened up with Ashley in a great way about his process, his journey and I got three big takeaways from this interview –

  1. What should be a deal-breaker? – when a collab/deal collides with your values/social values.
  2. What should you seek with your creativity? – Find the coinciding point between the two circles of exponential growth and longevity of your creation.
  3. What’s the biggest point of growth on any platform? – Honesty and being yourself is the biggest content anchor for any platform.

An article I found really useful —

Lockdown relationship advice – Coronavirus-related anxiety is real and causing serious damage to our partnerships. This NYT article gives great tips to ease the strain.

If you care about your relationship with your partner or your family, then the first and foremost important thing is to take care of your self. Read the article on how to do that. Good Advice.

An info I accidentally found while doing research on a photo —

Health benefits of a Torch Ginger Flower – Recently when I posted a picture of a Torch Ginger Flower which I had taken last year in Kerala. It made me learn more about this flower and I found some really good info about it. Especially the health benefits. Hence sharing the key points here (for full detail click the article link) –

Better known as Bunga Kantan is a popular ingredient in Malaysian cooking (like tom yam soup) that could also have health benefits.⁠ It’s also known to reduce inflammation, treat a loss of appetite, reduce diabetes and hypertension.⁠

Music which made me feel alive —

Vex Oh by KAYTRANADA – This artist was suggested to me by Stuart in our podcast episode recently.

But I discovered a lot more songs when I checked this artist out, he’s specialized in low beat (115 BPM) music. I think this music will be amazing while cycling (when we can do cycling! Ermm).

Quote which made me feel grateful again (literally) –

“If I quit now, I will soon be back to where I started.
And when I started I was desperately wishing to be where I am now.

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”
Last week, I started a new series on my blog – Lifestyle Design in Action – A Story Series. In this series few of the people who have worked on their Lifestyle Design are sharing their stories as guest posts, The first story I published is of Sumersingh Rajpurohit (from LastMomentTuitions.com), check it out –

More stories to come every week as move along.

I also posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Hope you are holding up like everyone else. I’m optimistic that the cloud of uncertainty will lift soon.

But I must share my vulnerability here. To be honest, this last one month has filled up so much anxiety in my mind. Not just because we are stuck at home and doing work beyond our required hours, but because this period has taken away the biggest freedoms of human beings, to meet with other people and to travel.

Well, one could argue that we are still able to socialize, but to be honest, not being able to be in the presence of another human being in real life, slowly starts haunting. Loneliness starts hitting you hard.

If you are lucky and stuck with people (family, friends or roommates) you are still far better than stuck home alone. Because this may be the longest social isolation we would ever see.

Coming to the good part, we are still alive. You (of course, you are alive, corpse don’t read – well that was dark) and Me. So let’s keep holding on to the interactions on virtual social worlds, let’s write letters to our loved ones and give them those when this thing is over. This time won’t be coming ever again in our lives (i hope not).

Ok. Coming back to the newsletter.

Book listening progress- This week was bad, I didn’t read even one single day.

Still on the book “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (80% same as last week). 2nd book – Becoming a Category of One – How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison (2nd Edition) by Joe Calloway. (10% same as last week).

But still, I was able to post a few good photos from my collections to my Instagram feed which you’ll find at the bottom of this newsletter.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

A Lightroom tip I found useful —

Why EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER should use Smart Previews! – I am a sucker for organization – digitally and physically both. For all my photography work I use Adobe Photography plan which includes Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom.

In recent few weeks, I tried to build up my Lightroom catalogue from scratch and the below video helped me a lot.

Now I have a good Lightroom workflow that I can easily churn out photos on daily basis.

If you are a photographer I recommend Lightroom for sure and If you are new to Lightroom, make sure to check out the below video –

An article I found intriguing —

Why plague doctors wore those strange beaked masks – Recently when I was doing some research for my video on Corona Virus and I was trying to co-relate historical pandemics with Corona situation now. I found that in In 17th-century when the plague hit Europe, then doctors who were treating patients wore strange beaked masks. It was believed that these outfits could purify poisonous air. But eventually, they were wrong.

Photo – NatGeo

A profound video by Tom Scott —

This Video Has <real-time-number> Views by Tom Scott – This is the first time I saw a person who’s a coder at heart teaching the way life works and how nothing lasts forever. Even the title of this video that he says, can’t stay static. He coded a script which changes the title of the video to show the real-time view number in the title itself. It’s like a little RPA (robotic process automation) he made.

Amazing how he tells all this in a very profound way standing on the White Cliffs of Dover.

Just watch this video you’ll understand the feeling.

A Song/artist which/who made me feel like I’m nothing (in a good way) —

Jacob Collier: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert – This artist was recommended to me by Stuart DaCosta (recent podcast guest).

As soon as I saw this video I was in a constant state of shock and admiration for some time. This particular video is a set of three songs.

I loved all three but the second song – Feel was especially awesome.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Suffer less and be able to help others suffer less.

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I published a podcast episode for which I waited 2 years!
Episode – 20 with Stuart DaCosta who is a music composer and the bassist of The Yellow Diary Band (Loved recording this one).

Check it out on Spotify –

I also posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for full stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

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#20 – Stuart DaCosta (Music Composer and Bassist of The Yellow Diary Band) – Making Music, Touring with bands and co-creating 6+ million view songs

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Stuart DaCosta

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In this episode, I’m talking to Stuart DaCosta, who is a music composer and bassist in the band The Yellow Diary whose songs like Na Tere Jeha Hora Disda and Rab Rakha have been rocking the charts since the day 1 of launch. I absolutely love this band.

Stuart has been in the indie music scene in India from a long time. He has played in various bands like Something Relevant, Baycity Lights etc and then eventually made his way into The Yellow Diary. Which is now signed by Sony Music India. On the side he’s also working for bigger projects with his music production company – Salvage Audio Collective and have worked with films like Gully Boy which had chartbuster songs.

This is an episode with which most of the musicians might resonate. A lot of tidbits for musicians. But for everyone else also it will be a good episode and teach you if you keep working on what you love with all your passion, you definitely will get there.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Stuart DaCosta.

Links and references from the episode –

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